Week 6/Thing 15

What does Library 2.0 mean to me? Well...I say forget Library 2.0...I love the idea of Library 4.0 :-) ....."knowledge spa; meditation, relaxation, immersion in a luxury of ideas and thought," as Dr Wendy Schultz says in "To a Temporary Place in time." I like the thought of libraries as "mind gyms, idea labs and art salons." It is fascinating how libraries are evolving along with the development of new technology. Reminds me of some papers I did for my library diploma where the concept of a virtual library was discussed. But while I am all for the inclusion of all this new technolgy in libraries, I think we need to remember that there are many people out there who are not comfortable with technology and computers and who prefer the paper version of books to digital forms of information and ebooks etc. These are people who have not grown up with computers and are computer illiterate. They might not know, and they might not even want to learn, how to use a mouse. I believe that there will always be a need to have some form of the traditional library for the sake of these people. We need to cater to customer demand and give customers what they want, and many customers do not want to go anywhere near anything remotely technological. Obviously this will change with future generations as they grow up immersed in technology. I like what Rick Anderson said as well, in "Away from the Icebergs" ..."We need to focus our efforts not on teaching research skills but on eliminating the barriers that exist between patrons and the information they need, so they can spend as little time as possible wrestling with lousy search interfaces and as much time as possible actually reading and learning....But if our services can't be used without training, then it's the services that need to be fixed - not our patrions." It's like that saying KISS (keep it simple, stupid.) And as Dr Schultz says, "What are libraries? Libraries are not just collections of documents and books, they are conversations, they are conconvocations of people, ideas and artifacts in dynamic exchange." A library with a collection of books or information and no people? To me...that is not a real library, with the heart and soul that a good library should have...that is a database :-) And gosh...looking back at all that...it's more like a book than a blog :-) Sorry...got carried away...