Library 2.0: A Critical View

1. Library 2.0: A critical view Howard Rosenbaum hrosenba@indiana.edu

2. Library 2.0: A critical view I. Web 2.0 and Library 2.0, briefly • A question of origins - Web 2.0 II. Using social informatics • Library 2.0 is a computerization movement III. A critical view • Marketing, determinism and utopianism IV. Conclusion • What’s left is useful

3. I. Web 2.0 and Library 2.0, briefly The roots of Library 2.0 are in Web 2.0 So what is Web 2.0? www.weblogsinc.com/common/images/3060000000055560.JPG?0.5497399570678874

4. I. Web 2.0 and Library 2.0, briefly What is Web 2.0? It was originally a marketing term introduced in 2004 as “a useful, if imperfect, conceptual umbrella under which analysts, marketers and other stakeholders in the tech field could huddle the new generation of internet applications and businesses that were emerging to form the ‘participatory Web’” Madden and Fox (2006). Riding the waves of ‘Web 2.0.’ Pew Internet Life Project. Developed by Tim O’Reilly and Dale Daugherty who turned it into a source of revenue and a meme

5. I. Web 2.0 and Library 2.0, briefly Web .01: linking pages into a network of digital resources Web 1.0: publishing content and facilitating communication among people Web 2.0: linking people into groups that cooperate, collaborate, and compete (and spend money) www.avidos.net/detalles/imagenes/web20revolution.jpg

6. I. Web 2.0 and Library 2.0, briefly Web 2.0 has become A new “user-driven” approach to to using the web A category of new technologies A type of company that is trying to take advantage of the first two characteristics The focus: providing services rather than products The services tend to be built around concepts of community and collaboration The goal: active and involved people using the service

7. I. Web 2.0 and Library 2.0, briefly A new approach to using the web www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/oreilly/tim/news/2005/09/30/what-is-web-20.html

8. I. Web 2.0 and Library 2.0, briefly Web 2.0 is a new way to use the web: an attitude not a technology Rely on the collective wisdom of the crowd Provide a rich user experience Trust your users and let them control their own data Build for the hedonic impulse: playfulness, hackability Assume that software improves the more people use it Give people the right to remix with some rights reserved

9. I. Web 2.0 and Library 2.0, briefly Web 2.0 technologies share other characteristics Harnessing the collective intelligence Google uses the link structure of the web Amazon uses people’s reviews of their products Ebay uses people’s willingness to engage in commerce Flikr and de.li.cious use people’s ability to classify their artifacts taking others into account Wikipedia uses people’s desire to exchange their knowledge with and trust in each other These are network effects that are a source of value

10. I. Web 2.0 and Library 2.0, briefly Library 2.0 has its roots in Web 2.0 thinking static.zooomr.com/images/c84cc4864d4e3e5b13a3e1d36291e7e14e8f3de9.jpg

11. I. Web 2.0 and Library 2.0, briefly The heart of Library 2.0 is user-centered change. It is a model for library service that encourages constant and purposeful change, inviting user participation in the creation of both the physical and the virtual services they want, supported by consistently evaluating services. It also attempts to reach new users and better serve current ones through improved customer-driven offerings … however, it is through the combined implementation of all of these that we can reach Library 2.0. Casey and Savastinuk (2006).http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6365200.html

12. I. Web 2.0 and Library 2.0, briefly Library 2.0 simply means making your library's space (virtual and physical) more interactive, collaborative, and driven by community needs.Examples of where to start include blogs, gaming nights for teens, and collaborative photo sites.The basic drive is to get people back into the library by making the library relevant to what they want and need in their daily lives...to make the library a destination and not an afterthought. Houghton (2005).http://librarianinblack.typepad.com/librarianinblack/2005/12/index.html

13. I. Web 2.0 and Library 2.0, briefly Library 2.0 is partially a response to a post-Google world It requires internal reorganization in a library It requires a fundamental change in a library’s mission It requires a fundamental change in handling authority It requires technological agility (“the fact of the matter is that technology is L2’s impetus”) It challenges library orthodoxy on almost every level It requires a radical change in the way ILSs and vendors work (openness) Blyberg (2006)http://www.blyberg.net/2006/01/09/11-reasons-why-library-20-exists-and-matters/

14. I. Web 2.0 and Library 2.0, briefly L2 is not an option. If we don’t acknowledge the weighty significance of L2, we will not just be running the risk of sliding into obscurity, we just won’t be that important to society. We will become the functional equivalent of back-room storage full of green hanging-file-folder boxes Blyberg (2006) It requires a radical change in the way ILSs and vendors work (openness) It both enables and requires libraries to work together It is actually happening (gaming programs, IM reference, coffee shops) It is revolutionary It is essential for survival/pertinence

15. I. Web 2.0 and Library 2.0, briefly But wait! “Library 2.0” is hype, a bandwagon, a confrontation, a negative assertion about existing libraries, their viability, their relevance, and their lack of changes, and — astonishingly — an apparent claim that two months of discussion by a two or three dozen bloggers makes a Movement that is so important that every library, no matter how small, must be discussing it right now, and that every library association should be focusing its next conference on the Movement. Crawford 2007

16. I. Web 2.0 and Library 2.0, briefly So … Library 2.0… ~or~ What do you think?

17. Library 2.0: A critical view I. Web 2.0 and Library 2.0, briefly • A question of origins - Web 2.0 II. Using social informatics • Library 2.0 is a computerization movement III. A critical view • Marketing, determinism and utopianism IV. Conclusion • What’s left is useful

18. II. Using social informatics static.flickr.com/34/114899622_e881f23e04_o.jpg

19. II. Using social informatics A computerization movement is a social movement A “collective enterprise to establish a new order of life” “[It] … takes on the character of a society. It acquires organization and form, a body of customs and traditions, established leadership, an enduring division of labor, social rules and social values – in short, a culture, and a new scheme of life” Blumer (1951; 8)

20. II. Using social informatics Computerization movements depend on collective action They stand in two relations to the social order Revolutionary: attempt to change the order Reform: attempt to change a restricted domain within the order There are two types General: societal in scope Specific: submovements within a general movement

21. II. Using social informatics They also involve a “Struggle over the production and counter-production of ideas and meanings associated with collective action” Iacono and Kling (1998; 6) They have trajectories To persist, they require organizational structures These allow people to engage in collective action: “They can raise money, mobilize resources, hold meetings and formulate positions” (Iacono and Kling, 1995; 5)

22. II. Using social informatics Components: A core ICT or ICTs Organizational structures: CM organizations Collective action Public discourse; technological framing Ideology and myths: revolutionary and reform Organizational practices Historical trajectory Types: general and specific Organized opposition: Counter CMs

23. II. Using social informatics As a computerization movement, Library 2.0 depends on the social actors and groups whose collective actions shape and propel CMs Activists, professional associations, academics, technology writers, journalists, vendors, policy makers, administrators, front-line people It originates in a time and place, gathers momentum, and then follows one of several paths It has an ideology of revolution or reform based on a deeply held belief that the core ICTs can cause fundamental positive social change

24. II. Using social informatics Library 2.0 has an ideology where actors engage in “organized, insurgent action to displace or overcome the status quo and establish a new way of life” (Kling and Iacono, 1994; 17; Iacono and Kling, 1995; 5) Within a CM, activists and advocates claim that core ICTs will “bring about a new social order” (Kling and Iacono, 1994; 4) This is accomplished by technological framing and shaping of public discourse www.librarian.net/talks/larc/l2dum.jpg

25. II. Using social informatics Library 2.0 has a technological frame that contains socially constructed meanings ascribed to specific technologies It connects relevant actors and the particular ways in which they understand a technology as ‘working’ (Iacono and Kling, 1998; 6) Framing “describes the actions and interactions of actors, explaining how they socially construct a technology” (Bijker, 2001:15526)

26. II. Using social informatics While the frame is developing, the ICT that is its focus is interpretively flexible Over time the frame is built up in professional and public discourse and fixes (relatively), the meaning of the movement’s core ICTs It shapes public discourse and perceptions and simplifies complex information for external audiences Technological frames and the public discourse may actually “misrepresent actual practice for long periods of time” (Iacono and Kling, 1998; 8)

27. Library 2.0: A critical view I. Web 2.0 and Library 2.0, briefly • A question of origins - Web 2.0 II. Using social informatics • Library 2.0 is a computerization movement III. A critical view • Marketing, determinism and utopianism IV. Conclusion • What’s left is useful

28. III. A critical view www.says-it.com/badge/sheriff.php libraryzen.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2006/09/WindowsLiveWriter/LibraryZen Launched_1247C/snakeoil553-thumb%5B10%5D.jpg

29. III. A critical view The discourse about Library 2.0 reflects the “triumphalism of Web 2.0 proponents” Has been adapted from Web 2.0, which began as a marketing term to sell products and services Leads to technological determinism “Contextualized within familiar tropes of treating technology as semiautonomous, monolithic, discrete, and ahistorical” Changes in libraries are driven by technological innovation Scott. (2007) Bubble 2.0: Online Organized Critique of Web 2.0

30. III. A critical view Technological determinism underlies a lot of vendor and evangelist discourse Leads to a rush to acquire and implement tools Especially if open source Entranced by shiny things How can we use these technologies? Not: how will these technologies help meet needs or improve services What are the costs of the implementation and use of Library 2.0 technologies?

31. III. A critical view ticklebooth.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/08/treadmill-dance-1.jpg

32. III. A critical view Also leads to technological utopianism The transformative power of technology brings about positive social change Often accompanied by an assumption that this is inevitable Library 2.0 as involving “collaborative uses of technologies” with “participatory, egalitarian, and democratic potential” It will make libraries relevant by empowering patrons who will shape the institution Scott (2007)

33. III. A critical view The discourse of Library 2.0 is decidedly utopian Another example of of exuberant irrationality around different types of Web 2.0 technologies User control as a “paradigm shift” affecting the people who use it socially, culturally, and politically How the discourse is shaped Evangelist forecasts and predictions, hyperbolic advertising and marketing, fictional narratives, and popular news stories regarding technologies These become evidence for cultural projection about organizational transformation

34. III. A critical view There are also problems with the term Describes “a cluster of new applications and related online cultures” It has conceptual unity to the extent that we can find significant shared socio-technical characteristics Utopian claims: “reworking hierarchies, changing social divisions, creating possibilities and opportunities, informing us, and reconfiguring our relations with objects, spaces and each other” Beer, D. and Burrows, R. (2007). Sociology and, of and in Web 2.0: Some Initial Considerations. Sociological Research Online, 12(5) http://www.socresonline.org.uk/12/5/17.html

35. III. A critical view www.daden.co.uk/pages/000395.html

36. III. A critical view To sum up: Library 2.0 is a contested term: Can easily lead to a technological determinist conception of 21st century libraries Turning librarians into technicians ~or~ moving you further back from your patrons Moves library space into the network and away from physical space Library management becomes influenced by the “wisdom of the crowd”

37. Library 2.0: A critical view I. Web 2.0 and Library 2.0, briefly • A question of origins - Web 2.0 II. Using social informatics • Library 2.0 is a computerization movement III. A critical view • Marketing, determinism and utopianism IV. Conclusion • What’s left is useful

38. IV. Conclusion What’s left is useful Information goes from private devices into the network It can be accessed from mobile and desktop interfaces anytime and anywhere What are the implications of this expansion of the public domain for libraries? There is a range of interesting tools How can they be used to improve services? How can they be used make the patron experience more engaging?

39. IV. Conclusion There is clearly online collaboration and sharing People taking shared responsibility for publishing terabytes of knowledge about themselves, the network, and their worlds Observing others, expanding the network, making “friends”, editing and updating content, blogging, remixing, sharing, responding, exhibiting, tagging… Do these represent new information behaviors and needs? How can libraries respond?

40. IV. Conclusion Research attention How Library 2.0 discourse is shaped and maintained The impact on organizational structure and culture How it is changing the profession The formation of new hierarchies and social divisions The problems and subversions afforded by the collaborative culture Understanding patterns of social participation The creation of new elites

41. IV. Conclusion Patron 2.0 - get ready! projects.cbe.ab.ca/sss/ilscommunity/21stcentury/teacher_cartoon.gif

42. Why the context matters: A social informatics approach to the problem of interdependence in information systems research Library 2.0: A critical view Howard Rosenbaum Elisabeth Davenport Indiana University Napier University hrosenba@indiana.edu E.Davenport@napier.ac.uk Howard Rosenbaum hrosenba@indiana.edu http://www.slis.indiana.edu/hrosenba/www/Pres/ais_06/index.html www.slis.indiana.edu/hrosenba/www/pres/iacrl_07/index.html