With the emergence of new technologies, patrons are beginning to make greater demands on public libraries. In order to stay relevant to the communities they serve, libraries must move away from the traditional foundations of library service and embrace new and extremely diverse technologies. These new tools will be taking libraries to another level, delivering information in an entirely different way, at a much deeper level.
After listening to Steve Abrams in his video '25 Technologies in 50 Minutes', we have come to reassess the way in which we view the term 'CONNECTED'. Society has become increasingly entangled in a web of multi-sensory communication through technologies such as -
- Messaging
- RSS Feeds
- Streaming Media
- Blogs
- Wikis
- Social Networks (e.g. MySpace, Facebook, Del.icio.us, Flickr)
- Tagging
Everyone is connected.
Web 2.0 has four essential elements:
- It is user-centred
- It provides a multimedia experience
- It is socially rich
- It is communally innovative
The most important aspect of Web 2.0 is that it rests on the foundation of libraries as a community service. It understands that as communities change, libraries must change with them.
The future of these technologies in the public library domain will certainly be exciting and interesting. Library collections will change, becoming more interactive and fully accessible. This provides us as librarians with the opportunity to challenge our past perceptions of community service and to accept change and constantly move with it. - P.H., G.H., C.R
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