MyLibrary

After doing a bit of professional reading, two articles have bubbled up to the top of my consciousness and they have relevance to MyLibrary and library catalogs. [1, 2]

Library websites

The first article, by Liu, surveyed about 100 ARL library websites for Web 2.0 characteristics. Typical content and navigation includes resources organized by title & format & subjects, library services, news & announcements, and contact us links. In short, they were (still) organized according to library functions and services.

Web 2.0 is characterized as harnessing the collective intelligence of users through coupled application programmer interfaces (API). “Think syndication, not coordination.” Along those same lines the article included a quote from Karen Coombs stating that the virtual library presence of 2010 will enable users “to come to the site not only to search for information but also to collaborate and share ideas.”

Some of the surveyed sites from the article included Web 2.0-esque features such as blogs, wiki’s, and RSS feeds, but I don’t they included the features to the degree intended by the definition of Web 2.0. In the end, and through some rather unscientific means, Liu advocates the “my library” concept and provides a few wire-frame documents illustrating how it could be employed. Ironically, these wire-frames look a whole lot like the layout of MyLibrary 2.0 pages. What is new is old again.

Library catalogs

The article by Lankes, Silverstein, and Nicholson posit that knowledge is created through conversation, and by way of extension, library catalogs — as knowledge tools — should facilitate conversation.

The first half of the article justifies why knowledge is created through conversation as well as provides definitions of Web 2.0 principles and “participatory networks”. Web 2.0 has been alluded to previously. Participatory networks “encompass the concept of Web 2.0 principles and technologies to implement a conversational model within a community (a library, a peer group, the general public, and so on).”

The second half of the article is the most interesting. It elaborates on the definition of participatory networks. It describes how libraries do this already though physical community spaces and lecture series. It outlines how a library catalog can be increasingly participatory through things like:

• initiating conversations when no resources are found,
• initiating conversations between users and books that they’ve read
• changing the relevancy ranking algorithm to weigh things differently
• including a great variety of content (blogs, wikis, digital repository, etc.)

Web pages, catalogs, and MyLibrary

It is difficult for me not to like the Liu article, even though the process used to come up with the conclusion escaped me. The second article is also near and dear to my heart because it describes the catalog as thing providing services beyond search.

I like both articles because they emphasis people and communities. People are the real sources of data and information, not books and journals. Our information systems need to figure out how to integrate individuals into them. This was always a necessity, but with traditional library transaction happening over a computer network, the face-to-face meetings have gotten lost in the shuffle. Considering the fact that MyLibrary provides a means to making relationships between information resources and people and other people, I wonder to what degree MyLibrary can be used to address some of the issues outlined in the articles.

References

[1] Engaging Users: The Future of Academic Library Web Sites by Shu Liu. College & Research Libraries 69(1):6-27 January 2008

[2] Participatory Networks: The Library as Converstaion by R. David Lankes, Joanne Silverstein, and Scott Nicholson. Information Technology & Libraries 26(4): 17-33 December 2007

Tags: General Information //