Just thinking about this topic brought up some ideas. I come from a background working in community engagement for more than 20 years. I am very excited in seeing how libraries 2.0 and future approaches could assist in community engagement.
Having technologies where people think of the library catalogue as their library. Being able to make comments about books, mark those to look at again in the future, send recommendations to friends. Have all of this easily available and friendly to use. Have your own page where you can have icons to genres you like, new items, reviews, author discussion/analysis groups. Have a seamless online catalogue for Australia, where you just select where you want to pick up the book and the computer programm will work out the rest. In the physical world, have ways people can recommend to others. Have informal networks for people who like particular genres, subjects or authors. Providing enriched resources to help people navigate web 2.0. Just as a start.
The article by Dr Wendy Schultz was very interesting and well ordered. I liked her development through different stages and found it thought provoking. I love the irony of ultimately reverting to a valued space/experience which looks very like a 18th or 19th century wealthy (often gentleman's) library. Without the exclusion. Things may well go full circle. Rick Anderson also provided some useful insights I believe. The approach of, let's not be trying to train, but have easy to use facilities is a good one.
The library I work at has very small floor space, but I actually think it works very well to encourage chats and low key social interaction across a very diverse community. I feel that many people come to the physical space of the library to be part of a library community, and the broader community. Many people joining the library disclose that they are new to town and are very keen to be put in contact with other aspects of our community, beyond the library.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment