Notes from Meredith Farkas' presentation at the LAUC-Berkeley Academic Library 2.0 Conference. I'll add some commentary later tonight.
Web 1.0 – democratized access to information
- Users interacted w/ web as consumers; to produce, needed experience, space, etc.
- Hubris of 2.0 – assumption that nothing revolutionary happened before 2.0
- More of an evolution, driven by technologies; libraries not the only game in town anymore
- Meeting user names
- Trusting our users (radical trust)
- Getting rid of the culture of perfect (start simple and test, more iterative, not waiting until something is “done”)
- Aware of emerging technologies and opportunities
- Learn to extrapolate to see what other types of libraries/non-libraries are doing
- Looking outside of library world for applications, opportunities, inspiration
- Know your users; look beyond netgen stereotypes: what do they value, how do they research (Univ Rochester anthro study); go into their space and ask for feedback
- Question everything: do you still need to be sitting at the refdesk when all of your ref contact is IM? Dropping Dewey for bookstore-style classification
- Communicate better with patrons (blogs, etc.) – including by library directors, accepting and using feedbackHighlight collections with tools like Flickr; RSS for new collections; adding our resources to Wikipedia
- Embed services where they are: Facebook and Myspace, portal in WebCTBuild participation: take advantage of our users’ knowledge of these subjects in saved resources (wikis); social bookmarking (PennTags)
- Better at building partnerships
- Don’t focus on technology, or abandon constituents who won’t use these tools
- Build learning culture; not everyone one gets to go to conferences; create in-house learning (Learning 2.0 at PL of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County)
- Develop risk-tolerant culture; “perpetual beta”
- Collect knowledge internallyCapitalize on your network: Facebook as online rolodex
- Be transparent, internally as well as externally
- Good ideas can come from anyone and anywhere
- Nurture talent (she heard this from some LJ Movers & Shakers at IL--that they weren't feeling appreciated at their institutions)
- Be agile (need 3 mos to decide on blogging software?); Empower staff to make some decisions
- Involve staff from all levels in planning; helps avoid tunnel vision
- Avoid technolust; start with needs, then look tools
- Understand staff member’s needs and limitations (why people fear change; understand learning styles; some staff need more than just written instructions—prefer hands-on instructions/help)Time must be devoted; staff not given time for this, they way we do with reference shifts, etc.
- Keeping up w/ new technologies and share with colleagues – make part of job description
- Need new staff, or shuffle w/in existing staff with these interests
