Planning for Now and Then

Libraries need to be where the users are in order to serve future users best. That's the message from much discussed ideas like Web 2.0, perhaps the most prominent and controversial trend currently shaping library objectives. Tim O'Reilly points out in a 2005 article that Web 2.0 “doesn't have a hard boundary” and “is a set of principles and practices,” including harnessing the collective intelligence of users, treating users as codevelopers, breaking away from the traditional software development cycle to an environment of perpetual beta, focusing on services not software, and creating rich user interfaces.

Often people find it easier to understand the idea of Web 2.0 when they examine products or services such as Flickr, Wikipedia, blogging, and Google and compare how they differ from past web products and services.

In contrast, the Talis white paper “Library 2.0: Do Libraries Matter?” takes a critical look and creates four principles for Library 2.0:

The library is everywhere.

The library has no barriers.

The library invites participation.

The library uses flexible, best-of-breed systems.

From this white paper and other sources, it is clear that just having a library web site is not enough to meet these ideals. Library resources available only via the library's web site force users to incorporate the library page into their routines. Beyond this, the resources themselves are often scattered in disparate silos, including the catalog, electronic databases, and institutional repositories.

For academic libraries, this means course management systems, department web sites, and individual pieces of content must be made findable by search engines. OCLC's Open WorldCat project is a huge step forward in this area because it integrates searching for library holdings into Internet search engines, making information surface there for more users. Additionally, Open WorldCat tells not only which items are available but also where they are available.

Besides being everywhere, a library that is 2.0, as the Talis white paper points out, engages users, creating opportunity for participation. Over the last three years, the web has emerged as an interactive place where “conversations” among users are the norm. Much of this can be seen in the popularity and prominence of blogs, wikis, and other social software such as Flickr. Users want the web to be participatory and interactive. Most libraries' web sites have barely scratched the surface in incorporating these technologies. Subject Guides from St. Joseph County Public Library, South Bend, IN, and the Ann Arbor District Library, MI, web site are notable exceptions.

Library 2.0 and Web 2.0 concepts and technologies inspired us at the University of Houston Libraries (UHL) to rethink our virtual presence. We're considering allowing users to add “tags” to the library catalog, building subject guides collaboratively with users, providing RSS feeds of content from the library catalog, and exposing content of library databases to search engines.

Data from the Pew Internet and American Life Project influenced and supported our decision to expand our virtual presence. In 2006, 73 percent of respondents to the Pew study said that they spend time online. This finding goes hand in hand with a growth in distance education at universities and colleges nationwide. This implies that more users have the ability to access libraries remotely, and this might be the only way many users interact with libraries. Therefore, our virtual space is as important as our physical space.

Data from OCLC's Perceptions of Libraries and Information Resources (2005) report also supports the growing importance of the library web site, with 86 percent of college students using their library web site annually, and 50 percent using it monthly. However, 40 percent of college students did not use the library web site because they felt that other sites had better information. It is also likely that students experience difficulties when using library sites, as indicated in the OCLC data when respondents noted they found search engines more reliable, convenient, and easy to use than a library web site. In order to serve library users better, we need to make our web sites more reliable, convenient, and easy to use.

Conversations and user participation are spurring the importance of personalization and recommendations. In his book The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business Is Selling Less of More (Hyperion, 2006), Chris Anderson says there are two imperatives to creating a successful long tail business: “Make everything available and help me find it.”

For libraries, the “help me find it” part of this equation has always been a problem. Other businesses like Amazon, Netflix, and Rhapsody accomplish this by using user ratings and reviews to create recommendations, something Anderson calls “crowdsourcing.” It demonstrates how Web 2.0 is participatory and harnesses the collective intelligence of users. Personalization helps people find the right information. It is also part of building a rich user interface.

The growth of the read/write web has also influenced strategic directions. New technologies enable anyone to create and publish content to the web. Initially, users mostly published text. However, digital cameras, video cameras, GarageBand, Flickr, YouTube, and a host of other software allow ordinary people to create a variety of content and post it to the web. This dramatically changes the types of software that libraries need to support their computing facilities. For example, the University of Minnesota has made web log software available to faculty, staff, and students. In academic libraries, this technology makes it easier for faculty to self-publish and self-archive their materials, everything from books and articles to data sets and lectures. Libraries can help promote better scholarly communication by facilitating this process—providing systems and space to store content and education for faculty on how to produce and self-publish materials.

Beyond traditional scholarly communication, the advent of mashups has created a demand for content that can be repurposed by users to make new information interfaces. As a result, many organizations offer application programming interfaces (APIs) and content syndication (RSS and Atom feeds) to allow users to remix and reuse content. Libraries, too, will need to make their content available in this manner (see “Design Speaks,” p. 4).

All of these developments and innovations enable libraries to reinvent their virtual presence so that it's as important as the buildings and pervasive throughout the library.