Thanks for the detailed feedback. I had not thought about a comparable model of the type you propose. However, I plan at least to scratch the surface of many of those issues in the written part of my paper. In particular, I will discuss content and collections more explicitly. I will do so both as I flesh out the ideas in the models and also when I introduce the other half of my vision of Academic Library 2.0. I have yet to share this part of my ideas yet. After all, I need to save something fresh for the paper. So you are absolutely correct that content has been left conspicuously out of my model.

I must admit that I do not take some issues such as preservation at all into account in my discussions of Library 2.0. This is partly because of a lack of knowledge on my part due to my background in public services. It is not that I feel such duties are unimportant to our profession; I just am not qualified to discuss all of them.

Furthermore, I have always envisioned Library 2.0 as specifically related to public services and patron facing web applications such as the public face of the OPAC. I have always argued that Library 2.0 is not a replacement of the traditional library, but simply a way of describing one genre of new library services. While sub-fields such as preservation are also changing on account of new technologies, these changes are not necessarily part of what I would consider Library 2.0.

Again, thanks for such detailed input. I hope that my completed paper will address some of your issues. As it is my ultimate goal to populate an Academic Library 2.0 wiki with the sections of my completed paper, I will be encouraging others to fill in those gaps in theory with which I am unfamiliar.

-Michael

I think you’ve nicely drawn out a concept map of the library2.0 landscape and nailed the library as both social and academic space. Have you thought of incorporating infrastructure costs (systems and CPU, digital and physical collections, metadata creation, licensing, DRM…) inherent in the web2.0 world of your model? Or giving a parallel library view of the landscape in which those are highlighted?

I realize that you’re concentrating on the communication aspect of and student/user view of L2, but I fear that the traditional library ideals of collection, dissemination and preservation are getting short shrift in your model and in the general thoughts of the L2 community. This is a major failing IMHO. The L2 community (and libraries in general) seem to want to rely on others to incorporate library ideals into their business models and their thinking about information rather than doing the hard work themselves (and there are many reasons for this, mostly having to do with money or lack thereof). However, we can’t rely on google/y!/corporate sector to have these ideals. Remember, Google is scanning books to generate advertising dollars; preservation and access (to more than snippets of information) are not at the top of their list.

We (meaning libraries) need to be figuring out how to enhance our traditional strengths with W2, combining our collections with mashups, creating collections on the fly and increasing access with W2 technologies. If we forget about those traditional strengths, we’ll be heading down the same road to obsolescence as travel agents (and I’m not the first to use that metaphor ;-) ). We need to reach out to users, extend and increase use of our physical spaces, but also extend and increase use of our collections. W2 can help in all of those areas. All service and no information/collections/data make the library a dull place!

Libraries may not be the center of the universe, but they remain relevant cultural institutions.

Thanks again for posting. I look forward to reading your thesis.

Regards,

James Jacobs
http://freegovinfo.info
radlib@ucimc.org

(And I didn’t know you had a blog…)

Angela

http://knowledgespacelibrary.blogspot.com

The OPAC should of course be one of the center pieces of Library 2.0. The patron review features on Open Worldcat and folksonomy features like PennTags are moving towards making OPACs more social, but we have a long way to go. It is important to note that the OPACs presented on my models are not your traditional OPACs, but social OPACs. Again, thanks for all your great comments.