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Academic Library 2.0 Concept Models (Basic v2 and Detailed)

Published

Michael C. Habib

on August 22, 2006

in Academic Libraries, Academic Library 2.0, Library 2.0, Library as Place, Online Community and Students

. 9 Comments

I have updated the original Academic Library 2.0 Concept Model. The new version aims to maintain the simplicity of the original, while adding a few examples and using more precise language. Also worth noting is that the line separating the physical and virtual environments is now dotted to signify the artificial nature of this boundary.

This model presents a view of how students might view the library as place in relation to their academic and social lives. It is at this intersection that I propose Library 2.0 has begun to materialize. The primary goal of the model is to encourage brainstorming over how we can develop virtual environments that will fit into students’ lives. However, I would argue that new collaborative spaces in the physical environment could also be viewed as part of L2 in so much as they are responses to changing learning styles that are partially brought on by the social nature of Web 2.0 tools. In this way, a definition of L2 that focuses on Web 2.0 might include some innovative services in the physical environment. This said, it is my belief that L2 is primarily useful as a concept for developing new online tools. To learn more about this model, you can check out the post accompanying the first model here. The comments and links at the bottom of that page will help guide one through the discussions of the original model.

Academic Library 2.0 Concept Model Basic v2

I have also created a more detailed version of the model. In this version the boundary between physical and virtual has vanished. Furthermore, this model includes interaction types as well as places. Instead of focusing on exact tasks such as shaking hands (physical) or commenting (virtual), I have looked at interactions in a broader way. At this point, the key is a little confusing on the model, so please use the revised key posted below the model. However, the basic goal is to get people thinking about designing virtual and physical places according to the types of social interactions our patrons will be having in those environments. You will also notice that ALL of the interactions mentioned occur in both the physical and virtual places. Of course we will be seeing more places inhabiting both physical and virtual as well. For example, virtual group study rooms might supplement our physical study rooms.

The scale at the bottom of the model highlights some of the key spectra that lie between a student’s social and academic lives. Again, it is my argument that the library inhabits a space somewhere in the middle ground between these extremes.

Academic Library 2.0 Concept Model Detailed

(REVISED KEY:
underlined = physical
uppercase = virtual
interactions or spaces can be both
———————————-
non-italics = spaces
italics = interactions)

I am still working on these models and final drafts will be included in the second part of my Master’s Paper. I am also developing a model to describe Library 2.0 in general. I should have the paper done relatively soon and will post a link to it. Furthermore, the structure of the paper should work well for filling in the wiki that I proposed here.

As always, I encourage feedback. You are welcome to leave comments here or on your own blog. If you are linking to the image on Flickr, please link to this post as well, so that your contribution to the discussion will be included on this page. Thanks.

Technorati tags: library 2.0 library-20 library2.0 L2 web 2.0 web2.0 academic libraries academiclibrary20

Some responses to the Web 2.0 section of OCLC’s NextSpace

Published

Michael C. Habib

on June 23, 2006

in Library 2.0 and OPAC

. 2 Comments

This is a multipart section, so I will only be responding to individual ideas that struck me.

1. Rick Anderson was the first commentator. In his piece he argues:

But if our services can’Â’t be used without training, then it’Â’s the services that need to be fixed — not our patrons. One-button commands, such as Flickr’s Â“”Blog This,”Â” and easy-to-use programs like Google Page Creator, offer promising models for this kind of user-centric service.

While I whole-heartedly agree that our web services need to be functionally intuitive, in its entirety this section of Rick’s argument seems to bash user education. As I have argued before, I think that education is even more important in a Web 2.0 world. I believe we need to teach users to think critically about how to evaluate and contribute to Web 2.0 conversations and resources. I do agree with Anderson that libraries are ill-equipped to educate all of our users in the classroom. I see this as a call to build new online resources and services that help our patrons learn the skills needed to survive in a Web 2.0 information landscape.

2. In the second section, Michael Stephens’s discusses core attributes of Librarian 2.0. In contrast to Anderson, he states:

Users will create their own mash ups, remixes and original expressions and should be able to do so at the library or via the library’Â’s resources. This librarian will help users become their own programming director for all of the content available to them.

If not through education, how will librarians guide their patrons in this process of discovery and creation?

3. In the third section Chip Nilges discusses how OCLC is building off the principles of Web 2.0. He states the following:

O’Â’Reilly’Â’s notion of “Â“harnessing collective intelligence,”Â” for instance, is at the heart of OCLC’Â’s cataloging cooperative, resource sharing network, and virtual reference cooperative.

He later explains,

Services under consideration include including tagging, list creation and sharing, citation management, personal cataloging, and the like.

I see the move from the first of these stages to the second as the true transition to Web 2.0. It shows a move to recognizing library patrons as the true end users of our services and collections. Furthermore, it represents a more explicit trust in the collective intelligence of our users.

4. I love some of the practical suggestions posed by John Riemer. I will highlight my favorites, but will refrain from discussing them in great detail because I am already exploring them in my Master’s paper. A couple of ideas are the following:

Relevance ranking techniques should be driven by much more than the mere prevalence of keywords in the bibliographic record and be fed by a wider range of metadata, such as circulation activity, placement of materials on class reserve lists, sales data, and clicks to download, print, and capture citations.

User-initiated services like renewal, recalls, and interlibrary loan requests should be complemented by views into the campus bookstoreÃ‚Â’s inventory, options to purchase from an online bookseller, displays of availability in any geographically proximate library, opportunities to see and select terms for expedited delivery, etc.

If you want to learn more about how I envision the above services, or why they fall into core Web 2.0 values, please check back to read my Master’s paper.

5. The final commentator, Dr. Wendy Shultz is a futurist. In her section, she attempts to describe both current and distant trends. In fact she makes it all the way through Library 4.0. I am going to wait a little before I start worrying this far into the future.

On Democracy, Trust and Libraries

Published

Michael C. Habib

on June 14, 2006

in Intellectual Freedom, Library 2.0, Public Libraries, Theory and Web 2.0

. 2 Comments

One of the primary characteristics of Web 2.0 is that it involves trusting oneâ€™s users. As librarians, we have always placed immense trust in our users. As defenders of intellectual freedom we have defended freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom to meet, and so on. We have collected the most unpopular and crude materials alongside those that are popular and beautiful. We collect political commentary from all sides of an issue. It has always been my belief that we do this because we trust in our patrons to be curious, intelligent, and compassionate readers. Our democracy is founded on the idea that, given both sides of an argument the majority of people will be able to distinguish what is good and true from what is bad and false. We have always trusted that this majority of our readers will be able to distinguish the good from the bad. Moreover, we have trusted our patrons to use the knowledge they have gained outside of the walls of the library. Like the press, libraries expose people to all ideas and expect them to use this knowledge in political, academic, and social discourse. Towards this mission, we not only collect different points of view, but open our meeting rooms. We let all groups use our meeting rooms, but allow all patrons to attend, whether in support or protest. As librarians we are neutral. At the reference desk, we attempt to give our patrons whatever resources they need to discover the true answer to their problems. We let them decide for themselves. This is extreme trust. How then is Library 2.0 different?

Traditionally, excluding our meeting rooms, we expected our patrons to use the knowledge they gained outside of the library. Eventually ideas would trickle back in through traditional media sources such as newspapers and books. The read/write web has sped this process up. Now it is possible for readers to feed their knowledge back into the system in real-time. Libraries have always been considered places of reading. Library 2.0 is a place of both reading and writing. I would argue that it was always our idea that patrons would write their ideas down and that they would eventually reenter our libraries as part of the historical record. We always trusted that the majority of our writers strive to distinguish that which is good and true. Library 2.0 now requires us to maintain this trust in the majority. We must continue to trust that most readers are curious, intelligent and compassionate. The only difference is that the evidence of this will now be created and stored on our servers. It has always been easier to put hate group propaganda in the stacks than it has been to host hate groups in meeting rooms because the first can be obviously lost among the true and good arguments around it. In fact, it is only noticed when we search for it. In the meeting room or on our blogs, that hate speech is in your face. However, I guarantee that if any such bigotry is posted to a political discussion hosted on our blogs, it will quickly be drowned out by the voices of more responsible patrons. Moreover, those citizens will cite other sources on the web and in our collections. They might even make a compelling enough argument that the minds of a few lurkers are changed. This is what democracy is all about. This is what libraries have always been about. Web 2.0 has just changed the dynamic of how intellectual inquiry and democracy operate. In this way Library 2.0 speaks to some of the best of traditional library values, and, in so doing, defends the library as a cornerstone of democracy in a networked world.

To me Library 2.0 is not revolutionary, but instead evolutionary. As my Academic Library 2.0 Concept Model suggests, I believe the main goal of Library 2.0 is to figure out how to carryout the librariesâ€™ traditional roles in a read/write world.

I was just about to post this and noticed that Barbara Fister has touched upon these ideas in a post titled Gathering Intelligence on the ACRLog. She proposes the following in a discussion of Wikipedia:

Wikipedia could be a useful and familiar metaphor for the collective intelligence in the library – and for the social networking that has gone on for centuries.

I also noticed Learning is essentially a social activity by Judy O’Connell:

Ultimately, it’s not just about skills and competencies in isolation, but about skills and competencies within the greater context of our global society. The reality is that the web environments of social networks are very empowering when utilised to develop ideas, share resources, hone knowledge and empower creativity.

_______________
In my next post, I am currently planning to explore how we might use the principles of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and Web 2.0 to harness the collective wisdom of our patrons.

library 2.0 academiclibrary20

Thoughts on Library Juice library 2.0 and privacy post

Published

Michael C. Habib

on June 13, 2006

in Identity/Privacy, Information Literacy, Library 2.0, Teaching, Theory and Web 2.0

. 2 Comments

I have not yet been able to read all of the comments for “The Central Problem of Library 2.0: Privacy” by Rory Litwin, but would like to share my current views on this very important issue. I have previously blogged about my recent use of social networking software and blogs, but I haven’t yet touched on the idea of privacy. Like community, I became very interested in privacy issues while working at the Northborough Free Library. While there, I dumped all of their interlibrary loan records, helped rewrite their computer use policy to reflect the recent passing of the USA PATRIOT Act, and changed the settings on the public access computers to eliminate patron browsing records. When I came to graduate school I did not exist on the web and was proud of it.

I am still very concerned about patron privacy and I remain slightly paranoid about my web presence. However, given my profession, it is important to have a web presence. Furthermore, I want one. I am tired of being paranoid about what potential employers may think when reading my blog or googling me. This doesn’t mean that I don’t expect them to google me. In fact I encourage it. However, I do my best to maintain a professional presence and to control the amount and type of information that is available about me. ClaimID was created with this function in mind and is the type of tool that everyone will need in the future.

As Rory mentioned, many millennials (which by some definitions I am, though I think of myself as GenX), lack the concerns for privacy needed to responsibly manage their personal information. However, while Rory chalks this up to immaturity, I would argue that it is more a lack of proper education. While we would all like private corporations to take responsibility for educating their users in responsible use of their services, this is not realistic. It is for this reason that information literacy training is fast becoming one of the most important services provided by a library. Under the Library 1.0 model, library patrons were consumers of information resources, now they are also contributors. Consequently, I have come to believe that we, as librarians, need to educate our users to be responsible contributors to Web 2.0 and Library 2.0 services. So then what does one need to know to be a responsible contributor?

There are three issues that I think librarians need to educate their users on.

1. Privacy
2. Ownership
3. Security

The first two Rory touched on, but I would like to add a little. We need to teach our users that it is their responsibility to control their personal information. Library 2.0 involves “radical trust” of our users. This radical trust means a significant loss of control. As much as we would like to protect them, we can’t always. With our Library 2.0 services, we need to be clear about what information patrons will be sharing and give them control. We also need to educate them on how to use commercial services. As Rory mentioned, this gets into the second issue, ownership.

We need to educate our users about copyright. The read/write web makes everyone an author. Thus far, the education system has failed to teach people about intellectual property. Librarians are all about providing information for free. Not many other people are. Information is a very valuable commodity and librarians have to remember this when educating their patrons.

We need to have excellent security measures in place. I am more afraid about my credit card company getting hacked for my data than I am about the information I choose to share about myself. It is important that we build secure systems so that we can keep our patrons information safe.

All this being said, I often worry about whether what I am about to post will cost me a job someday. Yesterday, my mom and stepfather both commented that I looked kind of scraggly in the picture I had in my sidebar and that I should chose a different picture if potential employers might be reading my blog. The picture is down now. It is still all over the web however. I have tried to separate my professional and personal online lives the best I can. I don’t try to hide my personal life, but I try to make sure that potential employers will recognize the differences between my serious LinkedIn/ClaimID side and my social Myspace/Friendster side. That is the type of distinction we need to get our users thinking about.

library 2.0 web 2.0 academiclibrary20

Welcome visitors and more on Library 2.0 and online community

Published

Michael C. Habib

on June 12, 2006

in Academic Library 2.0 and Library 2.0

. 0 Comments

My sitemeter tells me that people have started checking out my site over the last view days. If I am reading the data correctly, I have to thank Steven M. Cohen at Library Stuff for finding my blog and adding it to a post titled Tons of New to Me Library Blogs. A few people were also driven here by the bookmark on Library Things del.icio.us account. A few folks came in through searches for items tagged “Library 2.0″. No matter how you got here, thank you for checking out my blog and I encourage you to subscribe to my feed.

I was hoping my tags in flickr, del.icio.us, etc. would bring people to check out my Academic Library 2.0 Concept Model. At my first job out of university, I worked as a Reference Technician at the Northborough Free Library. It was there that I got a full sense of how libraries foster community. I was impressed with how the library brought people together through both formal (book discussion groups, teen programs, etc.) and informal (public access computers, the daily newspaper, etc.) means. Since then, one of my main goals has been to devise ways to translate this sense of community into the online environment.

While digital collections seemed to be developing rapidly, the accompanying digital communities seemed to be lagging behind. Though my current model only addresses academic libraries, I am currently developing parallel models for public libraries and cultural institutions in general. It is my hope that these models will demonstrate the importance of Library 2.0 and at the same time inspire new and creative services. As the term Library 2.0 implies, looking to how Web 2.0 companies have succeeded in encouraging community and harnessing collectively intelligence is certainly one of the first steps librarians must take to accomplish this goal.

library 2.0 web 2.0 academiclibrary20