Participation by design in Library 2.0 (pt. 1)

This is part 1 of a 2 part series on library 2.0, interactivity and participation.

One of the librarians in the library 2.0 video Dean posted said: “I would like library education to be more exciting and interactive, but I don’t know how to build that.”

I think this may be the crux of the issue with library 2.0. These applications either have not yet been built, or are still quite rare. I think for library 2.0 to take off, the affordances of the library 2.0 apps should reflect the unique affordances of the libraries themselves. Libraries seem to currently favour using external 2.0 apps for communication, rather than internalizing 2.0 concepts within their own systems to extend their functionality.

I looked at book store websites like Chapters and Amazon for a comparison. Beyond using 2.0 apps to reach out to customers, they bring customers into the fold by giving them the ability to review and recommend books. Thus, a user looking to buy books benefits directly from the community in making his or her decision, then has the chance to offer information in response.

What are the main purposes of a library to the patrons and the community? What could we build to allow patrons to express their purposes online with library 2.0?

One idea I have is to give patrons a space on the library website to create resource packages and share them with others. This idea is really not that far from social bookmarking, but in this case the available collection is unique to the library and specialized, in the form of multimedia, and accessible in a physical as well as digital form. As with the book store sites, it’s not about how advanced or even original the functionality of the app is (the user review sections on Amazon basically look like a simple blog comment area), but rather the role it plays that makes it effective.

I thought of ways this idea could benefit patrons of each major type of library:

In an academic library professors could use this system to group their own publications with those of others who have shared interests or projects, and with items in the special collections. Students could assemble collections for group projects, and make a list of favourite publications which could accumulate over the course of their degree.

In a public library community organizations could let interested members of the public visit their space to learn more about their cause and to gain access to the same resources.

In a special library professionals could make items available to others within their organization for the purposes of projects or cases to work on. If the files are sensitive, privacy measures could be used to delegate list access only to certain people.

In a school library teachers could make reading lists at specific reading levels and invite students to browse. Students could then add to the list or make their own based on their school work. This would teach them about online research and how the library fits into the research process.

In all these examples the patron becomes a window into the library by creating a unique view of the collection, expanding on the existing catalogue. Have we seen much of this yet? Does this already exist, or is my imagination running away? I personally haven’t seen much so far. The concept behind this idea is participation and how it can span both patrons and library staff, which I will discuss in the second half of this post.