Help! I mean, go away!

I think Web 2.0/Library 2.0 is an extremely important concept that a lot of libraries have been woefully slow to adopt, despite it getting a lot of press and interest lately. I don't think this necessarily is a failing of libraries (though we do take a particularly large part of the blame, in that librarians tend to be a fairly conservative lot), but rather a symptom of the extraordinary pace at which user needs and expectations change to keep pace with technology evolution.

While studying search methodologies and reference techniques in school, a particular conundrum that I learned has stuck with me: good librarians/archivists/information professionals need to strike a fine balance between providing access to information and getting out of the user's way. The increasing trend towards user-generated content seems to back this up; people who need information (especially if they are young and/or technologically proficient) prefer to find it themselves, rather than ask for help or accept "official" guidance. Which is not to say that they don't need a librarian. They just don't want to feel like they need one.

I think that all of these tools we are playing with can help libraries enormously with this challenge, in that they can be used to strike that balance. Metadata, in particular, is an important tool for making information accessible without unnecessary hand-holding, and the list of Library 2.0 technologies that make metadata creation more efficient and relevant to actual library users grows every day. These same tools can also be used to perpetuate the idea of the library as an idea or experience, rather than a building... an idealistic view that a lot of us working in libraries hold, but have trouble selling to the user on the street, who is typically still preoccupied with visions of shushing. This is not to say we shouldn't commoditize what we do; on the contrary, we offer a very important commodity. Library 2.0 is just about reimagining and broadening that commodity, to ensure that it is still what people need and are looking for.

Contrary to what many Web 2.0 proponents think, however, I don't think that the need for a collection will ever go away. While I think we need to untie ourselves from physical objects and spaces, the organization and collocation of accurate and unbiased information is still the core of what we do. While some may argue that this means the end of physical collections of books, it doesn't preclude the need for a collection of digital sources to access all of that information that isn't on the shelf anymore. Even if we change what the information collection looks like, we'll never be rid of the need to make the collection in the first place, and that includes "just in case" resources (even if that means "just in case" reference resources and nothing more).

But maybe that's just the conservative librarian in me talking.