virtually a librarian

Kathryn Greenhill at Librarians Matter posted this week on how the ‘newness’ of Library 2.0 is the power shift(s) it represents. This is a spot-on response to the Library 2.0 ‘dissenters’ who argue that L2 is just about a swag of new tools, and that the user-centeredness that Twopointopians champion is, in fact, nothing new (they’re right, it’s not).

Greenhill summarises the shifts in power balances as she sees them:

• The power of the user to choose
• The power of the librarians to control code
• The power of the user to create their library
• The power of librarians to speak with our own voices
• The power of librarians to be in our users’ space
• The power of librarians to risk
• The power of librarians to collaborate
• The power to use our library buildings in a new way

So, the unique, new, innovative thing about Library 2.0 is that it has caused a realignment of all sorts of power balances, for and between all groups of stakeholders (users, librarians, vendors…).

This is a definition of L2 that really works and is certainly a valuable addition to the L2 discourse. Read the whole thing, it’s good stuff.

Then, go check out Casey Bisson’s response for an interesting analogy. He ends with a question all libraries should be asking themselves in order to avoid going the way of the trains: “Who are you competing against?”