Library 2.0

Some great things in this series of articles on Library2.0.
http://www.oclc.org/nextspace/002/1.htm

I enjoyed Rick Anderson's article, 'Away from the icebergs'. These comments about user training were insightful: "We need to focus our efforts not on teaching research skills but on eliminating the barriers that exist between patrons and the information they need, so they can spend as little time as possible wrestling with lousy search interfaces and as much time as possible actually reading and learning."

Recognizing how libraries can use technology to INCREASE user participation by 'finding new ways to bring our services to patrons rather than insisting that they come to us—whether physically or virtually. At a minimum, this means placing library services and content in the user’s preferred environment (i.e., the Web); even better, it means integrating our services into their daily patterns of work, study and play.'

However, my favourite article was by John J. Riemer, Head, UCLA Library Cataloging & Metadata Center: To better bibliographic services. Great practical suggestions. Using federated searching from your library catalogue makes your catalogue a one-stop-shop.

The comments on broadening relevance ranking open up so many possibilities of user choice: '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.'

There were other points I also enjoyed on the future of libraries: as an experience from Dr Wendy Schultz's article 'To a temporary place in time...' Cant wait to visit the neo-library 'knowledge spa'. With a flat white of course...