Library 2.0

#learning #social-web #talk

I went to an interesting talk today about the future of library e-services, especially in the light of Web 2.0 technologies. A lot of ideas, maybe not groundbreaking yet but with a lot of potential, I think. And quite a few people out there trying to make it real.

Check out the Shared Innovation blog for example, which gathers various initiatives. The guy who gave the talk is from Talis, a company that "provides the leading library management systems to the UK and Ireland library marketplace".

Here are a couple of examples about opening up library services to the user-centred world of Web 2.0:

Dave Pattern has created a script for Firefox that mixes Amazon's results with the local library's availability of the same book. Rationale: worth having a look before buying it right?
The Ann Arbor District Library (AADL) instead lets users comment directly the books borrowed through a funny looking interface: enter a few words of comment and they are directly transformed into some scribble on the old-fashioned card-catalog.. cool! Users can say their opinion .. (next step would be structuring their agreements or disagreements and deploy some service that reasons on that...!)
Last but not least, Google Maps mashups. For example Libmap UK lets you check libraries' catalogue through navigating a map of the UK.. a nice link to route planner and et voilà your day out on Sunday (mm maybe during the week sounds better..) is planned!

Conclusion: The Open University library offers already a pretty brilliant service - still I do hope that some of these innovations will arrive soon here too (btw a service similar to Greasemonkey already exists!)