Thing #2

As a student from a bygone linear era, I dutifully studied the "assigned readings" set out for Thing #2. Surprisingly, I found myself in agreement with much of the "library 2.0" conversation. It seems apparent that librarians who wish to remain viable must position themselves to respond to the rapidly changing online culture. And certainly I want to take advantage of the newest advances in technology, if these advances can be truly harnessed to the benefit of the students and faculty with whom I work. So I am eager to begin experimenting with Meebo, RSS feeds, wikis, etc.

However, I do have some reservations. One of them has to do with this participatory thing. As an academic librarian I am not sure that my customers want or have time to read what fellow students think about a book or a movie, etc. They are being told look for the authority, look for information that is credible. We repeat this mantra when we get a chance to interact with them, and I think it is a big part of our job. A catalog review by one of their professors might be of interest to them, but it is not beach reading that they are doing here; they don't need to be bogged down by the rants of amateur reviewers. Much of my concern has been articulated by Andrew Keen in the Cult of the Amateur. His thesis is that the participatory Web 2.0 poses a grave threat to our culture, our values, and our economy. The current and frightening devastation of newspapers is just one example of what happens when professional journalists are no longer looked to for information on world events--people can get blogs instead or, if they do read news online, they can tailor the coverage they receive so that they never hear anything that might cause them to question their beliefs/prejudices. Keen asks, when all the cultural gate keepers are gone, what will we have? "What happens when ignorance meets egoism meets bad taste meets mob rule?" Aarg!

I am all for students having access to tools that will allow them to develop their creativity, but a kid with a video camera is not Bergman or Goddard. It takes more than access to Flickr to become the next Dorothea Lange. In our efforts to meet our students where they "live," we can not afford to throw away academic values that stress critical thinking, attention to the thinkers and artists who have built our civilization, and true disciplinary skill building. So I think we need to sift and winnow through Library 2.0 to find what works for academic librarians, being mindful that our students probably don't want to see us on Facebook; that they would rather be sure that when they have a research assignment they need help with, we will be there with the best tools that technology can offer, as well as the professional skills that we have honed over a lifetime/career of using information systems to build real knowledge.