week 6, thing 15 (web 2.0 / library 2.0)

This topic might have served me better if it had been earlier on. The articles assigned reinforced why librarians should be interested in current technologies and why one might participate in a program such as "23 things." The articles are found most interesting were

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  Away from the Icebergs by Rick Anderson


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  To better bibliographic Services by John J. Riemer

I agree with Anderson's view that libraries need to focus less on physical collections, and not on keeping materials, "just in case." There are so many useful resources in databases and sometimes even on the Internet. As a children's librarian, we often hear from students that they must have physical print sources. It can be difficult to convince children and their parents that information from a database is from a print source and not like searching the Internet. In many cases, they will only take the information, if it is the only thing available because their teachers have forbidden them from using any computer-based resource. I understand that teachers don't want their students to get misinformation from the web, but there needs to be more education about using databases and finding authoritative sources, instead of ignoring it all together. And I am sure that there are some teachers who are including this in their lessons but it is definitely not happening in all classes.

In the article, "To Better Bibliographic Service," John Riemer presented an insightful discussion on cataloging and classification. I especially liked his point about adopting web features. Libraries need to look at successful web technologies and incorporating them into what we already do well. I am sure that there are great web applications that could be integrated into library catalogs to make searching easier and information more accessible. In my opinion, it would be nice if the catalog came back with "Did you mean....?" every time I spelled a word wrong or didn't have every word in the title correct.