Library 2.0 Web Sites Noted

Nice post at the Read/Write Web by Richard McManus that picked up on Michael Casey’s post and the Web Panels’ thoughts.

In all this arguing over the value or otherwise of the Web 2.0 meme, I’ve almost lost track of what is really important – how Web 2.0 ideas are being implemented in The Real World. I came across a great post by Michael Casey of LibraryCrunch, who is investigating what the Library 2.0 Web site will look like. He pointed to Michael Stephens’ round-up of responses to that question, which are well worth perusing. I liked this one from Sarah Houghton, from Marin County Public Library and the Librarian in Black blog:

“The next generation small public library website will be moving up to the same level the larger public library websites are at now: blogs, RSS feeds, dynamic reading/watching/listening lists, lots of online forms, with links to some user-friendly and computer-friendly lightweight virtual reference options (like instant messaging).”

I have to admit I’m a big library user, so if my local library gets the functionality Sarah outlined – I will be one happy geek!

To tie this up in a nice package, Jenny told the PL Track yesterday that users are going to expect some types of interactivity on web sites — including the public library. Don’t think that’s it’s just a geek thing — it will be everyone!