At Internet Librarian 2007 Liz Lawley said, “You have to figure out what the problem is first before you come up with a solution.” She was referring to the use of Second Life as a method of social interaction with users; however her statement rings true for the general concept of Library 2.0.
Energy focused on implementing new tools and programs is wasted if we don’t know what our users really want. Without knowing that, we create more work for ourselves with hit or miss initiatives.
In the past two years much of the discussion of Library 2.0 has been focused on little things we can do to better serve our users. We try to “get them where they are” by implementing IM reference and creating a presence on social networks such as Flickr, MySpace and Facebook. We attempt to lure them in with gaming nights and rock concerts. These can all be great tools to better serve our users. It is inspiring to see so many libraries creating new ways to reach their users.
However, we have to be careful to not flood ourselves with new projects until we have a clear understanding of what it is we’re trying to do and where we want to go. And in the spirit of Library 2.0, that means first figuring out what our users want and need.
Read the whole post at http://www.librarycrunch.com/2007/10/we_know_what_library_20_is_and.html