Library 2.0

This was a great lesson. I read all the articles. Below are bits and pieces from the articles and a few of my comments.

1. Libraries should continue to be customer driven. (I guess that means it's safe to get rid of our videos only when the customers quit checking them out.)
2. Eliminate barriers - if our services can't be used without training, then it's the services that need to be fixed - not our patrons. (Boy, do we have a lot of barriers to eliminate! Plus, if you think about our non techie customers we really have a lot of work to do.)
3. Libraries aren't in communities, they are communities. (All of the strategic plan research has shown that people want gathering places.)
4. We shouldn't throw our core principles & values overboard in response to every shift. (Don't force ideas and/or technology where they don't fit.)
5. We need to integrate our services into the customer's daily patterns of work, study and play.
6. Librarian 2.0 listens to staff & users when planning, tells stories of success & failures, learns from both, . . . allows staff time to learn & play, . . .
7. What was the library of the past? A symbol of a society that cared about its attainments, that treasured ideas, that looked ahead multiple generations. Librarians were stewards, trainers, intimate with the knowledge base and the minds who produced it. Librarians today are not just inventory management biobots: they are people with a unique understanding of the documents they compile and catalog, and the relationships among those documents.
8. Library 4.0, the neo-library: Experience This will be the library for the aesthetic economy, the dream society, which will need libraries as mind gyms; libraries as idea labs; libraries as art salons. But let’s be clear: Library 4.0 will not replace Libraries 1.0 through 3.0; it will absorb them. The library as aesthetic experience will have space for all the library’s incarnations: storage (archives, treasures); data retrieval (networks—reference rooms); and commentary and annotation (salon). Available as physical places in the library “storefront,” they will also be mobile, as AR overlays we can view (via glasses, contacts, projections) anywhere. Both virtual and augmented 3D reality will enable us to manipulate data via immersive, visual, metaphorical, sculptural, holographic information theatres: the research and analytic experience will merge with drawing, dance and drama.5
   But Library 4.0 will add a new mode, knowledge spa: meditation, relaxation, immersion in a luxury of ideas and thought. In companies, this may take the form of retreat space for thought leaders, considered an investment in innovation; in public libraries, the luxurious details will require private partners as sponsors providing the sensory treats. Library 4.0 revives the old image of a country house library, and renovates it: from a retreat, a sanctuary, a pampered experience with information—subtle thoughts, fine words, exquisite brandy, smooth coffee, aromatic cigar, smell of leather, rustle of pages—to the dream economy’s library, the LIBRARY: a WiFREE space, a retreat from technohustle, with comfortable chairs, quiet, good light, coffee and single malt. You know, the library.
   I’ll meet you there.