Thing #15 Web 2.0, Library 2.0

The video, "A Vision of Students Today" was interesting. While it has been a very long time since I was an undergraduate, my daughter is a recent college graduate, so I have some idea of what college students are like today. I think that students are the same as they ever were; only the technology has changed. If a student doesn't want to open his expensive textbook, he won't. Other students may find that textbook so interesting that they keep it long past graduation, usually in Mom's and Dad's spare bedroom. Students choose to pay attention in class or they don't. Just yesterday afternoon my daughter stopped by for a visit. She picked up a textbook from her anthropology class and read an essay entitleld, "Hard Times Among the Neanderthals." While reading that essay she was checking her text messages and responding to them. Like one of the students in the video said, she is a multi-tasker. I do hope, however, that we never get rid of classrooms and move to online education exclusively. Human interaction is vital. Learners need to use all of their senses to gather information and process it.

The discussions about Library 2.0 are very exciting to me. We will be able to get information into the hands and minds of so many people. I look forward to the changes in cataloging so that searching for books and other information will be easier for the patrons. Michael Stephens had excellent suggestions for using Web 2.0 tools such as IM, mashups, and MySpace profiles for collaboration, and connecting with users. While I can imagine some wonderful things taking place in school libraries, the reality is that we are prevented from utilizing these wonderful tools. Students and teachers are blocked from images, wikis, blogs, social networks, and email (the students) while at school. Unfortunately, many of my students do not have computers and Internet access at home. We are not preparing them to be successful if we don't provide them with the opportunities to become familiar with the uses of technology.

I loved the end of Dr. Wendy Schultz' comments. She is the futurist who commented on Library 3.0 and Library 4.0. She suggests that there will be a time when people will need or have access to a "knowledge spa: meditation, relaxation, immersion in a luxury of ideas and thought...a WiFREE space, a retreat from technohustle, with comfortable chairs, quiet, good light, coffee and single malt. You know, the library."