Library 2.0 and participatory library services.....

Libraries once use to be a place where people would come to ask a librarian for information and use the resources housed in a physical building. All the resources were in a physical format and needed to be organized by staff and delivered to library clients to take home.  Now that has all changed.... more resources are being delivered electronically for users to consume anywhere to create new resources 24/7. Libraries need to adapt and innovate themselves so that content and services are available anytime and are collaboratory with their existing and potential clients.

Libraries can move into the Library2.0  space by employing the 4 C's [1] which are:

1. Collaboration


2. Conversation


3. Community

4. Content Creation

Arizona State University Libraries [lib.asu.edu/librarychannel/] has already embraced this model of user centered services by using a wide variety of social media channels to enable 360 degree communication with their customers. I checked out their library minute, Facebook account and Tweets. I think that the use of these web 2.0 tools are valuable outreach activity to inform students about new options and ASU library services. Some students even replied with their opinions to the Library Minutes posted on Youtube.  Although the communication tool that got the most traffic was Twitter.  This gave me a sense of creating a conversation  and that there was collaboration between the library staff and the student community. I was amazed how professional the staff members were in their replies even when the students weren't being that polite about particular problems. So when assessing the ASU  libraries on the use of web 2.0 tools the was evidence that collaboration, conversation and community were certainly being engaged in by both the ASU Library staff and the student population. However, I didn't find any content creation activities being engaged in by the students using ASU library content. But I could be wrong - it really depends on if you mean ie. making a mash up or leaving a comment is creating content. One the whole I think ASU Libraries have embraced the concept of Library 2.0 and are applying it in away that benefits both the library services and the student community.



References:

[1] Charles Sturt University, (2011)., What is library 2.0? Interact Module 3: Library 2.0 and paticipatory library services.

[2] Arizona State University Libraries, [2012]. See: lib.asu.edu/librarychannel/