Libraries on the agenda

It's been a while since we returned from Croatia, and Mark and I are still reflecting on a number of issues that came out of our discussions on everyone's a librarian now. Since then, I attended LILAC with another colleague, which was an interesting conference, not least for its attempt to cram in four keynote speakers over the two days. I'll be writing more on LILAC after some more reflection, but in the meantime, it was a pleasure to see our workshop mentioned on Steffi Schulz's blog;

http://libraries-at-the-agenda.blogspot.com/2008/03/workshop-everyones-librarian-now-at.html

Steffi was one of the organisers of BOBCATSSS, and was able to attend our workshop. Her blog is full of useful thoughts, and is worth a visit.

Casting a critical eye

It looks like more and more people are casting a critical eye toward web two, and what it means nowadays. Meredith Farkas has an interesting entry here regarding First Monday, and its issue on Critical Perspectives on Web 2.0. Full articles are available here -

I've managed to read a number of the articles now, and even though I may not agree with everything said here, I'm impressed with the way that they are tackling this issue. I expect we'll see much more debate before anything dies down, but it's interesting to see that others are broadly thinking along the same lines.

Articles available here;http://www.uic.edu/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/issue/view/263/showToc

Two point, Oh.

For a while now, Mark and I have been debating whether or not to change the sub-title of the blog. The more we discuss the term web 2.0, the more we feel that it is becoming outdated. Where it was once a convenient shorthand for a group of technologies which changed the ways in which people interact with the web, the meaning has become obfuscated through overuse, and it has become something of a cliche in many fields (cf. library 2.0, marketing 2.0 etc.)

So from today you'll see that the title of the blog is "Everyone's a Librarian Now - the changing role of the information professional" - reflecting the evolution of our role in response not just to web 2.0, but to all emerging technologies and the repercussions they have upon the information society.