Anonymous, I chose the phrase "Webrary 2.0" to as away of expressing disdain at all of the "ridiculous 2.0 nonsense" and "2.0 fetishists". I'm sorry you didn't get the joke, especially since it sounds like you share that disdain.
You raise a good point about quality being most important. I've seen and heard plenty of bad answers, but I disagree that librarian answers are generally poor quality. Many reference transactions don't end in anything near an explicit answer, and the ones I see that do are generally good.
I think that tools based on records of reference transactions have value because librarians add that value, through skilled reference interviews and knowledge of resources and search techniques.
The "quality, custom-built materials that provide an analysis and viewpoint of the state of knowledge on the topic of interest as it pertains to the user's need" you talk about - is that like a personalized Wikipedia? It sounds like a good idea, and similar to Dave Lankes' Scapes idea.
I also see value in providing people with opportunities to collaborate, for example by letting them make public, bookmark and share transcripts of their reference transactions.
Last, I'm interested in exploring a different institutional role for libraries. Rather than be the place where you have to go to get information (which is hardly ever the case anyway), libraries can be the place where information comes from. I don't expect people to search any library-made reference tools. I expect them to find them through search engines and word of mouth.
We obviously haven't implemented anything I described in this post a year ago, but I love exploring these ideas - welcome to the conversation.
Anonymous, I chose the
Anonymous, I chose the phrase "Webrary 2.0" to as away of expressing disdain at all of the "ridiculous 2.0 nonsense" and "2.0 fetishists". I'm sorry you didn't get the joke, especially since it sounds like you share that disdain.
You raise a good point about quality being most important. I've seen and heard plenty of bad answers, but I disagree that librarian answers are generally poor quality. Many reference transactions don't end in anything near an explicit answer, and the ones I see that do are generally good.
I think that tools based on records of reference transactions have value because librarians add that value, through skilled reference interviews and knowledge of resources and search techniques.
The "quality, custom-built materials that provide an analysis and viewpoint of the state of knowledge on the topic of interest as it pertains to the user's need" you talk about - is that like a personalized Wikipedia? It sounds like a good idea, and similar to Dave Lankes' Scapes idea.
I also see value in providing people with opportunities to collaborate, for example by letting them make public, bookmark and share transcripts of their reference transactions.
Last, I'm interested in exploring a different institutional role for libraries. Rather than be the place where you have to go to get information (which is hardly ever the case anyway), libraries can be the place where information comes from. I don't expect people to search any library-made reference tools. I expect them to find them through search engines and word of mouth.
We obviously haven't implemented anything I described in this post a year ago, but I love exploring these ideas - welcome to the conversation.