*sigh* It seems like everything is getting "2.0" appended to it. As I keep saying, all the resources for this training are at least 3 years old now. Still, Library 2.0 is a laudable goal. I'm not sure how far Montgomery County will be able to go with this idea, though. It seems like we are waaaaay behind the technology curve, and we're always scrambling to try to catch up. I doubt anything truly innovative will happen anytime soon, with the budget the way it is. Or maybe the budget crisis will push us into this brave new world sooner--providing online information content in places other than a brick and mortar building has to have some economic advantages. But I think the biggest obstacle is getting the library "out there" where most tech users don't expect to find it. Looking quickly at the library's facebook account, I see it has a little over 250 fans, many of them other librarians or people in the field. A fairly obscure webcomic, "Shortpacked!" has over 1,400 fans, for example. People who use social media the most are least likely to expect to find the public library there. How do you get the message out?
Some Library 2.0 things I heartily agree with:
make the catalog more user friendly--there must be some way to allow for spelling mistakes. How do Google and Amazon do it? When I went to ALA a few years back and was researching other catalog vendors, the one I liked best had that technology in place. I doubt if JavaNow or Symphony has it! Or do they?
Link to other library systems' catalogs through our OPAC, like the Santa Monica public library system did. It sounds fairly simple to do, and works with Sirsi. Since we're down near the District line, I'm often going to the DC public library online catalog site to search for titles MCPL doesn't own so I can refer patrons to them.
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