Friday, November 2, 2007

#15 Read a few perspectives on Web 2.0...

I read Away from the “icebergs” and Into a new world of librarianship and took a quick glance at the others.

They're all about what Web 2.0 is, what this new iteration of the web will mean and how librarians need to adapt to the changes we see around us.

As far as it goes, this is all very good. The catch is that we are now in the very early stages of what will probably be the wildest professional roller coaster ride of our lifetimes.

Each of the writings in this group of writings tries to nudge in the "right" direction. The observations they make and the advice they give are useful. The catch is that none of us knows our ultimate destination - including the writers of these articles, You cannot really know "the way" unless you know where you are planning to go. Still, you've got to start somewhere and these articles are helpful as far as they go.

The web, including Web 2.0 is a profoundly transformative technology. It's up there with the invention of printing and the development of the steam engine. Can you imagine that, when people were tinkering with the earliest steam engines back in the 18th Century, they had any way of imagining a civilization run by electricity that is generated by steam turbines?

They hadn't a clue - and neither do we.

Transformative technologies create new industries and institutions. They also destroy old ones. Will libraries as we know them survive what's coming? Not a chance. Will libraries, vastly changed by the new technologies, survive at all? Interesting question.

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