The CX Blog

Library Journal has an interesting review of social knowledge sharing tools in a recent article entitled 2.0 for Readers. The article focuses on the “RA,” or Reader’s Advisory services which include reader and library staff notes, reviews and overviews of books in the stacks, making the information librarian that much more prepared to help patrons find what they’re looking for…and more.

Makes sense.  Librarians are the world’s information moguls, born to annotate and organize the exponentially growing universe of knowledge–makes sense that they would “grok” the applicability of 2.0 tools to their needs.  Seems like libraries, in fact, are making extraordinarily good use of the 2.0 tools available and tweaking/designing more and better ones to boot.

Currently, this old-school annotation is undergoing a transformation, thanks to the tools and applications of Library 2.0. As Michael Casey and Laura Savastinuk define it, a Library 2.0 service is one “that successfully reaches users, is evaluated frequently, and makes use of customer input” (see “Library 2.0: Service for the Next-Generation Library,” LJ 9/1/06, p. 40–42). The entire point of RA is to reach readers. The very act of RA, suggesting titles, getting feedback on those suggestions, and using that feedback—in conversation with the reader—to adapt, retool, and refine additional suggestions is a highly evolved process of frequent, if not constant, evaluation and use of reader input.

The part of this scenario that really pulls librarians out of the stacks and into the streaming conversation of users is the invitation to readers to give feedback, share information, make suggestions.  I have to think that Amazon’s ongoing amazing treasure trove of reader reviews is one of the planks in the foundation here–ever since Amazon hit the big time, even detractors had to admit that having access to reader and user reviews was a phenomenal resource.  And libraries are finally seeing how that brilliance can work in their favor.

As the ultimate goal of RA service is to create, maintain, and increase all types of conversations about library material, incorporating readers’ interactions into library catalogs and web sites pushes RA a giant step forward. Suddenly, we can help readers help one another, engage with RA services more deeply, and thus increase the serendipity of RA.

This approach and tool set expands the RA discussion and connects the collection and readers to each other in original, flexible, and idiosyncratic ways. It allows for reader-to-reader conversations sparked by interest, whimsy, and personal knowledge. It makes greater use of librarian expertise as well, offering another way to interact and offer suggestions. This larger and more fluid virtual conversation is in turn amplified by the sociability of the tools that support it, and the result is an ongoing discourse that continually grows and adapts.

Using social knowledge sharing tools will reshape libraries in ways that will make them more a part of the community around them and that will be a boon for everyone.  I love my local library and can see some of these changes taking place in small ways, and of course, the UW library is admirable for its inclusive forward thinking–an emphasis on greater participation with the community, rather than the locked away and aloof institution of the past.