Library 2.0

I found a few of the passages in the OCLC newsletter to be most relevent to Web 2.0 and libraries. The user-friendliness of instant messaging, blogs, and wikis are great in that it permits patrons to assess their needs and convey them to librarians as they say fit. For example, a patron may require some economic facts about about a particular country for a paper. That information may need to be very narrowly defined with economic formulas or fairly general, such as an economic snapshot. The ease-of-use and flexibility offered by certain Web 2.0 applications not only helps the patron determine what information they require and how much, but it also lets the the librarian know the same information therefore aiding them in their research.

This flexibility is of special interest to me, because as you all know, I'm a distance education student. Fortunately, I have the advantage of working at an academic institution where as most of my classmates do not. In lieu of face-to-face librarian interaction, most of the other distance education students must rely upon the IM a librarian feature that the Joyner Library offers. I and my classmates are perfect examples of Web 2.0 in action.