Participation Literacy

My background as a library professional could have directed me to emphasise the section about Library 2.0, but I will not. One reason is that I plan to dive into the library systems later and another is that it might be sufficient to use the Web 2.0 concept in Library environments. Library 2.0 is Web 2.0 applied to library information systems and how we think about them, especially when it comes to participation. Participation is the key to the future in practically everything related to ICT and not the least in the library world. I am just going to mention one example.

A library system contains two main parts, the database and the interfaces. The public interface displayed on the Internet is called an OPAC (Online Public Access Catalog). The most innovative Web 2.0 thinking I know of in the library world as yet is done by Casey Bisson at North Carolina State University. He has made a suggestion to separate the OPAC from the database, i.e. the supplier of the OPAC does not have to be the same as the company behind the database and the core interface. Jenny Levine describes it quite well in the ALA Techsource blog:

One of Casey’s theories that resonates with me is a fundamental mistake librarians make: assuming that the OPAC has to be part of the Integrated Library System (ILS). In other words, if you buy a specific vendor’s product with which to do your cataloging, acquisitions, serials, etc., then you are stuck using that vendor’s online catalog. Unless, of course, you have one or more programmers to completely rewrite the catalog—and let’s face it, there just aren’t that many libraries with those kinds of resources.

What Casey Bisson has done is to create a model of an OPAC-plugin for Wordpress blog software. Since he is using one of the leading blog software, he can use all Web 2.0 features in the system, such as comments, tagging and RSS. This line of thinking is very much the Long Tail, see below. All new features are user centred and they are an important part in the participation interface. This is an example of near future development in the library world: to harness user intelligence and integrate their participation in the system.