Week 9, Thing 23

I'm done with the "Eastern Shore Regional Library's 23 Things". This course has been quite a journey for me. I started from a position of not knowing anything about Web 2.0 technologies (except YouTube) to having set up a blog with all the wonderful gizmos I've learned about. Much of this like Flickr is fascinating and now takes a lot of my time.

Where is this all going? It's still hard to say. We are witnessing an evolutionary process that won't leave any fossil record and will someday be looked on as a means of communication that was created fully formed. (Won't that lead to an interesting debate?) For all its good and useful applications, Web 2.0 shouldn't lead any of us on a stampede to jettison the traditional written word. This should be a win/win process with old technologies merging with the new. I don't see today's books as the 8 track tapes of the future.

Week 6, Thing 15

The perspectives on Web 2.0 and the future of libraries were interesting and yet left me feeling a bit uncomfortable. Although this course has been a real eye-opener for me, it's been a case of adding new skills that will be used within the context of the existing library framework. We are not "post print" and hopefully never will be. All web based technologies are simply too ephemeral to carry on the library mission to "preserve and promote community memories". My introduction to library service was the Historical Society of Pennsylvania which is an archive with 16 million documents and images. Web 2.0 can assist in access to such collections but never replace them. Likewise, the service of a bookmobile in the very rural district where I now work remains a "hard copy" service. I certainly will use Web 2.0 to assist patrons but I will also keep all of those "just in case" books the collection needs to be complete. In fact, I just added a large number of biographies and histories that our local high school thought it no longer needed. There have been quite a few checkouts of this "just in case" material.

ESRL 23 Things -- Hello World!

Greetings from Toblog, the blog of Toby Gearhart. This blog is going to start with observations about Web 2.0 technologies and their application to the future of libraries. Can a Luddite librarian such as myself be transformed in a mere 9 weeks?

Toblog will branch out after this 9 weeks course (assuming a transformation will occur)and explore the political, cultural, musical, and even completely foolish and pointless topics that are of great importance to me.