Okay – I’ve never met him – but I love reading John Blyberg’s comments on Library 2.0. I’ve mentioned Blyberg in the past in reference to his ILS Customer Bill-of-Rights, now he’s talking more about this & Library 2.0 in general.

I wish I could write like this:

Vendors need to stop assuming that they know what we want better than we do. For instance, find me a single library coder who does not want read-only SQL access. We're telling you want we want. If you want to know what will drive a library coder to coffee in the morning, it's the spectre of non-technical staff believing that they can hack together a “Library 2.0″ site on their own because they've been sold a bill of goods that tells them they can.
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Ultimately, MLS programs are going to have to start offering CS electives and eventually requirements. The profession itself is changing with the industry. Databases and networks, increasingly, are information's domain and if we want to be part of the vanguard, and if we want to call ourselves the stewards of that information, we darn well better know how to work with it.

I totally agree with everything John is saying here and I couldn’t (in a million years) say it better. So go read the whole (very long) post.

I just read a great post over at LibraryCrunch entitled: 3 Degrees of Separation: Libraries, Technology, and Administration. I haven't read all of the other articles & posts that are referred to in this post, but it got me thinking about all the work I've had to go through to get my library Web 2.0 ready.

A line from a post at Tinfoil+Racoon caught my attention:

As much as I love learning about Library and Web 2.0 and finding ways to make technology work for patrons and colleagues, I'm not sure that many (most) libraries are ready to take even the baby steps suggested by Michael.

and I have to agree … but that doesn't mean we don't keep pushing.

The one thing that Michael (from LibraryCrunch) mentions that I can't empethize with is that the administration is the force to be reckoned with … in my library that is not the case. Our administration is all about upgrading, it's the librarians (not all of them) that needed the pushing.

Over the last 2 years I have slowly introduced bits & pieces of Web 2.0 technology into the library … our librarians are now doing more and more online … so much so that we just had a discussion with our IT staff about creating a back up machine for our Intranet in case the machine it's on goes down … without our Intranet (which includes modules to allow the librarians to add research links, research tips, blog posts, document delivery orders and much more) our staff would be crippled.

In January I will be releasing our first database driven Intranet, complete with Project Blogs, News Blog, Wiki pages, Shared Calendar and Membership module (specifically for our staff). I have spent the last 4 months sharing tid bits with different staff members, getting them excited about what they'll be able to do … and it has worked. I have heard from more than one librarian that they can't wait for the new Intranet – that it sounds “exciting”.

It took time, and a lot of pushing, but we are on the road to Library 2.0 … and the librarians are right … it is very exciting!