Usually I rely on the biblioblogosphere, or word of mouth, to let me know what's cool on the Web. But today, SEOmoz have announced the winners of their Web 2.0 awards.
There's quite a lot there that I'm already familiar with, but also quite a few that I'm definitely going to have to check out.
I'm also running a training session for some staff this Monday on online reference tools, so hopefully I'll be able to wow them with some new cool stuff that I only found out a few days earlier. :)
On a different note, I'm often quite vocal with my opinion that libraries need to be more innovative, and that I'm often disappointed by the attitudes of library staff who don't want to go out and learn more, so that they can share more useful knowledge with their users. However, I was asked recently whether maybe the problem was in fact my own attitude, and that my expectations of libraries are unreasonable.
I thought a lot about this. Yes, there are factors that will hold libraries back, and the biggest of these is the availability of resources. If we are understaffed, then library staff will be flat out with circulation and collection management duties, and have no time to do anything else. And I understand that there are times where one is too busy to spend time learning new stuff.
But really, as Helene (I think it was her) suggests, just 15 minutes a day playing around with Web 2.0 would make such a difference. Is that too much to ask, to ensure the future of the library industry?
1 comments:
You are right, they are not. Unfortunately that attitude prevails amongst far too many library staff, but we must continue to fight even if to win only the occasional battle. If we don't, libraries and their staff will stagnate and be lost!
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