Week 6 - Library 2.0 & Web 2.0

There has been a lot of discussion about Library 2.0. Making everything easier for customers to use, website design friendlier, using new technology, and looking for new ideas to incorporate into the library.
Michael Stephens of Tame The Web makes good points about what the 2.0 librarian should be like. Looking to the future in planning, involving IT in design and what needs to be planned for. To realize planning may need to happen quickly, technology is changing at a very fast rate, but to make sure the technology is valid before buying it.
Rick Anderson has some valid points about people not needing hard copy of reference materials when they are available in online databases. One problem with that is sometimes a library subscribes to a service one year and drops it the next. Then you may not have the materials at all because you don't have the hard copy. If the library subscribes to a necessary database, they need to decide if they will continue to subscribe or if they are going to drop it. Making websites user friendly is what customers expect. They are used to Google or other one stop search engines or having a list of subjects to click on to take them to what they want.
This happened to me once. I had pointed a customer to a certain database and the next week the person was in to use it again and the database had been dropped and was no longer available. And we had nothing in hard copy to replace it.
That said, I refer customers to databases they can use at home to save them printing costs and that they can use after we are closed. I try to show them how to do the search they are interested in and let them know to call if they have any problems.
The online books and downloadable books have also been of use to customers.
One problem our catalog has is subject headings. As a librarian, I have trouble with subject headings. Many are old and/or not descriptive. Others seem to be applied randomly. One of my favorites is Women's Studies. It can be on anything from a book on feminism, to science fiction, to mysteries and thrillers. Sound Recordings for records, Sound Recording Industry for record/music industry. I don't know if tagging book entries is the answer, but subject headings that are more current are needed. Other books have no subject heading and others in series all have different subject headings.
Anyway, I think we are moving in the right direction, but because of the nature of the beast, it will be an ongoing project.