Brief Thoughts on being a 2.0 Librarian

I have been catching up on all of the readings and articles that are posted in our assignments.  I will confess that when I first heard the term Web 2.0 five years ago, it just seemed to me to be hype.  It did not help that Web 2.0 was one of the buzzword (along with other corporate speak) that was circulating at the time.  Regardless, whether it was hype of real it was not relevant to what I was doing at the time. Well I was wrong.  

The fact is we are witnessing seminal changes in how culture and society interact.  The concepts of libraries transforming and becoming the conduits for creativity, providing the venue through which new content is created, disseminated, and shared, is profound.  Of course, there is always resistance to change.  Unfortunately, in particular with the public library, the need to adapt to the new paradigm is paramount.  Academic and specialty libraries will have to change, yet the means of adaptation may prove easier especially to those libraries that primarily cater to the scientific or technical researcher.  Such a patron will demand rapid adaptation to the 2.0 concepts. 

The more traditional college or university library may have a difficult time determining just where to put the dollars in order to move forward. As I have seen and learned in my quest for the MLIS the 2.0 librarian will have to be an adaptive creature.  My original ideas about librarianship in general have been turned on their proverbial head more than once as I expand my scope. 

Kim