Thing #2

Interesting article on the Web/Library 2.0. I especially like the idea of "radical trust" as part of Darlene Fichter's original definition of Library 2.0 way back in 2006. This is the component that is unique to the new use of technology ... the emphasis is on "open access," "sharing" and "taking risks"... all things that some libraries have always done, so they should be able to do now as well with a few changes.

I work in a healthcare setting and a recent article in Modern Healthcare talks about Healthcare 2.0. One example of this is the personal health record movement that allows patients to sign into and even contribute to their personal health data, when and where they want. I worry about privacy and safety of that personal health information as it will often reside on a commercial vendor's web site, not in a locked medical records area of a clinic or hospital.

I have attended a number of in-person and webinar conferences on the various 2.0 applications that are available for libraries to implement, but actually moving these into the work flow and political realities of a tightly controlled business environment has not been easy for the library in which I work. Many of the staff are using the technologies personally, but we haven't moved into actually using them to communicate and serve our customers. We risk missing out on their implementation in our organization if we aren't sitting at the table with the various information services and marketing people who will likely drive the use of these new tools. We want to be the drivers, but to make that happen we need to partner with the clinical staff, who are the real drivers in our setting. We know some of them are using blogs, wikis and other social software apps. through their professional associations , so they should be receptive to them in their exchanges with the library.