il 2006: Library 2.0: On the Issue of Trust, Michael Stephens

This was the first session on Monday morning and Michael introduced 6 things we can do to get to Library 2.0. Unfortunately, I missed the last two of his six things (!), so here are the first four. I’m sure you can come up with the last two (if not more) just by reading Michael’s blog.

1. Expand the brand.
Michael used the example of Starbucks and their attempt to reinvigorate their brand: it’s not just about coffee anymore, it’s also about comfy chairs, providing a space where people can come together to work, and organizing events (book talks, to be specific; Mitch Albom is doing a book tour & all his stops are at Starbucks venues). Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? Michael also highlighted the importance of putting ourselves “out there” – promoting the profession & telling stories about what happens in our libraries. His extremely powerful example was that no one cares if 1000 people walk through your front door; what people care about are the experiences these people have when they are in your library.

2. Break down barriers.
I love this one, I really do. One look at the library signage stream on flickr says it all. Our focus should be on not making more work for our users (Karen Schneider: “the user is not broken”. Love it. Heard it more than once at the conference) because it’s not the users that are broken, it’s our policies, systems, and services. Not all, by any means, but many.

3. Adopt a 2.0 Philosophy
Grab the longtail and harness the wisdom of crowds! Discover new realms (Second Life Library 2.0), value experience & play (Learning 2.0). Helene Blowers is up next to talk about the latter in more detail

4. Create a culture of trust
Trust your users and makes sure your staff knows you can trust them. This is a difficult one for libraries/librarians, I think, because it necessitates a fundamental shift in philosophy on so many levels (especially the user trust issue). Yes, we’re the “experts”, yes we’ve got information organization covered par excellence, and yes we’re damn good at connecting people to information. What Library 2.0 does is push us to the next level where we can facilitate connections between people, whether that means opening up your catalogue to user comments or seeing the value in tagging & folksonomies, none of it can be embraced without that culture of trust.