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In 2006, the phrase "Library 2.0" surfaced. At the time, I wrote a single-essay issue of Cites & Insights (6:2, Midwinter 2006; http://citesandinsights.info/civ 6i2.pdf) titled "Library 2.0 and 'Library 2.0'" that has been read some 50,000 times. Here are two sentences from the first paragraph: "I was reading stuff about something called 'Library 2.0' - but the posts and items didn't seem to cohere. I thought I could gather some statements, print them out, read them through, provide excerpts and commentary and maybe make sense of the whole thing."
Before jumping 5 years forward to 201 1, I'll quote the last two paragraphs from the first segment ofthat 2006 essay to put the concept in context:
Most concepts behind Library 2.0 are constructive, building on today's best and improving for the future. Those concepts and tools should be - and are being - discussed, explored, and implemented as appropriate for various libraries depending on community needs and library resources. If there's an argument here, it might be over relative priorities and expectations - and possibly what constitutes success, both in new and existing services. That's the set of concepts, whether gathered under a moniker or not.
Then there's "Library 2.0," the movement or bandwagon. Some proclaiming "Library 2.0" as a movement are confrontational, deriding today's libraries as irrelevant and today's librarians as rigid and unchanging. Others are not. I find it hard to look at the term and not see confrontation, but that's me. "Library 2.0" as a manifesto is, I believe, unfortunate. I question whether "Library 2.0" adds value to the sets of concepts and tools - and I wonder whether "Library 2.0" detracts from the concepts and tools by creating divisions where none are necessary.
I've written about Library 2.0 on several other occasions, although without the same level of focus or number of readers. Most recently, the February 2011 issue of Cites & Insights (http://citesandinsights.info/civlli2.pdf) was devoted to the essay "Five Years Later: Library 2.0 and Balance."
HOW BIG WAS IT?
Library 2.0 - both the ideas and concomitant technologies, and the movement - generated thousands of blog posts and hundreds of conference sessions over the years. My sense is that the discussion peaked in 2007 and 2008, declining since then. I...
