[Web4lib] Skills for Library 2.0 Leaders

[Dan Lester]

   ----- Original message ----------------------------------------
   From: "Andrew Hankinson" <andrew.hankinson at gmail.com>
   To: web4lib <web4lib at webjunction.org>
   Received: 4/30/2007 11:30:07 AM
   Subject: Re: [Web4lib] Skills for Library 2.0 Leaders


   >A-freakin-men.  Good post.

   >However, I do take exception to one small sentence of your post:

   >"Honestly, I think it's a fad that will pass sooner than later."

   >While I agree that the term 'library 2.0' or 'web 2.0' will rightfully
   >fade from everyday use ("Information Superhighway" anyone??), it's
   >serving as a useful way of identifying a particular meme that, until
   >it gets embedded into society, people can label something and say
   >'this is Web 2.0.'

Some of what Web 2.0 stands for will stay, some will die, the same as all other "major shifts in hardware/software/etc".   My mina fear is that people will get stuck in the "latest version" nonsense and we'll have Web 3.0, 3.1, 4.0, ad nauseam.  Or maybe Web 2009, Web 2112, and of course each new one will be announced at least a year before the year in the designation.

   >So, while I think that the term will pass, I don't think what web 2.0
   >*stands for* is a fad that will pass.  What this fad has brought is
   >the idea that anyone can participate in the internet, the single-most
   >important human innovation since the book, and with the potential to
   >surpass the book in terms of fast, effective, multi-media
   >communication of ideas.

The book will continue to exist "forever" (at least in the same sense stone tablets have lasted), but I personally expect that there will be new technologies that will pretty much, if not totally, replace books for all non-artistic uses.  Flexible screens that feel like paper (or at least tyvek) and are as easy to read?  Glasses like you can now buy for your iPod for a couple hundred bucks, which make the iPod movie look like you're watching it on 50 inch flat panel?  Something else?  I don't know, but.....I do know that the things I read in Popular Science and Popular Mechanics sure haven't come to pass as such.  Nor did HG Wells, 1984, or many others.  For a couple of fine examples check out:  http://www.homepages.ed.ac.uk/rjhare/postcards/images/year2k.jpg  or better yet for a bunch of hundred year old images of prediction:  http://www.homepages.ed.ac.uk/rjhare/postcards/images/year2k.jpg   Whatever it is like in 2100, or even 2020, we can be sure of only one thing: our predictions (including mine) are going to be wrong.

dan

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Dan Lester, Boise, Idaho, USA