Lessons Learned: 2.0

As the staff here at SLA headquarters is planning for our programming in 2008, much of the discussion is focused around Web 2.0 technologies.  When are they most effective? Is this something our members will use?  Which 2.0 solutions will improve our communication, creativity, and communities?

Plenty of questions that we are asking on our end and I imagine that many of you are doing the same in your organizations these days. 

If so, you might want to read this blog post I came across the other day: The State of Enterprise 2.0.  If you have the same questions we do, read this article... it might give you some answers.

The author, Dion Hinchcliffe, does an amazing job at taking the pulse and assessing these technologies and the changes many organizations have gone through as they have implemented (or not implemented) 2.0 tools over the last year. I found the post very insightful and helpful, but I am more interested in how these tools have worked for SLA members and their employers over the last year.

For those that are just starting to wade in these waters- what are your questions? For those that live and breathe 2.0, and are now ready for the 3.0 wave, what lessons have YOU learned?   

Comments

[Stacey Greenwell]

These social tools are part of what makes it such an exciting time to be in the information profession. There's nothing wrong with starting small and starting slowly--certainly you don't want to implement a technology just for the sake of using some new cool toy--there has to be a purpose. At the University of Kentucky (despite my over-abundant enthusiasm), we are slowly and wisely integrating more and more 2.0 tools into our workflow.

We started with chat reference--something I think could apply to any setting, whether academic library, corporate library, or even an association management office! I personally tend to choose the email option when faced with myriad choices of contacting a business, but many of our patrons prefer chat when it's an option. To me, being available via chat (even if for selected hours only) is a no-brainer. It's low cost and just one more way for people to reach you.

I feel the same way about Facebook and pretty much any web tool where you can create a presence or set up contact information. In Facebook, for example, nearly 600 members have joined the SLA Facebook group I created. The Facebook page is very low-maintenance and it serves as just one more way for SLA colleagues to interact with each other. Our UK Libraries Facebook pages are pretty low-traffic, but we have generated a few reference questions from those pages, so again, I think the minimal time investment is totally worth it.

We've just started working on a comprehensive knowledge base for our reference desk at the University of Kentucky. I am pretty pleased with the Library Stats database I started using this summer for logging daily questions. It sure is handy to have the answer to a frequently-asked question at your fingertips. I do think we need a wiki though for all the training materials, handouts, and database guides, not to mention all the tidbits that we collect in our email. A wiki would be a great way to organize that information, so likely that will be our next step as we continue exploring uses of 2.0 tools.