Five key pieces of advice that spoke to me from the Building Academic Library 2.0 symposium and some ideas on application in my library to help it embrace a Library 2.0 ethos.
1) Adapt or die
Library 2.0 means adapting to changing user demand whilst understanding that we're not the only game in town anymore. In my university library this requires "radical trust" from all. Just as management must relinquish control in trusting staff to decide/act/engage so staff has to trust demands that might take them beyond traditional roles.
2) Avoid the culture of perfect
This works against effective social media. When my library first dipped our toe in the social media ocean, this was the twitter process:
- someone writes the tweet
- tweet sent to social media (SM) team-leader
- SM team leader edits and forwards to manager
- manager edits and consults with University Social Media team
- University Social Media team returns to manager who approves/disapproves, returns to SM team-leader
- who returns the officially approved tweet to the original staff member
- who tweets the (now obsolete) tweet
There reasons behind this process boiled down to image control and professionalism, but of course this was untenable. Academic libraries must abandon what was once the essential 'voice' for a more authentic web 2.0 persona.
3) Know your users
Implementing every trending technology wastes resources if not meeting a need. 2.0 libraries think innovatively to understand users and to this end my University Library has a Outreach Librarian, tasked with articulating an understanding of our student cohort. I love the idea of asking students what they want on facebook, perhaps this idea would work for my library's Pinterest.
4) Build a learning culture
An educated staff is essential for library 2.0 success. Resistance should not be simply dismissed but rather examined for causes and processes put in place to avoid/minimise high stress situations. A culture that embraces and supports learning/training as a standard operating procedure will help.
5) Everyone has potential
Empowering staff to create, innovate and make decisions creates by-in. It should be recognised that Library 2.0 is never complete. We need to be constantly updating and rather than aiming for perfect we need to be agile in our up-take and flexible in our responses.
image credits
Bottom of the glass: The scorpion's dilema | flickr | sha3teely.com |LeadershipConneXtions | Maurilio Amorim
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