Web 2.0 and Library 2.0: What Librarians Need to Know

One important chapter that we have read this semester is in Courtney. The first chapter Web 2.0 and Library 2.0: What Librarians Need to Know by Elizabeth L. Black, does a great job of defining what Web 2.0 actually is. We are introduced to Tim O’Reilly who is credited with coining the term “Web 2.0” states that “Web 2.0 is the network as a platform, spanning all connected devices; Web 2.0 applications are those that make the most of the intrinsic advantages of that platform: delivering software as a continually-updated services that gets better the more people use it, consuming and remixing data from multiple sources, including individual users, while providing their own data and services in a form that allows remixing by others, creating network effects through an architecture of participation” and going beyond the page metaphor of Web 1.0 to deliver rich user experiences”(p2).

O’Reilly gives us seven principles of Web 2.0. These principals are the web as a platform, harnessing collective intelligence, data is the next Intel inside, the end of the software release cycle, lightweight programming model, software above the level of a single device and a rich user experience.

Examples of Web 2.0 include blogging, wikis, tagging, social networking, library thing, and mashups.

Black, E. L. (2007). Web 2.0 and library 2.0: What librarians need to know. In Courtney, N., Library 2.0 and beyond: Innovative technologies and tomorrow’s user (1-14). Westport, Connecticut: Libraries Unlimited.