What is Library 2.0?

As with outlining Web 2.0, Library 2.0 is a little hard to define. One reason for this is that there is a lack of consensus amongst many about how to define these things - which is partly due to how they came about and evolved.  

Web 2.0 broadly refers to social media and social connecting over the world wide web. 

Library 2.0 is, at its most basic, the configurations that allow us to search the online library catalogue from our homes, work places and schools - to search the library catalogue when we’re not in the library in other words. 

Just like Web 2.0, Library 2.0 also describes all the interactive content that the library offers online. It might be a book review portal, a podcast about a writer, a place where library patron can make comments and contributions to the library or to other library members. 

According to some writers, library2.0 enables library systems to be refined by and learn from customers.  I don’t know what this looks like in practise. I assume it partly means that incoming comment from library clients can tell the library what styles and content are popular in the community. It may also mean something about data collection and analysis when people say the library catalogue gets better with use, but I’m just not sure.

See Also:

-       American Library Association: http://www.ala.org/tools/atoz/library-20

-       This Researchgate weblink has a publication by Kolmberg and colleagues from Journal of Documentation 65(4):668-681 · July 2009, with a detailed explanation of Library 2.0 in it’s Intro, Background an Definitions sections.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/242345792_What_is_Library_20, retrieved Dec 2018.