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The Future of Internet-Enabled
Will public library Internet-enabled ser vice roles be able to compete with user- designed socially networked and participatory ser vices?
As only one example, the website Library Thing (www.librarything.com) provides a means for users to enter and catalog their personal library or a read- ing list, connects users to other people reading the same or similar books, offers recommendations of books of interest, gives blogging space, and much more.
As of February 2008, members have cataloged some 23 million books. Other examples of these new types of Internet “library” ser vice roles include Biblio- commons (www.bibliocommons.com), which is “transforming online library catalogues from searchable inventory systems into engaging social discovery environments.” The notions of social networked communal cataloging, resource discovery among information and people, participatory readers’ advisory, and the like have significant implications for how public library Internet-enabled ser vice roles may evolve—or ultimately be replaced by user-developed roles that replicate library functions.
In a recent paper, Lankes, Silverstein, and Nicholson describe library ser- vice in terms of participatory networks in which the library is a “conversation.”
They go on to state:
A core concept of Web 2.0 is that people are the content of sites; that is, a site is not populated with information for users to consume. Instead, ser vices are pro- vided to individual users for them to build networks of friends and other groups (professional, recreational, and so on). The content of a site, then, comprises user-provided information that attracts new members of an ever-expanding network. (2007, 19)
The issues discussed in this book raise numerous challenges to the future of public library Internet-enabled ser vices. But of special interest to the topic being discussed here are several important questions: To what degree will these participatory network conversations include the public library or be developed by the public library? To what degree will public librarians be able to develop exciting and dynamic Internet-enabled ser vice roles that are participatory and draw on social networking principles successfully?
At the heart of all of these various social networking applications is a peer- to-peer relationship of community members, and just how such relationships will affect public library Internet-enabled ser vice roles is not well understood.
Many of the social networking applications “push” ser vices to users, offer links to other information—much of it directly from other peers—and ultimately allow Internet users to define and create information ser vices that are person- alized or customized to meet their specific needs. Perhaps more important, they encourage the development, content, and ser vices to evolve according to participants’ needs and creativity.
An underlying notion of these social networking applications is personal trust among participants and an appreciation of the value of receiving opinions from others (Kelton, Fleischmann, and Wallace 2008). Obtaining papers, pub- lications, or online articles is not the same as obtaining the opinion, insights, and experiences of someone on a topic of special interest (e.g., dealing with
cancer) who is trusted by the user and with whom the community of users has shared values. A major conclusion of the OCLC (2007) study Sharing, Privacy and Trust in Our Networked World is that users of these social sites increasingly have less concern about their privacy, confidentiality, and trustworthiness.
Thus, they are increasingly likely to provide the personal information, views, and experiences that shape these sites.
Evaluating public library Internet-enabled ser vice roles that are built into a social networked environment requires consideration of several factors:
Traditional evaluation approaches typically base assessment on an
• imposed or orga nizationally accepted set of ser vice goals/objectives.
Ser vice roles based on social networked activities build on dynamic, personally self-driven goals/objectives that are constantly changing.
Outcome measures (for example) that assess changes in knowledge,
• behavior, skills, or attitudes may be less important in social
networking ser vice roles, where learning, contacts, quality of life, and other individually based measures are more important. Moreover, individually based process measures may have greater validity for measuring user success than system-based outcomes.
Comparing the “success” of users across various types of social
• networking ser vice role applications presents numerous challenges given the situational nature of users of these applications.
The nature and definition of “community” as it relates to the library’s ser vice
• population change significantly in a social networking context. Successful social networking applications rely on virtual communities that span the globe, not local, geographically or politically defined communities.
Separating the evaluation and measurement of the technological
• infrastructure of the ser vice role from the actual use of that application may be impossible. In short, to what degree are evaluators measuring the quality of the technology as opposed to the use of that technology?
Success of an individual’s use of an Internet-based socially networked
• ser vice role is dependent on the skills and knowledge of the user—
one person’s success versus another’s may have little to do with the application itself.
These are but a few of the challenges the future holds for successful evaluation of public library ser vice roles that build on social networking applications.
Published lists of traditional public library ser vice roles may continue to be of use for many public libraries. But Internet-enabled ser vice roles—and espe- cially those that incorporate social networked and participatory ser vice roles—
are much more likely to evolve rapidly, depending on a range of library factors such as staff skills, available information technology infrastructure, situational factors, and skills of individual users. Thus, the public library community must become much more informed and better able to deploy Internet applications rapidly in the development, selection, administration, and evaluation of these ser vice roles.
Lankes, Silverstein, and Nicholson conclude that “libraries have a chance not only to improve ser vice to their local communities, but to advance the field of participatory networks” (2007, 32). This may be true, but libraries also have a chance to not be effective players in the development of participatory net- works, not develop Internet-enabled ser vice roles that build on social network- ing, and not develop valid and reliable measures to gauge the success of their involvement in such ser vice roles. Although participatory technologies open up new opportunities for library ser vices (Courtney 2007), they also create new roles and expectations for libraries along with many assessment, staffing, eco- nomic, and ser vice pressures. The future of Internet-enabled ser vice roles is one laden with challenges—and one that will be increasingly decided by individual public librarians, the development of social networking applications, vendor products, and individual Internet users.
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