Number 2: Library 2.0

23 Things on a Stick asks:

• How has the Internet and the vast resource it can be affected your use of time at work and/or at home?
• Where are you in your knowledge and use of Web 2.0 tools? How about your library?

These questions are related to me, because I work a lot. Web 2.0 and Library 2.0 have their sticky fingers all over my life, almost 24/7. I am constantly wired to a constant stream of information- personal information, work information for two jobs, and school information. Checking my email is one of the first things I do when I wake up, and one of the last things I do before I go to sleep. It has occurred to me on more than one occassion that my "lifestyle" wouldn't even have been capable of existing say, more than ten years ago. The internet lets me keep up with the goings-on, drama, policy changes, and problems at two jobs. The internet lets me take graduate level classes while I am also working these two jobs. Without the internet, this really wouldn't be possible.

I have a layman's knowledge of and experience with Web 2.0. I fall at the very beginning of the Millenial generation, but I didn't grow up with computers in hand since infancy. My earliest memories of using libraries include browsing through a card catalog, and I didn't get high-speed internet at home until after I graduated college. Being that I am on the computer and the internet almost 24/7 doing all those life-oriented things, I have been a "quick adapter" of things like YouTube, flickr, etc. I've used these sites in passing, as most other people my age would. As far as *creating* content goes, though, I am a relative novice.

The libraries I work at are just starting to adopt Web 2.0 technologies. We have "Ask a Librarian" IM services, and the public library has its own flickr account. Change though, seems to be occurring at a snail's pace, and is met with considerable resistance. The public library is skeptical of social networking sites, and refuses (thus far) to adopt an official presence on any of them. I think this is a mistake. People in my generation are growing accustomed to experiencing life through these channels; I believe if libraries don't have a presence in them, then libraries will be overlooked or even forgotten.