SLNSW and social networking ...

… what an opportunity – or rather what a range of possible opportunities. And I think therein lies the challenge.

The temptation is to take a kind of scattergun approach – let’s try this, get this up, see what happens. And we have taken that approach with implementing LibraryThing For Libraries. That freedom to experiment is sooo important but how do we resource and manage 300 odd experiments? And how does it fit with what we know about the need to provide consistency in services? The Government 2.0 blogger puts the challenge well.

So we need a coherent approach to what we want out of this new way of providing our services and we also need a way of providing the resources ($ and staff time) so that what goes up is every bit as dynamic and interactive as the media itself. We all need more skills and we also need more time to practise them. But then what?

In a sense, Learning 2.0 is a good example. It’s been wonderful to expose us to new ways of working with information – but after we get to the end, what next? Some of us are lucky enough to be blogging as part of our roles here, many more have a web presence outside work – but for most the most part there has not yet been a radical change in how most of our library and information services are being delivered.

Like I said, quite a challenge!