I’m sorry. Library 2.0 is NOT user centric.

Hooked? Stay around for the conclusion.

I just wanted to comment on a statement by Michael Casey and Laura Savastinuk, hosted on LibraryCrunch.

I come to this post with an ever expanding knowledge of Information Literacy and designing instructional programs and of reading about the research habits and information behavior of users (admittedly, academic library users). I also am learning a lot about how to advocate for change in my Library Advocacy class. Of course, I have a lot more to learn, too.

So I can’t help but agree with this statement:

Energy focused on implementing new tools and programs is wasted if we don’t know what our users really want. Without knowing that, we create more work for ourselves with hit or miss initiatives.

Which is great! Although I can’t really stomach the opening statement: “We know what Library 2.0 is and is not.” That statement itself seems a little counter-intuitive, given that it is supposedly about being open, flexible and user-centric. I think opening a debate about some of the things that Library 2.0 may or may not be is much more productive over saying “We know (period)”.

“Library 2.0 is not just about technology,” say Casey and Savastinuk. Which is a fine attitude to have–although I am of the camp that believes if it is not technology, it is really just librarianship. If what is left of the concept is user-centrism, change and evolution, and politics, then librarians who do not do these things are bad librarians. Good librarians have always been user-centric. They were user-centric in the “public education” era of the library, where they suggested books at “the people’s university.” They were user-centric when they began to offer readers’ advisory of popular fiction, when that came in demand.

However, the solutions proposed by Library 2.0 are mostly about technology. Casey and Savastinuk agree: “No matter how much this is said, technology continues to be a leading topic of discussion.”

And why is that? Because technology gets visible results quickly and cheaply. People believe that the library is missing a certain segment of the population–or perhaps it is that a certain segment are missing the library? Regardless, librarians want to do something. So they start a blog (without questioning if the missing population reads blogs) or they have a wiki (without questioning if there is a demand for a wiki) or a Second Life presence (without questioning whether there are people looking for their library on SL).

I completely agree with Casey and Savastinuk: we focus too much on solutions before understanding the problems. And I think that suggesting these technological solutions is specifically not user-centric in this case. Suggesting technologies is librarian centric. The problem is that proponents of LIbrary 2.0 rely too little on empirical research about what users need and about their perspectives. Giving them technologies is telling them what they want, not giving them what they need. The solution librarians always suggest is more technology. And the suggestion they rarely suggest is to slow down and listen to people.

I am not wholly qualified to give study suggestions. But let’s look at some. What does the Making Cities Stronger (2007) study say: libraries need to improve literacy and school readiness, train people for the workplace, and assist small businesses with their information needs. In my own specialty, what do university students need? Information literacy instruction. Students cannot tell the different between Google, the catalogue, and periodical databases. They cannot find and evaluate information. Faculty tell us they cannot formulate a thesis.

The problem is that collection development for marginalized groups, expansion of electronic holdings, hiring of roving reference librarians, the development of information literacy instructional classes appropriate for the community we are serving–all of these cost major amounts of money. I am all for all of the things that people suggest for Library 2.0 solutions, save a very small number. However, if we think that these stop-gap solutions are worthy of a 1.0–>2.0 revolution, we have to look at the studies around us and see what our users really need.