27 februari 2007
Do we need the evidence for library2.0?
The connection between Evidence Based Librarianship (EBL) and Library 2.0 is an item which has been nagging me for the last couple of days, but I had hardly time to get around blogging lately. Hopefully March will be a better month for blogging.
My point is, I see two important movements at this moment in librarianship. Library 2.0 is the one container of ideas and EBL is the other. To my knowledge I have not come across many, or any, discussions about both these issues in the same article or blogpost.
There were two occasions that prompted me to think about these two subjects and their possible relation. When I gave a presentation about library 2.0 some weeks ago, a colleague of mine jumped on the brakes. "It is all very nice, what you presented, but is it working ?" is what he asked me. "Well, we should try things out and see what happens", was my feeble response.
There is possible some evidence, scattered in blogs and wikis. But no one has systematically reviewed, the scanty evidence yet. Weblogzonderhaast presented some data for search actions from their library toolbar. Some time ago I presented some data on the personalization functionalities of our libray services. There is possibly more data to be found, but you have to look very hard. Crawford commented on some figures for uptake of IM reference which was about 1-2% (Crawford, 2006).
On the other hand I was introduced to the concept of Evidence based librarianship in a very interesting presentation by Andrew Booth during the 6th performance measurement conference in Durham in 2005. His approach made sense to me. As a researcher, I liked the outlined approach. As an avid reader, I practiced already to look for applications that worked for others, and see if we can apply this in our practice.
It was a post on a Dutch library discussion list, which asked for examples from the Dutch library world that were based on EBL, that actually triggered me to think about the question for more data supporting to invest in library 2.0 technologies more heavily. The discussion list did not give any clues, so I have to look a bit harder for the data myself.
The trade off, is of course, when we all wait for the data first to appear, nobody will start with innovations. So we need our follow our instincts, gut feeling and nerve to charge ahead, but not without gathering data to support our decisions. Even if it was only with hindsight that we can draw some conclusions.
Booth, A. (2005). Counting what counts: the link between Performance Measurement and Evidence Based Information Practice. 6th Northumbria International Conference on Performance Measurement in Libraries and Information Services, Durham. http://northumbria.ac.uk/static/powerpoint/Booth.ppt
Crawford, W. (2006). Finding a balance: Libraries and Librarians. Cites & Insights: Crawford at Large 6(9): 2-19. http://citesandinsights.info/civ6i9.pdf
My point is, I see two important movements at this moment in librarianship. Library 2.0 is the one container of ideas and EBL is the other. To my knowledge I have not come across many, or any, discussions about both these issues in the same article or blogpost.
There were two occasions that prompted me to think about these two subjects and their possible relation. When I gave a presentation about library 2.0 some weeks ago, a colleague of mine jumped on the brakes. "It is all very nice, what you presented, but is it working ?" is what he asked me. "Well, we should try things out and see what happens", was my feeble response.
There is possible some evidence, scattered in blogs and wikis. But no one has systematically reviewed, the scanty evidence yet. Weblogzonderhaast presented some data for search actions from their library toolbar. Some time ago I presented some data on the personalization functionalities of our libray services. There is possibly more data to be found, but you have to look very hard. Crawford commented on some figures for uptake of IM reference which was about 1-2% (Crawford, 2006).
On the other hand I was introduced to the concept of Evidence based librarianship in a very interesting presentation by Andrew Booth during the 6th performance measurement conference in Durham in 2005. His approach made sense to me. As a researcher, I liked the outlined approach. As an avid reader, I practiced already to look for applications that worked for others, and see if we can apply this in our practice.
It was a post on a Dutch library discussion list, which asked for examples from the Dutch library world that were based on EBL, that actually triggered me to think about the question for more data supporting to invest in library 2.0 technologies more heavily. The discussion list did not give any clues, so I have to look a bit harder for the data myself.
The trade off, is of course, when we all wait for the data first to appear, nobody will start with innovations. So we need our follow our instincts, gut feeling and nerve to charge ahead, but not without gathering data to support our decisions. Even if it was only with hindsight that we can draw some conclusions.
Booth, A. (2005). Counting what counts: the link between Performance Measurement and Evidence Based Information Practice. 6th Northumbria International Conference on Performance Measurement in Libraries and Information Services, Durham. http://northumbria.ac.uk/static/powerpoint/Booth.ppt
Crawford, W. (2006). Finding a balance: Libraries and Librarians. Cites & Insights: Crawford at Large 6(9): 2-19. http://citesandinsights.info/civ6i9.pdf
Labels: Bibliotheek 2.0, EBL, English, Evidence Based Librarianship, Library 2.0
