Thing 8--Communication Web 2.0 Style

Where to begin? So much technique, so little content. Having participated in Florida's ask a librarian program, I can see where instant messging has its uses. It's not all that much different from an in-person reference transaction except that the librarian can't plead laryngitis. How about reserve notices, overdue notices, and anouncements of a cancelled program to those who have signed up for it? Sometimes even the most extreme technophiliac has to come to the physical library--but if the event will not materialize, why send the poor soul out into the flesh-and-blood world without a purpose? Those live people are so non-tech. Me, personally, the idea of letting people disturb my train of thought every 15 seconds or less with some Instant Message that Absolutely Positively Can't Wait and turns out to be something that not only could wait but should never have been sent horrifies me.

Web conferencing is like the little girl with the little curl--when it is bad it is horrid, and I've had some real horrors inflicted on me. There's a tiny bit in one of the 'what is it' pieces that mentions that a lot of things have to come together to make things work--the presenter's skills, the sending organization's software and hardware, the receiving end's software and hardware plus places for people to participate in the web conference undistracted. That's a lot of stuff that has to come into harmony, and it doesn't often. When the administrative agencies stop exulting over how much travel money they're saving, they'd better run a total on hardware and software upgrades and a web conferencing room. Plus upkeep. Otherwise staff time is being wasted, staff nerves are being frayed, and staff willingness to do web conferencing declines.

Ah, Twitter, Instant Messaging on steroids and inanity! Once again, it provides those whose true communication is with their keyboards the illusion of being in touch with people without having to actually deal with a real person. If a library can figure out how to provide actual information service with it, then by all means, let them do so, but let's not delude ourselves that this is a way to provide high-quality information, a taste of it perhaps, but not the good stuff.

Some of these technologies have some promise for information provision at various levels of use, but the uncritical adoption of all of them is dangerous and expensive. Remember 8-tracks? Betamax? The list of This Is Absolutely IT technologies that have fallen out of fashion, have been superceded by something newer and occasionally better, or just wandered out into the aether to contribute to entropy is endless. Let us consider what we do, whether a particular technology will help us do it better, and whether we should just pat the technophile who is singing its praises on the head and wait for the fit to pass.