There are probably more factors that go into the success and failure of a particular social networking endeavor that we can possibly understand at this point and, as Meredith points out, it's not always a lack of marketing impetus. But the fact that we don't understand what imbues a 2.0 initiative with success only tells me that we have more to learn. And we can only learn by doing and sharing, openly, our successes and failures. A fundamental charge of the Library 2.0 discourse is for libraries and librarians to understand the relationship our users have with information so that we can help them along in their endeavors.

Like you said, David, we are dealing with people, but we are dealing with technology as well, it's just that the human connection is the technology's payload. Library reference had traditionally been about the vehicle and the destination (the book and the fact), now we're seeing more people come in to the library in search of the vehicle, the journey, and fellow travelers–they're not overly concerned with where they're going.

How will this work? is easy enough to determine.

What will make people want to do this? is much more abstract.

Social tagging is a concept that’s not intuitive for the average user. Teens, sure. But teens are out tagging content on social networks, not coming to the library to go through the catalog and tag things.

The hard part soemtimes is knowing when to stick with it and when to move on and try something else.

I’d guess you didn’t stick with this blog for 4 years specifically hoping for measurable results- you did it because you enjoy it and feel compelled to share info with the rest of the community. It works because it’s nurtured and has time devoted to it, etc.

Many people install social networking applications and – without marketing them or doing much more than posting a notice in the “news” section- expect patrons to start using them. What reason do we give patrons to use something like tagging?

If we’ve built a community of discussions and threads and interactions where people want to do more to develop the content, that’s when tagging can work. But we seem to be putting the cart before the horse in a lot of instances.

[quote]For me, a no-brainer library 2.0 activity would be to agressively market library databases outside the library walls, in the community – the whole targeted thing. That would be a very new, unusual, L2.0-ish thing for many libraries.[/quote]

I am 100% with you here! I’m amazed that even people who work in our libraries aren’t aware of the resources we offer.

But we can’t just send the message “We have databases.” For the average patron, that means nothing.

I’m thinking of a series of articles (promoted to the local media) that each focus on a different database, what’s contained in it and how it can be used.

I just have to convince my PR department to get on board…

How will this work? is easy enough to determine.

What will make people want to do this? is much more abstract.

Social tagging is a concept that’s not intuitive for the average user. Teens, sure. But teens are out tagging content on social networks, not coming to the library to go through the catalog and tag things.

The hard part soemtimes is knowing when to stick with it and when to move on and try something else.

I’d guess you didn’t stick with this blog for 4 years specifically hoping for measurable results- you did it because you enjoy it and feel compelled to share info with the rest of the community. It works because it’s nurtured and has time devoted to it, etc.

Many people install social networking applications and – without marketing them or doing much more than posting a notice in the “news” section- expect patrons to start using them. What reason do we give patrons to use something like tagging?

If we’ve built a community of discussions and threads and interactions where people want to do more to develop the content, that’s when tagging can work. But we seem to be putting the cart before the horse in a lot of instances.

[quote]For me, a no-brainer library 2.0 activity would be to agressively market library databases outside the library walls, in the community – the whole targeted thing. That would be a very new, unusual, L2.0-ish thing for many libraries.[/quote]

I am 100% with you here! I’m amazed that even people who work in our libraries aren’t aware of the resources we offer.

But we can’t just send the message “We have databases.” For the average patron, that means nothing.

I’m thinking of a series of articles (promoted to the local media) that each focus on a different database, what’s contained in it and how it can be used.

I just have to convince my PR department to get on board…