Zeth Lietzau – He did a study on public libraries and web 2.0 tools…
What is Library 2.0? – They defined it via the Wikipedia definition.
Looked at:
- online catalog
- personalized library account
- blogs/rss
- virtual reference
- wikis
- social networking
- podcasting
in large libraries (ones that serve over 500,000 people), only 45% have an online library card signup! Libraries that serve 100,000 – 499,999 only 15% have an online signup form. Yikes! Uhm… this is not hard, people – it’s a simple signup form!
Other numbers were quite dismal…
estimated percentage of US libraries using various 2.0 technologies:
- catalog tags – 1%
- facebook – 2%
- flickr – 5%
- online card signup – 5%
- MySpace – 6%
- RSS Feeds – 14%
- Chat Reference – 22%
- Email reference – 31%
- Blogs – 31%
- Online account access – 56%
- online catalog – 62%
- web presence – 82%
Some good examples for libraries (from 2005 stats):
- Hennepin County Library
- Lincoln City Liberaries
- Benicia Public Library
- Rocky River Public Library
- Lena Public Library
What do these innovators have that other libraries don’t?
- they have more staffing
- more money per capita
- bigger audio/visual collections
- they have more circ/more use of the library
