WebJunction

I'm Curious, George…

Blogs? Wikis? What the heck is this stuff, anyway? Sometimes when I read your site, I feel like I accidentally surfed over to www.startrek.com. Then I started thinking --call me a little paranoid if you want-- but maybe all this so-called techno-speak is really the secret language of an alien race that wants to take over our precious planet. Will they be coming after us with their "blogs" and "wikis", destroying our civilization and our way of life?

If so, I think they underestimate the power of librarians to fight back against oppression. I'll tell you one thing, George, if they try to use any of their "wiki" things on me, they're going to be very sorry they had that idea!

Realistically Cautious in Rapid City

Dear RC,

Whoa---I almost didn't get around to answering your question. That Star Trek site took me back to several wasted years of my youth and adolescence. When I was in library school, I had a friend who was also a Trekkie. He and I used to throw out single lines of dialogue, and the other guy had to identify the speaker and the episode. (Yes, I admit it, I was a founding member of the Order of Geeks.)

I can understand why you might think that some technology innovators come from the Planet of Wiki --I even found a map of their plans to wikify our libraries! The invasion of WebJunction is a fait accompli --just look at the Focus on Online Community. It has all the details of the plan for infiltration of our authoritative, catalogued, and controlled content systems by (cue Twilight Zone music: doodedoodoo doodedoodoo) patrons.

But wait! Now that I'm learning more about this alien stuff, I think I'm all for “going boldly where no [librarian] has gone before.” There are some cool things happening here under the name of social software. In Social Software in the Library, author K. Matthew Dames answers the what and the why of this new phenomenon, with some concise descriptions of blogs and RSS, WiFi, Instant Messaging, and handheld devices. If all that sounds a little beyond your technology plan and your budget, you'd be surprised at the simple tools the Stevens County Rural Library District has used to connect with their community online.

Your fellow librarians are indeed buzzing about this invasion, but the only oppression they're fighting is their lack of information about how to use these innovative technologies. With all the collaboration going on, that won't be an obstacle for long.

As Dames says, “Social software tools not only afford libraries the opportunity to extend its reach beyond the library building, but also allow the library to serve its patrons in ways that previously were impossible.”

And as Khan told Captain Kirk, we have "a world to conquer, an empire to build!"

Yours in Geekdom,

George

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