#23 Sayonara

I have to be honest and say that I didn't really learn a lot from the whole program, mostly because I had a fair amount of experience with many of the Things anyway. The frustration I experienced when things didn't work properly, or how I expected them to, was probably educational with relation to our patrons who claim to be "computer illiterate".

I did, however, get an alarmingly good sense of just how faddish the whole "2.0" phenomenon is becoming. The NSLA's discussion paper is another example of the infiltration. As someone who instinctively distrusts fads, I think that libraries should be cautious about jumping into these buzzword-oriented activities without thinking about a few things.

"Go where your users are" is an admirable sentiment, but what if our users don't want us there? Sorry, but people use things like MySpace and Facebook to connect with people, not with institutions. I've said it before and I'll say it again: corporate attempts to co-opt social networking technologies are doomed to fail. No one believes telemarketers are really concerned for your financial stability or the plight of the starving children in whatever third world country. They're out for your business, and are treated as such. Similarly, corporate newsletters and annual reports are about as interesting to read as the list of artificial colours and flavourings on a packet of lollies. Corporate or institutional blogs are just about as fascinating.

As far as I can work out, 2.0 is all about the individual and groups of individuals forming a community. If we really want to take advantage of this, we need to stop thinking of ourselves as employees of a library and think of ourselves as contractors for hire who get a retainer from a larger organisation. We need to connect with individuals as individuals, play to our strengths. Mind you, I am all in favour of being part of a larger organisation with its reputation and weight behind me. I don't particularly want all of our patrons to be able to email me personally or chat with me 24/7, to look at photos of my cat or holiday, to read what I read and know what books I own. Nor do I want to engage with them that way. I like the boundary between my professional life and my personal life, really—and I like to be able to choose when to cross that boundary and how far to go.

I think that we can use these tools to learn from each other as professionals, and the groups and individuals that have done so are great examples. I've mentioned a lot of them before, so won't go into it again. But that's what we should be concentrating on.

As far as the program goes, I have to say that I generally spent more than an hour a week doing the Things. Maybe I explored a little too much, maybe I spent too long writing up rants in my blog. But some weeks it really felt like a lot of pressure to get it all done. A more relaxed pace—say, one Thing a week except where some of the Things were really just different steps in a process (eg Things 2-4)—would have been better.

I also think that more guidance would be helpful. Everyone has different learning styles, so some might find it helpful to have more written instructions/screenshots. Others would probably benefit from a more workshoppy type thing, say an hour a week where a group of people get together and go through the Thing for that week; learning from each other and in a more social environment rather than following a set of instructions. I personally found the podcasts odious and didn't use them beyond the first exercise; if you've read my blog you'll probably understand why. I also found the patronising tone of "don't forget to give yourself a big pat on the back!" to be particularly annoying. What am I, six?

Finally, although I am all in favour of learning being fun, telling someone to go out and explore, play and generally have a good time does not necessarily mean they will. An undertone of "this is all amazingly fun and if you don't enjoy it or get it then you're just not hip enough/forward-thinking enough/participating in your own obsolescence" really doesn't help. And this tone is coming through pretty loud and clear through all the 2.0 propaganda, from the pundits in Thing 15 to the NSLA paper I linked to above. You will like this! You will have fun now! You are not good enough so you will now change! And above all, you will not be critical!

I never was very good at following instructions.