Librarians Buy Books, Too!

This is the conclusion to my tech. review assignment. I still can't believe that Paul Miller cites his OWN BLOG as his only source on the habits of "Digital Natives".

Conclusion:

"This review has demonstrated that Chad and Miller consistently fail to provide evidence for their claims while confusing the boundaries between corporations and public institutions; this in turn led to their inability to anticipate the practical and ethical implications of their initiatives. Libraries need companies like Talis to focus on matters of practice and to limit their sloganeering and "evangelism", particularly when many of the values of Library 2.0 are those already held by librarians.

These critiques are not intended to cast doubt on Web 2.0 technology itself, but rather on the ability of Chad and Miller to serve as its ambassadors. Walt Crawford distinguishes between the technology of Web 2.0 (i.e. Library 2.0 without quotation marks) and the “confrontational” hype of “Library 2.0” (Crawford M., 2006, p. 2-3). As he says: "Some (probably most) of today’s most innovative librarians see these new initiatives within the broader framework of successful existing services, and see the desirability of attracting new users within the framework of retaining the users who love what libraries currently do" (cited in Crawford M., 2006, p. 3). We would all do well to make this distinction."