Recent Material On Web 2.0

A number of interesting texts about Web 2.0 technologies have come to my attention in the past few days:

1) Participatory Networks: The Library as Conversation, a discussion paper on interactive social networking by David Lankes and Joanne Silverstein, Information Institute of Syracuse:

"The rise of new web applications that both facilitate and depend upon user contributions has exposed a number of serious issues that today's libraries must face. These web services allow users to easily:"

• build digital collections (YouTube, FLIKR);
• join and create social networks (or digital collections of people such as MySPACE, Facebook); and
• self publish (Blogger, LiveJournal).

"The advance of these tools have had impacts in multiple areas. One clear example is on software developers (and consumers). Software developers now release early betas of software to a community for testing and refinement... sometimes creating permanent betas that never get officially 'finished.' Software developers also often look to a loosely coupled cadre of programmers to create and/or maintain software and standards through open source. These shifts in the Internet software community have already begun to impact libraries. User expectations for the online catalog and the services of a library they can access online have changed, and libraries must keep up."

"The American Library Association's Office for Information Technology Policy has contracted the Information Institute of Syracuse to research and write a detailed technology brief on the topic of participatory networks. The brief will put an emphasis on interactive and social web applications such as blogs, social networks, and include a survey of the general 'Web 2.0' and 'Library 2.0' development world. The idea is to present a comprehensive document library decision makers can use to understand the new wave of social Internet applications, and devise strategies to respond to potential opportunities and threats. The draft of the document will be shared with ALA as well as experts in the field for initial comments in September and October. A public forum will be incorporated into a final drat document at the 2006 LITA Forum in Nashville."

2) Riding the Waves of "Web 2.0" by Mary Madden and Susannah Fox of the Pew Internet Project:

" 'Web 2.0' has become a catch-all buzzword that people use to describe a wide range of online activities and applications, some of which the Pew Internet & American Life Project has been tracking for years. As researchers, we instinctively reach for our spreadsheets to see if there is evidence to inform the hype about any online trend. What follows is a short history of the phrase, along with some data to help frame the discussion."

3) Why Wiki? , an online presentation by the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee:

"A Wiki is a website which visitors can modify. Wikipedia, an open encyclopedia, has become a very popular research site in recent years. This online video course will introduce you to the benefits and disadvantages of the new and controversial publication format."

• "Part One - Introduction: Start here to get an overview of how Wikis work and how to use Wikipedia. This section includes a guided tour of some articles which have been produced by the Wikipedia community."
• "Part Two - Caveats: What are the problems with Wikipedia? This section covers topics such as vandalism, content controversies, and coverage biases. The future of Wikipedia is also discussed."
• "Part Three - Comparisons: How does Wikipedia measure up to other sources? Given Wikipedia's failures, this section emphasizes the need to critically evaluate information from all publication types."
• "Part Four - Other Wikis: This section covers Wikipedia's sister projects and other fan sites which use the Wiki software. It ends with a review of how libraries and librarians are using Wikis, and how you can create your own Wiki."