Thing #17 On Web 2.0 and Libraries

I've just read the articles by Kelly and Tom Storey. They discussed the same thing but I had very different reactions to the two articles. Kelly's presentation and her tutorials on how to write for the web really opened my eyes. I thought I had been writing in plain English and a fairly informal style. When I saw examples of web sites for other cultural institutions and the enewsletters SLV's Webunit has produced I cringed at how stuffy and formal my own writing seemed. I realise that if I want to communicate well with our users I need to loosen up and adopt a much simpler style. By that I don't mean tossing in the odd piece of tech-talk or using punctuation to create smiley faces, or even caring less about grammar and spelling. The point for me is that I need to be concise, friendly without being patronising and to be on my guard about using complicated words when simple ones will do the job just as well.

Tom Storey's short article scared me. It struck me that in the excitement of finding all the amazing ways we can used web-based tools to communicate we are in serious danger of forgetting that not everyone has access to these things or even wants access. I think public libraries are aware they have a role to play in providing web access to people who can't afford it at home. I do think though that as librarians become more adept at using all these things they become so excited about all these "cool tools" they run the risk of expecting the whole population to feel the same way. It is very important to remember all the people who don't like using computers, don't have access to Learning 2.0 type programs and don't have the money to pay for Broadband or even pay for a dial up service. I think it is going to be critical for us to be happy to guide those people who want or need to learn, but not marginalise or dismiss the many people who are managing their lives quite nicely without Web 2.0 or a mobile phone. In other words while we definitely need to make the best use possible of new technologies and applications, we have to make sure that access to information never becomes out of reach for people who don't have access to these things by choice or circumstances.