Cultural Heritage

If a Tree Falls in the Forest – and other thoughts on Web 2.0 Evaluation (pt. 2)

Linda Berube continues her guest post. (Read Part 1)

Back to the Tree

Given such focused objectives as listed for a virtual book discussion group, there still may be no discernible response from the online public to Facebook book discussion announcements, to library blog posts etc. But a librarian should not necessarily give up hope if met with deafening silence. In my book, DO You Web 2.0?, I discuss the different communication paradigms for Web 1.0 and Web 2.0. For the former, the communication is usually one way; in the case of libraries, the corporate web page is all about communication from library to community (one to many). Sometimes, there is two-way communication, but it is usually one-to-one and asynchronous (email, and email-based such as web forms). With Web 2.0, communication is many to many and in real-time. For libraries, this would mean not only users contributing to the library web page, through comments, tagging, and even content, but also using the library virtual space to communicate to other users.

However, quite a few libraries are using Web 2.0 tools in a Web 1.0 manner: blogs, Facebook, Twitter etc are used to announce events, new books, etc—essentially for one-to-many communication. There is not anything necessarily wrong with this, unless the objective was to change the communication paradigm with users. In other words, if the intention was to create a blog so as to encourage user response, and posts only ever come from librarians, then something has gone wrong in the planning.

Still, if users do not post on a library blog, does this mean the blog has not fulfilled its purpose? About a year ago, I would have answered an unqualified yes. While it is true that a blog is an online diary of sorts and therefore might be considered a satisfying enough solitary experience, broadcasting opinions and activities over the network rather begs an audience and some degree of feedback from that audience. However, in the process of writing the book, reviewing how blogs are used by libraries, intentionally or unintentionally, and talking with a number of librarians, I see it a bit differently. For example, according to Eli Neiburger at Ann Arbor District Library in the US “items featured in blog posts immediately see 100%-400% increases in the number of requests. So we know people are reading the blogs, and we find that almost a third of our event attendees find out about events online in our blogs or listings”. [Footnote] If a library has the statistical software and the staff time and knowledge that can uncover this kind of causal link across services, the resulting analysis may reveal not only public interest, but an impact on other library services based on that interest.

The Results of Twittering Trees Falling

Eli observed that ‘circulation-styled metrics’ upon which libraries have traditionally relied may not be sufficient in the new communication paradigm introduced by Web 2.0. I would agree and disagree. On the one hand, the straightforward counting of repeated activities — circulating books, reserves, inter-library loans — does not accommodate the kind of mining of data required to identify the subtle but real impact or value to communities, the causal links, as demonstrated in the Ann Arbor experience. However, these metrics still have a place, as they do with any service, public or commercial. In an age when the public library penchant for questioning its value in the face of declining numbers all around has reached an even more obsessive pitch than usual, we cannot escape that we are fighting to maintain, if not increase, our numbers, whether they represent physical or virtual activities or visits. The fight for relevance may boil down to a fight for numbers, and while we want to ensure that we are delivering and can measure value, it really won’t matter if it is delivered to a vanishing community.

Footnote

From email correspondence with author, 29 April 2010. Ann Arbor is an acknowledged leader in the use of Web 2.0 technology in public libraries, with blogs and RSS feeds integrated onto the pages of the corporate library website, a ‘social catalogue’ where users can tag and write reviews, as well as create a personal card catalogue. See http://www.aadl.org