L2 oh.

Let me just start by reminding everyone that Halloween is right around the corner.  Okay, I'm a first time parent, blah, blah, blah, but this means that I am looking at baby costumes and I just have to share one that I found on amazon.com.  It's hilarious. Okay, I probably won't end up doing that to my daughter, but aren't you glad you saw this? Yeah, I thought so.

I also want to let everyone know just how much time I frittered away this week playing with this 2.0 stuff.  Holy #%$$!  A few really good things came out of it.  I completely streamlined my digital life using iGoogle.  I centralized all my various accounts to one page so that I wouldn't have to keep going to different urls to check all my stuff.  I'm sure I am the last person to do this, but if I'm not and if, by chance, there is anyone out there who also hadn't discovered this little gem of info-then please take my advice and do it now.  It has completely changed my life. Okay, maybe not, but it's helpful.  And probably saves me an average of about 45 minutes per day.  The other good thing is that I figured out how to blog by phone.  My original impetus to do so was because I had so many photos on my phone camera and wanted to post some of them to another blog I just started about my daughter.  After HOURS of trying to figure it out, I finally got it, but when I uploaded the pics to the blog, they didn't work.  Ugh.  Next best thing came when I realized that I could upload all my photos to Picasa and have them stored right in the clouds! So, all was not in vain. It's amazing what technology exists and that I am only just figuring it out now.  I'm old.

Jump to-point of this week's reading about participatory services and redesign in the library.  L2? YES!!! We have to, we must, it's the only way! Okay, let's just get something straight, though-I am not THAT old, but I can tell you that most of the people my age and older couldn't care less about tweeting and don't really use too much participatory technology in their daily lives apart from Facebook.  However, I think the only way to stay relevant and to be able to "speak" the language of the younger generations, libraries especially have got to get on board.  And I don't mean just with the technology.  That whole idea of changing the mission of the library in John Blyberg's blog is what I'm talking about and what The Transformation Lab is all about.  I mean that Lab is outrageous! Who wouldn't want to work there? I found myself asking, "what do I deep down think a library's goal and services should be?" Is it to be a meeting place? Is it to get information? Is it to be able to read? Is it a place for entertainment? Is it a place for self-discovery and learning?  What do I use my library for? How often do I realistically use my library? What would make me use it more?

We all know the quiet book library is a dying, if not already dead library.  Libraries have to ask themselves those same questions. Who aren't we reaching? How can we get to those people? What could we offer our patrons that would really enhance their experience here?  What are we doing to make finding things easier? Are we accessible from home? Do we provide relevant programs that our community actually cares about? What does our community care about?I guess that's what L2 is to me so even if a library can't financially do what The Transformation Lab did, they can still ask the important questions and be willing to change.