Thursday, 14 November 2013

11. Recommendations for Mascot Library (2.0 technologies)


As I already mentioned in my previous post, 2.0 technologies are very well used by our Mascot Library, and all 5 library service areas (Local Studies, Teenage/Youth, Adult Fiction, Info/Reference and especially Children's) are provided on their official website and blog.
Web 2.0 is about seeing the Web as a platform for services, and providing innovative software and services on the net.
Mascot Library especially succeeded in educating its members about Mascot Local Studies/History, using 2.0 technologies. The staff members created a whole blog about the history of the Library, the suburb itself and people living in the area (the blog-link was provided in one of previous posts). There are many interesting stories and photographs on the blog, plus a variety of great books provided by their online Catalogue and I would only recommend to the creators to post the articles more often.
Mascot Library website and its blog have a good collection of eResources for Children and Teenage/Youth (2 areas combined) where they provide the whole online collection of books, videos, magazines and other material-types just for teenagers and kids to enjoy. They've also used some podcasts, online eResources and databases, and the option to comment on items.
The Adult Fiction section is not as rich as the Children's, however they've included a tab called "New Adult Fiction" on their website, where people may find new interesting Adult Fiction online resources. It is probably the weakest area in terms of the use of 2.0 technologies, and I would strongly recommend the Library to provide more Web services to cover the area thoroughly.
And the last area, Information/Reference, one of the most important, is extremely well covered by the Mascot Library, using 2.0 technologies. There is a variety of rich databases and search systems provided on its blog and official website (like Zinio and OneClickdigital, etc.), the blog is also connected to other Information/Reference websites where people can find/learn more about the items they're looking for. Online services of the library include a Twitter/E-mail account and RSS Feed, where people can exchange messages and their opinion, and stay well-informed about new library activities and suchlike.
My recommendations for the Library would be to add more accounts like Facebook, Instant Messaging, Wikis, YouTube, Google+ and Flickr. These great sources of connection would improve Mascot Library services significantly. The examples of perfect library services in terms of using 2.0 technologies to its fullest are - the National Library of Australia (http://www.nla.gov.au/), The Library of America (http://www.loa.org/) and The British Library (http://www.bl.uk/).

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