BOBCATSSS Panel
From SIG Library 2.0
Web 2.0/ Web 3.0
There is a lot of talk and writing about web 2.0 and the first people are already discussing web 3.0. There is more and more the feeling that this may only be hype. What should libraries do in this situation? What does it mean for the future of research? We would like to talk about new options and methods, and about the consequences for identity management, privacy, and sharing. In the panel we would like to be open to a very wide spectrum of definitions to the differences between web 2.0 and web 3.0. Also we like to discuss a few examples of which services can be used in a library environment. Can the academic sector also use web 2.0 services or is this only something for the public libraries?
Very important points are metadata and classification for both of concepts. David Weinberger wrote in his book „ Everything Miscellaneous“ that classification is outdated, and social tagging will be enough. What does this mean for the libraries? On the other hand, the semantic web (which is a part of the web 3.0) can profit from good metadata. What role can librarians play there? And what must they learn in the future so that they can take part in this development? And will Information specialists lose their jobs? Future developments in searching on the web could allow internet users to find and analyse content more easily. Thus information specialists might no longer necessary for providing users with quality information, answering queries, analysing data and checking the relevance. Artificial intelligence and semantic web techniques might be able to complete the same tasks so information specialists may lose their job. Or will this just change the role of information specialists, which are aware of the crucial information sources, new developments in information search and retrieval techniques?
Is our privacy is in danger? According to Hugh Glaser the Semantic web technology can combine multiple pieces of information about persons, places and their activities. So a search engine can provide anyone with your personal profile of interests for example. Present technology cannot protect all personal digital data. Developers must work on software and tools which are necessary in the market. So if digital privacy will be a big issue, programmers may create new techniques to control your privacy.
Will there be a second digital divide? People are growing dependent on the internet, because more and more real-life activities are done online (like banking, shopping and working), so non-internet users might not be able to operate in the new “online society”. How will they adapt to this new digital world?
The last point that we would like to discuss is the implication of copyright issues. If, like Lawrence Lessig says, there is more and more of a remix culture, what does this mean for the data of libraries? What can libraries do in this field? This brings up many other questions, as well].
We hope that we can find answers to some of these questions even if we cannot find solutions for everything.
