World Wide Library

When introducing my Advanced Internet class I struggle, at times, to describe Web 2.0 to the uninitiated. The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, from Edison to Google provides a nice summary:

Through the first decade of its existence… the World Wide Web was a fairly prosaic place for most of us. We used it mainly as a giant catalog, a collection of “pages” bound together with hyperlinks. We “read” the Web, browsing through its contents in a way that wasn’t so different from the way we’d thumb through a pile of magazines. When we wanted to do real work, or play real games, we’d close our Web browser and launch one of the many programs installed on our own hard drive: Microsoft Word, maybe, or Aldus Pagemaker, or Encarta, or Myst.

But beneath the Web’s familiar, page-like surface lay a set of powerful technologies, including sophisticated protocols for describing and transferring data, that promised not only to greatly magnify the usefulness of the Internet but to transform computing itself. These technologies would allow all the computers hooked up to the Net to act, in effect, as a single information-processing machine, easily sharing bits of data and strings of software code. Once the technologies were fully harnessed, you’d be able to use the Internet not just t look at pages on individual sites but to run sophisticated software programs that might draw information from many sites and databases simulaneously. You’d be able not only to “read” from the Internet but to “write” to it as well – just as you’ve always been able to read from and write to your PC’s hard drive. The World Wide Web would turn into the World Wide Computer.

It’s a lesson the libraries especially need to take to heart – internet users are unimpressed by our static websites – no changes for weeks on end. It’s akin to opening your doors and then walking away. Some patrons would be happy for the materials – if they could find it. But some would wonder how this warehouse is different from the Barnes and Noble down the street – what makes the Library different and essential? We need to make our websites, including catalogs, writable as well as readable.

In other news, only a quarter of the way through this book is fascinating – even to this demanding non-reader.