Back in April I went to the annual meeting of the Washington Library Association. One highlight was a sort of debate on Library 2.0 between OCLC analyst and columnist Walt Crawford and The Librarian In Black, Sarah Houghton-Jan. It wasn't really a debate because they agreed more than otherwise, but it was very interesting.
Both talked about what you need to consider when thinking about offering a new service. What sticks in my head is Crawford's comment that a lot of virtual programs are "light-weight," by which he didn't mean shallow, but that they were not burdensome. If it's cheap and not labor-intensive, don't debate it, try it. If it doesn't work, toss it out and try something else.
I was reminded of this by an article in the August issue of Editor and Publisher. Joe Strupp, the author, asked newspapers the biggest mistakes they had made in creating web features. There were some doozies.
The problem librarians are most likely to sympathize with is creating an elaborate site that nobody wants to visit. Even the New York Times had that problem with a real estate blog.
The San Francisco Chronicle probably wished for a lack of visitors after fans of two rival football teams used the newspaper's comment space to plan a street fight.
But my favorite was The Denver Post's decision to automatically refresh their webpage every ten minutes, because people want the newest news, right? Wrong, if you happen to do the crossword puzzle on the web and find your work erased every ten minutes.
One reason libraries hesitate to try jumping into the new media is the fear of making mistakes. Hell, if the New York Times screws up, you know that we will too. Deciding that that is okay is the first step forward.
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