Miller and Chad's Library 2.0 white paper: My Two Cents' Worth

I was recently asked to review this "white paper" released by Ken Chad and Paul Miller and Talis in November 2005. Here's a summary of my conclusions:

The Library 2.0 concept is still young, and library professionals need to be cautious in implementing Miller and Chad’s vision of a web-driven, information-rich utopia. Their paper provides an accessible overview of the Library 2.0 concept, but fails to provide sufficient evidence to show that a Library 2.0 approach is necessary in an Internet age. Practical and theoretical problems in implementing the approach are also not explored in the Talis white paper. The need to clarify types of libraries and users served by a Library 2.0 approach is but one such example. The work of Hopkins and Leckie and Walt Crawford suggests several further avenues of exploration: the role of library buildings in shaping the library experience, the incursion of private technology companies into public space in Library 2.0 and the use of libraries for purposes other than information-gathering.

I found Walt Crawford's Summary of the Library 2.0 debate very useful for this assignment, as well as the following article, which is a very thorough and interesting study of the users of central reference libraries in Vancouver and Toronto:

Leckie, G. J. & Hopkins, J (2002) The public place of central libraries: findings from Toronto and Vancouver. Library Quarterly 72 (3) 326-72.

I look forward to reading the conclusions of my classmates at FIS regarding the white paper.