Blog 4: The Job of Organizing

In some ways, the organization of books and materials by the general public has been a good thing. I believe it has made some information easier to find. With so many people describing information via tagging, there is bound to be a least one other person who related a tag you are thinking of with the information you are looking for. The implications of this trend on librarians are that they may be seen as no longer necessary.

When information is so readily available, why do we require professional information seekers? Because with too many different organizers there has become a lack of control. Yes, information is easier to find but it is up to librarians to help people find information that is reliable. Librarians must embrace Web 2.0 technologies in order to stay relevant and use them to educate the public. School librarians need to teach students how to effectively search through the overwhelming amount of information, determine what is factual, and then how to properly use it. Librarians must also use Web 2.0 technologies to sell themselves to the public just as any other company or organization does. They must work to get out the message that libraries are still relevant and important and then explain why.

Delicious

Tags that I use to describe a website are definitely more useful for me when looking for information I need. I always think like me whereas I may not always think like the cataloger or indexer who organized a specific book. I am often frustrated when looking for a book in the catalog at my public library. I have to guess what keywords the librarian was thinking of when they placed this book into the system. This is something I do not have to do with information I organize myself. Also, tags allow for information to be organized in a more detailed way then subject headings. If there is a specific paragraph on a website that interests me, I can use tags to describe that specific paragraph and not just the entire work as a whole.