Building Web-scale Libraries

Advances in technology have overlaid our landscape with increasingly rich networks, and the web is simply the current state of this ongoing process of network evolution. As new models of communication, collaboration, consumption, and provision coalesce around this web-based network, this has introduced pressures for adaptation and change in all aspects of society, including libraries. The library of today is an artefact of older networks, built to support the provision of information in printed form. One of the salient features of the new web-based network is scale, in terms of both the ability to concentrate resources and capacities, and the means to deliver them to consumers all over the world. Library structures must adapt to these imperatives. In short, we must build web-scale libraries. This book proposes a new framework for exploring this transition to the library of the future. The implications of this framework are illustrated by a new model of the library built around Web 2.0 concepts in a platform environment, and examples are offered of how the pattern of transaction costs prevailing in the web-scale environment might impact upon library organization, collections, and services.
Chapters cover the following key topics such as: networks of information provision and consumption; the 'new' web-scale network; what is a library? a framework for yesterday and tomorrow; Web 2.0, platforms, and the library; and, applications for library organization, collections and services. Libraries need to redefine themselves and create value in this new environment which has altered how users search for information, and where the conduct of learning and scholarship is changing. All library and information professionals attempting to meet this challenge will find this book of great interest.