This is a really positive and forward looking set of statements which should not only put CILIP onto a good footing for future development and use of Web 2.0 technologies, but should also help professional colleagues push the case for the use of these within their own organisations.

I'm very keen to see how these statements will develop in practical terms, and so I'd like to see somewhere where all of these things can be documented in the longer term, perhaps in a blog designed for that exact purpose perhaps.

Really pleased to see that CILIP are taking on board comments from members and critical friends. Some initial thoughts

1.Please keep hashtags short - otherwise you'll have the umbrella #fail scenario

2. For open meetings can you try and stream them, or put papers/presentations online in advance so that those virtual attendees can participate rather than lurk

Look forward to seeing how this progresses

Well, if it's a blog it'll have an RSS feed attached. People can then simply subscribe to it and 'forget' about it until there's a new post. Not that I'm particularly wedded to the idea of a blog - a wiki might work as well, but may require more upkeep. Irrespective, if CILIP is going to try things and report back to people on what works for them and what doesn't, it seems to make sense to collate all the data in one place.

Interesting that CILIP says that "it" needs "to gain some basic practical knowledge of a minimum set of technologies which are currently used for such communication, including: blogs, communities" etc.

If memory serves we're always being told (and rightly so) that CILIP means the membership itself, not just a small group of employed personnel at Ridgmount St.

It is absolutely correct that CILIP employees exploit the new technology, but I fear that we may end up in that old 80/20 management adage - that 80% of CILIP's new effort will only help those 20% of people who have a handle on these new communication technologies. Until the membership as a whole receives the time and the training and experience of exploiting these tools, I remain concerned that the effectiveness of this paper will remain marginal to the vast majority of who CILIP really are, the membership.

Can I assume that Cilip has seen the recent publicity about young people leaving twitter in droves ?

I think the most important thing is to find out if your community are using these social media if you are going to invest your time building your profile on them. From my experience there are a lot of library and information professionals using Twitter, so I'd recommend it. We've found it very useful for connecting with people we've not reached before and for finding out about interesting things happening in the research information world. See Twellow directory of librarians www.twellow.com/search.php and Just Tweet It justtweetit.com/.../librarians. And a shameless plug - you can always follow us on Twitter!: research_inform

I'm sorry Chris but I feel confident enough to disagree with some of your views, as you do with mine. I would argue that there are some libraries which are exploiting Web 2.0 technology but many more which are not. Besides not all CILIP members work in libraries - what about people who work in the voluntary/community sector or those in workplaces?

I am glad that CILIP, as an institution, is preparing to use these new technologies - I am not a luddite. If I were I wouldn't be posting this! But merely "hoping" that the membership will be able to use web 2.0 because CILIP staff are taking a lead is simply not good enough. The membership should be offered some form of cheap or subsidised training on the main aspects of this technology sooner rather than later.

As a humble CILIP member (you know the sort who's Update and Gazette remains in their plastic packets for months and then get thrown in the bin) can I just say that I have had more meaningful engagement with CILIP through social networking sites in the last 2 months than in the last 20 years!

Thank you for coming to find me on the likes of twitter, which I use to share good practice with other school librarians,and fits my hectic lifestyle.

I applaud this draft document.  Setting up a channel aggregating dashboard for Councillors is a good idea and vital to future progress. Using netvibes to bring information to me with subscriptions to blogs and

networking sites has revolutionised the way I keep up to date on what is happening in the profession.

I wrote this response to Phil Bradley's post on his blog about this CILIP Web 2.0 paper (though his blog said 'We're sorry, we cannot accept this data' - probably due to my comment's length?).

So I'm posting it here...

Which I was going to do as well anyway...

It strongly echoes a point Sarah Gentleman has made above!

* * *

Hi Phil,

As you say, the first point that the CILIP Council team make is that "It is important to take our message to (and glean our intelligence from) the channels that are actually being used, rather than expecting all members and stakeholders to bother to come to the services we provide."

One additional piece of the puzzle that I think might be useful here is for someone to provide a simple listing of all the online places where CILIP members are active – along with some basic usage stats, eg a graph that shows the relative popularity of each of these channels (posts per month?).

You already know where most of these CILIP-related places are, I probably know too, but the average CILIP member might well struggle to list that many URLs...

Even better to show posting volume over a few months, so we can see which channels are growing, and which are so far into 'tumbleweed syndrome' that they might require termination (if CILIP-owned).

[Is there somewhere we could put a public doc with such info? Or - far better - a way to automatically plot the number posts in various channels over time?).

I was - of course - quite glad to see that CILIP's Council is keen to set up a channel aggregator page - for CILIP staff and members.

I think it's the quickest way to bring alive all these CILIP-related Web 2.0 discussions for us all, and it encourages people to respond to them – making more permeable the barrier that many members seem to perceive exists between Ridgmount Street and them.

(Though we still face the issue that CILIP staff tend to want to respond in private – which means that only one person ever gets to learn that CILIP has been responsive and helpful - or has already done something good on a topic. I think we're missing a trick by not letting everyone see such responses...).

I've been working on exactly this since March, when I first suggested producing a Netvibes web-monitoring dashboard to my colleagues at CILIP. When it has been through the required system of checks and balances I hope it might fulfil the vision that Council now have for it. (It's a significant part of the way there already).

The more I think about it, the more I realise that I ***really*** like their idea that CILIP could provide the tools for members to produce their own Netvibes dashboards.

This would enable CILIP members to develop a useful cutting-edge tool that could be shared beyond the library/LRC or other dept where they work.

CILIP members can use their expertise in crafting the right web searches to produce targeted RSS feeds, that make Netvibes really work properly and became invaluable to an organisation.

So we get to show off some of our best information-seeking skills and provide something useful for our organisations.

Go for it! :-)

As with most digital developments, of course, if we don't jump on it pretty promptly, then other non-LIS departments will take control of the dashboards, and gain any resulting kudos...

Not least as Netvibes is free and easy to use - so anyone eager can just pitch up and put it to work, if an LIS pro doesn't get in there first.

Anyway, I think we should gather these Netvibes-related tools, search best practices etc asap - and get our members some recognition, stem the marginalisation that is often faced these days.

Here's what Council said: "The single most effective use of the current technology would be to set up a channel-aggregating dashboard. We recommend rolling this out immediately to all members of CILIP Staff and Governance structure, to provide real-time intelligence on what is being said about CILIP and about Library and Information Services. In the slightly longer term, as a service to our members, we should provide access either to a readymade dashboard, or the tools for them to customise their own."

Thanks, Phil, for your gentle encouragement of CILIP - plus the odd bit of more energetic prodding - in a more open and responsive Web 2.0 direction.

Cheers,

Matthew Mezey

(News Editor, Library and Information Update magazine)

Excellent to see CILIP members taking the plunge(s). Don't be discouraged by those (like me) who forever lurk. You probably have a lot more followers than you can see.

Encouraging, and nice to see the acknowledgment that CILIP Scotland has already embraced Web.2. I hope big sister can learn from your Scottish sibling. ;-)