LIS 9763

I can remember my favourite mix tape. I was seventeen—the boy who gave it to me moved to Red Deer the following day. Half was dedicated to music he thought I would like, the other half was his music. Whenever I’m in Winnipeg, and close to my old tape player, I listen to it.
 
This was media sharing less than ten years ago. It’s very web 1.0—person to person, and that’s what made it special. Media sharing 2.0 is special in it’s own way. The one to many idea would have allowed that boy to proclaim his boyish love to anyone who would cared to listen. Anyway, that’s how I interoperate the media sharing shift, now let’s talk about how this shift will affect libraries.
 
Library are places of media sharing. The library purchases a CD, or, DVD, you take it home, bring it back, and the next person takes it out. Media sharing, right? In a traditional sense, yes. What about on-line content? Should libraries share media on-line?
 
This week’s readings seemed to indicate that there is a practical purpose. I’m still undecided if I agree, but there were two applications for media sharing that popped out to me.
 
1)      YouTube could be used to distribute patron’s opinions.
 
The article by Good argues that a library could use YouTube videos to connect with their user community. The question is; what do you want to communicate?
Well reading this, I had an idea; YouTube readers advisory. The library could encourage patrons to create, and post comments on a book. Perhaps this could happen at the library, during a book club? Or, perhaps the library could congregate book reviews from YouTube.
In order for Media sharing to be successful, there has to be some interaction between the user and the library. If the library simply posts videos about the library, or providing reasons why libraries rock (slight bias, sorry), the structure leads away from media sharing, and turns in to, media. We have to remember, sharing is what it’s about.
 
2)      Flickr in archives. 
 
Finally, I get to talk about archives! So, in my opinion this is the best use of media sharing. Not only can archives promote themselves, but users can contribute to a virtual repository. Individuals generally want to hold on to their family keepsakes, but, in the same respect, they want to share what they have. In the article by Mercado touches on this idea. This application would encourage individuals to share their collections. Archives would be free to act not as an institution that dictates what would be shared, rather, as a contributor of content. Placing archives on the same level as its patrons is truly web 2.0. It would allow patrons, who may otherwise by reluctant to contribute their content to an archives because they believe what they own is not archival, to share. After all, sharing is what it’s all about.
 
These are the applications that stuck out in my mind. I am sure there are plenty of other applications; however, as Good asks--it all depends on what you are trying to communicate