Away from the "icebergs"

All of the perspectives in the Web 2.0 OCLC Next Space Newsletter are interesting and exciting, but for us, not yet terribly realistic. In the "away from the icebergs" essay, the "just in case" paragraph caught my attention. One line reads, "As a Web 2.0 reality continues to emerge and develop, our patrons will expect access to everything - digital collections of journals, books, blogs, podcasts, etc." As I look at our customers at the computers, they are currently stymied by their inability to get onto Myspace or YouTube due to our bandwidth issues. The technology is moving too fast for us. By the time we are up and competitive, the technology will be changing yet again, and we may not be prepared. Does this mean we shouldn't try to offer the customer everything? No, but we need to take it one step at a time. The patrons who are truly using these new technologies have the means at home or at their jobs to do so; our users are usually those without computers at home, or those whose printers have run out of ink. They don't come in asking if they can listen to someone's latest podcast, or ask if we can help them set up blogs. They come in to check email, check myspace messages, play video games, or print driving directions. They're miles away from doing EVERYTHING at the computer. I think our books are safe for a while yet.