Web 2.0: the future

There are many opinions about the fenomenon Web 2.0, some people have made it a cult and they believe this is a new revolution as it happened during the .com era.

Others are more reluctant to see the positive effect of this new wave. To mention one, Andrew Keen, the author of a new book that is making everybody talk (or post) on the blogsphere: "The cult of the amateur : how today's internet is killing our culture and assaulting our economy".

I hope to get the book soon, his view catches my attention. It's quite controversial and hits us where it hurts, our narcisism as he states this "wisdom of crowds" on the web is purely "popular delusion""just 15 minutes of fame". He says so much of the collaborative content this phenomena brings is mediocre, and coupled with its anonymity and anarchy leads to big companies abuse (ex. YouTube) and worse of all, is destroying culture. He simply states leave it to the individual, professional mind.

My opinion is not that radical, I believe this new era we are navigating right now is opening the door to new opportunities on how we learn, relate to each other and how we view the world. But, leaves me wondering: ... at what cost?
There were times in history when the order of things changed mercilessly. Let's think about the birth of the radio in the mid 20th century ... later on the TV... the internet in the 90's... the creation of the CDs and DVDs.. Napster and the mp3s revolution .... All of them made a conmotion and change our lives enormeously. Certainly there was a high price: the cult of the radio, LP records, cassettes, VHS video tapes and cameras... all dead and buried so far... and others on death row: floppy disks, music CDs, non digital cameras ...

What about BOOKS...??
Not dead, obviously, but fiercely competing for they survival... don't you think?
Will they still be alive and kicking for long? Will they be replaced one day by any other form of.... Digital gadget? Online books? Blogs? Big discussion. But a new era is coming and I believe we are in a stage of TRANSITION.

Video stores... music stores.... photo labs... they all had to adapt or die... what about LIBRARIES ? Is it our turn to walk the green mile?

How we adapt to this a new world Web 2.0 is opening? What will be the price? What can libriarians do to minimise the cost until we settle into a new structure?
In the article "A new world of librarianship" specific solutions are discussed. Libraries' future will be guided by how users access, consume and create content. So what will "librarian"mean then? Michael Stephens describe him as a person (still highly trained???) to help users become their own programming director for all of the content available to them.
Not sure what this mean... Techno-facilitators? e-librarians? Blog-masters? IT mentors? online info specialist?
We don't know yet, but in this article To a temporary place in time we have a good imaginary trip to a time she calls it: "Library 4.0, the neo-library/knowledge spa".
I'm not that optimistic. Technology is making us colder, unattached, information is there ready-digested, wysiswyg, and to be "copy-pasted".
So I believe few people will use a Library as a mind-gym or "(...) a spa or retreat from technohustle". This world is becoming ultra fast paced and the more refined and advanced it becomes, the deeper we need to dig beneath the surface to find our true values.

My view: The future library, once the temple of books, will be sort of a refuge camp for the older generations, as for the newer generations, well, this is my wish, I would like to see the whole Internet itself, as a big universal digital library, a new form of organization of this source of knowledge, as it was envisioned back in the early 90s. Would dollar-hungry corporations let it happen? ...