Library 2.0 depends on an active collaboration between librarians and users. This means expending effort, on both sides, in ways that are mostly untried in the academic library world. For example, we're expecting users who enthusiastically participate in social networking for recreation will be willing to similarly collaborate with the library. Will one carry over to the other?

This reminds me of the old Carl Sandburg saying, "What if they gave a war and nobody came?" So how about this parallel: "What if we launched Library 2.0 and nobody came?"

My view of this future is uncertain.

For those librarians who embrace the concept of Library 2.0, we're expecting quite a lot from users. We'd like them to help us develop our Web sites, tag our content, comment on our blogs, collaborate with us in developing library services, provide advice to their peers about library resources and services, podcast with us, and so on. We expect that they'll be happy to see us on "their" community sites and will actively engage with us in these spaces.

Remember My Library? This was big when first released, and represents an early stage in the evolution of the participatory culture of Library 2.0. How have My Library projects fared over the years? I'm not familiar with recent statistics, but a study published by Virginia Commonwealth University in 2002, three years into their program, revealed a high number of inactive accounts. However, I notice that its My Library program still exists, so something must be going well enough to keep things running.

I'm waiting to see how much use is made of the review writing, table of contents and notes features in WorldCat.

What about librarians? The expectations for us are just as intense. Collaborating with users on our territory and theirs, opening up our systems to them, responding to their feedback and ideas, developing new types of services while letting go of others, all take a tremendous commitment. It will take a commitment just to figure out which initiatives might work for our institutions and which might not.

On just the social networking front, take a look at the numerous options noted in the excellent blog post by Ellyssa Kroski on Community 2.0. Also note her words: Community 2.0 means the end of walled gardens. It’s about building trust with users through quality, consistency, and the abdication of power. It’s about letting go of the fear of becoming obsolete and simply adapting and adopting a new strategy.

"Simply adapting and adopting" is hardly easy. We are expecting this of our users, too, in a transformed library world.

So what if we launch Library 2.0. Will anyone come in the way that we hope?