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Other thoughts:
The role of librarians would move from building collections, to becoming expert filters and recommenders. The collections would exist out in the world, and be brought to the users "on demand", but librarians would play a key role in recommending titles that users may not know about. Other users/peers/anyone could also play this role together with librarians.
B. What if libraries were like Elance? (the ebay of freelance jobs)
For those of you who aren't familiar, Elance is like an "Ebay for services." A potential employer posts a project, and providers (such as freelance writers) bid on finishing the project, highlighting their qualifications.
1. Elance is topic centric. People can find jobs or find people to do jobs based on topics such as writing, programming, law, etc.
At MIT, people from different fields could post a research topic and librarians (or others at MIT) could bid on the jobs, offering to help with research in certain areas. This could bring together people across different fields of study who don't know each other, but have some expertise to contribute.
C. What if libraries were like Facebook?
1. Facebook has user profiles.
Universities (or particular departments) could have their own social networking systems, similar to Facebook. Students could make profiles appropriate to their academic life (separate from Facebook, which is more for social things).
2. In Facebook, the user can make a custom layout for the tools and parts of the system that are useful to them.
The academic social networks could allow users to customize their own layouts.
3. In Facebook it's easy to ask questions of friends.
In an academic social network it would be easy to ask friends for help with library research. Librarians could be among those friends.
4. Facebook allows for 3rd party applications to be developed.
Academic social networks could allow applications to be developed and contributed by anyone at MIT. Not only could libraries have their catalogs or other tools available as apps, but others could create tools with our data and turn them into apps.
5. Facebook makes it easy to post links to your favorite things.
Academic social networks could make it easy to include your personal list of e-journals, rss feeds, techtv videos and outside resources.
6. Facebook is viral and things can spread like wildfire.
Academic social networks could spread the word about library services and other academic events and resources of interest, making our little known services more widely visible.
7. Facebook has apps that let you show what you're reading to your friends.
Academic social networks could have features where users opt in to show what they are reading to their friends.
8. Facebook makes it easy for old friends/colleagues to keep in touch and help each other.
Academic social networks could make it easy for experts to find and help each other.
9. Facebook makes it easy for users to add photos, videos and to tag people in them.
Academic social networks could make it easy to post photo and video content relevant to learning (tutorials), or image collections relevant for research and teaching.
10. Facebook has a live chat feature and the ability to see which of your friends are currently online.
Academic networks could do the same and make it easier to get reference help from someone at any hour (could be friends, or librarians).
11. Facebook makes it easy to annouce events and invite people to them with RSVPs.
Academic networks could use this to publicize events and see who will come.
12. Facebook allows for private as well as public communication.
Academic networks could also allow for private communications in order to protect users privacy when necessary.
D. What if libraries were like Zipcar?
1.
Exercises were inspired by the book: Thinkertoys