I'd been thinking, over the past year or so, how we're going to move forward with libraries for which the collection is not the primary foundation. In fact, I'm preparing an article about libraries as "3rd places" without the collection to anchor that function. It isn't finished yet.
But in the meantime, I just sat down with several of my colleagues here at the big library and watched a demonstration of Bibliocommons. Very interesting. It may be the case that with bibliocommons, there's a future for the library collection that i didn't see. It's pretty amazing, based on the 1 hour demo I saw yesterday. The "social networking" features, which are talked about so much in library2.0-world but frequently mis-understood and mis-interpreted, pretty well-done here. They appear to seemlessly support the community's interaction with the collection but don't get in the way or become an overt feature.
So, does it give the building more secure future? I don't know. I haven't had enough time to look , use, and consider it. My library will have a much more thorough look at it during our selection process. But I can see so far that Bibliocommons is all about interfacting online with the collection and presumably patrons will order their choices to be delivered to their nearest branch and then just come in to pick them up. That doesn't necessarily build the case for the "3rd-place". But still, that onlne interaction is really something.
Bibliocommons is online at these three libraries, among several others: Santa Clara County, Edmonton, Oakville Ont.
