The Cybrarian's Web: An A‐Z Guide to 101 Free Web 2.0 Tools and Other Resources

Citation

du Preez, M. (2012), "The Cybrarian's Web: An A‐Z Guide to 101 Free Web 2.0 Tools and Other Resources", The Electronic Library, Vol. 30 No. 6, pp. 874-875. https://doi.org/10.1108/02640471211282190

The concept Web 2.0 refers to a perceived second generation of Web‐based services that emphasise online collaboration among users. These new web‐based services and applications have opened up many new possibilities to improve library and information services whilst remaining relevant to their ever changing user communities. However, the main problem librarians experience remains to find the most relevant Web 2.0 technologies and to keep up with the latest developments. The Cybrarian's Web attempts to answer this problem. This book is a field guide to 101 free Web 2.0 tools, including well known popular technologies and dozens of lesser‐known resources.

In the introduction Peltier‐Davis explains the concept of Web 2.0 technologies. She notes that embedded Web 2.0 technologies are commonplace in high user volume social networking sites such as YouTube, Delicious, Facebook, LibraryThing, Flickr, Twitter, Wikipedia and many others. Since librarians have always been at the forefront of adopting innovative approaches to improve their services, Peltier‐Davis reckons there is no reason why they (and their users) should not benefit from adopting Web 2.0 technologies. This is especially important since many of these technologies are freely available and librarians could supplement scarce resources by using some of these technologies.

The book is divided into 101 chapters and each of these chapters provides a brief but in‐depth summary of a cutting‐edge Web 2.0 technology. The different technologies are arranged alphabetically and are grouped into broad categories. These categories include blog publishing services, wikis, RSS feeds, photo and video sharing services, folksonomies, podcast services, instant messaging, mashups, virtual worlds, productivity tools, social networks, social bookmarks, and social cataloguing.

Peltier‐Davis' main objective with the book was to provide an exhaustive coverage of each technology in terms of its structure, content and usefulness. With this in mind, each chapter includes a reflection on the particular Web 2.0 technology's origin, with illustrative screenshots and details of important features. Some innovative examples of practical applications of the technology to illustrate its usefulness in a library or information service environment conclude the discussion.

The Cybrarian's Web is designed for librarians, lecturers and students in library schools as well as other information professionals who want to use these tools to connect to their customers, collaborate with fellow students and researchers, and create new information resources. The book can also augment recommended reading material since it provides the reader with an interest in these new technologies with information that can be immediately used. It therefore is both a good starting point for learning about Web 2.0 tools and to evaluate Web 2.0 based products. This book is indeed a welcome addition to my collection of resources on Web technologies.