How Librarians Are Using the Internet

Abstract

This chapter examines the variety of ways librarians are using the Internet from its influence on the provision of new services to how librarians use the Internet to communicate with each other. A brief overview of Google and Google Scholar and their impact on library services alongside the Library 2.0 service ethic is explored with specific attention to its development and how it connects to previous understandings of library service provision. This is followed by an examination of how Web 2.0 technologies are used by librarians to offer services. There appears to be a disconnect between the rhetoric of technology use in libraries and the actual use of these technologies by librarians in their work lives. This disconnect highlights the previously identified relationship librarians have with technology – a combination of excitement and caution. Following this, a closer examination of three specific Internet technologies, blogs, Twitter, and MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses), is done. How librarians use these two technologies provides insight into the central place that technology has in the lives of modern librarians.