Tame The Web: The People Formerly Known as the Audience

Some fantastic thoughts on addressing "user-centric content creation" in our libraries by Michael Stephens over at Tame the Web: Libraries and Technology: The People Formerly Known as the Audience.

An excerpt:

Let's involve users in creating content for the library and maybe even give them a venue and space to store stuff at the library server.

Let's incorporate video production as well -- for the library and for users to create their own stuff -- and be aware of the power of iTunes and YouTube to change the way content is ditributed.

Let's blog our stuff, with human voices, and write accordingly to pull in comments and conversation... this builds community.

Finally, this bit: Let's not wait too long...look at how quickly all of this came up on is..in a handful of years. we don't have time to convene teams that meet for months on end...

He is talking in the public library context, but definitely we should be thinking about this in terms of special or private libraries as well. And the key is nimbleness here. If we decide to wait on things for two years to see "how it works out" at the other organization, chances are something else will come along and things will change again.

With the caveat of my last post in mind (only make changes if they are appropriate for your organization), I say "go for it!".