I have been listening to a lot of music in the last week, as a way of clearing my mind, and helping focus some ideas that are simmering below the surface. Here’s how music helped me think about a Library 2.0 Matrix………

One old favourite that I had to come back to was Bach’s Double Violin Concerto in C Minor. You can pick it up at uTube just to refresh your mind. This particular performance is not the traditional rendition which provides synergy to my thinking….this is how….

The performance includes a number of greats in classical music performance, and some youngsters as well. I know from my brief skirmish as Manager of the Western Youth Symphony Orchestra that this can be performed with gusto and excellence by youth, as well as masters. In a Web 2.0 world this completely reflects the flexibility of social networking, of flexible approaches to learning, of master and novice working together to create great synergy in creativity in performance.

Likewise the double violin concerto – the way the music unfolds and has two strong roles for each violin, symbolises the complexity and contrapuntal beauty of this music – just the same way that there is an complex and beautiful relationship between literacy and information literacy that underpins the social network world.

There have been many developments in modelling of various literacy models (ditital, social, economic etc). While I have my favourites I need to restate what is somehow being lost in the emerging ‘Web 2.0 as platform’ discussions.

Literacy is a key enabling mechanism for information literacy, creativity, knowledge creation and human communications.

Being able to read, and to think more deeply due to the ideas that we have contact with through reading has made the developments possible in our Western and Eastern civilisations. Ideas are found in written works – wherever and in whatever format they may be. Our kids need to have the opportunities to read, and develop a love of reading for pleasure as well as purpose. Our heart and soul must be found in the creative endeavours of our society – art, music, writing, design, innovation.

So we need to reflect carefully on the new synergy in the opportunities that we have before us. Why am I saying all this? I’m churning ideas about the future of school libraries. Literacy remains a prime and fundamental purpose. Web 2.0 tools and techniques coupled with the trademark ‘social networking’ provides the framework for knowing ‘what’s next’ for organisational frameworks for school libraries in Web 2.0.

It is no longer a matter of guesswork, as we now have enough information about possible futures to blend and shape our new Library 2.0 future.

Chris Harris says:

In its 2.0 incarnation, the digitally re-shifted school library must transcend the physical space to bring services and programming to every student and teacher throughout the school wherever learning is taking place with teacher librarians interacting more directly with students as well as their teacher peers in new spaces.

As part of my thinking about Library 2.0 frameworks I put together the Library 2.0 Matrix.