Reading Library The future of Web Services isn’t the Library website got me thinking about websites in general. There will always be a need for a specific “place” on the ‘net for organizations and businesses – that’s the website. For most people, however, it won’t occur to them to go to your website for the information that they need. That’s where Karen says that web services come into play. If your site is publishing information in reusable chunks – bits of info that are easily put into other people’s websites, newsletters and profiles (in the case of social networks like MySpace and Facebook) – they don’t have to think about coming to your site to get their information – it’s already there, wherever they may be. Jenny Levine, of the Shifted Librarian blog, just posted a “tweet” that said that the reason for libraries (or any organization, really) to be in social networking site at all is to be found because people don’t remember URLs. (my paraphrase, there…) All of this adds up to the idea that, while we want people to visit us both on- and offline, they may not remember to do so if we aren’t a visible presence where they are. It’s just another take on my “go where our users are” theme, but Karen says it very well!!
