Paul Anderson’s editorial “All that Glisters is Not Gold” Web 2.0 and the Librarian is a short piece about the need for analysis of the term Web 2.0 and what it means for libraries. Paul Anderson is the Technical Editor of JISC Technology and Standards Watch who also blogs about technology at http://techlun.ch/ (Anderson, 2007).
Anderson’s article is quite technical but that is understandable given the journal he is writing for and the limited amount of space he had to write in. This does however mean that there is a lot of assumed knowledge on behalf of the reader.
His has been the only article of the four to even briefly note how quickly technology can date, citing the case of the librarian who tracked down a patron through Facebook when e-mailing was suddenly out of date (Anderson, 2007).
This is an extremely short article in comparison to the other three discussed and contains no summary, although it does contain an introduction and a body with subheadings; this leaves the article feeling incomplete and adds to the confusion of what he is mainly trying to address. Anderson states at the beginning that this editorial will address, among other things:
1) Origins of the term Web 2.0
2) Provide a framework for the implementation of Web 2.0 services
3) Outline the areas that librarians are positioned to provide a unique contribution to the development of such services (Anderson, 2007).
This seems an awful lot for an article that barely spans three pages.
While Anderson’s points are well researched and cited, he seems to be trying to cover too much ground in one small editorial and the exclusion of a summary leaves the reader wondering what the point of it all was.
