One of my assignments this week was to read and critically review a technical article. The article I reviewed, co-authored by Ken Chad (former Executive Director of Talis) and fellow cohort Paul Miller was entitled “Do Libraries Matter? The Rise of Library 2.0″. The ‘article‘ (I am hesitant to call it that, as it’s little more than a glorified advertizement for the Talis corporation) addressed the need for libraries and library technologies to evolve alongside current technology, and advocated integrating web 2.0 elements, such as RSS, wikis, and blogs. Sounds harmless enough, really, and I’d have been less skeptical, if it weren’t for the perpetual references the article made to Amazon. I suspected it was a product-plug from the beginning, and wasn’t very surprised to discover that Talis and Amazon had in fact partnered nine months prior to the article’s release. Another clue — one that I didn’t mention in my analysis, but perhaps should have — was that the article had a release version. *giggles*
I’ve read, reviewed, and written my share of papers, and never once has “Version 1.0″ graced page footers. Perhaps this is standard practice for corporate publications? If it is common (and as I said, I honestly do not know, as my experiences are in scholarly writing, rather than cleverly-disguised sales pitches), well, fair enough. But wait — isn’t that evidence in itself that the paper is produced with company bias and agenda?
Don’t get me wrong, the arguments raised by the authors were valid, as were the suggestions that they offered: yes, library catalogues do need to adapt in order to keep up with the internet-enabled world. Yes, convenience and access are important concerns. Yes, shared-innovation, resource-pooling, and collaborative efforts are noble ideas as they often engender a greater and better product. Open-source, participative applications are wonderful indeed, as is “mix and match” integration, yes, yes, yes! Thumbs up for the great ideas, Talis, and kudos to you for profit-sharing with Amazon. Thumbs down for pretending to be a part of something you are not.
Am I being too critical here? Perhaps. My actual review is more favourable, and far more eloquent and comprehensive than the above summary. Hopefully 
