Gov 2.0: Suitable for viewing in school

In Paul Miller's blog The Cloud of Data, a post this week focuses on Gov 2.0 called "If Government is a Platform, what are people building?" Miller muses on a recent Tim O'Reilly's blog entry (also a good read about the subject, as he is a co-chair on the upcoming gov2.0summit) and discusses the beneficial ways an open platform for government information and data will impact aspects of technology growth, community activism, and government accountability.

Basically Miller and O'Reilly are enthusiastic about the idea of the government using Web 2.o as a platform to make connections, not just focusing on the 'social media' part that is most associated with the term. O'Reilly cites several great examples of ways in which government data has been re-purposed to provide more meaningful information for the public, such as everyblock.com, that originally started out as a site that took crime data and put it with a Google map. Users can find police reports, restaurant inspections, home sales, and news stories by neighborhood/zip code/etc in select cities.

Data.gov is mentioned by O'Reilly, and Miller picks up on the site's use to further technology. Because of its large data sets, researchers are "turning to resources like Data.gov in search of interesting technological problems and large pools of data upon which to test new techniques and ideas". This is an great experiment with a free resource that might not have too many other uses. I'm assuming other large data sets are in the sciences and are proprietary or just not meant to be played with.

While I don't know much about creating or using applications, both O'Reilly and Miller discuss the benefits of user-generated apps, and how the platforms that Apple or the government put in place can creatively impact new uses and designs for sometimes boring or information that is not applicable to much in its current form.

I think that libraries, archives, and museums should think about this approach to Web 2.0, or Library 2.0, instead of just trying to engage Generation (Insert Letter Here) through boring tweets or attempts at blogging. While it may be fun and dorky to be a fan of a film archive on Facebook, what is it really doing to help push a library/archive into a larger public technological role? These institutions are a bit behind in this Web 2.0 (please just get out of Second Life) and could benefit by letting users find new appropriations for the information and services offered. Some JSTOR app on an iPhone sounds amazing! Or an ILL Book Finder app! Maybe there already is one. I don't have any specific solutions, but libraries should be involved with tech goings-on such as the gov2.0summit for inspiration and ideas about their own Foray into the Future.