the library as an information manipulation lab?

Librarian 1.5 conceptualizes the new library as a lab for development

The experimentation and development going on in libraries around the world makes me think that one charatcteristic of Library 2.0 is that the library functions as a laboratory for development. This can take many forms. The OPAC experimentation that Casey Bisson does with WordPress, Ann Arbor Public Library and their superpatron does stuff with Amazon APIs that makes me sit up and think, and elsewhere other experiments are changig the library both in the electronic and physical world. If we start to regard change as a “normal” situation as I suspect you have to do in a lab, then maybe we can have a go at realizing what Michael Casey wrote about having to live with constant change. This sounds slightly threatening to me, so thinking about the library as a lab and myself as a slightly demented scientist/librarian helps me accept the concept of change as a permanent fixture of library life and even enjoy the process.

I would take that further: maybe the future of the library should be as a lab for information manipulation - helping you to slice, dice, pivot, visualize, integrate and mix (dare I say "mash-up") information to meet your needs.  This has always been a part of the library role, but the difference is that the new library enables this by providing technology tools to support this activity online.  Will we see new signs going up: Welcome to your local Public Information Lab?

I suppose I can't pass up the opportunity to plug our very tentative efforts at CISTI Lab.