CIBER libraries meet Library 2.0

Abstract

Academic libraries have established their place as a vital and unique institution in the university. Their role has largely remained unchanged over the centuries as the guarantor of the organized collection of printed and/or other content. Their staff is trained to support the learning, teaching and research needs and outputs of the university and the community. In academic libraries these services are available as well as the physical facilities to support them. With the advent of the Web 2.0, of new social networking tools, of content ubiquity and - last but not least - with the change in patron's expectations (not to mention economic restraints) academic libraries are seeking to define the definitive services that they should offer for the 21^st century.
CIBER was founded in 1999 based on a project of electronic publishing and bibliographic data base sharing, in order to obtain better products/services at a better price. At the beginning just five universities were part of it; now CASPUR-CIBER includes twenty-seven universities and potentially gets through to approx 30.000 researchers and professors and 500.000 students, mostly in central and southern Italy. CIBER libraries are currently trying to find how the the Web 2.0 can be used within the library, in order to devise new ways to offer their electronic resources .