I liked what Rick Anderson had to say about the iceberg that is the "come to us" model of library service. Sad to say, I think it's true that not a lot of people use library websites as starting points when searching for information. So how do we make sure that the library winds up showing up on our patrons' radar?
I think a successful example of this is the Reference Desk's "Ask a Librarian" link on the state government website. People having trouble finding state government information would probably not think to contact the Library Commission or come to our website on their own. But when they are having trouble, they look up and see an "Ask a Librarian" link and click on it, and there is a box into which they can type their question (a MeeboMe widget). They don't even have to pick up the phone or access their email accounts.
In a way I think Flickr can work this way too. If you put pictures of library activities and events up on Flickr, and tag them with the name of your community (among other things), you may suddenly appear on the radar of other Flickr users from your community. They may see things going on at the library that they knew nothing about.
So I guess one challenge is figuring out where our patrons go when they need information, and coming up with ways to make sure we are there too--a combination of meeting patrons at their point of need and marketing/brand recognition.
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