Answer Boards

Welcome to the future! This is where librarians can really have an impact. Slamming the boards has a range of positive outcomes for the library world in general. Not only can we show how accurate & professional we are to a sophisticated audience, we can provide a universal service to vast areas of the world who do not have the capacity to provide it for themselves. After all, there are still some places on the planet where the libraries have card catalogues (I expect that most of the participants in web2.0 have never even come across such a thing). There are many people in such places who do have internet access & would bypass their libraries as being redundant. These are more likely to be the people with the potential to drive change in their countries & anything we can do to influence their attitude to the potential of libraries should be pursued.
Anyhoo, apart from my little ideological diatribe, we can highlight our skills through answeboarding and, although we would generally not be answering our own client's enquiries, hopefully there would be a general rise in consciousness re library services which will benefit us all.
For once this stuff is not completely new to me. I've been using the Lonely Planet's Thorn tree for years, where you can put specific travel related questions. I often have the kind of queries that are not addressed in guidebooks and have almost always found answers from other travellers that I couldn't otherwise have found out. When reading the answers to questions I think people would certainly take note if the signature indicated a librarian was at work & note the quality of the response.