Library 2.0 and Building Rockets: Man's Best Friend
One Inventor
One Dog
One Rocket
And a whole lot of cheese.
Everyone has seen Wallace and Gromit. So you know the story about how they run out of cheese and build a rocket to go to the moon, because everyone knows the moon is made of cheese. (If you haven't seen it, then go out to a Blockbuster or download it on Netflix.)
I thought here is a guy who goes into his workshop and builds a rocket ship to go on a picnic. In a way that is what a lot of folks are doing with their social software. At places like MySpace and YouTube, folks are building cyber bridges that are not only closing Internet gaps, but changing how they communicate, and the rules of communication too.
Right now, assuming everyone has a workshop, then it is a matter of having enough supplies to go around. But not everyone has a workshop. Some folks are poor, on a fixed income, elderly, or unable to use these tools in their homes on their own.
That's where libraries step in. The next wave is 2.0. It has been a buzz word in library circles for a couple of years, but most public libraries are moving slowly to reformat their spaces and development policies to reflect this wave. In the Internet it is yesterday already.
But what is 2.0? Well, to keep it simple, it is a rather elastic term used to describe a format where users more actively determine virtual and physical spaces, and the services in them. They include virtual and digital softwares and systems, web spaces that is, and real physical spaces for users to converge in. It includes social software, gaming, and other virtual options for users to personally build a rocket to travel into the deep space of the information universe out there. Information is such a large concept that it can no longer only have physical dimensions like books or other more traditional print routes.
It seems as librarians we must become designers of such possibilities. The tools are exactly what they are. Michael Stephens points this out eloquently. They are opportunities. He has a hard sell, too. Technology expands and grows so rapidly it can be rather daunting. As librarians we must think in far less fixed and far less habituated terms if we want to grow with technology and its trends.
So getting the materials, building the workshops for those who have no launching pads, and helping when help is needed, well, that is our duty? Right?
OK, everybody, say CHEESE!!!
Any thoughts?
Here are a few links:
http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6365200.html
http://www.techsource.ala.org/blog/2006/01/library-20-the-real-world.html
http://infoisland.org/
http://tametheweb.com/2006/01/defining_library_20_ii_is_it_m.html
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Tech Trends
Get Your Geek On
The following is a link to a web log by Michael Stephens. This guy is a major tech guru in the library scene:
Check it out.
Ten Tech Trends for Librarians 2007
I wanted this post to be out on the day I spoke at the Ontario Library Association with Amanda Etches-Johnson and John Blyberg at the OLITA Top Tech Trends panel, but my dissertation, teaching and life intervene.
Each year about this time, TTW looks at "Ten Techie Things for Librarians." You'll find 2006 and 2005 in the archives.
So here's this year's list, with a new name: "Trends" instead of "Things." Sure it puts a finer point on it but it also recognizes the changes in my thinking about the essential duties of librarians:
Learn to Learn
Adapt to Change
Scan the Horizon
As we carry out or essential mission of service, stewardship and access, I really want folks in libraries to be able to watch the horizon for trends -- and I told the group that in Toronto: "We can all be trendspotters. We can all watch for trends that impact not only the profession but our specfic communities and user groups." Please ponder these and let me know what you think.
http://tametheweb.com/2007/03/ten_tech_trends_for_librarians_1.html
Michael is a professor at Dominican University
Ready. Set. Go!
Any thoughts?
The following is a link to a web log by Michael Stephens. This guy is a major tech guru in the library scene:
Check it out.
Ten Tech Trends for Librarians 2007
I wanted this post to be out on the day I spoke at the Ontario Library Association with Amanda Etches-Johnson and John Blyberg at the OLITA Top Tech Trends panel, but my dissertation, teaching and life intervene.
Each year about this time, TTW looks at "Ten Techie Things for Librarians." You'll find 2006 and 2005 in the archives.
So here's this year's list, with a new name: "Trends" instead of "Things." Sure it puts a finer point on it but it also recognizes the changes in my thinking about the essential duties of librarians:
Learn to Learn
Adapt to Change
Scan the Horizon
As we carry out or essential mission of service, stewardship and access, I really want folks in libraries to be able to watch the horizon for trends -- and I told the group that in Toronto: "We can all be trendspotters. We can all watch for trends that impact not only the profession but our specfic communities and user groups." Please ponder these and let me know what you think.
http://tametheweb.com/2007/03/ten_tech_trends_for_librarians_1.html
Michael is a professor at Dominican University
Ready. Set. Go!
Any thoughts?
Print and E Burden
A Little of This/A Little of That
Andrew Albanese -- Library Journal
12/7/2007A new report by the Association of Research Libraries concludes that publishers and libraries are caught in "an extended transition zone" lasting at least five years between print-only and e-only journals. The report, "The E-only Tipping Point for Journals: What's Ahead in the Print-to-Electronic Transition Zone," authored by former SPARC executive director Richard K. Johnson and library consultant Judy Luther, asserts that the demands of "dual-format" publishing and the additional costs of keeping e-journals "operating within the bounds of the print publishing process" is taxing the status quo for all stakeholders: publishers, libraries, authors, and readers.
"The question of when dual-format journals will complete the transition to single-format (electronic) publishing is taking on increasing urgency," the authors note. Approximately 60 percent of some 20,000 active peer-reviewed journals are now available in electronic form, and the e-journal is now unquestionably the preferred format.
Economics, however, is not the only factor extending the transition, the reports concedes, noting preservation challenges, and the potential loss of key readers, especially by society publishers. The report is based on published resources as well as interviews conducted between June and August 2007 with two-dozen academic librarians and journal publishers. Commercial publishers, researchers, and students were not interviewed.
"The role of the printed journal in the institutional marketplace faces a steep decline in the coming five to10 years," the report notes. "Financial imperatives will draw libraries first—and ultimately publishers also—toward a tipping point where it no longer makes sense to subscribe to or publish printed versions of most journals."
Many libraries are so pressured by budgets that they do not have the means to meet the needs of print and e sources of information. With subscription rates soaring, and budgets shrinking, what are some good solutions for librarians?
Any thoughts?
http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6510701.html
Andrew Albanese -- Library Journal
12/7/2007A new report by the Association of Research Libraries concludes that publishers and libraries are caught in "an extended transition zone" lasting at least five years between print-only and e-only journals. The report, "The E-only Tipping Point for Journals: What's Ahead in the Print-to-Electronic Transition Zone," authored by former SPARC executive director Richard K. Johnson and library consultant Judy Luther, asserts that the demands of "dual-format" publishing and the additional costs of keeping e-journals "operating within the bounds of the print publishing process" is taxing the status quo for all stakeholders: publishers, libraries, authors, and readers.
"The question of when dual-format journals will complete the transition to single-format (electronic) publishing is taking on increasing urgency," the authors note. Approximately 60 percent of some 20,000 active peer-reviewed journals are now available in electronic form, and the e-journal is now unquestionably the preferred format.
Economics, however, is not the only factor extending the transition, the reports concedes, noting preservation challenges, and the potential loss of key readers, especially by society publishers. The report is based on published resources as well as interviews conducted between June and August 2007 with two-dozen academic librarians and journal publishers. Commercial publishers, researchers, and students were not interviewed.
"The role of the printed journal in the institutional marketplace faces a steep decline in the coming five to10 years," the report notes. "Financial imperatives will draw libraries first—and ultimately publishers also—toward a tipping point where it no longer makes sense to subscribe to or publish printed versions of most journals."
Many libraries are so pressured by budgets that they do not have the means to meet the needs of print and e sources of information. With subscription rates soaring, and budgets shrinking, what are some good solutions for librarians?
Any thoughts?
http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6510701.html
The New Dating Game
Will You Be My Friend?
The dynamics of Web-based social networks: Membership, relationships, and change
Jennifer Golbeck
Abstract
Social networks on the Web are growing dramatically in size and number. The huge popularity of sites like MySpace, Facebook, and others has drawn in hundreds of millions of users, and the attention of scientists and the media. The public accessibility of Web–based social networks offers great promise for researchers interested in studying the behavior of users and how to integrate social information into applications. However, to do that effectively, it is necessary to understand how networks grow and change. Over a two–year period we have collected data on every social network we could identify, and we also gathered daily information on thirteen networks over a 47–day period. In this article, we present the first comprehensive survey of Web–based social networks, followed by an analysis of membership and relationship dynamics within them. From our analysis of these data, we present several conclusions on how users behave in social networks, and what network features correlate with that behavior.
We all seem to have a YouTube account or a page on MySpace. How has your web social life changed your life in general?
Any dirty little thoughts to share?
http://www.firstmonday.org/
The dynamics of Web-based social networks: Membership, relationships, and change
Jennifer Golbeck
Abstract
Social networks on the Web are growing dramatically in size and number. The huge popularity of sites like MySpace, Facebook, and others has drawn in hundreds of millions of users, and the attention of scientists and the media. The public accessibility of Web–based social networks offers great promise for researchers interested in studying the behavior of users and how to integrate social information into applications. However, to do that effectively, it is necessary to understand how networks grow and change. Over a two–year period we have collected data on every social network we could identify, and we also gathered daily information on thirteen networks over a 47–day period. In this article, we present the first comprehensive survey of Web–based social networks, followed by an analysis of membership and relationship dynamics within them. From our analysis of these data, we present several conclusions on how users behave in social networks, and what network features correlate with that behavior.
We all seem to have a YouTube account or a page on MySpace. How has your web social life changed your life in general?
Any dirty little thoughts to share?
http://www.firstmonday.org/
Collection Development: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Collection Development Policy
An Inconvenient Truth: Collection Development and How it is Really Influenced
Guarding against collective amnesia? Making significance problematic: an exploration of issues
Library Trends, Summer, 2007 by Annemaree Lloyd
ABSTRACT
A nation's collective consciousness relies on the traces of memory collected by institutions such as libraries, archives, and museums. Such institutions have a responsibility to preserve documents and objects that reflect individual and collective endeavors and that have had an impact on culture and society at national, regional, and local levels. Institutions need to assess documents and objects against criteria that, in effect, "name" these items as significant. Most institutions claim that this process is objective, failing to acknowledge that it is underpinned by ideological, political, economic, cultural, and social influences. The position adopted in this paper is that the process of naming a document or object as significant will always reflect the directions and consciousness of a society's dominant groups, and that this will shape interpretations and narratives of the past. Thus the voices of a community's minority or special interest groups will be silenced. This paper suggests that neither the concept of significance nor the process of assessing significance is benign; both should be seen as areas of tension and contestation.
This is a very interesting paper on policy development and the haves and have nots. I would love to hear other opinions on the topic.
Any thoughts?
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1387
Guarding against collective amnesia? Making significance problematic: an exploration of issues
Library Trends, Summer, 2007 by Annemaree Lloyd
ABSTRACT
A nation's collective consciousness relies on the traces of memory collected by institutions such as libraries, archives, and museums. Such institutions have a responsibility to preserve documents and objects that reflect individual and collective endeavors and that have had an impact on culture and society at national, regional, and local levels. Institutions need to assess documents and objects against criteria that, in effect, "name" these items as significant. Most institutions claim that this process is objective, failing to acknowledge that it is underpinned by ideological, political, economic, cultural, and social influences. The position adopted in this paper is that the process of naming a document or object as significant will always reflect the directions and consciousness of a society's dominant groups, and that this will shape interpretations and narratives of the past. Thus the voices of a community's minority or special interest groups will be silenced. This paper suggests that neither the concept of significance nor the process of assessing significance is benign; both should be seen as areas of tension and contestation.
This is a very interesting paper on policy development and the haves and have nots. I would love to hear other opinions on the topic.
Any thoughts?
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1387
Libraries and War
From a Fascinating Article in Library Trends' Winter 2007 Issue Learn About:
Papers [that] were invited on themes such as the following:
* Books and libraries as agents of cultural memory to be protected, appropriated, or obliterated
* Library collections and services as instruments of political power in providing or withholding access to information
* Libraries as places of refuge, solace, and practical help in times of war, revolution, and social change
* Libraries and their contents as cultural patrimony and as booty
* The nature of the revolutionary cultural and political regimes in which libraries are situated and the attitudes of the regimes to literacy and learning
* And the responsibilities of the international community in creating and enforcing policies and procedures for the protection, reconstitution, and restitution of cultural artifacts, including books and libraries
I sat and considered how as military spending increases during the Iraq War certain libraries, like the EPA suffered difficult cut backs.
Reflection on the above article is welcomed.
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1387/is_3_55/ai_n19311164
Papers [that] were invited on themes such as the following:
* Books and libraries as agents of cultural memory to be protected, appropriated, or obliterated
* Library collections and services as instruments of political power in providing or withholding access to information
* Libraries as places of refuge, solace, and practical help in times of war, revolution, and social change
* Libraries and their contents as cultural patrimony and as booty
* The nature of the revolutionary cultural and political regimes in which libraries are situated and the attitudes of the regimes to literacy and learning
* And the responsibilities of the international community in creating and enforcing policies and procedures for the protection, reconstitution, and restitution of cultural artifacts, including books and libraries
I sat and considered how as military spending increases during the Iraq War certain libraries, like the EPA suffered difficult cut backs.
Reflection on the above article is welcomed.
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1387/is_3_55/ai_n19311164
The Market: What do You Want?
Close Your Eyes....
Imagine you are a deserted beach and the waves are crashing down...just kidding. Really the technique of imaging has a practical application for the purpose of my post.
Recently I interviewed at a public library and one of the most interesting questions was: "Describe your ideal library to work in." It didn't take long for me to find the answer. For years I pictured myself behind some reference desk or in meeting concerning collections or staff matters. I pictured myself assisting patrons. I was great at my job, and I worked with others that were great at their jobs. We all loved our jobs.
My point is that high aspirations, no matter how fantasy based are like a compass. But the compass needs to be used with a map. That map is based on survey of past jobs. What did you like about them, and what did they teach you about professionalism and what suited you best.
It might be a good idea to stop and think long and hard about every job you apply for. Can you really picture yourself in that position. And if so, what would be some of your career goals in that job? Try it out. Make a list. How far do you wish to advance?
These may seem like questions for later on but they are not. For many of us library science is a second or even third career. It may be important to know exactly why we go into it. The following link is for some general questions that any job seeker may wish to consider:
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/05_30/b3944430.htm
At become a librarian.org there are also some useful bits of information:
http://www.becomealibrarian.org/
Imagine you are a deserted beach and the waves are crashing down...just kidding. Really the technique of imaging has a practical application for the purpose of my post.
Recently I interviewed at a public library and one of the most interesting questions was: "Describe your ideal library to work in." It didn't take long for me to find the answer. For years I pictured myself behind some reference desk or in meeting concerning collections or staff matters. I pictured myself assisting patrons. I was great at my job, and I worked with others that were great at their jobs. We all loved our jobs.
My point is that high aspirations, no matter how fantasy based are like a compass. But the compass needs to be used with a map. That map is based on survey of past jobs. What did you like about them, and what did they teach you about professionalism and what suited you best.
It might be a good idea to stop and think long and hard about every job you apply for. Can you really picture yourself in that position. And if so, what would be some of your career goals in that job? Try it out. Make a list. How far do you wish to advance?
These may seem like questions for later on but they are not. For many of us library science is a second or even third career. It may be important to know exactly why we go into it. The following link is for some general questions that any job seeker may wish to consider:
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/05_30/b3944430.htm
At become a librarian.org there are also some useful bits of information:
http://www.becomealibrarian.org/
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