Wednesday, August 8, 2007
Educational Journey
Before this course I had never heard of wikis, only just heard of blogs through another LIS course, never looked at Del.icio.us, nor tagged anything in cyberspace or heard of folksonomies, never heard of Second Life and the virtual world of gaming. (I had a Facebook account but only on a recommendation of my children) It has been an enlightening journey through the world of social software and libraries and and something that I would never or probably never explored had it not been for this course. It has been great to have a 'hands on' practice into the world of blogs, wikis etc and the knowledge I have learnt will be invaluable for future career prospects. I would recommend this course to anyone in the MLIS program as being vital knowledge in the world of libraries be they academic, public, special or anything else. Now that we have learnt this much it is important to keep up with the ever changing virtual world and take advantage of the social software in our future library careers. I will most certainly check back on all of our blogs and especially those of the more prominent writers that we have read over the weeks. I am not sure if I will maintain my blog. I will need to have a theme/goal/subject to pontificate about and will not keep it just for the sake of it. However I will expound the advantages of wikis to anyone that I will be involved with in writing a report, putting together a presentation or just accumulating information on a topic. I have not checked my RSS feeds in a while basically because of time constraints and as this is not especially important to me, I will probably not maintain the Google aggregator. I enjoy visiting a small number of websites and will continue to do so as time permits. There is only so much time that I wish to devote to Internet, virtual and technological interests and that is already taken up with work related tasks, e-mail, MSN and Facebook. However I will pass on the knowledge that I have gained to anyone who is interested in my work or private life. Thanks Amanda for enlightening me to this world of social networking.
Friday, August 3, 2007
Pass the web page please.. and the winner is....
Web 2.0 has been defined as 'transforming the web into a space that allows anyone to create and share information online - a space for collaboration, conversation and interaction; a space that is highly dynamic, flexible and adaptable' (Karen Coombs). The key to this comment is that the space has to be flexible and adaptable. Social software definitely does have a place in library service provision as has been explored throughout this course. Obviously some aspects of social software lend themselves more efficiently and effectively to library service provision such as blogs which are adaptable to whatever information the library is communicating to the community. They can be set up for a purpose, or for a specific duration or as an ongoing part of the library webpages. I think that blogs are probably the low fruit on the tree, be it an apple, pear or cherry tree as they can be that adaptable.
I see wikis as being set up for a specific purpose and of more use internally to a library system than by inviting the community to participate. Wikis are used to amagamate ideas and present them in one place which is accesssible for anyone with the password.
Information organisations can harness the capabilities of tagging and folksonomies. Information can be organised by subject and tagged and be accessible to anyone interested to search for it.
The tagging of websites and information can be done by library staff and then be made accessible to anyone. In this way different aspects of the information is kept in one place with associated subjects and tags.
Online social networks such as MySpace and Facebook do not seem to me to so adaptable for library communities. These are not webspaces that anyone expects library information to appear and I think that they should remain as social networking sites aimed primarily at connecting individuals or specific groups without the parameters such as a library. Some libraries have been using Facebook as promotion for events but I see that these could best be communicated by way of a blog instead. This is clearly libraries using the social software networking sites just because they can.
I like the idea of Second Life and the library community that has been established there. However I am not sure how much of this is 'playing' or 'educational' or both (which is fine) but it must take a considerable amount of time to participate in this to the extent whereby something is gained..and how much of the virtual world translates into the real world? or is that an irrelevant and not a very important question or concern? This type of software will only be accessed by a small minority of those that know how, have time to and feel there is a benefit to doing so.
My votes for social software and libraries goes to blogs primarily as being an online extensions of newsletters to the community which allow immediate feedback, can be continually updated and can communicate any kind of information and be accessed by a larger number of patrons.
I see wikis as being set up for a specific purpose and of more use internally to a library system than by inviting the community to participate. Wikis are used to amagamate ideas and present them in one place which is accesssible for anyone with the password.
Information organisations can harness the capabilities of tagging and folksonomies. Information can be organised by subject and tagged and be accessible to anyone interested to search for it.
The tagging of websites and information can be done by library staff and then be made accessible to anyone. In this way different aspects of the information is kept in one place with associated subjects and tags.
Online social networks such as MySpace and Facebook do not seem to me to so adaptable for library communities. These are not webspaces that anyone expects library information to appear and I think that they should remain as social networking sites aimed primarily at connecting individuals or specific groups without the parameters such as a library. Some libraries have been using Facebook as promotion for events but I see that these could best be communicated by way of a blog instead. This is clearly libraries using the social software networking sites just because they can.
I like the idea of Second Life and the library community that has been established there. However I am not sure how much of this is 'playing' or 'educational' or both (which is fine) but it must take a considerable amount of time to participate in this to the extent whereby something is gained..and how much of the virtual world translates into the real world? or is that an irrelevant and not a very important question or concern? This type of software will only be accessed by a small minority of those that know how, have time to and feel there is a benefit to doing so.
My votes for social software and libraries goes to blogs primarily as being an online extensions of newsletters to the community which allow immediate feedback, can be continually updated and can communicate any kind of information and be accessed by a larger number of patrons.
Friday, July 27, 2007
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
Libraries in MySpace and Facebook
When I first thought MySpace and Facebook, I could not see how libraries could use these networks to reach out to the community. Farkas emphasizes that most libraries do not represent themselves very well on these networks and that it is important to have a goal and provide a real use to their patrons. By just providing a profile of a library does not make it more visible and useful. There has to be a reason that someone on these sites will search for a library and or post a comment to the comment box or wall. By networking with these sites, the libraries are reaching out to a specific segment of the population who frequent these locations, namely teens and young people. It is logical that any outreach to these groups from libraries will be designed to attract their attention and this is apparent in sites such as the Morrisville College Library, the Hennepin County Library and the Denver Public Library sites. These sites are very busy, colourful, full of photos, graphics, (some animated) links, book covers, dialogue between users and YouTube videos. Personally I would find these sites just a little too busy and challenging to navigate..probably because I am not a teen or even close!
Farkas comments that many libraries are using blogs on MySpace as a one way communication tool and not utilising the comments and wall area effectively. However, the Ann Arbor District Library is encouraging feedback from their patrons who wish to comment as is Crosset Library at Bennington College who is asking for patron input on materials to buy for the library and is keeping the patrons aware of their buying timeline.
Robert Lackie is concerned about dismissing the stereotypical librarian and increasing the campus visibility by using social networking tools and letting students know what the library is really all about. However unless he has a goal, this appears to be just what Farkas was talking about above.
Helen Bowers in her article on MySpace dismissed something in passing which I found interesting. She said that we should not create public profile spaces for library patrons on the web, or use the information to let them hook up with other patrons who's circulation history points to common reading interests. Surely this has potential. There is probably a way around this in that patrons could make contact with other patrons and share reading lists of favorite authors, titles or topics. There may network groups on Facebook who have, for example, 'mystery books' or 'Greek architecture' as a commonality. If not, then there is potential for such a group to form.
It seems that as users of these sites, we are continually looking for ways to communicate, learn and and be aware of everything that interests us and can involve us more and more in staying current. I would hope that some of this interaction will result in real human type face to face interaction as otherwise we will lose the ability to communicate and form real time (not cyber space) relationships.
Farkas comments that many libraries are using blogs on MySpace as a one way communication tool and not utilising the comments and wall area effectively. However, the Ann Arbor District Library is encouraging feedback from their patrons who wish to comment as is Crosset Library at Bennington College who is asking for patron input on materials to buy for the library and is keeping the patrons aware of their buying timeline.
Robert Lackie is concerned about dismissing the stereotypical librarian and increasing the campus visibility by using social networking tools and letting students know what the library is really all about. However unless he has a goal, this appears to be just what Farkas was talking about above.
Helen Bowers in her article on MySpace dismissed something in passing which I found interesting. She said that we should not create public profile spaces for library patrons on the web, or use the information to let them hook up with other patrons who's circulation history points to common reading interests. Surely this has potential. There is probably a way around this in that patrons could make contact with other patrons and share reading lists of favorite authors, titles or topics. There may network groups on Facebook who have, for example, 'mystery books' or 'Greek architecture' as a commonality. If not, then there is potential for such a group to form.
It seems that as users of these sites, we are continually looking for ways to communicate, learn and and be aware of everything that interests us and can involve us more and more in staying current. I would hope that some of this interaction will result in real human type face to face interaction as otherwise we will lose the ability to communicate and form real time (not cyber space) relationships.
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
Social Networks
This weeks articles mostly covered the two most popular online social networks, that of MySpace and Facebook and discussed the Deleting Online Predators Act (DOPA) which is currently being legislated in the US Senate. Henry Jenkins in his article argues that instead of banning social networking in schools and libraries the correct way is to educated the students and users to use it in a safe and responsible way. He quotes that 'some bonehead in Alaska has his neural tubes clogged' and is responsible for introducing this legislation and as it is an election year, Wade Roush in his article on the 'Moral Panic over social networking sites', says that anyone who does not support it will be seen as looking 'soft' on sexual predators.
However, as many of the authors of the articles stress, child abductions and potential predators very rarely happen due to an Internet encounter. The potential implications for removing access to social networks for many students will only increase the digital divide between those who have access at home and those that do not. The correct solution to this 'problem' is to educate those students to deal with any negative encounters in the right way and not to take away social networking for everyone else.
Matthew Willams says in his article 'MySpace and Facebook', some educators see these sites as taking students away from 'reading and studying' and someone went as far as to call social networking 'an abuse of technology'. Williams goes on to say that some students who were never really interested in lectures and studying in the first place and this modern technology just gives them a way to express their dissatisfaction. There will always be those educators who still wish to teach in the more traditional ways and wish to dismiss the technological advances. However, in time they will have to adapt or retire. Education seems to be more in the hands of the users or receivers than the providers and educators will have to adapt and use the social networks if they wish to provide interesting and worthwhile methods of teaching.
At the other end of the spectrum to the DOPA is the attitude of some educators who see the benefits of social networking and are finding ways to incorporate it into their classroom experiences
As Henry Jenkins said in his article 'MySpace and DOPA', teachers are already using blogs for teaching, linking classrooms on a global scale, for social studies, posting student made videos on YouTube, taping podcasts of lectures and students are editing and posting on Wikipedia and designing webpages. All of this would disappear if the legislation is passed and social networks are banned in schools.
I was interested to read in Danah Boyd's article on 'Identity Production in a Networked Culture' that the MySpace site acts as an area for teens to 'hangout' which is out of control of their parents and educators. Parents are scared to let teens hang around the mall or the park and have controlled their lives so much that the only place left seems to be the digital world of MySpace where teens can connect with each other, develop profiles and gather in a space where they can see and be seen by their peers.
I am more familar with Facebook having had an account for three or so months and enjoy the ability to share photos with friends and family. Instead of having to e-mail photos to everyone on the mailing list, there is only one place to post them now and they are available for those people to whom I allow access. In a world where people often do not live close by Facebook is another way to stay in contact and keep up to date with activities and the lives of our families and friends. In other words its really great to 'peep' into my kid's lives and see what they are saying, to whom and from whom and stay current with their activities.
There is a site called 'Librarians and Facebook' with 1,883 members who chat about all aspects of libraries including conferences, job and educational opportunities. There is also a site called 'Digital Reference and Facebook'with 426 members which is devoted to digital reference services, and serves as a forum for individuals with an interest in any and all types of digital reference. I will explore more of these sites in the next few days.
However, as many of the authors of the articles stress, child abductions and potential predators very rarely happen due to an Internet encounter. The potential implications for removing access to social networks for many students will only increase the digital divide between those who have access at home and those that do not. The correct solution to this 'problem' is to educate those students to deal with any negative encounters in the right way and not to take away social networking for everyone else.
Matthew Willams says in his article 'MySpace and Facebook', some educators see these sites as taking students away from 'reading and studying' and someone went as far as to call social networking 'an abuse of technology'. Williams goes on to say that some students who were never really interested in lectures and studying in the first place and this modern technology just gives them a way to express their dissatisfaction. There will always be those educators who still wish to teach in the more traditional ways and wish to dismiss the technological advances. However, in time they will have to adapt or retire. Education seems to be more in the hands of the users or receivers than the providers and educators will have to adapt and use the social networks if they wish to provide interesting and worthwhile methods of teaching.
At the other end of the spectrum to the DOPA is the attitude of some educators who see the benefits of social networking and are finding ways to incorporate it into their classroom experiences
As Henry Jenkins said in his article 'MySpace and DOPA', teachers are already using blogs for teaching, linking classrooms on a global scale, for social studies, posting student made videos on YouTube, taping podcasts of lectures and students are editing and posting on Wikipedia and designing webpages. All of this would disappear if the legislation is passed and social networks are banned in schools.
I was interested to read in Danah Boyd's article on 'Identity Production in a Networked Culture' that the MySpace site acts as an area for teens to 'hangout' which is out of control of their parents and educators. Parents are scared to let teens hang around the mall or the park and have controlled their lives so much that the only place left seems to be the digital world of MySpace where teens can connect with each other, develop profiles and gather in a space where they can see and be seen by their peers.
I am more familar with Facebook having had an account for three or so months and enjoy the ability to share photos with friends and family. Instead of having to e-mail photos to everyone on the mailing list, there is only one place to post them now and they are available for those people to whom I allow access. In a world where people often do not live close by Facebook is another way to stay in contact and keep up to date with activities and the lives of our families and friends. In other words its really great to 'peep' into my kid's lives and see what they are saying, to whom and from whom and stay current with their activities.
There is a site called 'Librarians and Facebook' with 1,883 members who chat about all aspects of libraries including conferences, job and educational opportunities. There is also a site called 'Digital Reference and Facebook'with 426 members which is devoted to digital reference services, and serves as a forum for individuals with an interest in any and all types of digital reference. I will explore more of these sites in the next few days.
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
Folksonomies continued...
This weeks articles cover the many aspects of tagging and folksonomies and their advantages and disadvantages from a variety of viewpoints. I wondered why Ellyssa Kroski called her article 'The Hive Mind' and looking at Wikipedia it is a kind of groupthink or collective consciousness and conformity or a software framework - maybe the collective consciousness of social insects such as bees. The article was inaccessible on the Internet on Tuesday evening (June 26th) around 9.30 pm. However I had read it earlier in the week and was interested to read about the 'Long Tail' phenomenon which had not come across before. It is relevant to tagging where the views of the minorities with less popular tags will be more in number than the more popular tags. The non mainstream topics outnumber the more popular ones and it is descriptive of a graph showing a long tail at the end of the statistical distribution.
Two of the articles this week, one by Emanuele Quinterelli and by Carol Ou talk about finding the 'middle ground' between user tagging at one end and the classification by a librarian at the other end and this may be the future direction of social bookmarking. Alex Wright wrote that
'a middle ground between.. bottom up tagging and top down controlled vocabularies....where end users could freely create, adopt or reject terms stored in a distributed repository that gets administered by a representative authority that 'owns' the vocabulary'
Emanuele Quinterelli says that 'All that we have to do is to merge and leverage emerging and traditional tools to improve findability. Somewhere at the intersection of those two models is a more powerful framework for identifying, sharing and finding information.'
He concludes by saying that 'Traditional hierarchies for organising information (or reality) will not be replaced by tags, but through tagging we are finding new ways of thinking about classification and new applications for organising and sharing knowledge'. He sees tagging and the new bottom up system as being a step towards a new way of organising information that will develop in the future. This is the view supported by Jon Lebowski.
In summary I liked the comment by Timo Hannay where he describes a folksonomy as a 'liberating, not restrictive; bottom up, not imposed; relational, not hierarchical. It also cleverly harnesses selfish acts and directs them towards the common good. But most of all, it just seems to fit the way our brains work'
Two of the articles this week, one by Emanuele Quinterelli and by Carol Ou talk about finding the 'middle ground' between user tagging at one end and the classification by a librarian at the other end and this may be the future direction of social bookmarking. Alex Wright wrote that
'a middle ground between.. bottom up tagging and top down controlled vocabularies....where end users could freely create, adopt or reject terms stored in a distributed repository that gets administered by a representative authority that 'owns' the vocabulary'
Emanuele Quinterelli says that 'All that we have to do is to merge and leverage emerging and traditional tools to improve findability. Somewhere at the intersection of those two models is a more powerful framework for identifying, sharing and finding information.'
He concludes by saying that 'Traditional hierarchies for organising information (or reality) will not be replaced by tags, but through tagging we are finding new ways of thinking about classification and new applications for organising and sharing knowledge'. He sees tagging and the new bottom up system as being a step towards a new way of organising information that will develop in the future. This is the view supported by Jon Lebowski.
In summary I liked the comment by Timo Hannay where he describes a folksonomy as a 'liberating, not restrictive; bottom up, not imposed; relational, not hierarchical. It also cleverly harnesses selfish acts and directs them towards the common good. But most of all, it just seems to fit the way our brains work'
Thursday, June 21, 2007
Del.icio.us in the Libraries
Looking at the case studies this week showing how libraries use the social tagging site 'Del.icio.us' reminded me of the old 'Vertical File' system I used to maintain working in a public and school library. These were documents that I would save under a specific label which might be useful for someone researching this topic of for a school project for example. The difference here is that I would be the only person doing this and presumably in the libraries in the case studies there are many people choosing articles from the Internet and 'saving' them in a file under their library name in Del.icio.us. Why are the saving them?? I was looking at the tag cloud in the LaGrange Park Library and wondering why anyone would tag a website showing a list of free knitting patterns. I have nothing against knitting, but what does this have to do with the library? There is a tag called 'cicadas' which takes the user to a very nice site on cicadas in Illinois, but where is the relevance to the library?
I have looked at Maui Community College library and wondered why there would be tagged a site on the Big Business of Dairy farming? It is even listed on the library homepage. Its an interesting informative site, but what is its relevance with Maui Community College Library?
The Penn Tags site opens with a tag cloud of popular tags and then lists pages and pages of boring information that would take hours to unravel and work out what the content is. I am really not sure what all this is about.
The Seldovia library at Del.icio.us is more of what I would expect for a library to tag and there appears to be many tags related to library information. Once again it looks like a vertical file with the library related tags in a darked and larger font making them more visible. It would be nice to be able to link the title of the library on the top of the page to the library website. I would like to use that to find out where the library was located.
The Thomas Ford Memorial Library has only 65 tags in the tag cloud which is a small number considering that they have been tagging for at least two years. Once again I am not sure why tags for 'recipes' and 'food' are listed here.
It seems by looking at these tags for libraries that anything can be tagged and there are no rules or guidelines to decide what can or cannot be included in a library's bookmarking site.
The number of tags at Lansing Public Library is enormous and once again looks like the old 'vertical file'. If the purpose for the long alphabetical list of subjects under the auspices of the library is to provide an access point for students or any researchers to find information on anything listed, then this is surely not the way to do research. I looked under the 'Dickens' tag and found only one site, 'Birds' had 4 sites, 'Ecology' had 4 and 'Soccer' had 4. Based on this it would be more efficient and effective to search 'Google' to find any required information.
Michael Jenson in his article on 'The New Metrics of Scholarly Authority' in the Chronicle Review described Del.icio.us as 'a collection of favourite sites where descriptive tags denoting contents raise the authority of the listed site'
If this is the purpose of tagging a site especially under the auspices of a library, then there needs to be some guidelines established as to the authority, content and future use of the website.
In my opinion, just because someone tags it for personal future use be it in a library or not, does not immediately raise the authority of the site.
I have looked at Maui Community College library and wondered why there would be tagged a site on the Big Business of Dairy farming? It is even listed on the library homepage. Its an interesting informative site, but what is its relevance with Maui Community College Library?
The Penn Tags site opens with a tag cloud of popular tags and then lists pages and pages of boring information that would take hours to unravel and work out what the content is. I am really not sure what all this is about.
The Seldovia library at Del.icio.us is more of what I would expect for a library to tag and there appears to be many tags related to library information. Once again it looks like a vertical file with the library related tags in a darked and larger font making them more visible. It would be nice to be able to link the title of the library on the top of the page to the library website. I would like to use that to find out where the library was located.
The Thomas Ford Memorial Library has only 65 tags in the tag cloud which is a small number considering that they have been tagging for at least two years. Once again I am not sure why tags for 'recipes' and 'food' are listed here.
It seems by looking at these tags for libraries that anything can be tagged and there are no rules or guidelines to decide what can or cannot be included in a library's bookmarking site.
The number of tags at Lansing Public Library is enormous and once again looks like the old 'vertical file'. If the purpose for the long alphabetical list of subjects under the auspices of the library is to provide an access point for students or any researchers to find information on anything listed, then this is surely not the way to do research. I looked under the 'Dickens' tag and found only one site, 'Birds' had 4 sites, 'Ecology' had 4 and 'Soccer' had 4. Based on this it would be more efficient and effective to search 'Google' to find any required information.
Michael Jenson in his article on 'The New Metrics of Scholarly Authority' in the Chronicle Review described Del.icio.us as 'a collection of favourite sites where descriptive tags denoting contents raise the authority of the listed site'
If this is the purpose of tagging a site especially under the auspices of a library, then there needs to be some guidelines established as to the authority, content and future use of the website.
In my opinion, just because someone tags it for personal future use be it in a library or not, does not immediately raise the authority of the site.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
