Well, wikis.
Been around a while, I've accessed them on many occasions, and even participated in a couple. They are a more comfortable fit for me [order-appreciator, comfortable-with-clear-structure, chaos-averse, control-freak...] and the ease of use and access is nice.
I still marvel though at the amount of time lots of people seem to have to devote to (indeed a more structured etc etc version of but still) their particular concerns [interests, passions, obsessions] and sharing them with the e-world.
Structured environments like libraries would, it seems to me, find more value in what wikis offer than the chat-fest, blog or bebo type of thing. Partly because it (IMHO) suits the intent of conveying quality information that is easy to read and access and navigate around it, with some editorial control to protect all users from Bad People's input, but also because (all? most?) libraries are associated with organisations which are concerned (obsessed?) with image, marketing, branding etc... Better fit with the structure of wikis than the more free-form gas-fests, or other media-format interaction options.
I particularly liked the book club / genealogists / community noticeboard sorts of wikis on the public library sites, and the research starting points on a university site I saw. Wider community involvement in libraries, but also increasing the awareness of public ownership of public libraries (and students working collectively and collaboratively to achieve positive educational outcomes...) that is so often lacking in the general populace in most towns and cities.
I still can't get to grips with the 'everyone has the internet' philosophy pretty much inherent in the articles and commentary etc I read relating to these tech etc things... Moves such as 'free' (ie no direct user charges) internet in public libraries do something towards addressing the real fact that huge numbers of people *don't* actually have readily available home or work internet access. But then there is the issue of the power and speed of connection required to achieve a satisfying experience, especially when one is new to such things, when first exploring the internet or trying out participation in blogs, wikis or whatever - or rather the widespread lack thereof, even among the computer enabled and comfortable.
Roll on the end of the Telecom stranglehold, maybe...
Thursday, December 13, 2007
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
#15 (week six)
Thoughts on Web 2.0; quality, quantity, technology, money, true accessibility, real learning, sweeping statements, baby & bathwater...
Quality, quantity, technology I love the idea of technology and technological breakthroughs, and ways to lower barriers between people and between people and the information that they want/need/whatever. XML, for example, seems like a great tool advance to me, and it has opened the internet up to so many more people being able to do things in different ways. But why is there so much [expletive deleted] spouted about 'it's all out there' 'the web is the answer' 'the 2.0 way is all of us accessing everything' and the like? What there is to know is indefinably vast - and only the tiniest amount of it is readily and freely accessible to any significant proportion of [for now confining myself to the NZ] the population, and much of what is available is unvalidated or untested or undesirable. Yes, the web continues to grow, and 2.0 may well be a way to allow better or different access to more or different parts of that vastness, but I mean, really, some perspective - more/different is not necessarily better, it may just be more/different.
Money, true accessibility Why do none of the articles or commentators or bloggers or whatever talk about money? In many instances 'it' - whatever that may be for the individual - is not available unless you (or some large institution/corporation/organisation with which you are affiliated) are prepared to pay for it. It's not libraries locking up print journals and 'forcing' customers to emerge from whatever nest they are comfortably ensconced in and make an actual visit to a building somewhere that stops most of Joe Public from getting to the latest issue of Nature or Science or Whatever - the publishers (and by extension the writers etc) want to be paid for their intellectual content. Even where my library does provide electronic access to material, it isn't 'all' material. Firstly, because there is vastly more information not available electronically than is and, secondly, because huge amounts of material that is available electronically is gated based on money. Lots of money is required to access the information, and someone is required to pay. Taxes are real money, honest, even local taxes/rates. And I don't see people leaping up and down to pay more local or central government taxes (or students begging to pay more in fees) so more of us can access more peer-reviewed, validated - or whatever - content. I don't want my doctor doing his research via his blog before operating on me, (or mechanic/car, or pharmacist/prescription, or...) thanks all the same...
Sweeping statements I see versions of everywhere like 'At a minimum, this means placing library services and content in the user’s preferred environment (i.e., the Web); even better, it means integrating our services into their daily patterns of work, study and play.' My preferred work environment is not the web, and many of my customers do not see the web as their preferred environment. Yes, reach out, move on, keep exploring opportunities and possibilities - but don't imply that books and real human interactions and personal connections are passe and no longer relevant. I feel the same way about advertisers of any other product that seem to want to pursue me into every avenue of my existence (speaking of sweeping statements) - I wish they wouldn't. Hmmm.
Real learning I think the heart of it is a phrase in the OCLC Web 2.0 newsletter. It somewhat caught my eye when I first read it, but after video-ing, further reading, linking and surfing etc, I went back to the newsletter to see if I understood it differently , as it were - and this phrase, the second time through, sprang out: "You and your mobile and nonmobile devices—PDA, MP3, laptop, cell phone, camera, PC, TV, etc.—are always online, connected to one another and to the Web."
Because I'm not always online, I don't want to be always online, and see it as unhealthy to be this way. The connectivity sensation is false. You aren't connecting to 'people, thoughts, ideas and experiences...' as one article put it. You are alone in front of an electronic device sending out remote electronic signals. I don't want to be remote, or rather disconnected from genuine human contact and interaction. And I don't think video conferencing or video phoning is much of a connection either. I want to have the be-online option available to all people, myself included, but I want neither my work nor home life absorbed by/into it.
Is being exposed to more data or taking in more unverified 'facts' enough? What about real learning, and learning to apply your critical faculties (and being helped to develop these, and see why you need them) to what you see/hear/read. I come across a lot of regurgitation of, for example, an essay/fact/etc 'picked up off the net...' that therefore 'must be accurate, because I found it online...'. I don't think this kind of thinking and/or level of understanding will lead to productive or valuable collaborative results on a library website. So yes, a place for it, but a more important, or prominent, or exposed, part of our offer should be authoritative, defensibly so.
I don't want the library to *not* become a part of the whatever web 2.0 is, and will become. I don't want us to lose touch with those for whom the e-connectivity is a core aspect of their lives and worlds, or fail to reach out to them with services and resource options that mean something to them and work for them.
I love books, book-y stuff, and (apart from a very few exceptions in a totally plutonic and intellectual way) love other book-y loving people. So I don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater. For many people, probably for some time to come, a website is somewhere to check what time XYZ is open, or what events are on at LMN or how to get to ABC, or where GHI can be found, etc, etc.
I hope we can embrace both concepts & communities, paper/building/flesh-and-blood-person & virtual/e-world, & also embrace those that are a bit of these and other stuff, as it were... I think I like best the idea of web 2.0 as a platform to spring off from, rather than a way or means in itself. Federated searching of reliable sources of information does make me a little weak at the knees - I'm possibly still in touch with the geek-potential within me... Roll on web 4.0, where all things are everywhere for & too everyone, where 2.0 doesn't supplant 1.0, or 3.0 supplant 2.0...
Quality, quantity, technology I love the idea of technology and technological breakthroughs, and ways to lower barriers between people and between people and the information that they want/need/whatever. XML, for example, seems like a great tool advance to me, and it has opened the internet up to so many more people being able to do things in different ways. But why is there so much [expletive deleted] spouted about 'it's all out there' 'the web is the answer' 'the 2.0 way is all of us accessing everything' and the like? What there is to know is indefinably vast - and only the tiniest amount of it is readily and freely accessible to any significant proportion of [for now confining myself to the NZ] the population, and much of what is available is unvalidated or untested or undesirable. Yes, the web continues to grow, and 2.0 may well be a way to allow better or different access to more or different parts of that vastness, but I mean, really, some perspective - more/different is not necessarily better, it may just be more/different.
Money, true accessibility Why do none of the articles or commentators or bloggers or whatever talk about money? In many instances 'it' - whatever that may be for the individual - is not available unless you (or some large institution/corporation/organisation with which you are affiliated) are prepared to pay for it. It's not libraries locking up print journals and 'forcing' customers to emerge from whatever nest they are comfortably ensconced in and make an actual visit to a building somewhere that stops most of Joe Public from getting to the latest issue of Nature or Science or Whatever - the publishers (and by extension the writers etc) want to be paid for their intellectual content. Even where my library does provide electronic access to material, it isn't 'all' material. Firstly, because there is vastly more information not available electronically than is and, secondly, because huge amounts of material that is available electronically is gated based on money. Lots of money is required to access the information, and someone is required to pay. Taxes are real money, honest, even local taxes/rates. And I don't see people leaping up and down to pay more local or central government taxes (or students begging to pay more in fees) so more of us can access more peer-reviewed, validated - or whatever - content. I don't want my doctor doing his research via his blog before operating on me, (or mechanic/car, or pharmacist/prescription, or...) thanks all the same...
Sweeping statements I see versions of everywhere like 'At a minimum, this means placing library services and content in the user’s preferred environment (i.e., the Web); even better, it means integrating our services into their daily patterns of work, study and play.' My preferred work environment is not the web, and many of my customers do not see the web as their preferred environment. Yes, reach out, move on, keep exploring opportunities and possibilities - but don't imply that books and real human interactions and personal connections are passe and no longer relevant. I feel the same way about advertisers of any other product that seem to want to pursue me into every avenue of my existence (speaking of sweeping statements) - I wish they wouldn't. Hmmm.
Real learning I think the heart of it is a phrase in the OCLC Web 2.0 newsletter. It somewhat caught my eye when I first read it, but after video-ing, further reading, linking and surfing etc, I went back to the newsletter to see if I understood it differently , as it were - and this phrase, the second time through, sprang out: "You and your mobile and nonmobile devices—PDA, MP3, laptop, cell phone, camera, PC, TV, etc.—are always online, connected to one another and to the Web."
Because I'm not always online, I don't want to be always online, and see it as unhealthy to be this way. The connectivity sensation is false. You aren't connecting to 'people, thoughts, ideas and experiences...' as one article put it. You are alone in front of an electronic device sending out remote electronic signals. I don't want to be remote, or rather disconnected from genuine human contact and interaction. And I don't think video conferencing or video phoning is much of a connection either. I want to have the be-online option available to all people, myself included, but I want neither my work nor home life absorbed by/into it.
Is being exposed to more data or taking in more unverified 'facts' enough? What about real learning, and learning to apply your critical faculties (and being helped to develop these, and see why you need them) to what you see/hear/read. I come across a lot of regurgitation of, for example, an essay/fact/etc 'picked up off the net...' that therefore 'must be accurate, because I found it online...'. I don't think this kind of thinking and/or level of understanding will lead to productive or valuable collaborative results on a library website. So yes, a place for it, but a more important, or prominent, or exposed, part of our offer should be authoritative, defensibly so.
I don't want the library to *not* become a part of the whatever web 2.0 is, and will become. I don't want us to lose touch with those for whom the e-connectivity is a core aspect of their lives and worlds, or fail to reach out to them with services and resource options that mean something to them and work for them.
I love books, book-y stuff, and (apart from a very few exceptions in a totally plutonic and intellectual way) love other book-y loving people. So I don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater. For many people, probably for some time to come, a website is somewhere to check what time XYZ is open, or what events are on at LMN or how to get to ABC, or where GHI can be found, etc, etc.
I hope we can embrace both concepts & communities, paper/building/flesh-and-blood-person & virtual/e-world, & also embrace those that are a bit of these and other stuff, as it were... I think I like best the idea of web 2.0 as a platform to spring off from, rather than a way or means in itself. Federated searching of reliable sources of information does make me a little weak at the knees - I'm possibly still in touch with the geek-potential within me... Roll on web 4.0, where all things are everywhere for & too everyone, where 2.0 doesn't supplant 1.0, or 3.0 supplant 2.0...
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
#14 (week 6)
I spent a lot of time looking and playing, and I'm still unable to get away from my minimal to non-existent interest in blogs, and what people are raving on about on whatever e-channel they are using.
I understand the concept of tags and tag structure, and the search capacity it allows - but can't think of a reason for searching for blogs. I don't think I lack lateral thinking skills, or the capacity to expand my worldview or experience. I think I just don't want to read something in a blog - or even in a blog format.
I obviously don't lack prejudice either, because I don't see the blogosphere as offering reliable, authoritative, effectively organised information that I can rely on or use. I feel this way about the small or the large. If I need (or even want) to know what the definition of a word is, I'll go to the Oxford - accessing it on paper or electronically not being the issue - and if I want to research a topic I'll access databases of articles that include material from reputable peer reviewed journals.
If I'm just curious, I'll entertain myself on the web, and so won't look just for blog-disseminated material, but will search in a wider way, as it were.
I was actually quite dismayed by the kinds of things I saw on the posts I pulled up when I searched blogs on Technorati. It's not to say that people don't have interesting, worthwhile an accurate things to say, but rather the way that many postings or comments seemed to indicate no critical assessment or filter had been applied to the veracity or value or accuracy of the information etc under discussion.
Most interesting exercise in how a completely different from me sector of the world population live/act/think/behave/interact....
I understand the concept of tags and tag structure, and the search capacity it allows - but can't think of a reason for searching for blogs. I don't think I lack lateral thinking skills, or the capacity to expand my worldview or experience. I think I just don't want to read something in a blog - or even in a blog format.
I obviously don't lack prejudice either, because I don't see the blogosphere as offering reliable, authoritative, effectively organised information that I can rely on or use. I feel this way about the small or the large. If I need (or even want) to know what the definition of a word is, I'll go to the Oxford - accessing it on paper or electronically not being the issue - and if I want to research a topic I'll access databases of articles that include material from reputable peer reviewed journals.
If I'm just curious, I'll entertain myself on the web, and so won't look just for blog-disseminated material, but will search in a wider way, as it were.
I was actually quite dismayed by the kinds of things I saw on the posts I pulled up when I searched blogs on Technorati. It's not to say that people don't have interesting, worthwhile an accurate things to say, but rather the way that many postings or comments seemed to indicate no critical assessment or filter had been applied to the veracity or value or accuracy of the information etc under discussion.
Most interesting exercise in how a completely different from me sector of the world population live/act/think/behave/interact....
Monday, December 10, 2007
#13 (week 6)
OK, now I'm pretty much convinced that whatever 'social' aspects were originally in my personality makeup are either faded to virtual transparency (pun intended) or gone completely.
&/or I'm hidebound / rigid. Or so comfortable with the kind of searching that I spend so much time on that I'm firmly embedded in the metaphoric crack in the couch between the back and the cushions, and unable to get up and move to another seat...
I like the availability of a tool to enable me to access bookmarks from 'anywhere' a lot - and I will explore del.icio.us and diigo in some depth if/when I get a couple of spare internet-enabled hours - but I don't feel the love for the 'social annotation/bookmarking' concept. There's so much junk out there... I want to get to exactly where I need to be, and that's why I use appropriate powerful search engines or websites or catalogues or... The purpose that the social bookmarking thing (beyond bookmark transportability I mean) is best suited for is serendipitous or bored e-travel... And that's not usually how I do - or want to - spend my internet time.
Or is it because it doesn't appeal to me to use it in the 'social' way that I don't see its potential attraction...
I dunno...
&/or I'm hidebound / rigid. Or so comfortable with the kind of searching that I spend so much time on that I'm firmly embedded in the metaphoric crack in the couch between the back and the cushions, and unable to get up and move to another seat...
I like the availability of a tool to enable me to access bookmarks from 'anywhere' a lot - and I will explore del.icio.us and diigo in some depth if/when I get a couple of spare internet-enabled hours - but I don't feel the love for the 'social annotation/bookmarking' concept. There's so much junk out there... I want to get to exactly where I need to be, and that's why I use appropriate powerful search engines or websites or catalogues or... The purpose that the social bookmarking thing (beyond bookmark transportability I mean) is best suited for is serendipitous or bored e-travel... And that's not usually how I do - or want to - spend my internet time.
Or is it because it doesn't appeal to me to use it in the 'social' way that I don't see its potential attraction...
I dunno...
Sunday, December 9, 2007
#12 (week 5)
Not really my thing, I think...
Here's my toy search roll, http://rollyo.com/321321321/current_events-goss/
I do *a lot* of searching on all kinds of sites, for all kinds of work-related reasons... But the sites and the reasons are typically very different each of the 50+ times I search in a day. And then there is the fact that the majority of the sites I search all the time are member-only in some fashion, ie requiring log-ins/passwords, &/or specific search syntax, etc...
Still, interesting enough as a concept. In the specific, more annoying - I didn't like the layout of the site, not keen on the arrangement of the access points into other things, really don't like the cluttered results-returned page - and the advertising!!!
But, still, interesting enough as a concept. I wonder if someone will take it and run with it, and produce a cleaner, clearer version etc...
Here's my toy search roll, http://rollyo.com/321321321/current_events-goss/
I do *a lot* of searching on all kinds of sites, for all kinds of work-related reasons... But the sites and the reasons are typically very different each of the 50+ times I search in a day. And then there is the fact that the majority of the sites I search all the time are member-only in some fashion, ie requiring log-ins/passwords, &/or specific search syntax, etc...
Still, interesting enough as a concept. In the specific, more annoying - I didn't like the layout of the site, not keen on the arrangement of the access points into other things, really don't like the cluttered results-returned page - and the advertising!!!
But, still, interesting enough as a concept. I wonder if someone will take it and run with it, and produce a cleaner, clearer version etc...
#11 (week 5)
Hah! Something I knew... that I kept meaning to go and check out in more depth... so now I have...
http://www.librarything.com/catalog/charlie2-0
Oh well. Still no time or access to actually catalogue the thousands of books, DVDs, CDs, videos etc that I have, but now I know that if I ever:
1) do have them all in one place (as opposed to stored with rellies, boxed up under the spare bed, and stacked over every flat surface, including most of the floor, of the study, as well as being crammed into an awful lot of shelves and drawers...) &
2) have a computer at home &
3) experience broadband as it's advertised (touted) to be in a home environment &
4) have the time &
5) have the energy
I can finally get started on the dream job of a lifetime. Yes, I am officially the traditional Librarian Geek (in contrast to the modern, e-concerned Librarian Geek) - (one of) my dream job(s) would be to create a catalogue of *my own* well loved and appreciated multi-format information holdings, and arrange and properly house it all.
Of course, as the traditional Librarian, I don't actually have an income big enough to allow me to invest in the size of building this would require. Because, naturally, the more space I have, the more I can fill - and so the less $ I have because I used it to acquire filling for all those glorious storage places - shelves, cabinets, corners, and more - so even retirement, which sorts the get-time&energy thing, wouldn't help...
Now I'm depressed...
http://www.librarything.com/catalog/charlie2-0
Oh well. Still no time or access to actually catalogue the thousands of books, DVDs, CDs, videos etc that I have, but now I know that if I ever:
1) do have them all in one place (as opposed to stored with rellies, boxed up under the spare bed, and stacked over every flat surface, including most of the floor, of the study, as well as being crammed into an awful lot of shelves and drawers...) &
2) have a computer at home &
3) experience broadband as it's advertised (touted) to be in a home environment &
4) have the time &
5) have the energy
I can finally get started on the dream job of a lifetime. Yes, I am officially the traditional Librarian Geek (in contrast to the modern, e-concerned Librarian Geek) - (one of) my dream job(s) would be to create a catalogue of *my own* well loved and appreciated multi-format information holdings, and arrange and properly house it all.
Of course, as the traditional Librarian, I don't actually have an income big enough to allow me to invest in the size of building this would require. Because, naturally, the more space I have, the more I can fill - and so the less $ I have because I used it to acquire filling for all those glorious storage places - shelves, cabinets, corners, and more - so even retirement, which sorts the get-time&energy thing, wouldn't help...
Now I'm depressed...
Friday, December 7, 2007
#7 Week 3
Well, no reason to do these in order; I get bored, or follow a thread from something that I do find interesting only to end up somewhere completely different... Just as well we're all different.
The techno thing that I followed up today was skype, because it came up in conversation a couple of times recently and I had only the vaguest idea what it referred to.
I'm not sure how much less vague my understanding is, after having to click on almost all the hyperlinks in the various sites I accessed to learn about skype - since the terminology used to 'clarify' things was also outside of my scope in large part - but I think I like what I believe may be close to what it is.
For example, I was sort of aware of internet PC-PC phoning - but I hadn't consciously come across the term that apparently describes these, ie softphones. Too much, too much - my head hurt after a while. I'm a little worried about how much (if any) of this I'll retain...
And the nothing stays still thing. What little I did sort of know about the internet ph thing - well, things have come soooooo far. Really, brain hurt...
The techno thing that I followed up today was skype, because it came up in conversation a couple of times recently and I had only the vaguest idea what it referred to.
I'm not sure how much less vague my understanding is, after having to click on almost all the hyperlinks in the various sites I accessed to learn about skype - since the terminology used to 'clarify' things was also outside of my scope in large part - but I think I like what I believe may be close to what it is.
For example, I was sort of aware of internet PC-PC phoning - but I hadn't consciously come across the term that apparently describes these, ie softphones. Too much, too much - my head hurt after a while. I'm a little worried about how much (if any) of this I'll retain...
And the nothing stays still thing. What little I did sort of know about the internet ph thing - well, things have come soooooo far. Really, brain hurt...
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