Filed under: New York Public Library
To complete the Graduate Diploma of Information Management at RMIT University we are required to engage in an industry placement that is the equivalent of 3 weeks full-time work. I am completing my placement at the New York Public Library Science, Industry and Business Library on 34th Street, between Madison and 5th Avenue.
Recently I gained a position as a part-time Children’s and Youth Services Librarian in Melbourne, and I enjoy the position a great deal. My placement at the New York Public Library will be a great opportunity not only to experience a much larger public library environment, and the way that a library operates in a different culture, but also give me an insight into the research library and working with specialist collections.
Yesterday I began at SIBL. My orientation session started with a meeting with Emily Nelson, the Assistant Recruiting Manager. Emily gave me a staff I.D. card and briefly ran me through the libraries policies and procedures for unpaid interns. I was required to read and sign three forms before starting my internship. These were:
- Ethics and Conflicts Policy For Non-Salaried Employees
- Policy Regarding Financial and Ethical Misconduct
- New York Public Library Unpaid Intern Handbook
Once this was complete I was passed on to Erminio D’Onofrio, Head of Information Services at SIBL. Erminio gave me an extensive tour of the library, explaining the different areas. The library was created about fifteen years ago when the main branch on 42nd Street could no longer house such a vast collection. As a result the main reference collection consisting of science, industry, technology and business based materials was moved to a new location on 34th Street. This became the SIBL.
The entire building is several stories high, and the library takes up two of these levels. The top-level of the library is a circulation collection, available for borrowing and shelved according to the Dewey Decimal System. The bottom level houses a reference collection, which is shelved using the Library of Congress Reference System.
Through out the library there are various computer terminals with different access levels. Some computers allow access to the internet and word processing, others to the databases subscribed to by the library, some are purely for searching the catalogue. The internet and word processing computers are available for only one hour at a time. Once this hour is up patrons will no longer be able to access a computer with the internet at ANY of the NYPL branches, which are scattered throughout Staten Island, Manhattan and the Bronx. Queens and Brooklyn have their own library services, separate from the NYPL.
The lock out on computers not only includes the metropolitan branches, but also the main branch on 42nd Street, the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts and the Schomburg Centre for Research in Black Culture. This lock system ensures that there is a high turnover in computer users, allowing for a larger number of patrons to access the computers on a daily basis. There is no limit on either the database or catalogue computers scattered throughout the library. There are also three computers with an advanced financial program, donated to the library, and available for patron use.
In April of this year the SIBL launched the Job Search Central program, which provides New Yorker’s with resources, counselling and workshops to improve their job skills and employment opportunities. At this point in time the library is running the New York StartUp! Business Plan Competition, which invites residents of Manhattan, Staten Island and the Bronx to enter the competition and win $15,000 to help start their own business. the competition includes an orientation session and several workshops. Entrants are required to submit a business plan to the judges.
During my tour I was introduced to Kristin McDonough, the Robert and Joyce Menschel Director. She suggested that I help staff some of the StartUp! orientation sessions during my time at the library, and I look forward to participating in them.
At this point as far as I can understand, my time here will match fairly closely to the plan I constructed for the course assessment. I am to perform and observe duties all over the library, including reference and circulation, as well as working on a project involving the rare books collection, which houses text published as early as the 1600′s. This will be a fantastic opportunity to see items that I would otherwise never have access to, and will hopefully give me some insight into archival processes as well.
I have recently received an email detailing some fo the classes I will be observing during my internship. These include:
- Statistics
- Job Seekers Contact Research
- NYPL’s New Catalog
- Market Research
- Articles
- Advertising
- Job Seekers Career Resources Vault and Wet Feet
- Small Business
I am hoping that observing these classes will give me insight into the way the NYPL educates their patrons, the services they offer, and the results that they are trying to achieve. I will also be able to gain some insight into how to organise and run classes and training programs myself, should I ever be required to do so.
After the completion of the tour I spent some time browsing the NYPL and SIBL websites, as well as their staff page, to try and familiarise myself with its content and basic navigation of the sites. The catalog is accessed via the NYPL webpage, and so it was important that I feel comfortable using this software.
Whilst browsing I noticed that there was a preschool storytime scheduled at the main branch of the library on 42nd Street. I inquired as to whether or not it would be possible to go and observe the session, and compare a children’s storytime in a public library in New York with my own experiences in Melbourne.
I found the session to be very similar to those conducted by myself and the other children’s librarians at Wyndham City Council, with a few small differences. There seemed to be a lot of focus on the singing of nursery rhymes and hand eye co-ordination activities, and there was no craft activity after the completion of the storytime. At Wyndham we start the sessions with a greeting and a song, and then introduce the theme for the week. We then read around three or four books, stopping to sing nursery rhymes in between.
There seemed to be a reversal of this at the storytime I observed in NY. Four or five nursery rhymes would be sung, or perhaps two quite long ones such as ‘ We’re Going on a Bear Hunt’, and then a brief story. The songs and rhymes involved a great deal of repetition, and were sometimes sung two or three times in a row. Songs such as ‘ Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Toes ‘ involved pace change to engage and challenge the children.
I think that due to the age of the children, around 12 months to 4 or 5 years, the stories and rhymes chosen were aimed at engaging the children, without being beyond their comprehension. The books chosen were quite simplistic, with repetition, counting, colours etc, rather than actual narrative. One example of the stories read was ‘ Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? ‘ a book that introduces colours and animals to children, but does not involve any sort of complex narrative. Instead the story is driven by the repetition of the line ‘ Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? ‘. The librarian also sang this book to the tune of ‘ Baa Baa Black Sheep ‘, which I thought worked quite well and was a different approach. Some of the rhymes sung included:
- Little Rabbit Fu Fu
- We’re Going On A Bear Hunt
- Where Is Thumbkin
- Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Toes
- I’m A Little Teapot
- The Hokey Pokey
I found it interesting that, whilst all of these rhymes were familiar to me, the way that they were sung or acted out was not. In Australia we have a second part to the Hokey Pokey after introducing the body parts (Oh! The Hokey Pokey…etc). Also the tune to ‘ Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Toes ‘ was very different to the one that we use here in Australia.
The other main difference that I observed was that the group at the NYPL session was much smaller than the crowds we tend to get at Wyndham. Due to the nature of Wyndham and its rapidly expanding population, we often see between 30 and 50 children at each of our storytime sessions, and they vary in age from around 2 years up to 5 or 6 years of age. There was a maximum of about 20 or so children at the session I observed. Also we hold our sessions at 10.30 in the morning, the NYPL sessions are usually held in the afternoon around 4 pm, but some do occur around 11 am.
I found the entire experience to be extremely interesting and was fascinated that it could be so similar to the storytimes that I myself have conducted, and yet have such obvious differences as well. I think that the differences cannot be put down to culture alone, and the preference of the librarian conducting the session should be taken into account. For example I prefer to spend more time on the stories and trying to engage the children with the books, than I do on the nursery rhymes during my sessions. I also try to use games or activities that encourage children to listen or concentrate, such as ‘Simon Says’ or getting them to pat their heads and rub their tummies at the same time. I think that the amount of focus put into the various aspects of a storytime is completely dependant upon the librarian, however it is important that there is some sort of balance of stories and rhymes, and that both should be present in the session. The librarian conducting the NYPL session focused strongly on the singing side of storytime, and this may have been due to personal preference, cultural differences, and I think in a large part due to the age of the children in attendance.
I found that the group was better able to engage with the session at the NYPL, both because of the smaller size, but also due to the interaction and engagement of the parents. At Wyndham we have a large number of parents attending our sessions, but quite often they choose not to engage in the storytime with their children, and sit apart on the couches. At the NYPL, there were no couches available, and so parents had to sit on the floor with their children. This meant that there was less adult social interaction and more engagement with both the librarian and their children. This also resulted in the children being better behaved.
This has made me wonder if perhaps there is some way of attempting to get the parents more engaged during storytimes at Wyndham. I have noticed at our rhyme time session, which consist purely of nursery rhymes and songs, the adults sit with their children and interact, where as storytime they tend to hang back. Perhaps it is worth considering moving the couches further away from the storytime area so that observing parents are inclined to sit with their children? Alternatively I could attempt to focus more on the rhyming and singing activities, in an attempt to get the parents involved.
I hope that I will get another chance to observe a storytime at the library, hopefully with some older children, and see whether or not their is more of a focus on the books in a session involving children of an age who are better able to comprehend narrative and engage with more complex stories.
Filed under: Document Management 1
And so I have reached the end of my Web 2.0 adventure, and here I am, writing yet another reflection post!
I must admit things were different this time round. It was refreshing to have weekly assignments set out for us in this course. In my previous courses there weren’t really any specific blog related subjects or activities, it was used more as a learning and reflection portal. This time having the weekly assignments meant that I went out and immersed myself in Web 2.0 with some sort of guidance, and then used my blog as a place to discuss and reflect. I also found that having the set work for the week meant that I went out and actually engaged and reflected, gave examples and so forth. Rather than just occasionally posting an offhand comment on what was happening in the course. I’ve never really been an avid blogger, and really didn’t enjoy the blog element in my previous degree. Perhaps this time around I was more aware, and had some experience in the course content and the applications we were using, or perhaps because there was more structure to the course content I was better able to engage with it. I certainly enjoyed it more this time, that’s for sure!
I believe that my interaction with my blog was reasonably in depth and persistant, and I managed to update regularly, which was a huge failing in the past. I enjoyed learning about various Web 2.0 applications that were briefly talked about in the Media course, but never really gone into indepth, or discussed in anyway. This time we were invited not only to research and interact with the different Web 2.0 applications available, but we had to think about how they could be useful in an information management sense, and how we could utilize them as resources in our future careers. My previous course felt more as though it were based along the lines of “Here’s something cool, go and check it out.” And that was pretty much the extent of it. We were never really invited to think about the possibilites that these applications might hold for the future of any sort of industry, not even the media industry.
I could probably have improved on my communication, using my blog to comment on other peoples posts, but I must say I have to blame that on not being a terribly social person in real life. Face to face can be daunting enough, but commenting via the internet has never really been my thing. I have a Facebook account, and rarely ever post on my friends walls, and they are people I know quite well in real life, so I guess I was never really going to be keen on commenting on strangers, or almost strangest posts and view points. I don’t feel I have the confidence or the right to comment on other peoples opinions, even if I agree, so this aspect of social networking and blogging has always been an issue for me. I’m more than happy to discuss peoples blog posts or comments in person, but I really can’t seem to do it over the web, which I find interesting.
I guess my execution and persistance were quite good, especially considering my previous record as a reflective blogger. I really had trouble updating and maintaining my blog in the past, because I wasn’t prodded into action so much. Also I do most of my reflection and consideration of a topic or project in my head, and so don’t necessarily need to nut it out in some sort of physical form, be it a journal or a blog. This means it’s always been a bit of a struggle for me to put my thoughts into words somehow, because it isn’t a natural part of my thinking process or problem solving strategies. I also found that having prior exposure to almost all of the applications we were interacting with, with the exception of Twitter and mashups, helped me to engage and reflect on what I was researching. Because a great deal of it wasn’t new for me, I was really able to focus on my personal reactions to the various software, and the way that it could be utilised in the industry, rather than trying to figure out what it was, and then what it could do. My previous experience certainly helped in this field.
Overall I think I was quite successful with the Web 2.0 application, and I’m really very proud of the progress I have made in regards to regular posts and interaction, perhaps with the exception of the time I was sans internet. I think I could have and probably should have made more of an effort in regards to commenting on other peoples blogs. I was engaging with them and reading, but had trouble bringing myself to comment in any way, so this is something I need to work on in the future. I guess I’m taking it one step at a time. The first step was to blog regularly and make posting part of my natural research and reflective process, now it’s time to work on the social networking and user interaction side of things.
Filed under: Document Management 1
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Above is a google map that I just created as a little guide to some of the spots in my home town that are relevant to me in some way. I’ve listed my best friends house, my childhood home, my mothers house and my schools. I actually quite enjoyed making this little map. I can’t say I would have done it for fun had it not been part of the assessment for this course, but none the less it was quite enjoyable. I’m not exactly sure when I would ever utilize this new found skill, but it’s handy to know that should I ever need to create or edit a google map in some way I am able to! It would be a good accompanyment to a travel blog or for keeping friends and family updated about places you have seen and visited if you were overseas.
In regards to mashups, I was a little confused where to start. I really had no idea where to look, so of course I resorted to the trusty old google search, and just typed it into google. I think it was the third link down that mentioned mash ups and API, so I clicked on it and it took to me a site called Programmable Web which allows you to search widgets and mashups by category. I clicked on social and found a few different mashups that I thought were pretty cool.
“The primary goal of this site is to collect book lists. Lists of author’s books, award lists, books you want to read, etc. etc. Future plans for the site include the ability to blog your lists, share lists with friends, and much more.” – (James Avery – 22 Books)
This mashup has alot of similarities to LibraryThing, in that it invites users to share information about their book collections, and comment on books and authors. Programmable Web lists the API’s for this particular mashup application as Amazon Ecommerce.
“What was formerly the ECS – eCommerce Service – has been renamed the Amazon Associates Web Service. Through this API developers can retrieve product information. The API exposes Amazon’s product data and e-commerce functionality. This allows developers, web site publishers and others to leverage the data that Amazon uses to power its own business, and potentially make money as an Amazon affiliate. Both REST and SOAP APIs are provided, this profile is for the REST API.” (Amazon eCommerce API Profile – Programmable Web)
And as an example of everything I hate about the internet, Web 2.0, social networking and the like, I found this mashup, which uses Twitters API to regularly update you with Twitter users who have recently used some form of swear word in a post. Cursebird constantly updates so that you can see who’s swearing right now, as we speak. Or blog. It also has a graph at the top of the screen to tell you the most popular swear words and how much their usage has risen or dropped recently. I can’t think of anything more ridiculous really. I mean I’ve already ranted about Twitter, and as if it wasn’t a big enough waste of time already to provide people with microblog posts about what you’re doing every second of the day, someone has now created a tool that lets you see the ways that people are swearing, all over the world, at every second of the day. Sometimes the internet is a great resource and a fantastic research tool. Other times it just shows you how ridiculous and immature a large portion of the human race really is. I guess applications like this have one purpose, and that’s to provide an eye opening experience of how people are wasting their skills and time! (My friend just pointed out to me that perhaps it could be utilized as sort of drinking game, based on the percentage of a swear word going up or down…)
Filed under: Document Management 1
I haven’t been posting much lately because I am eagerly awaiting the reconnection of my internet after moving house. I know I could have logged on at uni and done some posting, but I prefer to blog in the comfort of my own home.
It’s actually amazing how much harder my life has become now that I don’t have the internet. I guess you realize how important it is to your life until it’s taken away, particularly because I spend a great deal of my leisure time in MMORPG’s (Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game), mainly World of Warcraft.
In regards to week 5′s topic on videos and photos, I like to think that I have a fair bit of experience with uploading or embedding video into webpages and my blog. The fact that I was given access to the University server space for my last course made this much easier, and many of the videos that have appeared in my blog throughout its brief history have been hosted in this server space and then embedded into the post coding. Now that this blog is no longer hosted through my server space at RMIT, I can’t upload or embed my own videos, so I’ve been linking to them through sites like YouTube and Vimeo.
Long ago in my last course I signed up and made a FlickR account, as part of investigation and research. I never used it again. I don’t have alot of photo’s, and I’m not terribly keen on sharing the few that I do have with strangers. I don’t even like putting photos up in Facebook, and will often remove tags from myself that others have placed.
Having said that, much like MySpace is a fantastic tool for unsigned bands to get out there and get heard, FlickR is a great place for budding photographers and artists to share and comment on each others works, and possibly make it to the big time. It’s also useful for projects or if you’re interested in a particular area and would like some sort of visual, but I have to admit that personally I don’t have a great deal of interest in it, certainly not to share my own images.
Today’s lecture was about Hypertext and HTML coding, which I’ve already covered in my previous tertiary history. Hypertext was covered in the first year of Applied Communication (Media), but I don’t believe that it was explained terribly well. We were then required to muddle our way through the concepts and use HTML to create our own hypertext essays, you can find exploration one here and exploration two two here. All of the HTML coding for these sites was done by hand using a html text editor, not dreamweaver. I also created the layout and coding for this site, as part of my final year assessment. (Please note that the last site on the implementation of digital radio is designed to be viewed on a screen larger than the standard PC dimensions, and so it may not display to full capacity)
The explination offered today was far more thorough and straight forward, or perhaps it is simply that I have more experience in the area and understand the concepts, where as previously I had never been exposed to hypertext or HTML coding, except as an unknowing user.
Filed under: Information Centre Managment
I came across this slideshow whilst doing some research for my Information Centre Management scoping report. I thought it might be relavent and interesting for others who were also researching blogs.
Filed under: Document Management 1
I can’t even begin to count the amount of rants I’ve had about sites like Facebook and MySpace during my time as host and author of this blog. It seemed that my last course in Media was obsessed with social networking software, but actually failed to ever come up with decent arguments as to why it is ‘the way of the future’ or how it might effect the way that industries are run in the future. We never spent anytime in discussion about why it is so popular, what sort of socio-economic changes, with the introduction of the web and the focus on new technology that seems to drive us now days, have lead to this phenomenon, and where it might lead in the future.
I originally refused to ever get a MySpace or Facebook account. I still loathe MySpace with a passion that is beyond belief, after seeing the ways that it was normally used for blatant and gross self promotion. I think it’s a fantastic tool for bands and artists to get their work out there and seen, but when you’re just a normal person, trying to tell the world how cool and individual you are by joining a mass produced website, and then listing the same interests as anyone else, I’m sorry but I’m pretty sure I hate you.
I was never going to get a Facebook account either, until some genius in a group in Integrated Media during the second year of my Bachelor Degree decided that we should use it as a group discussion forum in regards to a project we were doing on SecondLife. So I joined. Unfortunately then various friends and family members found me, and I felt obliged to accept them as friends. I still have my Facebook account, as it does serve some sort of useful purpose in my life as it stands at the moment. My brother and his wife teach English in China, and I only see them in person once every couple of years, so it has been useful in keeping each other updated about our ever day lives. It also helps me keep in contact with my friends back home in the country, as I rarely have the time or money to travel back, and it allows us to stay informed and in touch. Having said that I don’t mind using the phone every now and again to have a proper conversation with them either. I think Facebook is a fantastic tool for keeping in contact with a large and fairly spread out friendship group. It is the people who have lists of so called ‘friends’ a mile long, many of whom they barely even know, that drive me up the wall. I also don’t get into this applications business much. I mean if you want to play Scrabble cross continents with people you barely know, or see how many people you can recruit to your ever growing Vampire Army, go nuts. But I’ll just keep my nice basic, boring layout thank you very much. I’ve never changed my Facebook profile picture, and I’ve only got 30 something friends, and that’s the way I’m going to keep it. (Every now and again I even go on a massive culling spree and get rid of people I haven’t talked to in 2 or 3 months…)
I’m not entirely sure there is much call for these kind of sites in a professional context. I suppose libraries could create pages and allow other users to become friends. The libraries page could then work as a type of forum, where people can post their comments on the wall, or visit the profile to get regular updates about what is happening at the library and the services that it provides. Similarly the library itself can use the Events tool to create invitations for those in the Friend list, creating an easy way to let users know the upcoming events hosted in the library and the related details. But surely a website, which is no longer uncommon for facilities to run, is just as useful? If someone is a regular customer of the library and has comments or feedback, isn’t it just as easy to do it in person next time they visit? Call me a traditionalist, but I mean we were given mouths for a reason, why not communicate the old fashioned way? Just because someone created an application that makes socialising the lazy mans sport, do we have to sit at home staring at a screen instead of face-to-face contact? Why is it that I feel since the introduction of these sites, it’s like everyone has suddenly contracted Anthrax, and there’s no possible way we could be within 500m of each other?
Oops, look at that. Another rant about social software, maybe I should start a category just for that!
Filed under: Document Management 1
I did some research into podcasts and RSS feeds last week, but after my massive rant in the last post I kind of forgot to get around to writing about them.
So podcasts. I learnt about these in my last course, but never really got into them. I’ve looked at the software, and am quite capable of making my own, even considered making one or two of my radio pieces available, but decided against it. You can listen to a show reel of some of my radio pieces at this link, I don’t believe I ever got around to posting any of the full versions in this blog.
So I found a couple of free podcasts using the Itunes store on my Mac. The beauty of having a mac means that you have almost all of these kind of applications and software at your fingertips when you buy the computer, so locating and subscribing to free podcasts is as simple as opening Itunes, clicking on the podcast tab in the right hand bar and logging into the Itunes store. From there you can search through hundreds of free podcasts until you find ones that you like.
I found a podcast called Cool Tools for Library 2.0, and thought that it might be highly relevant to the course, and interesting to boot. I’m afraid I’m only right on one of those. Whilst it’s a good little podcast that draws your attention to new and useful web 2.0 applications that could be relevant to an Information Managment practicioner, I’m afraid it is fairly poorly produced, and a little amateur. The narrator’s voice is slow and boring, and she is quite clearly reading off a script. Also, the piece is only short, just over four minutes or so, and yet the first 20 seconds at least is taken up with theme music. The cross fade from music to narration is poorly done as well, with the last of the music actually drowning out the first few sentences of the podcast. But apart from that I guess it’s ok.
I also subscribed to another free podcast called believe it or not, Free Library Podcast. I didn’t listen to the entire episode I must admit, as it was an hour long, but this podcast is recorded at the Library of Philadelphia, and is often a recording of talks or lectures they have hosted, or authors talking about their publications.
I also edited the wiki in class today. I have a small amount of HTML coding knowledge and decided that I would attempt to embed a video from YouTube, which I successfully managed to do! It took me a couple of attempts, but I got it up there and working in the end. I have previously embedded the same video in my blog, about two posts back, because I thought it was a cute and simple explanation of the way that Web 2.0 works. Hopefully others will agree with me. I also decided that embedding it in the editable version of the course wiki would mean that students had a better chance at viewing it, rather than if I just left it in my blog.
So I’ve joined google reader and explored some different RSS feed options, trying to find things that interest me, working out how to delete things that you’ve read etc.
I can see how this kind of technology is extremely handy and appealing, particularly to my so called generation. It cuts out the process of having to trawl through the web to 1: find things that interest you, and 2: remember that particular site and it’s address, or bookmark it etc, 3: repeat this process for numerous websites, and possibly 4: continuously wait for one or all of these websites to have something new and interesting to tell you. There’s a very good chance that you can be constantly going to a website to see if they’ve got some new and exciting tit bit for your perusal, only to find the same page of information staring you in the face. And when this process is repeated, it’s quite time consuming.
So of course, some genius came up with the idea of creating a portal that does all of this for you! Instead of you wasting time trying to find new information or something amusing, you can go to the one website, and possibly hundreds of new articles are there, ready and waiting. Now I really do appreciate this as a great idea, and it really does save time, however for a so called member of Generation Y, I can’t help but be a little bit sceptical about all the new programs and widgets, and wadgets and doovey lackers out there that are making life simpler in some way shape or form. I mean sure, yes, everyone wants a simple life, where stress is reduced and good times are maximized, but sometimes I feel these things are taken perhaps a little too far. Or perhaps its more a case of the original good intention of these programs is then manipulated by the day and age that we live in.
Take Facebook for example. A great way for people to keep in contact, to find people you haven’t seen in years, friends or family overseas, etc. But I refuse to be one of those people that add people for the sake of having 600 friends. I’m sorry, there’s NO WAY anyone can keep in contact and be ‘friends’ with 600 people at once. Or perhaps the the meaning of friendship has changed with the emergence of the Internet and Web 2.0 applications, maybe what I believe constitutes a good and solid friendship no longer applies, and if you’ve seen a photo of someone on the net, and they have two friends in common with you, then hell, you may as well ask them to be bridesmaid at your wedding as well. I pride myself on having been tagged in only 21 photos on Facebook, and having 30 something friends, whilst others are nearing four figures of both it would seem. Someone I had never even heard of tried to add me today. It’s actually a scary feeling when a complete stranger asks to know all about your personal information and what’s happening in your life. I’m not down with that at all.
Twitter is another one. I decided to go and have a look at Twitter today because my housemate was checking up on a celebrity blog, PerezHilton. (Maybe me and my friends aren’t as removed from Generation Y as I would wish we were. Maybe it’s just me and my grandma ways) We read that Trent Reznor, the singer of Nine Inch Nails, had recently bagged out Chris Cornell, or Sound Garden and Audio Slave, implying that his latest album was pretty crap.
I’m pretty sure the exact quote that was posted on Reznor’s Twitter page went something like this: “You know that feeling you get when somebody embarrasses themselves so badly YOU feel uncomfortable? Heard Chris Cornell’s record? Jesus.”
So having heard this, and keeping in mind our adventures in Web 2.0 I went and had a look at Twitter and made myself a fake account. I went and read the post in question, then also loitered on some random Twitter pages, including Ashton Kutcher (I don’t like him, he just happened to be on the “Join” or “Follow” page when I joined up.) So I had a little look around, had a bit of an explore and came to the conclusion that once again, something that was probably created with the best of intentions has been manipulated into some sort of self obsessed application that allows users to tell the world what they are doing, where they’re doing it, how they’re doing it, who they’re doing it with, and what they think of it all, just in case you were interested.
Instead of being a tool that could keep people up dated about important information, a great example of which is it’s role in updating and informing people during the recent Black Saturday bushfires in Victoria. Instead of this, it seems that the majority of users are utilizing these programs to inform the world of their tiniest movements, as they happen. I find this kind of repulsive. That instead of the majority of users sharing and interacting with information that could be termed educational, or useful or even life saving, a large percentage of the information that is being uploaded to these sites, or shared with the world is complete and utter crap. And even more of it is useless. I mean who really gives a crap what Ashton Kutcher is thinking about packing for his several month long holiday? The last few decades has created a celebrity obsessed culture, and now I’m worried that Web 2.0 is creating a culture that sees themselves as celebrities, and they’re already obsessed.
Filed under: Document Management 1
So I started my post grad this week at RMIT. I’ve missed a few classes due to ill health, but unlike the Applied Communication degree I’ve just completed, the lecturers in this course seem to make good and regular use of the Learning Hub and Blackboard facilities, so I’ve been able to keep up to date and on top of homework. Which brings us to this blog post.
As part of Document Management 1, we are required to set up a blog and explore its options and functions. Lucky for me I already have this baby up and running, and some experience in reflection through blogging. One of our major assesment pieces for the subject is to navigate our way through what’s called Web 2.0 Adventure.
Week by week we work our way through various tasks involving Web 2.0 programs that could be utilzed to enhance the information management field, whether it be for the provider or the client. Examples of these programs include:
- Blogs
- Wiki’s
- RSS feeds
- Podcasts
- Social Networking
And so forth. I have brushed briefly on all of these in some way over the course over my previous degree in Media, so I don’t feel too daunted by the tasks that lie ahead. However what is new, is the approach that I must now adopt towards these programs. Previously I was exploring the ins and outs of this software, what it entailed, what was its purpose, how did it work, why did it work, what was it’s target audience, what was it that this program provided for that particular audience. Whilst all of this is still an important consideration when approaching it from and Information Management angle, it’s now time to take that one step further and consider how Web 2.0 and what it offers can be utilized to benefit those working in the Information field. How can these applications make it easier and faster for us to locate and evaluate the information we seek? How can we as future proffesionals find ways of providing the highest level of information retreavel and can these applications help.
This is also being covered in the subject Information Centre Management, and my particular topic of research is blogs, so there will be more up here on blogs and how they might be utilized by the information management community.
In regards to the blogs we were required to look at as part of this weeks task, I’m quite drawn to LibrarianInBlack.
It has a simple theme and layout, so it’s easily navigated. The side bar is not too crowded with widgets and applications, but they do give it a little more life and interest, rather than a plain slab of text. The articles are short and susinct, but remain relative and interesting, and provide you with links to the appropriate information. This site acts more as a portal to the information, rather than acting as provider in itself. It cuts out the middle man of having to trawl through the web yourself for interesting titbits about the industry and what’s happening. There isn’t a great deal of personal reflection about the author’s role in the industry, or the effects that certain applications are having, and this is just a further indication that it works well as a portal for others check up on and navigate their way through, rather than a personal or information based blog
