OK, so I went to the Mashup Awards site and wanted to find a health mashup (I work in health sciences, but then so do most of us in MLA, eh?). The first thing I came across was this HealthMap thingie. Now I have to admit that many mashups I've seen are fun but not terribly useful - maybe because so many of them involve Google Maps. One of the few ways that could be useful in health sciences, in my thinking, was for something like epidemiology (current or historical). And lo and behold, that's what HealthMap does - it takes a bunch of different health news feeds, adds categories for diseases and for country or more precise location and maps it all on Google Maps. Click on a push pin in an area (like Wisconsin, where I live) and it brings up news stories or other information about health alerts or topics. Very neat, in fact I'm going to recommend, nay, demand that we include it in our Global Health portal page on our website.
I liked Rollyo (other than the large proportion of sponsored links to non-sponsored). Checked out some of the posts about privacy from the librarian blogs - some of which I follow already and some of which I don't. Gives a nice overview of some of the issues and makes me feel better that some people are concerned enough to get involved in what some people call "non-library" issues. Would make more sense for a more precise search, like privacy + a specific issue or organization. Reminds me of the salad days of giving David Burt a hard time back in the COPA era and such. I get the distinct impression that librarians aren't too happy with ALA on this issue, even though I always felt ALA did better with political or touchy issues than, say, MLA did :-) Oops, sorry, mustn't pick on MLA in the MLA CE course. Anyway, am thinking this would, if nothing else, be a nice thing to add to some of our pages (intranet and public) to complement the feeds from library or other health news sites. Basically adding "search" to our existing "browse".
OK, decided to try the Rollyo Search Roll, so here it is: http://rollyo.com/abarclay/librarygeek/. Like in the previous paragraph, was thinking this might be a nice tool to add to our intranet and my browser as a quick and dirty replacement for a links list (which is out of date and unused). Have asked some geekier friends to make suggestions for what to put there so maybe they'll use it too...
Friday, May 2, 2008
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Week 7 - Podcasting and Online Video
I have a new "fave" soundbite regarding podcasts - they are "bespoke materials" captured for posterity!
This week's exercise was interesting and, as some have said, more frustrating than some others. I supposedly have high speed internet at my home but as luck would have it my connection speeds have been dropping to the point where I had to call the cable company out to take a look - they fixed my TV problems but my connectivity is still terrible. And guess what the first symptom was? Completely unable to use YouTube. At first I thought they might be "throttling" me, specifically restricting access to YouTube (like some businesses do). But looks like it was just a slow connection.
That aside, though, I think there are lots of potential uses for YouTube for libraries. I think brief tutorials, whether screenshot based or much more creative and fun (like the CommonCraft video series). While I think much bibliographic instruction is slow and plodding and way too detailed I think cutting things into little short snippets and making them available at the time of need makes excellent sense! I think podcasts could function in much the same way though they're less interesting in my book (on the other hand you may be willing to listen to a lecture, like in your car driving home or on public transportation, that you wouldn't be able to watch a video as easily or safely). The audio vs. video really depends on the content (and the audience's preferred learning style to some extent). There are also lots of neat things out there for us to point people to, even if we have no hand in their production. I really like SciVee.tv and the idea of people doing videos where they talk about their research. There are starting to be more and more useful educational and current awareness things that aren't just lecture capture, we could start helping people find and use them. And, of course, creating our own to fill in the gaps.
One issue I see is that many of these sites don't support browsing very well, they're set up more for searching. So its both a curse and a blessing - a pain in the arse to use but we could also do a great service by pulling out the good stuff and making it easier to find. Seems as though these sites view themselves more as repositories of content rather than sites to be used and navigated (ironically they have the same weakness I see in most library OPACs!). But having the content there and usable by anyone is fabulous, so I applaud them even as I cringe trying to find something other than a known item where there are unique terms to search on (like a person's name).
The one thing I have something of a dim view of (I know, always the curmudgeon) is overdoing the promotional angle with videos or podcasts. I think that putting your good works out there is promotion in and of itself, and trying "too hard" to promote your products or services (rather than letting them promote themselves) can lead to really cheesy experiences. And in the online environment we compete with all sorts of hip, sexy stuff so the last thing we need is something which makes us look slow, boring, stuffy - "the school play" in Edward Tufte-speak. Being earnest and sincere is fine, but much beyond that is the realm of advertising pros, which in my experience most librarians are not.
Only other comment - the initial video made some fun of the idea of sending things out on CD as that was old school. I'd submit that its actually not such a bad call, its just not the only way to do things. If you have a bunch of content burning it all to a CD (or letting people download it and burn their own) isn't such a bad idea. As you see from the comments this week (plus my home experience) the network isn't always as robust as it could be. A video site I'm involved with moved from streaming media to progressive downloads in part because of problems with network congestion and connectivity. Kinda reminds me of the old days (early 90's) when I'd download a postage stamp sized version of the Super Chicken or George of the Jungle opening credits from Apple - it took all day, but it was there waiting for me when I got home. Podcasting, in theory, works that way but I'm wondering if the YouTube model is starting to cause strain on the level of bandwidth people actually have access to reliably. And you compete with your neighbors for bandwidth in most environments. Don't get me started about Net Neutrality and other such issues. Point being, I guess, that much as I love the idea of web applications and connectivity anytime anywhere there is an issue when that network goes down. Reminds me of the mid-late 80s when I worked at a bank in Dayton and the computers that we needed were in Columbus - they swore that weather had nothing to do with it but every time there was a major storm the connection dropped and we couldn't get anything done. Until we have the robust networks of death everywhere, all the time, and they aren't subject to business or political interference perhaps the ability to have your own local copy of stuff isn't such a bad backup plan :-) Just make it available both or multiple ways...
This week's exercise was interesting and, as some have said, more frustrating than some others. I supposedly have high speed internet at my home but as luck would have it my connection speeds have been dropping to the point where I had to call the cable company out to take a look - they fixed my TV problems but my connectivity is still terrible. And guess what the first symptom was? Completely unable to use YouTube. At first I thought they might be "throttling" me, specifically restricting access to YouTube (like some businesses do). But looks like it was just a slow connection.
That aside, though, I think there are lots of potential uses for YouTube for libraries. I think brief tutorials, whether screenshot based or much more creative and fun (like the CommonCraft video series). While I think much bibliographic instruction is slow and plodding and way too detailed I think cutting things into little short snippets and making them available at the time of need makes excellent sense! I think podcasts could function in much the same way though they're less interesting in my book (on the other hand you may be willing to listen to a lecture, like in your car driving home or on public transportation, that you wouldn't be able to watch a video as easily or safely). The audio vs. video really depends on the content (and the audience's preferred learning style to some extent). There are also lots of neat things out there for us to point people to, even if we have no hand in their production. I really like SciVee.tv and the idea of people doing videos where they talk about their research. There are starting to be more and more useful educational and current awareness things that aren't just lecture capture, we could start helping people find and use them. And, of course, creating our own to fill in the gaps.
One issue I see is that many of these sites don't support browsing very well, they're set up more for searching. So its both a curse and a blessing - a pain in the arse to use but we could also do a great service by pulling out the good stuff and making it easier to find. Seems as though these sites view themselves more as repositories of content rather than sites to be used and navigated (ironically they have the same weakness I see in most library OPACs!). But having the content there and usable by anyone is fabulous, so I applaud them even as I cringe trying to find something other than a known item where there are unique terms to search on (like a person's name).
The one thing I have something of a dim view of (I know, always the curmudgeon) is overdoing the promotional angle with videos or podcasts. I think that putting your good works out there is promotion in and of itself, and trying "too hard" to promote your products or services (rather than letting them promote themselves) can lead to really cheesy experiences. And in the online environment we compete with all sorts of hip, sexy stuff so the last thing we need is something which makes us look slow, boring, stuffy - "the school play" in Edward Tufte-speak. Being earnest and sincere is fine, but much beyond that is the realm of advertising pros, which in my experience most librarians are not.
Only other comment - the initial video made some fun of the idea of sending things out on CD as that was old school. I'd submit that its actually not such a bad call, its just not the only way to do things. If you have a bunch of content burning it all to a CD (or letting people download it and burn their own) isn't such a bad idea. As you see from the comments this week (plus my home experience) the network isn't always as robust as it could be. A video site I'm involved with moved from streaming media to progressive downloads in part because of problems with network congestion and connectivity. Kinda reminds me of the old days (early 90's) when I'd download a postage stamp sized version of the Super Chicken or George of the Jungle opening credits from Apple - it took all day, but it was there waiting for me when I got home. Podcasting, in theory, works that way but I'm wondering if the YouTube model is starting to cause strain on the level of bandwidth people actually have access to reliably. And you compete with your neighbors for bandwidth in most environments. Don't get me started about Net Neutrality and other such issues. Point being, I guess, that much as I love the idea of web applications and connectivity anytime anywhere there is an issue when that network goes down. Reminds me of the mid-late 80s when I worked at a bank in Dayton and the computers that we needed were in Columbus - they swore that weather had nothing to do with it but every time there was a major storm the connection dropped and we couldn't get anything done. Until we have the robust networks of death everywhere, all the time, and they aren't subject to business or political interference perhaps the ability to have your own local copy of stuff isn't such a bad backup plan :-) Just make it available both or multiple ways...
Monday, April 28, 2008
Week 6 - Photo Sharing
Hmm, not bad! I signed up for a Flickr account sometime in 2006 but never really used it. I've used it to look for freely available stuff for design work and wound up there a lot via other people's blog posts (one of the things that really seemed to make some of my fave blogs work was the topical photo accompanying every post - now that's started to include YouTube and other videos too). So I've finally started uploading some of my own stuff in this exercise and its nice how easy it is!! Had some problems with Facebook but Flickr works great, and has some nice tools to let me use my iPhone as well as my laptop/desktop.
So how could this be used in the library? Well, for starters it could really improve our existing system for organizing and finding photos. We have a shared drive, and have some talented photographers and a pretty large back archive of images but the "organize by folder and image title" is a little weak. Whether we shared with the outside world or not the ability to tag things and use some of the incredible finding/organizing/playing with tools that people have created would be great. If we do share our stuff with the outside world that could help in terms of promotion or driving people to our library potentially (i.e. they stumble across us, are impressed by our inherent fabulousness and want to bask in the warm glow of it whether in person or online :-)
I'm involved with a number of websites, for our library and other professional groups, and the idea of putting them in a shared space like Flickr as well as on our site(s) makes lots of sense. You can create nice things like photo badges or rotating image elements, change things up frequently, etc. Like del.icio.us, it can also be a research or comparison tool, giving you ideas by looking at what people with similar interests/in similar markets are doing.
In terms of places like Facebook, while I had some technical glitches there I see that as serving one of the same functions as with blogs - giving more of a human face to an otherwise less cohesive or "real" community. Lots of online communities come to life with nothing more than ASCII text, but often it takes a human connection to push some people over a certain line in terms of trust, committment, whatever. If you don't have the opportunity to meet in person and cement that bond then photos can help alot, esp. if they are of the "fleshmeets" that others have had an opportunity to attend (whether informal or professional in nature). So while much of it can seem trivial it actually serves a very important social function (being a part-time professional humbug I've come to be convinced of the value of this, and smile and act nice when I see less than wonderful manifestations of this phenomenon :-)
So how could this be used in the library? Well, for starters it could really improve our existing system for organizing and finding photos. We have a shared drive, and have some talented photographers and a pretty large back archive of images but the "organize by folder and image title" is a little weak. Whether we shared with the outside world or not the ability to tag things and use some of the incredible finding/organizing/playing with tools that people have created would be great. If we do share our stuff with the outside world that could help in terms of promotion or driving people to our library potentially (i.e. they stumble across us, are impressed by our inherent fabulousness and want to bask in the warm glow of it whether in person or online :-)
I'm involved with a number of websites, for our library and other professional groups, and the idea of putting them in a shared space like Flickr as well as on our site(s) makes lots of sense. You can create nice things like photo badges or rotating image elements, change things up frequently, etc. Like del.icio.us, it can also be a research or comparison tool, giving you ideas by looking at what people with similar interests/in similar markets are doing.
In terms of places like Facebook, while I had some technical glitches there I see that as serving one of the same functions as with blogs - giving more of a human face to an otherwise less cohesive or "real" community. Lots of online communities come to life with nothing more than ASCII text, but often it takes a human connection to push some people over a certain line in terms of trust, committment, whatever. If you don't have the opportunity to meet in person and cement that bond then photos can help alot, esp. if they are of the "fleshmeets" that others have had an opportunity to attend (whether informal or professional in nature). So while much of it can seem trivial it actually serves a very important social function (being a part-time professional humbug I've come to be convinced of the value of this, and smile and act nice when I see less than wonderful manifestations of this phenomenon :-)
Monday, April 14, 2008
Week 5 - Web Office Tools
OK, now I'm excited - does that make me a geek?
I stumbled across Google Docs awhile ago and immediately loved it - the idea and the implementation. Thanks for the links to the other office tool suites, though - Zoho in particular looks interesting and has some tools that Google doesn't offer yet so I may wind up using both. Or more, who knows!
I definitely think this is the future of most software products - some of the more computationally intensive things like video editing or the like will probably not work well enough as web apps for some time to come. And I do think there's a need to be able to do things offline (but Google Gears allows for this, and most of these web-based tools allow you to move stuff up and down between your local computer and the remote service - not always easily but that's getting better and better too). There are also issues with security and privacy - the more you share and store stuff remotely the more likely there could be problems (so I can see hospitals working with patient data, or anyone working with personnel data as two areas where there's not likely to be a web app solution anytime soon). The security and privacy issues also get worse when you think that maybe one company (like Google) might do the right thing but somewhere down the road be forced by the government to divulge data they said they'd keep confidential, or they might get bought out by a still Larger Company which doesn't do as good a job as the old one did but you don't get to do anything about it.
As someone who has tried to manage both an intranet and a shared drive with Novell the idea of a remotely stored set of documents and applications to get at them is manna from heaven. The only real issue is getting people up to speed on the concept and starting to use them in day to day work. For now they're used more for collaboration or as examples of what will be possible, but I hope to change that (myself and where I work). I'm still rather old school in that I take notes in a text editor and save them on my laptop, sharing in other formats when asked for something. A colleague has been using Docs for awhile now. I suspect before long I'll follow her lead but so far the idea of needing multiple people to access or share something hasn't been something so strong that its pushed me to make that change (and most of the people I collaborate with locally have been made aware of Google Docs but aren't yet willing to go there yet).
I'm really intrigued by something I heard about at Computers in Libraries which allows you to take web apps and sort of pull them out of the browser, almost turning them into desktop applications. I can't say why but I think when that's ready for prime time that will be the death knell for lots of shrinkwrapped software. Many people are already going to downloadable software and entertainment media as is - when there's not a big need to do the download part because you can fire up the web app and start working with the latest version right then and there it will be a wonderful day. There will still be people like me who like the physical media of, say, music CDs or movies on DVD, but for software I'd just love to be done with the whole muss and fuss of updating, installing, proving I own it, etc etc.
I stumbled across Google Docs awhile ago and immediately loved it - the idea and the implementation. Thanks for the links to the other office tool suites, though - Zoho in particular looks interesting and has some tools that Google doesn't offer yet so I may wind up using both. Or more, who knows!
I definitely think this is the future of most software products - some of the more computationally intensive things like video editing or the like will probably not work well enough as web apps for some time to come. And I do think there's a need to be able to do things offline (but Google Gears allows for this, and most of these web-based tools allow you to move stuff up and down between your local computer and the remote service - not always easily but that's getting better and better too). There are also issues with security and privacy - the more you share and store stuff remotely the more likely there could be problems (so I can see hospitals working with patient data, or anyone working with personnel data as two areas where there's not likely to be a web app solution anytime soon). The security and privacy issues also get worse when you think that maybe one company (like Google) might do the right thing but somewhere down the road be forced by the government to divulge data they said they'd keep confidential, or they might get bought out by a still Larger Company which doesn't do as good a job as the old one did but you don't get to do anything about it.
As someone who has tried to manage both an intranet and a shared drive with Novell the idea of a remotely stored set of documents and applications to get at them is manna from heaven. The only real issue is getting people up to speed on the concept and starting to use them in day to day work. For now they're used more for collaboration or as examples of what will be possible, but I hope to change that (myself and where I work). I'm still rather old school in that I take notes in a text editor and save them on my laptop, sharing in other formats when asked for something. A colleague has been using Docs for awhile now. I suspect before long I'll follow her lead but so far the idea of needing multiple people to access or share something hasn't been something so strong that its pushed me to make that change (and most of the people I collaborate with locally have been made aware of Google Docs but aren't yet willing to go there yet).
I'm really intrigued by something I heard about at Computers in Libraries which allows you to take web apps and sort of pull them out of the browser, almost turning them into desktop applications. I can't say why but I think when that's ready for prime time that will be the death knell for lots of shrinkwrapped software. Many people are already going to downloadable software and entertainment media as is - when there's not a big need to do the download part because you can fire up the web app and start working with the latest version right then and there it will be a wonderful day. There will still be people like me who like the physical media of, say, music CDs or movies on DVD, but for software I'd just love to be done with the whole muss and fuss of updating, installing, proving I own it, etc etc.
Week 4 - Social Bookmarking!
I've used del.icio.us a bit before, and played around with it more for the class. I do see some really good uses for it and the San Jose Public Library account is an example. I've also thought that it could be used as a way to replace some library link lists or pathfinders by making them more dynamic and using all the other people's stuff as a research tool. Bookmark and tag things, then feed that back into your website (or just send people to del.icio.us directly). Particularly with the browser bookmarklet tool its very easy to put stuff in there on the fly.
And there's the rub, at least for me. There's so much stuff out there, and I surf for myself, for my friends, for others at work who are working on similar stuff that I am, and at work for people doing totally unrelated things. Its almost as though I wish I had multiple accounts or personae so I could use a tag in different ways at different times. Of course I could come up with a series of "administrative" tags like "not safe for work" or "I mean this tag ironically" but then it gets even more confusing! So I have to admit that despite knowing about del.icio.us for some time, and liking the concept in theory, I haven't found a way to get to liking it in practice. I also have a laptop I carry almost everywhere, and use a bookmark syncing tool so I can keep different locations (like my home machine and the laptop) in sync.
So I find myself in the odd position (yet again) of being enthusiastic about and supportive of a tool I myself don't use :-) There are a number of Web 2.0 things that fall into this category, but its good to know about them in case I do suddenly come across a need for the tagging and sharing capabilities. I guess I also have to admit to being less social than most people which inhibits some of my enthusiasm - I curmudgeonly don't necessarily believe in the wisdom of crowds when it comes to recommending things. But its a great research tool, and I do like to share when I find out about awesome stuff. There's also the "change over time" issue - I imagine that because its very easy to put stuff into del.icio.us people do so with few reservations. But does anyone ever go back in and clean up stuff? I would imagine there's lots of old stuff floating around which doesn't get reviewed and so may not be so useful. I periodically go in and clean up bookmarks I have when they no longer work or I decide I don't want a resource anymore but I do wonder about the whole tragedy of the commons issue at 2.0 sites like del.icio.us.
Guess for now I'll keep it in the "neat idea" and "good research tool" category and see if I wind up using it more down the road. That's happened with lots of tech stuff, and likely will here too...
And there's the rub, at least for me. There's so much stuff out there, and I surf for myself, for my friends, for others at work who are working on similar stuff that I am, and at work for people doing totally unrelated things. Its almost as though I wish I had multiple accounts or personae so I could use a tag in different ways at different times. Of course I could come up with a series of "administrative" tags like "not safe for work" or "I mean this tag ironically" but then it gets even more confusing! So I have to admit that despite knowing about del.icio.us for some time, and liking the concept in theory, I haven't found a way to get to liking it in practice. I also have a laptop I carry almost everywhere, and use a bookmark syncing tool so I can keep different locations (like my home machine and the laptop) in sync.
So I find myself in the odd position (yet again) of being enthusiastic about and supportive of a tool I myself don't use :-) There are a number of Web 2.0 things that fall into this category, but its good to know about them in case I do suddenly come across a need for the tagging and sharing capabilities. I guess I also have to admit to being less social than most people which inhibits some of my enthusiasm - I curmudgeonly don't necessarily believe in the wisdom of crowds when it comes to recommending things. But its a great research tool, and I do like to share when I find out about awesome stuff. There's also the "change over time" issue - I imagine that because its very easy to put stuff into del.icio.us people do so with few reservations. But does anyone ever go back in and clean up stuff? I would imagine there's lots of old stuff floating around which doesn't get reviewed and so may not be so useful. I periodically go in and clean up bookmarks I have when they no longer work or I decide I don't want a resource anymore but I do wonder about the whole tragedy of the commons issue at 2.0 sites like del.icio.us.
Guess for now I'll keep it in the "neat idea" and "good research tool" category and see if I wind up using it more down the road. That's happened with lots of tech stuff, and likely will here too...
Friday, March 28, 2008
MLA Week 3 - Social Networking
Woo hoo! I finally revisit some of the sites I joined long ago and am only finally starting to see people I'd actually want to keep tabs on joining! I was asked to join LinkedIn awhile ago by someone at an IA conference and it was well over a year before anyone else I knew was there. Then the library community found it and all of a sudden its taking off (well, for me).
MLA and Social Networking
MLA could definitely use social networking to connect to members as you have an institution, events and members. Plus there are interest groups within MLA that would lend themselves well to it. It probably wouldn't work as a replacement for the more formal means of connecting/communicating but as a great supplement. Due to the faster mutation factor in online communities MLA would do well to use them as idea generators/incubators and sounding boards. Sort of like virtual petri dishes for studying its membership and finding out what they want in a faster, more honest way than before. Not sure if they're as good for any sort of official business. But my perspective is warped - I suspect there's tremendous administrative overhead in MLA as in many organizations. At some point the social networks might surpass the more traditional ones and those will be used more as a backup. Kind of like meeting minutes and agendas - most of the interesting stuff takes place faster and outside those boundaries, but they help anchor people's memories and keep them on track. In theory.
Facebook or MySpace
Our library is interested in a presence on Facebook though we're probably going to avoid MySpace. We're a health sciences library, academic institution and demographically MySpace just trends a little too young. Facebook seems to have more of a academic cachet and we're very interested in the idea of making sure people can find us wherever they are, plus we're very into the idea of modularity and building tools/widgets to scatter across the intertubes (but in a tasteful and non-pushy way). We wouldn't mind largely blowing away our library website and replacing portions of it with such widgets, but we'll probably continue even lesser used parts of it for the "web traditionalists". Plus you can only do so much with widget-y applications currently and we can do lots more on our site/server. I personally hope we avoid using Facebook to promote or try to appear hip, but being there for people to find us and connect with would be fab.
Privacy Concerns
Yes, absolutely there are privacy concerns with these sites. By the same token there's also the potential for a more explicit agreement between the users and the administrators of these sites. That is, it can be difficult to find out what the bank or store you have a credit card with does with your information and you have to do all the work - usually when you sign up with an online service they tell you that upfront, notify you of changes and let you change your preferences or even delete your account at will. So there is a balance between the old and the new. The ability to make copies and remotely access data does make the online scarier though. Not to mention the old "well, Facebook says they'll honor the covenant with you but George Bush just signed an executive order making them give up the data and we can't control what they'll do with it - sorry!" (or the Facebook gets bought out by Rupert Murdoch). I used to be a huge privacy fundamentalist but am now more in the David Brin camp - the problem is I'm willing to be more open with my info than I used to be but I see the people who have access to it moving in the opposite direction which bothers me. I guess any site I get into an agreement with voluntarily its my choice, my problem if it goes bad. But what happens when my information gets hoovered up by people who I don't have an agreement with?
Likes and Dislikes
Well, MySpace has always made my eyes bleed and ears hurt. That continues, but makes sense as its roots are in promoting bands to fans. And I'm even a big music fan but sheesh! Its been hit with the ugly stick repeatedly. And just a little too far out of my age group. FaceBook I like because of the ability to build applications in, the different feeds to keep up with folks, etc. What I don't like is that so much of the content just seems so silly! Write on my wall, throw an elf at me, follow me around like a stalker - seems silly and narcissistic. Why would I want to do that? And I'm a really silly person! Seems like there's a lonely hearts club or boredom element to it all. Perhaps this is the accelerated MTV jump cut generation version of that. Actually I think one part may be introversion/extroversion but as explained by someone in my psych undergrad days - introverts already have high internal stimulation and find much more to be painful, while extroverts need some external stimulation to get up to a comfortable level. As an introvert I find it a little noisy and overwhelming, much as I prefer small groups of close friends and dark, divey pubs to loud, crowded nightclubs. So perhaps the thing for people like me is not mega-sites like Facebook but more dark, hidden corners created around more closely shared interests. These can be set up in Google Groups or the like, but not sure how you'd scale from mega-site to smaller, more intimate site. That may be Second Life territory...
Overall it seems to me (curmudgeon that I am) that just being connected by computer doesn't make a community, but you can use the computer and connection to enhance and expand your existing communities. I find that in person as well - just because I like X doesn't mean I'll hit it off with other people who like X :-)
MLA and Social Networking
MLA could definitely use social networking to connect to members as you have an institution, events and members. Plus there are interest groups within MLA that would lend themselves well to it. It probably wouldn't work as a replacement for the more formal means of connecting/communicating but as a great supplement. Due to the faster mutation factor in online communities MLA would do well to use them as idea generators/incubators and sounding boards. Sort of like virtual petri dishes for studying its membership and finding out what they want in a faster, more honest way than before. Not sure if they're as good for any sort of official business. But my perspective is warped - I suspect there's tremendous administrative overhead in MLA as in many organizations. At some point the social networks might surpass the more traditional ones and those will be used more as a backup. Kind of like meeting minutes and agendas - most of the interesting stuff takes place faster and outside those boundaries, but they help anchor people's memories and keep them on track. In theory.
Facebook or MySpace
Our library is interested in a presence on Facebook though we're probably going to avoid MySpace. We're a health sciences library, academic institution and demographically MySpace just trends a little too young. Facebook seems to have more of a academic cachet and we're very interested in the idea of making sure people can find us wherever they are, plus we're very into the idea of modularity and building tools/widgets to scatter across the intertubes (but in a tasteful and non-pushy way). We wouldn't mind largely blowing away our library website and replacing portions of it with such widgets, but we'll probably continue even lesser used parts of it for the "web traditionalists". Plus you can only do so much with widget-y applications currently and we can do lots more on our site/server. I personally hope we avoid using Facebook to promote or try to appear hip, but being there for people to find us and connect with would be fab.
Privacy Concerns
Yes, absolutely there are privacy concerns with these sites. By the same token there's also the potential for a more explicit agreement between the users and the administrators of these sites. That is, it can be difficult to find out what the bank or store you have a credit card with does with your information and you have to do all the work - usually when you sign up with an online service they tell you that upfront, notify you of changes and let you change your preferences or even delete your account at will. So there is a balance between the old and the new. The ability to make copies and remotely access data does make the online scarier though. Not to mention the old "well, Facebook says they'll honor the covenant with you but George Bush just signed an executive order making them give up the data and we can't control what they'll do with it - sorry!" (or the Facebook gets bought out by Rupert Murdoch). I used to be a huge privacy fundamentalist but am now more in the David Brin camp - the problem is I'm willing to be more open with my info than I used to be but I see the people who have access to it moving in the opposite direction which bothers me. I guess any site I get into an agreement with voluntarily its my choice, my problem if it goes bad. But what happens when my information gets hoovered up by people who I don't have an agreement with?
Likes and Dislikes
Well, MySpace has always made my eyes bleed and ears hurt. That continues, but makes sense as its roots are in promoting bands to fans. And I'm even a big music fan but sheesh! Its been hit with the ugly stick repeatedly. And just a little too far out of my age group. FaceBook I like because of the ability to build applications in, the different feeds to keep up with folks, etc. What I don't like is that so much of the content just seems so silly! Write on my wall, throw an elf at me, follow me around like a stalker - seems silly and narcissistic. Why would I want to do that? And I'm a really silly person! Seems like there's a lonely hearts club or boredom element to it all. Perhaps this is the accelerated MTV jump cut generation version of that. Actually I think one part may be introversion/extroversion but as explained by someone in my psych undergrad days - introverts already have high internal stimulation and find much more to be painful, while extroverts need some external stimulation to get up to a comfortable level. As an introvert I find it a little noisy and overwhelming, much as I prefer small groups of close friends and dark, divey pubs to loud, crowded nightclubs. So perhaps the thing for people like me is not mega-sites like Facebook but more dark, hidden corners created around more closely shared interests. These can be set up in Google Groups or the like, but not sure how you'd scale from mega-site to smaller, more intimate site. That may be Second Life territory...
Overall it seems to me (curmudgeon that I am) that just being connected by computer doesn't make a community, but you can use the computer and connection to enhance and expand your existing communities. I find that in person as well - just because I like X doesn't mean I'll hit it off with other people who like X :-)
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
MLA Week 2.0 - Blogs and Wikis
Blogs and Wikis are both fairly easy to use content management systems, so they allow people who don't know HTML or do much web development to create usable web resources and share them widely, as well as to collaborate with far more people than they could if working only locally.
Blogs seem better suited to things like news and discussions - where you write chunks of text and have a few images, links or media files embedded in them to liven things up. Being reverse chronological in order they make sense for current awareness sorts of things but aren't necessarily a good way to organze things. Good for capturing ideas or information quickly, then perhaps mining it for the ability to link to it or just refresh your memory later (esp. if you combine your posts with tags). Its also perfect for discussions, as comments are attached to posts and you can comment on a post or a comment.
Wikis, by contrast, seem better suited for things like shared resource listings and the ability to create web pages rather than web page based discussions. Because you can edit the whole page you have more flexibility than you do with a blog, with the caveat that to do much more than basic formatting you'd need to know HTML pretty well and be working at a site that doesn't lock down what code you can use - if the wiki doesn't work well enough for your needs you might be just as well to get web hosting and create pages that way. Wikis also have ability to have discussions though the formatting is closer to a chat room than a discussion, so most wikis I've seen don't have much, if any, discussion there.
Blogs and Wikis can be used in really creative ways and I've seen people do all sorts of things with them. Intranets are actually one use that looks like it may work well (its hard to know without actually being involved with a project whether it actually works for its audience or just looks like it does, or doesn't for that matter). They both allow for sharing of editing (though earlier in blog history they were mostly sole proprietorships they seem to have become more of a community thing - among the posters and the commenters), they both allow linking and both have WYSIWYG interfaces so they're good for people who don't want to get into the HTML angle, as well as people who don't have the support to do web development for financial or security reasons.
I've gotta say I'm a little jealous when I see some of the great stuff out there people have done and wonder why sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. I think that often its not the tool but the people, and some of these great projects must have great teams of people behind them - high tech or low tech, its more the people than the tech :-)
Blogs seem better suited to things like news and discussions - where you write chunks of text and have a few images, links or media files embedded in them to liven things up. Being reverse chronological in order they make sense for current awareness sorts of things but aren't necessarily a good way to organze things. Good for capturing ideas or information quickly, then perhaps mining it for the ability to link to it or just refresh your memory later (esp. if you combine your posts with tags). Its also perfect for discussions, as comments are attached to posts and you can comment on a post or a comment.
Wikis, by contrast, seem better suited for things like shared resource listings and the ability to create web pages rather than web page based discussions. Because you can edit the whole page you have more flexibility than you do with a blog, with the caveat that to do much more than basic formatting you'd need to know HTML pretty well and be working at a site that doesn't lock down what code you can use - if the wiki doesn't work well enough for your needs you might be just as well to get web hosting and create pages that way. Wikis also have ability to have discussions though the formatting is closer to a chat room than a discussion, so most wikis I've seen don't have much, if any, discussion there.
Blogs and Wikis can be used in really creative ways and I've seen people do all sorts of things with them. Intranets are actually one use that looks like it may work well (its hard to know without actually being involved with a project whether it actually works for its audience or just looks like it does, or doesn't for that matter). They both allow for sharing of editing (though earlier in blog history they were mostly sole proprietorships they seem to have become more of a community thing - among the posters and the commenters), they both allow linking and both have WYSIWYG interfaces so they're good for people who don't want to get into the HTML angle, as well as people who don't have the support to do web development for financial or security reasons.
I've gotta say I'm a little jealous when I see some of the great stuff out there people have done and wonder why sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. I think that often its not the tool but the people, and some of these great projects must have great teams of people behind them - high tech or low tech, its more the people than the tech :-)
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