Learning to fly (but I ain't got wings)

One of the things that I took away from the Brown readings this week was that information is pretty simple, and while the processes to harness it can be complicated, it can be done. Knowledge on the other hand is complex. You could even argue that it cannot exist outside of the human mind, except in artifact form: that is, the knowledge expressed is not an exact duplicate of the knowledge possessed. And the ways in which one acquires information vs. knowledge are very different as well. Information is processed. Knowledge is learned. Information is a commodity. Knowledge is at a premium. As companies place more and more emphasis on knowledge, stuff that only their people can provide, it will become important to make sure that education realigns itself with the goal of cultivating knowledge and the skills to cultivate that same knowledge in others, instead of passing on information.

Traditionally, schools operate on a top-down, listen-to-me-lecture, test-you-on-the-material model. While they are incorporating more and varied activities, ultimately they are still teaching for the test. While this may pass on some interesting information, does it prepare students for the kind of work they will be expected to do in the real world? In order to prepare the knowledge workers of the future, emphasis needs to be placed on "learning to be" instead of "learning about." Furthermore, our educational model is not based on a collaborative model. Innovation in the workplace and in the real world, particularly now with Web 2.0 technology in place, relies on collaboration and knowledge sharing. The education system needs to prepare students for that kind of environment by encouraging assignments and activities in context. They need to learn to become practitioners as much as they need to learn facts. In fact, practicing skills in context may even make more facts stick. If students learn to create knowledge and collaborate and share that knowledge, knowledge management becomes easier. Perhaps part of the reason knowledge management is so problematical is because no one has learned to share.

U Like? CiteULike.org Social Software isn't just for fun.

CiteULike is a free service to help you to store, organize and share scholarly papers. With one click of a button (the hallmark of any ss program worth its salt), you can add any papers you find on the web to your citeUlike library. Citeulike also extracts the citation info so there's no pesky retyping or cutting and pasting. Works directly from your browser which means you can use it from any computer (ding!) and no software to install (ding!) The social element of the site is that you can see if anyone is reading the same papers as you and possibly use this info to trackback to other articles that might be of interest to you. It also lets you tag your sources for clear organzation.



I find this interesting because I've got folders full of pdfs on my computer that are taking up valuable space, and if they could be stored on another server and be better organized I'm all for it. I also like the idea of seeing what other people are reading, particularly being an online student with limited access to like-minded peers.



Downside: in information, as in life, sharing puts you at some risk. Your information on the web leaves an imprint that you may or may not want public. Big brother may someday be watching...

I like a hot mess...

I know, crazy that someone pursuing a life in information science likes a hot mess, but I can't help myself. Don't get me wrong, I have a healthy respect for classification and organization. I walk that line. I get it. But when it comes to my personal information pursuits, I like to do the pursuing. Serendipity is my religion. I think that aggregators take away some of the joy that is the randomness of internet browsing. Aggregators are valuable for information you know you will use, but let's face it, if it's easy to press a button and add a feed to our aggregetor we are probably going to do it, even if we might never look at that information again. We end up clogging our aggregators up with junk and contributing to information overload, not harnessing it.

For me, there are sites that I know I will visit because they have passed the test of time with me--I have made it a point to seek them out again and again. These may be the type of sites I would aggregate, but then again I don't like one stop shopping. I hate the mall and aggregators make me feel like I'm at an information mall. Granted, it's a mall of all my favorite "stores", but still. I add my favorite blogs to my home page so I can see updates, and all others I catch as I am able...but I still have to make an effort. Think about it this way: I may waste time clicking around looking at all sorts of information, I may have to go to 17 different places to get what I need, but I also know that I want or need everything I am seeking. It is, therefore, quality information for me. My time is invested in this information. Aggregators may save me "clicking" time, but they might be wasting more of my time on inferior information, particularly with one-click aggregating. I may spend more time organizing my junk that I would actually exploring the good stuff.

My head's on vibrate for you...

The reason that Feed disturbs me so much is that should a feed actually happen we will all be complicit in its existence. We blithely surf the net, fill out online forms, make purchases that are leaving trackable breadcrumbs that lead directly back to us. Interactivity and collaboration are beautiful concepts...if they are voluntarily and freely participated in. The dark underbelly of the convenience and connectivity that we have is that we are not always active participants in the process. Somewhere in the back of our heads we know that information is being collected about our tastes and habits, but we enjoy Amazon telling us what we might like too much to question it. And it is exactly this kind of seemingly innocuous passivity that could lead us not to question the concept of a feed. Especially if Paris Hilton or some other rich and "famous" person gets one first. There was a time when only the crazy rich had things like $1000 handbags and $500 sunglasses. Now, our society makes it seem like things like that are not just fantasy items, but things that you should strive to get. Value isn't determined by the actual merits of an item, but by who else has one and how good the marketing on a product is. Can't you see a company developing a feed and using product placement and a compelling marketing message, aimed directly at us through information collected about us from the web to convince us to implant their feed? I think Britney Spears might be beta testing one right now, in fact.

Think about the digital divide that would take place in the wake of this kind of technology. It's one thing to buy a cheaply produced knock off TV or computer--if it malfunctions, you're out some money, but nothing tragic will happen to you. Now wire that same device into your brain...you are not just putting your finances at risk, but your health and potentially your life. The consequences are horrible to contemplate.

I'm sure you could argue that people would draw the line at "implanting" technology in their bodies, but cosmetic surgery is de rigeur nowadays, often in the face of very real health risks. What's to stop our search for status and perfection from heading that far north?

Google, of course--Would you trust anyone less to implant your feed?

I love to hate Google, but I really do prefer Google reader over Bloglines.

• Google reader is, well, more readable. Font wise, layout wise, all around. I find it easier to navigate.
• Google lists all of your new feeds front and forward, so you can check them out in a quick glance without having to go to the sidebar and click on unread items.
• I like the Trends feature in Google reader. It lets me track how much precious time I am wasting. Plus, everybody loves a chart.
• That you can integrate GR into your google homepage makes it less trouble to access.
• I like the fact that you don't have to assign a folder to your subscription upon downloading like you do with Bloglines. I like to take my time on deciding where to classify something. Don't pressure me Bloglines!

Best thing about Bloglines?

It's not a Google product. Reason enough to support it.

Bookmark, schmookmark

The collaborative nature of Web 2.0 applications really interests me. I am not part of the MySpace/Facebook generation. I appreciate the value of those sites, certainly see the marketing potential in them, but really would never use one on a personal level. Twitter, same kind of thing: honestly, no one needs an update on what I am doing that often. So my social software focus is on information, not necessarily about myself (although social bookmarking may end up telling you more about yourself than you want to now). I've only recently started using del.icio.us, but being able to "bookmark" my online interests and then follow a thread of that interest to other sites opens up a whole new information pathway for me. While admittedly I am currently only using del.icio.us for addictive, time-sucking activites right now, I can see it becoming an online resource as I continue in the library field, creating bundles of tags that I can use as shorthand to find relevant information on topics, as a repository for helpful sites, and a place where I can share this information with others. Best yet, you are not tied to one computer. Since del.icio.us is online, you can access it from anywhere you can access the internet (key, I think, in this wireless-driven society).

Too much information, running 'round my brain

My son (14) and I read Feed together.

Me (horrified tone in my voice): Could you imagine having that in your head all the time?
Him (excited): OMG, that would be so cool! You could IM your friends all the time. You wouldn't have to go to school, you could just have it uploaded. You could just wish for something, have the money takn out of your account and get it just by thinking about it.
Me: Commercials running in your head all the time would be cool?
Him (shrugs): Yeah, why not? They're all around you anyway.
Me: OK, but where does the feed end and YOU begin? Do you determine what comes in on the feed or does someone else? At least with commercials, you can turn them off. The feed's running all the time.
Him: Um , never thought of that.

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I've said it before and I'll say it again: just because we can do something, doesn't mean we should. The most horrifying aspect of the dystopia in Feed (and it is a dystopia despite what my son might think) is that people have become sheeplike in their acceptance of the feed. No one questions it, when they are temporarily jammed they are paralyzed by the loss, and when people question the idea of the feed, they are branded as crazy. I like to believe that the minute someone tries to sell us on implantation of a feed in our brains that we as a society would stand up and say no, but these kinds of changes do not happen overnight, they sneak up on you. One minute it's the convenience of email on your computer, then your pocket, why not right into your brain? Although there may be many, many stages between the RSS feed as we know it and an at-birth installation of one, the fact remains we as a society love technology, love to consume, love convenience, and love conformity. This sets up a breeding ground for the possibility. Honestly, I love my ipod and itunes as much as they next person, but I would draw the line at having Apple implant itunes 27.0 in my head. My son, however, would do it right now if I called him up here and said it was available. Why? Because technology doesn't surprise him any more. He may not be able to put a name to it, but he knows that another "build" is on the way somewhere, and all he has to do is click install.

Blog This!

As far as blogging programs go, they all kind of work on the same principle and mainly differ in the bells and whistles that they offer. I will say that doing an informal survey of the blogs I visit daily, most are Word Press, some are Blogger, and some are Type Pad. I had a LiveJournal account way back when, but I always saw that as more of a semi-closed community more than a public blog forum. None of the blogs I read use it.

WordPress seemed the most user-friendly to me for a number of reasons:

• I am a fan of the Blog Roll and WordPress has a blog roll that is easy to set up and maintain.
• More template options than Blogger.
• Customizable CSS
• Adding widgets is easy, they have a number of options that you can just drag and drop into your blog's layout. You can do the same thing in blogger, but you have to seek the widgets out. While I am wary of too many widgets, presenting a selection of them can help you make a judicious decision.
• Video slideshow function seems easy to use although you will need to pay if you want to use more than a certain amount of bandwidth.

I'm probably the wrong person to ask about features though, because my favorite blogs are simple, widget free with basic short entries like this one.

They Get the Spaces In Between

The first thing that came to mind as I read the Seely Brown chapter was: if the home office revolution is so compelling and inevitable, why doesn't Google subscribe to it? After all, they certainly have the technology to support it. Instead, Google has a corporate culture that is built around an office. So even though technology can facilitate and revolutionize the way we communicate, especially across long distances, it cannot account for what I like to call "the spaces in between", that part of human interaction that takes place only in physical proximity. With the proliferation of Web 2.0 tools you could argue that physical proximity is not necessary, that technology can bridge that gap. But if there is one thing that I learned from lo, these many months of HIB theory, it is that you need to take context into consideration when dealing with human interaction. While Web 2.0 technologies have made communication easier on many levels, they do not replace face to face communication. An emoticon can represent a smiley face, but no one is going to say that it replaces actual smiling in our day to day life. So as long as people still need and thrive on actual human interaction, there is hope for a brick and mortar library. But the library's continued existence should not be taken for granted.

The computer is a tool, not the answer to every problem, and it is how libraries use that tool that will determine their future viability. As Seely Brown indicated, we sometimes expect society to adapt to changing technology, a slow and painful process, when a subtle change in point of view could have us asking how can emerging technologies facilitate our growth as a society, how do we adapt technology to our societal needs and goals, not the other way around. This can be applied in the society of libraries as well: the question isn't how are we going to adapt to all of these new technologies--wikis, websites with bells and whistles, IM, RefChat, rss feeds, MySpace, Facebook--but how can we use them to further the growth of our institutions and the growth of our communities, hopefully a growth of which the library is a vital part. So are we, libraries, to be the users or the used up? We cannot ignore technological advances, but neither can we let them dictate our mission.

Theoretically, we can make the jump from home office to home library: everyone has the power of the library right at ther fingertips, no need to have a building, pay expensive professionals, and keep up a dusty old collection, if in a few keystrokes you can call up any kind of reference you want. Well, the same arguments that Seely Brown made against the viability of the virtual office replacing the actual office can be made in defense of the brick and mortar library: technology can be frustrating--the perfect machine has yet to be invented--so people like and need support from expert users,otherwise they have to become experts themselves. Let's face it, sometimes you just want a tech to push you out of your chair and take over when the going gets rough. Often, this kind of help can only take place face to face.

So on one hand it seems that replacing brick and mortar libraries with click and mortar libraries is inevitable in the face of emerging technology, and on the other hand (like the virtual office) not so much. The question is how can libraries leverage new technologies with the "spaces in between" that they fill and become a part of the fabric of those technologies?

So Fresh and So Clean

I'm a simple girl. I like my coffee with milk, my books to have actual paper pages and a cover, and I like my blogs neat, informative, and interesting. Too many bells and whistles and you will lose me. That is one of the things that I liked about the Clemson library weblog. http://www.lib.clemson.edu/weblog/

You could log on to get up to date information on current library events, "housekeeping" type issues, and new additions to the collection without wading through a lot of widgets and whistles. It is simple and clean. You can link to the catalog, article search, and e-journal request right from the page. There is no blog roll, which I miss, because I have found many interesting things linking to blogs from other blogs, but I actually think it is in keeping with what I see as the philosophy of the blog: info, quick and dirty. What I think keeps this blog from being boring, however, is the Daily Photo, Flickr link aspect. It makes the blog visually interesting and adds an element that could bring people back to the site to see what the Daily Photo is. It tells a story abut the library even if the pictures are unrelated and have little to do with the hard content of the blog. It has the potential to be fun as well, and link in with other Clemson Flickr accounts/events. I see a lot of ways that a Flickr companion to a blog could be used to promote libraries and even drive people to the blog.


I also want to give a shout out to http://digitalcampus.tv/ It is a companion blog to a podcast dealing with digital media and technology and its effects on colleges, libraries, etc. This one also does it right. You can listen to the podcast, subscribe to it, visit the links discussed in it, and read a small recap. Informative and incorporates blogging and podcasting, two points of entry to the ideas.