The Dark Side Of The Web

I am fortunate to never have been a victim of identity theft. I am wary of these kinds of things and limit registering for different websites. So far I haven't received much spam and thus the gross majority of my emails come from people or websites that I know. The other emails I simply throwaway without looking at them.

Life Long Learning 2.0

This week had a diverse range of topics. The Higher / Continuing Education section was intreaguing. I don't think that I would want to attend an online school, even if it was directly tied to a highly accredited institution like Syracuse. I think I would not be able to engage myself in the learning process, if I did not have direct contact with my professors. However, the Wikiveristy seemed like it would be nice to learn about if you are just interested in the subject. It would give you a program to follow nad you could follow it at your leasure.

The Professional development portion reminded me of the different articles you will see on yahoo.com or msn.com. It was fun to see a quick blurb about something just to tease your brain a little. I already knew about Gardner's multiple intelligence theory, but I enjoyed reading the different inspirational quotations.

As for the Personal Growth section, it seemed a little amaturish. I was not impressed with the intructers on many of the web sites. They did not seem too enthusiastic and I lost interest in what they were saying. The only one that held my attention was howstuffworks.com because they used professional videos.

OCLS and Library 2.0

It's comforting to know that the organization I work for is on the cutting edge of innovative thinking. It's particularly interesting to think that OLCS is developing in the same progressive way the rest of the world seems to be moving without prior knowledge that the world is moving in that direction. I guess it is a testiment to the think tank here. While we already discovered that we are congruently changing with the rest of the world, I would hope and believe that if after doing the research and seeing that we were not following the appropriate path, we would then reanalyze the situation.

As for the question how the new strategic plan impacts my work for OCLS... I just had my year evaluation and my new goal to empower myself is to learn more about our databases. This will help me better assist the patron as I will be more familiar with everything OCLS has to offer. These databases are also constantly adding more information and I think learning more about them will keep me in an innovative frame of mind.

wev 2.0 continues (adventure)

The where's the mouse video was interesting. So much so, that I sent the link to other people. This hits home to me because I do tend to watch quite a bit of tv. The fact that I don' t interact with it never really bothered me. It begs the question, "Is this why I don't provide feedback on other websites (except for this one of course)?" I don't know. Perhaps I better start participating in the real world more now.

I'm not sure if I would classify playing world of warcraft as more productive than watching tv. I suppose you are interacting with people, but I talk about the tv I watch with other people and we discuss episodes, even if we don't watch them together. Either way it is a use of cognitive surplus.

I'm not sold on the idea that people will be more productive because of the internet. I think that the same people who did not lay lathargically on the couch with the advent of the sitcom, are the same types of people, if not the same people who are out there making changes. However, I will give him that the internet is a tool, and it's very possible that there is even just that small fraction of people who shift their mentality from wanting to watch tv to choosing to participate in web 2.0 instead. Just that small percent could change a lot.

Web 2.0 Continues

I have had many patrons complain that we do not carry certain titles. Sometimes what has happened is that we owned the copy and it was lost, or was old and we withdrew it because no one was checking it out. However, there is a patron requesting this title now, but it seems as though the title is out of print. I clicked on the books subject in seomoz's.org and the second website might be able to help. It is called biblio.com and you can purchase out of print titles there for $1. Seems like quite a steel to me. I might suggest that to the patrons now.

Minti.com was an other web site I checked out. I notice that we have a lot of circulation of childcare books. This site was devoted to childcare questions and might be a good suggestion for patrons needing quick advice, but don't have time to come into the library or wait for a book by mayl.

Chain, Chain, Change

Change certainly is coming, but like the old adage says the more things change, the more things stay the same. Obviously more information is more readily accessable, but the same basic rules that apply today, will apply tomorrow. Public information will be retrievable and private data will be just as hard to come across as it is today. Thomas Frey says we will need to be more service based. I agree with that, but not because things will be technology will be tougher to understand than it is today. It may be more complex, but everyone's base knowledge will be increased too. I agree with the statement because libraries need to be more service based today. That is the reason we ask how do you find our services, not do you like the books we have available.

Also, this silly thing that the world will not stay literate. I will still be alive in 2050. Kids are still learning how to read and write. Half of the internet now is the written word. I can see paperless, but not a total verbal society.

Open Source Information

Looking through the the different web sites that were featured this week, it seems very easy to loose one's self all the information available. When asking questions on answerbag, most answers that I found did not seem to be very astute. Published books generally have more validity than random posts on random websites. Since the library has tons of published books, we are able to point patrons to a more researched answer to their questions.

However, OCLS could never have as much information within its walls as the internet. I liked what Northwestern was doing. My alma mater used a lot of online scholarly resources too. Also, I never heard of these websites until this course, so I image that most patrons haven't heard of these sites. If they do want information from places like answerbag, then when the come into the library to do research we can inform them about these sites.