http://www.citeulike.org/

Wow, this is a great site for academics and students of every stripe.
Gives Google Scholar a run for its money....

Re: Tips for Writing Facebook and Twitter Updates by Kivi Leroux Miller

These tips I found to be very succint and helpful. I do think that one of the challenges is to combine being brief, which these tools necessitate, as do the attention spans of the readers, with letting your own personality shine through without letting the story be about you, to paraphrase Ms. Miller. 

I think there is a real talent, an art form, to social blogging and networking-- some people who are good at it are capable of personalizing without getting personal, sharing information without seeming to "teachery" or too commanding and authoritative.

Blogs, mashups, and wikis

Oh My...

this article talked about a lot of the topics we have been reviewing and discussing in our LSC 597 class. The last section of the article reviewed the challenges, which have already come up and been debated recently in our classroom forums, such as: "Technology outdistancing policy" We discussed this in the Forums recently, as it applied to Face book. This thorn has been a factor of the equation since the world wide web was invented. As soon as a program to stop a hacker is invented a new way to hack comes along. The repercussions for someone hacking into your personal and financial privacy in a country where it is laughed off or even encouraged doesn't help you as a user to bee secure, or have your rights protected.

For librarians, "Defining a "record" in a complex electronic environment" is going to be a challenge. I just finished taking a cataloging course. Cataloging has only just begun to adapt to the challenges by having records be online vs. being formatted to adhere to and be consistent with the card catalog system!

We discussed the "Gauging (of) legal responsibilities" as it is becoming murky to define. If you truly embrace the theories, advantages, and freedom we can all be afforded in our current "free" information culture, it stands to reason that our old way of viewing copyrights and copyrights infringement must evolve to reflect the current modes of operation.

If we as librarians seek to embrace the opportunities afforded to us by new technology we will need to become part of the solution in solving the challenges presented by social networking and other available information technology.
 

Library 2.0: revolution or evolution?

I think the movement of libraries to incorporate the "mushy" or "squishy" Library 2.0 is more of an evolution than a revolution--in part due to the pace of its incorporation, which is various amongst institutions and library staff. Some libraries, especially those in more affluent, modern, academic, or those in areas with larger populations may be able and willing to incorporate technology and social network more quickly and effectively than smaller, poorer, less populated or more rural public libraries. School libraries also vary greatly as to what they are willing and able to incorporate. Nevertheless, all libraries are going to have to respond to the needs of library patrons and users by remaining current, aggregating information, and remaining true to their mission to serve their population, which in every case, is going to necessitate at least some aspects of Library 2.0.

The Networked Librarian: Libraries as social networks

Watching this presentation I am struck again at how much, to me, it points out that librarians need to be prepared to help people to navigate the new terrain of social networking. If everyone is to have free access to information, and some populations, especially seniors, those that are disabled, have incomes less than $30,000, have no kids in school, etc. have little understanding of how to use social networking tools, it is going to be up to those that are able to educate them, i.e. public librarians, to close the gap!

RE; this weeks article "Old Media, New Media"

This article didn't surprise me too much, but I did think and maybe hope that social media, particularly the worlds' prolific bloggers, would reflect, and perhaps study in a more in depth way than traditional media might, the issues of our day. This paragraph, I found somewhat disturbing:

"The week of August 17-23, for example, the traditional press led with the health care debate for the fifth week in a row as the Obama administration appeared poised to pull back its support for the so-called “public option” to be included in a final bill. That story was not among those followed closely in social media that week. There, two scientific studies that received almost no mainstream media attention led the list. For bloggers, the top story was about Canadian researchers who conducted a mathematical exercise to see if a zombie attack would lead to the collapse of civilization. And Twitterers led with a story about research by a professor at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth who discovered that 90% of U.S. paper money contained small traces of cocaine"

I was hoping that social media would be filling the gaps left by the shrinking of our more traditional newspapers and magazines, instead of adding to the general "noise" of our more inflammatory and headline seeking news reporting agencies.

Free? Culture

Just finished viewing our "Free Culture" talk with Elizabeth Stark... http://freeculture.org/blog/

She is a proponent of free access,open internet, open web and gives some great examples of collaborative use (often those who wish to share their works will do so through participation in Creative Commons) such as Mozilla Firefox, and Wikipedia--one of the most successful crazy ideas to have ever worked so well---and talks about Napster--another idea that really worked but then was deemed illegal--she is hoping that our copyright laws will evolve, since currently most people routinely and often unknowingly are committing piracy.

She points out in her talk that copyright laws were created during a very different time, and that making our works accessible and providing free access in this digital age often benefits the creator as well as the user of the information.

Elizabeth Stark pointed out some things that I have thought about frequently, such as: Am I committing a crime when I make use Google images? What is the correct way to use information to make a power point for a class? How do you cite things when no source is given? And then can you use them?

I think the dawn of the information age has brought up many new issues which have not been as of yet successfully addressed.

What do you think?