12/8 Comments

YouTube Video

Viacom copyright violation

No Place to Hide

This kind of reminds me of the whole "pre-crime" thing from Minority Report. It would seem that, if this domestic spying idea is true, the US is trying to stop any home grown terror or crime before it starts. And I would think that if a person has nothing to hide, what would be the problem on a little domestic inquiry. I mean, if the government decides they want to listen on some of my conversations, texts, emails, whatever, I feel sorry for the guys they assign to listen to my friends and I. Let them listen to my stupid conversations if they actually and eventually get some hard intelligence about a possible event.

EPIC TIA

Again this is a domestic spying or human tracking that the government is currently working on. I mean I am all for personal rights and privacy, but I do not have anything to hide and if it does turn into some sort of ultra police state, simply deal with it for 4 years and vote in a new party. Our government is set up so that power is evenly distributed over many branches not just one. So if a majority gets voted into every single branch that is in favor of a police state, then as a country, we have more issues than the ruling party. All of this is just coming out now, how much do you think has gone on before this and how much more is currently happening? Out of sight, out of mind, I still use my vote and have a plethora of opportunities to voice my opinions about the current state of affairs. Hey, if not, remember remember the 5th of November.

12/1 Muddiest Point

Again, I am going to say I have no Muddiest Point for this week, as we are using blogs in class and we are children of the web 2.0 revolution.

12/1 Comments

Using a Wiki

Ah, Web 2.0. Wikis could be a fun and integral part of libraries. Instead of bogging down the Circulation desk with mind-numbing questions, patrons can refer to the library wiki. The wiki could be a constantly evolving thing adapting to the newest and strangest questions. There could even be a "was this helpful" kind of survey that will use statistics to point patrons in the right direction after a few clicks.

Academic Social Tagging

In a thought social tagging for the world of academia could be something useful and very good. Although someone is definitely going to have to monitor the tags and amke sure people are tagging the right things with the right tags. I think the good outweighs the bad though, the tags will eventually create an ease of access and allow users to precisely find what they are looking for and like materials.

Wikipedia!!!!

The creation of Wikipedia will probably go down in history as one of the best and most influential creations of the 21st century. A lot of people try to discredit Wikipedia, but I mean it is what it is. It is a socially generated reference encyclopedia, there is a lot of garbage on there but there is a lot more useful material on Wikipedia. Even if someone uses Wikipedia as a reference and clicks one of the many links associated with a given page, doesn't Wikipedia serve it's purpose? Don't get me wrong, I love Wikipedia, scanning through the various pages and trying to link various things together is a great (drinking) game (think Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, but only using Wikipedia articles). Wikipedia is a great tool, but like Uncle Ben said, with great power comes great responsibility.

Weblogs and You

Blogs and libraries are kind of in the same boat as social tagging and libraries. On one hand they could be a useful tool, but on the other hand it could get ugly. If librarians start to blog and open the forum up for comments there could be some interesting posts from user and/or staff. So it will have to be monitored very closely and every word is going to have to be carefully scrutinized so that nothing bad comes of a post. Some of the examples in the article about a mouse not working can be done through twitter or something shorter not necessarily a whole blog post, but I feel like I am just being nit-picky with that.

FUNTASTIC WEBPAGE OF GOODNESS!!!

here's the link to my iweb made site!

iweb is fun. i chose the comic book layout to keep myself interested in the project and not get sidetracked with something. when commissioner gordon calls, you listen.

Muddiest Point

When are libraries and other academic institutions going to work together rather than keep jumping on the next big thing and stop working against each other using or promoting different systems? Google cannot take over the world and do everything.

This weeks notes.....

Digital Libraries

It's always interesting to see that Google is the main competition for any digital library or project that comes about. It is about time that many institutions are banding together and trying to make a splash in the world of digital libraries and actually try to compete with the Google model. Bill Nye should be excited that the NEH and all of the government programs are joining in on the crusade to establish a digital library. I was surprised to see NASA and the FBI on that list, but then again I'm sure an open access library could end up housing dangerous material and could pose a threat to national security. I guess we will see what becomes of it.

Dewey Meets Turing

This could be my favorite article ever. It honestly made digital libraries sound like some sort of evil secret plot against humanity. And anything that puts some sort of excitement into putting things in order in boxes makes me feel better. I mean really, "The Initiative?" totally a secret plot to destroy the world. The DLI could just be another clever acronym that is just a cover-up for something more sinister. I am not going to be surprised if I end up seeing James Bond walking around trying to foil any sort of plans. But regardless, as the Web grows, libraries and librarians are going to have to continue to work together and strengthen that connection to fight the good fight against copyright and intellectual property.

Institutional Repositories

This is basically a breakdown of all that is going on in the world of digital institutional repositories. Again, the ways of scholarly communication are constantly changing and putting more and more pressure on the institutions to create something new and also within the rights of intellectual property. Eventually all of the institutions are going to agree on a certain system and create an all digital library, but there are still many obstacles to overcome and no end in sight.

Muddiest Point - 11/17

The winner this week is going to have to be why care about the "Deep Web?" Does it really matter what is contained in the part of the web people rarely use? I mean if there is that much free money floating around that people can do studies about things no one uses, can I get in on any of that action?