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?

Weekly Comments

David Hawking , Web Search Engines

So even Google let me down on this one. I could not get access to part 1 or 2, it kept referring me back to the current issue of Computer magazine.

Shreeves et al.

This is a fine example of academic writing at it's best. I could not get past the abstract and I was already lost. The abstract was full of run on sentences and I couldn't make heads or tails of the whole OAI data providers sentence. After reading the article as far as I can tell is that the whole Open Archives Initiatives Protocol for Metadata Harvesting turns out to be a big ado in the world of metadata tagging.

Bergman - The Deep Web

This was a really interesting article explaining how the web and search engines work. It basically explained how search engines work and the different protocols different engines work. It almost reinforces that only so much of the Web is actually used. Basically the 80/20 rule all over again.

Weekly Comments

My Comments on Christa's blog

My Comments on Jaime's blog

10/10 Muddiest Point

Muddiest Point.

I am going to go for two this week. First point will be why choose XML and not EML? XML just sounded cooler? Second Point will be, according to the Intro to XML article it states that DTD is not needed for XML, but yet all of the articles reference it and explain it. If it is not needed why bother including it in the talks?

10/10 Notes.... Week.....(mumble, mumble,mumble)

Intro to XML

Welcome to the wonderful world of awesome acronyms. This intro article provides a nice overview of extensible markup language (why not EML?). I have come to figure I have a terrible memory with acronyms and constantly find myself re-reading most things to go back and find what something means. It just turns into a Where's Waldo kind of game, it makes reading a lot more entertaining. As seeing as I do not have a XML programming background all of that information basically just flew right over my head but I believe I got the gist of all of it.

XML Standards and XML Tutorial

The Standards and Tutorial articles are both basically the same thing. Both articles delve deeper into the wonderful world of XML than the Intro article. All in all, I would need to refer to all three articles if I were to throw my hat into the age of acronyms. I am, however, starting to enjoy the W3Schools stuff, they really seem to think about their articles and what goes in.

Extending Your Markup

Or maybe I spoke too soon. I will probably just refer to this PDF rather than the other three, although my heart remains with the W3Schools. The "asides," if you will, make things a lot easier to understand. For example, the DTD information is much easier to follow and understand than most things.