While Mark was busy at a session on Open access vs copyright, I attended one on Special Needs in Libraries. The first speaker was Toni Kennedy from Australia, and talked about how she had worked to improved prison libraries in New South Wales. She mentioned a number of strategies, including training inmates as assistant librarians had helped to counter a culture of second hand books, and no trained librarians at all.
Although the content was quite far removed from my main areas of interest, it was very interesting to see the parallels with library life in Higher Education, including the novel uses for book stock (cigarette papers made from Bible pages is one example where this has happened in both locations!). The impact they have made is astonishing, and even more impressive given the lack of money and resources.
The other speaker talked about Information Access for disabled students in Lithuania, where disabled students have traditionlly been ignored. Again, a number of
innovations to improve information access for disabled students in the country. In doing so, they have utilsed a number of web 2 technologies, so again it was good to see parallels with what we are doing in Higher Education.
Wednesday, 30 January 2008
Tuesday, 29 January 2008
More from BOBCATSSS 2008
We attended a panel this morning with Margaret Heller, Patrick Danowski and Tom Roos on the subject of Web 2.0 and Web 3.0 (the latter, in case you were wondering, was envisioned by Roos as the ultimate arrival of the semantic web allowing for much greater sophistication in the retrieval of information).
Topics discussed included privacy issues (and librarians' role in educating users about these, especially in relation to social networking - not easy if like Margaret you work in Illinois where libraries have been forced by state legislation to block the use of such sites!); the inherent subversiveness of blogging (and how they challenge authority by giving the tools of communication to the masses - making them an obvious 'fit' for the mission of libraries); the usefulness of tagging and librarians' tendency to be 'prescriptivist rather than descriptivist' (>Margaret) in their use of language.
The discussion was lively and interesting ideas were shared, however what we couldn't arrive at an answer for was the time-old question of how exactly we're going to arrive at the semantic web, or what librarians' role in this will be. Will user-generated metadata help get us there? (and how many people are adding it anyway - Tom Roos says he rarely tags anything since it costs him time but the benefit is to someone else) Or is the breakthrough likely to be not in the content or metadata but in the search technology itself? We hope to revisit some of these areas of discussion in our workshop, tomorrow afternoon.
Please use the comments to add your own thoughts on any of these issues.
More later!
Topics discussed included privacy issues (and librarians' role in educating users about these, especially in relation to social networking - not easy if like Margaret you work in Illinois where libraries have been forced by state legislation to block the use of such sites!); the inherent subversiveness of blogging (and how they challenge authority by giving the tools of communication to the masses - making them an obvious 'fit' for the mission of libraries); the usefulness of tagging and librarians' tendency to be 'prescriptivist rather than descriptivist' (>Margaret) in their use of language.
The discussion was lively and interesting ideas were shared, however what we couldn't arrive at an answer for was the time-old question of how exactly we're going to arrive at the semantic web, or what librarians' role in this will be. Will user-generated metadata help get us there? (and how many people are adding it anyway - Tom Roos says he rarely tags anything since it costs him time but the benefit is to someone else) Or is the breakthrough likely to be not in the content or metadata but in the search technology itself? We hope to revisit some of these areas of discussion in our workshop, tomorrow afternoon.
Please use the comments to add your own thoughts on any of these issues.
More later!
Monday, 28 January 2008
Live from Zadar!
Greetings from BOBCATSSS2008! (and apologies for any typing errors - this is a very strange keyboard!)
This morning we heard two keynote speakers:
Ana Marusic addressed the role of the medical publisher, a field in which issues of trust are paramount since lives depend upon the publication of accurate evidence.
It was interesting to hear her describe the role of the modern publisher as moving away from being a gatekeeper and toward that of an educator - similar to the shift Matt and I would suggest is taking place in the role of the librarian.
The second keynote was from Claudia Lux, president of the IFLA, who was also interested in the librarian role, but specifically how we need to ensure that those who provide our funding (be they local or central government authorities, or even vice chancellors!) perceive the value of our service. She argues that we need to be advocates for our services and for our profession, to "stop complaining" (where have I heard that before ;-) and to start talking about our successes.
This morning we heard two keynote speakers:
Ana Marusic addressed the role of the medical publisher, a field in which issues of trust are paramount since lives depend upon the publication of accurate evidence.
It was interesting to hear her describe the role of the modern publisher as moving away from being a gatekeeper and toward that of an educator - similar to the shift Matt and I would suggest is taking place in the role of the librarian.
The second keynote was from Claudia Lux, president of the IFLA, who was also interested in the librarian role, but specifically how we need to ensure that those who provide our funding (be they local or central government authorities, or even vice chancellors!) perceive the value of our service. She argues that we need to be advocates for our services and for our profession, to "stop complaining" (where have I heard that before ;-) and to start talking about our successes.
Sunday, 27 January 2008
Digital Footprints
We have been talking for a while about the changing role that information professionals play - especially in the academic sector that Mark and I primarily support. One of the areas that we have been discussing at work is the issue of "digital footprints" - the trackable trail that one leaves behind when interacting with the internet. This has started to become more and more of an issue - primarily because entries and information (including photographs) is easily created and saved on social networks such as MySpace and Facebook.
There is a BBC news article here about one student's attempts to remove information that he feared could damage future job prospects. What role can the information professional play in this area? Is it leading by example? Is it including it as part of our teaching on how to use
these technologies responsibly? Hopefully we'll discuss this on Wednesday as part of our workshop at BOBCATSSS. The theme of the conference is "Access to Information for All" - but if the information is incorrect, and the people that have access to it are your future employers - is this always a good thing?
There is a BBC news article here about one student's attempts to remove information that he feared could damage future job prospects. What role can the information professional play in this area? Is it leading by example? Is it including it as part of our teaching on how to use
these technologies responsibly? Hopefully we'll discuss this on Wednesday as part of our workshop at BOBCATSSS. The theme of the conference is "Access to Information for All" - but if the information is incorrect, and the people that have access to it are your future employers - is this always a good thing?
Tuesday, 22 January 2008
CIBER report - Information Behaviour of the Researcher of the Future
We were delighted to see the (unreferenced!) phrase "we are all librarians now" appearing in this report, commissioned by JISC and the British Library, into the habits of young internet users.
I guess this means we've either tapped into the zeitgeist, or are just full of old cliches ;-)
While we might disagree with the press release's claim that the "Google generation is a myth" (isn't the phrase convenient shorthand for a group whose default practice is to use a search engine, even if we recognise that this doesn't make them as information-literate as they might think?), it provides an interesting UK companion piece to the Pew report mentioned in the previous post - and offers some useful suggestions of librarians should respond to its findings.
I guess this means we've either tapped into the zeitgeist, or are just full of old cliches ;-)
While we might disagree with the press release's claim that the "Google generation is a myth" (isn't the phrase convenient shorthand for a group whose default practice is to use a search engine, even if we recognise that this doesn't make them as information-literate as they might think?), it provides an interesting UK companion piece to the Pew report mentioned in the previous post - and offers some useful suggestions of librarians should respond to its findings.
Monday, 21 January 2008
Teenage use of Web 2.0
Part of our presentation for BOBCATSSS uses this report from Pew. It examines the online behaviour of teenagers in the US and finds that a high percentage are engaged with web 2.o activities such as social networking. They are also creating and re-mixing content to a degree that we haven't seen before. Crucially for us as academic librarians, the age range indicated (12-17 year olds) will be our intake for the next few years.
I would argue that unless we adapt and adopt, we will be alienating them from the moment they encounter our services.
I would argue that unless we adapt and adopt, we will be alienating them from the moment they encounter our services.
Adopt and Adapt
These three words keep going around in my head at the moment. Part of me is convinced that they are the key to how information professionals need to react to the ever changing information world that is being presented to us.
I was talking about it with a colleague the other day and she asked me if there were any parallels to this in the librarian's world. At first, I stumbled, but then I realised that, as a profession, we have already tackled and successfully dealt with a number of potential obstacles. The first obvious example that springs to mind is the rise of the electronic resource - something as simple as the introduction of CD-ROMS in the early 1990s. We managed to do all of our librarian things with these new tools - catalogue, select, and most importantly - promote to the end user. The problem is, I feel, that the current challenges are being dictated by the user, rather than the librarian. Which brings us back to adopt and adapt. Any more examples of how information professionals have dealt with the introduction of new technologies? Use the comments for your answers!
I was talking about it with a colleague the other day and she asked me if there were any parallels to this in the librarian's world. At first, I stumbled, but then I realised that, as a profession, we have already tackled and successfully dealt with a number of potential obstacles. The first obvious example that springs to mind is the rise of the electronic resource - something as simple as the introduction of CD-ROMS in the early 1990s. We managed to do all of our librarian things with these new tools - catalogue, select, and most importantly - promote to the end user. The problem is, I feel, that the current challenges are being dictated by the user, rather than the librarian. Which brings us back to adopt and adapt. Any more examples of how information professionals have dealt with the introduction of new technologies? Use the comments for your answers!
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