Dan LIS 753

2006-08-13T13:12:00.000-05:00

Here is my final project for LIS 753:

http://domin.dom.edu/students/schndani/LIS_753/Immersion.html

Blog Post #5: A site that spans industries

2006-08-12T09:06:00.000-05:00

My last posting for class will be a review of this site: Infotoday.com.

This site hits information from just about every angle. There are library related articles, blogs, magazines, newsletters, etc. I think what impresses me most about this site is that there is something for everyone with library, competitive intelligence (business world), and publishing backgrounds.

Online content often includes articles such as, "The Changing Face of the Scholarly Web: Finding Free, Quality, Full-Text Articles, Books, and More!" by Robert J Lackie. This is helpful to any public, school, or academic library. Then there are the news feeds that are focused on the publishing (online and print varieties) such as, "HarperCollins Publishers Launches Browse Inside ".

Surprisingly, this website and the idea of bringing together different industries and types of libraries, is intentional. This page is the about/contact page for Infomation Today http://www.infotoday.com/contacts.shtml. The site is intended to be a regular stop for information professionals. I think the people at Infotoday don't realize that they should be promoting themselves to future information professionals. I'm sure many MLIS schools have access to Information Today through a database and in print in the periodicals areas at their libraries. I haven't noticed any links to the MLIS or the ALA which promotes the training of future informational professionals.

Re: Trust me to wiki?

2006-08-02T08:32:00.000-05:00

As a collaborative tool, wikis are great. Not having to send a document back and forth or between members trying to do a group project is a huge time saver. I think I would hesitate to use names or any personal information on a wiki. I haven't visited another wiki, but, I think I would trust what is written on a wiki as much as anything else I read. If there are valid references/resources, why not trust wikis?

Blog Post #4 Filling a void

2006-08-01T12:41:00.000-05:00

While doing research for my part of Libraries & Blogs, I was faced with something that seemed odd. Libraries and librarians from corporate, medical, hospital, & law libraries all have some representation in the blogosphere. Museums libraries and librarians are the exception.

I work at a regionally known (if not in some cases internationally known) museum. I asked a couple of librarians if they knew of a blog by a museum library or museum librarian. This was the response:
"Sorry, but I cannot honestly think of any museum librarians who maintain blogs. I know a great number of my fellow museum librarians throughout the city (Art Institute, Newberry, etc...) and I cannot think of one who really has the time or staff to maintain something like that."

Maintain something like this blog? I'm typing this on my lunch hour. Ok, so maybe my museum's library is really the exception. I'll try to email a librarian an equivalent museum in two other cities.
The result was more of the same. Maybe they have a point when they claim that they do not have the time or funding to legitimize the maintenance of a blog. The second librarian I asked did mention that SLA has a listserv for museum librarians. I went to the site to check out whether or not this was the case. The Museums, Arts, & Humanities division of the SLA has been in existence since 1971. Their bulletin has some of the same things that a blog would contain. The difference is that the museum libraries, as a whole, move pretty slow when it comes to adapting new technology or formats.

What I learned in my search for museum library blogs is that this specialized branch of special libraries may be too specialized for its own good. If I were a museum librarian (and I might be one day) I would latch on to the libraries/librarians that most closely resemble those at museums...the academic libraries/librarians. That type, however, was not the type I was assigned to research.

Re: The Open WorldCat Program

2006-07-15T10:34:00.000-05:00

I started reading some of the other blogs for this class and (thanks to the alphabetical order) Andy's is the first that I'm responding to and commenting on today.

I think the OCLC tools combined with powerful positive partners such as Firefox make for awesome possiblities for learning. I think giving people access to the holdings of the local library before choosing to buy through Amazon or Ebay is cool. That is what libraries are for. It has to be one of the easiest ways to do advertising for libraries, and its free (up to 200 books).

Blog Post #3:Airtight Copyright?

2006-06-29T20:56:00.000-05:00

Brynko, Barbara, "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Copyright", Information Today June
2006, issue 23 no 6. page 50.

Dominican students can find this article here: http://as8lq5bp5v.search.serialssolutions.com/?V=1.0&N=100&L=AS8LQ5BP5V&S=T_W_A&C=information+today

This article is about a new product that can tell someone when he or she is using a registered work. The product helps people understand which works have what limitations on them. A user of the product would select an option of what the work was being used for (business or general). Then the person would find out, instantly if the work has limitations.

Publishers and authors of popular works are probably ecstatic about this product. After all the bugs are worked out it will probably prevent a lot of improper use of copyrighted materials. That's great. What about before all the bugs are worked out of the product? How many times will a special case come up where the use is for education, but the number of people using the work is one or two over the allowed limit? That was the difference in a world without an automatic denial program. There are a number of organizations (and their information centers) that will probably beg to work without such a program, knowing that they may incur violations of copyright. I think copyright often approaches censorship as far as limitations go. When ideas are prohibited from being dispersed freely (for educational purposes at a minimum) that is a form of censorship. It's an economically based censorship that favors large publishing or database companies.
One way to combat such censorship is to continue to produce new original works that are distributed freely over the internet. Groups of Free Information Fans could ask well known authors to donate articles to the web via blogs or wikis.

Here is a link to the real stuff at copyright.gov

Blog Post #2: Libraries & Podcasts

2006-06-19T16:52:00.000-05:00

Great potential are the words that come to mind after reading about ways libraries are using podcasts.
Balas, Janet L. "Blogging Is So Last Year--Now Podcasting Is Hot". Computers in Libraries v. 25 no. 10 (November/December 2005) p. 29-32 The easiest way to find this article is by going to this page: http://domweb.dom.edu/library/Crown/Articles/alphalist.htm, clicking on "L" and using the Library & Literature Information Science Full Text link. Then search for podcast.

There are so many websites that would be more easily navigated if they had a podcast or vodcast guide. Libraries could create vodcasts that show how to navigate government sites, especially when dealing with patrons that don't speak English as their first language.

The potential for this new media is about as endless as what can be done with instructional videos. The biggest difference is that instructional videos had to rely upon distributors and vendors to get the product out into the world. Podcasts and vodcasts need a hosting server, and currently there are plenty to choose from around the world.

Readers advisory could introduce new authors to patrons that have favorite authors of similar subjects or genre. A podcast of a regular book discussion group could be posted to a library's website for those that prefer an audio medium over the library's book discussion blog.

Balas mentions that she automatically saw the potential for marketing, but I wish she would have expanded on that a little. I have my own ideas for using podcasts for marketing at libraries. Commercials could be made for every service that a library provides. For example, does every patron know the limits of using a Google search versus having an experienced reference librarian look up something? A common question such as, "what is the current CPI?" could be asked and a patron and a librarian could race to find the answer. I would put more money on the librarian to get the most up to date number over a Google search which usually doesn't include the information which is most up to date, just the most popular search result.

Blog Post #1: History of the Internet: There it went

2006-06-11T12:18:00.000-05:00

After looking over the entry for The History of the Internet at Wikipedia "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Internet", I think I am still convinced that not enough people realize what is behind the technology of the internet. Like much of the computer technology available today, not enough people know how the nuts and bolts of the internet make it all happen. I guess most people would respond with something about not having to understand technology because the IT people of the world understand it. My response to that is, So what? If the true potential of every contributor of ideas to the Web and Web 2.0 is impeded by a basic understanding of computers and computer networks, how can everything continue to advance at a fast pace? I don't think the technology advances at as fast as a rate as it would if IT people didn't enjoy what they do. What I mean by that is people that enjoy programming and maintaining networks usually do a lot of those things outside of their standard eight hour work day. What do I want from this posting? I would like more people that have even the slightest interest in the technical aspect of IT work to convince others to learn some of the basics. At the very least, people may gain some patience when a network or server is down for maintenance. Those people will know that every IT person dealing with networks likes to see his or her network running, not broken.

Welcome to My New Blog

2006-06-11T12:02:00.000-05:00

My name is Dan S. I am a student at Dominican University. This is a blog for LIS753.