I don't get the attraction. Even with my monumental ego, I don't delude myself that my views on any given title are interesting to anyone but me. And yes I do RA, and yes I recommend books, sometimes ones I've read and sometimes ones I wouldn't read on a bet. Also, the idea of some utter stranger having right to look at my list and comment my taste offends me. The day I walked out of my last literature class was the last day anybody on the planet had any right to an opinion about my reading. I am not any more interested in others' opinions of my reading than they are in mine about theirs. And in this day and age of governmental, religious, political, and commercial snoops, I would be quite content not to have any more long noses examining my stuff.
Has anybody noticed how many of these 2.0 things end in .com? Somewhere, somehow, data is being collected, mined, exchanged, or otherwise turned to a profit without our knowledge or consent or advantage. We will be marketed to under the guise of somebody who is pretending to be a librarian or booklover. I have no need of being marketed to. I know what I want, and I will go and get it at my friendly neighborhood independent bookstore until it is crushed by the big boxes.
Having said this, I can think of one library use, but only if a patron was willing. I pull for a number of homebound people, and I don't like duplicating my pulls any more than they like having to put up with them. If a homebound person wanted to create a profile and permit the homebound crew to look a it, that would be helpful. Other than that, if someone wants to keep a list of what has been read, a card file or a notebook would be easier and more private. Me, I keep mine in my head, where it belongs.
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Monday, February 23, 2009
Thing 12--Wikis
They have their uses, although why 4 people planning a camping trip would go to all the bother of a wiki in the manner described by that insufferable perk on Common Craft is beyond me. E-mail is not THAT exhausting, for goodness' sake. Now, if there were 40 people, a wiki might be useful, provided there was a Supreme Wikier to keep track of who promised what. Still a wiki has its uses for bulk information provision, and some of the links provided were interesting, although within the wikis some hadn't been updated recently, and some links were dead. That's the problem with cooperative wonders: Unless you have a resident bossy-pants who appoints him- or herself to check everybody's work to see that it meets the B-P's standards, people lose interest, leave the job, or otherwise don't keep things up.
Our shop tinkered with a wiki a while back to consolidate our ready-reference file, and I participated. The basics were technoskeptic resistant. However bells and whistles, even links, at that time required code fiddling, that had our tech person's eyes crossed. There were no how-to links on the wiki at the time, and a query to the online support group brought some awfully technical stuff that I couldn't understand, let alone implement. If the wiki sites have improved their how-tos, wikis have possibilities for all sorts of applications as some libraries have discovered.
What do I think of some instructors' refusal to accept Wikipedia as a resource? Three resounding cheers is what. Since Wikipedia has anonymous posts and is resistant to fact-checking there is no way of finding out who posted, what that person's knowledge of the subject is, and why that post was made. I remember that until there was some strong hint of legal action, Wikipedia wouldn't correct some entries made about John Kerry by Republican activists. I wouldn't bet against Democratic activists doing the same sort of thing to Republicans. Wikipedia lacks transparency in its postings, so its information has to be suspect. I'll use it for quick-and-dirty, and for things that there is no profit, either financial or emotional, for a corrupt poster. Librarians should champion transparency of authorship and quality of information, and right now Wikipedia is not there. Wikipedia needs a resident bossy-pants before it can be anything but a quick-and-dirty resource.
Our shop tinkered with a wiki a while back to consolidate our ready-reference file, and I participated. The basics were technoskeptic resistant. However bells and whistles, even links, at that time required code fiddling, that had our tech person's eyes crossed. There were no how-to links on the wiki at the time, and a query to the online support group brought some awfully technical stuff that I couldn't understand, let alone implement. If the wiki sites have improved their how-tos, wikis have possibilities for all sorts of applications as some libraries have discovered.
What do I think of some instructors' refusal to accept Wikipedia as a resource? Three resounding cheers is what. Since Wikipedia has anonymous posts and is resistant to fact-checking there is no way of finding out who posted, what that person's knowledge of the subject is, and why that post was made. I remember that until there was some strong hint of legal action, Wikipedia wouldn't correct some entries made about John Kerry by Republican activists. I wouldn't bet against Democratic activists doing the same sort of thing to Republicans. Wikipedia lacks transparency in its postings, so its information has to be suspect. I'll use it for quick-and-dirty, and for things that there is no profit, either financial or emotional, for a corrupt poster. Librarians should champion transparency of authorship and quality of information, and right now Wikipedia is not there. Wikipedia needs a resident bossy-pants before it can be anything but a quick-and-dirty resource.
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Thing 11--Social Media
Does it bother anyone besides me that one of the principal selling points of all of these things is their unedited nature? By golly, in the true spirit of the American frontier, nobody is going to tell the social mediocrity what's a fact and what isn't. Not that editors are perfect, as the editors at New Republic who believed Stephen Glass could testify. They do try, and some places even have fact-checkers. Of course, with corporate media cutting back, practical things like facts don't have the value they once did. Opinions and attitude are much more important, which explains the prosperity of a number of people who should be belted across the chops rather than paid extravagantly for badly-written books and vulgar TV and radio programs.
As a librarian I have spent my professional life trying to find the most accurate, most useful information for people, information that I believed came from a dependable source and I could in conscience provide to people who needed it. Now I find that the musings of anybody with computer access count as information. Those faceless multitudes with their screen names and outright ignorance are to be trusted without question because this is democratic information. Twaddle! We don't know who they are, what their qualifications might be, or who's paying them. The voice of the people may as the Latin would have it be the voice of God, but it is frequently the voice a lot of people talking rot.
If people want to enter into a shouting match or even a civil discussion in social media about Angelina Jolie's favorite tablecloth or the True Meaning of whatever is the hot topic of the moment, then by all means let them do so. There are worse things they could be doing. There is not a lot new here, you know. Blithering idiots have taken scraps from the news and turned them into something to astound the weak minds of the Great Unwashed forever. This just uses a computer. The inanity and ignorance do not change, merely the way of inflicting it on others.
As a librarian I have spent my professional life trying to find the most accurate, most useful information for people, information that I believed came from a dependable source and I could in conscience provide to people who needed it. Now I find that the musings of anybody with computer access count as information. Those faceless multitudes with their screen names and outright ignorance are to be trusted without question because this is democratic information. Twaddle! We don't know who they are, what their qualifications might be, or who's paying them. The voice of the people may as the Latin would have it be the voice of God, but it is frequently the voice a lot of people talking rot.
If people want to enter into a shouting match or even a civil discussion in social media about Angelina Jolie's favorite tablecloth or the True Meaning of whatever is the hot topic of the moment, then by all means let them do so. There are worse things they could be doing. There is not a lot new here, you know. Blithering idiots have taken scraps from the news and turned them into something to astound the weak minds of the Great Unwashed forever. This just uses a computer. The inanity and ignorance do not change, merely the way of inflicting it on others.
Monday, February 16, 2009
Thing 10--Social Bookmarking
People must have a lot more bookmarks than I do if they feel the need to commit them to a commercial service and put tags on them. I doubt if I've got 30 bookmarked on the busiest computer I use, and I know why I have them. When I travel, I only need one and can google everything else I want. I don't have enough to make going to one more place to collect cookies on me worth the bother, but if people do, I don't see why they shouldn't. I sampled a few libraries' bookmarks to the delicious site (YOU figure out all the dots and capitalizations), and many of the links were dead. And this is useful how?
I've never worked in a group where that much information is necessary that couldn't be found easily, without yet another layer of fuss and bother, but if a working group thinks it needs delicious, OK by me. If a library wants to use it to manage its links to the good stuff, assuming somebody actually checks on it from time to time to prune dead links, OK by me. It just seems like adding another layer of work to me, and I'm against that.
I've never worked in a group where that much information is necessary that couldn't be found easily, without yet another layer of fuss and bother, but if a working group thinks it needs delicious, OK by me. If a library wants to use it to manage its links to the good stuff, assuming somebody actually checks on it from time to time to prune dead links, OK by me. It just seems like adding another layer of work to me, and I'm against that.
Friday, February 13, 2009
Inter-Thing Observations
I took this week to observe the real world of the public service floor and sample some of the comments in some of the blogs, and the disconnect has been amazing. Not the surreal blogs--and you know who you are--but the serious, earnest folks who think that the 23 Things and Library 2.0 are the answer to everything library. To quote that profound philosopher Sportin' Life: It ain't necessarily so.
Library 2.0 presupposes easy anytime access to computers and associated devices, computer skills, functional literacy, among other things. These are mostly the province of the middle class and those determined to join it. Come and visit any big-city--or even medium city--downtown library and get a look at those who are too poor to own a device, too ill-educated to apply for unemployment online, or a combination of both. All the goodies I've seen so far will do nothing for these people because they are not in a place where they can use them, and they may have more need for connection than most of my brother and sister bourgeois do.
Library 2.0 has an infrastructure problem besides the usual problems with connectivity, hardware, software, and malware. It has a human infrastructure problem that is being ignored. Unless and until the quality of education for the entire population improves, and people have both the income and leisure time to devote to acquiring and using devices the whole thing is going create another society of have-nots--technological this time. We can promote the tech all we want, but until people have both the education and the means to use it, it is going to be just another middle-class indulgence.
Library 2.0 presupposes easy anytime access to computers and associated devices, computer skills, functional literacy, among other things. These are mostly the province of the middle class and those determined to join it. Come and visit any big-city--or even medium city--downtown library and get a look at those who are too poor to own a device, too ill-educated to apply for unemployment online, or a combination of both. All the goodies I've seen so far will do nothing for these people because they are not in a place where they can use them, and they may have more need for connection than most of my brother and sister bourgeois do.
Library 2.0 has an infrastructure problem besides the usual problems with connectivity, hardware, software, and malware. It has a human infrastructure problem that is being ignored. Unless and until the quality of education for the entire population improves, and people have both the income and leisure time to devote to acquiring and using devices the whole thing is going create another society of have-nots--technological this time. We can promote the tech all we want, but until people have both the education and the means to use it, it is going to be just another middle-class indulgence.
Thursday, February 5, 2009
Thing 9--Sharing
It's not that I'm not interested in sharing, but I don't have any pictures on Flickr or anywhere else to fiddle with. If I did photographs, I wouldn't post them, because I wouldn't want to bore people. And let's face it, the only thing more boring that one's own vacation pictures is everybody else's. Having said that, I can see where some of these things might have their uses for the things that are mentioned. It's handy to know they exist in case one can think of something to use tools like these. This is where having designated staff with both public service experience and technical skills are handy. Were I to have an inspiration, I could get in touch with one of these people and explain the kind of information I'd like to display. They could advise me on a tool that, at least in my case, is technoskeptic-proof and would display the information to its best advantage. It wouldn't be all that different from the colleagues we pester now when we get queries outside our areas of expertise, from genealogy to business to goodness knows what. Sometimes the Mark 1 Carbon-Based Interface is the best tool of all.
Thing 8--Communication Web 2.0 Style
Where to begin? So much technique, so little content. Having participated in Florida's ask a librarian program, I can see where instant messging has its uses. It's not all that much different from an in-person reference transaction except that the librarian can't plead laryngitis. How about reserve notices, overdue notices, and anouncements of a cancelled program to those who have signed up for it? Sometimes even the most extreme technophiliac has to come to the physical library--but if the event will not materialize, why send the poor soul out into the flesh-and-blood world without a purpose? Those live people are so non-tech. Me, personally, the idea of letting people disturb my train of thought every 15 seconds or less with some Instant Message that Absolutely Positively Can't Wait and turns out to be something that not only could wait but should never have been sent horrifies me.
Web conferencing is like the little girl with the little curl--when it is bad it is horrid, and I've had some real horrors inflicted on me. There's a tiny bit in one of the 'what is it' pieces that mentions that a lot of things have to come together to make things work--the presenter's skills, the sending organization's software and hardware, the receiving end's software and hardware plus places for people to participate in the web conference undistracted. That's a lot of stuff that has to come into harmony, and it doesn't often. When the administrative agencies stop exulting over how much travel money they're saving, they'd better run a total on hardware and software upgrades and a web conferencing room. Plus upkeep. Otherwise staff time is being wasted, staff nerves are being frayed, and staff willingness to do web conferencing declines.
Ah, Twitter, Instant Messaging on steroids and inanity! Once again, it provides those whose true communication is with their keyboards the illusion of being in touch with people without having to actually deal with a real person. If a library can figure out how to provide actual information service with it, then by all means, let them do so, but let's not delude ourselves that this is a way to provide high-quality information, a taste of it perhaps, but not the good stuff.
Some of these technologies have some promise for information provision at various levels of use, but the uncritical adoption of all of them is dangerous and expensive. Remember 8-tracks? Betamax? The list of This Is Absolutely IT technologies that have fallen out of fashion, have been superceded by something newer and occasionally better, or just wandered out into the aether to contribute to entropy is endless. Let us consider what we do, whether a particular technology will help us do it better, and whether we should just pat the technophile who is singing its praises on the head and wait for the fit to pass.
Web conferencing is like the little girl with the little curl--when it is bad it is horrid, and I've had some real horrors inflicted on me. There's a tiny bit in one of the 'what is it' pieces that mentions that a lot of things have to come together to make things work--the presenter's skills, the sending organization's software and hardware, the receiving end's software and hardware plus places for people to participate in the web conference undistracted. That's a lot of stuff that has to come into harmony, and it doesn't often. When the administrative agencies stop exulting over how much travel money they're saving, they'd better run a total on hardware and software upgrades and a web conferencing room. Plus upkeep. Otherwise staff time is being wasted, staff nerves are being frayed, and staff willingness to do web conferencing declines.
Ah, Twitter, Instant Messaging on steroids and inanity! Once again, it provides those whose true communication is with their keyboards the illusion of being in touch with people without having to actually deal with a real person. If a library can figure out how to provide actual information service with it, then by all means, let them do so, but let's not delude ourselves that this is a way to provide high-quality information, a taste of it perhaps, but not the good stuff.
Some of these technologies have some promise for information provision at various levels of use, but the uncritical adoption of all of them is dangerous and expensive. Remember 8-tracks? Betamax? The list of This Is Absolutely IT technologies that have fallen out of fashion, have been superceded by something newer and occasionally better, or just wandered out into the aether to contribute to entropy is endless. Let us consider what we do, whether a particular technology will help us do it better, and whether we should just pat the technophile who is singing its praises on the head and wait for the fit to pass.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)