Librarian of the Possible

Links for 2009-10-01 [del.icio.us]

Fri, 02 Oct 2009 00:00:00 PDT

The National Recording Project for Indigenous Performance in Australia (NRP)

Links for 2009-08-25 [del.icio.us]

Wed, 26 Aug 2009 00:00:00 PDT

Links for 2009-08-17 [del.icio.us]

Tue, 18 Aug 2009 00:00:00 PDT

Justin Erik Halldór Smith
"A very serious joke."

Links for 2009-08-16 [del.icio.us]

Mon, 17 Aug 2009 00:00:00 PDT

Improv Everywhere

Links for 2009-08-13 [del.icio.us]

Fri, 14 Aug 2009 00:00:00 PDT

NPQ - New Perspectives Quarterly

Links for 2009-07-26 [del.icio.us]

Mon, 27 Jul 2009 00:00:00 PDT

SlowTV - The Monthly

Links for 2009-07-21 [del.icio.us]

Wed, 22 Jul 2009 00:00:00 PDT

The Interview Project - David Lynch
David Lynch conducting 121 interviews of ordinary people across the US over 71 days.

Freebase: Wikipedia to the power of Wikipedia?

noreply@blogger.com (Sideshowmatt) — Fri, 24 Aug 2007 03:35:00 +0000

Freebase - wow. If I may brag for a moment - I was in on Freebase very early on, although I don't fully understand it - all's I know is that it looks POWERFUL . Commensurate with its enormous information-organising potential, Freebase appears to require a bit more technical knowledge than wikipedia. I hope librarianship students are getting stuck into it though.

Becoming indispensable infrastructure: the Collections Sector

noreply@blogger.com (Sideshowmatt) — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 02:40:00 +0000

How are libraries to become prominent, well-used, indispensable, a network of functional conduits in the information life of the nation? By offering outstanding functionality and design, trustworthiness, value, and by deploying "Web 2.0/Library 2.0" principles such as reciprocity and interactivity.

But to become this network of 'conduits' (the term I use in opposition to 'repositories') there is no silver bullet solution, no 'information superhighway'. Such a network will accrue if libraries at different levels (local, state and national) can organise and commit themselves to multiple forward-thinking electronic projects - for example, the Digital Heritage Collections Plan, and Electronic Resources Australia. But library managers need to take seriously their membership of the 'Collections Sector '. My impression is that the UK has been very successful with its Museums, Libraries and Archives Council; I've not heard very much about our own Collections Australia Network, which has a much lower profile than NSLA.

In any case, by asigning real priority to their cooperative commitments to the collections sector, public libraries can assist in providing diverse, smoothly-connected information services. Smaller libraries face hurdles in participating - but they will be essential in implementing and delivering the projects that are thought up, developed by larger collecting institutions. Participation by public libraries will require the emerging generation of management staff to develop skills for inter-organisational cooperation and integration. They will need advocacy skills for lobbying, justifying, obtaining and keeping funding; the capacity to negotiate, delegate and be delegated to; and professional trust and good faith.

There is enormous potential for local libraries to act as community-anchored nodes in a distributed network of electronic resources. However, this raises a further question: do libraries face a hurdle in rejuvenating their 'brand'? How can we promote public libraries so that the term 'library' refers to both a (public) physical space and an integrated set of electronic services? Alternatives previously explored, such as the name 'Cybraries', are too cute, and quickly outdated. Many argue that the label can stay the same, and people can attach new meanings to it, as long as libraries offer innovative, rich, rewarding experiences. Perhaps this question of labels merely reflects my own doubts about whether libraries really can achieve the kind of transformation to prominence and indispensability in the public eye that I believe they need.

Zotero: learning from RefWorks' flaws

noreply@blogger.com (Sideshowmatt) — Fri, 29 Jun 2007 10:31:00 +0000

Just stumbled on Zotero, a Firefox plug-in for citation management, and it looks fantastic. I've been an avid RefWorks user throughout my postgraduate studies, but only because I was fortunate to attend a course in it. Even with this foundation I found it very poorly-designed though useful. Connotea should have been a big heads-up to RefWorks' owners that commercial software would have to offer something special to compete with free applications.

Very interesting to observe how established companies respond to new, specialised, free or very low cost ITC alternatives. There are examples in every service industry, from postal services to news media. I wonder what the alternatives are to simply buying up the emergent technologies to maintain strength - is this the only way for capital to preserve itself?

Moving to citeulike

noreply@blogger.com (Sideshowmatt) — Sun, 29 Apr 2007 23:46:00 +0000

Blogging has dropped off my radar lately as the last semester of my Masters (woohoo!) moves into assessment gear. I'm still reading others' blogs, but am exploring citeulike right now since my focus is more on academic reading. I hope some of you avid readers will take the occasional look at my references over the next few weeks. Leave a comment here if you are interested in an article but don't have access.

Social bookmarking attempt by CASL

noreply@blogger.com (Sideshowmatt) — Tue, 17 Apr 2007 04:00:00 +0000

Having created a prototype del.icio.us account for my public library, with minimal staff interest, I discovered what looks like a similar effort by the Council of Australian State Libraries (now National and State Libraries Australasia) on Looksmart's FURL. They've labelled it 'casltest', presumably a prototype also. I wonder what context of its creation was, and what conclusions weredrawn. The awesome Yarra Plenty Online Learning site has a pretty handy del.icio.us account too. I was recently told by a librarian that del.icio.us wouldn't catch on because it 'sounds trashy'. Ummm, "Google"? Which is not to say that del.icio.us is going to take the world by storm, but it's the ilk that's important.

There are plenty of exciting things happening at a higher level of library policy, particularly relating to streamlining national IT architecture and infrastructure (available via staff papers and policies from the NLA, NSLA). Most of this is oriented towards academic, research and specialised collecting institutions (museums, galleries etc.) I suppose this is where the government money is. Public librarianship isn't on the radar at that level of forecasting and policymaking. Two reasons for this might be the lack of funds for new initiatives at a municipal level, and the difficulty of achieving the necessary organisational coordination.

Having seen a little of what's going on at the top level of planning, I am wondering whether:

public libraries are meant to be what I want them to be
the strategic leap required to creat 'library 2.0' at a municipal level is too great.

I keep pondering just how radically public libraries need to be thinking in order to reinvent themselves, and become relevant again as 'library 2.0'. This is from Clifford Lynch's 2005 article in D-Lib:

"The issue of the future of libraries as social, cultural and community institutions, along with the related questions about the character and treatment of what we have come to call “intellectual property” in our society, form perhaps the most central of the core questions within the discipline of digital libraries – and that these questions are too important to be left to libraries, who should be see as nothing more than one group among a broad array of stakeholders." (my italics).

Any comments? Do public libraries need to be so dramatically recreated that public librarians and administrators should lose their control strategic change processes? The urgency

Note to self: read more publications by public library peak bodies.

NLA tidying up and moving on towards Library 2.0

noreply@blogger.com (Sideshowmatt) — Thu, 05 Apr 2007 03:58:00 +0000

The NLA's recent IT Architecture Project report contains some exciting ideas for its next phase of digital library services with a strong Library 2.0 orientation.

Key aspects:

service-oriented architecture
single business
open-source development model

The NLA staff are heightening the library's emphasis on making the collection available, based on their learning from the past decade or so, and knowledge of trends in information-seeking behaviour and networked information architecture. The mooted changes would create more porous , trust-oriented organisational boundaries, and are explicitly designed to cope with service proliferation under tighter budgets.

The basics:

single business, single data corpus,
using a single servioce-oriented architecture
use of more open source software, without retaining IP for in-house developments

It seems like the success of recent online projects has influenced this shift. The library is looking for solutions that will not only be scaleable and extensible (data, interface, brand), but will encourage inter-disciplinary work within the library. In affirming the appropriateness of open source software for the NLA, they are acknowledging its potential for lightweight implementation and low cost, 'prototype solutions that enhance user experience regardless of the point of access'. This is great stuff - I'm keen for the NLA to go further in the direction of being a nationally-networked public library as well as being a peak national research and preservation institute.

The report also indicates a shift in thinking towards trust rather than control, possibly learnt from the experiments with Flickr and wikis. It discusses transferring to the public domain intellectual property for open source developments, and experimenting with crowdsourced metadata enrichment. This reflects laudable confidence in the NLA's role status in the online information landscape. The library doesn't need to control and protect impulsively and jealously. Rather, it is a key contributor and trusted source that attracts public contributions of an appropriately high calibre. It can build permeability into the boundaries of its information architecture, and consequently of its services and identity. This may have implocations for public library partnerships

Some further implications of these proposals are elaborated in an interesting appendix, 'Single Business Musings', which discusses:

a shift to new search paradigms (clustered results, relevance ranking) learnt from Music Australia and People Australia, moving away from reliance on authority files.
further user participation
emphasis on partnerships with major external web nodes such as Wikipedia and Google Scholar

Viral recruitment at Novartis

noreply@blogger.com (Sideshowmatt) — Mon, 02 Apr 2007 22:58:00 +0000

In my MPA course on leadership, I encountered a case study in the course textbook on Novartis, a global pharmaceuticals giant. Attempting to respond to the case, I was finding the text absolutely impenetrable for critical analysis. It gave no context or basis for comparison, and its glassy, managerial jargon-plated prose seemed blandly positive. For example: Novartis apparently has core people values of ‘fostering respect, leadership, teamwork and trust’; ‘challenge, innovation, collaboration and learning are valued in the culture’.. and so it goes unexceptionally. There seemed to be a remarkable resemblance between the tone of my textbook ($70AU) and that of Novartis' website.

Then came the 'ah-ha!' moment... the case study had to be approved, edited, doctored, or even written entirely by Novartis’s PR department, who probably paid the author and/or publisher of this standard MBA text to print it! It is little other than a tailored and poorly-disguised self-spruiking recruitment pamphlet. Take, for example, these gems about Novartis' recruitment of MBAs:

‘As an innovation-focused company, Novartis’ success depends heavily on the creativity and performance of its employees at all levels… Continuous learning is regarded as crucial to the success of the company… an arrangement with Harvard Business School provides customized courses for high-potential managers. Novartis’ executive education develops management and leadership skills…’ (my italics)

This was followed by such stimulating case questions such as:

What is the organization doing that would be attractive or unattractive to the self-managing professionals they are seeking to employ?

How would you describe Novartis’ culture? What are the vision and values of the organisation? What would it be like to work there?

Oh please! Every one of the 40-odd 'references' in the case was to a Novartis document or interviewee. The author thoughtfully thanked the good people of Novartis for their assistance.

If nothing else, this provides a fascinating insight into the workings of a global corporation. Clearly one of Novartis' products is pharmaceuticals; another is their image and political influence. This fairly sophisticated viral recruitment technique disemminates a carefully-controlled picture of the company. Given the public relations problems of 'big pharma' (e.g. HIV-AIDS medication patents), it is entirely in line with their need to influence political and media discourse in order to remain successful.

I'm trying to compose an appropriately scathing response to this blatant bullshit. I wonder what my lecturer will say (I'm guessing he's not read the case study yet).

Censorship in libraries

noreply@blogger.com (Sideshowmatt) — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 03:48:00 +0000

Staff computers of a nearby public library may be about to have a 'filtering' (i.e. censorship) regime imposed by that library's governing department. I understand that categories to be blocked include the usual unsavoury content (though extended to a prudish ban on swimsuits and lingerie). The newest classification of information deemed too troubling for citizens' and professional minds are 'crime/terrorism' and the newfangled technology of streaming media and chat-rooms. Anyone participating in Library2.0 would affirm that these are essential professional development tools.

It is difficult to justify access to some problematic typoes of online information as if their use is a regular part of a librarian's daily business – just as it is difficult to define in boilerplate policy terms the scope of what it means to be an information professional providing the appropriate, best customer service. However:

Libraries require a capacity to adapt to rapidly-evolving information technologies. The internet has already changed radically in the last 18 months in the phenomena known as ‘Web 2.0’ and ‘Library 2.0’. In particular the blocking of chat-rooms and streaming media demonstrates that this proposal has been drawn up with a worrying lack of consultation to the expertise of information professionals. These are simply crucial tools in the new information environment.
Though applied to reference and work stations, this policy will be detected by the public in the library's everyday business. As librarians battle an already-problematic public image, they will appear further out-of-touch with users’ and society’s virtual interaction, censorious, controlling, inflexible, and not service-oriented.
Information professionals see this as an unnecessary encroachment of narrow practical considerations and restrictive judgements over our values and purpose – the free flow of information. They require a culture of trust and freedom of information, which will be reflected in their services and customer interactions.
One would also expect relations between library service professionals and their department to be characterised by more negotiation, consultation and trust in our professionalism and discretion. I gather that part this library service's staff have in response is that they feel imposed upon in a high-handed and imperious fashion.
This will impinge on the service’s ability to attract and retain young information professionals, under a culture of distrust and misunderstanding at management level of the fundamentals of information service provision.
This proposal speaks of a misrepresentation of the contemporary information environment, viewed as a potential threat, and disregarding how it is used by information professionals. Librarians use and experience the internet as the medium in which we move through the virtual world of information, and expect to be trusted in this by those outside the profession. I think this an ill-considered submission to exaggerated and vaguely-defined contemporary fears (e.g. ‘undesirable’, ‘malicious’), which does not accurately or appropriately balance risks/costs and requirements/benefits. I do not believe that an information service can go forward under the sense that its department distrusts it and its approach to information.

A key text for critical public librarianship

noreply@blogger.com (Sideshowmatt) — Wed, 28 Mar 2007 02:50:00 +0000

Here's a reference for a good old-fashioned print resource that I urge public librariansto get hold of. Buschman comes from a 'critical theory' perspective, so is putting libraries in the context of:

'information capitalism'
New Managerialism/New Public Management/the New Public Philosophy
the commodification of information
private-sector models of public service provision
encroachments on the progressive, social democratic role of libraries
factors limiting libraries' capacity to facilitate public communication

Buschman, John E. (2003) Dismantling the Public Sphere: Situating and Sustaining Librarianship in the Age of the New Public Philosophy. Connecticut: Libraries Unlimited

I haven;t had a chance to look at this more recent article. It would be interesting to see what Buschman makes of Library 2.0 developments:

Buschman, John E. (2005) 'Libraries and the decline of public purpose'. Public Library Quarterly, 24:1 pp. 1-12

Learning from 'Sins of Ommission'

noreply@blogger.com (Sideshowmatt) — Sun, 11 Mar 2007 10:59:00 +0000

The BBC World Service Global Business Report (ABC News Radio) is a fatuous little segment I usually avoid. However yesterday's pompuous, waffly interview yielded an interesting management concept, based on the fact that managers generally reject far more ideas and suggestions than they accept, and for obvious reasons. They must decide on a limited set of actions from a wide field of possibilities, and, in evaluating outcomes, tend to focus on the consequences these few actualities , without learning from unfulfilled possibilities.
However Russell Ackoff raised the problem of identifying and learning from strategic 'sins of ommission'. These occur when it emerges that, rather than suffering the consequences of a mistaken path taken, an organisation loses out based on choices foregone, or decisions not even made.

Ackoff suggested that managers should record innovations not followed through and plot the consequences, especially when it emerges that these ommissions were mistakes.
The benefits of a system that plotted options not taken would be not only in learning about organisational strategy, but in facilitating communication and transmitting experience. Radical ideas tend to cut aross age groups and organisational hierarchies, with youngsters, outsiders and front-liners bringing proposals to management from a different perspective. In the other direction, mentorship, experience and discussion would be facilitated when the good reasons for many 'ommissions' come to light.

This system also has an HR dimension: not to trace these contingent results is a kind of double rejection. Management knock back someone's idea (not, in itself, a bad thing), and then ignore the possible learning from the foregone option. They are failing to acknowledge that it could have had future relevance. To the person whose idea it was, the disappointment might have been soothed for by a sense of ongoing interest. A culture of repeated rejection breeds frustration and alienation.

Here the challenge posed to organisational learning by blogs and wikis is evident. Frustrated and ignored staff can not only vent spleen (often harmlessly), but may resort to passing great ideas around outside organisational boundaries. So a management that doubly ignores ideas further misses out, and likely doesn't even know it.

On the flip side it would be crucial to manage the perception of such a system, which could easily could be viewed as an embittering blame device - the 'I told you so!' machine. It could also be unwieldy and wasteful. Clearly, its implementation would require technical forethought and managerial commitment, to build and launch a respectable, 'lightweight' management tool.

There are two main reasons why tracking the consequences of foregone strategies and ideas are particularly impotant to public librarianship. Right now, libraries are, or certainly should be, scrambling to 1) assess the myriad possibilits of Web2, and 2) avoid being sidelined, cut back, lose public profile and relevance as an institution. In short, this tool would have a major impact on how we strike the strategic (in the true sense) balance between conservativism and innovation; permanence and transience; control and trust. We have to try and learn, quickly, what information possibilities we are passing up, wisely or disastrously, every day.

Librarianship in community organisations

noreply@blogger.com (Sideshowmatt) — Fri, 02 Mar 2007 10:41:00 +0000

I gained some insight into the way community organisations attempt to run a 'library' when, a few years ago, I volunteered at the ACT Council of Social Services. A reasonably large collection of under-used resources, ranging across subjects relevant to the whole community sector, was in chaos. The task was to cull it drastically and create a simple catalogue

Unfortunately:

the organisation hadn't prioritised information management at all, and was not giving non-government stakeholders access to valuable resources
there was no ongoing collection management policy
it was not really recognised as a 'library' - as with many small community organisations, it was more of a bookshelf/leaflet stash/dumping-ground
the cataloguing exercise was using extremely primitive technology (running numbers on Excel, if I remember rightly)

Combined with the rapid staff turnover and constant organisational knowledge drain, the exercise was futile. When working as a community educator for a sexual violence counselling service, I had a similar experience of being unable to share resources and coordinate activities across organisational boundaries (e.g. with domestic violence, homeless, drug and alcohol services).

Many of these problems are solvable using Web2.0, and public libraries are perfectly placed to revitalise the community sector's information management. Web2.0 applications enable extensible networking, is participatory and democratic, and requires little IT knowledge. I believe that once launched, Web2.0 skills would snowball as the intuitive applications unfold. Who hasn't been surprised at how quickly and easily they have come to customise and control their online life? Community organisations can use RIAs, wikis and mashups to federate their existing resources, organise, advocate and seek input from clients and other stakeholders.

How to begin? A forum convened by the library service. A presentation on Web2.0. Hearing what would be useful for those organisations, where they are now, what problems and limitations they can foresee in applying Web2.0 apps.

Explaining without proselytising

noreply@blogger.com (Sideshowmatt) — Sat, 24 Feb 2007 02:54:00 +0000

Anyone else finding challenges in explaining Web2.0 to library staff? The now-famous video "Web 2.0... The Machine is Us/ing Us" is useful, and I also found this outstanding presentation by Steve Thomas - 'Web2.0, Library2.0, and the Future for Library Systems'. I particularly like the Lightweight Application Model - not a piece of meaningless jargon, but an accurate description of the change in management understanding of systems that is required to support Library2.0. It also describes the way a "lightweight" casual contract employee like me can circumvent a lot of bureaucracy by coming up with a simple Library2.0 proposal, develop it in my spare time, and present it, ready to go, to the right people.

AskNow! shows the possibilities for collaboration

noreply@blogger.com (Sideshowmatt) — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 07:00:00 +0000

Neerav Bhatt wrote in his blog Road Less Travelled :

"If only more libraries in the public and academic sphere realised that they can have strength in numbers and collaborative programs like this are a great way to improve customer service while sharing the costs and staff time amongst all the participating organisations. Unfortunately due to power plays and organisational politics I’m told that this is unlikely to happen any time soon."

He was discussing the success of the National and State libraries' terrific collaboration on the AskNow! IM reference service, which I am lucky to have seen from both sides. I agree that customer service can be improved, but the scope for new projects could also be widened. Regular readers will have gathered that I would love to combine the community reach of municipal libraries with the funding, IT expertise and policy ambition of the National and/or State Libraries to provide Web2.0 information literacy education to community organisations. It must be possible! Surely Public Libraries Asutralia can work on this sort of initiative as National and State Libraries Australasia has?

Delicious as a public library reference tool

noreply@blogger.com (Sideshowmatt) — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 03:37:00 +0000

I've been pulling together useful Favourites from the reference desks of each of our branches to form a del.icio.us account. I think it will be a useful tool for communicating in a multi-campus organisation, operating like a wiki if all or most staff have access to the account. This may bring some maintenance issues - but if we can establish some protocols (e.g. for effective tagging of sites), such a dispersed and networked tool may in fact be self-maintaining. It would be good to get patrons to use it, especially as our staffing budget for professional librarians is cut!

Metaphorical musings

noreply@blogger.com (Sideshowmatt) — Mon, 19 Feb 2007 01:35:00 +0000

I believe the language and metaphors we use to describe our world shapes the possibilities we have for understanding and changing it. Here's a little metaphor I smoked one night...

I imagine information, content-seekers and content-creators as water showering, flooding, pooling and trickling through a dark, infinite space. The space is filled with myriad containers, overflows, drains, leaky pipes, mains, junctions, all sloping and trying to maximise the flows that pass through them. The whole complex is endlessly, rapidly shifting, reassembling itself into new configurations of convenience.

In Web2.0, information conduits and containers must be able to rapidly reposition themselves to catch and carry some of the myriad flows of information and individuals. This repositioning can be achieved partly through maintaining authority, interest and relevance, and partly through being an effective conduit to external sites of authority, interest and relevance.

I wonder whether the traditional library language of 'collections' should be replaced by web terminology such as 'content', to allow libraries to radically rethink their relationship with users.

Promoting to Young Adults - a perennial problem

noreply@blogger.com (Sideshowmatt) — Mon, 19 Feb 2007 01:09:00 +0000

Blyberg's article and subsequent discussion re-enforces the need for aggressive promotion and marketing of public library services.

Getting young adults to use the library seems to be a perennial problem. What if we bypassed the problem of young adolescent users for the moment, and focused on re-capturing adults emerging from that problematic too-cool-for-school phase? If we targeted younger people at key moments in their lives, when they are realising that "cool and disinterested" is out and "getting serious about adulthood" is in. My library signs up a lot of new members, particularly women, when they have children, but since this is happening later, and to a small demographic, we could still sign up more people, sooner, coming out of young adulthood.

I’m thinking particularly of school, college and university orientation weeks, graduation nights, job and career expos where large numbers of young people are given portfolios, information packs, showbags etc, which contain some of the tools and passports for the next phase of life.

This would require:

organising a contact list of liaison and distribution people, and getting them onside
setting some goals for distribution
designing and printing a pamphlet
distributing bulk pamphlets
monitoring outcomes if possible (signups of particular age groups)

This promotional material would need to emphasise:

particular resources (e.g. parenting, employment)
the blog as a source of the latest internet sites/developments
free internet
free books/DVDs/CDs etc
free online collection and databases

My comment on '13 ways of looking at public libraries'

noreply@blogger.com (Sideshowmatt) — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 23:58:00 +0000

Alice at It's all good posted "13 Ways of looking at a public library". I wanted to expand on her concept of libraries as 'community centres' and 'social centres' to include a more ambitious and active scope of citizenship, participation and politics. I dream of public libraries as political meeting-places... I long for a revival of earlier periods (1880's to 1970's), when public libraries were a source of political ideas and a space for congregation and debate. Those were the germinal times of the labour, women's, green, gay, and peace movements. Everyone, especially the marginalised, should be included in the grassroots 'public sphere' in order to exchange ideas and political action, and libraries can facilitate this in many ways. These could include

current affairs displays, blogs, links
start a youth debating club/team
active marketing to attract innovative uses of community spaces
networking with local community and cultural organisations
examining processes of community consultation about library policies
negotiating user ownership of the library space, its norms and uses.

MP3 players for schoolchildren

noreply@blogger.com (Sideshowmatt) — Mon, 12 Feb 2007 22:07:00 +0000

Walking last weekend in the spectacular Budawang Mountains (Moreton National Park, between Braidwood, Ulladulla and Bateman's Bay), I had lots of library ideas. This one related to education and podcasts. As I'm no education expert, I'd welcome any thoughts on the idea or experience in application

Imagine if schoolchildren could all have MP3 players with access to specialised podcast content. Some possibilities that sprang to mind included:

edited oral history podcasts, developed in collaboration with national and state libraries
age-appropriate mini-lectures on current affairs, philosophy, art, science, in fact anything
audiobooks

Using such content would improve information literacy, whet appetites for learning and reading, and give children choice over a great array of content. I imagine there are all sorts of curriculum debates in academia about control/guidance versus freedom. However it seems that, as in many areas of life, boundaries between work and life, education and play, information and entertainment are being blurred and broken down. In this instance, if we see electronic play (e.g. computer games) as a loose genre of narratives of varying quality that children can pursue, educators can see their content as a competing genre of narratives. Educational podcasting could increase the quality and choice of narratives available, with teachers taking a more hands-off, asynchronous approach.

Global Warming: engaging by example

noreply@blogger.com (Sideshowmatt) — Thu, 08 Feb 2007 02:41:00 +0000

[posted on librariesinteract]

My sense of popular mood about global warming is that the mass of private citizens is desperate for any organisation or individual to speak up and lead in some way. Librarians are used to being a source, not a voice. Any policy statement directed at governments, whether from ALIA or libraries, would have little impact if it wasn't accompanied by public pronouncement and demonstration of that policy. I'm picturing libraries auditing their environmental impact (as Michael suggested inc comments), making changes, and then promoting their environmental stance and the measures they are implementing. See, for example, the Green Office Guide.

Our patrons take part of their identity from their membership of a library-using community - just as people do for any brand, activity they engage with. If libraries model environmental behaviour as well as pronouncing our policy positions, we will:

attract new users
affirm the values of many existing patrons
revitalise the place of libraries in the public sphere and as a resource for social movements
increase access to information on environmental topics

[See my previous post on Janet Hartz-Karp's New Matilda article]

So creating an impact and taking a lead requires the coordination of advocacy, policy, promotion and engagement. Not to mention individual bravery! I'd really like to hear how your colleagues and superiors respond to environmental issues raised at staff meetings. I had a bit of a cricket-chirping, tumbleweed-blowing-past moment at a recent staff meeting when I did this, before looking to the biblioblogosphere.

Web2.0 for grassroots politics

noreply@blogger.com (Sideshowmatt) — Wed, 07 Feb 2007 23:16:00 +0000

Janet Hartz-Karp’s recent article in New Matilda (Climate change policy: the joined-up community approach) aligned with my view that libraries can take a central role in teaching Web2.0 literacy to community organisations. This would enable them to coordinate, shift agendas and exert influence far more effectively on climate change (and other issues). Libraries could enable willing members of ‘the community’ in the liberal sense of the word (i.e. an aggregate of individuals), and the disparate members of community organisations, to transform themselves into a powerful ‘grassroots’ movement.

"Web2.0 ... The Machine is Us/ing Us"

noreply@blogger.com (Sideshowmatt) — Tue, 06 Feb 2007 06:45:00 +0000

A deft 4:30 min video explaining the very recent history leading up to Web2.0. Thanks Peta

One Laptop Per Child

noreply@blogger.com (Sideshowmatt) — Fri, 02 Feb 2007 02:39:00 +0000

I've been having an interesting discussion with friends (check out Connotea's sleepy_jackson) about the 'One Laptop Per Child' project. It is exciting stuff, although I was initially skeptical for a number of reasons - does the 3rd world really need laptops? Perhaps water, electricity, health care would be more appropriate. How would such a project be rolled out and administered in 3rd world political contexts (e.g. China, Iran)? Would mobile telephony be a better option? But on learning more about the technology and the concept, I think the idea has potential, as one possible action among many. There's no silver bullet for the state of

The speed with which radical thinking by public sphere pioneers can become a cheap, accessible and transformative reality holds some lessons for providers of information in the developed world too.

Library2.0 links

noreply@blogger.com (Sideshowmatt) — Mon, 29 Jan 2007 01:34:00 +0000

Some links on Library2.0:

www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/oreilly/tim/news/2005/09/30/what-is-web-20.html

http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6365200.html

http://www.davidleeking.com/2007/01/03/inviting-participation-in-web-20/
http://www.webology.ir/2006/v3n2/a25.html
http://library2.0.alablog.org/blog
http://multa.murdoch.edu.au/tiki-index.php

Policy and professional implications - Global warming

noreply@blogger.com (Sideshowmatt) — Wed, 24 Jan 2007 02:52:00 +0000

(posted on the ALIA New Graduate and Public Library e-lists - no responses so far)

What do people think about the policy and professional implications for librarians of global warming and its attendant environmental disasters? I am starting to suspect that, whatever I environmental responsiblity I take on personally, things might get pretty grim sooner than most of us want to think. I wonder what challenges this will pose for us in our work, and how librarianship values (I'm coming from a public library perspective) can guide us. Here are some brainstormed ideas.

Social:

loss of social cohesion, increased inter-ethnic and cross-cultural conflict
(illegal) mass migration, stretching public services; ethical dilemmas for public servants
increased dependence on community networks
revival of social movements, especially greens

Economic:

major cuts in public funding
development of a very marginalised underclass
widening 'digital divide' between info-rich and info-poor

Political:

loss of confidence in existing political structures - return to grassroots, localised

Practical:

interest in different materials, e.g. self-sufficiency, how-to, spirituality
library as refuge
library as community meeting space, political forum
loss of reliable communications, IT support and perhaps power

Any thoughts?

Impressive IT - for the masses?

noreply@blogger.com (Sideshowmatt) — Tue, 23 Jan 2007 06:21:00 +0000

My public library may be about to introduce wireless internet, which has me in two minds about marketing and the strategy of library IT ventures. I have contradictory impulses about promoting public libraries – one the one hand, to spruik, sell, polish up as much as possible, to put the library front and centre in the public’s imagination, both as a community space and in terms of their sense and expectation of public value. This usually involves more adventurous spending on IT, and a focus on early adoption of Web2.0 trends. Marketing in this way is quite cynical – to me it is pragmatic, but capitulates on some important values. By accepting that the one of the traditional library missions (serving the more marginalized, disadvantaged and information-poor) isn’t going to translate into better funding, it focuses on impressing politicians and a small, influential user constituency.

The other impulse is to return to core public library values, maximizing public value, guided by principles of access and equity. This involves providing an informational safety net for the marginalized. Wireless internet provison doesn't cater to these people. It seems like something libraries should be seen to be up with – but how much would this be about image and promoting public libraries to a non-library-using demographic, wowing the computer-literate laptop owners, not to mention politicians and bean-counters. Would it actually increase their patronage? I think this approach to IT leaves behind those who rely most on public libraries, the long tail of the relatively information-illiterate.

Another question is whether there are Web2.0 applications that could achieve both, or at least a more palatable compromise? Many Web2.0 ventures are very low in up-front costs, but there are other costs and challenges in making too many demands on systems/IT people, retraining staff and changing attitudes to internet use.