A Searching Librarian • August 27, 2011
Introspective. An LIS student explores the disconnect between many librarians' self-perception and how the library experience is often viewed by students and patrons. There's a reason why most students turn to Google first and why many don't know how to use it well.
This is a thorough and heartfelt annotated roster of some of the best recent work about students and the library experience. Some of it will be familiar to you— What Students Don't Know—while other pieces come from the eclectic perspective of the author, Paul, a recent grad of the the Library and Information Services Advanced Diploma course at the Canberra Institute of Technology. This joins up nicely with the work of my colleague, Lynn Silipigni Connaway who has done a lot of work studying the behavior of library users, from public library patrons and undergraduate students to scholars and researchers, to determine their perceptions and information usage habits. Use this post as a required reading list for library managers. ( Michalko)
n+1 • August 22, 2011
The daily chatter. "If talking is one thing, and conversation another, then what is chat?" The editors of n+1's Conversion Experience issue contemplate the evolution of human interaction, from 17th century salons, which were greatly enhanced by the invention of upholstered furniture, to Gchat, which serves primarily as a distraction from the boredom of work.
This is a good-natured, highbrow rant about the dilution and devaluation of the personal experience. I agreed with a lot of it but then I have never fully committed myself to the Internet-enabled social "interaction." I particularly think this post is wrong about video interactions. Not only are they not a waste of work time they are crucial to the successful management of a virtual team. Here's a good article about that topic from the MIT Sloan Management Review. ( Michalko)
The Wall Street Journal • August 22, 2011
Wake up call. Researchers at the National University of Singapore have determined that web surfing at work can actually provide a pick-me-up for tired workers and spur productivity, compared with other "take five" activities such as phone calls, texting or e-mailing. Who knew?
This short blog post introduced me to a new word—"cyberloafing"—which seems to have been around for a few years. The conclusions from this study intrigued me more before I found out what was the test "task" given to the group. ( Michalko)
Technology Review • August 31, 2011
People to people power. The creator of social bookmarking site Del.icio.us has launched a new social networking site called Jig, which prompts users to type in an "I need" request that people—not algorithms—can then answer. The site has been used to harness human outreach for finding potential employees, recreational experiences and other recommendations. Check out this latest iteration of social search.
Doesn't this sound a lot like virtual reference but for personal and recreational concerns? It's early days but my visit there was pretty underwhelming. The "needs" posted seemed like things that a couple more well-formed search engine queries would resolve. (Haven't these early adopters stumbled across Yelp, TripAdvisor, OpenTable or Craigslist?) ( Michalko)
Poynter Institute • September 2, 2011
Twitter police. Recent natural disasters and political uprisings have unleashed a flurry of postings on Twitter, YouTube and Flickr—including some containing misinformation or misleading images. The trend has sparked an additional layer of curation required of editors, journalists and information experts, who can now add "debunking" to their job descriptions.
Given the other articles about social media and networking that are in this ATF it's good to see that there are actually authoritative sources intervening to debunk the incredibly fast spread of inaccurate and fake info in the sphere. This article has a lot of interesting links to examples of false information that has been spread about. People must really have wanted to believe that picture of the East River cresting. ( Michalko)
Above the Fold Quiz
According to an item in this week's News and Views section, what is ArchiveGrid?
Get the answer.
