Captain's log week 5

The readings this week deal with social bookmarking and RSS. Personally I've used RSS feeds in the past with Mozilla Firefox feature Live Bookmarks. In the past I subscribed to news sources such as BBC and CNN. Beyond that I never delved deeper.

The Library 2.0 discussion was interesting. Crawford really drives home the point that the term Library 2.0 does not have a concise definition and it is not possible to come up with one. Library 2.0 represents new concepts, changing philosophies and not just changing technologies. The Holmberg piece went further into the idea of Library 2.0 and did a case study of active librarians. What did they think Library 2.0 means? After constructing a word map, the most frequently used words to describe  Library 2.0 were interactivity, users and participation. Which I think describe the main pillars of Library 2.0 rather well.

The Darby and Gilmour article on adding Delicious data to library websites was a little more technical than I like. However I did understand the advantages and disadvantages of using each delivery method. RSS the simplest, yet the most limited, JSON seemed like the most useful solution, a good middle ground and XML the most comprehensive and most taxing on external servers.

The bot herding article was cool because it showed how bot herds can be used in a benevolent way instead of the usual malicious collection of personal information.

Saxton's recommendations on how to use Wikis, RSS and Blogs in the library are great. Especially the way she describes using RSS to help librarians keep up with new research in the profession. Instead of constantly searching for new LIS related articles, a librarian could just subscribe to a blog and get new research updates sent to them.

I've never heard of social bookmarking before watching the video on Diigo. I can't believe I haven't been using something like it! I have massive and very unwieldy bookmark list on my browsers. Diigo seems like a much better solution. I like the idea of tagging bookmarks, organizing and searching through them.

Captain's log Week 4

This week's reading made me realize something. I have been not using Twitter to it's full potential at all. I have been following a bunch of celebrities and friends. Honestly I saw a lot of pictures of food and other shenanigans which led me to believe that Twitter was not really worth posting on. Following Anderson's suggestions, mainly following libraries and educators, now I'm reading a lot of interesting stories. What's really exciting is the fact that you can engage with places like the New York Public library by retweeting and replying to their posts. I might even start using Hootsuite or Tweetdeck to help manage my social networks.

My twitter handle is roddyrocksteady follow me fellow time travelers!

Activity Week 3

My favorite library blog is actually a photoblog called This is What a Librarian Looks Like.  The blog consists of user submitted portraits and short captions. The mission is to break the librarian stereotype and show the world the interesting people who choose the profession. 

I selected this blog because I think it serves a valuable purpose. The librarian stereotype is pervasive in our society, most people think librarians are angry sshhing old ladies. We need to change that stereotype and show our society what librarians actually look like.

I think the main characteristic of a successful blog is an interesting topic. You have to write about something that people will care about and write on a regular basis. The blog I selected is successful because the librarian stereotype affects a lot of people and the idea of people changing this stereotype on library at a time is really interesting.

We need to go from this

To this

Images belong to lookslikelibraryscience.com

Week 3 Captain's log

The readings this week brought up an interesting question. Just how important are blogs? How many people actually read blogs on a regular basis? I have observed the impact of blogs and social networking on mainstream media. CNN has plenty of professional bloggers and twitters, you see them not only on their website but on the television channel as well. However it still begs the question, how much do non professional blog matter?

My answer is that blogs matter to certain communities, for example this blog will probably be more meaningful to librarians rather than quantum physicists. In a small way they make an impact on communities and promote free discussion of literally anything.

I would love to hear what you folks think! Feel free to comment or shoot me an e mail.

X Men and marginalized groups

I've been a comic book fan for a long time and something that's always struck a chord with me is the X Men.  In the Marvel comic X Men,  a series of ongoing natural mutations have accelerated the evolution of certain humans. Some mutants develop superhuman powers and often cannot control them without sufficient training or technology. Other mutants experience physiological changes such as Beast who went from being human to a blue haired beast.These mutations manifest while the person is in their teenage years and the "coming out" is a traumatic experience   Mutants often struggle with self identity and are usually persecuted or exploited by those around them.  Mutants choose their own path, some choose to join mutant groups such as the X Men headed by Professor Charles Xavier, others choose to join the Mutant Brotherhood led by Magneto. Most however don't choose any side and try to lead a normal life.

Now the X Men represent the effort to facilitate the peaceful co existence of mutants and humankind. The Mutant Brotherhood is essentially a militant mutant separatist movement, Magneto considers himself the advocate for mutant self defense against the prosecution of mutant kind. This is way I always thought about the difference between the two leaders. Charles Xavier is Dr. Martin Luther King and Magneto is Malcolm X. Neither position is inherently "better" than other, it's a matter of philosophy. It's the open palm or the raised fist.

Think about people who identify as LGBTQ. They experience face legal and cultural discrimination on a daily basis. Sexual identity comes about the in adolescent years. The identity crisis associated with feeling as the other. Some choose to come out and others choose to conceal their sexuality. There are various LGBTQ rights movements ranging from the Marriage Equality movement, who demand equal marriage laws, to the radical anarchist Bash Back! movement, who advocate the change of cultural values and self defense.

Personally I always identified with these mutant characters because of my own issues with racial identity. I am a first generation American and I've felt the sting of prevalent institutionalized racism and class barriers.

I think anyone who is or looking into becoming a Young Adult librarian should really consider reading some X Men and consider the potential for outreach and the promotion of a safe library space.

Now I leave you with a video which I hope explains Xavier and Magneto's relationship.

Week 2 Captain's log (personal reflections)

Stardate January 18 2013,
Some things didn't surprise me in the readings. Perhaps the advantage of being a millennial? Lenhart's study confirms something I've long observed that most young people 18-25 use social networking and I suspect that's because this generation grew up with personal computers and the web. Young adult interest in social networking is on the rise because more millennials are becoming adults.

One thing that really struck me in the O'Reilly readings was the idea of collective intelligence and how central it is to web 2.0. User generated data augmenting data provided by the website is really genius. I found that this collective intelligence is extremely helpful when dealing with matters are not not covered adequately by authoritative sources due to funding decisions or lack of academic interest. Subcultural movements are a great example of this. Underground cultural movements such as crust punk culture or shoegaze music are usually not included in musicology books however they are covered by active members of  those movements using blogs and wikipedia. What better way to document these movements and ideas associated with these cultures than having the members write about themselves?  Of course the reader is responsible for evaluating the quality of the work and the credibility of the blogger. Which is why I would recommend reading as many sources as possible, you'll be able to construct a pretty good idea of a movement by hearing multiple perspectives.

Activity week 2

Part A
Social networking is the  public display of friend networks using user created profiles and user generated connections. Users can view lists created by others within the system and interact with other users.
I currently use Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Myspace, Google Plus and Steam. I use different sites for different reasons. I use Facebook the most because all my musician friends use it. Almost all the shows I attend are advertised on Facebook, so it's how I find out what's going on around town. I also like to keep up with my college friends and family. I'm a very active Facebook user, I post status updates everyday, along with photos and hyperlinks.
Honestly I don't use Twitter very much, I don't really see the point of writing two different status updates, I'll just write one on Facebook and be done with it. Sure I follow a few famous punk musicians on there but I don't really like that it's just text posts. Tumblr I use everyday. I love the fact that it's mostly a photo blog but it has plenty of variety, text posts, hyperlinks video, audio. Lastly I use my Tumblr more as a personal dairy, I know less "real"friends on there, so I let my heart out.
I haven't been active on MySpace for a long time. I should just delete it but I like how it's become a time capsule of how I was in my high school years.
Google Plus, great interface, fast, the hangouts are a lot of fun. I want to love it but not enough people are on it to really keep it interesting. Now it feels like Google is desperate to get people to post on it with all those +1 links on Chrome. Good effort boys and girls but no dice so far.
Steam is really more of a PC gaming console/service but it has a large social networking element now, which includes live voice chat. I use it everyday to see which one of my friends are playing what game and sometimes I message them and join in! What better way to keep with friends near and far than blasting zombies into oblivion together?
Part B