Category: internet

Wired has an interesting article on crowdsourcing.

Jeff Howe describes the term on his new crowdsourcing blog as:

Simply defined, crowdsourcing represents the act of a company or institution taking a function once performed by employees and outsourcing it to an undefined (and generally large) network of people in the form of an open call. This can take the form of peer-production (when the job is performed collaboratively), but is also often undertaken by sole individuals. The crucial prerequisite is the use of the open call format and the large network of potential laborers.

It seems to me that a lot of what a librarian does has already been crowdsourced, to some extent. Information is out there, and people everywhere are trying to organize it and index it and make it searchable. Will we go the way of the stock photographer? I’d wager that librarians do still and always will serve an important role in information management. The more information provided, the more is needed someone to help determine what is credible, what is biased, and most importantly what is relevant to a specific person’s goals.

Tricks of the Trade is a site that allows specialists to submit snippets of wisdom that would otherwise probably never be heard beyond their field. From mothering to bartending to fighting off viscious dogs (also known as traveling, evidently), there’s something here to interest everyone, and I quickly got sucked in and read them all.

I was gratified to see this trick from a “Researcher”, if a bit saddened that this is considered a trick of the trade and not common knowledge.

If you need an obscure, out-of-print, or otherwise difficult to locate book or article, check with your local public library. It’s a little-known fact that the vast majority of libraries belong to a resource-sharing program that will allow you to get a book mailed from across the country. It takes a little time and you often have a limited borrowing window, but it’s an amazing resource.

One of the things that first drew me towards librarianship, and that draws me still, is that it is a profession that encourages a multi-faceted, eclectic range of interests. The more things that fascinate you, the better. This aspect of being a librarian is perfect for me because, honestly, there’s not anything that I’m not interested in. Perfect that I found a job that encourages that. Now if I could just put down my other interests enough to focus on it. On a daily basis, I do my actual job very well. I get things done, I go the extra mile, and I try to anticipate things that need done before they become an issue. That’s not a problem, and I enjoy it. The aspect of my job that I wish I could focus more on is this, this blog, these thoughts about librarianship (or even future librarianship, in my case), technology, information, and the internet. I’m focused in spurts, perhaps, but obviously I’d like to take this blog to hand and create a consistent, interesting webspace that people will seek out and enjoy. Consistent is the key word, there.

Wednesday I was lucky enough to go to a pre-conference for the Washington Library Association (WLA) up in Tacoma. The workshop I attended was called “Rev Up Your Online Services: Blogs, RSS, Wikis and Other Dynamic and Low-Cost Technologies”. Jenny Levine and Michael Stephens, of The Shifted Librarian and Tame The Web respectively, presented it, and they did a phenomenal job. I’ll post a full write-up soon. The reason I mention it here is that it really gave me a burst of inspiration to get back to this blog and write, and even moreso to participate in an online community of libraries and librarians that is growing and thriving, and even further to do my best to participate as a librarian with the non-library community and spread the library word. It inspired me to do all that and also, evidently, to write really long sentences.

It’s been a busy week, and not long since Wednesday, but one thing I’ve been working on is to keep up better with what other librarians out there are writing. I’ve got some catching up to do, so I’m taking things one step at a time. Since I attended their conference and found it inspiring and insightful, I figured it only right that I keep up with Jenny and Michael, at the least.

So, to prove that I’m paying attention, and because it is absolutely post-worthy in its own right, I join both of them in welcoming Mary Ghikas to the world of blogging (I’m on the fence about the word: biblioblogosphere). Mary is the Senior Associate Executive Director (or SAss E Director – a much better title) of the American Library Association. I agree with Jenny that the new generation of librarians don’t feel very connected with the ALA, and I think that including the sort of personal transparency that is a blog could do a lot to help with that. The blog is called The Green Kangaroo, which is a great name with an even better explanation, and I’m looking forward to (hopefully) keeping up with it.

It appears as though this may be part of a larger campaign to launch multiple ALA blogs (you’ll notice that The Green Kangaroo is, supposedly, blog #10). However, of the others listed, the YALSA Blog is the only one that seems to have been active (since Jan. 2006), but they do have some content worth checking out. I’ve just recently heard of the Alliance Library System and the Second Life Library project, and of course I find it totally fascinating. Between these two blogs, I think the ALA is off to a good start in becoming an association to which the next-gen librarian will be able to relate.

I subscribed for a time to the Stumpers mailing list, hosted by the Graduate School of Library and Information Studies at Dominican University since 1992. I unsubscribed because the email provider I was using (Mailblocks) got bought by an evil company (AOL) who integrated its features into their email service and then threw it out. I’m happily using Gmail now, but that’s neither here nor there.

It took me awhile to resubscribe, and when I tried the other day I found out that Stumpers has become mysteriously defunct. There’s no explanation on their webpage as to what happened, which was frustrating, but eventually I found out from Phil Bradley that Stumpers still exists, if in a different incarnation.

Project Wombat is a much cooler name, in any case, and offers the same expertise for which Stumpers had long been known. Perhaps the best part, if you simply have a question that you need answered, is that you can post your question to the list without being a subscriber. But make sure you read their posting guidelines before you do. Think of it as helping them help you; and believe me, they are quite helpful.