Today's whinging...

This blog bears the mark of someone trying to blog their way through their dissertation. Slowly but surely the blogposts are posted at longer intervals, and then even longer longer intervals. I can't see, at least anywhere in the near future that I will be setting my foot formally within an educational institution ever again!

What now bears only a sligth resemblance to a working brain is relentlessy put to the test of making sense. Every day. Yes, I moan and groan. You have to let the steam out...

Dissertation depression, Postgraduate depression, self-doubt, anxiety, anxiety attacks, ... why did I ever put myself up for this?

It's certainly not for the self esteem, librarians seem to suffer similar identity/image problems as dentists. It's not the money, I'd probably earn more by selling stuff on ebay.

Oh, the pain! The agony! Oh, being an unemployed wanna-be librarian is oh, so hard!

There! Done my whinging...for now...

Run for your life...?

The AL makes me worried sometimes. What was I thinking wanting to get into this field! I don't think there is a profession so obsessed with itself. Or wait. How would I know. I want to be a librarian. I hardly ever look at other professionally driven blogs. Some comments on her last post made me cringe with regret:

"People in this field tend to meld the personal and professional. By the way, this could probably be the cause of why about 50% of libraries are toxic work environments."

"And what about the library field itself? The whole thing is falling apart faster than anyone wants to admit; although to be honest if the Gubberment said tomorrow they'd be taking all the funding out of libraries and putting it into Wikipedia I'd fall over laughing with schadenfreude."

"While management is management in any profession, somehow librarianship attracts that certain "je ne sais quoi" when it comes to management dysfunction."

"Actually, reading this blog has made me realize that I need to get out of librarianship. "

Oh, dear. What's a wannabe librarian to do?

Defining Library 2.0

The term, Library 2.0, is most certainly a contested one. Just have a look at the opposing views of The Annoyed Librarian and Meredith's blog to compare - although AL can be seen as a "tongue-in-cheek" protester, those views are critical to the way we think about the evolving library service.

The definition, as well as implementation of these evolving technologies, are at the heart of what constitutes librarianship today. I would say.

I won't be going into the definition debate in too much detail in my research - the definition dialogue warrants a research paper in itself.

I will however include it in my literature review as it has everything to do with how and what people think about the Library 2.0

Maness (2006) has attempted to define what we actually mean by Library 2.0 and more recently, Habib (2006, pdf) proposed a definition, based upon Maness' and others work, but in that proposal Habib readily acknowledged that the term was contested and is under constant criticism.

Habib's definition is based upon the coined concept of ‘Web‘ and '2.0' which he points out is preceded by the concept of 'Business 2.0'. The synchronising technology, marked by the 2.0, and points to the radical changes that have occurred in the past 2-3 years as people attempt to utilize it for whatever purposes, be it businesses, web commerce and communication and, as I'm attempting to explore, in libraries.

O'Reilly's definition first set out to disseminate the chaos of the web in terms of how changing technologies defined those that survived the first internet crash. In essence that explains what 2.0 stands for. It's a generational mark, for technological innovation.

Habib's definition is very diplomatic - it's levelled, in a sense. It disregards the hype surrounding the term and manages to imply the impact the new technologies can have on a library service without excluding more traditional services.

This defintion debate seems to be going on strong. For now, at least. Which is good.

Your Life Work: The Librarian

I couldn't resist putting this up here. It's "An episode of US Government film series on careers. [I] assume it was shown to high school students. This one was filmed at the Iowa State College (now Iowa State University) library in 1946." (Posted by travelinlibrarian on Youtube on Nov. 22, 2006) Much of this still rings true - however it's not still mandatory that you be a humble woman with glasses to be able to work in a library.

Information overload and the elders

I'm completely swamped by all of this. No surprise. The web just keeps getting better and better and more fun to navigate. Clever communities of people are cropping up everywhere and seem to have been long before my recent knowledge. It's all, however, a bit much to take in. It will take some discipline to go by the guidelines of my course leader of not being swept away by pure, and hyper, enthusiasm over the topic. I will do my best.

Meredith Farkas, back in 2006, made some interesting points about libraries marking their space within social networking sites. I think she is right in arguing that it isn't just about "being cool" with the kids when setting up a library profile on those sites. The are a lot of useful applications and ways of making that profile worth people's while to visit, i.e. the students'.

In that same post, she mentions the issue of teenage students and their ideas or concepts of privacy online. This is a concern of many elders - after all, it's our duty to worry about our youngsters. Somehow though, we've left them to rummage in the open fields, creeks and crevices of the web without much thought. Well, many of us have and many still are. Ignorance is bliss as they say. Young people deserve guidance though - without guidance they may suffer negligence. And nobody wants that on their conscience. Especially libraries. Or what?

I think it's every college's obligation to reach out and mark their space within their user's space. The web is at the heart of information flow. The web is the platform students use for most of their information seeking. Why shouldn't the library be visible and accessible to its users there. It's simple logic.

There seems to be a tendency to think of the library as guardian and controller of information amongts many, still. I've had people imply that the open free public web is a danger. That blogging is potentially very risky and dangerous. That freedom of expression might instigate a dangerous situation for the institution of the library.

Many also seem to suffer from FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) about blogging. Comments - how do you deal with them? Do you allow them- or don't you? If you don't, what is the purpose of your blog in the first place? You might as well post announcements up on Blackboard.

The idea of an open, public dialogue between students and lecturers or librarians, like the ones in blogs, suffers a rift somewhere and I'm inclined to think that a solution to that rift may lie with us elders. It probably all comes down to us, the digital immigrants - and the change we are suffering while the digital natives, the students, run happily and freely amongst each other on the open web. It is our responsibility to go in there, mark our place and by doing so making it clear that the web is for all - it's public, it's not private. It's for all to make use of. We are not invading their space - we are not trying to be cool - we are simply - and we might feel like we're clumsy at first - making use of that space. Like they are. (The royal "we" stands for librarians of course).

Library 0.1 - at least for the librarian!

On my holiday in Co. Galway in Ireland last week I of course visited the local library. The Irish are, according to the local librarian, expanding the library service and purpose built libraries in deprived urban areas are on the top of the government's agenda. Those same libraries have, since built in the last few years, proven to be the most popular ones and are steadily increasing their user uptake . The Headford library is not amongst those - it's a small rural library.

The public library is only two years old but prior to that the people in the area made use of mobile library services.
The Headford public library is trying and growing. It may look like a church hall on the outside and it may not have that much in its physical collection, but as I say - it is trying.

This is what awaits the young people on the inside:

And two computers, cramped in the corner, which I waited in line to get on to.


The most surprising aspect of Headford library was however this:

It's oddly fascinating for a studying librarian to see this in practice, still. I remember this of course since I was a kid in Iceland but the working conditions of some librarians are truly amazing. The one on the right is the user card catalogue, 400 children and 100 adults. The one on the left is the collection catalogue.

Users can access the web, use Microsoft Office applications and a photocopier . The librarian works manually. It appears.

Isn't it ironic...as someone said

Over on Friends: Social Networking Sites for Engaged Library Service, Gerry McKiernan, Science and Technology Librarian at Iowa State University, recently posted up an online survey called 'Library presence in social networking'.

One participant had this to add to the survey:
"In our case it is because we are partially government funded and the state government filters our servers. All social networking sites are blocked - so while we will be funded to attend 2.0 training and encouraged to be 'innovative' we aren't allowed to access or use anything of interest (even Firefox is blocked). I think the extreme conservatism of government and university IT services sections is MAJOR limiting factor for many libraries."

Although this hasn't been mentioned as a barrier or problem in my research I can imagine many institutions working under similar conditions. The institution where I'm doing my research allows access to MySpace, Facebook, IM and they use itunes, systematically, in student education.

Students there use all of these media on a daily basis. As for lecturers and library staff...

Whose space?

I have recently been involved in an online incident with some of my younger family members. They are girls and up to all sorts of things, online and not.

What happened was, embarrasing for those involved, apparently, but amusingly educational for myself.

I had two of my nieces visit me. I have, of course, been following their myspace sites for a while. Something they have been absolutely clueless about. After all, it's "their space". Isn't it?

Over dinner one night, I happened to mention that I had been to their sites. They both went right pale and explained to me that it wasn't "their myspace" - it was a friend who did it for them, "they" hardly went online, you see!

This they proclaimed without blinking - oblivious to the fact how often I had encouraged them to go do something else than serial instant messaging with their friends.

It's the same scenario - but years ago you would proclaim that these weren't your cigarettes, you were only keeping them for your troubled friend!

As a result of this, rather amusing, episode - both have now gone on to change their privacy settings - and only "friends" are allowed to see what their are up to online.

I wonder if I should now try and have them add me as a friend? For educational purposes only, of course - after all, that's what semi-middle-aged nieces are here for: being a pain in the..., isn't it?

But is it "their space" or can I, or rather should I, even bother intruding upon "their space" online?

I think not - my work is done for now. It made them think. It seems.

Library 2.0 and beyond

For research and personal interest purposes I have bought (and recently received) a new book on the subject of Library 2.0 called "Library 2.0 and Beyond". I will also be trying very hard to get my hands on Phil Bradley's book on the same topic.

I am also waiting for University of Brighton's, Jon Dron's book - which is the only one of the three you can actually have a flick through on Amazon.

Ironic isn't it. For books on 2.0 - some publishers (or perhaps the author had something to do with it?) are clearly more on the ball than others.

You can access links to Phil Bradley's blogs and read the blurb on Google Books (if you have a gmail account) but I can't find anything 2.0-ish on Nancy Courtney's "Library 2.0 and Beyond" though.

It's a complex world and all that but it's still a bit...

A Librarian's 2.0 Manifesto

Added to Youtube.com in November, 2006.
A manifesto by Laura Cohen, 2006.
Video slideshow mash up by Soren Johannessen, Copenhagen

Time, technology, control

Several themes, well three, are emerging in my research. Listening to people, themes of:

• Time (in terms of making use of, being allocated by management or lack of...)
• Technology (in terms of knowledge of, ideas of, use of,...)
• Control (in terms of access and content, policy making...)
  

...keep cropping up.

They may not be surprising themes but they are, of course, interesting.

Thomas and McDonald state that there is definite rift or disconnect between library services and users. A rift that I'm inclined to nod to in terms of how it identifies with my own themes emerging. Directly or indirectly.

Library resources and e-learning...or not!

This is just in:

"Just exactly what do non-librarians think of the myriad library databases they can access courtesy of their local library. Not much apparently. Well, they certainly don’t think of the library’s resources as learning tools."

Click on linked paragraph to keep on reading - very interesting stuff.

Blogging students

In my research so far I have heard how teachers that have incorporated blogs into their courses often anticipate the blogs to be taken off by students without any prior participation of the lecturer's behalf. Lecturers in this way set up the blog and tell students to go blog. According to my participants the blogs, for this reason they suggest, never really take off.

On a similar note, my participants furthermore say that blogs within education only seem to materialise if students get marks or are assessed in how well or much they participate in the creation of the blog

This seems to be supported by research already done on blogging in education. Williams and Jacobs report on how two university blogs were highly successful, even though they report that students were not given any direction in how to use the blog other than logging in and to write on their subject matter for the course they were taking. Participation was optional but students were told that for considerable participation in the blog they would receive five marks included in their assessment for the course.

So, maybe the Williams and Jacobs study is a sign of the times that still seems to linger - that students simply need to be directed toward a blogging facility and the blog would take off. However, as noted above, the reason for the success of the aforementioned blogs seems to be that students participated for marks - not simply because they wanted to.

Educational blogging seems, in this way, to clash with the original concept of blogging - at least to some of my participants - the concept behind the blog being that people participate because they want to.

Some of my participants are furthermore critical towards this idea of forced blogging. Where students are directed to blog on a particular subject under the specific conditions of academic assessment.

There are also the classic issues of control of content and access, the idea of privacy and last but certainly not least the feeling many of my participants described as that of "being watched", i.e. that students see what you are writing and vice versa, lecturers and librarians see what students are writing. Many generally seem to have reservations about the idea in that way.

These are interesting issues, especially when academics do generally seem to want to be part of web or library 2.0. I wonder if any of this might lie at the heart of why universities and libraries find it difficult to engage with blogging in the first place.

Security on the web

The BBC's technology section has an article on wi-fi security today. Apparently hackers can now easily pick up wi-fi users cookies, containing our webmail logins and social networking sites logins and access them to their amusements...or for whatever reasons they find that necessary.

A quote from the newsbit goes: "This gives attackers access to mail messages or the page someone maintains on sites such as MySpace or Facebook."

This was made public at an online security conference, or rather hackers meet-up, in Vegas recently. The author of the hacking tool is a professional hacker/online security expert who will make the tool available for download from his company's site from hereon.

This is interesting. I suppose this is done as a way of trying to prompt and speed up relevant problem fixing at each and every website involved. It makes you wonder though how many other real hacking tools are out there in need of fixing measures by website owners.

Doing my research, the issues of control of content as well as access keep, not surprisingly, cropping up. There are so many issues that libraries feel they need to take into account in order to be able to participate fully on the web - and rather than those issues being resolved, more seem to be adding on.

Research into Library 2.0

I’m currently doing a research project for my MA in Information Studies at the School of computing, mathematical and information sciences at the University of Brighton, East Sussex. While doing the research I’ve come across a monumental network of dialogue on Library 2.0 on the web. This blog will add to that network of different media used to debate, discuss and demonstrate what Library 2.0 can be.