Flowchart..

For our assignment, we were asked to create a flowchart. In this particular flowchart, comes from the view of a Non-resident person, who wishes to get a library card and take out one item. See: http://www.gliffy.com/publish/1323129/

"Wikipedia becomes class work"

This article discusses how one professor, Martha Groom from the University of Washington-Bothell "transforms" wikipedia into a classroom assignment. She uses wikipedia as a tool, in which students edit an existing article or post an original one (rather than writing an environmental history paper). Professor Groom states, " Wikipedia has been vilified as a petri dish for misinformation". While students found that writing online allowed them to receive "better than average" grades versus writing a paper.

Reference:

Workology section (unknown author). (Nov. 6,2007). "Wikipedia becomes class work" (Metro)

More about Library 2.0

Check out: http://ajkeen.com/e.htm

(sent to me via email at work)

Evaluation of Greenstone..

As professor Nickerson states, some of the ways in which to evaluate software such as Greenstone include the following: 1) Scope, 2) Design, 3) Development, 4) Testing , 5) Production and 6) Maintenance (Lecture 5: October 9,2007). Other factors to consider are available features, customization abilities, technical support, various costs and scalability. Through the evaluation of Greenstone, it is able to achieve the majority of its objectives. Being open source and multilingual, is a major advantage for libraries or organizations. This means the elimination of cost and the possibility of widespread use among a diverse audience. Though like any other software, Greenstone has its own set of limitations such as downloading the product. As it was confusing and cumbersome (for me to figure out how to download), which can be problematic. However, if such downloading feature is improved or having a more concise instruction (i.e. how to download manual), its features are generally positive.

Future of Libraries..

I haven't had a chance to really look into this book, A Brief History of the Future of Libraries: An Annotated Bibliography by Gregg Sapp, but I thought it was interesting to think about "the future of libraries". Some people have posulated that libraries and/or profession of librarians being "taken over" or replaced by technology. These concerns are also raised by Sapp, the following include:
- libraries becoming increasingly less relevant due to the electronic world
- libraries receiving less fudning and support
-information controlled by a selective population
-librarianship will cease to exist as a profession
-library principles will disappear
(Sapp, p.vi)

Another perspective is that libraries are seen as:
-providing all information needs
-services will be seen as highly valued
-libraries are contested sites for information rights
-recognized as "consummated information professionals in society"
and "libraries will thrive"
(Sapp, p.vii)


Reference:

Sapp, Gregg. (2002). A Brief History of the Future of Libraries: An Annotated Bibliography. London: ScareCrow Press, Inc.

Updated...

I've spent a fair amount of time, re-working the 1311 blog, as well as taking the time to work on all the assignments for 23things. Anyone interested about it, you can visit the "updated version" at:http://tpl-faye.blogspot.com/ though I don't know for how long I'll be able to catch up :/

Library Humor- "massive fine on this one.."