Hi. I’ll be at the Rhode Island Library Association conference this upcoming week and then I’m done with library-related travelling until ALA, and then I’m really done until September. I had a chance to wander around the basement of the Library of Congress with the THOMAS webmaster [who I met in one of my online communities, don’t tell me that technology can’t take you places] and hid out from the rain at one of the DC public libraries [which was very nice and welcoming]. I met a group of librarians who are grappling with becoming part of a consortium, and I talked to some library staff who were very skeptical about technology as i tried to explain why I thought some of it was worthwhile.
Category: hi
hi – 26apr
Hi. The notes for the talk that I gave last night at Simmons Choice: Empowerment Through Information Technology [seriously] are online if you’d like to see them.
hi – 24apr
I’m polishing my Simmons talk today. I give a few types of talks regularly, but the talks are never the same. They can be loosely grouped as follows:
- new technologies/ten tech tips for libraries
- the information poor/digital divide and technology in libraries
- social responsibiltiy and technology in libraries
Astute readers will recognize that, at their core, these talks all cover the same three topics with different weight given to each topic each time. Put another way they’re
- TECHNOLOGY, politics, libraries
- technology, politics, LIBRARIES
- technology, POLITICS, libraries
I like giving talks, and I’m happy that I now have the time to really do it right. If you’d like me to come talk to your library, your library association or your group of library fans, read my faq and drop me a line.
hi – 22apr
Hi and happy Earth Day. I’ll be heading down to Boston to speak at Simmons this Monday evening and then I think I’ll extend my stay to see Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikepedia, speak at Harvard Tuesday evening. I’ve been delving more and more into the Wikipedia world lately, lending a hand updating some of the Vermont town pages and uploading some public domain images to illustrate some of those pages.
The debate we’ve seen happening over the authority, or lack thereof, of collaborative information systems such as Wikipedia is just scratching the surface of the debates we’ll be seeing in the years to come. Librarians ignore Wikipedia, and by extension the new face of information, at their peril. Keep in mind I’m not saying that we all have to run to the Internet to answer our questions, just that if we fail to see the impact these systems are having, and the openness and transparency they bring with them, then we fail to learn something crucial about the downsides to the inflexible authority of print. Downsides that people have been living with and taking as a given all these years, and now may no longer have to.
hi – 18apr
Hi. I have made the contact form part of the overall site and, I think, made it function better. If you’re trying to email me and the form does not work, please let me know via IM at iamthebestartist or emailing my first name at gmail.com. Thank you.