I’m at ACRL in Baltimore. This is my first ACRL conference, and it’s been great so far. I recommend it highly!
This afternoon I attended a presentation by David Silver, a professor of Media Studies at the University of San Francisco. The title of his presentation was “A E I O U”–”Already Existing Information Optimally Uploaded.” Very catchy!!
His “take” on things in light of Web 2.0 technologies is that we (librarians and others) need to find ways to preserve history in a “culture of amnesia.” The tools already exist; we just need to take the information that already exists and make it public on the Web and find ways to combine it in new ways (e.g., a photographic montage) to create new forms of knowledge.
He advocates blogging as an easy way to do this. We can blog already existing information (e.g., news stories) and upload the blog. Readers comment and we exercise our collective intelligence, which is what Web 2.0 is all about.
In case you’re wondering what Web 2.0 is, David gave the following explanation:
Web 1.0 = the online version of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Web 2.0 = Wikipedia
David teaches digital journalism to his students which is, in essence, blogging. He also cited a couple of interesting places on the Web:
- James Jacobs’ (of Radical Reference fame) Tagzania page; Jacobs tags places of interest to librarians in the cities he visits.
- Steve Campion’s photos on Flickr (especially this one, which is a photo of a bookshelf with 40 books Steve read, linked to book reviews - VERY clever!)
- Victor Koo’s blog Chun See’s talk “Blogging for Senior Citizens.”
- Lee and Sachi LeFever’s blog about their year of travel.
I was so “psyched” by David’s talk and his ideas (he said to take lots of pictures), that I had to come back to my room and resurrect my long-dormant blog.
Welcome back, ME!!!
