LeenLief Snippets

Waarschijnlijk als laatste IP'er de uitzending van VPRO Import over Google Books gezien: Google en het wereldbrein. Een film over het meest ambitieuze internet project uit de geschiedenis: Googles masterplan om elk boek in de wereld te scannen en te digitaliseren en over de mensen die dat tegen proberen te houden. Een film dus waarin vooral de negatieve aspecten wordt belicht en waarin (terecht) kantekeningen wordt gezet bij de goede bedoelingen van Google. http://www.uitzendinggemist.nl/afleveringen/1331767

 

Maar daarnaast stond er in de Meta nr. 4 van dit jaar een overzichtsartikel over allerhande digitaliseringsprojecten waaronder die van Google die dienen als bron voor 'digital humanities'. Een studieveld waarin met computerprogramma's ontwikkelt om taal te analyseren, en die vervolgens toe te passen op literaire, wijsgerige en historische bronnen. De vraag is: 'Zou het mogelijk zijn om deze reusachtige bibliotheken, die vele miljarden woorden uit miljoenen volumes doorzoekbaar maakten, te gebruiken om nieuwe inzichten in de cultuurwetenschap te genereren?'. http://www.vvbad.be/meta/het-onbehagen-de-digitale-cultuur-de-opkomst-van-digital-humanities

Today, I am once again skimming through R. David Lankes’ amazing book The Atlas of New Librarianship. I am looking over page 67 at the idea of librarians as “Publisher of Community.” This may be the closest definition to what I have in mind.

 

“I foresee the day in the near future when librarians spend the majority of their time working with community members and community organizations making their content accessible: where acquisitions is a matter of production, not purchasing. The future of libraries (and librarians) is in becoming publishers of the community.”

 

I want to find someone who can:

Capture content

Think like an activist

Act with the sensibility of a journalist

Help instill meta-literacy skills in our information literacy program

Work with students and faculty within and outside of the classroom

 

I am not sure about a job title: Community Publishing Librarian, Meta-Literacy Librarian, Digital Content Librarian,???

What's taken them this long? Facebook is finally getting into search seriously. Business week has a useful overview of the story in case you'd like to take a look.

 

So what does this all mean for the information professionals? Quite simply - a huge amount. In order to help people, and to advise them, we need to be where they are. That's less and less in the physical library - it's not even on the website now, it's going to be in Facebook. Like it or not, you will *have* to have a Facebook account and profile, so that your users can find you and link to you. Then you can start 'liking' pages, creating resources within Facebook, engaging in conversations and so on. It also means that the days of blocking Facebook are (probably) numbered, as it's going to be impossible to use the internet properly without it. I say (probably) since there are still enough stupid places that block access to the second largest search engine in the world - YouTube - because they don't understand it.

If you don't have a Facebook account - get one. If you do, consider creating a professional account as well, and think how you're going to work with colleagues and other professionals, and how that's going to differ from your friendship groups. While you're at it, tell your company that they'd better start paying a lot of attention to Facebook in the future.