Digital Curation in Education

Content curation is part of an overall strategy to tame information chaos. For me, it’s all about knowing, learning, sharing and teaching, all in one! 

Here I am exploring the concept, theory and practice of social networking technologies within the context of libraries and the work of information professionals.  

Digital collections marketing is an important, yet often ignored aspect of digital collection management. While many collections are laudable for the quality of their pictures, metadata, and preservation techniques, they often remain obscure, unknown, and therefore inaccessible to their intended user populations. One of the ways digital librarians can cultivate a broader awareness of their collections is through social networking. More importantly, digital librarians who participate in conversations with users through the use of social media become inextricably intertwined with the knowledge creation processes relevant to their collections.

I’ve been writing a lot about curating content online and  a follower tweeted the questions:  "This all sounds great. How do I get started?"

If you want to get started curating some content, there are lots of different paths you could set your feet on. The most important thing is to make sure you keep it manageable. Like most facets of the online world, curating content can very quickly begin to eat your life.

Twitter-Curation-Tool MyTweetMag Restarts With A New Design –...

Beth Kanter publishes this informative and well curated article for new content curators.

Beth summarizes key principles, her own suggested approach and some of the tools she recommends to use.

An enjoyable and informative read. Recommended.

P.S.Here is an updated map of all the content curation and newsmastering tools out there: http://www.mindmeister.com/55395228 ;

  Today Facebook provided something technologists have been waiting for, for over 10 years: a reason to move to the Semantic Web.

The Value Is Social, Not Mechanical
Today, the world has a need for the Semantic Web, and it turns out it’s people, after all.

It has taken 10 years to see the Semantic Web really begin to work, and this is a pivotal point.

What we see today is not the Semantic Web, envisioned by Tim Berners-Lee. It is something better: the Semantic Social Web. And with it, the emerging circuitry tracing all the social chain reactions we share with one another every day.

The volume of information available freely to consumers is mind-boggling. But even factoring in ease of access — no more sifting through card catalogs or microfiche in dark libraries — attention remains scarce.

Digital collections marketing is an important, yet often ignored aspect of digital collection management. While many collections are laudable for the quality of their pictures, metadata, and preservation techniques, they often remain obscure, unknown, and therefore inaccessible to their intended user populations. One of the ways digital librarians can cultivate a broader awareness of their collections is through social networking. More importantly, digital librarians who participate in conversations with users through the use of social media become inextricably intertwined with the knowledge creation processes relevant to their collections.

A Content Curator is someone who continually finds, groups, organizes and shares the best and most relevant content on a specific issue online.