Twitter’s Role as Vehicle for Public Libraries and Gifted Education

Twitter is the social media platform that has benefited me the most in my career. I find that its use of 140 characters in incremental communications has been helpful when researching or networking about gifted education and public libraries. The specific audience that thrives on Twitter is great for networking, and it gives the participant…

How Has My View of Social Media Changed Over This Course?

Let’s see. Reddit? Although it has its uses, I’m ok without it. Tagging and bookmarking are important and need to be succinct to get the point across. Wikis are awesome but flawed. Folksonomies? Everyone seems to hate them. That was a surprise. But really, the thing that I came away with is that I doubt…

Thoughts on Folksonomies

Are folksonomies useful? Sure. Yes. Like time, it is a human construct. (These are the jokes…) These systems of classification are useful to us to organize and locate items on the internet. There is so much information out there – so much random data – that using tags, classification systems, keywords, metadata, all of these…

Thoughts on Wikispaces

Well, we’ve been told all throughout college, and especially in library school, that Wikipedia is not a reliable source. Yes, it is a jumping off point, but it is in no way the end result for finding information on a particular subject. And why is that? Well, user-generated content is susceptible to tampering. Anyone can…

Tagging for LS590

Well, tagging in Reddit was a bust, and the entire class quickly realized that that particular format was not going to work there. It was funny, actually, to see how fast it happened. Redditors are a machine of anonymity and yet familiarity; they saw something that was going to break up the peace of their…

Library Score

Summer reading is upon us!  L is doing the Mensa reading challenge, H is obsessed with tools, and R listens to anything the others are reading. 

How Can Bookmarking and Tagging Benefit You in Your Desired Field?

I have many incarnations of my social media life. It began a long time ago, but, I really delved into the social media world with LiveJournal,  when I was younger and felt it was necessary to write emo diary entries for the world. I moved on to a website that I kept up for purely…

The Librarian’s Role as Public Educator in Cyber-Crime, Cyber-Terrorism, and Open Access

The library is a safe place. It is known as a haven for all people, both because it provides access to free information and because it allows a significant peace within its doors; there are employees whose jobs are to simply help patrons find what they are looking for, teach them how to locate items…

Thoughts on We Are Legion

Anonymous. Sigh. I like that they evolved from memes and trolling to helping with revolutions. I do think there is an issue with a group that isn’t a group and doesn’t have direction or a leader. There will always be rogue actors, there will always be dissent, there will be chaos – so although Anonymous…

Thoughts on Hacking

I think as library and information professionals, we need to help the public with the overwhelming amount of cyber crime of which they are probably unaware. If they are aware of the dangers to their personal computers, smart phones, or personal wireless networks, they probably do not know how to guard against it. I have…

Thoughts on War Games

I remember this movie from my childhood. I was fairly young when I saw it and the memory is only that I enjoyed it. Or perhaps I enjoyed Matthew Broderick’s boyish charm. It was nice seeing computer technology in its infancy and how the world didn’t understand what was possible but a few individuals were…

Thoughts on Cyber-Terrorists, Strategy

Do I think cyber-terrorism is a threat? Yes. Do I think the government uses it as hysteria to record and share information about our citizens? Yes. I think we need to protect our critical infrastructure from cyber attack. We need to make sure our water, our transportation hubs, our power sources are protected. But can’t…