6/2 Readings

A few of my thoughts and/or responses to this week's readings...

Culture of connectivity

1.)At the beginning of this presentation, one of the speakers addresses the issue of a "digital divide". One of my first jobs out of college was working for a small, start-up non-profit called TechLink NH.  My primary job was to do a variety of research on technology access in the state, especially in connection with public libraries.  A lot of the research I did was specifically used for grant writing purposes - I was supposed to find data that showed how bad the digitial divide was in NH, especially in rural areas, to justify requesting grant funding to work on the issue. The problem was, all the literature actually showed how well NH was doing in that regard! Which is great for NH but made me job a lot more difficult! The digital divide obviously exists, but it favors non-minorities, educated, middle class people (as seen in the other presentation we viewed this week).

2.) I was intersted to hear that college students report one of the reasons for using Facebook is as a way to keep in touch with old friends for longer periods of time.  This is my primary reason for using Facebook.  Being 10 years out of undergrad now, most of my college friends are spread out across the world. I would not be in touch with them the way I am now without social networking (and that's even more true for high school, middle school, etc. friends.) I guess I was a little surprised to hear that students who are in college now use Facebook for the same reason.

3.) Just because students/young people used to a search engine doesn’t mean they know how to use it, or know how to verify the validity of a resource. I'm still vehemently opposed to using Wikipedia in a bibliography! Learning how to reasearch correctly is such a valuable tool. There is (or should be, at least) a lot more to it than punching some words into Google.


New Media Old Media

The really interesting point in this article is how much more foreign (non-us) events are reported in non-traditional press outlets.  This represents the globalization of information.  It makes it possible for people to seek out the information they want rather than solely rely on what the newspapers report.  It also offers a variety of stories – most newspapers have the same headlines, while twitter, youtube, and blogs rarely share the same top story.  However, stories come and go quickly and may not be researched in depth.  I personally wouldn't depend on youtube or Twitter as my sole source of information on a subject, but they can be very helpful in alerting people to topics and events taking place outside of the US. 

Pros and Cons

1.) Jessica Clark discusses“incivility, bullying, bias, [and] prejudice” in social media which is an interesting point to bring up. I'm always a little surprised when I read comments on message boards, especially on news oultets. There is often a shocking amount of racist, sexism, misogyny, etc.  Does the anonymity of the internet provide us the opportunity to be brutally honest or just not adhere to social niceties? Or could it just be an outlet for people looking to do nothing but shock and get a rise out of people? I have to wonder if these posters - or Facebook bullies, or any other number of internet "trolls" - would be saying these same things in a face-to-face conversation.

2.) Matt Hinckley brings up the pressure to be first over being right, and Trevor Butterworth talks about how an oultet like Twitter can instantly create chaos without verification.  This is a very interesting phenomenon which is very unique to this age of constant and instant digital information.  It made me think of the January shooting of Rep Gabrielle Giffords. I was following the news online, and all of the first reports were that she had been killed (when, of course, she's alive and doing well.) On one hand, it's great to have such access to information. On the other hand, we have to be very careful on what we report and what we automatically believe ue. 

Evolution or Revolution

This article discusses the school of thought that Library 2.0 is neither revolutionary nor evolutionary.  My question is, can Library 2.0 not be both a revolution AND an evolution? Can't we look at it in terms of a whole new way of doing things (revolutionary) using many of the same tools with some updates and modifications (evolutionary)? We as librarians don't have to reinvent the wheel, but we do need to grow, change and adapt to the new technologies, much as the rest of  the world is.

The one point I take a bit of an issue with is the claim that "technological illiteracy" is a reason to shy away from Library 2.0. I think that's not giving people enough credit.  People are more tech savvy these days than ever before.  No, we can't make things exorbitantly difficult, but we can trust the public to execute internet searches.