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I Have Moved!
Hello! I am no longer updating this blog. Content can now be found at http://www.meganbuttita.com. Please update your bookmarks and visit me at my new and improved site!
Megan
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Thursday, January 22, 2009
The Internet in 2035
I watched this video the other day which features Vint Cerf, commonly referred to as the father of the internet. He makes some outstanding predictions, while being a very engaging and likeable speaker. At the end of the speech, he warns us of the dangers of digitizing everything without a backup print document. What would happen if the materials we digitize today cannot be read by the software of the future? Everyone should be aware of the dangers of relying solely on technology, and he makes a good point at explaining this. By keeping our perspective broad and our minds open, we can move towards a digital environment while being conservative in our techniques.
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Social Apps and Searching
The other day, I was listening to an NPR Science Friday podcast about how sites like Netflix and Pandora try to recommend other things you might be interested in. Netflix is giving away prizes for people who can improve their recommendation algorithm. While these companies focus on better marketing solutions, one person who called into the show made me very proud to be in the library science field!
She pointed out that while it's nice to have suggestions on these websites, she was disappointed that the sites do not have the same searching functionality as databases at her local library!! I concur! There should be more advanced searching and filtering options to group and sort and drill down the way you would in EBSCO. Sure, you can search by genre or title, but how about adding other fields like director, year, songwriter, etc.? It's only a matter of time before people start to demand more options when searching social applications of all types.
Speaking of social apps, here are a few cool lists from Mashable.com.
70+ Free iPhone Apps for Social Media Mavens
50+ Sites for Book Lovers
Top 30 iPhone Apps for Organization and Productivity
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Cyborg Anthropology
Cyborg anthropology is a fascinating field of study that I have been following for the past few months. One of the most current and interesting people that writes on the topic is Amber Case. Cyborg anthropology can be thought of as the co-existence of humans and machines. We all interact with machines on a daily basis and this has affected ever aspect of our humanity. Cyborg anthropology aims to study and document the effects of our interactions with technology.
I've been noticing the situations and outcomes of these interactions more and more after reading just the tip of the iceberg about this sub specialty. The following video of a projected computer screen that can be used anywhere, shows a possible future where machines and humans interact seamlessly - very exciting stuff!
Friday, December 19, 2008
This Just In!
I wanted to share some sites I recently ran across that are super cool and exciting!
Juice is a great browser application that allows you to drag and drop chunks of text or pictures into the sidebar and "juice" other mentions (video, articles, etc.) on the topic. I just started using it with Firefox and so far, it's a fun way to discover more about the things you are interested in on the web.
Hakia is a search engine that provides credible results that are recommended by librarians. It uses relevancy instead of sites that pay to be at the top! Yay to librarian input and results!
Searchme is a visual search engine that has an "iTunes" type feel to it. You can choose from a "stacks" of material related to your search terms. For example, if you type in "black cats", the stacks "cats", "Halloween", "music", "history", "blogs", etc. all come up to search through. The pages also highlight your search terms much like the Google cache feature. Very cool visual search tool that is currently in beta (Searchme widget is at the bottom of this page).
One site I recently came across that is using the age-old "school textbooks are too expensive and not interactive" adage is Flat World Knowledge. It's a great example of how the internet is forcing the printed book to change! It's not yet in production, but this is a site to keep and eye out for - especially for students!
Yahoo! Pipes looks like a free alternative to InfoDesk. I haven't tested it out yet, but from what I read, it's pretty powerful in terms of aggregating all the sites and RSS feeds you subscribe to.
Clip Syndicate is a cool tool that allows you to search for TV news sites and turn them into RSS feeds.
Monday, November 17, 2008
History of the Printed Book
I recently took a class at the Chicago Botanic Gardens called "History of the Printed Book." It was a great class in which we got to work with and learn about incunabula (books printed, not handwritten, before 1501) and discuss the future of the printed book. At the end of the semester, we watched Farewell, Etaoin Shrdlu, a short film on the last day of the New York Times hot type press and the transition to cold type. The class and the movie left me with the question of what is the real future of the book? How will future generations use and value paper and printed materials? How will librarians be perceived in this ever-changing environment?
Our professor, Ed Valauskas, brought up many interesting points about the future of the printed book. He mentioned a book, Born Digital, that provides interviews with young people that have grown up with computers and what books and digital mediums mean to them. I have yet to read this book, but it's definitely on my list!
Another point that was made is that there are more books being published now than any point in history. One possible reason for this is that books sell better if they are online. If you like what you read in an abstract, then you are more likely to purchase the actual book. Publishers can also use the internet to their advantage and use marketing tools to see what people are looking up, and then print more or less copies on that topic or book depending on what users are interested in online. One example of this is Erasmus Darwin, Charles Darwin's grandfather, who has come into popularity over the past few years.
My conclusion is that technology does not mean the end to the book. Quite the contrary - I believe it means a greater interest in the value of printed materials, new innovations (which this country needs now more than ever!) such as digital paper, and the future of the library as a place for technological and literary exploration.
How will books look in the future? Only time will tell. Will everyone be reading Kindles? I doubt it. Will printed books go the way of the dinosaur? No way!
What an exciting time to be a librarian!
Saturday, November 15, 2008
The Semantic Web
Web 3.0,or the semantic web, is a fascinating concept - and one I think librarians need to capitalize on immediately! Web 3.0 can be thought of as performing searches that involve many complex facets all pertaining to the same subject on a multitude of different databases (sites) - making the web one large database. While web 3.0 has been envisioned as something completely automated, it is also time consuming and presently beyond our technological capabilities. From the article Tim, Lucy, and the Semantic Web, "You get the ability to do all these very complex queries, but it takes a tremendous amount of time and metadata to make that happen."
I think this sounds like the perfect opportunity for librarians to grab a piece of the pie!
Managing and retrieving information/knowledge has always been a major task at hand for library professionals and knowledge management. To have software that would take any search or word or picture that we look at and then link to all the most pertinent data related to that piece of information with accuracy, would be a huge breakthrough.
But can computers and software manage this task alone?
Maybe. But the addition of human know-how, nuances in language or idioms that might take artificial intelligence time to catch onto, the ability to read a question deeper than the words on the page, that's where I believe librarians can, and should, be a part of.
In a recent article PC.mag article Why Google Must Die, the author mentions how SEO would affect an automated semantic web. There is a disconnect between what humans can make a system believe, and how humans can control what the systems does. This again, is what information professionals should be on the cutting edge of - if not right in the middle!
Food for thought, and I'm sure not the last time I will discuss this topic!
Some "web 3.0" sites to try out:
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