“A recent post on the blog Alt Ref has gotten me thinking about information literacy in the 2.0 world. In his post, Brian stats that info lit is “very Un-Library 2.0 (the ‘proper way vs. your way)”. Why is this and how can it be changed?”
A good read, and worth thinking about.
Popurls.com is a website that collects the most popular link collectors (del.icio.us, news.google.com, news.yahoo.com, fark.com, flickr, youtube.com, video.google.com, and many more) onto one convenient page.
I happen to visit most of these sites daily individually, but I may start just hitting this one alone since I’m not (I know, gasp) a huge fan of RSS readers. I’m a “get it in one spot” kind of girl. 
Anyway, just thought I’d toss that one out there for a little Monday sweetness and light.
Cool! Imagine if libraries could do something similar with their historical collections! Surely if they can do it, we can.
“We are pleased to announce that more than 8,000 digital images depicting more than 7,000 objects from the permanent collection at the Spencer Museum of Art are now available to anyone with Internet access. This digital collection currently represents less than 30 percent of the museum’s collection, which numbers more than 26,000 objects. The digital collection will continue to grow over the next year, and information on objects will be regularly updated as new scholarly research is generated. These digital images provide educators, researchers and art enthusiasts worldwide with unprecedented access to the museum’s collection.
The rapidly growing virtual collection is a collaborative project between the Spencer and the University’s Scholarly Digital Initiatives program. The Spencer is digitally documenting its collection with funding from a variety of sources, including a $149,061 grant from the Institute of Museum & Library Services, an independent federal agency. Supported by KU’s Information Services, this ongoing project will result in access to digital images and electronic records of the entire collection.
The Spencer Museum of Art’s collection is available online through the KU Libraries’ Image Gateway at http://www.lib.ku.edu/imagegateway . Visitors to the site can search for objects through a variety of data, including artist’s name, material and date of creation. Additional collections of images are also available through the Image Gateway, including art historical images licensed from Saskia and from the National Palace Museum, Taipei; artifacts from the Kansas City Hopewell Archaeological Sites from KU’s Anthropological Research and Teaching Collections; historic photographs from the Kenneth Spencer Research Library’s Kansas Collection; and images of wildflowers from the Kansas Biological Survey.”
The internet filtering advocates are at it again… this time it’s not porn that’s the target… it’s social websites.
The Deleting Online Predators Act of 2006 (DOPA) seeks to “require recipients of universal service support for schools and libraries to protect minors from commercial social networking websites and chat rooms.” That means that for kids under 18, those customer reviews of products on Amazon you like to read while shopping… gone. Their favorite hometown blog? Gone. Their Flickr photos? Can’t get ‘em in the library. The way filtering works now is that it’s always on until someone eligible (over 18) ASKS to have the filter removed. To me this has always seemed like a punishment for people wanting to look up sensitive information at the library. Imagine if, in order to look at your favorite blogs, you had to ask the librarian to turn off the filter. No one would come to the library to use the computers anymore. This can’t be good, and is clearly against our mission to provide information access to all.
Here’s an interesting article about the bill, and a link to the text of the bill itself.
If you disagree, or even agree, with this bill, be sure to contact your legislator with your opinion.
NEKLS’s recent pilot project using WordPress for easy-t0-create, easy-to-update and easy-to-maintain web pages for libraries appears to be a harbinger of things to come. Another such project, announced in late April, is called EngagedPatrons.org./
Q. What is EngagedPatrons.org?
A. We provide website services for public libraries. We enable you to offer your users a more engaging and interactive web presence. EngagedPatrons.org (EP) services fit seamlessly into your existing web site. To your users, it appears they have never left your site!
Read the rest of the FAQ at their web site, and learn more about this exciting development in improving library access for everyone!
