The next Carnival of the Infosciences is up at Library Stuff.
What I Learned Today…
Web 2.0 and programming tips from a library technology enthusiast, What I Learned Today… covers blogs, rss, wikis and more as they relate to libraries.
Monthly Archives: March 2006
To associate or not to associate
I have read many posts and many more comments on posts regarding library association members and I have to admit that my head is spinning!
Before I start I should let you know that I belong to 1 association and that is only because work pays for it.
Now, what is the point of a professional organization? To me the point of being a member should be summed up on one word “opportunity”
Opportunity to learn from others in your field and opportunity to socialize and network with said people. Maybe that’s a simplified definition, but that’s how I see it. Not being a member, I don’t know the details, but it sounds to me like the ALA is not fostering opportunities like it should.
I wish I could remember all of the posts I’ve read, but one commenter stated that people would be better off joining their state library associations instead of the ALA (or was it in addition to – can’t remember). One other person mentioned (which I didn’t know) that you have to join the ALA in order to join organizations like LITA (which is something I have considered joining) – which seems like a money making scheme to me.
Meredith has a post that I just read today titled: Martyrdom and ALA, which in addition to being a good post has some very interesting comments. Dorothea comments
What I've said is, ALA is inefficient, ineffective, and on a couple of vital issues entirely wrongheaded, and as good people, we have RUN OUT OF WAYS TO CHANGE THAT from within.
I repeat my call. Leave ALA until ALA comes to the table with a serious plan for reform…
Posts like this and the others I’ve been reading lately make me want to joining any library associations. Not that I can say that anyone is right or wrong – because I’m not really involved – but Dorothea’s call (and others) has made me decide to sit back and wait.
Nifty Travel Site
Okay, this isn’t library related, but I just read about VCarious on Sites & Soundbytes and it looks pretty nifty! It’s a travel site that has been created by users – which in and of itself isn’t unique, but it looks like one great big mashup. There are journal pages about locations, there are pictures, there are google maps, and it looks like the pages are like wikis (I don’t know for sure because I didn’t sign up for an account).
SpamKarma Woes
Okay, who can explain to me how this silly little plugin works? First I no longer get emails when a comment is waiting, Second when I add a domain and IP to my whitelist that person is still blocked – and grabbed by SpamKarma.
I do have to say that this program has caught a lot of actual spam and I want to keep using it, but it’s a little annoying to have to come back here and check my spam harvest every hour or so.
lib.rario.us
Library Thing is great, but I have a huge media collection in addition to my books – and since I’m very very very very protective of my books, I’m more likely to share my CDs and movies with friends and family. Enter lib.rario.us. This service lets you catalog all of your media! It’s no where near as polished as Library Thing, but the potential is there and I’m going to keep an eye on it.
Thanks Gwen for sending me this link. (maybe one day she’ll have a blog of her own for me to link to 
)
Uh Oh!
Looks like I ruffled a few feathers with my most recent L2 post. The problem with communicating in this way (via the web) is that people don’t really know you, your personality, or your tones. First, I want to apologize for making people think I was telling them to “shut up” … in fact my mother would probably call me up to ground me right this second for even typing that … Steve Lawson (who commented on Walt’s thread) interpreted me correctly
I do not read that as “make them shut up and sit down” I read it as “make them stop ripping on Library 2.0 long enough to think about what Abram is saying.”
And I didn’t mean that just because Stephen Abram said something it must be true – I just meant that his post was really well written, made some excellent points, and had an impact on me.
Update 8:56am:
I just wanted to add this postscript because I’ve been sitting here perplexed for the last hour or so – why is there any controversy at all surrounding such a little idea – the idea that it’s time for libraries to re-evaluate, learn new things and give the patrons more control? Is it the control issue? Is it the change issue? Is it the learning issue? I just don’t get it – and maybe that’s why I had such a “spunky” (to use Stephen Cohen’s word) post. Maybe the problem is because L2 has been used in conjunction with words like bandwagon – which I agree gives it a negative feel – but can’t we look past that and see that all we all want is to offer better services to our patrons? So what if I call it L2 and you don’t want to give it a label? I’d like to think we all want the same thing in the end.
Okay rant over – I’m done – for today
