Tag Archives: information management

OMG my tweets r gonna be preserved 4eva!

Posted on April 18, 2010 | 1 Comment

Interesting news from the Library of Congress: They will be archiving every public tweet since Twitter’s inception in March 2006 in a digital repository for long-term preservation. I’ve always thought this was an interesting issue facing Twitter, as it becomes more and more a place where people are recording their personal histories. The LC blog post points to the historical importance of Barack Obama’s tweet after having won the 2008 presidential election. I also wonder about all those tweets that captures an event — everything from political protests, to movie premiers, to conferences, to natural disasters — that are a primary resource created by those experiencing the event, and that offer massive insights into what happened, how people reacted to it, and how we can learn from it. As it stands, Twitter is a terrible repository for capturing an historical event or experience. I tried to look for a link someone sent me last year via Twitter and it was nearly impossible to find… I had to dig through my account via a third-party application to finally track it down, and that’s only from last year! Imagine trying to find a tweet that was sent thirty years ago. Continue reading →

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O.A., eh oh.

Posted on July 13, 2009 | 3 Comments

As I’ve mentioned before, I was Managing Editor of the Faculty of Information Quarterly at school, but in my new capacity as an academic library, I serve on the York University Libraries’ Scholarly Communications Committee. All of a sudden, instead of just complaining about the inherent evil of journal vendors, I actually have to learn about tangible issues! Ah crap!Journals

One of the movements sweeping the world of academic publishing is the Open Access movement. I didn’t realllly get it until I attended some sessions on the topic at the CLA Annual Conference. And then had to explain it to non-librarians (the true test of knowledge).

I had to sum up my job to parents, and in doing so, found myself explaining in the simplest terms possible, the whole “Open Access” movement. I told them this:

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Two neat ways to organize your web stuff: Zotero and Digsby

Posted on December 31, 2008 | 1 Comment

Over the Christmas break, I’ve gotten cozy with a couple neat applications that I thought I’d share. There’s nothing like getting all your web-based stuff organized over the holidays to brace for the busy-ness that lies ahead in the New Year. It’s like cleaning out your closet and making sense of the stuff that piles up doing the year. Organizational bliss!

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Reaction to Bill-C 61

Posted on June 15, 2008 | 1 Comment

Jim Prentice has presented a new copyright bill in the House this past week that has Canada’s information world up in arms! The reaction was pretty incredible – Metro Morning’s tech specialist was freaking out on the radio, Michael Geist has been clogging up my google reader and the CLA listserv’s e-mails are scathing, to say the least. It’s been said before, but I’ll say it here… When did COPYRIGHT become such an exciting topic?! It’s great that so many people are making the connections between their own behaviours and activities, and federal legislation that is wordy and boring and not a great read on a Sunday afternoon. Continue reading →

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IS/IT Project Description & Review

Posted on November 8, 2007 | Leave a comment

This is a project I completed for my Information Technology class, in which we were required to review a particular digital repository. I reviewed a product called Fedora, which you can check out at: http://www.fedora-commons.org/
My favorite fedora-based project is the Encyclopedia of Chicago, which is beautiful, accessible and an excellent example of a digital archive: http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/ (Note that the scenario is fictitious, though an awesome idea!… In my opinion.)

 

The UTE Project: The University of Toronto Libraries have launched an ambitious project: In collaboration with the University of Toronto Archives and the federated colleges, plans are underway for the launch of the University of Toronto Encyclopedia (UTE) – a comprehensive, multimedia compendium of photographic, sound, audiovisual and text entries related to the history and academic achievements of the University of Toronto. The UTE will exist entirely online in electronic form and once the Collections Team has created archival fonds, written entries, and amassed audiovisual materials, the Systems Team will begin the process of uploading the collection to the the information management system.

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Wikis – Some thoughts on usability

Posted on October 18, 2007 | 2 Comments

This is an article review I wrote for our Information Technology class. This article is drawn from Ariadne, which is a great online magazine: http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue55/. It’s a UK magazine which is nice – I find everything I read from the library world is North American, so it’s good to get off the continent once in awhile. The language is a bit technical, but not too much; certain articles will push you out of your comfort zone, but since the content is entirely focused on technology in libraries and information centres, it’s never too far from home.

I can’t remember what the original assignment told us to do, but I basically turned it into a literature review of how people interact with wikis (a sparse topic, to be sure). This is a topic that is near and dear to me – people always get excited about implementing new technologies, but of course you have to win over people’s hearts and minds if you ever want that technology to be used. I’m facing this challenge in my work at the Library of Parliament this summer. I am creating a large e-resource that will be used by all the parliamentary librarians, and hopefully by the public as well. I’m acutely aware however, that I must conscientiously ensure that the technology is usable, but also that I show people how to use it and why they should use it. I’ll have to draw on information literacy principles to ensure that my work doesn’t go to waste simply because I ignored the most important part of it: The people using it!!

Guy, M. (2006). Wiki or won’t he? A tale of public sector wikis. [Electronic version]. Ariadne, October (49). Retrieved October 17 2007, from http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue49/guy/

In the article, “Wiki or Won’t He? A Tale of Public Sector Wikis”, author Marieke Guy discusses wiki technology and its applicability in the public sector. As a member of the Interoperability Focus team at UKOLN, a centre for digital information management, Guy has written many articles concerning issues of web services in the library environment for online periodicals such as Adriane and d-lib. The aim of this article is to assess wiki use in the public sector, and suggest the means to extend and improve its application.

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