Thing 15, Week 6

I skimmed through the short articles and noticed the ones with a date on them were 2005 or 2006. They were optomistic about librarians being able to do all things for all people - nothing new there - just the tools are new. I did get the sense that there is a sense of urgency in learning the web 2.0 tools so that we can adapt how we have done things in the pass to meet the needs of the patron centered world where we need to be focused on application of the tools and finding ways to remove obstacles. One interesting fact that was pointed out is that we no longer have the time to "train" our patrons and many of the new tools out there that are being used are ones that are quite simple to learn and use.

I also skimmed through the Horizon Report and went back and printed it out. It's a 2008 copyright and proved to be very interesting. It pointed out 6 key areas of technological change that will impact educatation. Read it if you'd like to learn about all six - it's worth it. It ties all of these "things" together in a more sophisticated way than what we typically see being used by the general public. One point made in the report is that current social networking sites don't differentiate between shallow and deep information and connections between users. There is a huge amount of data gathering going on right now that isn't being utilized on a sophisticated level. That data could be useful, but do we really want all that data and who should have access? Who does have access? With all the collaboration, increased access, mashups and user interactions we are really becoming transparent. Is that a good thing? Is it a bad thing?

hmmmmm.... I think it's time to head back to the garden and think about it.