Websites in Academic Research

It is the height of banality to state that the internet has fundamentally changed how we research; banality often hides truth. When young people get to be college age they usually have had extensive experience using the internet but often lack research skills. Much of our job as university-educators focuses on supplying these skills. One such skill is to use the internet for research or, more particularly, evaluating websites for use in academic research. Below is an example of a video designed to impart these skills:

Unit 1: A New Way

What is in This Unit?
And introduction to Web 2.0 using a brace of excellent videos.

Objective
By the end of this unit, a learner should:
Have a general understanding of what Web 2.0 is and what it means for how we live our lives.

Since about mid-2005, there has been a shift in how we use the internet for...well, pretty much everything really. The two videos below give some idea of the dramatic nature of this shift and what this shift potentially means for information literacy.

Tasks
Watch these videos and, in a blog, write a response to one or both. You may like to use the following questions as provocations for your posting:

• Do you think we really are using the internet in a different way?
• How do these videos relate to your experience of using technology?
• Why do you think there has been a sudden rise in popularity of social media?
• When was the first time you heard the phrase "Web 2.0" and how have you since related to the term?
• Do you feel the phrase is a good one? What might be a better term?

Brushing off the Dust and Joining the World

 Libraries. Boring, dusty, places of quite contemplation right? Well, not so much any more. 

The Library of Congress - the world's largest library - have become one of the best users of social media to broaden its reach and to provide greater access to its digital collections. Although these digital collections are available on their website, in January 2008 they set about posting their photos to Flickr. After this pilot project "resoundingly exceeded expectations" the library have since added their videos to YouTube and audio files to iTunes. Here is a brief overview of some initiatives the library has put in place.

YouTube

Currently, these videos span the gamut from some of the earliest movies made through to recordings of contemporary happenings at the library. The project started with more than 70 videos, in April 2009, with a commitment to continuously update content; a commitment they have honoured with over 336 videos available on the channel. Here is a cute wee cartoon from 1921:

Flickr

Uploading the pictorial collections to Flickr was an experiment to "gain a better understanding of how social tagging and community input could benefit both the Library and users of the collections."

Abraham Lincoln, Pres't U.S. (LOC):

Benefits to the Library

Not only does social media allow the library to, in the words of James H. Billington - Librarian of Congress -  "remove many of the impediments to making our unparalleled content more useful to many more people" but it also reduces the work of library staff. For example, the Flickr project has not only allowed users to comment and tag photos in the collection, it has even helped librarians identify the location of travel paintings which staff could not identify.

Read more:

Twitter

Blog

Facebook

Such Dramatic Changes?

I stumbled upon Steve Rosenbaum's article about "5 Trends that Will Change Media in '09." Whilst it is all very well and good to gaze into our crystal ball, we should do so be carefully looking back at what has passed. In particular, the growth of e-books.

Other than the legacy of the physical experience (the paper of the New York Times, the Album Covers of old records, the binding of books) the reality is that digital delivery is better for the planet, and has both the long-tail efficiencies and creative freedom that gives digital creators the ability to lower costs (and therefore price). MIddlemen who don't add value should beware, Digital Goods delivery doesn't require both a wholesale and a retail seller.

I know Rosenbaum is talking about much more than e-books here - and I agree with him that providing digital content provides much more freedom, freedoms offered by sites such as soundclick - this may not be the case for things such as books. I remember that one of the things often touted by eBook advocates is that they will reduce the costs for the end user. The reality is that the production costs of books are actually very low; the largest proportion of the money you pay for a book goes into the publisher's coffers. This solution is simple you say: just get rid of the publisher. However, are we to rely on information that does not have at least some verifiability?

Also, at present, there is very little in the way of gadgets to read eBooks on. Sure, Amazon has Kindle but apart from that there is very little out there that can even come close the to superiority of paper. One reason the codex design has persisted for so long is that it is actually of incredibly superior design. Until an eBook reader can come close to the brilliant design of a pBook I don't think there will be such an explosion of eBooks. After all, we are still waiting...