in a way we did get a gift of sorts this time around. i thoroughly enjoyed the TED video as performed by jimmy wales of wikipedia fame. what a guy! a "free" encyclopedia in every home, that can afford a) a computer, b) the internet c) has electricity...yes, i am a cynic. to be fair, i think his heart is definitely in the right place. i love the way wikipedia works the legion of dedicated volunteers and info-geeks who contribute and edit that volume of information is astounding. i think they have the right business model. imagine a world of wiki-everything?! do you hear john lennon singing "imagine" about now?
as for the other articles, i have seen the possibilities of wikis in the library. i think that it is an excellent tool for student assistant training and communications. we tried using facebook in a similar way to coordinate student schedules but that kind of collaboration works if one has buy-in from all parties. how does one get pain-in-the a*#, techno-phobic colleagues to see the light?
i found the library "folksonomy article equally intriguing. once again, there are many folks in the library world who can't quite deal with giving up control over anything. however, starting out on the reference level and promoting this kid of collaboration amongst students might just get us to the point where people might enjoy sharing information...imagine a library where the users created their own catalog? what would it look like? uh oh, i hear lennon again. no...
what i hear is a legion of dead shushers rolling in their graves.
2 comments:
hahaa i get/enjoyed the cornyness. yeah, i can't help but wonder how long wikipedia will last as a nonprofit org; I just noticed how they are actively soliciting donors, must be the bad economy.
Did you really say "anyhoo"?
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