A little cross-fertilization

Image via Wikipedia

Today I decided to do a little cross-pollination from the FaceBook group of the same name (Digital Collaboration) which, of course, you are welcome to join.

There, I asked if you could list the issues that you think you should know something about in order to be a successful 21st century information professional. So far, the suggestions have been:

OPEN ACCESS/OPEN EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES

Australian Policy Online (apo.org.au) Briefing paper on impact of open access outside European universities. http://www.apo.org.au/research/briefing-paper-impact-open-access-outside-european-universities

Legal aspects of Open Access in Australia: http://www.oaklaw.qut.edu.au/

Fitzgerald, Anne (2009).  Open access policies, practices and licensing: a review of the literature in Australia and selected jursidictions.  (pdf available here).  http://eprints.qut.edu.au/28026/

Academic publishing in Europe. http://www.ape2011.eu/

Open access: Europe’s secret weapon? http://www.lightreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=158534

Directory of Open Access Journals http://www.doaj.org/doaj?func=newTitles (courtesy of Lund University).

Hylén, Jan (2007). Giving Knowledge for Free: The Emergence of Open Educational Resources. Paris, France: OECD 10.1787/9789264032125-en

“Open educational resources programme – phase 1” JISC 2009

“Open educational resources programme – phase 2“. JISC. 2010.

WSIS Platform of Communities.  http://www.wsis-community.org/pg/groups/14358/open-educational-resources-oer/

University of Geneva. CERN Workshop on innovations in Scholarly Communication.  22-24 June 2011.  http://indico.cern.ch/conferenceDisplay.py?confId=103325

People’s Open Access Education.  http://www.peoples-uni.org/

OECD. Giving knowledge for free.  http://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/education/giving-knowledge-for-free_9789264032125-en

OER Commons.  http://www.oercommons.org/

I HAVE EMPHASISED THIS SECTION I suppose because it serves to illustrate the extent to which we (the people) – knowledge users and creators – live in a virtual, digital, information environment.  My apologies if you think I have gone a bit overboard.  What is our role in such an environment?  Do we become guides and mentors? Comments?

DIGITAL PRESERVATION

National Library of Australia. http://www.nla.gov.au/preserve/digipres/

Digital preservation e-forum. http://neflin2.blogspot.com/2011/01/digital-preservation-e-forum.html

Digital Preservation Coalition.  http://www.dpconline.org/

Alliance for Permanent Access.  http://www.alliancepermanentaccess.org/events/event-payments

JISC Beginner’s guide to digital preservation. 2011.   http://www.alliancepermanentaccess.org/events/event-payments

CREATIVE COMMONS

http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Global_Meeting_2011

Critical information literacy (Not only for library users – records managers and archivists would also know that their users may well need some assistance in this area).

Primary author here is James Elborg.

Association of College and Research Libraries. 2006. http://acrlblog.org/2006/03/21/making-information-literacy-critical/

Information Literacy Thinking Group.  http://infotheory.commons.gc.cuny.edu/2011/02/09/2011-lacuny-instruction-spring-event/

Swanson, Troy.  2004.  A radical step: implementing a critical information literacy model.  http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/portal_libraries_and_the_academy/summary/v004/4.2swanson.html

Archive fever: interations on identity and knowledge in an age of accelerated human information interaction. (interesting blog).  http://www.archivefever.com/2011_01_01_archive.html

Viadhyanathan, Siva. Critical information studies: a bibliographic manifesto.  http://www.sivacracy.net/archives/002930.html. (I really like this).  You could also take a look at

Pawley, Christine.  2003. Information literacy: a contradictory coupling. Library Quarterly, Vol. (4): pp. 422-452.

INFORMATION VISUALISATION

15th International Conference on Information Visualisation (in London).  http://www.wikicfp.com/cfp/servlet/event.showcfp?eventid=12052&copyownerid=17187

Some examples: http://www.flickr.com/groups/datavisualization/pool/

And some more: http://www.designer-daily.com/information-is-beautiful-30-examples-of-creative-infography-5538

I love the way these guys transform data into something easily understandable:  Information is beautiful. http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/

The state of information visualisation 2011.  http://eagereyes.org/blog/2011/state-of-infovis-2011

AT &T Labs Research Information Visualisation.  http://www.research.att.com/groups/infovis/ (And they’re looking for staff!!)

Bertini, Enrico.  I fell in love with data [blog].  Here he lists the most important papers to read on information visualisation. http://fellinlovewithdata.com/guides/7-classic-foundational-vis-papers and more useful stuff at http://infosthetics.com/archives/author/enrico_bertini/

MARKETING

There is a journal devoted to this topic:Marketing library services. http://www.infotoday.com/mls/jan11/index.shtml as well as a track at the upcoming ‘Computers in Libraries‘ Conference (March, Washington DC): http://www.infotoday.com/cil2011/day.asp?day=Monday#TrackD.

Dempsey, Kathy. 2009.  The accidental library marketer.  Medford, NJ: Information Today Inc. is a recent book on this topic.  A book review of this item appears at http://www.infotoday.com/mls/jan11/Book-Review-The-Accidental-Library-Marketer.shtml, explaining why this is important for librarians.

Ideas for marketing can be found at the blog New marketing trends: marketing ideas for non-profits and libraries. http://themwordblog.blogspot.com/2011/01/2011-john-cotton-dana-library-public.html

Marketing in 2011. http://www.margieclayman.com/ten-questions-and-answers-about-2011-marketing

Many of you will be aware of the IFLA Marketing Award: http://www.ifla.org/management-and-marketing/marketing-award

THE DIGITAL USER

This is a useful and recent starting point: Digital library futures: user perspectives and institutional strategies.  2010.  Edited by Ingeborg Verheul, Anna Maria Tammaro & Steve Witt.  Berlin/Munich: De Gruyter Saur.

Enhancing user interactions in digital libraries is a useful blog, with plenty of examples as well.  http://boonious.typepad.com/ux2/2011/01/index.html

CROWD SOURCING AND MASH-UPS

‘Crowdsourcing’ is sometimes used as a synonym for ‘outsourcing’.  In the information world, it means getting a range of opinions and ideas from which to choose – hopefully this choice means you will discern the best possible information.

Interesting sites and software can be found at this blog: Readwriteweb.  http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/crowdsourcing_million_heads.php

Crowdsourcing in action can be experienced at this blog:  http://crowdsourcing.typepad.com/

This leads naturally into the next topic:

SEMANTIC WEB

The Semantic Web continues to develop. Some latest news: http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/parc_releases_new_semantic_technology_in_form_of_an_outlook_plugin.php

There is, in fact, a semantic web association (there had to be, I suppose): http://iswc.semanticweb.org/

A guide to the top recent software for the semantic web:  http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/top_10_semantic_web_products_of_2010.php and http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/semantic-web/

There are a couple of conferences coming up on the topic, too (aren’t there always?  In fact, who has the time and money to attend all of these conferences?????)

The 10th International Conference on the semantic web is being held in Germany this year: http://iswc2011.semanticweb.org/

There is, interestingly enough, a call for papers on the topic of semantic web and collaboration (through social networking).  Check it out: http://www.wikicfp.com/cfp/servlet/event.showcfp?eventid=11843&copyownerid=9889

Combining with information visualisation, there is a conference in Palo Alto on Visual interfaces to the social and semantic web, but as it’s this Sunday, I don’t suppose many of you will be able to go, even if you really wanted to! http://www.smart-ui.org/events/vissw2011/

In Europe – Crete, Greece, to be precise – the EU is holding a conference on the Extended Semantic Web. http://www.future-internet.eu/events/eventview/article/eswc2011-the-8th-extended-semantic-web-conference.html

CLOUDWORKS

Cloud computing predictions for 2011.  http://www.computerworlduk.com/in-depth/cloud-computing/3253266/cloud-computing-2011-predictions/; http://www.cio.com/article/645763/Cloud_Computing_2011_Predictions; http://www.cloudtweaks.com/2010/11/2011-cloud-computing-predictions/; http://searchcloudcomputing.techtarget.com/feature/Cloud-computing-in-2011-Whats-on-tap;

ACM Symposium on Cloud computing: http://socc2011.gsd.inesc-id.pt/

One other link that some of you may be interested in is the South African framework for digital resources, available at: http://digi.nrf.ac.za/publ/Managing%20Digital%20Collections.pdf

Underneath each of these topics, I have inserted linked to some of the seminal sites in the respective area.

TWO QUESTIONS:

What other topics are important to you and should be discussed here?

Would you like to contribute a paragraph or two on why you find this essential/intriguing/important or whatever?

This is long.  That’s what happens when information professionals get going.  We know there’s so much out there.

Have a wonderful weekend, everyone.

Sue

Related Articles

• The Importance of Open Access, Open Source, and Open Standards… (istl.org)
• Openness: Just What the Doctoral Student Ordered (opendotdotdot.blogspot.com)
• List of “open access” journals from WPA-L (vpiercy.wordpress.com)
• 6 Tasks A Digital Preservation Service Must Do (girlinthearchive.wordpress.com)