(Posting #4)
The amateur linguist in me had to find out more about the Semantic Web the first time I came across a mention of it somewhere online in the early 2000s, so the concept’s not quite new to me, though my knowledge has grown much deeper through our recent readings. In reading Cade Metz’s 2007 “Web 3.0” article, I found it heartening to realize that, while we’re certainly nowhere near a full-scale implementation of the Semantic Web (whatever that might look like), many related ideas and applications are already being tested out, like searching for non-text-based media with media and new ways to make better use of open-access sets of data.

Librarian commitments to patron privacy might rule out taking many steps towards Seth Godin’s version of “Web 4.0,” in which the internet is constantly making suggestions and assumptions that strike me as highly invasive. McDonald and Thomas’s Educase Quarterly article suggests that “Dogmatic library protection of privacy inhibits library support for file-sharing, work-sharing, and online trust-based transactions that are increasingly common in online environments, thus limiting seamless integration of Web-based services,” providing a reminder that this issue is evolving rather than just emerging. Generations to come may or may not feel the same hesitancy, and if such features become widespread, it will be interesting to see how they might be worked into library services.

(Posting #3)

Just as, at the beginning of the semester, I found it fascinating to get a glimpse into the process of how internet standards are created and adopted, it’s been very interesting to learn about organizations, like the Internet Society, that take on the seemingly vast and fundamental tasks of considering the architecture and the future of the internet. Browsing their site, I felt that the future of the internet seemed, in different ways, both more planned and less predictable than I might have expected. Their four scenarios for what the internet might look like in ten years (http://www.isoc.org/tools/blogs/scenarios/) especially provided lots of food for thought.

As you might expect, not all of them are particularly library-friendly. I’ve been following the issue of net neutrality since it came to my attention as an undergraduate, and since then there have been both troubling and heartening developments in the struggle to secure a permanent place for net neutrality within the law. As a companion to the assigned YouTube video, I find that this FAQ is a pretty good primer on the issue and where it stands today: http://www.savetheinternet.com/frequently-asked-questions . As library folks, we’re well used to thinking about issues of censorship and freedom of speech, and it seems to me that for librarians in general and librarians with web responsibilities in particular, warding off any diminishment of the internet as a level playing field for all types of speech is now a part of upholding such familiar values.

Posting #5

The readings on cloud computing (especially “Top Tech Trends of 2009” and Michael’s previous article on cloud computing, http://tametheweb.com/2008/08/04/how-can-libraries-use-the-cloud/) made me consider for the first time the now-ubiquitous (at least as a concept) idea of cloud computing as a prism through which to examine emerging services we might provide library users.

In the (non-library, but very web- and social-media-relevant) job I’ve recently started, we use Dropbox as well, and, minus some technical glitches, it’s a terrific but conceptually very simple way to collaborate online. (And a far more elegant means of accessing one’s own files across devices than my usual habit of sending myself an email with an attachment.) Even aside from the collaborative opportunities it presents, this could certainly be useful to, for instance, users of public library computer terminals who lack access to a computer, and its storage capabilities, at home. Instruction in this and similar programs (Google Docs et al.) could really expand and enhance the range of activities for which patrons can use library computers.

It seems to me that libraries have not necessarily come very far yet in nurturing online communities and encouraging technology-aided collaboration among their patrons, but I think many interesting opportunities might exist in this area as well. The Ipswich Library’s Remember When project (linked to in the same post, http://rememberwhen.pbworks.com/w/page/14347631/FrontPage), in which seniors share and post their memories, creating a sort of repository of historical and personal stories about the town, seems so natural a melding of community, programming, and technology that it’s almost hard to believe there aren’t more programs like it.

But while cloud computing catches on as a concept in some areas, other areas remain stubbornly device-specific. Many libraries currently are trying to figure out how best to serve users with e-books when not all formats are interoperable. When there’s money to be made by preventing a drift into the cloud, we can probably expect to see vendors clinging to more strictly control where their content is accessed from.

Here’s my Exercise 8. It’s such a relief to be able to do columns and move images where you want them! http://www.carefulq.com/exercise08.html

Just came across this interesting article on Slate.com:
http://www.slate.com/id/2285354/
about Google’s new Public Data Explorer tool, which the author sees as a possible step towards a universal format for numerical data on the web. Seems very relevant to the Semantic Web and discussions of interoperability, and possibly for any academic libraries involved with scientific scholarly publishing.