…or maybe not…

Librarians need to know about authoritative sources of information. Librarians need to teach other people how to evaluate the reliability of resources.

Nothing new there.

What is new is how widely distributed the sources can be and how important context can be to their authoritativeness – and how much librarians need to understand about these new contexts.

Three examples of the need to understand context crossed my desktop this week.

EXAMPLE ONE: Twitter is evil

Swine flu: Twitter’s power to misinform .  Evgeny Morozov, Foreign Policy, net.effect. 25/04/09. In Evgeny Morozov’s opinion Twitter is noisy and full of misinformation about Swine Flu and likely to scare people who will encourage others to panic.

I can’t quote the article due to possible copyright restrictions.

Instead, here’s a cartoon from xkcd, Swine Flu .

EXAMPLE TWO: Elsevier is evil.

Elsevier published fake medical journals: Elsevier published six ‘fake’ Australian medical journals on behalf of pharma companies Kate McDonald, Australian Life Scientist, 08/05/2009 .  The Australasian Journal of [insert term here] will no longer be taken quite so seriously now that Elsevier has revealed that the Australasian Journal of Bone and Joint Medicine was actually funded by pharmaceutical company Merck, contained only reprints or summaries of articles from other Elsevier journals that contained positive references to two of the company’s products and only had advertisements for the same two products.

I can’t quote the article due to possible copyright restrictions.

Instead, here is a link to a great conversation  from a mob of librarians on Friendfeed.It starts with a comment from Steve Lawson and continues with over eighty comments that range over the deficits of academic journals in general, I think the LSW needs to get Elsevier to publish the Australasian Journal of Library Science.

Oh, and a cartoon from Organisation Monkey, Australasian Journal of Bone and Joint Medicine

EXAMPLE THREE – Wikipedia is evil

Student’s Wikipedia hoax quote used worldwide in newspaper obituaries Genevieve Carbery , Irish Times, 06/05/09.  When composer Maurice Jarre died at the end of March 2009, newspapers around the world carried a beautiful quote from him: ““One could say my life itself has been one long soundtrack. Music was my life, music brought me to life, and music is how I will be remembered long after I leave this life. When I die there will be a final waltz playing in my head, that only I can hear,””. The source? Wikipedia. The problem? A 22 year old student had placed the quote in Jarre’s Wikipedia page the night of Jarre’s death, and kept adding it even though Wikipedia’s editors deleted it several times.

I can’t quote the article due to possible copyright restrictions.

Instead, here is a quote from the discussion page for the Wikipedia entry for Maurice Jarre: ” Although I may agree it’s something of a rude experiment have a bit of proportion. This is not equivalent to getting someone arrested or poisoning their Tylenol. It’s more like doodling on a library book or at most streaking at the Oscars.–T. Anthony (talk) 05:38, 8 May 2009 (UTC) ”

What conclusions can we draw from these articles?

1. Twitter, Elsevier and Wikipedia should be legally stopped before they can do any more damage?

2. There is no context in which Twitter, Elsevier and Wikipedia will be a reliable or useful information source?

3. Librarians don’t need understand the many different ways  Twitter can be used, the funding patterns of academic journals nor how references are quality controlled in Wikipedia?

Nope. Librarians need to understand how information on Twitter, in academic journals and Wikipedia  is created, distributed, re-used, re-purposed and the criteria for sensible evaluation.

I am attending Educause Australasia 2009 : Innovate, Collaborate & Sustain here in Perth from Monday 4 May – Monday 6 May.

Although there is a closed social networking site provided by the conference organisers, I don’t think I will use it, for many of the reasons that Peta Hopkins gives here in her post about Preparing for edaust09 . Peta is right when she talks about a “subversive back channel”. For me, often the most enriching comments via social networking come from someone several time-zones away who is watching remotely. I can almost see the point of a closed chat channel for attendees, but I’m puzzled about why we have to log in to a walled garden to find the tag being used for the conference or to see tweets and photos that use the conference tag.

If you are interested in seeing the public tweets and Flickr photos that have been tagged with the conference tag, edaust09, I have set up a TwitterFountain in this post. It updates every three minutes.

Peta and I (and maybe a few others) are feeding our live tweets from 8am – 6pm each day from @petahopkins and @libsmatter into three CoverItLive sessions.  I’ve embedded them over at LibrariesInteract.info, as we are officially reporting for librariesinteract.info, Educause Australasia Conference 2009 – Librariesinteract.info reporting. It updates in real time and anyone can make comments or ask questions.

I will be presenting two sessions for the conference, both on Tuesday 5 May.

Personal Learning Environments: What Works for Librarians Tuesday 5 May, 10:00am to 11am, Meeting Room 8:

Educational Institutions no longer provide all the tools required for librarians to keep up to date with new technologies, collaborate with colleagues and share professional knowledge. Journal articles, conferences and formal coursework are no longer the primary methods of keeping up to date.

In this panel discussion, Kathryn Greenhill and Penny Coutas from Murdoch University, Peta Hopkins from Bond University and Constance Wiebrands from Curtin University discuss the online tools they use daily to create their own Personal Learning Environment. They describe how some of these tools work, what suits their daily workflow and may even vigorously defend the merits of their personal favourites.

Why Learning About Emerging Technologies is Part of Every Librarian’s Job Tuesday 5 May 4:00pm – 4:30pm, Meeting Room 6

In the last two years, several libraries have conducted formal learning programmes to familiarise staff with emerging technologies. Learning about new technologies should not begin and end with a formal learning programme, but should become part of every librarian’s job.

As staff learn about disruptive new web tools, then it is likely that the workplace will change to become a more flexible and nimble environment – reflecting the rapid change and flexibility that is happening online. Managers should be prepared for this, and for resistance to this change.

There are several objections staff raise when asked to make time for learning about new technologies in their already overcrowded day. Anyone implementing a staff learning programme needs to listen to these objections with respect and try to address these concerns.

If library staff understand why they should learn about emerging technologies, then they are more likely to find time to do so. This paper outlines twenty one reasons why learning about emerging technologies is part of every librarian’s job.

The paper concludes by offering some techniques for motivated staff to find time to learn about new technologies – either in a formal programme or as personal and professional development

Sorry about the last post – a goodbye and then my blog was unreachable for three days or so while my husband sorted out a rogue database he had added to our shared web hosting account.

The minifigs and I move on from London tomorrow morning, after spending a couple of warm, sunny days riding double-decker buses with Jenny Evans , who was the perfect tour guide and companion.

Next it’s a couple of days in Delft with the ebullient chaos that is the Shanachies, where I hope to liveblog and live tweet the U Game U Learn Symposium. Then I tackle the jigsaw puzzle of trying to fit myself back into my home and work after such a stunningly enjoyable  and professionally rewarding time away.

I was going to claim that I haven’t had jetlag at all this trip, but since I am writing this at 2:30 am, I’m not sure I can do so…

I’m off to London in the morning.

Since I arrived in the US on 11 March (38 days ago),  I have been passed from one set of warm welcoming arms to the next.

There have been so many imaginary friends who have stepped straight out the internet to be warm, smart, funny real friends. Often the first time I met people offline, it was with a big mutual hug – and it was totally appropriate. (Ummm…I *hope*).

If I could guarantee not to forget any names, then I would thank people personally who shared a conversation, their thoughts, a meal, their rooms, their homes or so much of their time with me. I hope you all know who you are – thank you. I hope that the connections we have formed can thrive across the world.

I’m deeply grateful to have been given this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

If you can make your way across the world – and it *can* be done – feel free to come and stay with me in Western Australia.