Today's word is twitterati, thank you Chris Rusbridge. The word appears in a post on 11 March by Chris to the JISC repositories list. He is the Director, Digital Curation Centre, at the University of Edinburgh.
The meaning of the word is very clear - twitterati are people who know about and presumably use the Twitter software and the term is pretty well established and widely used. In fact there is a whole world of language which derives from the twittering habits and preferences of many people - Twitter, says Twitter, is "a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?"
In the course of checking out twitterati, I also came across TweetMinster, "a place where real life and politics tweet." It seems to foster twittering amongst the parliamentary twitterati at Westminster. Do we want our Australian members of Parliament doing this kind of thing?
Twitter is not a term confined to people with curious tastes in communication. Go to twitternet or for that matter email the twittermaster@twitter.net and you will encounter something completely different.
Thursday, 12 March 2009
Wednesday, 11 March 2009
ALIA Elections - two years ago and now
Two years ago I established this blog as part of my campaign to be elected vice president of ALIA. Now, looking through the ALIA election material for the Board elections this year, and thinking back, I was struck by two things.
First, it was so much easier to vote this time, with the introduction of online voting. I don't know why we didn't do it before, and I certainly don't understand why anyone would ever not vote again. Everyone - please vote, it is so easy.
Second, the candidates, with one exception, don't really seem to have Web 2.0ed much at all. I have found three blogs for the five candidates. Richard Siegersma's engaging blog has a number of posts on a variety of issues, and even a few comments. Kate Sinclair has advoKate - great name, but it needs more than one post. And Lothar von Retzlaff has a blog entitled Lothervonretzlaff, but alas, also a single post. Neither Gill Hallam nor Stuart Ferguson has a blog that I can find, but I am happy to be corrected.
The ALIA Board has taken our elections into the Web 2.0 zone - what about the candidates?
First, it was so much easier to vote this time, with the introduction of online voting. I don't know why we didn't do it before, and I certainly don't understand why anyone would ever not vote again. Everyone - please vote, it is so easy.
Second, the candidates, with one exception, don't really seem to have Web 2.0ed much at all. I have found three blogs for the five candidates. Richard Siegersma's engaging blog has a number of posts on a variety of issues, and even a few comments. Kate Sinclair has advoKate - great name, but it needs more than one post. And Lothar von Retzlaff has a blog entitled Lothervonretzlaff, but alas, also a single post. Neither Gill Hallam nor Stuart Ferguson has a blog that I can find, but I am happy to be corrected.
The ALIA Board has taken our elections into the Web 2.0 zone - what about the candidates?
Tuesday, 3 February 2009
Word of the day
Today's word is dogfooding, and thank you to Gary for the suggestion. This is a genuine word, in dictionaries and everything, believe me. It derives from the expression "to eat ones own dogfood", and is a shorthand verb deriving from that expression and meaning the same. The Urban Dictionary defines the term concisely as "using your own product."
According to Microsoft and the Wikipedia, the term was used at Microsoft twenty years ago. Microsoft suggests that dogfooding the product is integral to the Microsoft culture. In a university, I guess a dogfooder (if that is the noun) would study at the institution which employed him.
The definitions and usage of dogfooding produce one puzzle. One would think that the appropriate use of one's own dogfood would be to feed it to a dog, not eat it. But the metaphor (for such it is) in use at Microsoft these past twenty years implies that the product is not fed to an appropriate consumer (a dog) but eaten by a person. Curious.
According to Microsoft and the Wikipedia, the term was used at Microsoft twenty years ago. Microsoft suggests that dogfooding the product is integral to the Microsoft culture. In a university, I guess a dogfooder (if that is the noun) would study at the institution which employed him.
The definitions and usage of dogfooding produce one puzzle. One would think that the appropriate use of one's own dogfood would be to feed it to a dog, not eat it. But the metaphor (for such it is) in use at Microsoft these past twenty years implies that the product is not fed to an appropriate consumer (a dog) but eaten by a person. Curious.
Word of the day
Thank you for the ALIA new graduates list for audience development officer, which was discussed in January as a new synonym for the word "librarian". It came from a posting by Stacey Bale aboutan article in the Daily Telegraph (UK) on 12 January. The rebranding attempt by the city of Edinburgh provoked a threat of industrial action from librarians, although they seemed to be more worried about an attempt to introduce self checkout machines.
The term got picked up by the Wordie site, which is an interesting and curious place ("like Flickr, but without the photos"). As well as listing half a million words, it provides links to many online dictionary, and its own image search. Do an image search on audience development officer, for example, and you will find a selection of pictures of audience development officers - none of them, alas, in libraries, which should set the minds of the librarians of Edinburgh at rest.
The term got picked up by the Wordie site, which is an interesting and curious place ("like Flickr, but without the photos"). As well as listing half a million words, it provides links to many online dictionary, and its own image search. Do an image search on audience development officer, for example, and you will find a selection of pictures of audience development officers - none of them, alas, in libraries, which should set the minds of the librarians of Edinburgh at rest.
Monday, 2 February 2009
Internet Censorship
There have been many recent contributions to the discussion on internet censorship. Radio National's Life Matters on 29 January included a segment on the topic, featuring Mark Newton, a network engineer, and Jim Wallace, Managing Director of the Australian Christian Lobby. Both have written on the subject, and their thoughts are linked from the Life Matters site.
There is an annotated and visual version of the broadcast here, on Somebody Think of the Children, together with a summary of recent coverage here. And by far the most extensive coverage of the whole issue is provided by Irene Graham on the Libertus site here.
Senator Stephen Conroy opened the Information Online conference on 20 January, and his presentation is available on YouTube. Senator Conroy devoted a significant part of his opening to the issue of internet censorship, presenting the Government's point of view on the matter. We are grateful to Senator Conroy for taking time from his busy schedule to open the conference, and to express his appreciation for the work of ALIA.
In closing the conference on 22 january, I said this "ALIA, like other library associations, has clear and strong policies which support the right of access to the world’s information, the free flow of information, freedom to read, and so on. We are opposed to censorship and we are very skeptical about proposals for new and innovative censorship, such as filtering the internet. [applause] Filtering is not just a technical issue, and not just about political content.
There is an annotated and visual version of the broadcast here, on Somebody Think of the Children, together with a summary of recent coverage here. And by far the most extensive coverage of the whole issue is provided by Irene Graham on the Libertus site here.
Senator Stephen Conroy opened the Information Online conference on 20 January, and his presentation is available on YouTube. Senator Conroy devoted a significant part of his opening to the issue of internet censorship, presenting the Government's point of view on the matter. We are grateful to Senator Conroy for taking time from his busy schedule to open the conference, and to express his appreciation for the work of ALIA.
In closing the conference on 22 january, I said this "ALIA, like other library associations, has clear and strong policies which support the right of access to the world’s information, the free flow of information, freedom to read, and so on. We are opposed to censorship and we are very skeptical about proposals for new and innovative censorship, such as filtering the internet. [applause] Filtering is not just a technical issue, and not just about political content.
Friday, 16 January 2009
Censorship: new blogs, more action, new websites
I posted a little while ago on the lively online scene which has been generated by the Government's plans to implement filtering of the Internet. It has been a recurring theme of this blog.
The Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy has established a new blog, and one of its early postings, a very reasonable and encouraging welcome by Lindsay Tanner, has attracted 787 comments so far - overwhelmingly condemning the Government's plans for ISP-level filtering. The comments are particularly interesting, as you would expect. If you have the weekend free . . .
Further organisations have been established since the last blogpost. In addition to the organisations I mentioned in a previous post, the Digital Liberty Coalition has been established to organise protest, and another website, nocensorship.info, has also been set up.
The Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy has established a new blog, and one of its early postings, a very reasonable and encouraging welcome by Lindsay Tanner, has attracted 787 comments so far - overwhelmingly condemning the Government's plans for ISP-level filtering. The comments are particularly interesting, as you would expect. If you have the weekend free . . .
Further organisations have been established since the last blogpost. In addition to the organisations I mentioned in a previous post, the Digital Liberty Coalition has been established to organise protest, and another website, nocensorship.info, has also been set up.
Big Issues for Libraries
In the recent ALIA survey of members, lobbying and advocacy were given as an extremely high priority. This was unexpected (for me, anyway) but it did prompt me to urge you all (Rebecca has proven that a plural audience might be assumed) to do some reading.
Here are three big issues.
Copyright, and the debate is hotting up about the settlement in the US between Google and the publisher and author organisations. Bernie Sloan, posting to the liblicense list, refers us to a
resource compiled by Timothy Vollmer, an IT policy analyst in DC. You can find it here. Many of the items listed relate to libraries, and the example of a report by OCLC Research on the impact on libraries is given.
Online content regulation (censorship) is interesting too, and there has been a recent article by Derek E Bambauer of the Brooklyn Law School which summarises, in a brief 30 pages, the development of the Australian Government's filtering plans. If development is the right word.
Finally, all of you interested in broadband and things related will want to read the consultation paper issues by the Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, just out. There is a link from here, and comments are due by 11 February.
There's a lot going on which might concern us, and one element in successful lobbying and advocacy is being informed. In the meantime, if you are interested in these kinds of issues, or just in helping to put together a library viewpoint, let me know.
Here are three big issues.
Copyright, and the debate is hotting up about the settlement in the US between Google and the publisher and author organisations. Bernie Sloan, posting to the liblicense list, refers us to a
resource compiled by Timothy Vollmer, an IT policy analyst in DC. You can find it here. Many of the items listed relate to libraries, and the example of a report by OCLC Research on the impact on libraries is given.
Online content regulation (censorship) is interesting too, and there has been a recent article by Derek E Bambauer of the Brooklyn Law School which summarises, in a brief 30 pages, the development of the Australian Government's filtering plans. If development is the right word.
Finally, all of you interested in broadband and things related will want to read the consultation paper issues by the Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, just out. There is a link from here, and comments are due by 11 February.
There's a lot going on which might concern us, and one element in successful lobbying and advocacy is being informed. In the meantime, if you are interested in these kinds of issues, or just in helping to put together a library viewpoint, let me know.
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