Virtual Dave…Real Blog

In some of my recent talks about Massive Scale Librarianship I have used some examples to show what an exponential scale is, and the idea of storage and information growing by an order of magnitude. This site by Nikon does an awesome job of showing these differences. It is really fun to try too.

http://www.nikon.co.jp/main/eng/feelnikon/discovery/universcale/index_f.htm

“The Digital Reference Electronic Warehouse (DREW) Project: Creating the infrastructure for digital reference research through a multi-disciplinary knowledge base.” Nicholson, Scott & Lankes, R. D. 46(3). Reference and User Services Quarterly

http://quartz.syr.edu/rdlankes/Publications/Journals/drewfinal.pdf

As if you needed another reason to pick up PC Magazine, I’m quoted in this month’s issue. The article is on Web 3.0. In case you can’t get to the newsstand, the article is online at:

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,2102857,00.asp

Slides are now available at http://quartz.syr.edu/rdlankes/Presentations/2007/TomkinsPres.pdf

I have been getting some traffic/use on the Plugoo IM link I put into a post as a test, so I’ve decided to put it on the sidebar. Feel free to IM me (at least until someone figures out how to spam it).

Participatory librarianship and the whole “Library as Conversation” idea is certainly catching on. I’ve put together a list of presentations I’ve either given or are planned for 2007 at: http://iis.syr.edu/projects/PNOpen/2007Tour/

In case you’re curious, here’s what’s coming up:

“Participatory Librarianship” South Central Regional Library Council Library: Place Service or Both Series, Ithaca, NY March 16

“The Library as Conversation” The Regione Toscana- Servizi Bibliografici, Florence, Italy April 12

“Participatory Networks: The Library as Conversation” Amigos Member Conference, Dallas, TX. May 2

“Participatory Networks” Nylink Annual Conference, Saratoga Springs, NY. May 9

“Collecting Conversations in a Massive Scale World” ALCTS National Conference, Washington, D.C. June 22

“Future of Information Search and Retrieval” ALA Panel, Washington D.C. June 25

Slides are now available at http://quartz.syr.edu/rdlankes/Presentations/2007/ASIDIC.pdf

Uses conversation theory to examine the role of databases and database vendors in a Web2.0 (and beyond) context.

The audio for the presentation is here (and on my PodCast Feed): http://quartz.syr.edu/rdlankes/pod/ASIDIC.mp3

“Developing an Open Infrastructure for the Greater Good” ASIDIC Spring Meeting, Orlando, FL

Abstract: Uses conversation theory to examine the role of databases and database vendors in a Web2.0 (and beyond) context.
Slides: http://quartz.syr.edu/rdlankes/Presentations/2007/ASIDIC.pdf
Audio: http://quartz.syr.edu/rdlankes/pod/ASIDIC.mp3

Jeff Pomerantz points out (here) that Amazon has launched a new AskA service “Askville” (http://askville.amazon.com/askville/Index.do#answers). He does not seem so hot on it. He has some legitimate concerns, but I actually take this as a good sign. Virtual reference is alive and well. I’d love to know if the folks at Amazon are familiar with the work on the library and AskA groups (all of you lurking Amazon folks let me know). Someone might want to go use the service to ask “what other types of virtual reference services are available?” or “what is virtual reference?” or “do libraries offer these kind of thing?” and at least get these questions in the search service and test how easy it is to fin out about our work.

As Jeff points out it has some interesting use of tagging and features, and I hope virtual reference vendor types will take a look to see if there are some usable ideas here.

I’m speaking at this year’s Amigos Annual Member Conference. They just sent me the flyer promotion for it…and I have to say it is an awesome theme:

More info at http://www.amigos.org/conferences/