Infoaddict

Some updates to the site

I've changed it to infoaddict, which is my major identity these days. Some older links may now be broken, as a result; hopefully not too many. It's an easier name to type, and maybe I'll keep it all up-to-date now!! (hah).

Would you like knowledge with that?

It appears that cafes can make anything popular, such as those big scary Uni libraries.

Works for me as a concept.  I'd make a fabulous reference barista, I reckon.  "So you'd like a strong latte and a review of resources on monsoons, ethical considerations of; is that correct?  Your latte will be ready in a couple of minutes and the review will be available through your table laptop in two hours; that will be $62.50, thanks".

Now _that's_ taking information to the people ...

Typepad rules!

They got back to my trouble ticket within a day and all the style hassles are now fixed. Back to the normal programs!

Well, that worked ...

... now, however, I seem to have hit the same problem that thumped my Eat Australia site (yes, I have an eclectic range of hobbies, and obsessing about Australian native produce is one of them) seems to have got this one - namely, a bizarre loss of site layout after posting something new. A shift-reload _seems_ to have sorted the EA site, but this is stubbornly refusing to let the stylesheets back in to play. Sigh. Gotta love technology. NOT. Still, on the plus side, this MarsEdit thing seems to be working. Yes, gotta love technology ... :)

Testing and toys

Completely nothing to do with libraries; a bit to do with blogs. This is a test of software called MarsEdit, which offers a way of editing one's blogs from outside of the web-based systems. I've always been a fan of non-web-based interactive systems, as my personal belief is that the http protocol is too slow for anything except display and reading. This translates into a decided preference for stand-alone applications for any TCP/IP services - Eudora for email, Interarchy for ftp, and I'd have separate newsreading software if I read them more often. Hence, NetNewsWire for RSS feeds and, now, potentially MarsEdit (by the same people who do NetNewsWire, which is how I found it) for blog editing. Mind you, the central nature of the web can't be beat, which is why I _also_ use Gmail, Bloglines, Google Groups, and Typepad's own editing services for the blogs when I'm not on my home computer. So ... here goes nothing ...

Random thoughts on access and responsibilities

I've got a few ideas on information, access, responsibilities, etc that I'm going to bounce into the ether; mostly for no better reason than to get them from guilt-tripping me whenever I come across them ...

So, first off the run: responsibility for content.  This was triggered by various slashdot articles on the responsibility that engines like Google and the Internet Archive (apparently) have for their content.

This is my, off-the-top-of-my-head, IANAL*, response to these.

Thing is, one should have to prove that Google is consciously providing access to the copyrighted information.  Problem is that law around the world hasn't caught up with the fact that computers blindly do what they're told to do, and are - currently - unable to assess the content they're indexing/uploading/transmitting/etc.  Thus, computers are held, in a way, to be "employees" of a company, and so their human "employers" are held responsible for something they know nothing about until notified after the act. Same problem is occurring with defamation issues - bulletin board/forum/chatroom admins, owners, and moderators are being threatened with legal responsibility for the content posted by others, on the grounds that they supply the access that allowed others to post the bad stuff.  When, in fact, it was that "click" of one button that completely replaces the editor and publisher that current defamation laws are built around.

Anything that blindly provides content without assessing that content first, and any legislation that covers that access (copyright, human rights, and defamation are prime among them), is being hit with assumptions that if you own a computer, you know what it's processing at every given moment of the day.

I could go further with this, but I'm going to leave it there until I've got some more coherent thoughts.

*IANAL: I Am Not A Lawyer.

Fine, then, I'll have this one ...

So I can't go overseas.  But this conference (3rd International Evidence Based Librarianship Conference) actually seems relevant.  So maybe I can try to meet a few people there?  Brisbane, October?

Now, maybe I'll have some time to catch up on reporting on the Librarians in the Pub series, run by the ALIA mentoring branch but basically, it seems, a way for library-types to get together and gossip about stuff.  And, as I'm fond of saying, I'm excruciating at networking that doesn't involve CAT5, so I went along.  (And also I knew Fiona of Blisspix and occasonally Morgan of Exploded Librarian turned up, and I'm less scared of people if I know something about them first.  Look, I'm not called Infoaddict for nowt here!).

Musings and snippets

I have all these horribly relevant and deep and meaningful things I want to talk about, but time seems to be a scarce resource ... so I'll just throw a little comment in about how much I want to go to this conference (Greece, September, 450 sterling pounds, which is roughly $Au1500.  From Australia.  I _don't_ think so).

This will gracefully lead into a nice discusion of Librarians in the Pub and how fun it was on Wednesday, when I've got a moment or two to type it ...

Knowledge managers roar in the US

... and are merely whispering in Au?  If you view the library/information world from a blogging/RSS viewpoint, it's certainly dominated by US-centric library peoples.

Granted, when you're talking online stuff, you're talking US-centricity.  They've got the sheer population to support it, and they have this tendency to be militant about the stuff they care about.

Aussies are by stereotype more laid-back, less militant, and less verbose about things that twitch their nerves.  So we're under-represented in blogs/RSS in general, and library/RSS blogs in specific.  There are a few and I'll name names when I'm not blogging on a work computer, but given the fact I can find one new US-based library blog a day merely by following up thought trails in existing blogs, but have yet to find a new Australian blog, even resorting to Google etc for help, is sort of indicative.

Do we need more bloggers?  Do we need more commentators, more people to clip and resource and feed, more people to try and read just to keep up with things? 

Melting the glass

Glass, I've decided, is the reason that we have this space between "us" and "them".  Glass helps us pretend that what's happening to someone else isn't real.  We touch the glass ... cool, firm, sharp and able to cut us if mishandled ... and decide it's the real deal.

And then something happens behind the glass that melts it, pulls you back into that big blue room again.  No camera, no window, no TV.  Just you and the nerve-endings of another living creature.