Friday, June 23, 2006

Rocketboom's Post on Net Neutrality

The best and most entertaining explanation I've yet to see.

Thursday, June 22, 2006

Creative Commons Add-In for Microsoft Office

This is pretty cool - the add in add a function to the "File" menu that lets the creator of a file in Office to assign a CC license. I'm going to download this on all my PCs!

Monday, June 19, 2006

How libraries are applying blogging, podcasting, and RSS technologies

A short, but maybe useful slideshow. Same goal as our workshop, different approach.

Thursday, June 15, 2006

Jimmy Wales, Founder of Wikipedia, Discourages Academic Use of the Encyclopedia

Article in The Chronicle of Higher Education in which it is reported that Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia, had this to say to students at a conference at the University of Pennsylvania:



“For God sake, you’re in college; don’t cite the encyclopedia.”



They're thinking of putting together a fact sheet for professors. Too bad they didn't mention librarians (then again, maybe we don't need a fact sheet!)

Wednesday, June 14, 2006

If Amazon sucked like our OPAC

As an instructor for online information retrieval, I have come to appreciate alternate interfaces for the same underlying database. They allow you to explore the database in different ways, and to hone your retrieval skills.

This example though, is just for fun. If Amazon sucked

Federated tag searching

Tagfetch searches a bunch of social software sites that use tagging to "fetch" related content to your tag search. Sites searched include Flickr, del.icio.us, etc... They also have a blog.

Sunday, June 11, 2006

New RSS feed from PubMed

PubMed now has a feed for New/Noteworthy. Mostly for librarians or very keen PubMed users.
PubMed New & Noteworthy

Saturday, June 10, 2006

Truthiness vs. truthfulness

This comment by Julia Hobsbawm in The Guardian sort of reminded me of a bunch of press wires I recently came across via PubSub and the whole deal with communication and authority. What exactly is a press release? I don't mean to sound like a complete idiot but I find the concept incredibly bizarre. The press needs to be spoon-fed? Try setting up a matching search in PubSub Press Releases to get an idea of what gets fed through these things.

What does this have to do with blogging and RSS other than the PubSub connection?

Judging by the rise of the commentariat, which blends fact and truth with opinion, and by the rise of blogs which challenge to some extent the notions of trusted truthfulness by "authority" media brands, truth still sells, but not as much as it could or should.


I'm not exactly sure why blogs challenge the notion of trusted truthfulness (credibility is hard to achieve in the blogosphere, and for good reason); and despite the mostly negative comments this comment got (or meta-comments, if you will), I found the piece kind of interesting. But don't take my word for it. [Source: Canuckflack]