Wild Thing 4

Obviously, something has not worked out right with the below post. Stay tuned as I figure out how to post the picture.

Since I don't have much personal information in my account, I decided to provide this picture instead.

Of course, there's more to this picture than its posting. I discovered it while reading Ann Walker Smalley's postings. I knew she took the picture. I didn't realize that it was to be made public.

The 00's generation may be comfortable with having their information easily available. I'm not.

I realize my image is temporarily in any number of surveillance cameras, especially at the ATM machine I routinely use. A television crew filming a street scene as background for a voice over can also have captured me. For all I know, the FBI has a photograph and some biographical information from when I attended a anti-Vietname war demonstration. My image in a photo montage is just one more slide on the slope of privacy intrusion.

I wish I were around 100 years from now to learn if the definition of privacy changed or if the concept became as archaic as dueling.

Thing 3-RSSing

I was going to claim patent rights to the verb RSSing. Then, I googled the term and voila, found a bunch. Interesting that some are criticizing the Web 2.0 generation for new spellings in text messaging but no one seems to question creating verbs in the Queen's English domain.

As a semi old-foggie, I wonder if there is any protocols in Web 2.0 land concerning informing a person that you have created an RSS feed to that person's blog. If not, isn't this perhaps voyeurism? I know there's a difference in that a blog by its very nature is public. But it certainly does open oneself up to letting someone into your life without being able to vet that person. Call me old fashioned, old foggie and/or living in the 20th century but I am uncomfortable with letting just anyone know my thoughts.

Thing 2

I'm uncertain if I should blog about our Library 2.0 forays here or on the Metronet blog. I'll start here and inquire later.



I opine the visionaries have overlooked a major lane change that the library profession has made since it drove onto the Information Highway. (Remember that quaint term? I have not heard it in a lonnnnng time. I certainly did not coin it but I was present at the creation. Just a side note to indicate my historical perspective)



I attended library school (another quaint term. Sounds kinda like "high school," doesn't it?) in 1978. In reference, we learned to provide the the several appropriate knowledge level resources available. If materials were inconsistent, we were not to give an opinion regarding which resource was the "best source" or "most reliable." The materials had already, after all, gone through a vetting process that began with reliable publishers and reviewers.



That was during a period (epoch?) when the amount of information easily available was finite, usually contained within the four walls and on the book stacks. Now, the amount of information is, essentially infinite and much of it available via the WWW. The library user is overloaded with the information resources. Consequently, reference librarians must now, to help the library user access information, must act as screeners and opinion givers of what we retrieve for the person.