Binary America

Recently, I read yet another article pertaining to the digital divide. The Washington Post article—Binary America: Split in Two by a Digital Divide peaked by interest due to its take on who’s online? And who’s not? The article went beyond comparing the percentage of Americans who own a personal computer, but highlighted the percentage of Americans with access to broadband Internet versus modem dial-up. In addition, it spoke of the apparent lack of concern by the present presidential candidates toward the “Internet” and reducing the digital divide. As usual, libraries were mention as the only place where disadvantage people can go to access high-speed Internet.

Web designer

Working on this homepage assignment confirms what I already know--I'm not a web designer! I'll probably take a beginner's web design or html class once I complete the MLIS program because many librarian positions are asking for web design experience or at least the ability to maintain the library's site.

Home Page

I’m still working on my home page assignment. For some reason I thought this assignment would present me with little or no problems. However, republishing my site with the modifications (especially images) is taking me a little longer.

Librarians are hilarious

I finally received a day of rest on Friday after spending 6 days in Pittsburgh for the on-campus visit,and five hours in Philly's airport for a thirty-five minute flight home! Overall, I had a good time during my on-campus visit to the University of Pittsburgh. The campus was beautiful, I met a lot of interesting people in the Cohort, and the professors were great. I'm really glad I applied to Pitt! One thing that I learned on my visit that really surprised me was: Librarians are hilarious. The professors had a great sense of humor and so did a lot of the students.

Career Options

Today during the FastTrack on-campus learning experience, librarians from various types of libraries spoke to the cohort about their professional experiences. Academic, special, school, and public librarinship were all represented in the discussion. While they all advocated for their particular librarianship, I found the presentation by the academic librarian very informative. I don't know, maybe it's due to the position description hand-out that she shared with the group!

Now I'm considering looking at an academic instead of public librarianship. I also want to work with cataloguing old photographs and by working in university library I might get that opportunity. I think I'll talk to my advisor about that idea tomorrow!

Pittsburgh II

It's been three days now since I arrived in Pittsburgh to attend my on-site campus visit. The cohort seems like a good group of future librarians! Some students, like myself have no library experience, while the majority of students already work in a library.

I have taken a couple of pictures, and if they look ok I will post to the blog at a later day.

Pittsburgh

I’ve been very busy today preparing to leave for Pittsburgh for my first FastTrack weekend. I’m looking forward to meeting the members of Cohort 7 that I didn’t meet on the tour at the Library of Congress in June. Well—I’m going to get back to the Kompzer assignment which is giving me a slight problem.

Google and Privacy

In the August 2007 issue of PC World, the News & Trends section features an interesting article pertaining to Google and what the company’s pending purchase of DoubleClick can have on one’s private information. I found the article timely because lately I’ve been wondering what the impact of downloading all the various programs for LIS2600 will on my personal online profile. I figure thus far, interested parties know I’m a student of library science with interest in historical photographs.

Jennifer

I'm still unable to create a title for my post. However, I'm really too busy working on my Kompozer assignment to bother with that issue now. It seems there's always some glitch or one wrong step and the program doesn't work. Anyway, back to Kompozer!

Here is my Koha link. I selected southern folklore as my topic. My favorite selection from the books listed below is Folk beliefs of the Southern Negro.

On another note, I'm having technical issues with my blog so I'm unable to give my post a title.

Storytellers: folktales & legends from the South/0820312673
Folk beliefs of the Southern Negro/0486224600
Roots of a region: Southern folk culture/9781934110201
Shared traditions: Souther history and folk culture/0252015215
A Treasury of Southern folklore/0517336472
Why the possum's tail is bare, and other classic southern stories/0380768577
The hidden feast: a folktale frm the American South/0874837588
The Upland South: the making of an American folk region and landscape/1930066082
Southern folk medicine/1570032890
From my people: 400 years of African American folklore/0393047989
Identity, family, and folklore in African American literature/0815318642
Every tongue got to confess: Negro folk-tales from the Gulf states/0060188936
American folklore & the historian/0226158683
Negro folktales in Michigan/083715989X
Handbook of American folkore/0253327067

I recently viewed an interesting article in the Baltimore Sun pertaining to seniors and their increased use on the Internet. It seems seniors are using the Internet to receive updated information on Medicare, purchase lower-priced items, and connect with younger generations in their families. Of course, libraries are one of the few locations outside senior citizens homes where they can receive computer training.

Independence Day

In honor of Independence Day, I though I would share links to a couple of interesting sites pertaining to the history of our country. Our Documents, contains l00 digitized images of important American documents, such as the Declaration of Independence, Articles of Confederation, and the Emancipation Proclamation.

Also, review the American Rhetoric, which includes a partial database of the 100 most significant American political speeches of the 20th Century, according to over 100 scholar of "American Public Address" as compiled by two university professors. Enjoy!

The Cult of the Amateur

I just read the book review of The Cult of the Amateur : How Today’s Internet is Killing our Culture, by Andrew Keen. Keen seems to make some good points pertaining to the reliability of Web 2.0 sites, but I believe the positive aspects of these participatory sites out weight the negative. Also, I don't see a problem with traditional resource sites which rely on experts, co-existing with the so-called “noble amateur” sites.

ZoomClouds Assignment

The following are the URL's for the ZoomClouds assignment: http://zoomclouds.egrupos.net/ctags/previewCloud/

http://zoomclouds.egrupos.net/btags/previewCloud/

http://zoomclouds.egrupos.net/dtags/previewCloud/.

As you can see, I had problems with getting all the Connotea tags to show up in ZoomClouds. I deleted Connotea Zoomcloud, added more entries,and created two other Connotea clouds, but I still only have a few tags in my cloud.