Many extraordinary authors and thinkers contributed to this ebook. It's a quick read but I've been purposefully reading slowly, trying to assimilate the nuggets of wisdom within the pixels. It's inspiring, helping me to think and gain perspective. This free ebook has been organized by the always inspirational, Seth Godin, here's his blog post on this. It's worth sharing so for those of you not following me on twitter I've embedded it below and include the download link.
What Matters Now
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Monday, December 7, 2009
University of Edinburgh librarians lead discussion on Infolit iSchool Island in Second Life
 Edinburgh University librarians lead discussion on Infolit iSchool Island in Second Life Information Services for learners in Second Life is the topic of today's discussion. Sheila Yoshikawa who blogs here and here graciously hosts regular discussions on her University of Sheffield, Infolit iSchool Island. It's a packed house today and time now to head out front to check out the van they've been using to reach their distance learners in Second Life. Click here to see the van we visited after the presentation (will take you to my posterous blog where I post primarily on my Second Life work). Find out more about the Virtual University of Edinburgh in Second Life.  |
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
IBM World Community Grid Live in Second Life
 IBM World Community Grid Presentation Live Now in Second Life Great group from IBM World Community Grid (WCG) presenting live here on the rooftop of the Karuna Resource Center on their FightAIDS@Home project. The group in attendance was from around the globe...this is what Second Life does best. How else could people connect and share like this (don't even mention web conferencing programs as they simply do not compare-read on to understand). After the short presentation and Q&A time, the IBM representative mentioned in my previous post on the World Community Grid, Bettina Cutler (Skippy Leafblower in SL) and I took all who were interested inside the Karuna Resource Center to tour the World Community Grid exhibit on the second floor. People appeared to enjoy the tour and Bettina somehow managed to get everyone together for a group snapshot. After our time in the IBM exhibit room an interested group headed out to the back deck to look over the Facing AIDS exhibit created for AIDS.gov, which I posted on earlier here. It was an informative presentation and a good time. I look forward to continued collaboration with folks from the IBM WCG, many of whom had not been in Second Life before this World AIDS Day event.  |
Monday, November 30, 2009
IBM World Community Grid: FightAIDS@Home presentation in Second Life for World AIDS DAY
As I mentioned in my previous post, December 1, 2009 is World AIDS Day 09 (WAD09). And as stated earlier, in Second Life (SL), as in other worlds, we are busy preparing Karuna Island for this major annual event. In this post I'll share about another Karuna partner, The IBM World Community Grid (WCG) and more specifically, The World Community Grid FightAIDS@Home project. As stated on their site, "World Community Grid brings together people from across the globe who donate their idle computer time to create the largest volunteer computing grid benefiting humanity." The Karuna Resource Center houses a permanent World Community Grid FightAIDS@Home exhibit in an upstairs room of the Center that people are free to visit anytime. This was one of the first exhibits I put together (with Bettina, our IBM reps great inworld help) after accepting the National Library of Medicine grant funded position as Karuna Consumer Health Librarian. I strongly believe in this project and have participated by contributing my idle computer time since first learning about the wonderful work being done by this organization. As part of the Karuna Island World AIDS Day events taking place in Second Life tomorrow, our IBM representative, Bettina Cutler, Program Manager, Corporate Citizenship and Corporate Affairs, IBM Asia Pacific, has arranged to have an IBM WCG representative along with herself give a presentation on the rooftop of the Karuna Resource Center in Second Life from 3-3:30 PM PT (SLT). We will also have a short 3 min. FightAIDS@Home video available for viewing on the rooftop throughout the day. I'm looking forward to this event and want to encourage anyone with a Second Life account to attend. This SLurl (Second Life URL) will take you directly to the grassy Karuna Resource Center rooftop. Of course Karuna Island is open to the public 24/7 so feel free to stop by anytime. Events will be taking place throughout the day for World AIDS Day, and there are always interesting places to explore, fun activities, and information resources.
Update: A Linden Labs blog post with new video has just been published further highlighting the days events.
Update: A Linden Labs blog post with new video has just been published further highlighting the days events.
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Karuna Resource Center in Second Life-Facing AIDS Display for World AIDS Day 09
December 1, 2009 is World AIDS Day 09 (WAD09). In Second Life (SL), as in other worlds, we are busy preparing Karuna Island for this major annual event. This year promises to be extraordinary. Click this link to learn more about the event: http://www.tvwsp.com/home.html As the Karuna Consumer Health Librarian and the person responsible for the Karuna Resource Center on Karuna Island, I work to meet the objectives of the information resources section of our National Library of Medicine (NLM) funded grant. For WAD09 I worked closely with two organizations to prepare something to compliment and extend awareness of their work inworld (inside SL). The project I'm showcasing in this post was coordinated with our AIDS.gov representative, Michelle Samplin-Salgado. Michelle and I met inworld and she shared about the AIDS.gov Facing AIDS Campaign. After reading about the campaign, I went about creating a type of inworld equivalent on the back deck of the Karuna Resource Center. An earlier display I'd created on WAD09 already out there would compliment this one nicely. The snapshots here show the display, which is open to anyone with a Second Life account. There is a notecard with step-by-step instructions embedded in a couple of the signs for visitors. The instructions include steps on how an avatar can choose to "wear" one of the signs on the table and then on how to take a snapshot and drag it onto the photoboard. The outside world equivalent can be found here on flickr.(Michelle and I included our snapshots in both inworld and outworld locations :) ) Below is the SLurl (for those who use SL) to the Facing AIDS display on the back deck of the Karuna Resource Center (feel free to explore inside the resource center and the rest of the Karuna Island as well!).
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Karuna/24/5/23 Please IM Robin Mochi inworld with any questions/comments or if you need assistance. Comments welcome here as well.
Update: A Linden Labs blog post with new video has just been published further highlighting the days events.
Here is a flickr link to additional snapshots including those taken during World AIDS Day activities on Karuna Island.
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Karuna/24/5/23 Please IM Robin Mochi inworld with any questions/comments or if you need assistance. Comments welcome here as well.
Update: A Linden Labs blog post with new video has just been published further highlighting the days events.
Here is a flickr link to additional snapshots including those taken during World AIDS Day activities on Karuna Island.
Friday, November 13, 2009
Why "Clay Shirky: The Social Media Revolution" Matters for Academic Libraries
Below is a recent interview with Clay Shirky I want to share. It's 23 min. long and worth the time. He starts off talking about twitter and why it's important and how it's evolving. There are some direct references to ebooks, bookstores, libraries etc. but it's not really about that. It's about what's happening in the world of social media and about what may come. Important stuff for academic librarians and others in higher education to consider these days.
Clay Shirky's 2005 article "Ontology is Overrated: Categories, Links, and Tags" had an impact on me back in the earlier Web 2.0 days. I was a newer librarian and folks in the library profession were beginning to understand our profession would be experiencing significant change. Librarians began to wrestle with folksonomy vs. taxonomy and more, much more, and at an increasingly rapid pace.
I've continued to follow Shirky's writings on the Internet and disruptive technologies because...well, because there's a digital revolution taking place and these things are of critical importance to libraries.
I was also glad to see a tweet a couple of days ago pointing me to a new publication by OCLC Research. The "Call to Action" section in the two page PDF below is about how librarians need to keep up on what's happening in the field of scholarly research and publishing and adapt our practices to the changing needs of researchers. It also states, "Developments such as cloud computing, open access publishing and online social networking are affecting research practices." The report includes a citation and link to Clay Shirky's post "Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkable," which is valuable reading as well.
I've put these two things together in this blog post because I've found as an academic librarian, at this time in history, it's more important than ever to follow and understand what is happening in this social media/digital revolution. I'm not sure I could really feel prepared to play a central role in support of scholarly research and publishing at my institution otherwise.
An Academic Library Manifesto
OCLC original PDF: Chris Bourg, et al., for OCLC Research
Clay Shirky's 2005 article "Ontology is Overrated: Categories, Links, and Tags" had an impact on me back in the earlier Web 2.0 days. I was a newer librarian and folks in the library profession were beginning to understand our profession would be experiencing significant change. Librarians began to wrestle with folksonomy vs. taxonomy and more, much more, and at an increasingly rapid pace.
I've continued to follow Shirky's writings on the Internet and disruptive technologies because...well, because there's a digital revolution taking place and these things are of critical importance to libraries.
I was also glad to see a tweet a couple of days ago pointing me to a new publication by OCLC Research. The "Call to Action" section in the two page PDF below is about how librarians need to keep up on what's happening in the field of scholarly research and publishing and adapt our practices to the changing needs of researchers. It also states, "Developments such as cloud computing, open access publishing and online social networking are affecting research practices." The report includes a citation and link to Clay Shirky's post "Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkable," which is valuable reading as well.
I've put these two things together in this blog post because I've found as an academic librarian, at this time in history, it's more important than ever to follow and understand what is happening in this social media/digital revolution. I'm not sure I could really feel prepared to play a central role in support of scholarly research and publishing at my institution otherwise.
An Academic Library Manifesto
OCLC original PDF: Chris Bourg, et al., for OCLC Research
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
The Social Web-Living Statistics
Gary Hayes has done it again. One can't look at his dynamic social media counter below and not wonder about the significance of the live web--how it's impacting our world, our lives.
(Note: click the small red "mobile" and the yellow "games"tab)
In a blog post last week my reflections were on how to live a healthy balanced life (in the midst of all this connectedness) in order to have a more positive impact in our world. I'll continue to seek understanding and balance in this area. But staring at this social media counter I am amazed (and perplexed) over what this will mean five years from now. The digital social revolution we are a part of is truly changing our world. It's not something one can dismiss as insignificant any longer.
(Note: click the small red "mobile" and the yellow "games"tab)
In a blog post last week my reflections were on how to live a healthy balanced life (in the midst of all this connectedness) in order to have a more positive impact in our world. I'll continue to seek understanding and balance in this area. But staring at this social media counter I am amazed (and perplexed) over what this will mean five years from now. The digital social revolution we are a part of is truly changing our world. It's not something one can dismiss as insignificant any longer.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
We Are All Connected-There's Much To Be Learned
The video below really grabbed me this morning. Partly it's the passion and statements made by Sagan and others such as:
"I find it elevating and exhilarating
To discover that we live in a universe
Which permits the evolution of molecular machines
As intricate and subtle as we"
I'm in a rare introspective mood at the moment. I spent an exhilarating two hours learning via twitter early this morning. I'm excited by simple discoveries and derive pleasure in finding things out. But in this moment, I'm wondering about the impact of my discoveries, my connections, my learning, etc. Am I doing anything to make the world a better place? Could my time be better spent volunteering in a homeless shelter or assisting with numerous other face to face needs? I guess that depends.
I was going to use the video above to segue into another post on connections and why I love twitter, connectivism, social media, our exciting new participatory culture, etc. I'm fascinated by these tools and concepts and sometimes wonder why. Mostly, for myself, I think it has to do with a sense of empowerment.
Since discovering what used to be called Web 2.0 back in 2004, and what seems now to just be the Internet, I've been pretty caught up in social media of all kinds. As Seth Godin explains ordinary people now have the power to lead and make big change. He urges us to do so. But, again, I'm wondering how much positive change, if any, I'm making.
This NY Times Magazine article from last week really hit home, especially this last paragraph:
Finding balance has been a lifelong struggle. But I think I'm ready to try again as I suspect balance could be key to my living a healthier and more impactful life. I was encouraged recently by this blog post by @KentBottles (a twitter bud) titled, "What Have I Learned About Keeping Myself Healthy, Happy and Well."
It also helps me to remember, as stated in the video above by Nye, "really, I'm just a speck." Not that each little speck can't make some difference.
"I find it elevating and exhilarating
To discover that we live in a universe
Which permits the evolution of molecular machines
As intricate and subtle as we"
I'm in a rare introspective mood at the moment. I spent an exhilarating two hours learning via twitter early this morning. I'm excited by simple discoveries and derive pleasure in finding things out. But in this moment, I'm wondering about the impact of my discoveries, my connections, my learning, etc. Am I doing anything to make the world a better place? Could my time be better spent volunteering in a homeless shelter or assisting with numerous other face to face needs? I guess that depends.
I was going to use the video above to segue into another post on connections and why I love twitter, connectivism, social media, our exciting new participatory culture, etc. I'm fascinated by these tools and concepts and sometimes wonder why. Mostly, for myself, I think it has to do with a sense of empowerment.
Since discovering what used to be called Web 2.0 back in 2004, and what seems now to just be the Internet, I've been pretty caught up in social media of all kinds. As Seth Godin explains ordinary people now have the power to lead and make big change. He urges us to do so. But, again, I'm wondering how much positive change, if any, I'm making.
This NY Times Magazine article from last week really hit home, especially this last paragraph:
I’m not wishing the Internet away. It has become so integral to my work — to my life — that I honestly can’t recall what I did without it. But it has allowed us to reflexively indulge every passing interest, to expect answers to every fleeting question, to believe that if we search long enough, surf a little further, we can hit the dry land of knowing “everything that happens” and that such knowledge is both possible and desirable. In the end, though, there is just more sea, and as alluring as we can find the perpetual pursuit of little thoughts, the net result may only be to prevent us from forming the big ones.And I've been realizing that though I'm a very connected person, and I know a little about a lot of things in a few areas, my learning is not as deep as it should be. Nor are my connections. I'm feeling a need to live a more balanced life and to make my life matter more (yes, I'm a baby boomer).
Finding balance has been a lifelong struggle. But I think I'm ready to try again as I suspect balance could be key to my living a healthier and more impactful life. I was encouraged recently by this blog post by @KentBottles (a twitter bud) titled, "What Have I Learned About Keeping Myself Healthy, Happy and Well."
It also helps me to remember, as stated in the video above by Nye, "really, I'm just a speck." Not that each little speck can't make some difference.
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