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Technology is transforming the way in which researchers gain access to archives, not only in the choices archivists make about their uses of technology but in the portable technologies researchers bring with them to the archives. This essay reviews the implications of electronic mail, instant messaging and chat, digital reference services, Web sites, scanners, digital cameras, folksonomies, and various adaptive technologies in facilitating archival access. The new machines represent greater, even unprecedented, opportunities for archivists to support one of the main elements of their professional mission, namely, getting archival records used.

 Despite its explosive growth over the last decade, the Web remains essentially a tool to allow humans to access information. The next generation of the Web, dubbed the ‘Semantic Web’, will extend the Web’s capability through the increased availability machine-processable information. These machine-processable descriptions of Web information resources are called meta-data and are associated with ontologies, or conceptualisations of the domain of application. Meta-data and associated ontologies then allows more intelligent software systems to be written, automating the analysis and exploitation of Web-based information.This paper describes how knowledge management can be improved through the adoption of Semantic Web technology. To realise this, a number of different technologies need to be brought together. Their fusion provides the infrastructure which makes semantic knowledge management possible. Specifically, the paper discusses the use of knowledge discovery and human language technology to (semi-)automatically derive the required ontologies and meta-data, along with a methodology to support this process. We describe techniques for management and controlled evolution of ontologies and a set of semantic knowledge access tools for enhanced information access. Finally, a set of application scenarios for the technology are sketched.

Three new conditions, or clusters of conditions, have emerged—social, technological, and theoretical—and their convergence suggests a new kind of "core" for the liberal arts.

Librarians can be an indiscriminate sort when it comes to technology. We are, or rather have become, something of a gadget-possessed profession

F.W. Lancaster, who coined the phrase paperless society, has even bemoaned librarianship's “completely uncritical [acceptance] of information technologies”

In January 2007, The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) announced its second multi–year technology grant program for America’s public libraries. The purpose of Phase II, Keeping communities connected: The next step is to help public libraries sustain the public access computing infrastructure laid down during Phase I. Now, as then, the goal of the program is to bridge the digital divide. But it is a digital divide as defined by Bill Gates and not the public library community. Situating Gates’ philanthropy within a critical policy frame, this paper considers two alternatives to Gates’ problem definition of the digital divide, and how knowledge of these might benefit those communities served by public access computing (PAC) services as found in public libraries. The two specific alternatives considered come from the Free Software Foundation (FSF), and Community Informatics (CI). Significantly, both social movements promote the potential of free and open software as an important part of any solution. Finally, the public library literature is reviewed for patterns in the community’s use of FOSS, and the argument is made for its use in the delivery of PAC services.

There is a problem of managing identity across the internet, so when I say Darren Waters I mean this person and all of the manifestations and representations and personas of that person. The ability to knit those together is a huge challenge and opportunity for us as an industry.

As an industry we're picking off these domains one-by-one, but we will need increased cooperation and standards for solving problems like identity.

The Dutch justice ministry is to temporarily block its 30,000 employees from using Wikipedia, the online encyclopaedia, at work after a magazine reported that ministry computers had been used to edit more than 800 entries.

This Wiki is dedicated to helping information professionals (librarians, MLIS students, and others) learn more about Library 2.0 and other available web technologies.

This blog shares ideas and hopes to generate discussion on enterprise 2.0, business blogs, web 2.0 and knowledge management to provide value to organizations through practical applications. New trends and technologies are covered with a switch to art, music, travel, and food on the weekends.

IBM just announced availability of a freely downloadable enterprise search product that installs with three clicks, packs the same features as a Google Mini, scales to half-a-million documents, and is built on open-source technology from the Apache Lucene project.

 Yahoo brings a familiar interface, Internet search, and consumer mind share.

Lucene offers a solid, open, full-text indexing core.