LIS/KM Resource

To promote its forthcoming users' conference in Boston next week, Blackboard, the academic-software company, has posted to YouTube a video that parodies the awkward ways in which avatars — digital characters — move around and communicate in Second Life.

This is a forthright exchange between two brilliant, deeply penetrating scholars, and it well encapsulates some of the most significant conundrums raised by the Google Book Search project.

A video I (joe sanchez) made a few months ago for educators who have never heard of or seen virtual worlds.

Explore, discover, learn, dream and believe that Web 2.0 can help transform your learning and teaching to engage students in 21st century learning

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.

People across the globe are now using the tool to see that corporations themselves are editing pages about them, generally adding favorable information or deleting negative info, even if it is factually accurate.

GIMP is the GNU Image Manipulation Program. It is a freely distributed piece of software for such tasks as photo retouching, image composition and image authoring.

This presentation presents a historical view of hypertext looking at pre- web hypertext as a domesticated species bred in captivity, and arguing that on the web, some breeds of hypertext have gone feral.

A blog about information

Find open source software alternatives to well-known commercial software

With reference to surveillance studies theory, this paper critically assesses the role of personalized search engines as a mediator between advertisers and users. It first sketches the economic and technical background of online marketing and personalized searches. Then, it engages in an in–depth discussion of two examples of personalized search engines with regard to the data collection process used and the way in which this data is used for advertising purposes. The discussion shows that users’ information needs, as well as their personal data, are subject to a growing pressure in terms of commercial exploitation. Essentially, search engines now fulfill the task of translating information needs into consumption needs.