So, the real question is, how do we design filters that let us find our way through this particular abundance of information? And, you know, my answer to that question has been: the only group that can catalog everything is everybody. One of the reasons you see this enormous move towards social filters, as with Digg, as with del.icio.us, as with Google Reader, in a way, is simply that the scale of the problem has exceeded what professional catalogers can do. But, you know, you never hear twenty-year-olds talking about information overload because they understand the filters they’re given. You only hear, you know, forty- and fifty-year-olds taking about it, sixty-year-olds talking about because we grew up in the world of card catalogs and TV Guide. And now, all the filters we’re used to are broken and we’d like to blame it on the environment instead of admitting that we’re just, you know, we just don’t understand what’s going on.
Judy O'Connell on 24 Oct 12"The School of Information Studies (www.csu.edu.au/faculty/educat/sis/) at Charles Sturt University (CSU) is a national and international provider in the design and delivery of a comprehensive suite of courses in library and information studies. We face many challenges, and among these the latest one has been to respond to new media environments by expanding the scope of our services to the vitally important information professionals we know as teacher librarians."
