Blog Reflection 3

I'm not at all sure, to be honest, how to get younger people to look to libraries as just as a (perceived?) valid a source of information as Wikipedia. The youth are all about viral and community - and not just the youth either to be real honest. One thing to look at is the number of older people not only joining sites like Facebook, but becoming addicted to games like Farmville and Cityville. Community shared knowledge develops the feel of "real" knowledge, and often it can be, whereas library catalogs with their MARC21 standards and Library of Congress records and Dewey Decimal numbers and the like are structured and moderated. This may seem cold and inaccessible to current times.

The reality is that all this information must be cataloged and standardized to make it easily located. What many of these users don't know is similar categorizing standards with keywords and metatags exist on all this information that seems so loose and free flowing on the surface. That's how a search engine or wiki can be optimized to quickly find the information wanted. I wonder if part of the issue is that with a library it's more transparent and thereby more threatening.

None of that solves the idea of how to make it more accessible, it's more trying to analyze "root cause" I suppose. However that's where my brain's at this moment.

BLOG REFLECTION #1 TOPIC

I am asked to write if this is my first time blogging. In fact, no it is not. Right now I maintain, to various degrees, six different blogs. They feature everything about information about the animation industry, to my professional writing.

I don't read any regularly, but I do read them as I research things. As they are becoming the "fast and easy cheap website" for anyone to get information out there, they are more and more commonplace. However, that also means being far more discriminatory of what you read as it is easier for inaccurate information to disseminate quickly.

These are not my first classes at LBCC so I have prior familiarity with the online learning environment. e-Zone is functional enough but I must confess finding both Blackboard and ANGEL more organized which I have familiarity with from other institutions. Occasionally I find navigation in particular to be of difficulty.