With information as accessible as it ever was, current news spreads fast.  But, is that a good thing? Is there a dark side to having quick access to information? I don’t doubt that there are many, many benefits,  but it’s also plausible that a universal acceptance of new media can lead to an inevitable playing toward the lowest common denominator?

Like sex, anger and frustration sell remarkably well.

Now, to be fair there’s a long tradition in journalism of people playing to others feelings, and new media doesn’t change that, but it’s also realistic to believe we are witnessing a sort of megaphone effect. People naturally look to validate their own beliefs and we all have source biases. But, given that there are so many sources out there the promulgation of information means that today it’s possible to validate anything. Once upon a time objective research was considered to be important. Today it garners CNN’s ratings.

As time goes on and the general public “backs up” their arguments using easily found resources, I suspect, they will also come to more rigidly defend them. After all if you can find it quickly then it must be true, right? The more rigidly the general public defends their arguments, of course, the more likely we are to see an increase in the volume of national discourse.

If this is the case, then the free flow of information may actually come at a cost. Blogs, Twitter,  and the changing technology driving shifts in information seeking behaviors… I see them as partially to blaim.

Spurred on by a book titled “Print is Dead,” Tennant makes the point that print dosen’t seem to be going anywhere. Instead he notes that we are moving to a mixed media environment. I’ve has suspicions as much for a while, but the fact that Jeff Gomez’s book was printed in PRINT seems to make the title either one of two things: 1. suspect (or) 2. an obvious attention grabber.

The full post can be found at here.

I’m almost absolutely convinced of it.

Blogging - This is my blog. In case you are interested, I bought some server space last summer (2008) and installed WordPress using PHP and a MySQL database. WordPress is free open source software . My “microblog”  (Twitter account)  feeds into my “Currently” page. You can visit it separately for a more detail view.

RSS Feeds – Personally, I’m less interested in RSS feeds as a tool to keep updated with than I am in using them to build websites and other cool stuff. RSS stands for “really simple syndication” and is basically data formatted in XML. The cool thing about XML is that it is awesome for data interchange. My point? Well, not only does RSS let you update information using feed readers but it also lets you pull out information  from other RSS feeds… and manipulate it! My blog’s RSS feed is available here.

Photo Sharing – I have a mixed relationship with photo sharing. On one hand I like photos and they are an ideal media format for sprucing things  up (like my blog). On the other hand, since digital cameras are so easy to get a hold of many people just slap random content online. Case in point: here. Sorry Mr. Powell. You’re usually more photogenic.

Social Bookmarking – Social bookmarking is a handy tool for people “on the go.” Delicious lets you create an account, save hyperlinks, login, and share information from computer to computer. It also allows you to view items by popularity. As part of the “7 Things” I created a Delicious account (my second one in two years), but dunno if I’ll keep using it.

Social Networking – I am on Facebook. You can visit me there. You can also visit MoDOT too. :)

Wikis – For those of you unaware, “Wiki” is Hawaiian for “fast.” Publishing online usually requires HTML and other markup languages, but a wiki doesn’t even need that. Wiki’s simplified markup make it where almost anyone can use them. They’re also very useful for collaboration. The SLA Transportation Wiki serves as the SLA Transportation Division’s webpage, and I personally use a password protected one to document my daily work.

Working in the Cloud – Cloud computing refers to working with Web 2.o tools. Originally the web was static. Now, it’s much more interactive. Things that were desktop based several years ago are now online. This can be a little daunting, but once people realize that working in a “cloud” envrionment is a more transparent than most people seem to adapt.

Anyway, the Angry Librarian brings up something called the “Reference Abstract” which is basically a search engine that returns accurate information for it’s users in a Googlesque manner. Think of it as Wikipedia, Yahoo, et al. with an academic checking up to make sure the sources are always valid. But there’s a catch and it’s a big one. The Angry Librarian notes:

“Consider the competition, which for the most part is Google. Google makes a boatload of money. They can afford to pay the best software engineers and programmers in the country and give them a lot of support in their work. Their revenue is based on competitively creating products that people want to use because they work so darn well. And libraries? They hire library school graduates.

In case the penny hasn’t dropped, let’s do the comparison in our heads. On the one hand, we have the best engineers and programmers in the country, and on the other hand we have…library school graduates. Unless the ALA can lobby successfully for some anti-competitive labor standards favoring librarians, I don’t see how libraries are going to compete. They’re not businesses. They don’t have cadres of programmers working in the bowels of the library developing neat stuff. If they’ve got someone who can build a decent website and make a wiki they feel like they’ve achieved some sort of technological wonder. If some librarians feel like they’re hot stuff at creating search engines, let them apply to work at Google and see how far they get.”

An obvious rant, for sure, but as someone with a background in digital libraries she makes a really good point! Librarians just can’t expect to create the neat stuff that most of the private sector does. It’s not our job. We don’t have the technological talent and we don’t have the money. That said, I’m curious as to what the rest of you think. Is this necessarily the case? If so, does that mean libraries are going to start dying off? Did I waste two years of my life in library school?