Notas de una reunión con Nieves González en el 15 de abril 2009 (scroll down for English)

★IWETEL★

Doñana - Director de Biblioteca

*bib.us.es → más noticias

[friendfeed]


shelving: colocación y prestamo
and
circ.

Ayudante de circulación -
Shelving + Circ. Asst.

suministrar libros (mejor que recuperar)
deliver books

tareas encuadernación menor
-minor book repairs

Universitat Oberta de Catalunya
online university.

licenciaturas 2nd
→documentación

Master
Sociado de Information y...

"Master Online en Documentación Digital"


Oposiciones:

• Auxiliares
• Tecnicos
• Ayudantes
• Facultativo
  

NOTAS EN ESPAÑOL

Nieves González, Bibliotecaria de la Universidad de Sevilla y profesora de Biblioteconomía de la Universidad Pablo de Olavide de Sevilla, amablemente aceptó quedar conmigo el 15 de abril. Tenía muchas ganas de conocerla y de preguntarle muchas cosas sobre documentación en España y sobre todo en Andalucia, y no me falló.

Estabamos de acuerdo que me beneficiaría con un curso español de algunos aspectos de documentación, y hablamos de la Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, que ofrece una licenciatura de segundo ciclo en documentación, y del Master Online en Documentación Digital de la Universitat Pompeu Fabra. Nieves también mencionó los cursos de Master y Experto en E-Learning de la Universidad de Sevilla. Y actualmente estoy considerando estas opciónes.

Además hablamos de la importancia de tener una identidad digital. Nieves me introdució a friendfeed, una herramienta para seguir las actividades de sus amigos y compañeros en linea, en Facebook, Twitter, etc. La verdad es que aún no he decidido usar esta herramienta; todavía no tengo una cuenta Twitter (aunque considero hacer una casi cada día) y es bastante fácil seguir a mis amigos en Facebook, y seguir blogs en Google Reader. ¿Hay alguien en friendfeed? ¡Contadme!

Gracias a Nieves ahora tengo un poco de información sobre las oposiciones para trabajar en una biblioteca, que me dan mucho miedo, por que no las tenemos en Canadá. Me recomendó que me inscribiera en IWETEL, un listserv para documentalistas. Y, por fin, he terminado mi curriculum español con el vocabulario útil que Nieves me dio. ¡Muchisimas gracias, Nieves!


NOTES IN ENGLISH

Nieves González, Librarian at the University of Seville and professor of Library Science at the University of Pablo Olavide, kindly agreed to a meeting with me on the 15th of April. I was eager to meet with her and ask lots of questions about the information professions in Spain, and in Andalusia most of all. She didn't disappoint.

We both agreed that I would benefit from an info-related course in Spanish for vocabulary and practice. I am in desperate need of both. We talked about many courses, among them a graduate program in information studies from the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (an online university), and the Master Online en Documentación Digital of the Universitat Pompeu Fabra. Closer to home, the University of Seville offers courses towards a Master y Experto en E-Learning. I'm still considering these options.

We also spoke of the importance of having a digital identity. This was familiar territory from library school, but nonetheless important to discuss. She introduced me to friendfeed, a tool for following the online activities of your friends and colleagues on various social networking sites. Since I'm still a Twitter holdout (though I think about it daily), I'm not sure if I really need this tool. It's easy enough to follow people on Facebook, and blogs can be followed in Google reader. I guess I'll think it over. If any of you are on friendfeed, please let me know!

Thanks to Nieves I finally have some information on the Oposiciones, scary Spanish government exams that you have to take to work in any public or government library here. She recommended that I subscribe to IWETEL, a listserv for information professionals. And, I was finally able to finish my Spanish curriculum thanks to her vocabulary help. Thanks so much, Nieves!

Notes from One Big Library Unconference. With Comments. Part Two.

Cataloguing/Semantic Web/Folsonomies [sic] etc.

openlibrary.org
-like a wiki-version of OCLC?
-will have more records than OCLC in 18-24 months
→who owns the metadata?

OCLC has more restrictions?

social tagging
vs.
controlled vocabulary

Controlled vocabs can be inadequate
Tagging can be helpful statistically
(e.g. in large numbers)

Why do we want to professionalize social tagging? Doesn't that miss the point?

cold rigid authorities
vs.
wild wooly tagging

→Does this constitute a threat or an opportunity for cataloguers?

COMMENTS
By far my favourite session. I've been interested in the idea of the semantic web ever since it was introduced to me. Admittedly that was just a few months ago, but still, the idea of so many interlocking parts, and of such a grand communal effort, is so satisfying. In my thinking, the One Big Library would be a part of the greater semantic web, and I would have liked some talk about where the borders would be drawn. I disliked some of the talk about social tagging. One of the session moderators was talking about what he saw as the importance of teaching people to tag so that others could find what they had tagged. I don't think librarians need to try to control and formalize tagging, which I see as wild and untamable. I would almost guarantee that if people are taught how to tag, they'll either stop using tags or tags will stop being effective for them. Tags do not belong to just us; they belong to everyone and we should leave them alone. (I mean, we should still use them ourselves, but you get my drift.) There is no need to confuse them with controlled vocabularies; social tagging is something new and different. Moderator and organizer Stacy was talking about it almost as though it was a resource for cataloguers to mine; I like this. The Zotero guy, Trevor Owens, mentioned that it would be useful to have the two "pools" -- traditional vocabularies and social tags -- to draw on, to improve library catalogues. I like this too. There was much talk about allowing users to tag records in OPACs, which I think is a fabulous idea.



One Big Library on One Little Device.

Mobile interfaces
-for OPACs, dbs, etc.?

Isolation of iPod
vs.
Connectivity of iTouch?

Issues of privacy + access

Texting call numbers!

Who uses what devices?
→user profiles
→what are they trying to do?

Splashtop.

COMMENTS
Apparently the Ryerson library catalogue has a feature whereby, after finding the book you want, you can text the call number to yourself. I think this is nothing short of brilliant; in all seriousness, I would use this all the time. This session made me realize that the reason I'm not more "up" on certain social technologies is that I want to leave the house sometimes, and all I have is a desktop. Who knows, if I were more mobile I might even Tweet. I like dichotomies and so am quite proud of the iPod/iTouch one I have up there.




Look into: aggregators w RSS

COMMENTS
I heard an unconferencegoer talk about how she was so behind on her aggregators. What is this? I asked myself. I got home and looked it up on Wikipedia and found that My Yahoo is one. I started using that three years ago.

Ha.

snark in my moleskine

Things I've done in the past 2 days with "2.0" tacked on the end of them.

ORIGINAL: Laundry
NOW: Laundry 2.0
% SEXIER: 30%

ORIGINAL: Waiting for the bus
NOW: Waiting for the bus 2.0
%SEXIER: 10%

ORIGINAL: Ramen noodles
NOW: Ramen noodles 2.0
%SEXIER: 60%

ORIGINAL: Procrastination
NOW: Procrastination 2.0
%SEXIER: 100%

from notes on "The Gutenberg Galaxy" by Marshall McLuhan

*Quoting Aquinas:
"The senses delight in things duly proportioned as in something akin to them, for, the sense, too, is a kind of reason as is every cognitive power." (107)

p. 109: Medievals associated the message with both the book and the word.