“Do White Papers Matter?”

One of my assignments this week was to read and critically review a technical article. The article I reviewed, co-authored by Ken Chad (former Executive Director of Talis) and fellow cohort Paul Miller was entitled “Do Libraries Matter? The Rise of Library 2.0″. The ‘article‘ (I am hesitant to call it that, as it’s little more than a glorified advertizement for the Talis corporation) addressed the need for libraries and library technologies to evolve alongside current technology, and advocated integrating web 2.0 elements, such as RSS, wikis, and blogs. Sounds harmless enough, really, and I’d have been less skeptical, if it weren’t for the perpetual references the article made to Amazon. I suspected it was a product-plug from the beginning, and wasn’t very surprised to discover that Talis and Amazon had in fact partnered nine months prior to the article’s release. Another clue — one that I didn’t mention in my analysis, but perhaps should have — was that the article had a release version. *giggles*

I’ve read, reviewed, and written my share of papers, and never once has “Version 1.0″ graced page footers. Perhaps this is standard practice for corporate publications? If it is common (and as I said, I honestly do not know, as my experiences are in scholarly writing, rather than cleverly-disguised sales pitches), well, fair enough. But wait — isn’t that evidence in itself that the paper is produced with company bias and agenda?

Don’t get me wrong, the arguments raised by the authors were valid, as were the suggestions that they offered: yes, library catalogues do need to adapt in order to keep up with the internet-enabled world. Yes, convenience and access are important concerns. Yes, shared-innovation, resource-pooling, and collaborative efforts are noble ideas as they often engender a greater and better product. Open-source, participative applications are wonderful indeed, as is “mix and match” integration, yes, yes, yes! Thumbs up for the great ideas, Talis, and kudos to you for profit-sharing with Amazon. Thumbs down for pretending to be a part of something you are not.

Am I being too critical here? Perhaps. My actual review is more favourable, and far more eloquent and comprehensive than the above summary. Hopefully

what a week..

I’m not sure how I’m still standing — and it’s only Wednesday! I’m working a convention this weekend, I started a new job this week, the company I oversee has demanded a lot of my attention as of late, the professor I work for is on a deadline (and therefore, I am on a deadline), I have two assignments are due this week (one down, one to go), the OGS application deadline is Friday, and I had to be on campus early today for a photo-op.

All this, and I’m typing with my wrist bandaged. Ah, good ol’ carpol tunnel..

I didn’t realize until today’s class, but apparently I was to summarize one of the assignments here — I’m sure I was aware of this, but in the midst of chaos I forgot to do so. Without further adieu.. see next post!

mmmm ebay

All I want for xmas…

bye bye benevolence..

See what I mean about obsessing the aesthetic? This blog is less than 48hrs old and it has a new theme already. Let’s hope that I soon move on from this and start blogging proper!

five and a half hours later = first post

One might think I was exaggerating here, but no, I’m not. Those who know me can attest to the fact that I am prone to obsessing unnecessarily over the most minute, mundane details. It comes in handy, I suppose? Like.. I’m told that employers love to read resumes that cite strengths such as ‘detail oriented’, ‘pays attention to the task at hand’, ‘focussed’, thorough’, etc. Anyway, enough of that. I’ve created this blog as it is the first assignment of one of my current university courses. This is about my sixth blog, give or take. Having said that, one might think that my previous inter-webbings would simplify matters; i.e., “You could do that silly assignment blindfolded, in thirty seconds, sheesh!” Yeah. Good luck with that thinking. Quite the contrary, in fact, as I have spent the past several hours flipping back and forth between different blog sites, weighing pros/cons/user-friendliness, and most of all aesthetics. Aesthetics! Aesthetics! Aesthetics! What message do I want to relay to my readers? To my peers? To my professor?

Apparently, the answer is grass. WordPress, and Theron Parlin’s Benevolence template wins.

On the upside, all of my humming, hawing, and needless researching of interfaces, capabilities, templates, upgrade options, and user/reader compatibility — not too mention personal tweaks such as choosing a clever, if not catchy (har har ‘cat’-chy, get it?) title, and hunting google images for the perfect (or purrfect, if you will) avatar — will probably serve to my advantage in the end. Or at some point. Much like the aforementioned buzz-words on the resume. Right??

Time will tell…