Month: October 2009

Last weekend while stuck in the car for six hours I was flipping through the newspaper reading about some of the films being show at the Vancouver International Film Festival (VIFF) when I noticed a name that was familiar. Turns out there is a film in VIFF this year called 65_RedRoses that is all about a young woman, Eva Markvoort, from New Westminster (where I grew up) and her journey a few years ago through a double lung transplant. Eva is a year younger than my brother and was in French Immersion with him and she is four years younger than me, which is huge when you are school aged, so I don’t really know her. That hasn’t stopped me from being totally amazed by a few different aspects of this story.

When Eva was little she was diagnosed with Cystic Fibrosis (CF). A few years ago, while she was in university she was told that without a double lung transplant she would die. She quite school, moved home with her parents, let her film-maker friends start filming her and after what must have been a difficult wait, had a double lung transplant. What is most amazing is that she has kept a public live journal since July 2006, more than a year before she received her transplant. Her live journal 65_RedRoses is unbelievably intimate, personal, honest and moving. Through it Eva has captured so much about what it is like to live with CF and makes it more real and understandable for people who do not know much or anything about this disease. Reading through her entries makes you feel enormously privileged to have her share her experiences with you. If anyone can read even a few entries and not become an organ donor I don’t know what to make of that.

The reason that she started the Live Journal was to seek support from other young people living with CF. Apparently people with CF are discouraged from meeting with one another in person because there is a risk they will spread potentially fatal superbugs to each other. Now because of the internet and web 2.0 people with CF, like Eva, are turning to the internet to form supportive communities. Now people with CF have a way to connect to each other and offer support, advice, and understanding cyber-shoulder.

At the end of our module this week one of the questions we were asked to consider was “Haven’t we always shared and collaborated?” If we is information professionals I think the answer is probably “Yes” but there are obviously examples out there of groups who have not shared and collaborated before because they were not able to. The example of Eva and 65_RedRoses gives us a very different example of how social media is being used by people to share, support and collaborate with each other and social media software is what has given them this option.

This week (and next) we are looking at the topic of collaboration in libraries and archives. One question we are asked to consider is “Is collaboration important in the information fields? And why?” My answer would be a very solid “YES!” because I am not sure that most information professionals or organization would be able to function without it. We are also extremely luckily because many social media tools are allowing for easier and broader collaboration.

The main reason that I think that collaboration is important is because I don’t think that it would be possible to do a very good job without the help of others, especially when someone has first entered the profession. I am always in awe of the knowledge that older librarians at my work posses. However, it has often taken them twenty to thirty years to gather that knowledge of a collection and subject area. I once had a science and business librarian tell me that it took her ten years to feel totally proficient in those subject areas. Now social media tools offer us an easy ability to share information with our co-workers. Collaboration software can help staff spread and disseminate knowledge to staff and patrons through out a work site, branch or library system, possibly even to other organizations. As John Russell discusses a staff wiki could gather subject guides in one easily accessible place, create an reference manual that is accessible and can be easily edited, or be used as a project management tool for committee and working groups.

I also think that collaboration is important because it may help prevent technology overload. It can be overwhelming to have to go out and learn about the newest technologies, software, etc. If information professionals collaborate and make information available to each other it will help make the learning process easier and create a more knowledgeable community.

Overall, I think that collaboration comes easily to information professionals because in general they really like to share what they know with others, co-workers or patrons and now there is software that is supporting this process quite nicely.

Who doesn’t love Wikipedia? Most of us are probably guilty of using wikipedia more than we should. Especially when wanting to know some quick fact or find out the basics for a subject we have no knowledge of. I am even guilty of using it as a verb. Example: “I should wikipedia that.” I do not use it as an academic source and I encourage my library patrons to use wikipedia as an introduction to a subject, not as the one and only source in their research paper. I like Wikipedia, but I don’t quite trust it and today I read a newspaper article that is making my understand why.

As most know director Roman Polanski was arrested in Switzerland last week on a US arrest warrant and now his wikipedia page has been locked. According to the Telegraph the page was locked after editors began fighting over what information to provide readers and what information should be emphasized (Oscar winning director vs self-admitted child rapist). Obviously wikipedia editors are not interested in present the facts in a neutral manner, they want the facts presented in a way that benefits their own personal views of Polanski. This makes me think, how often does this happen and did Wikipedia moderators only catch it happening on Polanski’s page because it is such a hot topic? The Telegraph article points out that other pages, such as the Church of Scientology have been locked because of editing problems, but how many other pages fly below the radar?

I will keep using Wikipedia, but I know I will read article carefully and with a critical eye. The problem is how many other people will just take Wikipedia’s word for it? And can anything be done about that?