Head Tale - Yet Another Librarian's Blog

Talking to Michelle Lake on IM and it sounds like she's got a good line-up for the Freedom to Read Week event on Monday although there's still room for more readers to sign up, even now. So if you're interested in reading, why not drop her a line!

Here's the scoop on the event:
What: Freedom To Read Week Event
When: Monday, February 19, 2007 @ 5pm
Where: Grad Club - Room 19, Middlesex College (lower level).
Why: Censorship still exists and as graduate students in Library Sciences and Journalism, we need to be aware of these issues and work to provide access for everyone.
What specifically, though?: Good question; 'Readers' will take the stage and the microphone, for 3 min max., to read from a banned or challenged book (lists can be found here OR discuss a specific case, issue, article, story, current event, or passage from somewhere that relates to censorship. You can choose whatever you'd like, no limitations. We have an MC and each reader will be introduced. There will be some books at the event if you decide at the last minute to join us and want to read.
How: Email me (mlake3@uwo.ca), and let me know what you want to read, I'll put you on the list, indicate if you need to go on earlier because of a night class. Show up, bring friends, and enjoy the event!

***Please come even if you don't want to read, & support your fellow students! ***

What is already being read? Harry Potter; Snow Falling on Cedars; The Diviners; Catcher in the Rye; Asha's Mums; One Dad, Two Dads, Brown Dad, Blue Dads; and possibly Of Mice and Men.

Here's a list I started last year and never used so am happy to be able to recycle it this year:

TEN REASONS WHY SHOULD YOU READ AT AN EVENT LIKE THIS
10. Freedom of Expression is something fundamental to *all* libraries.
9. For those of you thinking about graduation, participating would look great on a resume.
8. Today, in Canada, there are politicians trying to ban books based on their constituents' comments yet who haven't bothered to actually read the "offensive" books.
7. If it's a good book, odds are it's been challenged by someone.
6. Where else do you get the chance to swear publicly for a good cause? (One of my classmates read the "Fuck" section of the "Dictionary of Slang" last year and broke a record for number of times saying "fuck" in a three minute timespan at the Grad Club, beating the record set by a punk band!)
5. It's a great chance to get some public speaking experience outside of the classroom setting.
4. An 8-year old girl who's the daughter of a prof will be reading at the event. If she can do it, so can you!
3. Did I mention that participating in an event like this shows an initiative that help separate you from other applicants when you're applying for jobs?
2. Award winning novel, "Snow Falling on Cedars" was recently pulled from an Ontario Catholic high school's library shelves after the board received an *anonymous* complaint they *believed* was from a parent.
1. You're not just at FIMS for a piece of paper, are you? <grin>

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Friday Fun Link - March of the Librarians (Feb 16, 2007)

by Jason on Fri 16 Feb 2007 09:21 PM CST

I said last week that I love getting something in my in-box on Friday morning that I can turn around and use as a Friday Fun Link later that same day. (In fact, feel free to e-mail me if you know a site that is funny, unique or thought-provoking. I can’t guarantee I’ll use it but I’m always on the look out for potential FFL’s.)

My former classmate, Bruce F., comes through with today’s link - a parody of the “March of the Penguins” documentary using the ALA conference in Seattle as a backdrop.

They come to network, for free stuff and possibly, to mate. Hilarious!

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Ask Metafilter - Some Thoughts

by Jason on Fri 16 Feb 2007 05:04 AM CST

I recently exchanged a couple e-mails with an MLIS student who was thinking of doing a paper on Yahoo! Answers having seen one of their executives do a presentation at OLA SuperConference. I suggested that she should focus on Ask Metafilter which is arguably a lot more successful at what it does than Yahoo Answers. Or do a comparison of both as they provide two unique takes on what could be a model for the future of library reference services.

On that note, why don't the Ask A Librarian services that are available at most public and academic libraries archive the questions and answers they deal with online? This would allow multiple people to get benefit from the answers, not just the person who asks the question. One of the great strengths of AskMefi is the archive of information that has built up in the years it has been in existence. Because of this, you can search or use the tags to find previous answers that might help with your own question. In just the past couple weeks, I've used Ask.MetaFilter tags while seeking information on MS-Excel, online address books, babies, and more. That old saying that there are no new questions, just new people asking, is definitely true in this case!)

Never one to let good information go to waste, here's the full e-mail I sent her:

I've heard of Yahoo Answers, looked at it the odd time but don't use it because MetaFilter has an excellent service called ask.metafilter.com that is more useful, thorough and effective in my opinion. Why? I think people on MetaFilter are invested in the community and want to support each other whereas Yahoo Answers tend to have "drive-by" responses (as far as I know - perhaps they have a sense of community there too?) But that's the crux of the issue - Yahoo has potentially millions of people on their site, AskMetafilter has 50 000 (of which, *maybe* 10 000? are active participants.) You can't discredit the interface of each site either - AskMefi has a layout that encourages you to browse and makes answering questions fairly painless compared to Yahoo's.

There's been some discussion/comparisons of the two services on MetaFilter so if you wanted to shift your paper in that direction (either by focusing completely on Ask.Mefi or by doing a comparison of Internet-based reference services), I can point you to some of those comments.

Another thing that people have claimed helps make the Metafilter network of sites what it is is the fact that the co-moderator is a librarian (Jessamyn West who runs the well-known site, librarian.net).

So, in summary, I *really* think you should incorporate ask.mefi into your paper in some way.

Here's a follow-up e-mail I sent to her with more info:

One other thing I forgot to mention - Google had a Yahoo Answers competitor (creatively named "Google Answers") where they paid 800 people (I think they were considered contractors - not full-timers) for good answers. It was shut down last November. Here's an announcement from Google:

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2006/11/adieu-to-google-answers.html

...and some Google results with more commentary from other sites:
http://www.google.ca/search?sourceid=navclient-ff&ie=UTF-8
&rls=GGGL,GGGL:2006-12,GGGL:en&q=google+answers+shut+down

Below is a link to a great article explaining why ask.mefi works and Google Answers didn't (if you don't know when you read the article, Matt Haughey is the creator of the MetaFilter network.) Here's one interesting quote from the article:

"Just as importantly, Jessamyn is a librarian. I can't overstate how much a site that's about providing information benefits from the presence of a librarian, someome who's an expert at retrieving and disseminating information."

There are lots of other good links to Metafilter discussion of the topic and other relevant stuff in this article too:

http://www.dashes.com/anil/2006/12/11/how_matt_haughe

Cheers,

Jason

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