Lowrider Librarian

National Digital Ethnic Studies Library Now!

2012-01-20T11:46:00.001-08:00

Hi everyone,

I do not know if an Ethnic Studies Digital Library exists, but I believe we NEED to create one due to the oppressive climate in education today.

Historically, education has failed Latinos and Black students.

I would like to volunteer to coordinate the construction of a National Ethnic Studies Digital Library.

I also think this library should, perhaps be funded from Outside the current education system--as this system is White-supremacist and colonial at its foundation.

Does anyone know if a current National Ethnic Studies Library exists?

What do you think of this idea?

Would you be willing to help?

I do not know enough to do this by myself, and do not feel it should be done by a few people--it should be done on a grand scale--the scale that a National Ethnic Studies Digital Library deserves.

Here is our FB Planning group:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/213376968755122/

Here is the link to a Spreadsheet that we are using to collect Ethnic Studies Collections:

Ethnic Studies Collection Spreadsheet

Please fill it out with collections you are aware of and think should be included.

Thank you!

Max Macias

Pinterest Refreshed!

2011-09-25T15:27:00.001-07:00

Apparrently Pinterest is changing their look next week. 9/26/11.
Here is a snapshot of the new look:

Easier to pin is one upgrade listed,

" ...quick to pin, simpler to comment, and easier to find Pinners that share your interests. We’ve also made it much simpler to mention other Pinners - just type ‘@’ followed by their name in any comment, pin, or edit form on the site."

Improved Boards, here is a shot of them.

The blog post doesn't say much about how they will be improved however. I have faith in this company though and am looking forward to the upgrade.

Here is a link to their post on the "refresh."

http://blog.pinterest.com/post/10497565225/pinterest-refreshed

This says it all.

2011-09-05T11:41:00.001-07:00

Everyone is a Curator

2011-08-24T21:37:00.000-07:00

I haven't been excited about anything on the Web in a long time. That has changed recently. My wife and a few other friends recently turned me onto Pinterest. Pinterest is like Flickr on steroids. It is a service/site where you can easily share images with people. Each image you pin or repin appears on your Pinterest wall, which is similar to a Facebook wall. The feed is live and comes in similar to how Twitter updates itself as you watch.

My Pinterest Wall

Users can follow other users’ feeds, and other users can follow your feeds. Images may be added from a website using the Pin It button, or you can upload images from your computer. The Pin It button can be placed onto your browser bar, thus allowing one to pin images by simply clicking on the button when viewing an image you like on any given website.

After a user clicks the Pin It button they are then presented with a window displaying the lined up images from the page they were on. Clicking the Pin It button on the images you want to “pin” to your Pinterest wall presents you with a screen where you may enter comments; add username info, tags, prices or other information to the pinned image.

Once the images are pinned, the user and his/her friends can see each other’s walls and pins. There is a repin button on each image that has been pinned; clicking on this button will repin the image to your wall. There is also a comment button allowing one to post comments on the image. Finally, there is a like button that enables you to like the pins and repins of the people you follow or other images on Pinterest.

In the comment area of the pin you can also:

“ Type @ to mention people, # to add tags, $ or £ to add prices.” Use hashtags #labels to organize your tags. Keep in mind that users can search using hashtags.

"To mention a pin to a Pinterest user, you first need to be following at least one board belonging to him/her. Then, type the @ symbol immediately followed by his/her username. Potential matches to this username will begin to load; when you see the person you want, click their name."

This is called a "mention". There is a link to your mentions page on your user profile page. This link will say @yourusername, allowing you to access your username "mentions".

My profile page also has my boards listed.

Pinterest users can organize their pins by creating “boards.” For instance, I have a “skate” board (no pun intended), where I pin skateboarding images. Users can follow individual boards or they can follow all of the boards a particular user “curates.” On Pinterest everyone is a curator.

You can shop for gifts on the gift page: http://pinterest.com/gifts/

Items are grouped according to price as circled below. I am not sure how to search using operators in Pinterest and am hoping a more robust search is developed in the near future.

You can also search other aspects on Pinterest. You can conduct hash tag searches. For instance, if I am interested in finding skateboarding photos, I would use #skateboarding as my search term, incidentally giving me a great return.

Tagged $49.99

Pinterest requires that an individual be invited to join their site.

"Pinterest is currently invite-only. You can request an invite from us or you can be invited by someone who is already a part of Pinterest."

Ask your friends who have accounts to invite you. You can also use the “Request an Invite” link on the Pinterest home page. Current users can follow the “invite friends” link to send invitations via email addresses, or by importing Yahoo or Gmail contacts into Pinterest. I have invited my Gmail contacts; it was quick and easy. Quick and easy seems to be one of the features I am always seeking, especially in a web application. It’s also intuitive (I hate to use that term, but it’s fitting).

Discussions

Users can follow discussions on various topics by following the “discussions” link.
This looks to be developing. I have not participated in many good discussions yet, but am open to following and participating in the future.

What I love about Pinterest is that it is so visual, that you can share a huge amount of images easily, and that you can go through others’ images quickly, liking and/or repinning them. I have encountered wonderful images: animal photos, images of food that look so delicious you want to reach into the screen, architectural photos, and more. I love that you can follow others’ collections easily and can encounter almost anything (and I mean that in the good taste sense).

I am quickly becoming addicted to my "Pin It" button and look forward to checking my wall daily. It is really fun. I enjoy meeting new people and seeing their images; I've not really found anything to not like about Pinterest.

Comments are greatly appreciated. I would love to hear about your ideas and experiences in Pinterest!

Steve Earle's Arte

2011-07-31T07:12:00.000-07:00

Commentary on a Black Power Mixtape Review

2011-01-27T18:19:00.000-08:00

This is the idiots post:

http://www.hitfix.com/blogs/the-beat-goes-on/posts/sundance-review-the-black-power-mixtape-1967-1975

Using Social Media to Make the Case for Supporting Library Services

2009-11-17T18:54:00.000-08:00

[Press release from REFORMA]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Contact: Loida Garcia-Febo, President REFORMA 917-548-2910 loidagarciafebo@gmail.com www.reforma.org

Using Social Media to Make the Case for Supporting Library Services Webinar on Thursday, November 19, 2009 from 1:00 to 2:30 p.m. EST

REFORMA and Webjunction are partnering to present a webinar about how non-profits such as libraries can use social websites to put access to information and libraries on the agenda of community leaders, elected officials, and local and national agencies. The content of this WebJunction and REFORMA co-sponsored webinar includes a background on social websites, how to use social websites for advocacy, national and international advocacy efforts by representatives from American Library Association (ALA) and the International Federation of Libraries and Institutions (IFLA), and suggestions on how to advocate for services for Latinos and Spanish speakers.Guest speakers include Meredith Farkas, Head of Instructional Initiatives at Norwich University; Fiona Bradley, IFLA Programme Coordinator ALP; Marci Merola, Director, ALA Office for Library Advocacy; Max Macias, Serials Technician at Portland Community College; and Loida Garcia-Febo, Assistant Coordinator New Americans Program and Special Services at Queens Library.
Registration is required for this event: http://evanced.info/webjunction/evanced/eventsignup.asp?ID=1623

Questions can be directed to Loida Garcia-Febo at loidagarciafebo@gmail.com or further information can be found on the Webjunction website at http://evanced.info/webjunction/evanced/eventsignup.asp?ID=1623

Loida Garcia-Febo

Assistant Coordinator,

New Americans Program and Special Services

Queens Library, 89-11 Merrick Blvd., Jamaica, N.Y. 11432

phone: 1 + 718-990-8569; fax: 1 + 718-990-8628

-------------------------------------------------------

REFORMA President 2009-2010

http://reforma.org/

http://loidagarciafebo.com/
http://vimeo.com/channels/loidatime
http://www.youtube.com/Loidagarciafebo

Five Ideas on Social Media and Advocacy

2009-11-15T11:19:00.000-08:00

Five Ideas About Social Media And Advocacy

View more presentations from maxmacias.

Using Social Media to #beatcancer

2009-10-17T07:28:00.000-07:00

This is brilliant, just brilliant!

For every mention of #beatcancer on your blog, tweet, or FB status eBay/PayPal and Miller/Coors will donate one cent to breast cancer research!

I read about this in an article posted on Facebook by Stephen Abram written by Genesis Davies:

http://www.pamil-visions.net/twitter-beatcancer/26918/

I can see the potential usage for many different types of organizations here! The potential for collaboration and mutually beneficial projects for sponsors and organizations is incredible. I do not want to speak to soon though. I will be watching how this works closely. Hopefully we can all gain some insight to see the potential of linking ideas together and using them in new ways. I have seen similar campaigns, but never with this kind of sponsorship and potential.

This campaign displays the convergence of several elements:

Social Media content production has grown exponentially over the past two years. The aggregation of SM has improved greatly and allowed for the simple updating of status on various platforms via one post, as well as led to the ability to aggregate SM into readable groups, etc...with applications written for this purpose.

The recent deluge and abilities of visionaries like Brian Solis from the Public Relations industry have been able to merge their worlds with the White Hat Hacker ethic of Sharing and in PR this is a killer APP! The introduction of the business world had me very worried, but I am now seeing the potential to collaborate, as well as pressure business to change the way they operate.

The introduction of Non-profit and other non-business organizations has led to innovative and new practices in PR, outreach and fund-raising. If you are on FB undoubtedly you have been asked to support a cause. Now I am not claiming any huge successes here, but I do claim that just the ability to send a non-offensive, non-intrusive invitation to support a cause is in itself a success! Add to this new tool, Youtube channels, Twitter campaigns, and various other ideas and you have a nice mix of ingredients to choose from. Next add the ability to mix and match them via widgets and API applications--well then we have the foundations for innovative thinking and partnerships to become a reality.

These are just some elements that have led to this kind of campaign. I am truly excited about this and just had to write this short post to let you in on it. This is a short post, not meant to be extensive, but inspiring!

#beatcancer #beatcancer #beatcancer #beatcancer #beatcancer #beatcancer #beatcancer #beatcancer #beatcancer #beatcancer #beatcancer #beatcancer #beatcancer #beatcancer #beatcancer #beatcancer #beatcancer #beatcancer #beatcancer #beatcancer #beatcancer #beatcancer #beatcancer #beatcancer

Ten Technologies to Increase Communication in Your Organization

2009-10-10T12:13:00.000-07:00

We live in a time unprecedented for information and knowledge in management and organizational cultures. Systems theory and other theories of organizational innovation state that there must be open channels of communication in the organization. Yet, today we use organizational communication based on the memo to communicate for the most part. With the technology available today it is easy to increase communication in your organization even with a tight budget. I am going to talk about 10 things one can do with technology to facilitate communication, either externally or internally. The applications are free and just take the investment of time/labor to get them going.

1) Start a blog. Yes, I know, everyone has heard this before. However, there are so many blogs that are boring or irrelevant. Make your blog interesting--invite guest posters who cover different aspects of your organization. You can even bring in guest bloggers who are external to your organization. Blogs can impart information, creating a dynamic conversation that can include different types of media, and is interactive.

2) Start a Twitter feed. Begin and maintain a Twitter feed with value added informational tweets. By this I mean, instead of just passing along a URL, pass it along with a short annotation, etc. that imparts why someone will want to spend their time following the link. Use hashtags for discussions on Twitter.

3) Share your best practices on a Wiki. I know the glamour of Wikis has faded in the recent past; however, they are still a powerful tool when it comes to sharing information. The fact that they can be made almost transparent via the use of history, comments and discussions is another plus for Wiki use.

4) Start an organizational discussion board. This can increase discussion and spark debate about vital organizational issues. These discussions can also document the chain of reasoning that led to a conclusion and subsequent action/policy. People can be referred to the board for a first step in a search for answers to their questions about the organization. This can ofttimes lead to individuals raising their opinions in writing--people who would otherwise remain silent on issues. Sometimes this platform can lead to increased participation and expression by people of this persuasion.

5) Start a Facebook organizational page. Utilize this to broadcast messages to members and associates on Facebook. This information can then easily be shared, or pasted and copied to other Facebook walls, pages, and discussion boards as well as other websites. You can promote public relation campaigns on these pages and start "cause" pages as well. This can help in increasing membership, as well as fundraising and building a list of allies.

6) Start a YouTube or Vimeo channel. This can be used to post public relation announcements, informational messages, membership communications, presidential messages and more. YouTube works well--one can then use widgets, and embed code to share videos on websites and social networking platforms.

7) Scrap that old print newsletter. A multimedia newsletter will allow for use of media that is used in other places, i.e., YouTube, Vimeo, etc. This will also make the newsletter a bit flashier and eye-appealing. Individuals who may not like to read the newsletter may enjoy some creative videos showcasing newsworthy events throughout the year.

8) Incorporate social software into your organization. This allows for the creation of profiles. This might not seem like a big deal, but it can potentially link people with common interests, who then may be able to collaborate to increase organizational mission accomplishment. An internal social software aspect can generally increase communication, teamwork, rapport, discussion and dare I say, innovation.

9) Create a Flickr account to share organizational photos. Photos do much to convey organizational attitudes, teamwork, camaraderie, as well as documentation of events and people. Photos from these accounts can be shared on other platforms and sites via embedding and widget use. This makes Flickr an even more powerful tool.

10) Begin or maintain an organizational culture that is free and open--one which encourages experimentation, documentation, assessment and rewards innovation. This is the most important technology, as it allows and budgets time for exploration into new techniques, technologies, ideas, and innovations. Which, in turn, allows for progress toward the fulfillment of the organizational mission. This culture must come from the administration of the organization and must be supported with time and resources.

In today's ever-changing dynamic society, we need to be thinking about leveraging our work, budgets and talents more than ever. Collaboration, innovation and increased communication go a long way in achieving this goal. Given that the technologies listed above are relatively free of charge, with the only costs an investment in labor and talent, we should be using them to increase efficiency, reduce costs and possibly increase revenue via increased support and presence in the community. The media available can increase the power of our messages and motivate people in ways heretofore unimagined; we just need to harness the power that is already there.

Creating an Infrastructure for Latinos/Hispanics About to Cross the Digital Divide

2009-09-06T09:39:00.001-07:00

As I sit here typing I am getting Tweets via Tweetdeck from a variety of Hispanic/Latino contacts among others. What I want to point out here is that there is an already thriving Digital Latino community, but it will be growing exponentially in the next few years. For a long time I have been reading articles that state we need to bridge the digital divide by providing Internet access in libraries and communities. While this is still true, we had better start thinking about those Latinos who are already online and who will be coming online shortly.

In 1997 the Pew Report Latinos Online stated that "just one in three Latinos who speak Spanish go online. While this may have been true in 1997 surely the numbers have grown today. The Pew Study also mentions access via phones for Spanish speakers. This has truly been a growing market; with many Hispanics I know using more than one device to access the Internet and the Web. When creating digital content please remember to include a phone-based framework for digital access by those using a phone.

The Pew report also mentions that 56 percent of Latinos in the us use the Internet! That is a huge number and that was in a study PUBLISHED in 1997! While I will not argue there are a large number of Latinos and poor people in general who do not have regular access to the internet, I will argue that if we do not work to create a digital infrastructure that is from within our community, that we will be failing the now and future Latino user population.

Here is a great post by Esther J. Cepeda with some great stats on Latino Internet usage.

Here is an article by Marissa Lang from the entitled Latinos Narrow Digital Divide.

We need our own media--As a Latino, I don't like getting my information from CNN! I don't feel that much more comfortable getting it from Univision either. However, I find myself having to use them often. We need a bilingual/multilingual approach. We cannot alienate Latinos who only speak English just as we must not alienate those who speak indigenous languages. We are all related and must work to bridge communication gaps and to help each group build their part of the infrastructure. I am a big believer in DIY (do it yourself), and the web provides a perfect medium for Latinos to take control of their own media, publishing, artistic networks and other avenues by building a digital infrastructure for future users and consumers.

With the advent of Social Media I have become increasingly convinced that organizations can partner with business in an ethical and mutually beneficial manner. Thanks to tools like Facebook and Twitter I have been exposed to thinking from such a variety of aspects/cultures/viewpoints that build my knowledge-base daily. This type of diversification of thinking can be beneficial for our Latino Community, while also benefiting general society by educating and dispelling mythologies about Latinos/Hispanics.

There are no greater tools for advocacy today than social media and digital communications. We must work to build the digital political infrastructure so that it remains free and equal. We need to ensure that the Internet does not become like the publishing industry of today is--corrupt--with the power of influence going to the highest bidder, with entertainment masking itself in the cloak of news, with PR segments portrayed as news investigations. We need journalists who will tell the story no matter if it doesn't sell Modela. We need artists who will share their message with the poor as well as the rich.

With communities like Blogadera and social media groups like Latinos in Social Media springing up and filling the void of Latino Online leadership I am optimistic that we can and will be shaping our OWN futures. With leaders like Louis Pagan, Urban Jibaro, Lori Gama, Raul Ramos, Julito, Nezua and I could go on--If I didn't mention YOU here--it is because I do not have much time to write this. Please follow the tag #latism for Latinos in Social Media discussions and people to follow on Twitter! I have a search going on my tweetdeck application that gives me a constant stream of #latism--it is fun and informative!

We must be thinking Big Picture/Systems style when we are creating our content, networks and communities. Learn from one another, communicate ideas and collaborate then please share. We must have a well of freely available helpful information in order to achieve any sort of autonomy. Please list your Latino digital group as a comment and I will create a list and publish it. We need to communicate, use each others previous work instead of repeating it and increase our growing momentum even further. I can feel it growing daily and am optimistic that we can do it. We must seize the moment and create what we need for ourselves.

Twitter for Organizations

2009-08-11T12:11:00.000-07:00

Twitter for Organizations

Right now you're probably thinking, "Oh, no, not ANOTHER Twitter® tutorial!" Well, yes, this IS a Twitter® tutorial, but we're going to dig a little deeper. We'll cover the basics, then move on to organizational uses and searching. I'm hoping to impart some ideas and enthusiasm to friends in the library community as well as anyone else who might benefit. This tutorial takes for granted that the reader is already familiar with Twitter® and has a user account. For those who are not, and don't, a cheat sheet follows. The site address is http://Twitter.com/. Sign up for an account.

Why use Twitter® at all?

Twitter® creates a constant stream of updates from important sources. Twitter® is like RSS on steroids, or like having multiple (both local and international) television news reports open all at once, or like having your best friend’s opinions in combination with world famous experts' opinions—all available for questions and answers. It can also be likened to having the phone numbers of your favorite authors and artists at your fingertips. If you are an advocate, PR person, outreach librarian or technology person, Twitter® can be of great use to you and your community. This is a tool that can spread your message—whether it be an event, announcement, policy, informational resource, or just a friendly message to the community.

Organizational communication is fast changing due to social media. In many cases, these tools can be used to communicate internally and externally; they have exponential potential for market saturation. Twitter® recently emerged as a top communication tool and the uses are being investigated and exploited. As of this writing, new applications are being created based on Twitter®. Twitter® is a tool to consider utilizing when pondering news/communication tools, both personally and individually. For this article we will focus on organizational uses of Twitter®; individual usage will be covered in a later post.

Twitter® Cheat Sheet

Twitter® is what is known as a microblogging service. That is, a service that allows one to blog 140 characters at a time to a network built by the user--the "tweeter". Following are some terms of usage which you will find helpful.

Tweet: a 140-character or less post to a user account. "I am tweeting" means I am posting a 140-character post to my account, which can then be seen by my network (those who "follow" me). "I am reading tweets" means I am reading posts from others in my network.

To follow: a user follows others, which means that they see the tweets (status updates) of those individuals whom they have added to their Twitter® stream. When someone follows you, the user, this means that they have added you to their Twitter® stream and can read your tweets.

Reply: to respond to a user's tweet. When you respond, you must begin your post with this symbol: @, followed with the user's id of whom you are responding. For instance, if I were responding to my own account, I would type: "@maxmacias--you are always right, Max!" When you respond using "@reply", please know that these replies are public and may be seen by your entire network.

A mention: when someone replies to or forwards ("retweets") your tweet. Twitter® keeps track of your mentions; you can easily view them by clicking on the "mentions" link in your account.

RT (Retweet): to forward a message from your Twitter® stream to your network. This allows your network to see the tweet and to also pass it on to their respective networks. The retweet also sends the @id of the person originally posting the tweet and establishes a sort of provenance--an excellent way to broaden your network.

DM (Direct Message): a direct message you send to a user. This message is private and only goes to the specified user.

Hashtag: An informational keyword tag indicated by the # symbol which precedes it, i.e., #Iranelection. Hashtags are postings which can be searched for and easily found.

Search: Twitter® can be searched for keywords and hashtags via the search option on the right sidebar and @id names. Searches may be saved.

Twitpic: allows one to upload and share photos on Twitter®.

Outreach/PR

For most organizations including libraries, Twitter® can be a great outreach tool. Twitter® allows you to send out a constant stream of valuable (value-added) information about the library, historical events, lectures, concerts, new items available, links to library videos, interviews, podcasts and more. Twitter® is also an effective public relations tool, announcing press releases, organizational communications, general information and also targeting populations directly.

Fun!

Twitter® is fun. It's all about networking, sharing information and answering questions. The content—and the stimulation—is as rich as your network.

Phones and other devices

Twitter® and many Twitter® applications may be accessed on phones and other devices. This allows a wider access to information and a larger audience than the usual web content. The digital divide is interestingly being conquered by wireless carriers; at the very least, the carriers have had a huge impact in lessening the chasm.

FREE

Twitter® is free; it only takes an investment in people.

Ease of use

Twitter® is easy to use; with a bit of participation and networking, you will soon develop your own help network as well as helping others along the way.

Twitpic®

Photos can be shared by sending a link to your photos, or by posting to Twitpic®. This service tweets a link to your photos when you post them to the site (a handy tool to use with your phone camera). Photos are powerful; symbolic, they can carry strong messages to your network.

Some Considerations on Following Individuals and Organizations

Does the account you are considering provide information that is valuable to your organization?

Can you collaborate with this organization offline?

What organizations or individuals from outside the library field will benefit your organization?

What other fields would provide ideas and models that might be adapted to your organization?

How can you help others in their missions and goals?

Stay away from direct marketers, pornographic profiles, bots, and accounts that do not relate to your mission. Check profiles before following. Some profiles are bots or direct marketing types. A quick look at the profile and recent posts will tell you if you really want to follow that particular user.

Search: you can search from Twitter® looking for mentions of your id, your organization's id, or someone else’s id. You can also search for hashtags mentioned in the cheat sheet. Try searching for #iranelection. Look at the return and how it refreshes. When there is an event going on and people are tweeting and including the hashtag, all of the tweets will show up in your search. This can be a highly effective way to get a message out; marketers, artists and others come up with clever ways to get their hashtag trending (becoming a popular tag on Twitter®).

Follow Friday/Viva Viernes

Every Friday people tweet their favorite people to follow. This is a great way to network. After a certain amount of time your social capital (SC) is built up and you can endorse other users with authority. As you build your SC, you build trust with your followers. This is likened to a trusted news source whose sources and veracity of information check out when investigated. Participate in Follow Friday and you will build your SC much quicker.

Hashtags for FollowFriday/Vivaviernes:

#FF # followfriday #vivaviernes, etc…

Hashtags are trended at various sites on the web. One can gauge the popularity of a conversation by analyzing how many times the tag appears in conversations. The tag can “trend” which means that it ranks in popularity.

Here are three sites that show twitter trending topics:

http://tweetstats.com/trends

http://trendistic.com/

http://Twittersphere.com/

Twitter Campaigns

An organization can create a campaign by urging your network and communities to use a specific tag. This tag will trend and will show how popular your campaign gets.

Ability to Pump Out Tweets to Various Platforms

Your Twitter® feed can be pumped out to your blog, website, or other social networking sites with a Twitter® badge or widget.

Organizational Considerations

Internal Tweets

An organization can use #hashtags to post non-confidential internal tweets to employees.

Look at profiles

Make sure they are not bot, spammers, or direct marketers. Also be sure they are related to your organizational goals/mission.

Twitter Applications:

As you build your network it may seem overwhelming; you might want to use a Twitter® application (an outside vendor) to make your life easier.

There are several:

Hootsuite®

Peoplebrowsr

Tweetdeck ®

Ubertwitter

Characteristics of good Twitter® applications

Ability to store tweets for later answering/retweeting. Tracks links followers follow.

Better interfaces than Twitter®

Easy to reply, retweet, dm, etc…

Easy to follow, unfollow, etc…

Archiving of tweets

Allow you to tweet from multiple accounts and to tweet to your Facebook® status

The ability to group your followers into groups, i.e., news group, tech group, library group, etc.

Searching

An organization can perform a search utilizing several different search utilities for Twitter® or by asking their network or posting a direct question to people. There are a broad range of topics, anything from politics to web design. The access to specialized information is incredible!

Responsible and Privileged

Make sure the individuals who have been assigned to tweet for the organization are responsible.

Use multiple people to keep the posts interesting and diverse. This can be effective as Twitter® requires continuous interesting posting to build SC.

Policy

The organization should have a clear policy that addresses:

Appropriate language

Appropriateness of links provided

Non-political links and tweets

Tweet with the organizational mission in mind at all times

Individual vs. organizational Twitter® usage
The tweeters should understand they are representing the organization and that their personal viewpoints should never override information provided and should never dictate information shared or re-tweeted.

Assessment: How will the ROI be assessed? What will be considered successful? What are your benchmarks and how will you reach them?

Building community

Tweet organizational related material. Retweet information you know your network will appreciate. Do not argue, flame or use derogatory language when tweeting. Stay positive and friendly. Share, share, share. Be yourself and be genuine, but always remember you are a representative of the organization. Again, look for those who your organization can collaborate with and build off one another’s work. Cross—promotional opportunities abound in the world of Twitter® .

Contacting luminaries, artists, politicians, etc.

Accessing leaders in most fields is easy if they are using Twitter®. If one is interesting, and thoughtful, as well as being in possession of SC, then one can reach many important authorities in various fields to ask questions, or just to give thanks for their work. I myself have had the opportunity to thank some of my favorite authors and musicians via Twitter®. You never know where you will find the next valuable supporter.

Become a resource for those in your network

Provide information, respond to questions about best practices, calls for help, trending certain topics; be friendly and approachable.

You are the ambassador of your organization to the greater world when you tweet. Be a diplomat and train your tweeters to be diplomats and collaborators. Miscalculations like this:

Tweeting without thinking about ramifications can lead to things like this: Arnold and knife. Needless to say you don’t want negative PR issues to deal with. It is better to be disciplined in your tweets and to have well-trained tweeters for your organization.

Tweetups, Social Media clubs and groups

Look for local Tweetups (an offline gathering of localized, or special interest tweeters), Social Media clubs and groups. Depending on your field there may already be specialized groups, or perhaps you can start one in your area. There is strength in numbers and you can bounce ideas off one another, perhaps compare best practices and have presentations that are edifying to members.

Twitter cause banners/ribbons:

You can add a ribbon to your profile photo via services like this to show your support for a cause, organizations or person, etc…

Here is one site that can help you:

http://twibbon.com/

Links for Further investigation

Here are some links where you can learn more about using social media to enhance your organizational goals and mission.

Nancy White on the difference between a network and a community

Search Twitter

Social Media in Plain English

Twitter in Plain English

Drupal API for Twitter®

Mashable’s list of Twitter® tools.

Brian’s Blog PR 2.0:

He is smart and knows what he is talking about in relation to technology, communications and PR.

http://www.chrisbrogan.com/

Another smart guy who is sharp and interesting.

What is Whuffie?

Tara Hunt’s Blog

http://tv.winelibrary.com/

Gary Vee is amazing. Watch his videos and learn.

http://scobleizer.com/

Technology communications guru.

http://blog.guykawasaki.com/

Is a technology evangelist.

twittercompendium

The Twitter Compendium is designed to link you to news and information about Twitter, a global community of friends and strangers answering one simple question: What are you doing? Answer on your phone, IM, or on the web

Some Facebook Networking Strategies

2009-03-04T09:35:00.000-08:00

It is all about relationships. Even in subject search terms it is about relationships most often. Lets try to build relationships that are mutually beneficial, create an atmosphere, or community even that allows questions to be asked, information to be shared, collaborations to take place and a structure for future generations.

Since the recent announcement the Criticas is ceasing publication I've been thinking about how to supplement the ensuing vacuum with some meaningful content.

So, to further this endeavor I've started a campaign to contact as many libraries and librarians as I can that speak Spanish, who are on Facebook. If we build some sort of contact infrastructure, first by communicating with one another, and then implementing strategies to collaborate, share, and aid one another then we will go a long way toward filling the vacuum. We can leverage the power of networking and collaboration to build something that will not be as threatened an entity as a magazine published by mainstream publishers.

With the technology available today we can create our own publishing processes, distribution channels and advertising campaigns.

So, back to the campaign, search for and share with your friends librarians you meet who speak spanish, have an interest in serving Latinos, etc... and network!

I search facebook for "Bibliotecarios (or variations of the term)." When I befriend them and can also scan their friend list and send friend requests to other libraries or librarians who might be relevant to the campaign.

Next suggest these new friends who seem relevant as well. Build the network, collaborate for community, create relationships that matter and inspire!

Facebook Notes searching function needed...

2009-03-01T08:45:00.000-08:00

It would be incredible if we could search our friend's notes. I've been interested in social-searching (searching friends, bookmarks, tweets, sending out questions to my entire FB friend list, and also targeting individuals on FB to ask questions.

If I could search my friend's notes on FB this would give me an even greater ability to social-search.

What do you think?

Is there anyone else interested in this area?

Hope from somewhere I never would have expected...

2009-02-19T06:51:00.001-08:00

Full text of Attorney General Eric Holder's recent speech @ the DOJ:

Nation of Cowards Speech

Free story on identity...

2009-02-16T12:35:00.001-08:00

This is a story I wrote in my 20's on identity and more:

The Bridge

Any comments would be helpful and appreciated.

Social Searching on the Web

2009-02-10T13:22:00.001-08:00

Social Searching On The Web

View more presentations from maxmacias.

Mel Gibson--Stick to Mad Max, Jesus or Braveheart!

2009-02-03T14:15:00.000-08:00

Mel Gibson--Stick to Mad Max, Jesus or Braveheart!
by Max Macias

"A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from within." Will Durant Quote

This quote above begins Mel Gibson’s newest work, Apocalypto. These words can be interpreted to mean that the Mayans and all Nican Tlaca cultures got what they deserved. Contained within this moral judgment is the justification that we received what we deserved as well. This is to say, the descendants of the savage ‘Aztecs, Mayans, and other Indians of the Americas’ are in their present social situation because of their past actions and rightfully so. This justifies the way things are and serves to build hatred against indigenous peoples, but more importantly it can also weaken our own self-worth. Some people will say that Apocalypto is just a movie, but it is not just a movie--this kind of work can and should be defined as propaganda. When you see something wrong about the way we are portrayed/treated/ it is your duty to stand up and say “No!”
Mr. Gibson an admitted propagandist! The Passion was made to gain Christian converts and to solidify belief. The Passion Attempts to justify Jesus’ sacrifice, and thereby justify Christianity. A work that justifies a political or religious ideal is propaganda! Why would we interpret this work any differently?
There are many aspects of a film; how well those aspects are created and executed dictates the quality of the work. Apocalypto is many things, but a good film it is not. The writing is unbelievable, the theme is non-existent, and the sets are a huge disappointment. Insults to the viewer and Mayan culture permeate the film. While the natural scenery in the film is at times quite beautiful, and the acting is good, these aspects do NOT excuse the movie.
This film fails on the fundamental level of believability. A movie asks the audience to believe what they experience. When an observer sees something on the screen that is clearly impossible—then their concentration on the story is spoiled and therefore their experience of the film as an uninterrupted event/work is ruined. The viewer’s attention goes from the film to questioning what they see. One of the basic rules of filmmaking (and of all theatre arts) is to not do this. Apocalypto repeats this fundamental mistake over and over again.

Story (condensed version—I know I left some details out)
A peaceful village of Mayan forest dwellers is attacked and the survivors are captured. As the village is under attack, the hero—Jaguar Paw—is able to hide his family down a hole. They become trapped in the hole. He promises to come back for them. Jaguar Paw and the other survivors are taken to a Mayan city where the women are sold into slavery, and the men are to be sacrificed. Most of the men escape sacrifice through a totally unbelievable episode. Jaguar Paw eventually escapes with a party of Mayan city dwellers in hot pursuit. He eventually kills most of them, and then makes it back to his village. The Mayan city dwellers finally catch up to him, but they see Europeans landing in their boats and are stunned. This allows Jaguar Paw to escape.
This story, while at times exciting, is unrealistic and unbelievable. Several opportunities arise upon which one could deepen the story, or build it up into something more than one level of meaning. ALL these chances are wasted and I was left totally disappointed. Mel asks us to believe that Jaguar paw can leap out of a tree and then outrun a jaguar—this was totally unbelievable and idiotic. I felt abused and misled by Mr. Gibson.

History or Cliche?

My mother and I went to see the movie together. She kept asking me throughout the movie, “Were they really like that?” And I kept telling her, “No, no, Mom….” I kept wondering how many people saw this movie and thought that it was super realistic and historically based. When and if this happens, a movie changes from being just a movie, to being propaganda justifying the dominant culture’s viewpoints. Film and television act as fundamental teaching utensils in American culture. Movies and TV display propaganda constantly. When this film goes to DVD and is played on television, millions of people will watch it and take it as historically accurate. They will believe that Mayans were diseased savages with no good qualities. I wonder how this will help relations between European culture and Nican Tlaca. Who will this movie help, and who will it hurt?
There are many problems that distract the viewer from what little there is of a story in this work. One way this occurs is with the overuse of clichés. A cliché, for those unfamiliar with the term, is a fancy way of saying overused idea. A sickening example is when Jaguar Paw, the hero of the film is just about to be sacrificed—guess what happens—no really—guess! Surprise, surprise—there is an eclipse at just that moment. The eclipse scares the Mayans, and then their priest declares that Kulkulkan has been satisfied. He needs no more sacrifices.
The above is one of the worst, and most overused clichés in film, television, and writing! In addition, everyone knows the Mayans were great astronomers and were superb mathematicians. How did they NOT know of the eclipse? Or did they know and were they misleading their people? Are you telling me they were unaware of eclipses? These kinds of questions created many moments of disbelief and ruined the film even more for me. Why would someone write something this bad? It is clearly insulting to the audience and ruins the viewer’s ability to believe what they are witnessing in the film. Again, the question of propaganda arises.
The other, far more insulting cliché is that right at the moment when the Mayans have caught up to, and are about to kill Jaguar Paw, the Europeans arrive. They actually save Jaguar Paw by stunning the Mayans and allowing Jaguar Paw to leave. This is the greatest insult in film since Dances with Wolves saves the Indians in that piece of work. The fact that it is historically inaccurate creates a belief in my mind that this is a work of propaganda by a religious fanatic who wants to establish that our people were/are savages for having their own religions and belief systems. It justifies how we were and are still treated.

“Those people practices human sacrifice!”

The focus on violence degrades the humanity of the Mayan civilization. The focus on the sadistic qualities of the Mayans in the picture was wrong. The Mayans had sacrifice, but it was highly ritualized, and not nearly as sadistic as portrayed in the film. There was not ONE redeeming quality in the Mayan city dwellers. If someone who is ignorant sees this film and takes it for history, then they will be glad to have gotten rid of those ‘savage civilizations.’ Again, I have to question if there was a religious or a cultural agenda going on with this movie.
Why do movies ALWAYS portray our people as savages? Our people were highly civilized and were superb mathematicians! Is there really some kind of political, religious, or other agenda going on? Just ask yourself about all the people who hate us, who want us gone. Where do they get these ideas, and how are they reinforced? Clearly, people like the minutemen and their allies, stormfront are ready to do almost ANYTHING to rid themselves of us. Then there are there are intellectuals like Samuel P. Huntington who is a racist bigot and works for Harvard University while writing bigoted propaganda! Why wouldn’t there be filmmakers, and other media types bent on portraying us in an unflattering manner? As we see today in Iraq, history repeats itself. We need to guard ourselves and call it as we see it. Point out the flaws in our ‘friends’ reasoning. If we don’t NOBODY else will!
Mr. Gibson’s work is an attack on us and should be seen as such. We will NOT stand for being portrayed as savages with nothing of substance to offer the world. We will not hate ourselves, and will remain proud and strong in our struggle against their interpretations of us. It is up to us to make films and literature that will portray our culture realistically. It is up to us to define ourselves and to write our OWN history! It is up to us to tell the truth.

Copyright Max Macias 2007

Hip-Hop and Web 2.0 (something I wrote a long time ago and haven't done anything with)

2009-02-02T11:20:00.001-08:00

[If anyone is interested in this and wants to collaborate--get in touch with me please]

This is kind of an outline of the paper I want to write on hip-hop. Please give me your advice about how I could make it better.

I've noticed some striking similarities between hip-hop and our field--web 2.0 aspects and more.

Take for instance one fundamental aspect of hip hop--REMIXABILITY--one takes what one deems is valuable, and creates something new.

Mashups have been fundamental in hip hop since day one!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remix

The fact that knowledge does not come from a vacuum, and pretty much EVERYONE who has contributed important knowledge to the world has had a teacher who's ideas the student REMIXED.

Take Franz Brentano for instance--he taught both Edumund Husserl and Freud, while Freud went on to teach Jung, and Husserl went on to teach Heidegger. The students REMIX their teachers work.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_of_Brentano

Tagging--hip hop tagging is placing one's mark on something, claiming it as one's own--this is what we do when we tag something in flickr, or whatever we use that gives us the option to TAG something. We can find it again, so with tagging, when one, or others see the tag they know who tagged it, and how often it comes up—how much the tagger has gotten “thrown up.”

Not only do we make it our own, but we also influence others. When someone tags a train they throw some art up there that is distinctive. I'm talking about bombs--where they don't just write their name as the tag, but they put on the train. If someone becomes familiar with these types of tags--they can tell which tagger is which and know their styles.

http://www.graffiti.org/

This is similar to the tagging we do on the web, and to how information is transferred between people--be it artistic style, or some other type of information. Our tagging can influence others through the discovery of new information that leads to the creation of new knowledge.

Also the fact that hip-hop and web 2.0 did NOT come from big corporations.

Hip Hop came from a small group of individuals, and web 2.0 also came from a relatively small group of individuals developing new ideas that were creative as well as social.

I mean when hip hop was first developed--the dj's would plug-in to the street lights and broadcast their mashups and new beats to the public, who in turn remixed this new information into knew knowledge to create something new. It was fully open-source and free. How beautiful can you get? This was actually a result of a remix from the Caribbean—dJ cool-herc came to nuy from there and brought the style, and influence of the Caribbean DJ’s who would put their systems on the backs of trucks and broadcast their shows to entire neighborhoods.

Do you know of anyone who has done any work on this?

I've never encountered it.

I think it can be a way to reach both people interested in libraries and hip hop.

What do you think?

Organizational Communication Infrastructure for Innovation and Progress

2008-12-01T14:46:00.000-08:00

Organizational Communication Infrastructure for Innovation and Progress

by Max Macias

11/08

At large organizations, Web 2.0 is being used in internal blogs or social networks. These perform the very useful functions of keeping far-flung employees, teams, and divisions in touch, sharing best practices and other useful information, and serving as a way to train. Organizations are beginning to see the value of these arrangements for more formalized training, as well as informal companywide communications (HR Focus, 2007).

One of the requirements for an efficient (profitable?) organization is effective communication. With the influx of information today, new forms of communication are required for organizations. Most contemporary associations I have encountered have late 20^th century forms of communication based on an hierarchical system (I will be kind) from the 19^th century. Today one communicates in a variety of ways based on new tools for communication that aggregate, relay, analyze and contribute to learning and understanding new information.

Efficient communication requires an infrastructure. Using new tools to facilitate a new direction in organizational communication infrastructures, organizations can increase their progress toward meeting their missions. Many of these new tools require a new manner of thinking; vision and leadership are essential in leading the organization through this evolution of communication. Some of these new tools are available to be used internally, while others exist on public or semi-public networks.

This post seeks to identify and show how some of these new tools can be incorporated into organizations in order to facilitate greater communication and efficiency at meeting the organizational mission. Most importantly, the creation of a new infrastructure requires support of the administration. Gaining the support of the management is the ‘Holy Grail’ of instituting change and requires exceptional leadership. This leadership will incorporate solutions to problems stated and build on the historical organizational structure. I seek to convince administrative readers (and others of course), that by building new efficient infrastructures for communication within the organizational structure, the organization will carry out the mission of the business more efficiently, creatively, and collaboratively. At the same time, building morale and creating a stronger, healthier organization.

In present day, we are literally flooded with information; instituting these kinds of communication enhancements will help filter and refine information in the organization, thereby taking it one step closer to knowledge. The ability to make information available via a message board, blog, or other form of interactive communication will facilitate commentary by people including experts in any given field who may never have contributed to the organization before. There are some that are shy; other individuals like to express themselves via writing, while others, perhaps socially inept, have much to contribute. Accessing, documenting, and instituting the information from these people can provide a rich resource of new and gainful knowledge valuable to the organization.

I am using the word efficient here to signify communication that can take advantage of all the members of an organization in a manner which enhances and facilitates the organizational mission. In the 21st century, it has already been shown that when communication channels are opened to members of an organization under the correct conditions, these formerly non-participating members can contribute by thinking and offering solutions and improvements to organizational processes.

By infrastructure, I mean creating the conditions for a free flow of communication. The existent channels of communication and the rates and directions of communication are what I am describing. Does the communication only flow from top down, or does it also run in the opposite direction? One of my axioms is that information must flow both ways in order for maximum organizational efficiency. In some senses this may seem threatening to some administrative readers. Admittedly, it is relinquishing a certain amount of control. However, the benefits of creating this infrastructure in the organization will outweigh this loss of control, and will free up time for other projects.

A strong example one can ponder is the analogy of old so-called Web 1.0 websites and the new 2.0 social sites. The 1.0 sites relied strictly on the website producer to generate content for the site. The new social aspect of sites allows interaction and contributions by all users, freeing the producer to pursue other creative avenues. This is an example of the kind of efficiency that can happen when social technology is executed correctly in an organization. Incidentally, the content is ALWAYS much richer and interesting when others are contributing.

There is nothing wrong with maintaining ListServs, but there is something wrong with maintaining them as your only official avenue of organizational communication. Lists are generally NOT interactive (enough); information gets buried in the mass of responses, and are easy to forget. It is really difficult to carry on a good discussion of an issue via email—for a variety of issues, including lack of etiquette and time, filtration, emails get buried—it does not take place in real time, etc...

These new avenues of communication—knowledge networks, if you will--can enhance knowledge management. This is a knowledge management issue/concept. In knowledge management, one goal is to understand who knows what and how to help them use this knowledge in accomplishing organizational missions. These new social tools may build upon and expand traditional KM methods beyond our wildest dreams. Again, this requires skill in administration—the skills of networking, making connections (between people, ideas, and concepts).

Some new tools follow:

Podcasting

Organizations can maintain audio archive of presentations, trainings, etc…these can then be made available to Staff for DL so they can listen while working or commuting. This kind of media archiving can serve as documentation as well as archives of the organization’s progress and work. It can then be accessed by supporters, or potential supporters of an organization, increasing the effectiveness of organizational networking within and without the organization.

Universities such as Berkeley, Oxford, and MIT are making lectures, notes, and documents available to the general public to facilitate the expansion of information channels and knowledge creation. The ability to make available information immediately accessible is incredible. I heard of these free pod casts via Twitter, RSS, and email. Again, they are creating new information networks, increasing dissemination and also diffusion of information which facilitates the establishment of new knowledge.

Message Boards, Chatting and Wikis

When I say infrastructure I am talking about using older methods such as email, lists, etc.--and newer models like dynamic message boards, chat, Wikis--using content management systems so users could begin to tell the story of the organization through their own experiences. This empowers staff and gives them a voice. This voice can comment and instruct management and others via these new methods of communication and interaction.

These tools also make the organization more transparent as employees have greater access to the knowledge base of the organization. This increased transparency will allow stronger procedures, reasoned decisions, and a living knowledge base that increases sometimes daily. Keeping things out in the open and making information about projects, advances, and organizational news will help prevent workflow redundancy and will promote networking between individuals with the same areas of interest.

Social Sensemaking

In their article, People Sensemaking with Social Networking Sites, Joan Morris DiMicco and David R. Millen show how an employee can glean information from IBM’s social networking site, Beehive. This site incorporates profiles of users. Another user can scan these profiles looking for people with similar interests who may want to collaborate, or just to enhance the knowledge management database of the user.

[The] premise of this workshop position paper is that social networking websites are used today for people sensemaking, both as the information source and as the tool for interpreting and synthesizing information on individuals. People sensemaking, the process a person goes through to gain a general understanding, or gist, of who someone is. For example, by understanding what someone’s role is within an organization, what they are working on, how approachable they are, and how knowledgeable they are on different topics, you can create a mental model of this person that informs how or when you will communicate or interact with that person (DiMicco, Millen, 2008).

Social Networking sites

As noted by Terrence K. Huwe in his article in Computers in Libraries UC,

Berkeley’s bspace is highly effective and used by faculty and students.When asked how much email they receive via bSpace, 40% of respondents said that every time they made a post, they received mail in response. When asked how often they used bSpace to prepare

for finals, 34% replied, "a few times a week"--even more impressive, 24% said several times per day--and that was in bSpace's first year of service (Huwe, 2008).

Facebook: This tool is being used by many organizations, including the Obama 2008 campaign as a way to let people, both within and without their organization, know what is going on. Serena Software Inc. is an organization that uses Facebook as their primary social networking tool.

So as not to appear to be Big Brother, Serena does not track individual use of Facebook. But Waldo [the HR person] gets a tally of total usage, and she calculates that employees use the site for an average of less than 10 minutes per week--not exactly a time drain (Roberts, 2008).

IBM is ahead of the game with their incorporation of Beehive into their organizational communication infrastructure. Their groundbreaking Center for Social Software puts them on the cutting edge of organizational communication. Their social visualization project, Many Eyes facilitates interaction, brainstorming, critical thinking and organizational communication. This is a quote from the Many Eyes website: “Many Eyes is a bet on the power of human visual intelligence to find patterns. Our goal is to "democratize" visualization and to enable a new social kind of data analysis.” IBM’s Visual Communication Lab puts it this way: “Visualization is traditionally viewed as an efficient way of transferring a large amount of information from a database into an individual's head. We believe that visualizations become even more powerful when multiple people access them for collaborative sensemaking.”

The Social Accessibility Project is a(n) (IBM) utility that enables volunteers to make Web pages accessible to the visually impaired. Using an innovative new system, it gathers information about accessibility problems directly from visually impaired users. To address these problems, The Social Accessibility Project provides a tool to members of the open community that allows them to externally modify Web pages, successfully making the pages accessible while leaving all original content untouched. Projects such as these seek to leverage collaborative processes to increase the speed of progress. This is exactly what all organizations seek to accomplish.

Many Eyes has incorporated message boards into their system that allow one to create visualizations of different subjects. This allows the creation of new information networks that didn’t exist before. Look at this visualization of a lesson plan by a member. Here the lesson plan has been changed into a sort of tag cloud of lesson plan words. This allows a visual learner to take advantage of this knowledge in a new, socially repackaged learning object. The other network that did not exist before was that of the Many Eyes project’s message board social visualization tool.

It is imperative that organizations incorporate, or facilitate the use of non-organizational social networks in their organization. Members will not wait for the organization to catch up—they will seek their own solutions via Facebook or other social platforms.

In our benchmark, we found that about 18 percent of enterprises were using blogs …and 23 percent had begun to deploy RSS as a way of managing information flows throughout the organization. These numbers are impressive for new technology, but they don't tell the whole story. When we dug deeper, we found adoption wasn't widespread throughout the organization; rather, in most cases individual workgroups were using these tools for both internal and external collaboration. In some cases, IT had little knowledge or control. Business units were taking it upon themselves to obtain the tools they needed to solve their communications and collaboration challenges, without waiting for IT to create a strategy (Lazar, 2007).

Irwin Lazar postulates some common obstacles to instituting Enterprise 2.0 in organizations (Lazar, 2007).

Fear

This can be fear of loss of control, fear of losing information to competitors, or fear of the new. Managers may be resistant to change, but also may be aware of workers’ resistance to change within their own departments. Tell people about the differences between the old 1.0 web concepts versus the 2.0 aspects which free up time for other investigations and pursuits.

Confusion

Just what is Web 2.0, social media, etc...? While some tools may be a good choice for some, others may not be. There is no cookie cutter approach to this and it takes talent, vision, communication, and leadership to be successful. The ability to see and relate one aspect to another in an organization will be an increasingly valuable skill. Hold a brownbag lunch, present at inservices, share your knowledge with the organization to educate.

Organizational Obstacles

The main organizational obstacle is resistance to change because of reliance on the old tried and true methods. These methods were sufficient in the days gone by, but today they just do not suffice. The amount of information today is staggering and organizations need tools to filter and make sense of this information. These tools can be presented as enhancements and many of them are fun to use and learn. Create a spirit of fun and learning in your organization.

Reliance on longtime vendors

In many cases IT departments are happy to maintain institutional communication networks just as they are. This requires little work, and can lead to reliance on longtime vendors. Again, this may have been adequate in the past, but today people need new tools that are not being offered by these same vendors. Educate people via videos on YouTube, and other forms of media. Show people the effective tools that are available at little or no cost, except labor.

Conclusion

“A key characteristic of Web 2.0 is leveraging social networks to aid in problem-solving and information management (Lazar, 2007).”

The surge of information and the speed of change require organizations to develop new forms of communication infrastructures which allow collaboration, information relay, and criticisms. These infrastructures can be created using both internal and external tools to the organization. Again, there is no cookie cutter solution, but creating a team of technologically skilled people who are familiar with the organization can facilitate the implementation of social technologies to your organization. By introducing these technologies piecemeal, and in ways that make them fun, management and administration can go a long way toward implementing effective use of these new tools. Today we can leverage information via efficient communication in ways we never imagined. Please take a moment to consider how you might incorporate social technologies in your organization to accomplish your organizational mission.

References

(2008, April). What You Should Know About Using Web 2.0. HR Focus, 85 (4), 10-11.

DiMicco, J, & Millen, D (2008). People Sensemaking with Social Networking Sites. Position paper presented at the Sensemaking Workshop.

Huwe, T. (2008, September). Smart Mob Makeover. Computers in Libraries, 28(8), 24-27.

Lazar, I (2007, August). Creating Enterprise 2.0 from Web 2.0 . Business Communication Review, 37 (8), 14-16.

Roberts, B (2008, March). Social Networking at the Office. HR Magazine, 53 (3), 81-83.

Palin Wins by Not Blowing it

2008-10-03T15:00:00.001-07:00

Vice Presidential Debate 2008 HQ (Part 1) 10/02 Palin Biden Debate 2008 - Sarah Palin Joe Biden VP Debate Thursday October 2nd at Washington University in St Louis MO in HIGH QUALITY (Part 1)

Last night's vice presidential debate let me down. Biden certainly came off looking weak to Reagan democrats and others. I find it quite hilarious that these voters buy Palin's facetious verbiage last night. Darn it!

If Obama and Biden don't want to come off looking like weak people who will pander to terrorists "without preconditions," they will lose many votes. Americans don't like weak leaders and this could very well be the Obama camp's weak spot. Americans would rather have a tough idiot for a leader (yes--I'm talking about Palin here and McCain here) than a weak intellectual.

Obama's middle of the road maneuvers don't set well with foreign policy in a country that is been scared witless by their leaders. He can count on this strategy to work well domestically, but when it comes to war, or foreign policiy in general, people are pretty much either/or with not much middle ground.

I really haven't heard anyone talk about this aspect yet.

What do you think?

Getting back to toughness--I think they are coming off weak, no matter how stupid Sarah looked last night when she said she was going to answer her own way she took the power--especially when NOT really challenged by her opponent, or the weak moderator.

I really hope they get the toughness factor going or they will blow it.

Facebook Hired this scum!

2008-10-01T07:20:00.001-07:00

Check it yo, write to facebook and tell them we don't want criminals like this involved with our private information!

http://valleywag.com/5056365/facebook-hires-alberto-gonzaless-former

A Short Introduction to Social Searching on the Web

2008-09-30T09:28:00.001-07:00

Please check out my short presentation. Feedback is MUCH appreciated!

Robots exclusion file

2008-09-26T19:48:00.000-07:00

Did you know you can put a text file on your web page that will prevent robots/spiders from indexing your pages?

Check it:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robots.txt

Nope--Ain't Gonna happen

2008-09-24T11:42:00.001-07:00

Edit

Nope--Ain't gonna happen... 11:22am

I
drive around alot--I'm a commuter. On my commute I see political signs
all the time. It is interesting that, in this election, arguably the
most important in a long long time, there are very few presidential
yard signs out in the country where I live. Oh--there are plenty of
local signs--for local elections, but the presidential endorsements are
glaringly lacking.

What this tells me is that most of these people are going to vote for
McCain and Palin, but they are too embarrassed to admit that kind of
idiocy. Its NOT idiocy though--its straight up prejudice. No surprise
there--I mean--we live in a country that enslaves people of color under
the guise of the prison industry.

I hope my observation is wrong, but growing up and living in a white-supremacist society tells me different...

In many ways I think that OBAMA needs to lose in order for things to
get better. Americans don't care about things until they are impacted
by something directly. If mass incarcerations, the nazification of the
united states, constitutional rights erosion, and unjust wars are not
enough to wake up the american people, perhaps they deserve Sarah and
John as their leaders...

PCC's new web site!

2008-09-16T12:25:00.003-07:00

Hey, please take a look at PCC's new site and let me know what you think:

http://www.pcc.edu/library/

Thanks!

Sorry for the delay...

2008-07-02T09:38:00.001-07:00

I'm in school and took three classes this summer, and working on a huge project at work and working on personal stuff.

I will be back soon!

:-)

Diversity and the Library Industry

2008-05-11T18:15:00.000-07:00

Diversity and the Library Industry

Diversifying the library industry will bring new ideas into the homogeneous industry of library science. In my brief tenure in Library Science graduate school it has become apparent to me that there is a definite lack of diversity in thinking. I say this because I constantly encounter a lack of critical thinking and logic when it comes to dealing with non-Western, or different cultures and languages. This is a direct reflection of the lack of cultural diversity in the library field. With the challenges presented to the relevancy of libraries by the advent of the internet and the Web, libraries have to learn new methods of conducting business.

Libraries must be creative, innovative and dynamic. They must serve a diverse community that has varied information needs. Many of these communities have traditionally been underserved. These information needs are based on a mixture of outlooks, cultures, educational, political, and an endless variance of individual information needs. It is a primary duty of a community library to serve the information needs of that community.

The only way to increase the effectiveness of library services to these marginalized communities is to recruit library staff and librarians from these communities and work directly with them to realize their information needs. We must be culturally competent and bilingual in many cases. While there is some great work being done (Multnomah County Library system is a fine example), there is still much convincing and lobbying to do. We can learn strategies and techniques from programs like Multnomah co.’s and Seattle Public library’s outreach programs and community analysis studies. Deciding to serve a multi-lingual community shouldn’t be looked at as an attack against monolingual employees—it should be viewed as an opportunity for employees to learn a new language.

The lack of many libraries’ failure to meet the needs of areas of their communities is another reason for the lack of diversity in the industry. As Tony Greiner points out in his Backtalk in Library Journal (May, 2008), there is a lack of diversity in the library profession. Incidentally, I am the Hispanic student Tony mentors. Mr. Greiner believes that the primary reason for the lack of diversity in our field is the cost of acquiring the Master of Library Science degree. While this may be a factor (even a major factor), it cannot be isolated from other causes. Unlike Tony, I believe that most libraries focus on the dominant culture, sometimes becoming almost irrelevant to the other communities existing in American culture. This has a direct impact on how people in underserved communities see the library profession. The lack of role models, information irrelevance, economics, racism, and the general ethnocentrism of the library industry all contribute to this lack of diversity in Library Science.

While it’s true that the costs are high relating to an acquisition of an upper graduate degree in Library Science and while it may also be true that many minorities cannot afford to acquire the MLS, I believe this is greatly due to the racism that contributes to the lower economic standings in African American and Hispanic communities. This racism includes the lack of information (presented in usable formats) about their cultural history and importance, general low expectations from the educational system, harassment in school by authorities and other discriminatory practices. All of these factors contribute to the lack of librarians of color.

There are more minorities involved in library assistant jobs than have Masters degrees as stated by Mr. Greiner. This is true because library assistant jobs are usually low paying, command a low level of respect, and have a limited terminal level of development. These are all generic job opportunities available to minorities and poor white people already; these numbers do not really prove anything. And with the increase in competition, I wonder how long these numbers will remain the same. It used to be that the only qualification to obtain a job as a library assistant was a high school diploma; now it seems, while not a formal prerequisite, undergraduate degree holders are preferred.

I am currently in library school and have found it frustrating that the focus is so ethnocentric. In one of my classes, I was told there were NO libraries in the Americas before the Europeans. Perhaps there were no libraries in the sense of the way we use the word; however, there were institutions that collected astronomical, literary, and historical information—perhaps we might call them archives. These were destroyed by the Europeans in order to deny the indigenous people their history. The continuation of this denial of these libraries in graduate school is a prolongation of the destruction of indigenous history and culture. Experiences like this, and others—one fellow student told me she was, “sick of hearing that indigenous crap!”—combine to add up to the real cost of attending graduate school on minority students. Some of these individuals have a different perspective on history than the dominant culture and the curriculum used in our educational systems needs to reflect that we are understanding of that perspective, whether or not we agree with it. Weakly constructed attacks against minority communities by our peers (American Libraries, Nov. 2007, p. 42-44) do not help to foster this understanding either. I wonder how many students find their studies irrelevant or offensive and drop out…

I grew up in San Jose, California. San Jo, as we called it, is a city heavily populated by Hispanics. An avid library user, my mother took me to the library at a young age. I quickly became an heavy San Jose Public Library user myself. We didn’t have much money—with no membership fees, the library fit into our budget. I don’t remember ever encountering a Hispanic librarian or ever being referred to Hispanic literature as a child growing up in this diverse area of California. In fact, I don’t remember meeting a Latino librarian until I was in my 20’s. I’m not claiming there weren’t any employed at the public library—I just don’t remember ever seeing one.

Having a diverse workforce including librarians of color will show children that they too can be a librarian if they wish. Models available for children are important examples we can provide—especially during their formative years. When they don’t see professionals that look like them they tend to not see themselves in those positions. This, combined with the lack of information resources relevant to minority communities may make libraries irrelevant to these communities. As minority communities increase in number, libraries—for their own sake—will have to meet the information needs. If not, severe political ramifications may take place and libraries may not get the funding they depend upon for their very existence.

What philanthropists do you know who desire to fund an institution that is irrelevant, unwelcoming, and expensive? I am not appealing to an ad baculum fallacy—I am stating the truth according to the statistics. Minority communities, whether one chooses to admit it or not, will be the majority in the future; they’re already a reckoning force and have shown their political import. And I am not saying all minorities don’t speak English as a first language—I mean look at me—English is my first Language, but I see the importance and am not afraid of other languages and cultures.

The information minority communities require must be usable to them. This means that it must be presented in a variety of languages and formats. Even if you can speak a second language, you probably still love to read in your native language. Not all Americans speak English as a first language. Not all people learn via reading, so video and audio formats must be pursued as well. As American taxpayers—we must meet their information needs, and one of these is information in native languages. We must work with these communities, their leadership, and individuals. We must have surveys in other languages, focus groups and spend money on community analyses in order to serve these communities in ways that are relevant to them. Some people in these communities have no idea about library services—this is NOT good for libraries or the community in general.

We can also provide good resources for people to learn English. This is vitally important because English is an important world language. It is the primary language of communication by our government and educational system. We can and should consult varying communities to see what their information needs are in this respect as well. Many native English speakers could also benefit from basic grammar materials. English is an important aspect of education not only in the US, but all over the world.

Information in other languages is also great for Americans who only speak English, but are learning a new language. These Americans deserve good, diverse works in other languages for their own self-improvement. I grew up monolingual and I am telling you—I need as many resources as I can get to learn other languages. Americans need to break out of their English only ideology. It is limiting. We need more languages NOT less!

The premise that just because others speak different languages means that Americans will not be able to communicate with them is fallacious in that it takes for granted said Americans cannot or will not learn other languages. Some people (see American Libraries, Nov, 2007 p42-44) claim that including other languages in libraries creates division in American culture. These weak claims do NOT recognize that White-supremacy, ethnocentrism, and discrimination like NOT including minority community information needs create tremendous division. We really need to beware ill-thought out actions, implicit premises and fallacious decision-making. We are librarians—we are better than that!

People will say that money is a major factor in implementing changes to our library services. This is another reason we need a diverse workforce! With a diverse workforce we can see problems in ways we may not see in a homogeneous library system. With more new ideas, we will be able to innovate new plans of funding and implementation. We need innovation, collaboration, and creativity in Library Science and diversity will encourage all these necessities.

If we meet more needs of minority communities, then these communities will feel more a part of the library community and will begin to join our industry. This will lead to more innovation, creative thinking, synthetic conceptual reasoning, and a more culturally relevant library system for EVERYONE. The library needs these kinds of innovations. Making libraries more inclusive will increase the likelihood that libraries will remain relevant in the future, and therefore continue to be funded. The technological, social, and vocational challenges today and even more so in the future, demand that Libraries become more diverse places and serve those communities that have traditionally been under-served. We will make libraries more relevant to the communities they exist within by community analysis, meeting the information needs revealed in these studies, and by diversifying the library workforce.

Facebook, Social Networking, Fun and Information

2008-05-06T06:18:00.000-07:00

The communication infrastructure is advancing quickly. I now have the ability to talk to people I admire, and to reach others through self-publishing and the web. I have a Facebook account that ties my blog, my Flickr account, my musical playlists, etc… it is a place where I can consolidate my web presences. It is also a place where I can communicate with others who have similar interests. It is place where I can get up to date (sometimes up to the minute) reports from conferences as well as notes by presenters and audience members, links to presentations and other presentation materials.

Facebook’s API allows developers to create applications which can be used by Facebook users. This leads to a proliferation of applications. Some of these applications are good, while others are not. The sheer number of applications assures that there will be some things you will like. Face book itself is doing a decent job of building itself and seems to listen to its users. It adds new features like the “you might know these people, or like to meet them” feature, and some that are totally lame--like using your friends to market services or products to you--this really sucks and is offensive. Hopefully Facebook will learn from the backlash that resulted from this advertising technique.

Facebook allows you to easily contact, message, and now even instant message your contacts. The messaging system was alright, but now that the chat feature is functional Facebook has become the killer networking application. I am friends with most of the presidents of my library associations. I have spoken with them and even bounced ideas off of them. This is a great thing—I have gotten constructive feedback from people who I admire and have learned much already in the short time the chat utility has been available.

I love being able to plug my Flickr, Blog, and other web presences into my Facebook account. Facebook can give my contacts a peek at what I am doing on my other sites and they can investigate further if the choose. The applications that I use are simple to set up and easy to manage. I am constantly finding interesting blogs, web sites, etc… via this aspect of Facebook. The Firefox browser Face book plug-in I use allows me to post interesting web sites I encounter while I’m surfing and to annotate them—I love this feature. I have an audio scrobbler application for my Facebook account which shows what I am listening to, and what tracks I have recently played.

Facebook also has good group pages. The pages have gotten better, but could still use more applications and functions added to them. Ideally I would think they should have many of the functions of personal pages. There are groups for most interests. There are also organizational pages where you can get a page for your organization. A library, or corporation, or other organization can create a page where people can then become fans and interact with each other and the organization.

Another great application of Facebook is the ability to access presenters’ notes, and audience members’ notes and comments during and after a conference. Readers of these notes can them comment back. This can sometimes lead to new insights and the creation of new knowledge. I followed the notes of many attendees and presenters from the last Computers in Libraries conference. This is pretty incredible to say the least, and puts the notion of gray literature to new levels. The creation, distribution, diffusion, and creation of new knowledge are very close together on this networking level.

There is much to Facebook and social networking. It is changing every day, and is becoming more and more a valued source of information for me. I am meeting new people daily, having interesting conversations, and am learning rapidly. If you make one venture into social networking you should check out Face book. I say this for the reasons above, which have only scratched the surface of the utility of this great platform. And remember, have fun!

Haiku to You!

2008-04-27T18:01:00.000-07:00

Collaboration between
Facebook blog and chat
Evolution of networks

[Write back and lets collaborate!]

Facebook Chat and possibilities

2008-04-26T08:48:00.000-07:00

Facebook Chat is what facebook has been missing. I mean the platform has always been a good networking tool, but now it is a KILLER networking tool. I've had a chance to speak to many library luminaries this week and I am thoroughly stoked on the possibilities. the ability to communicate with others immediately will increase the formation of new ideas, concepts and collaborations.

We all know its about collaboration and freedom. I can get feedback from people who are the top in their fields. This is the networking information seeking tool I've been looking for. Sure myspace has had chat--but their chat utility shut down my poor 56k machine. I never used it. Communication, collaboration, and the creation of new information structures and networking avenues is in its infancy.

Businesses need to learn from Facebook's API. Sure there are many ANNOYING applications, but there are also some really fun apps that let people play, get to know each other a bit, and learn. The ability to tinker, and create new modes of communication is incredibly liberating.

This is super exciting! I wonder what will happen next...

Imagine a file sharing capability!

Imagine, share, collaborate and create!!

Information is NOT boring!

White-supremacist scum like this...

2008-04-23T07:12:00.000-07:00

White-supremacist scum like this are the reason we are experiencing so many attacks right now. It is NOT just "illegal immigrants," Who happen to be indenenous peoples--who have a right to be ANYWHERE on this continent--its also a general attack on Mexicans and other people's from the south.

Video of the anti-American congressman.

http://tinyurl.com/3ksgb2

We have a racist bill attacking us in AZ, kids have been sodomized, there have been hate crimes committed at my place of employment, there is a full and sustained attack going on.

We won't put up with this.

What have we done? We are here to work, to improve our lives and to live. History has shown, no matter how "white (What I mean by this is trying to uphold the ideology of the Anglo-American--which is fundamentally white-supremacist as it is based on Western civilization)" we try to become--we will NEVER be accepted.

What to do?

Organize, get together with your people and educate them. Participate in the democratic process no matter how disgusting it is.

Hate crime at PCC

2008-04-22T06:43:00.000-07:00

[This is an email I received at school yesterday. I work in "progresssive" segregated Portland, Oregon. I routinely find racist messages in the library bathroom and in other areas of the school. PCC is a great place and is doing much to improve the quality of EVERYONES lives in the Portland area. This is so sad that this happens here]

FWD

The world won't change if people don't change it! RISE UP

Last week, a letter went out to our campus community about the theft and degradation of the Semana de la Raza banner. As a community, we need to RISE UP, PULL TOGETHER, SPEAK OUT, and SUPPORT THE VICTIMS of this hate crime.

Please show your support by gathering in the courtyard TOMORROW, April 22nd at 12:45 p.m. to SPEAK OUT against hate and bias on our campus. Also, it is important for all of us to SUPPORT the students and staff who have worked to put the event together. Let's show them and the rest of the community that we are not a campus that tolerates injustice, hate and bias.

"A small group of thoughtful people could change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has. "

Margaret Mead

Dear Campus Community;

This e-mail is to ask for your assistance in regards to a theft that occurred on April 16th, approximately around 12:30pm. The theft consisted of the Semana de la Raza banner (value of $500.00) Two weeks prior to the banner being stolen it was also tagged with KKK messaging.

It is extremely important you notify the RC campus security if you saw or heard anything about this theft. This is considered a Hate Crime. Please call: 503-614-7506

I would like to take a few minutes to define what a Hate Crime is:

At its most fundamental level, hate violence is an aggressive expression of prejudice against another person or group of people simply because of who and what they are.

FBI Hate Crime Statistics The FBI's annual jurisdiction-by-juridiction breakdown of state, local, and college hate crime reporting offers the most comprehensive national picture currently available of the magnitude of the hate crime problem in America

The hate crime phenomenon presents complex and agonizing problems to communities nationwide. The problem has become more visible as federal and state officials increasingly track hate violence.

American communities have learned the hard way that failure to address bias crimes can cause an isolated incident to fester and result in widespread tension. Hate crimes are unique because they have a special emotional and physical impact that extends beyond the original victim. They intimidate others in the victim's community, causing them to feel isolated, vulnerable, and unprotected by the law. By making members of a specific group fearful, angry and suspicious, these crimes polarize cities and damage the very fabric of our society.

Learn More

Frequently Asked Questions About Hate Crimes and Hate on the Internet
Federal Overview - What is the federal response to hate crimes?

Narce Rodriguez Bruno
Dean of Student Development

Xenophobia in Arizona is Indicative of Climate All Over the Country

2008-04-20T06:54:00.000-07:00

An attack from AZ

I received an email from a list I belong to this morning. It described a bill in Arizona (SB1108) that is sponsored by the White-supremacist Russell Pearce. I say he is a White-supremacist because his bill will ban the teaching of Mexican-American/Chicano/a studies! This bill would have a severe impact on what people will recognize as legitimate scholarly work, and what people will write off as opinion. Mecha, and Chicano/a studies has had a positive impact by teaching people about the history of what is called the US.

http://www.eastvalleytribune.com/story/114048

Classes in Arizona which "denigrate American values and the teachings of Western civilization" could lose funding under this legislation. This bill actively targets dissent. Teachers and schools would have to surrender classic works such as Dr. Rodolfo Acuna's "Occupied America - A History of Chicanos."

Lets look at some American Values (Notice how weak that term is—how it can be interpreted by whoever reads it differently)this bill does NOT want kids to learn about. One is the value of Genocide, and the active and sustained denial of this horrific crime against humanity. The refusal to acknowledge this also prevents any real advances in race relations and communications. I mean if our culture can't accept that there was widespread genocide in the so-called Americas (oh oh--I said "so-called"--does this mean I'm a bad American, or is it as I believe--that I'm NOT regarded as FULLY American and am NOT allowed to criticize my government?), then how is it going to accept the fact that slavery built this country and our debt has never been paid, among many other atrocious acts? I'm not talking about giving anyone anything, but what about a little equality? Or what about the land theft--what happened to all the indigenous land? Acknowledgment of the past instead of attacks against minority groups in this country are what we need.

Sure, these are NOT the only American values, but the others like liberty, the right to vote, equality under the law--these are merely cruel jokes to many in the minority community. I'm fairly well educated--and I feel this way--I wonder how the majority of my less-privileged brothers and sisters feel...

Learning about these things don't make one a bad American--they empower people to make this country a better place, and maybe--just maybe, because I'm more cynical NOW than ever--this country could live up to its standards--at least a little.

Its all over the place

Last November the American Libraries published an offensively fallacious article against having Spanish language materials in our libraries. This article crushed me. I was really offended and hurt that the ALA would allow such a logically weak piece to be presented in its magazine. I am in library school right now and this taught me a lesson I didn't want to learn about libraries in the US. I mean I knew I just don't like seeing it presented by a respected organization.

http://www.ala.org/ala/alonline/index.cfm

I am not against legitimate debate, but I am against such ill-conceived writing and ethnocentric opinions that were printed in this article. This is yet ANOTHER indication to me that there are not enough people of color in the library industry. Perhaps if there were more—then the weak premises this article was based on would have been caught. Those against Spanish in the library should represent their side better than that. There are many Americans who speak other languages than Spanish. These AMERICANS deserve to have quality materials in Spanish for them to be able to learn Spanish. This author states that “multi-cultural groups who seek to divide the country into a bilingual society…” that doesn’t even make any sense—a bilingual society will understand itself better because it will communicate much better with more people—DUH!

Scholarly frauds

Much of this weak article reminds me of Sam Huntington's (a so-called scholar--and they [bigoted idiots] think Chicano studies is offensive--at Harvard) crap called "Who are we?"

http://tinyurl.com/3vvgvg

The fact that Harvard has someone like this working for them says a lot about their school. Ha—it says much about our country.

Old Sam’s Book and this article, to put it in simpleton terms—which isn’t far from the original is that America is Anglo-Protestant, and that it should not allow catholic, and other foreigners to taint it's purity (why does this sound vaguely like Hitlerian?). The invasion (notice the use of a vermin related, or enemy related word reminiscent of German propaganda during the Nazi era) will dilute our culture until—oh God—it won’t be an Anglo-protestant culture anymore with its fine ideals. I mean—Protestants work hard, but Mexicans—they are lazy—right—that’s the weak kind of reasoning both the writer of the American Libraries article and Huntington use. They feel that a multicultural society won’t be as strong as the former White-supremacist culturally ethnocentric society. They feel like contributions such as African rhythms, chocolate, wonderful science and artistic contributions damage American culture—again—WTF?

I’m not trying to be hard on the ALA, but I have to say something here.

It is greatly disturbing to me that people don't point out that this White-supremacist viewpoint is spreading day by day. It is spread by organizations like the minutemen who have been infiltrated by the White hate group Stormfront. It is readily seen in Racist comments made daily on television by people from factory workers to Politicians. Hilary Clinton used the immigration issue to try and cause division between the black and brown community. It is evidenced in Obama’s distancing himself from Reverend Wright--who merely has the guts to address his community on issues that matter to them. We are NOT allowed to talk about how the federal government destroyed, not just the panthers, but all kinds of other movements--I wouldn't be surprised if they killed MLK.

Are we going to let this go on?

WTF people????

We are NOT all Anglo Protestant. We are indigenous, Asian, Mixed of all races, we are Americans. We are atheists, pagans, New-agers, Universalists, we are whatever we want to be—we have religious freedom in this country—remember!?????????? We are Gay and Straight, we are a diverse, multicultural society—the first ever—the supposed greatest ever—well we need to get to it. We don’t ALL speak English—and some of US—like me only spoke English, but are struggling to learn other languages. We aren’t what your little world wants us to be—we are who we are.

There is always an underlying premise of these kinds of minds reasoning it is that Western civilization is Superior to that of other cultures. Western civilization is NOT the best thing EVER as some would have you believe. Western civilization has human sacrifice and slavery since early on. Check the Iliad for human sacrifice, and Aristotle (whose arguments for slavery are still being used in various guises to this day). Western civilization is not evil per se, but it does have certain inherent beliefs that must be criticized if Western civilization is to advance.

Attacks on people who are oppressed and limiting their informational resources must be judged harshly. This is a form of institutional racism. We cannot and should NOT allow this to be unchallenged in our industry and in our government. We have a duty to provide materials to our communities. If we can afford trillions of dollars to impose our empire on Iraq then we can certainly meet the informational needs of our communities. Perhaps it is time to look at new ways to fund libraries. We need creative minds, and lobbyists with plenty of bribe money if we are going to get these changes though (is that a joke?).

SB1108 and M.E.Ch.A.

SB1108 would also outlaw student groups such as M.E.Ch.A. M.E.Ch.A is a student organization. One of its stated goals that Xenophobes are scared of is it’s dedication to the liberation of Aztlán. This statement is open to interpretation and can most likely be interpreted as meaning gaining equality in our homeland (to use a word tossed around by this culture) M.E.Ch.A is not a Racist group as the bill claims. Here are M.E.Ch.A’s requirements for membership:

“General membership shall consist of any student who accepts, believes, and works for the goals and objectives of M.E.Ch.A. Including the liberation of Aztlán.”

http://www.nationalmecha.org/

Here is why they want to get rid of M.E.Ch.A.:

MEChA played an important role in the creation and implementation of Chicana/o Studies and support services programs on campus. Chicana/o Studies programs would be a relevant alternative to established curricula. Most important, the Chicana/o Studies program would be the foundation of MEChA's political power base. Today many Chicana/os Studies Programs would have difficulty operating if it were not for the enthusiasm and dedication of Mechistas to Chicana/o Studies.

They want to rob us of our indigenous heritage. Chicano studies, and books such as Professor Acuna’s do much to educate our people about who we are. When the Spanish came here they did their best to destroy the knowledge our people had of who we were and what we can accomplish. If we don’t learn about, for instance—the great mathematics and astronomy our people accomplished, then it is possible that some of us will really believe that all we can be are day laborers, field workers, and gangsters. Not that there is anything wrong with working any job, but we can do ANYTHING we set our minds to. We cannot and should not allow ourselves to be limited by imposed stereotypes.

Just as knowledge of the classics for western civilization is empowering, so is knowledge of our past for us. MEChA fulfills an information need for our community. The loss of M.E.Ch.A. would mean a loss of vital energy, new leadership, information and new knowledge creation. They fulfill an information need that otherwise would not be met.

There has been a sustained attack on our people since this war started. It is meant to create division and to project hate onto a particular group (sound familiar?). We need to counteract this abomination in strategic manners and use numbers to get our points across. People who myspace and facebook or other social networking—please feel free to link this and copy and paste into bulletins or notes.

I suggest we all write the AZ legislature and tell them what we think. I don’t think it will matter so much that you don’t live there. What will matter is that we tell them this kind of institutional racism will NOT be tolerated.

Arizona State Senate
Capitol Complex
1700 West Washington
Phoenix, AZ 85007-2890
Info Desk (602) 926-3559
Fax (602) 926-3429
Toll Free: 1-800-352-8404
WEBSITE: http://www.arizonasenate.org/

Tucson Office
400 West Congress St.
Suite 201
Tucson, AZ 85701
Senate Info Desk (520) 398-6000
House Info Desk (520) 398-6000
Fax (520) 398-6028
Toll Free: 1-800-352-8404

Arizona House of Representatives
Capitol Complex
1700 West Washington
Phoenix, AZ 85007-2890
Info Desk (602) 926-4221
Toll Free: 1-800-352-8404
WEBSITE: http://www.azhousetv.org/

We should also contact our state representatives and congress persons and let them know how we feel about this ethnocentric law:

State legislatures (Wikipedia just kicks butt sometimes—don’t it?)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._state_legislatures

US senate:

http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

US house:

http://www.house.gov/

You know I wrote this last night, but was so upset I had to wait until this morning for a reread because I was afraid I wasn’t thinking clearly. Thanks for reading!

Jose Luis Orozco

2008-04-18T15:16:00.000-07:00

This morning I attended a presentation at OLA/WLA by the children's bilingual (Spanish-English) author and musician Jose Luis-Orozco. He is simply incredible. He displayed how to teach language and concepts like self-esteem and tolerance via fingerplays, songs and dancing. His presentation was rich and full of languages and respect for diversity. We learned how to count to ten in Polish, Spanish, Russian, German, French, English, and Dutch by the end of his presentation.
This was no passive presentation Jose-Luis had the crowd up in front dancing and getting to know one another. I cried, I laughed, and I learned--he is a master storyteller/performer. I cannot tell you how happy I am that his books are available to this generation of kids. I didn't really have this kind of cultural appreciation child teaching. It is wonderful that our libraries, schools, and parents can take advantage his work to teach kids how to have fun and to love each other and themselves.

Big props go out to WLA/OLA and REFORMA for bringing Jose-Luis to Vancouver, WA this year! If you can book Jose-Luis--do it!

Libraries and zines...

2008-04-16T08:33:00.000-07:00

My Homeboy over at Foulweather Press just wrote up a post on Libraries:

Foulweather

He was stoked that Multnomah Co. carried his zine (in which I have an interview with Immortal Technique and an essay on colonialism in the US). I recently received a comment from someone who works at Seattle public--saying they had received foulweather and noticed my work.

Libraries just plain rule!

We provide you with the information you need.

Tell us what you want and need!

Read Foulweather and support Libraries!

Muxtape is incredible!

2008-04-15T07:03:00.000-07:00

My friends recently turned me onto Muxtape. This is a sweet site that lets you upload 12 mp3's to make a mixtape. You can then share it with friends by sharing the URL. It is such a beautifully simple idea. For each song there is a link to Amazon where one can purchase the track/s.

One can easily appreciate what a good sales/marketing model this is immediately. I've already been exposed to at least 10 bands I had heard of, but had never heard. Now I'm probably going to buy some of their music, whereas if I had not heard them--I would not buy their music. Sure you can sample tunes in many manners--its just that Muxtape has that social networking recommendation thing going on. Perhaps this is something the slow moving publishing industry will notice and take a cue from.

I'm fantasizing about having a library muxtape with selections taken from the library collection and then having links to the records so they can be placed on hold easily.

Simple is beautiful.

Good work Muxtape!

"Against the Cultural Imperialism Of the United States!"

2008-04-14T10:41:00.001-07:00

The former head of the Venezuelan library systems has been given the task of fighting cultural imperialism in Venezuela.

Article

We need someone to do that here in American Libraries. I have yet to read a good article on the colonial viewpoint that is in almost ALL information produced and disseminated in the US, and in the West.

Has anyone here read any good analytical essays/articles on this issue?

The Lowrider Librarian says hola!

2008-04-13T09:22:00.000-07:00

Hi,

my name is Max Macias. I'm a library science graduate student about a year into my studies. I've worked in libraries for over 20 years. A scholarship has made my studies possible. My interests include outreach to minority populations, Mexican-American (for lack of a better term) studies, Hip-hop culture, information transfer process, and politics.

I will be commenting on library, social sciences, politics, white supremacy, immigration, and the the american genocides among other issues and events.

Please comment, email me, or befriend me on Facebook: max macias.
.