Lowrider Librarian

Facebook is a cesspool of invalid information.  Image is public Domain. Dear readers, I used to be a huge proponent of FB.  I am a librarian and early on I realized the potential of social media for networking, sharing information and as a medium for learning.  This is no longer the case. I used to believe FB was a great tool to share information. It is not even a good tool for sharing information.   I am an information professional.  Part of my job is teaching students information literacy.  Here is a definition of Information Literacy that ALA uses: Information literacy is a set of abilities requiring individuals to "recognize when information is needed and have the ability to locate, evaluate, and use effectively the needed information."   This has much to do with the the person's ability to search for and find valid information.   Most dictionaries define validity as: "The quality of being logically or factually sound; ...

When you are a person of color and you speak about race, you are playing a game of Whack a Mole and you are the mole. Ready for the next one! Something I have seen recently jarred me into consciousness about how peer pressure bullying works in combination with Race in the US. Often, when a person of color brings up Race, they are most often told to shut up in one way or another.  If they don't or happen to bring up Race again, then they are most often attacked. Once the initial attack happens, other bullies join in and reinforce the idea that non-White viewpoints on Race don't count and don't matter. This has happened to me countless times and most often it happens with the bullies hiding behind the guise of paternal/maternal patronizing comments about the person of color being a racist. This type of bullying has happened to me in forums, on Facebook, in person and in various other scenarios when speaking about Race. Recently I was a witness to this on th...

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 imp...

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...

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 a...

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 magazin...

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?

Social Searching On The Web View more presentations from maxmacias .

[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 pl...