Older generations begin to use facebook.

These days, more and more people are spreading out farther from home and find it increasingly difficult to keep in touch with one another by using conventional means. Such is the case for a womman by the name of Penny Ireland and her family. She has adopted the use of the social networking site, facebook, in order to keep up with her family easily. All of Ireland's five kids and even her 83 year old mother use facebook. In fact it is so handy for them with keeping up with everyone, they call it their "livingroom."

According to the article, more and more of the older generations are joining social networking sites like facebook and myspace in order to keep in contact with younger family members who have been networking for years now. While the older social network users are keeping up with their family, they also find a new use for the sites. They are beginning to reconnect with friends from high school, college, and work.

According to facebook.com, there are now 1.5 million women aged 55 or older on the site. This number is a 550 percent increase from 6 months before. One explanation for the sharp increase in older users is the fact that they are getting invitations for various events from their peers and then realize the legitamacy of the site. Others realize that the social networking won't be disappearing anytime soon and give up going against it and begin to embrace it.

This article really hits home for me. In the past month both of my parents have joined facebook. My dad joined because he got an evite for some work related event. Then my mom joined after a friend of hers coaxed her into joining. They don't really keep tabs on it very much, but they do have it. However, I have yet to add them to my friends due to the fact that I would prefer to have privacy still.

The author of this article is John Sutter for CNN.com and it was posted April 13,2009.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/04/13/social.network.older/index.html

News Report 4

Apparently, surfing the web during work hours increases productivity. An Australian study done by the University of Melbourne on web surfing for fun during office hours found that there was a 9 percent increase in productivity versus those who were all business and no play.

The author of the study, Brent Coker, said that "workplace internet leisure browsing," or WILB for short, helped to increase the focus of the workers in this study. Coker states that in order to be more productive, one must take some time to zone out from time to time. The key to this he says, is taking short breaks with surfing the web to help relax the brain.

There is a catch to all of this however, the people in the study that showed productivity increase with browsing the internet were only casual internet users. If a person with an internet addiction were to be browsing, it would almost certainly result in a loss of productivity.

I for one, am a bit on the fence about these findings. I do believe that taking a break and letting your mind rest after doing intense thinking will improve your personal productivity, but on the other hand, there are those people with internet addictions. Those with cyber addictions spend countless hours surfing the web. I am included in this group. I will search the web for the most nonsensical things, wasting time on ebay, comedy sites, youtube, wikipedia, among countless other things. In my case, internet hinders my productivity a great deal.

The key to success I suppose, is moderation. Moderation is key with everything. This article was found at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30010342/

Reading #5: Information Navigation 101

According to the article, more and more students use technology every passing day. But while these students may be HTML wizards and texting masters, they are lacking some critical skills. Many are ignorant to today's research methods and how to properly use technology to access databases full of scholarly sources. The article suggests that students are drowning in information. Since 1995 there has been a jump in websites from 18,000 to more than 100 million. And with so many websites a popular search engine was bound to come along, and that search engine was Google. It is just far more convenient to Google something than to go into a library or it's database to search for information.

Because of so many students that are lacking in research skills, there has been a nationwide push for what is called "information literacy." This movement was spearheaded by Cal State over a decade ago. The article goes on to say that information literacy didn't gain a foothold in the academic population until 1989, when the American Library Association said it was imperative that schools add programs to boost information literacy. The information literacy movement has gained a foothold in education for sure. In 1994 only 22 percent of colleges had faculty that could teach the subject, but now just about every college has at least one faculty member to do it.

Apparently, some librarians aren't too pleased with how their fellow librarians are treating this movement though. They feel that many of the followers of Information Literacy are misinterpreting it. They also feel that followers give the movement some kind of "cultish zeal" because they feel it is so new and exciting.

With the growing importance of information literacy, students are beginning to be tested with standardized tests to check their knowledge on the subject. Hopefully with more testing will come greater understanding of the finer art of researching via technology.


I think this article gave great insight into the problem with students relying too much on Google and Wikipedia. They don't use the real and reliable resources that the library has to offer. It is true that many students don't even know about those resources though and are merely drowning in a pool of vast knowledge on the web. With proper guidance and knowledge, I feel that librarians and other faculty can improve this nation's information literacy issue within the next decade by using a slew of programs for students and standardized tests to test their knowledge.


One thing's for sure though, Google is most certainly making us more dumb.

Reading 4: Infodieting

According to this article, search engines are the bane of the librarian. More and more students are turning to google to do their research while abandoning libraries altogether. The attitude for many students is, "I had no idea we had a library, but why would I ever want to go to one when I have the internet at my disposal?" This line of thinking is exactly what is causing headaches for countless librarians apparently. A man by the name of James Morris has created the term "infobesity" in regards to googling for research. It is low-level searching that yields low level results which in turn creates sub-par papers. The trick he feels, is to get students to go from infobesity to infodieting.

With the idea of infodieting comes the argument for making school databases more like google. Students apparently don't like school databases due to their cumbersome nature and odd manner of structure. For a while librarians have been crying out to the database producing companies to create more user friendly databases, and up til now those cries have fallen upon deaf ears. But now the company ProQuest has unveiled a more user friendly database. Another important step towards "googlization" is the RedLightGreen project, which has an interface much like google's and also makes suggestions for the user to get better results.

Another step for ensuring that students still use the library is having initiatives in place that will make professors have their students have to find research material that is in the library. This could lead to more information literacy of students and an increase in the usage of the library.

I for one think that changing the format of most of the databases is a wonderful idea. It is far easier to type in a google-esque interface than to worry about various fields and to deal with selecting "and" or "or" among other things. On top of this, having professors make their students actually do research in the library would increase the traffic in the library quite a bit. Especially if the interfaces used for finding information were simplified in a manner that is easy for all to understand. If things don't change, this infobesity issue will only become more and more prominent.

Reading #3: The Future of Libraries

As stated in this article, throughout history, libraries have been used as places to store information for people. Centuries ago, information was hard to come by and was rather expensive to acquire since books were so expensive. With the creation of the printing press and movable type, the cost of books were driven down but still some people could not afford them. In the early 20th century over 2,000 libraries were created with the help of benefactor Andrew Carnegie. Libraries formed since then have focused on maintaining a "collection" of books which can be used by those who do not want to purchase their own books or those who cannot afford it.

For much of the 20th century, libraries were the "go to" place when you needed to conduct research or to just learn something new. But with the dawning of the internet, much of this information is readily available online for free. This nullifies the need to go to physically go to a library to look for something. Because of the change of medium in which information is conveyed, libraries must too change. Evolution is key to the survival of libraries, just as it is the key to survival for living organisms.

There are 10 different trends that are affecting the evolution of libraries as we know them.
Trend #1- The systems which we use to convey information are rapidly changing so libraries must keep up with these ways in order to survive.
Trend #2- All technology has a limited lifespan and will eventually fade out. This technology is replaced by a newer and better form of technology that is more efficient.
Trend #3- The ultimate form of data storage has not been achieved as of yet; but soon Moore's Law will reach it's limits and then we will have the smallest form of storage. Then and only then can we set absolute standards for information and storage.
Trend #4- Search engines will become increasingly complex. As search engines get more complicated the need for librarians will be on the rise again.
Trend #5- The compression of time is changing people. Because of this libraries will need to change to accomodate those people.
Trend#6- Over time, keyboards will become obsolete. There will be more of a focus on verbal communication rather than written communication.
Trend #7- The demand for global information is on the rise. More and more people will want to learn about other cultures around the globe in order to interact with them properly.
Trend #8- There will be a need for new global systems. Libraries will be used to help sort this information.
Trend #9- Experiences will be held in a higher regard. Patrons' feedback to their experience will become incredibly important in shaping how the library works.
Trend #10- Probably the most important trend is the shift from libraries being the center of information to being the center of culture.

What this entire article boils down to is that in order for libraries to survive in these modern times, they must be progressive. They must embrace the usage of new technologies and focus on culture and the community rather than solely on being a storagehouse of information. Without this they will quickly become obsolete and disappear from society.

China's Gagging of the Internet

In the past 6 months, China has gone on a widespread crackdown of the internet. Initially they have been shutting down porn sites among other sites with vulgarity. But now, the web censorship of the communist machine is unsurprisingly shutting down various blog sites that are frequented by activists. This blog in particular is hosted on bullog.cn.

The article states that it is unknown if the shutdown of bullog is permanent or not. The article also states that the Chinese government is very wary of losing it's control of the internet, which is why there has been such a tremendous crackdown lately. It remains to be seen what exactly caused this site to be shutdown, but MSN believes it has something to do with a petition that was circulated on bullogs boards about creating a new Chinese constitution that grants human rights to all citizens. Also, a Chinese government group that monitors web content posted a list of sites deemed "pornographic" in nature, and it included msn.com on that list.

Up til now, 41 websites have been banned in China during this internet sweep. For the most part, this reaction from China is unsurprising to me, considering they trample human rights left and right and it's officials are clinging to power by use of censorship and abuse. Only in China could such a blatant disregard for the flow of information be possible.

The article from which this summary was made came from msnbc.com and is located at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28577927/

Web Hoaxes And Other Nonsense

With the emergence of the internet, there have always been hoax and counterfeit sites started by various internet trolls. But recently, these sites have been getting ever more elaborate. I know from my own experiences of traveling the world wide web, that they are aplenty. One such site, http://www.malepregnancy.com/, has fooled quite a few people during its existence. That site is rather benign in nature, but it certainly does look legitimate. This article on web hoaxes and counterfeit sites explores just what happens when elaborate and believable fake sites pop into existence and try and push some variety of misinformation on the public.

One of these dangerous sites detailed in this article is martinlutherking.org, a site covertly linked to a white supremacist group. Another such site is the Kennewick Man news site. It doesn't fall under the category of a hoax site, but it certainly does teeter on the edge of being a hoax. The site itself does contain some discussion as to what the Kennewick Man's origins were, but the majority of discussion is over why ethnic cleansing is a viable option for the U.S. The information held in these sites are offensive yes, but they don't actually hurt you usually. What about sites that steal your money or spread a virus to your computer?

Following the events of September 11th, various charity aid sites popped into existence. Quite a few people have been duped by sites such as these. The article goes on to talk about various other forms of sites conveying misinformation. But possibly the most important parts of the article are the parts that inform you about how to combat these falsified sites.

When it comes to information that sounds outlandish or like an urban legend, your best bet is to go to snopes2.com and check to see if that subject has been researched by them. One technique is to actually look at the URL of the website to see if it has any clues to what kind of site it really is. If a site has ~ and a name after that, then it is a personal site. If it is a .org site and you were expecting .com, that can also be a bad sign. Research the domain name of the site if it appears to be suspicious. But probably the best tip is to see if there is a lot of bias towards a certain audience and the content the site holds. If the content sounds too outlandish, chances are it is.