Marydee Ojala Workshop for SAOUG: Thursday, 16 August 2007

Workshop for SAOUG: Thursday, 16 August 2007

Workshop 1: Using Social Networks in the Real World
As we enter a Web 2.0 and Library 2.0 world, it seems everyone is talking about social search. Whether it's blogs, wikis, nings, RSS feeds, podcasts, mashups, remixes, folksonomies, or social bookmarking, there's a whole host of new technologies that encourage sharing of information, collaborative working, and involvement with our users. But how much of this talk about social networks translates into reality and how much is hype? Can information professionals effectively integrate social networking in their daily work lives? This workshop will explore the social networking technologies and give examples of what works, and what doesn't, in the real world of

libraries, education, and business.

Workshop 2 : Advanced Web Search

Today most people equate "search" with Google, and they use Google on a regular basis, sometimes as a replacement for consulting a librarian or going to a library. However, there are other search engines and search tools that information professionals should include in their repertoire, particularly if they expect to present themselves as information experts to those who think that putting a few words into a Google search box is sufficient. This Advanced Search seminar will cover the intricacies of Web search syntax, introduce sophisticated search techniques, explain how Web search differs from traditional online search, compare and contrast Web search engines, look at multimedia search, and explore some new initiatives and projects from the major Web search engines.

Marydee Ojala edits ONLINE:

The Leading Magazine for Information Professionals and writes its business research column (?The Dollar Sign?). She contributes feature articles and news stories to Information Today, Searcher, EContent, Computers in Libraries, Intranets, Cyber Skeptic's Guide to the Internet, and Information Today's NewsBreaks. Her blog is ONLINEInsider.net. A long-time observer of the information industry, she speaks frequently at conferences, such as Web Search University, Online Information (London, UK), Internet Librarian International, and national library meetings outside the U.S. She has adjunct faculty status at the School of Library and Information Science at IUPUI (Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis) teaching business information resources. Her professional career began at BankAmerica Corporation, San Francisco, directing a worldwide program of research and information services. She established her independent information research business in 1987. She currently serves as membership chair for the Indiana chapter of SLA and as the treasurer for IOLUG (Indiana Online User Group). Her undergraduate degree is from Brown University and her MLS was earned at the University of Pittsburgh.

BRAIN LEARNING STYLES

16 SAOUG members (and/or interested parties) attended the SAOUG brain styles workshop with Cecil Murray as facilitator today. We all thoroughly enjoyed the workshop; and there was an amazing synergy within the group.

At least 16 SAOUG members and associates will know themselves a bit better; and will relate better to their partners, children, family, friends and clients.

I would like to thank the SAOUG Committee (even though I am part of it) for bringing this workshop to us. Especially to you, Glenda, for the original idea. Also: a special word of thanks to Gwyn for the venue; and Tanya for the organisation. And of course to Cecil – you are an amazing facilitator.

I really enjoyed it.

Christa Fourie

Reed-Elsevier's arms and health

Richard Smith, the former editor of British Medical Journal, has called
for a boycott of medical authors publishing in Elsevier journals,
because its subsidiary company Reed Exhibitions, which hosts medical
conferences, such as the Lancet Conference, also hosts arms fairs
throughout the world. Reed Elsevier maintains that it is "legal to sell
arms, that the trade is tightly regulated, and that arms are clearly
needed in a dangerous world." Smith maintains that whilst boasting of
the impact the top-rated Lancet has on global health, Reed Elsevier
nevertheless continues to host trade fairs that sell those weapons that
do most harm to civilian populations - the very populations whose health
Lancet is dedicated to improving. Smith accuses Reed Elsevier of using
Lancet as a "moral fig leaf".
Read the free article for yourself at http://www.jrsm.org
Reed-Elsevier's hypocrisy in selling arms and
health.

DISCUSSION: Copyright case against Google

Belgian newspapers win copyright case against Google
(see following link for full article)

http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,2347645,00.html

Court ruled in favor of Belgian Newspapers, regarding violation of copyright laws.
Google published links to these newspapers without their permission or payment. The court ordered the Google company to pay daily fines for these links, until they were removed. The Belgian Court said that Google has broken the Belgian Copyright law.

The Internet group, and specifically Google News, was advised to request permission to show the articles or extracts, which included pictures and graphics from the Copiepresse (Belgium’s French language newspapers group).


What do you think of this? Please post your comments for discussion

ONLINE

Hello Fellow Blouggers

I hope it’s just summer holidays followed by pressure of work, but really!!! Only three comments received on the first item posted can hardly be called a resounding success, especially as one of those comments was my response to Mary Bruce. Do you even KNOW that the Bloug has been launched?????? Well, anyway, thanks to Mary, and also to Anonymous, who obviously had a great time at OUGSA 2005!

We’re supposed to be the leaders in this field so PULEESE send through your comments, suggestions – in fact ANYTHING at this stage would be welcome.

Here’s my two cents worth – again. Mary Dee Ojala sent through to us for comment an article that one of her contributors was writing for the January 2007 30th Anniversary Issue of Online. It’s by Suzanne Bjorner and it’s called “Where have all the OLUGs gone?”

You can read it for yourself if you subscribe, but the gist of it is that Online User Groups, first mentioned in Online in April 1977 used to meet regularly to work on common goals and to try to solve shared problems. By July 1981, although most of the listed groups were in the USA, Canada and Europe, SAOUG featured amongst the international groups. For those of you who perhaps weren’t born or toddling around in nappies then, SAOUG began 27 years ago in 1980.

Problems are different in nature, but few of the groups which thrived in the 1980’s have survived. As Bjorner notes, “The world that spawned OLUGs is gone. Online evangelism is no longer necessary – we succeeded in marketing online information retrieval to the masses. Our workplaces and professional organizations have integrated online into basic operations. Communication and training, through e-mail, blogs, online tutorials and all the other social networking devices of Web 2.0 are faster and easier than ‘picking up the telephone’ was in 1977. As the ‘online industry’ has dispersed in multitudinous vertical markets, consumer activism has lost its target and activism.”

However, she also writes that “Some groups outside the United States are faring better. The Southern African Online User Group remains active with a well-developed Web site. It holds three or four meetings a year, and although it discontinued its newsletter, it provides space for an electronic discussion list.” My comment was that it was perhaps that we still had fun together, a thought that was heartily endorsed by Marydee Ojala based on her visit in 2003.

Well, if the dismal response to the first Bloug is anything to go by, then we’re doomed to follow our colleagues in the USA and Europe. This Bloug is meant to become an interactive newsletter, so we can keep up with each other’s comings and goings nationally and virtually – we did indeed have fun, but it’s getting so that it’s become passive fun for you, and I really don’t want to be the only one up there singing “Let me entertain you” …

Chair – Glenda Myers

Fellow Blougers

Hello Fellow Blougers

What is a Bloug? Why, a blog for OUG of course …

We’ve been trying to get a blog for SAOUG going for some time now so we can circulate news and replace the newsletter for the out of town members, but the obstacle that’s been holding us back is time. Why is there never enough of it? And is it only me that feels like a hamster on a wheel – the wheel is turning but I can’t seem to run fast enough to keep up with all the things I need to do. And when my computer centre updates my browser version without asking (as it did this morning) so I can’t find my familiar icons or URLs without a long game of hide and seek, should I be drinking that extra cup of coffee so I’m even more caffeine-stoked, or should I just be calming down and wasting a day while I figure out the ins-and-outs of IE v.7.whatever?

Well, we’re finally here (with the blog, that is)and it struck me when I sat down to write this that in order to get things moving, we need to be controversial enough to get some dialogue going. So forgive me in advance if you don’t like what I’m about to say, but please feel free to respond. In fact, please respond!

We were fortunate enough to have Dr Renate Volpe talk to us at our end-of-year FUNction on 10 November 2006, and she spoke on the topic of social networking (as opposed to information networks). She had a lot of very common sense things to say (and I guess if we had the time we could have self-analyzed most of what she said), but I could see heads nodding vigorously in the audience, so it seems as if she touched a lot of chords with the folk present.

What she said that struck me in particular is that the workplace is still designed by men for men with wives – could this be the reason that I’m so stressed? I’ve always thought of it as having “two jobs” – one in the workplace and one at home, and I can function well if both are running reasonably well, but as soon as there’s a crisis at either “job”, then I tend to unravel. This, Renate said is one of the reasons we need to form networks or informal or formal coalitions, so we can support each other.

So the next time I need to stay at home to wait for the plumber/carpenter/deliverymen/washing machine servicemen/electrician to call I’ll be calling on all of you (my “wives”) to assist so I can get on with my day job while you wait at my home for my evening job problems to be resolved. I wish I had R1.00 for every time I’ve heard the excuse “the truck broke down/got hijacked” in the past couple of years – I’d be extremely wealthy by now and able to stay home permanently in order to wait for the plumber/carpenter … you get the picture.

But as a group composed mostly of women, should we not be forming an informal network to help with these things? Or should SAOUG remain a network only on the professional level?

I don’t know the answers – what do you think?

Chair - Glenda Myers