This week’s 4cast:
1. The Debate Over Social Networking Sites (Demented & Sad, But Social)
MySpace, Facebook, and Flickr are three examples of social networking websites that are both hugely popular and increasingly controversial. While libraries debate their role in the use of such sites, Congress is debating whether these sites should be used in libraries at all.
- Libraries in Social Networking Software (Information Wants To Be Free)
- List of social networking websites (Wikipedia)
- Congress targets social network sites (CNET News)
- House Bill Would Force Libraries to Block Social Websites (ALA)
2. Open Up & Save Document
Given the ever-shifting fortunes of the computer industry, do you ever worry that your library’s important Word or PDF documents might become unreadable sometime down the road? The OpenDocument format (ODF) is an open-source alternative that allows users to create and save a wide variety of document types, minus the proprietary software.
- OpenDocument (a basic description from Wikipedia)
- Open Document Format Gets ISO Approval (PC Magazine)
- OpenDocument Foundation to MA: We Have a Plugin (Groklaw)
3. Touting Technology Both Up & Down Your Library’s Ladder
Meredith Farkas and Dorothea Salo recently contributed two useful posts to the TechEssence.Info website, offering advice on how to convince your library’s technophobic staff to embrace important, new technologies.
- On getting staff members to buy into a new technology (how to sell new technology to your staff)
- Selling tech up the ladder (how to sell new technology to your supervisors)
4. Speaking the Same Language
And speaking of the technophobic, David Lee King (IT Director at the Kansas City Public Library) has compiled a list of links to tips on talking about technology, without the ones and zeros. Yahoo! is building an entire website for consumers around this concept.
