Greetings,
Tags may not necessarily be a librarians worst nightmare but librarians may be tagging's salvation.
As information professionals, Librarians have long known what many of us are only now discovering - the need for standards.
Let's face it, up until a few years ago (before the ascendency of the Web and more specifically, Web 2.0) most of us didn't need to know about tagging or cataloging. We simply didn't have access to enough personal information such as textbooks, journals, personal references etc., to make tagging or cataloging worthwhile.
The "Read/Write" web has changed all that. Now we are awash with info and tagging is one way to deal with it all.
As long as the tags are not shared - no problem. If the tags I have chosen make sense to me and allow me easy access and retrieval for the information I've found, then I'm good. The wheels fall off the wagon when I share my tags with others via del.icio.us, furl or ... What makes perfect sense to me, might make no sense at all to someone else.
Laugh though you may, I suggest that all taggers need a tutorial on the Dewey Decimal System, Sears Subject Headings, the Library of Congress cataloging system or some other structured subject language or controlled language, otherwise they/we risk creating the tagger's, "Tower of Babble".
My $0.02 worth.
Thanks.
John Goldsmith
jdg@goodmedia.com
John Goldsmith
Posts made by John Goldsmith
Hi Sylvia,
I think I'm going to quit my day job and do nothing else but participate in web casts and forums. That's when I'm not involved with online community sites like SCoPE, Knowplace, BCEdOnline, BCCampus, TappedIn, Elluminate Forum, etc, etc. And then there are all the e-mail listsev's .
Even then, I doubt if I'll have enought time to see it all, do it all, participate in it all. So much collaboration, so little time. Is there an Open Source app to clone myself with?
/CJ
I think I'm going to quit my day job and do nothing else but participate in web casts and forums. That's when I'm not involved with online community sites like SCoPE, Knowplace, BCEdOnline, BCCampus, TappedIn, Elluminate Forum, etc, etc. And then there are all the e-mail listsev's .
Even then, I doubt if I'll have enought time to see it all, do it all, participate in it all. So much collaboration, so little time. Is there an Open Source app to clone myself with?
/CJ
Hi Derek,
You've raised a lot of interesting points but for me the biggest one is the first. Open source is not free. It usually requires a sizable committment in terms of time and energy. For many of these products, the learning curve is very steep, especially for a generation of users, used to sticking the CD in and clicking install, That can make Open Source is a tough sell. Combine that with fact that much of the OS software does not come from a big company or corporation and the sell gets tougher.
Personally, I love Open Source software and even Shareware. The "company" producing the software usually consists of one person or at most, a small group. In this environment, I'm a "someone". I can make suggestions or recommendations and see those reflected in the next released. Try doing that with Microsoft or Apple.
/JG
You've raised a lot of interesting points but for me the biggest one is the first. Open source is not free. It usually requires a sizable committment in terms of time and energy. For many of these products, the learning curve is very steep, especially for a generation of users, used to sticking the CD in and clicking install, That can make Open Source is a tough sell. Combine that with fact that much of the OS software does not come from a big company or corporation and the sell gets tougher.
Personally, I love Open Source software and even Shareware. The "company" producing the software usually consists of one person or at most, a small group. In this environment, I'm a "someone". I can make suggestions or recommendations and see those reflected in the next released. Try doing that with Microsoft or Apple.
/JG
Hi Derek,
Tux Paint is an absolutely marvelous kids paint program. It's an Open Source version of a very popular commercial app called Kid Pix. It runs on Windows, OSX and virtually all flavours of Linux. It's easy to install, rock solid in operation and has good documentation.
There's also a Tux Math program for elementary math drills and Tux typing which is an Open Source typing tutor program. Both are also excellent.
If all Open Source program were like these we wouldn't be having this discussion. Open scource would rule the software world.
To it's credit, many open source applications have matured and improved. The latest Ubantu release for example, is the closest yet to a viable desktop alternative for Windows and OSX. Unfortunately, application development continues to lag behind. While Open Office may be an alternative to the Microsoft option, what option is there for programs like Dreamweaver or Flash?
Even though it may be a while before Gnome, KDE or ... become as popular a desktop as Windows XP or OS X I think the tipping point may be closer then anticipated. For example, I attend the NECC conference in San Diego this summer and for the first time that I can remember, Open Source was given it's own strand for demonstration and sessions.
In a breakout session afterwards, one superintendent claim that up to 30% of all American school districts were now running Open Source opering systems and application on their school computers because the continually high cost of commercial software and operating systems was draining their tech budgets. While that figure seemed a little high to me, Open Source was definitely the "buzz" at this year's conference.
Tux Paint is an absolutely marvelous kids paint program. It's an Open Source version of a very popular commercial app called Kid Pix. It runs on Windows, OSX and virtually all flavours of Linux. It's easy to install, rock solid in operation and has good documentation.
There's also a Tux Math program for elementary math drills and Tux typing which is an Open Source typing tutor program. Both are also excellent.
If all Open Source program were like these we wouldn't be having this discussion. Open scource would rule the software world.
To it's credit, many open source applications have matured and improved. The latest Ubantu release for example, is the closest yet to a viable desktop alternative for Windows and OSX. Unfortunately, application development continues to lag behind. While Open Office may be an alternative to the Microsoft option, what option is there for programs like Dreamweaver or Flash?
Even though it may be a while before Gnome, KDE or ... become as popular a desktop as Windows XP or OS X I think the tipping point may be closer then anticipated. For example, I attend the NECC conference in San Diego this summer and for the first time that I can remember, Open Source was given it's own strand for demonstration and sessions.
In a breakout session afterwards, one superintendent claim that up to 30% of all American school districts were now running Open Source opering systems and application on their school computers because the continually high cost of commercial software and operating systems was draining their tech budgets. While that figure seemed a little high to me, Open Source was definitely the "buzz" at this year's conference.
Hello,
I've just joined the group so I'll begin with an introduction. My name is John Goldsmith and I'm an online teacher in a virtual school in BC. I've been a technonlogy addict since about 1979 when I bought by first computer an Commodore Vic 20.
I confess I have a love/hate relationship with Open Source software ever since I downloaded my first copy of Linux many years ago and almost went crazy trying to install it. Eventually I gave up and went back to DOS as being a far better and easier to use OS.
I love the concept of Open Source. As someone once remarked, it peer review at its best. Nevertheless, there is good and bad Open Scource. Programs like Audacity, Tux Paint, and Firefox can compete with the best commercial products around. They are solid, stable , well documented, easy to install and they work. They don't require an encyclopedic knowledge of PHP, MySQL, Tomcat, Jakarta, Python or ... to install and operate. Unfortunately, there are far to few Audacity's and far too many Jones E-education, an LMS program which even Linus Torvald would be challanged to install.
I'll stop there just to make sure I'm posting this correctly and it's going to the right spot
Thanks.
I've just joined the group so I'll begin with an introduction. My name is John Goldsmith and I'm an online teacher in a virtual school in BC. I've been a technonlogy addict since about 1979 when I bought by first computer an Commodore Vic 20.
I confess I have a love/hate relationship with Open Source software ever since I downloaded my first copy of Linux many years ago and almost went crazy trying to install it. Eventually I gave up and went back to DOS as being a far better and easier to use OS.
I love the concept of Open Source. As someone once remarked, it peer review at its best. Nevertheless, there is good and bad Open Scource. Programs like Audacity, Tux Paint, and Firefox can compete with the best commercial products around. They are solid, stable , well documented, easy to install and they work. They don't require an encyclopedic knowledge of PHP, MySQL, Tomcat, Jakarta, Python or ... to install and operate. Unfortunately, there are far to few Audacity's and far too many Jones E-education, an LMS program which even Linus Torvald would be challanged to install.
I'll stop there just to make sure I'm posting this correctly and it's going to the right spot
Thanks.