New Facebook Profile called TIMELINE available

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Timeline is being marketed as “a home for all the great stories you’ve already shared.”   It will include now include posts, photos, and life events you’ve shared as they’ve occurred. You choose what to feature on your timeline.  An interesting feature is that you can go back to the day events occurred and add them to the timeline if they are not already there.  You can even go to your private activity log, click on any post, and add it to your timeline.  There’s more. Read about the “timeline” on the Facebook Blog at http://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?post=10150289612087131

Firms often consider the profile section of Facebook as a static piece of information that can be pre-approved.  They also may provide permission to create a profile to one individual for responsibility that it is created according to the pre-approved plan.  But now another concern is that someone with permission now or far into the future may decide to add something to the profile that has not been pre-approved.  Just another new feature designed to please the user that has potential risk for the organization. Has anyone read more about Timeline?  Any thoughts - pro or con?

Second Life one of several communication channels for U of Delaware

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Last week the University of Delaware hosted 2 events on their Virtual Campus in Second Life last that reinforced, for me at least, the value of providing multiple delivery methods for place-based presentations.  Both were live video-streams into Second Life.

The first was CNN's Candy Crowley speaking on Broken ... and Broken?  Assessing the US Political Scene. At one point, 32 participants were in attendance.  The presentation was also distributed as streaming media on the U of Delaware website.  A Q&A period followed the presentation, and questions were taken from Second Life and in-person participants. 

The second was a ceremony during which Vice President Biden, a U of Delaware graduate, donated his Senatorial papers to special collections on Delaware campus. About 19 participants were in the Second Life Audience, but Tweets from the physical location indicated long lines waiting to get in to see the VP in person. The Vice President spoke on the Constitution and Citizenship. He did not entertain questions. Streaming video was available only on campus.  

"A People is... what it remembers" Flight 93 Memorial

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At the memorial service in Shanksville, PA, this afternoon, former U.S. poet laureate Robert Pinsky said, "A people is what it remembers."  He often speaks of shared memory that defines a people.  Today, the Flight 93 National Memorial and the land on which it stands was dedicated.  Now a part of the U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service, the memorial pays tribute to the passengers and crew of Flight 93.

Today, as I see the images and hear the stories, I become reminded once again of how fortunate we are to work in the the field of archives and records administration--to play a small part in keeping not only records but preserving memories.   Read more about the Flight 93 National Memorial.

PB Works - Personal, education, business--and now legal--versions

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PBWorks is a collaborative environment that started as PBWiki in 2005. In 2009, it was rebranded as PBWorks, a collaborative platform. I've used it since it was a simple wiki, both the free version and the educational version. It's one of the tools I recommend to students when they embark on group projects and need a reliable, free place to collaborate.

In May of this year, the next generation of its business solution was announced offering the what they call "first cloud-based collaboration software with massive scalability and the security features enterprise businesses need." The scalability feature allows businesses to move from a single corporate account to include thousands of individual workspaces and store multiple terabytes of data. The search feature is a universal "faceted" feature that allows users to refine search results by a variety of parameters including file type and who last edited the document.

In an article published online yesterday in Law Technology News, the PBWorks Legal Edition was described. The Legal Edition "supports document sharing, co-counsel teamwork, client interactions, and overall management of complex cases and the teams that handle them." A template store makes getting started easy; one, a Departmental Workspace template, can be used to set up an intranet-style workspace for a department or group. Read the article to learn more about PBWorks Legal Edition. And visit PBWorks to create your own collaborative environment.

Voicethread

Tweet Classes started Wed, August 24th. What a short summer!  One of the first activities we engaged in utilized a tool called voicethread.   This tool allows the creator to upload images, documents, or video and begin a conversation around that content.  Participants can post a comment in one of 5 ways:  voice (mike), voice (telephone), text, audio file, or video (via webcam).  Images of the participants form a border around the content, as shown at the left.  Learn all about this free tool at http://voicethread.com/

Society of American Archivists 360 Conference, Chicago, August 22-27, 2011

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If you're not here, you are missing some very good sessions.  One session titled, What Happens After 'Here Comes Everybody,' was presented by a panel that included the author of Web 2.0 Tools and Strategies for Archives and Local History Collections, Kate Theimer. The focus was on "participatory archives" and included examples of the ways in which non-archivists are contributing content and metadata to archival projects. The abstract reads:

Many archivists believe the key to the success of our profession in the future lies in effectively harnessing the participatory culture of the Web. But what does it really mean to be a “participatory archives”? The speakers provide a definition and examples of participatory archives, discuss the latest research on the impact of user participation on authenticity, reliability and credibility, and share research about user collaboration efforts at the National Archives (UK).

A sell out session (seriously several hundred people and I felt lucky to find a spot on the floor) was Practical Approaches to Born-Digital Records: What Works Today (part 1 of 2). Part 2 is tomorrow and I'm afraid I'll miss it...unless the storm causes a delay in my travel plans.  The abstract for part 1 can speak for itself:

The panelists present and discuss effective ways to manage born-digital records today. The chair and five practicing archivists lead a discussion of specific projects that marry traditional archival processes to digital curation tools, covering such areas as beginning a program, surveying records, accessioning, processing, and providing access. The speakers provide examples of how professional practice has come “360”: new tools inform traditional theory and vice versa in practical approaches to born-digital records.

 Plan now for next year's conference. The program theme, thinking "Beyond Borders," is designed to help us envision new opportunities beyond our institutions and specializations, to expand our perceptions of history, culture, memory, and recordkeeping to arrive at a more inclusive and holistic view of the great work of archives. If you are interested in submitting a proposal for that conference, see the call for papers.

IFLA Conference - August 13-18, 2011, San Juan, Puerto Rico

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The World Library and Information Congress 2011, 77th IFLA General Conference Assembly took place in Puerto Rico this past week.  It provided the opportunity for library and information professionals from around the globe to exchange ideas and learn from one another. This was my first IFLA conference but it won't be the last.  The theme this year was: Libraries beyond libraries: Integration, Innovation and Information for all.  The challenge of creating, managing and preserving digital information was a topic of several workshops I attended (and even one at which I presented).  One session reminded me of the virtual time capsule project required of LIBR 284 Archivists: Meet Web 2.0. It was on e-legal deposit: from legislation to implementation; from ingest to access.  Representatives from several countries--including France, Finland, UK, and Chile--explained the processes they use to capture, manage and attempt to preserve digital objects from the web.  No, the picture isn't from the conference site. Who could resist a trip to the El Yunque rain forest when in Puerto Rico?