My syllabus for LIS 665 - Projects in Digital Archives is also available as a PDF.

The syllabus is also availabe as a PDF.

Below is the digital re-creation of the final lecture I gave for my course on Library Use and Instruction. Enjoy!

Below is the digital re-creation of the final lecture I gave for my course on Digital Libraries. I take a look at where Digital Libraries have been, and where I think they are going. Enjoy!

Thanks to everyone who helped me finish my first marathon, especially FRNY, and to my friends, family, colleagues and students! I finished in 3:19:15.

I really dig the new flyer for my social media course that Sarah Lassie at Pratt SILS put together. Here it is:

I am excited (and a tiny bit daunted) to be offering the class “Social Media” next semester at Pratt SILS. A description is below:

Social Media (LIS-697-09)
Wednesday, 3:30-5:50 PM

The rise of the networked information environment, currently highlighted by such descriptors as Social Media and Web 2.0, and popularized by such web properties as Facebook and Twitter, will continue to profoundly influence the ways in which humans share information. Such technologies support the use, production, and circulation of knowledge in a peer-to-peer networked arrangement. This arrangement shares some aspects with other forms of communications but is most remarkable in its discontinuity from these earlier forms (for example, the hierarchical communication structure widely used in our lifetimes). This new structural arrangement, which will undoubtedly persist alongside other arrangements, has implications for information organizations and professionals, and goes far beyond, “should my library be Twittering?” Rather, the question this course will be guided by is: how might information organizations and professionals leverage the networked information environment to advance longstanding professional values, such as a commitment to democracy, community building, and individual efficacy and fulfillment. In effort to advance these values, students will engage in a collaborative design project that attempts to take advantage of this new arrangement.

Tentative course topics include: history and theories of communication, computer networks and infrastructure, social design affordances, identity and presentation of self, social networks, participatory culture, network analysis and measures, immersion, ubiquitous computing, Library 2.0 and survey of current uses of social media in libraries.

Field trips and/or guest speakers who work within the Social Media landscape will be included throughout the course.

Although it has been done for a few months now, I realized I never posted my dissertation here. So here it is, enjoy!

USING INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATIONS TECHNOLOGIES TO ADVANCE A PARTICIPATORY CULTURE:
A STUDY FROM A HIGHER EDUCATION CONTEXT

Advances in information and communications technologies (ICTs) have empowered individuals to share their intellectual, cultural, and creative expressions with wider and more diverse audiences than ever before. This has been made possible by a variety of factors, but most saliently by what has been termed Web 2.0, which is a set of design patterns for structuring websites so that they can be actively shaped and influenced by the interactions and contributions of users (e.g., YouTube, Facebook, and MySpace). These changes have been described as creating the conditions necessary for shifting society from a consumer culture to a participatory culture. This emerging cultural formation has been hypothesized to have a great deal of potential for advancing education and learning by moving the locus of activity from existing power relationships (consumer/producer, expert/novice, and teacher/student) to one that focuses on the individual’s empowerment and willingness to construct and contribute to one’s cultural and physical reality. Despite this potential, there is little research that looks to understand how such ICTs deployed into specific communities do (or do not) make possible these goals.

This study aims to understand the relationship between ICTs and their potential for creating and sustaining a participatory culture, particularly by pointing to a set of factors that highlight the existence of and mediate involvement in a participatory culture. To understand this relationship, this study analyzes an Web 2.0 technology that was used electively by a graduate school community for a two-year period of time (September 6, 2006 to September 6, 2008) by N=2,580 students, faculty and staff. The factors that mediate involvement include: communication across organizational structures, spaces for alternative discourses to develop and integrating interpersonal networks. The study concludes that Web 2.0 technologies promote the formation of participatory cultures by making the cultural, intellectual, and creative work of a community visible, and that visibility in turn encourages individuals to participate.

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I am teaching two classes this Fall at Pratt: Digital Libraries (LIS 693) and Library Use and Instruction (LIS 673). Here are the details on each:

Digital Libraries [ Download Syllabus ]
This course will cover the theoretical, practical and technical aspects involved in creating, using, and deploying digital libraries. Students will study the evolution of digital libraries, consider the relationship between digital libraries and their socio-technical environment, and collaboratively design a digital library or a new program or service related to digital libraries. Students will be asked to think creatively and critically about the future of digital libraries and where to best direct future development effort.

Library Use Instruction [ Download Syllabus ]
Education in libraries has focused extensively on: 1) bibliographic instruction (e.g., teaching patrons how to use the library resources), as well as 2) information literacy (e.g., teaching skills needed to evaluate and use information). This course will consider teaching and learning in these areas, but also ask student to think creatively and critically about new areas where teaching and learning could be applied. Essential questions include: 1) how can we make libraries more educational?, and 2) what methods are best used to achieve this goal? Student will engage in a design project that will ask students to collaboratively design a “filter” to help individuals and communities deal with the feelings of “information overload,” and then teach the class how to use this filter.

I just wanted to share that I will be joining the faculty of the School of Information and Library Science at Pratt Institute in Manhattan. There I will be focusing on research and teaching, particularly in the area of emerging information and communications technologies in education, museums and libraries.

I am very excited to be joining the Pratt. Some interesting things about Pratt SILS is that it is the only ALA accredited program in Manhattan and is the oldest, continually accredited ALA program in the US. Some of the interesting things going on at Pratt SILS is they just started a Dual-Degree, MSLIS & MFA Digital Arts program. There are also a number of study-abroad programs, including ones in London and Florence.