Reading Assignment #3

Why The Next Big Pop-Culture Wave After Cupcakes Might Be Libraries is an article posted that speaks about the advantages of libraries and how the popularity of libraries may come back in a wave.  The topics the article briefly discusses is libraries getting in fights, librarians know stuff, libraries will give you things for free, open to the public, and good will.

Libraries getting in fights discusses that funding battles occur between libraries and the struggles over sharing information with each other exist.  This section tried to appeal to people by saying that libraries do have sparks of interesting events and it is not all boring.  Librarians know stuff suggests that being a “geek” or “nerd” is no longer a bad thing and does not mean you are not cool.

The green and local section is about how much libraries help with the environment and recycle and use recycled things.  Another section informs us that libraries give you movies and books for free, all you have to do is check it out.  The open to the public section is of course exactly what it says that anyone can go to a library, and it is interesting to see what kind of people go to libraries and the drama you will see while you are there.  Lastly, the goodwill section discusses about the warmth and welcoming atmosphere libraries have.

Even though this is a short article it does try to touch on different aspects of libraries to try to appeal to a wide variety of individuals.  The article is well written, and brings up good points to try an convince people that libraries still exist, they still are interesting and still are exciting.  The author also explains that just by going to the library does not make you uncool because you are smart and that today’s society does not look down on people like that anymore.

“The Library of the future’ begins to emerge” article spoke about how much libraries are changing to suit how society has changed and is constantly changing.  Some libraries are already adjusting to the times, but others are yet to take the leap into the new era of technology.  David Loertscher, a professor at San Jose State University believes libraries will not become obsolete, just reinvent itself.  

The article suggests that librarians will start working predominately online, going to students who need help, and making suggestions.  Libraries will also allow users to download information and technology 24/7.  Even though most of the information will be online, libraries will still exist.  They will still have books, and in addition have other areas such as computer-training centers, conference rooms, study group rooms, etc. because of the space they will have from taking away the majority of books and other forms of information.  In addition, they will start what UNCW has, which is self-check out  and check in on books, movies, etc.

I think what is being explained in the article will eventually occur.  Libraries and librarians need to move with the times and what is coming in the future.  Most people find most of their information online through search engines.  By having librarians online, it will help influence people to go to the online library for help because they can get one on one contact with an actual person who can help them search for information and give them ideas to help with whatever research they are looking for.  This is something search engines do not provide and probably never will.  It has been proven of the success of libraries going digital and making it more of a “at home feel” by how well Santa Clara County Library is doing. 

News Report #2

The new report that I found was about classified U.S. documents to be published by WikiLeaks. The title of the article is “Massive Cache of Iraq War Docs to Be Published by WikiLeaks and it was written by Kim Zetter on September 9, 2010. The source is wired.com (http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/09/iraq-war-docs/).

The news report is about a massive amount of classified information that was leaked by PFC Bradley Manning to a hacker in May, and in turn the hacker gave the information to WikiLeaks. The documents cover over 500,000 events from the Iraq war between 2004 and 2009. The database of information includes reports, dates, and casualty figures. Iain Overton, editor of the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, a nonprofit British Organization that is working with WikiLeaks on the documents, said that they are working with major television networks and print-media outlets to produce documentaries and stories based on the cache of information.

When you first read this article it appears to be about the leakage of military information, but the deeper meaning of this story is how dangerous internet information sites can be. Owner and publishers of Internet sites need to know when certain information does not need to be published to the public due to the ramifications it could cause if that information is released. Major news media companies in the United States will work hand in hand with the military to a certain extent, but internet sites have no boundaries. By leaking this information, terrorists can easily obtain classified information with informant’s names, reports on U.S. and friendly force’s missions, and any other pertinent information that will aid them in the fight against the United States and their allies. With leaking this information it could devastate the progress the military has in the war on terrorism.

These are the dangers with internet source sites; they do not work like regular news media companies work. When television networks and new media outlets publish something, for the most part it does not reach the entire world; only people within that region. When web sites post information it is not only on the internet forever, but it is open to anyone in the world to view. Internet sites, especially international web sites do not have any rules or standards to abide by when publishing information, and the information they post also does not have to be truthful. The only upside to this story is at least WikiLeaks are going to redact some of the information to avoid giving certain names for the protection of the informants and their families involved.

An incident like this is a perfect example of how dangerous web sites can be when having free reign to publish whatever they want without having to answer to anyone. There is no solution to this problem because you cannot monitor every web site and set standards for every web site in the world to abide by. The only hope is for people to do the right thing when being handed information that could endanger thousands of people.

Reading Assignment #2

The second reading assignment that was given was about Wikipedia and the success of an online, open-source encyclopedia. The article discusses how Wikipedia was successful and the possibilities of the site having peaked in information and popularity.


When the article was published by Time Online, they stated that up until two years ago people were adding at an exponential rate of 2,200 new articles a day. The amount of information in September, 2007 was two million facts/articles. In August, 2009 it was three million and still counting today, just at a much slower rate. Wikipedia is the most popular online information source and has surpassed the Chinese Yongle Encyclopedia as the largest collection of general knowledge.

Besides reaching two million facts in 2007, Wikipedia started to notice that the information that was being published was starting to level off also. Ed Chi, a computer scientist at California’s Palo Alto for Research Center who lab has studied Wikipedia thought it was only a “blip”. In 2009, they realized that it was an actual issue, and the amount of information being published was in fact slowing down.

There are a few explanations that were listed in the reading as to why the information being published on Wikipedia is on the decline. The reasons listed do make sense and I completely agree with their ideas. One of the reasons the article is claiming that information is not being published as much as it once was is because of the volunteers trying to improve the reliability of the information being submitted and preventing online hoaxes. The example they give is John Seigenthaler who stated on Wikipedia that he was once suspected of assassinating John F. Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy. I do not see the issue with the decline in the information being posted. I would rather see a decline on published information, if the reliability is now stronger. When Wikipedia was first published and throughout the years, they were not a dominant site to quote reliable facts.

One of the major changes that were implemented was when someone edits information on a living person; it will be reviewed by administrators for reliability before being posted live, prior to the way it was in the past. Everything in the world has trends and this one peaked just like all other trends do. The great thing is Wikipedia is trying to authenticate more of the information that is being submitted. The decline is real, and like the article states, the site simply hit a natural limit of knowledge expansion. That is true in some aspects. Most of the popular information has been submitted and revised, over and over; so in that aspect the knowledge expansion has hit its limit. However, there is a still massive amount of information that has not been published because it is just not an important issue that someone may want to research or look up or even want to post on Wikipedia.

In terms of information being published, even though Wikipedia is on a decline, people still use their web site as a source of knowledge, especially since the information is being authenticated before going live to the world. I think the information will level off or decline even more, but the people who visit the site will not. Different types of people ranging from middle school students, to college students, to people just curious about a topic rely on Wikipedia, so even though the article is stating there is a decline in information, they neglect to discuss how there is no decline in the amount of users. The information being published daily is not as important as how much truth the information has. That in the long run is what will keep Wikipedia a dominant force on the internet for resource information.