You Reach, I Reach, We All Reach for Outreach

Bleep, blop, blork. I am a talking computer program from the future. Would you like to play a game? Mmm-bop.

While this may seem like gibberish to you...okay me too, I remembered the famous line from War Games, "Would you like to play a game?" A hacker was able to interact and play a game with the American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) computer and almost blew up the world. Other movies around the same time like Tron showed us a virtual world where the users (us) had a virtual counterpart in a computer generated world. Jumped ahead some 20+ years, we have Second Life where we can not only play games online but we use avatars to represent our identities. You might be asking, what type of applications does Second Life has to offer other than allow one to fly from island to island or have wings or dress like an emo? Before answering this question, allow me to tell you of about business class project for a Star Trek convention.

Before 2000, Star Trek was still a huge draw for fans to attend conventions anywhere in the world. Someone had the idea to have a online Star Trek convention. This online version made it easy for someone to travel virtually and provide worry free travel time and lodging costs. In a class presentation, my group had to reverse engineer the process and come up with a proposal. One of the benefits of having such program was having a larger draw of fans, different rooms would be set up to have live feeds of presentations, and a dealer's room to buy any and all scifi gadgets and toys one could afford. This highlight of having a generated avatar to represent you was that if you were wheelchair bound or homebound, your avatar overcame those challenges and no one online would no this. Carry this notion forward, you can get a sense of what is Second Life and what it can do for you.

Granted there are some problems with Second Life such as the learning curve can be quite high as well as other technical problems to deal with but imagine the possibilities. Imagine the possibilites to interact with patrons from the comfort of home. Imagine how much time and travelling one could save by doing things virtually. Click here to read more about the State Library of Ohio and Second Life.

I Got SDI. Should I See A Doctor About This?

Is SDI...

Super Double-scoop of Ice Cream?

Stupid Dumb Idiots?

Strategic Defense Initiative?

Small Duck Issues?

If you said 'yes' to all the above, you would be wrong. SDI stands for Selective Dissemination of Information. I am here to tell you how SDI can work for you for the low, low price of free, zip, zilch, nada, and nothing.

Imagine all the world's information is contained in just one book. Every day new chapters of new content are added. If I wanted a specific page or type of information, how would I go about this? What is great about Web 2.0 is how the user does not have to scour the web for the information for days on end. Now, we can have the information come to us. There are several options to consider:

1. RSS - This stands for Real Simple Syndication. Think in the terms of subscribing to your favorite magazine and when something new is created or updated, the RSS function will grab the information for you and post in your Internet browser or RSS reader.


2. Email - If your browser does not have the RSS function or don't want to bother with a RSS reader, you can still create an alert which the information is sent to your email inbox.


3. Text Messaging - Depending on the service, you can have an alert to be sent to you on your mobile phone.

The creation of SDI alerts can range from signing up with some demographic information, email address or texting a specific code to the service. Some are free but texting is an area that needs to be addressed. Who is charging for the text alert; the service, the mobile phone provider or both? The last thing you want to see on you phone bill are charges that cost more than the monthly service fees. Below at the screenshot from the one of the MDPLS databases uses. Circled are the words 'Create a Search Alert.' Since I used the word 'scifi' this were my results.
When I hit the highlighted words, I am prompted with this screen.

I can then type my email information and change the name to what ever I want the alert to be. I can request to have the alert send me updates on a daily, weekly or monthly basis.

You see, having a SDI is easy as pie.

ALA, Let Me Count the Ways.

I've been searching around the 'net for ways organizations disseminate information and here is one of my findings. You can click on to this link: ALA for reference. The main point for this web page were the ways the ALA planned to disseminate their research information. One thought would be, "Well, just place it on the web page and they will come." Of course, this notion not only ruins a great movie line from Field of Dreams but it is also naive to think we all think the same way on how we gather information. Speaking for myself, not all research is easy to read on a computer monitor. Others may feel that printing the research findings is a waste of paper. Whatever is your own reason, the ALA decided on a few points of dissemination.

1. ALA has periodicals which research findings are disseminated including electronic versions.


2. Face to face meeting or annual conferences are scheduled to also discuss the latest LIS research.


3. Awards are given to excellence in research.


4. Research on Libraries and Librarians are published in Annuals.


5. Several library organizations also publish web essays which summarizes the research findings.


6. Research committees also bear the responsibility of dissemination of their information rather than relying on just one source.

What is interesting to note, the date of this page was dated back on June 2001. Well before the creation of Facebook, MySpace, Blogging, Podcasting or other Web 2.0 tools, these steps the ALA created was sufficient for the times. If you click here ALA MySpace you can see how ALA has moved forward from 2001. This is not to say that the ALA should forget their stated methodology but continue to find ways to bring information to the people who want it... easier. Next thing you know, they're posting videos on YouTube...