Museum Blogs

Recently the MCN-L listserv (Museum Computer Network) had a discussion about museum blogs (and lack thereof).
There's a few sites I found listed in the Blog Roll, and I just stumbled across this one today. Looks like it may have some interesting leads to other areas.

New Media Initiatives (Walker Art Center)
http://blogs.walkerart.org/newmedia/

Additional suggestions for active blogs/wikis, etc. about museum practice are welcome!

Tangling webs

This week I've jumped in feet-first with various social networking tools. So far I've signed up for:

Last.FM - be your own Billboard charts.
http://www.last.fm/user/rjurban/

I started this the week after spending a weekend visitng family @ the beach. Who doesn't listen to Jimmy Buffet at the beach! I enjoyed the "suggestions" that Netflix provided about movies based on my viewing preferences and it will be interesting to see how this develops over time. Friends and partners have always been the route to new music, now it's just in a convenient usable form.

I'm trying to decide how much of my spare time I want to spend creating metadata for my audio collection. Having the iPod is pushing me in that direction because it could mean instant playlists once things are tagged. Sunday was gray and rainy, with the right tags (e.g. LCSH "Rain and rainfall") - bam instant playlsit. More likely I will be spending my time actually doing cataloging homework, rather than tagging my music.

I wonder if any catalogers are freelancing for people - hire me to tag your music/pictures because I'm too busy/lazy, whatever.... Folksonomy comes full circle.

Friendster
(haven't figured out how to link there yet...)
Also interesting, I can see the possibilities and advantages of meeting other people through friends. But I'm also wondering whether this would work for professional networks as well "Colleaguester." Thanks to becoming a student again, friends are on the rise, but a social network tool like this for professional colleagues would be fascinating.

I'm also interested in the visualization of these networks. I didn't think this was available in Friendster until I added someone new, who I was already connected to by 5-6 degrees. Friendster allows you to see the connection and draws a map of how you're connected. And here's an article from at Berkeley who's developing a visualization tool:

Vister: Visualizing Online Social Networks
by Jeffrey Heer
http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~jheer/vizster/early_design/

Where in the world is...

This is the weblog of my journery through a Masters in Library and Information Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. When it grows up, this blog would like to hang with the Ten Thousand Year Blog and others who are informing us of the changing world of cultural heritage digital libraries & museums. In the next few months you'll find out more about what I'm working on, what I'm learning, and where I hope to be headed when I finish the MLS. Sit back, put your tray tables and chairs in their full upright position, and enjoy the in-flight movie.