Tom Roper's Weblog

The oldest man on Facebook

More on the "why do you have a facebook dude " discussion: I feel honoured, though I am sure it is untrue, by the allegation that I am the oldest man on Facebook, but as Facebook has been recruiting what someone euphemistically called a "higher demographic," I am sure it cannot be true. Even if the young man who said "you're like 70 dude get off facebook" was right about my age, I am sure there would be older people.

Latest instalment: a message saying, "you are the oldest person on facebook. go have a heartattack you loner goof"

I see son of blog people: L'Affaire Gorman in the Times Higher

I have refrained from involving myself in L' Affaire Gorman II, the  debate about Michael Gorman's remarks in his blog posts, Web 2.0: the sleep of reason  and The siren song of the Internet, because I'm not sure what I can add and in any case T.Scott Plutchak says it far better than I could.
For the earlier controversy, see here: http://tomroper.typepad.com/tr/2005/03/michael_gorman.html

Today the Times Higher Education Supplement has got wind of it, and runs an article on page 2, with comments from Jenny Fry of the Oxford Internet Institute, Will Murray of JISC's Plagiarism Advisory Service, Nicola Pratt of UEA, Ben Fairweather of De Montfort and  Andrew Keen. They don't quote any of  Michael Gorman's professional peers, that is to say librarians.
It's not online yet, and much of the THES content is subscriber-only, but perhaps it will be available tomorrow.

Making Web 2.0 work for you and your library: further thoughts

I was sorry to miss, thanks to the train timetable, Mark Clowes' overview of web 2.0 technologies and Bernice Baker's presentation on blended learning. But I was there in time for an announcement by Ian Baird from Teeside University of the long overdue merger of the University Medical School Librarians Group and the University Health Sciences Librarians Group. In the afternoon, Heather Gardner and David Brunt demonstrated some practical library applications of web 2.0, in particular current awareness services, based on their experience of the Primary Care Current Awareness Service (PCCS) they run in the East Midlands. David moonlights for Intute, and I was interested in how Intute content can now be embedded in other websites. They also showed how the Royal College of Midwives has used Google Co-op to build a customised search engine and how they used Pbwiki for the nurses current awareness bulletin. On issue is that many NHS IT departments block wikis, which brought to mind the similar restrictions school students face in trying to use social software
Anne Welsh presented on Blogging for the bewildered, based on her experience of using Web 2.0 applications in the information service at DrugScope. I was struck by how they use a wiki for their acquisitions manual, but perturbed that the blogs they run don't allow comments. She showed some good uses of screencasts.

why do you have a facebook dude

I received this message in my Facebook inbox. I swear it is authentic, and not a product of an automatic teen-speak generator. I have preserved the original spelling, use of lower-case throughout and punctuation:
"why do you have a facebook dude your like over 50 [52 actually-TR] at least i just want to know ? not being  dick or anything"
Why indeed? I suppose I have to fill the time until Charon comes to take me over the Styx somehow.

A postscript: on the pages of the excellent Facebook Drink application, another of the bright young things says, apropos of something I wrote, "dude the guy below me is the oldest guy i have ever known to own a facebook. I find this funny"

The quest for reliable wifi

I'm in Sheffield, having delivered my presentation at the LfN study day (account to follow) and waiting for the train. With time to kill, I though a little light e-mail and  blogging would be a good way to pass the time. I found myself in Sheffield Central Library (where I last was for a conference of the Library Campaign long long ago). They had no wifi, but helpfully printed out a list of places that did. Ruskin's bar sounded good, though I wonder how Ruskin would have felt about having a bar named after him. They had wifi, but it failed to work at all. I type this from the Showroom Cinema cafe, where they have a functioning connection, but it won't collect any of my Gmail. It will have to do.

Technorati Tags: sheffield, wifi

Making Web 2.0 work for you and your library

Tomorrow I'm speaking in Sheffield, at a Libraries for Nursing study day on Web 2.0, making Web 2.0 work for you and your library.
Here's the handout, as a pdf: download lfnsheffield.pdf and here's my presentation:

Year of...? It's complicated

My recent foray into the world of Facebook prompts me to write a hommage to Lynne Quist's excellent blog on the differences between  American and British English, Separated by a common language. There was a very useful post there on  differences in American and British educational terminology and school year nomenclature, but it didn't answer a question Facebook's terminology raises. My school and university were listed, so I could add myself, once I had realised that I should enter my university as my school and my school as my high school. But I was baffled and defeated by the requirement to describe myself as year of NNNN.  Is this the year I left, or the year I started my so-called education at those  institutions?
Other irritatingly alien features of Facebook include the choices available to describe one's politics, restricted to 'very liberal', 'liberal', 'moderate', 'conservative', 'very conservative', 'apathetic' or 'libertarian'; these categories  might make sense in the USA, but not elsewhere.
Wisely, unlike the UK Census, the Facebook programmer's have left the many varieties of superstition well alone, so  the religious views or lack of them may be described in  free text.   
More positively, I found the relationship status amusingly flexible. Options are: 'single', 'in a relationship', 'in an open relationship', 'engaged, 'married', and 'it's complicated'. I wonder how many people choose the latter. I see I can also choose to describe myself as looking for 'friendship', 'dating', 'a relationship', 'random play' or  'whatever I can get'.
I can't imagine that I will make much use of Facebook or of LinkedIn, which I also recently joined.

Google toolbar

I installed the new version of the Google toolbar in Firefox, in order to use the web history feature. I was fascinated to see that, listed as it should be, first on the list of blog buttons I could add is that of the Abergavenny Petanque Club.  Here is true fame.

Tim O'Reilly's proposed Code of Conduct: I speak out

You may wonder where I stand on Tim O'Reilly's proposed Code of Conduct, which may be summed up as follows:
1. Take responsibility not just for your own words, but for the comments you allow on your blog.   
2. Label your tolerance level for abusive comments.
3. Consider eliminating anonymous comments.
4. Ignore the trolls.
5. Take the conversation offline, and talk directly, or find an intermediary who can do so.
6. If you know someone who is behaving badly, tell them so.
7. Don't say anything online that you wouldn't say in person.

As far as I am concerned most of this is either banal or unnecessary. For myself, I delete spam comments, which I define as irrelevant advertising. The rest stay, whether abusive or not. I offer my own proposals to bring civility to the Internet.

1. Gentlemen bloggers should doff their hats when commenting on a lady blogger's post.
2. Wait to be  introduced to someone before sending them digital pictures of your genitals.
3. The order of precedence should be strictly adhered to in determing who should comment first. It would be unthinkable if the younger son of a marquess were to have to post after one of the Lords Spritual or a Knight of the Garter.
   

Diary of a nobody

...or further thoughts about the Lebrecht programme, though now ancient history. But I still want to give my reactions to parts of the programme.