The future of... well everything really

In a week where my favourite news story related to something that happened over 13 billion years ago, this seemed like the perfect time to also think about the future too. I haven't blogged about technology for a while (believe it or not, some people only subscribe for the occasional tech stuff I discuss) so this seemed like an opportunity to combine the two things.

But firstly, something about history. One of the things that librarians help to do is archive the past. We do this by maintaining manuscripts and collections, providing the public with access to all sorts of materials that can be of hugely important historical significance.

If you ever wonder if these things really matter can I recommend a film I saw last year. It details how the head librarian, along with others at the national library of Sarajevo, risked their lives again and again to save history books from being destroyed during the civil war in 1992. Their bravery quite frankly is hard to comprehend. YouTube, as so often, has provided me with the opportunity to say watch the film by clicking here. I hope you'll be astounded.


Now the technology bit. I read a great piece by John Naughton recently about how nothing lasts forever. He writes about technology for the Guardian. This is what got me thinking about the Sarajevo film and how we 'protect' the past. Facebook, as it is recognisable now, won't be around in 20 years. I'm so confident of that prediction I'm prepared to write it down. Time will naturally reveal all. I also think Google will one day be confined to history books. And that's where things get interesting. Because where will those history books be stored? They won't be on Google Books because it won't be there any more. The John Naughton article reports a meeting with representatives of Google and a librarian who was involved in the Google Books project. The librarian asked them 'what happens to all these digitised books when you're gone?' They were apparently stunned by the mere idea that Google would one day not exist.

That's the thing with librarians. We tend to ask awkward questions and expect other people to know the answers. So that's what I'm going to do now. When you buy an mp3, an e-book for your Kindle or a downloaded game for your xbox, are you thinking about how you'll access it 10 or 20 years from now when the hardware has long moved on?

The John Naughton piece is here.

If you'd like to have a chat about any of these things you know how to find me.

Role Play resources

Occasionally I do things so you don't have to.

Let me explain. It came to my attention that we were somewhat lacking in books on how to conduct a role play. So I looked at what was available to add to stock. The answer was a frustrating 'not much' unless you fancy a career as a drama teacher. And who in their right mind wants to be a drama teacher?

So instead I turned to YouTube and here's where it got seriously weird.

Do me a favour? Don't type role-play into YouTube. It's not good.

When I'd finally recovered I tried again by typing 'role play' and added 'social work' as a safer option and it actually found something suitable. So although it's not ideal, if you want to look at some other people pretending to be clients/practitioners have a look at a couple of hundred of examples from YouTube to garner some ideas of what's expected.

A hello to all the new subscribers.

Hello again.

Thanks for paying attention, clicking where I told you to in the training room and subscribing to my blog.

You've done your bit and now it's up to me to do mine.

There'll be plenty of news worth sharing in the next few weeks but for now can I direct you below to a video I made recently with my boss Jo Myhill. It's designed to guide you in the tricky decisions of which books to choose for your assignments.

In the video I play the part of a slightly naive student and Jo has a bit more of an idea than I do.
Which isn't hard.
Please remember I'm acting. Just.

Why YouTube is great, pt 28.

An unashamedly light-hearted post highlighting one of my favourite exponents of YouTube.
Dan and Dan have been making satirical films on topical news stories and posting them to YouTube for a few years now. I think they're brilliantly inventive, clever and funny.

If you have a YouTube account you can subscribe to anyone you like so that when they post new videos you'll be sent the details, much like you do if you've subscribed here. It only takes a minute to create an account but if you'd like some help with it you know where I am.

YouTube to the rescue

Hi all.

This message is particularly for those students who I've seen recently regarding finding journals via the databases.

I didn't mention this in the lectures but there a quite a few tutorials on YouTube showing you how to conduct searches.

The video below is just one example of what you can find but bear in mind these videos were made by the company who provide the databases, not UoB.



Let me know if these videos help?

Alan

Why a man at the zoo changed the Internet.

Hands up who knows why the video below is important?



If you said it was the first video uploaded to YouTube then you're spot on and deserve a biscuit.
The astonishing thing is that the video is less than 5 years old.

I'm fascinated by YouTube. I'm fascinated by the fact that people can talk to webcams, I'm fascinated by the notion of a YouTube 'hit' and also by the idea of a 'YouTube community'.

Learning Resources at UoB has produced a series of 60 second videos for YouTube which you can view here. I can't promise you CGI madness but you may find out something new.

That's the thing about YouTube; it can be about research, connecting with people, home videos and teenage boys falling off skateboards. It's only limited by our imaginations.