Mish-Mash and Salmagundi

Doing some more get-acquainted work with the ST200X, and throwing together a "library update" presentation for Sunrise Sertoma. The presentation is a musing on daily library activity and the impact of 2.0.

York Public Library has owned a 24-volume "Ninth Britannica" for over a century and it is not listed in the public catalog. The only local information I've found in the set is a state of Nebraska map which shows the Blue River(s), Beaver Creek, Lincoln Creek, the railroad, and Arborville, Bradshaw, Waco and York in York County. What a contrast to today's wikipedia entry.

This weekend's C-Span / BOOK TV "In Depth" was Brian Lamb talking to Michael Rosenblum about "citizen journalism." The concept is based on the realization that inexpensive technology has made old assumptions about television journalism obsolete, and blurred the boundaries between newspapers and television news. The York News-Times web site includes video versions of some print stories. But what about York stories on regional television broadcasts? What about last week's stories? Last month's? October 2006's? For purposes of researching local history they should be as accessible as the old newspapers.

A couple of weeks ago, Dr. Herbert Kilgore's daughter, Mary Vallad, sent a DVD copy of an hour's worth of video footage of the Kilgore Memorial Library dedication during the 1986 Yorkfest. Until now, the library has not had a copy. Now we'll have to figure out how to post portions on the web. Our FLICKR account has web space for ninety second clips.

Andrew Bullen, information technology coordinator for the Illinois State Library, has a new article about using carefully designed 2.0 tools to improve the usability of unique archival resources, by drawing on the shared expertise of the "world wide web". In his case he uses the archives of the Pullman Company as an example, but the challenge is the same if the topic is York Foundry, the Nobes Opera House, or Harrison Nursuries.