Off to CHLA

Greetings - I am off to the annual meeting of CHLA in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, where I look forward to meeting old friends, sharing information and learning from the experiences of our colleagues up north! I am also presenting a paper on interdisciplinary collaboration in informatics. Content related to this paper is accessible at this WIKI site: http://spacelibrarian.wikispaces.com

MASHUPS AND MPI

This week's topic, Mashups and UPI, illustrates the "free-for-all" nature of the evolving WEB. The "mashup" concept reminded me somewhat of a federated search engine, in that it combines information from a variety of sources. The concept of merging different technologies and applications is extremely appealing and, offers much promise. In one respect, this technology, to me, illustrates one of the best features of WEB 2.0, that of an emerging information environment increasingly flexible and leaning away from controlled, rigid "boxed in" sites for different types of knowledge. The two sites I visited were DBpedia and Lyricsfly, both good examples. DBpedia, interestingly, reminded me of a "goosed up" City search feature found on many search engines. It combines a GPS with information on specific locations - a very practical tool. As a musician, I found Lyricsfly particularly interesting. It combines lryic text with video and audio files, all within a package which appears to be much more user-friendly than related Google applications.
What are the downsides? I found some other sites I checked out to be password protected, and, like all web sites, there is always the issue of no one web site providing access to "all" information. However, as I mentioned above, Mashups illustrate the evolving nature of the WEB into a less rigid, more integrated, flexible, improvisable media. Great stuff!! A fitting finale to a VERY COOL course!!