literacy, e-literacy, me-literacy, we-literacy: a talk for and from art librarians

since friday, i've been in denver, colorado, attending the 36th annual art libraries society of north america (ARLIS/NA) conference.

today is my turn to talk and i will use a recent field trip to work through four different and overlapping literacies: literacy, e-literacy, me-literacy, and we-literacy. i will also share some stories about getting students - and faculty - into their libraries. some of these stories will be about projects i heard about here in denver at ARLIS/NA 08.

for the more linear minded, my talk may go a lil something like this:

stonelake farm, I: literacy and e-literacy

i'll begin with a brief explanation of the davies forum on digital literacy and the series of events that led to our four-day field trip to stonelake farm, an organic, off-the-grid homestead in humboldt county, california. all the while, i'll try to tease out what i mean by literacy and e-literacy.


stonelake farm, II: me-literacy and we-literacy

next, i'll discuss the differences and overlaps between me-literacy and we-literacy and share my students' experiences with individual blog posts and collective tags and tag clouds. i hope to show, as ArLiSNAP's web 2.0 tech kiosk did, that we learn more when we learn together.



getting student and faculty bodies into libraries

the heart of campus is the library -- how do we get more of we inside?

one idea is to do what they do at wertz art and architecture library at miami university in oxford, ohio. there, junior and senior art majors matthew addison, caroline brown, sam doan, kim hogan, katie leone, emily moorshead, chris skaggs, hilary stevens, and ellen warner teamed with librarian stacy nakamura brinkman and art professor sara young to create a site-specific installation that encompasses two study/reading rooms.

to make it happen, the students - collectively - had to brainstorm ideas, write a grant, and establish a dialogue with library staff (in this case, stacy). plus, they had to follow two rules: 1) no physical alterations could be made to the site and 2) the installation could not interfere with daily activities and services of the library.

as far as i can understand, images of book spines and covers were printed onto acetate panels that served as translucent curtains for the reading room's windows. a video was projected on opposite screens in the study rooms. and bringing it all together was a woven paper cord that ran the length of the ceiling.

student art surrounding studying students. awesome.




or maybe we should do what they do at depauw university libraries visual resource center (the same center that creates super smart, award-winning videos that market their library services). there, graduate intern jessica bozeman worked with visual resources librarian brooke cox to create a research scavenger hunt game. the game was based on the da vinci code and engaged students (and, i hope, faculty) in library research, resources, and services. (more info on the panel wiki.)




or maybe we should take a tip from amanda gluibizzi, subject specialist for history of art, fine arts, and art education at the fine arts library at ohio state university. noticing that there was a lot of excellent public art across OSU's campus, amanda created a map with pins on various pieces of art. when users click the pins, they will see images of the art, thereby, i hope, making them more aware of the work the next time they walk by. but clicking on the pins reveals another thing: a keyword search for any OSU holdings relevant to the artist. online tools to enhance offline campus walk-abouts. online tools to highlight offline library services. excellent.




stonelake farm, III: steven's ipod

i'll end my talk with a special story about an ipod, a six-hour drive home, and students remixing and curating content.

update: pics from the stage!

davies forum speaker series: phillip thurtle

the davies forum on digital literacy hosts its last speaker this thursday evening with phillip thurtle. first the facts:

who? phillip thurtle, assistant professor, comparative history of ideas, university of washington
what? a semester-long speaker series devoted to literacy in a digital age
where? maier room, fromm hall, university of san francisco
when? thursday, may 1 at 6:30 pm
price? free and open to the public


phillip thurtle is an assistant professor of the comparative history of ideas program and the history department and adjunct assistant professor in anthropology at the university of washington. phillip is the author of the emergence of genetic rationality: space, time, and information in american biology, 1870-1920, co-author with robert mitchell and helen burgess of an interactive DVD-ROM entitled biofutures: owning body parts and information, and co-editor, with robert mitchell, of data made flesh: embodying information and semiotic flesh: information and the human body.

as with the rest of the davies forum speakers series, this event is free and open to the public. in preparation for the talk, you are welcome and encouraged to read the following:

Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art (Harper, 1994); and selections from Alan Moore's Promethea (America's Best Comics/Wildstorm, 1999-2005).

to see what we've been up to so far, see
www.flickr.com/photos/tags/daviesforum/ (photos) and www.usfca.edu/its/cit/video/davies_forum.html (videos).

davies forum speaker series: jasmine park

the davies forum on digital literacy continues its speaker series this thursday evening with jasmine park. first the facts:

who? jasmine park, fashion blogger and photographer
what? a semester-long speaker series devoted to literacy in a digital age
where? maier room, fromm hall, university of san francisco
when? thursday, april 24 at 6:30 pm
price? free and open to the public


jasmine park is the author of the prominent seattle fashion blog PikePine.com. she publishes a weekly photo in the seattle times, and she has been featured in seattle magazine and the daytime talkshow northwest afternoon. PikePine.com was chosen as the best local fashion blog by seattle metropolitan magazine in 2007.

as with the rest of the davies forum speakers series, this event is free and open to the public. in preparation for the talk, you are welcome and encouraged to read the following:

read: Amanda Kwan's “Look sharp: Your style could show up on a blog," Seattle Times (July 9, 2007);
watch: Fashion Television, "The Sartorialist"
read lots of: Pike/Pine
get a feel for: HEL-LOOKS; Face Hunter; and The Sartorialist.

to see what we've been up to so far, see
www.flickr.com/photos/tags/daviesforum/ (photos) and www.usfca.edu/its/cit/video/davies_forum.html (videos).

when students take over a library; or, national library week at gleeson library

this week is national library week and to celebrate my digital literacy students and i took over a significant chunk of gleeson library.

we began the project three weeks ago when i asked the students two questions: what do you love about the library? and what do you wish the library had? the next week we met in class to discuss our ideas, dreams, and designs and to let our individual intelligence and imagination weave collectively. last week, USF librarian vicki rosen joined us in class and we talked about which dreams and designs could and would become real.

last night we assembled in gleeson library to build our project. we began with this space:


earlier in the week, amber asked us to email her the titles of five or so of our favorite books and a sentence or two about why we dig them. and poof! we had a student-generated book exhibit. amber and steve arranged them on a shelf, posted our brief annotations, and added a sign-up sheet for library goers to add their own favorites.


meanwhile, steve and blake designed two treasure hunts with clues hidden in books distributed across the library. inspired, perhaps, by bryan alexander's ideas about alternative reality games, or ARGs, or influenced by the librarian in black's ideas about library treasure hunts, steve and blake's treasure hunts encourage students to explore and discover the library and its nearly infinite resources and materials. plus, the two lucky people who follow the clues to the treasure hunt's finish will find some pretty cool gift certificates.


all of us were eager to create a comfortable space to read in the library so we hauled in comfy chairs and set up two small tables to generate a living room-like vibe. influenced by kelly quinn's ideas about flip books, blake took photos of gleeson library, designed original jacket covers, bound the photos and covers into flip books, and set them out on our coffee table. totally cool.


we wanted to learn what other students thought about the library so lulu spent a day interviewing USF students asking them what they loved about the library and what they wished the library had. then, lulu and lis spent a day taking photographs, beautiful photographs, of the library - of the building, of students reading, of students at computers, of students collaborating with one another - and designed a five minute audio slideshow. every librarian should watch and listen to what lulu and lis made. once we figure out how to lock down a laptop, we will incorporate it into our project.

ever since kelly quinn's guest lecture, many of the students, include kelly, lis, and sara got fiercely interested in creating inspired public spaces. between the three students, there was talk of a canopy made of book covers, a tent covered with books, and many other wonderful ideas. sara surprised us all by bringing in a fort! sara and lis assembled the fort and covered it in colorful book jackets and a reading fort was built.


and yet, structural engineers we are not. during the night, tragedy struck and the fort fell!



so this morning, undeterred and armed with tape, sara and i rebuilt the fort and all is well in gleeson library.


happy national library week!

davies forum speaker series: gayla trail

the davies forum on digital literacy continues its speaker series this thursday evening with gayla trail. first the facts:

who? gayla trail, gardener, photographer, graphic designer, and crafty gal
what? a semester-long speaker series devoted to literacy in a digital age
where? maier room, fromm hall, university of san francisco
when? thursday, april 10 at 6:30 pm
price? free and open to the public


gayla trail is a toronto-based gardener, graphic designer, writer, and photographer with a background in the fine arts, cultural criticism, and ecology. she is the creator of the popular gardening project, YouGrowGirl.com and the author of you grow girl: the groundbreaking guide to gardening.


as with the rest of the davies forum speakers series, this event is free and open to the public. in preparation for the talk, you are welcome and encouraged to read the following:

barbara kingsolver, "called home," from animal, vegetable, miracle: a year of food life (harpercollins, 2007); michael pollan, "the idea of a garden," from second nature: a gardener's education (grove press, 2003); and portions from gayla trail's you grow girl: the groundbreaking guide to gardening (fireside books, 2005).

to see what we've been up to so far, see
www.flickr.com/photos/tags/daviesforum/ (photos) and www.usfca.edu/its/cit/video/davies_forum.html (videos).

davies forum speaker series: kevin epps

the davies forum on digital literacy continues its speaker series this thursday evening with kevin epps. first the facts:

who? kevin epps, writer, activist and award-winning filmmaker
what? a semester-long speaker series devoted to literacy in a digital age
where? maier room, fromm hall, university of san francisco
when? thursday, april 3 at 6:30 pm
price? free and open to the public


kevin epps is a writer, activist, and award-winning filmmaker. his debut film, straight outta hunters point (2002), about a predominately african-american community in san francisco, has garnered local and national acclaim. epps is also the filmmaker behind rap dreams, released in 2006. in addition to being a passionate community activist who speaks out about social, economic, and environmental issues confronting underserved communities, epps is a member of san francisco's digital media advisory council, made up of leading digital, new media, and technology innovators, organizations, and companies, and also a board member of the SF black film festival. epps is currently working on the black rock which chronicles the experiences of african-american prisoners at alcatraz.

for his davies forum presentation, kevin will screen some of his work, talk about straight outta hunters point and rap dreams, discuss independent and new media, and foster dialogue with students and other attendees.

to see what we've been up to so far, see www.flickr.com/photos/tags/daviesforum/ (photos) and www.usfca.edu/its/cit/video/davies_forum.html (videos).

see you there.

update: i am experimenting with embedding videos from the talks.

davies forum speaker series: kelly quinn

the davies forum on digital literacy continues its speaker series this thursday evening with kelly quinn. first the facts:

who? kelly quinn, assistant professor, american studies, miami university
what? a semester-long speaker series devoted to literacy in a digital age
where? maier room, fromm hall, university of san francisco
when? thursday, march 27, at 6:30 pm
price? free and open to the public


as with the rest of the davies forum speakers series, this event is free and open to the public. in preparation for the talk, you are welcome and encouraged to read the following:

Jane Jacobs' "The Uses of Sidewalks: Assimilating Children"; "The Uses of Sidewalks: Safety"; and "The Uses of Sidewalks: Contact" from Death and Life of Great American Cities (Random House, 1961).

kelly's talk will proceed from a few basic points:

the importance of the sidewalk;
the importance of slowness;
the importance of social intercourse - face to face social intercourse;
the importance of hand-crafted, DIY goods.

to see what we've been up to so far, see www.flickr.com/photos/tags/daviesforum/ (photos) and www.usfca.edu/its/cit/video/davies_forum.html (videos).

see you there.

a talk for librarians at stanford university

today i hopped in the car and drove down to palo alto to present some ideas to librarians in green library at stanford. the talk was organized by stanford librarian shinjoung yeo and the information center.

i seldom give talks about classes that are still in progress but that's what most of my presentation today covered. first, i talked about what my students are doing this semester in digital journalism. next, i talked about what my students are doing in digital literacy. my main idea, i think, was to say that instead of librarians and educators thinking about teaching with technology, we should be thinking about learning with technology. put another way, instead of professors and librarians building sites for students to visit and obey, we should encourage our students to build their own sites - sites where they follow their curiosity, create content, converse, and collaborate (the five c's). i closed my talk by gushing about gleeson gleanings.


i began by discussing my digital journalism students and their tech skills: they blog, they flickr, they comment, they tag. they, like other young people, create lots and lots of content, some of it really good. i presented our growing campus map and clicked through some of the pins. i spent considerable time on one pin, the pin over USF's organic garden.


this year at USF, the garden project - 11 students, 2 profs - has planted an organic farm on campus. last week, i sent out my digital journalism students to cover the garden. today, with the librarians, i focused on one post, miles' USF Organic Garden Project post, which includes excellent writing, photography, and video, but also includes an inaccuracy. i then noted to the librarians how a garden project student, valeria, commented on miles' blog and corrected the mistake. so: a digital journalism student explores and documents the work of garden project students, and then a garden project student reads over and makes more accurate the work of a digital journalism student. very cool: students teaching students. i call that campus crowdsourcing.


i then changed gears and talked about the students and happenings in my digital literacy course. i explained, i think, the davies forum and the uniqueness of the enrolled students. i also explained that the course includes multiple field trips and some stellar guest speakers including ivan chew.


i used this photograph to share with the librarians a long, complex, and wonderful story about ivan's visit with the davies forum and one day i'll try to blog about it in detail. but i also used this photograph to explain how my davies forum students are not only creating content. they are organizing content. they are curating content.

to illustrate what i meant by student-generated content and curation, i showed lulu's Librarians of the Future photo set:


and flickr's public daviesforum tag:


at this point, time was running short and things got blurry, but i seem to recall saying that i ask my students to log off - to go to a lecture, to attend a concert, to walk around and photograph a garden, to make a delicious meal, to physically drag your body away from the computer or cell phone and experience something deeply in first life - and then to blog about it. i said to the librarians that i expect all my students, my digital journalism students and my digital literacy students, to log off before they blog off.

i ended with four reasons why gleeson gleanings is so cool:

* it's a group blog, collaboratively written by librarians and library staff;
* section/topic bloggers seem to be developing organically;
* blog posts are diverse in terms of length/depth (this is huge in the long run);
* and the best: USF students actually comment on it!

books on shelves vs databases online, authorial credibility vs the wisdom of the crowds, closed journals vs open access, taxonomies vs folksonomies - seems to me that librarians and academics have a lot of concerns and opportunities in common. the more we work together, especially when it comes to curriculum, the smarter and more creative our students become.

thanks green library!

davies forum speaker series: fred stutzman

the davies forum on digital literacy continues its speaker series this thursday evening with fred stutzman. first the facts:

who? fred stutzman, Ph.D. student at the university of north carolina's school of information and library science and co-founder and developer of claimID
what? a semester-long speaker series devoted to literacy in a digital age
where? maier hall, fromm hall, university of san francisco
when? thursday, march 13, at 6:30 pm
price? free and open to the public

drawing on three years of research and analysis, fred will explore the critical issues surrounding social network use - what we do in online social networks, how and why we join them, and what value we get from participating. in addition, fred will look at attitudes towards privacy and disclosure, and explore what social networks of the future might look like. with luck, he'll also talk a bit about claimID.


as with the rest of the davies forum speakers series, this event is free and open to the public. in preparation for the talk, you are welcome and encouraged to read the following:

danah boyd, "why youth (heart) social network sites: the role of networked publics in teenage social life"; louise story, "the evolution of facebook’s beacon"; and fred stutzman, "social network transitions" and "situational relevance in social networking websites."

to see what we've been up to so far, see www.flickr.com/photos/tags/daviesforum/ (photos) and www.usfca.edu/its/cit/video/davies_forum.html (videos).

see you there.

bryan alexander and homemade chili

a digital literacy first: davies scholar blake cooked a homemade meal for all people attending bryan alexander's talk. homemade chili, pita chips, baguettes, and a fruit platter = very delicious. with a single meal, blake raised the bar on davies forum refreshments.


davies scholars amber and lulu:


davies scholars lis, steven, and sara:


davies scholar kelly was out of town.

bryan alexander!




for more pics of the davies forum, see www.flickr.com/photos/tags/daviesforum/

davies forum speaker series: bryan alexander

the davies forum on digital literacy continues its speaker series this thursday evening with bryan alexander. first the facts:

who? bryan alexander, director of research, NITLE
what? a semester-long speaker series devoted to literacy in a digital age
where? maier hall, fromm hall, university of san francisco
when? thursday, february 28, at 6:30 pm
price? free and open to the public

bryan will discuss the implications of web 2.0 for the academy, along with the emergent field of web 2.0 storytelling.


as with the rest of the davies forum speakers series, this event is free and open to the public. in preparation for the talk, you are welcome and encouraged to read the following:

Christy Dena, "Online Augmentation to Emerging Participatory Culture Practices: Player-Created Tiers in Alternate Reality Games," Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies (Feb 2008); Steve Himmer, "The Labyrinth Unbound: Weblogs as Literature," in Into the Blogosphere: Rhetoric, Community, and Culture of Weblogs, eds. Laura J. Gurak, Smiljana Antonijevic, Laurie Johnson, Clancy Ratliff, and Jessica Reyman (June 2004); Clay Shirky, "Ontology is Overrated: Categories, Links, and Tags" (spring 2005); and Sean Stacey (aka SpaceBass), "Undefining ARG," posted article to Unfiction (November 10th, 2006)

see you there.

davies forum speaker series: brewster kahle

the davies forum on digital literacy continues its speaker series this thursday evening with brewster kahle. first the facts:

who? brewster kahle, founder and digital librarian, internet archive
what? a semester-long speaker series devoted to literacy in a digital age
where? 113 cowell (note room change for this week only!), university of san francisco
when? thursday, february 21, at 6:30 pm
price? free and open to the public


(brewster is the guy on the right!)

as with the rest of the davies forum speakers series, this event is free and open to the public. in preparation for the talk, you are welcome and encouraged to read the following:

Andrew Richard Albanese, "Scan This Book: An Interview with Open Content Alliance's Brewster Kahle,” Library Journal (August 2007); Kevin Kelly, "Scan this Book!" New York Times Magazine (May 14, 2006); Siva Vaidhyanathan, portions of The Googlization of Everything

hope to see you there.

digital literacy - spring 2008

(update feb 5: added readings for guest speaker ivan chew)
(update feb 12: added readings for guest speaker bryan alexander)
(update jul 16: see nearly 500 pics on flickr)

as i mentioned yesterday, i'm teaching two courses this spring. my second class meets tuesday and thursday evenings and is called digital literacy.

each semester, USF offers one "davies forum," an honors-level seminar devoted to a timely and important topic of a selected professor's choosing. my proposal titled "digital literacy" was selected for spring 08. in addition to attracting some of USF's smartest and most creative students, davies forum are cool because they come with a healthy budget. as a result, ten guest speakers will visit USF and share their ideas, projects, questions, and curiosities about literacy in a digital age. plus, we'll have at least three field trips. i am supremely excited to teach this course and give lots of thanks to all who contributed to its design.

here's the syllabus (and here it is as a word document).

Davies Forum: Digital Literacy
Professor David Silver
Class Times: Tues, Thurs, 6:15pm - 8:00pm | Cowell 114
Office Hours: Tues, Thurs, 2-3; and by appointment | UC 539

Course Description:
Facebook and Fox News, tivo and TV, youtube and yahoo, books and blogs, ipods, iphones, itunes, ieverything – we are pretty much swimming in information. How do we navigate through it all? How do we find the good stuff? And which kinds of information should we use for which kinds of research and creative projects?

At the same time, information, it seems, is changing before our eyes. Today, in our Web 2.0 world, information is often something we both consume and produce. What does it mean, and what possibilities are opened up, when we can add to and annotate, comment on and contribute?

In Digital Literacy we will explain what literacy means – and can mean – in a digital age, our age. We will read, write, and reflect. We will design, create, and construct. We will participate, contribute, and collaborate.

Learning Goals:
Upon course completion, Davies Scholars will learn:
1. How to navigate, evaluate, cite, and contribute to existing knowledge;
2. How to construct and manage a creative, collaborative, and responsible digital identity; and
3. How to collaborate (preferably effectively and creatively) with others.

Required Texts:
* Jane Jacobs, Death and Life of Great American Cities (Random House, 1961)
* Henry Jenkins, Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide (NYU Press, 2006)
* Scott McCloud, Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art (Harper, 1994)
* A one-year Flickr pro account subscription, $24.95
* You are required to make, purchase, or barter for a bound, paper-based journal.

(A Note about Reading: The schedule below offers a rough outline of what we will read and discuss throughout the semester. Please, however, be aware that you will be reading much more. Much of your reading (and viewing and listening) for this course will be a product of your own library and online research, tailored toward topics that interest you.)

(A Second Note about Reading: Nearly every Thursday evening we will host guest speakers. In the cases when guest speakers have blogs, you are required to spend a significant time with their blog prior to their campus visit. This does not mean visiting the blog for 2-3 minutes. This means spending a few hours reading the blog, becoming acquainted with some of the blogger’s key themes, following various discussions via readers’ comments, tracing threads through tags, ets.)

Schedule:
WEEK 1:
Tuesday, January 22: Introductions: Where, Who, What Are We?
Due: Ourselves

Thursday, January 24:
Read: Common Craft, “RSS in Plain English”; Keri Smith, “100 Ideas”; Sherry Turkle, “Can You Hear Me Now?” Forbes (May 5, 2007); Wikipedia, “Literacy”

WEEK 2:
Tuesday, January 29:
Due: Your new journal
Read: National Endowment of the Arts, “To Read or Not To Read” (Executive Summary); Matthew Kirschenbaum, "How Reading is Being Reimagined," The Chronicle Review (December 7, 2007); if:book, "reading between the lines?" (blog post + comments)

Thursday, January 31:
Amanda Lenhart, Mary Madden, Alexandra Rankin Macgill, Aaron Smith, “Teens and Social Media: The use of social media gains a greater foothold in teen life as they embrace the conversational nature of interactive online media"; Henry Jenkins, "Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century"; Mike Wesch, "Web 2.0 ... The Machine is Us/ing Us"

WEEK 3:
Tuesday, February 5:
Field trip: Haight (Meet at Red Vic to watch Go Organic.)

Thursday, February 7:
Guest speaker: Mary Madden
Read: Mary Madden, Susannah Fox, Aaron Smith, and Jessica Vitak, "Digital Footprints: Online identity management and search in the age of transparency"; Jeff Howe, "The Hit Factory," Wired (November 2005); Larry Hardesty, "The Tipping Jar: Does Radiohead's Internet release of its latest album tell us anything about the future of the music business?" Technology Review (Jan/Feb 2008)

WEEK 4:
Tuesday, February 12:
Read: Mark Briggs, “How to Blog,” Journalism 2.0, pp. 52-61; Global Voices, “Introduction to Citizen Media” (also in Spanish and in Bengali); Karen Schneider (a USF graduate!), “How to be ‘famous’ (wink wink, nudge nudge),” Free Range Librarian

Thursday, February 14:
Guest speaker: Ivan Chew
Read: "My Old Katong Final Pt.- Other Lost Landmarks," Times of My Life; Lam Chun See, "What Prompted Me To Start This Blog," Good Morning Yesterday; Ivan Chew, "My father, Basketball, and the late President Chiang Kai-shek"; Taking Up The Challenge, "Talk On Blogging For Seniors

WEEK 5:
Tuesday, February 19:
Field trip: San Francisco Public Library (Main branch)
Public talk: Sarah Houghton-Jan on the “Future of Libraries” (talk organized by SFPL's Magazines and Newspapers Center)

Thursday, February 21:
Guest speaker: Brewster Kahle
Read: Andrew Richard Albanese, "Scan This Book: An Interview with Open Content Alliance's Brewster Kahle,” Library Journal (August 2007); Kevin Kelly, "Scan this Book!" New York Times Magazine (May 14, 2006); Siva Vaidhyanathan, portions of The Googlization of Everything

WEEK 6:
Tuesday, February 26
Read: Henry Jenkins, Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide (NYU Press, 2006).

Thursday, February 28:
Guest speaker: Bryan Alexander
Read: Christy Dena, "Online Augmentation to Emerging Participatory Culture Practices: Player-Created Tiers in Alternate Reality Games," Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies (Feb 2008); Steve Himmer, "The Labyrinth Unbound: Weblogs as Literature," in Into the Blogosphere: Rhetoric, Community, and Culture of Weblogs, eds. Laura J. Gurak, Smiljana Antonijevic, Laurie Johnson, Clancy Ratliff, and Jessica Reyman (June 2004); Clay Shirky, "Ontology is Overrated: Categories, Links, and Tags" (spring 2005); and Sean Stacey (aka SpaceBass), "Undefining ARG," posted article to Unfiction (November 10th, 2006)

WEEK 7:
Tuesday, March 4:
Film Screening: Stop Firestone Campaign (This is part of USF’s Global Women’s Rights Forum and takes place 6-8 pm in Maraschi Room.)

Thursday, March 6:
Read one of the following: Kathleen Fitzpatrick, “CommentPress: New (Social) Structures for New (Networked) Texts”; “Operation Iraqi Quagmire”; McKenzie Wark’s GAMER THEORY

WEEK 8:
Tuesday, March 11
Read: danah boyd, "Why Youth (Heart) Social Network Sites: The Role of Networked Publics in Teenage Social Life." In David Buckingham (Ed.), Youth, Identity, and Digital Media (MIT Press, 2007); Lampe, Cliff, Ellison, Nicole, and Steinfeld, Charles. (2006). A face(book) in the crowd: social searching vs. social browsing. Banff, Alberta, Canada: Proceedings of CSCW 2006; Joan DiMicco, David R Millen. (2007) Identity management: Multiple presentations of Self in Facebook. Note, Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Organizational Computing and Goupware Technologies (GROUP 2007), Nov 2007.

Thursday, March 13:
Guest speaker: Fred Stutzman
Read: Fred Stutzman, "Social Network Transitions" and "Situational Relevance in Social Networking Websites," Unit Structures; Louise Story, "The Evolution of Facebook’s Beacon," Bits blog

Tuesday, March 18: Spring Break!
Thursday, March 20: Spring Break!

WEEK 9:
Tuesday, March 25
Read: Jane Jacobs, "The Uses of Sidewalks: Assimilating Children"; "The Uses of Sidewalks: Safety"; and "The Uses of Sidewalks: Contact" from Death and Life of Great American Cities (Random House, 1961); Eric Klinenberg, "Race, Place, and Vulnerability: Urban Neighborhoods and the Ecology of Support" from Heat Wave: A Social Autopsy of Disaster in Chicago (University of Chicago Press, 2002), pp. 79- 128; Peirce Lewis, “Axioms of the Landscape: Some Guides to the American Scene,” Journal of Architectural Education (September 1976), pp. 6-9.

Thursday, March 27:
Guest Speaker: Kelly Quinn

WEEK 10:
Tuesday, April 1:
Read: Portions of PostGlobal; Portions of Global Voices

Thursday, April 3:
Guest Speaker: Kevin Epps

WEEK 11:
Tuesday, April 8
Read: Lorraine Johnson, "Wildness," in Tending the Earth: A Gardening Manifesto (Penguin, 2002); Michael Pollan, "The Idea of a Garden," in Second Nature: A Gardener's Education (Grove Press, 2003)
Read/Look: You Grow Girl

Thursday, April 10:
Guest speaker: Gayla Trail

WEEK 12:
Tuesday, April 15
Read: Michael Pollan, “Desire: Sweetness / Plant: Apple,” from The Botany of Desire: A Plant’s-Eye View of the World (Random House, 2002), pp. 1-58; Douglas Rushkoff, "Net Loss" (intended for publication in the cancelled Arthur Vol. 1, No. 26 [March 2007]); Terry Tempest Williams, “Commencement,” from The Open Space of Democracy (Orion Society, 2004), pp. 2-24.

Thursday, April: 17:
Field trip: Stonelake Farm
Guest speaker: Francis Lake
Please note: We will be at Stonelake Farm from Thurs, April 17 to Sunday, April 20.

WEEK 13:
Tuesday, April 22
Read: Amanda Kwan, “Look sharp: Your style could show up on a blog," Seattle Times (July 9, 2007); Fashion Television, "The Sartorialist"
Read lots of: Pike/Pine
Get a feel for: HEL-LOOKS; Face Hunter; and The Sartorialist

Thursday, April 24:
Guest speaker: Jasmine Park

WEEK 14:
Tuesday, April 29
Read: Scott McCloud, Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art (Harper, 1994)

Thursday, May 1:
Guest speaker: Phillip Thurtle
Read: Alan Moore, selections from Promethea (America's Best Comics/Wildstorm, 1999-2005); Lev Manovich, "Image Future," Animation: An Interdisciplinary Journal (2006), pp 25-44.

WEEK 15:
Tuesday, May 6: To be determined
Thursday, May 8: To be determined

Grades:
Projects: 50%
Participation: 50%

Guest Speakers (in order of appearance):
Mary Madden (February 7) is Senior Research Specialist at the Pew Internet and American Life Project where she researches music and the internet, intellectual property issues online, teens and communication technology, and college students and the internet.

Ivan Chew (February 14) heads the Adult & Young People's Services (Public Libraries) of the National Library Board, Singapore. When he's off work, Ivan draws, paints, blogs, runs a mailing list for librarians, and works on original songs for a collaborative online music album.

Brewster Kahle (February 21) serves as founder and digital librarian at the non-profit Internet Archive and helps direct the Open Content Alliance. Brewster’s stated goal is “Universal Access to all Knowledge.”

Bryan Alexander (February 28) is Director of Research at NITLE, where he researches and writes on the critical uses of computers and teaching in terms of the interdisciplinary liberal arts and the contemporary development of cyberculture.

Fred Stutzman (March 13) is a Ph.D. student at the University of North Carolina’s School of Information and Library Science, and Co-Founder and Developer of claimID.

Kelly Quinn (March 27) is an assistant professor of American Studies at Miami University. Kelly examines the dynamic relationship between people and places, and is keenly interested in the confluence of the arts, humanities, design, and social justice.

Kevin Epps (April 3) is the filmmaker behind Straight Outta Hunters Point (2001) and Rap Dreams (2006). He is currently working on The Black Rock which chronicles the experiences of African-American prisoners at Alcatraz.

Gardener, photographer, graphic designer, and crafty gal Gayla Trail (April 10) is the creator of the thriving online community You Grow Girl and the author of the popular gardening book, You Grow Girl: The Groundbreaking Guide to Gardening.

Francis Lake (April 17) is a manager and caretaker of Stonelake Farm, a small family farm in eastern Humboldt County, where he also runs the farm’s internship and artist residency programs.

Phillip Thurtle (May 1) is an assistant professor of the Comparative History of Ideas program and the History Department at the University of Washington and co-editor, with Robert Mitchell, of Data Made Flesh: Embodying Information and Semiotic Flesh: Information and the Human Body.

Jasmine Park (April 24) is the author of the prominent Seattle fashion blog Pike/Pine and publishes a weekly photo in the Seattle Times.

to give and to get: a talk at the university of maastricht

as part of tomorrow's symposium honoring the work and contributions of university of maastricht librarian john gilbert, i am giving a talk called "to give and to get: libraries, web 2.0, and collective intelligence." today, i am giving a preconference talk for librarians who are unable to attend tomorrow's events. my hope is that the discussion during today's preconference talk will inform portions of tomorrow's conference talk.

i plan to begin by briefly discussing four kinds of literacy: literacy (reading, research, reflection), e-literacy (digital literacy), me-literacy (facebook), and we-literacy (web 2.0 with a quick tour through the gones).

next, i'll explain we-literacy in terms of collective intelligence. with help from wikipedia, yelp, and GarageBand, i'll argue that the best of web 2.0 is when users give and get in meaningful ways.

finally, i'll ask a question for all of us to answer: what happens when students give to the library? in supplying a few of my own answers, i'm sure i'll discuss "yes, i read comic books."