Search trends/zeitgeist

Knowing what interests people is a key to success in marketing and public relations, and presumably also in librarianship and public diplomacy. Google Zeitgeist's annual review of search trends is now available for 2007, and particularly interesting is the breakdown by country. For years I've been lobbying for more funny pictures...

Community election site

"Why08.org is a conversation community dedicated to Election 2008. To have a voice, you don't need to be a media mogul, a talking head, or even a blogger. There's an audience waiting for you at Why08.org"...and further...
"All of us at Why08 are political junkies and we've always wanted a better way to talk politics with friends and others on the web. Message boards are fine but they could be so much better with social networking, community voting, and more. We always assumed somebody would build a site for us. No one did and we got tired of waiting."

Rich States/Poor States

In the "tough reference questions" department, I recently fielded this one: "What two states, which begin with consecutive letters of the alphabet, are ranked 1st and 50th?" Instead of getting annoyed and barking back "What do you mean ranked 1st and 50th - in WHAT?" I checked the American Legislative Exchange Council's new report Rich States/Poor States which provides a wealth of interesting data on the comparative economic competitiveness of the 50 states - and was able to answer politely, and without further ado, "Utah and Vermont".

Finding government information

The OMB watch report Hiding in Plain Sight: Why Important Government Information Cannot Be Found through Commercial Search Engines discusses why Google, Yahoo and other commercial search engines sometimes come up short when looking for government information...and what searchers and government website managers can do about it.

Knol

Google is now dabbling in wiki-type knowledge sharing, as announced in this article about "knols" - ie. units of knowledge - last week at the Official Google blog. Here's an excerpt..

Earlier this week, we started inviting a selected group of people to try a new, free tool that we are calling "knol", which stands for a unit of knowledge. Our goal is to encourage people who know a particular subject to write an authoritative article about it. The tool is still in development and this is just the first phase of testing. For now, using it is by invitation only. But we wanted to share with everyone the basic premises and goals behind this project.

This sounds a lot like Wikipedia, and naturally there are comparisons

so long ircworld....hello knowbodies!

Ircworld is being retired...and reborn as knowbodies.blogspot.com. There are a couple of differences; while posting to ircworld was limited to the IRC community, anyone may post to knowbodies. Ircworld was never an official USG site, but some people at the State Department may have worried that it was perceived as such. By opening it up to the general audience, and removing all mention of ircs, embassies etc., there should no longer be any cause for concern of that kind.

Ircworld featured a list of rss feeds on the right hand side of the page - loading them slowed things down terribly, so those feeds have now been redirected to pageflake pages ("pagecasts") in (so far) three categories - libraries and technology, public diplomacy, and government information.

If you are receiving this via email - and would like to continue receiving knowbodies posts via email - please visit knowbodies.blogspot.com and enter your email address in the designated window.

(the painting is Carl Spitzweg's "The Bookworm")

Association of Religion Data Archives

here is a post about a useful resource from Virtual Library Cat:

"ARDA, The Association of Religion Data Archives, is a fascinating goldmine of information from researchers, polling and census data, and other reliable sources. ARDA provides free access to quality data on American and world religions. In easy to view format, it quickly presents national profiles and American city statistics, religious group membership and religious freedom data, and recent survey results on beliefs and practices, replete with maps, charts, and reports. The site is fun to explore and an easy way to better understand demographic trends and the current role of religious groups and beliefs as a factor in today's world. It's also a great place to take a study break and learn some interesting and often surprising facts at the same time."

I am America (and so can Hughes)

Here's a post from PR watch about Karen Hughes's swansong:

As one of her last acts as Undersecretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, Karen Hughes unveiled a new short film that will be shown in "the waiting areas of more than 200 American embassies and consulates around the world." Titled "I am America," the film was commissioned by the group Business for Diplomatic Action (BDA), created by the Omnicom-owned ad agency GSD&M Idea City, and donated to the U.S. State Department. The State Department explains that "the idea for the film emerged from brainstorming sessions involving ... Karen Hughes, her staffers and BDA. U.S. officials wanted to correct misperceptions of the United States as an unfriendly and insular place." Walt Disney recently donated a similar film to the State Department, called "Welcome: Portraits of America," which is being shown in the international arrivals areas of major U.S. airports.

What else is on? Pageflakes!!!

Seinfeld once quipped "Men don't care what's on TV. They only care what else is onTV." The joke says something about the sense of unfulfillment, attention span deficit, and profound restlessness that motivates not only channel flipping, but also web browsing... and I guess, by extension, that insatiable acquistiveness that keeps the economy going - especially at this time of year! If any of that resonates with you, you may share my enthusiasm for Pageflakes - in just a few minutes, you can assemble a page full of "flakes" - widgets displaying rss feeds from your favorite blogs - and see what else is on, without even switching channels! It's almost like having that bank of TV screens you also wanted but couldn't afford for your home! A page full of pageflakes is called a pagecast, and can be reserved for your own private viewing, shared with selected individuals, or published on the web for anyone to see. The layouts of individual "flakes" can be customized independently of each other. You can select from a variety of themes for your pagecast, or create your own, as I've done here. For an example of a page that presents an enormous range of information harvested from many different sources, see the the Dublin City Public Libaries pagecast.

The Blogging Revolution: Government in the Age of Web 2.0

This report from the IBM Center for the Business of Government "examines the phenomenon of blogging in teh context of the larger revolutionary forces at play in the development of the second-generation internet, where interactivity among users is key." Although this is a report on blogging by men in suits for men in suits (regrettably, the word "blogoneers" is used to describe pioneering bloggers), it is serious, thorough and substantiated, and addresses matters that might be neglected elsewhere in the "blogosphere", e.g. "The ROI of blogging". A good report to hand to the ambassador, whether you're trying to persuade or dissuade her/him from blogging.

The Blogging Revolution: Government in the Age of Web 2.0

This report from the IBM Center for the Business of Government "examines the phenomenon of blogging in the context of the larger revolutionary forces at play in the development of the second-generation internet, where interactivity among users is key." Although this is a report on blogging by men in suits for men in suits (regrettably, the word "blogoneers" is used to describe pioneering bloggers), it is serious, thorough and substantiated, and addresses matters that might be neglected elsewhere in the "blogosphere", e.g. "The ROI of blogging". A good report to hand to the ambassador, whether you're trying to persuade or dissuade her/him from blogging.

President's Daily Brief

For those of us who do not have the time or permission to read the President's Daily Brief (PDB), a highly classified intelligence report prepared daily for the U.S. president, this post at the FAS Secrecy News blog provides some fascinating insights into the production and use of the document.

Howjsay

Howjisay is "An English Pronouncing Dictionary with Instant Sound" for Americans and others who need help with parodying British accents. Brits and others who need help with parodying American dialects are directed to this post

Future of bibliographic control

The Working group on the future of bibliographic control has released its draft final draft report for public comment. The group addresses the future of a core, if not defining, function of the librarian profession. The group's mandate is to:

• Present findings on how bibliographic control and other descriptive practices can effectively support management of and access to library materials in the evolving information and technology environment;
• Recommend ways in which the library community can collectively move toward achieving this vision;
• Advise the Library of Congress on its role and priorities.