NC Knows

I just found out that I will be staffing the NC Knows statewide virtual chat reference service one evening a week next semester. This is exciting because I have not yet to provide reference service in a collaborative project of this size before. It also provides service to a variety of user populations making it different from the collaborative chat service that I staff currently. That service only covers UNC-Chapel Hill, NCSU, and Duke. I will also get to try out the QuestionPoint software, which I haven’t used before.

Doc Searls on the future of the web

I have only just begun reading this rather lengthy article by Doc Searls, so I am storing it here for later. He spoke on some of these issues when he spoke at UNC last fall. You can look over that presentation here. I read about the article at Dave Weinberger’s blog. Dave points to a number of other discussions on the article, but does not appear to be so hopful himself.

“Saving the Net: How to Keep the Carriers from Flushing the Net Down the Tubes”
By Doc Searls on Wed, 2005-11-16 02:00. Industry News
We’re hearing tales of two scenarios–one pessimistic, one optimistic–for the future of the Net. If the paranoids are right, the Net’s toast. If they’re not, it will be because we fought to save it, perhaps in a new way we haven’t talked about before. Davids, meet your Goliaths.