The question from Joe Miller, technology reporter for the BBC News caught my eye. He asked 'Wiki wars: Do Wikipedia's internal tiffs deter newcomers?' http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-28426674.

The question resonated with me. WC-ICTLIG piloted the Wikimedia ZA's GLAM (galleries, libraries, archives and museums) project in July 2014. It was exhilarating to be part of a crowd-sourcing activity contributing to the global body of knowledge. Who knew, we could change someone's world so, careful attention was paid to the instructions. However, soon we attracted the attention of Wikipedia editors and our contributions changed before our eyes. Our instructor, a Wikipedian editor too, appeared devoid of the seeming harshness of the online editors and calmly and politely took charge of the situation and urged us to respond with good grace to the accusatory banners that appeared on our page. It warned that the article would implode in 7 days (a la Tom Cruise's briefs in the MI series) if the list of transgressions were not attended to. The solution was written in a dialect of Klingon also known as Wikipedia's Ts&Cs for editing. Despite all the tantrums (read mine) the Wikipedian, Douglas Scott, resuscitated all our work and declared the pilot a success. Further achievement of the GLAM project depends on continuing editing by the participants.

So, we urge all the readers to join the next series of GLAM workshops to be held in Cape Town in October. Details will be distributed on the LIASA listserv. OK, now I'm off to do more Wikipedia editing...

Nikki Crowster

Net Prophet 2014

Does web-based innovation and entrepreneurship grab your interest? How about social investment? Check out the upcoming Net Prophet event at the Artscape Opera House in Cape Town on 21 May
http://www.netprophet.org.za/

Free tickets are available enquire from Computicket
http://online.computicket.com/web/event/net_prophet/816088010/0/59827877 or call the ticket hotline 08619158000

Update 13 May 2014:
Julian Assange to headline Net Prophet

Tales from the Terminal Room (TFTTR). Karen Blakeman

Tales from the Terminal Room (TFTTR) is an electronic newsletter that includes reviews and comparisons of information sources; useful tools for managing information; technical and access problems on the Net; and news of RBA's training courses and publications. Many of the articles will have already appeared on Karen Blakeman's Blog at http://www.rba.co.uk/wordpress/

The latest issue: September 2013, Issue No. 115

Selected content:

[Some] top tips from the latest business information workshop:

1. OFFSTATS – Official Statistics on the Webhttp://www.offstats.auckland.ac.nz
   Excellent starting point for official statistical sources by country, region subject or a combination of categories. All of the content in the database is in the public domain and available through the Internet. 
2. GMacker http://gmacker.com/web/content/gDateRange/gdr.htm
   Google's Verbatim in the search options menu on the results page is great. Google's date option from the same menu is great. But you cannot use both together. You can use the daterange: command, though, with Verbatim but it's complicated. GMacker is a much easier way to do it. Type in your search on the GMacker page, select your dates from the calendars and click on ‘Google Search'. When the results appear on Google simply apply Verbatim in the usual way. 
3. Domain Tools http://www.domaintools.com/
   A useful tool for identifying who owns the domain name of a website.
4. Zanran http://zanran.com/
   This is a search tool for searching information contained in charts, graphs and tables of data and within formatted documents such as PDFs, Excel spreadsheets and images. Enter your search terms and optionally limit your search by date and/or format type.
5. News alerts, news curation services and automated newsletter generation. 
   Use Google alerts, RSS feeds and newsletter generation sites such as Paper.li ( http://paper.li/ ) and Scoop.it ( http://www.scoop.it/ ) to keep up to date and share news with colleagues.
6.  site: command 
   Use the site: command to focus your search on particular types of site, for example site:ac.uk, or to search inside a large rambling site. You can also use -site: to exclude sites from your search.
7. Numeric range 
   This command is unique to Google. Use it for anything to do with numbers – years, temperatures, weights, distances, prices etc. Simply type in your two numbers separated by two full stops as part of your search. A good way of limiting your search to pages or news covering a company's activities over two or three years in the past.
8. DataMarket http://datamarket.com/
   A portal to thousands of free and priced datasets. Free to search, and create charts and visualisations of the free data.

 

Vatican and Bodleian libraries launch online archives

...not only will ancient works become more accessible, collections will be rejoined after centuries of separation...
http://www.scoop.it/t/the-information-professional/p/4012061087/2013/12/03/vatican-and-bodleian-libraries-launch-online-archive-of-ancient-religious-texts?_tmc=OQMOji7t2kntTK18Hv60hm9uT135DLO5VGDoLSS2Elc

South Africa’s students are addicted to social media, and agree it is also a boon.

South Africa’s students are addicted to social media – but are almost unanimous that it enhances both their academic and social lives. From World Wide Worx.


This was the key finding of the SA High-tech Student 2013 research study, released today by World Wide Worx and Student Brands. The study, conducted among all universities and colleges across South Africa, included interviews with 1435 students.
...
The SA High-tech Student 2013 report will be made available for download at no cost during November.