INLS 92
Emerging Topics in Information Science
Spring 2005
Mondays and Wednesdays 9:30 - 10:45 in Manning 304
Contemporary topics of information
science, information systems, information technology, information design
and information management. Assesssment of future impact of new developments.
This class will look across many of the issues, technologies and
policies that will form the directions for information science
processionals in the immediate and near future. Those issues include
ownership and access to information, privacy, copyright, information
sharing, and an always-on-line culture. Those technologies include RFID
tags, surveilance cameras, database pooling, sms, social computing,
blogs, results rankings, artificial intelligence, and grid computing.
Those policies include information management and responsibility such
as HIPAA, weakening of FOIA, record keeping on library patrons, and
outsourcing of jobs.
We will begin by looking at some earlier forecasting of futures (Bush
and Greenberg). Discuss briefly dystopian information futures (Orwell,
London, etc). Then reading Dan Gillmor's We,
The Media, we'll look at new ways that information is being created and
distributed and shared.
During the reading and discussion of Gillmor, we will have a visit
with Dan Gillmor himself and an opportunity to meet Triangle Bloggers at
their Conference on February 12 - 14 as well as a visit with Jessamyn West who
was an official blogger at the Democratic National Convention and the keeper of
Librarian.net
As the semester closes, we will read Howard Rheingold's Smart Mobs
and his associated website smartmobs.com, look at the issues as
observed by Rheingold and augment his discussion with our own grounded
observations.