Núria Ferran's position paper

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Hey Dude, Where's My Data

Núria Ferran, Information and Communication Science Studies, Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC) Working on the [http:www.olcos.org OLCOS project]. See also http://www.wikieducator.org/Open_Educational_Content

Web 2.0 + Library = Library 2.0? Libraries could bring some solutions to the problems arround the web 2. The history of these institutions show that they are use to deal with user personal data, from the user's profile, that can contain personal data (such as name, adress, age, etc.), user's preferences (such as preferred language, subjects, etc.) as well as information accessed (the books in loan, articles downloaded). But libraries are seen as trustfull institutions, they do not link personal data with preferences or accessed information. Besides libraries will not use personal data for commercial or political reasons.

In order to preserve privacy libraries use to delete the borrowed books of each user. They only keep the books that are at the moment on load, and when the books are returned to the library are deleted from the user’s file. Library external providers With digital resources, libraries relay also in external providers such as Thomson, ISI, Elsevier, Ebsco, etc. that store the usage data of the library users. But, they cannot link the user activity profile with the personal profile that only the library keeps.

Library users Users know that in a networked environment they actions are logged, so some of their personal information is already recordered. But if they trust the site that they are using, they are not worried, even they will like to share some personal data if they receive personalized services.

Social software Therefore public libraries in some cases and university libraries in others, can offer support to the new wave of applications arround social software. They could offer their PCs, servers for providing access and bytes. And also offer their preservation experience for keeping this systems alive.

References Miller, P. (2006). "Web 2.0: Building the New Library", in Ariadne, issue 45. Lynch, C. (2005). “Where Do We Go From Here? The Next Decade for Digital Libraries” in D-Lib Magazine, vol 11, num 7/8.

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