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Might there be an alternative to the conventional meetings and conferences academics, librarians, and museum professionals go to every year, where papers and panels—and often bored or distracted attendees—are the norm? This episode’s feature story tackles that question by looking back at the experience of THATCamp: The Humanities and Technology Camp, a less structured “unconference” or “barcamp” that turned everyone into active participants. The roundtable discussion of the news includes a discussion of what the iPhone 3G and iPhone apps mean for educational and cultural institutions. Picks of the week include a new site on the Soviet Gulag, a way to avoid distractions on the Mac, and an open source mapping site.

Links mentioned on the podcast:
THATCamp
GreenNote
OS X Spaces
Gulag: Many Days, Many Lives
Open Street Map

Running time: 45:19
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As Dan finally buckles under and joins in the most hyped Web 2.0 site of the moment, Twitter, Tom and Mills join him to debate the merits—and demerits—of the “microblogging” craze. Do services like Twitter merely increase the distractions and noise from the web, or might they be helpful for communication and community building in academia? In the news roundup, we cover Microsoft’s exit from book digitization and the significance of the tech layoffs at the University of Washington. Picks of the week include a podcast series from Harvard, a blog post explaining the semantic web, and a wiki for digital research tools.

Links mentioned on the podcast:
Mills on Twitter
Media Berkman
Semantic Web Patterns
Digital Research Tools (DiRT) wiki

Running time: 47:21
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