Cultural Research

Turbulence: Wikipedia & Twitter Downturns

CNET:
Report: Wikipedia losing volunteers

Emarketer:
Data on Twitter Decline Stacks Up

Alert! Choppy weather ahead!! Fluctuations to continue!!!

Drupal for Libraries: Drupal x SOPAC x Koha!

I've been learning about Drupal, an open source content management system, for a Knight News Challenge proposal that goes out next month so this Library Journal article by Karen Coombs on libraries' use of Drupal caught my eye.

I was particularly interested in finding out more about SOPAC (Social Online Public Access Catalog), a Drupal module initially developed for the Ann Arbor District Library that is now available to others. I'm currently working with Koha, an open source ILS, at Cleveland Library and SOPAC is said to have a Koha specific connector for importing records.

SOPAC is an excellent example of librarians and libraries becoming directly involved in the open source software movement as participants, rather than consumers being serviced by vendors, the sort of role change that is key to the transformation of libraries at this point in time.

In addition to a variety of projects covered in the article, Alejandro Garza, a Drupal developer, added some useful resources in the comments:

Drupal For Libraries Listserv
drupalib - a place for library drupallers to hang out
Libraries | Groups.drupal.org