Hi

Hi, my name is Katherine and I'm a second year SLIS student at UW-Madison. I work on two different campus libraries here, and I took this course because I would like a better grounding in the ethics and policies within the information services work environment. I was a little surprised with the Halavais reading because I was not aware there was such a public discussion going on about the differences between blogging under one's name or a pseudonym.

Having had work experience in both the journalism and public relations fields, I am familiar and increasingly comfortable with putting my academic ideas out into the information sphere publicly. I think it is a great way to track progression of growth over a period of time and an effective way to disseminate your dialogue about issues within a given field, especially to those people who your ideas would never reach otherwise.

One of the concerns I share with Halavais, as told anecdotally in his post, was people going back to early posts and judging the author for what was said or though "back then." And this goes beyond punctuation, spelling, or (*gasp) grammar mistakes, which is what I fear in the most petty fashion. :)

However, I think that just as a newspaper columnist whose ideas shift and evolve with the changing information environment and circumstances, blog posts are individual trees in the forest of a person's viewpoint. While they are subject to criticism when viewed in isolation, it is possible for one to find confidence and assurance in the growth that the posts as a whole represent, not to mention their merit in the overall progression of the discussion happening at large to which individual posts contribute.

I'm very much looking forward to this semester, and I am glad to meet you all!