Geotagging New York tourist areas

Gawker.com posted the above image, "This Map Shows You How to Avoid Tourists in New York," that was created by geotagging photos collected on Flickr. The photos were sorted by ones posted by locals and ones posted by tourists, then the data was coded for a color key (blue for locals, red for tourists).

The result is a striking visual of Manhattan from above that suggests all kinds of information: Where to avoid crowds, where the action is, what part of the city is most visited.

This project is a great example of presenting information easily available online. How can librarians use Flickr to tell a story about local information. What kind of information can be presented in the library setting using geotagging and Flickr or some other vast socially networked database?

Everything is Miscellaneous

I am reading this book, Everything is Miscellaneous: The Power of the New Digital Disorder, by David Weinberger, Ph.D., for my MLIS Understanding Information class and it is so correct.

Dr. Weinberger, who is a fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society, argues that finding and sharing information in the digitally networked age is subject to the whims of the individual thinker and in order for us to make sense of the information before us, we need to get out of the way. That is, remove the historical linguistic constructs that lead us to information sets because arbitrary navigational cues could negatively affect the integrity of our search.

Look sideways and create your own criteria for what you need.