Heather Willever-Farr is presenting her paper, “Information Sharing in On-line Genealogy Forums” in session 6A. You can view the abstract of her presentation here.
1) What do you hope people gain from your presentation and/or panel? I hope they gain an understanding of the importance of information sharing among archives/special collections users, and the need for memory institutions to facilitate this information sharing via their websites.
2) Are there one or two articles or websites you think attendees would benefit from reading before attending your session? Ancestry.com
3) What do you enjoy most about presenting to a crowd with such broad interests (practitioners, researchers, students, librarians, archivists, info tech, etc)? The opportunity to hear feedback from a diverse group with potentially different viewpoints.
4) How did you get interested or develop this research topic/project or panel topic? My experiences as a reference archivist and the lack of quantitative data about archival patrons led me to explore the information seeking and sharing behaviors of genealogists — one of the largest archives patron groups. Additionally, the ubiquitous interest in Web 2.0 tools within the archival community also piqued my interest in researching how users are employing such tools to seek and share information with other users.
5) Where or to whom do you see your research/panel being most useful, implementable, or interesting? Anyone interested in information sharing among users of historical resources in a Web 2.0 environment.
Library Research Seminar - V 