BitCoins and Blockchains. You may have heard about these technologies, but do you know what they mean? Perhaps you have wondered whether blockchain is something that you should be paying attention to. How could libraries be taking advantage of blockchain?<\/p>\n
For the past 18 months, Dr. Sandra Hirsh<\/a> and Dr. Sue Alman<\/a>, San Jos\u00e9 State University<\/a><\/u> (SJSU) School of Information<\/a><\/u> (iSchool), have investigated potential applications of blockchain technology in libraries.\u00a0 The initiative, funded by the Institute for Museum and Library Services <\/a><\/u>(IMLS), resulted in a website and blog<\/a><\/u> that share information about the project and blockchain news and stories, as well as recorded and archived presentations from the Library 2.018 online conference Blockchain Applied: Impact on the Information Profession<\/a><\/u><\/em> and a national forum<\/a><\/u> which brought together 26 blockchain experts and leaders to discuss possible application of blockchain technology in libraries and communities.<\/p>\n To learn more about blockchain and what it means, you are encouraged to register for the upcoming no-cost Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) that is called Blockchain & Decentralization for the Information Industries.<\/a><\/u><\/em>\u00a0 This 6-week <\/a>Blockchain MOOC<\/a><\/u> will run from March 11 \u2013 April 21, 2019.\u00a0 The course is being taught by Jason Griffey<\/a> who is an expert in blockchain and decentralized technologies.<\/p>\n The free online course will provide an overview of blockchain technology, and it will cover crucial topics including decentralization, systems and services (such as Bitcoin and Ethereum), use cases for libraries, and potential future directions. The course will also address issues related to legalities, copyright, and personal data. The content is applicable to all fields of information science and data management, including law, public and academic libraries and archives, and health informatics.<\/p>\n You do not have to know anything in advance about blockchain or decentralized technologies before taking this course. It will walk you through details and introductions to the technology, all the way through existing services and systems and finally to what a decentralized future might look like. Here is an overview of what will be covered each week in this course:<\/p>\n The symposium-based course includes video presentations, readings and resources, and a discussion-based format, and offers badges and certificates for completion of course units. Registration<\/a> is open now and will remain open until the course begins.\u00a0 We hope you will enroll<\/a><\/u> in the course for an opportunity to participate in this international dialog of potential library blockchain use cases.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" BitCoins and Blockchains. You may have heard about these technologies, but do you know what they mean? Perhaps you have wondered whether blockchain is something that you should be paying attention to. How could libraries be taking advantage of blockchain? For the past 18 months, Dr. Sandra Hirsh and Dr. Sue Alman, San Jos\u00e9 State […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":782,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21119],"tags":[21120,13456,9380,21121],"class_list":["post-596","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-professional-development-opportunity","tag-blockchain","tag-continuing-professional-education","tag-cpdwl","tag-decentralized-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ifla.org\/cpdwl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/596","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ifla.org\/cpdwl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ifla.org\/cpdwl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ifla.org\/cpdwl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/782"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ifla.org\/cpdwl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=596"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ifla.org\/cpdwl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/596\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":597,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ifla.org\/cpdwl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/596\/revisions\/597"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ifla.org\/cpdwl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ifla.org\/cpdwl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ifla.org\/cpdwl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n