Introduction

Hello All, 

I must admit the I never expected to have a blog, and it's definitely not something I thought I would need to learn how to use in a Course titled "Information Management"- however, as I have learnt in the past week there is much more to this course then just learning how to catalogue. I originally enrolled in a different course for this year and have spent the past week in a bit of a tizz trying to catch up with everything- but still I'm excited to be here. 

I suppose I should explain how I ended up deciding to do this masters. I graduated from the University of Melbourne at the end of last year with a Bachelor of Arts (Honours). My major was history and my minor Ancient Worlds (basically ancient history), so I've studied everything from the Roman Empire, to the history of the Irish in Australia, to witches and witch hunting in medieval Europe. The focus of my honours thesis was a woman named, Margherita Datini. In the 1870s in a blocked up stairwell in Prato, Italy, about 15,000 documents were discovered about her husband Francesco, a prominent merchant, but there were also 250 letters that she wrote to him. I compared what these letters said about her life to what treatise writers of the day wrote about what women should do and how they should act. 

I went in to last year thinking I could possibly go on to further study and complete a Masters or PhD in history, but a 15,000 word thesis made me realise that is not the path I want to go down. However, I really enjoyed my time in the library last year, looking through books and discovering things. I grew up in a house surrounded by books, and a family with a passion for learning and knowledge, and I think that have a having a questioning mind can really help society. Libraries can now reach an unprecedented number of people and I'm looking forward to being part of an industry that can provide people with information (other than from Google) easily and efficiently. 

As I said, I've never had a blog, or twitter and am hopeless at using Facebook other than as a glorified email service and diary. Looking at the weeks ahead I'm looking forward to exploring new platforms and their relationship to information management. I would like to discover new ways of sharing information and new platforms on which to do this. I am hoping I will discover platforms that I can continue to use after this assignment is finished, and will help me use all the information on the web, in a better way. 

Annie