i've been sitting downstairs at mcnally robinson today, ostensibly available for gift-wrapping (donations benefit housingworks), though little gift-wrapping has been requested. Garrison Keillor is upstairs singing something for a very happy crowd and the book sellers have been stopping by, chatting aimlessly, then going off on some book-sellery task through-out the evening. fortunately, they're chill enough to let me use the internet while i'm sitting here behind the counter, so i've been researching facebook applications and other information management topics for the dual purpose of fine-tuning the concept i have for a flashcard mashup application and finding some useful applications to extend the page we're putting together for the sub-basement project.
the flashcard application i have in mind would be different from most user made listing tools. it would simply provide a storing place for pairing of information; instead it would provide users with a place to store categorized transformations on public information. a user would create a list by pointing to a source url then specifying which fields/tags within the source information represented identifying information, detail information, and categorical information. These differentiations would then determine what information went on which side of the cards. cluster cards could be generated automatically from multiple identity records with the same category field values. categories would also be assimilated into a larger hierarchy that hopefully would facilitate merging of source data and sharing of lists. field values pointing to media files would automatically become identifier cards for such things as art history or music identification aids. finally, while users would always be free to point their list sets to a set of data they uploaded themselves, the hope would be that in forcing them to reference information not stored within the flashcard service, they would begin to seek out opportunities to leverage information maintained by subject authorities and the subject-matter authorities would respond by increasing the accessibility and utility of the data they manage.
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