Last night, I witnessed a fine example of the web's power for current awareness and knowledge management...

I attended a local meeting for new and prospective members of a national organization. As new people walked in, one of the officers asked each person how they had heard about the meeting. It seems she had sent out over 200 postcard invitations for the meeting and was curious as to the mail campaign's effectiveness. Well, of the 20 or 30 of us in attendance, only one said they had received a postcard. The rest of us all said we had heard about the meeting from the group's website, a fact that seemed to genuinely surprise her.

The most notable thing of all was that this was not a uniformly young group of people. All age groups were represented, and the age of the person appeared to have little or no influence on how they had learned about the meeting.

Something to think about for librarians weighing the value of a print newsletter of library news versus a blog with the same information. The blog solution offers a far more portable, convenient, and enduring solution. After all, most people will toss their print newsletter after a quick read, but if the information is posted to a blog, that same person can refer to the information today, tomorrow, next month,and next year.