One question I have wondered about recently is whether younger archivists--and related LIS professionals--are inclined to share more information about themselves online. Not in the sense of being careless with security information, of course, nor that archivists are more likely to post stories of drunken exploits. (Although we can sometimes accession more beer than we currently have the resources to process....) I wonder rather about building detailed and organized bodies of information about ourselves online, where others can see.
I think that people from Generation X onward are more comfortable with the online component of their lives in general, and use a range of public sites (social networking sites being a good example) frequently. These are sometimes for staying in touch with friends and family, sometimes for networking, and sometimes just an expression of creativity. And when the person doing all this is also an archivist, he or she might be more inclined to organize and describe the materials they are sharing. I for one love to fill in as many details as I can about each photo I share on Facebook, to use one example. I think the impulse to make as many be-metadated photos as possible available online is a combination of eagerness to share ("open access for all") and eagerness to create an organized and detailed collection. I wonder whether other online archivists feel the same.
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