Corporate Librarian Role Changes for the Future…02.11.09

This is an excerpt from The future of the future: Rise of the knowledge librarian from KMWorld:

“…Librarians are being jettisoned along with the bookcases. We need to reverse that trend and start bringing them back … but only the ones who are willing to change. A traditional corporate librarian must make three major shifts in roles begin the transition to a knowledge librarian.

Role shift #1: A knowledge librarian should be the “content czar” of the enterprise. That role, often ascribed to the CIO or CKO, must be returned to the librarian, where it belongs…

Role shift #2: A knowledge librarian understands the strategic information needs of the enterprise… 

Role shift #3: A knowledge librarian is a lead agent of change…

The librarian of the future is uniquely positioned to be at the center of the creation and alignment of intellectual assets across the enterprise. That leads to improved innovation and business performance on a sustained basis. Maybe the time will soon come when we will see librarians as CKOs.

Any organization that wants to make the transition to an enterprise of the future needs a few strong-willed individuals who have the desire and know-how to make knowledge flow quickly and easily. Who better to do that than those quiet heroes who have always come to our rescue whenever we needed answers?”

Kindle 2 Audio Feature Brews Copyright Charge…02.11.09

LISNews  post Author’s Guild Claims Kindle 2 Copyright Infringement today:

“The Kindle 2 has a feature which allows the book to be read out loud. And wow, does this have the Author’s Guild up in a tizzy.

‘They don’t have the right to read a book out loud,’ said Paul Aiken, executive director of the Authors Guild. ‘That’s an audio right, which is derivative under copyright law.’

Amazon is moving forward with the rather logical opinion that there’s no way a person would confuse the computerized text to speech voice with an audiobook.

So all of you youth librarian types doing story time? STOP IT. You’re violating copyright and you’re probably doing it more ways than one since you’re not only reading Chicka Chicka Boom Boom out loud, but you’re putting on a public performance.

Boing Boing Gadgets has the run down. More on this story from the Wall Street Journal.”

Opening Access to Special Collections and Archives…02.11.09

Here is a short excerpt from a lengthy but significantly important/relevant post from Lisa Carter titled It’s the Collections that are Special on In The Library With the Lead Pipe blog today:

“I’m beginning to think that what’s wrong with special collections and archives today is that they are considered special.  They are set aside, revered and left as the last great mystery the Library holds.  The collections themselves are special in that they are rare, unique, fantastic and archaic and they do need special handling and care.  However, our regard for these materials has enabled us to treat them so differently that they are not accessible. We have locked these materials up in our processes and our delivery services, which has kept them out of the mainstream of information available to knowledge seekers.  They are only rarely seen as part of the knowledge building conversation and it is because of how we (as librarians and archivists) treat them and present them.  We treat them as special in the sense of  ’separate,’ ‘extra,’ ‘having special needs’ instead of special in that they are what make our library special as ‘distinctive signifiers,’ ‘our enduring core’ and ‘our unique contribution to the world of knowledge.’

As librarians and archivists redefine ourselves and better articulate how we add value, as we break down long established barriers in our processes, spaces and services, we need to include our most unique collections.  We regularly leverage quickly evolving trends in the information environment by refocusing on the needs and preferences of our users in the context of very real competition and economic difficulty.  In this framework, libraries can embrace their special collections and archives as a locus of distinction, experimentation and core value.  The time has come for libraries to integrate special collections into the flow in every aspect of our work…

For libraries to contribute effectively to knowledge-building in their communities, the constructed partition that has set special collections aside as ‘special’ must be dismantled.  It is time to integrate the selection, description, research service and technological activities in every library with those needed to connect users to our most distinctive, unique collections.  Libraries must recognize that while the collections are special and even have special needs, the talents and skills needed to expose them are found library-wide.  Additionally, many special collection materials are now born digital and do not require physical segregation in our traditional Special Collections units.  Further, enterprise-wide effort is even more critical to born-digital collections’ exposure and survival.  Users just want the best information for their task and they want it to be available all in the same place.

…Special Collections and Archives may sense a loss of their unique identity during such a transformation.  Partners in other library units may resist activity previously outside their purview. Yet sharing responsibility for our distinctive, valued and unique collections will raise the profile of the whole library and, most importantly, benefit our users...”

Twitter Librarians Directory…02.11.09

This may be a helpful post [Directory of Librarians Who Twitter] from David Rothman since so many librarians are using twitter although I do not at the present:

“Most know I’m not a huge fan of Twitter (I prefer FriendFeed), but this interests me anyway.

JustTweetIt is a service intended to help Twitter users find others they may want to follow and includes directories. I recently stumbled across JustTweetIt’s directory of Twittering Librarians

Check it out, see if there are any librarians listed you want to follow and consider adding an entry to help others find you.”

“Digital Library Branch Style Guide” from David Lee King…02.11.09

This post from David Lee King would be invaluable for setting up a digital library branch so I am posting the entire post “Digital Branch Style Guide” here for my future reference and for others who may run across it:

“…it’s the styleguide we use for my library’s digital branch! It’s a long document, broken up into these sections:

• General Guidelines for Blog Posts
• Citing/Attribution
• Featured Section
• Comments – What to do with them
• Creating a “Voice”
• How Can I Get a Conversation Started?
• I have a suggestion/problem. What do I do with it?
• Staff Responsibilities
  

******************

Digital Branch Style Guide

Please follow these guidelines when writing blog posts on our public website. This document is a start – I hope to add to it as needed. Notice something glaringly obvious that I haven’t listed? Email it to me.

General Guidelines for Blog Posts

Post frequency/length:

• Frequency:
  • 2 posts per week for each Subject Guide
  • Posts in the Services section – as needed
• Length:
  • sufficient to cover topic
  • shorter is always better – just enough to cover the content

Formatting:

• one space between sentences – not two!
• avoid ALL CAPS
• use a spell checker
• break post into small paragraphs rather than one large chunk of text

Post titles:

• keep them short, snappy, and descriptive
• capitalize every word except prepositions (like a book title)

Internal Post Structure:

• Bulleted lists are great
• Subheads are great – helps people quickly scan content
• Images that complement article tend to attract readers

specific words – Be consistent with these terms:

• email (all one word, all lowercase)
• website (all one word, all lowercase)
• webpage (all one word, all lowercase)
• web (lowercase)
• Internet (uppercase “I”)
• Our library – first reference is “Topeka & Shawnee County Public Library.” Second reference is “the library.”
• Our website is “the Digital Branch.”
• Refer to our Neighborhoods by their full title (i.e., the Travel neighborhood, the Health Information neighborhood)

Summary of post

• Each post should have a summary – there are two ways to do this:
  • Create a summary paragraph in the summary box
  • Leave the summary blank – the beginning of the post will automatically be used as the summary

Tags:

• Use 2-3 descriptive tags for each post
• Tags are usually keywords that are descriptive of the content of a post
• These should be different from a category. Ex – a post could be in the Books Subject Guide with a Category of Sci-Fi, and have tags like Steampunk, Robots, and Mars.

Links:

• For book titles
  • make the book title the link text
  • don’t include the URL with the book title
    • Do this: The Hobbit (where “The Hobbit” is the text used for the link)
    • Don’t do this: The Hobbit – http://catalog.tscpl.org/asdfhasdf/etc.htm (where “The Hobbit” is NOT the link text, but the URL is also used as the link text)
• Other links
  • When linking to webpages or blog posts, make the webpage title or the blog article title the link text
  • Refer to the link within a sentence, like this: “Topeka has a great library that everyone should visit.” (“great library” would be the link text used for our library’s URL)
  • Another example: don’t write “you can read the full report here” – using words like “here” or “click here” is generally bad practice. Instead, say “the charity released a report, which said…” (“a report” is the link text, and is incorporated within the sentence). This type of internal link reads better.

Citing / Attribution

It’s important to give proper attribution to sources, even online. Here’s how to do it:

• Blog posts, newspaper articles, other websites
  • See the Links section above for linking
  • When you quote someone else’s text, make sure to link to the original source.
  • With the link to the original source, reference the site. For example, say “Here’s a lovely article on the Topeka Ave. bridge project (from the Topeka Capital Journal).” “Lovely article” links to the specific article, and “Topeka Capital Journal” links to the newspaper’s main site.
• Images
  • If using an image from flickr, photobucket, or some other photo sharing service, include some type of attribution/pointer back to the original photo at the end of the article (i.e., “photo courtesy of JimBob” – “JimBob” would link back to the original photo).
  • Use photos with a Creative Commons license when possible
• Videos
  • Include some type of link/attribution/pointer back to the original video (i.e., link back to the YouTube video if you use a video from YouTube)
• How much of a quote can I do?
  • The U.S. Copyright Office FAQ on fair use (http://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-fairuse.html) says this: “it is permissible to use limited portions of a work including quotes, for purposes such as commentary, criticism, news reporting, and scholarly reports. There are no legal rules permitting the use of a specific number of words, a certain number of musical notes, or percentage of a work.”
  • Don’t quote the whole thing!

Featured Section

The Featured Section is structured this way:

The first Feature Box is called Featured.

• It features big programs, events and special features of the library.
• Populated by PR and Event Resources

Guidelines for the other Feature Boxes:

• The other feature boxes include Books, Research, Movies & Music, Gallery, Kids, and Teens.
• These sections usually focus on content (Gallery, Kids and Teens boxes can post about a program)
• Handouts, booklists, links should be part of that post. No programs with registration and limits should be posted there.

Comments – what to do with them?

• respond
  • thank them for their comment
  • add something if possible – point to another similar book, a link on our site, etc.
  • if it’s a question, answer it
  • if it’s a criticism, answer it – or refer it to someone who Can respond appropriately
  • If the comment is negative, don’t repeat it! Respond without repeating the negative question/comment.
• In general, don’t edit the comment. Usually, it’s better to correct in another comment. Only edit if the comment:
  • Has “bad” words (that our automatic naughty word filter didn’t catch)
  • Is derogatory
  • Has an unrelated link
• delete if spam. For example: “I have checked that really there was great information regarding that. There was another also – http://healthbeautyproduct.blogspot.com/” is a spam comment. Usually, spam comments include this type of stuff:
  • poor grammar (sounds like they don’t really know the language)
  • PLUS links to unrelated websites
• What to do if you don’t know what to do – ask the web team to read the comment.

Creating a “Voice”

• Write in a conversational tone:
  • goal is to start conversations
  • if you wouldn’t say it in conversation, don’t write it
  • write “friendly” – just like we are at the desk!
• Use active voice. Example – don’t write “The tree was struck by lightning.” Instead, write “Lightning struck the tree.”
• Use inverted pyramid writing style (explanation at Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_pyramid)
• The first couple of sentences of your post displays as the summary, and appears in various places on our site as teasers to the whole article – so make it snappy!
• Write in present tense when possible. Ex:
  • Don’t write “the book signing will be held next Tuesday”
  • Instead, write “the book signing is next Tuesday”

How Can I Get a Conversation Started?

Here are a couple of ideas on getting conversations started on your blog.

• Write great content (always top priority)
• Take part in the conversation:
  • read blogs and Topeka-area newspapers that allow comments
  • read blogs in your area of expertise
  • leave comments on those blogs, linking to your post in the comment
  • also link to those blogs in your post
• Focus your posts on goals:
  • Before you write, answer this – “what do you want the reader to do?”
  • Provide a call to action (ie., tell them what you want them to do)
  • Ask for a response
  • Point them to things (like books in our catalog)

I have a suggestion/problem. What do I do with it?

Problems:

• email the web team
• tell us what’s wrong
• include links or descriptive text if possible

Ideas for the site:

• Email the web team/Digital Branch Manager:
  • Include description of idea
  • Digital Branch Manager will set up meeting if needed, share idea with web team and/or Managers, etc
  • Remember – all ideas are great, but not all ideas will be implemented on the site
• hold regular meetings
  • i.e.., fun in Topeka blog meeting
  • discuss ideas
  • make suggestions to the web team

Staff Responsibilities

Blog moderator

• make sure there are 2 posts per week
• encourage writers
• check in with Digital Branch Manager periodically
• schedule regular meetings of content area
• all the blog author stuff

Blog authors

• write posts
• check links
• respond to comments
• delete spam
• periodically touch base with blog moderator

Digital Branch Manager

• big picture development of branch
  • strategic planning
  • trend watching
• talking to internal groups
• talking to external groups
• mentoring digital branch staff
• developing new content areas and unique services and tools

Web Team

• Webmaster/designer and Web Developer
• designs new pages
• keeps design fresh
• day to day operations
• maintenance and upgrades
• builds new stuff”

Negative Reveiw of Text A Librarian Service…02.10.09

The Digital Reference blog posted today about a negative “Review of Mosio’s Text a Librarian” service from The Charleston Advisor:

“The January 2009 issue (Vol 10, No. 3) of The Charleston Advisor has a review by Joseph Murphy of Mosio’s Text a Librarian service(paywall link…sorry). Murphy gives a thumbs down to the product that is being marketed to libraries as a solution for SMS reference services:

Mosio’s beta Text A Librarian product does not live up to its claim of being ‘an easy to use text messaging solution that enables libraries to set up cost-effective SMS reference services’ …It is a good beta attempt but is not yet viable for libraries.

Murphy singles out the following problems:

• Cost is higher than many other options for providing SMS reference service (minimum of $1398 a year)
• Librarian web interface doesn’t auto-refresh to show new queries
• Email and IM notifications that library staff can get as alerts to new queries can’t be used for sending a reply (library staffer must go back to web interface to compose reply)
• Doesn’t work for patrons using T-Mobile
• No functionality for exporting interactions
• URLs sent in text message replies from the library aren’t live ones
• A question thread can only have a maximum of four reply messages from the library…”

Libraries and Librarians-”Unconventional Times Call for Unconventional Paths”…02.10.09

Below is an excerpt from a good article today on the Advertising Age website entitled Unconventional Times Call for Unconventional Marketing by David Armano which I think is helpful to libraries and librarians as well as others to consider.

As an individual, my blog is one of the most effective manifestations of “marketing” I could have produced for myself. I have a respectable audience that comes back as opposed to visiting it once, never to return again. People participate through comments and the content is distributable. But imagine if I started it the same way many large organizations launch conventional marketing initiatives. What would that have looked like?… 

A learn-as-you-go process 
For example, when I started posting visuals, I would check my stats and could see that people from all sorts of other sites and blogs began referencing them and linking back – so I realized the visuals were providing something people wanted and that if I wanted to continue to build an audience, this was a good way to do it. Secondly, I thought that my primary audience would be designers, when in fact the blog started attracting an eclectic audience of planners, marketers, librarians — even evangelists. After each cycle of launching content or functionality in the sidebars, I was learning about my audience and why they were coming. This required me to periodically have more frequent checkpoints of ‘little strategy’ where I would plan the direction of where I wanted to go and make the appropriate adjustments to get there. And it felt less like a straight path and more like a meandering one, because the ‘focus group’ was happening in real time after the initial launch. 

I’ve been thinking about this for a while because after having some exposure to large organizations, it occurred to me that there is a desire to do more ‘unconventional marketing’ but the machine that’s in place is actually ‘conventional’ — all the things that have been done in the past. For example, it’s common and understandable for the ‘What’s the ROI?’ question to be raised during an unconventional marketing initiative, but that question could derail the entire effort before it has a chance to ever get off the ground. Sometimes the ROI is simply insights and lessons that are gleaned from actually doing the initiative. Other times, the direction of the initiative changes midway through in unexpected ways that could not have been predicted. Many times for the better — let’s not forget that Twitter was never meant to be what it ended up being today. 

Unconventional times call for unconventional paths 
Speaking from personal experience, I could not have predicted many of the outcomes I have had since launching a blog, but I believe following a much more ‘unconventional’ path is a core reason behind everything that I’ve learned from it. For a couple of hundred dollars a year and a whole lot of dedication and effort it’s priceless to me. So as I think about how times are becoming more unconventional — with unpredictable financial markets and political change in the air — I can’t help but think that it’s more important than ever to get serious about what it takes to do these types of initiatives right. It just doesn’t look like conventional marketing — it’s different. And unconventional times call for unconventional tactics.” 

Copyright © 1992-2009 Crain Communications

“Extending the OPAC”…02.10.09

Richard Wallis’ post on the Panlibus blog called Extending the OPAC  here is a subject of interest to me because of my limited technological expertise and the limitations of my organization’s current ILS OPAC. I will look forward to his future posts.

“Every library’s needs are different when it comes to what they want to display to users in their OPAC – beyond the basic bibliographic information that is.  Although I must admit that I’ve been a few mind numbing meetings over the years about the ‘most appropriate’ way to display a record on screen.

Scattered around the web you will find many examples of how OPACs have been extended to enable the user link in to other services such as Amazon, or AbeBoooks, or LibraryThing, or Google Scholar, or Yahoo images, or Google Book Search, or del.icio.us, or … [insert you favourite 3rd party service here].  For most developers in the library code community, adding these extensions to their OPAC is a comparatively simple exercise. 

I believe that in the wider world, most of the folks responsible for an individual library’s OPAC would not consider themselves as coders, and would at most only be comfortable copying and pasting small bits of html in to their interface.  So how do they get these features in to their systems.  It is unlikely that you would get much help from the system vendors, as it would be difficult for them to build a product roadmap around the ever changing multiplicity of extensions and combinations of thereof.  The coding community are good at sharing code with other coders, but not necessarily in a form that is either consistent between extensions or OPACs.

I’m working on a way that will hopefully make it easy for innovators to share what they are doing not only with others in their community, but most importantly with those less code-aware OPAC managers, who may even be using different systems. 

The screen shot above shows Google Book Search preview service embedded in a Talis Prism OPAC.  What is not obvious is the simple way that it was added.  I will be going more in to depth on this open source sharing approach to OPAC extension at Code4Lib 2009 at the end of the month...”

Will Google Head Down the Path to Creative Destruction?…02.20.09

Stephen Abram pointed out a though-provoking article posted on the Silicon Valley Insider entitled Google Next Victim Of Creative Destruction? (GOOG) by John Borthwick which is worth reading. Here is an excerpt:

“The web has repeatedly demonstrated its ability to evolve and leave embedded franchises struggling or in the dirt. Prodigy, AOL were early candidates. Today Yahoo and Ebay are struggling, and I think Google is tipping down the same path. This cycle of creative destruction — more recently framed as the innovators dilemma — is both fascinating and hugely dislocating for businesses. To see this immense franchises melt before your very eyes — is hard to say the least…

What would Google do?

I love the fact that Twitter is letting its business plan emerge in a crowd sourced manner. Search is clearly a very big piece of the puzzle — but what about the incumbents? What would Google do, to quote Jarvis? Let me play out some possible moves on the chess board…

Google is left with a set of conflicting choices. And there is a huge business model question. Does Ad Sense work well in the conversational sphere?   My experience turning Fotolog into a business suggests that it would work but not as well as it does on Google.com. The intent is different when someone posts on Twitter vs. searching on Google. Yet, Twitter as a venture backed company has the resources to figure out exactly how to tune AdSense or any other advertising or payments platform to its stream of data. Lastly, I would say that there is a human obstacle here.  As always the creative destruction is coming from the bottom up — its scrappy and and prone to been written off as NIH. Twitter search today is crude — but so was Google.com once upon a not so long time ago. Its hard to keep this perspective, especially given the pace that these platforms reach scale. It would be fun to play out the chess moves in detail but I will leave that to another post. I’m running out of steam here.

AOL has taken a long time to die. I thought the membership (paid subscribers) and audience would fall off faster than it has. These shifts happen really fast but business models and organizations are slow to adapt…“   

Updated Facebook Guide…02.10.09

I liked Nicole Engard’s post today on the  blog What I Learned Today… entitled  Facebook Guide Updated because I finally got around to creating a Facebook presence last week without reading any documentation.  It’s rather intuitive but this overview should help me when I get a chance to work more on Facebook:

Step by Step Guide to Getting Started with Facebook…

• First search your email address book to see which of your friends are already on Facebook by entering your webmail login information.
  
• Next choose friends that match those in your address book to connect to on Facebook (or click ‘Skip’ to skip this step)
  
• You can also find friends by entering your education and current employer (or click ‘Skip this step’ in the bottom right)
  
• Based on the information you enter, Facebook will make friend suggestions for you
• Next, choose your local network (or click ‘Skip this step’ in the bottom right)
  
• Next you will be brought to your new Facebook homepage
  
• By using the search box on the top right you can find people you may know as well as groups and pages of interest
  
• From the search results you can
  • Send a message to your friend or click ‘Add as Friend’
    • Clicking ‘Add as Friend’ will notify the person that you want to be friends
  • Join a group by clicking the Join link
  • Become a fan of a page by clicking the ‘Become a Fan’ link
• Next, you’ll want to update your profile.
• Click the ‘Profile link on the menu bar at the top.
• Click ‘Edit my profile’ under the headshot on the left
• By clicking on the highlighted headings (Basic Information, Personal Information, Contact Information, Education and Word) you can enter as much or as little information about yourself as you’d like
• By entering multiple email addresses, it will make it easier for people to find you
• Relationship information will appear on your main profile page
• Personal information will just give people a feel for who you are
• By entering your education, fellow alumni will be able to find you
• Work information can be used by potential employers and by colleagues who are looking to find you on Facebook
• While it’s not required to enter a picture, adding one to your profile helps people identify you (especially if your name has changed)
• You will also want to pay close attention to the settings menu in the top right
  

• Privacy and account settings are important to set up so that you only share as much about you as you choose.
• Once your account is set up, you can keep up with updates from your friends, groups, applications and pages by looking to the right of your homepage
  
• You can also find messages from friends by clicking on Inbox on the top of the screen.
  
• At the bottom right of your screen you’ll see the Facebook Chat
  
• By clicking on ‘Online Friends’ you’ll see your friends who are on Facebook right now. Double clicking on your friend’s name will open a chat window.
• Type your message and hit enter to send it to your friend instantly.
• On the bottom left you will see your Applications
• To create a page for the first time you will need to search for ‘Pages’
  
• Click on the first result ‘Facebook Pages’
  
• Click the link for creating a page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/create.php
• All future pages you create can be created from the Page Manager application that you can find listed under your applications tab…”

Open Shelves Classification Update…02.10.09

Here is an update on the Open Shelves Classification project from the Thingology (LibraryThing’s ideas blog): Open Shelves Classification Update post on LibraryThing:

“…Well we have been busy since Tim announced the classify-this feature. The OSC group has been extremely active with over 300+ posts about the top level categories (not to mention insightful threads popping up to discuss second level categories)…

 

We have been processing all your feedback and working on version 2.0 of the top level categories. Before we get to that, we wanted to let everyone know that we do read all the posts in the Open Shelves Classification group. Because of the high quantity of posts (and our day jobs) we cannot comment or respond individually as often as we would like.

Some key points after discussion, feedback and analysis:

-The number of categories in the top level. As decided last summer, we will have more rather than fewer top level categories. The top levels are not supposed to represent an even distribution of all possible branches of knowledge. Instead, the OSC top levels should represent the largest categories that public libraries will want to use. [Similar to how Library of Congress classification was built to meet the needs of the Library of Congress, while Dewey's system tried to contain all recorded knowledge.]

-Complaints about specific topics in the top level. Remember, there is no value judgment in a topic being placed at the top level or underneath a broader topic. For now, topics like Pets, Gardening, and True Crime are present because of feedback from public librarians that these are heavily requested books that are often pulled out into their own sections. As a guiding principle, the OSC will be statistically tested, so some of our top level categories may change as actual libraries begin to reclassify their collections.

-The nature of classification. Any classification system forces us to choose one topic for the book, even though that book may be about more than one topic. This is not a flaw in the OSC categories but in the nature of classification. Libraries will still use multiple subject headings in the catalog to capture all the topical aspects of the work.

-Facets. As talked about a few months ago, we currently plan on the top level categories being only topical while other aspects of the work will be represented by facets. For example, format will be captured in a separate facet. [And to clear up any lingering confusion, Comics will be a format facet.] Another facet talked about was audience. This means children’s books will be tagged in the audience facet. We envision that these facets will be optional and libraries can use them if, for example, they want to pull out all the comics and shelve them in a unique section. Alternatively, the facet could be ignored and then graphic novels would be intershelved with other like topics. Here is a picture of what we are envisioning:

-Classification versus Signage. The top levels categories have nothing to do with signage. This is particularly true with children’s books, which can be grouped/displayed as the library desires (e.g. picture books, infants, board books, etc.)…”

Digital Reference Trends…02.09.09

The Digital Reference blog post Trends in Digital Reference today  listed the following overview of  ”notable things going on in digital reference in the last few years” so I am “noting” them here:

“New IM/chat software options

• Library H3lp (allows for collaborative IM reference service)
• Open access software used by L-net’s statewide service in Oregon and KnowItNow’s statewide service in Ohio
• Increased use of widgets for chat/IM (QuestionPoint’s Qwidget, Meebo, Chatango, etc.)

Public sharing of reference interactions

• L-net’s Conversation Archive
• Reference Extract
• QuestionPoint’s KnowledgeBase (see also related posts on QuestionPoint blog)

Outreach by reference librarians on answer boards

• Answer Board Librarians

Growing interest in SMS reference (text message reference)

• Mosio’s Text A Librarian service
• Southeastern University of Louisiana (a long-running service)
• Yale University’s Txt a Science Librarian and Maui Community College’s Ask Ellen (related slide presentation)

Increase in collaborative/cooperative reference services

• Collaborative Virtual Reference Symposium 2007
• Library H3lp finally making it possible for IM software to be used for collaborative reference services
• QuestionPoint service adds University of California libraries, New York Public Library, Brooklyn Public Library, and Queens Library to its cooperative reference service”

Kindle 2 is now on the Amazon website–See New Video…02.09.09

From the Kindle 2 on Amazon post on the LISNews blog:

“The Kindle 2 is now on the Amazon website. There is a video at Amazon that discusses the Kindle 2.

Kindle 2: Amazon’s New Wireless Reading Device (Latest Generation)

One of the new features is text to speech for all books on the Kindle.”

Amazon says:

Price: $359.00 & this item ships for FREE with Super Saver Shipping. Details

This item will be released on February 24, 2009. Pre-order now! Ships from and sold by Amazon.com. Gift-wrap available.

Order Kindle now to RESERVE YOUR PLACE IN LINE. We prioritize orders on a first come, first served basis. 

If you have previously placed an order for Kindle 1, and have not yet received it, your order will automatically be upgraded to Kindle 2. You need to do nothing. 

Special Opportunity for Kindle 1 Owners
Even though we’ve increased our manufacturing capacity, we want to be sure our original Kindle owners are first in line to receive Kindle 2. Place your Kindle 2 order by midnight PST on February 10th and you will receive first priority…”

If I had the extra cash, I would try to be the first in line!!!!!!! 

EverNote–Easy Saving Web Pages…02.09.09

This is from the Knowbodies blog on EverNote which I think will be quite helpful:

“For an understanding of how EverNote works on the web, watch the video…“

Here is another video from EverNote:

Kindle 2 to Arrive Feb. 24?…02.09.09

From “Anyone fancy a Kindle 2?” from the UK’s Guardian in advance of today’s announcement from Amazon:

“…I think these look better than the leaked pictures on The Boy Genius site.

According to Engadget, where I found the latest pictures: 

We’ll admit to missing the polarizing ultra-80s look of the original, but this thing looks pretty sweet — too bad it’s still going to set you back $359 when it arrives on February 24…”

 

AND this from the Amazon Kindle, Books, Kindle 2.o-Amazon Kindle Review blog:

“…Kindle 2.0 Thoughts

The leaked pictures and Kindle 2.0 rumors seem to indicate that Kindle 2.0 will -

1. Be very slim at just 0.4 inches.
2. Have smaller Next page and Previous Page buttons.
3. Be priced somewhere between $349 and $399.
4. Be offered to all people who had bought a Kindle 1.0 for a 10% higher price.
5. Kindle 2.0 will replace Kindle 1.0
6. Kindle 2.0 will have a keyboard.
7. Have a USB port at the bottom (right at the centre).
8. Have rounded corners and no sharp edges.

The things that are not confirmed are -

1. Actual release date – I really, really hope the Feb 24th rumours are nonsense. There’s only so much of waiting we can take before it becomes painful.
2. Whether It’ll be an International Release or not. There is a tiny slot at the top that might be meant for a cell phone SIM card. Or maybe not.
3. The original leaks at BoyGeniusReport indicated that memory would be at least 1.4 GB and perhaps more.
4. There’s a steel cover at the back, and it’s not clear whether the battery is replaceable or not.
5. Whether the screen will be higher resolution.
6. Whether Kindle 2.0’s screen will reload faster.
7. Whether Kindle 2.0 will have a touch screen.

Non Kindle 2.0 News that is expected (just me speculating) -

1. Amazon Library – A huge library of free public domain books that will be available in the Kindle store, with a subset of 500 or so most popular titles included on Kindle 2.0 itself.
2. Kindle App Platform – An app platform (tightly monitored by Amazon) that will start sometime in Q2, 2009.
3. Kindle Textbook Edition – Further details on what this is, and an approximate date for when it will be announced (and by approximate I mean they’ll just say 2nd half 2009, or something as vague as that).
4. Kindle Books for Mobile – An announcement on what form this will take and a vague idea of when it’ll be coming out….”

Communicating Without Barriers…02.09.09

This is an excerpt from an insightful post titled The Impact of the iPhone  from lauren’s library blog about how recent technologies such as the iPhone and others are hugely changing the way in which we communciate in libraries and elsewhere:

“…And it has changed how we expect to access certain types of information. Instead of jotting down notes to check next time I’d be around a computer, I can just check the information. I can get email and read the paper (a little too) easily. I didn’t realize quite the impact twitter or friendfeed would have, and the phone provides an excellent interface to that community. I really doubted I’d ever be interested in ebooks, but stanza has quickly become my preferred way to read certain texts.

Most recently, at ALA, I was thinking about how twitter has changed my conference experience:

Blogs seemed to play less of a role at this conference, and Twitter/Liveblogging/streaming video played way more. It dawned on me at one point that I used to keep my RSS reader open throughout the conference to see what was going on. I barely cracked it on this trip, instead incessantly updating and watching Twitter. I actually think this might be a move towards the positive. There were several meetings where people all over the country participated because of the real-time nature of Twitter.

And now that I’m home I’m reflecting on how I was on Twitter All The Time because my phone made that a really easy thing to do. I’m currently using Tweetie, which is great for tracking your friends’ general conversation, replies aimed @ you, and direct messages. It also has the added benefit of showing you tweets from people located nearby.

So, as I’m thinking about how the iPhone has changed my Internet/information behavior, I’m also thinking about how it makes sites like Twitter better. And I’m thinking about how that combination makes conferences better.

At conferences you can:

• Participate in more than one meeting at once: physically in one place, participating via Twitter in meetings taking places in other locations.
• Getting snippets and facts from presentations in other locations
• Having conversations with other working on similar issues
• Find out about new programs and groups that fit your professional interest
• etc. etc.

And this is great for making conferences better. And, really, this is good for one’s Personal Learning Environment in general. I’m able to learn a lot (and hopefully contribute some) through participating in Twitter. I live vicariously through colleagues going to other conferences. In fact, the points above, about how Twitter made ALA better for me, are also helpful to those who aren’t actually there.

Now I’m wondering about the classroom. I’m opposed to forcing “fun” social software on students for grading (unless the course is about those types of websites… very meta), so I doubt that I’d require a student use Twitter. But I can see how it would be helpful. I knew very few philosophy students when I was working on my degree. It would have been VERY cool to connect with philosophy students at other universities through something like Twitter.

And now, we’re not even talking about the iPhone anymore. And, really, we’re not talking about Twitter. We’re talking about communicating with people without the barriers that were in place just a few years ago. Twitter helps with this. The iPhone certainly makes it easy. Mostly, I’m glad to be at a point where the changes that I knew were going to happen are beginning to be realized. I didn’t know how our relationship might change due to the iPhone, I just knew that it was going to. It’s neat to see just how that’s happening.”

Seth Godin on “Learning All the Time”…02.08.09

In his post today Learning all the time, Seth Godin says

“My post on possible uses of education struck a chord with people. Different people are looking for different outcomes.

The first implication of this list: why did you stop educating yourself when you graduated?

Not you, of course. You read blogs and by that action demonstrate that you’re looking for something new, or useful, or important.

I’m fascinated by the way the marketplace treats non-fiction books, particularly business books. The most popular business book of all time was purchased by less than 3% of all the people who could benefit from it, and read by a tiny fraction of that group. I’m guessing that less than 10% of the people who read this blog have read one of my books.

Books remind us of school, of chores, of homework. Give someone a DVD of a hit movie currently in the theaters and they’ll eagerly thank you and watch it that weekend. Give them a book and it’s a whole commotion. “I read that book!” they brag to you next week, when maybe they didn’t really.

Which leads to The 100 Best Business Books of All Time, which is a shortcut in the best sense of the word. Not some sort of prurient blog list designed to draw traffic, the book actually makes you sound smart because the authors tell you what each book says… so you can get back to your DVD.

The #1 habit successful people share with me is this: They read books to learn. They do it often and with joy. It’s cheap (or free, at the library or online) and portable and specific…”

Great Video Marketing Learning 2.0…02.08.09

I came across this great video on e-learning from “up north” at Lake Superior College in Duluth:

More on Eye-Tracking…02.08.09

As a follow up to the post from Google about eye-tracking, I found this excerpt Eye Tracking and Good Web Design post from Bibliothekia today to be worthwhile and helpful too:

“…For obvious reasons this is often known as the ‘golden triangle’ and it forms part of good web design. See the following examples.
While there is nothing really new in this Google study (Stephen Abram for example has blogged about eye ball tracking thermals and web usability for years) it is interesting that web designers still get this wrong. For example, have a look at the National Gallery of Victoria web site. All the core information and navigation paths are placed on the page in the very places people don’t check out first; and the parts of the page where people do tend to look is blank.

Not that I want to pick on the National Gallery of Victoria, but they have won awards for their online offers. Go figure!?! I guess (like this Oscars) this demonstrates you can win awards for excellence and not actually perform. Did you know that Cary Grant, Greta Garbo, and Alfred Hitchcock never won an Oscar, and I bet you have never heard of some of the films which have won an Oscar.

But back to the Google eye tracking study, it is good to see that Google is still interested in ‘design[ing] a subtle user interface that gives people helpful information without getting in the way of their primary task: finding relevant information.’ Now if only more people took this approach.”

Google Eye-Tracking Studies…02.08.09

Here is an excerpt from the Official Google Blog post Eye-tracking studies: more than meets the eye on their very interesting eye tracking studies using their universal search but read the whole posting:

“…To see what the eye-tracking data we collect looks like, let’s go back to the results page we got for the query [how to tie a tie]. The following video clip shows in real time how a participant in our study scanned the page. And yes, seriously — the video is in real time! That’s how fast the eyes move when scanning a page. The larger the dot gets, the longer the users’ eye pauses looking at that specific location.

Based on eye-tracking studies, we know that people tend to scan the search results in order. They start from the first result and continue down the list until they find a result they consider helpful and click it — or until they decide to refine their query. The heatmap below shows the activity of 34 usability study participants scanning a typical Google results page. The darker the pattern, the more time they spent looking at that part of the page. This pattern suggests that the order in which Google returned the results was successful; most users found what they were looking for among the first two results and they never needed to go further down the page.

When designing the user interface for Universal Search, the team wanted to incorporate thumbnail images to better represent certain kinds of results. For example, in the [how to tie a tie] example above, we have added thumbnails for Image and Video results. However, we were concerned that the thumbnail images might be distracting and disrupt the well-established order of result evaluation.

We ran a series of eye-tracking studies where we compared how users scan the search results pages with and without thumbnail images. Our studies showed that the thumbnails did not strongly affect the order of scanning the results and seemed to make it easier for the participants to find the result they wanted.

The thumbnail image seemed to make results with thumbnails easy to notice when the users wanted them (see screenshots below — page with the thumbnail image on the right)…

 

Click the images to  view them larger.

…and the thumbnails also seemed to make it easy for people to skip over the results with thumbnails when those results were not relevant to their search (page with the thumbnail on the right). 

For the Universal Search team, this was a successful outcome. It showed that we had managed to design a subtle user interface that gives people helpful information without getting in the way of their primary task: finding relevant information…”

“Amazon Kindle 2 official photos, pricing, and availability leaked”…02.07.09

From The Boy Genius blog today with a post from Kelly Hodgkins on rumor on the Kindle 2 announcement Monday:

Amazon Kindle 2 official photos, pricing, and availability leaked  Looks like those Kindle 2 photos we published back in October were spot on. Additional official-looking photos of the Kindle 2 have emerged and the new e-reader from Amazon looks sweet! If the pencil comparison is accurate, then the new Kindle appears to shed much of its width, coming in as thin as the Sony PRS-505 reader, and little bit longer than both the original Kindle and the Sony Reader. As we reported earlier, the Kindle 2 also appears to have a metal back with built-in speakers. Start putting those pennies aside as the Kindle 2 is expected to hit Amazon on the 24th of February for $359, the same price as the current Kindle. No apparent price increase, yay! This is still all unconfirmed but the information seems to jive with previous rumors and the source of the leak is well-known in the e-book world. We will all get the skinny on this reader and its features on Monday, until then enjoy the photos after the jump.   Read

A “Survival Kit for Fundraising in a Bad Economy”…02.07.09

Stephen Abram posted the following on Stehpen’s Lighthouse about fundraising resources:

“I’ll bet fundraising has been getting a new focus in many library institutions in the past few months. AFP has compiled a toolkit of resources to advise and guide fundraisers in tough economic times.

The Association of Fundraising Professionals has posted A Survival Kit for Fundraising in a Bad Economy, which includes links to dozens of articles…”

“Government Documents Move to Improved Federal Digital System”…02.06.09

New FDsys:

Search Government Publications		Advanced Search Retrieve by Citation Help

GPO’s Federal Digital System (FDsys) provides public access to government information submitted by Congress and Federal agencies and preserved as technology changes. 

For more information on FDsys.

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The migration of information from GPO Access into FDsys will be complete in mid-2009. The migration is occurring on a collection-by-collection basis. Collections currently available on FDsys are:

Compilation of Presidential Documents (1993 to Present) Congressional Bills (103rd Congress to Present) Congressional Documents (104th Congress to Present) Congressional Hearings (105th Congress to Present)

Congressional Record (1994 to Present) Congressional Reports (104th Congress to Present) Federal Register (1994 to Present) Public and Private Laws (104th Congress to Present)

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If you are searching for information other than what is listed above, use GPO Access.

“Make Do or Jump Ship? Solo Librarians and Internal Career Advancement”…02.06.09

I came across a 2005 study by Corinne J. Mahoney entitled Make Do or Jump Ship? Solo Librarians and Internal Career Advancement  submitteded to the SLIS at UNC at Chapel Hill today which I found interesting, especially since I have been a solo, special librarian now for over 3 years.  Here are a couple of excerpts:

“…This study was designed to address the following research questions:

• Do the organizations that employ solo special librarians provide internal career advancement opportunities for them?

• If yes, is their a correlation between the type of organization and the prevalence of career advancement opportunities for solo special librarians?…”

The conclusion:

“This research study set out to determine if internal career advancement opportunities exist for solo special librarians. It also sought to determine if the type of organization influences the prevalence of internal career advancement opportunities. The study results, although not conclusive, suggest internal career advancement opportunities are not widespread for solo special librarians. Furthermore, the results suggest that the majority of solo special librarians are not particularly interested in advancing to new positions within their organizations. However, solos are very much interested in developing their skills and elevating the role of their library and its services within the organization (also a type of career advancement). No correlation was found between type of organization and the prevalence of internal career advancement opportunities.

Interesting significant relationships between internal career advancement opportunities (measured by a 12 point index) and other survey responses included:

• a positive correlation between internal career advancement opportunities and agreement with the statement that one is currently gaining skills that will make one more marketable in the future

• a positive correlation between internal career advancement opportunities and the belief that one is in a position (or will be in a position in the foreseeable future) to influence important policy or strategy decisions at one’s institution 

• a negative correlation between internal career advancement opportunities and the number of years in the library profession

The majority of respondents could not agree with the statement, “I am currently in a position to influence important policy or strategy decisions at my institution.” These results suggest that more attention should be given to career advancement issues for solo librarians. More training in library schools, at conferences and at professional workshops should address career advancement and how solo (or nearly solo) special librarians can position themselves to influence important organizational decisions.

For those solos who have ambitions to advance in the traditional sense by promotion, it is worth noting that several variables were significantly related to having received a promotion in the past five years. These variables include:

• number of supervisees

• receiving a non-promotional title change

• having a discussion about career goals with a manager in the past year

• having a manager who encouraged an internal job change in the last year

• the availability of internal job openings in the past year

• attending trainings led by or paid for by one’s employer in the past year

• the perception of having current and future influence over important policy or strategy decisions

Solos with an eye toward promotion should ask questions about these types of opportunities and events during the hiring or performance evaluation process. Absence of or resistance to these events could be a red flag that promotions are not forthcoming.

Finally, although the majority of survey respondents indicated that internal career advancement opportunities are scarce or undesirable, it is also important to note that there were some salient exceptions who reported ample opportunity for advancement. Almost 14% of respondents agreed that there were internal career advancement opportunities for them, and almost 23% had received a promotion at their current employer in the past five years. Close to 30% of respondents would be interested in an internal change of position. Some solos are open to taking on new roles in their organizations. This survey suggests, however, that there is not a lot of precedence. As information skills become increasingly relevant to organizations, solos interested in new roles may pave their own career paths within the organization and, in doing so, increase the value of librarians to the organizations. Solo special librarians will continue to change employers when necessary to advance their careers; however, jumping ship need not be the only advancement option.”

Library Messaging–”Choosing the Right Words”…02.06.09

I found the following from the Delta Point people truly is “essential” and worth posting to a wider audience, including those in libraries:

“Choosing the right words is essential to how you communicate your message. You want to choose the words that will matter most. 

Messaging is taking the core messages about your product/brand/ subject matter and communicating them effectively. This means choosing words that are reflective of how your audience/customer will understand what you are trying to say. It is how we communicate that message with words that really matter. We want to have our WORDS MATTER MOST and be so compelling that they engender thinking and change behavior! This should be our goal whether we are selling a product or persuading associates to adapt our business idea. When we speak, our goal should be to have our audience/customers recognize our interactive language as:

 
And if that is the case, we should expect the interaction to be: 

WORDS MATTER! 

Whether you are involved in selling, influencing, or persuading, words are your tools. After all, Mark Twain once noted, “The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter—it’s the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.” 

When we consistently say the right thing…at the right time…in the right way we are more persuasive, we ‘sell’ more, and we are more effective. So what is the right thing? How do we get to the point where our words have the effect we want on a more consistent basis? 

When it comes to crafting messages, the right thing is driven by a combination of the right intent and the right content. We need to think about the information we seek, the atmosphere, the climate, and the mood we hope to create with the words we use. Select the right words to create a positive mood, movement, atmosphere, climate, and feeling. You can only select the right words by comprehensively thinking through the condition and content for the conversation. This is what DELTA POINT, Inc. helps its clients do….determine what specific combination and sequence of words or language will engender the change in behavior we are seeking. It isn’t easy to do but when it works, it is like magic! 

Finding and using effective words requires preparation… lots of preparation. The right words require practice. You may not create another Gettysburg Address, but you will create powerful and persuasive messages that are more likely to change behavior.”

© Copyright 2009 DELTA POINT, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Help for Librarians and Others: “HOW TO: Build the Ultimate Social Media Resume”…02.06.09

Although I have seen the post before, I thought it would be relevant to recent posts and potentially helpful to others to draw attention a post last month titled HOW TO: Build the Ultimate Social Media Resume from Dan Schawbel, author of Me 2.0: Build a Powerful Brand to Achieve Career Success, that is excerpted here:

“With a social media resume, you’re able to paint a completely different portrait of yourself for hiring managers and customize it to reflect your personal brand. With the inclusion of various multimedia elements, sharing options, integrated social networking feeds and the same elements you’d find in a traditional resume, you are better equipped for success.

Social media has allowed us to reverse the recruiting process. Instead of submitting our resume, it becomes a billboard that can be shared, distributed to hiring managers, searched and more. In one sense it showcases your talents and what you’re looking for in a job and in the other, recruiters become attracted to it and will approach you with the opportunities that you desire…”

See the complete posting which describes the details of “the social media resume process”: HOW TO: Build the Ultimate Social Media Resume

“Apple Vs Kindle + Netbooks + cellphones battle”…02.06.09

It seems the tensions and potential competitor announcements are mounting daily as the new Kinle 2 announcement day approaches next week. The Amazon, Kindle, Books, Kindle 2.0 – Amazon Kindle Review blog points out the battle lines being drawn today:

“It seems I missed this rather important piece of news that the NY Times just published -

Also Thursday, Amazon said that it was working on making the titles for its popular e-book reader, the Kindle, available on a variety of mobile phones. The company… did not say when Kindle titles would be available on mobile phones.

‘We are excited to make Kindle books available on a range of mobile phones,’ said Drew Herdener, a spokesman for Amazon.

This is hugely important as it means we’re just

1. A step away from having all manner of cellphone eReaders start offering Kindle Store Books.
2. A few steps away from having an eReader for netbooks that couples with Amazon’s Kindle Book Store.

My suspicion is that Amazon might start off with their own eReader – however, at some point of time they would want to open it up to all the different eReading softwares that are available, and more importantly, already popular.

The biggest thing it does is it turns a potential Apple Vs Amazon Kindle battle into a Apple Vs Kindle+Netbooks+cellphones battle. Very cool strategic move by Amazon.”

Librarian–Brand Thyself…02.06.09

There is a lengthy post on personal branding today on Mashable! titled Personal Branding 101: How to Discover and Create Your Brand worth reviewing by Dan Schawbel of the Personal Branding Blog which is excerpted here:

“In the past few years personal branding has been discussed exhaustively throughout the Net. The difference between today and over ten years ago when it was first mentioned by Tom Peters, is the rise of social technologies that have made branding not only more personal, but within reach…

Many people think that personal branding is just for celebrities such as Paris Hilton or Britney Spears, yet each and every one of us is a brand. Personal branding, by definition, is the process by which we market ourselves to others. As a brand, we can leverage the same strategies that make these celebrities or corporate brands appeal to others. We can build brand equity just like them.

We can also have just as much presence as most startups and mid-size companies and products. Social media tools have leveled the playing ground and have enabled us to reach incredible heights, at the cost of our time. Today, I want to share the personal branding process, so you can start to think about what face you want to show to the world and how you want to position yourself for success!

1. Discover your brand…

2. Create your brand

…1. Business card: It doesn’t matter if you’re a college student, CEO, or a consultant, everyone should have their own business card. The card should contain your picture, your personal brand statement (such as Boston Financial Expert), as well as your *preferred* contact information and corporate logo if necessary.

You can create your own business card and share it through your mobile phone using mydropcard.com or rmbrme.com. On the web, BusinessCard2.com is a great social network for creating and distributing your person business card.

2. Resume/cover letter/references document: These are typical documents that you need for applying for jobs and when you go on interviews (something over 2 million job seekers will be doing as we speak). Be sure to prioritize each document with information custom to the target position. Take your resume online and add social features to it to make the ultimate social media resume, promoting your personal brand to the world and making it shareable.

 3. Portfolio: Whether you use a CD, web or print portfolio, it’s a great way to showcase the work you’ve done in the past, which can convince someone of your ability to accomplish the same results for the future. Figdig.com andcarbonmade.com are social networks for people who want to show off their creative skills to the world.

4. Blog/website: You need to own yourname.com or a website that aligns with your name in some fashion. Depending on who you are, how much time you have on your hands and if you can accept criticism, you should either start a blog or stick with a static homepage. Those who blog will have a stronger asset than those who don’t because blogs rank higher in search engines and lend more to your expertise and interest areas over time.

5. LinkedIn profile: A LinkedIn profile is a combination of a resume, cover letter, references document and a moving and living database of your network. Use it to create your own personal advertising, to search for jobs or meet new people.

6. Facebook profile: Over 160 million people have profiles, but almost none of them have branded themselves properly using this medium. Be sure to include a Facebook picture of just you, without any obscene gestures or unnecessary vodka bottles. Also, input your work experience and fill out your profile, while turning on the privacy options that disable the ability for people to tag you in pictures and videos (allowing people to see the ones tagged of you).

 7. Twitter profile: Your Twitter profile should have an avatar that is carved out of your Facebook picture and used in your LinkedIn profile. You need to use a distinct background, fill out your profile and include a link to either your blog or LinkedIn profile. Twitterbacks.com, developed by internet mogul Jim Kukral, has templates you can use to sculpt your very own Twitter background (Photoshop skills not included). Twitbacks.com is another solution that also lets you promote your Twitter profile.

8. Video resume: A video resume is a short video of you talking about why you are the best for a specific job opportunity. You get about a minute or so to communicate your brand and are able to send the link, once you upload it to YouTube, to hiring managers.

9. Wardrobe: Your personal style is tangible and is extremely important for standing out from the crowd. Select clothing that best represents you because it will be viewable through your pictures/avatars online, as well as when you meet people in reality.

10. Email address: Don’t overlook your email address as not being a significant part of your toolkit. Most people use email over all social networks and when you connect with someone on a social network, you are notified via email, so get used to it. Your email address poses a great opportunity for your brand. I recommend using gmail because of the acceptance of Google and since GTalk allows you to form tighter relationships with others. For your address, use “firstname.lastname@gmail.com.”

What’s next?

After you spend the time on these parts of your personal branding toolkit, it’s time to showcase it to the world, especially your target audience. Don’t be fooled by the myth that if you build it, they will come. Unless you’re the luckiest person on earth, you’ll have to actually communicate everything you’ve created to others…

More branding resources from Mashable!:

- Top 10 Reputation Tracking Tools Worth Paying for
- Top 10 Free Tools for Monitoring Your Brand’s Reputation
- 10 Ways Personal Branding Can Save You From Getting Fired

- HOW TO: Build the Ultimate Social Media Resume“

DON’T MISS THIS ONE!

How to Stream Your Presentation Online…02.06.09

A First Librarian post yesterday mentioned:

“Presentations: a requirement in almost every library interview. But if you could make your pitch before the live audience, should you?”

Here is a simple YouTube video they brought attention to from Hack College explaining “How to Hack an In-Class Presentation” relevant to other presentations as well:

These links “to improve your presentation skills” are from the Librarian By Day:

• Presentation Zen
• Talking Good : Giving Effective Presentations
• How to Give a Good Presentation
• The Public Speaking Blog
• Public Speaking Do’s and Don’ts from Lifehaker
• Consider join your local Toastmasters

“Kindle: Lo-fi v. High Tech”…02.06.09

Here is an excerpt of an interesting post that I can empathize with from Sarah Zhang titled Kindle: Lo-fi v. High Tech from the Digital Natives blog today.

“With Amazon’s new Kindle set to debut next week, the web is abuzz with rumors about Kindle 2.0. Will it have web browsing? Will there be networking features with other Kindles? Will it at least be a little less clunky?

When the original Kindle debuted in fall 2007, Jesse wrote an insightful post arguing that despite the tempting comparison to iPods, the Kindle is really a digital immigrant’s device. It’s designed to mimic the tactile and visual sensation of reading a book, and it has none of the slick elegance of an iPhone. Far short of paradigm-shifting, it looked back instead of forwards. These characteristics opened up the Kindle to criticism, but it hasn’t kept the device from gaining a loyal following… 

It’s true, the Internet can be demanding. New email, unread counts, missed calls, text message – they gush at you in a constant stream. It’s comforting, sometimes, to hold in your hands something finite and discrete, something that doesn’t ask you to respond right away 

…extolments of Kindle’s paperness reminded of Jack Cheng’s “In Praise of Lo-Fi,” in which he asks what happens to deep contemplation in a world blanketed in wi-fi and wireless power – a world where connectivity can’t be turned off. He turns to the opposite: lo-fi…

I often find myself in search of lo-fi these days. At first, I tried to battle technology with technology. Leechblock or an user account with “parental” controls disabling Internet, but I found them too easily circumvented when surrounded by multiple web browsers and multiple computers. Even though many of my classes have online readings, I now print out and annotate them by hand, making sure to sit far away from any luminescent electronic screens. When writing a paper, I sometimes shut my laptop and take a walk outside to ruminate by myself. Those with better willpower can take less drastic measures, but I’m too easily distracted.

When the new Kindle does debut, it’ll have to mediate two opposing tensions. One of innovation, it has to compete with all-capable gadgets like the iPhone. On the other hand, it should still be a reading experience, not another portable computer. Will it combine the best or worst of both worlds? If I got a Kindle, I’m afraid I’ll be lured by easy downloads and accumulate a backlog of books much like the way unlistened podcasts have taken over my iPod. Or perhaps, it’ll have better wireless integration and finally get me to read the articles I’ve saved via Instapaper. Convenient or too convenient?…”