Using QR Codes in Libraries and Other Learning Environments…03.29.09

QR codes seem to be of great interest to librarians and others but there are not many examples of actual use available.  The e-learning case studies blog yesterday posted about their use of QR Codes at the University of Bath in the UK in Using QR Codes during Innovations Week which I have excerpted here:

“…I recently used QR Codes (http://www.bath.ac.uk/barcodes) to support the University’s Innovations Week in Teaching and Learning. The aim was to include QR Codes on the supporting material to enable the mobile (phone) user to more effeciently connect to online material and complete any required tasks.

What was the role of the technology?

The QR Codes were used in a number of different contexts;

Poster displays

QR Codes were used around the poster display area to allow people to scan the code and connect with the supporting blog. In this scenario the person would scan the code, access the blog and either leave a comment for the author or read and comment on other people’s views. Alternatively, they could scan a second QR Code to send a submit their comments via SMS. The outcome is a reduction in barroers to leaving comments. For instance, the person was not required to leave the poster display area to find a computer.

Access to online support materials

We provided a large number of different forms of publicity materials, from fliers and posters, to fortune cookies. These included a QR Code which linked to further online support material. The thoughts behind this was to provide just in time information to where the person was located.

Examples of these are available from: http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=iw2009…

One positive outcome was from the perspective of the people generating the QR Codes. There were around 4 people in the team who used the University of Bath’s QR Code Generator (http://www.bath.ac.uk/barcodes ). They had no problems, or support needs in generating and including them within their materials…

Issues / Problems

Given this is such a newly emerging technology within Learning and Teaching, I’d divided the issues as follows;

Raising awareness…

Motivating people to install the software…

Maximising usability…

What tips do you have for others?

Firstly, address the issues and problems raised in the previous section. Secondly, a very practical tip would be to implement an image management process. For instance, we generated a large number of QR Codes on this project and to reduce repetition at creating the same link numerous times we used share drived / shared file repositories. At the University of Bath, the LMF (http://www.bath.ac.uk/lmf ) is perfect for this task.

Plans for the future

Overall, I was very encouraged by this pilot. It highlighted a considerable number of issues surrounding how we might ensure that QR Codes are effectively implemented. I’m already building on this experience as I’ll be working with UKOLN on the effective use of QR Codes to support their 2009 Workshop.”

Librarians Can Be Dangerous to Ourselves and Others…03.19.09

Nothing new here… I’m just sharing some ruminations on the general dangers inherent in our work.

Librarians, like most graduates of higher education, usually have specialties and librarians–like most educated people today–know a little about a lot of things–sometimes a very dangereous position. I guess we would normally respond to a discussion of any such thoughts of potential danger by agreeing with the old saying “curiosity killed the cat but satisfaction brought it back!” And, we librarians certainly are a curious lot.

Good librarians generally seem to have a broader range and scope of general knowledge than most individuals and by nature and/or training are able to obtain detailed data, information and/or knowledge on virtually any subject of interest regardless of how intellectually stimulating, mundane or relatively insignificant.

Nevertheless, it’s obviously impossible from an objective observation of the times in which we live to be a true “Renaissance man” (or woman) or polymath.  To think otherwise is to submit to the hubris and egotistical tendencies of which we mortals are so easily drawn.

The danger in our profession lies, as it does in the general population, in our sometimes over-zealous attempts to jump without thoughtful consideration into areas of unfamiliarity and lack of expertise where we can get in way over our heads despite even the best of intentions. During these times, we hopefully know where to turn for the lifeline.

We need to accept the philosophy of Officer “Dirty” Harry Callahan who said: “A man’s got to know his limitations.” Of course, this does not mean that we shouldn’t continue to strive forward.  Perspective and context, however, are essential to keep us from danger.

This problem is further illustrated in the following excerpt from Alexander Pope’s ”Essay on Criticism“:

“A little learning is a dang’rous thing;

Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring:

There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,

And drinking largely sobers us again.

Fir’d at first sight with what the Muse imparts,

In fearless youth we tempt the heights of Arts,

While from the bounded level of our mind

Short views we take, nor see the lengths behind;

But more advanc’d, behold with strange surprise

New distant scenes of endless science rise!

So pleas’d at first the towering Alps we try,

Mount o’er the vales, and seem to tread the sky,

Th’ eternal snows appear already past,

And the first clouds and mountains seem the last;

But, those attain’d, we tremble to survey

The growing labours of the lengthen’d way,

Th’ increasing prospects tire our wand’ring eyes,

Hills peep o’er hills, and Alps on Alps arise!”

Along this same line of thought–and considering the amount of data and information which increasingly bombards us all daily from every direction–it would be prudent to also be mindful of and heed the warning [admonition] of King Solomon (a.k.a. “The Preacher“) at the conclusion of his life:

“…And further, by these, my son, be admonished: of making many books there is no end; and much study is a weariness of the flesh.”

New Business Search Engine “Newssift”…03.19.09

A post from Informationoverloard titled Newssift – promising new business news search engiine excerpted here:

“The FT has launched a new business news search engine called Newssift. Newssift indexes about 4,000 business news sources, from online newspapers and blogs to news portals and research sites. It is ingesting about 120,000 articles a day right now and applying semantic tags to each one. In the end it can categorize each article by business topic, organization, place, person, and theme.

You can enter a search term, or choose from news topics – random topics currently in news in the Business, Organisation, Place, Person, and Theme categories..

This has a lot of promise. The Faceted search approach is a good one. Whilst is by no means perfect of of the box, it is certainly worth keeping an eye on and adding to you list of news search tools.”

IT Departments Resist Cloud Computing…03.19.09

With all the interest in cloud computing and its apparent inevitability, the following excerpt from “Cloud Computing? No thanks, Say CIOs” from ZDNet Asia today:

“Cloud computing is often touted as cheaper than building and maintaining in-house IT systems, leading to speculation that it may be one of the technologies to benefit as CIOs have to tighten their belts in the face of recession.

However, three-quarters of companies that use ‘proprietary systems’ said the economic downturn had not ‘spurred their interest’ in cloud models, according to a new survey, while the other quarter said the tough business environment had actually decreased their interest in cloud computing.

In the survey of 500 c-level executives and IT managers, sponsored by Microsoft-focused consultancy Avanade, 27 percent of companies that did use cloud computing said they were likely to increase use of it because of the downturn.

Another 60 percent said there had been no impact and 13 percent said they had reduced their use of cloud technologies because of the economic climate.

Concerns around cloud computing included security and loss of control–the most frequently mentioned worry in the survey, followed by the difficulty of integrating with existing internal systems, high ongoing costs and poor support…”

© 2009 CBS Interactive Inc.

“Cloud could be ‘more important than the PC’”…03.19.09

A ZDNet Asia article yesterday by Tim Ferguso titled “Cloud could be ‘more imporatnt than the PC” is excerpted here:

“The advent of cloud computing could have a greater impact on public sector IT than the PC revolution did in the 1980s, according to the U.K. Society of Information Technology Management (Socitm).

The association for public sector IT professionals said the adoption of the technology is unstoppable, in much the same way as the adoption of PCs was decades ago once organizations realized the business benefits.

The flexibility and potential cost savings of using applications accessed via the Web will fuel adoption in the public sector, according to Socitm.

Socitm Insight principal associate Chris Head told ZDNet Asia’s sister site Silicon.com, the ‘fortress’ approach of keeping all IT within the confines of the corporate network can’t be maintained.

With the average user already starting to use Web-based applications independently of the corporate IT department, Head said there will be growing pressure on management to look at the technologies…”

© 2009 CBS Interactive Inc.

Highly Praised “Tweetzi” Search Engine for Twitter…03.19.09

This is part of a post about the Tweetzi search engine for Twitter from Tweetzi Twitter search from the Pandia Search Engine News today:

“With the enormous amounts of information and the appalling signal to noise ratio on Twitter, good search tools are always welcome. How else would we get at the gems? Tweetzi is a Twitter search engine, developed by Craig Hughes, that is great for monitoring trends and following breaking news.

Tweetzi is a deceptively simple search tool: A start page that is googlesqe in its simplicity and uncluttered search results displaying tweets in real time. But the simple design contains some advanced features.

Real time Twitter search…

Filter search results…

The search results page contains links to the top ten Twitter topics at the moment. If you are into celebrities or trendspotting, this can be useful.

Next to your search results, Tweetzi displays a list of your recent searches. If you want to repeat a search, it is only a click away…”

Libraries of the Future Debate at the Bodleian April 2nd 2009

Here is an excerpt of the upcoming and important JISC Libraries of the Future program to be held at the prestigious  University of Oxford’s  Bodleian Library from the JISC posting Libraries of the Future Debate at the Bodleian:

“…Issues

The event will consider some of the key challenges that will shape the library of the future if it is to survive.

These challenges include:

•Skills – considering the skills that are needed to meet this challenge. These skills range from IPR, preservation and data curation to marketing, branding and business planning;

•Partnerships - fostering partnerships between public and private as well as working across the organisation;

•End users – a heightened understanding of the changing user base and meeting their increasingly diverse needs; what are the (future) information needs of researchers and what will they need to undertake their research? what should the citizen expect?;

•The role of the librarian – Libraries are increasingly signing up people with skills in non traditional library fields, does this mean that the librarians are becoming obsolete or do they have a changing role that involves overseeing all these specialisms or should they endeavour to develop these skills themselves?

These challenges will be examined from several different perspectives through a range of speakers who will present their vision for the library of the future. These include:

•Sarah Thomas Bodley’s Librarian and Director, Oxford University Library Services – how is the library changing and what will it deliver;
• Santiago de la Mora who heads Google Book Search’s European partnerships, asking how does Google meet the library, use the library, is the library;
•Chris Batt OBE- a perspective on the public sector needs and the library offer;
•Professor Robert Darnton,  Director of the Harvard University Library – to present on the needs of the citizen in our democracy and what the library of the future needs to offer them;
•A media/publisher perspective, what are their information needs, how are they changing their provision ;
•Professor Peter Murray-Rust presenting a research/scientific perspective, what are their information needs (how do they undertake research) and what will they need to remain relevant and to produce new and innovative research…”

“10 Great Social Sites for Resume Building” for Librarians and Others…03.19.09

Mashable! has a good posting titled 10 Great Social Sites for Resume Building by Dan Schawbel excerpted here which may help those seeking employment or those trying to help those who are looking:

“…Razume is a service that enables job seekers to complete their resumes and polish them up with feedback from reviewers in the community.  The resume you create using this service is exactly like traditional resumes you may have created in the past, but this service allows you to improve your resume so you’re more likely to better your chances at landing your next job. Users are able to search for jobs on Razume and will soon be able to apply for them through the site itself….

LinkedIn seems to be on all of my job lists and for good reason.  LinkedIn is a combination of a resume, cover letter, reference document and a moving database of your contacts. The resume portion is quite standard, with fields asking for your education and work experience.  The cover letter piece is the summary you get to have at the beginning, where you can position yourself for a particular job, based on your qualifications, awards and an explanation of what type of job you’re looking for. As you accelerate in your career, your network can easily observe your change in jobs or positions…

VisualCV is a website that provides users with a virtual resume, as well as a database of job openings and networking opportunities.  Whether you’re a job seeker, entrepreneur, consultant, student or manager, VisualCV lets you display all of your credentials in an easy to read format, with multimedia integration.  For example, you can upload or embed a video resume or a podcast of you being interviewed…

Emurse allows you to create, share and store your resume for free online.  Their resume builder is job seeker friendly, allowing you to create and maintain a professional resume which can be downloaded in any format, such as PDF.  Just like LinkedIn, your resume can have a unique URL linked to your name and the ability to view employers who have seen your resume in the past…

Xing is a social network with over 7 million business professionals globally, and is read in 16 languages.  Aside from being able to create a profile, the networking part of this site is what shines.  There are over 22,000 groups and networking events from London to Beijing advertised…

ResumeBucket is a service that enables you to post a resume quickly online.  The site provides you with a unique URL for your resume and enables you to promote your resume on your website or blog with embeddable ResumeBucket badges. In addition, resumes are shareable via popular social bookmarking and social networking sites…

ResumeSocial is a social resume community, where you can post your resume online and get feedback, just like Razume.  Registered users can build a resume through feedback and comments from other users who have similar job experience.  You can also be a resume expert and become a valuable member of the community by providing others with resume assistance…

Gigtide is a website that lets you create, publish, manage and track your resumes, contacts and cover letters online.  You can store unlimited resumes, contacts and cover letters and there are professional resume templates to help you.  You also have the option of creating a social media resume, which includes images, video, direct links and sharing functionality. Another interesting feature is a direct employer contact form, where employers can contact you directly through your resume.

Howtowritearesume gives you an easy way to build a professional resume, without being an expert.  You get their phrase builder technology, which helps you build compelling headlines, qualifications, achievement statement and more…

Ziggs is designed to help you market yourself and manage your personal brand on the web. The service lets you create a profile and manage your online identity, and alerts you each time a recruiter views your profile and resume. You can discuss topics, ask people for advice or referrals, and search for jobs…”

“World’s First Color E-Book Reader Goes on Sale” – Fujitsu’s Flepia…03.19.09

Wired blog reports in World’s First Color E-Book Reader Goes on Sale:

“Fujitsu’s Flepia, the color e-book last seen in testing at an upscale Tokyo restaurant, is now available to buy. Don’t get too excited though — even if you’re in Japan, where the Flepia is on sale, it will cost you a whopping ¥99,750, or just over $1000.

You get a lot for your money, though. The reader has a an 8″ screen which displays 260,000 colors, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi (b and g), a mini USB port and, most important of all, a touch screen (although it comes with a stylus so we expect that it is a resistive touch screen, not capacitive like the iPhone.)

This is completed by a soft, on-screen keyboard (just like the Kindle should have) and a battery life of 40 hours (continuos use — Fujitsu says 2400 page turns). Books are stored on an SD card and can be bought from the online bookstore Papyless.

Curiously, the Flepia seems to be a kind of tablet/e-book hybrid. Along with the book reading software, the device comes loaded with Windows CE 5, meaning support for e-mail, spreadsheets, web browsing and the like. If you view this as a low powered, long life computer instead of a color e-book reader, it starts to look less expensive. The Flepia will start shipping on April 20th…”

© 2008 CondéNet, Inc. All rights reserved.

“How Non-profits Can Succeed in the New Sustainability Paradigm: 6 Big Lessons from Social Media”

Stephen Abram’s post on Stephen’s Lighthouse titled Non-profits and Social Networking today highlights “How Nonprofits Can Succeed in the New Sustainability Paradigm: 6 Big Lessons from Social Media“ from Gayle C. Thorsen at Impactmax, a nonprofit communications consultancy.  Since I have worked for non-profits for over almost 25 years, I find the information very interesting.  He summarizes its relevance to libraries by saying:

“…Just replace ‘nonprofits’ with ‘libraries’ in your mind as you read the post, and Thorsen’s lessons will resonate:

1. Be nimble but think long-term
2. Experiment and analyze
3. Build and use networks strategically
4. Let the public in
5. Engage young people
6. Focus on impact…”

Watch: “How to Create a Great Powerpoint Presentation – Take 2.0″…03.18.09

Emerging Diary of a Library points out today a good video titled “How to Create a Great Powerpoint Presentation – Take 2.0” from Alvin Trusty which would be worth the time viewing.

Watch How to Create a Great Powerpoint Presentation – Take 2.0

NEW – “Conversants Conference”…03.18.09

I usually don’t post about conferences and infrequently attend.  However, I would like to pass along information about the “Conversants Conference” – “…the movement to create and share information through worldwide coordinated conversations” being headed by R. David Lankes with support from the Information Institute at Syracuse University, librarians and library students.

This is from the Virtual Dave blog posting today Announcing Conversants Conference :

“Call for Participation and Collaboration

Announcing “Conversants  A Participatory Conversation,” a new idea in professional development for challenging economic times.

We invite you to join the movement to create and share information through worldwide coordinated conversations. Library communities and organizations are uniquely poised to employ the latest collaborative resources; the conversations that result from these collaborations hold great promise for students and practitioners across the information professions. Sharing knowledge and expertise via these collaborative conversations as part of a united effort is both beneficial and necessary, so we invite you lend your voice and join us in this unique event. Become a Conversant!…

Theme: Participatory Librarianship

Save the date: Session Proposals are Due April 16th and Ongoing Virtual Sessions will begin April 30th, 2009. A Hybrid Event will take place at ALA in Chicago.

WATCH:  Introducing Conversants video

Call for participation:

Virtual sessions will be coordinated through the conference site, but can take place anywhere on the Internet. Blog posts, Second Life presentations, FriendFeed rooms, videos, etc., are all encouraged…”

Scribd Partners with Major Publishers to Share Content Online…03.18.09e R

Below is an excerpted posting on TechCrunch titled Major Book Publishers Start Turning To Scribd by Jason Kincaid that again illustrates that publishers and others are waking up to the value inherent in well-done social media. Visit the Scibd website to see how the iPaper Flash Viewer is used.

“Online document sharing site Scribd has announced that it has partnered with a number of major publishers, including Random House, Simon & Schuster, Workman Publishing Co., Berrett-Koehler, Thomas Nelson, and Manning Publications, to legally offer some of their content to Scribd’s community free of charge. Publishers have begun to add an array of content to Scribd’s library, including full-length novels as well as briefer teaser excerpts.

Offering book excerpts to entice readers is nothing new – Amazon and Google have been doing this for years, and Amazon’s Kindle allows readers to download book samples to their devices for free. But these options aren’t conducive to sharing content that you’ve discovered on the web, as they don’t allow your to embed them in your blogs and websites. Scribd’s iPaper Flash document viewer is built to do exactly this, so inserting a book excerpt into a blog or even an author’s site is easy…

Scribd has actually been posting both full text and excerpts of books from some of these publishers for a few months now as they conducted trial tests. The fact that they’re now publicly endorsing the platform seems to indicate that they’re pleased with the results…”

Google Not Exactly Promoting Information Literacy…03.18.09

Below is a good, short, sarcastic post titled Thinking about the information society 4 on the TheoryWatch blog about Google Book Search’s “Research Tips“ which leads with the question, “Need 5 sources for your paper at 3am?“

“Thanks, Google, for this brilliant suggestion about ways to cheat on term papers. (If you haven’t actually read a particular book, it’s a little hard to do anything but copy a paragraph or so, hmm? Or cite something that you may or may not have understood correctly, and hope for the best!) Not exactly promoting information literacy here, are we? And, speaking of the quote generator on that page, whatever happened to ‘Don’t be evil’?“

“Confessions of an Information Junkie”…03.18.09

(Image Source: http://greatmap.blogspot.com/2005_10_01_archive.html)

I think many of us librarians/information professionals can relate to the “confessions of an information junkie“ post yesterday from explodedlibrary.info:” 

“Really reading anything is such a rare luxury in my work. I make a distinction between reading and skimming text. I sometimes think of myself as an information junkie because I seem to spend most of my day rummaging through texts of all kinds to find the particular information which I need. There is no time to linger, or critically consider an argument. I get what I need, and then I need to move on to find my next hit.

I’ve observed a few things about this state of mind:

• There is no such thing as information overload. It’s just more stuff to deal with. I feel as if I have broken through a certain pain barrier and now feel things differently.
• My favourite thing to do on the computer is press Control F.
• I prefer online text because it is crunchable (analogous to what number crunchers do with numbers) and flexible.
• When I work with print text, and sometimes I must, there are definite rules and processes which must be followed to find information – using indices, charts and tables of contents. Those processes seem at odds with the type of thinking I use when doing my best research of online sources.

The interesting thing is that research is not always like this, and I’m not always like this. Sometimes I need to switch focus, from the macro to the micro. One moment I might be weeding out large numbers of irrelevant cases or articles which were retrieved by my narrow but imperfect search. In the next moment, I need to switch focus onto particular paragraph to see if it’s really saying anything useful about this abstruse legal principle.

I like working in this micro focus, but there doesn’t seem as much need for it on most days. That’s why I’m trying to see the good in the macro focus – being an information junkie.”

How to Survive Negative Attention on the Internet…03.18.09

Here is some good information form David Lee King blogging from the SXSWi2009 conference excerpted from a post titled SXSWi2009: Surviving Scandal: How to Manage Negative Attention in the Internet Age:

 ”…- don’t panic. That’s the worst thing to do. It’s probably not really as bad as it seems. With Valleywag, people were upset – but it was only bad for an hour or two – people simply moved on. People’s mean reactionary comments made it worse than if they’d simply ignored it.

- what types of scandals are we talking about? People giving examples of different types of scandals that happened to them. Someone wrote a sex book, wanted to stay anonymous … the press took that anonymity away. Her point – people forget this touches real people’s lives. She took control of the situation by holding an interview wither the Guardian – all the tabloids then decided there was no story anymore and stopped bothering her.

when to respond, when to ignore.

Someone in the audience was on the Real World show. Getting her perspective. It happened 10 years ago, she’s still getting people coming up to her and commenting on it (I think she was hit or something – hard to hear). She left the show early. Lovely. She was hit, and all the stupid camera people did was keep on filming. Nice.

Someone claiming some people want scandal – because they want to be noticed.

Some scandal is good – Sarah Lacy from last year’s SXSW for example. She achieved scandal … most people didn’t know her before that – most of the tech community knew her afterwards … and since her book was coming out, it helped sales. It wasn’t a planned thing, but possibly was ultimately a good thing.

Another guy disagreeing – people don’t want the scandal.

Some scandal starts as an accident or mistake. A problem then is not admitting it – it’s better to be transparent and say ‘I was wrong.’

A webhoster talking about basic customer service stuff, ie., let the customer yell until they’re done, then say ‘I undersntand’ etc – yay! Finally soemthing that us public librarians do lots and understand…

Best way is face-to-face, then phone, then twitter, comments, etc. If you send an email, assume it will get published. Watch what you say, no exclamation points, say as little as possible, spell-check, etc.

What can you do to prepare yourself? Don’t panic. This too will pass. No one notices your scandal as much as you do – especially on the internet…”

NEW Service – Librarian Resume Review…03.18.09

Kim Lyall, Careers in Federal Libraries Group Administrator, posted Resume Review service for library school students on the Beyond the Job:

“The Careers in Federal Libraries Google Group at: http://groups.google.com/group/careers-in-federal-libraries is creating a new Resume Review service to meet the needs of our users and to connect seasoned professionals with newbies.

We have created a page that lists our volunteer resume reviewers including their place of employment, preferred contact, and any industry specialties.

We are actively looking for resume reviewers that are current and former librarians and information professionals willing to share their career expertise with others!

Please feel free to contact me off list at kim.lyall@gmail.com if you are interested in being a resume reviewer. If you are not yet a member of the Careers in Federal Libraries Google Group go to the URL: http://groups.google.com/group/careers-in-federal-libraries and click ‘Apply for Group Membership.’”

NEW – Twitter Job Search…03.18.09

This is an excerpt from Erick Schonfeld’s post Two New Ways To Find A Job: Auction Yourself Off At JobaPhile Or Do A TwitterJobSearch on TechCrunch:

“…A much better experience out of the gate is TwitterJobSearch, which just launched into beta today. Developed by UK-based job search engine Workhound, TwitterJobSearch pulls up Tweets that are only job-related and links to the underlying job posting. Most of these seem to link to other job sites such as CareerBuilder or more niche job sites which all seem to be using Twitter to post their latest openings. But withTwitterJobSearch, you search across all of them, and results are ranked by both relevance and by how recently they’ve been posted. A job search for “software engineer” returns 4,838 results, and you can reorder results by geography simply by adding the name of a city to the search.

TwitterJobSearch is competing against Twitter’s own search engine, which does a pretty good job coming up with relevant results. Try a job search for ‘software engineer’ and most of the results seem to be about job openings. TwitterJobSearch also seems to favor results from other members affiliated with job boards and job search engines. Twitter’s own results appear more varied, which I think is more likely to turn up that gem being Tweeted by the head of engineering at a startup. But it is also more likely to turn up false positives—results that have nothing to do with job openings….”

Library Implications for a Twitterific World…03.17.09

Here are some very good insights and proverbial “food for thought” from The Funky Librarian in the post The Twitter and the Bitter which are excerpted here:

“…**twitter represents immediacy, impulse, convenience, an accelerated culture of connectedness in which news is old in the matter of a few hours. blurbs flourish. heck, less than blurbs are ideal. 140 characters to be exact.

**the library, (library instruction, in particular) upholds the values of contemplation, thoughtfulness, meditation, critical thinking and consciousness, and patience in the sermons it preaches….er…..that I preach. These values go against the very things that make Twitter such a hit. Research is time consuming. We have to be willing to acknowledge a history, things that came before, an entire heritage and lineage of knowledge and information.

But in TWITTER culture, there is NO history. We don’t look back. We don’t look ahead. We are suspended in the everlasting status update.

So there are these two different worlds existing alongside each other, pushing against each other, creating an obvious friction, illuminating contradiction, negating each other. And what do we do about that? What will libraries do? How are our roles as librarians changing? How will we acknoweldge our anxieties? What will become of historical research and the values of patience, contemplation, and careful explication??? It’s too easy to be seduced, for sure, as we can see. Many of us are data crazed fiends running toward any glimmer of a light on the techno horizon. But what are we giving up?? How will we need to reshape our thought-processes on research and cognitive processes?? What are the implications of a twitterfic world?”

Libraries and Other Non-Profits Take Note: “More Than 50% of Marketers Increase Spending on Social”…03.17.09

Here is an interesting excerpt from Despite Recession, More Than 50% of Marketers Increase Spending on Social Media on ReadWriteWeb today relevant not only to businesses:

“In a recession, budgets are tightened, jobs are cut, and those who remain are expected to do more with less. Given this type of economic reality, it’s surprising to hear of an industry reporting an increase in spending on anything, much less on something as new as social media. Yet that’s exactly what’s occurring. According to a new Forrester Research survey of 145 global interactive marketers in both B2B and B2C companies with more than 250 employees, the use of social media as a marketing tool is on the rise. What’s more, Forrester reports that over 50% of marketers said they will be increasing their spending on social media marketing in the coming months.

Part of the reason for this increased spending is the low cost of social media tools. Compared with larger expenditures like advertising, social media requires much less investment. In fact, three-quarters of those surveyed who knew their budgets said they allowed for $100,000 or less for social media tools over a 12-month period…”

How to OPT OUT of Google Targeted Ads…03.17.09

Advertising Cookie Opt-out Plugin

From LifeHacker’s post Opt Out of Google’s Targeted Ads I learned how to and chose to OPT OUT of Google’s controversial targeted ad project.  Below is an excerpt from the post.  I decided to download the Opt-Out Preferences plug-in for IE.  I will do the same for Chrome when it becomes available or follow “…follow these instructions [from Google for Chrome users] to make your opt-out preference permanent in your browser.”

“…Log into your Google account and mozy over to the Google Ads Preferences page, where you can hit an Opt Out button to put a cookie (identified and detailed) on your system that blocks ad monitoring and targeting. The downside, though, is that any time you wipe out your cookies (a pretty common move, especially amongst the privacy-conscious), that preference washes out with them. So Google also offers a Opt-Out Preferences plug-in for Internet Explorer and Firefox that auto-kills ad targeting. Good for those who use those two leaders of the market; kinda annoying for everyone else…”

Mmmmmmmmmmm…. Thinking about privacy…

“Everybody’s got something to hide except for me and my monkey.”

UnHub – You Are Everywhere…03.17.09

This is a pretty nice FREE service as described by Robin Wauters today on TechCrunch posting UnHub Offers A Simple Way To Showcase The Online You:

“…What UnHub does is create a persistent iframe bar with tabs for all your online presences (e.g. your blog, Twitter stream, LinkedIn account, Flickr profile, blog comments etc.) linked to a dedicated URL you can easily share with anyone. Examples of this are UnHub.com/MichaelArrington or UnHub.com/BarackObama. This can also benefit businesses: see this example for Josie’s Restaurant. UnHub profiles also come with very basic analytics so you can find out what the most popular tabs for your presence are based on the number of clicks.

The UnHub URL is short and personalized, so I assume a lot of people would find it useful to add to their e-mail signature instead of listing the slew of social networking services they can be found on. This list includes the most familiar services (Amazon, YouTube, Twitter through TweeTree, LinkedIn, Digg, MySpace, Facebook, and so on) and will likely be extended in the future. Soon, you’ll also be able to use your own domain name which will make it even more interesting, and you’ll also get to customize the colors and general look of your UnHub presence…..”

The Scary Truth About Digital Preservation Project Management…03.17.09

Considering the great need here to begin digital preservation and a recurring, expressed (but quickly fading when pressed by the immediate urgency) desire of management to protect our organization’s intellectual resources–without an understanding of or real, long-term resource commitment to such a project, the excerpt below of the Maverick Digital Project Manager Jobs post on the DigitalKoans blog is of great interest despite the fact that providing an “institutional repository” or beginning a digital preservation program is currently not my primary or core value to the organization.

The DigitalKoans posting refers to a self-professed “rant” by Dorothea Salo which includes the following scary though probably accurate warning:

“…This is my advice for my librarian and proto-librarian colleagues: DO NOT TAKE MAVERICK IR MANAGER POSITIONS. They are black holes. They will destroy your idealism, professional enthusiasm, and self-efficacy. You will accomplish nothing whatever of substance in the position. Your co-workers will not help you. You will be scoffed at, abandoned, or both by your library’s administration. Your career may well be damaged. Don’t do it. I am as deadly serious as I know how to be. Don’t…”

Anyway, here is the corroborative DigitalKoans excerpt:

“Recently, Dorothea Salo posted a self-proclaimed rant, “Just Say No to Maverick-Manager Jobs.”

Her topic was maverick institutional repository manager jobs, but I was struck by some similarities to what might be called for want of a better term ‘maverick digital project manager’ jobs. These jobs may be at different levels in the organization, but they may share certain characteristics:

• They may have a very broad scope of responsibility (e.g., digitization, digital preservation, digital repositories, ETDs, and scholarly communication) yet have no real authority.
• They have no direct reports, and consequently they rely on other units to provide critical support.
• They may have no direct control over key technical resources, such as servers.
• They may have no dedicated, regularly budgeted funding.
• They may report to a superior who does not have an adequate background to understand or manage a digital project operation.
• Regardless of stated qualifications, they really require not only an alphabet soup of specific technical skills, but also a broad technical background and a variety of non-technical skills, such as a significant understanding of copyright issues.
• They may represent a wish by the library to make progress in this area, not a real commitment by the library to do so…

Lack of a dedicated budget may result in digital projects being funded (or not) dependent on the ever changing fiscal circumstances of the library and the constantly shifting priorities of administrators. To some degree this is always true, but it is typically easier not to fund a non-budgeted operation than to eliminate or reduce a budgeted one. Digital projects can be seen as icing on the cake, not the cake itself…

Unless the maverick digital project manager reports to the head of the library[or senior organizational management], his or her supervisor must be an effective advocate for digital projects to his or her superiors to facilitate adequate support.

Those hiring maverick digital project managers may have a poor grasp of the necessary skills required or have a desire to hire on the cheap. Consequently, new hires may quickly find themselves in deep water. Advanced technical and other sorts of training, if available and funded, can help with some aspects of this problem, but, since maverick digital project managers are without mentors, not all of it. Realistic expectations by supervisors are critical in this case, but can’t be counted on.

Few things are as deadly to maverick digital project managers as the vague, but poorly informed, wish of some administrators to make progress (often rapid progress) in the digital area when it is motivated by a desire to get on the bandwagon, rather than by a genuine concern for development in this area that is based on a well-considered decision to make realistic resource allocation commitments and to expect sensible project timelines…”

Information Professionals and Librarians Forced to Become Entrepreneurs…03.17.09

Below is an excerpt from a First Librarian post today I’d rather be stung by a jellyfish which I thought was relevant for the times and has some useful information (The “lone wolf librarian” also likes the “wolf“ cliché).  

“Some workers are turning into entrepreneurs to keep the wolf from the door, or engaging in ‘forced entrepreneurship‘…

There’s a summary of how to become an information entrepreneur on the companion website to the book, Rethinking Information Careers, as well as plenty of other resources…”

Here is a portion of Become an Information Entrepreneur from Rethinking Information Careers:

“…Product vs. Service

What’s the difference between a product and a service? A service is generally provided to a client, and is tailored to the needs of that client. It’s generally provided ‘on demand’ — in other words, a client asks you to provide a service, which you do in response to that request.

A product, on the other hand, is some type of predefined ‘package’ of information that you offer for sale or license to customers. Your goal is to create your information product once, then sell it multiple times (as opposed to a service, which you offer one-on-one to a specific client). Essentially, you’re ‘productizing’ some aspect of your information expertise…

Characteristics of a Product

Think about a product as something that you create once, then sell many times. Some standard characteristics of a product include:

• pre-packaged — you’ve created a standard format for the product that is used for/by all customers
• pre-established pricing — you have a set price for your product, although tiering is a possibility (you can offer more info/features/functionality for more money)
• minimal personal engagement — your goal is to create passive revenue, with minimal “labor” costs
• minimum customization — your goal is to have a single version that you create once, sell multiple times with as little involvement/intervention by you as possible
• focus is on market size (a group of customers) rather than on individual clients
• sale is of an existing, tangible item with immediate benefits that customer either needs or doesn’t; not about relationship-building (as is the case with a service business)…

Info-Product Examples

Depending on your area of expertise and your interests, there’s a wide range of information products that you might want to consider. These include, among others:

• market research reports
• workbooks and training guides
• syndicated columns
• podcasts
• self-directed online tutorials
• industry or personal-interest newsletters
• training CDs
• annual market trend analyses and/or forecasts
• weekly/monthly environmental scans
• e-books
• databases
• revenue-producing website…”

FREE – Edit PDF Files Online With PDF Hammer…03.17.09

Thanks to Michael Sauers for bringing PDF Hammer to our attention:

“Use PDF Hammer to quickly and easily edit your PDF files online without installing a thing! Simply upload PDF files to PDF Hammer via your web browser, perform your edits, and then save the files back to your computer. The online editor allows you to view the pages of your PDF files as you edit them. The free PDF editor lets you

• Combine PDF. Create single polished PDF files by merging multiple files together.
• Edit PDF pages. Quickly rearrange, reorder and delete the pages from existing PDF files.
• Secure PDF. Protect the contents of PDF files with password-based security.
• Update PDF metadata. Make PDF files more useful and usable by setting the document information (metadata) fields, including author, title, subject and keywords.

PDF Hammer is 100% free and brought to you by the team behind Nitro PDF Professional — the award-winning PDF editor and true Acrobat alternative.”

©2009 Nitro PDF, Inc.

FREE Webinar Tomorrow – “Social & Informal Learning”…03.17.09

Thanks to Lori Reed “The Library Trainer ” for letting us know about the following FREE webinar:

Social & Informal Learning: The Business Opportunity
Wednesday, March 18, 2009 1:00 PM – 2:00 PM EDT

If learning were an iceberg, then formal training and development would only be the tip. Most learning is “informal” in nature, but this portion lies beneath the proverbial waterline, virtually invisible and, therefore, much harder to navigate.

• But such navigation is becoming increasingly important. New research from an i4cp survey, commissioned by the American Society for Training & Development (ASTD), reveals social and informal learning opportunities for companies that need to improve productivity and performance in 2009.
• Social and informal learning already has a strong presence in many organizations and is expected to increase.
• Very little of most firms’ training budgets are devoted to informal learning
• Using social and informal learning pays dividends, as there is a significant correlation with reported market performance

Join internationally recognized futurist Elliott Masie and i4cp’s VP of Research Jay Jamrog as they examine this research and provide solutions on how to drive productivity and performance by implementing effective social and informal learning strategies. Takeaways include:

• What social and informal learning approaches are currently working for organizations
• Where are the gaps that can serve as opportunities
• How can organizations put social and informal learning strategies into action sooner rather than later

Register here: https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/195339614

Two Twitter Visualizations – Twitter Now Growing at a Staggering 1,382 Percent…03.17.09

Here are 2 Twitter visualization tools I like that I learned about from Mashable! by Ben Parr:

“Monitter is a real-time visualization of of Twitter trends. Type in keywords and see tweets as they occur. It’s the ultimate way to keep informed at a conference (i.e. #SXSW) or to see retweets in action. Monitter also provides geographic searches of tweets and the ability to turn the stream into an RSS feed…”

“TwitterThoughts is an advanced tool and mashup that visually graphs Twitter trends based on a variety of factors, such as number of tweets and followed total. It takes its information from a sample subset of Twitter accounts. The data can be complicated to work with, but it is a unique way to visualize data on Twitter. It also comes with a world Twitter map and a list of recent top Twitter trends…”

BTW, Twitter is GROWING FAST as Adam Ostrow points out in Twitter Now Growing at a Staggering 1,382 Percent:

“…The latest numbers from Nielsen Online indicate that Twitter grew 1,382% year-over-year in February, registering a total of just more than 7 million unique visitors in the US for the month. Not only is that huge growth in one year, but in one month as well, as in January, Twitter.com clocked in with 4.5 million unique visitors in the US, meaning the service grew by more than 50 percent month-over-month…”

“Quiet Chaos” with DoodleBuzz Aggregator…03.16.09

I found out today from the Centered Librarian about an interesting news agreggator called DoodleBuzz in a post excerpted here:

“…one you customize each time you use it. That sounds awkward and uninviting (and it may grow tiresome in time), but so far it seems like a fun and intriguing way to read news and find unexpected connections…”

DoodleBuzz explains why it was created:

“Does the web really need yet another news aggregator? In many ways the answer to this question is undoubtably no. But DoodleBuzz was born out of an idea to create an entirely new way of exploring information – one that allows for a kind of ‘quiet chaos’ that gives people the opportunity to explore unthought of paths and connections along their news gathering journey. You may start at Iraq but end up finishing on Britney, whilst taking in The Catholic Church, Global Warming and 50 Cent.

The interface for DoodleBuzz is simply a scribbled line. Draw a straight line. Draw a curved line. Draw a crazy, chaotic, all-over-the-place messed up line. It’s up to you how you want to layout the information – DoodleBuzz simply provides a blank canvas for you to use and abuse.

Why do that? Well, the web is full of top-down scrolling websites that are great for viewing information in a linear fashion, but not so good at fun things like chance and exploration. So a scribbled line seemed to be the antithesis of the scrolling linear paradigm…”

Librarians and Commercial Mobile Reference Services like KGB…03.16.09

TTW Contributor Kyle Jones on Tame the Web points out the commercial mobile reference service KGB — Knowledge Reference Bureau today in his post KGB Answers your Text Messages and asks the questions “What about the reference desk?  Why not ask a librarian?…how libraries should respond?”  

He goes on to say, “…KGB has created a marketing campaign, traveled the country, and has a very clear brand.  If libraries are to create their own ‘KGB’ service it will all come down to how it is pushed to the user and the community the library serves…Should libraries respond to KGB and offer their own text reference services?”

FREE Archived Webinar “Setting Boundaries with Library Patrons”…03.16.09

Through an interest in finding benchmark behavior in dealing with library patrons, I came across a FREE archived webinar titled Setting Boundaries with Library Patrons worth reviewing from 2008 on InfoPeople which states:

“… will help participants:

• Learn how using the four cornerstones of setting boundaries makes working with the public 100% easier
• Learn to disengage from really nice patrons who want a friend without causing a scene or hurting their feelings
• Learn where to invest your energy to make your library run more smoothly
• Learn to develop the culture your library needs to meet the needs of all your patrons
• Learn a verbal formula for dealing with challenging, demanding, or overexcited patrons
• Learn five rules that will make your staff more efficient and your library a more pleasant place to work…”

 

Speaker: Edmond Otis

 

• Speaker’s slides
  • PowerPoint [677kb] - Acrobat (3 slides per page) [174kb]
• Speaker’s handouts
  • The Rules - Word [16kb] - Acrobat [41kb]
  • The Four Cornerstones - Word [15kb] - Acrobat [37kb]
  © 2009 Infopeople Project