Library of Congress Now On iTunes, YouTube, Twitter, Blog…06.30.09

The Library of Congress recently started its own YouTube channel. Here is the latest LC update on their Library 2.0 activities from Hey U, Tune In: The Library Is Now on iTunes U:

“Blog. Twitter. YouTube.  iTunes.  Yeah, we speak Web 2.0.

You nation’s Library has millions of stories to tell, so we’re trying to tell them as many places and to as many people as possible–whether on our own website or elsewhere.  And now you can add another biggie to the list: iTunes U.

For those who don’t know, iTunes U is an area of the iTunes Store offering free education audio and video content from many of the world’s top universities and other institutions. (The iTunes application is needed to access iTunes U, and is a free download from www.apple.com/itunes.)

The Library’s iTunes U page launched today with a great deal of content, with much more to come.  (Link here, opens in iTunes.)  A nice bonus, for those in the know, is that the content is downloadable and even includes materials such as PDFs…”

FREE – “Effective Practice in a Digital Age”…06.30.09

“Effective Practice in a Digital Age is designed for those in further and higher education who aim to enhance the student learning experience through apt and imaginative uses of technology. A visually rich publication, Effective Practice in a Digital Age outlines key aspects of designing learning in a technology-rich context and is structured to address the needs of experienced practitioners as well as those new to technology-based learning and teaching – the ten newly researched case studies offer a choice of pathways reflecting the diversity of approaches taken by practitioners in current UK practice..”

“…The text of Effective Practice in a Digital Age can be downloaded in two file formats:

• Effective Practice in a Digital Age (PDF)
  This document is available in portable document format for downloading. The Adobe® Acrobat® Reader can be freely downloaded from http://www.adobe.co.uk
  Viewers with visual difficulties may find it useful to investigate components that improve the accessibility of Acrobat documents at the Adobe Accessibility Resource Centre.
• Effective Practice in a Digital Age (Text-only Word doc)..”

“Library Websites for Mobile Devices”…06.20.09

Here is an excerpt from the Centered Librarian‘s post Library Websites for Mobile Devices which is worth reading completely:

“The Mobile Libraries Blog has an executive summary of the University of Cambridge’s M-Libraries: Information Use On The Move report from the Arcadia Programme. While there’s a substantial list of ways to integrate mobile devices with libraries to better serve patrons, one of the simplest things – ‘Ensuring that the library website is accessible and will resize to smaller screens…to be ready for increasing numbers of netbook users and mobile internet users in the next few years’ – may be the most difficult thing for some institutions. The difficulty is not technical, but a combination of internal politics and marketing…”

NEW – “Twitter for Busy People”…06.20.09

Mashable! today highlighted “Twitter for Busy People” which it describes as:

“Spending too much time reading friends’ Tweets? Only got 5 mins and you’d need an hour to get through em all?

No worries: you can now speed-read your way through your Tweet reading with Twitter For Busy People, a new interface for Twitter created by the team at Bluejava. The idea is that you can skim all the people you’re following and see the latest tweet from each…”

New from the Library of Congress – “Bagit: Transferring Content for Digital Preservation”…0.30.09

The Library of Congress has posted the video “Bagit: Transferring Content for Digital Preservation” which is worth a look.

View transcript

“POSTED DATE: 06/24/2009

RUNNING TIME: 3:14

DESCRIPTION:
The Library of Congress’s steadily growing digital collections arrive primarily over the network rather than on hardware media. But that data transfer can be difficult because different organizations have different policies and technologies.

The Library – with the California Digital Library and Stanford University – has developed guidelines for creating and moving standardized digital containers, called ‘bags.’ A bag functions like a physical envelope that is used to send content through the mail but with bags, a user sends content from one computer to another.

Bags have a sparse, uncomplicated structure that transcends differences in institutional data, data architecture, formats and practices. A bag’s minimal but essential metadata is machine readable, which makes it easy to automate ingest of the data. Bags can be sent over computer networks or physically moved using portable storage devices.

Bags have built-in inventory checking, to help ensure that content transferred intact. Bags are flexible and can work in many different settings, including situations where the content is located in more than one place. This video describes the preparation and transfer of data over the network in bags.”

“The Future of Library User Experience”…06.29.09

The Librarian is IN posted today Thinking Like a Patron is excerpted below followed by the Future of Library User Experience by Bolt Peters referred to in the post.

“Thinking like a patron can be really hard to do.  The longer we work in libraries the more entrenched we get in the lingo and practices of our business.  But that doesn’t make it any easier for our users.

I recently attended the ULC Webinar The Future of Library User Experience…  Nate Bolt, a user experience expert, gave the main presentation, which was great as he freely admits he hasn’t used a library in years, so was able to look at library web sites with fresh eyes.  He stressed that when organizing our collections and websites, we need to place people before systems and pay attention to intuition rather than how things should logically be arranged.  Ignore opinions – just research behavior.

Nate advised that if you really want to make your library user friendly (physically and in cyber space) you should watch three people use your website.  And to give you a taste of what it feels like to be confronted with a new resource, he suggests you try to create a new web page and use an unfamiliar open source tool.  Pay attention to how intuitive it is.  Does the arrangement make sense?  Is it easy to figure out where you want to go and how to do something?

He’s also in favor of using an open architecture so people can customize and manipulate your resources and data to suit their needs.  One great tip – put your marketing (program notices, new services…) on the results pages since this is where patrons will spend most of their time.  And of course, also put links to similar materials, comments and reviews there…”

“Bored with the Internet”…06.29.09

From XKCD, “a webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language“:

“Creating Measurable Library Objectives”…06.29.09

Here is a good presentation from NELINET on strategic planning in “Creating Measurable Library Objectives” relevant to everyone:

Overview of Google’s Picasa…06.29.09

Picasa is FREE software for organizing and editing digital photos originally created by Idealab and owned by Google since 2004.

Here is “Cool Tools Library 2.0: Picasa” from San Jose State Universitys School of Library and Information Science. Visit the “Cool Tools Library 2.o website for more.

OCLC Final Report – Use and Transfer of WorldCat Records…06.29.09

From the Celeripedean blog:

“OCLC just announced that it will withdraw it policy on proposed Policy on Use and Transfer of WorldCat Records.

After review of the recommendations, OCLC has formally withdrawn the proposed policy. A new group will soon be assembled to begin work to draft a new policy with more input and participation from the OCLC membership.

The Review Board’s final report is available on the Web at www.oclc.org/worldcat/catalog/policy/board/default.htm.

If you are at ALA and still have questions or would like more information, there will be a forum from 10:30-noon on July 12..”

FREE PDF to Word Converter…06.28.09

From MakeUseOf.com comes this suggestion in How to Convert PDF to an Editagle Word Document [Windows]:

“…Now, a free product comes moseying along and does the deed AND WELL!

Let’s take a look at AnyBizSoft’s PDF to Word Converter.

You need to download the application and submit your email address to get a free registration code…”

Wired “Smart Guide – Know Your Smart Phones”…06.27.09

If you’re like me, there are WAY too many smart phones from which to choose.  Here is a concise, though very limited, overview from Wired:

“…Now each major U.S. carrier has a device that can legitimately compete with the iPhone. To help you make sense of it, we took three major upstarts and stacked them up against the great white hype from Cupertino. Sprint with its Pre, T-Mobile with its G1, and Verizon with its Storm. So have a gander at how the specs from these four devices compare to one another. Think of it as way to cut through a lot of the dumb hype that clouds these smartphones.”

The Library Channel – The Library Minute on YouTube…06.27.09

Educational Objectives Taxonomy and Web 2.0 Tools…06.26.09

Thanks to the Baby Boomer Librarian for posting the following interesting image in Bloom’s Taxonomy applied to Web 2.0 tools today:

“…Like other taxonomies, Bloom’s is hierarchical; meaning that learning at the higher levels is dependent on having attained prerequisite knowledge and skills at lower levels (Orlich, et al. 2004). A goal of Bloom’s Taxonomy is to motivate educators to focus on all three domains, creating a more holistic form of education.”

Roving Reference and Other Tools…06.26.09

From Justine Shaffner, the Librarian is IN, comes this from her post New Roving Reference and Assistive Technology Tools:

“Back in the days when libraries weren’t quite so busy, if I didn’t have a constant stream of questions at the reference desk, I’d get bored and start trawling the stacks for people who looked confused.  I was delighted when we got a tablet computer as I no longer had to drag the patron over to a PAC or run between them and my computer for call numbers and answers. Having the internet with me at all times helped a lot when I needed to show the customer searching the art books for Van Gogh’s Starry Night how easily she could find it on Google Images, but while I could see the same catalog interface as our patrons, there wasn’t a way in to the staff side of our materials database.  That put a damper on my speed as quick, powerful searches and circulation functions still had to be done from the reference desk.

So I was intrigued by three of the products in the May/June 2009 issue of Public Libraries. EnvisionWare now has a LibraryPDA(TM) that can evidently do all staff side functions (plus inventory).  And for those of you with a SirsiDynix ILS, there’s Horizon PocketCirc 1.0 with functions similar to the LibraryPDA but with remote access also available, so you no longer have to write down titles and barcodes while checking out books at a school, offsite program or town event.

The third product would be great not only for visually challenged patrons, but also for commuters wanting to make effective use of travel time. ReadSpeaker works with WilsonWeb’s many full text databases and converts articles into audio for immediate listening (will wonders never cease – let’s hope all our database vendors follow suit)…”

NEW! Twitter Guide Book Online from Mashable!…06.26.09

Mashable! has a NEW Twitter Guide Book online which they describe as:

“Twitter is a social network used by millions of people, and thousands more are signing up every day to send short messages to groups of friends. But where’s the user manual for Twitter? Where do new Twitter users go to learn about Tweeting, retweets, hashtags and customizing your Twitter profile? Where do you go if you want to know all about building a community on Twitter, or using Twitter for business? How can you find advanced tools for using Twitter on your phone or your desktop? To answer all these questions and more, we’ve assembled The Twitter Guide Book, a complete collection of resources for mastering Twitter. Happy Tweeting!”

Couldn’t Attend SLA? Can’t Make It to ALA? Try OPALescence Online August 13th…06.26.09

NO FEES – NO DUES – NO TRAVEL

ALL Librarians Can Support & Participate

OPAL (Online Programming for All Libraries) is planning something special:

Thursday, August 13, 2009 beginning at noon Eastern Time, 11:00 a.m. Central, 10:00 a.m. Mountain, 9:00 a.m. Pacific, and 4:00 p.m. GMT:

OPALESCENCE: A Free Online Conference for All Librarians

Has your travel budget dried up? Still want that conference experience of fresh ideas, lively conversations, and networking with colleagues?

Participate in OPALESCENCE, a free online conference for all librarians and fellow travelers. We’re planning a series of interesting and informative presentations and discussions spread over a two-day period. Watch this space for more announcements.

Host: TAP Information Services

Schedule of Events: OPALESCENCE Conference Schedule (coming soon)

“Planning and Managing the Digitization of Library and Archive Materials: A Multi-Model Approach Presentation”…06.26.09

The following presentation from Kim Abrams, Pat Graham, and John Weaver at Pitts Theology Library at Emory University‘s Chandler School of Theology is a good resource for “planning and managing” a digitization project.

Organizing the Library for Social Media…06.26.09

There is an interesting and relevant post from Jeremiah Owyang’s Web Strategy blog discussing the latest Forrester Research survey today titled Report: Companies Should Organize for Social Media in a “Hub and Spoke” Model which is excerpted here:

“I often get asked by brands: ‘How should we organize our company for social media?’ or ‘Which roles do we need’, or ‘Which department is in charge’. So for our latest report (clients can access all the details) answers just that, it has data and graphs about spending, brand maturity in the social space, which department ‘owns’ the program, and how companies are organizing.

Companies organize in three distinct models
For this post, let’s focus in on how companies are organizing. There are three basic models that I’ve observed and surveyed brands:

1. The Tire (Distributed): Where each business unit or group may create its own social media programs without a centralized approach. We call this approach the ‘tire,’ as it originates at the edges of the company.
2. The Tower (Centralized): We refer to this centralization as the ‘tower’ — a standalone group within a company that’s responsible for social media programs, often within corporate marketing or corporate communicaitons.
3. The Hub and Spoke (Cross Functional): Like the hub on a bicycle wheel, a cross-functional group that represents multiple stakeholders across the company assembles in the middle of the organization. The hub facilitates resource sharing and cross-functional communications (via the ‘spokes’ in the wheel) to those at the edge of the organization (or the ‘tire’)…

The faster brands can realize that approaching social marketing and collaboration isn’t about technology, but about process and change management the better off they are…”

Social Library Catalogs – “No Longer an Inventory But a Community”…06.26.09

Here is an excerpt from a great posting by Laurel Tarulli – The Cataloging Librarian, Collections Access Librarian at Halifax Public Libraries, yesterday titled Library Catalogues are no longer an inventory but a place, and a community :

“…Social catalogues will play a vital role in promoting RA services in the future. It’s already happening. I believe that the future of the library catalogues will rest on whether we can become a place, rather than an inventory.

When we talk about RA services, we emphasize that true RA work cannot be accomplished without the trust of our readers. What about our silent reader? Our remote readers? What about our avid readers who wish they were librarians and want to share their reading suggestions? You won’t find these readers in the library asking our RAs for help, but you will find them in the library catalogue – at least, that’s where they should be. Right now, they are using social cataloguing sites like LibraryThing. But, I believe they are just waiting for us to catch up and when we do, what’s coming will be amazing.

When I presented at the pre-conference, I emphasized the movement toward social features in our library catalogues and the new face of the library catalogue. Much of what I discussed already exists to some extent, but much of what I discussed is what’s coming, or should be coming soon. There are so many ways we can explore social technology to create a community of trust among our readers through the library catalogue. That trust will bring RA work into our readers’ homes…”

Social Catalogues: Enriching Content that Enhances RA Services

View more documents from Laurel Tarulli.

More on Mobile QR Codes Used in Libraries…06.26.09

If you are interested in QR code use in libraries, there are several older posts to check out.  Here is an excerpt from Helene Blowers who has a discussion  on LibraryBytes today QR Tags & Concept Leadership:

“Concept leadership is one of areas that my department, Digital Services, tries to focus on. It’s important for us to continuously keep on top of new and emerging technologies and explore ways that the library and our customers can benefit from them.

QR tags is a technology that has actually been around for a few years. But until the mass adoption of smartphones with cameras, there wasn’t a dominant market yet for their use. When we launched our mobile text-based catalog early this spring we began to think of ways that we could use technology to market it smartly. QR tags seemed like a natural choice, since they are specifically designed for mobile devices. While we’re still playing with this idea some and refining the concept, the idea of placing QR tags in strategically defined places within the library on informational signs does seem to have a lot of merit. Not only does it have the potential to introduce the public to a new technology, it also tells those who are already tech savvy and familiar with mobile QR tags that the library has a mobile catalog.

For those that are not familiar with how QR tags work, here’s a short overview and a video demonstration…”

Lorcan Dempsey included a piece today about library barcodes in Apple, Netbooks and Barcodes :

“…One of the hits of the conference was the discussion by Kate Robinson of the use of QR Codes in the catalog at the University of Bath (blogged here earlier this year). It prompted discussion of the variety of ways in which people and materials could be tied into the network.

The Globe and Mail had several stories about capturing data from codes.

• Databars. A discussion of the use of Databars, smaller than barcodes, in retail and supply-chain operations.
• Samplesaint: a story about how this company, which creates digital media for cell phones, now distributes discount coupons for redemption by on-screen scanning at the checkout. Coupons can be received in various ways, including in response to an on-the-spot request by texting a number found on the relevant shelf.
• There is also a general discussion of the use of cell phones as payment devices.

Interestingly, these were opposite an advert for IBM (featuring a barcode image) which promoted its ability to make supply chains smarter and more efficient.”

See Also: Simple Use of QR Codes in Libraries

Libraries and Nex Gen Mobiles

QR Codes – “Transpromo Cross Media Interactivity”

“…Why Obama’s Geeky New CIO Wants to Put All Gov’t Info Online”…06.25.09

“The Library of Congress alone holds more than 300 terabytes of data — just a sliver of all federal information stores.”

This is an excerpt of an interesting Wired article And Data for All: Why Obama’s Geeky New CIO Wants to Put All Gov’t Info Online:

“The Obama administration’s most radical idea may also be its geekiest: Make nearly every hidden government spreadsheet and buried statistic available online, all in one place...

Until now, the US government’s default position has been: If you can’t keep data secret, at least hide it on one of 24,000 federal Web sites, preferably in an incompatible or obsolete format.

The goal of Kundra’s new Web site, Data.gov, is to create a place where all the information is easy to find, sort, download, and manipulate. He wants to put as much data out there as possible, then sit back and let the private sector come up with great ways to use it. He envisions a future in which well-designed spreadsheets, charts, and graphs are embedded in applications for phones, Facebook, and blogs…”

Read the complete article which includes an interview with “the man in charge” – “the US government’s first-ever chief information officer, Vivek Kundra.”

You watch the interview also.

“What is the future of the library?”…06.25.09

Visual Twitter History…06.25.09

FREE – “A Computer Geek’s Smart Productivity Guide [PDF]“…06.24.09

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MakeUseOf.com is providing a FREE copy of the 20-page PDF A Computer Geek’s Productivity Guide by Stefan Neagu from tuxgeek.me.

“50 Excellent Open Courses for Techie Librarians”…06.24.09

Here is a partial list from the BestCollegesOnline.com post 50 Excellent Open Courses for Techie Librarians:

“…Information & Research

Check out these courses to learn about finding information and research materials.

1. Information Skills Mini-Course: Build your information science skills by taking this course. [University of Florida at Gainesville]
2. Research Techniques & Scholarship in the Digital Environment: Learn about information and research with the help of this course. [University of Virginia]
3. Key Skill Assessment Unit: Information Literacy: Find out how you can help support information literacy by taking this course. [MIT]
4. Virtual Continuity: In this lecture, you’ll learn about the future of libraries and storage of information. [Harvard]
5. History of Information: This course offers an exploration of the history of information and associated technologies. [UC Berkeley]
6. Information in Cyberspace: This course discusses the history, infrastructure, and societal aspects of the Internet. [University of Texas]
7. Information Organization: Learn about classification, indexing, thesauri construction, and retrieval. [University of Albany]
8. Information Processing: With this course, you’ll learn about information processing and bibliographic control. [State University of New York at Albany]
9. Research for the Classroom Teacher: Help teachers better understand how to research by building your skills with this course. [Utah State University]
10. Information Exploration: Becoming a Savvy Scholar: With this course, you’ll learn how to make the best use of information for your students. [MIT]
11. Information Literacy: Find out how to locate, evaluate, and apply information with the help of this course. [New Mexico State University]
12. Internet and Information Access: This course covers the Internet and its resources. [State University of New York at Albany]…”

“10 Strategies for Integrating Learning and Work”…06.24.09

There were 2 good posts from gramconsulting 10 Strategies for Integrating Learning and Work Part 1 and 10 Strategies for Integrating Learning and Work Part 2 which are worth reviewing and excerpting below.  There will be another post or two soon to finish the series:

“The goal of learning in the workplace is performance–individual and organizational. If we’ve learned nothing else in recent years, we’ve learned that learning is most effective when it is integrated with real work.  Learning pundits encourage the this integration but don’t always offer practical strategies that busy learning professionals can to use to make it happen.  How can we begin to truly reduce the number courses and catalogs in enterprise training and find ways to bring learning to the job?

1. Understand the job
2. Link Learning to business process
3. Build a performance support system
4. Build a community of practice
5. Use social media to facilitate informal learning
6. Implement a continuous improvement framework
7. Use action learning
8. Organizational learning tools
9. Design Jobs for natural learning
10. Bring the job to the learning…”

U.S. National Archives Creates YouTube Channel…06.21.09

Librarians – “Effectively Influencing Decision Makers”…06.20.09

Here is an interesting and very useful piece of an opinion column from Business Week yesterday by Marshall Goldsmith titled Effectively Influencing Decision Makers:

“…Peter Drucker has written extensively about the impact of the knowledge worker in modern organizations. Knowledge workers can be defined as people who know more about what they are doing than their managers do. Many knowledge workers have years of education and experience in training for their positions yet have almost no training in how to effectively influence decision-makers. As Peter has noted, ‘The greatest wisdom not applied to action and behavior is meaningless data.’

The 11 guidelines listed below are intended to help you do a better job of influencing decision-makers…

1. Every decision that affects our lives will be made by the person who has the power to make that decision, not the “right” person or the “smartest” person or the “best” person. Make peace with this fact…
2. When presenting ideas to decision-makers, realize that it is your responsibility to sell, not their responsibility to buy…
3. Focus on contribution to the larger good—not just the achievement of your objectives…
4. Strive to win the big battles. Don’t waste your energy and psychological capital on trivial points…
5. Present a realistic ‘cost-benefit’ analysis of your ideas—don’t just sell benefits…
6. ‘Challenge up’ on issues involving ethics or integrity—never remain silent on ethics violations…
7. Realize that powerful people are just as human as you are. Don’t say, ‘I am amazed that someone at this level…’…
8. Treat decision-makers with the same courtesy that you would treat customers—don’t be disrespectful…
9. Support the final decision of the organization. Don’t tell direct reports, ‘They made me tell you.’…
10. Make a positive difference—don’t just try to ‘win’ or ‘be right’…
11. Focus on the future—let go of the past…”

SEE ALSO:

1. “The Influence Pyramid 2.0″–Librarians and Others Can Choose to Be Powerful
2. “Influence Pyramid” and the Solo Librarian

“RedLaser 2.0: Realtime iPhone UPC barcode scanning”…06.19.09