According to the Boy Genius Report:
“…If the pricing comes in as high as had been rumored a few months ago — $1,500 or more…Whether or not the GD910 will officially hit US soil is still an unknown but its stroll through the FCC halls at least makes it a much more likely possibility…”
The Utah Daily Herald reports:
“BYU information technology professor Barry Lunt came up with the idea to invent etchings on discs in order to store data permanently. He is the founder of Millenniata Inc., which produces the M-ARCª Discs”
“…On Sept. 1, Millenniata, a start-up company based in Springville, will release a new archive disk technology to preserve data at room temperature for 1,000 years. It’s like writing onto gold plates or chiseling information into stone.
Dubbed the Millennial Disk, it looks virtually identical to a regular DVD, but it’s special. Layers of hard, “persistent” materials (the exact composition is a trade secret) are laid down on a plastic carrier, and digital information is literally carved in with an enhanced laser using the company’s Millennial Writer, a sort of beefed-up DVD burner. Once cut, the disk can be read by an ordinary DVD reader on your computer.
A number of companies hold intellectual property rights in DVD technology. One of those, Philips, manages the combined patents. Millenniata disks and disk writers will be manufactured under a license now in final negotiation…”
The above is from OCLC’s Managing the Collective Collection By Jim Michalko and Constance Malpas which is worth a read. The article is summarized by saying, “The next major stage in library collaboration will require a changed view of print collections, one that acknowledges the primacy of on-demand access in the online environment and the need to mobilize physical inventory more effectively across a much wider audience of users…In the long term, this may entail a large scale redistribution of library resources, with a small number of repositories serving as hubs in a distributed delivery network. As before, this next phase in the evolution of resource sharing will rely on a common framework of shared policies, operational procedures and infrastructure.”
The Librarian By Day has given a concise overview or “wrap-up” of her experience at her first annual ALA conference which is worth a read (points bolder are mine):
“…Expect to see at least some of these as full blog posts when I’ve got my thoughts in line.
Ed Batista, executive coaching and change management expert, has yet another short but powerful post today Visual Images and Effective Communication that is increasingly relevant to practicing librarians of all stripes which is excerpted below. His previous work has demonstrated his effective use of visualization to communicate his message.
“…Although my reliance on static images falls short on the interactive front, these concepts certainly underlie my recent posts on a framework for professional and personal development, the importance of time horizons, and the nature of influence.
And these same concepts explain why I’m continually drawn to the efforts of designers like Dustin Curtis and writers like Virginia Postrel, who highlight the utility of good design while also doing work that just looks great. There’s also a connection with the work of Howard Gardner on influence–he notes that “A change of mind becomes convincing to the extent that it lends itself to representation in a number of different forms, with these forms reinforcing each other,” and with a particular emphasis on alternative visual forms of representation…”
There is a useful post from Jeremiah Owyang from Web Strategy today titled Breakdown: The Five Ways Companies Let Employees Participate in the Social Web excerpted here:
“…I’ve noticed that there are three ways that companies allow employees to participate. Update: On a related note, I gave my thoughts to CNBC about the roles of social within corporations.
Type One: We Have No Clue
This model, where brands have no rules, no guidelines, and therefore no resources to help employees –it’s a freefor all…
Type Two: Shut it Down
Fear is the primary motivator here, but in some cases, this is to protect employees and the company from liability…
Type Three: The Corporate Represenative
Some companies setup only small groups within corporate communications, or polished executives to be on blogs…
Type Four: Common Employees Blessed For Social
Last night, I shared the stage with Intel’s Michael Brito at Stanford’s continuing education program on web 2.0, he shared that Intel has a SMP program, which stands for Social Media Practioner. The different from the ‘tower’ model listed as type 3, is that this can include other regular employees beyond the refined executive…”
Type Five: Everyone Is Encouraged To Be Involved
Some companies that have active employees in the social sphere can benefit from having every employee involved…
Culture impacts how companies choose
So which model is right for your brand? It really depends on your industry, culture, and employee behavior. While many companies may select the first or second model in the next few years, in the long run –as Generation Y enters into the workforce, it’s undeniable that the third model where everyone is a participant of some form is most likely.”
This is some interesting and relevant information from a post today on Mashable! by Jennifer Van Grove titled What Type of Social Media User Are You?:
“Back in May, Anderson Analytics worked with Greenfield Online to survey and interview respondents on their attitudes and behaviors regarding social networking. Based on these results, Anderson was able to identify and categorize seven types of individuals, from the social media pessimist to the social media maven.
They then used the data to publish a report on the lifestyles, behaviors, spending habits, and income levels for each of their identified categories. The results are in, and the largest percentage of social network service users are business users (31.8%), which they estimate correlates to a total segment of 35 million users with an average age of 33 and an average income of $56k….”
John Blyberg reports today that the Palos Verdes Library District has launched his SOPAC2 (social OPAC) software for their online catalog. Blyberg received the 2009 LITA Brett Butler Award for his work on the SOPAC during the ALA 2009 annual conference in Chicago.
Sum Up Your Leadership in Six Words is an interesting and potentially useful post for us librarians from Harvard Business publishing by John Baldoni:
“…For leaders, this six-word exercise works well as a form of aspiration, that is, how do I want to be remembered? So if you are early or mid career, you have time to make changes so that you can become the leader you are capable of becoming. Consider the following three questions to help you consider how you would sum up your work life in six words or less.
What gets me up in the morning? …
How can I help?…
What is my influence?…
You can adapt the six-word memoir exercise to fit other needs. For example, how might you describe a challenge facing your team using just six words? ‘Tough job. Committed people. Keep working.’ Or ‘Need ideas. Sooner than later. Help.’ You can even make a game of it at your next staff meeting. Encourage your people to contribute their six words as a means of getting to think about the issues, the challenges, and the opportunities you face.
Summing up your career in six words may not produce a eureka moment of sudden clarity, but the exercise challenges you to think about what work means to you and how you influence the way others work. ‘Big idea. Profound thoughts. Truthful moment.’ “
OPAL (Online Programming for All Libraries)
OPALescence 2009
A Free Online Library Conference for Everyone
Thursday Aug. 13th and Friday Aug. 14th
Registration is free, easy, and online: tinyurl.com/N4JMV7
Conference Wiki: http://opalescence.wetpaint.com/
Hosted by OPAL: Online Programs for All (http://www.opal-online.org)
(Psst: Sponsorships are available for as little as $250)
Contact Tom Peters for more info: tpeters@tapinformation.com or 816.616.6746
“Opalescence: The state or quality of being luminous, iridescent, and lustrous … like an opal”
Bowker has announced:
“Bowker, the global leader in bibliographic information management solutions, today announced the beta-release of Books In Print® 2.0 (BIP 2.0) an enhanced version of the company’s flagship book discovery and collection development platform, Books in- Print®. The official global market release of BIP 2.0 is scheduled for the early fourth quarter, 2009.
BIP 2.0 is a new dynamic book search and discovery platform that provides librarians, researchers and library patrons with access to the richest set of book information available in the reference market. The platform combines comprehensive content with powerful visual discovery interfaces from AquaBrowser, Bowker’s extremely popular search platform utilized by more than 500 libraries worldwide. The result is a breakthrough offering that enables users to discover relevant book information through a variety of cutting-edge collection development capabilities, including edition-grouped search results (FRBR), “word cloud” search visualization and Web 2.0 tools, such as rating, tagging and other social networking features.
The introduction of BIP 2.0 follows the April 2009 release of the American Library Association (ALA)’s 2009 report, “The State of America’s Libraries,” which cited a Harris Poll from 2008 that reported that 41 percent of library card holders visited their library websites in 2008, compared with 24 percent in 2006. According to the report, 39 percent of card-holders visit the library to borrow books; 12 percent to take out CDs, videos, or computer software; 10 percent to use a computer to view library holdings; 9 percent to use reference materials; and 8 percent to gain Internet access. The product development path for BIP 2.0 tracked with these emerging technology trends, content interests and social networking trends that were seen in all library market segments in recent years…”
This is a very good presentation from the recent ALA conference from the Library Trainer, Lori Reed, and Pat Carterette from the State Library of Georgia.
Since librarians and everyone else seem to be particularly focused on their careers now more than ever, consider some good insights from Ed Batista, executive coach and change management specialist, in his latest post Your Career: An Operator’s Manual which is illustrated by the graphic above.
Ed says, “…Rolling this all up into the graphic above creates what I see as an ‘Operator’s Manual’ for our careers. We need to look out and assess our effectiveness as communicators, as leaders and as change agents, and we need to look in and determine whether we’re truly happy, truly motivated, truly learning–in short, whether we’re fulfilled…“
An open letter to ALA about the 2009 annual conference from the Library WebHead:
“Dear ALA,
I know that you’re decent folks and have a great social conscience. That’s wonderful. But – unless it relates to things like library’s budgets being cut, better marketing & spokespeople to help libraries publicize their value so they DON’T get cut, pushing for less restrictive copyright legislation, getting database and other vendors to make their licensing more standardized and their systems less proprietary & expensive, opposing the censorship of books/information resources, (library-specific concerns… and there are plenty of them out there) – I don’t want to hear about it at your annual conference.
If members want to be involved in getting troops out of Afghanistan or Iraq or whatever, they can feel free to do so. There’s an array of organizations designed to deal with those issues (have you heard of Moveon.org?).
For as long as ALA distracts itself with geopolitical concerns that are not related specifically to the library profession, it’s taking its eye off the ball. Since there are still such huge concerns out there to contend with as the role of libraries in the future (and even whether or not there is one, let alone what it will look like), I think ALA can’t afford to spend its time on these matters.”
I tend to agree…also what’s up with Christy Hefner as the opening speaker? As ABC news’ John Stossel says, “Give me a break!!”
MakeUsOf.com has an interesting and potentially useful post today titled Use Microsoft Office As An Offline Google Docs Editorwit Offisync [Windows]:
“…You would think that Microsoft Office and Google Docs working together is pretty much an impossiblity. After all, the two of them are fierce rivals and the thought of the two company’s products working seamlessly together is laughable.
Well not anymore, thanks to Offisync which allows you to use, update and synchronize your Google Docs onto Microsoft Office – as well as offering the ability to search on Google from the Office interface and insert images into your Office documents from Google Images.
This is one of those services that will prove to be insanely useful if you are in the habit of switching between them both all the time. For it to work though, you need :
Thanks to The Travelin’ Librarian for posting 7 Essential iPhone Apps for Librarians by Thomas Rheinecker today excerpted here:
“…Stanza
Stanza is an ebook app. Basically, it allows you to read ebooks on your iPhone…
Google for the iPhone is sure to be a handy tool for any librarian. Anyone can use this app to seek out information and it is especially handy when you are away from your usual reference materials. It even has an option that allows you to use your voice to initiate your search.
This site is the Wikipedia companion which explains the name…This version of the app can give you a direct connection with the Wikipedia servers for fast answers.
…The speakers and presentations offered are top notch and are fantastic sources of information.
WordPress is an iPhone app that can be used to create blogs… You can write or edit blog posts no matter where you are or what you are doing. You can keep library patrons updated on library happenings through your blogs or use it for your personal blogging activities.
OCLC WorldCat Mobile Interface
This app gives you access to all the libraries in WorldCat…
This app begins its usefulness as a way to store your files but is so much more. It allows you to not only access your files but use them at any computer that is connected to the network. As an added bonus, you can share your files with others using this app…”
There is an update on the Reference Extract project today at Library Journal by Virtual Dave (David Lankes of SUSIS) titled A Sparrow With a Maching Gun excerpted here:
“…OCLC, Syracuse University, and the University of Washington, supported by the John D. and Katherine T. MacArthur Foundation, have been planning for a new credibility engine called Reference Extract. As of this writing it is still a plan and concept, but its evolution demonstrates the potential of context and librarian-generated links…
The idea started simply: take the URLs cited by reference librarians, gather them, and allow users to search these links as a general purpose search engine. While it was not the first project to collect URLs and library recommendations, previous projects had significant limitations. Links would go stale over time. There was a high burden on librarians to identify, classify, and update the links. However, the greatest limitation for librarians building collections of URLs is the lack of context in such lists…
Reference Extract seeks a third way that combines the strength of both librarian-selected sites and Google’s automated approach while avoiding as many of the limitations as possible. The initial idea was to replace page rank, which sorted results based on the number of pages pointing to other pages, with reference weighting, where results were ranked on how many times reference librarians pointed to a given web site. The URLs would be harvested from actual reference interactions, thus making it part of the current workflow of librarians and using this work to provide the context in which the citation was made.
This concept has evolved over the past year from the idea of a search engine based upon the citations of librarians to a credibility engine based on the citation patterns of credible agents. That sounds a bit abstract, and the rest of this article seeks to clarify this transition and, more importantly for our purposes, examine the opportunities and pitfalls of using context to link information in library applications and beyond…
For too long, librarians have paid attention to the front matter of books (title, author, publisher), when the utility of them was in the back (references, indexes, glossaries). When discussing data, linked or otherwise, we almost always fall back on well-structured metadata when there is so much more. The value of any data comes not in its adherence to a standard, its ‘well-formedness,’ or its interchangeability; it comes from contexts of use. All of this, then, is the starting point for Reference Extract, with the goal of eventually mining reference transactions for those sparrows with machine guns—contextual data that we can put to our own dangerous use.”
TechCrunch reports today in Microsoft’s Azure Gets a Business Model and an Official Release Date:
“This is a big week for Microsoft when it comes to the cloud. First, the company debuted Office 2010, which made a move towards the browser with cloud-based versions of Word, PowerPoint and Excel. Today, Microsoft is announcing the business model and launch timing for Azure,
the company’s much hyped cloud operating system. The platform also includes a Web-based relational database in Microsoft SQL Azure, and connectivity and interoperability with .NET Services.
Microsoft says that Azure will be offered for purchase through a consumption-based pricing model and will try to continue to offer promotional discounts to enterprise customers…”
Although age discrimination is illegal, it’s not difficult for potential library employers to deduce the age of an applicant through deduction or simple search and decide not to hire based upon age.
We have all heard the statistics about the leading edge of the ‘Baby Boomer’ generation turning 65 in 2011. According to the U.S. Census Bureau the largest age “cohorts” are persons aged 45-49 and 50-54.
“The current economy, the toughest since the 1930s, has forced many retirement-age people to postpone leaving the workforce, or do away with the idea altogether. By choice or necessity, many will have to work longer and harder than they’d planned, well into their golden years. The whole notion of a leisurely retirement, free of economic worry, has been called into question for young and old alike…”
Many seasoned professionals are now or will likely be looking for full-time employment, including librarians, as a necessity not as a way to supplement their recreational “free-time” or as a means of continued self-actualization as many assumed in the past. They did not or will not have the choice of leaving the work force but are outside the workforce trying to get back inside.
What percentage of those qualified, professional librarians seeking work after age 50 who are laid off, downsized, force into early “retirement”, etc. DO YOU THINK will be able to find gainful, full-time employment in a library suited to their experience, skills, and education?
60%?
50%?
40%?
30%?
None?
Worth thinking about?
According to the ALA membership demographic survey, as of June 2009, “Baby Boomers” represented 50.2% of respondents.
You can review Virtual Dave Lankes’ ALA 2009 presentation “The Death of a Document” described as:
“When a book becomes an ebook it looses more than simply its physical binding – it looses hard boundaries that separate the content of the book from its use. Online journals are not simply pictures of a traditional journal on a screen, but rather the foundations of intellectual communities. While today we hold on to terms such as book, journal, magazine and simply affix ‘e’ on them, in truth, these terms of simply metaphors, an echo of an earlier analog reality. Online narratives, theses, and ‘how-to’s’ become living documents bound closer to a multitude of contexts that defy traditional notions of information organization, already strained to the breaking point of scale. What is needed is a new approach to organizing knowledge, one based on context that occurs in the space between artifacts.”
Library Journal reported today from ALA:
“..Libraries had better prepare for an explosion in the capacity of mobile devices as well as the transformative increase in user capacity and expectations. This was the message conveyed by a panel yesterday at the American Library Association’s (ALA) Annual Conference on Libraries and Mobile Devices: Public Policy Considerations.
After all, explained Jason Griffey, assistant professor and head of Library Information Technology at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, cell phones are the most popular and ubiquitous information device worldwide; in 50 countries, cell phone penetration (phones/person) exceeds 100 percent.
By the end of 2010, he continued, 90 percent of the world’s population will have access to a cell-phone signal. Right now, more than 60 percent of people have a cell-phone subscription, and three-quarters of them use text messaging. That total, 2.4 billion people, is twice the number currently using email…”
The Library of Congress in now also found on Facebook.
There is a good post on TechCrunch from Box.net by Aaron Levie, CEO and co-founder, in response to Chris Anderson’s new book/business model “Free” excerpted here in relation to the future of software:
“…The great news is that because software distribution and sales models are adapting with the times, the number of people that can now access and afford your product has gone up exponentially in the past decade. Given the fact that we can now develop and deliver software much more easily and cheaply (distribution over the web vs. hardware and software sales), and thus reflect these cost improvements onto customers, we can now go after much larger or harder to reach markets more efficiently (small businesses, for instance). With the right product, reaching 10 million potential business users and customers is now trivial. Imagine doing that 10 or 20 years ago. And with an addressable market in the millions of users, it becomes a lot more practical than ever before to make a meaningful business just selling to a subset of that base.
So what to take from all this?
Here are some quick lessons we’ve learned from ‘Free’ in the enterprise:
Cory Doctorow on BoingBoing points out the abysmal portion of the average American spent on “Reading” (0.2%) on this very nice visualization from Visual Economics.
There is a good new post from Ed Batista relevant to us that is worth reading and contemplation titled Time Horizons which is excerpted here:
“When we assess our lives–our fulfillment, our effectiveness, what’s working, what’s not working–how far ahead do we look? How far ahead should we look? Is that time horizon a good fit for the issues under consideration? And what issues are most relevant to us in a given time horizon?
The 10 time horizons above are the ones that I find most useful. They’re each sufficiently distinct to provide a different perspective and raise a new set of issues, but they flow continuously from this immediate moment to my very last breath. That’s not to say that I have a clear plan for each horizon–hardly…”
I finally submitted and am now participating in Google Voice. There was a good post from LifeHacker yesterday which is excerpted here titled How to Ease Your Transition to Google Voice which I would encourage any potential users to review in its entirety:
“…If you still haven’t received an invite or want a clearer picture of what Google Voiceactually does, peek first at our screenshot-packed first look and tips on whether you actually need it…
Be firm: If you want Google Voice to be your universal phone hub, everybody has to call it…Say it’s your new number, and say it’s your only number. For those who don’t follow-up, there’s a next step:
The catch-all voicemail: Call your cell phone voicemail number and head into the options to record a new voicemail. Say that you won’t be retrieving voicemail on it and list your new number…
The stragglers: Some folks just don’t want to edit their contact lists, and others feel like they’ll catch you quicker if they’ve got your direct line. Don’t take their calls. Call them back from your Google Voice number, through the Google Voice web site (explained later on), or by calling your Google Voice number from your standard phone and dialing them from there…
Text message replies: When Google Voice delivers your text messages to your phone, they arrive from a completely new phone number, although with a contact’s name attached if you have it stored…
Call-backs: Unlike text messages, Google Voice doesn’t provide a magic call-back number to avoid re-introducing your “old”/carrier number to contacts…
That slight voice latency: As previously mentioned, there’s a variable amount of audio delay when routing calls through Google Voice. Sometimes it’s hardly noticeable, but other times, you seem more rude than you really are…
Google Voice’s killer app is allowing you to keep one phone number, but have it route to multiple phones the way you want. Here’s how to save money, avoid annoyances, and get more out of Google Voice’s custom calling rules…”
I really like this picture from DavidKing and posted by Tame the Web because it speaks volumes.
Thanks to executive coaching and change management specialist Ed Batista today for sharing his notes and thoughts [Chris Anderson on "Free" at Global Business Network] on a talk by Chris Anderson yesterday about Chris’ much talked about new book Free: The Future of a Radical Price which is VERY relevant to libraries, librarians, and librarianship excerpted here:
“…In Anderson’s words, ‘The Internet is the first truly competitive market the world has ever seen,’ and in this environment we experience ‘the law of gravity online: If marginal cost is zero, and competition is unlimited, price will fall to zero.’ Anderson’s quick to note that he’s not saying the price should be zero or things should be free; he’s merely observing the dynamics at work in the market for any products or services that can be converted to bits.
He also noted that it’s not simply ‘free’ vs. ‘paid’ products and services, but rather free versions supported by advertising and ‘freemium’ versions in which consumers and users pay to get something extra. What will people pay for? In Anderson’s words…
The key opportunity created by offering your products and services for free is that “free allows you to fully explore your customer space…
And Anderson strongly believes in the future of books. Printed materials will survive to the extent that they add value to the online version of the same content. Anderson expects books, which are convenient for long-form content and ‘look nice on a shelf,’ to make it. He expects newspapers to die (or at least to be radically reinvented.) And magazines? They’ll eventually be replaced by Apple’s version of the Kindle, but the rich graphic experience they offer will keep many of them safe for now…
Finally, one of Anderson’s most interesting comments tonight was his assertion that ‘the key talent of the 21st century is self-promotion and creating celebrity…[and] the goal is to create celebrity, or reputation…and convert that into something that pays the rent.’ (On a cautionary note, he added, ‘And that business can be just as dirty as it sounds.’)
Although one example of this is Paris Hilton and the ‘fame-for-being-famou’ that she embodies, the openness of the Internet means that today anyone can at least get their ideas into the marketplace. That’s no guarantee of success, of course–you’ll still need some luck, even with good ideas and a talent for self-promotion. But as Anderson notes, we’re now able to tap into ‘the long tail of talent… The Internet has lowered the transaction costs of finding talent…[and] talent will find a way.’
This fascinates me as an executive coach, both on my own behalf and on behalf of my clients and students at Stanford Business School, because what Anderson is saying is that the rules are changing. We used to rely solely on personal networks and resume credentials to locate and identify talent (and to be located and identified by others as talent.) But in a more open marketplace of ideas, those filters are less and less useful as they screen out more ‘false negatives’ (i.e. talented people unknown to us who lack traditional credentials) and allow through more ‘false positives’ (i.e. people within our networks who possess traditional credentials but who aren’t really all that talented.)…
From a personal perspective, my writing on this site on coaching, leadership, change and related issues over the past few years has given me a reputation as someone with something of interest to say on these topics–a reputation that can be quantified in data…
So free work and free content have been the essential elements in developing a verifiable reputation and an identity as a trusted subject matter expert in my field, and I don’t know how I could have done it any other way. And seeing my own experience in this new light makes me wonder if I should be encouraging my clients and students to do more of the same…
OPAL (Online Programming for All Libraries)
OPALescence 2009
A Free Online Library Conference for Everyone
Thursday Aug. 13th and Friday Aug. 14th
Registration is free, easy, and online: tinyurl.com/N4JMV7
Conference Wiki: http://opalescence.wetpaint.com/
Hosted by OPAL: Online Programs for All (http://www.opal-online.org)
(Psst: Sponsorships are available for as little as $250)
Contact Tom Peters for more info: tpeters@tapinformation.com or 816.616.6746
“Opalescence: The state or quality of being luminous, iridescent, and lustrous … like an opal”
From BoingBoing today:
“Are you a young maker or know one? There is still a month to submit projects to The Digital Open, an online expo for open technology projects created by people aged 17 and under from around the world. The Digital Open is a project of the Institute for the Future [http://www.iftf.org/] in partnership with Sun Microsystems and Boing Boing. The deadline for submissions is August 15 but if you enter your project (even if it’s not finalized) by July 24, you may win one of five Flip Ultra Camcorders. Grand prizes in the Digital Open include laptops running OpenSolaris and other fun gear. Entries will be judged by Eric Wilhelm of Instructables, Dale Dougherty of MAKE, Kati London of Area/Code, Graham Hill of Treehugger, Linda Rogers of Sun, Nick Bilton of the New York Times, Lawrence Lessig, our own Xeni Jardin, and many other interesting folks. The Digital Open“
