Great Google Superbowl Commercial…02.08.10

Extractiv – “Content Provisioning”…02.08.10

This sounds really interesting and potentially useful from Extractiv:

“Extractiv is a new kind of content provisioning service which is making the Web truly actionable. Rather than simply passively ‘monitoring’ the Web, our industry-leading data harvesting and content extraction goes out and delivers the information that really matters to you and your business.

With Extractiv, it’s easy to build semantically-aware applications – regardless if you’re a newcomer to the Semantic Web or a deep believer in the power of semantic metadata. Let us show you what we can do for you!

Extractiv is currently in alpha…”

Research for Pro Football Lovers on Super Bowl Sunday 2010…02.07.10

From the Professional Football Researchers Association website:

“The Professional Football Researchers Association (PFRA) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to the history of professional football. Formed in 1979, PFRA members include many of the game’s foremost historians and writers. The PFRA is also for any fan interested in the history of professional football. The PFRA is incorporated in the state of Connecticut and has 501(c)(3) status as an educational organization with the Internal Revenue Service.

PFRA members receive six issues of our official magazine, The Coffin Corner. Each issue is 24 pages crammed with pro football history: articles on great players, teams, and games of the past (and some not-so-great), occasionally a stat article, some opinion, and organization news. This site contains articles that have appeared in the The Coffin Corner over the years, with the exception of the last couple of years. For instance, a recent issue includes articles on the Detroit Lions’ Thanksgiving games, the WFL’s Chicago Fire, the Ice Bowl and Jim Brown.

We’re into our 30th year, so we must be doing something right. Anyway, if you decide to join the PFRA, we’ll be happy to have you. For information on joining, contact Ken Crippen

Either way, check out the site. There are articles on just about every aspect of pro football history either here or on the way. If you’re interested in the people, teams and events that made the game of professional football great, you’ll want to bookmark this site and check back often…”

CHOOSE THE BEST SUPERBOWL AD:

You Are Not a Gadget – Book Review…02.07.10

An interesting read is You Are Not a Gadget by Jaron Lanier which the author discusses in an article in the Wall Street Journal excerpted here:

“All too many of today’s Internet buzzwords— including ‘Web 2.0,’ ‘Open Culture,’ ‘Free Software’ and the ‘Long Tail’—are terms for a new kind of collectivism that has come to dominate the way many people participate in the online world. The idea of a world where everybody has a say and nobody goes unheard is deeply appealing. But what if all of the voices that are piling on end up drowning one another out?

There’s no escaping collectivism in our online world. If you search about most any topic online, for instance, you will likely be directed first to Wikipedia, a collective effort. Google Wave, a new communication tool that is intended to supplant email, encourages you to blur personal boundaries by editing what someone else has said in a conversation with you, and you can watch each other as you type so nobody gets a private moment to consider a thought before posting. And if you listen to music online, there’s a good chance your listening will be guided by statistical analysis of Internet crowd preferences.

Most people know me as the ‘father of Virtual Reality technology.’ In the 1980s and 1990s, I was a young computer scientist and entrepreneur working on how to apply virtual reality to things like surgical simulation. But I was also part of a circle of friends who tried to imagine how computers would fit into the peoples’ lives, including how people might make a living in the future. Our dream came true, in part. It turns out that millions of people are ready to contribute instead of sitting passively on the couch watching television. On the other hand, we made a huge mistake in making those contributions unpaid, and often anonymous, because those bad decisions robbed people of dignity. I am appalled that our old fantasies have become so entrenched that it’s hard to get anyone to remember that there are alternatives to a framework that isn’t working…”

USGS Topographical Maps Downloadable FREE…02.06.10

It’s frequently hard to find printed topographical maps without getting them from  the rare physical locations that stock them from the USGS or by ordering ($$) them online.  The United States Geological Survey digital beta maps now provide many FREE downloadable topographic maps. Recently I downloaded one for my last solo hike with a portion, including “The Narrows” – see my photos below) of the Wichita Mountains National Wildlife Refuge and printed a magnified portion of it:

NYPL Map Rectifier – New York Public Library…02.06.10

February 2010 Edition of LC Digital Preservation Online…02.06.10

The February 2010 issue of the Library of Congress Digital Preservation Newsletter is now online.

JISC on Social Media…02.06.10

The Evolution of Twitter Visualized…02.06.10

Disaster Response in the Library…02.06.10

QR Codes Appear on The Weather Channel…02.06.10

Librarian Teachers…02.05.10

JooJoo (aka CrunchPad) Brings iPad Competition…02.05.10

The Boy Genius Report today says:

“…[JooJoo] the internet tablet formerly known as the CrunchPad has finally entered into production and should begin shipping later this month. To retail for $499 USD, the JooJoo features a 12.1″ multi-touch capacitive display with native resolution of 1366 x 768, Wi-Fi 802.11b/g, 4GB SSD, front-facing camera, accelerometer, support for Flash (HD Flash will be all systems go when 10.1 comes out of beta) as well as a bunch of givens like integrated speakers, a 3.5mm headphone jack and USB port. Also announced today is Fusion Garage’s intent to open an app web store in which JooJoo owners will be able to grab whatever developers can make using some proprietary ‘but standards driven’ APIs…are rather confident that their device will be able to take on competitors such as the HP Slate and Apple iPad, even going so far as to say of the later that the JooJoo is bigger, fully supports Flash (the real internet) and will beat its major competitors to the market…”

“Laws of Knowledge Management” Redux…02.05.10

Excerpted from Laws of Knowledge Management on the Librarians as Knowledge Managers blog:

Seven spiritual laws of successful knowledge management, by Marcus Speh Birkenkrahe [1. The Law of Unity; 2. The Law of Giving; 3. The Law of Cause and Effect; 4. The Law of Least Effort; 5. The Law of Intention and Desire; 6. The Law of Detachment; 7. The Law of Purpose in Life]

Are There Laws of Knowledge Management? by Stephen Denning, Michel Pommier and Lesley Shneier. [1. Knowledge sharing is essential to economic survival; 2. Communities of practice are the heart and soul of knowledge sharing; 3. Virtual community members also need physical interactions; 4. Passion is the driving force behind communities of practice; 5. Communities enrich organizations and personal lives; 6. Knowledge sharing has inside-out and outside-in dynamic….”

“Funky Libraries” from the BBC…02.04.10

2010 Top World Repositories…02.04.10

From the Top 400 List of Ranking Web of World Repositories:

What is Transliteracy?…02.04.10

Transliteracy is 3D

View more presentations from Bobbi Newman.

New Pew Report: Social Media and Young Adults…02.04.10

The Pew Internet and American Life Project has released it’s new and useful Social Media and Young Adults report which includes the following:

Charlotte Mecklenburg Library Launches Job Help Center…02.03.10

Thanks to Stephen Abrams for pointing out this video:

Textbook Publishers Prepare for iPad and e-ink Readers…02.03.10

Excerpted from the Boy Genius Report post Textbook publishers prepare content for iPad/e-ink readers:

“Major textbook publishers, including McGraw-Hill, Pearson, Kaplan, and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt K-12, have completed a deal with software company ScrollMotion Inc. to prepare their textbook offerings for digital outlets like the iPad…

The Wall Street Jounal, citing a report by research firm Compass Intelligence, predicts technology spending among educational institutions will increase $14.3 billion over a five year period (tracked from 2008 to 2013); a figure publishing companies clearly are not going to ignore…”

New Watch Phone…02.03.10

CrunchGear reports today:

“…the Kempler & Strauss W Phone Watch, an unlocked GSM phone inside a watch…

The phone is about as big as a Garmin GPS watch and has a touchscreen and small camera. I’m going to wear this thing for a few days and report back on how it feels to wear the entire world on your wrist but this far it seems to work fine. The screen is amazingly hard to type on without a little stylus, but it’s fun to try. Interestingly, you can even make and take calls without a headset.

How much does it cost? $199, friends, and it’s available for pre-order now…”

Health Tweeder Infographic…02.03.10

Click on this is a really cool interactive The Health Tweeder

New Release – “This Book Is Overdue!: How Librarians and Cybrarians Can Save Us All”…02.03.10

Reviews from Amazon of This Book Is Overdue!: How Librarians and Cybrarians Can Save Us All (Released 02/02/10):

Publishers Weekly:

“…In an information age full of Google-powered searches, free-by-Bittorrent media downloads and Wiki-powered knowledge databases, the librarian may seem like an antiquated concept. Author and editor Johnson (The Dead Beat) is here to reverse that notion with a topical, witty study of the vital ways modern librarians uphold their traditional roles as educators, archivists, and curators of a community legacy. Illuminating the state of the modern librarian with humor and authority, Johnson showcases librarians working on the cutting edge of virtual reality simulations, guarding the Constitution and redefining information services-as well as working hard to serve and satisfy readers, making this volume a bit guilty of long-form reader flattery. Johnson also makes the important case for libraries-the brick-and-mortar kind-as an irreplaceable bridge crossing economic community divides. Johnson’s wry report is a must-read for anyone who’s used a library in the past quarter century.”

“Johnson does for the library profession what Malcolm Gladwell did for the theory of memetics in The Tipping Point.” (Nora Rawlinson, The Tipping Point )

State of the Internet Infographic…02.03.10

From Mashable!

Data and Information Gathering from Space…02.02.10

Thanks to the Centered Librarian for highlighting this great infographic.  CLICK on image for larger display.

Social Media and the Proverbial Lone Wolf Librarian…02.02.10

Despite the ease of having all your social media strategically connected, the Proverbial Lone Wolf Librarian has chosen to keep only his WordPress blog and his Twitter accounts reserved for professional library work.  Facebook and the majority of my non-library, web-based,  email accounts are reserved for family, close personal friends, and personal business .

I used Flickr photo sharing until Yahoo! decided to charge for reasonable storage space while continuing to hold some of my images hostage although they did give me a couple of weeks to snatch my pictures back. Time ran out, however, so now I just keep photos on CDs/DVDs, my pc, and on Facebook instead of hopping to Picasa or elsewhere.

I also maintain a profile on LinkedIn.

BTW, I use Bloglines and Google Reader for aggregators and my favorite browsers are FireFox and Chrome because of their speed.

Of course, we need to keep our social media and information glut in perspective – easier said than done.  Filtering information is the key but check out In Defense of Distraction from NY Magazine… a long, but relevant read:

“…before the founders of Google had even managed to get themselves born, the polymath economist Herbert A. Simon wrote maybe the most concise possible description of our modern struggle: ‘What information consumes is rather obvious: It consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention, and a need to allocate that attention efficiently among the overabundance of information sources that might consume it.’ As beneficiaries of the greatest information boom in the history of the world, we are suffering, by Simon’s logic, a correspondingly serious poverty of attention…

It’s too late to just retreat to a quieter time. Our jobs depend on connectivity. Our pleasure-cycles—no trivial matter—are increasingly tied to it. Information rains down faster and thicker every day, and there are plenty of non-moronic reasons for it to do so. The question, now, is how successfully we can adapt…

…because attention is a limited resource—one psychologist has calculated that we can attend to only 110 bits of information per second, or 173 billion bits in an average lifetime—our moment-by-moment choice of attentional targets determines, in a very real sense, the shape of our lives…“

UK’s Archives Hub…02.02.10

Archives Hub – “…access to the archives of UK universities and colleges”

Changes to Regulations.Gov….02.02.10

Embedded Acadmic Librarianship…02.02.10

Here is an interesting presentation on embedded librarianship:

UK’s National Trust Libraries Now Searchable Online…02.01.10

The UK’s National Trust says for the first time is searchable online:

“…The National Trust owns 140 historic libraries, containing around 230,000 titles, generally preserved in the places where they were originally assembled and read. Many are country house libraries, some collected by wealthy bibliophiles, others containing more practical everyday books, including rare provincial printing. Other collections reflect the interests of middle-class readers; some were assembled by literary figures, such as Kipling and Shaw.

Together these libraries provide an unparalleled resource for the study of the history of private book ownership in Britain and Ireland. The collections will be of interest to researchers from a wide range of disciplines, and include a huge variety of materials, from illuminated manuscripts to picture postcards.

For fuller details please see the National Trust’s Books and Manuscripts collection webpages, or contact libraries@nationaltrust.org.uk. You can also see the National Trust’s library page on Copac…”