Twitter Advanced Search..12.12.10

How to Use Prezi…12.09.10

Forecast: 2011 The Year of Social Business Integration…12.09.10

Finding Free eBooks In Google’s New Bookstore…12.09.10

From MakeUseOf Find Beautiful Free eBooks In Google’s New Shop [US Only]:

Finding Free Books

For those of us in America, though, Google’s book store appears to be just another book store at first glance. There’s the usual collection of New York Times Bestsellers, and many books for sale.

Keep scrolling down, however, and you’ll see this section:

This is the paydirt. Here you can get access to Google’s 3 million public domain titles. You can browse by simply going through the free titles here, or you can search for any work that is in the public domain. Any book without a price beneath it, you can assume, is free.

Once you find a book you like you can read the book online. Google offers a simple but very useful web-based ebook reader:

This elegant interface gives you a great way to read these public domain books, particularly if you set your browser for full-screen. The arrow keys behave as you’d expect them to, turning the pages, and you can quickly access the table on contents or search the text. Best of all, it’s tied to your Google account, meaning you can switch computers and keep reading from where you left off, without having to install anything…”

New Pew Research Report on Twitter Use…12.09.10

From Mashable!:

“…The Pew Center is out with a new report that focuses on Twitter usage in the U.S., and it reveals that 6% of the entire U.S. adult population uses Twitter.
Young adults ages 18 to 29, minority groups — 13% black and 18% Hispanic — and urban dwellers are among the groups with the highest level of Twitter use. The report reveals that women and those with college educations are also slightly more likely than other groups to tweet.

One-quarter of Twitter users check the service multiple times per day to see others’ tweets, while one in five never look for new updates. Here are some select statistics about the actual tweets that are going out there:

72% of Twitter users say they post updates about their personal life, activities or interests.
62% post work-related updates.
55% use Twitter to share links to news stories.
53% use the service to retweet others’ material.
40% use the service to share photos with others, while 28% use it to share videos.
24% tweet their location…”

Student Thoughts on Reading, Choice, and Kindles…12.09.10

Social Media is Changing Libraries…12.09.10

Call to Action for Reauthorization of the Museum and Library Services Act…12.09.10

ALA has issued a urgent call to action about the reauthorization of the Museum and Library Services Act.

Here’s an excerpt from the press release:

Please call the U.S. Capitol Switchboard at 202-224-3121 and ask to be transferred to your representative’s office. Tell their staffs that passing S. 3984, the Museum and Library Services Act (MLSA), is imperative to ensuring libraries can continue providing critical resources to their constituents, particularly in this tough economy. Specifically highlighting programs or resources your library provides to the member’s constituents will make your message stronger.

MLSA will ensure that the Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) funds are secured and the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) is equipped to lead America’s libraries. This bill received bipartisan support from both Senate Republicans and Democrats, especially Senator Jack Reed (D-RI), who is a longtime supporter of libraries in this country. Other Senate sponsors of this bill include Sens. Richard Burr (R-NC), Thad Cochran (R-MS), Susan Collins (R-ME), Michael Enzi (R-WY), and Tom Harkin (D-IA) and Jon Tester (D-MT). To access the full text of this bill, clickhere.

The U.S. Senate passed MLSA Reauthorization under unanimous consent late Tuesday night, bringing the bill one step closer to reauthorization before the end of the 111th Congress.

MLSA has moved to the U.S. House of Representatives where it must receive a vote before the end of the calendar year. Please call your representative and urge him or her to press House leadership for a vote on the Senate-passed version of MLSA and to support the bill.

 

Mobile Teaching and Learning…12.08.10

Student Use of the Kindle eReader…12.08.10

Library and Information Science Online Career Fair…12.08.10

REPOSTING:

LIS Career Fair:  A One Day Online Conference

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

TAP Information Services and the School of Library and Information Science at San Jose State University are pleased to announce another in the ongoing series of online conferences on hot topics that librarians can enjoy right at their desktops.

Keynote Speaker:  Dr. Sandra Hirsh, Professor and Director of the School of Library and Information Science at San Jose State University.  She will draw from her experiences working in libraries and in industry to discuss the current and varied job opportunities for information professionals both inside libraries and in other job settings.

Other Speakers:

• Doug McDavid, on “Opportunities for Informational Professionals Beyond Libraries”
• Mary Ann Harlan, on “Working as a School Librarian in the 21^st Century”
• Rose Chenoweth on “So you Want to Work in a Public Library?”
• Genna Buhr on “Work, Learn, Live (Not Always in that Order): My Experience as a Grad Student”
• Joe Murphy on “Entering and Navigating the Changing World of Librarianship”
• Barbara Galik on “Diverse Careers in Academic Librarianship”
• Cindy Hill on “Future Ready:  Emerging Careers in Special Librarianship”

Full Schedule:  http://www.trendytopics.info/T2careerfairschedule.pdf

Registration Fees:  $40 for individuals; $100 for groups; $25 for students, unemployed, and retired; and $20 for SJSU SLIS alumni.  Your registration fee provides access to all the live online presentations and discussions, and to the conference archive of recordings and slide sets. SJSU SLIS current faculty and students may attend for free.  Contact Lori Bell at lbell927@gmail.com for a free coupon code.

Register at:  http://TrendyTopics.eventbee.com/event?eid=759178305

Trendy Topics Conference Series Website:   http://www.trendytopics.info/

Start Time:  11 a.m. Eastern, 10 Central, 9 Mountain, and 8 Pacific.

End Time:  6 p.m. Eastern, 5 Central, 4 Mountain, and 3 Pacific.

More Info:  Lori Bell at lbell927@gmail.com or
Tom Peters at tpeters@tapinformation.com

TAP Information Services (www.tapinformation.com) helps organizations innovate.

 

Born Digital, in Video…12.08.10

The Next Evolution of Cloud Computing?…12.07.10

What You Need to Know When Buying a Dedicated E-Book Reader…12.07.10

From Wired’s What You Need to Know When Buying an E-Book Reader:

“…Amazon Kindle

The Kindle is the best-selling reader, and is part of a whole ecosystem of Amazon-provided e-books and software, so you can read the same books on your PC, smartphone or Kindle. Though expensive in its earlier generations, the latest iteration sports a budget price, great connectivity options and a wide selection thanks to Amazon’s Kindle store.

Flagship model: Kindle 3 (3G)
Supported formats: TXT, AZW, PDF, HTML, Mobipocket
Hidden perk: Amazon has a free service that converts HTML pages and Word documents to a Kindle-friendly format.
Price: $190 (with 3G and Wi-Fi)

Barnes & Noble Nook

B&N entered the e-reading fray with its Nook. Despite mixed reviews of the Android-powered interface, the color touchscreen, large e-book selection and cross-promotions with the brick-and-mortar stores are clear high points.

Storefront: Nookbook Store
Flagship model: Nook Color
Supported file formats: eReader PDB, ePUB, PDF
Hidden perk: Connecting the Nook to B&N’s in-store WiFi grants you an hour’s worth of reading of any e-book title.
Price: $250 (Wi-Fi only)

Sony Reader

Sony’s middling e-readers haven’t exactly been critical darlings, but they’re still solid and dependable. Sturdy, compact chassis and daylight-viewable E-Ink displays are the norm across models.

Storefront: Sony Reader Store
Flagship model: Sony Reader: Daily Edition
Supported file formats: TXT, PDF, ePUB, BBeB Book, RTF, DOC
Hidden perk: Protected PDF and ePUB allows users to check out e-books from participating libraries.
Price: $250

Apple iPad

Yes, we know the iPad is a tablet, not a dedicated eReader, but it’s still a viable option for reading books. On top of launching an iTunes-esque bookstore, Apple has lent the iPad its UI razzle-dazzle, making for one of the most polished e-reading interfaces.

Storefront: iBooks
Flagship model: iPad 3G (32GB)
Supported file formats: ePUB, PDF
Hidden perk: iBooks comes with a free copy of Winnie-the-Pooh.
Price: $730

Format Wars

Like the rest of the gadget world, e-readers are in the midst of their own format war. Luckily, it’s less contentious than most. While some devices support proprietary and DRM-locked file formats (like Amazon’s AZW for the Kindle), almost all readers also embrace standards like plain text (TXT), Adobe’s portable document format (PDF) and HTML.

Unfortunately, the most ubiquitous e-book format, EPUB, is not supported by the most popular e-book reader, the Kindle. Almost every other e-reader supports this open standard, but Amazon has balked, preferring to push its own format — which, of course, no other e-book reader can utilize.

Before deciding on a reader, it’s worth exploring its supported formats and the preferences of its associated storefront. After all, spending an arm and a leg on a virtual library you can’t read is pointless.

Extras

Connectivity of the 3G variety is the “power door lock” of e-readers. Adding the feature increases the price, but the no-frills day-to-day convenience makes up for it. Being able to browse and download titles sans computer and without a Wi-Fi hotspot grants you true mobility, and the pairing of high-speed throughput with relatively small file transfers means instant gratification. Even the monthly bill has been erased from the equation, as most 3G-ready readers on today’s market include lifetime connectivity in the purchase price.

However, it’s worthwhile to consider the reliability of the wireless provider chained to your e-reader of choice. If you’re an AT&T subscriber who’s experiencing service problems, you’re likely to see similar performance in your AT&T 3G-powered Kindle. Remember, wireless connectivity has its share of quirks.

MP3 Playback

MP3 capabilities usually feel extraneous in anything short of an iPod. However, the feature can add a great deal of value to an e-reader. On top of e-versions of your favorite books, an MP3-capable device can also download audiobooks, or offer old-fashioned music playback. Though this is the norm in high-end hybrid devices like the iPad and Nook Color (which also do full-fledged video playback), even much more modest readers from Sony and Amazon sport some kind of support.

Bookmarks and Annotation

Annotation and reference chops are pretty standard on e-readers, but they’re worth exploring nevertheless. If your reader is likely to be used in an academic or professional setting, then being able to highlight, save and annotate passages is incredibly useful. The trend of baking in onboard reference materials like dictionaries has caught on, as well (though they’re unlikely to make “Jabberwocky” more decipherable). Each reader handles these tasks and tools in a slightly different fashion, so if your goal is critical reading, be sure to do your homework.

E-Ink vs. LCD

It’s not a battle of “peanut butter vs. chocolate” proportions, but the e-reader community is definitely opinionated about the superiority of one tech over another. Here’s a quick rundown:

E Ink: This display tech relies on millions of positively and negatively charged microcapsules. Switching the polarity effectively shifts their positions, producing non-backlit, grayscale images and text (think: Etch-A-Sketch). The lack of backlighting is reported to be easier on the eyes, though problematic for night reading. It’s extremely low on power consumption, since it draws power only when changing the screen.

LCD: This tech in e-readers is just like on your smartphone or monitor. It’s color, high-contrast, and typically sports much better resolution than E-Ink. It comes with its share of setbacks too. Powering all that sweetness is incredibly taxing in terms of battery life, and long periods of staring at the (constantly flickering) backlight has been known to cause eye strain…”

 

 

New Kindle Web App To Compete with Google…12.07.10

Mashable! reports:

“After launching its own incredibly successful, single-purpose hardware and a slew of free apps for mobile and PC devices, Amazon is getting ready to launch a new web app version of Kindle.

Amazon’s timing is impeccable, particularly if the tech giant is trying to take the wind out of Google’s sails; Google just launched its own e-reading, e-bookstore platform today.

An Amazon rep said in an email to ComputerWorld that the new version of the web app is intended to ‘enable users to read full books in the browser and any website to become a bookstore offering Kindle books’ — exactly what Google E-books aims to do with its own platform. The previous version of Kindle for Web, as the app is properly called, was not nearly as noteworthy, allowing users to read only first-chapter previews of books online…”

The Smithsonian Commons…12.07.10

 

Levels of Patron Engagement Pyramid…12.07.10

From Brian Matthews:

“…In theory – as they accumulate different blocks of experience using our services their sophistication and commitment should increase…Ok, so you start with the easiest and most primitive level of service: study space.  This could be a cubical or something more designer. This is the greatest entry point because it is accommodating and requires minimal effort on our behalf.

The next step is technology: computers, printers, scanners, wi-fi, power plugs, and so on. This is another common entry point that just about everyone can use. This layer takes a little more effort on our behalf (budget too) but is largely used by the masses of patrons.

Next up, collections: digital, print, special, reserves, etc. Here their effort increases a bit. They actually have to search and find something. This requires more involvement and indirectly impacts us.

And then we move to assistance. Here is where things start to shift. The other levels have been seemingly passive, and self-supportive— but assistance at circ or reference desk, directly involves us. It elevates the patron commitment—now they have to interact with staff – they have to actively engage with the library.

Now we reach advocacy. We’re moving beyond the product-oriented levels and enter a different layer in which there is an emotional connection to the library. At this point they are endorsing the items in the pyramid. We assume that they have had a positive or at least valuable experience and are now bringing in their peers.

The final step is partnership. They have transcended the library as a suite of services and have elevated to buying in… be it financially or a commitment of time and effort. This could be a patron who develops a program, leads a project, or donates a gift. They invest into the concept of the library and strive to enrich it….”

Libraries, Metadata, and the Semantic Web…12.06.10

This is a notable post from Metadata today titled Determinism and the Semantic Web:

 

“According to the OED Online, determinism is ‘the doctrine that everything that happens is determined by a necessary chain of causation.’

Good old card and online library catalogs provided (and still provide) information discovery by means of a deterministic process. You search for an author, for example, and the catalog searches metadata to find records that match your search. It then generates a search result set for you that includes everything by that author, and nothing by other authors. It’s deterministic because it’s a chain of events, a chain that is predictable and (normally) occurs the same way every time the same search is done.

Internet search engines don’t operate deterministically for the most part. Instead, they use a probabilistic means of achieving information retrieval. For example, you enter a search for “inflation,” and the search engine returns results to you that contain the word ‘inflation.’ These results are probably what you are looking for, but not definitely.

The Semantic Web returns us to a deterministic method of information retrieval. Web pages and data on the web will be marked up with standard uniform resource identifiers that will work like metadata records in a library catalog. The level of indexing in the Semantic Web can be much more granular than library catalogs, for it can index at the word level.

There are a couple of problems with the Semantic Web. One is that it doesn’t really exist yet, at least in terms of popular applications. The second problem is a trend that I am observing in which systems generate Semantic Web URIs, metadata, and triples probabilistically.

For example, services such as OpenCalais Semantic Proxy and Calais Viewer take raw text and try to semanticize it. This dilutes all the deterministic advantages that the Semantic Web promises.

For instance, if text contains the word pitch, and one of these services assigns the wrong meaning to the word (tree pitch, baseball pitch, airplane pitch) through a probabilistic process, often that process will be wrong. But the meaning the service chooses will be hard wired in the text using Semantic Web markup.

If the Semantic Web is built this way, it won’t be an improvement over the current probabilistic methods that search engines use to enable information retrieval and discovery.

Because artificial intelligence-powered systems are still primitive at effectively collocating and disambiguating information resources, making the Semantic Web work satisfactorily will require human effort at a large scale, similar to the cataloging process that occurs in libraries all over the world.

Many have criticized cataloging for its inability to scale to the size of the web. The Semantic Web, if created properly, will suffer the same criticism.

This may be the one factor that keeps the Semantic Web from becoming mainstream: the inability to automate Semantic Web metadata creation.”

 

Library is Everywhere…12.06.10

Library Learning Commons…12.06.10

Google eBookstore Opens…12.06.10

Big news of the day is the opening of Google eBooks.

From How to Shop the Google eBookstore:

“The Google eBookstore launched this morning and consumers can use the store to buy eBooks for various different devices. The digital store front lets shoppers shop for digital book titles based on their device. You can shop directly for the Android, iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad, Sony and Nook eReaders, as well as for the Web. Google eBooks can be downloaded onto all eReader devices that run Adobe Digital Editions.

Shoppers can use a Google Checkout account to purchase books, which will be hosted in their cloud-based Google bookshelf. At this point the store only works for U.S. based credit cards for payment.

There is also an option to return an eBook in case anything goes wrong. Here is more from the Google eBookstore: ‘You may return an ebook for a refund if the ebook does not perform as described, provided that we receive your request within 7 days of purchase. In certain cases, we may consider refunds outside this period, but please note we make these decisions at our sole discretion. Refunds will not be granted in situations of purchase abuse.’”

“

Worldwide Cellphone Use Infographic…12.03.10

Nook eReader Color Demo…12.03.10

Google’s eBook Store “Google Editions” Coming Very Soon…12.01.10

From Mashable!:

“Google Editions, the Internet giant’s book store business promised for last summer, is set to launch before the end of 2010, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Google Editions will have a significantly different sales model from most competitors, such as Amazon’s Kindle store or Apple’s iBookStore. Instead of purchasing books through a single online store, Google will let users buy them either from Google or from independent bookstores and then tie them to a Google account, which will enable them to read the books anywhere and on any device they please….”

 

Most Popular eReaders…12.01.10

Cloud Computing in Libraries…12.01.10