Archive for June 2007

Is it time for you, your team or your library organization to move beyond a Vision or Mission Statement to a compelling design of your future? The famous Goethe quote says it all: “Whatever you can do or dream you can do, begin it now. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.”

Strategic intent is an approach that I am becoming all to familiar with within my organisation. It it believed that an organisation exhibits STRATEGIC INTENT when it relentlessly pursues a certain long-term strategic objective and concentrates its strategic actions on achieving that objective. Grand words indeed! In my organisation the dialogue around what is needed to ‘build capability’ for library services is positively embryonic - but developing nevertheless.

Great care is needed to evolve libraries using the lexicon of business. Fortunately there are many models and opportunities for us to ‘build capacity’ by learning and sharing through social networking.

Building the Ubiquitous Library in the 21st Century from the World Library and Information congress in August 2006 provides a “road map” for information professionals to utilize emerging technologies to “design, develop, integrate, enhance and implement ubiquitous library services and projects in the 21st century”.

Is todays library the new mall discusses how emerging technologies and the change in how we think about learning is driving library design that engage library users in more experiential learning environments.

Announcing the Computers in Libraries 2008 Conference.

Libraries are at the forefront of experimenting with and adopting new technology. New tools and processes have ignited creative content mashups, specialized and personalized services for community segments, and exciting new techniques for dealing with voluminous information flows. Now user generated content in conjunction with new tools is shaping the new information world. What new horizons will we find with the integration of “high tech and high touch”? What innovation and change will 2008 bring?

The conference theme Innovative Change: Integrating High Tech with High Touch, focuses on how libraries excel when technology advancements match the people capabilities. It highlights leading edge online initiatives and innovations in all types of information enterprises, tools and techniques for enhancing user-friendly digital information flows, information discovery and visualization methods for dealing with today’s information overload, building new communities and supporting online connections in engaging ways, and more.

Call for speakers is now open. Submit a proposal by August 24, 2007. You’ll find the Computers in Libraries 2008 group on FaceBook.

Pandia Powersearch is an all-in-one list of search engines and directories. Search the Web using the search window (with a dropdown set of choices), or select from extensive list of the best Internet search tools found by Pandia. Search for files, images, music, video, online reference, dictionaries, books and more!

Pandia Powersearch is a search service from Pandia Search Central.

A very impressive Web 2.0 presence from Seattle Public Schools who have clearly got a good lead on integration of social networking into their learning frameworks!

Know as L3RN - Learning equals creating, learning and broadcasting, A visit to their fantastic portal is a must. School libraries have their own area for News, tips, resources, and help from Seattle Schools’ libraries.

The portal has browse, video, audio, docs and channels in its suite. Fantastic!

[From: Awapuni ‘links for you’]

I know that plagiarism is an important topic amongst those charged with the responsibility to manage academic papers and approaches to scholarship. I thought it worth noting that the proceedings and some powerpoint presentations are available to download from the 2006 2nd International Plagiarism Conference, managed by Northumbria Learning, which highlighted the many and varied approaches to the issues being adopted by universities and colleges both in the UK and further afield.

Proceedings include a wide range of topics. My favourite - Can you teach students to avoid plagiarism in 6 months?

Technorati Tags: academic integrity, academic literacies, plagiarism, literacies, JISC

Take a look at Teen Web a the Nashville Public Library. Flickr images, Teen Web Links on Del.icio.us, and embedded player showcasing the Teen Song Writing contest…and more!

If you’re a teen songwriter, and you didn’t participate in Nashville Public Library’s first ever teen songwriting contest, you missed out!

Finishes with a neat row of avatars, introducing the Library crew. It’s worth taking a look a the Web 2.0 features of Teen Web.

[From: Tame the Web]

A fascinating article by Michael Jensen from Chronicle Review, the Chronicle of Higher education, The New Metrics of Scholarly Authority ( June 15, 2007), discusses scholarly communication now in the abundance of Web 2.0 information, and in a Web 3.0 era. Engaged participation online challenges the authority frameworks of print publishing processes, and opens the doors to authority mechanisms in Web 3.0 based on heavily computed reputation-and-authority metrics, using many of the kinds of elements now used, as well as on elements that can be computed only in an information-rich, user-engaged environment.

For universities, the challenge will be ensuring that scholars who are making more and more of their material available online will be fairly judged in hiring and promotion decisions. It will mean being open to the widening context in which scholarship is published, and it will mean that faculty members will have to take the time to learn about — and give credit for — the new authority metrics, instead of relying on scholarly publishers to establish the importance of material for them.

[From: Michael Habib]

Thanks to Rhonda Gonzales @ the library, who writes about Blogs as Websites for libraries.

What she offers is an introduction to an OPAC which presents information with TAGS and comments - just like a blog - while still incorporating bibliographic data. This is taxonomy with a folksonomy ‘look and feel’. A most interesting development.

One of the most impressive is Plymouth State University’s Lamson Library. Take a look at their beta site: http://lamson.wpopac.com/library. If you do a catalog search, the results are posted to the site like blog postings complete with comments. You can also browse the catalog or the whole site by drilling down through categories, etc.

This site is built on a product called Scriblio (formerly WPopac) which describes itself as “Scriblio (formerly WPopac) - an award winning, free, open- source CMS and OPAC with faceted searching and browsing features based on WordPress“. Scriblio is not available for general use at the present, but learn more about it at About Scriblio.

[From:FIKSZ.3 NDRGRND]

The ease of communication as social networks grow highlights an emerging aspect of culture and society that librarians will want to keep in touch with. What are the communication changes that are taking place that relate to the history of protest? So just what is a smartmob? Stay in touch with the subversive dimension of social networking in our  society.

This book will explore of the use of communication networks in the context of activism. It Is about how networks emerge, what they look like, and how they act. An example from the Civil Rights era known as the Nashville sit-ins will set the stage by illustrating how a basic sit–in functions. A protest known as the Battle of Seattle will be used to show how the advances of communication and organization that have been facilitated by mobile communications technologies.12 It is imperative that the protestors of today understand how modern communications technology can improve the efficiency, precision, and effectiveness of protest.

This short, stunning, PDF by Shlomo Goltz on “Evolution of the Protest” is a must-read for students of smart mobs. Goltz combines scholarship and graphic design into a short booklet.

[From: Smart Mobs]

Keith Stanger must be a great Library Guy!! But seriously, it is well worth visiting Keith’s ‘home port’ at Information Advocate: Your Guide to Navigating Information Clutter.

What I particularly like about Keith’s approach is the way he provides access to information sources with visual mapping. Visit any of the Resources:Suggested Indexes at Halle Library and you will see exactly what I mean.

Fantastic combination of information literacy with a mind-mapping approach to information services.

You can often find great examples of libraries who have already redesigned and reformulated themselves for the digital world. However there is not always a lot written about the processes involved in undertaking this change.

An excellent Australian paper A Prototype 21st Century University Library: a case study of change at the University of New South Wales focuses on the organizational change involved in a library involved in constructing a new future for itself. It has added relevance for our [school] libraries as it focuses on an academic library that needs to support teaching and learning activities much in the same way that we need to.

[From: Bibliosphere News]

Information ethics is essentially concerned with the question of who should have access to what information. The core issues of information ethics include intellectual freedom, equitable access to information, information privacy, and intellectual property. Advances in information technology have made the general population more aware of these issues.

While it is not as hot a topic as the ethics of information technology, some research has been devoted to information ethics for library professionals. How library professionals respond to their ethical dilemmas directly affects their ability to carry out the mission - supporting intellectual freedom and resisting censorship; protecting privacy rights and intellectual property rights; and improving access to information.

Fallis, Don (2007) Information Ethics for 21st Century Library Professionals. Library Hi Tech 25(1).

[From: Digital Library of Information Science and Technology]

Collaboration across an institution or group of libraries is becoming easier with Web 2.0. Last year’s highly successful Learning 2.0 program from Helen Blowers from PLCMC has become legendary and been adopted in various forms around the world.

The University of Michigan MLibrary 2.0 Forum Series will explore new directions for access and services with regard to issues such as library 2.0, social networking, and the future of searching.

Interestingly, they are also running MLibrary 2.0 Projects Blog where ideas are shared and put out for testing. Another worthwhile strategy! How about this as a teaser:

I’d like to experiment with using Twitter as an informal, staff-fed, “guerilla” communication tool for library staff. In my mind I call the project “The Gossip Machine”, but that has too many bad connotations which I don’t intend. Instead, this would be a way to share bits of acceptable (and approved, if necessary) pieces of information that generally take a long time to filter out to all of the staff.

What I particularly like is a post or web resource that stays current even with all the rapid online developments.

The Absolutely Del.icio.us Tools Collection has been running for quite a while now - and is one that is worth bookmarking in Delicious! Good list of third-party tools are included.

I’m very interested to try out a new addition - the Del.icio.us Post Checker - because the longer our collection gets the more likely it is that some links will be dead. A useful addition for Libraries who currently run a Del.icio.us site as part of their Web 2.0 Service.

[From: Quick Online Tips]

There is a perception among users that all search engines are similar in function, deliver similar result and index all available content on the web. Librarians, on the other hand, understand the differences.

The goal of a metasearch engine is to mitigate the inherent difference of single source search engines, thereby providing Web searchers with the best search results from the Web’s best search engines!

In an overlap research study conducted by Dogpile.com in collaboration with Queensland University of Technology and Pennsylvania State University, which measured the overlap of first page search results from Google, Yahoo! LIve and Ask, found that only 0.6 percent of 777,435 first page search results were the same across these Web search engines.

The top four search engines further diverged in terms of search results:

+ 88.3 percent of total results were unique to one search engine.

+ 8.9 percent of total results were shared by any two search engines.

+ 2.2 percent percent of total results were shared by three search engines.

+ 0.6 percent of total results were shared by the top four search engines.

Full report: Different Engines, Different Results: Web Searchers Not Always Finding What They Are Looking For Online - Research Study 2007.

[From: ResourceShelf]

Using Web 2.0 Principles to become Librarian 2.0 is a useful Squidoo resource, from Brian Gray, created for a Kent State University School of Library and Information Science workshop.

Students will discover how libraries are using Web 2.0 tools, such as blogs, RSS feeds, wikis, social communities, podcasts, and various mash-ups, to give library users increased ownership in their library interactions. In addition, students will look at how users are creating tools to supplement and/or replace their experience with libraries.

Top this off with his excellent presentations:

• Exploring Libraries (and our users) in the Web 2.0 Realm.

• Using Web 2.0 Principles to Become Librarian 2.0: Blogs