Archive for August 2007

What is it

Twitter is a free communication and social networking tool which allows you to convey short messages of up to 140 characters to your circle of friends via the Twitter website, SMS, email, IM, or other Twitter client. Messages appear not only within your profile on Twitter, but are sent to your community of followers who have signed up to receive your updates.

Often referred to as microblogging, this new phenomenon has caught on with over 300,000 users on Twitter alone including Barack Obama and John Edwards. Twitter recently made the cut as one of Time’s Best 50 Websites of 2007. Librarians are using it to communicate at conferences and events and to keep up with developments in the field, and libraries have begun using it to promote their services.

How to Use it

Check out some of these great how-to guides which will have you twittering in no time:

• The 12 Minute Definitive Guide to Twitter
• WebJunction: Mobile Instant Messaging Meets Social Networking: Twitter – A Beginner’s Guide, Part 2
• Newbie’s guide to Twitter
• David Lee King: Twtter Explained for Librarians, or 10 ways to use Twitter

Screencasts:

• David Free: Welcome To The Twitterverse
• David Lee King: Twitter, part 2: the “fluff

How Libraries are Using it

Libraries are just starting to test the waters with microblogging applications, but there are already examples of libraries using Twitter.

Case Studies:

• Twitter and the Missouri River Regional Library
• Twitter Update or how I was able to exploit the latest social networking site without really trying

Library Twitter Accounts:

• Cleveland PL on Twitter
• Ada Comm Library on Twitter
• Lunar and Planetary Institute on Twitter
• City of Casa Grande Library
• UIUC Undergrad Library
• Nebraska Library Commission
• YALSA

Twitter Tools & Mashups

• Twitter Search
• Twitter on Facebook
• RSS to Twitter
• Twitter Firefox Plug-ins
• Twitter Firefox Add-ons
• Twitter Mashups from the Programmable Web
• Twitter Tools and Widgets
• Top Ten Twitter Apps

Twitter Alternatives

• Pownce
• Jaiku
• Yappd

A recent WebJunction article by P.F. Anderson runs down 31 different ways that libraries can make use of Flickr, the online photo-sharing website. Anderson gives some great suggestions along with a few cautionary notes to bear in mind such as copyright and licensing issues. Some of Anderson’s suggestions include:

• Create library photo-tours.
• Embed “slideshows” in blogs or web pages using SlideFlickr.com
• Start a Flickr group for your Friends of the Library.
• Show what’s on the New Book Shelf this week.
• Use a Flickr widget to create a dynamic feed of new images from your account to your library web page.
• Partner with local museums or historical society in creating an image collection on a topic of shared interest or for an event.
• Collect pictures of best practices from other educators or librarians in your area.
• Document visual brainstorming, dialogue and concepts from staff meetings.

Read the rest in 31 Flavors – Things to Do With Flickr in Libraries.

Click for full image

These two libraries are offering some fantastic new services for patrons and have created pages spotlighting their 2.0 efforts.

The University of Pennsylvania’s PennLabs page highlights their new software applications created by the Penn Library. Some of these tools include:

• The PennTags Social Bookmarking application
• A Subject Maps project
• A Google Scholar Widget
• Penn Library Firefox Search Plugins
• Firefox Toolbars
• A Library Lookup Bookmarklet

Click for full image

The Allen County Public Library offers a long list of Web 2.0 services and tools such as:

• Blogs
• RSS Feeds
• A Book Wall
• Flickr Photos
• YouTube Videos
• Sook – A Custom Search Engine
• A Tag Cloud
• Podcasts
• IE and Firefox Bookmarklets
• Firefox Search Plugins

The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic will give a live concert in Second Life on Friday September 14 at 7:30 pm. According to their website, the RLPO will be the first professional orchestra in the world to give a performance in SL. The orchestra’s Principal Conductor Vasily Petrenko will condcut Ravel’s Sheherazade and Rachmaninov’s Symphonic Dances. Following the show, orchestra members will take questions at the virtual Grand Foyer Bar. There are a limited number of seats, so those interested are asked to register.

A new study by the National School Boards Association finds that:

• 96% of students who are online use social networking technologies such as blogging, text messaging, Myspace, Facebook, and Webkinz
• 71% use them weekly
• One of the most popular topics discussed with these tools is education, i.e. college planning, (discussed by 60% of students)
• 50% discuss schoolwork
• Students are taking part in creative activities on social networking websites such as uploading photos or videos they created
• They spend 9 hours a week online/10 hours a week watching TV

Here’s an overview of the most popular activities on these sites.

Click for full image.

Found via Read/Write Web.

Library Camp NYC, a free unconference was held at Baruch College today thanks to a group of volunteer organizers. There were some very engaging sessions on topics ranging from microblogging to green librarianship and everyone had a chance to participate and contribute. I had a great time and would highly recommend the “camp” or “unconference” model for future events. The conference wiki has detailed notes from each of the discussion sessions:

Open Source Desktop
Solr and Lucene
Blogging and Microblogging
XBRL
2.0 Show and Tell
Institutional Repositories
LibraryThing for Libraries
LibX
Information Literacy 101
Grid Services
iTunes and iPhone
Semantic Web
Green Librarianship
Cataloging and Weinberger
Virtual Reference
Next Generation Catalogs

A special report from BusinessWeek delivers six new articles about gaming. BW discusses the growth of the gaming industry, online games as corporate training devices, games as learning tools, environments for market research, and more. Read them all here.

“They aren’t merely no-nonsense book providers anymore. In the digital age, they are multitasking information managers— part teacher, part technologist.”

The August issue of T.H.E. Journal has a great article by Neal Starkman titled “The New Librarians” which talks about today’s librarians as information brokers. Check out all six pages here.

Looking for a comprehensive listing of 2.0 tools for bookmarking, blogging, community, video, imaging, news, polls, e-learning, calendars, chat and more? Look no further, the Web 2.0 search engine has created a listing of the Top 1,000 Web 2.0 Applications.

Not enough for you? Check out the resources in Keeping Tabs on Web 2.0, a detailed list of resources for finding new Web 2.0 applications which includes a link to Simple Spark, a searchable catalog of over 4,000 new Web apps with ratings, reviews, screenshots and website descriptions.

New Web applications are making hosting your own talk radio show as easy as picking up the phone.

BlogTalkRadio lets you create your own live radio show online and record segments ranging anywhere from 15 minutes to up to 2 hours. Listeners can phone into the show and chat with the host live and an unlimited number of people can listen in. Hosts can schedule new shows up to a month ahead of time, and past segments are archived on the site for playback. This is a free service, and there is virtually no setup involved. The host simply calls a phone number to record new segments. This might be a new way for library podcasters and bloggers to extend their reach by offering an interactive radio show.

The Educause Learning Initiative has created a new discovery tool which explores ways that blogging may be used to support teaching and learning. The guide has several sections including a “7 Things you should know about blogs” overview, a students’ perspective article titled “Reflecting, Writing, and Responding: Reasons Students Blog”, and a community resources section.

Wired News ran a five-part series of articles this week spotlighting the best in Educational tools for the digital age. Here’s a run-down of what they covered:

Education 2.0: The Essential Student Gear Guide
This article covered the top 6 gadgets every college student needs including a lightweight Toshiba laptop, GE digital camera, WiFi-enabled Blackberry, Olympus Voice Recorder (for recording lectures for playback), a remarkable solar-powered messenger bag which recharges your electronic devices while still looking sporty, and an external monitor for watching movies.

Education 2.0: The College Student’s Guide to File Sharing
This article summarizes the major peer-to-peer file sharing networks available such as BitTorrent, Direct Connect, hosting services like RapidShare , Megaupload, and Sendspace.

Education 2.0: The Best Social Networks for Students
Wired gives its top picks of today’s social networks and presents the advantages and disadvantages of each including Myspace, Facebook, LinkedIn, Bebo, Hi5, Friendster, and Craigslist.

Education 2.0: Prepare for a Career That Works
Wired talks about what students can do while in college to prepare them for some of today’s fastest-growing career paths including such jobs as an Ophthalmologist, Medical Assistant, IT Project Manager, Blogger, Solo Practitioner Lawyer, and Entrepreneur.

Education 2.0: Top Online Learning Resources
Wired News presents their favorite K-12 educational resources on the Web from math and video tutorials to best in robotics.

I’ve been using Zoho for a while now for its word processing and spreadsheet programs. The other day I decided to play around with the Zoho Creator to check out their capabilities with creating databases as I needed a way to keep track of more detailed statistics for our reference department. I don’t have much background with database creation, but I managed to create a Reference Statistical Analysis database in about 20 minutes. It’s all drag and drop functionality and it’s quite simple to get the hang of right away.

Zoho starts you off with a blank form and an array of text, number, and other fields along a sidebar which you can drag and drop onto your form. You can add many different types of fields into your database including radio buttons, drop-down lists, checkboxes, multiple select fields, dates, notes, and more. You can make fields “required” so that others have to fill them in, add advanced actions (I passed on this!), or leave instructions.

Zoho calls the reports that you will want to run on your data “Views” and it automatically creates one for you which outputs all of your data. You can create new views by setting the criteria for what you want a report on. You can also duplicate Views to create new reports. I set up a Views which reports on the daily Reference activity, and then I just duplicate it for the other days I want to report on. I have also created Views for the types of questions asked and the location of the patron, i.e. in-person, telephone, IM.

You can export your data in the form of an Excel spreadsheet, HTML file, .pdf, .csv, RSS, and more. You can also search your data and view it in a number of ways including a calendar view.

I have created a public copy of the database for everyone to try out and play around with. You can enter data and check out the reports I have set up. If you like it there is an option on the top left to “Copy Application”, so you could grab a copy for your own department. Have fun!

Both Random House and Simon & Schuster have created some exciting ways to promote books using Web 2.0 tools.

BookVideos.tv
Simon & Schuster has created a video blog called BookVideos.tv which features entertaining author talks with major writers. Each post includes a video along with the cover art of the work the author is discussing and a brief description of the title. Readers can embed the videos in their own website or blog, leave comments, email it to a friend or buy the book.

Random House Book Widget
The Random House book widget lets readers browse through book pages as well as search its contents. Clicking on the book provides a larger window in which to view it. The search feature will return results from within the entire book, not just the pages included in the preview. (Test it out by running a search of the Princess Bride for the term “inconceivable”.) Interested readers can buy the book or add it to their own website by clicking the plus sign for an embed script. Audio books from Random House provide an audio preview which can be played from within the widget.

Senior Research Specialist Mary Madden at the Pew Internet & American Life Project has posted her presentation given at the recent Northeast Kansas Library System which talks about teen technology users and libraries.

The presentation is packed with informative and sometimes surprising statistics about new media usage, behavior, and expectations of teens.

Teens, Libraries and Web 2.0:Snapshots from a new media landscape.