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In accordance with a new spending bill signed by President Bush last week, all future published research that is funded by the US National Institutes of Health (NIH), will be made freely available online. Any NIH research which has been published in a scientific journal, according to this law, must be published and made free to the public online within 12 months. It seems that PubMed may provide access to much of this new research.
“The Director of the National Institutes of Health shall require that all investigators funded by the NIH submit or have submitted for them to the National Library of Medicine’s PubMed Central an electronic version of their final, peer-reviewed manuscripts upon acceptance for publication to be made publicly available no later than 12 months after the official date of publication: Provided, That the NIH shall implement the public access policy in a manner consistent with copyright law.”
Reader’s Digest advises us on how to handle the everyday onslaught of electronic information and how to decide when to call it a day in their latest article Don’t Be Overwhelmed by Technology — Get a Grip. The article offers eight handy tips for fighting information overload:
This toplist created by Larry Ferlazzo pulls together fifteen Web 2.0 applications which can be used for educational purposes. He summarizes how each one can be used in instructional settings and suggests possible applications. I can’t wait to check these out along with his other lists.
Cliff Landis writes about how libraries are utilizing social networking websites in his Social networking sites: Getting friendly with our users article in this month’s issue of C&RL News. The article aims to keep librarians current by presenting examples of libraries who have profiles in MySpace and Facebook, as well as providing links to groups, applications, blogs, and websites for further research.
Facebook has added a new “Friends Lists” feature which allows you to organize your friends into separate lists. This is very useful if you utilize Facebook both personally and professionally, or want to categorize your contacts by company or organization. Creating a new list is as easy as clicking on the “Make a New List” button and naming your list.
I’m all for empowering women to learn about technology, so when Women’s Voices for Change asked me to contribute a piece about educational opportunities in Second Life, I was more than happy to write this article about Learning in a Virtual World. If you’re interested in Second Life learning, you may want to check it out.
Seth Godin’s Squidoo knowledge community has created a scholar’s entrance called SquidKnol which seems to be a direct reference to Google’s Knol initiative. The interface encourages experts to enter their areas of expertise and credentials in order to create a Squidoo lens which will be indexed all over the Web. Interestingly, the “sample” lens which is linked from this page is the Insomnia Knol originally written for Google Knol and spotlighted in their press release last week. Google Knol is still only open by invitation only.
If you have a blog, you can now easily create a blog widget or “blidget” for it such as this one below for iLibrarian.
Using the easy Blidget development wizard on Widgetbox, creating a custom widget for your blog is as as easily as copying and pasting the URL into a wizard and choosing settings. And once you have a nifty new blidget, you can follow the instructions on Widgetbox to turn it into a Facebook Application as I have done here:
If you’d like to add this blidget to your blog, social network profile, or start page such as iGoogle or Netvibes, here’s the link to its Widgetbox page with the quick-install buttons.
At a time when privacy concerns and online identity management are at the forefront of people’s minds, Dennis O’Reilly of the Worker’s Edge C|net blog tells us of his own online privacy rules:
The UK company Path Intelligence has developed a pedestrian path measurement technology which automatically monitors the routes that visitors take within a building from their cell phone signals, (these signals do not reveal user identities). This technology aggregates these visitor movements and presents them within a continuously updating interface indicating visitor concentration levels at different times within different areas of the building. The technology is meant to be used as a way to optimize building layouts and staffing levels by providing insight into where people are naturally going, and also to quantify the impact of marketing campaigns by monitoring foot traffic to particular areas.
The technology may eventually integrate the ability for visitors to link up their actual cell phone number to the currently anonymous signal so that they can receive special offers, etc. according to TechCrunch. I can think of a million uses for this type of technology in libraries - patrons automatically receiving a stacks guide on their mobile phones as they enter the stacks area, etc. The program also tracks the weather with foot traffic as well as whether or not a specific event is happening. Libraries would be able to track whether their traffic levels in some areas are heavier when it’s raining outside, when an author talk is happening, etc. Check out a demo of the software here.
Second Life is a massive virtual world with many opportunities for learning and entertainment. Over 60 colleges and universities have a virtual presence there, and are joined by more than 500 librarians. If you are just starting out in this MMOG (massively multiplayer online game), this guide should get you up and running. Follow the SLURLs (Second Life URLs) by clicking or pasting them into your browser’s address bar and then clicking the “teleport now” button on the page to go to that location, (note: you will need to have established a SL account first & have the program installed).
Library Sites in Second Life
These sites are the 12 islands of the Alliance Library System which make up the Info Archipelago:
This land of perpetual sunset offers a waterfall in Hyacinth Valley, beautiful gardens, and secluded hidaways which make it a favorite destination for wedding receptions.
Google has announced that they have created an online tool called “knol” (short for knowledge) which will encourage authors to contribute signed encyclopedic entries into a massive knowledge base. Social tools such as ratings, reviews, and comments have been implemented as well. So far, this seems to be a direct competitor for existing community-based encyclopedias such as Wikipedia with the distinction that Google’s entries, or “knols”, will not be written by the masses but by one authoritative source.
“The key idea behind the knol project is to highlight authors. Books have authors’ names right on the cover, news articles have bylines, scientific articles always have authors — but somehow the web evolved without a strong standard to keep authors names highlighted. We believe that knowing who wrote what will significantly help users make better use of web content.”
At this time the knol project is available by invitation only.
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