Archive for August 2008

One of the best new resources I’ve discovered for getting to know about Open Access issues is the set of articles which Walt Crawford has created on the PALINET Leadership Network. He compiles information and content from leaders in the OA field and adds to it his own impressions and article excerpts. I have made these required reading for my Open and Libraries course this fall:

• Open access basics
• Open access overview
• Open access: why it matters
• Open access issues
• Open access resources
• Open access myths
• Open access controversies
• Thinking about libraries and access

A new Pew Internet & American Life report finds that almost half, (49%), of all Internet users make use of search engines on a daily basis, a number which has risen from one-third in 2002. This growth brings Web search closer to the 60% of people who utilize email daily, and vaults it ahead of other activities such as the 39% of people who check the news. For detailed demographic information, see the full report here.

If you are interested in learning more about Open Source software, you’ll want to check out the collection of over 100 presentation files from the recent O’Reilly OSCON Open Source Convention. These are just a few examples of the types of presentations you’ll find:

• Open Source and the Education Community: A Report, and Some Suggestions
• Open Source in the Enterprise
• The Google Open Source Update
• Even Faster Web Sites
• Going Open Source: The 20 Most Important Things To Do
• Introduction to Django

via Webmonkey

ReadWriteWeb reports on a consumer research study conducted by Universal McCann which interviewed 17,000 Internet users in 29 countries. The study compares its results with previous reports or “waves” conducted in 2006 and 2007. Some of the study’s findings include:

• 57% have joined a Social Network, making it the number one platform for creating and sharing content
• 23% of social network users have installed an application
• Video Clips are the quickest growing platform, up from 31% penetration
  in Wave 1 to 83% in Wave 3
• 73% have read a blog
• 34% post opinions about products and brands on their blog

View the study here.

Laura Milligan produces a mega-list for the OEDb, which compiles social book communities on the Web. 100 Places to Connect With Other Bibliophiles Online is an annotated guide to online book clubs, book trading networks, and blogs about books. Her recommendations are organized into the following categories:

• Book Collectors
• Blogs
• Librarians
• Social Media
• Recommendations
• Organizing and Sharing Titles
• Novelists and Writers
• Sites for Children and Teens
• Trading and Selling
• For Those Who Love to Read

The LibrarianinBlack has put together an annotated reference list of her favorite readers advisory spots on the Web with Sarah’s Reference Warehouse: Readers Advisory. This stellar resource provides many out-of-the-way destinations that may otherwise be missed, each with detailed descriptions. Here are her top five suggestions:

1. AllReaders.com
2. Bettendorf Public Library’s Young Adult Books in Series and Sequels
3. Columbus Metropolitan Library’s Picture Book Index
4. Database of Award Winning Children’s Literature
5. Downer’s Grove Public Library Author Read-Alikes

Rafael C. Alvarado, Director of Academic Technology Services at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania writes for Educause Quarterly with Overcoming the Fear of Gaming: A Strategy for Incorporating Games into Teaching and Learning. Alvarado discusses opportunities for the effective use of immersive games in academia.

“Ultimately, to take full advantage of games as engines of learning, we should move from a critical approach to a creative one and encourage the innovative use and development of games (and gaming engines) within our colleges and universities as collaborative new media projects. Such projects would take advantage of our unique social arrangement of students, developers, and faculty and allow us to rely less on consumer culture to provide game content. The design of these games would be guided by the experience of managing the pedagogical outcomes of games in real-use contexts, forming a feedback loop that would identify and select for better games.”

Mashable spotlights 11 social websites for wordies in their post Quote This: 11 Resources for Word Lovers. The article highlights some interesting sites including QuotationsBook which provides members with an RSS feed for their favorite quotes that can be incorporated into Friendfeed, and QuoteDaddy which lets users enter their own original quotes. And I’ll add a 12th social quotes website that I’ve used called Quotiki.

Chris Brogan details Twelve Ways to Sell Social Media to Your Boss that will help inform and persuade decision-makers to green-light your next project. Here are his top five:

1. Social media tools like blogging, social networks, and social bookmarking are more effective in reaching the millions online than a traditional website.
2. Blogging can act as a way to reduce customer service calls (if there’s helpful how-to information on the blog).
3. Cost of implementing a blog is free or cheap. No more than $100 for a year of hosting. And most software is free. (There are some benefits from professional blogging software, but for most people, free is plenty fine).
4. Social networks are now used frequently by your customers, your prospects, and your competitors. Connect with people, learn their business needs, and respond more simply and flexibly.
5. Social media provides robust tools for listening, ranging in price from free to inexpensive, to reasonably expensive. Even the free tools help an organization find out who’s talking about them, so they can choose to respond.

Laura Milligan at BestCollegesOnline.com puts together a mega-list of 50 Awesome Search Engines Every Librarian Should Know About. If you’re looking for a departure from your usual search engine, or just want to add more resources to your search toolkit, you’ll want to check this one out. Search tools are divided into the following sections:

• Meta Search and Multi Search Engines
• Multimedia and Interactive
• Google Search Engines
• Great Niche Sites for Librarians
• Custom Searches
• Reference Searches
• Library Search Engines

I’ve been waiting for this latest article from Karen Schneider to be published in School Library Journal and I wasn’t disappointed. She provides an even-handed overview of Open Source software tools, the pros and cons, and the current uses in the library field. I’ll be adding this one to my class reading list for next semester.

The Delicious social bookmarking website has undergone a transformation to a sleek new design which is much easier on the eyes. No longer do you need to strain to see how many other people have bookmarked a resource highlighted in pink!! Here is a rundown of the changes from their blog:

“Speed: We’ve moved to a new infrastructure that makes every page faster. This new platform will enable us to keep up with traffic growth while ensuring Delicious is responsive and reliable. You may not have noticed, but the old back-end was getting creaky under the load of five million users.

Search: We’ve completely overhauled our search engine to make it faster and more powerful. Searches used to take ages to return results; now they’re very quick. The new search engine is also smarter, and more social: you can search within one of your tags, another user’s public bookmarks, or your social network. Now it’s easier to take advantage of the expertise and interests of your friends, not to mention the Delicious community at large.

Design: Finally, we’ve updated the user interface to improve usability and add a few often-requested features (such as selectable detail levels and alphabetical sorting of bookmarks). Our goal has been to keep the new design similar in spirit to the old one, so all of you veterans should be able to jump in without any confusion. At the same time, we’re hoping that newcomers to Delicious will find it easier to learn. Check out the What’s New page for an overview of the changes, or watch this animation that sums it up nicely:”

Christina Laun at CollegeDegrees.com has compiled The Ultimate Guide to Using Open Courseware: 70+ Apps, Search Engines and Resources for Free Learning. Her annotated list of resources are divided into the following categories:

• Search Engines and Directories
• Open Courseware Collections
• Podcasts
• Videos
• eBooks
• Educational TV
• Resources, Articles and Guides