Archive for September 2008

Michelle Jeske writes about enhancing your library’s online presence with Tapping Into Media: Take your online presence to the next level with audio and video in the latest issue of Library Journal. The article discusses how adding media extends the reach of library content, ways to go about incorporating media into your library’s website and beyond, and finding inspiration on the Web.

“Some people learn better through viewing and listening, and some people simply don’t like to read. In our society, there seems to be a general move away from text, or, at least, text as we have defined it in the past. Moreover, mobile devices such as laptops, PDAs, and cell phones make video and audio incredibly easy to imbibe. So how do libraries compete for attention in this environment? According to the 2005 OCLC report Perceptions of Libraries and Information Resources, the library brand is books. If our communities think we’re all about books while people are used to getting their information from places other than books, how do we stay relevant?”

2.0 thought-leader Dion Hinchcliffe takes a high-level look at Web 2.0 strategy with Ten Aspects of Web 2.0 Strategy That Every CTO and CIO Should Know. These tips can easily be applied to anyone in a leadership role wishing to use 2.0 technology to transform their library or organization. Be sure and check out the full article for explanations of his tips:

1. It’s not about technology, it’s about the changes it enables.
2. The implications of 2.0 stands many traditional views on their head and so change takes more time than usual.
3. Get the ideas, concepts, and vocabulary out into the organization and circulating.
4. Existing management methods and conventional wisdom are a hard barrier to 2.0 strategy and transformation.
5. Avoiding external disruption is hard but managing self-imposed risk caused by 2.0 is easier.
6. Incubators and pilots projects can help create initial environments for success with 2.0 efforts.
7. Irreversible decisions around 2.0 around topics such as brand, reputation, and corporate strategy can be delayed quite a while, and sometimes forever.
8. The technology competence organizations have today are inadequate for moving to 2.0.
9. The business side requires 2.0 competence as well.
10. Start small, think big.

Chris Brogan offers blogging tips in his article 50 Ways to Take Your Blog to the Next Level. He advises that authors examine their blogs from five different perspectives including:

1. Make Your Goal and Target Audience Crystal Clear
2. Beauty Is More Than Skin Deep
3. Make Your Content Top Notch
4. Promoting Your Blog
5. Building Business From Your Blog

If you’re the only one in your work environment who is using the Web’s new social tools, you’ll want to take a glance at ReadWriteWeb’s Five Ways to Use Social Media to Reach People Who Don’t Use Social Media. They offer 5 strategies to use new Web tools to effectively interact with non-users including:

1. Develop Relationships with People Who Bridge The Gap Inside Other Organizations
2. Use Web 2.0 Tools to Learn About Real Life Public Events
3. Make Your Blog an Email Newsletter and Promote it Elsewhere
4. Look Harder, Your Audience Probably is Using Social Media That You Aren’t Aware Of
5. Use the Internet to Make Yourself Smarter In Real Life

Those interested in podcasting may want to check out Jens Jacobsen’s Information Architecture for Audio: Doing It Right in this month’s Boxes and Arrows. The article offers usability tips and best practices for creating audio content.

“When using audio today, we face challenges similar to those of written text about a decade ago. During this time, information was being transferred from hand-held documents to the computer screen, without being optimized for the new online medium. Now the same mistakes are being repeated with audio. Existing text is read by a narrator, or worse, the text is speech-synthesized by a computer. Audio doesn’t function the same way as written text, so its execution is often poor. The main difference between printed text, be it on paper or on the computer screen, is that audio is linear. You can only consume it in a linear fashion and you have to listen to it at a given speed.”

Perfect for this back-to-school season, Palin Ningthoujam at Mashable offers ideas about the Top 10 Online Note Taking Applications. Each listed entry has an accompanying preview image and description. Quite a few of these look interesting including:

• Evernote - which has a drap-and-drop desktop version for offline use.
• Google Notes – which allows for collaboration and integration with other Google properties such as GDocs.
• Luminotes – which is a personal wiki notebook that allows for file attachments and file sharing.
• Zoho Notebook – which offers the most features of all those in this class.

Eduk8 has a guide to 100 Useful, Free Web Tools for Lifelong Learners which includes annotated lists of resources in the following areas:

• Open Courseware
• Books and Open Text
• Search Engines
• Public Access Libraries and Research Centers
• Podcasts
• Social Media and Online Communities
• Learning a New Language
• Government Sites
• Reference Guides and Dictionaries
• Videos
• Reference Sites

Clive Thompson of the New York Times Magazine writes about privacy and the new sense of ambient awareness made possible through social communities such as Facebook and Twitter in Brave New World of Digital Intimacy.

“Facebook and Twitter may have pushed things into overdrive, but the idea of using communication tools as a form of “co-presence” has been around for a while. The Japanese sociologist Mizuko Ito first noticed it with mobile phones: lovers who were working in different cities would send text messages back and forth all night — tiny updates like “enjoying a glass of wine now” or “watching TV while lying on the couch.” They were doing it partly because talking for hours on mobile phones isn’t very comfortable (or affordable). But they also discovered that the little Ping-Ponging messages felt even more intimate than a phone call.”

David Lee King has posted a collection of his personal presentation tips including advice about preparation and planning for a talk and tips for delivering it effectively. He also offers pointers for online webinar presentations and training sessions.

Social media guru Chris Brogan has written a free e-book titled Personal Branding for the Business Professional which is available for download in .pdf format. Based on many of his useful blog posts, Brogan offers tips on setting up a home base, tracking what others are saying, reaching out through social networks, setting up remote outposts, creating new content, building conversations and community, offering value, and more. A must read for anyone interested in building a brand through social media.

Dion Hinchcliffe at ZDNet writes about building online communities and suggests a top 10 list of popular platforms which can be used to create them. He follows up with the next 15 list candidates. This is a great starting point if you’re seeking a technology to create an online community. Here are his top 7 recommendations:

1. Joomla
2. Drupal
3. PHP-Nuke
4. Zikula
5. Sharepoint
6. Lithium
7. DotNetNuke

And if you are involved with online community management, you may want to check out his excellent previous article: Twelve best practices for online customer communities.

The Professor’s Blog at DegreeDirectory suggests a list of controversial banned books, many of which you can read for free online today. Here are their top 10 recommendations:

1. A Day No Pigs Would Die
2. American Psycho
3. And Tango Makes Three
4. Annie on My Mind
5. Bridge to Terabithia
6. Candide
7. Fallen Angels
8. Fanny Hill
9. Forever
10. Frankenstein

The Chronicle of Higher Ed put out a couple of articles yesterday about the recent trend toward pirated textbooks with Students Flock to Web Sites Offering Pirated Textbooks and Textbook Sales Drop, and University Presses Search for Reasons Why. In July I posted about this issue, and the movement toward open source books and free educational materials with (legal) initiatives such as the Textbook Revolution and others if you’d like to read more on the topic.

In case you haven’t been following the news and reviews of Google’s Chrome, an open-source browser released on Tuesday, here are a few news items you may want to check out. I have found it to be quite fast, and appreciate the thumbnails of my most visited sites displayed in each new tab I open.

Giving Google Chrome A Spin. This Thing Moves Fast. – TechCrunch
Speed test: Google Chrome beats Firefox, IE, Safari CNet
So Is Chrome The Fastest Or What? – TechCrunch
Inside Chrome: The Secret Project to Crush IE and Remake the Web – Wired Magazine
Google Redefines Web Browser – Wall Street Journal

Stephen Abram has written an exciting piece on the fate of reference with Evolution to Revolution to Chaos? Reference in Transition in this month’s Searcher Magazine. In the article he offers a baker’s dozen of scenerios exploring the possibilities for the future of reference in the world of libraries.

“We have a new suite of 2.0 tools focused on human needs and relationships that are changing the dynamics of the entire marketplace — not just libraries. User expectations are changing, permanently. This is a good thing, since libraries have always been about service and personal relationships with our users. The technology is just catching up with our service ethic! Now we just have to reintroduce ourselves into every aspect of the virtual world. That means focusing our staffing balance from the backroom to the front room; investing our technology decisions in ones which meet the needs of the end user; and retraining an entire segment of our library workers to adapt to a fundamental new reality.”