Archive for December 2008

The Pew Internet & American Life Project published a new report titled The Future of the Internet III yesterday. The study was based on a survey of 578 internet leaders who were asked to analyze technology forecasts for the year 2020. Key findings include:

• The mobile device will be the primary connection tool to the internet for most people in the world in 2020.
• The transparency of people and organizations will increase, but that will not necessarily yield more personal integrity, social tolerance, or forgiveness.
• The divisions between personal time and work time and between physical and virtual reality will be further erased for everyone who is connected, and the results will be mixed in their impact on basic social relations.

Be sure and check out the complete report for more.

Andy Guess at Inside Higher Ed writes about using widgets for education with A Widget Onto the Future.

“Already, some instructors are using them in their own courses, and the idea is catching on as others consider the possibilities. While widgets aren’t nearly as ubiquitous in learning circles as are PowerPoint presentations or online quizzes, some educators hope the time is ripe for them to catch on. A meeting of the Northeast Regional Computing Program is already being planned on the topic for next year and professors are busy discussing and embedding widgets on their blogs.”

via Educause

I am very excited to let everyone know about the latest project I’ve been working on in addition to iLibrarian called The Tech Set: Practical Guides to New Tech for Librarians. It’s a new series of books which I’ve been developing with Neal-Schuman Publishers that will be a collection of comprehensive, how-to guides for effectively using technology in libraries. I will be editing the series and I am currently looking for an author for one of the titles called Effective Blogging for Libraries. This will be a practical primer on how to successfully blog from a library’s perspective, here’s the description of the book:

“Nowadays it seems as if everyone has their own blog – but how many of them are effective? Learn how to create a go-to resource for your library patrons with this all-in-one guide to successful blogging. This complete how-to guide book provides practical tips and best practices for creating a winning library blog and informs readers about everything from blog posting techniques, strategies for encouraging comments, and dealing with negative feedback, to effective tagging. The book tackles strategies for blog marketing, transparency and authenticity, managing staff bloggers, usability guidelines, and a variety of assessment methods.”

If you’re a librarian who is knowledgeable about library blogging and has writing experience, please contact me for further details. Here’s a bit more about the series:

The Tech Set book series is a collection of comprehensive, how-to guides for effectively using technology in libraries. Each book in The Tech Set tackles a new and innovative technology type and provides an A-Z primer to let librarians hit the ground running. Written by the field’s hottest tech gurus and packed with practical instructions and advice covering everything from planning and development to marketing and metrics, each title is a one-stop passport to an emerging technology. If you’re ready to start creating, collaborating, connecting, and communicating through cutting-edge tools and techniques, you’ll want to get primed by the Tech Set. Through this series you will learn:
• How to use the latest, cutting-edge technologies
• How to plan for and develop library implementations of these popular applications
• How to utilize the social marketing techniques used by info pros
• How to measure your success with these new technologies
• How to follow best practices already established by innovators and libraries using these technologies

Online researchers will be pleased to note that Google’s Book Search Project has now expanded to include print magazines. Google has partnered with titles such as New York magazine, Men’s Health, Popular Science and others to digitize past issues and present full articles which can be found via keyword searching.

If you’re new to the Google Book Search Project, you may want to check out the latest edition of the Google Book Search Bibliography by Charles W. Bailey, Jr. which was published this Tuesday.

Mike Fruchter writes about 35 tips for getting started with social media for VatorNews. In this helpful post he provides on-point recommendations which beginners and seasoned social networkers can benefit from. Here are a few of his suggestions:

• Find the top 50 blogs in your space, and subscribe to their RSS feeds in Google Reader. Consistently be on the lookout for new blogs, and the voices behind them.
• Build as many social passports as possible. Passports are basically the profiles that you build on the various social platforms. These profiles all should be consistent, and most importantly point back to your blog or website. The goal is to create as much organic link juice as possible. The core target is search engines. Consistently update these profiles, and use tools such as ping.fm to update them.
• Leave thoughtful and constructive comments as much as possible on other blogs. Don’t stop there, post comments on Facebook walls, FriendFeed, and Twitter. This promotes good practices in social media, and it also gives you an opportunity for exposure and link placement. This can lead into new networking opportunities and potential new friendships.
• Good content speaks for itself, and is recognized. Let others promote your content and only promote your best stuff. Ask your twitter followers to spread the word by re-tweeting good posts. Be sure to do the same for others.

Via Social Media

Mashable takes a look back at 2008 on the Web and discusses 20 Key Events which stood out and caused a stir. Here are just a few, be sure to check out the full article for more.

• Presidential Election
• Data Portability
• Application Platforms
• Apple App Store
• Citizen Journalism

Time Magazine has published a feature of 50 annotated hot lists which comprise the Top Everything of 2008. Including everything from campaign videos and children’s books to financial collapses and iPhone Apps, these lists are sure to please.

via Micro Persuasion

The Pew Internet and American Life Project published a report yesterday about Adults and Video Games which states that over half of American adults play video games of some kind. Here are some of their key findings:

• 53% of American adults aged 18 and older play video games
• Adults prefer computers as their gaming device while young adults prefer consoles
• 4 out of 5 young adults play video games
• 81% of respondents 18-29 years old play games
• 23% of respondents 65 years old and older report playing games
• Men are slightly more likely to play digital games than women
• Urbanites are slightly more likely to play digital games than rural-dwellers
• 57% of respondents with at least some college education play games
• 51% of high school graduates play games

Matt Singley at Mashable has put together a guide to getting the most out of Google’s news reader application in How to Use Google Reader Like A Rockstar. The post discusses using advanced options such as trends, folders, extensions, saving, and sharing. For anyone who wants a quick primer on how to use Google Reader.

As a culmination to the Open and Libraries course I’m teaching at SJSU this semester, the students helped build and publish an Open Access Journal using an open source software program called Open Journal Systems in which they have submitted, peer-reviewed, and published their final papers. This first issue of the Open and Libraries Class Journal is now live.

Kim Dority’s monthly column about LIS careers discusses how to Become an Information Entrepreneur. This interesting piece offers advice and examples for creating an information product which can be created once and sold multiple times.

“My “information product” gave me visibility separate from my work as an information advisor to the CEO, and allowed me to begin developing a separate, independent career path while I still had the security of a steady paycheck.”

via Beyond the Job

Social media expert Chris Brogan compiles a guide outlining 40 Ways to Deliver Killer Blog Content. The post presents some useful suggestions categorized into the following headers:

• The Basics
• Concepts and the Bigger Picture
• Overdrive
• Encore

Have you ever wanted to bookmark images you find online in the same way that you would favorite an article or website in delicious or other social bookmarking website? The New York Times has hand-picked some top photo-oriented bookmarking sites which will let you do just that in their recent article Tag That Image: Visual Bookmarking Sites Worth Browsing.

Christine Cavalier at Purple Car constructs 10 Social Media Strategies for The Ivory Tower, suggesting social media brand strategies for educators. According to Cavalier, “Universities have not caught up yet. They are unaware of the benefits that a university-wide, coherent social media strategy can bring.” Here are her top 5 recommendations:

1. Design a strategy ASAP
2. Offer server space, template designs, and support to departments
3. Find quick alternatives
4. Communicate the strategy
5. Work from the top down

via Social Media

Michael Stephens at the ALA TechSource blog interviews Edward Byrne, Senior Web Services Librarian at Dublin City Public Libraries about their Pageflakes portal. The Dublin City Public Libraries adopted Pageflakes in 2007 “to serve as the entry page on all public-access Internet PCs in its 21 branches.” This interesting interview discusses the positives and the pitfalls of the project as well as DCPL’s recent move to Netvibes.