Archive for November 2011

Today I presented on Mobile Technology in Libraries at the Online Information 2011 conference in London, England. I tried to provide an overview of the many ways that libraries are offering mobile content and services to their patrons including; designing cutting-edge iPhone and Android applications, participating in location-based mobile social networks, experimenting with QR codes and augmented reality technology and much more. Here’s my presentation:

Sara Hawkins at the Social Media Examiner writes about Copyright Fair Use and How it Works for Online Images. This quick guide will have you re-using images without copyright infringement in no time. The post is organized into the following sections:

• What Is Copyright?
• What About Fair Use?
• 5 Things to Think About Before Using Copyrighted Images
• Summary

Stephen Abram’s Sexiest Librarian Alive post is a must-read! He has put together an anthem to the tune of Right Said Fred’s “I’m Too Sexy” which would make an excellent accompaniment to an American Libraries or Library Journal sexiest librarian alive issue. Here’s just a snippet:

“I’m too sexy for my bun
Too sexy for my book
Books are going to leave me
I’m too sexy for my desk
Too sexy for my shelves
So sexy it hurts
And I’m too sexy for online
Too sexy for the web
Facebook and Tweeting”

Jill Duffy at PC World puts together a list of The Best Kindle Fire Apps: A Starter Kit. These are 16 well-reviewed applications which will get you up and running with your new Kindle Fire.

I give a 3-hour hands-on workshop on the topic of Personal Digital Archiving, and I’ve recently had some requests from people who haven’t been able to make the events, so I thought I’d share some of the materials here on iLibrarian for those of you who are interested. There’s a lot of content so I’ll be presenting it as a series of posts. To start off, here’s the workshop description:

“Today more and more of our lives are becoming digital. Everything from family photographs, music files, video footage, and correspondence to medical records, bookmarks, documents, and even ideas are now available in electronic form. This makes access quick & convenient, but how do we save all of these digital assets for the long term? Most of us have experienced personal data loss at one time or another due to hard drive failure, file corruption, technology obsolescence, or accidental file deletion. What should we be doing right now to safeguard our digital creations? This hands-on session will explain the process of creating and executing an action plan for archiving personal digital assets, deciding what to store, consolidating multiple file versions, and cataloguing resources. This workshop will explore both local storage media and cloud services as well as institutional & disciplinary repositories. Learn to plan & execute the archiving of your own personal digital assets as well as how to teach your patrons to do this for themselves.”

Overview

People today are creating massive digital collections which are becoming increasingly difficult to manage and maintain. While many have begun to think about how to protect and keep their digital assets available for the long term, few have taken steps to assure that their valuable items are secure and accessible. While most find digital curation a difficult process, this series of posts will present a simple step-by-step plan to creating a robust Personal Digital Archive (PDA) which is customized for each individual.

Types of Digital Assets which we will discuss preserving:

• Photos & Image files
• Music & Audio files
• Video footage
• Email correspondence
• Documents
• Presentations
• Websites & Blogs
• Software applications

Challenges & Obstacles

These are just some of the major challenges and obstacles that we face when we start thinking about setting up a personal digital archive.

Technology Obsolescence/Failure



• Some of our files may be stored on obsolescent media, e.g. floppy disks, on old platforms that no longer work or are incompatible with ones we now own, or may be on a local hard drive that has failed.

 

Stockpiling



• Some of us (myself included) may have gotten into the habit of moving our files wholesale to a new computer without concern for cleaning out unwanted/out of date files, e.g. transferring the entire “My Documents” folder to a new machine. Others may archive their old files by emailing themselves everything.

 

Clones



• We may have saved multiple near-replicas of each file, this is often due to distribution and stockpiling. While we’re starting to think of setting up a Personal Digital Archive, we’ll want to consider that all files are NOT created equal…e.g. a low-resolution copy of an image on Facebook is not the same as a hi-res archival master.

 

Distribution



• How many of us have files spread across multiple devices, e.g. flash drives, netbooks, mobile phones, saved to storage media, e.g. CDs, DVDs, hosted on various social networks, hosted with cloud storage services such as Dropbox and Box.net, etc. We’ll want to have a plan and policy in place for where to store what and how to keep track of where everything is going forward.

Backups vs. Archives

I used to think, as many people do, that backups and archives were synonymous and that once backups had been made, that no further maintenance of files was required. But, the fact is that copying the contents of an entire hard drive wholesale is not the same thing as creating an archive. There is no value judgment involved in files collected in this way, they are often difficult to find when needed, they are rarely curated beyond the point of the initial backup, and there is little chance for rediscovery through browsing due to sheer accumulation. In the next steps, we’ll take a look at how to go about making value judgments as to what to save, where to save it, and how to maintain it.

Dan Messer at Not All Bits writes about Things To Do – Completely Transform the Library. This insightful post talks about the direction the field is taking in the digital age and how we can remain relevant as a profession.

“So transformation is not only desirable, but one hundred percent necessary. Now we come to the next question: Are we ready? Some ideas about what we could do to enhance our services and further that transformation came up in comments and through conversations. Here’s a short list…”

Not only was this article thought-provoking, but it had Star Trek: The Next Generation references included in it, which adds bonus points as far as I’m concerned, so be sure and check it out!

via AL Direct

This past month has seen a lot of new library technology articles and blog posts. Here are 16 of them that you won’t want to miss. Please list any other recent library tech stories in the comments!!

E-Books

1. A Guide to Ebook Purchasing – American Libraries
2. Libraries Ramp Up e-Book Lending- USA Today
3. The Amazon Lending Library is NOT the Library Apocalypse – Agnostic, Maybe
4. 5 e-Book Collections with Over 100,000 Free e-Books – iLibrarian
5. Amazon, Overdrive, and Other Reasons to Be Pissed – Agnostic, Maybe

Mobile

6. 20 iPad Apps Librarians Should Download – Part 1 – iLibrarian
7. 20 iPad Apps Librarians Should Download – Part 2 – iLibrarian
8. 9 Resources for Marketing on Mobile Social Networks – iLibrarian

Technology Trends

9. October Library Conference Roundup: 25 Stellar Presentations – iLibrarian
10. Open Access Publishing with Drupal – Code4Lib
11. The Future of School Libraries E-Book – Kristin Fontichiaro and Buffy Hamilton
12. 5 Amazing Free Data Visualization Tools – iLibrarian

Cloud Computing

13. 21 Useful Cloud Computing Resources for Librarians – iLibrarian

Digitization & Archives

14. Create a Catalog for Your Personal Digital Assets – iLibrarian
15. National Archives Digitization Tools Now on GitHub – NARAtions
16. 9 Sources for Historical Images, Documents, Videos, and Audio – Free Technology for Teachers

Charlie White at Mashable discusses this excellent new infographic created by digital marketing firm KBSD on Protecting Your Online Reputation.

This week’s issue of American Libraries Direct features two informative articles on e-Books, one on purchasing them and one on libraries lending them out.

Sue Polanka writes A Guide to Ebook Purchasing for American Libraries:

“For those libraries looking to purchase e-books, you are not alone. According to the Library Journal 2011 survey of ebook penetration and use in libraries, 95% of academic, 82% of public, and 44% of school libraries are already offering ebooks, and many more are considering it. For anyone contemplating purchasing ebooks, asking why is the most important question. What are the primary goals of purchasing ebooks in your library or your consortium? Is it to expand the collection or to increase the buying power of a group of libraries? Is it to replace existing print collections, offer new services, or experiment with new business models in the hope of saving money? Whatever the reason, it is imperative to keep one’s goals in mind throughout the process. Buying ebooks is a complicated process. To do it effectively is an even greater challenge due to the many ways to procure ebooks.”

And Roger Yu at USA TODAY writes Libraries Ramp Up e-Book Lending:

“After a tentative foray into digital lending on PCs and e-readers several years ago, public libraries are opening the next chapter for smartphones and tablet computers.

The movement kicked into high gear in September when Amazon finally turned on its Kindle for 11,000 local libraries, triggering a flood of new users. App developers are also working with libraries to enable book lovers to borrow on their smartphones.

“With more devices for consumers to try, they’re going to get better,” says Christopher Platt of the New York Public Library. “And the e-reading experience will get better.”"

Stephanie Sammons at the Social Media Examiner offers 5 Tips for Using the New LinkedIn Company Pages. If your library or organization doesn’t yet have a presence on LinkedIn, you won’t want to miss this informative post about LinkedIn for business. These are the tips discussed:

• #1: Update/create and complete your company page
• #2: Build followers for your LinkedIn company page
• #3: Provide interesting and value-added company page updates
• #4: Engage and network with people from companies you follow
• #5: Monitor and focus your efforts

New location-aware mobile social networks are some of the hottest properties on the Web today. Savvy businesses and organizations are claiming their venues and leveraging these networks for building their brands and engaging their patrons and customers. If you’re wondering how to get started marketing on these popular channels, take a look at some of these resources.

1. 6 Ways to Socially Reward Your Customers

   

   Corina Mackay at the Social Media Examiner discusses 6 Ways to Socially Reward Your Customers, each of which is easily adaptable to a library context. One of the best ways to engage your patrons online is to offer them rewards. These are six excellent ideas for how to do just that.

 

2. 6 Successful Foursquare Marketing Campaigns to Learn From

   

   Lauren Drell at Mashable writes about 6 Successful Foursquare Marketing Campaigns to Learn From. With over half a million businesses already on the location-aware social network, organizations must do their best to stand out from the crowd. Here are several excellent campaigns to offer you inspiration. I particularly like what the History Channel is doing – they are offering Tips for all sorts of locations, so that when users follow them and then check in to one of those locations (like the Tower of London), they receive background information on their history.

 

3. How To: Claim Your Business On Facebook Places

   

   Sarah Kessler at Mashable writes a brief tutorial for How To: Claim Your Business On Facebook Places. These four simple steps will walk you through how to claim your organization’s venue on Facebook Places and start leveraging this mobile social networking marketing tool for your library.

 

4. How To: Start Marketing on SCVNGR

   

   Lauren Drell at Mashable writes a quick guide to How To: Start Marketing on SCVNGR. SVNGR is a location-based social game similar to Foursqure through which organizations can place challenges at venues for users who earn points and rewards.

 

5. How To: Start Marketing on Gowalla

   Erica Swallow at Mashable kicks off a Social Media 101 Series with this blog entry on How To: Start Marketing on Gowalla. The article discusses 7 ways To engage your users and market your brand on Gowalla.

 

6. How to Use Geolocation in Your Marketing Initiatives

   

   Jamie Beckland at the Social Media Examiner writes a quick guide to How to Use Geolocation in Your Marketing Initiatives. This useful guide discusses how marketers should approach new and emerging technologies such as Foursquare and Gowalla.

 

7. How To: Start Marketing on Foursquare

   Lauren Drell at Mashable writes:

   “There are more than 8 million users on Foursquare — up from just 1 million a year ago. This explosive growth means one thing — you might want to get your business on Foursquare. After all, Radio Shack reported that the average Foursquare user spends 3.5 times more at its retail shops than the average customer.”

   This is a one-stop guide to How To: Start Marketing on Foursquare.

 

8. How To: Set Up a Foursquare Special

   

   Lauren Drell at Mashable creates a quick tutorial for How To: Set Up a Foursquare Special. If you’ve been thinking about engaging your library patrons on this location-aware mobile social network, you won’t want to miss this post.

 

9. How To: Gamify Your Marketing

   Adam Kleinberg, co-founder and CEO at interactive agency Traction writes for Mashable about How To: Gamify Your Marketing. This quick guide outlines the reasons why incorporating game theory into your marketing efforts could prove effective as well as provides practical examples of successful campaigns.

Method, Inc. writes for UX Magazine about the development of a community-based video website community for K-12 teachers and the challenges faced in its design. Facilitating Effortless Discovery of Content for Teaching brings up some excellent points with regard to developing content-rich websites, many of which could be applied to library websites as well as educational ones, such as:

“For a content-heavy site, the primary search model should be questioned and rethought to best surface content for the user”

Amy Porterfield at the Social Media Examiner recommends 5 Tips for Creating Shareable Blog Content. If you’re looking for inspiration to spice up your blog posts and ideas to create compelling, bite-sized content your readers will devour—and share like crazy, you’ll want to check out this post. These are the points discussed:

• #1: Build instant rapport
• #2: Create relevance
• #3: Provide instant gratification
• #4: Ignite shareability
• #5: Make your closing count

This is a continuation of last week’s 20 iPad Apps Librarians Should Download – Part 1 post where I covered apps in the areas of News and Reference & Education. Here are the remaining 9 apps that I would recommend for the iPad that fall into the categories of e-Book Readers, Productivity Tools and Social Tools. I think each of these offers functionality that would be of interest to librarians.

e-Book Readers

12.) Kindle

Cost: Free
Access over 1,000,000* books in the Amazon Kindle Store plus over 100 newspapers and magazines with the Kindle for iPad app.

13.) iBooks

Cost: Free
Download and read eBooks from Apple’s iBookstore and view all your titles on a beautiful bookshelf. Books and pdfs can be organized into Collections. Features such as highlighting, bookmarking, and note taking are all available.

Productivity Tools

14.) WordPress

Cost: Free
If you have a WordPress blog, you can easily blog right from your iPad with this free app. Create or edit posts and pages, and add images or videos with this handy application.

15.) iWork

Cost: $9.99 per app
The iWork productivity suite from Apple is now available for the iPad. Users can download each of the apps Keynote, Pages and Numbers for $9.99 each in order to create stunning presentations, documents, and spreadsheets.

16.) Dropbox

Cost: Free
Store and share all your files in the cloud with the Dropbox iPad app. Upload photos, docs, videos, and other file types for convenient online access wherever you are. Dropbox will sync your files with all your devices.

17.) Evernote

Cost: Free
Create text, photo and audio notes that will Auto-synchronize your Mac, PC, and the Web. All notes include geo-location information for mapping and search.

18.) iThoughtsHD

Cost: $9.99
This is a beautiful and feature-rich mind mapping tool for the iPad. Easily create brainstorming, concept, and project planning maps that can be exported to popular desktop applications and synced with Dropbox and Box.net.

Social Tools

19.) Twitterific

Cost: Free
This beautiful, award-winning Twitter client is easy to use and chock full of features. Read and compose tweets, search Twitter.com, filter message types and much more.

20.) Hootsuite

Cost: Free
HootSuite will let you post status updates/tweets to social networks like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Foursquare at the same time. You can also schedule updates to post at future times, track statistics, and monitor keywords, #hashtags, and lists.

Richard Byrne at Free Technology for Teachers gathers 9 Sources for Historical Images, Documents, Videos, and Audio. These all look great, but in particular these two stand out as most interesting:

“FedFlix, hosted by the Internet Archive, is a collection of nearly 2000 films produced by the US government during the 20th Century. The topics of these films range from presidential speeches to agricultural practices to public health and safety.”

and

“The David Rumsey Map Collection is a collection of more than 20,000 historical maps documenting places throughout the world. The maps can be searched by area, by time period, or by cartographer.”