Even if I didn't work for ALA Publishing, I'd still recommend the new issue of Library Technology Reports. When it's Tom Peters writing, the topic almost doesn't matter, but he's such an expert on the topic of audio ebooks that this can be considered the current primer.

Digital Audiobook Services through Libraries

"Author Tom Peters explains that his issue of Library Technology Reports, 'examines in some depth digital audiobook services that can be purchased or leased. It also looks briefly at a few free online digital audiobook sources.'

According to the author, who is a librarian and an avid user of audiobooks, 'The purpose of this report is not to convince librarians to implement a digital audiobook service, but to help librarians make an informed decision.' "

Disclaimer: Tom is also a friend of mine. :-)

I know she loves the "e's," but allow me to indulge for one moment and point you to Wired magazine's coverage of Helene Blower's innovative Learning 2.0 program. It's nice to see such a smart and creative person recognized this way.

PLCMC had better be careful...I think Helene could start her own consulting company and rule the Learning 2.0 world!

Dan Kraus has posted a few "behind the scenes" videos of the making of Magnum, A.L.. Unfortunately, there are no bloopers or deleted scenes, but I hear the extended version director's cut is going to add layers of nuance and context that will cast AL in a whole new light.

I've been fascinated watching how popular Bill Drew's Library 2.0 Network has become in just a few weeks. I've already blogged a little about that, but what I didn't mention is that the same day Bill started the L2N, ALA also started a social network on Ning, except we didn't tell anybody.

Amazingly, that evening we had our first member join (hi, Amy!), without any marketing or notice at all. A couple of weeks later, a mention of it was made on LITA's mailing list and that prompted a few more folks to join. But we still weren't sure what exactly we were going to do with this space, all the while watching great conversations happening over on the L2 side.

So today ALA is taking the plunge and experimenting with a social network, such as it is, on Ning. Find it at http://alamembers.ning.com/, and feel free to join, even if you're not an ALA member. More info about the ALA Network is available on my ALA Members Network blog (RSS feed here). Feel free to come on over, browse around, join, start a discussion, contribute to an existing one, or just lurk.

For the most part, I'll be posting over there about all of the interesting things I see coming out of and happening within ALA as a way to highlight them to our members (there is so much of this stuff that it's been difficult to not blog about it on TSL every day, but that's a topic for another blog post altogether...). I will still discuss here my perspectives about being an ALA staff member, joining the association world, and implementing cool things in our professional organization.

I know I'm not supposed to use the adjective "cool," and I'm sure I'll get written up in some book or blog somewhere and sent to the principal's office for saying it, but cool can be useful and useful can be cool (not everything is both, but some things are, and note that I didn't say that being cool is an end unto itself). For me, in this context, cool equals exciting because it means opportunity, although I hope we reach Michael Porter's goal of fulfillment, too (does that make him "the fulfilled librarian?"). In fact, pretty much every week of the almost eight months I've been at ALA, someone has told me about something cool we are doing that they like and find useful because it allows them to engage with ALA in a new or different way.

And that is the coolest thing of all. :)

Stephen Colbert is interviewing John Perry Barlow, and they're talking about copyright. Colbert just trademarked the phrase "librarians are hiding something" because no one has ever said that before.

Anyone know what we're hiding? :-p

Update: Here's the video, with Colbert trademarking "librarians are hiding something" around halfway through.

Technorati Tags: librarians | librarians are hiding something

Library Escape was as frustrating for me as finding Time magazine in the library can be for patrons. Maybe you can do better. [via Kimbooktu].

One of the things I've been watching for online is a blog from a libraryland publisher, giving "behind-the-scenes" glimpses and insight into what is happening in this world. Print is becoming a harder sell these days, and I find it interesting to watch how publishers are adapting (or not).

I have an inside view of this (which is the disclaimer - I work half-time for ALA Publishing), but I don't know as much about the process for getting a book from idea to finished product marketed in multiple venues. So I'm intrigued to hear the inner thoughts of the editors on the ALA Editions Blog. Check it out and see if you might be, too. If nothing else, you can get an RSS feed for their new publications or even the feed for posts about new manuscripts so you can see what is coming down the pipe. You could also throw the main feed into your podcatcher program, because they plan to offer podcasts in the near future.

As I've gotten to know the editors, we've had some great talks about potential authors, titles, and formats. And yet, I've gotten more personal information about them from the Meet the Editors page (I think we need a lunch or after-work meeting that involves drinks!). For example, I had no idea that Jenni knows how to call pigs (a skill that surely comes in handy at conference somehow). And Laura must be pretty excited about this weekend's Final Four games since Ohio State is in the running for a national title.

So far there are tips for creative ways to promote poetry, advice for frontline staff based on a recent incident at a Chicago bar, an explanation for why the cover of a forthcoming book was changed, and (my favorite) a description of Susan Gibbons' manuscript about "NetGenners" and academic libraries ("As data emerged, Gibbons found she had to toss aside some preconceptions…that students’ Xboxes, IM accounts and IPods were at best, secondary to their academic work, at worst, distractions."). Lucky me, I've got a copy of the manuscript to read. :)

Is it marketing? Sure. But it's a human side to ALA Editions, similar to what Keir provides via his Booklist blog, Likely Stories, or the personal recollections of American Libraries' staff on their CentenniAL Blog. It's a big step for ALA staff to put themselves out there like this since traditionally they have stayed tucked away in the corners and were not seen, let alone heard.

I'm in a strange position sometimes, because I'm a member now, as well as a staff person, and as a member, I find it refreshing to see and hear from the folks that make an improbably-structured organization work as well as it does.

Otherwise known as "losing time at Penn State" trying to use the library's online resources. What a great illustration of the barriers our users face, and not just at Penn State or at academic libraries.

This is the video Ellysa Stern Cahoy showed during the Next Gen Librarians panel at last week's CIC Conference.

Sorry - I just realized I never changed the status on this post from "draft" to "published," which is why it's showing up late.

Ellysa Stern Cahoy, Penn State

showed a video called "finding time" that showed someone trying to find stuff on their website
this video is awesome! - please put it online, Ellysa!!

"I wish that I had known that the solution for needing to teach our users how to search our catalog was to create a system that didn't need to be taught." - Roy Tennant

there are too many dead ends and too many clicks in our universe that students have to navigate - this is not why I became a librarian

I don't ever want to say "click here. now click here. now click here" ever again

"Google recognizes that it is an application and immediately provides you with the user interface while libraries are still stuck in the mind set of web 'pages.' " - Bill Moody on Web4Lib

the next step after putting a search box for your catalog on your home page
need to view our web presence as a teaching opportunity

showed the first web page she created as a children's librarian - the jellybeans danced! it's link-based, text-based, one link to another; that's what the web was ten years ago

now students want to determine their own paths & we have to think how to present information to them

Ross Singer's exchange - "This is *the* search form."

noted some statistics from the OCLC Perceptions report

Educause recommendations for library web pages:
- students like interactive web pages; wonder why we're not visualizing our services online
- we need to have visual representation that brings our resources to light
- the report sounds a lot like Info Island

some existing websites that personify good instructional design
- Minnesota's Undergraduate Virtual Library
- this page is all about engagement when they come to our site
- personifies active learning
- student calculator lets the student drive the process
- ways to bring learning to life
- Maryville University
- Firefox library toolbar
- search button for "Find Some Articles" on the search box takes them directly into Ebsco (bypasses SFX and other databases); gets you into *something,* which is a gutsy choice
- Brigham Young's Harold B. Lee Library
- all of the organization's information is gone from the front page (hidden behind tabs and collapsible menus)
- Queens Library's implementation of AquaBrowser
- Kansas State Libraries
- show an assignment planner with tabs; interesting visual metaphor
- Nelsonville Public Library
- showed Koha catalog that looks like Amazon

"Librarians need to use their expertise to make the library's online presence approach the simplicity and power of the Internet." - Stanley Wilder

we need to design simple interfaces in order to help people

How do we get there?
- involve students in interface planning
- give a small, informal group the chance to work, with students

put her presentation on SlideShare :-)

Cody Hanson, Minnesota

"A lesson from Web 2.0 for academic libraries"

his lack of experience is a "feature"

can use the web to add value to the information we provide patrons online
communicate the value of our service

showed eboy poster of web 2.0 landscape (Jenny: I still want this!)

showed digg and described how it works
more than 1 million registered users
155,000,000+ pageviews as of January 2007

it's important for us to realize that there are people out there that value vetted information, including from a community, as opposed to a faceless algorithm like Google News

at digg, though, the information is publicly vetted by people

we do a great job at recommending within the building, but it's only implied online; little evidence of human intervention in what we offer online

online identity is a big part of our patrons' lives and we need to take that to heart
we need to be in their flow
- make personal and public recommendations of sources and articles
- expose our selection processes
- expose our expertise

we will add value to the information we provide patrons online
- do it the way we do it in the building, devoting resources to it

we will better communicate the value of our service by being public about it

Emily Barton, Michigan State

nature of the academic environment is changing
we need to know what they're changing needs are, not just who they are

the work they are doing is more collaborative (more peer-learning curricula)
- design facilities to help them accomplish this
design new services or change what we are doing to adapt to their needs

showed Unshelved's "One person one computer" comic strip

we need to develop unified delivery services in the places that they need them now
challenge of thinking about spaces that aren't necessarily "library spaces"

encourage librarians to play

need to assess and evaluate what we're doing

1955 book quote about academic libraries

keep an open mind and keep up with your users

Questions

- do you think the gaming trend will be relevant to graduate students and faculty, not just undergrads?
- Cody: video games have been on the forefront of designing interfaces like Ellysa discussed; he came back to games after a while and found that you no longer needed fat instruction manuals; essentially the first level or two of the game is a tutorial, so you learn as you play; that's something we can learn from games that can be relevant to all patrons

- can you comment on the management structures of your libraries in terms of your sense of empowerment and opportunities to educate your colleagues and administrators
- Ellysa: thinks academic libraries are the best because they are so large so management is spread out; if you start a blog at a school library, your colleagues know about it and come after you, whereas Penn State is so huge that no one even notices if you start a blog; good way to experiment
- Emily: empowerment is there in her job, but she has four job titles now
- Cody: never expected to become a librarian; thought he'd continue working in the web world but was pleasantly surprised to see the innovation going on at Minnesota and other academic libraries; it's refreshing

- how would you recommend we market what we do?
- Emily: academic libraries serve a lot of different people and you would market differently to each group; as many ways as you can reach them; did a poster series during their "ask a librarian" campaign
- Cody: the best thing we can do is prove our value, not profess it; undergrads are marketing-savvy and they know if a service has to tell you it's cool, then it's not cool; best thing we can do is demonstrate our expertise and put faces to that expertise as professionally as we can
- Ellysa: stealth marketing is also important; integrate into as many places as we can

- do physical additions like commons, cafes, etc. help libraries?
- Emily: information commons are being designed as more than just computer labs; you're combining technology and library resources to provide a service; you're also providing help; the library's role for her isn't just to provide them what they can get from journals and books - they include this but the technology and other pieces, too
- Cody: the idea of creating spaces for people to collaborate in, both physically and virtually, is a valuable function libraries can serve and does fit our mission of allowing access to information and flow between students and faculty; thinks the skepticism brought to this is valid and need to question the goal - if the goal is just to bring more people in in the hope that we'll realize how great we are, then that might not be the best use of our resources

- what do you see as legacy services and functions that seem ripe for retirement? what can we let go of?
- Ellysa: legacy *values* we could let go of are "this" is what an academic library is - an academic library doesn't have a MySpace page or make balloon hats or isn't in Second Life; need to be an exciting, vibrant place
- Cody: the paper "The Guardian" in the U.K. told their staff that the primary channel is now the website; we need to think of our online libraries as our primary libraries and treat them accordingly
- Emily: let go of "this" is my job, I'm just a cataloger, I don't need to keep up

- isn't there something to changing the vocabulary used about academic libraries? undergrads don't know what a bibliography is; the expertise - if you can explain it - has value
- Cody: yes

I'm trying to decide between buying the totally awesome, noise-cancelling Bose headphones I've been lusting after or to cut the cord and get a pair of Bluetooth, noise-cancelling headphones. I know how great the Bose ones are and so don't need a recommendation for those, but can anyone recommend a Bluetooth set based on personal experience? Please email me or leave a comment. Thanks!

The staff at the Orange County Library System have been pretty busy. You might remember them as the folks who created virtual snowmen for their patrons. That was just the beginning of the fun and interesting services they're offering now, though.

This one is pretty freaky-deaky. I've noticed the SitePal ads on Technorati in the past, mostly just taking a moment or two to make the avatar say something goofy and moving the cursor around to make the head turn left and right and left and right and... you get the idea.

Now, however, I can do that with Mary Anne Hodel, the Director at Orange County LS! She has upped the ante on directors' blogs by adding an avatar of herself made by SitePal. Check it out for yourself at her Library Leader blog, where last month she also announced that OCLS is now using text messaging to communicate with its patrons! I *think* they are the first public library in the U.S. to do this, yes?

Equally exciting is the news about OCLS' gaming program. They offer more standard fare, such as a circulating collection and even a MySpace page just for teen gamers, but check this out:

"Don't have a gaming console of your own? Well, we've got that covered as well. If you are a library cardholder who is 17 years old or younger you can play at three of our branch locations; Main, Herndon, or West Oaks. Just bring in your library card, check out 2 tokens, and play using our 'gaming pod.' Each 'gaming pod' includes a Playstation2 console and a 'game of the day.' Bring a friend and play together. It’s just that easy!"

But wait, there's more!

"Did you know that gaming at OCLS is expanding? Recently we received a grant from Electronic Arts to fund our Extreme Technology for Teens project. With this funding we will be expanding our gaming pods and game nights to all 15 of our locations. Each location will receive a Sony [sic] Wii and Microsoft XBox 360 for their gaming pod and gaming programs. Not only will we be providing gaming consoles but also gaming events that will focus on making careers out of the field of gaming. By showcasing schools and businesses we hope to show our teens what types of careers are available to them in the future."

And as if all that wasn't enough, they offer some really interesting classes you don't normally see from a public library:

• Google Earth - "Get directions, interactive maps, and satellite/aerial imagery of the World! Learn basic navigation and search techniques within Google Earth and Google Maps user environments."


• How to Free Up Space on Your Computer - "Learn how to free up space on your computer hard drive using the system tools."


• Word for Kids - "This class covers the Microsoft Word toolbar, page setup, margin adjustments, horizontal text alignments, character formatting (bold, italicize, underline, font and size adjustment), headers and foote..."


• Powerpoint for Kids - "Learn how to create, format, and enhance a Microsoft PowerPoint slide show using animations and sound."


• Online Digital Photo Albums - "Learn Online Photograph Album Concepts. Learn how to use online software to upload photos using one of the free online photo album services. Attendees must have a valid email address."


• Creating Organizational Charts Using Microsoft Office for Small Businesses - "Use diagram features in Mircosoft Office to create organizational charts."


• Windows Movie Maker for Kids - "Learn to edit video using Microsoft XP's built-in application."


• Publisher Flight for Kids - "Learn basic publication concepts and terms. Design and decorate a paper airplane."


• Podcasting for Small Business - "Learn how to subscribe, listen to and create your own podcast."


• Spyware, Prevention and Removal for Small Business - "Learn about Spyware and how to remove and protect your PC from the latest threats."


• And more!



Just when I thought there couldn't be anything else to make me say wow, I clicked through to the it: informed teens blog. I'm intrigued that kids can submit game reviews, but I'm even more excited about the design and language of the blog itself. It's full of action, it's proactive, and now it just needs to be a little more interactive.

This has to be one of the most interesting library systems to watch right now.

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Missing the MySpace Vote

"Presidential hopefuls Duncan Hunter of California and Ron Paul of Texas, both Republican members of the U.S. House of Representatives, last year voted in favor of a bill that would have forced schools and libraries receiving federal funds to block access to MySpace and other social-networking web sites on their computers. So it seems odd, the American Library Association (ALA) contends, that the two lawmakers are among the 11 candidates who at press time had created personal profiles on a special section that MySpace has dedicated to the 2008 presidential election.

'It is kind of ironic,' said Melanie Anderson, ALA's assistant director for government relations. 'We do think it's interesting how many of the same politicians who support DOPA are using social-networking web sites in their own campaigns....'

But if DOPA had become law, Anderson and others say, students likely couldn't access any of the MySpace web pages devoted to the 2008 presidential candidates on their school computers--and library patrons probably would not have been able to find these pages, either." [eSchool News, Thanks, Deborah!]

Coolest Keyboard Ever [BB-Blog]. I want.

Thanks to CIC for a thought-provoking day yesterday and lots of great discussion about gaming and libraries. You can find a PDF of the slides over on my presentations wiki. If you have questions after going through the slides again, please don't hesitate to email me, IM me, or leave a comment.

One of the groups I'm really enjoying working with at ALA is the folks at American Libraries. This video gives you a good sense of why. Much more to come from AL in regards to video (which I find very exciting). Applause goes to Dan Kraus - writer, producer, director, grip, and best boy extraordinaire.

Magnum, A.L.

Addendum: I meant to note that this is a tip of the hat to Nick Baker for the inspiration. We've been talking about video for a while, but he certainly helped us get enthusiastic about jumping in and getting our feet wet. Behind-the-scenes photos here.

american+libraries, ala, american library association

- John Riedl, University of Minnesota, GroupLens Research

going to take a fun tour through the web and think about the implications for us! :-)

Community
- LoC: founded in 1800: 280,000 headings and references applies to 18 million books
- Flickr - founded in 2004 with 25 million pictures

Web 2.0 is all about the social web, which means people connecting to people
we're going to have to think a bunch about applied social psychology
will look at the long tail

of everyone in this room, he knows the least about library science, so his goal is not to tell us how libraries will be influenced by these changes but to stimulate, interest, and entice so that we come back to him in a year and tell him how we are influenced

top 10 websites by traffic as analyzed by alexa
thinks we'll be amazed at how important the social web is to these 10 sites

1. Yahoo - picked Flickr
showed tag cloud
power is that it leverages the power of individuals to react to pictures and say what they think about it
write for me a query that finds a picture of a baby in a search engine in the three clicks it took him
showed visual map of term "library" - no connection between "tag" and "library" in del.icio.us
how do people find information in this new world?
showed geotagging in Flickr
"is that cool or what?" :-)
value of factual tags - people are tagging like crazy
a surprising phenomena

for the tag "anime" for "spirited away"
taggers agreed that factual tags are:
- useful overall (56% agreement)
- useful for learning about movies (60%)
- useful for finding movies (59%)

factual tags vs. subjective tags - "surreal" doesn't tell me anything

personal tags - "My DVDs" for "Dawn of the Dead"
17% agree personal tags *were* useful but
87% thought their personal tags helpful in organizing for the taggers themselves
personal and shared is new

showed some papers about tagging (sorry - I was enjoying his talk too much to get more detailed than this)

open questions:
- is tagging selfish (creates social good)?
- how can a system distinguish between "good" tags and "bad" tags?
- can folksonomy be encouraged? (showing users more tags leads to more vocabulary reuse
- is convergence valuable?

2. Google - it's about search but it's social search
value of a page is the value of the pages that link to it
recursive
fight for attention: The Shoe Store example of a business whose fortunes depended on google's pagerank
tied this to the long tail in the blogosphere
The Rich get Richer

NetFlix is giving $1 million to someone who creates a recommendation engine for them

3. MySpace - showed an entry from a young girl who is going to jail for admitting online that she was driving a car in which two people were killed

4. MSN - too boring to talk about so skipping

5. Ebay
gaming the system - buyers that receive negative ratings will punish you later, so not providing honest feedback
two papers about this

6. Amazon
most important resource is customers
customers "selling to" customers
showed the "clean underwear" example from when Amazon started selling clothing (customers who bought this bought clean underwear)
more gaming the system

7. YouTube
video by amateurs?
copyright issues
- CBS agreement
- music videos
why did google buy youtube?
paid so much for the community

8. World of Warcraft
a virtual world focused on combat - 8 million users
showed a video of Fayejin's funeral

9. Craig's List

10. Wikipedia
mentioned Stephen Colbert, wikiality, and the African elephants episode

movielens is a recommender site from John's research group
one external user added 5,000 movies to their database
he threatened to go on strike if they let others add content
added an interface for others to contribute for the scale, speed, robustness against change, and community participation it would give them

when to review - editing after, rather than before
the overall expected quality by a user of the system was higher for the Wikipedia model
the eventual equilibrium is the same

11. Facebook
study found that 90% of users thought peers would look at their page
only 3% thought professors would

12. CNN
now doing real life news for Second Life
Reuters has a live news bureau in Second Life to report back to the real world

Questions
- are these social interactions going to play out in real life, other than just games?
- John: millions of people going crazy and doing work for free...if we can harness just 1% of that.... doesn't know this and it might be useful just for games, but he'd like to get out in front of this interesting phenomen

- where is the economic motivation and what is the business model that makes sense in this environment?
- John: first, talked about economic theory but it didn't have anything to do with money; people are often motivated by things other than money; if you give people evidence that the work they are doing makes other peoples' lives better in concrete ways, they will be happy - unless you're making money off what they're doing, in which case they want a piece of it; how do you create incentive models without altering the previous model of involvement?

- what is the degree to which a world created by young people is overrun by the outside, will it no longer be cool and they will leave? does research show communities want to be with people like themselves?
- John: thinks we will see a crossing the chasm effect; the first wave will leave, but the reason they are going away is that all of us are here

Frank Menchaca, Thompson-Gale

TG is like libraries in that some pieces of the organization are agile but others are in a horrible state of atrophy

how are decisions made in companies that affect products

TG takes into account:

1. the end user
no longer look only at librarians for input and feedback; librarians are one part of the spectrum of people they talk to for market research

2. business models
they are in a perpetual mode of change and transformation
continually looking for new business models, which affects the projects they do
have to think through new business models where they didn't digitize or originate material
increasingly need to think about the user experience, not the product - that's what creates the stickiness of anyone's material
Wikipedia succeeds at being accessible; in the information world, we have ridden the authority horse too much and we've talked ourselves into the greatness of authority at the expense of accessibility

3. access
integrating 18th century newspaper collection into a collection of 18th century books
hope it is a different experience than the pay-per-view or free versions
better that they find out if this is true by trying something than by not trying anything
making our metadata and parts of our collection accessible out on the internet
includes micro sites ("Goliath" that sells business content to business professionals for $19/month)
putting some one Google
placing content in the pathway where users are asking questions

4. the question of people
Gale is like a library - employee people who have been cataloging and indexing for 45 years
but this is no longer at the center of what they do (east of the periphery now)
need people who ask different kinds of questions of users now - no longer recruit from publishing or libraries when looking for these types of people
increasingly, his editors have a charge to go out and be in the market 50% of the time in which they need to sell their products & use that time to understand the curriculum, understand the needs of the institution

what the future means for them is:
- spending more and more physical time with customers and end users
- becoming a hybrid organization where the people harvesting that knowledge are bringing it back to the organization to spawn new product ideas

his job is pull people along and hire others to push
little fish in the big pond have to keep moving in order to avoid being eaten up

Christopher McKenzie, John Wiley & Sons

killing the sacred cow of textbooks and libraries
textbooks are broken - how do we know? no one is happy
- students
- faculty
- librarians
- administrators
- publishers

currently:
40/40/20 - an increasing number of students are not buying textbooks at all, new or used
faculty don't recognize this
used book buying affects textbook publishers and students
ebooks not taking off

legislators are promoting solutions

his solution: digital
- always current
- lower cost
- improves student outcomes (for enhanced products, not just replications)
- reduces faculty workload
- easier fulfillment
- no used book/importation

new models:
- course-by-course adoption
- all adopted courses
- "Big Deal" lite (open all titles to anyone that wants to use them)

went through some statistics for the economics of course materials

Libraries' Role
- libraries are at the center of the stakeholder
- issues
- budget
- logistics
- selection by faculty
- expertise
- licensing
- implementation
- user training
- expansive knowledge of worthwhile content
- leverage investment in other content
- leverage Course Management Systems

Stephen Rhind-Tutt, Alexander Street Press

scary:
- loss of control
- a lot of content not created by publishers
- expensive, new technologies
- loss of proprietary gateways to content
- large new players with enormous network advantages

Alexander Street's response: create the best product in a discipline
need to behave in a way that advances the following:
- seek out areas that are currently ill-served
- research, find, link, and license the best content from all possible sources
- find previously unpublished materials
- license and co-publish archives, authors, and publishers
- provide outstanding functionality through indexing and technology

noted Dialog was put out of business by its business model, not by technology

- don't compete or duplicate; they'll link to any website and will help you publish something
- add real value; don't see themselves as owning spaces; they are part of the community
- want to be fast
- want to be efficient

aggregating disciplines and creating the best collection they can in these niches
- e.g., history, performing arts, literature, women's history, music, sociology, religion, black studies, psychology
focus on niches and deliver exceptional value

first person narratives as a new way of looking at history
- contemporaneous
- diverse
- personal
- multiple viewpoints (more from women, etc.)
- stamped in place and time (parallel versions of history)

building a parallel historical universe to complete newspaper archives
not trying to do it uniquely - part of the community of reviews, music, films, google, etc.
==> free database at http://inthefirstperson.com
added semantic indexing for value
try to organize results better

music - "Music Online" portal

develop specific expertises to focus in an area
deliver a level of value
database of streaming music plus scores, all searchable from one place
offer playlists and now have thousands of academic professional creating thousands of playlists; academics will be able to publish their playlists
tag cloud coming!
don't want to perpetrate silos as more and more use will come from outside of their interface

need to translate all of this to their video products

wants to stress that by actively publishing in a particular discipline, they can stay ahead of the other fish swimming around

looking at local archives of music - pilot program this fall, looking for partners to test the service
- looking for material that has been produced locally or where copyright has been secured

Questions

- cultural shifts in the way we do and think about things; how do you make that happen? what do you think is critical for us to do to facilitate those types of shifts
- Frank: libraries have to solve for access the same way publishers do; need to be accessible the way Wikipedia is
- Christopher: the will is there in some quarters (including some lofy corners like presidents and provosts), but need a top-down and bottom-up approach to get over the hump

- publishers take a great deal of pride in what they produce, but end users are much less interested in knowing the publisher in the discovery phase; how do you allow us to get over the hurdle of the silos of your own publications?
- Frank: convince them to sell us their companies :-p ; as a publishing community, we need to make a decision to make our content discoverable and accessible on Google where you can search and get snippets; then it becomes up to the publishers what kinds of licensing agreements they want to have with libraries
- Christopher: don't you think that's already happening with SDI?
- Stephen: certain basic behaviors that make content discoverable and certain ones that don't (such as pages without permanent URLs, no authenticity or context for some collections, etc.), both are propagated by libraries and publishers

Side note for the day - check out Lorcan Dempsey's post about A Book Cloud in in WorldCat! I love this.

I have witnesses that Andy Havens said he would do karaoke at the American Libraries/TechSource booth at the Annual Conference, so maybe we can get him to sing the Latin book cloud, too. ;-)

Diane Dallas - Indiana University Libraries

use Sakaibrary tool
formalized making pages for classes in course management software - "oncourse"
make these pages based on unique course ID; instructors can request these pages or librarian can make them

- took this approach because it is easy and fast
- highly relevant
- integration of library resources into the course management software
- subject/discipline specific instruction
- multiple access points
- high impact for relatively low effort

worked at IU because:
- seamless integration with little work required on the part of the faculty
- created within the library web environment
- contextual instruction is viewed as a value-added feature

demonstrate the value of libraries in these environments

problem right now is that students and faculty cannot modify or add to these pages

Susan Hollar - Michigan

also implemented Sakai, but call it "ctools"
- sending their library reserves into ctools via an RSS feed
- developing a module to add their virtual reference tool into the software so that instructors can just turn on that functionality
- have created a new "role" within the software for "Librarian" so that the instructor can add their subject librarian to their course to give them access to relevant modules (not grading)

working with Indiana on a Mellon Grant 1/06-6/07 to integrate licensed library content into the software

citation list tool
goes to SFX resolver
still dealing with openurl and broadcast search problems

did some usability testing to learn about the value of this effort:
- faculty: easy way for students to create and share citation lists within Sakai
- faculty: "do it yourself" e-reserves
- students see it as helpful in writing research papers
- librarians: prefer native search interfaces and valuing the investments made in library websites

Next Steps:
- citation list in next version (Sakai 2.4)
- identify ways to break down access barriers further
- free the citation
- subject research guidance, next level
- leverages citation list functionality
- provide students resources beyond pathfinders
- save canned and constrained searches, embed RSS, audio, annotations
- information about Librarian and a method for identifying librarian and contacting them

actually funding a Sakai developer

recommendations:
- talk to your CMS developers
- work with vendors
- strive to understand work cultures
- take the long view, but take baby steps
- get the right people involved
- take risks

John Butler - University of Minnesota

have done many in-depth assessments during the last few years
portal aggregation for undergraduates
forced them to think about which services and resources they would privilege for this audience
- moving from a paradigm of inclusion (everything we could ever provide to them) to one of exclusion (what *should* we provide to them)
- blogging, metasearch, etc.

scaled development:
- personal information management (PIM) tool deployment
- enterprise-level portal; my Campus Portal

personalizable at the demographic level
customizable at the user level

has 140,000 registered users with:
- more than 47,000 unique logins monthly
- 34,000 unique logins weekly
- 9,600 unique logins daily
includes incoming freshmen and alumni

"in the flow" opportunities
myLibrary tab = myLibrary on my
http://www.myu.umn.edu/
showed different views

affinity strings - tc.grad.gs.anth.phd
suggests things we can do at the social networking level
brings up questions about how they create prefabricated views
- librarian/subject liaisons pushing content based on "what's best" principles
- content pushed on basis on an affinity population's use behavior in the overall library web environment
- users' explicit content choices (for individual portal views) are aggregated and reflected back to the user community
- hybrids of the above

want to balance the push and the pull
want to feed back group-assembled views based on aggregation of different levels

in heart of phase one of building the prefabricated views
phase two - end user gets some control over the space
phase three - building community views

Lisa Janicke Hinchliffe - University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

going to talk about an environment that isn't ours at all - Second Life
what does it mean to participate in but not own this environment

immersive environment:
- a simulated/created environment (real life is immersive)
- interact with these worlds/environments through devices
- avatar as representation of individual
- controlled (game) or free-form (world or reality) - two types

not many of us in the room are our avatar every day (based on a poll)
noted the Virtual Worlds 2007 conference at the end of this month

metaverse is another phrase for a virtual world
quote from conference that they see many metaverses in the future

noted There.com but focusing on Second Life

a lot of identity management going on

University of Illinois' mWorlds: Games, Cyber-Physical Systems, Synthetic Worlds
- mWorlds are synthetic worlds
- I missed a few of the points
- now a class on building metaverse spaces

showed video of Second Life Library
a library gardens group is doing the landscaping on InfoIsland
"getting yourself dislodged from concrete is occasionally a problem"

UIUC GSLIS Change Management Course met in SL - had to meet at the Kansas State Library building because there was no UIUC library where they could meet
Lisa is excited to figure out SL and library services *before* there are 50,000 users
UIUC also has a class called "Teaching and Learning in a Virtual World"

the Library is trying to figure out what they are doing
want to take the lead; they don't care about Second Life per se, but rather about the opportunity to see what an immersive environment is like and what they can do there
will take lessons they learn and move on to other worlds if SL isn't where everything goes in the future

7 Levels of Change book by Rolf Smith
1. Effectiveness: doing the right things
2. Efficiency: doing right things right
3. Improving: doing the right things better
4. Cutting: doing away with things
5. Copying: doing things other people are doing
6. Different: doing thing no one else is doing
7. Impossible: doing things that can't be done
she would add #8: doing things people tell you you shouldn't be doing

strategies for immersion:
- environmental scan, which meant just getting avatars and playing together in the computer lab
- engage
- explore
- experiment
- envision: set aside some money to hire a graduate assistant to try things out
- establish

Questions

- sees SL as like the early web where usability is horrible and not really utilizing the opportunities presented to us
- Lisa: SL is great for bringing together librarians in-world from around the world to discuss this very thing; meeting in the next couple of weeks; looking at an exhibition for a cooking collection in-world & build a virtual kitchen for it in a way you can't in real life

- her campus is looking at the role of the librarian in the CMS, too and only being allowed to go into certain areas, especially if they are also teaching in the system
- Susan: instructor can override defaults to give librarians access to grading or administration if necessary; when they teach full classes, they are the "instructor" and have the full role

Beyond the Walls of the Academy - Glenn Peterson

1. Presence
not forcing people to come to your website
showed Hennepin Library news and catalog search box in Google Reader and MySpace
"add Hennepin County Library Catalog search to your MySpace" because kids like to collect gadgets for their MySpace page

2. Search Autosensing
showed OpenSearch with HCL catalog in Google search box on a toolbar (Firefox and IE7)
- lets you put the library's catalog directly into the browser for searching

3. Pushing to Users
email alerts for titles by authors the user has self-identified interest in
RSS feed for forthcoming fiction, what you have checked out, etc.

4. Blogging in Public Libraries
showed Ann Arbor District Library
HCL has a blog for Catalog News

5. bookspace (yay!)
branded website (like Lorcan said)
a librarian in Kansas owned the domain bookspace.org and gave it to HCL (yay librarian in Kansas!)
bookspace has a blog; "win prizes" inaugural post has 26 comments on it, most of which have nothing to do with the prizes; people started talking about books there
bookspace integrates with the HCL catalog

showed comments in HCL catalog
comments link appears on individual detailed records and in booklists and in bookspace
showed a user-created booklist - "Cold Enough for You?"
very Amazon-like; lets you see other booklists by the creator

6. Scratch
using MIT's Scratch software to teach kids how to create games
is very subversive - has kids creating open source software!
showed the Scratch interface and did a demo of how you build a game
user-friendly environment and you can build in complexity as you learn it

Takeaways
- look for opportunities to extend your library's presence
- look at PL blogs for ideas that might work for you
- consider adding social features to your website that llow users to share their experiences using library resources

(Conference blog is at http://blog.lib.umn.edu/CICLib07/.)

In the Flow: from discovery to disclosure - Lorcan Dempsey

personal learning landscape image
construct a digital identity out of a variety of tools & interact with a full range of people
no library in the picture, but that might not have been part of the digital identity
how do we drop the library in there? must have a URL right now; RSS ties this type of environment together

peoples' work, communication, the way they want to interact with others changes when they enter a network environment
a single website is no longer the focus of attention but workflow
database --> website --> workflow
"getting things done" in effective ways
prefabricated workflows (e.g. CMS)
also a big focus on self-assembled digital identity
- RSS aggregators, toolbars, bookmarks (not just the desktop but beyond that, too)
supporting workflow is the issue now, helping you get things done

showed PictureAustralia on Flickr
put themselves into the flow of what people do (which also had the added benefit of driving traffic to the PA website)

Then: users built workflow around the library
Now: the library must build its services around user workflow
So: get into the flow, disclose into other environments

Attention
Then: resources scarce, attention abundant
Now: attention scarce (surrounded by opportunities to find what we want), resources abundant
competition for attention; simply being there is no longer good enough, simply making an offer is no longer good enough

Long Tail Information Providers
networked environment = flattening, integration of many things, participation

hubs emerging online (IMDB, etc.) aggregate supply and demand

Aggregation of supply (e.g. iTunes):
- unified discovery (want to reduce the steps you have to go through to make it easier for you)
- low transaction costs

Aggregation of demand (e.g. Google):
- mobilize users
- brand

libraries:
- do not aggregate supply very well
- do not lower the transaction costs of using things
- limited number of users available
- what is the brand of the library?

so the long tail argument is that you are pushing down demand
it's not enough to manage it - you have to aggregate supply and make it easy for people to use it

Collections and Scholarly Information Flow

a major issue for libraries over the next few years
manage collections in a very fragmented way

print - found in the catalog
licensed content - found in the metasearch resolver
digital, research & learning outputs - found in repositories (home-grown solutions for the most part)

one side is how you manage these things, the other is how you present them
range of approaches to managing these various resources
from the web presence point of view, have a range of offerings to people which may or may not be integrated into the website (usually confusing to users - where should I go for what?)

have to get away from the here is this - here is this - here is this approach and move to an integrated interface

how does one make resources available where people are, in their workflow

in the last few years, more work has moved onto the network
a variety of other things then need to be managed
the way people are doing research changes
aggregation at a higher level

opportunity for libraries to assist users in finding and managing resources
these types of services are no longer centralized in the library

The Network Rewrites the Library: The Catalog, Discovery, and Disclosure

Chris Bekect - bypassing on-site navigation
increasingly, what people want to do is get to the target content (articles)
publisher wants to make sure target content is visible to search engines, aggregators, link servers
the bulk of navigation is useless and not used because they are looking for target content
we design our websites as if they are the single point of attention for users
how are machines consuming your content?

1. Local discovery environments
focus on "next generation catalogs"
"make data work harder"
integrate consumer environment
escape from ILS limitations
examples: NCSU, Rochester, SOLR, Worldcat 2.0, Primo, Encore
showed their FictionFinder beta product of fiction by tag cloud

issues with this approach:
- unified?
- how does MARC data play with other data?
- subjects, authors....
- duplicate cost?
- relationship to metasearch?

2. Shared Discovery Environment
try to increase the impact by moving the discovery environment up in the network to create more gravitational pull and more brand

example: Libraries Australia (reduces transaction cost by letting you request, buy, etc. the item)
- also provides code to put a search box on your site to reduce transaction costs

OhioLINK
code to add search box on your site shows the value of the network
aggregates supply by letting you find something in any Ohio academic library
also aggregates demand by making it available to everybody in all institutions
from a brand point of view, once people know about the network, it is easier to find than individual institutions

- integration of discovery 2 delivery becoming essential
- a move to shared environments seems more likely with increased ability to 'view' different levels
- increased gravitational pull; a greater use of collections
- discovery at the group 'network level'

3. Syndicated Discovery Experience

putting data in places where it can be discovered and then pulling people back into the library

syndicating services
- RSS
- portlets
- APIs, protocol-based

syndicating links in places like Wikipedia
catalog data in RSS aggregators

- routing issue for non-unique materials
service disclosure is less common
making the library's resources available elsewhere via toolbars, HTML fragments - search boxes, widgets, extensions, etc. will become more important in the future

4. Leveraged Discovery Experience

use another discover resource to connect back to yours
e.g. Greasemonkey script to add library holdings to Amazon website

may become more common

So....
the library website is not the front door anymore so painting it and putting ornaments on it is of little use
need to connect multiple discovery environments to library fulfillment options
need to put library resources in users' workflow

I missed this when Brian Mathews' first posted it last fall.

The Ubiquitous Enterprise video

"2.0" as adjective appears a few times on the program for an ALA's Annual Conference in less than two years, long before I thought it would (plus many other 2.0-ish programs).

• Next Generation Libraries: The 2.0 Phenomenon with American Libraries columnist Joe Janes and ALA Editions author Stephen Abram, Saturday, June 23. Co-sponsored by the Office for Human Resources Development and Recruitment.
   


• Information in the World of Digital Natives with Matt Hong on Saturday, June 23. Overview of how the Internet usage and workflow of digital natives/Millenials differs from that of digital immigrants and skews toward Web 2.0 cornerstones: multi-tasking, multimedia, social and community, user-generated content, personalization, storing and tagging. Because of this, content providers seeking to market to digital natives must approach this demograph in a unique way, and seek to insert information solutions into the unique digital native workflow.
   


• Washington Office Breakout Session I - ALA's Office for Information Technology Policy will be presenting a session on Participatory Networks: Libraries as Conversation.
   


• Transforming Your Library, and Your Library's Future, with Technology on Saturday, June 23, with Alan Kirk Gray, co-Chair, Darien Library, CT; John Blyberg, co-Chair, Darien Library, CT; Lori Ayre, The Galecia Group; Casey Bisson, Plymouth State University, NY; Roy Tennant, California Digital Library. Technology can transform your library and its services, as it is transforming the lives of your patrons. From do-it-now technology improvements to next-generation implementations, from software to SOPACs, from in-your-face competition to over-the-horizon transformations, three accomplished experts will instruct, enlighten and challenge you to use technology to make your library more relevant to your patrons -- today and tomorrow.
   


• The Ultimate Debate: Do Libraries Innovate? on Saturday, June 23, with Roy Tennant, California Digital Library; Stephen Abram, SirsiDynix; Joseph Janes, University of Washignton; Karen Schneider, Florida State University. Libraries did not invent Google Book Search, LibraryThing, Facebook, or any other innovation critical to the new information era/knowledge economy. We make use of these inventions. But is that enough? What prevents us from being more inventive? Join four thought-provoking speakers for a debate on these questions and a search for answers.
   


• Technically Speaking: A Conversation about Cutting Edge Library Automation and Technology on Sunday, June 24. A panel moderated by American Libraries columnist Andrew K. Pace and Smart Libraries columnist Marshall Breeding. We've asked the CEOs to stay in their suites and send their best and brightest to the exhibit floor for a panel moderated by Andrew Pace (Head of Information Technology at North Carolina State University and American Libraries "Technically Speaking" columnist and "Hectic Pace" blogger) and Marshall Breeding (Director of Innovative Technologies and Research at Vanderbilt University Library, Smart Libraries columnist, and creator of Library Technology Guides and lib-web-cats). Watch the conversation unfold as Breeding and Pace ask a cutting-edge group of technologists to look into the future of library automation and technology from the vendor perspective.
   


• Building the Next Generation Public Library Web Site with Drupal on Sunday, June 24, with John Blyberg, previously with the Ann Arbor District Library. In 2005, Ann Arbor District Library unveiled it's "3.0" website. Its use of blogs, interactive commenting, and other "Web 2.0" functionality has earned it considerable national attention. The software behind the site is an open-source Drupal CMS. John Blyberg will discuss AADL's decision to use Drupal and will show how Drupal can be both a powerful CMS and agile development tool, and will address the benefits of open-source projects by illustrating its impact on AADL's development program.
   


• LITA President's Program: Tag! Your IT!: Online Digital Audio Collections Meet PennTags on Sunday, June 24. Chuck Haddix (University of Missouri-Kansas City) presents "The Voices of World War II" a case study of developing a digital library with access through the online catalog. Michael Winkler (University of Pennsylvania) demonstrates PennTags, a social bookmarking and tagging system, for the creation of personalized bibliographies of resources relating to and including this collection in the library catalog, licensed databases, and Web resources using a combination of subject headings, index terms, and personal tagging.
   


• Once Upon a Furl in a Podcast Long Ago: Using New Technologies to Support Library Instruction on Monday, June 25, with Joan Lippincott, Associate Executive Director, Coalition for Networked Information; Kathy Burnett, Associate Professor, Information Studies, Florida State University; Kathryn Shaughnessy, Instructional Services Librarian, St. John's University, Queens; Heather Tompkins, Reference & Instruction Librarian, Carlton College. Librarians are teaching to the Net Generation. Students are growing up in a world of technology. Ever wonder how to creatively use new technologies in the classroom? Not quite sure what a blog, Podcast, RSS feed, or social bookmark is? Or how you could use these to teach? Joan Lippincott, Associate Director of Coalition for Networked Information, will give an overview of emerging technologies and library instruction. Also, hear how one LIS professor, an expert in gender and information technology, is teaching future librarians how to use these tools in the classroom. See examples and get tips from an instructional services librarian and a women's studies librarian on how to integrate such tools into your instruction.
   


• Ignite your Library's Public Relations and Outreach Using Hot Technologies on Monday, June 25, with Michael Stephens, faculty, Dominican University; Steven Bell, Director, Associate University Librarian for Research and Instructional Services, Temple University Library; and Helen Blowers, Public Services Technology Director for the Public Library of Charlotte & Mecklenburg County, will discuss ways to incorporate the latest technologies into library promotion. After speakers share their expertise participants will break out into groups for discussions lead by the speakers. Everyone should come away with sizzling ideas to promote services and collections.
   


• Wiking the Blog and Walking the Dog - Social Software, Virtual Reality, and Authority Everywhere on Monday, June 25, with Helen Blowers, Public Services Technology Director, Public Library of Charlotte & Mecklenburg Cnty., N.C.; Meredith Farkas, Distance Learning Librarian, Norwich University, Vt.; John Blyberg, Systems Administrator, Darien (CT) Public Library; Lori Bell, Director of Innovation, Alliance Library System, IL. Innovators from within the library world present creative and practical initiatives that show how libraries can participate in the dynamic emergence of web-based information services. If you are looking for ideas as to how your library can embrace technologies offered by the likes of Wikis, Blogs, Web 2.0, Second Life, Podcasting, Flickr, You Tube, and My Space, then this is the program for you. Traditional forms of publishing, research, and recreational information will be challenged and expanded, as will traditional notions of information authority. Presenters will show how library participation in these contemporary online forums via social software is becoming as common and as easy as walking the dog.
   


• Technical Services 2.0: Using Social Software for Collaboration on Monday, June 25. Social software such as wikis, blogs, RSS feeds, instant messaging and social bookmarking are proving themselves on the public services side of libraries. This program will explore their application in technical services.

This isn't a comprehensive list of tech programs at the conference, but you can view the preliminary program for D.C. in June to find more.

That's how I feel - I see Chris and The Library Dude and smalls and Christel and The Lurker.

Hello to the King County Library System crew going through the KCLS U 27 Things Learning 2.0 initiative. I hope you're having as much as we are watching what you're doing. :)

Chris ended her post with the following:

"I was thinking that I probably would not use many of the '27 Things' once I have gotten through with all of lessons, but I am really enjoying learning and using everything that I have tried. Now I am ready to go to the next lesson. Hope there are alot of you out there in blog land... having a good time with this too."

Yes indeed we are. Keep up the great work and the great attitude, Chris and cohort!

Thank you to everyone who attended! And major gratitude to Tania and Kathryn for their efforts today, as without them it wouldn't have even happened. I am not as at ease in these virtual presentations as I am in a room full of people (even though I am a total "I" introvert), because I'm used to gesticulating, playing off the audience, and moving around a little, so I hope it went well enough.

When the session ended, I forgot to grab my own PDF of the presentation with the polls in order to post it here so until I can get my hands on a copy, I'm going to post my original, poll-less one since I'm already getting requests for it. I know there were still quite a few more questions and we ran out of time for them all, so if you'd like to leave questions in the comments, I'll be happy to respond. You can also try to catch me on AIM at cybrarygal for one-on-one Q&As.

I'll update this post when I (or SirsiDynix) have the version with the polls online because I hope that's the version that will get used with administrators. The questions went exactly as I had hoped - we took a poll, and 60-something% self-identified as non-gamers. (Sorry I don't have the exact numbers, but I forgot to take screenshots, too - oy.) Then when we redefined what "gaming" and "gamer" might mean today and redid the poll, the numbers reversed and almost 60% self-identified as gamers. It helps show that we need to think about these things a little differently in order to truly understand them. It turns out they are us after all.

Library 2.0 Programs

"I'm working up some materials to promote a 2.0 learning program at my library, and it's turned into a really interesting project. I've put together a wiki with a rough draft of some curriculum, as well as links to libraries doing similar programs. I'm hoping to get some input on the wiki - it's at http://instructionwiki.org/Library_2.0_in_15_minutes_a_day.

Eventually I'd like to cover a lot of different 2.0 topics, so that other libraries doing the program can pick and choose what they want to pursue with their staff." [Library 2.0]

In just a year and a half, we've gone from Michael Casey coining the term "Library 2.0" to Helene Blowers' L2-based training program to teach staff about L2 using L2 tools, this "15 minute a day" program by Sam Wallin, and more. It's great to see librarians taking the lead like this.

And of course, how great that I found this resource because Bill Drew got out there and played, created the Library 2.0 social network on Ning.

It also shows what an idea generator Stephen Abram is for our profession. If you haven't read his two seminal articles that inspired this trend, here they are.

• 43 Things I (or You) Might Want to Do this Year


• 15 Minutes a Day: A Personal Learning Management Strategy (PDF)

You can watch his blog, Stephen's Lighthouse, where he posts links to new ones when they are posted online to be further inspired.

Just a quick note to thank the 400+ of you who have signed up for tomorrow's free Gaming in the Library session of the SirsiDynix Virtual Institute and to note that you can still register if you haven't had a chance to do so yet. "See" you tomorrow! :-)

Two great surveys you can help with:

• From the Project L team of the Emerging Leaders program: "We are choosing programs for the PLA National Conference that are of interest to new and young librarians. Many concerns are the same across types of libraries, so even if you are not in a public library we would appreciate your help. We have put together a very short survey and would appreciate it if you could take the time to complete it."
   


• From Rachel Singer Gordon: "I'm working on a book on alternative careers for librarians, and am looking for input from folks who have pursued nontraditional paths.

  I'm interested in hearing from a broad variety of people, including: those who have embarked on a new career after working for some time in libraries, those who earned an MLS but never worked in a traditional library setting, those who pursue alternative opportunities as a supplement to a traditional library career, those who work in a traditional setting but do nontraditional work, and those who do library work in nontraditional settings. Basically, if you think you might have/had some sort of nontraditional career, I'd love to hear from you -- thanks!" Survey here.

It's been a very interesting couple of weeks to watch librarians and social networks. Some observations.

• I first started wondering what was going on last month when out of nowhere came a surge of librarians on Linked In, a more professionally-oriented social network that has been around for several years. I had two accounts on the site from a couple of years ago, neither of which I'd done much with, but they both started getting friend requests at a surprising rate. I'd love to know what started the friending frenzy - I think I missed someone blogging about it, but my theory is that in the same week, Michael Porter and Ed Vielmetti both gave presentations that included the site and things took off from there.

  It seems to have died down a little now, and I haven't been back in the site lately to do anything more than consolidate the two accounts, update my profile, and accept invitations. The site is great for networking but lacks the social tools some of the more viral networks have. It will be interesting to see if much else happens there, other than just learning about degrees of separation and who knows whom. Then again, I'm more of a fun network user, rather than a business one.
   



• At the other extreme, librarians on Facebook are having a lot of fun. I love my Facebook news feed (even though it's held hostage in the site instead of in my aggregator) and it's what keeps me coming back to the site (so I guess their strategy is working). I enjoy the groups - although I enjoy finding groups with funny names even more - but it's that constant update of what my friends and friendsters are doing that is pure crack.

  What's really great is to watch what happens when one person finds a good group and joins it. All of a sudden a bunch of us see that they've done this and then we flock to it. It's not a new phenomenon online (even in the physical world), but it nicely highlights the power of these tools. My favorite group name is still "when I was your age, Pluto was a planet." Oh, to make libraries this viral and Gladwellian-tipped.
   



• A couple of weeks ago, Bill Drew started the Library 2.0 network on a build-your-own-social-network-for-free site called Ning. There's a fascinating article to be had in how quickly it has grown and how (more than 300 members in just two weeks). There were times when you knew a link to the site had been posted or passed around because suddenly you got several friend requests within an hour or two.

  There are some discussions happening on the site that aren't occurring elsewhere or are not as visible, so I highly recommend joining if you are at all interested in Library 2.0. Nice job, Bill!
   



• I first played with Twitter in December when Ed Vielmetti showed it to me at the National Library Agenda. He was using it to post where he was, what he was doing, and/or what he was thinking about at the time. I created an account (http://twitter.com/shiftedlibrarian) and used it for a few days (it helps to have unlimited texting on your cell phone) but then fell out of the habit. Since then, I've noticed a lot more folks embedding their Twitter status on their websites, and I've thought about it adding it to mine.

  I'm not sure how comfortable I am being completely open about my location or status, although I have started to be more open about that to friends on Facebook. In my presentations, I've sometimes noted how Ed uses Plazes on his blog to automatically show where he is (based on where he is using WiFi), because that's a very different way of "putting yourself out there," and I'm still figuring out how comfortable I would be doing something like that. I think a lot of younger folks are like Ed and are growing up that way, which has implications for future library services.

  Then along comes Twitter, which is like status on steroids and it further breaks down those privacy barriers for some people, making these kinds of instant gratification updates a little more okay. David Lee King and Steven Cohen have both discovered the site recently, so I'll be interested to see if they keep up with it more than I have. I still may go back to posting ideas and tasks to my Twitter account, as I did find that valuable and that is the first rule of a social site - give the user added value.

The moral of the story: I think a good number of librarians are playing with, understanding, and adopting social networks online at a time when we need to be doing this in order to fight attempts to ban these very sites from being accessed in our buildings. I also see an awful lot of people having fun, usually accompanied by some learning, which can only be good.

Sony Unveils Big PS3 Secret: Gamers Get To Go 'Home'

"...Sony revealed on Wednesday (March 7) that it is indeed launching a 'Second Life'-style service called PlayStation Home that will grant every PS3 owner an avatar and a virtual apartment, which are linked into a virtual world that will be available for free to all system owners when it launches in the fall.

'We are building a very rich 3-D social-networking service for PlayStation 3 users all around the world,' said Sony PlayStation's head of worldwide studios, Phil Harrison, during an advance briefing to the media on Tuesday night.

People familiar with the avatar-based worlds of 'Second Life' and MTV's own 'Virtual Laguna Beach' would find much familiar with the demo. Launched from the PS3's main menu, Home starts a gamer off in a lobby, framing a full-body shot of the player's customizable avatar while the avatars of other PS3 users mill around that same lobby. The characters are designed to look like real people, down to the details of individual eyelashes. They don't appear as cartoon figures, like Nintendo's Mii player-avatars on the Wii.

...Players can communicate via voice, text chat (supported by a USB keyboard or a virtual keyboard) and through canned speech and gesture. Every player gets a selection of free clothes, with more advanced goods available for purchase online or unlocked by playing new PS3 games....

Home users will each have a personal apartment they can customize with free and purchased furniture, all rendered to bounce and pile up with realistic physics. Players can redecorate and stream movies and music saved on their PS3 into virtual TV sets and stereos. At one point Harrison snapped a digital photo of the reporters he was addressing and, within a minute, had that photo uploaded into Home and hanging on a virtual world as a handsome piece of décor. Home gamers can invite friends — and their avatars — to hang out in their apartment, and when gathered they can collectively leap into multiplayer PS3 games." [MTV.com]

Hopefully it is becoming clearer that we need to pay attention to virtual worlds because they are going to be a part of our collective, professional future. It's up to each of us individually how much of a role it will play in our personal lives, just as we make decisions about books, television, the internet, parties, movies, parties, etc. are, but between Sony's plans, the BBC's forthcoming online children's world, Second Life, There, and other virtual spaces, we're seeing further illustrations of why librarians need to understand how cultures and interactions work in these spaces for our professional lives.

Maybe there isn't something we should be doing in all of these worlds (maybe even probably), but how will we know if we don't explore and find out? I think it's great that there are librarians out there on the forefront, trying things out for those who can't, and reporting back.

This also helps show why the concept of "play" is so important. Even if you don't "get" these virtual worlds and don't care to spend much time in them, it's good to enter them once or twice, just to see what they're like. Exploring future spaces - physical and virtual, outside of our four walls - is important, even at the personal level. And when you try the next iteration in a year or two, you might just be surprised at how far they've developed (or not, which is also good to know).

While it won't be easy for most librarians to play in Sony's "Home" world because of the barriers to entry, you can still experiment in free spaces like Second Life and There to get a taste. In fact, if you start looking around, it's amazing how many new sites, especially those favored by younger users, are avatar-based and how social and transactional interactions occur in them.

Imagine how much better we could have been prepared if we'd paid more attention in 1994-95 to the disruptive internet that was about to hit us. Maybe we wouldn't have spent so much time trying to individually catalog the entire web. Maybe we would have figured out single search box faster. Maybe we would have taught Google literacy from the beginning. Maybe we would have added patron comments to the catalog in the 20th century. Who knows how we might have helped shape today's internet and associated literacies for the better.

Related: Nielsen Says Video Game Penetration In U.S. TV Households Grew 18% During The Past Two Years

"The number of video game consoles in U.S. television households has expanded by 18.5% since the fourth quarter of 2004, according to a new report released today by Nielsen Wireless and Interactive Services, a service of The Nielsen Company. In the fourth quarter of 2006 there were 45.7 million homes with video game consoles, representing 41.1% of all TV households, compared to 39.1% (43 million) in 2005, and 35.2% (38.6 million) the previous year....

The report, “The State of the Console,” incorporates extensive data on video game console usage from Nielsen's National People Meter (NPM) sample of television households as well as its quarterly Home Technology Report. It is the first in a series of analytic studies from Nielsen examining trends in the video game industry.

The launch of Nielsen's GamePlay Metrics later this year will, for the first time, deliver metered video game usage and demographic data by game title, genre and platform. It will provide advertisers, agencies, hardware manufacturers and game developers with independent, high-quality, quantitative information for negotiating the buying and selling of in-game and around-game advertising.

Among the key findings of the report:

• The number of connected console households (those subscribing to a service that links their consoles to the Internet) has grown to more than 4.4 million, even before accounting for the connectivity of the PlayStation 3 and Wii platforms.


• Two-thirds of all men in television households between ages 18-34 have access to a video game console in their homes.


• During the fourth quarter of 2006, gamers in the top quintile (the top 20% of users based on average use over the quarter) accounted for 74.4% of total console usage.


• Between September 18, 2006 and December 31, 2006, 93.8 million persons used a video game console at least once for a minute or more. Moreover, in any given minute of the day, about 1.6 million people in the U.S. are using a video game console."

[Nielsen Media Research, via Val (Thanks!)]

Read the full report (PDF).

Being on the staff side at ALA's Midwinter Meeting (I have been learning that it's not a "conference" - it's a working "meeting") wore me out. ALA policy is to give employees that attend Midwinter and Annual two days off if they worked the Saturday and Sunday during which it took place. These days off must be used within two weeks and are called "collapse" days. Now I know why.

It's not just that you have to go to a lot more meetings when you're staff (and I mean *a lot*) and that they tend to start early and go late. And it's not just that they're spread out so you're always on the go. These same things hold true for members who serve on committees and hold offices (especially folks like presidents, presidents-elect, etc.). It's more that you're nuts leading up to the conference, preparing for all of those meetings, and then you're on call pretty much all the time while there. You can't just blow off a session or meeting the way you sometimes can when you're a member.

Personally, one of the main reasons I was so worn out after this last Midwinter was that I seriously underestimated the effect playing DDR for four days straight would have on me in addition to all of my other staffly duties. It's my own fault, but we were having so much fun and engaging in such interesting discussions about gaming with all kinds of librarians. And certainly this was the first time an ALA booth was accused by vendors of being too loud and too popular! Check out the smiles and laughter:

You can also check out rock stars Beth and Steve - Webmaster...or Guitar Hero?

Once folks saw how much fun and effort Dance Dance Revolution is, one of the most frequently-asked questions became "how do I set this up at home for myself?" The truth is that the answer is the same for a library looking to make an inexpensive investment to get started with gaming, so I thought I would kill two birds with one stone and list the components here. You can do the whole thing for just over $200, assuming you have a television at home or a projector at the library (or vice versa). Here's what you need:

• A Playstation 2, which you can get new for about $130. I got a "slim" one that takes up less room, but you can get an old style one for under $100. You can also watch for a deal or try to get a better price on a used system on eBay.
• A DDR game, which will run you up to $35, maybe a little less on eBay. The newest DDR game costs more (at the moment, that would be "DDR Supernova" on the Playstation), but you can get older ones cheaper. There are several titles now, so you should be able to find one fairly easily. DDR Extreme is a good one, especially for libraries, as the way in which it weights scores lets inexperienced players beat expert ones. This is the game we played most at Midwinter.
• You can buy cheap dance pads, and there are bundles of the game with pads, but I suggest you get the next step up, as the cheap ones won't last you long. In addition, they have no traction on the bottom, so you slide around a lot. Instead, I recommend the 1-inch think, foam insert pads, and I think you want two so you can dance against someone if the opportunity arises, especially if you have kids at home. I've gotten these types of pads off eBay in the past, two for $80 with shipping and handling (although it looks like the price has dropped a little on these already). An example: 2 x PS2 HARD FOAM IGNITION 8.0 DDR DELUXE DANCE PAD NEW.

That's really about it. Now you just need a TV or projector to plug the Playstation into and you're in business, at home or at your library. Overall, if you watch for deals, buy used equipment, or monitor eBay auctions, you can do this for under $200. DDR is a great form of exercise, and it's fun to boot. It's great for all ages, and in any setting you often get adults dancing against kids.

Bonus video: Gail McGovern is one of the people that asked about a DDR setup for home, and she immediately went out and bought equipment after seeing our setup at Midwinter. She also posted on YouTube video of her and me dancing at the American Libraries/TechSource booth. Thanks, Gail!

I recently got a call from a former boss (one of the best I've ever had!) asking for advice on how to stay current about technology when you're a public library reference librarian, you just don't have a lot of time or money, and you don't want to become a "techie." I believe that staying current these days means reading blogs, so that is my core recommendation, and I'd recommend tracking 10-12 of them if possible, just to get a broad enough view.

My major criteria for the blog recommendations are consistent posting over time, frequency (more than once a week), sticking to the topic, and a general sense of value to a public librarian. This could have been a very long list and it's very subjective (it is not a "best of"), so this truly is a baseline - add on from here.

• Read some blogs using an RSS reader/aggregator (NetVibes, PageFlakes, Google Reader, Bloglines, more at AllRSS). At minimum, you should be reading:
  
  
  
  • Librarian in Black
  
  
  • Library Garden
  
  
  • Library Link of the Day
  
  
  • LISNews
  
  
  • Tame the Web
  
  
  • You can also find a blog relevant to any work-related subject interests you have - Library Law, Pop Goes the Library (popular culture), The M-Word (marketing), ResourceShelf (reference), Library Grants, etc. - so check the list at LISWiki.
  
  
  
  


• Read Library Journal and Computers in Libraries.


• Read USA Today's Tech section (which you can read via RSS feed).


• Watch the SirsiDynix Virtual Institutes.


• Read the biweekly Carnival of the InfoSciences.


• Read AL Direct in your email inbox each Wednesday. (Disclaimer: I work for ALA, but I honestly believe that George Eberhart consistently provides a great roundup of news, blog posts, and events.)


• Read the reports (or at least the summaries) from the Pew Research Center.

It's not on their website yet, but check out this interesting opportunity to help public libraries move forward.

Virtual Scholar Program

"The Urban Libraries Council (ULC), an association of large public libraries in the U.S. and Canada and the corporations that serve them, is now seeking a virtual scholar to provide technical support and help move an important new futures initiative forward with our member organizations.

BACKGROUND:
In June 2006, the ULC Executive Board adopted a new initiative, ULC 2020 Foresight. The purpose of the initiative is to:

• Provide broad contextual information about the public library industry, outside trends, uncertainties, and discontinuities


• Infuse creative thinking about alternative futures in urban and suburban public libraries


• Showcase existing adaptive thinking, adoption of new processes and practices, and organizational change initiatives among ULC public library members


• Promote tools, such as scouting, scanning and scenario planning, to increase the quantity and quality of futures thinking in the public library industry

VIRTUAL SCHOLAR SCOPE OF WORK:
To support staff in moving this initiative forward, ULC seeks to contract with a virtual scholar to develop research, events, and executive conversations.

Several broad goals of ULC Foresight 2020 are envisioned:

1. Map the Forces Impacting the Industry


2. Identify and Expand the ULC Network of Futures Experts


3. Develop Actionable Research Briefs and Communications Materials


4. Support Informed Industry Conversations and Learning Opportunities


5. Measure the Impact of the Initiative on Industry Attitudes and Behavior

The term of the contract will be from June 2007 through August 2008. The contract amount is $30,000, firm, plus expenses. The ULC offices will be located at 125 S. Wacker, Chicago, IL after April 13, 2007.

DELIVERABLES
Specific deliverables we would like to contract for include:

• Two briefing papers for an audience of library directors and trustees, one in January 2008, and one in June 2008.


• Assistance with the design and implementation of a ULC Futures Forum conference that will take place in Annaheim CA June 25-26, 2008.


• Assistance with content creation and production of an Audio Conference November 30, 2007.


• Planning for the official launch of the ULC Foresight 2020 initiative in 2008.

REQUEST FOR QUALIFICATIONS PROCESS
ULC is now accepting Letters of Qualification that outline a commitment for contract services that includes specific ideas and tasks that could contribute to the previously mentioned scope of work and deliverables over the contract term.

The deadline for submitting your Letter of Qualification is April 12, 2007. Letters must be received at the ULC offices by 5:00 p.m. CENTRAL TIME.

Letters of Qualifications should include the following:

1. No more than 3 pages describing specific research, ideas, and strategies you would develop over the contract term.


2. A timeline of activities keyed to deliverables outlined above. Please describe any schedule conflicts you may have related to the dates mentioned in the deliverables section above.

Additionally, please provide

1. Your complete contact information, including address, phone and email.


2. Two references that can describe your work as a consultant.


3. Two writing samples (brief pieces, please).


4. Brief vita with client and/or publication list, if applicable.

All Letters of Qualification should be sent to:

ULC Virtual Scholar Program
Urban Libraries Council
1603 Orrington, Ste. 1080
Evanston IL 60201

ULC executive staff and a member review committee will review letters, conduct follow-up interviews. ULC staff will negotiate final contract terms. Criteria for selection include:

• Demonstrated expertise related to scope of work


• Quality of ideas developed in letter


• Commitment of time to contract


• Quality of references and writing samples

CONSULTANT INFORMATION CALL:
To further your understanding of this new program at ULC and to help you prepare your Letter of Qualification, an informational call will be held on Wednesday, March 28, 2007 from noon to 1:00 pm CENTRAL time. If you wish to join that call, please dial 1.888.311.0079 and enter 8000300# at the prompt.

QUESTIONS?
Please submit all questions to info@urbanlibraries.org with the subject line: Virtual Scholar Inquiry."

Some hype to be sure, but it would make for an interesting discussion in the context of library school and what we're teaching students. Naturally I love the title. [via WML Tech Updates as imported by Rachel Vacek in Facebook]

Shift Happens

Reading, Like a Brick, Forms Strong Foundation

"Ketelle likes the different. The unconventional. The fun. Her weekly vocabulary quizzes for juniors are sprinkled with puns.

'No. 2,' she says during a recent quiz, 'Bondage. Let's put a bondage on your cut.'

Students, who respond with gentle laughter, must define the word and use it in a sentence, the funnier the better. 'You get 1 point extra credit if the sentence makes me laugh,' she reminds the class.

Brandi Bolden, 16, says students appreciate the fun quotient.

'I used to dread doing vocabulary,' Brandi says. 'But she's found a way to make it into a game.'

But don't mistake fun for easy. Ketelle is known for her academic rigor and concedes she occasionally drives her kids with her demands for improving reading and writing and her tough grading.

'Learning and fun are not mutually exclusive,' Ketelle says. 'The ultimate learning experience is that learning is fun in some way, that there's something you're exploring that is exciting your mind.' " [USA Today]

That's one of the things Second Life is really good at for many people right now - "something you're exploring that is exciting your mind," comparable to the early web and current online social spaces.

And as we'll show at the TechSource Gaming Symposium in July, games in education and libraries can indeed be fun and still have academic rigor on many levels. We may not have originally thought of what Ketelle is doing as "gaming," but clearly at least one student considers it a game.

I missed this when it was originally posted in December, but I want to highlight how totally cool it is (yes, cool!) that Casey Bisson made the nightly news because his WPopac software won the Mellon Award. Belated congrats, Casey, and keep pushing us forward.

The iPod Widens Its Audience in School

"When they aren't dancing, those familiar iPod silhouettes are probably hunkered down in the classroom, where the devices have become a common learning tool....

Students at the University of Washington can download lectures. At the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, school President Mary Sue Coleman invites students to 'think of the university as your intellectual iPod.'...

IPREPpress offers a range of downloadable documents, including travel guides, a 40,000-word version of Merriam-Webster's Dictionary, the Encyclopedia Britannica and biographies.

The bios are designed like graphic novels or comic books, with text hyperlinked to full-color images on subjects, from sports figures to scientists.

The cost is something even the financially strapped student can manage: Some dictionaries and encyclopedias cost less than $4, and graphic biographies sell for between $10 and $15.

Pearson Education, a business and educational publisher, and Audible, which makes spoken audio entertainment, recently launched VangoNotes study guides....

'Giving an iPod to everyone seemed to be overkill, to put it mildly,' said Stephen Miller, a senior who was at Duke during the iPod giveaway.

'It was an early Christmas present for a class of freshmen,' he said. 'It almost became laughable with teachers bending over backwards to find a way to put iPods into a course. I feel like it was a promotional gimmick.'...

Christopher Ayers, a Latin teacher at Wilbraham & Monson Academy, a private school in Wilbraham, Mass., favors content from EF Educational Tours for learning foreign languages, citing a trip to Greece last year....

'When we got to Greece, many of the ones with the podcasts were much more confident in speaking it,' Ayers said." [MSNBC]

Although there is no mention here about libraries providing content for iPods, the last bit in particular represents the essence of Library 2.0 - using technology where it makes sense and enhances the user experience. Something to think about as you evaluate content and services for mobile devices (which, by the way, will become more and more important during the next decade).