Reading on the Web

"Once we have enough data on how people actually use the web, we will be able to plan teaching strategies that will help children use the web efficiently and pleasurably.... Currently, there are three strategies for designing websites or webpages: visual, informational, narrative.... When you teach children to use the web, they should have experiences with all three types of webpages and start to understand the strengths and weaknesses of each.

A final step in collection of information is the format for collecting: hardcopy or bookmarking a webpage. Readers need to learn when to read on-line and when to print out a page. If the text is small, no words are highlighted or bulleted, subtitles are missing–if the writing isn't designed for easy scanning–but it looks like information you need, print it. It will be much easier to read as hardcopy." [LucDesk]

Excellent article, well worth your read.

Library: the Most Powerful Tool on the Planet

"I used to live a 15 minute walk from a University Library. It had 2 million volumes and took several dozen newspapers, journals, and magazines from around the world. It had copies of the New York Times dating back into the 1800s. It had databases full of millions of articles from reputable peer reviewed magazines and journals, and 'summaries' of even more articles. Moving away from this library has drastically changed my ability to think about and reason about issues, for the worse." [kuro5hin.org]

While this is a great diatribe about missing university library services, it doesn't mention the librarians themselves once. turmeric looks up all this stuff himself, which is good because we've taught him to feed himself, rather than giving him a fish. But let's not forget that none of those services would be there without the librarians. So maybe we should say that librarians truly are the most powerful people on the planet!

"This town I am in has a public library, in fact it has about 15 or 20 of them spread out in different branches. They have lots of books about home electrical repair, second rate novels, time, and national geographic. But they are nowhere close to a real university library, where the true and important ideas of the 'people who run the world' are layed out for the public to see.

Out here, I have no way to analyze the ownership relationships between companies, to dig up 10 year old articles on the beginning of an organization or the history of an individual, out here I have no access to the books that make revolutions, I merely have access to oodles of 'second hand material' off of the internet."

Well, his public library has failed to give him a fish or teach him to feed himself because most likely it does have access to FirstSearch or something similar. In Illinois, the State Library has been wise enough to provide free access to FS for every resident. That's right... every resident, and other state libraries do this, too. We just don't do such a good job letting those residents know about this (another reason for LibraryU). Providing remote access is another issue we have to deal with. My home library did it by using an authentication script to provide the login and password. Now they just have to do a better job of advertising it.

And I doubt there's anything turmeric's old university library could ILL that a public library can't. If there's a small fee, well... he was paying those fees mixed in with his tuition, right?  In SLS, we charge three-measly-freaking dollars for a book from anywhere outside of Illinois.  I hope his home library sees this commentary and let's him know he still has a great library in his backyard.

20-somethings Fleeing Papers for the Web 

"Among internet users in their twenties, the ritual of sitting down with the morning paper is gradually being displaced by a new routine: logging on for news. People in the 20 to 29 age bracket are bypassing print newspapers for their online editions, according to a recent study from Forrester Research.

Compared to older web users, wired twenty-somethings are 43 percent more likely to consider the internet to be the best place to get up-to-date information. They’re also 24 percent more likely to consider the internet the best source of the most in-depth information. Also, web-savvy people in their twenties are 75 percent more likely than older web users to prefer the internet as a source of information such as news and classified ads...." [at Media Life, via SLS What's GNU]

What do they mean just focusing on twenty-somethings? Hello, we thirty-somethings have been experiencing this even longer. I know I don't read print newspapers anymore, mainly due to issues of timeliness (think how long it took to read about September 11 in print), a focus on content that is too narrow (lots of stories about cars, but little about books, Web sites, etc.), fluff (a story about my neighbor's dog, but no in-depth reporting on the Middle East), a decision to appeal to the lowest common denominator, and single-viewpoint journalism (why international papers are so much better than American ones). So this isn't a new phenomenon.

"The study's findings, coupled with the enduringly dismal online ad-sales climate, also suggest that it’s inevitable that more web sites will begin charging for content."

I read blogs now, not print magazines or newspapers. I get better commentary, better perspectives, and links to material for further reading. I notice some newspapers are starting to incorporate blogs, and that's one way to get me coming to your site. Of course, hosing all of your archives (like the SJ Mercury News did to Dan Gillmor) alienates me, but newspapers used to be king because they were objective and had experts. Now, they're not so objective anymore (witness the dearth of criticism of Bush, Ashcroft, and Cheney in print versus online), and I can find better experts online. If the newspapers can remember their role in our society, translate their missions to the Web, and start using those experts to blog, then they'll get me back as a reader.

Wouldn't it be cool if newspapers and libraries teamed up to provide bib- and Web-liographies for important subjects to complement blogs by newspaper columnists? For example, I recently completed a very tardy, but I think handy for the future, tutorial about Researching September 11 Events and Terrorism. If a local newspaper had worked with me on this, we could have integrated their relevant articles into the tutorial. We would have publicized the collaborative effort to our patrons and to libraries, thereby driving traffic to their site, and they would have had a valuable link on their Web site for further information. Same thing with a meningitis scare in my local community last fall. See, we librarians are more valuable than you think we are.

See that wall around you, Mr. Print Media. That's called a box. Think outside of it.