up2date

"The [A?] Library of Utopia"

Or would that be an utopian ideal of a library? At any rate, this article by Nicolas Carr from the Technology Review is worth a read for its careful consideration of Google Books, the DPLA and the underlying assumptions and presumptions made by those planning large-scale digital projects. (Thanks to the MIT Libraries Twitter feed.)

I particularly like his "Cliff Notes" :

"Let's CC" (creative commons, of course)

From LJ's infoDOCKET :

Let’s CC: An Impressive Search Tool for Creative Commons Licensed Material Releases Open Source Code

Our friend and a frequent infoDOCKET contributor, Matt Weaver has let us know that Creative Commons Korea (CC Korea) has released the source code for their Let’s CC Creative Commons search engine as open source under GPLv3.

If you’re not familiar with Let’s CC, it allows users to search/find only CC licensed material. We think it’s worthy of your attention.

One version of Let’s CC allows users to search with English language keywords while another–as you would expect–offers Korean language search.

Direct to Let’s CC Blog Post

Let’s CC has been popular among Korean users who look for CCL contents, but we also received a lot of support from international users for its simple user interface. This release as open source is also a response to requests from foreign fans of . Thank you very much for your interest, world!

Direct to Let’s CC English Interview/Search

Direct to Let’s CC Korean Interface/Search

See Also: CC Search (via CreativeCommons.org)

Libraries = content? access? context?

From the Chronicle's "The Ubiquitous Librarian" blog :

"The (Social) Reader’s Dilemma: Content + Container = Context

...

Yesterday I downloaded The Fourth Paradigm: Data-Intensive Scientific Discovery, which is a free PDF. ... I’m reading it on my iPad via my Kindle app and everything is fine, right? No! It’s not a Kindle book. It doesn’t allow me take notes, share passages, or sync across devices. Those might not sound like big deals, but they are—or they have become to me. My reading experience is linked to functionality, not just to the content.

So here is this free book, free content, that is essentially useless to me—to the way I want to use it—to the way I work with information. The content is free, but it’s the container I’m willing to pay for. It’s the container that makes the content valuable.

...

And that’s the reader’s dilemma, particularly the research reader. Access is no longer enough. I don’t just want to have the content in a digital format. I need it to live and breed and interact with my other content and with the content of my colleagues. It’s the infrastructure and tools around the content that I am willing to pay for. It’s the platform that will continue to grow and make the content more valuable to me over time. This isn’t about preference, but about performance. It’s about creating context.

I see this as one of the great challenges (or opportunities) for academic libraries over the next decade. The emerging shift is away from access and towards tools. I want to do stuff with my information, not just read it. ..."

"Historians and Social Media"

Historians are certainly being studied recently (see the 2 previous posts re the Ithaka report). The latest, from INFOdocket :

"Academic Networking 2.0: Historians and Social Media

by Michael D. Hattem, PhD Student, Yale University

...

From the Article

For many, upwardly mobile interactions are only a small part of their social media activities. Facebook and Twitter are also used to connect with peers and colleagues and tap into or create various types of supportive communities. Katrina Gulliver, one of the most-followed historians on Twitter, coined the hashtag #twitterstorians just over two years ago in an effort to make it easier to connect with fellow historians on the social network. Similarly, historians, and other academics, are increasingly using pre-defined hashtags, such as #AHA2012, that are added to the end of a Twitter post to identify them in search results and to create a backchannel at academic conferences. Participants tweet about panels they have attended, conversations they have had, or their overall impressions of the conference, while others can run a search of the hashtag on Twitter and find all the posts about a specific conference.

Direct to Complete Article"

Harvard's Library Lab projects

From INFOdocket (I'm picking out the ones that intrigue me most -- see the full list on INFOdocket) :

Awesome Box
Interact with an amazing or useful item from the library and return it to the Awesome Box instead of the normal drop box. ... 

Connecting the Dots: Using EAC-CPF to Reunite Samuel Johnson and His Circle
A project between Harvard and Yale universities to demonstrate the benefits of using Encoded Archival Context ... to describe creators of manuscript collections and encode meaningful semantic links between those creators themselves and the primary sources that document their lives and work.

...

Enhance Catalog Searching with Geospatial Technology
A project to explore the opportunities that geo-referencing catalog data can provide to enhancing catalog searching.

...

 

http://infodocket.com/2011/12/08/cool-harvards-library-lab-adds-13-new-projects-to-roster/

Apps for libraries winners

From the press release :

"CONGRATULATIONS TO THE WINNERS AND ALL WHO PARTICIPATED!

• Grand Prize (€750) - Judges' Choice: Journals/Conferences @ Your Fingertips
• Grand Prize (€750) - Community Choice: JTOCs 2 Go

...

It now gets more interesting as we move to build the two winning app ideas. Stay tuned..."

Proceedings of the ARL Membership Meeting

From INFOdocket (it appears that audio for most of the sessions will be available later) :

“Expanding Capacity and Partnerships in the Digital World.”

The 159th ARL Membership Meeting took place in Washington DC on October 12–13, 2011
Twitter Hashtag: #ARL11fall

Welcoming Remarks

Carol A. Mandel, New York University, and ARL President

Constructing Digital Research Collections

Convener: Deanna Marcum, New York University

Speakers:
Charles J. Henry, Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR)
Ed Van Gemert, University of Wisconsin–Madison
Brewster Kahle, Internet Archive

Van Gemert slides [PDF]
Kahle slides [PDF]

Opening Up Orphan Works

Convener: Lizabeth (Betsy) Wilson, University of Washington

Speakers:
Paul N. Courant, University of Michigan
Sharon E. Farb, University of California, Los Angeles
Jonathan Band, PLLC, Technology Law and Policy

Farb slides [PDF]

Luncheon with Program

Convener: Mary Case, University of Illinois at Chicago
Speaker: R. Michael Tanner, Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU)

Briefing from the Task Force on Licensing E-Book Packages

Speaker: Brinley Franklin, University of Connecticut and Chair of ARL Task Force on Licensing E-Book Packages

Franklin slides [PDF]

Concurrent Topical Briefing Sessions

Update of Key Policy Issues Pending Before the Research Library Community

Convener: James F. Williams II, University of Colorado at Boulder and Chair of ARL Influencing Public Policies Steering Committee

Speakers:
Prudence S. Adler, Association of Research Libraries
Jonathan Band, PLLC, Technology Law and Policy
Brandon Butler, Association of Research Libraries

Using Licenses and Contracts as Effective Tools for Scholarship

Convener: Ann J. Wolpert, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Speaker: Jaren D. Wilcoxson, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Expanding Capacity and Partnerships Through Authenticity and Trust: The Case of the MetaArchive Cooperative
Convener: H. Carton Rogers, University of Pennsylvania
Speaker: Tyler Walters, Virginia Tech

Walters slides [PDF]

Pew Internet report “A Third of Text Message Users Prefer Them to Voice Calls”

From the ResourceShelf :

Pew Report: Adults Prefer Text Messages to Voice Calls

        From the report:

Some 83% of American adults own cell phones and three-quarters of them (73%) send and receive text messages. The Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project asked those texters in a survey how they prefer to be contacted on their cell phone and 31% said they preferred texts to talking on the phone, while 53% said they preferred a voice call to a text message. Another 14% said the contact method they prefer depends on the situation.

Full story >>

Content curators = Librarians?

I found this post on the Portals & KM blog quite interesting as a framework in which to consider librarians and library services (and unfortunately not all that surprised that he doesn't mention librarians). And I've never heard of the Darwin Awareness Engine. Has anyone else?

"Good Advice for Content Curators

Sean Carton wrote an interesting piece, Become a Content Curation King. ... He defines curation as “the act of sorting through the vast amounts of content on the web and presenting it in a coherent way, organized around a specific topic(s).” Sean gores on the rightly note that this has been going on for some time with many blog providing links to interesting stuff (such as this post) and that portals did the same thing in the 90s.

So what is new? Sean quotes NYU Professor Clay Shirky: "Curation comes up when search stops working…[and] when people realize that it isn't just about information seeking, it's also about synchronizing a community." Sean goes on to add that it's the "community" part that's at the heart of the whole curation movement …Just as a carefully-curated museum exhibit is sure to draw like-minded people together, carefully-curated content on the web has the potential to attract (and/or build) an online community of people who are into the same stuff.”

... First, you need to know your audience and make a commitment to meeting their needs. Think about your niche and help the community make sense of its niche. Provide an ongoing resource (not just an event) and offer an attractive user experience...."

Infographic illustrating 5 major social network features

Thanks to the INFOdocket, this interesting infographic, although it's heavier on the 'info' than the 'graphic' :

"Most people don’t have the social steam to power a presence on Google+, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Tumblr. Sure, there are handy apps like Twitterfeed and Hootsuite that can help spread one post to all of your networks, but that ignores the individual strengths and weaknesses of each platform.

When it comes time to pick and choose where you post, this chart can help you decide what’s appropriate for you"

7 Things to know about "Gamification"

(I'm sorry, but 'gamification' is not a word.) From EDUCAUSE :

"Gamification [sic] is the application of game elements in non-gaming situations, often to motivate or influence behavior. The rewards or the spirit of competition can spur students’ concentration and interest and lead to more effective learning. The use of gamification [sic] is wide-ranging in higher education, from extra-credit awards and in-class team competitions to complex multi-level schemes that can pervade a course. Although gamification  [sic] can be deceptively difficult to employ effectively, it has the potential to help build connections among members of the academic community, drawing in shy students, supporting collaboration, and engendering interest in course content that students might not have otherwise explored. Gamification  [sic] offers instructors numerous creative opportunities to enliven their instruction with contests, leader boards, or badges that give students opportunities for recognition and a positive attitude toward their work."

20 years of declining #s of librarians

Thanks to Actualitté for pointing me to this OUP blog post :

Librarians in the U.S. from 1880-2009

An analysis using 120 years of census data

By Sydney Beveridge, Susan Weber and Andrew A. Beveridge, Social Explorer

The U.S. Census first collected data on librarians in 1880, four years after the founding of the American Library Association.  They only counted 636 librarians nationwide.  Indeed, one respondent reported on his census form that he was the “Librarian of Congress.”  The U.S. Census, which became organized as a permanent Bureau in 1902, can be used to track the growth of the library profession.  The number of librarians grew over the next hundred years, peaking at 307,273 in 1990.  Then, the profession began to shrink, and as of 2009, it had dropped by nearly a third to 212,742.  The data enable us to measure the growth, the gender split in this profession known to be mostly female, and to explore other divides in income and education, as they changed over time.

...

 

"Mobile: The Web All Over Again?"

From blog Book Business, this is an editorial by Noelle Skodzinski :

"... John Morse  makes a really interesting point: He suggests, "Be as bold with mobile apps today as we were with the Web 10 years ago." The Web was a new frontier, where questions abounded and risk lurked around every corner. It is, in its premise, very similar to mobile.

...

Arguments abounded in the industry about whether to put print content (mainly newspapers and magazines) online for free, and doing so was, in fact, all that some publications did. We know where that landed the publishing industry.

...

John Morse's comparison between the Web and mobile is an eye opener. It also screams "caution!" to me. So many publishers messed up on the Web, ignoring it or doing very little with it, while the rest of the information world went Web-wild. Other publishers jumped in head first, though sometimes blindly, but got a head start on their competition and built a strong online foundation for growth over the past 10 years."

languages & social media webinar

From the DICA-lab (University of Luxembourg) website :

Webinar “Where languages collide: How multilingual literacies make social media real”

14 June 2011, University of Luxembourg and broadcast live, 4 PM [that's 9am CDT]

Media and more specifically social media exist in and through multiple languages – in keyboarding, texting, dubbing, subtitling, translating, gaming and in many other ways of media interaction. Multilingualism is key when participating in (social) media. Media literacy is build from various languages and contexts of language use.

• How do social media rely on multiple languages ?
• Is there media literacy without multilingualism ?
• How do users bridge languages and contents in multiuser contexts ?
• How does media literacy construct language identities ?

An interactive debate with two leading researchers in the area of multilingualism and media literacy will address recent findings and discuss examples collected from the multilingual audience preparing and attending the webinar.

"knowledge stocks" vs. "knowledge flows"

An interesting post from Lorcan Dempsey focussing on the change in the way that libraries serve patrons and the role of the library in the scholarly community. The paragraph that most caught my eye, citing the book the Power of Pull by John Hagel, John Seely Brown, and Lang Davison :

"The authors discuss the shift from managing 'knowledge stocks' to participating in 'knowledge flows' as patterns of work and interaction change in a network environment. I was particularly struck by their discussion of information overload.

It's not so much about finding which information is most valuable, as many of those who fret about information overload would have it. Improving return on attention is more about finding and connecting with people who have the knowledge you need, particularly the tacit knowledge about how to do new things. The danger is that we all get so busy assimilating explicit knowledge that we have no time to connect with people and build the relationships through which tacit knowledge flows. We get so busy reading about steampunk, or brewing, or building networks, that we don't actually find and connect with and learn from the people who are doing it. It's not so much information that we need as knowledge. And knowledge means people.

..."

So, can people mean librarians? Where do libraries fit in, if we agree with the proposition?

collection of apps for scholarship from MIT Libraries

As announced on the MIT Libraries twitter feed, this well-designed page (libguide) offers suggestions for useful academic apps, from dropbox to ACS mobile to the catalog. They also did a workshop on mobile apps that has a good page -- with an RSS feed of mobile-app related news relevant to academics.

"Privacy Considerations in Cloud-Based Teaching and Learning Environments"

From EDUCAUSE :

"...a new white paper, Privacy Considerations in Cloud-Based Teaching and Learning Environments,...we outline the privacy issues relevant to using cloud-based instructional tools or cloud-based teaching and learning environments for faculty members and those supporting instruction."

MIT 'graveyard' for beta app 'failures'

What a great way to celebrate the need to explore & test, and the willingness to not always be perfect or entirely succeed! (My current favorite quotation, btw : '

From the Chronicle's Wired Campus :

"MIT Libraries Creates Final Resting Place for Failed Apps

By Paige Chapman

University libraries nationwide are attempting to make scholarly research easier, whether with browser extensions or iPad applications. For technologies in the testing stages, though, low usage or lack of support can lead to an early demise.

MIT Libraries has created a place to for these tools after they've come face to face with the grim reaper—its Beta Graveyard.

...

The resting place is occupied so far by two applications: iGoogle and Facebook tools for searching the libraries' Web catalog and collection of online journals and databases.

The plan is to annually add betas to the graveyard that either fail or have been surpassed by another superior technology."

WorldCat Direct -- books (bought by the library) to your doorstep

This is a new one to me, as signaled by the ENSSIB blog, and reported on InformationToday :

"... it has officially committed to a service called WorldCat Direct that can deliver books directly to patrons in their homes and offices. Another new pilot project will test direct delivery of full-text articles in PDF formats."

"So how does WorldCat Direct work? OCLC tags the WorldCat entries matching the 2.5 million new and used books made available from Better World Books' six million-plus inventory of used and new books with one of two tags. The BWBKS tag covers the majority of books and indicates a $15 charge, while the QUICK tag applies to newer books and carries a $25 fee. Participating libraries pay the fee through the Interlibrary Loan Fee Management (IFM) feature in WorldCat Resource Sharing. According to Melvyn, WorldCat Direct is open to "U.S. OCLC members only, no overseas or Canadian at this point. In the U.S. maybe 8,500 plus libraries participate in WorldCat Resource Sharing." The service is subscription-based. As Melvyn describes the IFM service, libraries estimate their interlibrary loan usage for which OCLC gives them a subscription quote and then divides it into 12 equal monthly payments "plus an access fee for cataloging and resource sharing After the year is past, if the amount of usage is less or up then we reset the fee and go ahead.""

"What Does the Digital Information Seeker Look Like?"

From the ResourceShelf (note, this is only 14 min-long) :

"From a Summary:

New research from JISC suggests that the way people look for information in libraries and online is changing. JISC recently commissioned a report from the OCLC to bring together a number of different studies in the area.

Senior research scientist Dr Lynn Silipigni Connaway at OCLC Research in the US talks to Nicola Yeeles about how researchers ‘bounce’ and ‘whirl’ and what that means for the library of the future.

..."