“The rapid rise of participatory media technologies – weblogs, social networks, microblogging, video sharing sites – are transforming the news media landscape, reshaping how ideas are spread. Much of the early research on the influence of participatory media on existing institutions focuses on specific, successful cases where media frames developed online influenced offline media. Our project seeks to complement this work with tools to facilitate quantitative analysis of the relationship between media sources. We will present our prototype system to retrieve, tag, cluster and analyze blog and newspaper data, and discuss how the Media Cloud platform will be used in our future experiments, and can be used by other researchers to analyze patterns of influence in news media.”

How to Search For Certain Colors in Google Images
 http://ow.ly/1owr
(Source: neiljohnford)

…

Top 10 Electronic Reminder Services
 http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,234…
(Source: ResourceShelf)

Two new improvements to Google results pages
 http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/03/t…

…

100 Free Useful Mac Applications (Part 1)
 http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/100-free-us…
(Source: Ellyssa Kroski)

101 Great Free Sites and Downloads You’ve Probably Never Heard Of
 http://www.pcworld.com/article/161342/10…
(Source: digg)

I believe Weekend America was the first podcast to which I subscribed. I was thrilled! I didn’t have to feel so bad about not being able to stay home on Saturdays all the time. I particularly began experimenting with podcasts when I had to take a long road trip. I stocked a device with about twenty hours of Weekend America shows I had not yet heard and a few other programs and hit the highway. That was amazing. For me, podcasts work better than books on tape because the variety better engages my brain. And I finally had time to listen to the hours of backlogged podcasts.

A highlight of a former job was when I got to do some radio work for the show. Talking to the then-host was one of those moments where I was so excited, I couldn’t think about what to say. My professionalism might have stopped me from blurting “I LOVE your show!” Silly me.

When my commute changed, I felt elated because I finally had time I could set aside to catch up on the show’s podcast. Over the last two years or so, I’ve worked hard on that and was pleased a few weeks ago when I did. I listen to hour 1 on the way in and hour 2 on the way out. It’s ideal!

I learned about the show’s cancellation while listening to a podcast a few weeks ago. The drivers around me might have wondered what happened to cause my jaw to land on the seat and keep me shaking my head and saying “NO!” repeatedly. A tear might have come to my eye, too.

I blocked out Saturday, 1/31, with the hopes that I’d be able to listen to the last show “live on the air,” so to speak (I’m pretty sure the show is not live), but, alas, Chinese New Year’s plans interfere. I’ll hear it as a podcast. While I could procrastinate hearing it, thinking that if I don’t listen to the end of the series, it really hasn’t ended, it includes good incentive: some recently discovered poems by Langston Hughes, one of my favorite poets. That will sweeten the fact that this episode will be the last.

What will happen to the hours of audio, archive of the show, and the people who brought all of that to us? I can’t help thinking about how valuable the snapshot it provides of America in the 2000s will be to historians, sociologists, and other folks who study people, culture, and American society.

While I freely admit I am sad to “hear” it go, I wonder what the radio station will put in its place. At some point in time, this favorite show was new to me. Maybe I’ll discover another really terrific show. I have to confess, though, that I am looking forward to working down the backlog of the other podcasts to which I subscribe.

Goodbye, Weekend America! It’s been fun listening to you. Where else will I ever get such creative weather reports or learn how to transport a hamster safely across many states on a journey I took several summers ago in the opposite direction? Weekend America, we might very well be weakened America without you.

Contents:

Introduction
I. Talking Points
II. Making the Case
III. Outreach to Patrons and the Public
IV. Talking to the Media
V. Working with Government Officials and Legislators
VI. Staging a Rally
VII. Library Checklist
Contacts
Resources

For the whole toolkit:

http://tinyurl.com/8y9y8d

h/t to Stephen’s Lighthouse blog:

http://stephenslighthouse.sirsidynix.com/

Posted by Rich

An amusing part of the presentation came when she explained how people can ask questions via the Kindle and get answers from the folks at Amazon Mechanical Turk, another Amazon project where people do on-demand work. To me, it didn’t sound any different from contacting the reference desk at a library—other than having an extremely easy way to do it through the Kindle. The audience’s reaction to this “amazing concept” reminded me that Gary Price is right when he says libraries need to market themselves better. It was almost as if people were thinking, “Wow! There’s a place I can go where people answer my questions?” We need more ebook readers to be plugged into the local library.

“One of the hottest technologies in Silicon Valley is also one of the simplest.”

“The online service from Web start-up Twitter Inc. prompts users to do one thing: answer the question, “What are you doing?” in 140 characters or less. People type these brief updates, known as “tweets,” into Twitter’s site or send them to Twitter as text messages. Friends and colleagues can then check the site to monitor each other’s updates.”

When the service first appeared a couple of years ago, its appeal seemed largely limited to narcissists who wanted to let everybody know what they were doing in real time. But, like blogs and social-networking sites, Twitter is starting to cross into the mainstream, as a wide range of people find interesting uses for the brief notes.

Doctors are using Twitter to update patients about office hours. Local groups such as the Los Angeles Fire Department are using it to share details about service calls with interested residents, occasionally with graphic descriptions of the victims’ conditions. And dozens of major companies, like computer maker Dell Inc., use Twitter to share deals and product news with people who sign up for the service.

For the whole article:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122461906719455335.html

Link via Micro Persuasion:

http://www.micropersuasion.com/

Posted by Rich

Dan, who’s retiring on October 31, after 43 years in the library field, gave a slideshow of the changes in technology over the years:

Picture showing Videodisc player and OCLC Catalog Card Printers.

Technology failures: Never widely adopted.
Technology successes: Widely adopted. Lasted for a decade
Transitional technology: Widely adopted, but replacable

Failures:

8 track tapes
12″ Videodiscs
Ultrafiche
Zip drives
HD DVD
IBM PS/2
Token ring networks

Successes:

Digital photography
VHS
CD-ROM
DVD
Blu-Ray
Catalog Cards
Flash drives
Internet
Google

Transitional:

Film photography
VHS
Audio cassettes
Floppy disks

Why change:

Improve speed of service
Quality of service
Reliability of service
Lower costs
Free trials (free?)
Impress clients/patrons
Clients are doing it
Competitors are doing it
Everybody else doing it

Success through transitions:

ILL requests:

Mail requests to libraries
Then faxed ILL requests
Then email them
Now automatic electronically forwarding ILL requests ito other libraries

ILL article delivery:

Mailed individual issue or bindered volume
Then photostat (wet)
Then xeroxed (dry)
Then as an email attachment
Now electronically delivered

Reasons not to change:

Cost of change
Time of rate of return of item
Staff resistance
Fears of clients
Will technology last?
Strength of backing from developers: HD DVD vs. Blu-Ray DVD Blu-Ray won
Alternative: Fit facts or is replaced quickly
New isn’t always the best
Sony Betamax– 1 hr tape limit Failed to be adopted in the marketplace

Many of your bets will be wrong: accept it
Environment for change:

Must be willing to fail
Acceptable risk of failure depends on:

Management style of your boss
Risk to your career
Cost of project or system
Staff commitment or non commitment

Being first or last:

Being first has increased risk of failure Product would be bad
Being last has increased risk of failure People could pass you by using newer technology

Where are we going?

Smaller devices
More wireless
Devices more integrated, multipurpose
Battery life will improved
Amazon, Google and others will inspire, lead and threaten us
Does this mean end of the library as a place?
Changes none of us can predict

Things to think about:

Everything is temporary
Never buy the first type of product
Most of us don’t have the resources to buy new
Leading edge but not bleeding edge

Even sacred cows can be tendered filet mignon
Saving money as a reason for trying something new is always bogus
Do bad decisions really matter—Doesn’t matter–People don’t care–Nobody died

Posted by Rich

IL2008

They called it a “Swiss Army Knife” program which has everything you need to create an intranet, including Microsoft Office, but not necessarily the best modules in the world. There are better wiki program around. Lotus Notes does not work well with the program.

Not all intranet content requires SharePoint for content management. They developed criteria for utilizing SharePoint through the Internet. It needs to updated frequently, requires group collaboration.
It works only with Windows Explorer. By using the intranet, all information will be online. In one instance, staff didn’t know that storytime was cancelled. Now it will be available when staff boots up the computer.

Here’s a picture of the SJL Intranet site:

Here’s a picture of Sarah showing the Meeting Workspaces module:

Posted by Rich

“This year’s IT Conference – Web 2.0: Where Are We Now? will feature exciting new developments, updates and improvements to Web 2.0 tools in the library world and beyond. Attendees will hear from library professionals and learn how these Web 2.0 initiatives such as RSS, blogs, podcasting, wikis, have progressed since their implementation.”

Speakers include:

Meredith Farkas, Norwich University
Thom Cox, Lead Web Developer, Tisch Library, Tufts University
Ken Liss, Senior Reference Librarian at Boston College
Pingsheng Chen, Electronic Reference Supervisor, Worcester Public Library

Cost: 125 smackers

For more info:

http://www.nelinet.net/eaccount/EventDetail.aspx?eventid=00000818

Posted by Rich