WiFi Librarian

RSA Animate - Changing Education Paradigms

2011-10-03T08:00:00.000+13:00

RSA's fascinating animated videos bring speeches to life. I agree with a lot of this one.

Why I love the internet. Songaday's Jonathan Mann's Bio

2011-09-30T08:00:00.000+13:00

Creative and inspirational use of talent and the web. You don't need permission to do what you love.

From the cute files: dog available for check out from Yale Law Library

2011-06-13T16:25:00.000+12:00

Monty - he's calming me just with his picture.

From the cute files - here's a tender story from Yale Law School. As librarians, how can you help the poor, lost, lonely looking students who are getting totally stressed come exam time? Yale's librarians solution was to let their students check out a dog, of course.

"The Yale Law School’s therapy dog is here to stay.

A pilot program last month that allowed law students to rent Monty — a brown, hypoallergenic 21-pound border terrier mix — was so well received that the library will allow students to borrow the dog in May before final exams, said Law School Director of Public Affairs Janet Conroy. He will return before exams next year as well, said librarian and professor S. Blair Kauffman, who added that Monty is emblematic of the student-centered services the law library aims to provide.

“Monty is symbolic of what we’re about: being supportive and caring towards students,” Kauffman said. “Law is a profession that requires research, and we want to be the place students come to learn and feel at home.”"

Now how can I wrangle having one of our dogs become library mascots?

Read the full article here

A depressing graph - Interest over time in "libraries" via Google insight

2011-06-08T15:58:00.000+12:00

Fewer and fewer people are interested in searching for the term "Libraries" via Google.

What does that imply for libraries?

Zombifying the library

2011-04-30T22:41:00.000+12:00

Welcome to the final blog of the A-Z challenge. I will do a wrap up post about the whole challenge, but I'm pretty amazed I've made it all the way to the end. I've read and appreciated all your comments, and even if you didn't comment, thanks for coming along for the ride and hope you got something out of my ramblings. I've really enjoyed reading all your blogs, most of which I would have never have known about except for the challenge so it definitely was a success. I'd love to think you've learnt something, or thought about something you hadn't before, or at least been entertained. I do hope to see you round these parts again.

Today's post is dedicated to Zombies. I've a strange fascination with zombies. My supernatural obsession is not limited to them - I love stories about vampires and werewolves, but Zombies are special case. They have no internal dialog, there is no reasoning with them, and their humanity is totally gone. They are almost a force of nature rather then a monster, an unstoppable force. I try to hunt out good zombie movies, and have recently started reading zombie post apocalyptic novels.

How does this love of the undead tie-in with libraries? Well as you can see above there is a great information literacy comic using the zombie theme to teach college students how to use the library. I think it's a fantastic way of using librarians' skills (the illustrator and author were on the library staff) to create a fun and educational library guide that's been developed to perfectly target their key audience - the modern zombie, pop-culture, and comic, loving audience.

Here's a great interview with the creators:
Zombifying the library: how two creative guys found a way to meet student needs and save the world

Not only are library instructional guides being created using zombies, a South Australian library uses zombies as a theme for their fundraising calender. I've ordered one, and I'm looking forward to seeing in in the flesh, so to speak.

Zombies in the library calender from the South Australian Library & Information Network
"This year the South Australian Library & Information Network (SALIN) Committee has chosen to celebrate our diverse and changing profession through production of the 2011 calendar “Zombies in the Library”. In 12 beautifully rendered scenes the calendar covers such topics as the role of the Zombie in reference, the frustrations faced when the Undead hog the photocopier, and for cataloguers, poses the eternal question: 299.675 or 398.21? All calendars come in A3 size, are professionally bound and beautifully printed (and you can even choose your starting month). Whether its something for the wall in Technical Services or simply a Xmas present for Mum, be sure to place your order."

YouTube

2011-04-29T22:36:00.000+12:00

Welcome to my penultimate blog post for the a-z challenge. Yes I have talked, and shared content, from today's topic often on this blog and doubtless you are all familiar with this site. But I thought I had to have a post devoted to a site that occupies almost countless hours of my life. I love to laugh, I love to learn, I love to be entertained. I think YouTube is a pretty amazing creation for achieving all of these things, and sure there are other video sites out there, but YouTube was the first to capture the public's imagination and I think is still one of the largest, and one of the best.

Millions of short videos have been created and shared, but stealing a quote from one of my favourite movies the Matrix, unfortunately noone can be told what the YouTube is. You have to see it for yourself. And what better example of YouTube could there be, then this YouTube star singing at the YouTube live event:

XXX in the library

2011-04-28T23:04:00.000+12:00

There has been quite a furor in the media around the New York Pubic Library's public statements about library patrons' rights to access x-rated material on the library's computers. It's not often libraries get mainstream media attention, even rarer is it to see libraries talked about on late night chat shows like Chelsea Lately, but that's what happened last night.

All this attention has come from a New York Post article in which journalists visited to the NYPL specifically searching for people accessing adult material. Libraries in the U.S have provided access to the internet for years. Public libraries, protectors of the First Amendment, have always tried to provide access to all legal information, and since they started providing internet access, they have carried this philosophy to the internet.

So this "news" journalism is hardly news at all, but now the world has caught on to the issues with x-rated material that libraries have wrestled with for years, what do you think? Do you think the right to free speech overrides the right to library users, including children, to not view material they don't want to see by accident? Should libraries have x-rated R18 curtained off sections?

In New Zealand we don't have this problem. We don't have a constitutional document, but we do have constitutional law, and a bill of rights. However, every library I've worked in or used had strict rules prohibiting accessing adult material through the library's computers or internet connection. There have never been any complaints citing breaching free speech that I've heard of. I like libraries striving for constitutional principles, freedom, and democracy. But context matters. I'm sure in the United States, the police would remove someone looking at the same material on a public street outside a school. Shouldn't this also apply to a public library?

Wolfram|Alpha

2011-04-27T23:12:00.000+12:00

Stephen Wolfram, author, scientist and creator of Mathematica computational software has built an answer engine based on Mathematica called Wolfram|Alpha.

Unlike search engines like Google, Wolfram is full of data chosen by humans, and students, educators, researchers, and simply the curious can do some pretty cool computations using natural language queries. And it's free.

I've only scratched the surface, but I know it will come in handy for that statistics paper I've been putting off.

Have you used it? Or have you read the imposing, 1200 page, A new kind of science? It gets mixed reviews on Amazon.

"Wolfram|Alpha is the world's first and only computational knowledge engine.
Enter your question or calculation, and Wolfram|Alpha uses its computational power and ever growing collection of knowledge to compute the answer. Discover new information about the world, and integrate expert knowledge into any facet of your life.
For more information about Wolfram|Alpha, please visit:
http://www.wolframalpha.com"

Value of Your Library Use

2011-04-26T20:16:00.001+12:00

Have you ever wondered if libraries are worth your tax dollars?

Do you actually get value from using your library?

Wonder no longer, as this snazzy library use calculator can tell you how much money you save by using your library:

Value of your library use calculator

And for those who aren't using your public, or any library; maybe you're like the CNET editor who wonders why he would go to a library to borrow a book, try entering the last few books you bought. You might be surprised at how much value your library can provide.

The Universe's scale - unfathomable, but unifiying.

2011-04-25T22:48:00.004+12:00

Trying to think of the immensity of it puts all my problems into perspective for me. But I also believe knowing we are only specks in the grand scheme of things should bring us closer to each other. We are all made of the same matter. The same star dust. If we zoom all the way back, and therefore, back in time, to the big bang, the beginning, there was nothing but dust, and we are all made of the stuff, at one point that was all there was. So there is no excuse to treat each other badly.

(Love the soundtrack. In case you're wondering it's Promontory, also used in Last of the Mohicans, one of my favourite films.)

Another site to try to understand the Scale of the universe.

T is for T-shirts - librarian themed.

2011-04-23T21:42:00.000+12:00

We don't have to wear uniforms where I work, but it might be cool to wear one of these. I'd certainly like public librarians' more easily identified as such, and a (witty, attractive) t-shirt could be the way.

Save libraries

2011-04-22T22:09:00.000+12:00

Libraries around the world, but especially in the UK and the US, are facing closure due local and national government budget cuts blamed on poor economies. In a bitter twist of fate, these closures and threats of closures are coming at a time when public library use is increasing. Just when people most need their public library for learning, job seeking, entertainment and social activities, they are being taken away from those most in need.

Because of these threats several movements to save libraries have been started.

An American campaign describes their cause as:

"Save Libraries is a grassroots effort to compile information and advocacy resources for libraries that are facing devastating budget cuts. We are in the midst of what American Library Association and the Center for Library and Information Innovation at the University of Maryland call a “perfect storm” of growing community demand for library services and shrinking resources to meet that demand.

In a time when people and communities need libraries the most, libraries are reducing their hours or worse closing their doors."

There have been some stories out of the UK, from both the Guardian and the Independent, both acknowledging cost cutting is required, but not wholesale, and not at the destruction of library services.

Politics do get involved in this debate as it seems these cuts in funding are being driven by governments on the right side of the political spectrum, at least in the UK. From my reading, the US libraries facing cuts are facing pressure to cost cut and stop taxes rising.

I probably swing more to social liberalism then classical liberalism, but I do believe in the free market. I hate wastage of any type, but especially government run services.

If libraries do one thing well, besides free education for all, no matter race, religion or creed, libraries save money. Not only saving their customers the need to buy all the books a library can provide, but they have the economies of scale to subscribe to electronic journal databases, or print subscriptions, that individuals couldn't afford to.

If there are gains through amalgamation of library related services, especially in their governance and administration, but we need well stocked and well staffed libraries to remain intact. Of course collections are going to change, as I've blogged about previously, but for now we need physical books, and we need libraries to store them and provide access, and we need knowledgeable and trained librarians to staff them, and to get them we need to pay for them.

Related links:

Here's a map showing UK libraries closed or threatened with closure.

Voices for the library

R is for reading 2.0: the social side of reading

2011-04-21T11:49:00.000+12:00

Kobo app's reading life - your reads as a book cover

One of my new years resolutions this year is to read more. I'd also like to record more of my impressions of each read. Through this blog I plan on reviewing books on libraries, learning, the net, or interesting reads I think may be useful or entertaining to others. But I also want to record my fiction reads. Some fellow bloggers and twitter friends have very impressive book tallies, managing to have read hundreds of books in 2010. I'm usually lucky to find time to read a dozen, so by making reading a priority I hope to learn a lot more, both through informational books and fiction. I may enroll in one of several reading challenges I see going on various blogs. I'm in no way a speed reader, so it's a big challenge for me, but I like a good challenge. Also, a book has to obsess me, if I can put it down, it won't get finished.

So how will I record all my reads? Looking on the web I've got plenty of choices. It seems reading has now become a social activity, through popular sites like librarything, good reads and shelfari, members can record their reads; share their reviews with others; connect with authors and build communities based around their favourite books. This type of community can turn into a powerful tool for libraries, through things such as librarything for libraries, which integrates the library thing database into library catalogues, adding rich metadata, like related books, cover images and book reviews.

Some other sites include: Amigo reader Goodreads Kobo's my reading life and Amazon Kindle's Read.Review.Remember

Reading 2.0

So what are all these sites exactly for?
You've heard of Web 2.0. Be prepared to enter the world of Reading 2.0. This is reading with a social spin. Using the internet we can now easily share what, when and who we are reading. We can find people who share opinions and find groups with similar tastes. For me, this social reading revolution is coming into its own on the iPad version of Kobo ereading software. This app tracks the ebooks you read and you can choose to share information about your reads by linking the app with Facebook.The great thing about it is it's seamless - no need to add books to your reading history, it automatically tracks everything you do in a section of the reading app called "My reading life".

The problem with this is it only works with Kobo bought ebooks, not print books, which is shame as I am still borrowing and reading these from the library. But I have bought several Kobo books, and I'm sure I will buy more.

Do you share your reads? How do you find time to read and review them?

Q is for LIANZA Quiz night!

2011-04-20T23:46:00.000+12:00

Today's post is for the LIANZA quiz I helped with tonight.

At least 100 librarians and archivists filled the Black Harp pub. My LIANZA committee colleague Laurinda met me there and throughout the evening while she excelled with a laptop and entered quiz marks, I busily marked quiz answer sheets. Thanks to Sean from the Archives association, ARANZ, who organized the night, and Rob from the Black Harp who was MC and bore the brunt of abuse from some disputed answers. A good night, but I'd rather compete!

False modesty aside, I'm quite good at quizzes, especially in a well mixed team. I think I'm best on pop culture, movies and music. When the sports rounds come around I respectfully let others take the lead. At my workplace, the library has won 2 of of the last 3 years' quizzes, the one we didn't win we were organizing so didn't compete.

I'd love to do more pub (bar) quizzes. I might have to turn up at a few and see how it goes.

How's your general knowledge?

Private Library: the world's finest

2011-04-19T10:04:00.000+12:00

Jay Walker, inventor and entrepreneur has one of the finest private libraries in the world.

It's one of the most beautiful libraries I've ever seen pictures of, whether public, private or national library. Can you tell I'm jealous much? Wouldn't it be wonderful to get locked in for a few days, or weeks, of uninterrupted knowledge consumption?

The video below is from a TED talk, he's a bit of show off, but fair enough with a library like that.

O is for Overdrive ebooks

2011-04-18T00:10:00.001+12:00

Have you checked your library to see whether you can borrow ebooks? Overdrive is one of the largest providers of ebooks to public libraries. I have mentioned them before, but what's new is they have developed their own app to allow downloading straight to a mobile device, no need to download a book to your computer first. Libraries would love to be providing their own books as ebooks, with their own decisions on access, and the ability to put the ebooks into their own catalogues..But they aren't in the position to do this yet. Overdrive, and other ebook vendors like EBL and ebrary are here in the meantime

Watch the video below for good instructions on downloading a book to your iOS Apple, or other device including your PC. Just replace the "Orange County Library System", who kindly made this video, with the name of your library. Many libraries are signed up to Overdrive, go check if out if your local library is signed up.

N is for next generation libraries

2011-04-16T14:15:00.000+12:00

Take a trip to the future with me.

What do you think the next generation of libraries will look like? As both a librarian and library user should I be pessimistic, optimistic, or a bit of both?

It's impossible to predict the future with certainty, but I can make some educated guesses.

I'm quite excited by the opportunities the future will bring, but they will be challenging too. Librarians will have to show they have knowledge and skills in information architecture, knowledge discovery, data mining and information literacy teaching skills, to remain relevant in a digital world.

Technology

The discussion about the impact of technology on libraries is getting more intense as technology advances and libraries traditional services are being rethought. In a short time libraries won't be storehouses of physical items, books, video discs, sound recordings, will all go the way of the Dodo. We, the public, will be consuming information digitally, this new way of storing and accessing information is already causing major headaches for the music and movie business, with studios and record labels trying to figure out how to sell their content online while protecting their investments from being accessed illegally, which, going by what I've read, is extremely easy. These issues of providing digital content, and making a profit, are becoming challengers not only to publishers, but to libraries. How do public libraries compete with a future of extremely cheap digital entertainment? The physical collections will be obsolete, so they will need to collect and provide digital information if we are going to have public libraries at all.

As a lover of public libraries, as their physical collections disappear, I would like to see these spaces replaced by people. They may be creative types working, self-employed or teleworkers, or children attending story times. But they won't be public libraries in the traditional sense, and we need to start planning for this.

Electronic paper

I don't think we will necessarily be reading our ebooks on clunky ereaders, or heavy tablets like the iPad. We will soon be reading, watching, and writing on electronic paper. The current state of eletronic paper is in use in ereaders like the Kindle, but I'm talking about the next stage, an electronic screen the size and shape of a piece of paper.

"Made of flexible material, requiring ultra-low power consumption, cheap to manufacture, and—most important—easy and convenient to read, e-papers of the future are just around the corner, with the promise to hold libraries on a chip and replace most printed newspapers before the end of the next decade."

Education

Click the link below for a list of things that will be obsolete by 2020 in education. As an academic librarian the future of our library services depends on us thinking about the direction we are going, and not to waste time or energy doing things that are, or will soon become obsolete.
21 things in education that will obsolete by 2020

Librarianship, where will it be?
A library expert has set up a group on professional networking site LinkedIn asking the question, Where will New Zealand libraries be in the 2025? That feels like a long time away, but its the incremental steps getting there that we can have some say in. If we become active in the conception and planning stages of the next couple of decades we can decide our future. Fate is what you make.
New Zealand Libraries in 2025

Where do you think libraries, public or other types, will be in the next 20 years?

M is for Meme

2011-04-16T00:32:00.000+12:00

A meme (rhymes with dream) is a unit of cultural information. The word, coined by Richard Dawkins (The selfish gene, 1976) from an analogy of biology and genetics; genes being transmitters of biological information, memes are transmitters of ideas or cultural information. I like the idea that information could be somewhat analogous with genes, that culture could be born, live, die, or be a success and pass information on so it remains in the human population. I love the idea of culture, and ideas, can replicate, mutate, die off, be subject to something akin to natural selection and eventually and evolve into something new.

The study of memes, memetics, gained in popularity through the 1990's, but there is still debate as to whether it is a science and whether memes can be measured in discrete units. There's also criticism of memetics not taking into account advances in other areas, such as sociology, semiotics cultural anthropology

Internet memes

An Internet meme is a meme spread by the Internet. They can take the form of videos, graphics, pictures and websites. They are often parodies, remixing and creating mash-ups with music, original text, or combing other memes. One of the most famous memes is spam, or junk emails. The term "spam" having originated from a Monty Python sketch. Monty python fans "spamed" message boards with the word "spam", which was soon forbidden by the message board administrators. Now today, unwanted repetitive messages are known as spam.

.One of the most notorious memes making rounds at the moment is Rebecca Black's Friday, which has been deemed by some the worst song in the world. It has now "gone viral" and spread around the world wide web with more then 100 million views and counting. The parodies and remixes are becoming as famous as the original.

For more on memes see Know your memes, or just watch youtube or surf the internet.

Have a great weekend everybody.

The internet is a wacky, wonderful place. Here are some of my genuinely favourite internet memes.

Miss Teen South Carolina. I'm sure you're a lovely girl, but please don't enter any more recorded beauty contests, for your sake.

Dramatic chipmunk, as well as being cute and creepy at the same time, is actually a prairie dog.

And to play off this post, keyboard cat!

L is for LIANZA. What's that, some kind of exotic lizard?

2011-04-14T21:07:00.001+12:00

Today's entry is about LIANZA, the Library and Information Association of New Zealand (thanks to the outgoing communications manager for the title of today's post).

I've been a member for what feels like a long time. I first joined when I was just a young sprocket working in the circulation department of Wellington City Library. I can, with certainty, say I was the only member in my department, probably one of the few members in the whole library. It doesn't feel like many public librarians are that professionally motivated in New Zealand, it's just a job, rather then a vocation. I thought it would be a good thing to put on my CV, and I attended most of the LIANZA sponsored events and conferences, discounted for members, so it made sense.

I'm not sure how many members there are at my current library, but I would think I could count them on one hand. The professional development events that are scheduled for this year include some great looking project planning and strategic workshops for public librarians. I'd love to see some practical (and cheap!) webinars, for people at a similar stage to me in my career. IT skills are going to be so important in the coming years if libraries are going to have any chance of competing and remaining relevant in a digital world. I've been attending some U.S based webinars, but would love some with a local context.

Now for a confessional; I need to pay my membership and my professional registration fees, as they are overdue. The benefits I see of remaining a member of LIANZA, apart from giving back to the librarian community, is political advocacy, and professional development. I have been to some great LIANZA sponsored events, just over the last year I've attended; the Shanachie tour; a group of librarians from Delft Library Concept Centre travelling around the world telling and hearing stories about how libraries make a difference in their communities, and recording their journey along the way. "Shanachie" comes from the Irish storyteller tradition. I really enjoyed their enthusiasm for libraries and innovative ideas for funding.

The other standout thing from the last year would be the conference, celebrating LIANZA's centenary, the best part of which was reconnecting with (and meeting new) librarians from around New Zealand and the world, including having a "tweet up" where twitter users meet in real life and getting to see Dunedin, in the South Island, which I'd only briefly visited before.
I'm now a member of the Wellington LIANZA Committee, hoping to make the organisation work for its members and for me. We are more about the social side of LIANZA, but if any locals read this and want to see some particular events tell me!

I think I could probably put my membership fees towards other organisations, and I very well may join a more IT focused professional organisation and get a greater personal benefit from it owing to where my career is going of late, but LIANZA keeps my money for the foreseeable future. Are you a member of any professional organisations, and do they work for you, and how do you work for them?

Related blog posts:

Are you a member of a professional association?

Renewing my membership

And check out this Prezi by a librarian who went on the Shanachie tour
"People are our greatest collection"

You get what you expect, Rosenthal and the pygmalion effect in IT and organisations seminar

2011-04-13T17:01:00.000+12:00

Seminar: IT Perceptions: The new reality.
Venue: Victoria University of Wellington, Feburary 2011.
Presenter: Professor James D. Mckeen, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada.

Pygmalion was a sculptor who fell in love with a sculpture he made.

I recently attended a seminar by a visiting Canadian Information Systems professor, James Mckeen, on the nature of perceptions of the IT department within an organisation. It sounds like quite a specialized topic but what he talked about was an insight into human nature, and I found it very interesting.

He began by referencing the Rosenthal and Jacobson study. In the study a group of psychological researchers went to a school posing as educational psychologists and identified a randomised portion of the class as gifted. The students weren’t gifted, only the teacher was told this, but after a year the researchers returned and found that the students who had been identified as gifted had better learning outcomes, higher grades, then the rest of the class. The teacher’s perception of the students changed, and improved, her teaching to such an extent her students almost became gifted. A self-fulfilling prophecy.

This seems like a built in aspect of human nature, which has been named the Pygmalion, or Rosenthal, effect.

Wikipedia describes the effect as "the phenomenon in which the greater the expectation placed upon people, often children or students and employees, the better they perform...

The Pygmalion effect is a form of self-fulfilling prophecy, and, in this respect, people with poor expectations internalize their negative label, and those with positive labels succeed accordingly. Within sociology, the effect is often cited with regards to education and social class."

As well as the research to back this up, my personal experience from my school days that this effect is real. If a teacher calls a kid clown, or expects less of them, they will give them that, and if they expect more, and ask for it, they will often get that too. I've seen this effect many times.

Briefly, Professor Mckeen’s thesis was that we form expectations of people, we communicate these expectations through cues, these form both our behaviour and our relationships with other people.

Mckeen focused his discussion towards the IT department of your organisation.

If you have a negative view of the IT department in your organisation, you will consciously or unconsciously communicate these views, and in turn shape the behaviour of the IT department. The other aspect to this is that if we have already shaped our views, people tend to only notice examples of instances or interactions that confirm these views, ignoring interactions that contradict them. So if you believe the IT department to be unhelpful, but you do successfully receive help, you tend to ignore this as it doesn’t fit your view.

How do we combat these aspects of human nature?

When Professor Mckeen was researching larger organisations, he found that when CIOs, work with CEOs, and form good working relationships this can improve the perspectives held by both parties.

He also said that the world of marketing can teach us a lot about managing perceptions. There was a pessimistic tone about the seminar, that you can't change what people think about you, only manage the perception. But I liked the more positive position that working together can help to gain understanding about what others do, and therefore, help improve working relationships. Even if it takes a long time to change perceptions, or a good working relationship is seen as an exception to the rule, it's still worth trying to break down false perceptions.

Within organisations, it's really important to try to see things from other peoples' perspectives and try to understand, at least in principle, the work people do and the skills they have. And as Rosenthal's research has shown, if you believe your colleagues can help you do your job, they probably will.

New licence allows library to screen movies; family films start Friday (The News, New Glasgow, 12 Apr 2011, Page 4)

2011-04-13T13:19:00.001+12:00

New licence allows library to screen movies; family films start Friday
BY JENNIFER VARDY LITTLE
The News, New Glasgow
12 Apr 2011

NEW GLASGOW – The New Glasgow Library isn’t just for books anymore. A new public performance movie licence allows the library to screen copyrighted full-length movies and documentaries for the public, and as part of that, the New Glasgow Library is...read more...

K is for Kuhn and the Structure of scientifc revolutions

2011-04-13T07:57:00.002+12:00

Today's post includes a shout out to my manager Kevin!

A nice short post with a video today. Thomas Kuhn, as well as sharing my first name, was a physicist and philosopher who developed some fascinating theories on the nature of scientific thought and knowledge. He contends that scientific revolutions are built on paradigm shifts rather then incremental change. He is on my reading list. Have you read him?

J is for JFGI

2011-04-12T12:05:00.001+12:00

If you ever ask someone a question and they tell you to enter JFGI* into Google, be warned that they are having a go at you for asking what they think you should be looking up yourself.

I wonder if busy rushed off their feet librarians have ever felt a similar sentiment, hopefully not in so many words.

I adhere to my highschool English teacher's philosophy that there are no stupid questions. He did end that statement with "only stupid people", but I wouldn't go that far. A so called stupid question is a "teachable moment" and you can help the asker by showing how to locate the answer rather then spoon feeding them.

Also, I'm sure I'm guilty of asking some stupid questions, so he who casts the first stone etc etc.

Have you ever been tempted to JFGI someone?

*If you are wondering what JFGI stands for, Google it! Includes strong language so may be NSFW

Ebook rush challenges our libraries (Canada). (Times Colonist, 09 Apr 2011, Page A3)

2011-04-12T10:17:00.001+12:00

Canada shares New Zealand's pain in getting local content published electronically.

Ebook rush challenges our libraries
KIM WESTAD kwestad@timescolonist.com
Times Colonist
09 Apr 2011

The demand for electronic books in public libraries has rocketed and is expected to continue rising, but their popularity is giving librarians a headache. Obtaining access to ebooks from publishers is difficult, said one of B.C.’s most experienced...read more...

Tech Tags: Times Colonist newspaper Connections

I is for iPad, thoughts after a year, my 20 best apps for education & librarians

2011-04-11T08:16:00.004+12:00

Apple has just released the iPad 2, but I'm still on the iPad 1 and I'm not in a position to buy another one less then a year after I bought the first version.

I do however, want to share how I've used my iPad over the last year.

I use it every single day, for many hours a day. During my lunch and morning tea breaks at work I use it for professional development, catching up on twitter, facebook, emails, browsing the web, making appointments on the calender and listening to podcasts. In the evenings and weekends I hunt down my favourite youtube clips, read books and magazines, read my RSS feed, write blogs and emails.

I like its portablity, quick loading times, and long battery life.

I dislike its slowness doing some tasks, typing, and heaviness.

I won't say I'd be lost without it, but I would certainly notice its absence.

Now for some lists of apps that I've found particularly useful. I have nearly 300 apps on my home computer, so I've reviewed quite a few.

They are listed in no particular order.

My top ten most used apps:
Mail
Friendly - facebook browser
Twitter
Reeder - RSS feed reader
Atomic web browser
Kobo
Kindle
YouTube
Blastr - scifi news
iPod

Besides the apps above, which I've estimated I spend the most time with, I've got a list of more specific apps below, follow the links to iTunes for a description and reviews.

Top 20 apps for learning and librarians.
iPod app combined with iTunes U - free education resources, podcasts and videos, from some of the major universities around the world.
Evernote - take notes anywhere and share with any device with an internet connection.
Dropbox - sync and share files from your computer to your iPad.
Smart note - Take notes in class, sketch out the next great idea, write personal notes in your password protected notebook, or simply highlight some text in a pdf. smartNote makes it easy to do just about anything you would normally do on paper on the iPad.
Quick office - for its google docs syncing capability.
iWorks suite, numbers, pages, keynote - iPad versions of Mac's equivalent to Microsoft Office.
Blackboard - I haven't used but for schools with blackboard this would be important.
Wolfram - more then a search engine, a computation engine, WolframAlpha's mobile app is powerful tool.
iFlow reader - for reading DRM protected library books, slightly fuller featured then Bluefire, and arranges books as flowable sections, hence the flow in their name.
Bluefire reader - for reading DRM protected library books
Guiness world records - great for records.
CIA world factbook - great fact checker for country information
TED videos - inspiring videos from the TED conferences.
mTouch+ moodle app - a must for institutions who use the moodle course management system.
Twitter - I learn so much from the people and organizations I follow on twitter, find an app that suits you. I keep going back to twitter's own app, but there are heaps to choose from.
Howcast - for the visual learner in all of us, howcast has some great videos on how to do just about anything.
Zinio - a digital newsstand with hundreds of digital versions of print magazines.
Atomic web browser -
Penultimate - very realistic writing pad for handwritten notes.

H is for help yourself

2011-04-09T08:51:00.004+12:00

Help yourself. There's a triple pun in there for libraries.

1. We want customers to feel they can help themselves to our resources without being embarrassed. You can often borrow as much as you need without guilt, with no direct charges, and of course consume as much as you can of the libraries' online resources like journal articles, newspapers and magazines.

2. Libraries want library customers to be able to self serve, literally help themselves. Librarians need to ensure libraries' websites, catalogues and databases are easy to use and that they don't need a librarian to be hovering behind shoulders, as more often or not, they can't, there aren't enough librarians to in the world to do that. Librarians also need to ensure customers know how to use our electronic tools, through teaching information literacy, and to our customers, librarians live to teach this sort of stuff!

3. But most importantly, library customers can help themselves by using their libraries. Accessing the libraries' treasure troves of knowledge and information resources to answer their information, or entertainment, need.

So do yourself a favour and go help your self - use your library, it's there to help you.

Photo by Gwen's River City Images via Flickr

G - Gamify your library fines

2011-04-08T12:30:00.010+12:00

Another G - games entry, just because I can!

Swiss army librarian Brian Herzog, has an interesting post about turning the issue of fines in libraries into a game:

"The theory, called gamification, is that people enjoy playing games because of the positive reinforcement from doing something well – thus turning something normally punitive, like a speeding fine, into a game of consequences: play badly and get punished, play well and get rewarded."

We don't fine at my library, and I'm very pleased about that. I'd prefer not to see fines in libraries, maybe a suggested donation instead. I've read about some libraries upon changing their fine policy to a suggested donation policy actually take in more revenue. I think most libraries who fine argue that fines are punitive measures to ensure items are returned on time, but I think a lot of libraries would be sad to see lost revenue if all library patrons returned items on-time. A lot of the time library fines are revenue gathering.

I agree with Brian's sentiments:

"I prefer not charging fines at all, like my library, because I personally don’t think fines should be a revenue stream for libraries. It’s more important to get materials back on time than to profit from irresponsibility."

Gamifying your library fines sounds like an interesting idea, and it's one way for libraries who won't stop fining to continue to do so, but rewarding those who do return their items on time.

Thanks @sallyhereos and @maglib for the tweets about this blog.

G is for games in libraries

2011-04-08T08:52:00.008+12:00

I used to spend hours at my public library playing board games as a kid. These were always popular so sometimes I had to wait for the good games, but in the meantime play that game you didn't want to play like boggle or some other horrible word game until mousetrap, guess who or connect four was available.

I also remember some awful games of monopoly at home, where if my younger brother found he was losing, or even worse, did lose, there would be hell to pay. This only lasted a few years, when he was in single figures. Once in his teens and we could play video games together, he was actually a much better sport. Probably helped by the fact he could kick my ass.

Are games appropriate for playing in the library? I think most people would agree that even a rousing game of scrabble isn't doing anyone else harm in the library and a game like scrabble is educational.

Photo by Enokson via Flickr.

However what about computer or video console games? More libraries seem to be holding video game events inside the library, sometimes out of hours or late at night, to attract more people into the library, particularly teens:

There's a librarian in the above video who says "teens love this and when they associate the library with something they love they have positive thoughts about us,(laugh)... so that's what we're hoping for"

A shelver says "(the game night) is to show there's more exciting things going on in the library then just what a typical high school student thinks"

Is there a hint of desperation in the librarian's laugh? Are public libraries using games to lure teens into the library and once they have captured them they can then promote the other (more boring) resources the library has. Or are games as valid a resource as anything else the library collects, and a teen only using the game collection is as valid as a romance reader. And librarians in turn should be satisfied that a teen may only want to use the library for their video game collection. Are video games being just another electronic expression of the human condition?

Here is a wigged librarian's opinion:

Games, be they video or board, can be educational, they can promote sharing and teach the need to take turns, they can teach people how to take losses with dignity, and wins without being a gloat.

And of course they entertain.

I do think libraries should hold video games in their collections, it's just another form of media that entertains people, no worse or better then a book. But should games be played inside the library? I think at the appropriate time and in the right space they are probably just as valid as a choir recital, or a book club meeting. What do you think?

There's heaps of resources out there for librarians using, or wanting to better use, games in their libraries. Here's just a selection:

Library gaming google group

Games in libraries

A Knol called Getting serious about games in libraries

F is for 43things - What do you want to do with your life?

2011-04-07T21:15:00.003+12:00

43things.com asks the intriguing question, "What do you want to do with your life?"

It's a question I've often asked myself. 43things' somewhat simplistic solution to this perplexing question is to have you list 43 things that you want to to do with your life. You can see how popular your goals are, receive "cheers" from the community, and track your progress and review how you felt after you completed your goal. I think this site could be really useful for achieving your life's, or even this week's, dreams.

Goals don't have to be as worthy as "Teach literacy in the slums of Calcutta" - heck, most are about trying to live a life you can be happy in.

I've shared my professional goals on LinkedIn via a great group about libraries in the year 2025. Stay tuned for my N post on next generation libraries.

How things got my 43 things list:

I thought of things I'll be able to do one day, that will make me happy, and therefore, make me easier to be around. I think once we are happy ourselves we can better help others. Though I'm sure helping others makes one happy - that's why volunteer is on my list.

My goals might not be as world-changing, humanistic and selfless as I'd like to imagine them to be, but they are real.

Here are some of my 43things (so far).

Go on a cycle tour

Visit the Library of Congress


Visit NYPL, and their reading room.

Go paragliding

Visit South America.


A view from Knight's Point, West Coast. Goal: house with sea view.

So, what do you want to do with your life?

E is for espionage - In libraries, by librarians and in pop culture.

2011-04-06T08:52:00.004+12:00

I've always thought I'd make a pretty good spy or intelligence agent. I love searching and finding information, I love gadgets, not so fussed on guns, but I imagine the real work of the governmental intelligence community is far removed from the romanticized gun totting spies of popular culture. Most of it would be spent behind computers, writing reports or combing through screeds of information, making connections between people and information; similar to what librarians do actually.

However, I'm sure I'd get a huge wake-up call if I ever had to do real espionage. I would have to believe I was doing the right thing if I ever did this type of thing, and I can imagine that could get pretty tricky, no mater how nationalistic you are. Keeping your moral compass true, and working for humanity, not just a political ideology or regime, would be important to keep sane.

Maybe I'd be better sticking to corporate espionage, which made a cool premise in the movie Duplicity.

Clive Owen and Julia Roberts, corporate spies.

Libraries have been used for intelligence gathering since there have been intelligence agents. Libraries are a treasure trove of information, which could be used against the community or even country they serve. There is a fascinating book called Librarian spies about Mary Jane and Philip Keeney who were apparently part of the Silvermaster spy ring in the 1940's. I'm yet to read the book, have you read it?

I'm not going to get into the rights and wrongs of the whole wiki-leaks saga on this entry, except to say if the information was so important to national security then the countries concerned should have been more careful.
I note how Wikipedia distance themselves with "WikiLeaks is not affiliated with Wikipedia or the Wikimedia Foundation." on the entry for wiki-leaks.

Some of the information leaked was pretty damning towards certain government polices.

But on a lighter note my favourite pop-culture spies have mostly been women, but I believe I can definitively say Sean Connery is James Bond.

Outside the Bond francise the best male spy has to be Matt Damon as Matthew Bourne.

My favourite female spies are either Jennifer Garner's Alias, or Peta Wilson's La Femme Nikita.

Do you have a favourite T.V or movie spy?

Bridget Fonda in a remake of the French La Femme Nikita

Damon as Bond, very exciting

Luc Besson's La Femme Nikita has at least 3 remakes

Sean Connery is James Bond.

This 90s series was excellent with the Australian Peta Wilson

Jennifer Garner as a CIA agent, one of favourite shows

D is for dachshunds

2011-04-05T08:00:00.002+12:00

Well they might not be libraryland related (apart from some stunning bookends below), but as they take up so much of my time I have to devote my D post to Dachshunds.

Phoebe and Connor - this is how they spend most of their time.

Connor helping to unpack the groceries

Connor young pup during a wet river walk

I think this is my favourite, almost art deco.

Phoebe as a young pup.

Another puppy shot.

We are owned by two five-kilo (11-pound) miniature dachshunds. Phoebe is long-haired and Connor is wire-haired. They aren't related, though they are the best of friends and spend hours a day playing, snuggling or causing mischief.

Dachshunds, like all official dog breeds, look that way for a reason. They were originally bred to fight badgers (their name means badger dog, even though they are called deckels or teckels in Germany, go figure), so their long and low bodies help them fit into badger holes, and their deep chests let them rest on the ground while they use their paws to dig. They have personalities to rival any larger badger or animal: the official breed standard states "brave beyond means" (it used to be "bold to the point of rashness" but I guess the spin doctors have rewritten it). Ours definitely exhibit some classic dachshund traits, but they are charming nonetheless. Phoebe is the softer of the two, both of coat and personality, as Connor will often try to take on strange dogs up to and including those 4-5 times his size. He is getting better though, and has some good doggy friends.

I tried to make him some real-life friends through a site called doggyspace, but this is the Internet, and that site is more for talking about your dog as if you were it, and as if it had its own blog. Haven't done much with it as I wanted to meet people in the real world.

And I have to give a shout-out to Four Legs Good blog, run by my wonderful partner. Here you will find many interesting stories about pets, including many featuring our two dachshunds.

All the best.

C is for Cataloguing - your personal collections of books, CDs, and more.

2011-04-04T08:00:00.004+12:00

This is the study, where lots of work gets done blog editing.

Another view, too many books to get in one shot.

My partner has a lot of books, CDs and is starting to build a DVD collection.

Opera CDs

The last vestiges of an outdated technology

My small but messy book collection.

Cataloguing our collections

I go through obsessions, where I get intensely interested in a topic or activity and do it at the cost of sleep or regular, mundane tasks like housework. This is why I have dozens of half-finished books in my collection. If a book doesn't grab me and I read it every free moment, it will be relegated back to the unfinished shelf. I'm like this with a lot of things, they have to grab me, and then I power through.

Recently, one of these obsessions as been cataloguing my partner's CD collection. This is mostly opera CDs. I discovered there were over 300 hundred CDs just on Opera in his collection! They are still in no particlar order on the shelf, but they are all recorded so we can sit and browse his collection from any computer with the internet.

His books are another matter, and I have only just scraped the surface. There are at least 500 of these, probably more like 800 all kept in our study, Nick's workplace as he mostly works from home. He's a professional journalist who edits blogs (I know - lucky me, a very handy critic).

There are several book cataloguging tools out there, but I liked the software I did use as you are able to put all your collections into one database.

This site was itrackmine - a site that helps you organize your life and your collections, from books and CDs, to household appliances and software. You can even make a custom collection of anything. Say you collect teapots - you could use itrackmine to catalogue your teapot collection and share it with friends. Especially useful for insurance purposes.

I think you can tell a lot about a person by what they have on their shelf, either books, music or movies. You can find out about Nick here: http://www.itrackmine.com/fp.php?fp=7962

And you can find all about me and my tastes here: http://www.itrackmine.com/fp.php?fp=7961

Have you catalogued your collections? What tools did you use and would you recommend them?

Click here to go to my favorites on iTrackmine!

Bachelor of Applied Science - majoring in Information and Library Studies

2011-04-02T19:01:00.000+13:00

When I first moved to Wellington as a fresh faced 17 year old I started work at Wellington City New World supermarket as a check out boy. I stuck it out for 6 months before I had a wonderful call from Wellington City Libraries to come in for an interview based on my CV that I had handed into the main information desk.

I ended up interviewing well and got my first proper, respectable, job at the library, as a Customer Services Team Member (I know - very descriptive job description) and found I enjoyed it. My job was to learn the ropes of lots of departments and branch libraries across Wellington, while covering for various people while they got training in the new library management software the library was implementing. Here I gained some invaluable library experience.

I have always wanted to learn, and that’s what I found I liked about library work, especially reference. You never knew what the day could bring, what you were going to asked to look up, and what you were going to learn yourself about the topic your patron was researching. After all a librarian’s great skill is not knowing lots of stuff, though that’s an occupational hazard. No, a librarians’ skill lies in knowing where to find stuff out.

So with this taste for library work, I thought I might like to do this for a living. But I needed qualifications to get the best jobs. My options for an undergraduate degree in library studies were pretty slim. I believe most overseas librarians study a masters in librarianship after doing a bachelor’s degree; perhaps in history, arts or languages, but their initial degree could be in anything. You can do that here, and many people do, but as I’ve found it’s not only option in New Zealand.

After discovering that the only undergraduate library qualifications in New Zealand were by distance, I enrolled in my first papers at the Open Polytechnic in 2003. This was a distance degree, which suited me financially, and still does, as I can work and study at the same time. I've worked and studied part-time ever since.

It has been really good to ask practicing librarians for their options and advice to help me write papers, but I have missed being surrounded by other students on a physical campus.
.
So here’s me 8 years later, and only three courses to go out of 18, before getting my degree. But the last ones are non-library topics so I’m really struggling. I haven’t studied this year, July 1^st, the deadline for enrolling in trimester 2, is fast approaching and I’m not yet ready to look at Statistical analysis, one of my last 3 courses I have to do to complete my degree.

Yet I’ve learned so much since finishing my last paper I completed a year ago. All from the Internet. Blogs, twitter, wikis, these have kept me entertained, challenged and learning the whole time. I love them, and would love to get them integrated with formal learning; maybe learning analytics will be the answer?

What have you studied, and how do you integrate that in with your work? Were you able to study full-time, or study part-time and work full-time, like I had to? And for those studying and working who have kids -I don't know how you do it!

A-Z April blogging challenge

2011-04-01T23:49:00.001+13:00

Hello again. I've been a bit Missing in Action with this blog lately but over the next month that will change...

Yesterday I discovered a blogging challenge for the month of April. Called A-Z, the challenge has the simple rules of blogging 26 times for the month of April following the letters of the alphabet. Sounds easy when you say it fast but I'll be very proud of myself if I can fit that many posts into my life, but I'll do my best. The challenge is open to anyone, which means the topics of participating blogs will be a kaleidoscope of themes from across the Internet. I quite like this aspect, as there will be plenty of blogs I would have never stumbled across if I wasn't participating.

(disclaimer: as this is challenge is open to anyone, I respect the other participants but they do not represent me and may be NSFW, as this blog is! A friendly warning, just so you know what to except if you click a blog after mine, it could be of any topic from the human mind. I'm for the principles of free speech & to other bloggers reading this, good luck!)

I have seen a couple of librarian authored blogs are participating and if you've found my blog from the challenge page, be prepared I will be talking about issues from libraryland, with dashes of book reviews, new technology that excites me, and maybe some more personal stuff from my interests in scifi, pets, learning and the arts.

Wish me luck!

For more info on the challenge follow the link:

Home of the challenge

Response to New Zealand Listener editoral: E-zy reader

2011-01-19T22:24:00.000+13:00

E-zy reader editorial

~~The current~~A recent issue of the Listener has an editorial discussing ereaders and ebooks. It's quite negative and pessimistic but this editorial has inspired this blog post.

I love books. It might be also obvious that I love libraries. I come from a family of booksellers, and publishers. Avery bookshop traded for nearly one hundred years before closing and leasing the building to Whitcoulls. This history, however, doesn't mean bookshops hold an irrationally special place in my heart. I do think their is a scale of quality in bookshops, and independent bookshops do have their place, but as a means to an end, namely, to get the books! They are middle men.

Ebooks change everything.

With ebooks there's no need for the book buyer, the people (sorry libraries) who hold up the book industry, to visit a physical store anymore. People can now buy books from the comfort of their home or anywhere with an internet connection. The Listener is worried about the future of bricks and motor bookshops and what ebooks will mean for the publishing and literary industry in New Zealand. I contest their fear is at worst misplaced, at worse scarily missing the point.

The listener says:

"At their best, these are one of the great institutions of reading life in this country, in many cases a social and literary hub for their communities."

Sounds like libraries right? No, they are talking about bookshops. They sadly don't mention libraries at all. This is our (libraries) fault. We should be at least a part of the conversation around ebooks and the opportunities and challenges that they present to our reading lives. If we aren't in the book reading public mind's we aren't doing our jobs.

After the Listener briefly discusses the future of literature, and speculating that it lies with tablets and ereaders, they state that New Zealand is catching up with the availabity of ebooks and ereaders, and local publishers will have to embrace this new medium to survive. These are actually valid points and I totally agree that NZ publishers need to get in the game and get our books digital.

They go on:

"The local arms of international publishing groups could face an additional problem, since their finances owe so much to income generated by distributing and selling their parent companies’ books; if those books are e-books sold online from a central source overseas, why should they continue to be paid, or at least paid as much? In which case, where will the money come from to support the quantity and variety of local books they publish?"

So let me get this straight, because consumers can buy all of say Penguins ebooks from an overseas website, how will Penguin NZ be able to cope?

They don't seem to get the Internet. The fantastic, wonderful thing about the Internet is it doesn't matter where you are in the world you can download stuff straight to your device. For example, a NZ consumer can now download the latest issue of Oprah Magazine, (via Zinio) not having to wait till it hits our distant shores, and they don't have to pay international postage fees. The book industry is similarly affected with ebooks. New Zealand authors, and the previously physical arms of international publishing houses will be able to publish ebooks online, hopefully with international release dates rather then with geographic restrictions as some United States ebooks have, and lo and behold, the market will decide if they like the book and will subsequently purchase if they choose to.

Another brilliant thing about the Internet is the long tail. It costs a fraction of the costs of printing and storing a print book, compared to hosting an ebook on a website for even a handful of people to download. The book will take almost no sales to bring back costs, and authors can actually make money selling far fewer books. Once New Zealand books are actually available as ebooks, and if the ebook market continues it's rapid growth, local literary culture will flourish and infact it will be exposed to a wider audience through international ebook publishers and online ebookshops. There is no need to "release" an ebook internationally. Take Cat Connor (Profile) an Upper Hutt thriller writer who became an international bestseller by publishing ebooks. I love how she has embraced social media, such a great tool for writers to connect with their audiences.

The part of this article that really got to me wasn't even in the text. It's the picture of a smiling Annabel Langbein, chef, on what appears to be an iPad's screen. They mention that the best selling local book in 2010 was Annabel Langbein’s The Free Range Cook.

They fail to mention this free range cook's books are not available as ebooks. There is no reason for Annabel's face to be on an iPad, in relation to this story at least. Her books should be available as ebooks, but that is her publishers failing.

Tom

Considering giving an ereader for Xmas? Consider carefully

2010-12-13T08:00:00.042+13:00

There are now several ereaders on the market in New Zealand and Australia.

You can buy a Kobo or a Sony off the shelf. And you can buy any number of devices online, including the Kindle. Which, according to Amazon is "our #1 bestselling item for two years running. It’s also the most-wished-for, most-gifted, and has the most 5-star reviews of any product on Amazon."

Of course there are the non-dedicated ereaders, including the iPods, iPhones and iPads. Indeed, electronic books are now the largest content category at the App Store.

So how do you choose which ereader to buy as a gift? Or even for yourself?

Reading experience

Reading experience is an important consideration.

Is it important that you can read outside, at the beach? Do you or the receiver of your gift, read a lot, would enjoy an experience as close to a book as possible, and don't like distractions when you read? Do you like the idea of not having to recharge for weeks? Maybe you travel a lot? Then a Kindle may be an appropriate choice.

An Apple device gives you flexibly as it will do many things besides ereading, you can view emails, websites and other multimedia content in full colour on their LCD screens. But you can't read outside, battery life is limited to a few hours, and they are quite expensive.[Update: I enjoyed reading a Kindle ebook through my iPod on our balcony yesterday afternoon and had no problem reading the screen in the bright New Zealand sunlight. I did have the screen brightness at maximum, and this ate through the battery, but who has more then 2-3 hours free at time to read anyway? When my iPod shutdown as the battery died after several hours reading, I knew I should get up and do something else.]

Maybe you don't need all the bells and whistles and just want to read? A Kobo ereader, one of the cheapest on the New Zealand market, could be a really good choice, as it's lightweight, and does what it says on the box.

But what about content?

Where to buy the ebooks

With a Kindle ereader you can buy ebooks from the Kindle store. That's it. With the 3G model you can even download books straight from the Amazon store to the device without paying for the mobile internet connection. From the Kindle store you can buy thousands of in-copy right poplar non-fiction and fiction books at usually a significantly reduced price to their print counterparts. You can also get out of copyright books for free. And that may be enough.

Other ebook store options include the Kobo store, Ebooks, Ereader, and the newly opened (but not for NZ or Australia yet, but planned for first quarter next year) Google ebooks. Or for more reviews of ebook stores see this link.

For your loved one's with device already, perhaps a ebook voucher or even an ebook as a gift is in order? The Amazon kindle store and Kobo store both offer vouchers, but Kobo store now offers ebooks as gifts that can be scheduled to be delivered up to a year ahead, very handy for Christmas or birthday gifts.

Free books. Go libraries!

But some public libraries, like Wellington City Libraries, are now offering ebooks to loan through the Overdrive ebook service. They have about 300 titles at present, so a lot more room to grow, and I hope this happens. Check with your library to see what ebook collections are available.

Overdrive, and other library ebook lending services like Ebook library, (EBL) mean you don't have to buy ebooks, instead you can borrow ebooks from the comfort of your couch! And no need to worry about returning them, as they automatically expire after the loan period is finished.

Libraries can offer this type of service by using something called Digital Rights Management, DRM. DRM means you need to register the device (be it PC, ereader or something else) you are reading the ebook on, and you only get to have the ebook for limited amount of time. These access control technologies are set by publishers and ebook vendors so ebooks can't be given away for free. At the present time this is the best model for libraries to lend ebooks.

Adobe has a DRM system that most library ebook vendors use. What all this means for your potential ebook aficionado is that if they want to read ebooks by borrowing them from their library rather then having to buy them, they will need a device that supports Adobe DRM. The Kindle does not.

What devices do allow you to read borrowed library books?

Here's a handy couple of sites that will help guide you in selecting a device compatible with library ebooks.
Adobe DRM supported devices

Caution: Currently the site below lists the Aluratek ereader as incompatible with Overdrive ebooks, this is incorrect as I have one of these ereaders and can read Overdrive ebooks borrowed from the library on the device.
Overdrive works with these devices

Sony and Kobo both support Adobe DRM, so are compatible with library ebooks. But take care to consider the format of your library's ebooks, as PDFs on the Kobo are almost unreadable. ePub is a much more user friendly standard, and the Overdrive ebooks come in this format.

Apple devices are compatible through free apps like Bluefire reader and Txtr. Both apps allow you to register your Adobe ID (needed to read Adobe DRM protected ebooks) and easily transfer purchased ebooks from an ebook store and as well as borrowed ebooks from your library, to the Apple device.

Another benefit to the Apple devices is you can read all your Kindle purchased books through the Kindle app, and Kobo store books through the Kobo app. Also Overdrive have just released their own app for reading and listening to ebook and eaudio books on an Apple device.

Which shows just how flexible Apple devices can be for reading books, as long as you don't want to read them at the beach.

Conclusion
After a whirlwind tour through the complicated world of ebooks and ebook stores, I hope you can consider libraries when you make your next purchase. Over the coming months and years libraries who aren't lending ebooks will need to provide ebooks to their users who will start demanding them, or their patrons will look elsewhere, and private companies offering ebook rental models could take the place of libraries.

This is a rapidly changing area so by Christmas 2011 the environment could be very different, another reason to consider costs and future needs before buying a device. Good luck with your shopping.

Make your own online newspaper with Paper.li

2010-11-04T15:42:00.002+13:00

Paper.li

A great new way of displaying content from twitter is Paper.li http://paper.li/ . Paper.li “organizes links shared on Twitter into an easy to read newspaper-style format. Newspapers can be created for any Twitter user, list or #tag.” It’s a brilliant way of viewing twitter on your desktop in an attractively formatted way.

Newspaper on libraries and learning

http://paper.li/kayellr/libraries-learning

App review: Zinio magazine app

2010-11-03T21:03:00.001+13:00

An app I've been playing with lately is zinio magazines. This company has been around since 2001 distributing digital versions of magazines through their website. Publishers set their own prices, which can be more, less but of titles I've seen, most often the same, as their print counterparts.

Reading magazines on your laptop or desktop is not too painfully distant from reading them in print, as shown by the popularity of online journal databases, which in the academic world, have changed the way libraries manage their serial collections. Like academic journals, magazines can be dipped in and out of and their short articles make them fairly user friendly to view online, unlike their big brothers ebooks. Trying to digest a whole book while chained to a desk is a trying task.

However, with the iPad, to a lesser extent the iPod, zinio has really come into its own with the delivery of full colour versions of hundreds of popular general interest magazines. When downloading the app for the first time a user is given 6 free older issues of various magazines to browse. I got rid of a few and now have built a library of 6 magazines that I have, or will, read.

Now for some screenshots:

Zinio welcome screen

NewScientist cover
Bright and glossy just like the real thing!

Table of contents
The blue underlines below story titles indicate hyperlinks. This makes jumping to any articles as easy as touching the title.

Articles
These are readable without zooming, but can easily be zoomed in to if necessary.

The last word
What is especially brilliant is that all links in a magazine are hyperlinked. Meaning if you see an advertisement, be it for a product or job, which says go to is link ,for more information, a touch will bring up this page for even more information. So much more natural and easier then trying to remember "I must visit that website when I get back to a computer" after quietly enjoying a magazine in a comfy chair.
In the below articles case you can click on he email for last word and the mail app opens so you can submit your own wacky question.

Summing up

I think this zinio is on to a winner. The latest magazines, delivered straight to your device without out any expensive postage fees, with hyperlinks, full colour pictures and full stories, organized as the magazine editors intended - an advantage over electronic databases, which are simply a list of the articles in an issue, no visual clues are given as to what importance one story may have over another,or how they relate to each other.

Zinio does provide a handful of text books as well, and this is something I will be keeping an eye on.

I hope more publishers provide their content to zinio to grow its library. Academic journals are lacking, but in time, readers will be demanding content is delivered this way.

Look like your people « Theatrical Smoke

2010-09-20T16:13:00.001+12:00

David Wedaman has a proposed rule of thumb when it comes to helping our users who are becoming more and more sophisticated with electronic tools, but missing out on the expertise that librarians can provide. There is help that librarians (and IT) can give if only our users knew it. How can we be more helpful while making sure our users know this help is available.

"If you want to understand what someone needs, you can’t go to far astray if you start by doing what they do. Look Like your People."

By being present with our users and understanding their needs from their point of view we can leverage our knowledge and skills, and better understand users' needs.

Well worth a read:

Look Like Your People « Theatrical Smoke

In praise of the free webinar

2010-09-18T20:01:00.001+12:00

Some good resources for finding free library professional development webinars here:
Free library webinars

Infographics

2010-09-17T15:50:00.001+12:00

At lunch time I attended a live webevent introducing Infographics, especially for use in the classroom. Infographics present data in a visually interesting way, and they can reveal new patterns or links between concepts. The best of these can be funny, sad, or just plain fascinating. Please have a look at these links and the video.

Some good links to have a look at:
http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/
http://infosthetics.com/
http://www.good.is/departments/transparency

TED presentation by David McCandles data visualization journalist and author:

Ebooks on the iPad

2010-09-14T12:17:00.002+12:00

In this post I will be highlighting some of the best ebook reading apps for the iPad. After living with the iPad for more then a month I've been able to experiment with several apps and will highlight three that I've found the most compelling. I’ll be reviewing the Kindle, iBooks, and Txtr apps, their features, limitations, and lastly, but most importantly of all, content! A special mention should go to Txtr as it’s the only ebook reading app in all the app store that allows libraries to lend their digital rights management (DRM) controlled ebooks, but more on that later.

Kindle

(Kindle home screen)

Features
With this app you can read books purchased through the Amazon.com Kindle store. Confusingly, Kindle is the name of the hardware; the Amazon Kindle reader, the software; the kindle app for PC, Mac, Ipod/iPhone/iPad, and the store where Amazon sells ebooks.

I've purchased about 4 fiction books to read on the iPad and iPod touch, and I've enjoyed the reading experience I've had. Text can be resized to suit, and the nigth morf is useful both for saving battery life as the text is white on a black background, and for minimizing distription to sleeping partners.

Amazon's Whispersync technology, means every time I open a book on PC, iPod, or Ipad, that's connected to the internet, I'm automatically synced to the last page I read, which is nifty if using multiple devices.

Another fun feature is the kindle home screen changes its sky depending on what time it is. 10pm it's dark, and so it is in Kindle land, a few hours earlier it was a lovely dusk for the guy under the Kindle tree.

A new feature appearing in Kindle books is video and audio, which gives their ebooks a lot of added value. The first books they are adding this content to are cooking and travel books, with more on the way. I can see this being a feature people will buy ebooks for over their print counterparts.

Limitations
Books can be organized by title, author or by recently viewed, but cannot be sorted into collections which with a large collection of books would make organizing books difficult.

Content
The Kindle store has a wide range of best selling fiction, and a selection of non-fiction. Few New Zealand books have been published as ebooks, so New Zealand content isn't well represented. Also the Kindle store is region specific, and New Zealand customers have only access to the Asia Pacific store, which has only a limited amount of books available compred to the impressive Kindle United States store. I hope this is rectified soon as it's very annoying to find a book available as an ebook but not available in the Asia Pacific store.

iBooks

(ibooks home screen)

Features
ibooks is Apple's own ebook app, and it has one of the most visually appealing ebook displays that I've seen. Colour illustrations look great, and really come to life in the pre-loaded ebook, Winne the Pooh:

Other features that make a reading a book on iBooks so compelling is the page turning, which feels natural.

It also allows note making, highlighting of text, and built in dictionaries to look up definitions of unfamiliar words.

The best ebook apps and ereader hardware will make the technology disappear and let you concentrate on reading, and I think the ibook app gets as close to a natural book as I've seen.

Limitations
So far so good, I can't really think of any!

Content
This is where ibooks, in New Zealand at least, really falls over. There are no books available to purchase from the ibooks store. The only items available at the moment for New Zealand users are out of copyright ebooks that are free to download. Until Apple organize vendors to get publishers onboard, ibooks is stuck in park.

Txtr

(Txtr front screen)

Txtr is the only app on the app store that works with Adobe's digital rights management system, and this means libraries can lend books through sevices such as Ebook library.

(Txtr home screen)

Limitations
The books on Txtr don't have the attractive formating like the other apps. Instead, the page is simply a PDF which can be read on the screen but text cannot be highlighted, nor notes added like some other apps.

Content
Content makes this app the killer ebook app for libraries. With EBL's catalogue of over 100,000 ebooks available to browse, and if you library allows it, loan, then this service coupled with the Txtr app makes ebooks pretty appealing. Patrons can simply download a book for the set period of time that the library decides, then use the Txtr web service to move books into their own collection. When they turn on the app, it will sync with the online account and the books remain on the ipad until they expire. Meaning you can take them with you and have all the other functionally and mobility the iPad offers over other devices such as desktop or laptop computers.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

The cloud

2010-06-29T08:00:00.001+12:00

After getting an iPad, the need for thinking about file management and storage becomes a necessity. Without a USB drive, and only 16 GB of storage, and without a natural file management system, some different storage method is needed. Enter cloud computing.

I’ve had a yahoo.com email account for over a decade and so far it’s never let me down. At one stage I was receiving dozens of spam emails a week, but this has dropped right away with improved filtering, and at most I only get one or two a month. I’ve got emails stored on Yahoo that I received over 10 years ago, which is kinda neat - being able to discover historic artefacts from your personal life.

Why all this talk of an old school yahoo email account? Well, it’s an example of cloud computing that has worked well for me, and I think may be the future of computer storage.

What’s driving this is the way people want to work, live, and play. We want to access our music collection where ever and when ever we are, we want to be able to look up recipes on the iPad while in the kitchen not rush back to the desktop computer, and we want to be able to do work while waiting at the airport terminal, and when we do get back to the office, to have the work on the desktop updated with all the work we’ve done on the run.

All these things can be accomplished with cloud computing. It means that your data is stored online, often with a third party, and can be accessed from any device that has an internet connection. With our personal lives becoming more wired and online through Facebook, WiFi hotspots available in more cities around the world, and the growing demand for mobile broadband, the infrastructure to enable cloud computing is coming together.

There are risks of course. If your data is stored with a third party, you lose ultimate control over it. Facebook has come under scrutiny recently for its privacy policies, and these concerns should be raised with any service offering data storage or online services. From a business perspective, security of data is paramount and only trusted services should be used for any sensitive information, personal or financial.

New Zealand, the minnow that we are, is lagging behind in the mobile broadband market. Decent 3G internet services with reasonable pricing plans have yet to emerge in New Zealand, but the iPad and other devices that are designed to be mobile internet consumers may change this. At least I'm hoping so, in July the iPad is offically launched in New Zealand, so internet pricing plans will hopfully be launched at the same time. Vodafone Australia's dataplans for the iPad are reasonable and I hope we get something similar over here.

I’m looking forward to joining the cloud computing revolution, as I could see this having applications in business and in distance education. I’ll be exploring some of iPad apps that allow working in this way and will do some reviews as I go. See you in the cloud.

iPad – first impressions

2010-06-28T08:00:00.003+12:00

I’ve gone and done it and ordered an iPad from Trade Me. Hand on heart I am not an early adopter, or an Apple fanboy. I don’t have an iPhone let alone a mobile phone, don’t own a laptop. But I do seem to go for products that are new or stand out from the crowd (I miss my Mini. Damn you rust!).

But as the iPad is not yet available in New Zealand, I did jump the gun a little by trawling through the dozens of trademe listings for the best looking deal. This in itself was revealing. I did a keyword search and found the category Apple>Computers>iPads, and thought this category would have all the iPads. However, after ordering it, I found others listed under mobile phones. These have since either been sold or moved, but “what is an iPad for?”, and what category it fits in, is an ongoing debate online. I think it’s fair enough calling it a computer; it’s certainly not a phone. Some of the detractors have called it a giant iPod touch, which I think is actually a bit of a complement rather then an insult.
I’ve read so many reviews, so much positive and negative hype, the iPad is certainly provocative but it’s hard to know what to believe. So it was great to finally grab hold of an iPad and work give it a go.

Apple has marketed the device as magical, I wouldn’t go that far but it’s impressive. And with 30 million sold in last 80 days, other people are impressed too.

The iPad is bigger then I thought it would be, with a 9.7 inch glossy multi-touch screen, and it is quite heavy for its thinness. Like the iPod touch and iPhone there is only one button on the front of the device, having some power and control buttons on the top and side. All the interaction with the machine is through the touch screen, which has plusses and minuses. I’m noticing a lot more the finger smudges on the iPad then the iPod, which may be due to the larger screen size. To get around this, I ordered a pogo sketch stylus, which can't be beaten for keeping the screen clean, and for drawing on the iPad, which some people are very skilled at! Typing will be done with a Bluetooth keyboard when at home, or on the on screen keyboard while away.
So will it fit my purpose? I needed something for study and I had a choice of an iPad, netbook or low spec laptop. The iPad is always going to be sexier then a laptop, and that influenced my decision. But, there are a few drawbacks.

The lack of Flash player is a major drawback for me, as there is a lot of stuff online that can’t be accessed because it uses Flash. However, I can use versions of Excel on the iPad, and accessing the online campus is very easy. There are three apps made for helping to learn statistics that I’ve downloaded, and I’ll explore them more as I work through my course. The on screen keypad is only good for short typing sessions, which is why I’ve also bought a Bluetooth keyboard, which begs the question why didn’t I get a netbook?! The iPad very superior to a netbook for ebook reading, and I love the touchscreen, which Apple's operating system works very well with, And to try to imrove it's use as a note taking device, I've installed an app that is meant to improve typing speed on the glass screen. The app says glass screen typing is the way of the future, though I’m not convinced, yet.

Ebooks are an area I want to explore further, especially in terms of usefulness in the library, but I will look at these in a seperate post.

Conclusion

Viewing entertainment and accessing the web using the touch screen is easy and looks great, and after using and loving my iPod and its apps I could see how well an iPad with its bigger screen could be a great device. I’m still deciding on how best to use it. But I hope by exploring some more apps and working on file management will mean I can get the best out of it, and I will update with any new discoveries.

M-learning

2010-06-24T14:59:00.000+12:00

Earlier this year I attended an M-libraries symposium held at Victoria University Library.

It was advertised as a full day of activities with “presentations, showcases and workshops of m-learning in action with critical focus on library planning, implementation and delivery will be highlights of each symposium.”

What it transpired to be was a series of lectures, with some audience interaction, by a m-learning expert from Canada. It did not focus on libraries, in fact it was more an introduction to the issues and challenges in introducing m-learning to learning institutions, not something the mainly librarian crowd could really comment usefully on, but it is an important issue and something that librarians should be engaged with. I would have loved to have seen a more diverse audience of educators who had a role in shaping the way learning is delivered, but we tried to make up for it by thinking like a bunch of educators, which in fact, is what librarians are.

The auidence, of about a dozen people, included academic librarians and elearning faciltators from tertiary libraries accross New Zealand, though most were from Victoria or Massey Univeristies. The day consisted of several lectures on different aspects of m-learning as presented by Dr Mohamed Ally, Director Distance learning from Athabasca Open University in Canada. M-learning was defined by Dr Ally as learning on a device that is mobile, often, but not always, a mobile phone or other highly portable device. There was discussion at the beginning of the day from the audience as to whether there was a need to distinguish e-learning from m-learning, as aren’t they one in the same? I’d have to say m-learning is different enough to qualify for a separate term. E-learning, through a laptop or desktop has quite a lot of limitations, and is in some respects more similar to paper distance learning, then m-learning is to e-learning.

The presentation

Dr Ally focused, through a series of Power Point slideshows and videos, on the principles and practices of m-learning, and some programmes produced by his institution, for example, teaching English as a second language through mobile phones. These phones were far from smart, but students could still access the learning materials through their phones. That was a point raised many times throughout the day, that learning materials need to be designed to work on any device. Sounds great in principle, but an iPhone app was demonstrated as a useful example of m-learning, and to access this app you would need an Apple product, so a slight disconnect was shown there between theory and practice.

Leapfrogging

Quite a big focus on the day was how 3rd world countries are adopting m-learning through their mobile phones and other devices, leapfrogging over e-learning on a desktop computer or laptop. Their populations have millions of mobile phones, but few computers, and their mobiles can be quite advanced, and can almost be personal mobile computers. These populations are then not tied to elearning pedagogies, and can fully embrace m-learning practices.

Limitations in the New Zealand environment

As well as the fact institutions are focused on e-learning here rather then m-learning, the limiting factors in New Zealand include costs and slow speeds of mobile broadband. Where as in Canada, internet access, through mobile devices or otherwise, is much cheaper and more reliable then here.

Conclusions

I would have enjoyed a more libraries focused session, but for an introduction to m-learning, it was very valuable to anyone interested in this area. But I think I got the most out of the introduction to the new technologies (such as sixth sense technology) that will mean m-learning becomes more prevalent and part of our everyday lives. I believe technological convergence, will influence not just m-learning but our daily lives. I think the distance educators, and their instutions, should be thinking about m-learning and it's place in teaching, as their students, and prospective students, will soon expect learning to be delivered in ways that are difficult to even imagine now.

Sarah Jane Sarvanai, Learning Hub manager from Wintec, who organised the presentation, has set up an online group about m-learning, which can be found here

Writing a disclaimer

2010-06-14T06:00:00.002+12:00

I’ve realised that my blog doesn’t have a disclaimer. Now I do wonder if a disclaimer is even necessary but it’s probably better to be safe then sorry. Not wanting to reienvent the wheel I thought there'd be a good online disclaimer that would inspire me. There were some funny sites with these disclaimers I particularly liked:

"The opinions expressed herein are not necessarily those of my employer, not necessarily mine, and probably not necessary

The opinions expressed here are not those of my employer, my wife, my church, or myself... But they are the opinions of Elvis as revealed to me through the medium of my pet hamster, Lee Harvey Oswald...

The opinions expressed herein are those of absolutely everyone at National Instruments: the management, staff, stockholders, their spouses, children, dogs, and cats. In fact, everyone in Austin also agrees. No, make that Texas."

Some more regular disclaimers can be found here

So using these as my inspiration I’ve cobbled together this below:

This is a personal weblog. The opinions expressed here represent my own and not those of my employer. These posts are a snap-shot of my thinking at a certain time, and my thoughts and opinions are subject-to-change. Comments belong to their authors and do not represent my own or my employer. I welcome comments but reserve the right to publish, or delete at my discretion.
Any comments would be appreciated!

5 minute review: Kobo ebook reader from Whitcoulls

2010-06-11T11:29:00.000+12:00

Thanks to a member of staff, I had a welcome chance to see the first widely available ereader in New Zealand, the Kobo ereader, sold by Whitcoulls

I’ve had a chance to use several other ebook readers, and in comparison Kobo wins.

Why?

The first thing is the size, at just about a small paperback size it’s very comfortable to hold, and the rubberized back is a nice feature.

The second best feature is the black and white eInk screen. This is the closest technology, so far, has come to imitating real paper, and it uses very little power, really just to turn the page. This means the Kobo lasts for many hours of reading. eInk is apparently better for your eyes, but I didn't read it long enough to discover this. The screen isn't backlighted so you will need your own light source, just like a regular book.

The device is not touch screen, which after spending hours with my iPod, I do miss it when using other devices. However, the navigation buttons on the Kobo are easy to use. There are several buttons on the side of the device for getting quickly to menus, and the other button is a large central button under the screen which navigates you through a book by pressing either on the right to go forward, or left to flick back a page, it’s rubberized and felt sturdy to press.

The other major attraction is that Kobo supports Adobe digital rights management. This means it should be possible to download and read borrowed books from ebook libraries, like EBL. But I didn’t have a chance to test this so will need to see it working to judge.

The drawbacks for me were the Kobo’s slow page turning, which could get frustrating reading a whole book. The other major drawback is I couldn't search for text, so reading non-fiction textbook, or searching for content within a book isn't possible, at least that I could see. The cost at $295, compared to just over that for an iPod, is too high for the regular reader, but maybe it will come down over time. It doesn’t have WiFi, which disappoints and means a cable to pc connection is needed, but it does support Bluetooth.

Whitcoulls have kindly provided a free iphone/ipod app which means all their ebooks through their store can be read without the need of the Kobo. I’ve had a look at it, and it’s not wonderful but it does the job okay.

Finally, don’t expect the Kobo to be able to do anything other then display black and white ebooks. Which is where it falls over, as I think convergence, the fact that more and more devices do almost everything, will mean people will come to expect that one device should be able to meet all their needs.

For libraries, I think this is a good reader to test the waters of ebooks.

Five university students given iPads to test drive

2010-05-21T16:06:00.000+12:00

North Carolina State University Libraries lent 5 students iPads on the proviso they would blog about their experiences. I think it’s so cool to see what real life students think of the iPad, and whether it can help with their learning. The general consensus seems to be that it won’t replace their netbooks or laptops, but it’s a great email reader, media consumer and it is fun to use. Of course the touch screen is user friendly, but they were happy to part ways with it when they returned it to the library. I liked these summing up posts “Affair to remember” and “It was a great relationship, but it was time to go our separate ways”

The students' comments are similar to a lot of comments I’ve read about the iPad. People seem to agree it’s great for consuming media rather then creating it, so in a university or for most creative uses (besides some cool visual art apps), it is far from ideal. I agree with Stephen Abrams that it’s great to play and explore these gadgets. I still think the colour touch screen would suit a lot of applications especially as an e-book reader, though the size may make portability an issue. I’m loving my iPod touch as an ebook reader at the moment, and the small size of the screen isn't that much of an issue. I'm even reading comics for the first time in my life.

“NCSU Libraries has long been a technology incubator for the university [good on them! A great idea for libraries to take this role] helping students with budgets based around Ramen Noodles to have free access to the latest computing platforms, ebooks and multimedia gear. This week, we put iPads in the hands of five students, who agreed to blog about the gadget as they head to class, do their work, and surf the Web.”

Read more

Stuck on the social part of social media

2010-05-20T15:42:00.000+12:00

A colleague asked me the other day “You’re an intelligent person Tom, why are you on twitter?” I answered in person but I’d like to answer properly here. First, I think that question is fascinating and I want to thank the person for asking it!
This question implies an intelligent person wouldn’t join twitter. Now I’m a total twitter newbie, I won’t lay any claims to expertise, let alone an understanding of how twitter works in its entirety. I don’t what to defend it as I’m still getting a hang of it, and deciding whether it will be useful to me or not. I’m considering our users who are on it, the world at large who are definitely using it, but mostly I’m considering it as a tool for professional discussion and development, which is the key reason as to why I’m a member of twitter. I currently have a handful of followers; people who track my updates known as tweets, and I follow about twice as many. I think the answer to the question of why I tweet lies in the people that I follow and the people that follow me, who I think are intelligent too!

I’ve set up two twitter accounts, a personal account, and a professional account. The one I’m discussing here is my professional account http://twitter.com/wifilibrarian . If you read me, and I would like you to, you won’t find tweets about Justin Bieber, or who I think is hot or not, or what cereal I had for breakfast. If you want those thoughts look at my personal twitter! (Disclaimer: probably not too much there about Justin Bieber if you were hoping for it) If however, you think about your job as I do, and maybe like reading about the latest techy news or gadgets that I covet, have a read. I will be tweeting in the vein of a wannabe librarian who is testing the waters of this new technology, which I think professional librarians have a responsibility to do.

The twitter accounts I follow are either, librarians, institutions, or technology related tweeters. Their tweets aren’t generally “social” or trivial, and so that’s why I’m on Twitter.

I think the “social” part of social media is colouring some peoples' views of a potentially useful tool. It might not be all fun and games but I hope my professional tweets are still worth reading to those librarians and information professionals who are interested in their work, and to read the thoughts and interests of a librarian in training.

Of course, the point that I’m generally tweeting professionally outside my working time or on lunchbreaks is abhorrent to some, and to those with better things to do with their free time I say good on you! But to those who would join me or go further with social media, I say even better, and meet me there.

For further reading:
An interesting blog by Michael Parry about the lack of librarian interaction with 2.0 is linked in with this discussion of the value of social media and whether we even have time to do it?
Why are kiwi librarians so bad at online social networking?

Use Facebook? Then read this!

2010-05-03T12:50:00.000+12:00

Facebook has changed the privacy settings yet again, and your experience of the web may change as a result:

Facebook's High Pressure Tactics: Opt-in or Else

Tips for Networking (Beyond Just "Social Networking") - ReadWriteStart

2010-05-02T16:46:00.000+12:00

Tips for Networking (Beyond Just "Social Networking") - ReadWriteStart

Top Five Facebook Mistakes That Can Ruin Your Career

2010-04-29T11:29:00.000+12:00

Top Five Facebook Mistakes That Can Ruin Your Career

Event yesterday: eT@lking: The Power of Mobile Technology in Learning - iPod touches

2010-04-29T11:08:00.000+12:00

I did get the time correct, 10-11pm NZ time, but it was 9.15 when I logged in as I wanted to make sure I had everything set up correctly. As soon as I had downloaded the elluminate software and entered the session I was kindly welcomed by the moderator (Ann, I think) of the session who was in Australia. She asked me to test my microphone and I ran upstairs to get it as I didn’t think to attach one. Once we were up and running I stayed in the session until it began at 10.
Elluminate is software for virtual learning and web conferencing. It works really well I would like to see it or something similar used by the Polytechnic. Podcasting works well for asynchronous learning and communication, but I would like to see more live seminars and workshops, we do teach some in person, for communication, real estate and statistics, I don't see why we couldn't do them, and others, virtually? I don’t think I missed out on anything by last night's session being virtual rather then in person.

The session:
iPods have been used by Louise Duncan, a Victorian teacher who has done some amazing work in her classroom with the iPod touch. Her presentation focused on an introduction to the iPod and some useful apps she has used, and how to set them up for use by a whole class. Her experiences stemmed from a project she ran using the iPod to teach students which she has run for the last 2 years. I liked the point she made she didn’t start from a technological determined perspective; she made a curriculum and used the iPod to present it. But what a presentation. She’s been impressed by the power the iPod has given her to engage with students. She won the 2009 Lindsay Thompson Fellowship which allowed her to travel around the world sharing her experiences of her project with the iPod, and continues to learn and share her experiences with teaching and the iPod.

I would recommend attending other sessions like this.

Event tonight: eT@lking: The Power of Mobile Technology in Learning - iPod touches

2010-04-28T10:31:00.000+12:00

I'm hoping to catch this web seminar, if I can work out the time. I think it's on 10-11pm NZ time.

Event:
Louise Duncan is our guest presenter tonight. Louise won the 2009 Lindsay Thompson Fellowship - Victoria's Education Departments' highest award to a teacher for her work on mobile devices - iPod touches. Louise has transformed learning at Shepparton High School with the humble iPod.

http://www.learncentral.org/event/69024

E-learning: you don't always get what you hope for - Technology, Pedagogy and Education

2010-04-27T13:59:00.000+12:00

The article "argues that the use of ICT does not, in itself, result in improved educational outcomes and ways of working."

E-learning: you don't always get what you hope for - Technology, Pedagogy and Education

After having a chance on my lunchbreak to read this article I think it’s an important read for anyone interested in e-learning, which should be most of us! It’s a long article but I hope to summarise and take some money quotes out that I think are important.
Kirkwood says that e-learning is more often then not e-teaching; more about the teacher’s beliefs and understanding of learning and knowledge and less about the student and their learning processes. Are valid points, I wonder what others think? I do agree with the article that “there is the potential for ICT to extend or even transform what can be realised in higher education teaching”, but that “it is common to find technologically deterministic statements asserting the value of ICT for teaching and learning but with little evidence in support of these claims”. The point that context is the main determining factor in whether ICT for e-learning is successful is a really important point. What teachers believe the learning process is will determine how they perform their e-teaching, and will determine how students think and interact with e-learning.

Some money quotes follow:
“If a teacher conceives of the teaching process as primarily being about 'the transmission of knowledge', they are most likely to adopt a teacher-centred approach aimed at imparting what they know to their students. Compare this with a teacher who conceives of teaching as being about 'the facilitation of learning'; such a person is likely to adopt a student-centred approach to teaching, in which the learners are engaged in activities that promote their own conceptions and understanding of a topic. It is quite possible for students to encounter very different approaches to teaching among the academic staff responsible for the particular course or module they are studying” (my emphasis).
Which is a shame, we should have a unified approach to e-learning which means getting right back down to the whole understanding and practice of knowledge, teaching and learning, which as Kirkwood says, "within a department, faculty or HE institution these [concepts] might not be overtly acknowledged or discussed among colleagues". The good news is this seems to be happening, at least on the surface, if you read the work intranet at the moment!

“Within HE (Higher Education) contexts “learning and teaching” are often taken for granted, but it cannot be assumed that all learners share the same understandings of those terms”. I aggree
“Some tutors are just concerned with the use of ICT presentation of materials, while others seek to exploit the interaction or dialogue capabilities.” I aggree.

“For example, including opportunities for asynchronous online discussion within a course is unlikely to promote cooperative or collaborative working, if the teaching approach is largely transmissive and the only outcomes that are asses are the work of individual students. Learners will gain little from group work and discussion other than the clarification of uncertain or misunderstood ideas or concepts” (my emphasis again!)
This is so true with the Open Polytechnic’s online campus! At least with courses I've interacted with. If you want online collaboration “learning communities” etc to be formed you must link it to assessment, or else why would students do it off their own bat? Effective online collaboration skills would seem to have real world applications, especially in industries that have an online presence, and work communication is becoming online and social.

Okay, so if you got this far and have other ideas to share please do!

Microblogs in Higher Education – A chance to facilitate informal and process-oriented learning?

2010-04-27T13:42:00.000+12:00

Abstract

Microblogging is one of the latest Web 2.0 technologies. The key elements are online communication using 140 characters and the fact that it involves “following” anyone. There has been a great deal of excitement about this in recent months. This paper reports on a research study that was carried out on the use of a microblogging platform for process-oriented learning in Higher Education. Students of the University of Applied Sciences of Upper Austria used the tool throughout their course. All postings were carefully tracked, examined and analyzed in order to explore the possibilities offered by microblogging in education. It can be concluded that microblogging should be seen as a completely new form of communication that can support informal learning beyond classrooms.

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Out of the Jungle: What is a Librarian? Defining a profession

2010-04-23T16:38:00.000+12:00

What is a Librarian?

We often have this discussion in our room.

Some thoughts from a law librarian:

Out of the Jungle: What is a Librarian? Defining a profession

iPhone/iPod App of the week

2010-04-21T17:31:00.001+12:00

IMG_0122
Originally uploaded by wifilibrarian

Appbox pro

Appbox pro is an utility app that has some very neat features. At a cost of $1.29 it’s pretty good value. The best parts of this app are the digital wallet; an encrypted storage area for all your codes, insurance numbers, web user accounts, which makes life a lot easier. Other useful tools are the translator tool and currency convertor, which would be great when travelling overseas. I also use the system information tools like battery life and system info- which tells me how much memory is left on the device.

Many of these tools need web access, so that’s an issue, but if you can find a WiFi hotspot this is a very useful app.
(Click on image for screen shots from the app)
*****

Building a home for library news with a blog.

2010-04-21T16:22:00.000+12:00

Building a home for library news with a blog.
"Why should librarians even care about blogs? Blogs are part of a burgeoning suite of personal communication and information management tools. They are already making an impact on the communication and social facets of the Web in general and are becoming part of the online landscape of technologies that, like e-mail, we take for granted. In short, libraries and librarians need to become familiar with blogging as more of their users embrace this technology.

The advantages of blogging cannot be overstated. We can post content 24/7/365 from any location with a Web connection. Our content is archived and searchable. We are tagging our posts with categories to allow browsing. Blogging may already be familiar technology to many of our students and Web-connected clientele, which strengthens our ability to quickly inform and communicate library news to them in a familiar Web space.
As of this writing we have accomplished these goals:
* We've doubled the number of people blogging in our library.
* The blog is driving our main News and Events page.
* The sub-blog for the Science News is up and running.
* We are preparing for a couple of new sub-blogs.

* More of our librarians have expressed interest in learning about our blog and blogging in general."

Well-Chosen Keywords Can Turn Your Resume Into a Powerful Marketing Tool: Recommended Keywords for Your Resume

2010-04-21T15:47:00.000+12:00

Well-Chosen Keywords Can Turn Your Resume Into a Powerful Marketing Tool: Recommended Keywords for Your Resume

Here are a few popular keywords:
Achievement keywords: achieved, completed, increased, improved, accomplished, performed, expanded;
Problem solving keywords: reduced, corrected, evaluated, utilized, simplified, analyzed, investigated;
Leadership keywords: developed, managed, inspired, organized, guided, directed, revitalized;
Initiative keywords: designed, launched, created, established, initiated, started, formulated;
Some popular phrases: oral and written communications, strategic planning, project management, performance and productivity improvement, business development, product positioning, team-building

Everyone's at it

2010-04-20T17:07:00.000+12:00

Emerging technologies vacancy

Emerging technologies librarian job discription

Twitter's Entire Archive Headed to the Library of Congress

2010-04-18T11:20:00.000+12:00

Twitter's Entire Archive Headed to the Library of Congress

Podcasting

2010-03-31T17:26:00.000+13:00

Thanks to Aletta for the demonstration of podcasting held in the training room today. We've been given an intro to what they are and how they can work, but as with everything in life it's what you do with it that counts. I enjoyed the 7 hats concept of discussion, and it was good to hear people's thoughts. I agree that content is king, so we first must have something to say that our patrons want to hear. I really liked the idea of scripting the many regular user education interactions we have with students, like requesting online, searching a database, accessing Noodlebib referencing software and resetting passwords! I think a vodcast, or video podcast, may be useful in showing how to use the catalogue or using the databases, where patrons could follow a visual demonstration of what was being said. I noted Aletta's suggestion of lectures as podcasts, which has already become so prevalent in contact institutions that lecture halls are turning into ghost towns as students are incorporating lectures into their daily lives and multitasking rather then having to go to a lecture hall at a certain time. For regular podcasts to work, they would need to focus on a particular theme that is relevant to our potential audience. Could we add value to students learning or staff teaching using podcasts? Do we want to?

Wifi Librarian Born and Bred.

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Howdy

2010-03-30T16:40:00.000+13:00

Welcome. This blog will be about libraries, librarians, technology and the wide range of library related topics that that may or may not interest you, but do interest me. I hope some of it does spark something and you can comment, share and generally take over this blog as you see fit. This blog is called wifilibrarian because the future is here and it's mobile, wifi and 3G internet access mean we can be online anytime and anywhere and from a librarian who works with distance patrons this is a fasinating subject. I'll talk about portable hardware like iPods, ereaders, mobile devices, and other things which are game changing for both the world and for libraries. Web 2.0 and the world of social media will be explored and I look forward to sharing this journey of discovery with you.

The Man From Wifi Librarian, he says "Yes"