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July 31, 2006

The Vagaries of Spell Check

Aaron Schmidt showed me this site in the Boise airport a few weeks ago and it has intrigued me ever since.

It's a map of all the web instances and spelling variations of Arrrghhh! and the popularity of each.

It's intriguiing to me because it clearly shows the challenges of such features as spellcheck ad "did you mean?" and Boolean truncation, and more. Makes me say hmmmm.

What is the correct spelling of Aarrghhh! anyway.

Stephen

Posted by stephen at 7:54 PM | Comments (2)

Building a Better Repository Search

One interesting Web 2.0 company is Rollyo. It's a site that allows you to roll your own search engine. Rollyo's blurb says you can "Create and share custom search engines using only the sources you trust with Rollyo!"

They've cleverly gotten a few celebrities to create Rollyo searches. We would find the library sector stuff more interesting and there appear to be a few already.

You can see an example of how it works for libraries by trying Les Carr's UK Research search engine that provides results from a hand-selected list of sites. This one searches about two dozen UK scholarly repositories.

There is a whole toolbox to try:

"Add Rollyo to your Firefox Toolbar
The world's greatest browser just got better....
Put a Rollyo Searchbox on your site
Simply cut and paste and have visitors to your site
searching your searchrolls.
Create Searchrolls with your Bookmarks
Upload your bookmarks to automatically create searchrolls
from the sites you already have saved.
Send or Directly Link to a Searchroll
Email a Searchroll to a friend or directly link to
a Searchroll for bookmarking or use on your site or blog.
Search from your desktop with our Rollyo Widget
For OSX or Windows, you can search your rolls from
the comfort of your own desktop"

It's still beta but it's worth a look.

Stephen

Posted by stephen at 7:39 PM | Comments (1)

Library News Podcast

Do you like your news radio style? Looking for a library themed news show?

Try LibVibe - A podcast check of library news headlines.
Listen right online, no iPod needed!

I listened to July 29th's report and the five minute show was a decent listen.

You can subscribe through a whole bucket load of ways: iTunes, MyYahoo, MyAOL, netvibe, RSS, Google and Bloglines. This one site might be a good way to check out which podcast feed you like best.

Worth a quick listen. You don't have to subscribe right away - you can just click once.

Stephen

Posted by stephen at 7:32 PM | Comments (0)

Jeff Jarvis and Google

Well, here's some straight thinking. From Jeff Jarvis' blog, BuzzMachine:

"Specialized search: Like Google, the internet has gotten too big. A one-size-fits-all search is becoming as satisfying as one-size-fits-all media. What the internet needs now is topicality: searches within health, business, sports, my town, video, books, and so on."

Read the full post here.

Sound like an opportunity for libraries?

Stephen

Posted by stephen at 7:53 AM | Comments (1)

Building Your Own Library Toolbar

EffectiveBrand is a free toolbar creator. And they're easy to create!

Check out this library toolbar at Lansing Public Library, Ottawa Public Library or Oakville Public Library. Notice the direct marketing of library services in the features listing at Lansing PL. There are dozens of library toolbars already in the gallery at EffectiveBrand (Try searching 'library' in the gallery link and you'll ind a variety.)I've been interested in the concept of a custom toolbar for libraries ever since I saw the great one a few years ago at the Harris County Public Library. This is a great way to gain 'shelfspace' on yur users' monitors. You'll always be there as a presence and service reminding them about the books, but also your events, databases, virtual reference, story hours and more.

You may ask why any library user would choose to download another toolbar to their desktop? I think there are loads of motivating factors to encourage dowloads, it's all in the marketing. Here are three ideas:

1. Market the toolbar to parents. It's simple really. They pay the taxes and they care that their kids do well in school. Libraries spend tax money effectively on things that ensure kids do their homework well. The Google toolbar likely maintains a presence in a lot of family browsers. The library toolbar needs that 'presence' too, to remind kids to use the cool resources at the library. It's too easy to forget us when the generic web is ominpresent and has such a wide diversity of content - high/low quality, family safe or not, etc. Libraries are better but we need ways keep us in the users' faces.

2. Market it to your clubs and offer to search specialized content. Has your library invested in a lot of content in other languages - Spanish, French, whatever? A specialized toolbar really demonstrates your commitment to serving those communities. Have you got a genealogy club and specialized webspages to support them? Build a toolbar for them or a link on your primary toolbar. Same goes for teens, book clubs, reading circles, and more.

3. Share the toolbar with specific partners and community leaders. Can you build a toolbar to highlight the library's service for small and medium-sized business owners and entrepreneurs? Partner with the Chamber of Commerce on a toolbar. Get them to do the pomotion. How about public library / school library partnerships? Can you build a toolbar together to promote better research skllls?

Your potential is only limited by your imagination and energy!

Got another idea? Leave a comment.

Stephen

Posted by stephen at 12:17 AM | Comments (5)

Featuritus

Kathy Sierra, wonderful library blogger at Creating Passionate Users, posted this great image. There's a huge amount of wisdom here.

Read the original post - Ignore the Competition (focus on the user). The inimitable Darlene Fichter commented on it here too. Better yet, subscribe to Kathy's blog.

Stephen

Posted by stephen at 12:00 AM

July 30, 2006

OCLC opens OpenWorldCat the World

Now that this is public, I can't ignore this major announcement.

Paula Hane at Information Today provides a good overview of OCLC's announcement of the OpenWorldCat.org site.

Watch the Worldcat.org site closely.

Combined with the loading of much of the 70,000,000 WorldCat records into Google, Yahoo!, Ask and Amazon it appears that there will be many opportunities to build mashups with the OCLC data in the future.

And of course, OCLC now owns the RLG RedLightGreen initiative and the 'Get It at your library' feature.

Another initiative in this area, where generic web searches retrieve or point to real local library resources, are Thomson Gale's AccessMyLibrary.com initiative described here.

It's intriguing that Google BookSearch continues to underperform in hte area of library searches preferring more revenue oriented links.

Worth watching...

Stephen

Posted by stephen at 12:48 AM | Comments (1)

New Zealand Public Libraries

I am definitely looking forward to visiting New Zealand in October for the LIANZA conference. It will be a great event.

OCLC's Lorcan Dempsey pointed to a report about Public Libraries of New Zealand: A Strategic Framework 2006 to 2016. I'll be reading that slow soon. It's always great to see big vision, national thinking.

“Public libraries engage, inspire and inform citizens and help build strong communities.”
“Kia a-whina te hunga ora, ki te ha-ngaia o ra - tou ake a-o.”

Stephen

Posted by stephen at 12:11 AM | Comments (1)

July 29, 2006

Getting Ready for MS Vista Media

As we approach a new world that's even more media oriented, the features and functions we will come to expect will get more complex, comlicated and confusing. Aarghhh. Anyway, Gizmodo has a nice bulleted list of 32 new media features in Vista from Microsoft. Here they are or check the link.

Support for 64bit machines
You can upgrade to Windows Vista Media Center from XP
Media Center is included as part of two Windows Vista SKUs
No need to buy a Media Center. You can install yourself.
Domain join
Available worldwide in every locale that we ship Windows to (160 new locales! 15 new languages!)
More content on screen in our photos/music/videos/TV librariesFaster perf for the music library
OCUR/CableCARD support
It was very hard to use a mouse in MCE 2005. We’ve made some big improvements to mouse handling.
Likewise, hard to use with a touch screen before, should be better now
Run on your Tablet PC
New start menu to get you to where you want to be faster
Start photo slideshow from Music Now Playing
Now playing item on the start menu, should be more discoverable
More ways to slice and dice your music collection
New music Now Playing
Way better queue management
View photos and videos by folder or date
Mini TV guide
TV favorites/most viewed
TV categories is now discoverable
TV guide is an overlay
Easy to get to TV categories
Thumbnails in recorded TV library
PAL exhaustive channel scanning
Microsoft DVD codec
Native burning solution
Extender platform. Now any hardware manufacturer can integrate a MCX into their TV, DVD player, etc.
Tighter integration on start menu for third parties. You’re no longer buired in More Programs
Windows Media Center Presentation Layer, now you can build apps that have the same fidelity as Media Center
Windows Presentation Foundation, re-use your Avalon code to build Media Center applications
Hotstart

I don't understand all of them but I expect that I will as I get more addicted to online media.

Stephen

Posted by stephen at 11:48 PM | Comments (0)

Tips for Brainstorming

Library Voice points to this week's BusinessWeek and an innovation column on better brainstorming.

Business Week Online offers Eight Tips For Better Brainstorming:

1. Use brainstorming to combine and extend ideas, not just to harvest ideas.
2. Don’t bother if people live in fear.
3. Do individual brainstorming before and after group sessions.
4. Brainstorming sessions are worthless unless they are woven with other work practices.
5. Brainstorming requires skill and experience both to do and, especially, to facilitate.
6. A good brainstorming session is competitive—in the right way.
7. Use brainstorming sessions for more than just generating good ideas.
8. Follow the rules, or don’t call it a brainstorm.

Effective brainstorming is essential to choosing and exploring new ideas for innovation and change in libraries.

Stephen

Posted by stephen at 11:42 PM | Comments (0)

Library 2.0 Idea Generator

Check it out at Dave Pattern's blog. The Library 2.0 Idea Generator. Some ideas are actually doable, some mind bending and a few hilarious. As of the moment I wrote this post, there are over 150 ideas!

Stephen

Posted by stephen at 11:27 PM | Comments (0)

Library Mockumentary

Another find on YouTube via the Laughing Librarian blog. This is a teen production called: Hidden truths:The Public Library. The investigative reporter is a hoot. He's got deadpan delivery down pat.

Stephen

Posted by stephen at 11:20 PM | Comments (0)

July 28, 2006

The New Google Toolbar

I am not a big fan of toolbars but, as toolbars go, the Google Toolbar that came off beta this week, is pretty good. I have to admit it's installed in my browsers.

Ben Lewis, the toolbar product manager at Google says that his favorite feature is custom buttons. There are over 600 buttons already in the button library and you can roll your own too. You can create special buttons to do custom searches, feeds, bookmarks, blogs and more.

This might be a good productivity tool. At a minimum it would cut keystrokes in half for oft-visitied sites. Works for both MSIE and Firefox. If you're promoting certain features like your library search site, intranet, licnesed resurces, etc. you might want to consider installing your buttons with the enterprise edition.

Stephen

Posted by stephen at 11:31 PM | Comments (1)

July 25, 2006

Choosing Your Blog Software

Are you looking at choosing your blog software or upgrading?

Forrester, the IT research outfit, has released their evaluation of the various blogging. It's a bit pricey ($995) but it might be worth it if it's a key foundation for your strategy. Read more here too.

"EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Length: 15 pages

Forrester evaluated leading blogging platforms across 54 criteria and found that iUpload leads the market with its robust blogging capabilities and its strong strategic vision of a blog as a lightweight content management system (CMS), a collaboration and knowledge management tool, and even as a foundation to form communities of customers. When choosing between a full-featured suite like iUpload's Customer Conversation System or strong blogging-focused solutions like Movable Type and WordPress, companies should have a well-developed vision of how blogging will be used within the enterprise and then select a vendor that shares that vision."

Stephen

Posted by stephen at 10:20 AM | Comments (0)

Check out the Google Car

Check out this satirical video about the Google car:

You can find it at the Business Innovation Insider here or here.

Same metaphor for libraries????

Stephen

Posted by stephen at 10:15 AM | Comments (0)

How many search terms?

How many search terms do users use and what's the average? Is it changing over time? Folks sure have a lot of opinions about this and what it means.

Via the blogosphere (OnStat through SearchEngineWatch via Library Stuff) we learn this stuff below. I like the international differences as a point of interest.

Less people use 1 word phrase in search engines according to OneStat.com

Amsterdam - July 24 2006 - OneStat.com ( www.onestat.com ), the number one provider of real-time intelligence web analytics, today reported that most people use 2 word phrases in search engines. Of all the search phrases world wide, 28.91 percent of the people use 2 word phrases, 27.85 percent use 3 word phrases and 17.11 percent use 4 word phrases. Less and less people use now 1 keyword since the last measurement in July 2005.

"Search engines like Google, MSN and Yahoo can drive a lot of traffic to a web site. It is important that a webmaster or SEO expert knows what kind of search phrases they have to use to drive more traffic to a site. Our software is the ultimate solution to measure search phrases and search phrases by search engine. Each webmaster or SEO expert can analyse what kind of search engines the visitors use to find a web site," said Niels Brinkman, co-founder of OneStat.com.

The 7 most used word phrases in search engines on the web are:

July 2006 July 2005

1. 2 word phrases 28.91% 1. 2 word phrases 29.60%
2. 3 word phrase 27.85% 2. 3 word phrase 27.55%
3. 4 word phrases 17.11% 3. 4 word phrases 16.21%
4. 1 word phrases 11.43% 4. 1 word phrases 13.42%
5. 5 word phrases 8.25% 5. 5 word phrases 7.58%
6. 6 word phrases 3.68% 6. 6 word phrases 3.21%
7. 7 word phrases 1.59% 7. 7 word phrases 1.34%

USA

1. 3 word phrases 28.83%
2. 4 word phrase 22.28%
3. 2 word phrases 20.43%
4. 5 word phrases 11.97%
5. 1 word phrases 6.19%
6. 6 word phrases 5.76%
7. 7 word phrases 2.59%

Canada

1. 4 word phrases 24.02%
2. 3 word phrase 23.85%
3. 5 word phrases 16.77%
4. 2 word phrases 15.40%
5. 6 word phrases 8.88%
6. 1 word phrases 5.36%
7. 7 word phrases 3.64%

UK

1. 3 word phrases 29.38%
2. 2 word phrase 24.89%
3. 4 word phrases 18.36%
4. 5 word phrases 10.82%
5. 1 word phrases 8.91%
6. 6 word phrases 4.08%
7. 7 word phrases 1.91%

Australia

1. 3 word phrases 28.74%
2. 2 word phrase 23.21%
3. 4 word phrases 21.52%
4. 5 word phrases 11.90%
5. 1 word phrases 7.71%
6. 6 word phrases 4.64%
7. 7 word phrases 1.58%

Germany

1. 2 word phrases 40.05%
2. 1 word phrase 28.89%
3. 3 word phrases 20.94%
4. 4 word phrases 7.14%
5. 5 word phrases 2.12%
6. 6 word phrases 0.58%
7. 7 word phrases 0.15%

France

1. 2 word phrases 34.74%
2. 3 word phrase 26.84%
3. 4 word phrases 14.11%
4. 1 word phrases 10.44%
5. 5 word phrases 6.65%
6. 6 word phrases 3.63%
7. 7 word phrases 1.80%

Italy

1. 2 word phrases 33.64%
2. 3 word phrase 26.55%
3. 4 word phrases 17.41%
4. 1 word phrases 12.32%
5. 5 word phrases 6.05%
6. 6 word phrases 2.17%
7. 7 word phrases 1.09%

Belgium

1. 2 word phrases 34.74%
2. 3 word phrase 26.84%
3. 4 word phrases 14.11%
4. 1 word phrases 10.44%
5. 5 word phrases 6.55%
6. 6 word phrases 3.63%
7. 7 word phrases 1.80%

the Netherlands

1. 2 word phrases 35.35%
2. 3 word phrase 27.35%
3. 1 word phrases 16.11%
4. 4 word phrases 13.04%
5. 5 word phrases 5.07%
6. 6 word phrases 1.87%
7. 7 word phrases 0.72%

The OneStat.com solutions provide executives, marketers and webmasters with answers to critical e-business questions such as:

· Who is visiting my website?

· How many pageviews, visits (sessions) and visitors are coming on a daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly or yearly basis?

· What content, products, and services do my visitors prefer?

· How many visitors return to the website and how often?

· What kind of search engine do they use?

· What kind of technology do your visitors use to view the website?

· How much time do they spent on the website?

OneStat.com is one of the largest providers of real-time intelligence web analytics with 50.000 subscribers in more than 100 countries.

Methodology: A global usage share of xx percent for search phrase Y means that xx percent of the visitors of Internet users arrived at sites that are using one of OneStat.com's services by using the particular number of search phrases Y. All numbers mentioned in the research are averages and all measurements are normalised to the GMT timezone. Research is based on a sample of 2 million visitors divided into 20,000 visitors of 100 countries each day.

Note for editors: for more information, please contact OneStat.com, Keizershof 31, 2402 DA Alphen aan den Rijn, the Netherlands. Phone: +31 (0)172 244 043 E-mail: press@onestat.com Website : www.onestat.com

Stephen

Posted by stephen at 9:57 AM | Comments (0)

Collaborative Reference Work

A nice ittle PDF preprint on the topic of collaborative reference work using blogs. It's a quick read and there's a bibliography.

Pomerantz, J., & Stutzman, F. (2006). Collaborative Reference Work in the Blogosphere. Reference Services Review, 34(2), 200-212.

Collaborative Reference Work in the Blogosphere
by
Jeffrey Pomerantz
School of Information and Library Science
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
100 Manning Hall, CB #3360
Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3360
919-962-8064
pomerantz@unc.edu

and

Frederic Stutzman
ibiblio.org
School of Information and Library Science
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
213 Manning Hall, CB #3456
Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3456
919-962-5646
fred@metalab.unc.edu

Stephen

Posted by stephen at 9:51 AM | Comments (1)

EIU Global Trend Forecast

The esteemed Economist Intelligence Unit has a new global report, Foresight 2020: Economic, industry and corporate trends that attempts to answer a part of this question. You can download it for free at their site here.

15 years out. That's not so far. Think back 15 years to 1991. Hmmm. Hardly any internet. No web. No MP3's or DVD's. E-mail was internal and rarely global, print still ruled, ...

What a change the next 15 years will bring.

Anyway, a free EIU report is nothing to sneeze at. Read it as an update and complement to the OCLC Environmetal scan.

Stephen

Posted by stephen at 9:44 AM | Comments (0)

July 23, 2006

How much time is wasted in searching?

Some good quotes of a Peter Moreville (author of Ambient Findability) interview courtesy of SmartMobs. Find the original Washington Post transcript here.

"Are there any realistic numbers for how much time companies waste on searching for stuff they can't find (but is there... somewhere) and is then re-created for the Nth time?

Peter Morville: Here are a few statistics:

Employees spend 35% of productive time searching for information online.

- Working Council for Chief Information Officers, Basic Principles of Information Architecture

Managers spend 17% of their time (6 weeks a year) searching for information.

- Information Ecology, Thomas Davenport and Lawrence Prusak

The Fortune 1000 stands to waste at least $2.5 billion per year due to an inability to locate and retrieve information

- The High Cost of Not Finding Information, IDC White Paper

The average mid-sized company could gain $5 million per year in employee productivity by improving its intranet design to the top quartile level of a cross-company intranet usability study.

- Intranet Usability: The Trillion-Dollar Question, Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox

Of course, you need to take these with a grain of salt. For instance, the process of searching is very much a process of learning. In fact, I'd argue searching is one of the most important ways that knowledge workers learn. So, we don't necessarily want to reduce (valuable) time spent searching...we just want to avoid the waste and frustration that comes with a badly designed system."

Stephen

Posted by stephen at 11:21 PM | Comments (1)

Search 2.0

Interested in playing with some candidates for search 2.0 tools?

Check out this post.

As I've noted before, I think ROLLYO shows some potential for private search.

Then again, these might just meet the needs of search geeks and librarians. Are they useful enough for the general end-user? Can they be made easier to use? Simpler? Easier to laarn?

Stephen

Posted by stephen at 11:12 PM | Comments (0)

Jeopardy and Libraries

I've seen a few librarians do quite well on Jeopardy. One friend even went the full five yards (when you used to be limited to five).

Anyway, I was reminded about this by Rochelle's post at LIS News. She pointed to the complete 22 season questions set here and at the Jeopardy question archive.

Seems to me this might be a helpful tool for library games, treasure hunts, rainy day activities. Use your imagination.

Anyway, I just wanted to post it because I am a Jeopardy addict!

Stephen

Posted by stephen at 11:05 PM | Comments (0)

Dance Dance Librarian

A new song discovered through Laughing Librarian.

Dance Dance Librarian

Gotta love the chorus:

"The movement of the mouses
The pecking at the OPACs
The beeping on the barcodes makes you dance."

Link to the MP3 here.

Stephen

Posted by stephen at 11:02 PM | Comments (0)

July 21, 2006

Generation Gap

A friend sent this story which her father forwarded to her. There's a lesson here:

A very self-important young man recently took it upon himself to
explain to a senior citizen sitting next to him why it was impossible
for the older generation to understand his generation.

"You grew up in a different world, in many ways a primitive one," he
said, loud enough for many of those nearby to hear. "We young people of today
grew up with television, jet planes, space travel, and man
walking on the moon. We have nuclear energy, electric and hydrogen
cars, computers with light-speed processing ....and," he paused
momentarily ....

The old man took advantage of the break in the youngster's litany and
said, "You're so right, son. We didn't have those things when we were
young...... so we invented them. Now, what are you doing for the next
generation?"

A story that makes you go hmmmm.

Stephen

Posted by stephen at 10:50 PM | Comments (4)

July 19, 2006

Seniors

Someone told me that I don't talk about seniors enough. Fair comment.

They often like libraries. We don't have a terrible positioning with them (and sometimes us). We mght forget some of their issues if we don't make it an explicit discussion.

They have changed though! Seniors are, in some aspects, one of the fastest growing segments of the web population. In general, this new seniors demographic is largely better off, healthier, and have been online an using PC's for many years. They likely want more than mouse training!

Want to research more? I won't reproduce all the links here but head to the Pew site and search "seniors" and you'll find a whole wheelbarrow (306 as of today) full of useful reports on the new senior.

Here's some other interesting stuff:

Making Your Web Site Senior Friendly

e - Health and the Elderly: How Seniors Use the Internet for Health Information

What do Seniors want?

Serving Seniors: A How-To-Do-It Manual for Librarians (and bibliography)
by RoseMary Honnold and Saralyn A. Mesaros

Hopefully this will help me look a little less millennial-centric. Just remember which population is larger, growing, and will be around longer... and keep a foot in all camps.

Stephen

Posted by stephen at 4:04 PM | Comments (1)

New Pew Report on Blogging

I recommend the new (today!) report on blogging. There's a lot to understand here in our own efforts at blogging and relating to everyone in our communities. This study of the broader market is educational.

Stephen

Blogging is bringing new voices to the online world

Most bloggers focus on personal experiences, not politics

July 19, 2006

Washington, DC – The ease and appeal of blogging is inspiring a new group of writers and creators to share their voices with the world.

A new, national phone survey of bloggers finds that most are focused on describing their personal experiences to a relatively small audience of readers and that only a small proportion focus their coverage on politics, media, government, or technology.

Related surveys by the Pew Internet & American Life Project found that the blog population has grown to about 12 million American adults, or about 8% of adult internet users and that the number of blog readers has jumped to 57 million American adults, or 39% of the online population.

These are some of the key findings in a new report issued by the Pew Internet Project titled "Bloggers":

- 54% of bloggers say that they have never published their writing or media creations anywhere else; 44% say they have published elsewhere.
- 54% of bloggers are under the age of 30.
- Women and men have statistical parity in the blogosphere, with women representing 46% of bloggers and men 54%.
- 76% of bloggers say a reason they blog is to document their personal experiences and share them with others.
- 64% of bloggers say a reason they blog is to share practical knowledge or skills with others.
- When asked to choose one main subject, 37% of bloggers say that the primary topic of their blog is "my life and experiences."
- Other topics ran distantly behind: 11% of bloggers focus on politics and government; 7% focus on entertainment; 6% focus on sports; 5% focus on general news and current events; 5% focus on business; 4% on technology; 2% on religion, spirituality or faith; and additional smaller groups who focus on a specific hobby, a health problem or illness, or other topics.

The report, written by Senior Research Specialist Amanda Lenhart and Associate Director Susannah Fox, says that bloggers are avid consumers and creators of online content. They are also heavy users of the internet in general. 44% of bloggers have taken material they find online – like songs, text, or images – and remixed it into their own artistic creation. By comparison, just 18% of all internet users have done this. A whopping 77% of bloggers have shared something online that they created themselves, like their own artwork, photos, stories, or videos. By comparison, 26% of internet users have done this.

"Blogs are as individual as the people who keep them, but this survey shows that most bloggers are primarily interested in creative, personal expression," said Lenhart. "Blogs make it easy to document individual experiences, share practical knowledge, or just keep in touch with friends and family."

The Pew Internet & American Life Project deployed two strategies to interview bloggers. First, bloggers were identified in random-digit dial surveys about internet use. These respondents were called back for an in-depth survey between July 2005 and February 2006, for a final yield of 233 bloggers. Second, additional random-digit surveys were fielded between November 2005 and April 2006 to capture an up-to-date estimate of the percentage of internet users who are currently blogging. These large-scale telephone surveys yielded a sample of 7,012 adults, which included 4,753 internet users, 8% of whom are bloggers.

"Much of the public and press attention to bloggers has focused on the small number of high-traffic, A-list bloggers," said Fox. "By asking a wide range of bloggers what they do and why they do it, we have found a different kind of story about the power of the internet to encourage creativity and community among all kinds of internet users."

Some additional data points from the Bloggers report:

- 87% of bloggers allow comments on their blog
- 72% of bloggers post photos to their blog
- 55% of bloggers blog under a pseudonym
- 41% of bloggers say they have a blogroll or friends list on their blog
- 8% of bloggers earn money on their blog

The Pew Internet & American Life Project has created an online version of the Blogger Callback telephone survey and invites participation from the general public. The resulting answers will not be a representative sample, but the online survey will give observers a chance to see the questions in context and to comment on some specific aspects of blogging. The survey is online at the following address: http://www.psra.com/PewBloggerSurvey.html

About the Pew Internet & American Life Project: The Pew Internet Project produces reports that explore the social impact of the internet. Support for the non-profit Pew Internet Project is provided by The Pew Charitable Trusts. The Project is an initiative of the Pew Research Center. The Project's Web site: http://www.pewinternet.org

Posted by stephen at 3:46 PM | Comments (0)

July 18, 2006

Screencasts and Vlogs

OK - here's a cool thing that I can actually use!

I have a Treo phone and this Vlog (Video Blog - a step up from a photoblog), One In The Hand, shows me screencasts that actually show me what to do to get the features on my Treo working. I must be a visual learner because this works better for me than line drawings in the manual which is ironically bigger than the phone). It's even organized around micro lessons that match my attention span (Oh look, a bird). Cool.

Now I can see loads of library applications for this too. Every OPAC, database, web site, sign-up procedure, etc. could be vlogged and pointed to from web pages and blogs for easy help. And it would look just like your stuff, logo and all. Gotta love it.

The SirsiDynix Institute will be doing a session in screencasting on Nov. 8.

Stephen

Posted by stephen at 5:04 PM | Comments (0)

Eye Tracking and Thermals

I have been mentioning some of the SirsiDynix eye tracking research that we've done in collaboration with Kent State University in Ohio.

Quite a few people are asking to read more about this exciting technology. I decided it's easier to blog the links so here's an example and you'll find more in the links below.

Here's a SirsiDynix OneSource overview article we commissioned from our partners at Kent State U:

Also, play this short video, from Seth Godin. it shows some of the tools in action.

Here's the Wikipedia entry on Eye Tracking.

These articles , article 2, from Poynter (the newspaper gurus) are good too:

Here's Jakob Nielsen's take on it. Read one and then another about the "F" pattern research.

Here's some of the commercial products:

Eye Tools
Tobii
Seeing Machines
EyeLink

Here's an eye tracking conference!

And if you're feeling academic:

http://www-psych.stanford.edu/~richardson/docs/EyeTrackingEBBE.pdf

Have fun surfing.

Stephen

Posted by stephen at 4:46 PM | Comments (1)

YouTube Rules;What can libraries learn?

Reuters is reporting (Sunday July 16) these 10 facts about YouTube:

1. YouTube, the leader in Internet video search, viewers are now watching more than 100 million videos per day on its site.
2. YouTube holds the leading position in online video with 29 percent of the U.S. multimedia entertainment market (according to Hitwise).
3. "YouTube videos account for 60 percent of all videos watched online"
4. Just like public libraries YouTube videos are delivered free. Mot YouTube videos are short (minutes really) and usually homemade although some professional viral videos have entered the fray of late.
5. MySpace has about a 19 percent share while Yahoo, MSN, Google and AOL have about 3 percent each by Hitwise's reckoning.
6. In June 2006, 2.5 billion videos were watched on YouTube.
7. YouTube does ths with just over 30 employees.
8. Over 65,000 videos are now uploaded daily to YouTube, up from around 50,000 in May.
9. YouTube boasts nearly 20 million unique users per month, according to Nielsen//NetRatings.
10. In less than a year YouTube has grown from 58,000 visitors in August, 2005 to 20 million unique visitors in June 2006.

Growth is still up in the air. It is reported that it costs $1,000,000/month in server costs for YouTube. They've just started adding ads in partnership with NBC. They have $11.5 million in VC funding.

Are we ready for small and long videos served up from web services through our sites and discovery tools?

Other players in this crowded space include Veoh, Vimeo, Grouper, Mojoflix, eefoof and Lulu TV.

What are the secrets of this early success that libraries might learn from:

a. YouTube was an early player in MySpace and captured the huge Millennial market's imaginaton and talents. Some libraries are here and testing the waters.
b. YouTube paid attention to social networking as a trend and added those features to its site. Are we ready for this? OCLC is talking about social networks being a major focus of their next research project.
c. YouTube keeps the whole lot of creative videos - good and awful -and can search and serve up the long tail. We've got the long tail of collections...
d. Despite not being publicly for for-profit activities such as viral advertising, YouTube has tolerated some of it. Are we ready for some new funding models yet?
e. YouTube has been consistent in its branding while having a little fun with it too. Are we humourless or fun? Can we point to consistent visual branding on our bricks and clicks?
e. And as TechCrunch put it so succinctly: "YouTube is simple, easy, works well enough and people like it - there may be no more mystery than that."

I've noted before that there are a few videos on YouTube about libraries. Maybe its viral enough for us too.

Either way, we're seeing a hint of the video future here. Worth paying attention to.

Stephen

Posted by stephen at 3:55 PM | Comments (1)

July 16, 2006

Recruiting the Next Gen of Library Workers

Info-Nation is launched. When you talk to folks about a career in libraries, you can point people to this site.

It's a career site with a difference - real library workers stories.

A couple of quotes:

"I first became interested in librarianship due to my desire for world domination."

"I guess I just got sucked in by the glamour."

Cool.

Stephen

Posted by stephen at 8:40 AM | Comments (0)

July 15, 2006

A few laughs - weekend fun

These videos from the Laughing Librarian will either make you laugh or cry.

Teens will be teens
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M39b0tS0jQg

There was a three book borrower limit?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5Uq2j8111I

Library Dominoes (yeah it's a repeat but I love it.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwihz7iZlx0&search=library%20dominoes

And a (satirical) commentary on cellphone use in the library
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LsXyumVoAS0&search=library%20

Stephen

Posted by stephen at 11:22 PM | Comments (0)

Rock & Roll Library Tours

Watch the video and see the coolness. This is on the Current TV website which is reporting on a rock band "High Strung" that did a 50-library tour designed to get teens to read in Michigan.

You can also see Harry and the Potters playing on the front lawn of the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh on July 7th, 2006. Check them out here.

Search "Rock the Shelves" or the tag "rocktheshelves" on Flickr too.

You gotta admire the creativity here and the crowds are obvious. Innovative strategies for reconnecting with teens through events, MySpace events/calendars and library blogs and websites needs to shared more widely.

Hence this post. The strategies are about more than just gaming and DDR - and those are cool too.

Stephen

Posted by stephen at 11:06 PM | Comments (1)

e-Neighbors and Community Development

Keep your eyes open for this study's release:

Title: e-Neighbors: Neighborhoods in the Network Society

Abstract:
"This study examines in detail the specific contexts where Internet use affords local interactions and facilitates community involvement at the neighborhood level. Studies of Internet and community have found that information and communication technologies provide new opportunities for social interaction, but that it may also increase privatism by isolating people in their homes. This paper argues that while the Internet may encourage both home-centeredness and communication across great distances, it may also facilitate interactions centered near the home. Unlike traditional community networking studies, which focus on bridging the digital divide, this study focuses on bridging the divide between the electronic and parochial realms. Detailed, longitudinal social network surveys were completed with the residents of four contrasting neighborhoods over a period of three years (suburb, apartment building, gated community). Three of the four neighborhoods were provided with a neighborhood email discussion list and a neighborhood website. Hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) was used to model over time the number of neighbors recognized, emailed, met in-person, and talked to on the telephone. The neighborhood email lists were also analyzed for content. The results suggest that the Internet use has already been adopted into the maintenance of neighborhood social networks. However, neighborhood effects reduce the influence of everyday Internet use, as well as the experimental intervention, in communities that lack the context to support local tie formation. Early adopters of the Internet and active users of the neighborhood email list built larger weak tie networks over time."

As we in Libraryland develop more communities of practice, web-based social networks, comunity strategies for public libraries, research collaboratories, etc. we need to pay attention to the research and carefully watch how these initiatives evolve. This study looks to be an important contribution.

Stephen

Posted by stephen at 11:01 PM | Comments (0)

What Kind of Genius are You?

There's a nice article in this month's Wired by Daniel Pink. It's called "What Kind of Genius are You?".

It covers the nature of change and the basic ambiguity we must address due to the contradictory nature of change. Dan explores a new theory that suggests that creativity comes in two distinct types; quick and dramatic, or careful and quiet.

I've always thought that change has a similar two-type arc - change is either evolutionary or revolutionary. It can feel natural and happen almost unnoticed or it can just slap you in the face. And both types can happen simultaneously.

Anyway, we seem to attract both types of change and creativity in libraryland. I think it helps to recognize this when we're planning for change. The evolutionary type and the careful and quiet creativity can be more easily planned for than the revolutionary, dramatic changes. Both happen. Some aren't exactly good and some are highly desirable. Think of the difference between changes engendered by budget cuts and those from new money from special grants.

Stephen

Posted by stephen at 10:50 PM | Comments (0)

Flow Charts

Are you a flow chart afficionado? Always trying to show how the program makes sense? Charting workflows and looking for improvements?

If so, you might find this simple, free tool useful. It's called Gliffy. Unlike other PC-based charters, with this web-based one you can collaborate with our work teams to improve the flowchart, and link it to your blog, website or wiki. Cool.

Stephen

Posted by stephen at 10:45 PM | Comments (2)

Gaming and Education

A few folks have asked me recently for examples of computer games that are educational. I asked Aaron Schmidt of walking paper if there were some good ones and he suggested these as a small sample:

Dimenxian - Learn Math or Die Trying. Homework just got Hard

PeaceMaker - Be the Prime Minister of Israel or Palestinian leader

Disaffected - Be a Kinko’s employee

Darfur is Dying - Prevent genocide

Food Force - Prevent hunger

Peter the Packet - Play the role of a packet of data on the web.

See Aaron's full post here. These might be useful examples to counteract the prevalent opinion among some sectors about the role of gaming. Nothing like an informed opinion!

BTW, at ALA a few young adult librarians told me that violent, first person shooter type games were only about 10% of games and 15-20% of revenue/profit. More gaming is of the healthy variety than the media attention would suggest. Also, the average gamer is 30 years old according to Chris Anderson of Long Tail fame.

Stephen

Posted by stephen at 10:07 PM | Comments (2)

What Teens Want

I spent the week in Idaho at their Digital Natives conference which epxlored how to libraries can revitalize their connection with the next generation. Amazingly, I got this blog entry on just ths topic. I am posting here with a shout out to Idaho.

The Ten Biggest Themes of "What Teens Want"
on the Ypulse blog. This post is a great one and not to be missed. It underlines some of the themes we explored with our live focus group last week. (And expands on some of my comments to YALSA at ALA.)

Ypulse is a blog with "daily news and commentary about Generation Y for media and marketing professionals."

Check out the segmented blogroll links too for links to other sites for researching this topic. Young Adult librarians would be well advised to expand or complement their reading beyond library sites and blogs and into some of these.

Stephen

Posted by stephen at 11:15 AM | Comments (0)

del.icio.us and libraries

I've mentioned a few times lately that there are lots of internal uses for del.icio.us and social tagging for library work. You already know that del.icio.us is a social tagging service that lets you share, collaborate and discover great bookmarks.

You can read Amanda Etches-Johnson's blogwithoutalibrary posting on this here. She has collected a few library examples.

Here's a few ideas to get you started:

1. Start a del.icio.us tag group for your best local history bookmarks for all reference librarians and the commnunity to share.
2. Are you still trying to keep bookmarks up-to-date browser by browser? Are you maintaining a webpage of best links? You might want to shift or incorporate del.icio.us. I even saw a paper Rolodex at one library recently! What a blast from the past!!
3. Think of the tags you might use for book clubs, book recommendations, local authors' web sites & Amazon links, local tourism links to tie to the tourism website, local genealogy sites, and more.
4. Build a collaborative linking and tagging framework for all reference librarians in all branches. Share the knowledge.
5. Build support tagging for research groups, courses, professors, competitive intelligence, and more.

All it really takes is a simple agreement to use a simple unique tag. I've seen it work very well at conferences for years when everyone uses the same tag for the conference in Flickr, del.icio.us and blogs. Even among as diverse a group of people as conference delegates, who mostly don't know eachother, word of mouth/blog/e-mail/IM etc. seems to get the tag known. It should be real easy internally with folks we know!

Got an idea. Leave a comment.

Stephen

Posted by stephen at 10:56 AM | Comments (2)

Stephen as a South Park Character - Library Marketing Ideas

OK- I really love these things. Here's a picture you can make at the South Park Studio site. You can customize it to look like you!

You can make your own here.

You may remember me as a Simpson character too.

You can make one of these here at Devil Ducky's Simpson Maker.

Here's a few ideas on how libraries might use these tools.

1. Don't stop at you! Make characters for your colleagues, your teen club or any avatar you want to make.
2. Use your picture on one of your librarian trading cards. (Don't know about this meme? Check it out on Flickr. You can make your own here.)
3. Have a fun week on your library website and have all the staff pages use avatars.
4. Use these for Halloween on your website portal! Dressing up isn't just for real anymore.
5. Gift your trustees with a caricature on gaming night.
6. Make a cool business card or book mark.
7. Make a name tag or desk sign with your character.
8. Tie this to a graphic novels promotion (there are sites to make anime or habbo characters etc.)
9. If you're planning an outdoor book sale, hold it in the south end of the park and use this theme.
10. There are plenty of avatar and character creation sites, so if the Simspons or South park don't grab you or yor community, find another set who do.

Got more ideas? Done something like this? Leave a comment.

For this and more mashups. Check out or subscribe to the Generator Blog. Loads of ideas here to keep stuff lively for webites, PPT presentations, posters, bookmarks and signs. Some aren't exactly appropriate for some comunities or work, but some are just a hoot and entirely engaging.

Stephen

Posted by stephen at 10:24 AM | Comments (1)

July 12, 2006

A Few Fun Things to Play With

Here's a recent Information Outlook column I wrote about a few fun things to play with. Just a few websites and stuff to keep your sandbox interesting.

Stephen

Posted by stephen at 11:49 PM | Comments (0)

What can MySpace Teach School Librarians

Here's a link to my Multimedia and Internet@Schools column. It's called "What can MySpace Teach Us in School Libraries?" It's part of a series.

Stephen

Posted by stephen at 11:47 PM | Comments (0)

YALS Interview

In preparation for my talk to YALSA at ALA, the editors of YALS interviewed me. It was fun and here's a link to the transcript. It's short but summarizes some ideas I've found for programs and strategies for young adults.

Stephen

Posted by stephen at 11:39 PM | Comments (0)

U of Toronto Staff Day

I spent my birthday (and it was fun) speaking the second annual U of T (my alma mater) staff conference. My topic was "Technology: The Coming Hyper-Collaboration Environment."

Here's a link to the PPT.

Other sessions at this conference highlighted some pretty amazing and innovative initiatives being undertaken by these librarians and information pros.

Stephen

Posted by stephen at 11:35 PM | Comments (0)

New Hampshire Visit

Michael York, state librarian of New Hampshire, graciously invited me to Hartford to speak to the NHAIS group about trends in libraries and what some of the drivers of the future will be. Here's a link to the PPT.

Stephen

Posted by stephen at 11:33 PM | Comments (0)

SLA and Personas

Here's a link to the session I did in Baltimore for SLA about the SirsiDynix Personas research.

Stephen

Posted by stephen at 11:30 PM | Comments (0)

Minnesota Reference Conference

First, here's the link to the PPT for the keynote I did for Minnesota about Reference 2010. This is just the PPT. Scarily, for me, they also videotaped the session and posted the video and slides in a very neat way. So, here's a place below where you can view it (and know that I hate to watch myself so haven't viewed the whole thing.)

"The MINITEX website now provides a link to the video of Stephen Abram’s informative, lively presentation, "Reference 2010: the Librarian 2.0 in Your Future". More than 230 staff members from MINITEX libraries, including the University of Minnesota Libraries, and others attended the 2006 Reference Symposium on May 15, which included Abram's keynote address. Abram was introduced by Wendy Pradt Lougee, University Librarian, University of Minnesota Libraries – Twin Cities. The biannual Reference Symposium is co-sponsored by the University Libraries and MINITEX.

The video is available at: http://www.minitex.umn.edu/train-conf/highlights/2006-05-15/. The high resolution for broadband connection version includes the video of the speakers, the audio, and the PowerPoint images that made up the presentation. The low resolution for dial-up connection version includes the audio and the PowerPoint images."

Anyway, this is a trend since I was videotaped for three sessions yesterday and today. Maybe I'll just go virtual!

Stephen

Posted by stephen at 11:23 PM | Comments (0)

OLS North Conference

Here's a link to the session on New and Emerging Technologies PPT I did for the Ontario Library Services North annual conference in Thunder Bay.

Stephen

Posted by stephen at 11:21 PM | Comments (0)

IFLA News Section

I visited Salt Lake City for the first time and spoke to the IFLA News Section about "Thinking Ahead: News 2.0". Here's a link to the PPT. The University of Utah had great facilities and the challenges facing 'news' and archiving and repositories are great fodder for great minds.

Stephen

Posted by stephen at 11:17 PM | Comments (0)

Thunder Bay

While I was visiting Thunder Bay for the OLS-North Conference, I was invited to breakfast (great famous pancakes) and to speak to the Thunder Bay Public Library Staff about the Librarian 2.0 in your future. Here's a link to the PPT.

Great fun,

Stephen

Posted by stephen at 11:15 PM | Comments (0)

LISA V Conference

I had a short trip to Harvard U in Cambridge to speak to the LISA V (Library and Information Services in Astronomy) Conference. Here's the link to the PPT. It's a web 2.0 overview for an international audience.

Stephen

Posted by stephen at 11:09 PM | Comments (0)

CASLIS/GELA Edmonton Presentation

I had a nice trip to Edmonton in early June speak to the joint annual meeting of CASLIS/GELA at the University of Alberta Faculy Club. It was great to see so many old friends. The topic was one of my favourites - Web 2.0 and Library 2.0. I never tire of this opportunity to use technology to reconnect with users in new and improved ways. Here's the link.

Stephen

Posted by stephen at 11:04 PM | Comments (0)

Preparing for the Future of Ontario Township Libraries

I spent a wonderful Saturday in early June with the library board trustees for the Ontario townships of Caledon and King Libraries. Here's a link to the challenges we discussed as we prepare strategic plans for addressing the future we will encounter. It was a lovely, thoughtful meeting (and a great lunch too!).

Stephen

Posted by stephen at 10:59 PM | Comments (0)

Delaware Libraries

Annie Norman, state librarian of Delaware, invited me to one of Delaware's semi-annual Library Town Meetings. Here's a link to the PPT for my talk. Again, the challenge was to stretch the innovation envelope for libraries in a state that does that well already.

Stephen

Posted by stephen at 10:54 PM | Comments (0)

SLA Leadership and Management Division

It was the SLA LMD Division's 30th anniversary this conference in Baltimore. I am a past chair of the division and I was really honoured to be asked to present the luncheon keynote to help celebrate this milestone. Here's a link to the PPT. I tried to address the question "Are Libraries Innovative Enough?" The answer is probably no surprise.

Stephen

Posted by stephen at 10:51 PM | Comments (0)

SLA and 8R's

A session at SLA was devoted to major initiatives in recruiting and retaining library pros. I covered the 8R's work with this PPT and the other half of the session covered the IMLS study progress.

This is a serious issue and it's great to see effort being sustained to study it and actually undertake action to address the issue.

Stephen

Posted by stephen at 10:48 PM | Comments (1)

CLA and the 8R's

We had a great panel updating the CLA conference attendees on the progress of the CLA President's Task Force on the 8R's.

Here's a link to our presentation.

Here's a link to more information on the 8R's.

Here's a link to the Info-Nation website which is launching very soon. Essentially, Info*Nation is CLA's attempt to recruit some new blood to the information professions. (By "professions," we are talking broadly about all people whose "profession" – vocation, calling, employment – is working in libraries; not just librarians with too many degrees.) We want to emphasize the diverse elements of library work and break down some of the stereotypes associated with libraries. At the same time we want to recruit personnel that continue to be committed to the core values of libraries (public service, learning, literacy, access to information, regular coffee breaks, etc.). Besides, at some point a whole bunch of senior librarians and library technicians are going to retire and it would be nice to have one or two competent individuals to fill the void. It's edgy and done a little diferently than the traditional library careers pages. Keep your eyes pealed.

Stephen

Posted by stephen at 10:39 PM | Comments (0)

CLA Web 2.0 Session

I had a great time in Ottawa at the Canadian Library Association Conference. This posting links to my presentation about Web 2.0, Library 2.0 and Librarian 2.0.

The second annual technology track at CLA seemed to be a great success. Despite having to move the whole conference due to a potential strike situation everything ran pretty smoothly. Of course I don't envy the CLA staff and conference team who essentially had to plan all of the conference logistics twice!

Stephen

Posted by stephen at 10:35 PM | Comments (0)

ALA Consortia Trends

I did a private workshop facilitation for consortia and association leaders at ALA. This posting links to the PPT that contains a series of provocations that supported a great conversation. It doesn't really give a sense of the great questions and comments that occurred but that's the nature of 'being there'.

Stephen

Posted by stephen at 10:32 PM | Comments (0)

A very busy June

It was a very busy 2 months for me in May and June. You'll see a large series of postings of the PPT's for presentations I did for this period. I've also tried to crudely categorize them on the sidebar of the blog. I am not an excellent cataloguer so it's not as great an access point as it could be done by a real expert.

Stephen

Posted by stephen at 10:29 PM | Comments (0)

ALA YALSA Presentation

Here's a link to the YALSA Powerpoint from New Orleans at ALA. This one is the early morning Sunday session on Millennials and their role for public and school libaries - all those library staff specializing in young adult services.

Stephen

Posted by stephen at 10:20 PM | Comments (1)

Digital Natives

Helllooooo Idaho!

Posted by stephen at 4:37 PM | Comments (1)

Library Rules

I love this posting. Responding to a principle stated thusly "Don't hide behind policies and procedures. Empower staff to make exceptions" this blogger notes that customer service leader Nordstrom's Employee Handbook says, simply:

"Welcome to Nordstrom. We are glad you are with our company. Our number one goal is to provide outstanding customer service. Set both your personal and professional goals high. We have great confidence in your ability to achieve them. So, our employee handbook is very simple...Our Only Rule: Use good judgement in all situations."

Would that we could be so simple! Read the whole post and the original list.

And lastly, my own question, are our virtual interactions governed and really delivered in the same - excellent - way as our interpersonal ones?

Stephen

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Posted by stephen at 9:03 AM

Sign of the Times

From the Long Tail blog, July 3-9 was the lowest recorded mainstream TV viewership ever.

Sure hope they're reading.

Hmmmm

Stephen

Posted by stephen at 8:54 AM | Comments (1)

July 11, 2006

Teens and the Internet

Lee Rainie and his colleagues at the Pew Internet and American Life Project recently made a presentation to the Congressional House Telecom Committee about teens and the internet. It's a good summary based on their years of research. And, it's only 8 pages long with big charts so it may be useful for using with staff, boards, executives and management!

Findings include:

87% of those ages 12-17 use the internet.
Teens from the poorest families lag in internet use.
Teens are technology rich and enveloped by a wired world.
Parental use of filters to protect youth online is growing.
In addition to employing filters, parents are trying other methods to stay abreast of their children’s online activities.
However, there are still large gaps in perception about how much parent-child monitoring is taking place: Most teens do not believe their parents are checking up on them, while most parents say they are.
The impact of filters and parental vigilance remains unclear: Parents and teens agree that teens are not careful enough online, and both believe that teens do things online that their parents would not approve of.
Bad experiences online keep some teens away from the internet.
Teens log on most often from home, but library use grows more than any other location.
Email is still a fixture in teens’ lives, but instant messaging is preferred.
Teens’ IM use eclipses that of adults.
IM offers ways for teens to express their identity and reshape technology to their purposes.
Most teens will block messages from those they want to shun or avoid.
More than half of online teens are Content Creators.
When it comes to sharing self-authored creative content, older girls stand out.
One in five online teens keeps a blog and 38% read them.
Teens surpass adults in blog keeping and reading.
Older girls are most likely to blog.

You can find it here as a PDF "Teens and the Internet".

Stephen

Posted by stephen at 5:46 PM | Comments (0)

Broadband Still Growing at Home

"U.S. BROADBAND COMPOSITION REACHES 72 PERCENT AT HOME, A 15 POINT
YEAR-OVER-YEAR INCREASE, ACCORDING TO NIELSEN//NETRATINGS

Broadband Users More Likely to be Internet Technology Early Adopters, Using RSS Feeds and Personal Blogging

NEW YORK– June 21, 2006– Nielsen//NetRatings, a global leader in Internet media and market research, announced today that nearly three-quarters of U.S. active Web users connected at home via broadband in May, growing 15 percentage points over a year ago, when just 57 percent of active Web users relied on broadband connections at home (see Table 1). Research also indicates that broadband users are more likely to make better use of Internet functionalities and newer technologies, such as RSS feeds and blogging.

“Although we are not seeing the explosive month-over-month growth we once were, the market for broadband Internet connection has not yet reached saturation,” said Jon Gibs, senior director of media,

Nielsen//NetRatings. “We’re past the point where decreasing prices and increasing availability will move the needle for providers; the remaining consumers will be pushed to broadband as the Internet continues to move beyond text-based information to a comprehensive source for video,” he continued."

I suspect that active internet use might correlate to active library use. One would hope so anyway. It would be nice to see some research on the relationship.

Stephen

Posted by stephen at 5:41 PM | Comments (1)

Your Learning Style - Their Learning Styles

Ever wondered what your combination of learning styles was?

Try this free quiz.

Read the supporting materials and think abut how you might take ths knowledge to build better library research training sesisons.

Stephen

Posted by stephen at 5:36 PM | Comments (0)

Wiki's

The SirsiDynix Institute presents the queen of wikis, Meredith Farkas. Don't miss it. Meredith is great and really knows her stuff.

Wiki: The Ultimate Tool For Online Collaboration
Thursday, July 13, 2006 9 am to 10 am PACIFIC time.

Wiki is a social software tool that allows for unprecedented online collaboration. It enables a group of people to collaboratively develop a Web site with no knowledge of HTML or other markup languages. Any member of the wiki community can add to or edit anyone else's content, which is what makes Wikis so revolutionary and so controversial.

Wiki can be an excellent tool for certain projects and purposes, but it may not be the best choice for every population. Libraries are already using Wikis as subject guides, knowledge repositories, Intranets, and content management systems. They can also be used by librarians to share information and success stories online. A wiki is a good candidate for any project that requires quick and easy online collaboration.

This presentation will help you learn:

- what a wiki is
- how wikis have been (and can be) implemented in libraries
- whether or not a wiki is the right tool for your library
- how to implement a wiki in your library

It's easy to register here. All SirsiDynix Institute programs are free. If you can't make it, the session will be archived for viewing later and you can download it from iTunes too.

Stephen

Posted by stephen at 5:29 PM

Hottest book out there

I am just finishing reading Chris Anderson's book The Long Tail (happily I got an advance copy - Thanks Annie!). Wow. It's a must read. There are so many lessons here for us in libraryland.

For keeping up with long tail ideas and debate, you can also view and subscribe to Chris Anderson's blog The Long Tail.

If you're looking to wrap your arms around the key points of the Long Tail theory, check out the new 15-minute podcast with the author at TCS Daily. It's also available on iTunes.

After reading the book one can't help but know that libraries straddle many parts of the long tail curve and that there are opportunities here. We have a lot to learn about promoting our books, articles, and DVD's etc. on our portals and websites.

The book has gone from being #25 on Amazon's bestseller list yesterday to #10 today with a bullet.

Stephen

Posted by stephen at 5:19 PM | Comments (1)

Firefox now serious

TechCrunch reports that "Amsterdam based analytics firm OneStat is reporting that Firefox has captured a worldwide market share of nearly 13%, up from 8.7% in April 2005. There are some surprising country-by-country statistics included in the report as well. Firefox usage in the U.S. stands at 16%. Australia, 24%. And in Germany Firefox commands a whopping 39% market share."

So, have you all got Firefox installed as an option on public PC's? It's getting pretty serious now as a option for many users. I know we've been testing all software at SirsiDynix against the various versions for quite a while now at SirsiDynix.

Stephen

Posted by stephen at 5:14 PM | Comments (0)

MySpace Moves Into #1 Position for all Internet Sites

OK - I've been saying this is the concept to watch for months and here a few factoids for us to know:

1. "Today Hitwise issued a press release reporting that for the first time, www.myspace.com has surpassed Yahoo! Mail as the most visited domain on the Internet for US Internet users. To put MySpace's growth in perspective, if we look back to July 2004 myspace.com represented only .1% of all Internet visits. This time last year myspace.com represented 1.9% of all Internet visits. With the week ending July 8, 2006 market share figure of 4.5% of all the US Internet visits, myspace.com has achieved a 4300% increase in visits over two years and 132% increase in visits since the same time last year."

Hitwise is one of the more reputable trackers of web popularity.

2. From Michael Arrington on TechCrunch: "MySpace has 75 million users (see somewhat dated comparison stats here), 15 million daily unique logins, is growing by a massive 240,000 new users per day, and is generating nearly 30 billion monthly page views (that’s 10,593 page views per second). The number of page views generated by each unique visitor is stunning - clearly these users are very, very passionate about the site, and it’s unclear if they do much else on the web besides hang out on MySpace."

Arrington also reports that Bebo, "which recently raised $15 million from Benchmark Capital, rejected a £300 million ($552 million) acquisition offer from British Telecom Group “a few weeks ago”, according to an insider on the transaction. Bebo’s asking price? North of $1 billion. ... Bebo has been on fire recently, and now has more than 25 million registered users and 3 billion monthly page views. Myspace, for comparison, has 70+ million users and nearly 30 billion monthly page views. The success of Myspace (controlled by Fox Interactive Media) has led to a series of buyout offers on its competitors. Facebook was rumored to have turned down offers nearing $1 billion from Viacom and Yahoo. It looks like Kleiner’s recapitalization of troubled Friendster late last year for a few million dollars may have been a good bet."

3. And, my bad, I can't believe I missed MySpace Books! My radar must be summer wonky.

4. The July 2006 issue of Wired has a useful article on MySpace entitled "His Space". The 'his' here is Rupert Murdoch. Worth the read.

5. Gary at Resourceshelf covers a bunch of recent stats too in this space. Read it here.

6. Lastly Ypulse has some interseting research on the awareness of teens with regard to bad stuff on MySpace. You can read the posting called "MySpace Fear Factor Overblown; Parental Awareness Low" here which has links to the full report too. It is called "Adolescents in MySpace: Identity Formation, Friendship and Sexual Predators: Executive Summary" by Larry D. Rosen, Ph.D., California State University, Dominguez Hills, June 2006.

And if Friendster's recent patent on social networking holds, this is going to be a very interesting space to watch!

All grist for the mill.

Stephen

Posted by stephen at 3:34 PM | Comments (0)

July 10, 2006

Signs

Michael Stephens has posted his collection of library signs (don't you just love digital cameras?!) on his Tame The Web blog.

It engenders a good discussion (both online and offline!). Some signs are good, others are bad and some spark debate. Here's some Suggestions and questions:

1. First start by walking around your library and read and inventory all signs. Don't forget the desktops! Add them to a spreadsheet and get ready to label and sort. Library folk love this sort of exercise! You could even have an ice cream / brown bagger walk around to make this fun for all staff ths summer. It's cheap and cheerful.

2. How many signs say "No"? How many signs say "Yes"? What is your library's score on the visible scale of welcoming and postive tone?

3. How many words on each sign? Compare this to the world outside your library. What's your average? Is your average sign snappy, very wordy, essay length? Are they appropriate for the area (e.g. Kids rooms, Seniors)? Simple is better.

4. How many signs are symbols? These are multilingual. Can some of your signs be replaced with international symbols?

5. How professional do they look? Are they clean, snappy, good typefaces, plasticized, etc.? Give each sign a score on 1-5 scale. For instance, give magic marker signs or handwritten ones a "1" and professional designs a "5". Laser prints in plastic sleeves get a "3". How do your signs score? Can they be read by a senior at ten paces?

6. How consistent are they? Do they present a professional image that makes the library a welcoming place for all? Is your logo fresh and consistently used throughout the library signage? Are they B&W and is that best?

7. Go back to your spreadsheet. Can you edit signs? Can you remove signs? Can you add signs? Have some outlasted their usefulness? Remove visual clutter. Your workplace will be nicer for you too. (oh yeah, take a look at your bulletin boards too... be strong and assertive)

OK - Now think about your portal and web presence. Does it look graphically better than the physical experience in your library? Is it markedly different? Why? Does your physical signage and your bricks experience enhance and extend your web experience? Print colour is easy now. It's cheap too. Are we ready to embrace beautiful signs? Look at the signage in the best stores, airports, hotels and parks. Can we do as well?

Just asking.

Stephen

Posted by stephen at 3:04 PM | Comments (1)

Latest OneSource article - Part One

Here's the latest issue of SirsiDynix OneSource. My contribution was the article entitled, "Piloting Your Future Library: The Lucky 7 (Part 1)" Part two will be in the August issue.

The concept behind this two-parter is that there are cheap and cheerful ways to pilot new ideas before you decide to professionalize them or "grow up" into software that is more sustainable and rugged. I think there's some good ideas here. And, you don't actually have to grow up all the time. (grin)

Stephen

Posted by stephen at 2:59 PM | Comments (0)

Where I am spending my Summer

Here's where I expect to be this Summer in case you can drop in and say hello;

July 11-13 Idaho Library Association Digital Natives Conference in Boise Idaho

July 17-21 Park City, Utah

July 24 Markham Public Library Staff Day, Markham, ON

July 25-27 WiLS World, Madison, Wisconsin

Aug. 10 State Library & Archives of Florida Technology Training COnference (NEFLIN), Orlando, FL

Aug. 16-17 North Carolina Public Library Directors Association, Asheville, NC

Aug. 19-16, IFLA, Seoul, KOREA

Sept. 7-8 Suburban Library Cooperative, Clinton, MI

Sept. 11 Miami Dade Public Library System, Miami FL

Sept. 13 South Carolina State Library Technology Day, Columbia, SC

I'll try to cram in some vacation too.

Stephen

Posted by stephen at 2:38 PM | Comments (0)

Happy Anniversary to the Lighthouse

Well, this past weekend (on July 8th actually) we celebrated the first anniversary of Stephen's Lighthouse. Yay!

I know people are actually reading this blog because I get a few blog comments (and more blogspam) but I get more e-mail and in-person comments as I travel. Bloglines accounts for almost 1,000 subscribers and I know many more are receiving this through direct visits, searches and through other aggregators like Technorati.

I hope you're enjoying the postings. (Someday I might count them!) Thanks for listening.

Stephen

Posted by stephen at 2:31 PM | Comments (3)

July 4, 2006

Doing assessments of Information fluency and library research training

If you teach and want fast feedback on your programs, you might want to check out this online resource developed in Canada at Mount Royal College. I heard about this at one of the June Conferences.

It's called FAST: Free Assessment Summary School. It's at http://www.getfast.ca.

"Traditionally, teaching assessments are conducted at the end of a course - a practice precluding students from offering constructive feedback while they are still in the course. However, conducting instructor-designed and administered web-based course assessments opens a proactive dialogue with students about teaching, the course, and the entire learning process."

From their FAQ:
"
What is FAST?

FAST is an anonymous online survey tool that automatically summarizes students' impressions of a course and/or teacher and supplies the data directly to the teacher.

Who should use FAST?

Teachers who are committed to improving their teaching/courses through their students' comments.

What does FAST do?

FAST allows a teacher to develop an online survey that students can complete 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Teachers can ask up to 20 questions (and change them whenever they want) to determine how students are finding their teaching and the course. The software automatically summarizes and consolidates the students' comments, in real-time, on the web or into a downloadable customized Excel spreadsheet.

Why should I use FAST?

We believe there are many reasons why you should consider using FAST.

First, giving students a mechanism by which they can comment on your teaching and your class confirms and substantiates your commitment to becoming a better teacher.

Second, FAST helps you to see what your students' impressions are during the course, not just at the end of it, and thus, mid-course changes and modifications are possible when warranted.

Third, teachers can ask up to 20 questions of their own (using multiple question formats) or they can select from our list of over 300 questions that have been tested for validity and reliability.

Fourth, FAST ensures that all student data is completely anonymous - a consideration that no print-based survey can equal.

Fifth, by asking your students for feedback you are becoming a co-learner with your students and by doing so becoming intimately involved with the teaching and learning process/environment.

Sixth, FAST is free and is easy to use.

Who can use FAST?
Any teacher or student with access to the Internet.

Who owns FAST?

FAST is owned equally between Bruce Ravelli, Zvjezdan Patz and Mount Royal College.

What does FAST cost?
There are no costs for teachers or students who use the software to survey the learning process. FAST is contractually obligated to remain free until (at least) October 2006. Any changes after that date would require the unanimous consent of all co-owners."

This appears to be an easy entre into the world of online assessment. Do we really have the data to prove that our training works? Wouldn't it be powerful if we did!

Stephen

Posted by stephen at 2:31 AM | Comments (2)

NDP Reports on Best Circulating Books, DVD's etc.

I meant to blog this from New Orleans since it's so exciting. This sort of social networked, data mining application of the normative data has the potential to transform specific areas of collection development for public libraries.

Reports on Best Circulating Books, DVDs and Biographies Now Online

Normative Data Project introduces collection development tools for Chinese, English, French, German, Russian, Spanish and other languages; based on circulation at nearly 500 libraries

NEW ORLEANS, June 25, 2006 – The Normative Data Project (NDP) for Libraries announced today, at the 2006 Annual Conference of the American Library Association in New Orleans, that reports of “Top 100” best circulating books and DVDs for the French, German, Russian and Spanish languages, as well as biographical works in English, are now available for purchase and downloading on the NDP Web site (http://www.libraryndp.info).

Based on actual circulation data from nearly 500 libraries in North America, these lists provide libraries with unique business intelligence for making collection development, acquisitions and other management decisions. Best circulating lists for Chinese, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese are in development and will soon be available for purchase and downloading on the NDP Web site.

I think our chief statistician, Dr. Data (Dr. Bob Molyneux) has done a bang up job here. Give him a call if you'd like to discuss purchasing custom reports or signing up to develop your own.

Stephen

Posted by stephen at 1:48 AM | Comments (0)

Health and the Web

The May 2, 2006 report by the Pew Internet & American Life Project called "Finding Answers Online in Sickness and in Health" By Mary Madden and Susannah Fox has interesting learning for libraries.

Indeed, health questions are often on any library's top 10 list as well as being a key part of our collection development. It's also one of the areas that causes the most consternation about privacy and the difficult reference interview.

This report "shows that, as more and more Americans come online, so too do more Americans rely on the internet for important health information.

In a March 2005 survey, 12% of online adults –representative of 17 million people--said the internet played a crucial or important role as they helped another person cope with a major illness. When the same question was asked in a January 2002 survey, nearly the same proportion (10%) said the net played a major role in such circumstances, but that represented only 11 million people. In addition, the March 2005 survey found the number of those who said the internet played a crucial or important role as they themselves coped with a major illness reached 7 million while a December 2005 survey found that one in five (20%) online Americans said the internet has greatly improved the way they get information about health care."

"The role of the internet in a loved one’s recent health crisis found that:
• 36% of e-caregivers said the internet helped them find advice or support from other people.
• 34% of e-caregivers said the internet helped them find professional or expert services.
• 26% of e-caregivers said the internet helped them find information or compare options.
• Just 6% of e-caregivers reported getting from the internet either bad information or advice thatmade their experience more difficult.
• By comparison, 91% of e-caregivers said that was not a problem
for them.

Moreover, the internet often played a major role for e-caregivers. When asked about all of the different sources of information they used, 58% of e-caregivers said the most important source was something they found on the internet. Only 38% said the most important source was one they found offline.

Since these key sources can be quite varied, Pew asked e-caregivers to name that one essential source. Here is a sample of their answers:
• Health facilities’ websites
• Doctors/physicians
• Medical advice and information online
• WebMD.com
• [Finding out] exactly what my condition was
• My medical background and self-knowledge
• Journals through the National Institutes of Health
• Head of a cancer support group
• Went online to get information about medications that could not be mixed together
• [Finding out] about medical condition treatment options
• Information I received from different breast cancer sites; information the women had posted about their experiences
• Support group; families [dealing with] a particular disease
• Medweb to find out what medicines were, what the side effects were, and the dosage that was sufficient
• Researching the surgical process that was going to be taken: heart bypass and valve replacement
• Found out [how to] live with disease
• Arthritis doctors and research on arthritis
• American Cancer Society
• Looking for elderly care options
• Lymphoma Society
• Hospice

This wide range of topics and sources illustrates how powerful a tool the internet can now be for those seeking needed information relating to health and health care. The range of sources extend from in-depth research on medical diagnosis and treatment, expert opinions on specific conditions, access to communities of like-minded individuals, and advice on treatment and adjustment options. And while
many will not need access to that information at any given time, there is clearly a growing population that considers the internet to be a crucial resource."

So, how has library reference service changed in the web world? I know it's a lot. The Healthy New Jersey and TPL Consumer Health Information Service being two great examples. I do worry that some research about the reliability of some health and nutrition websites being suspect. Can we confidently believe and prove that our collections and services surpass the generic web? I look forward to analyses fon health from the Normative Data Project and results from SirsiDynix Rooms on the topic to make a difference too.

Stephen

Posted by stephen at 1:31 AM | Comments (1)

Innovation Blogs

Looking for blogs about innovation that aren't necessarily library related? After all, it's always a good idea to think outside of our little world. Here's a link to a list:

Corante Innovation Hub
http://ideaflow.corante.com/archives/2006/05/02/introducing_the_still_new_corante_innovation_hub.php

21 Innovation blogs and counting. You might want to add a few to your blog aggregator.

Stephen

Posted by stephen at 1:25 AM | Comments (0)

UK Teen Attitudes to Public Libraries

Here's a link to a June 2006 study by the UK Dept. of Culture, Media, and Sport, the Museums and Libraries Archive Council and the Laser Foundation.

A Research Study of 14-35 year olds for theFuture Development of Public Libraries: Final Report

What is interesting about this report is that it doesn't just enumerate the current perception of this key market but also makes clear recommendations for the direction of "modernisation" of public libraries. It also addresses key messages for marketing and promotion of libraries to this demographic segment.

I don't guess that these results are universal but this report could serve as a good start for a discussion.

Stephen

Posted by stephen at 1:12 AM | Comments (0)

To Do Lists

You work in a library. You make lists. You love lists!

How do I make listmaking easier?

Check out this post at SolutionWatch.

25 To Do Lists to Stay Productive

He covers the Top 5 To-Do lists as well as quite a few other to-do lists, online planners, calendars and start pages. He ends with a link to a site of 50 ways that you can take notes (these will become more popular as wireless increases its ubiquitosity.

Is it more fun for you add an item to your list or to cross it off? Have you ever added something to your list just to cross it out immediately? If so, seek help (grin).

I still like 43 Things for lists too and it's, ironically, not on this list.

Stephen

Posted by stephen at 1:02 AM | Comments (1)

Netflix and Libraries

Libraryman offers a four part commentary on what libraries might learn from the Netflix model. For starers, Part one is here and part two here.

It's a great start on a list about the features that might be appropriate in a library context. Some might be useful and others not quite right. With so many public libraries having huge DVD circulation it's a conversation that can't be avoided.

Then again, where's my TiVo for eBook chapters?

Stephen

Posted by stephen at 12:50 AM | Comments (0)

Gaming Stats

A good post-ALA post on Eli Neuberger's session on Teens and Technology and gaming includes some useful statistics and commentary on gaming in libraries. See it here.

Short snippets from the post: You can't ignore that 84% of kids 12-17 are internet users and that of these users 75% are using IM and 81% are playing games. From 2000 to 2004 the number of teens playing games jumped from 66% to 81%. 95% of teenage boys play video games. It's an $11 billion business world wide.

Can libraries choose to ignore any major media format? Even one that outsells print?

Stephen

Posted by stephen at 12:43 AM | Comments (1)

Facebook Safety Rules

I grew up in Toronto where my generation were taught safety by Elmer the Safety Elephant. He has a flag that your school could only fly if you remained accident free. Those were the days when safety was mostly about auto traffic and crossing roads. Times have changed.

Some schools are "with it" and are teaching their charges the ways to stay safe on the internet early and often. This is great. Learn the skills young and they'll be ready for the future that they will experience - not some rosy-hued nostalgic retro-vision. Some schools, I feel foolishly, think that limiting access to an ever-growing list of certain sites and certain words, somehow results in a safer world for kids. While guided by good intentions, it likely abdicates responsibility for educating kids for the world of the future. It may even endanger them by increasing their naivete.

The following article from Cornell is aimed at the university level student. I think it's important for us to think about the role K-12 schools play in building skills, awareness and aptitudes for bridging to the post-secondary and adult worlds.

Five things to think about when using Facebook
From Tracy Mitrano, Director of IT Policy and Computer Policy & Law Program, Cornell University, April, 2006

Here's the conclusion but I recommend that you read the whole report.

"Facebook, along with much of the Internet, is a great innovation that allows users to express their humanity and an opportunity to create new communities. As such it represents a forum in which one can make choices about their identity, at least insofar as one chooses to represent themselves publicly. That freedom does not suggest that one can do so with impunity, however. Because we live in a society in which expression is judged in legal, policy and even personal ways, it is important to remember the consequences of that expression no matter how ephemeral or fun in the moment it might seem to be.

This essay offers some things to contemplate when using Facebook, all of which can be summed up easily in a "Golden Rule." Don't say anything about someone else that you would not want said about yourself. And be gentle with yourself too! What might seem fun or spontaneous at 18, given caching technologies, might prove to be a liability to an on-going sense of your identity over the longer course of history. Have fun and make productive use of these new, exciting technologies, but remember that technology does not absolve one of responsibility. Behind every device, behind every new program, behind every technology is a law, a social norm, a business practice that warrants thoughtful consideration."

You can find it here.

Wise counsel here.

Stephen

Posted by stephen at 12:24 AM | Comments (2)

School Library Ideas

The AASL Blog has a cool list of ideas to try that were generated at ALA. They include:

Elephant on a trampoline
Try a Wiki for library instruction
Explore the Technorati web site and learn
Learn more about tag clouds.
Improve “School Library” on Wikipedia
Read “The Rise of the Creative Class: And How It's Transforming Work, Leisure, Community and Everyday Life”: by Richard Florida
Try using BuzzTracker.org to learn more about mashups and their usefulness.
“Stop thinking about library as place and start thinking about places where library should be.”
See Parents as our allies
Consider setting up the library on Facebook and MySpace
Email is out; IM is in
Pat attention to WIRED magazine and EDUCAUSE. Pay attention to these resources as good ways to learn about the newest technologies and their applications
IPods for Development
Podcasts
Focus Groups for exiting seniors
Put Collection policies and donation policy online
Develop a Library orientation video
Read Joyce Valenza’s blog & Wiki
Sign up for the Google Librarian’s Newsletter
ICT test: Contact ETS
Assessment ideas
Do a Library blog
Have a Gaming night
Study Millennials and their brains
Check out Second Life

See the whole annoated post here. (These are great notes and show the power of conference blogging for those who can't attend.)

Stephen

Posted by stephen at 12:07 AM | Comments (1)

Another Web 2.0 Offering

OCLC's latest newsletter echoes much of the discussion on Web 2. and Library 2.0 that's been occurring for the past few months. The six articles include:

Tom Storey: ""Where will the next generation of the web take libraries"
Rick Anderson: "Away from the Icebergs"
Michael Stephens: "Into a New World of Librarianship"
Chip Nilges: "To More Powerful Ways to Cooperate"
John Riemer: "To Better Bibliographic Services"
Dr. Wendy Schultz: "To a Temporary Place in Time..."

Worth a read.

Stephen

Posted by stephen at 12:01 AM | Comments (0)

July 3, 2006

Public Library Teen Pages

The YALSA (Young Adult Librar