pascal lupien, randy oldham: university of guelph large technology/library use survey, 14% reponse rate at an approx. 20,000 student university. results surprising in some areas. discussion points: student culture is reluctant to mix personal and academic computing uptake on online social networks for academic use has been slow, but will likely increase investment for building... Continue Reading →
cil2008: widgets, tools, and doodads for library webmasters.
darlene fichter - data librarian, university of saskatchewan firefox tools safecache: protects privacy, defends against cache-based traching techniques http://www.safecache.com safehistory: prevents apps from going in a reading web history http://www.safehistory.com foxmarks: bookmarks synchronizer http://www.foxmarks.com automatically syncs bookmarks between different instances of firefox - i.e. the same bookmarks on your home and work computers online tools... Continue Reading →
cil2008: mobile trends.
megan fox - simmons college mobile access is common to patrons, so it's incumbent upon librarians to help user understand the role librarians have in the mobile world. trends in mobile access to information. global market, global and transcoded web, what's coming next. devices and capabilities there are 3x mobile phones as their are pcs.... Continue Reading →
cil2008: fast and easy site tuneups.
jeff wisniewski, Web Services Librarian, University of Pittsburgh intro - we should revisit the idea of massive site redesign projects every 3 years - smaller, incremental changes can be very effective. 1 it's a matter of trust. update your copyright statement in order to communicate currency to users. update last updated script on each page.... Continue Reading →
cil2008 keynote: libraries solve problems!
Lee Rainie - Director, Pew Internet and American Life Project "I've atoned for a major sin I committed last year "- at the dawn of the Pew Project he submitted a grant proposal and didn't name librarians as potential stakeholders of the Project. Since he's learned that librarians are valuable stakeholders and have listed them... Continue Reading →
henry jenkins acrl springboard event
I had the opportunity to speak with ACRL President Julie Todaro this afternoon for a minute while introducing a free ACRL-hosted "springboard" webcast featuring Henry Jenkins of, among other things, Project NML. He's pretty much the sharpest tool in the media literacy shed, and what follows are some notes from his talk (he speaks very... Continue Reading →
sharks vs. jets
I've joined the Talis Library 2.0 Gang monthly podcast, also available via Library Journal. Older episodes are available on the Talking with Talis site. Our first conversation featured Open Library co-founder Aaron Swartz (about whom I've written several times) and touched on topics recently discussed at the Code4lib conference, ranging from the Open Library Project... Continue Reading →
top tech trends discussion at midwinter.
I arrived a bit late and therefore couldn't elbow myself into the tiny room that contained the LITA Top Tech Trends discussion, but Karen Schneider's blog features a good writeup of topics covered.
when open source is not actually open source, or what i learned at midwinter.
I typically recycle every last bit of vendor flotsam I receive before the ALA Midwinter and Annual conferences, not being patient or seizure-resistant enough to handle the exhibits floor in any meaningful way. This time around, however, I decided to take part in an extremely lucrative focus group on (anonymous) new software for "Making Database... Continue Reading →
moving communication forward: internet voice and video in libraries
My CNI breakout session yesterday went very well - it was a packed room, and the audience was gracious and seemingly very interested in OU's Skype reference experimentation. Roughly a third of attendees self-identified as IT-oriented, two-thirds were in library administration, with two or three "in the trenches" reference librarians also in attendance. The session... Continue Reading →
info-mational 