Many thanks to Lia at the Experiment for forwarding this Chronicle article on Aaron Swartz, co-creator of RSS and Reddit who now apparently is interested in the "modern library." His vision, the Open Library project, could be described as a user-generated mashup of WorldCat and Wikipedia - very promising. Judging from his track record, I... Continue Reading →
library 2.0 success/failure in practice.
Now that hindsight is offering a bit of perspective, there has been a lot of discussion recently about the net effect of the Library 2.0 movement (and I don't think it's hyperbolic to describe it as such), focusing on the perceived platitudes of "twopointopians" as well as whether the new technologies being implemented in so... Continue Reading →
the wayback (to early library websites) machine.
A Gadgetopia post I read the other day gave me the idea to investigate library website design of a decade ago using the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine, in order try to get a sense of the way libraries presented information in the earliest days of the web. If you are not familiar with how it... Continue Reading →
busted.
The Times of London reports that proposed British legislation seeks to require internet service providers to monitor and take action against illegal downloaders, who ultimately risk being "cut off" from internet access: "Users suspected of wrongly downloading films or music will receive a warning e-mail for the first offence, a suspension for the second infringement... Continue Reading →
paper consumption in decline.
According to the New York Times, world paper consumption is decreasing - "after rising steadily in the 1980s and ’90s, worldwide paper consumption per capita has plateaued in recent years. In the richest countries, consumption fell 6 percent from 2000 to 2005, from 531 to 502 pounds a person." I love it when something I've... Continue Reading →
sigh.
My luddism suffers another blow - after 2009, no more polaroid film. Image courtesy of foundmagazine.com
top 100 e-learning tools.
The Centre for Learning and Performance Technologies recently released their Top 100 Tools for Learning list, compiled by a number of educators and instructional technologists. The obvious contenders are mostly in the top 10 (WordPress, Skype, PowerPoint, Google Apps), but I was a bit surprised by Firefox coming in at number 2 (and number 1... Continue Reading →
amazing posters.
Via Lia Friedman of the UCSD Arts Libraries Blog: "The University College Falmouth has had the outgoing graduates make inspirational posters for the incoming freshmen. This is a terrific idea–who better to give advice to newbies than the people who just went through it? The graphics are varied, interesting and beautiful. Some of my favorites?... Continue Reading →
amazon buys audible, kindle more ‘disruptive’ than sony reader.
I complained about the Kindle's appellative and design flaws when it was first released, but apparently people are snapping up the (somewhat misguided, yet necessary) ebook readers faster than Amazon can turn them out. Amazon continues its foray into the e-content realm with their recent acquisition of Audible.com, a well-established online provider of audio books... Continue Reading →
the 2008 horizon report.
The 2008 Horizon Report (pdf) was released last week by the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative and the New Media Consortium. The report is "a research-oriented effort that seeks to identify and describe emerging technologies likely to have considerable impact on teaching, learning, and creative expression," and forecasts said impact over the coming one to three years.... Continue Reading →
info-mational 