Posts tagged ‘Uncategorized’
Carnival Delayed
I need to get some sleep — it has been a bad technology day. I will post the carnival first thing in the morning when I am not so frustrated — Blogger keeps mangling the post and merging paragraphs and dumping text. I can’t figure it out right now and I am tired of fixing it for today.
The Liminal Librarian: Speaking Survey
Consider dropping by and filling out this survey so we can get a good picture of current speaking fees that are paid for presenters at library conferences, workshops and other venues: The Liminal Librarian: Speaking Survey
Thanks for taking this on Rachel. I am looking forward to the results!
Reminder: Carnival Submissions due by Sunday!
Don’t want to nag or anything, but…
Submissions for the Carnival need to be sent to me by Sunday September 10th at 6 pm. Why not do it now. You know you want to 🙂 It’s so easy, just send me an email: janieh at gmail dot com
Annual Beloit College Mindset List–Class of 2010
I read this very recently and blogged about it elsewhere earlier today, as this always gets circulated during our new faculty orientations in late August at Rider University, but I thought Library Gardeners might like to browse it, too.
Once again, Wisconsin’s Beloit College‘s annual list is out as they prepare each August (since 1998) to help all faculty prepare for the academic year and the incoming freshmen students. I think it is a good discussion item for librarians, too, especially if you deal with 17 & 18-year-olds. There is a very useful introduction (“note of explanation” in yellow near the top) explaining about the history of the lists and why they do them, in case this is totally new to you.
My colleagues and I have enjoyed reading this since I arrived in New Jersey in 1998, and although we don’t always agree with everything on the list, it is always entertaining and informative–but…who is “Milli Vanilli” (#21)? OK, only joking–I don’t like to sing in public either.
I hope you enjoy it, too, as you browse the list that “looks at entering college freshmen students…” Take a look at the other lists developed since 1998, too (i.e., Class of 2002 through Class of 2010)–I really enjoyed reading these and asking the incoming students about them when I was Faculty-in-Residence at Rider from 1998-2002.
As I said, I do find these lists to be interesting, and, sometimes, very funny, but I thought these six items from the Class of 2010 list from Beloit were pertinent, or at least of special interest, to librarians and other frontline educators:
“8. They are wireless, yet always connected.”
“18. They grew up with and have outgrown faxing as a means of communication.”
“19. “Google” has always been a verb.”
“20. Text messaging is their email.”
“23. Bar codes have always been on everything, from library cards and snail mail to retail items.”
“36. They have rarely mailed anything using a stamp.
Anyway, back to work–got to get ready for these “connected” students arriving at our convocation tomorrow. Summer’s pretty much over for us here, unfortunately!
Blog Day (late and a dollar short)
Happy (belated) Blog Day everyone. I’ve been on vacation much of the past three weeks, watching the US Open and getting in as much tennis as I can, and in my rare state of email disconnection I missed blog day… So a day late, here are five blogs that I dig.
- Michelle Boule’s, A Wandering Eyre. I first became aware of Michelle’s blog when we participated in ALA’s Web 2.0 Bootcamp. She’s been knocking me out ever since. My biggest disappointment at ALA was that I wasn’t able to push myself across the crowded room at the Blogger Bash fast enough to say hello. Hi Michelle!
- Meredith Farkas’ Information Wants to Be Free. A great voice, great honesty, lots of smarts, humor, perspective. Meredith helps me broaden my knowledge, think more deeply, and just plain refreshes my hope for our profession.
- Blog About Libraries is a group blog much like the garden. I particularly enjoy Steve Backs’ posts on customer service. I share and am inspired by his customer-centered outlook and approach to library services.
- Signum sine tinnitu–by Guy Kawasaki: I love the marketing ideas, the interviews with brilliant and interesting people and Guy’s laid back vibe. It never fails to entertain or inform, often at the same time.
- Creating Passionate Users . Written mostly by Kathy Sierra, along with a few other authors of O’Reilly’s “Head First” series, CPU is my “desert island blog”. If I was stranded on a deserted island with my laptop and a wireless connection, this is the one I’d read. It activates the part of my brain that dopes me with endorphins when giving (or receiving good customer service) while also appealing to the trainer-boy in me. I love Kathy’s insights on how to present information in a way that helps people get it, or “kick ass.” To the extent that I kick ass on any given day, Creating Passionate Users helps keep my aim accurate 🙂
Certainly not an exhaustive list, and it’s hard not to mention all of the blogs that I love and read regularly. But I’d feel super-remiss if I didn’t give a shout out to Karen Schneider’s Free Range Librarian and Michael Stephens’ Tame the Web. I have never in my life manifested an addictive behavior—until I started reading these blogs.
Does Browser Use = Personality Type?
I was browsing my favorite feeds this evening, and I came across this post over at the Google Blogoscoped, simply stating “Find out what your browser reveals about your personality…”, linking to another much-commented-on post over at the Terminally Incoherent blog.
The post from Saturday evening talks about IE 5.0, IE 6.0, IE 7.0, Firefox 1.x, Firefox 2.0 Beta, Mozilla, Opera, Netscape 7 and below, Netscape 8.x, AOL Explorer, AOL Suite, Safari, Konqueror, and, yes, Lynx users! It should definitely be files under “humor” but is certainly an interesting read, and I thought I would help share it in case you missed it! I have actually used most of them, but, no, I am not telling you which one(s) my wife or I use most often and when! 😉 (you will have to read some of the original post’s comments to understand why–enjoy!)
Tags: browser, browser wars, firefox, ie, opera, safari, lynx, netscape, aol, humor
Well Said!
I am bookmarking this brief interview with Dan Nova for reference in future classes, lectures, and workshops on 2.0 — it is concise and clear. In particular, I will be including Dan’s way of explaining the key difference between Web 1.o and 2.0:
You talk a lot about Web 1.0, the Internet boom in the late ’90s, and the next wave, Web 2.0. What’s the difference?
When you look at 1.0, it was really the democratization of access to information. Whether you’re sitting in a Harvard law library or a row house in Dublin or a grass hut in Africa, as long as you could access the Internet, you had access to the same information as everyone else.
And Web 2.0?
Web 2.0 is really the democratization of participation. When you think about the blogs and the wikis and the MySpaces, what’s really happening is now everyone has a voice. Your currency in the 2.0 world is only based on the strength and credibility of your writing or your argument. We’ve gone from where it used to be “If you build it, they will come.” Now it’s “If they build it, they will come.” I’m actually more excited about 2.0 than I was about 1.0.
Just thought I would share in case others wanted to bookmark it too.
Google & MySpace Marriage, & New Social Software Book by Michael Stephens
All over the news sites last night, including Yahoo! News, was the fact that Google and MySpace have signed a $900 million deal “which marries the Internet’s leading search engine with the top social-networking site,” so look for the familiar Google search boxes on the site later this year.
And my personal favorite tidbit of news from Jenny Levine: Michael Stephens’ July/August 2006 ALA LTR “Web 2.0 & Libraries: Best Practices for Social Software” is available for purchase. Jenny says his book “covers blogs, RSS, instant messaging, wikis, Flickr, and getting staff buy-in to implement Library 2.0 tools in your library,” which both Jenny and Michael spoke in length about this recently at their presentation in Princeton, NJ–a fantastic presentation and group turnout. Anyway, I ordered mine a few days ago and it should be here tomorrow–I can’t wait to read it and share the advice with my colleagues, so thanks a lot, Jenny and Michael!
DOPA Provides Too Little Guidance on Chat & Social Networking
Following up on Janie’s “DOPA Update” post and many others’ on the Web since the speedy approval of DOPA in the House, I want to emphasize again that final approval of DOPA could significantly affect an incredible amount of sites on the Web that allow author and personal profiles and lists, and this includes Amazon.com and many, many blogs. This is because the current version of the bill is too broad and does not define off-limit sites or provide definitions of “chat” or “social networking,” virtually (no pun intended) impacting far too many non-risky, safe sites for children, at least as it is written now. To get you up-to-date on this, again, read the summary article mentioned in Janie’s July 28 post, “Chat rooms could face expulsion,” from CNET News that mentions that this bill will affect at least two-thirds of all libraries. I am all for protecting our youth, as you can read from my July 15 “Social Networking and Online Safety” post, and as everyone is reading now, DOPA does expand on the Children’s Internet Protection Act, which requires libraries to filter sexually explicit material. But, unfortunately, at this time, DOPA leaves much to be desired and provides not much in guidance to the FCC, as you can see from the previously mentioned CNET summary article:
Defining off-limits sites
DOPA does not define “chat rooms” or “social networking sites” and leaves that up to the Federal Communications Commission. It does offer the FCC some guidance on defining social networking sites (though not chat rooms):
“In determining the definition of a social networking Web site, the Commission shall take into consideration the extent to which a Web site–
(i) is offered by a commercial entity;
(ii) permits registered users to create an online profile that includes detailed personal information;
(iii) permits registered users to create an online journal and share such a journal with other users;
(iv) elicits highly personalized information from users; and
(v) enables communication among users.”
Again, I want to say that I am all for protecting our youth being a parent, university professor, and academic librarian myself. But as I have mentioned many times before, I will continually talk about the brighter, creative aspects and rewards of participating in and using social networking sites and many other types of Websites in all of my seminars and face-to-face and online workshops and courses. The current DOPA bill is not the answer, and it will not stop youth and college students from engaging in these attractive online environments. I still think that education is the key. I mentioned near the end of my previous blog article) on this topic several sites that offered practical help. Another I want to mention is the “The Virtual Mystery Tour: A Close Look at Teens, Sex, and the Internet” workshop and its blog. It does not sugar-coat the safety aspect or potential for danger for young Internet users. It does, however, help to assure concerned adults, especially parents, that if their kids have “common sense and they trust them in other ways, they’re probably going to be able to talk intelligently with parents about what they should and shouldn’t do online.”
Parents and other adults seem to be afraid of these social networking sites and tools because many know nothing about them. We as parents and educators need to understand that teenagers (and adults) feel much freer to express themselves online and our youth don’t necessarily understand the potential consequences of “over-sharing.” I think that we need to become more involved and aware of what our teens are doing online, asking them information and making sure that they don’t over-share personal info., letting them know that predators are visiting sites they communicate within, looking for victims.
DOPA is well-intentioned, but it seems flawed as it is now written, and I think that it will negatively affect too many Websites. Making sure that our youth understand the risks & how to avoid mistakes in communicating online, while letting them know that you also understand the positive benefits they reap from the social networking sites, will go a long, long way in building trust and understanding, and help ensure continued education.
Great News: NJLA Job Hotline has an RSS FEED!
Some good news:
NJLA is now providing an RSS feed to the job hotline. For more information see here.
Whoo hoo! 🙂
Library Garden 