College of Information and Computer Science, Long Island University
Published by June 25th, 2007
in children and virtual worlds.
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Children have always enjoyed make-believe. Now, some new Web sites are letting them live out their fantasies in virtual worlds using self-designed avatars. Unlike the often-violent world of videogames, virtual sites such as Stardoll, Doppelganger, Club Penguin and Gaia Online hark back to a more innocent time of tea parties and playing outdoors — and they are winning young users in droves.
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Published by June 25th, 2007
in American Library Association, awards, literacy and library services.
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Applications are available for “Batting for literacy @ your library,” a new award in conjunction with the Step Up to the Plate @ your library program. The award will honor an individual librarian who has used baseball to enhance literacy or library service. The recipient will be awarded a trip to the 2008 Baseball Hall of Fame Game, an annual exhibition game between two major league teams at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, N.Y. The trip will include a behind-the-scenes tour of the library and museum.
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Published by June 25th, 2007
in information, knowledge management, intranets and librarians/information professionals.
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LexisNexis, a leading provider of information and services solutions, announced at the SLA Annual Conference in Denver the results of a nationwide survey to provide insights into how Information Professionals (IPs) are adding value to their organizations through technology and knowledge management. Information professionals are savvy when it comes to leveraging technology to make information more valuable, relevant, and accessible, with 93% of librarians saying they currently use intranets for managing and distributing information, and seeing collaborative workspaces (57%), wireless (44%), and portals (51%) as very important for the future.
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Mark Gibbs writes: “Give most people a blog or a web page and a field named ‘tags,’ and they’ll start stuffing in text with wild abandon in the hopes that their content will be easily found by people who are desperately searching for information and opinion on feline hairball cures or cycling in the Ozarks or whatever their particular hobby is. Alas, all these folks are doing is polluting the Web.”…
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Published by June 25th, 2007
in libraries, demographics and librarians/information professionals.
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The AFL-CIO’s Department for Professional Employees has issued an expanded and updated version of its fact sheet on library workers. This annotated compilation includes employment statistics and projections, notes on diversity and pay inequity, the wage gap, institutional variance, benefits, and unionization in the library profession.
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Published by June 25th, 2007
in gadgets, demographics and children.
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US children now start using consumer electronics (CE) at an average age of 6.7, down from 8.1 in 2005, according to the NPD Group’s “Kids and Consumer Electronics Trends III” report, conducted March 16-22, 2007. Kids start with TVs and PCs first, typically at age 4 or 5. Children get acquainted with satellite radios and portable digital media players last, usually around age 9.
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Published by June 25th, 2007
in innovation and techniques.
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The hardest part of making innovation happen is convincing “scientists, designers or other creative types” to put fewer ideas into the pipeline, suggests Michael George, of George Group Consulting, in a Wall Street Journal article by George Anders (6/11/07). To make his point, Michael offers this analogy: “If a freeway is getting congested, do you load more cars onto the on ramp in hopes that people will go faster? Or should you try to take some cars off?” Michael’s perspective is based on “queueing theory,” an approach commonly used by factory managers to avoid bottlenecks.”
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Published by June 25th, 2007
in communities, libraries, Second Life and virtual worlds.
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Santa Clara University is debuting its new library–even though it won’t be finished until next fall–in Second Life, the online virtual community. The Second Life environment gives SCU community members a sense of what it would look like inside the building once it is built.
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Published by June 25th, 2007
in mobile/cell phones, demographics and video.
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Eight million US people ages 12 and older watched video on their mobile phones in the first quarter of 2007, according to Nielsen. Videos created with the phones’ camcorders were not counted. Nearly half of mobile video viewers during that quarter were ages 35 and older, and 54% were male. As of May 31, 55% of primary users of video-enabled mobile phones lived in households with total annual incomes of $75,000 or more. At least 7% of 18-to-34-year-olds watched mobile videos in the first quarter of 2007, and at least a quarter used their mobile phones to connect to the Intenet. A total of 33 million people in the US used the mobile Web. Nielsen also examined viewing preferences of TV audiences by wireless phone brand, revealing that Verizon households tuned in to the May 23 American Idol finale at a higher rate than those who subscribed to Sprint or AT&T.
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Published by June 25th, 2007
in web sites and journalism.
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Some of the biggest names in web journalism — ESPN.com, Slate.com, and People.com — were among the finalists for the 2007 National Magazine Award in “Online General Excellence.” But when the American Society of Magazine Editors announced the winner on May 1, a lesser known spirituality-and faith-based site called Beliefnet.com walked away with the top prize.
If Beliefnet is not exactly a household name, it is an interesting experiment in online journalism. For one thing, its own turbulent history in some ways reflects the trajectory of the internet itself. For another, the strategy it has settled on — a subject specific site that offers interactivity, networking and journalistic even-handedness — may offer one working blueprint for the rapidly evolving field of Web information. “There is something about religion and spirituality that makes people want to connect with one another,” says Paul O’Donnell, a former senior editor at Beliefnet. The site’s message boards cover virtually all faiths, from Christianity, Judaism, and Islam to less traditional ones, like Paganism, Witchcraft and Scientology.
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Published by June 25th, 2007
in online resources and education.
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Today’s students have little patience for trudging to the library and researching a question on paper. For better or worse, they’re far more likely to jump online and use tools like Google and Wikipedia to try to find answers quickly.
For the New York University College of Dentistry, battling that tendency–since unapproved online sources are often poor substitutes for peer-reviewed textbooks–is a challenge. Fighting fire with fire, the school has gradually worked to make all of the reference materials a student needs to complete a degree, from textbooks to lecture material, available online. It now has some 80 textbooks accessible through a website for reference or download, along with a wealth of other content.
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Published by June 25th, 2007
in video games and demographics.
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Lucy was at a Game Developer Conference in San Jose, Calif., several years back, on her way to a business lunch. When she walked into the restaurant, she realized that she was awash in what she describes as a “sea of guys.” “I was really taken aback,” she says. “Except for the wait staff, I was the only woman in the room.” Lucy Bradshaw is vice-president and head of production and development at Maxis, the studio responsible for a few games you may have heard of, like “The Sims” franchise. Bradshaw has many successes to her credit, including “The Sims 2,” the fastest-selling PC game of all time.
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Landlines aren’t dead… yet.
Over half of US adults who only use a mobile phone are younger than 30, according to a Harris Interactive study conducted between October and December 2006. In fact, a third of 18-to-29-year-olds use only a mobile phone or the Internet for their calls.
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The Queen has set up her own email account, it has emerged. But she does not actually type her emails herself - she dictates them, according to the Daily Telegraph. The 81-year-old monarch, who also has a mobile phone and an iPod mini, revealed her acquisition of an email address at a recent Buckingham Palace garden party.
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Published by June 25th, 2007
in blogs and sources.
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In the age of the Internet, everyone’s an expert, complains Michael Gorman, the 2005-2006 president of the American Library Association, but few actually have the credits to back it up—and now Gorman’s blogging his critique. Gorman famously made similar charges in print, in a 2004 op-ed in the Los Angeles Times, “Google and God’s Mind”, and then an essay in Library Journal in which he harshly criticized bloggers’ responses to his op-ed and notoriously called blogs forums for “the unpublishable, untrammeled by editors or the rules of grammar…” No, Gorman—who last year retired as dean of the library at California State University, Fresno—hasn’t set up a blog of his own but rather has joined for the Web 2.0 Forum of the Encyclopedia Britannica Blog.
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Published by June 25th, 2007
in Pew Research, gadgets and mobile/cell phones.
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Many internet and cell phone users find devices and applications too complicated or hardly worth the trouble. A new Pew Internet & American Life report discusses why some adult Americans have relatively distant relationships to modern information technology and offers some ideas to address the problem.
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Nearly 20 million US consumers will download and listen to podcasts at least once a week by 2010, according to interviews with Bridge Ratings’ “Podcast Panel.” Based on extrapolations from the interviews, a projected seven million Americans download and listen to podcasts every week, with an additional 21.4 million listening to a minimum of four podcasts every month.
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With the world’s second-largest and fastest-growing Internet user population, China has become the next frontier for Web 2.0 activity. In recent months, MySpace, Yahoo! and Google have all made inroads into the Chinese market by either launching local versions of their sites or investing in China-based technology or social networking startups.
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Published by June 25th, 2007
in media, multi-tasking and Generation Y.
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Multitasking is driving up the total amount of time that US teens spend with media, according to a Bridge Ratings study conducted in March to May 2007. US consumers ages 13 to 17 spend more time with media overall than other age groups do, and their total media time has grown by more than two and a half hours per day since May 2004. Bridge attributes this change to Generation Y’s skill at consuming two or more of types of media simultaneously.
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What do you get when you cross online classified ads with web-based video? Realpeoplerealstuff.com is equal parts Craigslist and YouTube—a whole new way for customers to reach out to one another to sell their used appliances, automobiles, collectibles, concert tickets and countless other goods and services. “Realpeoplerealstuff.com combines the hottest internet trends in one, easy-to-use site: e-commerce, snarky writing, funny videos, everyone’s desire to be a star and video sharing.”
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