College of Information and Computer Science, Long Island University
Published by January 26th, 2008
in education and virtual worlds.
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Don’t look now, but multi-user virtual environments (MUVEs) are gaining momentum as the latest and greatest learning tool in the world of education technology. How do you get started with them? How do they work? Arm yourself with these 13 secrets from immersive education experts and educators, and you, too, can have real success implementing these new tools and technologies on your own campus.
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Published by January 26th, 2008
in innovation and corporations.
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As we launch a new year one truth is certain: an optimal solution for 2007 is not likely to meet the challenges of 2008 and 2009. Business owners and executives no longer can afford to rest upon prior laurels, even for a moment. To paraphrase an old line from the academicians, in today´s 24/7 high-tech world of commerce the catch phrase is “innovate or perish.”
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Published by January 26th, 2008
in libraries, Library of Congress and cataloging.
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A Library of Congress task force has completed its mission to look at the future of cataloging and other forms of bibliographic control and recommend steps on how the library community can continue to provide effective access in a changing technological world. The LC Working Group on the Future of Bibliographic Control released On the Record (PDF file), its 44-page final report, January 9 after responding to suggestions from a wide range of organizations and individuals who read a draft version issued November 30.
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A project “that collects, summarizes, and gives context to some of the best self-published content found on blogs, podcasts, photo sharing sites, and videoblogs from around the world, with a particular emphasis on countries outside of Europe and North America.” Browse by country, topics, or contributors. Available in several languages. Founded at Harvard Law School’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society.
Global Voices website
Published by January 26th, 2008
in web sites, museums and mapping.
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“Get Lost is a collective portrait of downtown New York. Twenty-one international artists were invited to create a personal view of the city and draw a map of downtown New York, uncovering a territory that is both real and imaginary. “Get Lost brings together fictional landscapes, utopian visions, private memories, and obsessive instructions to explore Manhattan, its past, present, and future.” Browse by artist. From the New Museum, New York.
Get Lost website
The National Information Standards Organization has issued RFID in U.S. Libraries (PDF file), containing recommended practices for using radio frequency identification (RFID) tags in library applications. The scope of the document is limited to item identification—that is, the implementation of RFID for books and other materials—and specifically excludes its use with regard to the identification of people.
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Read RFID in U.S. Libraries here
Published by January 26th, 2008
in libraries and library services.
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CMS (content management systems) solutions help maintain web sites, but librarians must learn new skills and think creatively to use these tools to their best advantage. Karen A. Coombs tell you how.
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The Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC) announced the winners of the first Sparky Awards January 22. The contest called on entrants to imaginatively illustrate in a short video the value of sharing ideas and information of all kinds. In first place was Share (0:53), written and directed by Habib Yazdi, a senior communication studies major at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
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View Share here
Published by January 26th, 2008
in Generation Y, video and knowledge management.
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The market for content and knowledge management systems and solutions is a crowded one—so much so that it can sometimes feel as if there are as many offerings out there as there are, say, neural pathways in the human brain. But there is probably only one knowledge management product that takes the inspiration for its design directly from that most complex and intricate of organs. PersonalBrain, a product of TheBrain Technologies, links networks of information including ideas, concepts, files, and webpages in a manner that attempts to mimic the thought processes of each unique user. Last year, TheBrain Technologies, a provider of visualization and dynamic mind-mapping software, released the fourth version of the PersonalBrain product, and last month the company celebrated a milestone in usage when one user surpassed 80,000 thoughts in his Brain.
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In the movie “Minority Report,” Tom Cruise’s character manipulates virtual documents and zooms through images with a flurry of hand gestures and motions. The movie is set in 2054. But a number of companies already are creating products that mimic that experience, enabling people to interact with monitors and computers using a wave of their hand or a shift in their body position. Think of it as the next step after the Nintendo Wii - only you are the Wii controller. The trend was on full display at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, where the focus has shifted to more natural interfaces for computing and entertainment experiences. Gesture-based controls take the idea to the next step, beyond voice activation, touch screens and motion-sensing via Wii controllers.
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Instead of just complaining when their favorite bookstore closes, growing numbers of people are now kicking in cash to keep them open, reports Nathaniel Popper in The Wall Street Journal (1/18/08). Across America, “loyal customers have been stepping up and putting down serious cash to save their neighborhood bookstores. These individuals see themselves more as donors than investors, committed to saving the ambiance and personal service of their local store.” As Clark Kepler of Kepler’s Books and Magazines advised his customers: “This is an investment from the heart. Don’t do this if you expect to see this money again.”
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“Is there any other industry in which such high-quality goods regularly make their way to consumers via a trash bin?” asks Susan Dominus in The New York Times (1/18/08). Susan is talking about the book industry, and specifically about the Strand, a used bookstore in Manhattan, where scavengers cash in on books other people have thrown in the garbage. Thomas Germain (a.k.a. Tommy Books) and his buddy Brian Martin (a.k.a. Leprechaun) make their living by getting up at three in the morning, rummaging through recycling bin and taking whatever books they find straight to the Strand’s bookseller’s line.
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Seattle librarian Nancy Pearl returns with another set of what she calls “under-the-radar” books — titles you really, really should be reading but haven’t (yet). The latest batch features the story of three royal cousins, tales of wild animal adventures and a pun-filled picture book for younger readers.
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Published by January 26th, 2008
in virtual worlds, research and Microsoft.
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The University of Kansas Biodiversity Research Center has received an $850,000 grant from the European Science Initiative of Microsoft Research Inc. to study biodiversity changes in complex environments with a focus on Mexico’s cloud forest. In partnership with the national biodiversity commission in Mexico, the project will analyze the data, but it is also taking a meta approach to examine how to best combine a broad set of complex data for analysis. One answer is to design a virtual world to test the researchers’ predictions. “The virtual world will give us ways to test tools we have been developing for 10 years,” said Jorge Soberón, lead investigator for the project and senior scientist at KU’s Biodiversity Institute. “We want to create a very complex simulation, not just a beautiful envelope with nothing inside.”
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Published by January 26th, 2008
in social networking, corporations, Facebook and MySpace.
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Social networking sites, such as Facebook and MySpace, have been around for less than five years, but they are already very much part of the Web 2.0 revolution taking place right now. Not only are they changing the way people socialize, they are also making traditional businesses sit up and take notice. It is estimated that about 194 million people around the world are managing at least one profile on a social networking site. And with 800 million internet users still not registered with such sites, the potential for growth is overwhelming.
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Published by January 26th, 2008
in social networking, librarians/information professionals, Facebook, MySpace and law.
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In the end, the web is about connections. Websites link to resources, resources recommend articles, articles refer to experts. Without links, websites are invisible. Social networks create links between people, forming connections based on interests, expertise, past employment or education, and friendships. Law librarians, while remaining aware of their pitfalls, can use social networks such as LinkedIn, Ning, Facebook, and even MySpace to promote useful websites and legal resources as well their own expertise and interests. Social networks provide law librarians with new avenues for libraries to reach users.
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Published by January 26th, 2008
in social sites, social networking and research.
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The growing popularity of online communities is increasing the awareness of—and participation in—social causes, according to the “2008 Digital Future Project,” conducted by the Center for the Digital Future at the USC Annenberg School for Communication. The survey found that 15% of US Internet users are members of an online community, defined as “a group that shares thoughts or ideas or works on common projects through electronic communication only.” But within that group, 94% said the Internet helped inform them about social causes.
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Published by January 26th, 2008
in demographics, social networking and MySpace.
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Although Facebook has come on strong in recent months, MySpace averaged more than three-quarters of all US visits in 2007 among the top social networking Web sites, according to Hitwise. The site received 72% of US visits to social networks in December 2007 alone. Overall visits to a group of 53 leading social network sites were up 4% year over year, and the top sites are becoming a mainstay of many Internet users’ routines.
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Published by January 26th, 2008
in demographics, children and digital.
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Children are voracious consumers of digital content, according to an NPD Group report titled “Kids and Digital Content.” The survey tracked the usage of entertainment content (physical and digital) among children on computers, video game systems, portable music players and mobile phones. It found that kids ages 2 to 14 are consuming digital content anywhere from three to seven times a month on a single device.
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Published by January 26th, 2008
in Second Life and virtual worlds.
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Governments have been taking tentative steps towards establishing a presence in the virtual world. And while the business case may yet to be proven, there is potential for the public sector to utilize virtual applications such as Second Life, says analyst Alison Brooks. Brooks, senior analyst for government insights at Toronto-based IDC Canada, says that there’s some piloting of Second Life going on across the world with the U.S. government using it for immigration and educational forums. “The Center for Disease Control uses it as an educational tool,” she says.
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Published by January 26th, 2008
in search and Google.
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The University of Manchester’s national data centre Mimas is set to launch an Internet search engine rivalling Google at the end of January. The free service will add thousands of documents to the ‘Intute’ service which already allows academics, teachers, researchers and students to search for information relating specifically to their subject area. The £1.5 million per year collaboration between seven UK universities and partners enlists a team of full-time specialists who are scouring the Internet. They are backed by an army of PhD students and a range of organisations, including the Wellcome Trust, who have added their own information to the Intute database.
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Wendy Bosswell of About.com on the top ten most useful Google services: the products that consistently help people achieve the ultimate productivity, demonstrate ease of use, and are viable for the long term.
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In a bid to offer users a more secure, portable, digital identity as they move across the Internet and access web applications, Internet company, Yahoo! Inc., has announced its support for the OpenID 2.0 digital identity framework. The support will make it easier for Yahoo!’s 248 million active, registered users worldwide to “consolidate their Internet identity” and remove the need to create separate IDs and logins when they visit various other websites, blogs or profile pages.
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Published by January 26th, 2008
in social sites, search, Yahoo and del.icio.us.
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TechCrunch reports that Yahoo! is experimenting with integrating del.icio.us bookmark data into regular search results. After the regular search listing Yahoo! will add a line saying something like “X people bookmarked this page under [these categories]”.Yahoo! bought this very popular online bookmark service in 2005.
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Published by January 26th, 2008
in salaries and plagiarism.
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The Nature journal has reported that two research scientists at the University of Texas in Dallas – Dr. Harold Garner and Dr. Mounir Errami – have developed an online search engine that curbs “questionable publication practices”. By deploying its new eTBLAST programme, the duo has managed to pinpoint 70,000 papers on biomedical paper repository Medline that are highly similar. As per their estimates, over 200,000 duplicate papers are likely to exist on Medline alone.
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Published by January 26th, 2008
in search and Japan.
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Published by January 26th, 2008
in education and software.
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Open source software will nearly double in the education space over the next four years. From its present level of $286.2 million, the market–including software, services, and maintenance–will reach $489.9 million by 2012, according to a report released recently by market analyst Datamonitor, which proclaimed that “open source software has the ability to change the face of the education Industry.”
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Published by January 26th, 2008
in libraries and economics.
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With nearly 300 million visits to England’s public libraries in 2007, more than 10 million new books added to the stock, and 17% increased spending, libraries in the U.K. still must make better use of funds, improve customer service, and boost usage, according to a report released January 14. The definitive annual library statistics, published by CIPFA (Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy) paint a picture of changing trends in public library usage.
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Published by January 26th, 2008
in libraries, Library of Congress and cataloging.
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The Library of Congress may step down from its role as the primary institution for classifying and cataloging library materials, according to a report it released last month. “The Library of Congress does not necessarily want to have the same role in the future that it’s had in the past - implementing cataloging standards,” said Mary Bolin, chairwoman of technical services for University of Nebraska-Lincoln libraries. “They want to move further into a world where they aren’t the only players, where everyone shares and collaborates.” In order to get away from the Library of Congress being the sole arbiter of cataloguing standards, the report urged libraries around the country to share more records with one another, to create more awareness of their special collections and to make greater use of online databases.
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Published by January 26th, 2008
in digital and archives.
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In what could evolve into another legal hurdle for libraries the digital age, a Cornell alum has sued the university over a decades-old article now available in the university library’s digital collections—and searchable on Internet. According to the Cornell Daily Sun, Kevin Vanginderen, a Cornell graduate and now a lawyer in California, filed a $1 million lawsuit against the University in San Diego County Superior Court in October, 2007, claiming libel, and raising potentially thorny questions about the resurgence of old information in the new world of digital archiving.
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Published by January 26th, 2008
in digital and preservation.
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International leaders holding a variety of interests and areas expertise have been named to a Blue Ribbon Task Force to develop actionable recommendations for the economic sustainability of, preservation of, and persistent access to, digital information. The Blue Ribbon Task Force on Sustainable Digital Preservation and Access is co-chaired by Fran Berman, director of the San Diego Supercomputer Center at University of California, San Diego and a pioneer in data cyberinfrastructure; and Brian Lavoie, a research scientist and economist with OCLC, a library service and research organisation.
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Published by January 26th, 2008
in digital.
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A years-long project at Ball State University to digitize a huge range of content is using advanced encoding technology and digital rights management (DRM) to help manage and make available thousands of hours of content stored in its libraries. The university has also recently expanded its digital offerings to include high-definition TV.
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Published by January 20th, 2008
in social networking and museums.
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“Usually, when I start posts with a question in the title, it’s a cheat. The presumed answer is “yes” your museum needs a blog, a pony, or a set of comfy couches. In this case, it’s debatable. Does your museum need a custom online social network? Maybe not. Let’s discuss what it means, how it works, where it can go.”
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Published by January 20th, 2008
in mobile/cell phones, books and Japan.
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Until recently, cellphone novels — composed on phone keypads by young women wielding dexterous thumbs and read by fans on their tiny screens — had been dismissed in Japan as a subgenre unworthy of the country that gave the world its first novel, “The Tale of Genji,” a millennium ago. Then last month, the year-end best-seller tally showed that cellphone novels, republished in book form, have not only infiltrated the mainstream but have come to dominate it.
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Published by January 20th, 2008
in Library of Congress and Flickr.
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Flickr has unveiled a new project, dubbed The Commons, which will give Flickr members an opportunity to browse and tag photos from Library of Congress archives. The goal is to create what Flickr likes to call an “organic information system,” in other words, a se