Published by rwatstein April 27th, 2008
in innovation and corporations.
North American and European executives say business strategy depends largely on innovation, yet corporate responsibility for innovation is highly fragmented, Accenture survey shows.Frequency of innovation, “speed to market” are key competitive challenges Business strategy is driven largely by innovation, but corporate responsibility for the innovation process is highly fragmented, according to findings of a survey published by Accenture. The survey of 601 senior executives in the United States, United Kingdom, Germany and Canada found that innovation is a top corporate priority, but it also indicates that more senior-level accountability, greater CEO involvement and improved speed-to-market execution can help companies deliver on their promise of innovation and boost their competitiveness.
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Published by rwatstein April 27th, 2008
in education and copyright.
University of Florida professor Michael Moulton thinks copyright law protects the lectures he gives to his students, and he’s headed to court to prove it. Moulton and his e-textbook publisher are suing Thomas Bean, who runs a company that repackages and sells student notes, arguing that the business is illegal since notes taken during college lectures violate the professor’s copyright.
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Information is only one of many things found in a library. While many people view and use the public library as an information agency, its original mandate, many more now come to it to learn, to interact, to explore, and, of course, to be entertained. Yes, they come to the library to have fun. Reading Bill Crowley’s “Lifecycle Librarianship” (Library Journal, 4/1/08, p. 46-48) made me realize how broad the mission of the modern public library has become. At the insistence of its users, the public library, indeed libraries of every type, provide an array of services and items that go far beyond “information” as it is usually defined. Reading Crowley, I too was shocked by the narrowness of the definition of library and information studies he quoted from the Standards for Accreditation of Master’s Programs in Library and Information Studies adopted by the American Library Association (ALA) in 1992. Such a narrow statement of the field’s mandate would lead to the current conventional wisdom that something called “information” is the quintessential substance of librarianship, the embodiment of the profession. This is not only inadequate, it is inaccurate. Our professional outlook, our vision, is trapped in the 1992 Standards. (A recent minor revision did not address this issue.)
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Published by rwatstein April 27th, 2008
in libraries, library services and books.
Ten years ago, stories like “B&N: The New College Library” (Library Journal 2/1/98) and “What If You Ran Your Library Like a Bookstore?” (American Libraries, 3/98) kicked up a controversy about the viability of libraries. Ironically, these days it’s the book business that has an aura of crisis and gloom, while visits to libraries are surging. Over two billion items are checked out annually, and nearly all libraries offer free Internet access along with many of the amenities of a bookstore. Truth be told, the book business has always had an aura of crisis and gloom. It’s the Eeyore of industries. But lately, it’s become clear that the book industry really does need to be saved: from itself.
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After recently completing my MLIS through the online program at San Jose State University, CA, I realized that my ideal career would be in an academic library. I was an intern at the Sonoma State University Library, and, not wanting to uproot my family, I was determined to get a full-time job there in whatever capacity was available to me. My solution: I accepted a paraprofessional job. It has proven to be a wise decision. I have gained both knowledge and confidence in only three months of paraprofessional work. It’s experience I would not have acquired if I were still searching for a librarian position, or only reading the professional literature while working in a job outside the field.
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Published by rwatstein April 27th, 2008
in libraries, information and digital.
The US National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) has apparently decided to end its policy of taking a “digital snapshot” of all public congressional and federal web sites after each congressional and presidential term. According to NARA, which is understandably drawing heat for the policy change, they shouldn’t need to archive those web sites because federal agencies and congress should be doing their own archiving. I read about NARA after reading a very timely piece from Leland Rucker about the nature of information archiving in a totally digital world, and it got me wondering: what happens to all this content on the web 250 years in the future? Last year Google’s archives touched 100 exabytes of data from the web. To put that in perspective, that’s about 107 billion gigabytes (or, over a half a million 200 GB hard drives). The entire catalog of the Library of Congress is about 136 terabytes — which makes Google’s archive the data equivalent of 771,000 Libraries of Congress.
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Published by rwatstein April 27th, 2008
in Google, mapping and United Nations.
Internet search giant Google Inc. unveiled a new feature for its popular mapping programs recently that shines a spotlight on the movement of refugees around the world. The office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, which is working with Google on the project, said the maps would aid humanitarian operations as well as help the public understand more about the millions who have fled their homes because of violence or hardship.
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If you think that your business is having a tough time coping with the data explosion, then spare a thought for the Library of Congress, which has to find some way of tackling a mind-blowing amount of information. ”The digital revolution is comparable to the one started by Gutenberg more 500 years ago,” said Laura Campbell, the archive’s associate librarian, referring to the first book printed with movable type. In its 208-year history, the library has collected more than 138 million items in 450 languages, ranging from manuscripts to maps and sound recordings, but the Internet era poses a whole new set of challenges. ”We estimate that in the current digital age, the amount of information produced every 15 minutes is equivalent to all the data and information now in the Library of Congress,” explained Campbell, during a keynote. “The library can no longer collect everything.”
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Published by rwatstein April 27th, 2008
in collections and Library of Congress.
Tatiana Fessenko (1915-1995) was a cataloger at the Library of Congress for several decades, retiring in the early 1980s. A native of Kiev with an educational background in Russian language and literature, Ms. Fessenko was particularly interested in the Library’s Yudin Collection, acquired in 1906. It was she who cataloged most of the 18th and early 19th century materials from the 80,000 volume Yudin Collection, in many cases doing extensive bibliographical and biographical detective work to discover the authors of pseudonymous and anonymous works, and the original titles of works originally published in French, German, or English.
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Libraries used to be places where people borrowed books. Today they are physical and virtual spaces filled with different kinds of information - much of it electronic and accessible from outside the library. “It’s a new world, an information world,” said Jeff Middleton, director of library services for Central Arizona College. “But people at their core are the same. The best thing the librarian can do is help them explore, find things, understand them and use them.” When children grew up with books, librarians helped them learn how to use books, he said. Today’s students grew up with computers, and librarians help them find information in the online environment. “Today’s students need information literacy competencies the way students a generation ago needed to understand index cards and card catalogs,” Middleton said.
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Published by rwatstein April 27th, 2008
in libraries.
Fort Collins, CO has a new library - but this library doesn’t lend out books, it lends out bicycles. Everyone is welcome to borrow a bike, including residents, students, and visitors. Members may borrow a bike for as short as one hour or for as long as a week. There are a variety of bicycles and bike trailers for children and cargo as well as tandems and tag-a-longs for older children. Right now, the library has 50 bikes available, it hopes to expand to 200 bikes.
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Published by rwatstein April 27th, 2008
in search, Google and green.
A new Australian green search engine seeking to capitalise on web surfers’ eco-guilt has been barred by Google from using its search technology and advertising platform. Ecocho.com.au promises to buy carbon offset credits that will result in two trees being planted for every 1000 searches made through the site. It gives users the option of searching through either Yahoo or Google and serves up their ads alongside search results. But like other green search engines, it is questionable whether Ecocho really is any more environmentally friendly than regular Google search.
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The Department of Commerce’s United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) today announced the launch of a new, dynamic curriculum that inspires students to be creative and teaches them about the value of patents, trademarks, and copyrights, as well as the importance of respecting other’s intellectual property. The i-©®eaTM curriculum, developed by the USPTO in collaboration with i-SAFE—a leader in Internet safety education—is an interactive and age appropriate unit of instruction designed for upper-elementary, middle, and high school students. “If you own something that is valuable, you want to protect it. Since U.S. intellectual property today is worth more than $5 trillion, it is important that future inventors understand the process of protecting intellectual property, and that we instill an innovative spirit among students to keep the flow of innovation alive,” said Jon Dudas, Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the USPTO.
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Published by rwatstein April 27th, 2008
in data and computer science.
Forget “Format c:” or that silly disk erasing software; get physical. With stories surfacing on news channels regularly about lost or stolen data or the ability to recover data from discarded or resold computers and their hard drives, Computerworld decided to look at some cheap methods of removing that sensitive data from your hard drive permanently. And, what better place to look than YouTube? While some of the behavior in these videos clearly displays a somewhat alarming level of violence and pent-up rage (and are probably illegal), we nevertheless were fascinated with the myriad ways to destroy a hard drive — from a plasma cutter to a train to machines we don’t even know the name of — not to mention aluminothermic reactions. Who knew there was such a subculture devoted to abusing hard drives? We even tried it ourselves, and you know, it is kind of fun. Make sure to go to the end of the story to see our version of disk destruction.
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Published by rwatstein April 27th, 2008
in education and collections.
E-book technology firm ebrary has announced that it will provide librarians as well as students and faculty in library science and related programmes with complimentary access to its Library Center for one year in support of National Library Week. Subsidised by ebrary, the Library Center includes more than 85 full-text e-books.
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In this technologically savvy society, students seem to be relying more on electronic resources and less on books when it comes to research. According to circulation statistics, from July 2006 to June 2007, University of Rhode Island students and faculty members checked out 53,227 books. Twenty years ago, students alone checked out more than twice that amount. In fact, students were checking out more and more books each decade until the mid-1990s when the use of the Internet became more widespread. The decrease, according to David Maslyn, dean of University Libraries, can be attributed to the convenience and wide scope of electronic resources available. URI subscribes to more than 100 electronic databases that allow students access to almost unlimited topics.
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Published by rwatstein April 27th, 2008
in libraries, sources, research and digital.
The British Library recently conducted a survey on researchers’ attitudes and needs in the digital age. Of the respondents, 93 percent stated that access to online research material should be the same as for books. A majority of the survey participants agreed that, in the age of the Internet, anyone involved in non-commercial research should be allowed to copy parts of electronically published works. These include online articles, news broadcasts, film or sound recordings.
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Published by rwatstein April 27th, 2008
in museums and green.
Museums tend to be famous for what’s on their walls. But at the new Grand Rapids Art Museum (GRAM) in Michigan, the art has taken a back seat to the walls themselves. Last month, the $75 million, 125,000-square-foot building became the first art museum in the country to receive a LEED Gold certification from the US Green Building Council in Washington. (LEED, which stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, is considered the benchmark for green construction.) The fact that a second museum, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Denver, will soon gain Gold status is just one sign of the greening of US museums.
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Published by rwatstein April 27th, 2008
in libraries.
Nicholas Pappalardo, a 45-year-old electrician with a serious 5 o’clock shadow, knows every word of the song “Little Red Wagon,” a talent that was on display last Saturday morning at the Elmhurst public library in Queens. As his wife and 3-year-old son, Nicky, sat and sang in the audience for the library’s story hour, Mr. Pappalardo, seated at a table across the room, gazed at his child and crooned along, like a groupie who couldn’t help himself. Mr. Pappalardo isn’t a regular at story hour, but he’s learned the words from his son, who is. For more than a year, almost every Saturday, Nicky and his mother have made the half-hour walk from their home in Woodside to the Saturday story hour in Elmhurst.
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OverDrive has hit the mother load of e-texts: the company in late March answered the prayers of librarians and patrons by announcing it will begin offering MP3-compatible audio downloads (yes, that means iPods), as well as cutting a massive distribution deal for more than 6500 Random House ebooks. The company will release at least 3000 downloadable audiobook titles—about 15 percent of its catalog—in MP3 format without digital rights management (DRM), to provide compatibility with nearly every MP3 player and mobile phone. OverDrive MP3 Audiobooks go on sale in May at Borders.com and should be available to libraries by June’s end, to be followed by the release of OverDrive Media Console for the Mac.
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Published by rwatstein April 27th, 2008
in digital, publishing and reference.
The future of reference and e-book publishing remains strong, according to Rolf Janke, Vice President and Publisher of Sage Reference. According to the publisher, the prospect of reference and e-book publishing remains strong despite continued concerns from the publishing industry over the growing popularity of social networking and online peer-reference sources such as Wikipedia.
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Published by rwatstein April 27th, 2008
in virtual worlds.
An avatar, the image a person uses in a virtual world, is currently bound to the particular world in which it was created. But at the Virtual Worlds Conference 2008 in New York City recently, several companies showcased their efforts to allow people to carry their avatars from one virtual world to another, and even out onto ordinary Web pages. These developments point to a convergence between virtual worlds and social networks.
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Published by rwatstein April 27th, 2008
in Google, privacy and geospatial.
The Google Street View project has the goal to photograph the streets of America and beyond, and the views from those streets, which sometimes results in people getting their photos taken in public places without their permission; resulting in some fun controversy.This time, it looks like Google has gone too far. According to the Pittsburgh Post Gazette, a Pittsburgh suburb couple is suing Google for trespassing on their property and publishing Street View photographs which were taken from their private lane and private driveway.
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Published by rwatstein April 27th, 2008
in China and search.
Baidu, the leading search engine in China, is getting involved in the coming US Presidential elections it seems. They have added a caricature of Barack Obama and the democrat donkey in the Baidu logo.
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Published by rwatstein April 27th, 2008
in education.
A technical report from a University of Houston Department of Health and Human Performance researcher finds that students in a hybrid class that incorporated instructional technology with in-class lectures scored a letter grade higher on average than their counterparts who took the same class in a more traditional format.
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Published by rwatstein April 27th, 2008
in demographics and web sites.
The market share of U.S. visits to a custom category of Question and Answer websites has increased 118 percent for the week ending Mar. 15, 2008, compared to the same week in 2007, Hitwise reported. Over the past two years, U.S. visits to this category have increased 889 percent comparing Feb. 2008 versus Feb. 2006. The most visited website within the Questions and Answers category last week was Yahoo! Answers (answers.yahoo.com), which received 74.05 percent of the market share of U.S. visits. Wiki.Answers.com was the second most visited website receiving 18.35 percent of visits, followed by Answerbag.com, which received 4.42 percent of visits. WikiAnswers, launched in June 2007 has seen U.S. visits increase 125 percent comparing the week ending Jun. 9, 2007versus Mar. 15, 2008.
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Published by rwatstein April 27th, 2008
in mobile/cell phones and demographics.
The number of people without traditional landline phones is increasing, as a growing number of U.S. adults use only mobile phones, a market research firm said Friday. In a survey conducted in the fourth quarter of last year, Harris Interactive found that about one in seven adults only uses a cell phone, up from roughly one in 10 in 2006. The percentage of adults with landline phones has dropped slightly to 79% from 81%.
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Published by rwatstein April 6th, 2008
in libraries and library services.
A design approach to the delivery of outstanding services can help library professionals become strategizers and problem-solvers who put the user experience first.
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