2008 October archive at Information Innovation Exchange

Archive for October, 2008

Top Ten Forecasts for 2009 and Beyond

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Published by rwatstein October 25th, 2008 in future and trends. 0 Comments

Each year since 1985, the editors of The Futurist have selected the most thought-provoking ideas and forecasts appearing in the magazine to go into our annual Outlook report. Over the years, Outlook has spotlighted the emergence of such epochal developments as the Internet, virtual reality, and the end of the Cold War. Here are the editors’ top 10 forecasts from Outlook 2009: 1. Everything you say and do will be recorded by 2030

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Frost and Sullivan Award Recognizes Orange Business Services’ Green Credentials

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Published by rwatstein October 25th, 2008 in environment and green. 0 Comments

Frost and Sullivan recently announced that Orange Business Services, a brand of France Telecom, was awarded the company’s 2007 European Green Excellence Product Innovation Award. This award was conferred on the basis that Orange Business Services has shown a commitment towards environmental issues throughout the past year. The European Green Excellence Product Innovation Award, 2007, is awarded for initiating developmental steps and unique product designs that are in line with a sustainable and environmentally conscious goal in a company’s industry sector. This award underlines a company’s innovation of a revolutionary and unique solution that has tremendous environmental benefits. At the same time, this solution also presents great marketing potential. This award also proves that the company has adopted a successful and sound business strategy.

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Blatant Berry: The Toll of American Library Association’s IRS Muzzle

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Published by rwatstein October 25th, 2008 in libraries and American Library Association. 0 Comments

Library Journal’s John Berry asserts that ALA’s leaders have used the IRS threat of revoking its charitable organization status to suppress political involvement, and librarians “need much deeper and better understanding of exactly where the line is drawn on ‘political speech’ and precisely how great the danger is.”

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Self-Censorship for Museum Professionals

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Published by rwatstein October 25th, 2008 in museums and censorship. 0 Comments

There are lots of things visitors can’t do in museums. But what about the things that museum professionals can’t (or feel they can’t) do? This week at the ASTC conference, Kathy McLean, Tom Rockwell, Eric Siegel and I presented a session called “You Can’t Do That in Museums!” in which we explored the peculiarities of self-censorship in the creation of museum exhibitions. You can view (and download) the slides and audio here, which feature our provocations and the discussion that followed.

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New Report from OCLC Programs and Research: “Beyond the Silos of the LAMs”

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Published by rwatstein October 25th, 2008 in libraries and OCLC. 0 Comments

Subtitled “Collaboration Among Libraries, Archives and Museums,” the report highlights lessons learned from five library, archive and museum workshops held at RLG partner institutions in the U.S. and the U.K., and contains information about inspiring collaborative projects in campus environments. The bulk of the report, which is authored by Diane Zorich, Günter Waibel and Ricky Erway, is dedicated to the catalysts that allow collaboration to thrive.

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Dewey the Bestseller Cat

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Published by rwatstein October 25th, 2008 in books and publishing. 0 Comments

He was a yellow tabby with twinkling green eyes, who arrived in the overnight drop box of the Spencer (Iowa) Public Library one frigid January night. Dewey Readmore Books became the library’s star boarder and an international celebrity. His story, Dewey, the Small-Town Library Cat Who Touched the World, by Vicki Myron and Bret Witter, has 336,000 copies in print and has quickly climbed to the top 10 on the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Publishers Weekly, and other lists of bestsellers.

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The Law Concerning Photos Taken at Your Library

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Published by rwatstein October 25th, 2008 in libraries, privacy and photos. 0 Comments

Bryan Carson writes: “Over the past two decades, there has been a substantial increase in the number of programs that libraries sponsor. It seems natural to document events by taking photographs. Pictures can be a powerful way of justifying a programming budget and can also be useful in attracting people to future lectures and programs. However, there are a few legal issues relating to photography that librarians need to be aware of, particularly the rights of privacy and publicity. In some situations, using a photograph of an identifiable person could be a one-way ticket to a lawsuit.”…

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National “Best Books 2008” Winners

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Published by rwatstein October 25th, 2008 in awards, books and publishing. 0 Comments

USA Book News has announced the winners of its National “Best Books 2008” Awards. The online magazine selected more than 500 print and audiobook winners and finalists in some 140 categories, all published in 2008 or late 2007. Selections include titles from major publishers as well as independents and university presses.

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Eclipse Tops YALSA’s Teens’ Top 10

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Published by rwatstein October 25th, 2008 in American Library Association, awards, books, publishing and teens. 0 Comments

More than 8,000 teen readers across the country chose Eclipse by Stephenie Meyer as their favorite book in the annual Teens’ Top Ten vote, sponsored by YALSA. The online vote took place during Teen Read Week, October 12–18, with the third entry in Meyer’s popular vampire romance series winning easily over J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and Jeff Kinney’s Diary of a Wimpy Kid.

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Serving Patrons with Autism

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Published by rwatstein October 25th, 2008 in libraries, library services and disabilities. 0 Comments

The Scotch Plains (N.J.) Public Library and the Fanwood (N.J.) Memorial Library have produced a customer-service training video for library staff to help them serve individuals with autism and their families more effectively. The video focuses on what you need to know about autism and suggests specific techniques to offer more inclusive service to this growing and underserved population. Their Libraries and Autism site also has links to other useful resources.

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NYPL’s New LGBT Visiting Scholars Program

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Published by rwatstein October 25th, 2008 in libraries and NYPL. 0 Comments

The New York Public Library has created an LGBT Visiting Scholars program to provide travel stipends to New York City for up to three visiting scholars to do LGBT research in the library’s collections. The awards will be limited to emerging scholars or those who are unaffiliated with an academic institution. The selected Martin Duberman Scholars will receive travel grants that range from $1,000 to $8,500 and will be provided with workspace at the library to pursue their research.

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The Transparent Library: Library PR 2.0

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Published by rwatstein October 25th, 2008 in libraries, library services, marketing and library 2.0. 0 Comments

Social networking tools like Facebook and Twitter have expanded the grapevine, so use it to your advantage. Here are some guidelines for your libraries’ marketing 2.0 program.

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Yale Doubles Number of Free Online Courses

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Published by rwatstein October 25th, 2008 in education. 0 Comments

Eight new courses in history, economics, literature and biomedical engineering taught by leading faculty have been added to “Open Yale Courses,” the University’s free online education initiative. The courses, which were recorded in their entirety as they were taught to Yale College students in the classroom, are available in video and audio formats. Closed captioning is offered for each course, and that feature has been added to the seven courses that were made available when the award-winning Open Yale Courses was launched in December 2007. In addition to complete, searchable transcripts, the Internet courses include syllabi, reading assignments, problem sets and other materials.

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Finding the Underserved

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Published by rwatstein October 25th, 2008 in libraries and library services. 0 Comments

Surprisingly, it’s often the upper-middle classes that libraries are failing to serve, which cascades down to poorer service for the underprivileged. To compete in the information race, librarians must adopt market- or demand-based service models and more business-oriented decision-making

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Agencies Collaborate on Digitization Guidelines

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Published by rwatstein October 25th, 2008 in digital and government. 0 Comments

The Federal Agencies Digitization Guidelines Initiative, a partnership of a dozen federal agencies that is working to establish a common set of guidelines for the digitization of historical materials, has launched a new Web site. The site, www.digitizationguidelines.gov, includes a glossary of digitization terms and concepts and news from the participating agencies. The initiative has two working groups: one focused on content that can be captured from still images and another on sound, video or motion picture film. The still image working group will focus its efforts on content such as books, manuscripts, maps and photographic prints. Meanwhile, the audio-visual group will address standards and practices for sound, video and film.

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MUVE into Virtual Worlds

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Published by rwatstein October 25th, 2008 in libraries and virtual worlds. 0 Comments

Virtual worlds are here to stay, says Tom Peters in the October issue of Library Technology Reports. In “Librarianship in Virtual Worlds,” Peters explores how librarianship can survive and thrive in these multi-user virtual environments (MUVEs). For libraries and library-related organizations interested in developing a presence in one or more virtual worlds, this issue of LTR may prove a useful tool for understanding the breadth and depth of the VW scene.

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Acclaimed Colombian Institution Has 4,800 Books and 10 Legs

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Published by rwatstein October 25th, 2008 in libraries and books. 0 Comments

In a ritual repeated nearly every weekend for the past decade here in Colombia’s war-weary Caribbean hinterland, Luis Soriano gathered his two donkeys, Alfa and Beto, in front of his home on a recent Saturday afternoon. Sweating already under the unforgiving sun, he strapped pouches with the word “Biblioburro” painted in blue letters to the donkeys’ backs and loaded them with an eclectic cargo of books destined for people living in the small villages beyond.

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Bibliothèque Nationale de France to Add Records to WorldCat

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Published by rwatstein October 25th, 2008 in OCLC, classification and cataloging. 0 Comments

Global library cooperative Online Computer Library Center, Inc. (OCLC) and Bibliothèque nationale de France have signed a letter of intent to work cooperatively to add records from the French national library to OCLC’s WorldCat. WorldCat is one of the world’s largest online resources for finding information in libraries.

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University of Michigan Adopts Creative Commons Licenses

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Published by rwatstein October 25th, 2008 in libraries and copyright. 0 Comments

The University of Michigan Library has decided to adopt Creative Common Attribution-Non-Commercial licenses for all works created by the library for which the school holds the copyright. These works include bibliographies, research guides, lesson plans, research studies, and technology tutorials. The license allows anyone to copy, distribute, display, or perform a work or derivative works based on it, as long as the user gives proper attribution to the University of Michigan Library and the use is noncommercial….

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Swiss Abbey Gets a Mellon Grant to Digitize Manuscripts

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Published by rwatstein October 25th, 2008 in digital and collections. 0 Comments

One of the oldest and most valuable collections of handwritten medieval books in the world, housed in the magnificent baroque halls of the Abbey Library of St. Gall in Switzerland, is going online with the help of a $1 million grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The collection includes material as varied as curses against book thieves, early love ballads, hearty drinking songs, and a hand-drawn ground plan for a medieval monastery, drafted around A.D. 820, the only such document of its kind.

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A Brooklyn Librarian Is Fined for Promoting His Daughter’s Book

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Published by rwatstein October 25th, 2008 in librarians/information professionals. 0 Comments

The city levied a $500 fine against a librarian at Brooklyn Technical High School after he promoted his daughter’s book in the library and a newsletter. Mr. Grandt, who said he was an unwitting villain, was disappointed the board did not see things his way. “There are so many things going on they could investigate,” he said in an interview, “and they had nothing better to do than allege that my daughter would have gotten 20 cents in royalties if someone bought the book. But nobody did. I gave out free copies. I was just so proud of my daughter for writing it.”

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British Architect to Redesign New York City Library

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Published by rwatstein October 25th, 2008 in libraries, architecture, NYPL and design. 0 Comments

Norman Foster, the eminent British architect who has made something of a specialty out of inserting contemporary designs into historic buildings, has been selected for a major renovation of the New York Public Library’s landmark 1911 main building, on Fifth Avenue between 40th and 42nd Streets. Mr. Foster and his London firm, Foster & Partners, are to create a new circulation library in a space below the library’s Rose Reading Room and overlooking Bryant Park that now houses seven levels of stacks and a basement.

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Ousted Boston Library Chief will Open New Chapter in New York

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Published by rwatstein October 25th, 2008 in libraries and librarians/information professionals. 0 Comments

The embattled former head of the Boston Public Library has been hired as the New York state librarian and assistant commissioner of education in Albany. The New York state Board of Regents confirmed the appointment of Bernard A. Margolis at a meeting recently. “Just as the Yankees took Babe Ruth, Boston’s loss is our gain,” said Tom Dunn, New York education department spokesman. “We are thrilled.”

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Strapped Brooklyn Residents Hit Library Stacks for Free ‘Loans’

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Published by rwatstein October 25th, 2008 in libraries, library services and economics. 0 Comments

A Midwood movie buff, Miguel Salazar spent $50 last month on movie rentals - cash he really didn’t want to lay out these days with the city’s economy in turmoil. Salazar, a construction worker with fewer jobs, has decided to bypass Blockbuster or Netflix and head straight for the public library for his flick fix. “I come to save some money,” said Salazar, as he took out a copy of the drama “Broken Wings” from the Midwood branch last week.

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Untangling Web Information

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Published by rwatstein October 25th, 2008 in internet and semantic web. 0 Comments

The next big stage in the evolution of the Internet, according to many experts and luminaries, will be the advent of the Semantic Web–that is, technologies that let computers process the meaning of Web pages instead of simply downloading or serving them up blindly. Microsoft’s acquisition of the semantic search engine Powerset earlier this year shows faith in this vision. But thus far, little Semantic Web technology has been available to the general public. That’s why many eyes will be on Twine, a Web organizer based on semantic technology that recently launched publicly.

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Association of Learned and Professional Publishers (ALPSP): Journal Market Evolving, Content Surging

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Published by rwatstein October 25th, 2008 in publishing and journals. 0 Comments

A recent survey conducted by the UK-based Association of Learned and Professional Publishers (ALPSP) confirms much of what we already know about the market for scholarly journals: it is a rapidly evolving, and challenging environment, with perhaps the biggest challenge simply managing the vast—and increasing—number of scholarly articles produced every year.

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Library Use Rises as Economy Falls

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Published by rwatstein October 25th, 2008 in libraries and economics. 0 Comments

Haverhill (Mass.) Public Library Assistant Director Susan Katzenstein said the library is usually “an incredibly busy place.” But nowadays, “our usage is through the roof.” The Haverhill library is not alone. Across the region, local public libraries are reporting a surge in use, a trend officials tie directly to the economic hardship many are facing

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Survey of Journalism Blogs

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Published by rwatstein October 25th, 2008 in blogs and journalism. 0 Comments

Paul Bradshaw writes: “Blogs have become part of the editorial furniture. As of this year, 70% of U.S. newspapers, 85% of UK news organizations, and 44% of European news organizations were offering journalist-authored blogs, and all the signals from editors and management suggested these figures would continue to rise. To consider whether journalists feel that blogging has affected their working processes, an online survey was distributed in June and July 2008. Perhaps the most significant change was in the way that blogs provided a platform for stories or detail that would otherwise not make the print or broadcast version at all.”

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Wikipedia and the Meaning of Truth

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Published by rwatstein October 25th, 2008 in Wikipedia. 0 Comments

Why the online encyclopedia’s epistemology should worry those who care about traditional notions of accuracy. With little notice from the outside world, the community-written encyclopedia Wikipedia has redefined the commonly accepted use of the word “truth.” Why should we care? Because ¬Wikipedia’s articles are the first- or second-ranked results for most Internet searches. Type “iron” into Google, and Wikipedia’s article on the element is the top-ranked result; likewise, its article on the Iron Cross is first when the search words are “iron cross.” Google’s search algorithms rank a story in part by how many times it has been linked to; people are linking to Wikipedia articles a lot. This means that the content of these articles really matters.

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Gartner Urges Government Investment in Web 2.0

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Published by rwatstein October 25th, 2008 in web 2.0 and government. 0 Comments

Analyst firm Gartner has warned that governments need to step up their commitment to social networks. Gartner argued that, by not employing social networks, governments are missing opportunities to tap into societal resources, such as voluntary groups, philanthropists and associations.

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7 Fantastic Internet Hoaxes

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Published by rwatstein October 25th, 2008 in internet. 0 Comments

Despite our increasing technological sophistication, we can’t help falling for email about Bigfoot, giant mutant cats, doomed tourists, and deadly butt spiders. Admit it. Even you, a savvy veteran e-mail user, have fallen for one or more of these Internet rumors. Or, even if you weren’t quite sure of the veracity of a particular story or photograph, you e-mailed it to your friends to amuse/warn them, or to see what they thought. Don’t be embarrassed, you’re not alone. Despite our increasing technological sophistication, we seem to be as susceptible as ever to people determined to make suckers of us. After all, Internet hoaxes play on our human, not technical, vulnerabilities.

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Survey: College Students Struggling for Loans

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Published by rwatstein October 25th, 2008 in education. 0 Comments

The credit crunch has officially arrived on campus. In a new survey, private colleges report their students are finding it significantly harder to secure the private loans they need to pay tuition bills. More alarmingly, nearly half of colleges say some students have been forced to take time off or go part-time as a result.

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YouTube Now World’s No. 2 Search Engine

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Published by rwatstein October 25th, 2008 in YouTube and search. 0 Comments

Productivity is dead, the internet is going to explode. According to ComScore’s August 2008 search engine rankings, YouTube is now the number two search engine in the world, surpassing Yahoo. YouTube fetched over 2.6 billion search queries that month, trumping Yahoo’s 2.4 billion—though Google itself still reigns supreme with 7.6 billion queries (together, Google and YouTube field 10.2 billion). That’s a hell of a lot of video, just on YouTube. And I don’t even wanna know how many of those were looking for Rick Astley’s magnum opus.

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The Flaw at the Heart of the Internet

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Published by rwatstein October 25th, 2008 in internet. 0 Comments

Dan Kaminsky discovered a fundamental problem and got people to care in time. We were lucky this time.

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US Internet User Update

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Published by rwatstein October 25th, 2008 in demographics and internet. 0 Comments

The Internet has long been a mass medium in the US, but it just got a little more massive. eMarketer estimates that 63.4% of the US population uses the Web at least once per month, and that nearly seven out of 10 Americans will do so by 2013.

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Google Confirms Random House Joins Surging Google Book Search

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Published by rwatstein October 25th, 2008 in search, books, Google and publishing. 0 Comments

Google said at this year’s Frankfurt Book Fair that it as has doubled the number of publishers participating in Google Book Search from last year, and confirmed that among its new partners is Random House, the world’s largest English language publisher.

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Searching for the Mobile Web

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Published by rwatstein October 25th, 2008 in mobile/cell phones, internet and search. 0 Comments

Search technology has transformed the way that people use the Internet and has made piles of money for giants like Google. This week at Mobile Internet World 2008, in Boston, industry leaders gathered to talk about emerging technologies that might at last bring useful Internet search to mobile devices too.

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New Media Player Allows Spoken-Word Search

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Published by rwatstein October 25th, 2008 in search. 0 Comments

EveryZing, a media indexing company, is launching its own media player that lets people search for spoken words within videos. The new video player, called MetaPlayer, uses technology the company already has in its ezSearch and ezSEO products. On sites that support it (the first announced is the Dallas Cowboys site), users will be able to type in a query in the video player and see where the term entered comes up; they can then jump to that spot.

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Library Journal Placements & Salaries 2008, Now Online, Finds Library Jobs and Pay Both Up

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Published by rwatstein October 19th, 2008 in libraries, librarians/information professionals and career. 0 Comments

Among the highlights in Library Journal’s 2008 Placements & Salaries Survey, more jobs at better salaries, and a surprisingly healthy outlook—despite evidence of longer job searches and more part-time positions. For the first time, the survey takes a hard look at the so-called information schools as opposed to the traditional library schools. And there’s much more, with individual sections on minorities, the library gender gap, job searching and where the jobs are, the changing academic library job environment, catalogers and archivists, public vs. private sector jobs, and on and on.

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Letters to the Next President from Higher Education’s Leaders

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Published by rwatstein October 19th, 2008 in education and politics. 0 Comments

In a collection of letters addressed to the next president of the United States, leaders of higher education offer their views on the critical issues facing higher education in the coming four years and suggest what role the next president might play in addressing them.

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Tech Terms to Avoid

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Published by rwatstein October 19th, 2008 in technology and writing. 0 Comments

Why tech writers use so much jargon, I don’t know. Maybe it’s self-aggrandizement; they want to lord their knowledge over everybody else. Maybe it’s laziness; they can’t be bothered to fish for a plain-English word. Maybe it’s just habit; they spend all day talking shop with other nerds, so they slip into technospeak when they write for larger audiences. In any case, I’m making available to all, for the first time, my list of pretentious pet-peeve words to avoid. I used to consider plain-English writing a competitive advantage, so I’ve never leaked this list to potential rivals. But at this point, forget it; any tips that might contribute to clearer writing deserve to be free.

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BackTalk: $108…and Some Cents

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Published by rwatstein October 19th, 2008 in libraries and librarians/information professionals. 0 Comments

Reference librarian William Wisner looks at the changing face of the profession under technology’s ominous shadow and what the future seemingly has in store—and it’s not bright! Who’s to blame? You are!

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Economic Uncertainty Spreads to Library Endowments

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Published by rwatstein October 19th, 2008 in libraries and economics. 0 Comments

The stock market losses that have recently hit global markets might be taking some carefully stewarded library endowments along for the ride. Even as the market began its dramatic mid-September seesaw of alarming drops and partial recoveries, two public library executives lost their jobs at one of the few libraries ever endowed personally by Andrew Carnegie. Panicked stock-market sell-offs have paralyzed credit lines and bond markets at the state and municipal levels and only made a bad situation worse for libraries from Oregon to New Jersey.

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Library Journal Talks to Wasilla Public Library Director KJ (Kathy) Martin-Albright

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Published by rwatstein October 19th, 2008 in libraries. 0 Comments

The current director of the library at the center of the Sarah Palin book-banning allegations talks about the facility’s current state, why Heather Has Two Mommies is gone, and being in the spotlight.

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Portending a Universal Digital Library, HahtiTrust Launches Ambitious Repository

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Published by rwatstein October 19th, 2008 in libraries, digital, collections and HahtiTrust. 0 Comments

In what may be the library community’s most ambitious digital collaboration so far, some two-dozen large research libraries this week announced the launch of a single, shared repository of digital collections, including scanned books, articles, special collections, and a range of “born digital” materials.

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The Library Journal Academic Newswire Newsmaker Interview: John Wilkin, Michigan Associate University Librarian and Executive Director of HathiTrust

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Published by rwatstein October 19th, 2008 in libraries, digital, collections and HahtiTrust. 0 Comments

Library Journal Academic Newswire caught up with Wilkin to get some insight into what may be the library community’s most ambitious digital collaboration so far, the first in a series of Q&As with HathiTrust partners.

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So You Wanna be a Librarian Blogger Star

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Published by rwatstein October 19th, 2008 in libraries, blogs and librarians/information professionals. 0 Comments

Steven Bell writes: “Let’s say you are a librarian and decide you want to have a well-known blog. With the field as crowded as it is, how do you get noticed? What do you need to do to make it to the A—or even the B or C—list? Maybe you just want a blog that uniquely covers some new, unknown territory. I got to thinking about these things because a newer-to-the-profession academic librarian recently posed these questions to me.”

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Ethiopian Librarian is One of CNN’s Top 10 Heroes

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Published by rwatstein October 19th, 2008 in librarians/information professionals. 0 Comments

Born in rural Ethiopia to an illiterate cattle merchant who insisted upon his son’s education, children’s librarian Yohannes Gebregeorgis (right) established Ethiopia Reads in 1988 to open reading centers and donkey-pulled mobile libraries. A blue-ribbon panel chose him as one of CNN’s Top 10 Heroes for 2008. The public has the chance until November 20 to vote for Gebregeorgis or one of the other nine heroes as CNN Hero of the Year.

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WrestleMania Reading Challenge Program

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Published by rwatstein October 19th, 2008 in reading and teens. 0 Comments

Now that summer reading programs are over, you might be looking for a hook to keep your kids reading during the school year. The WrestleMania Reading Challenge, sponsored by World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) could be just the thing for your tweens and teens, grades 5-12. YALSA has put together a terrific toolkit to make it easy for you, and fun for your readers.

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