50 Feet From the Cutting Edge in the Northeast Kansas Library System
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Our friend Jenny Levine over at THE SHIFTED LIBRARIAN reports that one teen librarian she knows is using DANCE DANCE REVOLUTION to settle fines and minor squabbles with teen patrons.
http://www.theshiftedlibrarian.com/archives/2007/01/21/gaming_for_fines.html
“A recent post on the blog Alt Ref has gotten me thinking about information literacy in the 2.0 world. In his post, Brian stats that info lit is “very Un-Library 2.0 (the ‘proper way vs. your way)”. Why is this and how can it be changed?”
A good read, and worth thinking about.
The internet filtering advocates are at it again… this time it’s not porn that’s the target… it’s social websites.
The Deleting Online Predators Act of 2006 (DOPA) seeks to “require recipients of universal service support for schools and libraries to protect minors from commercial social networking websites and chat rooms.” That means that for kids under 18, those customer reviews of products on Amazon you like to read while shopping… gone. Their favorite hometown blog? Gone. Their Flickr photos? Can’t get ‘em in the library. The way filtering works now is that it’s always on until someone eligible (over 18) ASKS to have the filter removed. To me this has always seemed like a punishment for people wanting to look up sensitive information at the library. Imagine if, in order to look at your favorite blogs, you had to ask the librarian to turn off the filter. No one would come to the library to use the computers anymore. This can’t be good, and is clearly against our mission to provide information access to all.
Here’s an interesting article about the bill, and a link to the text of the bill itself.
If you disagree, or even agree, with this bill, be sure to contact your legislator with your opinion.
NEKLS’s recent pilot project using WordPress for easy-t0-create, easy-to-update and easy-to-maintain web pages for libraries appears to be a harbinger of things to come. Another such project, announced in late April, is called EngagedPatrons.org./
Q. What is EngagedPatrons.org?
A. We provide website services for public libraries. We enable you to offer your users a more engaging and interactive web presence. EngagedPatrons.org (EP) services fit seamlessly into your existing web site. To your users, it appears they have never left your site!
Read the rest of the FAQ at their web site, and learn more about this exciting development in improving library access for everyone!
Looks like some companies have finally realized the benefit of rural America: it’s cheaper to live there, and the people have familiar accents.
“The company charges $35 to $50 per hour for IT expertise, which may cost around $100 in New York City. While this is no match for outsourcing rates in India, clients benefit from local accents and similar time zones — not to mention the absence of stigma sometimes attached to farming jobs out to foreign countries.”
What does this mean for libraries? It means that (if this idea catches on) a lot of smart people are going to be coming to small towns, and depending on their libraries to provide them with resources they find useful, such as fast internet access (as cable might not be available yet) and up-to-date computer books, whether in print form or through something like an O’Reilly Safari subscription. It’s something to think about.
I received the following cartoon in the email the other day. I’m sure the person who sent it wanted me to laugh about it (which I did) but it brought to mind some very important things about designing libraries to fit the changing nature of technology.
Two things struck me… One, the people are not sitting in chairs at all. Clearly, in this library, the chairs are somewhere else, not accessible to the only thing wireless users are chained to anymore: power. Two, the area around the power is not an organized space. It’s just some pillar in the stacks that happens to have an outlet on it!
This made me think, well hey, maybe we should design libraries to be more usable for our wireless patrons. We’ve given them convenient Internet access, now let’s make it convenient for them to use it. Put comfy chairs and tables near power sources so these wired (wireless!) patrons can “get off the floor,” or at least congregate in a space that is better suited to their wireless endeavours.
I must admit that this is something I’ve neglected to suggest when presenting about wireless access in libraries, and I was struck this morning by the reality that I’ve put in many wireless access points without suggesting to my librarians that they might want to rearrange a bit to make the new service more functional and comfortable for patrons to use.
Any thoughts on this? Any libraries making an effort to organize the space in a “wireless patron friendly” manner?
Here’s a great tip from Jenny Levine, The Shifted Librarian. For those of you pondering the issue of providing IM on your public computers, here’s a workable compromise! –Mickey
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IM on the Desktop
By Jenny
Just a reminder that if you want to offer instant messaging on your public workstations but you don’t want to install software or your IT department is worried about the security of IM apps, you can always put desktop shortcuts and quick links in the browser to the web-based versions of these IM clients and/or Meebo.
Your patrons will lose some of the great functionality of the full clients, but it’s a start, and it might be a stepping stone to offering more down the road if you’re meeting resistance. In addition, it looks to me like you circumvent some privacy issues, too, because no transcripts of conversations are saved on the hard drive. Granted, information may still be in the browser’s cache, but hopefully you’re already addressing this issue with software that clears it out after each user.
Posted on: Mon, Nov 7 2005 11:09 PM
Are you thinking of starting an IM reference service? Do you want to be on more than one IM service at once? The Trillian IM client might be for you, but how the heck do you use it? Here we have a “Trillian Training Guide” for your perusal.
This is probably old news to all of you, but I just love finding resources that have the potential to make my life better. That’s what bartleby.com does, it allows me to look up many out-of-copyright books and read them online. At the very least, i can skim and look up references.
Fascinating, and a service I didn’t realize existed (and much easier to navigate than the Gutenberg Project)
Are you one of those people who creates a list of goals every New Year’s Eve or maybe every year on your birthday? If so, you might enjoy the site 43 Things. At this site, you can input up to 43 goals that you have for your life. Entries range from “overcome my fear of heights” to “read more books”. The point is to provide you with an opportunity to communicate with others who share your goal.
43 Things is just one example of the social technology referred to as folksonomy, which is defined as collaborative categorization. Connections emerge out of shared interests. Library Thing, which allows you to input (and catalog!!) your personal book collection, also includes some folksonomy features. You can find others who have many of the same books that you have. The idea is that you will then discover other titles to read and that you might find friends with whom you could share book titles in the future.
I just returned from the Internet Librarian conference where I had the opportunity to see Jenny Levine present again. She said that in her opinion, folksonomy is one of the coolest things happening in the web world right now. Definitely something to watch and think about!
According to the Pew Internet & American Life Project:
“Sixty-eight percent of American adults, or about 137 million people, use the internet, up from 63% one year ago. Thirty-two percent of American adults, or about 65 million people, do not go online, and it is not always by choice.”
Yay libraries! I can’t help but think that this has something to do with our work!
Check out the full study:
Pew Internet & American Life Project Release: Two-thirds of American adults go online and one-third do not
Wow! This is a school that’s right on the money (no wonder it costs so much to go there).
What if libraries could offer something similar, an archive, available through itunes, of the city council meetings or music from the local festival. What about recaps of the High School football game? Or highlights from the visit of that international celebrity (I imagine Centralia here, who had NBA stars in town for a day last year).
Such a great idea, and already in place by Stanford University. So cool.
I know I’ve been hitting the usability thing hard today, but there’s too much good information on this site for me to let it pass by, especially when so many people are thinking about their website as a part of the library (a subset of the “library as place” philosophy).
This article deals with how lower-literacy web users deal with web pages. It turns out that they use the web in drastically different ways than higher-literacy users. Since libraries are champions of reducing the digital divide, we should make sure we’re aware of the differences between these two groups. A highly recommended read.
This is a little older article, but one whose point is well taken: school kids use search engines too, and they need to know how to evaluate the information they find. Librarians, it’s time to step in and teach those kids how to use these tools!
Search Engine Journal » Hey Yahoo, Google and MSN - School Kids Use Search Engines Too
Today is the anniversary of the release of Microsoft Windows, that operating system we love to hate.
I remember spending my 16th birthday installing Windows 95 on my 486 with 8MB of RAM. Good times, good times.
Here’s the PC World article commemorating the day:
Twenty Years of Windows
What are some of your love/hate stories about Windows on this most… auspicious(?) day?
And while we’re talking about Windows, let’s also talk about other operating systems that capitalize on that love/hate relationship we have with Windows. Anybody out there using Linux solutions for their library desktops, staff or patron use, with any sort of success? What about Apple/OS X?
WebJunction has this most interesting technology watch list for libraries, which enumerates technologies that libraries should, at the very least, watch and see if they can work in the library.
Notable inclusions: Digital Preservation, Blogs and RSS (duh) and Wireless access.
Read the article:
Webjunction — Technology Watch List
Interesting development in the world of AudioBooks… Digital audio players that you *DON’T* connect to a computer… but come pre-loaded with an audiobook. Currently only about 40 titles are available, but I can see libraries latching straight on to this.
Props to Jim for finding this development in the KC Star today.
Kansas City Star | 10/13/2005 | Digital audio books come ready to go
“Why Libraries Matter: A Story Long Overdue” is the charming tale, told in rhyming verse, of a young girl who shows her family and neighbors how important the library is to them and their community. The link below is an example of what the icon will look like on your website. It will also give you the opportunity to view, download, and e-mail the book for yourself.”
What a cool way to use eBooks!
One of my most delightful recent discoveries has been Google Earth, a wonderful free program that allows you to fly from outer space to the rooftop of your house. Using satellite pictures and sophisticated digital technology, Google Earth puts a planet’s worth of imagery and other geographic information right on your desktop. If you’ve always dreamed of flying, Google Earth is about as close as it come to the real thing.
Download it here: http://earth.google.com/
We’ve had some requests lately for information regarding the Overdrive service for downloadable audiobooks. The big question is, can patrons put the audio from the Overdrive service (a service that depends heavily on Microsoft Windows and the Windows Media Player) on their iPods? Can they use it on their Mac?
The answer seems to be… yes (after a fashion)! But how you ask?
According to the Overdrive documentation, files downloaded from Overdrive can be burned on CD. If they can be burned to CD (in the normal “plays in any player” way), they can be re-imported into iTunes as MP3 or AAC format, on either Mac or PC, which can then be copied to the iPod.
Is this practical? Well for the cost of a CD-R and maybe 10 minutes, you get the content you like, in the format you like, on a device you like. Doesn’t everybody win?
I’d like to try this out, actually, and see if this theory of “Overdrive for all” will actually work. Anybody have an Overdrive account that they’d be willing to let me “borrow” for testing purposes? Is this a violation of the Overdrive Terms of Service?
Lots of questions… maybe posting here will get us some answers.
From the article:
“Yahoo has thrown its weight behind a San Francisco group that hopes to develop an online library of digitized texts and films in the public domain, available for download and reuse in high-resolution formats.”
Cool!
From Mary Linse of the Olathe Public Library:
For those who have asked or been waiting (and for those who haven’t!),
our Mousing Around tutorial (http://www.pbclibrary.org/mousing/ ) is now
available in Spanish: http://www.pbclibrary.org/raton/ .
Excellent! Thanks Mary!
This is a great idea for a technology class in a library. The librarian had the students bring in their camera and manual, and the class was about learning how to use THEIR digital camera, flipping switches, opening flaps, taking pictures, etc.
I like this because it emphasizes curiosity and hands on, instead of the all knowing talking head instructor raining down principles from on high. Patrons literally get to geek out about their devices, instead of freak out.
I love it. Here’s the link to the original post:
First Geek Out Don’t Freak Out Class
Do you need to teach your patrons how to use the library? Do you have some great ideas to share? Check out this new wiki!
From the site:
“Welcome to the Library Instruction Wiki, a collaboratively developed resource for librarians involved with or interested in instruction. All librarians and others interested in library instruction are welcome and encouraged to contribute.”
Along the same lines as e-messenger.com, here is meebo.com, another web based interface to the most popular IM services.
Pretty cool, and another chip away at the “no IM here” mentality of libraries.
Genius. Pure genius.
“There are lots of great ways to find out if your library has a book you want, but what do you do when your library doesnt a have a book? In the case of popular books that have been recently released, you know your library will get them soon, but you also know there will be a long waiting list. You probably want to put a hold on the item as soon as possible. Your library might even provide a webpage listing the newest items. But by the time you get around to checking, the list of holds will likely be very long. Some libraries will email you when a book comes in, and a few even have RSS feeds of new items. But even that isnt perfect because for large libraries, the list of new items can be big.
What you want is an RSS feed that lists items that your library does not have yet. You want that RSS feed to be empty until the item is available. As soon as the item is in the catalogue it will show up in your feed and you can put a hold on it. ”
Read how he did it!
The Paranoid Agnostic » Using RSS and Z39.50 to Find Books Your Library Doesn’t Have… Yet.
Wow. With 40 million Americans having broadband internet, it’s even more important for libraries to have it as well. Libraries help to keep the digital divide minimized through their offerings of free/low cost internet access to the public, I think the more Americans have broadband, the more important it will be for libraries to provide internet access for the less fortunate.
InformationWeek > Broadband Access > U.S. Broadband Access Nears 40 Million > July 11, 2005
This is a neat technology that maybe someday will have an application in libraries. The idea is that a person (patron) would, instead of checking out the actual physical media, would use a small card embedded with an RFID tag, that when waved over a special device would retrieve a video or audio presentation over the internet to the users’ home media center for viewing on their television.
I’m sure there will be DRM issues with this, but it looks like a good start to media-less distribution of audio and video for libraries.
We like Tim Berners-Lee. Inventor of the web, general visionary, Berners-Lee has become a kind of future predictor… This time he predicts that online life will make our kids more creative than us. Don’t believe it? Read the interview!
CNN.com - Web inventor: Online life will produce more creative children - Aug 30, 2005
Ha! Libraries made front page on CNN.com. This is a topic we’re going to cover at NEST so here’s a preview of a few of the things we’ll be talking about.
CNN.com - Libraries offering audiobook downloads - Aug 26, 2005
Have you decided to allow instant messaging in the library, but you’re having trouble deciding which clients to download? Do some of your patrons use MSN, while others use AIM or Yahoo? Rather than having to download individual clients for each service, you can install Trillian, which supports AIM, ICQ, MSN, Yahoo Messenger, and IRC. There’s a charge for Trillian Pro, but the basic version is free.
If you don’t want to install software, your patrons can still use IM via e-messenger. It is web-based and allows access to MSN, AOL, and Yahoo messenger.
Google Talk is new on the IM scene. With the popularity of all things Google, some suggest that it may change the IM playing field.
A quite interesting blog about the future and current usage of e-books, both hardware, software, content, and issues surrounding them. For those of you interested in e-books, this might be a very good resource for you.
RSS4Lib is a blog devoted to highlighting innovative ways libraries are using RSS. Imagine the possibilities!
Terriffically cool… and I think what patrons really want from the library: Information that comes to them in an unobtrusive format. We’ve been doing e-mail alerts for years, but now we can put their date due alerts in their news aggregator, where they can see it at a glance! Oh cheer!
From the article:
“Subscribers to their personal feed receive alerts from their Library account such as ‘Item due for return in 3 days’, or ‘The item you reserved is now awaiting collection at the Library’, or ‘Your overdue item has already attracted in excess of �2.00 in charges’. The feed items provide a link to take the user, without an interviening login challenge, in to their Library interface at the apropriate page to take the required action such as renew the book on loan.”
The September 2005 issue of Consumer Reports contains the long-awaited Online Survival Guide. The article discusses security, internet service providers, home networks, and computers–both laptop and desktop. Of particular interest to wireless users is the box on page 23, which describes what you can do to keep your wireless connection secure. Among the tips:
A new study, Public Libraries and the Internet 2004: Survey Results and Findings, issued by the Information use Management and Policy Institute at Florida State University in Tallahassee and funded in part by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the ALA, found that:
See the complete report here: Public Libraries and the Internet
Man oh man! Tech day was a blast… keep watching here for the next few days to catch some of the Tech Day 2005 excitement… we’ll be posting photos, video of the keynote and some of the sessions, all of the powerpoints from the day, and additional resources for all of your consumption.
I think all of our minds were expanded by Jenny Levine, the Shifted Librarian. There is much to be done for Kansas libraries and blogging/rss/wiki/folksonomy. A world of conversation between our patrons and the library awaits us, all we have to do is harness it. I think that soon we’ll be having a workshop for “introduction to blogger” but you didn’t hear it here. 
Remember that you can get ahold of your friendly NEKLS tech staff through MSN messenger (more services coming soon) by adding lrea@nekls.org to your buddy list (we like to hear from you!) or bhough@nekls.org. Send us a friendly message!
We’re also opening up comments on this blog, so we want to hear what you think! Comment! We like it when you do!
Does your library have a technical volunteer? Do they need guidance in setting up computers in a non-corporate, public access environment?
This site is dedicated to helping non-profit technology consultants (or Technology Volunteers) do their job more effectively. Definitely one to keep in your bookmarks.
ConsultantCommons.org (beta) | Sharing Tools for Nonprofit Technology Support
The Pew Internet & American Life Project has released a study that shows the average American is very confused about all the tech jargon they hear every day.
Read the full text of the survey/study here:
The average American internet user is not sure what podcasting is, what an RSS feed does, or what the term “phishing” means