LibrarianInBlack

Tips on using RSS Readers Effectively

I was just messing around with a brief tutorial on Google Reader and ran across this list of 10 Smart Hacks for Google Reader from Lifehack.   They're not really hacks, but rather a list of tips on how to get the most out of Google Reader.  I also found that the tips work for just about any RSS aggregator/reader, so even if you use something like Bloglines or are teaching your staff to do so, take a look for some ideas.  Enjoy!

Screencasting Tools

Mashable rocks.  Check out this list of 12 Screencasting Tools for Creating Video Tutorials.  The list is split into free and commercial options, with a short description of each.  How better to create educational tutorials for your users than with recommended free tools?  I've used Camtasia (not mentioned on the list), which runs $299--lots of features, little tough to figure out initially.  As for the free options, I've used Wink and CamStudio, and would recommend Wink of those two.  Any other suggestions out there in libraryland?

How much energy does an energy sucker suck?

How much energy are your "turned off" appliances sucking?  A lot, in some cases...up to $160 dollars worth of energy per year for a plasma TV, according to Vampire Energy chart from GOOD Magazine.  If you keep things plugged in and in stand-by mode you are wasting energy and dollars. 

As a good workplace habit, I turn off my tower, monitor, and printer before leaving, knowing that they do suck energy even if they're not doing anything actively.  Think about what you can turn off while you're not using it--maybe that VCR that you keep plugged in but only use once a year? :)

This would be a cool chart to print out and post near your "green" section of materials, or link to from your website!

Survey about reference transaction methods

Calling all librarians!  Please take a moment to participate in a brief survey about reference transactions from Danielle Theiss-White, Kristin Whitehair, and Jason Coleman.  They are exploring different methods for recording reference transactions, including paper tally sheets, web-based transaction trackers, knowledge databases, etc..  This is for a chapter in an upcoming book, and the more data the better!

Civil War Tombstones on Flickr

  Hiram Humphreys1 
  Originally uploaded by jajacks62

You can now access photographs of the tombstones of over 11,000 Civil War veterans buried in
Kansas on a Civil War tombstone Flickr site created by John Jackson, a U.S. Army retiree.  The site is set up with sets for various cemeteries.  Tags for names, birth, and death dates also making accessing the right tombstone easier for the end user.  Jackson has arduously tagged each photo with as much info as is available on the tombstone, a huge task and one that will hopefully help many the eager genealogist. 

Thanks to the Death Indexes creator, who also pointed me to his Online Civil War Indexes, Records & Rosters, which is part of the larger Military Indexes site, which is part of the larger Death Indexes site: all a haven for genealogists. 

QuestionForm online surveys

Another online survey creator to add to your toolbox: QuestionForm.  Some people swear by SurveyMonkey, others by Zoomerang.  I find QuestionForm to be a bit lighter weight than the others, which is not a bad thing for those who just want a quick and easy survey and don't want to mess around with fancy response or reporting options. 

Search Engines List

Phil Bradley has long kept a list of search engines by subject need that librarians tell me they love!  And I felt it was high time to remind people of its existence.  So take a look at Finding Information: Search Engines.  Phil lists search engines by type, strengths,  and more.  Basically - if you were thinking "I need a search engine that does X" and didn't know where to go, Phil's site would be a good one.  Some examples of categories:

• seeing recent additions to search engines
• search engine test beds
• academic resources
• health-related resources
• moving images
• sounds
• current affairs

I can honestly say that I turn to this site whenever I need to do a specialized search, and it has never let me down.  The list is so long at this point that it's a bit unwieldy by its very nature.  But just do a CTRL+F on the page for the type of info you need, and you'll probably find that Phil has something to meet it.

Los Angeles historical newspaper photographs archive

If you are as yet unaware of the many digital repository sites online, you are missing out on millions of photos, ephemera, oral histories, and more from all over the world.  One of the sites I like best, both for content and usability, is the UCLA historical archive of news photographs from the  Los Angeles Times and the Los Angeles Daily News.  The thousands of photos go back to the early part of this century and are amazingly diverse in their subject coverage.  Below is a 1980 photo from the collection showing a line outside a theater at the opening of The Empire Strikes Back.  See?  Diverse :)  UCLA has other digital collections as well that are well worth checking out.

Manage your social network presences

More and more services are cropping up to help you manage your social networking profiles and presences - allowing you to update your information in one place instead of nine, and in some cases, even updating your contacts in one place and having it replicate across services. 

One such service to take a look at it one of the longest-running ones: ProfileFly.  You can create links to all of your social networking presences in one place (ne'er again to forget about that Ning profile you set up eons ago).  It works with sites like Twitter, Flickr, Facebook, MySpace, LiveJournal, del.icio.us, and a lot more (a complete list is at the bottom of their About page).  Take a look!  See if it looks useful to you.

originally spotted on eHub

SJPL Internet Filtering Study - Testing Results

My employer, the San Jose Public Library, has recently been putting a lot of time and effort in to researching internet filters in response to a city council member's proposal that the city implement mandatory filters on all of the library's public access computers.  You can read about our process, documentation, and so forth on our public webpage about the issue (linked from our homepage). 

We presented the issue to the Library Commission at their last meeting, which recommended that the library not install filters, but instead continue its practice of providing privacy screens.  The issue now goes to the City Council in March.

The venerable Mary Minow attended to speak out against filters from a legal standpoint.  She blogged about her experience at the meeting.  She also linked to the report on internet filtering that I wrote, examining the functionality of three internet filtering products: WebSense Enterprise, CyberPatrol, and FilterGate.   

The average results from all three filters were telling.  The accuracy rates for the filtering of keyword searching and direct URL access to sites were on par with previous studies - approximately 85% of "trigger sites" are blocked correctly, and approximately 85% of "non-trigger sites" are allowed through correctly -- leaving a 15% error rate in either direction.  The accuracy for images (38%) and image email attachments (25%) were much lower.  RSS feeds barely passed the halfway mark, at 53% accurate.  Catalog searches fared better at 67% and database searches better yet, at 83%.  Here's a table to make the data easier to read.  Conclusions?  Traditional text content is handled at around 85% effectiveness, but non-traditional text content, and non-text content like images, are not handled at nearly the same levels.

Average Filter Accuracy (margin of error +/- 5%)

Type of content tested	Accuracy Percentage
Content of an Adult Sexual Nature – direct URL access	89%
Content of an Adult Sexual Nature – keyword searches	83%
Content not of an Adult Sexual Nature – direct URL access	88%
Content not of an Adult Sexual Nature – keyword searches	62%
Image Searches	38%
Email Attachments	25%
RSS Feeds	53%
Library Catalog Searches	67%
Library Database Searches	83%

We do hope to write something formal up for the library community about this experience.  Stay tuned! 

How do I post to a blog, let me count the ways

This post on Library Clips from last April, The Many Ways to Post to Your Blog, describes all the different ways you can post in a nice concise way.  The comments also add on to the list of ideas.  A lot of people don't realize that you can set up your blog to have posts sent to it via IM, email, bookmarklets, and lots of other ways.  This might make it easier for certain people in your organization to participate in blogging.  Thanks John!  This is great.  I'm just so sad it took me this long to find it :/

A List of 100 Web Development Cheat Sheets Lists (yes, a list of lists)

If you are a webbie, you use cheating techniques, lists, resources, and such all the time.  You have to.  If you don't, and you are frowning on my description of webbies, that means you are a robot and have no soul so piffle on you. 

If you're not a robot, then check out the Top 100 Lists of Web Development Cheat Sheets.  Please note - this is not just a list of 100 cheat sheets.  It's a list of 100 lists.  For example, #29 is the WordPress CheatSheets Summarized List with 10 lovely WordPress cheat sheets listed.  Even for librarians, this is a lot of information.  Bookmark this puppy, and bookmark parts of it that are immediately relevant to your work.  You'll thank me later.

Top 10 Blogger Hacks

Lots of libraries use Blogger for blogs.  It works well when you don't have the staff to support internally hosted blogging, it's free, and it works pretty darn well.  But there are some things about it that are frustrating, annoying, or that you'd just like to change.  If you know how to code HTML and CSS, you can pretty well figure out how to do some of the things you want.  But not all of them, unfortunately.  Some things are just locked down (now where have I heard that before?).

If your library is using Blogger for any of its blogs, check out this list of Top 10 Blogger Hacks, including getting rid of the Blogger bar, using Feedburner for your RSS feeds, and how to use your own domain name instead of the YOURLIBRRARY.BLOGSPOT.COM address.  Sweetness!

found via iLibrarian

RFID Experimentation Kit

Want to play with RFID?  See how it works?  Show your employees how it would/could work in a library setting?  The $99.99 RFID Experimentation Kit is well worth the money.  You get an RFID reader, software, and over a dozen different types of RFID tags to play with.  Plus a book with fun experiments to do to show how RFID works. 

Add this kit to your library's Staff Technology Toolbox*!  Or have a public program showing people how RFID actually works.  Many of us live in communities that are concerned about RFID for health and privacy reasons.  Having a program showing its use would probably help dispel some of the myths and fears.  And if you want to be really funny, buy the RFID blocking shirt which contains a square of fabric that (if cut/ripped out and wrapped around an RFID tag) blocks the RFID signal.  Oh, the fun we could have :)

* Staff Technology Toolboxes are collections of gadgets, hardware, and other items (MP3 players, palm pilots, different types of scanners, etc.) that staff can check out, experiment with, and learn from.  A good thing to have out and available at Staff Days or training classes.  Every library should have one.  Or two.  Or three...

Lessig runs for Congress?

Lawrence Lessig, Professor of Law at Stanford Law School and founder of the Center for Internet and Society, champion of the free and open web, free and open access to information, electronic privacy, and other smart-minded things, is considering a run for Congress.  He announced it on his blog with a website dedicated to his run for office.  If you are a webbie you'll be familiar with the many things he's involved with, aside from his day job: the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Creative Commons, the Free Software Foundation, the Public Library of Science, and Public Knowledge.

I am intrigued.

Podcasting all-in-one Kit

One of my favorite stores, Think Geek, is offering a complete podcasting kit.  If your library wants to start podcasting and doesn't want to think too hard about it, consider this $169.99 option.  If you want portable recording, you may want to consider a portable digital recorder, though, such as this one from Edirol. 

When was the last time you thought about professional ethics?

A recent post on BlogJunction got me thinking about the ethics of librarianship, and how often (or not often) we refer back to our core and sometimes sworn ethics when we engage in activities, work on projects, work with users, and so forth.  When was the last time you reviewed ALA's Code of Ethics? 

WebJunction does offer two courses on ethics, one for managers and one specifically related to business ethics.  Courses are a good idea, but consider this: print out ALA's Code of Ethics and post it on your wall.  Add it to the criteria or questions you answer each time you start a new project or make a decision.   Consciously make sure that what you are doing meets the criteria that your profession has set forth for you as guidelines to good service.  I'm going to do just that, and we'll see where it takes me.  Ask me in six months, and I'll let you know.

Sharepoint blogs: kinda useful, them things

Ah, Sharepoint.  My library is in the midst of a Sharepoint pilot for potential replacements for part sof our intranet and other communications methods.  As such I was interested to read this article: Bring Sharepoint to Life with Blogs.  Blogs are an important part of Sharepoint's implementation and do help get info out to your group, which is a key component to a successful Sharepoint site.

Incidentally, I'd be curious to know if any other libraries are using Sharepoint, and if so, what your thoughts have been, either as the developer/site master or as an end user.  Not a lot of data out there on Sharepoint's success or usefulness, especially in the library/education sectors.

libraries, bookstores, and laziness

Some recent conversations have happened about connecting libraries with bookstores, starting with Tim at LibraryThing and another post at Library Admin Musings, and others as well.  Some very interesting observations about ease of use, interconnectivity, and plain human laziness have been made.  I am lazy.  I want a book/CD/DVD.  My library doesn't have it (or has it and it's out, with a hold list of a billion people).  Neither does the library near my house.   At that point, I either drive to the local bookstore to buy it or get it through Amazon (the likely choice since it means I don't have to leave the house and/or stand in line - though I did run in to George Lucas at my last visit to Borders, so I suppose it has its advantages). 

The main issue is this, though.  If we want people to start with us when they want to get a book, CD, or DVD - shouldn't we make it easy for them to get from us to their other choices like ILL, other nearby libraries, and yes - even bookstores?  I don't know the answer to that, but I do know that our lack of ease of use is really frustrating many of our users.  We talk so much about wanting the web search engines to link to us, to make it easy for users to get from vendors to us.  What about getting from us to vendors?  I think the point is valid and deserves some discussion.

Duke yearbook photos online

Another creative use of Flickr for image management: the Duke University Archives is posting selected photos from their past yearbooks in Flickr:

Duke Yearlook is produced by the Duke University Archives to provide alumni and friends of Duke with a virtual yearbook of campus scenes from different campus eras.

I am totally digging this photo :)

Win a wii from Libraryland

Library bloggers, speakers, and writers Jenny Levine and Michael Stephens have organized a raffle fundraiser for LIShost to show their appreciation for its manager, Blake Carver.  Donate $10 or more to LIShost by the deadline, and you get entered in the raffle to win a wii gaming system.  Even if you don't win, you know you are donating money to a service that has probably played the biggest role in getting library bloggers and other information providers online and sharing information with all people in all places.  I know I'm entering!  Thanks to Jenny and Michael for organizing this!

Introducing the Librarian in Black Barbie

  Librarian in Black Barbie: front of box 
  Originally uploaded by Librarian In Black

I am a Barbie.  And no, I am not kidding.

Proudly introducing the Librarian In Black Barbie, created by the talented graphic artist Robert Esparza, a friend who hand made me this very special gift.  (Not for sale in stores).  While being a Barbie was not one of my youthful aspirations (surprising, right?), I admit to a perverse sense of glee at this beautiful and generous creation.

She is dressed in a velvet camisole and velvet jacket (as I am known to wear), along with a satin skirt (also right on the money), fishnets (whoo hoo!), and buckled boots.  I worked with Robert for almost two years, so he got to know my wardrobe pretty well :)  She carries a stack of books which Robert hand made, one of which is my Library Technology Reports, Technology Competencies and Training for Libraries.  Wow.

Robert designed the box from start to finish.  The inside of the box has a lovely bookish background, and the front of the box features a gothic style LiB logo and detailing.  The back features the story of the Librarian in Black, including a photo of some old school 'brarians, into which Robert Photoshopped my face (on to the librarian wearing all black, of course).  The back reads "Now you too can pretend to be just like the Librarian in Black."  Yes, boys and girls, now you can.

You can view more photos of Robert's handiwork in my Librarian in Black Barbie photoset.

Thank you Robert!!!!!  I can honestly say no one has ever given me a gift like this before.  You rock.

Through a glass darkly...

Not wanting to be an isolationist, I try to read the viewpoints of people whose viewpoints radically differ from mine.  One of those people is the well-known Andrew Keen, whose book The Cult of the Amateur: How Today's Internet is Killing Our Culture set off a flurry of angry net-heads, defensive technologists, and regular folks thinking "is this guy an idiot?"  Of course the title is inflammatory, and much of what Keen says is designed to keep him in the spotlight.  But he has some valid points, and those are the ones I'm trying to take to heart...to remember not to suffer from the Michael-Stephens-warning of technolust.  To realize that much of what he argues for (the refocusing on mainstream media and "peer-reviewed" sources) is the same thing that we hear many frustrated instruction librarians arguing for as well.  It's worth seeing through different lenses every now and again.  Give it a try.  If you're not up for a full book that questions and criticizes the house that the web built, at least see what Keen said in a speech he gave at the Ontario Library Association's Super Conference (blogged gloriously by Amanda Etches-Johnson).  She also scored one of his business cards, which I am sure will be collectors' items someday, and in the meantime they are at the very least amusing.

Ask of yourself what you'd ask of a vendor

A month ago Cliff Landis wrote a post directed at vendors (My 2.0 Advice to Vendors), giving them advice about what to ask and do when designing new products or enhancing existing ones.  As I move forward with my own library's website redesign, I was reminded of this post and realized that almost every single point he had made would also apply to a library doing its own work on a tool or site.  The crux of his position is that we need to ask users what they want, pay attention to what they say and do, and focus on them a thousand times over.  If you are looking at improving any of the tools you library offers, take a look at Cliff's thoughts and you might find that they stimulate some of your own.

LitLovers: book club resource

LitLovers is a resource for book clubs with book suggestions, book club activity ideas, reading guides, and more.  The reading guides are impressive in both number and depth.  I would link to this site just for those lovely items.  But the added features with tips on how to successfully run a book club, breaking the ice with new members, and ways to keep the discussion going, make the site even more valuable.  They even offer a special section for kids and a section on tying regional food in with specific titles.  Check it out!

found via Sites and Soundbytes

Installing a MeeboMe Widget on your desktop

Paul Pival has a lovely screencast about installing a MeeboMe Widget on Microsoft's Active Desktop.  I could see this being useful for libraries offering IM reference.  Installing this on public use computers would allow the "chat with a librarian" window to simply be there, an "always-on" presence when the computer was up and running.  As Paul notes in his screencast, there may be security implications or conflicts with a library's time-out software, but you won't know until you try and gosh...wouldn't it be cool if it worked? :)

Sarah's Top Ten Firefox Plug-ins and Extensions

I love Firefox.  There are relatively few things in this world that work well, give me what I need from them, and do so seamlessly.  Firefox is one of those things.  One of the best things about Firefox is all of the additional little widgety things you can add on to customize the functionality of your browser.  Some people call them add-ons, others call them extensions. And there is probably some very technical explanation of the difference between the two, but my brain hasn't the space to remember that.  Here are the ones that make me smile the most, and why:

1. Column Bookmarks: view your bookmark list in a column so you don't have to scroll to Hades and back to see what's at the bottom of your list
2. Copy Plain Text: turns all text copied from web pages into plain, unformatted text.  A lifesaver for those of us working with web content.
3. Enhanced Bookmark Search: vastly increases the bookmark search function
4. Firebug: lets you view and edit webpage code a lot easier
5. Fireshot: a screenshot tool that lets you annotate your screenshots (I use this because for some reason Jing, which also rocks, crashes every computer I've tried it on)
6. Firesizer: lets you resize windows to specific pixel dimensions (great for web developers)
7. Foxmarks Bookmark Synchronizer: synch up your bookmarks between different computers and also access them online - I would love to take this developer out to lunch to say thank you.
8. Snap Links: draw a box around a series of links you want to open, and they all open at once to your specifications (can you say "time saver"?)
9. Tab Mix Plus: so much control over how your tabs look and function it will make your head spin - if you're a tab addict, try this out and you'll find at least one thing to love
10. Unhide Passwords: shows you what you're typing (or have saved) in those password fields that usually show just asterisks - only use this though if you're pretty sure nobody's peering over your shoulder.  Am I the only one who thinks I make mistakes typing in these fields, but can't tell if I did for sure and then end up retyping the same thing at the pace of a snail to make sure it's right?  This add-on fixed that for me right quick.

Bonus!!!!!  Three extensions that I use at home that I also like are Autofill Forms (put in your standard data once, and future forms will be pre-filled out for you), RetailMeNot (a toolbar from the famous "online coupon code" site that notifies you if the site you're on has available discount codes), and the Facebook Toolbar (automatic log-in, searching, live notifications, and more).

Long live APIs and add-ons that make people's lives easier!

Featured Reviews: A Way to Give Easy Ego Boosts to Your Customers

A review on Yelp I wrote for Book Passage, a wonderful local bookstore where I've listened to Irvine Welsh and Nick Bantock within 3 feet of these wonderful authors.  Yesterday it was named the Review of the Day for the Northern Bay Area, and is now the featured review for Book Passage.  What a kick!  Also amusing is that the review from the day before was of my favorite take-out place (literally 3 blocks from our house) and the review from the day after was of our favorite ice cream place in Fairfax.  Ah yes, Northern California...we sheltered few.

At any rate, this RotD experience made me think that when libraries offer reviewing options for their users, a "Review of the Day" or "Review of the Week" feature should be created and plugged like crazy.  For whatever reason, being picked as a RotD, in a sick way, makes me like Yelp more and want to post more reviews.  Yes, I am a lemming.  I can't help it.  But my guess is that we all like positive reinforcement and in that way are all lemmings to some extent.  So, as libraries, let's use that!

PLA Virtual Conference

PLA is having a virtual addition to its annual conference in March.  For the first time ever, PLA is offering virtual content for its members with live webcasts, discussion boards, chats, etc.  Read more on the PLA Blog and the Virtual Conference Information page.

I understand and applaud this foray into the virtual.  What I don't understand is this:

• PLA is holding this virtual conference separate from the regular conference - not live broadcasting of sessions already being held at PLA and allowing people to participate from home via VOIP, videoconferencing, or chat.  That would have been sweet.
• There is very little information about what virtual attendees would actually be getting.  The site says that each day will have five live sessions and there will be other stuff like poster sessions and chats.  But I'm not going to shell out a couple hundred bucks of my library's training budget unless I know what I'm getting is good.  In other words, what can PLA offer me that I can't get through free web resources and social networking myself?  And right now, a month before the conference, there is virtually no information.
• In order to attend the virtual conference, you have to register and pay major bucks ($200 for PLA members, $255 for ALA members, $295 for nonmember, $75 for students).  In a day when activities, classes, and sessions are being held online for free through organizations like OPAL, Five Weeks to a Social Library, WebJunction, and more - what am I getting that's so great for this much money?
• PLA makes a big deal of the virtual conference being great because you can attend it "all from the comfort of your computer."  And then they give you automatic entitlement to attend the virtual conference if you go to/register for the physical conference.  If you're at the physical conference, what do we care if there's more stuff via computer?  How many people are going to have the time or energy to do both?

I do congratulate PLA on a nice step forward, but I have one word of suggestion: Integrate.  Integrate the two conferences together and offer more information about the virtual conference much earlier so people can register and know that they are spending their precious funds wisely.  I look forward to seeing what happens next year, and if other ALA organizations take this up.   

Not in WorldCat

Not in WorldCat is a blog that chronicles items that cannot be found in WorldCat.  From the blog's description:

Worldcat.org is the public face of the largest combined (or “union”) library catalog in the world. Library folks usually refer to it as OCLC (Online Computer Library Center). Currently OCLC/WorldCat catalogs over 1 billion items from over 60,000 libraries around the world. This blog is not affiliated with OCLC/Worldcat in any way. It’s just an outlet for one bookseller/librarian (me) to feature unusual, rare and interesting items that exist outside of WorldCat’s vast reach. This blog will feature books, and book-like items, for sale online that are not in OCLC/WorldCat.

It's interesting to see what isn't captured in this "worldwide catalog," many obscure, rare, and/or non-English materials.

found via slow reading via librarian.net

Keep your evil grubby hands off of our Flickr

Users of Flickr, which is a subsidiary of Yahoo!, are taking up arms in a Flickr group specifically formed to push back against the possible Microsoft buy-out of Yahoo!.  The group is called Microsoft: Keep Your Evil Grubby Hands Off Of Our Flickr.  As of this writing, it boasts over 2,800 members and over 300 photos - mostly clever images protesting Microsoft's "evil grubby hands."

found via Phil Bradley's weblog

Publicizing the library's databases

You may have read the title of this post and thought - oh yeah, I hate thinking about that.  It's too hard.  No one knows about our databases, and nobody cares aside from a few students who have research papers to do. 

That's ok. That's a normal response.  Ease your mind by reading BlogJunction's tips and links to classes that will help you get the word out about these valuable online resources to the very people who need them the most.  And remember...it is a hard thing to describe.  But once people know they exist, boy do they get happy :)

Captain Kirk, a librarian?

Librarianship, Star Trek style.  Bring a smile to any science fiction geek's face today :)

via the Lipstick Librarian

ALA Position Classifications - where do I belong?

When I renewed my ALA membership of late, one thing that confused me was the Activity Codes on the form.  You get to chose an "Area of Work" that represents what you do.  There are 28 categories.  I am a Digital Futures Manager.  The closest to my work are:

• Administration
• Automation/Systems
• Reference/Information
• Technical Services

I always have a hard time picking what to mark.  My last job was an Web and Information Services Manager, and the one before that was an eServices Librarian.  Where do any of these titles fit?

What I want to see is something that represents web services - something that says "I deal with technology but I am not a part of Technical Services or Automation/Systems."  I am surprised that no such category exists.  These jobs have been around a while, and will continue to grow in number.  If we could add a new category that I would feel confident marking, I would be a happy librarian indeed.

newest change agent

Sara, Change Agent 001 photo courtesy of Jaap Van De Geer's Facebook Profile

At Internet Librarian 2007 I gave out about 15 Change Agent badges to my nearest and dearest, including one of my newest friends, Jaap Van De Geer (of the now famous Shanachie Tour of libraries).    Jaap took his home, and has deputized a new member of the Change Agent Posse, his youngest daughter, Sara.  Change has never looked sweeter.

Amazon to purchase Audible

Just in case you hadn't heard yet, Amazon will be acquiring Audible by the end of the second quarter of 2008.  Audible...you remember...the company that stopped doing eBook business with libraries, and had a "Don't Read" campaign in late 2005, spoofing ALA Read posters.  I guess it can't get much worse than that, can it :)

Return on library investment

Another one of those lovely studies has come out on the dollar-for-dollar return on investment for resources dedicated to library services.  The San Francisco Public Library's study (conducted by their Friends group) showed a return of $3.34 to the community for every $1 in the library budget.  Go SFPL!

A plug for using charity search engines

Phil Bradley points out an article from Pandia that lists several charity search engines (where your search activities sponsor ad dollars that go to the charity of your choice).  Phil nicely lists out the engines mentioned in his post, along with what exactly the charity gets for all of your activity.

I use GoodSearch (powered by Yahoo!) religiously to benefit the Ehlers-Danlos National Foundation.  From all of us searching for that particular charity, we raised $250 for EDNF-Los Angeles last year.  Why do I bother?

For most searching, they are more than adequate.  If you're trying to conduct comprehensive research, or having a hard time finding what you need, a traditional search engine is probably a better choice.  My thoughts are, though, that there are so many charities in need of funds, and when I search it's usually for a top result anyway ("Williams Sonoma" or "Hot Topic store locations" as examples).  In these cases, pretty much any search engine worth anything will find what I need - so why not do some good in the process?  Worst case scenario in any case is that you have to run a search twice.

Just do this: try using one for a day.  See how you feel, and what results you get.  If you love it, post here.  If you hate it, post here.

Virtual Worlds: Libraries, Education and Museums Conference

Have some time on March 8th?  Want to learn more about virtual worlds but don't want to leave your comfy desk?  Check out this conference on Virtual Worlds.  From an email from Lori Bell:

Join us in Second Life on March 8 for a conference on virtual worlds and libraries, education and museums! The purpose of this conference is to provide a gathering place for librarians, information professionals, educators, museologists, and others to learn about and discuss the educational, informational, and cultural opportunities of virtual worlds. The conference will be held at the lovely New Media Consortium Conference Center. There will be a variety of presentations to attend including keynote programs by Kitty Pope, Executive Director of the Alliance Library System, Barbara Galik, Director of the Cullom-Davis Library at Bradley University, Doug McDavid from IBM, and Christy Confetti Higgins from Sun. For more information on and to register for the conference, visit the conference website at http://www.alliancelibraries.info/virtualworlds/.

The conference is organized by Alliance Library System, TAP Information Services, IBM, and Sun. For more information on attending or presenting, contact Lori Bell at Alliance Library System at lbell@alliancelibrarysystem.com or Tom Peters at tapinformation@yahoo.com.  We are still accepting proposals for the conference until February 11 and the conference program will be available sometime the week of February 12.

UM + 1 million scanned = :>

The University of Michigan Library has celebrated scanning in 1 million items through their digitization project with Google.  Congratulations!

2008 Predictions Survey

The Pew Internet Project and Elon University are conducting an ongoing survey about the future of the internet, and are looking for input on potential scenarios tied to the internet's future.  If you want to take it yourself, go to the survey page and log in with "9000" for the PIN.  The survey takes 10-15 minutes. The results will be released in the spring.  It's fun to prognosticate!

Libraries & the Mega-Internet Sites

The Primary Research Group just released a new report: Libraries & the Mega-Internet Sites: A Survey of how Libraries Use and Relate to Google, Yahoo, Wikipedia, eBAY, Amazon, Facebook, YouTUBE & Other Mega-Internet Sites.  You can purchase the full report on their website for $69 (paper) or $72.50 (PDF).  You can read an excerpt from the report as well, which pulls out some of their interesting findings.

• 52% of libraries conducted workshops on using the Google search engine, 23% conducted workshops on using the Yahoo! search engine, and only 9% of the libraries had conducted workshops on using the MSN search engine. (EXCLUSIVE SARAH COMMENTARY: Perhaps this partially explains the recent attempt to purchase Yahoo!)
• 32% of librarians considered Wikipedia an "unreliable information source and don’t recommend its use"; 65% considered it "generally reliable but to use with some caution"; and 2.48% considered it "as reliable as print encyclopedias."
• 9% of libraries maintained catalog links to various wiki encyclopedias.
• 41% of libraries used an internal institutional wiki for the library staff.

An email press release I received included a few more juicy nuggets of interest:

• Over half of libraries reported that library staff and patrons did not really use Google Scholar much.  9% were completely unaware of Google Scholar.  (EXCLUSIVE SARAH COMMENTARY: *frown*)
• 28% reported currently working with a search engine organization to digitize and make available online elements of their collection (EXCLUSIVE SARAH COMMENTARY: Hrm.  I wonder what that actually means.  I have a hard time believing that 28% of libraries are working with Microsoft, Google, etc. to digitize their print collections...was the sample titled toward huge academic libraries?)
• 21% of libraries use Google Docs productivity tools
• 17% of libraries had a presence on Facebook
• 9% of libraries had a YouTube account

BlewSpace: geographic blog search engine

Another place to put your library blog: BlewSpace.  Users can search for blogs based on location.  You can search by place name or browse by zooming in on the map.

found via ResearchBuzz

Internet Marketing tips galore

I've been a big proponent of internet marketing for libraries for a while now, speaking and writing on the topic.  I was therefore really happy to read about this list of useful resources from Techpedia on various aspects of internet marketing.  In each of dozens of categories they link to multiple blog posts that tell you how to market in that specific arena or area.  Some areas they cover: social media, Facebook, Twitter, blogging promotion, search engine optimization (read these, if no others!), and so on.  There's a lot of reading here for the taking, but it is probably worth every moment.  We all know we under-market ourselves.  Let's turn that trend around!

found via Stephen's Lighthouse

Stress Management Tips

Stressed out?  Read through these 37 Stress Management Tips for some useful tricks.  And if you're stressed out because you don't have time to read the article?  Well, this one is probably worth it.

found via Tame the Web (thx Michael!)

Useful Website Redesign Resources

Earlier this month Ellyssa Kroski posted a list of some of the useful website redesign resources she ran across while working on her own site, including a lot of tools that are good for sites requiring free/easy resources and tools.  Great list!

Photo Sharing explained simply

CommonCraft, maker of wonderful easy-to-understand explanation of 2.0 technologies, has a video that explains online photo sharing.  Could come in handy in the library when teaching classes on online photo sites, and also for showing staff the advantages of using Flickr over other photo organizing options.  And if nothing else, it might be a good one to show to your parents to explain why these sites and services are easier and cheaper than having CostCo print off 20 full copies of your 250 digital photos from your trip to Ireland.

You can view all of CommonCraft's lovely videos in their video directory.

10 Ways to Make Your Library Great

WebJunction has had this intriguing series of posts on its blog, BlogJunction: 10 Ways to Make Your Library Great in 2008.  The 10 resolutions are broken down into one post each, with suggestions of things to do and examples of libraries doing it.  The first resolution was to use technology, the second to continuously train, you get the idea.  If you are looking for some inspiration for projects for moving your library forward in all areas (not just tech), this might be a good starting place.