- Posted on behalf of Michael Stephens -

Dear Australian library colleagues,

You may have seen the announcement earlier this year where I was appointed as the 2009 CAVAL Visiting Scholar. My research, “Measuring the Value and Effect of Learning 2.0 Programs in Libraries” will evaluate the impact of Learning 2.0 programs in Australia and the perceived levels of openness, transparency and trust by staff in organizations that have completed the course.

Now it’s time for me to ask for your help!

If you have completed a 23 Things / Learning 2.0 program, I’d like to invite you to participate in an online survey.

Please take 10 to 15 minutes to complete this online survey.

If you have any questions or concerns about the survey, please contact me (email is on front of survey).

If have been the person responsible for developing and/or implementing a 23 Things / Learning 2.0 program for your library (single library service or a consortia program), please email your contact details to Warren Cheetham at CityLibraries Townsville (warren.cheetham@townsville.qld.gov.au). I have a special survey which Warren will send to you, just for people who have lead a learning 2.0 program.

Thank you for your participation in my research. I am looking forward to my trip to Australia in October!

Best wishes,

Michael Stephens ~

Assistant Professor, Dominican University GSLIS
Tame the Web: Libraries & Technology: http://www.tametheweb.com

According to a recent study from Harvard, file sharing and copyright as they stand at present, are beneficial to society.

The working paper “File sharing and Copyright” from economists at the Harvard Business School,  raised important issues including:

• File sharing has not discouraged creative production. Although album sales have fallen, the number of albums being created has grown dramatically. This trend can be seen across all creative industries.
• Downloaded songs can increase sales, with mashups potentially leading to increased sales and any such works leading to increased attention for an artist and therefore increased sales
• File sharing may not result in decreased creativity, as there may be increased sales on complementary services such as concerts/speaking tours etc.

Very interesting to see that its not all bad news for the publishers etc, who try so hard to increase copyright protections.  To do so in light of the data this study brings out, could seriously affect their bottom line and would seriously impact future creative production.

If you don’t want to read the full paper, Michael Geist has a good summary.

Some of the work that the THALI has put into the Libraries Interact blog is featured in a chapter in the just released Library Mashups: Exploring New Ways to Deliver Library Data published by Information Today, Inc.

The chapter focuses on the three plugins that we have developed to extend the Libraries Interact blog and have released to the WordPress community. WordPress is the software that runs our blog.

The three plugins were developed by me working closely with the THALI. The plugins are:

1. Blogroll to Google CSE plugin
   A plugin that allows users of the WordPress system to manage links to websites that are automatically used to construct a Google Custom Search Engine. We use the plugin here for the Aussie Library Blogs page.
2. Citation Aggregator
   A plugin that aggregates links (citations) from various social bookmarking websites. The links can then be used to construct a post that list the links automatically. We’ll be using this plugin shortly for a series of Reading Room posts.
3. Diverse Group Tag Cloud
   A plugin that aggregates posts from a specified list of blogs and uses content analysis to construct a tag cloud. We use this plugin for the THALI Tags page.

The book is supported by the Library Mashups website managed by the editor of the book Nicole C. Engard. The site has a list of chapters and lists of links relevant to the topics covered in the book.

The University of Technology Sydney (UTS) Library recently gave students the chance to win $1,000 in the UTS LIB:Flicks 2009 competition.

Students submitted short videos (less than 2min) to promote UTS Library services and resources to new undergraduate students

The winners were announced the other day at a premier event held in the Library and the prizes were: 1st $(1000), 2nd ($600) and 3rd ($200).

Their videos can be seen at http://www.youtube.com/utslibrary or below.

Which video did you like the best?

In news just to hand, the lawsuit filed by Thomson Reuters (EndNote) against Zotero has been dismissed.

I have three thoughts on this:

1. Thank goodness
2. How many libraries actively promote Zotero for their users?
3. I got this news via Twitter – it’s becoming a really good source for news.

ALIA today launched its Twitter presence using the name @ALIANational. I’m looking forward to seeing how this works out. There are different challenges for an association as opposed to a personal Tweeter. Follow and take part in this new way of conversing with your professional association.

Australian Library & Information Association (ALIANational) on Twitter

I wish that the iPhone didn’t have the word “phone” in its name. I understand *why* Apple decided on that name, but I don’t think of it as a phone. To me it’s a hand-held computer that I use to connect to other people and to run small applications that make my life easier.

It has limitations – not being able to cut and paste text, run more than one application at a time or use the camera to shoot video are problems.

When I travelled overseas, I used downloaded applications on my  iPhone to:

• get real time updates on my flight times and gates
• show me on a map how to get from where I was to where I needed to be
• record interviews for research
• calculate the tip I should give on a bill
• record expenses on the go (including a facility to photograph receipts and add them to my database)
• play movies on the plane
• read several ebooks whenever and wherever I was
• find the nearest wifi
• wake me up in the morning
• show me how long I had during conference presentations
• suggest a place to eat in the local area with the cuisine and price I wanted
• photograph books and see online what they were and how much they cost
• edit photographs and upload them instantly to Flickr
• keep me in touch with friends via Twitter when I was walking in the dark back to a rather seedy motel

The iPhone and phones that use the Android Operating System (which is *mainly* Open Source) allow users to download and install a plethora of programs to take advantage of not only the phone and internet connection, but the camera, microphone and accelerometer in the devices.

How do you think these may affect librarianship? How can library staff use them? How can we offer our services to our users with next gen mobiles? Do you have a favourite app that you use and would recommend to others?

Here are a few ideas to get you started.

• In February, Kenley Neufeld listed his Top 10 iPhone Apps for Librarians .
• Aaron Schmidt from the DC Public Libraries has released the code for an iPhone App that allows library users to search the catalogue, place holds and find opening hours ,DCPL iPhone application ready for download
• The University of Bath Library has added QR codes to records in the catalogue so that users can scan them using free software that will then show them the author, title and location of the item, QR Codes in the Library .
• The Abilene Christian University in Texas has produced a video showing a fictional account of what could happen if the entire campus of students and academics were connected using a next gen mobile, Connected

This week our focus comes from The vulgar modernisaton of libraries – a piece from Chris Saliba on the ABC’s Unleashed, which bemoans the changes in libraries (his focus being mainly public and the State Library of Queensland).  “Libraries were for reading and contemplation. But all of that is out the window as libraries now offer a multi-media extravaganza.”  It is well worth reading the article, if you haven’t done so already and the 25 pages of comments that go with it.

From my experiences working in a public library, this is a regular reaction we get to new things we introduce. Most recently, we got this reaction when we introduced gaming consoles into the library.   Before that, it was DVDs, and then going back further, the Internet and even further back, paperback romances of all things.

However, there have been things happening in public libraries too that have not always been for the best or for which great debate has raged for ages.  Overdue fines is one of the more controversial.  So despite trends and public opinion, libraries don’t always get it right.

How do you see whats happening in libraries?  Is reading “out the window” as Saliba puts it? Should CDs and DVDs …”representation on library shelves.. be kept to a minimum”? Where do libraries “stand in relation to the technology”? “Does access to Facebook really belong inside a library”?  Not according to Saliba.

I would love to hear your thoughts on these questions and others that are raised through this article and the many comments on it. I know not everything introduced into libraries is supported by all library staff, from both personal and professional experience. Is there something appearing in libraries that you don’t agree with?  If so, what and why?

Is this the way that libraries should be heading – yes or no – why?  And if not, which way should libraries be heading?  The future of libraries is uncertain and should be in all our thoughts. If you’re not thinking about that yet, its best to start doing so now.

Michelle

Do you have a story to tell about how you are using creative commons licenses? Or maybe you’d like to find some examples of how others are using CC licenses.

Case Studies – CC Wiki

Some examples:

• Ancient Free Gardeners - “Open content licensing was chosen as the band saw the great potential in using the Internet for both distribution and publicity.”
• Dictionary of Sydney - “The goal of the Dictionary of Sydney (DoS) project is to build a self-sustaining repository of historical information on Sydney, Australia, assembled from newly commissioned entries as well as underlying multimedia and spatial information.”
• ABC Pool – “Pool is an experimental collaborative online media platform under development by the Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC), in association with various Australian tertiary institutions and members of the digital media community.”

There are lots more examples from all around the World covering audio, video, text and image uses.

Three librariesinteract.info writers are giving papers at the Educause Australasia 2009 conference in Perth this week – Peta, Con and Kathryn. We are even doing a panel session together with our friend Penny Coutas, called Personal Learning Environments: What works for librarians .

Peta and I are live-tweeting the sessions we attend via our twitter accounts, @libsmatter and @petahopkins. We are feeding these tweets, plus a few comments from friends, into a CoverItLive widget for each day. You could follow us on twitter, but the advantage of CoverItLive is that the screen automatically refreshes with new content and that you can instantly ask questions / make comments and have them appear in the screen with our tweets.

I have embedded the CoverItLive widgets below. If you are interested in seeing all tweets and all photos that use the conference tag: “edaust09″, I have embedded a TwitterFountain in my blog a Librarians Matter, Educause Australasia 2009 Twitterfountain and more .
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