But that is beside the point. What is ANZ 23 Mobile Things?

“ALIA NGAC (Australian Library and Information Association New Generation Advisory Committee) and New Professionals Network NZ have teamed up to offer an Australian/New Zealand course based on the 23 Mobile Things course by Jan Holmquist. We are running this course from May-November 2013 and it currently has over 500 participants signed up! Come and join us in our learning journey.”

Over 500 of your Australian and New Zealand colleagues have already signed up and there are  opportunities to do more than just participate. Check out the ANZ 23 Mobile Things blog, the Facebook page and Twitter feed (@anz23mthings), but do so now, because we are in Week 0 – the learning begins next week!

“when it comes to encouraging people to embrace the written word, e-readers trump their physical counterparts.” – Are Books Doomed? The Rise of E-Reading [INFOGRAPHIC]

But from Dan Turner at UX Magazine…

“Reading on an iPad, or a tablet, just isn’t the same as reading a book. And for me, it’s not better. Even though I was, of course, excited about the prospect of an infinitely accessible library in a carry-on form, the fact is that when I try to read on the iPad, I’m doing so reluctantly, and I get through far fewer pages in a sitting than I’m used to.” – A Tablet Still is Not a Book … Not Yet.

And on Gruen Planet – The Pitch segment features ads promoting paper books.

What’s your take? I’m really only reading ebooks at present. It’s the size factor for me. A book is just too big to be bothered carrying around, especially when I’m carrying an ipad anywhere (for it’s other features). And my kobo vox is working out well for reading in bed as I don’t have to turn on the light to read it, it’s smaller than many hardbacks or longer paperbacks, and the night-time reading option means that it’s not generating much light to bother my partner.

The conference runs until the 7th of June.

Follow hashtag #iatul2012 on Twitter. Apparently there is a big screen showing tweets – so you can “be there” without being there if you use the hashtag.

Follow the official IATUL2012 tweets  – @iatul2012

A presentation by our Co-Founder and Lead Researcher, Dr Paul Gardner Stephen talking about our project and goals is available on YouTube.

My main area of focus is on the Serval Maps application. The goal of the Serval Maps application is to provide a platform for collaborative mapping on Android powered mobile phones using the network powered by the Serval Mesh software.

You may be wondering what this has to do with Libraries Interact and that is a good question.

You see I’ve started looking at the metadata that I can add to a Point of Interest, POI, on the map. At its core a POI is a marker on the map with a title and description. For example in the context of a disaster the POI may be that a bridge is out, a building has fallen down. Alternatively in the context of a research project the POI may be the number of frogs in an area, or the size of a cactus infestation in a national park.

A requested feature for POIs is to implement categories. A list of categories would make it easier to find similar POIs. The main issue with a list of categories is that they are a form of taxonomy and a taxonomy is built on the assumption that centralised control and authority is available.

In contrast a folksonomy is built around the use of tags and is an example of users collaboratively working together to build a list of common agreed upon tags that can be used for categorisation of content. For this reason using tags as an additional piece of metadata associated with a POI makes sense.

Once I started thinking about taxonomies, folksonomies, tags and categories I immediately thought of librarians and which led me to think about Libraries Interact.

This post is to ask the collective group of librarians, who visit Libraries Interact, for some help in answering a question I have.

The question is this:

From a UX (user experience) perspective which is better, single word tags (a space delimited list) or multi word tags (a comma delimited list). To help answer this question I created a poll and post on my personal blog.

I’d appreciate it if the Libraries Interact collective could take a moment to respond to the poll and let me know any other thoughts they may have either in the comments here, or over on my personal blog. It would be a great help in furthering the development of our open source software.

The 1.5 day program is designed “so delegates can interact with speakers and vendors who have backgrounds in social media, taxonomy, information and records management, research, knowledge management, mobility, information design and architecture. ”

With an organising committee comprising experienced professionals and events organisers – Kay Harris, Melissa Simmons, Michelle Nutting, Linden Fairbairn and Rawdyn Nutting, it promises to be an informative and inspiring event.

Check out the Intelligent Information website for more details and future plans for this exciting new venture in information management.

This report examines key drivers of change that will change the work landscape and offers up the 10 work skills that will be required to be able to successfully work in such a landscape.

The Six drivers of change are:

1. Extreme longevity – people will work until later in their lives, multiple careers will be common and lifelong learning will be a necessity
2. Rise of smart machines and systems – new tools will be available to use in every part of our lives, eliminating much rote type work
3. Computational world – huge increase in sensors and processing power giving us our world in data which can then be extrapolated in an amazing range of ways
4. New media ecology – a new way of communicating will become available, taking us way beyond text
5. Super-structured organisations – new technologies will change the way organisations produce and how things are created
6. Globally connected world – the world will be connected as never before and diversity and adaptability will play greater roles in design and production

Future Work Skills 2020 Summary Map

The skills that IFTF sees as being required in such a work landscape are each related to at least one of the key drivers of change (as represented using colour in the summary map above). The skills are:

1. Sense-making – being able to discover deeper meaning in what is being expressed
2. Social intelligence – being able to connect to other people more deeply and directly
3. Novel & adaptive thinking – being able to come up with solutions that are outside the box
4. Cross-cultural competency – being able to work in different cultural settings
5. Computational thinking – being able to make meaning out of vast amounts of data
6. New-media literacy – being fluent in new media forms
7. Transdisciplinary – being able to work in multiple disciplines
8. Design mindset – being able to plan our workplaces and workflows to achieve desired outcomes
9. Cognitive load management – being able to filter information and focus only on what is required
10. Virtual collaboration – being able to work effectively as part of a virtual team

These skills, at some level at least, are being taught in our schools now, but I can think of one profession at least (and we all know which), has developed these skills in its most of its current workforce, just through environment and necessity. Librarians, according to this report, even if you only have a fraction of these skills (which you will), your future is assured!

Mashable recently listed its 5 Tech Trends to Watch in 2012.  They are:

• Augmented reality
• Micro-payment economy
• Rise of the ultra-book
• Social/digital inclusion
• Mobile chip wars

Although not all of these will directly relate to libraries and their service, it is still useful to know what is happening on the technological landscape.

The trends that I see for already see for our library this year are:

• Mobile technologies – both expanding our options for users of them and using them more in our libraries for services – this includes doing more with QR Codes
• Discovery layers – we are launching ours in February
• Social technologies – embedding the library even more out in the online social sphere
• Technology diversity – possibly getting more diverse hardware for borrowers to use, already loaded with more specialist software than the usual standard offerings of Office and Internet

What do you see as the tech trends for your library in 2012? Will any of Mashable’s suggested tech trends be something that your library will be pursuing?

Interestingly, one of the commenter’s on the Mashable post listed the one thing that will affect everyone in some way or another this year. The biggest trend will likely be something that no-one has even heard of yet.  How true!

Happy New Year to all!

Much as we would like to be there, we can still get the latest on what’s coming out of the conference through the Conference Blog. Alternatively, the conference is also being well covered by the likes of David Lee King and Librarian in Black, or one of the officially listed conference bloggers.

If you want to see the presentations, you can download them, but have to login. (User name/Password: il2011/il2011)

Don’t forget that Internet Librarian International in London is coming up, on 27th and 28th October, where more great content will be shared.

And once you have been suitably inspired, ALIA Biennial is seeking abstracts for the conference in Sydney in 2012.

Definitely worth a look…

And have a play with the ngram viewer. I used the terms ‘libraries’ and ‘librarians’. There was a peak in 1970s and a decline since then. Uh oh! Or does this just mean that those topics are now being written about in non-book formats?

Jo is Youth Outreach Librarian at Logan Library Service in Queensland.  Logan has 280,000 residents, 63 suburbs, 9  libraries spread across a 960 km2 area, serves 185 ethnic groups and is growing by more than 2% each year.

PH – I saw on Twitter that your work team won a customer service innovation award for a program at Logan Libraries. Who’s on the team?JB - The Logan Libraries Young peoples team is made up of Young People’s Librarian Jenny Hall (Pictured), Youth outreach librarian, me (Jo Beazley pictured) and 8 YPLO’s (Young peoples liaison officers). 

PH – Tell us about the program.
JB – Technology for Toddlers is a hands-on computer and technology session held at Logan City Council Libraries for parents and carers and their children aged 2 – 5 years.  A training package and resources for the Technology for Toddler sessions were created by the Young Peoples Librarian in consultation with the Young Peoples Team.   Interested Young Peoples staff  were trained in implementing the sessions and using the resources at the libraries.   Staff have continued to roll out and further develop the resources for these sessions at the nine library branches.

The sessions were not just about educating the young children how to use the computers and learning software but they were about educating the parents and carers attending. Parents and carers are the first and most influential educators of children and these sessions were about putting quality free technology resources available from the libraries for the very young into the hands of these educators. Many adults are happy to explore technology resources with young children at home or at the library but there are many who need help to know where to start and what is available.

 
PH – What’s involved, how is the program delivered?
JB – The sessions involved staff demonstrating and leading participants in using a range of free online resources available to help develop literacy and computer skills in young children.  The aim of the sessions was to provide participants with opportunities to:

• Gain new knowledge and understanding of the ways technology (computers) can help their children learn.
• Discover the range of computer software in the library to support and enhance learning
• Build links between the home and the library
• Attain new skills to further develop a home learning environment
• Gain an understanding of why children should become familiar with technology
• Learn how young children can use computers
• Participate with their child/ren in activities exploring hands on use for computers, hardware and software available for parents learning alongside their children.

PH – What have you enjoyed most about it?
JB -  I personally loved watching the mums learn basic computing at the same time as their children are, and seeing both hands on the mouse.

PH – What challenges were faced in developing this program?
JB – Staff buy in.  Trying to convince staff that booking out a meeting room of PC’s for mums and toddlers is good use of the machines.

PH – How long as the program been going?
JB – A trial of the tech for Toddlers sessions commenced in February and May last year across the 9 Logan City Council Library branches.  Due to the program’s success the sessions continue to be held at various branches in 2011.

Thanks Jo, and congratulations to the team at Logan Libraries on their award and the success of the program.

Image by Jobeaz reproduced under a CC licence.