The Future of Publishing

Voya Magazine, more specifically @voyamagazine on Twitter, shared this video earlier today. Posted by Penguin Group USA, it's a creative look at the publishing industry - backwards and forward.




An interview with the video's creator is available on the Penguin USA blog post, The Future of Publishing.

Weekly Reader

Smartphones in the Library
"Finding the right technology to use in the library, particularly the kind of devices that will best suit the largest number of patrons, can be an arduous task when considering the wealth of new advancements that are available. Many of these items can be costly or not intuitive to the user. But two new tools have proven themselves useful and user friendly in all varieties of libraries." --Jane-Rebecca Cannarella, ACRLog, 11/12/11

How Mainstream Media Outlets Use Twitter
"Mainstream news organizations have made the social media tool Twitter a daily part of how they communicate with audiences. But how do those organizations actually use the technology: How often do they tweet? What kind of news do they distribute? To what extent is Twitter used as a new reporting tool or as a mechanism for gathering insights from followers?" -- Pew Research Center Publications, 11/14/11

My Teacher is an App
"So I hope no one minds if I continue to try to document the ways in which “education” is being reframed in this country at the peril, I think, of losing everything that is best about schools and teachers and classrooms." -- Will Richardson, Read, Write, Connect, Learn, 11/12/11

WC3 Releases New Web Privacy Standard
"The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has released the first draft of a new web standard aimed at improving online privacy. The W3C’s new Standard for Online Privacy is a set of tools that will ultimately enable your browser to stop sites from tracking your every move on the web.
The first draft of the new privacy standard revolves around the “Do Not Track” (DNT) HTTP header originally introduced by Mozilla as a part of Firefox 4. The DNT header — a bit of code sent every time your browser talks to a web server — can be used to tell websites you don’t want to be tracked. The goal is to give you an easy way to opt out of often invasive tracking practices like behavioral advertising." -- Scott Gilbertson, WebMonkey, 11/15/11

Employees Like Work More When Social Media is Involved
"When employees are allowed to access social media networks at work one to two times each day a new study has shown that they are more satisfied with their jobs and more likely to stick with an employer. The study found that even employees who are simply offering the chance to check Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other networks on their lunch breaks were more satisfied with their employer." -- James Johnson, The Blog Herald, 11/15/11

Pay Attention in Class
"As college costs have skyrocketed, students and their parents have come to view the college experience more and more as a financial transaction. They are the customer, and the college is the business. That consumer mentality—which I have argued is not as bad as many in higher ed make it out to be—has nonetheless led to high expectations about the quality of everything on campuses from dining options to dorm rooms." -- Jeff Selingo, Next (A Chronicle Blog), 11/9/11

Leaving Library World

I know I haven't been very active on this blog over the past few years. I've been busy pursuing my MBA. Over time I've realized that, while I'll always love & support libraries, my work interests lie elsewhere. So, I am leaving my position as a librarian at Thanksgiving and will be starting a new and exciting job in the corporate world in early December. At the same time, I will be leaving Library Cloud as a contributor. It has been a pleasure being involved in this blog, and I look forward to watching its continued success as a reader.

working with Twitter

The decision to go with Twitter (verses Facebook or Google+) for the Instructional Resource Center was not quick or easy.  A consistent web presence exists; the IRC web site was one of the first things I developed when starting as a curriculum librarian at AU and in recent months I have been rebuilding it in Drupal. I've used a blog for the IRC since 2005; it features news, information, and new book updates for the IRC and juvenile collections. We've been lucky to have LibGuides for several years, and resources for Education students and general IRC pages are part of the collection.Taking steps to add another resource required careful consideration:

• How will the proposed addition work with existing resources?
• The library has a Facebook page, is it necessary to have two?
• Do students want the IRC on Facebook?
• Students have AU Gmail accounts, but are they using Google+?
• Are students willing to use Google+?
• How popular is Twitter with college students?
• Will Twitter character constraints help or hinder use?

A final question, one of significance, how much time am I willing /able to expend on maintaining the project?  Regardless of the social media choice, time and effort will be needed to make the resource viable.  Periodic discussions with my student workers and students using the IRC helped me with the decide to use Twitter for the IRC. Why Twitter? It's will provide opportunity for quick, simple, short, and timely updates that will supplement the web site, blog, and LibGuides. 

I posted the first IRC tweet on Tuesday morning @ircaulibrary

It took time to research and determine who the IRC should follow, I selected a mix of children's literature, education, AU accounts, and educational technology to start. Using a library background and university colors allowed me to brand the page. To publicize, I've created Twitter widgets for the IRC blog, requested a link be placed on the main IRC page sidebar with the blog feed, posted to the IRC blog, and utilized the library's digital signage to scan the account rotate the five most recent tweets.

I have a short list of subjects to tweet for the next several weeks.  At this point, the only drawback has been ...

I usually tweet using my iPhone app, and was surprised to see the little "over capacity" whale shortly after making the account live. In the last three days, I've been subject to "over capacity" while posting tweets - and - when showing students the account.  I'm hoping the little whale, cute as he is, does not become problematic (though several of my students indicate he's a regular occurrence).

ALAO 2011: Tweeting @ALAOorg

This is the first of several planned "conference in review" posts reflecting on ALAO 2011. I'm going to start at the end, so to speak, featuring Twitter hash tags created and used for the conference and individual sessions. Tweeting during a presentation is relatively new to me; I remain somewhat uncomfortable typing while the presenter is speaking about his or her topic. Instead of my laptop, I chose to use the Twitter app on my phone as it's less conspicuous and certainly quieter.

ALAO is officially in Twitter as @ALAOorg; the conference hash tag was #alao2011.

Rob Snyder, Bowling Green University, shared a great Twitter widget during his spotlight session Timesaving Templates: Techniques for Quick Creation and Maintenance of LibGuides. Using the Twitter resource page, he developed a series of Twitter Widgets to consistently update a current events LibGuide.

With a Twitter account planned for the IRC, I was immediately intrigued by how easily these widgets could be developed and placed in blog posts, Facebook, web sites, and (of course) LibGuides. I spent a few minutes at lunch creating three Twitter widgets to follow the ALAO 2001 conference:


While a few issues immediately come to mind when incorporating this into a classroom, hash tags are social bookmarking and anyone can use them for any reason, it would be easy to create a set of tags - controlled vocabulary, so to speak - that would serve to connect a variety of library resources for students. I will definitely be exploring this option further.  Enjoy perusing tweets from #alao2011, #alaowebtools, and @ALAOorg!

Library Cloud @ ALAO

It's time for the ALAO Annual conference!

This year’s conference theme, Academic Libraries: Constant Change, Constant Opportunity "offers library administrators and personnel, vendors, and consultants an array of opportunities network and learn about current trends, technologies, services and strategies" (ALAO 2011). Program information is located on the conference web site and includes conference abstracts and a useful conference grid. Library Cloud bloggers are presenting at two sessions:

BREAKING TRADITION: RESTRUCTURING TO DEAL MORE EFFECTIVELY WITH ELECTRONIC RESOURCES

Karen Plummer (University of Akron), Frank Bove (University of Akron)

Session 1, Henry Room - 10:10 am to 11:00 am

On April 13, 2011, the Electronic Services Department (ESD) was born! The ESD was created by recognizing the increasing prominence of electronic resources to our users. To effectively manage those resources and efficiently deliver information electronically, we have broken with traditional organizational structure, merging the Cataloging and Systems Departments, and adding web development and electronic resources management personnel. This presentation will discuss the who, what, when, where, and why of our restructuring process.

WEB TOOLS: THE MORE THINGS CHANGE
Sara Klink (Stark State Community College)
Diane L. Schrecker (Ashland University)
Spotlight Session 3: Leveraging Web Tools for Reference and Collaboration
Hardin Room - 2:00 pm to 2:50 pm

Nothing says “Constant Change, Constant Opportunity” like web tools. New resources are available with stunning regularity; many are educational and rife with potential to enrich student learning. Non-traditional library web resources are often integrated as viable tools for reference, instruction, and collaboration. This session will feature an overview of several of our favorite tools and how we use them. Try something different! These tools are simple to use, available on and off the cloud, and easily adapted for LibGuides, Campus Guides, Library blogs, and more.