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