Friday, December 16, 2011

Weekly Reader

LSE Produces New Twitter Guide for Academics
"How can Twitter, which limits users to 140 characters per tweet, have any relevance to universities and academia, where journal articles are between 3,000-8,000 words long? Can anything of academic value ever be said in just 140 characters? A new Twitter guide published by the LSE Public Policy Group |and the LSE Impact of Social Sciences blog  |seeks to answer this question, and show academics and researchers how to get the most out of the micro-blogging site. The Guide is designed to lead the novice through the basics of Twitter but also provide tips on how it can aid the teaching and research of the more experienced academic tweeter."-- LSE News and Media, 10/3/11 via Jennifer Howard, Wired Campus, 12/15/11

Getting Started with Twitter's Embedded Tweets Feature
"Somewhat lost amidst the news of Twitter’s revamped interface is a slightly more interesting tidbit for web developers: Twitter posts can now be embedded in other pages. The new Embedded Tweet feature works just like a YouTube movie, offering a short HTML snippet that you can copy and paste into any third-party website. Unfortunately using the Embed Tweet feature from Twitter is somewhat awkward since it’s buried in the new interface. First you need to click on a tweet, then click “details” and then you’ll see the embed option." -- Scott Gilbertson, WebMonkey, 12/9/11

Opening Up a World of Educational Content with YouTube for Schools
"We’ve been hearing from teachers that they want to use the vast array of educational videos on YouTube in their classrooms, but are concerned that students will be distracted by the latest music video or a video of a cute cat, or a video that might not be appropriate for students. While schools that completely restrict access to YouTube may solve this distraction concern, they also limit access to hundreds of thousands of educational videos on YouTube that can help bring photosynthesis to life, or show what life was like in ancient Greece." --  Brian Truong, The Official YouTube Blog, 12/11/11

The Trouble with Transparency and the Creative Arts
"One downside of increased transparency of many people’s lives, especially noteworthy people, is that it’s harder to divorce the person from their creations." -- Walt Crawford, Walt at Random, 12/9/11

What You Can do to Support School Libraries in Crisis
"There is a common misconception that technology replaces school libraries and school librarians. Rather, in reality the explosion of technology and information access makes having full-time access to a state certified school librarian and school library program even more critical for today's learners. There is an entire new skill set today's students will need as they enter the workplace, and school librarians are the leaders in helping teach these skills to students." -- Carl Harvey II, Huffington Post, 12/8/11

Thursday, December 15, 2011

Google: Zeitgeist 2011

As we fast approach the end of 2011, a myriad of end-of-year reflections become available. The first I've seen is a video posted on the Google Blog earlier this morning, Zeitgeist 2011: How the World Searched.

Wednesday, December 14, 2011

IES: Academic Libraries 2010

The Institute of Education Sciences (IES) recently released Academic Libraries: 2010 First Look.
The Academic Libraries: 2010 First Look summarizes services, staff, collections, and expenditures of academic libraries in 2- and 4-year, degree-granting postsecondary institutions in the 50 states and the District of Columbia. Findings Include:
  • Academic libraries held approximately 158.7 million e-books and about 1.8 million electronic reference sources and aggregation services at the end of FY 2010.
  • Academic libraries spent approximately $152.4 million for electronic books, serial backfiles, and other materials in FY 2010. Expenditures for electronic current serial subscriptions totaled about $1.2 billion.
  • During FY 2010, some 72 percent of academic libraries reported that they supported virtual reference services.
  • Academic libraries reported 88,943 full-time equivalent (FTE) staff working in academic libraries during the fall of 2010.
Academic Libraries 2010 and it's supplemental tables are available in PDF via the IES web site. Special thanks to Stacie Marinelli, Reference Librarian at the National Library of Education for sharing this with the EBSS list.

Friday, December 09, 2011

Weekly Reader

If I Had College-Age Children, I Would Give Them This Advice for the Final Weeks of School: Don't Cheat
"I imagine this conversation would occur sometime during Thanksgiving, perhaps as we were washing up the endless number of dinner dishes and de-greasing the kitchen.  No, no: let’s put it in a neutral location, as Tenured Radical and the returning college student are having a final cup of coffee at the airport while waiting out a flight delay." -- Claire Potter, Tenured Radical, 12/7/11

The Adaptation of Hugo Cabret
"In Brian Selznick’s Caldecott Medal–winning novel, The Invention of Hugo Cabret, protagonist Hugo muses, “Machines never have any extra parts. They have the exact number and type of parts they need. So I figure if the entire world is a big machine, I have to be here for some reason. And that means you have to be here for some reason, too.” Director Martin Scorsese’s film treatment, Hugo, evinces this philosophy from its opening sequence, in which a complicated clockwork system is  turns into an equally bright and busy time-lapse shot of nighttime Paris." --Katie Bircher, Out of the Box (The Horn Book), 12/8/11

The All in One Fear and Public Speaking: 15 Resources
"It's one of the most common fears, they tell us. So why are we so nervous about our public speaking fears? Use these tips from the blog, along with examples from some fellow fearful speakers, to think about your public speaking fears and overcome them:" -- Denise Graveline, The Eloquent Woman, 12/7/11

10 Ways to Change the Minds of Tech-Reluctant Staff
"We often hear about tech-savvy educators and administrators who have an array of best practices and whose love for technology is evident. But as anyone who’s ever been part of a school or district knows, not all teachers and administrators are as comfortable or familiar with technology. In a recent “Question of the Week,” we asked our tech-savvy readers: “How do you get tech-reluctant teachers and administrators to use technology effectively?” Here are our readers’ top answers (edited for brevity)." -- Meris Stansbury, ESchool News (original post), 21st Century Fluency Project (reposted), 12/3/11

SLJ's Top Ten 2011: Technology
"You know what? There’s too much stuff. That might not be what you’d expect, coming from a technology editor. But looking back over the past year, I found myself wading through tons of gadgets, tools, and miscellaneous merch to get to the real goods, and by that I mean the substantive ideas that we wrote, talked, blogged, and tweeted about in 2011." -- Kathy Ishizuka, School Library Journal, 12/2/11

UNBSJ Students Protest for Study Space
"Students at the University of New Brunswick in Saint John held a protest at the campus Tuesday about a lack of quiet study space. Samantha Tinker, one of the rally organizers, said exams are slated to start next week, but the new $25 million Hans W. Klohn Commons is more like a computer lab and café than a library, with students clustered around tables chatting and working in groups. It also comes up short on basics, such as desk space, and even books, she said." --- CBC News, 11/30/11

Friday, December 02, 2011

Weekly Reader

Academic Freedom or Educational Malpractice?
"It is time for NYU to take action to silence Andrew Ross.  His encouragement of students to default on their loans is irresponsible and reckless—an act of educational malpractice I would argue—and something that should not be tolerated from anyone on the staff of an institution of higher education.  Academic freedom does not give Dr. Ross the right to knowingly advise students to do something that will harm them for years to come, and that violates a legal contract between the borrower and ultimately the federal government.  Does he also suggest that they steal and evade taxes?" -- Diane Auer Jones,  Brainstorm / The Chronicle, 12/1/11

Cambridge U Press Would Like to Rent You and Article
"Will researchers pay for short-term access to journal articles? Cambridge University Press is about to find out. The publisher has just announced a rental program for articles from the more than 280 peer-reviewed journals it publishes. For just £3.99, $5.99 or €4.49, users are now able to read single articles online for up to 24 hours, a saving of up to 86% compared with the cost of purchasing the article,” the press said in an announcement. “After registration and payment, the reader is e-mailed a link, through which they can access and read the article in PDF format as often as they wish during the subsequent 24 hours.” -- Jennifer Howard, Wired Campus, 11/30/11

Announcing YouTube Analytics: The Next Generation in Insight
"Video can transcend language and cultural barriers. It can showcase real human moments all across the globe, even the silly ones. Take the video of the talking twin babies. That video was shot in Brooklyn, and has been viewed more than 10M times in the US and 30M times outside the U.S. 5% of its views came from Brazil, another 5% from Russia. Turns out, 1 out of 100 people in the Philippines watched these two babies from New York. One of the great joys of a global platform is finding out that people from afar can relate, connect, and appreciate your videos." -- Ted Hamilton, YouTube Blog, 11/30/11

Social Networking: Making the World Smaller One Tweet at a Time
" I am not a social media expert. I just wanted to get that out of the way.  I know that this title exists, that people give talks on social media and companies are hiring people to Tweet for them and to set up blogs.  I’m not that person.  I’m just an author who uses social media to connect with other people in the reading and writing community." -- E. Kristin Anderson (Guest Contributor), ALSC Blog, 11/30/11

ALAO Newsletter: November 2011

A new ALAO Newsletter , Vol. 29 No. 4 (Dec 2011), is now available.  This edition features:
Spring workshops for ALAO Interest Groups are just around the corner. 
"I encourage you to review ALAO’s offering of spring workshops as the dates, locations, & themes come out over the next several weeks.  They provide excellent opportunities for presenters and attendees." -- Brian Hickam, ALAO Newsletter President's Report, 11/30/11