Weekly Reader (part 2)

The Heartbleed Hit List: The Passwords You Need to Change Right Now
"An encryption flaw called the Heartbleed bug is already being called one of the biggest security threats the Internet has ever seen. The bug has affected many popular websites and services — ones you might use every day, like Gmail and Facebook — and could have quietly exposed your sensitive account information (such as passwords and credit card numbers) over the past two years." -- Mashable Team, Mashable, 4/11/14

The 'Heartbleed' Bug and How Internet Users Can Protect Themselves
"Security professionals working in higher education are updating servers, reissuing certificates used to guarantee secure Internet transactions, and encouraging students and faculty and staff members to take a break from the commercial Internet following the discovery of a programming flaw in a widely used Internet tool." -- Megan O'Neil, Wired Campus, 4/11/14

A Gentle Reminder About Security
"There are a lot of benefits to doing much of our work online. Collaboration with far-away colleagues is easy, we can have ready access to our work no matter what device we’re using, and having our work backed up in the cloud can be reassuring." -- Amy Cavender, ProfHacker, 4/10/14

How to Protect Yourself from the Heartbleed Bug
"A major new security vulnerability dubbed Heartbleed was disclosed Monday night with severe implications for the entire Web. The bug can scrape a server's memory, where sensitive user data is stored, including private data such as usernames, passwords, and credit card numbers." - Richard Nieva, CNet, 4/8/14

LastPass Heartbleed Checker
"With news breaking on Monday, April 7th that the Heartbleed bug causes a vulnerability in the OpenSSL cryptographic library, which is used by roughly two-thirds of all websites on the Internet, we want to update our community on how this bug may have impacted LastPass and clarify the actions we're taking to protect our customers. LastPass recommends everyone with a Yahoo.com account, OkCupid.com or Github.com account changes their password." -- LastPass, 4/11/14 [accessed]

Heartbleed: Serious OpenSSL Zero Day Vulnerability Revealed
"New security holes are always showing up. The latest one, the so-called Heartbleed Bug in the OpenSSL cryptographic library, is an especially bad one. heartbleedHeartbleed OpenSSL zero-day vulnerability. While Heartbleed only affects OpenSSL's 1.0.1 and the 1.0.2-beta release, 1.01 is already broadly deployed. Since Secure-Socket Layer (SSL) and Transport Layer Security (TLS) are at the heart of Internet security, this security hole is serious." -- Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols, ZDNet, 4/7/14

Fun Book Store Video

I've seen this video, The Joy of Books, several places over the last few days. It's creative and very well done, definitely worth a look!

"After organizing our bookshelf almost a year ago (http://youtu.be/zhRT-PM7vpA), my wife and I decided to take it to the next level. We spent many sleepless nights moving, stacking, and animating books at Type bookstore in Toronto (883 Queen Street West, (416) 366-8973)." -- The Joy of Books, YouTube Channel crazedadman

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.

Pew Internet Report: E-Reader Ownership

A new Pew Internet & American Life project, E-Reader Ownership Doubles in Six Months, explores the recent growth spurt of E-Reader ownership as compared to tablet computers.

"The percent of U.S. adults with an e-book reader doubled from 6% to 12% between November 2010 and May 2011. Hispanic adults, adults younger than age 65, college graduates and those living in households with incomes of at least $75,000 are most likely to own e-book readers. Parents are also more likely than non-parents to own these devices." -- Overview, E-Reader Ownership, 6/27/11 

It would be interesting to learn more, such as those who use E-Readers via their local library (academic or public), or what percentage of E-Readers purchased outside of those for personal use were utilized in classrooms or libraries.

Pew Internet Report: Social Networking Sites & Our LIves

A recently released Pew Internet & American Life report, Social Networking Sites and Our Lives. It presents information gathered about social networking, social networking sites, and the impact they have on our lives. 

"Questions have been raised about the social impact of widespread use of social networking sites (SNS) like Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, and Twitter. Do these technologies isolate people and truncate their relationships? Or are there benefits associated with being connected to others in this way? The Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project decided to examine SNS in a survey that explored people's overall social networks and how use of these technologies is related to trust, tolerance, social support, and community and political engagement."

"The findings presented here paint a rich and complex picture of the role that digital technology plays in people's social worlds. Wherever possible, we seek to disentangle whether people's varying social behaviors and attitudes are related to the different ways they use social networking sites, or to other relevant demographic characteristics, such as age, gender and social class."

"The number of those using social networking sites has nearly doubled since 2008 and the population of SNS users has gotten older." -- Lee Rainie, Kristen Purcell, Lauren Sessions Goulet, & Keith N. Hampton - Pew Internet & American Life Project, Summary of Findings, Social Networking Sites and Our Lives, 6/16/11

Weekly Reader

I have serious computer envy; attending a campus technology meeting yesterday, two members had new HP Slate 500 Tablet PCs. Sure, they will be introducing tablets to compete with iPad later this year, but the Slate was getting rave reviews from both users. As a result, this week's wrap-up is a bit heavy on the technology, though there are library (Happy National Library Week!), and general interest items. 

Colleges Aren’t Keeping Up With Student Demand for Hybrid Programs,
Survey Suggests
"Students want hybrid programs that blend online and face-to-face experiences. But colleges don’t seem to be providing enough of them to meet the demand. That’s one message that emerges from the results of a national survey of more than 20,000 current and prospective adult students that were just released by Eduventures, a consulting firm." -- Marc Parry, Wired Campus, 4/14/11

Is Your Human Showing? Be Real and Be Credible
"A recent study conducted at Elizabethtown College, however, suggests that may not be entirely true. In order to examine the role of self-disclosure in perceived credibility, 120 students between the ages of 18 and 23 were split into three groups. Each group followed the tweeting of a supposed professor. One group saw only scholarly tweets, one group saw only social tweets and the last group saw a mix of the two. Each “professor” included the same number of tweets and hyperlinks. Students were asked to rate the credibility of the professor they followed based on the tweets they observed." -- Brains on Fire, Social Media Today, 4/14/11

Librarians: Masters of the Info Universe
"Librarians, information specialists, knowledge managers or whatever title a librarian might have -- their skills are in high demand. And, though you might not know it, they are everywhere. And so in their honor during National Library Week, we enjoy the following tidbits of information." -- Kerith Page McFadden, CNN Living, 4/12/11

YouTube Copyright Education (remix)
"Because copyright law can be complicated, education is critical to ensure that our users understand the rules and continue to play by them. That’s why today we’re releasing a new tutorial on copyright and a redesigned copyright help center. We’re also making two changes to our copyright process to be sure that our users understand the rules, and that users who abide by those rules can remain active on the site." -- Justin Green, YouTube Blog, 4/14/11

Why All the Fuss Over PhD Academic Librarians?
"While no one has called it Trzeciakgate yet, I can’t help but see some similarities between what’s happening now with his presentation at Penn State University and the whole Michael Gorman firestorm (then labeled “Gormangate”) of 2005. Are you too new to the profession to remember Gormangate? " -- Steven Bell, ACRLog, 4/13/11

Biola professor goes outside the box to explain imaginary numbers
"Right before April Fools Day, math students at Biola University in Southern California learned the difference between real and imaginary numbers from professor Matthew Weathers and his imaginary self, who appears in a YouTube video." -- Jenna Johnson, Campus Overload, 4/12/11

Pagination Comes to Google Docs
"Today, we’re doing another first for web browsers by adding a classic word processing feature—pagination, the ability to see visual pages on your screen. We’re also using pagination and some of Chrome’s capabilities to improve how printing works in Google Docs. Pagination is rolling out now and should be available to everyone by the end of the day." -- Luiz Pereira, Docs Blog, 4/12/11

7 Things You Should Know About the Modern Learning Commons
"The learning commons, sometimes called an “information commons,” has evolved from a combination library and computer lab into a full-service learning, research, and project space. As a place where students can meet, talk, study, and use “borrowed” equipment, the learning commons brings together the functions of libraries, labs, lounges, and seminar areas in a single community gathering place. The cost of a learning commons can be an obstacle, but for institutions that invest in a sophisticated learning commons, the new and expanded partnerships across disciplines facilitate and promote greater levels of collaboration. The commons invites students to devise their own approaches to their work and to transfer what they learn in one course to the work they do for another." -- John P. Lippencott, Stacey Greenwell, Educause, 4/11/11

Microsoft Shows Off Internet Explorer 10
"Just a scant four weeks after the launch of Internet Explorer 9, Microsoft is back with the first platform preview of Internet Explorer 10. Dean Hachamovitch, Microsoft’s corporate vice president of Internet Explorer, unveiled the new platform preview of IE10 at the ongoing Mix developer conference in Las Vegas."-- Scott Gilbertson, WebMonkey, 4/11/11

Taking a Closer Look at Open Peer Review
"Open peer review—which gives anyone who’s interested a chance to weigh in on scholarly content before it’s published—just got an institutional boost. The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has given New York University Press and MediaCommons a $50,000 grant to take a closer look at open, or peer-to-peer (P2P), review, the press announced today. MediaCommons is a digital scholarly network hosted by the NYU Libraries and affiliated with the Institute for the Future of the Book." -- Jennifer Howard, Wired Campus, 4/11/11

Weekly Reader

I'm putting my thoughts and various technology resources in order after attending ACRL in Philadelphia last week. For the first time, I did not create any handwritten notes. Instead I posted the titles of various sessions I attended, along with accompanying Twitter hashtags (#acrl2011 and #czs11), on Facebook and Twitter, I took photos of PowerPoint slides with my camera and phone, and snapped QR codes to locate and save URLs from poster sessions. No paper handouts, no information sheets, nothing to weed prior to packing for the return trip. Excepting the purse I bought at Macys, my suitcase weighed the same at both ends of the conference. This week's reader collection is sans anything posted during the conference; even with technology in hand, I did not have time to keep up with the reader.

Beyond the Job: Our Final Post
The end of a blog.... "After 3 1/2 years and over 1700 posts, we’ve decided it’s time to say farewell to Beyond the Job. We’ve both moved on to other projects, which leaves us less time to keep this site up to date." -- Sarah Johnson, Rachel Singer Gordon, Beyond the Job, 4/7/11

2011 Social Media Marketing Industry Report
"To understand how marketers are using social media, Social Media Examiner commissioned the 2011 Social Media Marketing Industry Report. We set out to uncover the “who, what, where, when and why” of social media marketing with this report. A significant 3300 social media marketers provided valuable insight you won’t find elsewhere." -- Michael Stelzner, Social Media Examiner, 4/7/11

Slide into These Cool Presentation Tools
"Into each work life, some slides must, well, slide. But you can make the most of them with this collection of updates." -- Denise Graveline, The Eloquent Woman, 4/7/11

OhioLINK Receives $750K Grant to Bolster Math, Engineering Courses
"OhioLINK has been named a recipient of a $750,000 grant from Next Generation Learning Challenges (NGLC), a new initiative focused on identifying and scaling technology-enabled approaches to dramatically improve college readiness and completion, especially for low-income young adults. OhioLINK’s winning project will build off of its successful Ohio Digital Bookshelf program by creating multimedia and self-assessment tools to help students succeed in fundamental math and applied engineering courses. " -- Stacy Brannan , OhioLINK What's New, 4/7/11

Shelving Made Easy (or Easier)
"Putting misshelved books back in their proper places is not a library worker’s favorite task. It takes time and it’s not exactly scintillating. Now a computer-science professor has come up with a way to make the process faster and less burdensome: an augmented-reality shelf-reading app that can scan an entire shelf’s worth of books at a time and alert workers which ones are out of place."-- Jennifer Howard, Wired Campus, 4/6/11

Another Weekly Reader Wrap-Up

It's Friday! In a few days (four, but I'm not counting) many academic library folks will be headed to Philadelphia, PA for the ACRL National Conference; I'm excited to have the opportunity to attend and present. I am also slightly crazed; the time is close and my part of the session not quite where I would like it to be. Presenting about technology resources, with technology, to an audience that is well versed in said technology can be daunting and exhilarating. I've been increasingly immersed in the presentation this week, hence the number of technology topics presented in the wrap-up.

Valuing Change
"The past couple of weeks have reminded me how hard it is for teachers to consider change when they don’t have a context for it and, most importantly, when they don’t value it." -- Will Richardson, Weblogg-ed, 3/21/11

Making What's Old, New
"Almost a year ago, we introduced a new version of the document editor. The new version launched with character-by-character collaboration, higher import fidelity and new features like a ruler and support for positioned images. Since then, we’ve been continually adding more features like collaborative highlighting, better revision history, mobile editing, and discussions." -- Jeff Harris, Docs Blog, 3/24/11

Are People "Borrowing" Your Content (and How Do You Know When They Do)?
"The downside of social media is the expectation that everything on the Internet is free. Some people regularly pass other people’s thoughts and ideas off as their own. Copyright infringement is a serious offense. There are laws to protect people who use words to create art when those words are on a printed piece of paper. The digital age has left those laws behind. The concept that everything is free on the Internet has created a new breed of thievery AKA 'copy & paste.'" -- Debra Ellis, Social Media Today, 3/24/11

Famous Speech Friday: Lady Bird Johnson's 1964 Whistle Stop Tour
"Lady Bird Johnson died just a few months before The Eloquent Woman blog launched, and it was during her funeral services that I realized few today recall her shy start as a public speaker." -- Denise Graveline, The Eloquent Woman Blog, 3/25/11

No Video Camera? No Problem! Create Original Videos with Your Own Photos, Clips,or Just and Idea
"More than 35 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute, and with the motto of "Broadcast Yourself", it's hard to believe that anyone is left out of the YouTube experience. But the truth is, sites like YouTube do largely leave out people who don't have a video camera. That's changing with the beta launch of youtube.com/create, where anyone can use video creation sites Xtranormal, Stupeflix and GoAnimate to make personal videos or animations and post them directly to YouTube." -- Stanley Wang and Shenaz Zack, YouTube Blog, 3/24/11

ALAO Newsletter: March 2011

The latest edition of the ALAO Newsletter is available! Featured this month:

• President's report
• ACRL Scholarly Communication Workshop
• Interest Groups Spring Workshops
• ALAO Annual Conference Call for Proposals
• ALAO Grant Opportunities

Note that registration for the Distance Learning Interest Group's (DLIG) spring workshop, INOV8: Revitalizing Distance Learning, scheduled for Friday, May 13th, is now open.

"This year’s workshop will focus on ways to revitalize your approach to distance learning by featuring freely available technologies, successful strategies for connecting to our students and faculty, and tips for librarianship in learning management systems."

For more information on the DLIG workshop, visit their events page or view the brochure (PDF).

ALAO 2011: Call for Proposals

Constant Change, Constant Opportunity
ALAO Annual Conference 2011
Call for Proposals





The Academic Library Association of Ohio (ALAO) *37th Annual Conference*
November 3rd and 4th, 2011
Hilton Toledo Hotel, Toledo, OH

Presentation and Poster Session Deadline: April 8th, 2011

The ALAO Conference Planning Committee invites you to submit proposals for presentations, 25-minute spotlight sessions, or poster sessions that bring new ideas or approaches useful for academic libraries. This year’s conference theme, “ Constant Change, Constant Opportunity,” looks at the challenges facing academic libraries as budgetary, institutional, occupational, and technological changes cause us to reflect and adapt how we provide services to our users and communities.

Presentations may take the form of contributed papers, demonstrations, workshops, research, or panel discussions. Spotlight sessions can be “lightning round” style programs, multimedia slides, or other presentation techniques that cover a subject or issue that can be dealt with in a 25-minute time frame. Poster sessions should embrace the conference theme and present original ideas, innovative solutions to problems, library-related projects, or creative approaches to dealing with change in today’s academic libraries.

• Support Staff Presenter Grant Form
• Student Presenter Grant Form

This year we have available both a Support Staff Presenter Grant and a Student Presenter Grant. Further details on both grants are available at the URLs above. For more information regarding the Call for Proposals for presentations, spotlight sessions, or poster sessions, contact the Conference Planning Committee members listed below:

Katie Gibson – Presentations and Spotlight Sessions
Email: gibsonke at muohio.edu

Masha Misco – Poster Sessions
Email: stepanm at muohio.edu

For more details, proposal forms , and presentation grant forms, please check the conference website: http://www.alaoweb.org/events.

We look forward to receiving your proposals for the 2011 ALAO Annual Conference!

Reader Wrap-up

A long time ago ... I published a blog post. I won't digress too much by sharing how many posts I deleted from draft format, or even how many remain awaiting publication. I will share that my lunchtime reading today was comprised of catching up with my spring break collection of feeds. Here's a short collection of technology-related items that caught my attention, the last two feature QR Codes (no big surprise).

What's New With Blogger
"2010 was a big year for Blogger. We cemented ourselves as one of the largest blogging platforms and the sixth largest website in the world, according to Alexa. Blogger users published more than half a billion blog posts, which were read by more than 400 million active readers across the globe." -- Chang Kim, Blogger Buzz, 3/14/11



8 Simple Ways to Improve Your YouTube Channel
"You don’t have to be a YouTube “personality” to create a fantastic, customized YouTube channel. Everyone can take advantage of the options available. YouTube’s product manager for consumer channels, AJ Crane, says your personal channel is “the best place to showcase your content.” We spoke to Crane to find out some great ways to improve, and make the most of, your channel’s appearance, usability and engagement options." -- Amy-Mae Elliott, Mashable ,3/11/11

8 Powerful & Inexpensive Desktop Design Apps
"We’ve discovered some great design software that you may not have heard of — and they’re all less than $50. Are these tools as robust and powerful as their pricey counterparts? Realistically, no. But they’re still great apps, especially given their price tags (or lack thereof). If you’re working on a small budget or just looking to try something new, check out some of the programs below." -- Kelli Shaver, Mashable, 3/14/11

Why QR Codes Will Go Mainstream [Opinion]
"I believe the answer is yes, QR codes are coming to an advertisement or object near you, and sooner than you may think. Here are the reasons why, along with suggestions on how advertisers can catalyze this movement by making QR code campaigns as useful and rewarding as possible." -- Hamilton Chan, Mashable Opinion Piece, 3/8/11

Who's Really Scanning All Those QR Codes? [Infographic]
"QR code-focused startup JumpScan was kind enough to send along a graphically organized representation of some data they’ve gathered about QR codes — who’s scanning them, what kinds of devices they’re using and what brands are running QR code campaigns." --Jolie O'Dell, Mashable, 3/4/11

Weekly reader wrap-up

After a week of ignoring my reader, I was through the "S's" before the all items number dipped below 1000+, I was determined to work through the backlog without deleting everything and beginning again. By-passing all of the Pittsburgh Steelers going to the Super Bowl and NHL All-Star game related feeds, I did a fair bit of cherry-picking on various topics and submit the following for a beginning of the weekly reader wrap-up:

Tweet Success, How to Dominate Twitter
"In the Twitter hierarchy more followers typically means more clout, but that’s not the only measure of success. Sometimes having a conversation with your followers can mean more than the actual number of followers you have according to Klout.com, a company that measures Internet influence." -- ABC News on Campus, Danielle Waugh, 1/27/11

The History of Social Networking [infographic]
"Being connected to the world around us has never been more easy and accessible than it it today. But it didn't start out that way. After the Internet made it possible to reach people around the Globe with merely a click of a button, social networking exploded into one of the biggest industries of our time." -- Boris, The Next Web, 1/31/11

Will Google Take Any Higher Ed Risks?

"This is definitely progress for Google, but only a first step. The 20 apps seem to have limited utility and reach in higher ed. Whatever the Blackboard Google app turns out to be could be interesting (integration with Google Docs? single sign-on?), but we will have to wait-and-see." -- Technology and Learning, Joshua Kim, 1/25/11

Video Uses Student Voices to Explore New Directions in Education
"Michael Wesch, an associate professor of cultural anthropology at Kansas State University, began “The Visions of Students Tomorrow” on January 18. It is a new video-collaboration project that he hopes will help generate a conversation about the “media-ated life” of many students. He wants not only to gain insights into how students interact with their dense and ever-changing media environment, but also to tackle the question of whether instructors have kept pace with it." -- Wired Campus, Tushar Rae, 1/26/11

another QR Code post

We have a new digital signage system on the library main floor that allows us to create informational slides highlighting library services and events. Mounted on the wall near the library exit, it is viewable from most of the main floor, most importantly the circulation and reserves desk. I've posted images of the library (on a sunny, blue sky day), a simple floor directory, the weather (it's a changing feed), and a few slides for other offices located in the library. In an effort to generate some interest, I went to the Kaywa QR Code Generator, entered the library web site URL, and created as sign for the rotation.

Now we need someone with a web-enabled phone and bar code app to try out the QR code!

ALAO Research Grant Applications

The Academic Library Association of Ohio's (ALAO) Research and Publications Committee (RPC) is currently accepting applications for the 2011 ALAO Research Applications Grant.

"The Academic Library Association of Ohio (ALAO) seeks to promote research, and each year the ALAO Executive Board may award up to $500.00 to support and encourage research projects proposed by ALAO members. Both ongoing and new research projects are considered. Grants are intended to help in funding such incremental research costs as the organization of data, the hiring of interviewers or other assistants, charges for computer time, and modest travel costs associated with research. Grants may not be used for purchase of equipment. Grants are limited to investigations related to issues in libraries, librarianship, and information science and technology." -- ALAO, RPC Research Grant

The deadline for grant application materials is January 31, 2011. Please note, applicants must be current ALAO members to qualify for this grant. For additional information regarding this grant, visit the ALAO Research Grant Application web page.

Please send completed application materials to Mark Eddy, Chair of the Research & Publications Committee: mark.eddy(at)case.edu.

Et tu, Delicious?

With more than a little regret and annoyance, I moved my Bloglines feeds to Google Reader when it was announced they would be eliminating the service. (Yes, Bloglines was subsequently purchased by MerchantCircle and users are to migrate to the new system.) Now Yahoo will be closing Delicious. After reading the notice, I logged in to Delicious and exported my 738+ bookmarks. The tags do not display in the html list, though they do in the source code, which makes recreating the portal a daunting task.

• Yahoo Shutting Down Delicious, Buzz, Other Services
  "Part of our organizational streamlining involves cutting our investment in underperforming or off-strategy products to put better focus on our core strengths and fund new innovation in the next year and beyond," a Yahoo spokeswoman said via e-mail. "We continuously evaluate and prioritize our portfolio of products and services, and do plan to shut down some products in the coming months such as Yahoo Buzz, our Traffic APIs, and others. We will communicate specific plans when appropriate." -- Chloe Albanesius, PC Mag.com, 12-16/10


• Yahoo Closing Delicious
  "It’s a sad day for the many people who have come to rely on del.icio.us, a very popular social bookmarking site. Yahoo, which bought the site in 2005, is now in the midst of shutting it down after deeming it an ”off-strategy product.” This news comes to us via TechCrunch who verified the story with a WSJ reporter as well as with Yahoo itself, mere days after announcing it had layed off 4% of its staff in a recent downsizing exercise." -- Simon Cohen, Sync, 12/16/10


• Is Yahoo Sutting Down Delicious? Yes
  "For a couple of days now, we’ve been hearing rumors that the Yahoo layoffs included the entire Delicious team. Now Former Yahoo employee and Upcoming founder Andy Baio has tweeted out the above Yahoo! product team meeting slide that seems to show that Yahoo! is either closing or merging the social bookmarking service as well as Upcoming, Fire Eagle, MyBlogLog and others." -- Alexia Tsotsis, TechCrunch, 12/16/10


• Yahoo Plans to Kill Off Delicious Bookmarking Service
  "According to a leaked photo, Yahoo plans to close a number of services, including Yahoo Buzz, MyBlogLog and Delicious, the popular bookmarking site. Most of the closing services are Yahoo projects that simply never went anywhere, but Delicious, which Yahoo acquired in 2005, was once the king of bookmarks and helped popularize many of the key elements of today’s social web." -- Scott Gilbertson, WebMonkey, 12/17/10

It is simple enough to export my bookmarks to another service, there's a quick tutorial on how to export into Diigo and a convenient video highlighting their service (be patient,"As there are huge number of requests lately, it may take a while."). And these things happen when using a free, dare I say it, cloud based Internet resource. It just so happened these were two of my favorite early 2.0 tools.

The real issue here is people, reports are Yahoo laid off over 600 workers recently - among them the entire Delicious staff.

[Update] Delicious Blog 12/17/2010

What's Next for Delicious?
"Many of you have read the news stories aboutDelicious that began appearing yesterday. We’re genuinely sorry to have these stories appear with so little context for our loyal users. While we can’t answer each of your questions individually, we wanted to address what we can at this stage and we promise to keep you posted as future plans get finalized."

Weekly reader wrap-up

Tomorrow is our last day before the holiday break. Those days are always full of general house-keeping , blog posts, changing phone messages, updating web information, and preparing my area for time off, are just a few tasks at hand. That said, here is my final weekly reader wrap-up for 2010 on a Thursday. Sometimes it is difficult to find items to share, while other weeks my reader overflows with interesting blog reading. This week fell in-between with so many end-of-year wraps in the mix; there are library, education, technology, and general interest links.

• Study finds undergrads hitting the books less often
  
  "With final exams approaching on many college campuses, it won't be hard to spot stressed-out students hunched over laptops, hunkered down in library stacks or fending off fatigue with Red Bull. Sure, they're dedicated and hard-working. Or maybe not." -- Bill Schackner, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 12/12/10


• How Much is Enough?
  "I’ve been hearing more and more, recently, about people dropping out of service and professional development opportunities because they cannot secure funding from their institutions to attend." --Amy Fry, ACRLog, 12/13/10


• Who Tweets?
  "This is the first-ever survey reading from the Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project that exclusively examines Twitter users. In previous surveys, the Pew Internet Project had asked internet users whether they "used Twitter or another service to share updates about yourself or to see updates about others?" -- Pew Research Center Publications, 12/9/10


• Researchers Create 3-D Models with Flickr Photos
  "An international team of researchers has developed a new way to turn photographs from the media-sharing sites like Flickr into intricate 3-D computer models using only a home computer." --Travis Kaya, Wired Campus, 12/10/201


• Search and Insert YouTube Videos
  "Blogger supports drop-dead easy video-blogging -- if you have a video file, you can just upload it to Blogger. But when it comes to video-blogging, we know a lot of you also choose to embed YouTube videos to your post." -- Blogger in Draft, 12/14/10


• 10 Ways Social Media Will Change in 2011
  "2011 will also be marked by new developments that will shape the very fabric of our behavior, culture and identity. These developments will challenge us to consider important questions about the future of our experience as connected people and consumers. Here are key trends to watch in the coming year." -- Ravit Lichtenberg, ReadWriteWeb, 12/15/10


• Generations 2010: Pew Internet & American Life Report
  "There are still notable differences by generation in online activities, but the dominance of the Millennial generation that we documented in our first “Generations” report in 2009 has slipped in many activities." -- Kathryn Zickuhr, Pew Reserch Center, 12/16/10


• LibAnswers Help Libraries Win the Race
  "Here’s a “too good not to share” story from our friends at Albuquerque/Bernalillo County (ABC) Libraries, who published a LibAnswer that received 11,000+ views in 5 days."-- Springshare Support Blog, 12/15/10

It's that time: The year in review

A plethora of annual year-end lists are being published, here are a few that made their way into my reader this weekend. In no particular order:

• The Top Twitter Trends of 2010
• The Horn Book Magazine's 2010 Fanfare List
• Time Magazine, The Top Ten of Everything 2010
• Time Magazine, The Top Ten Gadgets
• The Top Ten Quotes of 2010
• Yahoo! 2010 Year in Review
• Yahooo! 2010 Year in Review: Top 10 Searches

And, from Google and YouTube:

• The Year on YouTube: Double Rainbows, Annoying Oranges, and Bed Intruders
  
  

• Zeitgeist 2010: How the World Searched
  
  

Two Week reader wrap-up

I delayed last weeks wrap-up to blog about the ALAO conference (late) and still have two posts remaining in my folder. So, this is a two-week reader collection that includes technology links, tips for blogging from MS Office 2010, and collaboration with Prezi . Take a few minutes to read the comments accompanying Steven Bell's Library Journal column, when I added to this post link there were very good discussions detailing the necessity of basic steps in elementary and high school before teaching research strategies in higher education.

* In a very unblog-like fashion, the newest items are posted last ...

• OhioLINK What's New
  A recent addendum to the previous post / announcement (9/30) regarding the new OhioLINK executive director (10/25).


• Research with Training Wheels From the Bell Tower
  "As much as we academic librarians sometimes whine about our problems (which I am guilty of here), our K-12 counterparts demonstrate a tremendous enthusiasm for their work. This summit was a no-whining zone. More than that, our K-12 counterparts are thinking hard about the future of reading. As I heard more than a few times at the Summit, it's not about the future of the book—it's about the future of reading. We may not know what the container will be, but we do know that student academic success is strongly tied to reading and comprehension—and the future of reading according to the experts, is digital." -- Steven Bell, Library Journal, 10/28/10


• More than a third of Higher Education Faculty are on Twitter
  "Twitter use by Higher Education Faculty is more extensive than you might expect, and it’s on the rise. This last week I came across this report from Magna Publications, published last month, which discusses their second annual survey of Twitter usage among college faculty. The survey was conducted over the summer and had 1,372 respondents." -- K Walsh, Emerging EdTech, 10/31/10


• It’s Time to Get to Work. Arm Yourself with Knowledge
  "Regardless of your position within an organization, if you want to see change you need to institute change. Small steps often lead to big change. You have the ability to encourage others to have the confidence and courage to follow. The one thing that I find helps is arming myself with knowledge. You don’t know what you don’t know, right? One of the things I turn to broaden my knowledge are books. It’s amazing what you can learn at such a minimal cost, if you just put the time and effort into it." -- Beth Harte, Social Media Today, 11/1/10


• Same Campus + Real Time = Prezi Meeting
  "Nothing beats opening your email to find a whole new way of collaborating. Whether your students are engaged in Project or Challenge-Based Learning, or you want to collaborate locally or globally, Prezi Meeting just made learning better. For web-based presentations, Prezi Meeting reinvented desktop sharing." -- RJ Stangherlin, DEN Blog Network, 11/4/10


• How to Publish Blog Posts from Microsoft Word 2010
  "Every blogger out there looks for easy ways to publish blogs which don’t take up much time; hence the use of many specifically designed blog writing and publishing platforms is commonplace. However, a word processing application such as Microsoft Office 2010 can also be used an effective blog writing app with just a few simple steps." -- Hammad, Lost in Technology, 11/4/10


• Magazine Lifts Blogger's Article, Tells Her to Be Grateful for the Edit
  "But this story might be a new low. According to blogger and medieval recipe enthusiast Monica Gaudio, a print magazine stole her article, published it in their magazine, and, when Gaudio complained, the magazine told her she should be grateful for the exposure and they deserved a "thanks" editing it it for her." -- Sarah Jacobsson Purewal, PCWorld, 11/5/10


• The Rise of the 'Edupunk'
  "NEW YORK -- The “Edupunks” will inherit the Earth … or at least some attention. Those in higher education who continue hand-wringing over the relative merits of online learning and other technology-driven platforms will soon find themselves left in the dust of an up-and-coming generation of students who are seeking knowledge outside academe. Such was an emerging consensus view here Monday, as college leaders gathered for the TIAA-CREF Institute's 2010 Higher Education Leadership Conference." -- Jack Stripling, Insider Higher Ed News, 11/5/10


• Prezi Paths: Linear Storytelling in an Infinite Landscape
  "One of the most elusive concepts I find in most Prezi presentations is a lack of navigational structure – wildly zooming around a presentation. While this may make sense to the presenter, it is a completely disorienting experience for the audience and can certainly induce motion sickness."-- Andrew Davis, TippingPoint Labs, 11/9/10

ALAO 2010: Presidents Program

View more presentations from Stephen Abram.

Stephen Abram was this year's keynote speaker for the President's Program. His presentation Building the New Academic Library, is embedded above and (as promised) are available on SlideShare. Questions posed to the audience during the program:

1. Is this the end of publishing as we know it?
2. Is this the end of libraries as we know them?
3. Where is all this change taking us?
4. Do people still value the book?
5. What's next?
6. What is the role for librarians in our info-future?

I found many points to agree and disagree with as his talk progressed. For instance, a new AU library web site is anticipated next spring; Abram provided snapshot results from a survey conducted revealing "only 29% of users found databases via the library web site,", "72% found trusted our (library) content more than what they found on Google," yet "81% still use Google" first suggests the decision to present our databases in a quick search environment could be a good one (slide 20). This personal conclusion, open to wide interpretation by all concerned with the results of said redesign, will be put to the test when the site is live. Much relies on how the site is presented and how we - library faculty and staff - are willing to handle the change internally. As Abram mentioned, our relationship with the user, online and in person, will need to be consistently re-examined.

Discussion relating to the end of the book as we know it was not (and is not) a point of agreement. Maybe in this instance the phrase 'as we know it' should be given more thought. Books are evolving to a more technology based format and have been for some time. In the last ten year's I've purchased books on cassette, books on CD, books with accompanying cassettes, CD's and DVD's. Electronic books have allowed texts to be included within online instruction, I'm a big an of Safari Tech books, audio of books may be downloaded and circulated, and we are quickly moving toward sharing between e-book users. However, as the internet is still in its infancy (slide 13), in many ways so is the concept and delivery of electronic books.

Take a few minutes to peruse Stephen Abrams presentation, there is a great deal of food - and books - for thought.

Early reader wrap-up

Tomorrow is the 2010 ALAO conference in Columbus! I am unsure if wireless will be available, but will take my netbook and hope to have the opportunity, patience, and ability to do quick conference blog posts. In addition to anticipating the keynote address from featured speaker Stephen Abram, I am looking forward to a wide variety of presentations ... and lunch. As a result, this week's wrap-up is a day early.

• Understanding Copyright, Fair Use, and Creative Commons
  "I assume that when instructors want to know what they can or cannot do with copyrighted materials, they may often have a hard time figuring it out. I really wanted to understand the topic and provide resources to help others do the same." -- K. Walsh, Emerging EdTech, 10/24/10


• An Amazon Digital Book Rental Plan?
  "How much would you pay for a monthly subscription to Amazon's digital book content?" -- Joshua Kim, Technology and Learning, 10/24/10


• Over it Yet? Privacy, That Is
  "Earlier this semester a media law professor asked me to prepare a lecture on privacy to present to his class while he was out of town on business. Subbing, for me, is an opportunity to delve into topics that might have changed since the last time I taught a particular class. So was the case concerning the four types of privacy invasion."-- Michael Bugeja, Views: Inside Higher Ed, 10/25/10


• VT Students 'Pay it Forward' to Stop Bullying
  "Monday morning 500 students in an introductory to psychology class at Virginia Tech will receive PayDay candy bars in wrappers that read, "Pay It Forward." And instead of the routine lecture of the day, professor E. Scott Geller will urge the students to perform "intentional acts of kindness" -- and hand over their candy bar to a stranger, who hopefully will do the same." -- Jenna Johnson, Campus Overload, 10/25/10


• History of Online Video
  "The Internet has changed massively over the last years and the days of a life without www seem to have become long forgotten for most people already. Many youngsters could not imagine a life without ‘technology’ or Internet anymore. The biggest change online has been the emergence of video streaming though." -- Franky Branckaute, Blog Herald, 10/27/2010


• High Stakes in Ohio
  "As many states face billion-dollar deficits and struggle to maintain their quality of education with increasingly stingy budgets, few have remade their higher education systems as aggressively as Ohio has. Under Gov. Ted Strickland, the structure and financing of higher education have undergone dramatic changes, not least of which is a performance-based funding system that awards institutions government money based on retention and educational attainment." -- Allie Grasgreen , Inside Higher Ed News, 10/27/10


• What Facebook Tells Researchers About Friendship and Race
  "College freshmen are more likely to make friends with peers they share a dorm room or major with than they are to befriend those from similar racial backgrounds, a study on the Facebook profiles of first-year students found." -- Travis Kaya, The Wired Campus, 10/28/10