In their latest podcast of Thinking Out Loud, George Needham & Joan Frye Williams take a look at the Public Library Association's 2008 conference (it was paperless, so as G&J point out, it is a very rich website!). Some highlights: the exhibit hall (ChiliFresh.com, STImaging.com, MusicPump) and the Minneapolis Public Library's Game Center. They cover a lot of ground, so be sure to tune in!
If you tuned in to today's webinar on Effective "Virtual Visits" Statistics for the Annual Public Library Survey with Sarah Houghton-Jan, you know that we had some audio problems (technology! sheesh!). Anyway, Sarah very kindly re-recorded the audio in MP3 format so you can hear all that good information you may have missed the first time around. Be sure to download her neat resource handout as well, and the PowerPoint -- it'll be almost just like being there!
Thanks for a great webinar, Sarah, and for bearing with us through the technology glitches.
In the latest Thinking Out Loud podcast, George and Joan take a look at the report Information Behaviour of the Researcher of the Future (PDF format). This report was conducted by the Centre for Information Behaviour and the Evaluation of Research (CIBER) in the UK.
The report looks at the information seeking behavior of young people and what that means for libraries in the next 10-15 years. As George says, demographics are destiny so it's important to look at how young people are looking for information.
Needless to say, George and Joan have a lot of thoughts on the report and its findings, so be sure to listen! This podcast is 19 minutes long.
A big event at the Computers in Libraries conference announced the 2008 InfoTubey award winners. The production values vary (some are pretty high-end), but the messages are all good - libraries are great places! Check them out - then think how easy it would be with a Flip video camera to create a great marketing tool for your library, too!
In this latest session of Thinking Out Loud, our intrepid podcasters George & Joan look at TIME magazine's issue from Mar 24, 2008, 10 Ideas That Are Changing the World (among the ideas: the end of customer service and the new austerity) and they also talk about the Extinction Timeline, found on Ross Dawson's blog, rossdawsonblog.com, and created jointly by What’s Next and the Future Exploration Network. Of special interest to libraries: the year 2019, in which Dawson predicts the extinction of libraries! It's well worth a listen.
UPDATE: Sorry, folks. I seem incapable of typing (or for that matter, pasting, a file name correctly today. I have finally, absolutely, fixed the link to that latest G&J podcast. Sorry for any inconvenience! --Eileen the bad typist
Everybody has an opinion! Michael Cart weighed in on the state of reading today in his last podcast, and now in their latest edition of Thinking Out Loud, George Needham and Joan Frye Williams continue their take on the state of reading, a conversation that they started in their last podcast. This time out the look at the recent NEA report, To Read or Not to Read, and other trends affecting how and what people read. Also mentioned in this podcast: Book Glutton and Bibliocommons.
In this episode of Thinking Out Loud, George Needham and Joan Frye Williams take a look at current trends in reading. Specifically, George talks about his Kindle and they both riff on what the Kindle and other e-book readers of its ilk affect how and what we read.
For those of you who listen closely, you'll hear Joan reference something called the "ImaginoTransferenceDevice" and if you're like me, you're wondering what the heck that is. It's a term/concept coined by Jasper Fforde, and you can read more about it here.
Next up: they look at the NEA report, To Read or Not to Read - so stay tuned!
Using the book, Forces for Good: The Six Practices of High-Impact Nonprofits by Leslie Crutchfield and Heather McLeod Grant, George Needham and Joan Frye Williams look at the six attributes and discuss how those practices might be applied in libraries.
This 28-minute podcast is part two of a two-part series. If you missed part one, you can catch it here.
Using the book, Forces for Good: The Six Practices of High-Impact Nonprofits by Leslie Crutchfield and Heather McLeod Grant, George Needham and Joan Frye Williams look at the six attributes and discuss how those practices might be applied in libraries in this 22 minute podcast.
This is part one of a two-part podcast.
The British Museum has released a ground-breaking study on information literacy that turns over many of the assumptions about the 'Google Generation' (those born since 1993). You can read the whole thing - Information Behaviour of the Researcher of the Future (PDF; 1.67MB) and/or listen to a podcast of a discussion by report's authors. Great for commuters, exercisers, and others who listen to podcasts. Part of the British Library's podcasts and webcasts series that you can subscribe to.
Found via LibVibe.
What comes to mind when you hear the term "competencies"? Are competencies just the latest buzzword for leadership certification or for development of Librarian 2.0 skills? This podcast version of Mary Ross's Jan 8, 2008 Infopeople webcast will give you a basic understanding of competencies as guides for your library's recruitment and hiring, performance management, and staff development efforts.
My voter pamphlet arrived in the mail a few days ago, followed by my sample ballot. Yep, it's election time! Carole Leita shared GlassBooth with us all last week, so I thought I'd toss in a few sites that I have found to be useful for helping users (and yourselves!) find information about candidates and initiatives.
My favorite site is the California Voter Foundation. It offers an online voter guide, a list of all candidates, and it also offers analyses of the propositions. A Follow the Money section on each proposition page tells you what PACs have given money to support or oppose it. They have archived information on elections back to 1994.
The 2008 Technology Voter's Guide from News.com focuses on presidential candidates' stands on all things technology. If you need to find out a candidate's views on Net Neutrality, this is a good place to go. The downside: they don't have info on all of the candidates.
The New York Times Election Guide 2008 is another great place to go to get info on who's funding campaigns. Select a candidate from the Finances page and you can see how much money each candidate has raised. You can also search for donors by name or zip code. They have no info on state initiatives.
Project Vote Smart is another nonpartisan, non-profit voter information/education site. They get their campaign financing information from opensecrets.org, which supplies copious details about campaign financing from presidential to congressional races. They too have no info on state initiatives.
Remember, be sure to vote on February 5!
It's 2008, a new year with new rules of the road going into effect here in California! I knew one of them, but was surpirsed by some of the others, so I thought I'd share some highlights (these come from the AAA website, which offers a nice synopsis of all the new laws and their penalties):
In this edition of Thinking Out Loud, George and Joan take a look at the state of library education. Is it worth all of the time and effort people put into it? George advocates a serious rethinking of MLS programs and what they teach.
It's food for thought!
Okay, I just happened to hear about this report yesterday, so I thought I'd share. Digital Footprints is a report from the Pew Internet & American Life Project that looks at our awareness and concerns about the amount of information available about all of us on the Internet. Factoids from the report:
Fully 60% of internet users say they are not worried about how much information is available about them online. Similarly, the majority of online adults (61%) do not feel compelled to limit the amount of information that can be found about them online.
A lot of it falls under the category of, "Duh!" but it's worth a look.
In their latest podcast, George Needham and Joan Frye Williams discuss how librarians refer to their...customers? patrons? users? and what those words mean, and how all of those terms have different connotations. As Joan says, it's more than just nomenclature.
If you weren’t able to visit the Infopeople booth at CLA, you missed the chance to hear a costumed fortune-teller (library consultant Joan Frye Williams, in a cameo appearance) render predictions about the future of libraries. Here’s a sampling of her pithy prognostications. More to come next week. She did a lot of prognosticating.
In the future…
*Library users will choose from a variety of convenient borrowing plans – enabling them to check out more items for a shorter loan period, or fewer items for a longer loan period, or have all materials due on the same day each month, etc.
*Library card information and barcode/RFID identifiers will be downloadable to – and directly readable from - cell phones and PDAs.
*Library users will schedule personalized reader’s advisory sessions with a "reading coach."
*Integrated system software will be open source; the library will contract for maintenance on a year-to-year or multi-year basis from competing suppliers.
*Retiring baby boomers will demand elaborate summer reading programs for adults.
*The library will become a primary destination for consumer health information and services such as flu shots, well baby clinics, etc.
*The majority of new library construction will be "green" – and LEED certified.
*Libraries will broaden – and improve - their pool of applicants for customer service jobs by omitting the word "library" from recruitment ads.
*Demand-based dynamic shelving algorithms will replace the Dewey Decimal System.
*Library conferences will be modeled on events like PopTech.
*Libraries will take steps to become carbon neutral.
When I read the purpose of Truemors, I hoped it had been created by a library related sponsor.
See what you think...
The purpose of Truemors is to democratize and spread information. First, from a “citizen journalist/editor” perspective it enables you to “tell the world”—within the bounds of good taste and the law anyway. Second, from a reader perspective, it puts you “in the know” about the latest news, rumors, and happenings, so that “you know better” without having to spend hours every day searching for information.
As it turns out, Nononina, Inc. created Truemors and one of the founders of Nononina is Guy Kawasaki, a managing director of Garage Technology Ventures and the former chief evangelist of Apple. Author of The Art of the Start, Guy is one of my favorite authors. His blog, How to Change the World is also one of my favorites.
Whether you agree with spreading this type of information or not...
You might want to think about offering library users easy ways to communicate with your library as Truemors does for its users:
*Call 1-650-329-2020 and leave a voicemail. SpinVox will translate your voicemail to text and send it to our server. Incidentally, you can speak in English, German, Spanish, and French. Your message, however, will remain in the language you spoke
* Text “2020
* Enter your message in this online form
* Send an email to post@truemors.com
In their fourth podcast, George and Joan examine some sacred cows of librarianship, like the Dewey Decimal System, that are being challenged in libraries today.
Are you still on the fence about social networking at the library?
A year ago the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) division of the American Library Association launched the 30 days of positive uses of social networking project. Every day throughout October three YALSA bloggers posted ideas and information about using social networking in the school and public library.
You can download the compilation as a PDF.
Some of the highlights of the posts were ways that social networking can be used to:
• Empower teens
• Give teens the chance to meaningfully serve the community
• Support teen reading and writing/text-based literacy needs and skills
• Give teens opportunities to create and collaborate
• Make sure teens are able to plan and manage projects
• Communicate with community members
• Provide teens with opportunities to choose how to be smart and safe when using technology.
Here's positive use #1 to give you a flavor of the quality of the compilation:
del.icio.us (http://del.icio.us/) is a great tool for collecting and publishing resource lists. In a public and school library teens can use del.icio.us to collect reviews of materials that should be purchased for the library, bookmark and annotate resources that support classroom projects, and collaborate on collecting resources on topics of interest from music to web design and from favorite authors to craft how-to tips.
If teens are interested in using del.icio.us as an information/resource gathering tool they could setup a joint account. (This would allow the teens to collect resources together in one del.icio.us area.) Then, wherever the teens are, if they find a resource that fits their del.icio.us focus they can quickly and easily login to their joint account, add the link, annotate the link, and off they go. del.icio.us even has RSS feeds so that others who are collecting resources on the same topic in the same del.icio.us space will know something new has been added.
If you still want more information, don't miss these Infopeople master speakers at the California Library Association Conference:
Saturday, October 27 - 3:45 – 5:00 pm
Shawn Gold, MySpace head of marketing and content development
Social Networks as Marketing Tools?
Do you think social software is just for getting a date for Saturday night or a whole new style of communication that will be shaping the way libraries reach customers in the future? Is MySpace just a fad or a key tool for reaching younger audiences? Learn why and how MySpace, with over 200 million registered profiles, has become an Internet phenomenon and get a sense of what social networks are accomplishing and where they’re going in the future.
Sunday, October 28 - 3:15 – 4:30 pm
Craig Newmark, Craigslist founder
Insights into Connecting People and Information
If you think that non-library information is all in the hands of money-grubbing moguls, think again. Come to this session and meet Craig Newmark, customer service rep and founder of craigslist, a non-commercial community bulletin board with classifieds and discussion forums.
Sunday, October 28 - 4:45 – 6:00 pm
Shel Israel, co-author of Naked Conversations: How Blogs are Changing the Way Businesses Talk With Customers
Libraries: Staying relevant in the Online Age
Blogging and the related social media are having a transformative impact on every aspect of society. There are now 70 million bloggers. By year end there will be more than 200 million registered members of MySpace, making it more populace than all but five countries on Earth. For every New York Times reader, there are 125 people who download YouTube everyday. A majority of these people are under 25 and the social media have become essential to their everyday lives.
What does this mean to your library? How can and should it adapt to this change? How can libraries use social media to remain relevant to young people and connected to their communities? Can blogs be used to educate communities on what libraries have to offer? Most important, how do libraries relate to a new generation who is more accustomed to getting information online than from bookshelves? How does the modern library adapt to this phenomenon? As the new conversational medium becomes part of people’s everyday lives, what will the library of 5, 10 or 15 years look like?
In their third podcast, George and Joan discuss how change in libraries is often viewed with resistance and suspicion. And in honor of International Talk Like a Pirate Day,be sure to take note of their likening of the bringers of change to pirates boarding a ship. Arrrrr!!
If the January Infoblog postings about trend watching didn't grab you, but you've become more interested after listening to George and Joan's podcasts, take a look at Trendwatching.com's September 2007: Top 5 Trend Watching Tips and get ready for the changes 2008 is sure to bring.
The five tips for September are easy to read and understand; here's the list with a brief description to whet your appetite for more.
1. Know why you're tracking trends - Keep up with what's happening, get new ideas and be poised for innovations.
2. Have a point a view - When you have a broad point of view, even tiny observations start to make sense.
3. Weave your web of resources - Soak up the insights, the spottings, the reports, the live dispatches from the global consumer arena.
4. Fine-tune your trend framework- Start building your own Trend Framework by copying consumer trends from existing trend curators.
5. Embed and apply - Start your own Trend Group even if you are the first and only member until your fervor attracts others.
In this podcast of her July 31 Infopeople webcast, library consultant Joan Frye Williams shares the fruits of her 15+ years of full-time consulting experience, providing practical information about everything you need to get started from in-demand consulting specialties, necessary skills, basic business requirements, proposals and contracts, and, of course, fees and billing.
If you've ever toyed with the idea of hanging out your shingle as a library consultant - or if you're just curious about what it might be like to pursue this library specialty – this podcast will give you an insider's view of the pleasures and pitfalls that await you.
Nationally-renowned Boomer expert Matt Thornhill says, "The demographics of California are quickly changing as Baby Boomers reinvent middle age as they reach 50, 60, and beyond. Traditional programs for "seniors" won't work for Boomers, nor will programs designed for younger adults. It's time libraries better understood California's largest, wealthiest, and most influential demographic group."
Matt Thornhill is president of the Boomer Project, a national leader in marketing and communicating with today's Boomer Consumer. In this podcast version of an August 7 Infopeople webcast, he shares seven "new rules" libraries need to master in order to effectively serve today's Boomers. Author of Boomer Consumer, Thornhill will provide insights and practical tips and techniques any
library can put to use immediately.
Infopeople is pleased to announce a new series of podcasts: "George and Joan, Thinking Out Loud." Perspicacious pundits George Needham (OCLC) and Joan Frye Williams (library consultant) will compare notes - in their own inimitable style - on some of the hottest topics in libraries today. First on their list of conversation starters: Do trendy new service models amount to ‘dumbing down’ the library? Don’t miss the opportunity to listen in as Joan and George mix it up in a freewheeling format that’s sure to leave you with plenty to ponder.
If you like this one, stay tuned, because George and Joan will be Thinking Out Loud on the Infopeople site on a monthly basis. Upcoming topics include change and libraries, libraries getting it right, and the decline of deference.
Remember, you can listen to podcasts directly on your computer as long as it has speakers and is running any application that can play MP3 files, including Windows Media Player, WinAmp, and Real Player. Of course, if you have an iPod or any other type of MP3 player, you can download the files and take them with you to listen to wherever you happen to be.
If you have any difficulty accessing this or any other Infopeople podcast, you can get help from the Peep Geeks at ipweb@infopeople.org.
Does your library issue rules for patron behavior, i.e. odor, harassment, bare feet? Do you have a policy on young children unattended in the library? What types of rules are (and are not!) likely to be legally enforceable?
This is a podcast version of Mary Minow's July 19, 2007 webcast that analyzes lawsuits against libraries, and pulls together a legal framework to guide you in writing, revising and enforcing policies.
Weeding is a necessary—and, for some, a worrisome collection maintenance task. What to keep? What to weed? Where to start? And how can weeding happen in a library without its users wondering why materials are being withdrawn? In fact, weeding can be the answer to stimulating circulation, and weeding is a requirement for keeping your collection vigorous and useful. Weeding eliminates the outdated, the superceded, the irreparably damaged, and the material that simply doesn't fit the scope of your collection. In return your library's collection can look better, be easier for users to navigate, and come through on its promise to provide real value to the library's community. In this podcast version of her July 9 webcast, Francisca addresses all of these issues.
So what do you think it takes to be a 2.0 librarian? David Lee King gives his thoughts here, based on a conversation started about minimum competencies at the Library Revolution blog. Some highlights from his list:
I'd add wiki knowledge to the list. it's important when people ask to be able to make sensible pronouncements on the merits of MediaWiki, say, over PBwiki (or vice versa).
Food for thought, at any rate.
ALA's annual conference is starting later this week (June 21-27) in Washington, DC. If you can't make the real deal, there are a number of ways you can virtually tune in:
It's almost like being there!
Just when you thought you were getting a handle on Library 2.0 along comes Learning 2.1. This is the PLCMC's followup to their Learning 2.0 program which was a huge success. Learning 2.1 picks up where Learning 2.0 left off, and has a wiki and a Ning network to support it. It's all self-paced, so jump right in!
This podcast is derived from the webcast Karen Calhoun presented on March 9, 2007 for Infopeople. It's based on the "Calhoun Report," prepared for the Library of Congress. This study examined factors affecting the future of library online catalogs and options for revitalizing them.
If you have ever wondered what to do to make your online catalog more appealing and useful for today's web-savvy users—and thereby make your library's collections more visible and helpful to your community—this podcast is sure to provide you with many ideas for next steps.
I have been following an interesting series of blog entries regarding change, innovation, libraries, and Web 2.0 (among other things). It started with a very interesting post by David Lee King. One of the big points he makes is that in the face of intractable management, innovative techie-type librarians will flee for greener pastures. He does a good job of stating the problem and challenges all of us to come up with solutions. His key questions:
What sort of leadership do we need from innovators and change instigators in librarianship and how can we as librarians learn the difference between leadership abilities and more traditional management/administrative skills? In other words does it take more than a presentation, plea or rant to decision makers on Web 2.0 tools to bring about change?
I think that is a key question, and in the library world a critical one. We as a profession have fallen into a tendency to view leadership and management as one and the same thing, and not a good thing at that. She mentions that when she was in library school, very few of her fellow students were interested in management or leadership; they just liked books and information. I had the same experience, and in fact would group myself in with those people. But if we just take a back seat (again) with the whole Web 2.0 revolution, it will be Yahoo! all over again. Librarians should have been the leaders in the development of tools like Yahoo! Instead, we ended up as an afterthought: the last hires rather than the fist hires.
For me a key question (and one that I don't have the answer to) has always been: are leaders born or made? Managers/administrators are definitely made - through promotion or appointment. But a leader - that's a different thing. Sarah Houghton-Jan's key question is:
...Think about how you (yes, you) could be blocking change and innovation in your library. Think about why you're doing it. You may feel that you have very good reasons (budget issues may be one of those). But you may be doing things subconsciously or as a knee-jerk reaction without thinking. Just do some self-reflection here.
Change is undeniably hard. Bureaucracy makes it harder. But change can also be exciting. Here's a first step: the next time you hear about a new technology, rather than think about the problems it presents for your library, let yourself think about how the technology could be used to benefit your library. Give yourself (and your library) a chance to dream. I know, I know, that's a pie-in-the-sky approach. But isn't it worth a try?
The ALA's 2007 report on The State of America's Libraries was released this week. Among the findings:
There's a lot more where that came from. if you're overwhelmed by the whole thing, just check out the executive summary.
The Librarian Incentive to Boost Recruitment and Retention in Areas of Need (LIBRARIAN) Act of 2007 was introduced in both the U.S. Senate (S. 1121) and the House of Representatives (H.R. 1877) yesterday.
Its aim is to increase incentives for new librarians to work in low-income schools and public libraries by forgiving Perkins student loans. Here's the skinny from the text of the bill:
Specifically, the LIBRARIAN Act allows Federal Perkins loan
cancellation for full-time librarians with a master's degree in library
sciences who are employed in: a public library that serves a geographic
area that contains one or more schools eligible for educationally
disadvantaged school funding under Title I; or an elementary or
secondary school library that is eligible for educationally
disadvantaged school funding under Title 1.
Librarians working full-time in these areas would qualify for up to
100 percent Federal Perkins loan forgiveness depending on their years
of service as a librarian in the disadvantaged schools or public
libraries. Specifically, they would qualify for: 15 percent loan
forgiveness for each of the first and second years of such service; 20
percent loan forgiveness for each of the third and fourth years of such
service; and 30 percent loan forgiveness for the fifth year of such
service.
Bit One: I have been at LMS 2007 for the past couple of days getting lots of exposure to the ins and outs of issues like changing your learning management system, how to deal with vendors, and what to look for in a Learning Content Management System. Today I attended a session on Web 2.0 and Learning Management Systems, and they talked about a very cool new LMS, the first of its kind, actually: Sloodle.com. Sloodle is a mashup of Moodle (an open source LMS) and Second Life. The basic idea: students' avatars can take online learning courses via Sloodle in Second Life. Read more about it at the SJSU Sloodle wiki. What an awesome idea!
Bit Two: Next week (Apr 15-21) is National Library Week. This year's theme is Come together @ your library. Check out this page for ways to celebrate and promote your library!
RFID, patron holds, RSS feeds, personalized reading lists: personalized services and convenience are the gold coin of today. Can these services be introduced without compromising user privacy? Are there legal implications if patron preferences or personal information is not properly safeguarded? Mary Minow of librarylaw.com and library technology expert Lori Ayre take on these issues and more in this podcast version of their April 5, 2007 Infopeople webcast.
State Librarian Susan Hildreth gave her latest quarterly updates this past Wednesday, and now we have it available as a podcast!
Topics covered include:
The Information Today article, "Seven Strategies for Marketing in a Web 2.0 World," by Darlene Fichter, head of the Indigenous Studies Portal at the University of Saskatchewan Library has great tips for creating and shaping your message.
And if you want an indepth learning experience that will improve your marketing knowledge and skills, sign up for Ann Miller's Infopeople online course, Pitching the Library. The course starts May 15.
There's an interesting new report from the Pew Internet & American Life Project out on wireless Internet access. A synopsis:
"Some 34% of internet users have logged onto the internet using a wireless connection either around the house, at their workplace, or some place else. In other words, one-third of internet users, either with a laptop computer, a handheld personal digital assistant (PDA), or cell phone, have surfed the internet or checked email using means such as WiFi broadband or cell phone networks...Users of wireless access show deeper engagement with cyberspace – at least when focusing on two basic online activities, email and news."
Read the full report here (in PDF).
If your library has just recently put more focus on the needs of gamers and boomers, you may find it helpful to go back and read the e-version of the OCLC January-March 2005 newsletter (now titled NextSpace).
It features 3 great articles:
The Big Bang
"As Gamers and Boomers collide in one of the biggest culture clashes in history, society is being reshaped. What will the impact be on libraries? And how can libraries attract Gamers and serve both generations?"
Staying in the Game: How to create environments for Boomers and Gamers in your library
"In the next five years, Gamers will be the dominant demographic for your libraries. Nonetheless, you don’t want to do anything that will offend or chase Boomers from the stacks. The key to securing and retaining these growing segments is giving each one what it wants."
Zone in on Your Users
"Gamers need social space. Boomers need “a third place.” Toddlers need storytelling terrain. Seniors need quiet areas. Everyone needs technology. And many want coffee!"
If you are ready for a more indepth look at how your library can respond to these trends, check out the following Infopeople courses.
Library Services to Older Adults
Beyond the Bookshelf: Teen Programming
No matter how you feel about YouTube, you will find lots to ponder regarding the impact of user-generated content by reading a recent article in the Sacramento Bee titled "Media Savvy: Liberal viewer is watching." The article describes the endeavors of "Allen Asch, 41, a stay-at-home dad and a former public defender in Placer County and Missouri" posting as LiberalViewer.
Not only have LiberalViewer's videos been viewed over 800,000 times since July 2006, but also his subscribers already number over 1,500. In addition, his user-comment section "is packed with passionate opinions for and against his points of view."
Why not explore YouTube for additional topical links to recommend to library users—and then even study Asch's approach as one your library might customize for providing information as well.
Google Librarian debuted almost a year ago at ALA Midwinter in San Antonio. They've been putting out a semi-regular newsletter and other handouts since then, and now they've launched a blog, where they have consolidated all of their Google Librarian information.
They'll be at ALA Midwinter in Seattle this week, for those heading that way, in the exhibit hall at booth #1907.
Trendwatching.com announces five big trends on their radar for 2007 in the January briefing. "They deal with status, transparency and consumer power, the online revolution, more adventurous consumption, and a shift from consumption to participation."
Don't miss #3 - titled Web N+1. Here's an excerpt on how to handle it.
"So instead of logging off, grab the online bull by the horns and educate yourself about as many WEB N+1s as you can. Quick tip: start by (re)reading everything by Kevin Kelly, who has been correct in predicting the Next Big Online Thing over and over again. When it comes to the shift from offline to online, the predications are out there, we haven’t seen anything yet, and you have no excuse not to know about it."
Kevin Kelly is the founding executive editor of Wired magazine and a former editor/publisher of the Whole Earth Catalog. The Wikipedia article and the video of his Google TechTalk –titled The Next Fifty Years of Science –are good sources for finding out about him.
In March of 2006, David Lammy, England's Minister for Culture, announced the launch of Love Libraries, a campaign to explore a new vision of a 21st century reading service.
Elements of the campaign include:
...exploring a new vision of 21st century reading services that transformed three libraries in twelve weeks into models of a future library service with reading at its heart
All 3 makeover libraries are experimenting with new ways of engaging with the public that meet modern lifestyles and expectations.
KENT: Launch of Reading Garden and “take away” book boxes
NEWQUAY: Taking the books to the beach with their mobile beach library
RICHMOND: Launching the Book Café and book speed dating evenings
...a search for the top ten young librarians of the future in England’s libraries who are making a difference, bringing new energy and positive models for change to the public library service
...coordinated celebrity authors from nine publishers (Random House, Harper Collins, Penguin, Time Warner, Faber, Harlequin, Bloomsbury, Hachette and Macmillan) at libraries designed to get adults back into English libraries
Besides offerings from my favorite site, Trendwatching.com be sure to check out Faith Popcorn's Predictions 2007.
Marketing guru and author of The Popcorn Report, Clicking and EVEolution, Popcorn predicts...
"...the forging of a new type of identity in the coming years: The New Networked Self.
The technological advances of the information age have produced the most powerful tools yet for shaping our collective human destiny. The world has simultaneously become more fluid and more connected, one of both infinite possibility and extreme intimacy.
As a result, people are turning away from the ego-driven self-aggrandizement that characterized the old era of hyper-consumption. The New Networked Self is far more ecologically aware than her predecessor and sees herself as a tiny, but instrumental part of a much larger picture that is constantly in flux. With this newfound awareness comes a personal sense of responsibility to understand and engage with the whole."
Here are two examples of particular interest for libraries:
Moral Status Anxiety
In today's increasingly philanthropic climate, expect conspicuous self- indulgence to go straight to the social guillotine. The globally conscious consumer regards altruistic activities as a necessary part of self-improvement.
The Future: A person's net worth is no longer measured by dollars earned, but by improvements made. Families compete with each other on how many people they fed while on vacation, and the most envied house on the block is not the biggest, but the most sustainable.
Oldies but Goodies
Our culture is suffering from an experience deficit. With the availability of online knowledge, we're claiming expertise based only on secondary experience. Now that everyone's a web-educated know-it-all, we're secretly longing for authority figures to guide and assure us with indispensable nuggets of wisdom that could only come from having actually accumulated life experience.
The Future: Respect for elders makes a comeback in the form of Ask Your Grandma hotlines and the proliferation of online video clips by seniors showing us how to tie knots and concoct home remedies.
NPR's Talk of the Nation today included a fascinating interview with Don Tapscott, co-author of Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything.
Leadership guru Warren Bennis, author of On Becoming a Leader, commented on the book as follows, "Not only a superb book, but an essential one for anyone who wants to understand the major forces that will revolutionize the way organizations perform and the way they are led."
You can download a free copy of The Wikinomics Playbook if you are interested in seeing how the authors are collecting "ideas about how to embed key Wikinomics concepts and principles in 21st century organizations and business enterprises" from "a community of readers and experts."
In his latest podcast, Infopeople's resident booktalker, Michael Cart, discusses the best books of 2006 for adults and young adults, focusing on his own quirky favorites as well as the selections of the New York Times and the Washington Post. Be prepared for some surprises!
State Librarian Susan Hildreth discusses what's happening at the California State Library in this podcast of her Dec 12, 2006 webcast.
Topics she touches on include: her recent trip to Washington D.C. to attend ALA's National Library Agenda Summit, additional LSTA funds for 2006/07, plans for a new Infopeople workshop series called "Moving Libraries Forward to Web 2.0," and the California State Library blog.
You can download the slides that accompanied her talk here. You can also view the archive of the original webcast from this page.
The podcast is 44 minutes long. It's also available on Infopeople's iTunes channel (see the sidebar link on the right, or just search the iTunes Store for "infopeople").
No matter what type of library with which you are affiliated, you will find the Library 2.0: An Academic's Perspective blog, maintained by Laura B. Cohen, Web Support Librarian, University at Albany, SUNY of interest.
Get a feel for the blog from these entries:
A Librarian's 2.0 Manifesto which is also online as a YouTube video
Are you one of those people who loves sharing your product recommendations after a successful shopping experience?
Do you look for "real people" product reviews when you shop online?
If so, don't miss the Web 2.0 new phenomenon, shopcasting, "a mashed up word that combines shopping and broadcasting" first offered by ThisNext.
Whether you find the concept appealing or appalling, no doubt you'll be hearing more about it. If you are intrigued enough to read more now, check out the blog entry, Shopcasting is the Hot New Social Media Space, from Tom Hayes, one of Silicon Valley's best known marketing executives.
Read all about the Third Annual Web 2.0 Summit held in San Francisco November 7-9, and also check out two of the websites that got raves from Fast Company.
Last.fm "is a service that records what you listen to, and then presents you with an array of interesting things based upon your tastes — artists you might like, users with similar taste, personalised radio streams, charts, and much more."
WikiMapia "is a Web 2.0 project to describe the whole planet Earth. It was created by Alexandre Koriakine and Evgeniy Saveliev, inspired by Google maps and Wikipedia."
Stephen Abram, the keeper of Stephen's Lighthouse blog and VP of Innovation for SirsiDynix, gave a really interesting talk entitled, "Libraries: Questions, Questions Everywhere, Getting Our Share," at CLA's annual conference last week. He kindly allowed us to record him, and I am happy to offer it now as a podcast! This is really great, because CLA scheduled Stephen on Monday, when a lot of folks had already left the conference! Bad planning, as his talk was hugely entertaining, and extremely relevant to any librarian interested in current Web and Library 2.0 trends.
The podcast is an hour and fifteen minutes long, but well worth a listen (or two)! Download it here or via iTunes.
For a good synopsis of Stephen's talk, check out this post from the Librarian In Black, Sarah Houghton-Jan.
At Michael Stephens' talk at CLA, "Ten Top Technologies for Librarians," he mentioned a hot off the presses presentation from the Pew Internet & American Life Project entitled, "Young and Wired: How today's young tech elite will influence the libraries of tomorrow." From the summary:
Libraries are the living, breathing internet that existed long before the digital network that we know today. They are the connected nodes of information and community exchange that we have relied on to communicate, collaborate, share resources and preserve knowledge in our societies for centuries.
But there are concerns about the future of physical libraries, given that so many of us have easy access to virtual libraries of information on our computers at home. Recent Pew Internet Project research examines technology use by teenagers and suggests how the behavior and expectations of young internet users might shape the libraries of the future.
Check it out! We will be podcasting selections from Michael's talk in the next week or two. Stay tuned, it was a great presentation! (And he promised he would be posting the presentation on his blog soon.)
Trendwatching.com has just released its November 2006 briefing on Transumers, "consumers who increasingly value a transient lifestyle."
Check out specifics to see how to market your services to these types.
For example, since one element mentioned is the move to a "leasing lifestyle" i.e. "avoiding hassle: the more stuff you permanently own, the more you have to worry about," you may find that people are ready to take a closer look at borrowing a variety of items from libraries.
Welcome to Blogland, California State Library! Our State Librarian talked about this blog in her last webcast, and we've been anticipating its debut ever since. Check it out!
I read on the CNN website that the Census Bureau expects the population of the United States to cross the 300 million mark at approximately 7:46am ET tomorrow. Wow! We hit 200 million in 1967, and we hit 100 million in 1915. The Census Bureau has an interesting Facts for Features detailing statistical changes over the years.
Most interesting numbers (IMHO): Cost for a gallon of regular gas
2006: $3.04 (as of Aug. 7)
1967: 33 cents ($2.00 in 2006 dollars)
1915: 25 cents ($5.01 in 2006 dollars)
Watch the changes live with the US POPClock.