Tame The Web

http://blogs.reuters.com/reuters-editors/2008/06/06/has-video-killed-the-blogging-star/

…there’s definitely lots going on with video, but I firmly believe most people spend so much time in their pyjamas they won’t want to be on video most of the time they spend online. It’s hard enough to get people to use their own names in discussion forms, blog and article comments.Someone sent us a link to this Wordpress plugin the other day that allows people to make comments in blogs with videos. It’s kind of neat and perhaps the kind of thing we’ll be seeing more of soon. It’s complimentary to the Web 2.0 activity that already exists rather than something that replaces it. Personally, I think we’re more likely to see video, still photos, and text mingling more effortlessly on the web, rather than a situation where moving images dominate. The multi-media experience is much more effective for interactive story-telling. Text is just too effective and easy to lose the battle.

Do you notice the seams in your socks?

Are there any to notice? Your coffee mug handle, fit nicely in your hand? Clearing that paper jam without saying, “What do you mean paper still stuck?” Does your RSS reader make it easy to forward cool stuff? How about a planner? Paper or electrons? What’s easier for you? Just how hard is it to design a handle for a door? Product designers are ever more interested in understanding psychology, why? What do you bookmark with? Yes, your actual bookmarks for actual physical books. Love how you don’t have to think about <what>?

(**I dog-ear-highlight crease-underline-note in my mostly hardcover book collection -gasp? Make the jump to the bottom of the post for the answer to why I do this.)

Sure. Simple things work simply, right? But complicated things like collecting and sharing research? That’s not easy. So we can’t bother with making it easy -that’s dumbing things down? Hold on. Making users work to organize their research -bad, bad practice. I see so many brilliant students, professors and independent researchers struggle in organizing information. Why is it so hard to manage the information they find? What system of collecting research makes it easy? Sure, we’re taught to write papers, analyze results, and prepare presentations. Are we taught to manage the information we collect?

That’s not an important step? Why do we assume (or not because we haven’t really thought about it) our users can manage the information they find after they find it? Should they have too? Why don’t we teach this from within libraries? Are we? Are we really? We recognize information overload, information mismanagement, information asphyxiation. We recognize ourselves as experts in organizing information. We tame this stuff right? So where’s the piece where we teach our users how to do this? (I know some of you are doing this; feel free to chime in about how you teach your users’ some info-wranglin’ skills.)

What about you? Do you feel the “seams” when you’re participating in a project? How many times have you had to re-find an article, a document, a fact, an email, or a website? Was it ever frustrating to have to re-find something you knew you had? It’s not a really big secret that I like to share knowledge. In fact, I believe a fundamental definition for knowledge must include sharing. Without sharing, why pick-up anything along the way? We might as well not be picking anything up. This leads us to a new role. In this changing, helter-skelter techno-infused environment, will our users need help organizing their information? Yes. Helping our users share and organize research must become a prime role. I’d like to see one more emerging role. A professional who can organize knowledge for an organization and this same professional who can organize knowledge for an individual.

Here’s an example. I keep every citation and article I find. Every.single.one. I like porting my research with me. Why? Because when I talk to someone I can actually send them the article. Yup, I’m that dork. Also, because I’m in school. Collected research comes in handy time and again. You never know when you’re going to have to cite a fundamental paper in the field. Used to be you could only have one or the other: citations or articles handy. I used to carry 120 gig hard drive with me. Then I lost it. Not the hard drive but my mind -just joking- I lost a portion of my hard drive because it felt the need to take a vacation. Now, I want the citations handy. I want the articles handy. And I want protection from technology vacations. This means I need to distribute my collection. Here’s three on the cusp of letting you do just that. (This is just one example of thinking about how to help researchers: organize, protect, share and recollect information from their personal collections for knowledge-sharing.)

Citeulike allows you to upload research you find. Lacks integration into many subscriber databases. Not a bad thing. Just an observation.

Refworks allows you up to 200 mb of storage space. Yet, you’ve got to pay for it individually. And you only get 200 mb of space. There are researchers who would max this out just uploading one year’s worth of collected research articles.

Zotero may offer the most promise here. It’s not a feature that’s been rolled out yet. Look for it June 2008.

**this is the bottom of the post:

Once upon a time…Just before it closed one day, I went to a very special place with very special books. I stood -quietly but not too quietly. I said, “Library, I am conflicted. I feel my books are precious. Yet, I want to mark in them. I make notes too. Sometimes in the books; sometimes in notebooks. I don’t always feel the need -but for quite a few I do.” The Library nodded, in a slow Tai Chi like nod. The Library said, “Tell me more.” So I did. (I mean…it’s a freaking talking Library -what would you have done?)

I say, “I’ve mostly stopped marking up my books. Well, I feel guilty; I’ve bought them; I think of those books as precious friends. As the containers of awesome ideas I have to protect to make them last. Yet, I mark and scrawl and highlight and dog-ear. Sometimes I don’t. Sometimes I hold back. But, then I can’t find what I need because I didn’t highlight it or note it: I’m exasperated! What should I do?”

The Library sat quietly as they do; but had really furrowed its brow. I could hear movement in the stacks; the books slowly climbing into their spots, settling in for the night.

The Library said, “Lee, I remember when you first came to me for story time. I know you respect books. More important, I know you respect what books can do. I will say this: Every book to the reader. Books are a perfect piece of technology. No one thinks of them as such. Books form and function to transmit the information they contain. They are your books. You derive benefit by extracting knowledge from them. Your way is but one. Your method is your own. Do with your books as you wish. The only request I ask is that you not burn them -unless you have a really really really good reason. Disagreeing with them is not a good reason. Got it?” I did get it. Sometimes I buy two copies. One to mark in. And one to donate. Articles aren’t the only thing I share. I’d like that to be said at my eulogy:

He shared books.

TTW Contributor: Lee LeBlanc

Note: we also get the results from the social media survey. Open all the links at once: http://linkbun.ch/52i -thanks infodoodads.com

Sharing PDFs
At times, I want to share parts of an article (like with you.) So I tested an online tool to extract an abstract from the article I just read. Here’s that abstract:

“…The main hypothesis we examine is whether heavier users of IT are more productive, and if heavier users of IT are indeed more productive, how does this increase in productivity manifest itself? Our results suggest that, controlling for other factors, the size of an individual’s internal email network is more highly correlated with revenues generated by that individual than age, experience or education. … Additionally, even after accounting for the individual’s number of unique contacts within the firm, the social network measure of “betweenness” is also highly correlated with revenues. We attribute the strength of these results to the fine grain detail of the data on this form of task-based white collar work.”
–From http://spirit.tau.ac.il/public/gandal/Information.pdf

and rather than force you to load Adobe Acrobat Reader I can re-direct you to another tool. pdfmenot.com allows me to quickly let you load a presentation on the paper above. If you ever sent anyone a large PDF they will thank you for using this. Here’s that presentation.
http://pdfmenot.com/view/http://www.idei.fr/doc/conf/sic/papers_2005/gandal_slidesl.pdf

Another way I collect information is to save the slides or pages I specifically want. In a 78-page PDF it’s doubtful I want all 78-pages. Sometimes I actually like to hand colleagues a hard copy of a specific section. Trolling through the PDF to print only the pages I want is time consuming. Nor do I want my colleagues to have to find the pages I want them to see if I email it. I just hack the PDF down. Using this app you can modify your PDF for sharing. Takes seconds. Saves time.

The folks over at infodoodads turn you on to some pretty cool stuff too. Laurie did this presentation. Then put it online. Pretty slick. Here’s the link to Issuu and the presentation:
http://tinyurl.com/2mu9db

A lot of my tricks I’ve picked up from other bloggers but most recently I’m thankful to http://www.friedbeef.com/about/ (I would have called it friedveggies since I’m one of those veg-heads.)

Delicious
I also bookmark like mad. Do you get regular links via your delicious account? “What’s that!?! Not another thing to check,” you say. Settle down now; it’s just links. If you’re in my network I can add you every time I bookmark something I think you would like. You can practice reciprocity by sharing with me. Here’s how to do it:

|links for you| –look for this up near the top of your delicious page.

then add me formally to your delicious network by searching for iblee or simply typing the tag:
for:laurenpressley
(I chose Lauren as an example because she shared a cool article on Buddhism with me.)

Social Media
A few weeks back we looked at the question, “How many Social Media Sites do you use online?” Of course, right away I was asked to define it. I’m not big on giving definitive definitions for things I didn’t create. (Not that I’ve created anything worth talking about or defining!) So, yeah, I googled it. I liked Robert Scoble’s take: Social Media. A large part of this media revolves around participation. Yes, participation is in decline in some ways. Read Bowling Alone yet? Even if the author’s premise and research is sloppy (as some have called it) it’s still worth thinking about. When was the last time you got together for dinner with friends? How regularly is it? Do you schedule this time? How social are you offline?

“How many Social Media Sites do you use online?” results:
1-3 sites 40.0%
4-7 sites 51.0%
8+ sites 9.0%

Some responses:
Primary interplay revolves around my typepad blog (justcrim.typepad.com), facebook account, del.icio.us/brianrwuci sites, and google reader feeds/sharing

Although I’m an Early Adopter (MOOS since 1995, LiveJournal since 2000, my offline life is too full for too much time spent online

I have my own blog, I blog for the library, I have a facebook account, a flickr account, i occasional login to Askville.com, I belong to three wikis including the Peace Corps Wiki

LJ, diaryland, flickr, twitter, ravelry, librarything, facebook, myspace, last.fm

Don’t Forget
oh! and don’t forget to share your feeds http://www.google.com/reader/shared/00291156310638200102
Feel free to share where you go for info and how you share it with your friends (those online ones too.) You will most likely expose someone to a tool, trick or source they didn’t know about.

Hmm, maybe I should have titled this post: “Sharing is caring?”

TTW Contributor: Lee LeBlanc

The text of a speech by Jon Udell fires me up this morning:

http://jonudell.net/talks/lib2020/talk.html

In an online world of small pieces loosely joined, librarians are among the most well qualified and highly motivated joiners of those pieces. Library patrons, meanwhile, are in transition. Once mainly consumers of information, they are now, on the two-way web, becoming producers too. Can libraries function not only as centers of consumption, but also as centers of production?

Jon’s answer is yes - the library should be a center of production as well, and you, dear readers, know I certainly agree! Don’t miss this excellent post of his talk “Remixing the Library.”

I was tickled to find the long out of print album from Debbie Harry KOOKOO at Amazon’s new MP3 service. What a perfect test. For $8.99 I downloaded the whole album at 256bps quality non-DRM MP3 and it automatically added to my iTunes library, with cover art and tags. Nice!

Now, I’ll be shopping iTunes (and the newly price-dropped iTunes Plus) as well as Amazon. Competition is good.

My questions then for library folk: Can we tap into Amazon’s MP3 store and put a purchased and burned copy of KOOKOO on the shelf for other fans? Can we load up devices with library purchased content and circulate them?

It will be very interesting to see where this non-DRM’ed trend takes us.

Update:

Caroline comments: It’s exciting to see more DRM-free music being offered, but I wonder if we’ll start to see more restrictive user terms creep in. There’s an interesting article on Amazon’s wording at http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2003932604_brier08.html:
Amazon’s contract says you “may copy, store, transfer and burn the Digital Content” for personal use. But then it goes further and specifies restrictions, saying you “agree that you will not redistribute, transmit, assign, sell, broadcast, rent, share, lend, modify, adapt, edit, sub-license or otherwise transfer or use the Digital Content.”

Joshua comments: Borders has started offering a service where you can download MP3s (DRM-free, according to the clerk I talked to) to your MP3 player or burn them to a CD, right there in the store. I think it’s pretty interesting and blogged about it: http://www.goblin-cartoons.com/2007/10/14/new-jack-city/

What a great way to welcome students back to the university library!

Ulf-G Nilsson from the library at Jönköping University writes to TTW via Facebook:

We have taken our first steps on the way to make our university library web site more attractive when it comes to using movies… We have released four movies today (see Movies about the libray on the left at http://www.bibl.hj.se/doc/4549 and we’ll see what our users will say about this!

Take a look at the welcome movie: http://www.bibl.hj.se/filmer/eng/valkommen/

I can no longer recall the exact date, but at some point in the recent past I stepped over the line and became a criminal. I didn’t steal from anyone’s home. I certainly didn’t cause anyone physical harm. In fact, I didn’t even leave my office chair. Nevertheless, my dastardly deed landed me squarely on the wrong side of the law.

So what had I done? Well, I had removed the embedded DRM from a digital music file. A music file I purchased. Legally. Confused? Yeah, me too.

Let me start with a short primer for the unfamiliar. DRM, or Digital Rights Management, is the technology employed by providers of digital content to “protect” their products from copying. Perhaps the most widely known DRM in use today is at the Apple iTunes store. Any content purchased through the store contains embedded DRM limiting its use to your iPod devices and up to five authorized computers running iTunes software. Want to listen on your snazzy new non-iPod music player? Sorry. What about your Ubuntu system without iTunes software? No dice. Well, you could burn a playlist to CD, but isn’t the iTunes store supposedly all about convenience? Now, I’ve singled out Apple here simply as an illustrative example. They certainly aren’t the worst DRM offender. In fact, they may actually lead us out of the long, scary DRM tunnel - but more on that later.

As many of you are certainly aware, copy protection has long been considered a necessity by the entertainment industry. DRM is essentially a digital upgrade to the same technology that made it damn near impossible to make a decent VHS copy in years past. Things just got dialed up a notch when the wrong people realized that Joe Consumer was living more and more of his life in the digital realm with his snazzy new digital toys. In order to sleep at night these folks needed a way to make sure Joe wouldn’t be pirating songs and movies left and right. Trusting Joe with the content he purchased was obviously insane, so DRM became the flawed security blanket under which the industry could hide.

As I mentioned previously, DRM is also what led me to my life of crime. Someone, somewhere was so terrified I might commit one crime that I was actually driven to commit another. Fear driving customer service policy - it doesn’t quite add up.

Now, in order to keep this reasonable, I’ll spare you a laundry list of the technical issues plaguing DRM. As an exercise, you may want to ferret out some of the lowlights or check out what the EFF has to say on the topic. But moving on, that possible light at the end of the tunnel I eluded to earlier.

It seems Steve Jobs has decided that the time may have come to put DRM out to pasture. After publishing his “Thoughts on Music” essay a few months back, Steve has now managed to forge a partnership with major-label EMI to sell their entire music catalog through the iTunes store sans DRM. Shortly after this agreement was made public, Amazon followed suit with the announcement of a DRM-free music store to debut later this year. I honestly think these events may signal the beginning of the end for DRM. Hopefully we’ve finally reached a point where the content providers realize that it pays (quite literally) to trust the consumer and treat them with respect. Let’s just hope Steve’s RDF is working overtime.

Finally, before I go, an example to show this DRM debacle doesn’t just concern Joe Consumer; it also impacts every user at your local library. Take a look at the audio book download section of the Chicago Public Library.

HOT - as someone we know might say. Or perhaps not. No iPod compatibility. Blame DRM. If the most widely used portable music player in the world can’t interoperate at the local library I think we definitively have a usability issue. But be warned, should you try to find a way around this problem on your own you might end up just like me - a fair use fugitive.

—–

I guess a bit of background is in order. My name is Eric Whitfield and I was a student of Michael’s at Dominican this past year. I am currently working full-time as a software developer while I continue work on my LIS degree. It was an honor to guest post at TTW and I’m looking forward to joining the conversation with my own blog in the near future. Oh, and of course, I didn’t really do anything mentioned in this post. That would be wrong.

George from http://archdale.blogspot.com writes:

Michael, Just wanted to point you to the video editing contest that our Teen Corner is having for National Library Week. We just debuted a Teen area with furniture, shelving and 4 computers with video editing software and dvd burners.

http://rcplteencorner.blogspot.com/2007/03/teen-video-contest.html

Thanks George! I also see that the library had a “Make a Movie Night” presented by the teen advisory board. This is good on many levels:

The library has technologies the teens may want to use to create content (remember those Pew numbers?) and a space just for them.

The TAB is actively working to educate their library user peers about what the can create with the technologies.

The librarians have created a space - physical and online where creativity and collaboration can play out.

I’ll be using this example at my talk at ALA Annual “Using Technology to Market to Young Adults” with Kimberly Bolan. Hey George - tell us more? What kind of set up? What kind of financial investment?

Update:

Ross writes: There’s lots more about the Teen Corner project (including the live band made up of local high school students that we hosted on the kickoff day) starting here on our Flickr pages:

We combined funding from an LSTA marketing grant with funding and other support from our library foundation, the Friends of the Library, an endowment and the plain old library budget to pull this all together.

Then George responds: Ross is being a little modest. There was a lot of community involvement: a local Friend helped with all of the interior decorating and color choices, a comic book artist (www.gravyboy.com) did our graphics and a local furniture company stepped in to help with furniture.

We can wait to see what happens next!

Emphasis in bold mine? Teen departments..YA librarians… what are your teens asking for? Are you listening?

http://www.901am.com/2007/warner-music-announces-lastfm-deal.html

Warner Music Group and Last.fm, one of the leading Web 2.0 social music sites, have signed a deal to allow Warner’s entire music catalogue to be played legally on the Last.fm streaming service.

At LastFM, I’m mstephens7: http://www.last.fm/user/mstephens7 And I play a lot of Fleetwood Mac, a Warners band.

http://blog.wired.com/music/2007/01/library_media_l.html

Some frank words about Overdrive and the mess that is DRM:

The point of libraries is to make content freely available for the common good, I thought, so these restrictions are a little weird. Physical library cards don’t require a certain type of wallet; why should the electronic ones only work on Windows? I asked Chris Pasco-Pranger, a “willfully unemployed librarian” (his words), to explain the system, and he had some choice words for the OverDrive system.

“The biggest problem (by far) with Overdrive (’Our strategic technology partners include Microsoft Corporation, Adobe Systems, Inc., and Mobipocket.’) is its lack of support for Macs/iPods. Read the FAQ and weep. Of course, Overdrive would say that it’s Apple that doesn’t support THEM, because, y’know, Overdrive is SO much bigger of a deal than the iPod. Oh, the DRM headaches…

Via The M Word Blog comes another example of libraries doing interesting things with video:

We love stories at the library and have discovered a wonderful new way to tell them. Millions of others have discovered it too: YouTube. YouTube hosts videos from throughout the world…at no charge.

I love stories too, especially those that share with users, staff and governing bodies how important libraries can be in the lives of users. And here’s the part I really like:

At the library web site www.gailborden.info/videoextras.html, we are using YouTube to help us tell stories about the library and reading.

And a bit about the contest:

This January and February, with sponsorship from First Community Bank, we’re asking everybody in our library community to pick up their cameras and join the visual storytelling fun. People of all ages are invited to upload a 4-minute (or shorter) video to YouTube. Then send a link to us, for entry into one of two categories: “My Favorite Book,” will be for those who want to tell about their favorite book; or “Community Favorites,” about supporting the art of verbal storytelling. This should involve filming a short, uplifting piece about a person, organization or event that has made a difference in the community. Videos can be funny, poignant, clever or cool, and they must be library-appropriate.

This is a perfect example of what David King calls invited participation. (Make sure you read yet another excellent Web 2.0 post from Mr. King) It’s also a perfect example of building community with users via technology.

http://www.hackingnetflix.com/2006/11/cbs_30_million_.html

Via the Hacking Netflix blog come this from Cinematech:

CBS has uploaded more than 300 clips that have a total of 29.2 million views on YouTube, averaging 857,000 views per day, since the service launched on October 18. CBS has three of the top 25 most viewed videos this month (Nov.1–17), including clips from CBS’s Tuesday night hit drama “NCIS,” “Late Show with David Letterman,” “The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson” and “The Early Show.” The CBS Brand Channel is also one of the most subscribed channels of all time with more than 20,000 users subscribing to CBS programming on YouTube since the channel launch last month.

Fascinating! Balance that with the Pew Podcast stats. What an intriguing picture. Is YouTube more engaging? More fun? It’s certainly more social!

Why we should be taking user-created content, social spaces and content as conversation so seriously:

http://www.time.com/time/2006/techguide/bestinventions/inventions/youtube.html

Via Nicole (who is blogging up a storm these days, grab her feed if you haven’t already):

Our blogs are a new self, we’re writing ourselves into existence on the web with each post and populating the online world. Your blog is your new public self in the new public space of the web.

Jaap van de Geer, Delft Public Library (www.dok.info) and blogger at www.oblog.nl reports on his library’s work with videocasting. A recent trip to Ireland/Dublin/Trinity College for a music festival was not only a great experience but an opportunity to create some videocasts for the library Web site at http://www.dok.info, see the bottom right of the page. He reported via email: “We also organized an amazing summercamp. That video is also online (no dutch, pure expressions), the response of the kids and their parents was heartwarming. I think videocasting is a tool we should use much much more to appeal to our customers.”

I agree. I call this category here at TTW “Content (is Conversation) because of the shift in content creation we’re seeing right now. Libraries can tap into this trend and create some wonderful, and yes heartwarming, connections with users. Thanks Jaap!

Some Flickr pics of Jaap and the Festival: http://www.flickr.com/photos/39841872@N00/

Joshua Zehner, Assistant System Administrator at the Fulton County Public Library in Rochester, IN, writes:

Hey, I was surfing you flickr account and I found those pictures from Cherry Hill Public Library in NJ. I was really interested in the three or four photos of their “Listen Before You Borrow” station. Our library would love to do this expect there is one issue my boss has with it, copyrights. Is it legal to rip your collection onto a pc for everyone to listen to, but yet allow those same CD’s to be checked out at the same time? We would love to implement this station into our library, as long as we can get past this one hurdle. Any information about this would be very helpful and appreciated. Thank you.

Thanks Joshus for writing! It seems that Cherry hill has been doing this service a while, it’s very friendly and no one seems to be complaining. That said, i’m really at a loss about whether or not this violates copyright. As a try before you borrow service, it just make the process easier than getting a CD off the shelf, popping it into a listening station player and trying it out. I think iTunes actually protects the music more than haviung folks bring their laptops into the library for a massive ripping session into itunes from CDs in the collection.

I confess: copyright confuses me. I am learning more as I prep for classes and Dr. Kate Marek is guesting in my class in a few weeks to present on the topic (I’ll be all ears), but in my mind, it seems ok. I’d love to hear from others who might help my thinking…

Some links:

Chris Kupec uses iTunes at his library: http://tametheweb.com/2005/03/ttw_mailbox_chelmsford_public.html

John Blyberg on making iTunes work in networked settings: http://www.blyberg.net/2006/09/12/sharing-music-with-itunes-and-mt-daapd/

And Chris Kupec also reports this week: I discovered that the Windows version of my iTunes to OPAC script works with info from the iTunes Store too, not just your own personal library. The AppleScript version doesn’t allow me to get info out of the store. Very strange, but a plus for PC-centric public libraries! Might be a way to push teens to use the library more, if they could play with iTunes at home, and order up the CDs from the library. I also have a version of the script that I modified to help me with CD and movie ordering. Check out Chris’ blog at http://homepage.mac.com/ckupec/iblog/index.html

iTunes 7

Originally uploaded by mstephens7.

Read about it here:

http://playlistmag.com/features/2006/09/itunes7fl/index.php

amazon unbox

Originally uploaded by mstephens7.

AV Librarians…what do you think? I think it’s an important moment to mark, as we begin the shift toward less DVD and CD releases and more online, download-style models…. I’ll be interested in the first reviews of his product.

http://www.techcrunch.com/2006/09/01/itunes-to-have-movie-downloads-this-month/

Via Tech Crunch:

Rumors have been swirling for weeks (see here and here) that Apple will soon be selling full length movie downloads on the iTunes service. This morning, Business Week is stating, based on unnamed sources, that the the service will launch by mid-September.

Note that Amazon may also soon have its own movie download service.

There’s a liot to think about here in relation to what we do in public library AV departments!

Many others have linked but this is incredible:

http://blog.ryaneby.com/archives/telling-a-lifes-story/

How could anyone want to block this type of content and conversation?

Tendwatching? Checkout:

http://nomansblog.typepad.com/no_mans_blog/2006/07/youtube_trends_.html

To start with some figures, the all times #1 has been viewed 28,643,691 times to date. Closing this list #100 has been viewed 1,543,402 times.

28 million views!!! A few thoughs:

Let’s make sure we are offering access and instruction on how to get user content up to this most thriving community.

Let’s get some library content up there as well!

http://weblogg-ed.com/2006/the-shifts-cont/

Will Richardson points to a post about TV:

In case you didn’t hear, two weeks ago marked the single worst ratings week for network television in history….Interestingly (to me, at least) is that of the Top 100 videos ever at YouTube, 58 of them were user created content. And I wonder how many of those were created by kids. Even more, how many were created by teachers???

And were any created in libraries…with librarians? Content creation, folks! It’s huge and only going to grow.

http://www.longtail.com/the_long_tail/2006/07/the_audience_is.html

Chris Anderson links to a video he uses in his talks:

For the past year or so, I’ve been ending many of my speeches with this brilliant video by Peter Hirshberg of Technorati, and Michel Markman. They showed it first at at the D conference last year and a few times since then, such as the EG conference earlier this year. Now Michel’s uploaded it to YouTube for everyone to enjoy. Some of the lines, such as “There are a lot more of them than there are of us” and title of this post, are now permanently lodged in my brain. Thanks Peter and Michel!

Take a look!

More innovations from the Ubiquitous Librarian:

http://theubiquitouslibrarian.typepad.com/the_ubiquitous_librarian/2006/07/do_you_youtube_.html

On the benefits of using You Tube’s channels:

I wanted to experiment with creating a video community, rather than just a listing of tutorials on the library web site. From observation, students don’t use or know how to navigate the library site, so why bury video clips on there?