Tame The Web

I am working with Franklin Consulting and authors from all over the world on this project. Please take the survey and pass it on! I was honored to be asked to contribute part of the report on the use of social technologies in higher education. I think the results will be fascinating!

From the survey intro:

This survey is being undertaken on behalf of the Committee of Inquiry into the Changing Learner Experience for all the UK funding agencies. The survey’s specific remit is to report on the changing use of Web 2.0 technologies for teaching, learning, support and administration purposes in higher education. This survey is being undertaken in five countries to help inform an international comparison. The survey has 4 pages and should take about 20 minutes if you have use of Web 2.0 examples to share.

Here is the survey announcement:

http://www.geekinthestacks.com/2007/12/keys-to-successful-self-check-out.html

This is GOLD if you are pondering self check, etc: (emphasis mine)

1. Make it all or nothing. When we made the strategic decision to move to customer self check we removed the option for customers to have staff assist them in checking out materials. We made the decision to replace most of our staff terminals with self check units. I have seen a lot of libraries put up 1 or 2 units, off to the side of the circulation desk, but this is really a losing effort that has no meaningful impact. People are slow to change unless they no longer have a choice and although you may attract curiosity by having a few units available, it will never achieve wide acceptance as long as a staff member is available to help.
2. Sell the vision to staff. Staff, especially circulation staff, need to understand the reason why you are taking on a self check project. It is not to outsource or eliminate their jobs, it is to empower them to perform other tasks. Another common argument is that customers like to have conversation with staff and that this will go away if self check is implemented. Actually, the opposite happens…staff are now free to have more conversations and can greet the customer in many more locations within buildings then before since they are not “tethered” to a circulation desk.
   
3. Sell the vision to customers. Conversely, sell the vision to your customers. There will be a lot of questions and possibly some complaints on why you moved to self service. Take the time to explain to customers the need to operate more efficiently with less money and that staff will have more time to perform other valuable functions. Have staff out in front of your self check units ready to help customers who have questions or problems. Show them the benefits of not having to wait in long lines and how they can quickly process their materials to save time. And above all, have patience. It will take 3 months for the bulk of your customers to become completely comfortable with the system.

Via the Superpatron:

http://vielmetti.typepad.com/superpatron/2008/05/mobile-versions.html

If your library catalog has a special version optimized for small computer screens as seen on mobile phones or specially for the iPhone, I’m interested in a pointer to it.

So far I’ve found these:

 
• American University Libraries
• Ball State University Library
• Boston University Medical Center Mobile Library
• Cal Poly Pomona University Library
• Hanover College, Duggan Library
• Harvard College Library
• University of Illinois Library
• LibraryThing
• New York University Libraries
• North Carolina State University Library
• University of Richmond Library
• St. John’s University, College of St. Benedict
• University of Virgina Library

but where there’s this many there’s bound to be more.

Congrats to Melissa L. Rethlefsen, David Rothman, and Daniel S. Mojon. I was tickled to come across this forthcoming book for doctors detailing how medical professionals might use emerging Internet  technologies. What excites me the most is that library folk are writing not just for other librarians but for the people they serve! I’ve worked with Melissa and had some great blogging experiences with David, so I know the caliber of their work.

Well done! 

I was a little disappointed with the Apple news today. I was honestly expecting a 32gb iPhone. I like the idea of 3G, but right now Mishawaka and Traverse City are not part of ATT’s 3G areas.

I am very interested, however, in the Apps for iPhone and MobileMe. MobileMe is the next incarnation of .Mac, which started as iTools back in the day. I’ve subscribed to .Mac since 2000!

MacWorld reports:

Thanks to MobilMe’s AJAX-enabled interface, users will have a similar experience using the Web applications as they do with desktop software. For example, you can drag and drop calendar events to move then as in iCal and narrow down contacts as you type as in Address Book. The e-mail software also works a lot like Mail, letting you drag messages into folders to file them away, and includes a quick reply feature that pops up a box to input and send your reply to a message.

MobileMe also offers online storage for photos, documents, and files. The .Mac Web Gallery has been incorporated, and you can e-mail photos directly from an iPhone. You can also move photos around just like you can in iPhoto. iDisk also gains a Web interface, from which you can e-mail links for users to download files directly from the Web rather than including them as e-mail attachments.

I was very happy to see Merlin Mann’s post today about MobileMe. I follow him on MacBreak Weekly and at his sites and have been intrigued by his take on localized computing and the future great Cloud of data. He writes:

As someone who’s had strong feelings, high hopes, and occasional disappointmens with .Mac, I’m going to spend some time over the next few weeks looking into what these changes will mean for the always-on knowledge worker — particularly now that the service is clearly moving toward tighter integration with iPhones, the iPod Touch, and web-based usage. But first, just a few things to note here (quickly and on first impression):

• Lovely tweaks - This is where Apple just obliterates the competition; all the tiny little changes we saw to GUI and workflow on the MobileMe web apps and related iPhone apps reflect a lot of thought and look well-suited for real-world usage. I can’t wait to see the improvements to iPhone’s Calendar and Contacts, in particular. Kudos, team. An iPhone that makes MobileMe easy and transparent to use is a big win all around. (N.B.: as you might expect, Apple’s site has many lovely demonstration videos in their MobileMe section)
• Love the “Push” - No longer having to physically plug in your iPhone to sync stuff like Mail, Calendar, and Contacts is terrific for the multiple-device user. Knowing that (at least as long as you’re online) everything matches up just means big peace of mind to me. Maybe most importantly, one hopes that the new Push approach addresses some of the previous sync problems that have plagued .Mac users (Nuclear reset, anyone?).
• Love the (baby) steps toward true cloud computing - Having such gorgeous and functional apps on the iPhone is a big step in the right direction. How the services that those apps access evolve will be interesting to watch; adding something like broader support for Preferences syncing and better/easier iPhone password management would also be big wins.

http://www.howispentmystimulus.com/

Like the neighbor rating site, the wonders of what can be done online never cease to amaze me, as does the number of GUNS purchased with the stimulus checks.

Frank Haulgren commented here and I just had to make it a post:

Western Washington Univ.s “14 Days To Have Your Say” project was directly inspired by the Starbuck’s campaign.  I had read a newspaper article (quaint, no?) about this project one day while having lunch and immediately thought to myself, “We can do this!  We should do this!”

It was a very, very worth while project!

http://lib206.lib.wwu.edu/14days/frontpage

New WWU Dean of Libraries Chris Cox responds on the site:

I just wanted to say thank you to all of you who have taken the time to offer your ideas and feedback about The Western Libraries. I’ve been eagerly reading these and am looking forward to working with all of you to answer your needs, whether they be quiet in the library, the construction of a cafe, installing a book drop on the south side of campus or investigating the feasability of longer library hours and/or a 24 hour study space. I’m very excited to be coming to a place where the students, faculty and staff care so much about their library.

Gathering feedback for planning from stakeholders in the academic library should be a top priority. Using mechanisms inspired by good ole Starbucks in our 2.0 world is inspired. Well done WWU!

The Wi-Fi freebie will be available starting Tuesday to customers who purchase a minimum $5 reloadable Starbucks Card, register online for the Starbucks Rewards Card program, and use the card at least once a month. The two hours must be consecutive. New members also receive a voucher for a free drink.

Starbucks’ 7-year-old relationship with T-Mobile for Wi-Fi service is being phased out in 2008.

For the coffee chain, the move is an attempt to entice its shrinking customer base — cutting back on pricey treats during the economic downturn — to return. Traffic and sales have been shrinking for months as founder Howard Schultz searches for a way to revive the brand. He’s hoping the Wi-Fi freebie will attract more traffic to its 7,000 company-owned U.S. stores.

“Customers have let us know they want to be recognized for choosing Starbucks,” says Brad Stevens, vice president of customer relationships. Particularly, he says, at a time when “budgets are tight.”

Toward the end, a bit about the Starbucks card:

The Starbucks Card has become a behemoth — with more than $1 billion loaded onto cards last year.

Nearly 14% of all U.S. transactions at Starbucks are paid for using the Starbucks Card, says Stevens.

The card’s new rewards program gives Starbucks an opportunity to gather personal information on its best customers (if they opt in), including details on what they like to eat and drink, and even when.

Starbucks is trying to figure out ways to market individually to consumers based on those preferences. “The Holy Grail is to reward customers with exactly what they want,” says Stevens.

If you buy a scone each time you visit Starbucks, the chain is looking at programs that would reward you in the future with a free scone from time to time, he says.

Starbucks also is looking at ways to put card data on key fobs, cellphones and even travel mugs.

What do you think? How could a library card become a behemoth? I love the idea of doing every type of library transaction with a key fob - who’s made it so?

*Sort of free..

Great stuff! I’ll be sharing these helpful presentations with my students:
I had a good time presenting at the Arizona Libraries Summer Institute, despite the fact that I was rather ill while presenting (darn food poisoning).  I had a number of very informative and energizing discussions with the staff who attended, and I want to especially thank Jaime Ball for making my entire experience a nice one (again, sans food poisoning). 

I did promise to post my presentations, so here they are!

• Methods for Staying Current (PDF)
• Tools for Staying Current (PDF)

http://mystarbucksidea.force.com/home/home.jsp

Kyle sent this a few weeks ago and said “Please tell me you’ve seen this.”

I actually had but had filed it away in an overflowing brain as the semester was ending. Take a look if you haven’t seen this: customer commentary meets DIGG meets blog meets “favoriting” meets Starbucks. Some ideas are chosen as “Under Review:”:

We’re very happy to point out that two of your most popular ideas have been put “Under Review” this week. Here they are:

DARK ROAST, ALL DAY, EVERY DAY! Bold coffee lovers, we hear you. In just three short weeks, your idea has rocketed to the number two spot (remember that popularity is based on a combination of votes and time on the site—less time with more votes equals more popularity). Dkrst, your efforts to lobby the group have paid off.

A Penny to Fight PKD This was one of the first ideas on the site to get real traffic and in more than six weeks, it’s held its place in the top five. So thanks to Sandra Andersen’s amazing generosity, a score of 26,860 and your 599 comments, it made it into review.

I know this type of system has been discussed for libraries. Has someone made it so?

Karl Fisch points to a job posting for a school principal:

http://thefischbowl.blogspot.com

The areas of proven success excite me, including what I perceive to be a focus on open communication, participation, and transparency. Awareness and use of technology is highlighted as well.

The candidate must show evidence of proven success in the following areas:

• Commits to the belief that each stakeholder in the school community deserves to be given individual attention and to be treated with dignity and respect.
• Embraces technology and uses it as a management and instructional tool daily.
• Designs opportunities to empower students, staff and parents to be integrally involved in all aspect of the school’s culture and climate.
• Commits to high visibility and daily communication with all stakeholders using multiple forms of communication.
• Understands the complexities and nuances of hiring, evaluating, inspiring, and mentoring all staff members to exceed expectations.
• Analyzes and shares student data and educational research as the foundational principles of Professional Learning Communities.
• Models and articulates high expectations
• Networks with universities, as well as county, state, national and international organizations to assure updated knowledge of best practices and teaching and learning in the 21st Century.

How would your school system and administrators stack up to these expectations?

Arlington Heights Memorial Library rolls out “A Baker’s Dozen” - a 13 part, 13 month learning program for library users. It’s nice to see Helene Blowers ultra-successful model adapted for patrons. I’ll be watching this one closely.

You may have seen the phrase “social networking,” along with mention of sites such as MySpace and FaceBook. Do you watch or even upload videos to YouTube? Do you read blogs and subscribe to RSS feeds? Maybe you’ve added some photos to Flickr. All of the aforementioned sites are part of the Web 2.0 craze.

Please join AHML for the next year and 1 month for a Baker’s Dozen; each month this series will highlight a Web 2.0 topic and tool as well as feature a brief assignment (designed to take no more than a few minutes).

Most lessons will require that you create a free account on a specific website; AHML recommends that you use the same (or, at least similar) username and password for each. You can always change them at a later date!

Have other libraries started this type of program? How about academic libraries?

Drupal in Libraries by Andy Austin and Christopher HarrisLibraries are about content: acquiring it, storing it, indexing it, retrieving it, and presenting it. Content management systems (CMS) help libraries accomplish these tasks on the Web by providing a back-end structure for a Web site so that librarians can focus on content.

Authors Andy Austin and Christopher Harris have evaluated a number of these systems and have selected Drupal as the CMS with the best balance of usability and power. In this issue of LTR, you will learn how this open-source content management system makes use of the separation of content and formatting to allow you to create powerful, dynamic library Web sites. Among the topics discussed:

Some synchronicity with the last post about Netflix:

http://www.macworld.com/article/133531/2008/05/napster.html

The Napster MP3 store has over 6 million songs that will be sold without any Digital Rights Management (DRM). This allows customers purchasing music from Napster to load their songs on virtually any MP3 player, including Apple’s iPod and iPhone.

Songs on Napster’s download store will sell for 99 cents and albums will cost $9.95 — pretty much the same price as Apple’s pricing on iTunes.

Currently Apple’s FairPlay DRM restricts the number of computers a user can have registered to play songs purchased from the iTunes Store, a restriction some users have complained about in the past.

In an open letter last year, Apple CEO Steve Jobs said he would sell DRM-free music on iTunes if the big four record companies would allow it. Two months later, Apple and EMI rolled out iTunes Plus, which allowed users to download DRM-free songs.

Napster says its 6 million DRM-free song catalog features songs from all the major labels, as well as thousands of indies. The company will still offer subscriptions to those users that would rather pay the monthly fee.

Napster joins Amazon in the list of companies trying to tackle Apple’s dominance in the online music business. Amazon launched its MP3 store in September 2007.

Even with the increased competition, Apple became the number one music retailer in the U.S. in April 2008, beating out Wal-Mart.

File this under AV Trendspotting and watch how this emerging application/technology changes consumer consumption of digital content:

While appearing to have double the collection of Apple TV of Vudu, what do you get in Netflix’s 10,000 movie collection? Basically, you get a lot of back catalog (classic movies) and a lot of TV shows (unheard of in rental situations!) right as they hit the market. But you don’t get the same blockbusters on day one release that you’d get from Apple TV or VuDu. That makes the Netflix box and disc system a great supplement to those systems, which seem to specialize in new releases. (Kudos to Saul from the NYTimes for discovering this initially.) The business model behind a flat rate unlimited streaming system is unheard of. Sure, they’re taking a lot of older content, which is inherently cheaper. But think of it this way. For a nine-dollar-a-month account, you can hold off on buying older DVDs or watching TV shows.

What intrigues me here is that some popular materials libraries buy a lot of TV series on DVD, breaking them into parts and circulating them. Will the popularity and reasonable availability of a box like this change this model? How long will it take for this to become the norm in some/many/most households?

Just a bit more from the article:

The Future
Netflix is planning HD streaming and this box will support it. When Netflix gets HD streaming content, they’ll update the box by firmware to support HD resolutions at higher bitrates of 4-6mbps, including 5.1 surround (everything is stereo now.) The menus will also be upgraded to HD res, too. In the future, the Roku-branded box will be upgraded to accept non-Netflix content, too. (And btw, the update on the Mac client situation is that they’re just trying to sort out the DRM issues, or lack of a suitable system they can stream to Macs on.)

Via Hans Roes, Director of Information Resources and Multimedia at Jacobs University, Bremen, Germany:

The beta test of the IRC’s first Library 2.0 Widget: jOPAC. jOPAC allows searching the library catalogue within various other platforms, such as iGoogle, Netvibes, Windows Vista Sidebar, Macintosh Dashboard, etc. Further information and installation links can be found on

http://teamwork.jacobs-university.de:8080/confluence/x/05Ce.

The jOPAC is an integrated OPAC widget. It eases searching the library catalogue by integrating it into various platforms, and it introduces some nice extras. A list of all platforms with installation links can be found below.

If you don’t use any of these platforms yet, we recommend iGoogle since it has received most development efforts so far. For this, simply click on this linkto add the jOPAC widget to your personalized google page.

The screenshot above is the jOPAC widget installed into my Netvibes portal pages. Pretty sharp and super fascinating. It intrigues me that students, staff and faculty at Jacobs could integrate this library resource directly into their own portals, etc at the desktop level.

Checkout TTW Contributor Kyle Jones’ posts about widgets as well:

LOEX Proposal

Apple Widget

Hey Kyle, how about a post here about your LOEX poster and widgets?

Via one of the Dom Profs:

http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ERM0811.pdf

Just downloaded to read. Looks great so far:

The most profound impact of the Internet is its ability to support and expand the various aspects of social learning. 

http://www.engadget.com/2008/05/01/mit-reinvents-the-post-it-note-with-post-it-notes/

Watch the video and ponder how we could use this in libraries: quick and dirty notes for planning, tagging books for pickup, etc.

 

| View | Upload your own

 

David Armano posts a presentation on Micro Interactions at his blog Logic+Emotion. I think he really taps into an important opportunity for libraries. Take a look and checkout his well-cited and well-crafted show.

Don’t miss the points about consumer-generated content, Starbucks and lifestreaming. Does your library have a way to participate in your users’ lifestream?

http://www.hackingnetflix.com/2008/04/new-blockbuster.html

Blockbuster is using a dozen Dallas-area stores to test concepts such as:•Whether customers want to rent movies as early as 6 a.m. on their way to work, instead of after work.

•Including the option to buy a cappuccino or a fountain drink.

•Offering new technology for watching movies, reading books or shooting video at a Blockbuster.

•Whether customers would stop in more often if they or their children were entertained with a game of Rock Band on a 62-inch screen or they had access to free Wi-Fi.

Every one of these concepts are in place (or about to be in place) in libraries. Combine this with the Borders Concept Store as well and you have a good picture of where customer experiences with technology may be going.

One of my goals for the summer is to get a handle on Drupal. I’d like to incorporate it into LIS753 Internet Fundamentals and Design at Dominican. I’d like to assign workgroups the task of creating a library Web site with the OSS app. How’s the learning curve folks?

I missed this presentation, but luckily Ellyssa Kroski, who just got a great review for her book in LJ, put up “Drupal & Libraries” from CIL2008 at Slideshare - complete with audio track:

http://oedb.org/blogs/ilibrarian/2008/drupal-and-libraries-at-cil2008/

To get started, I’ll be listening and watching tomorrow in my office. Then, I’ll ask Blake for a sandbox. 

Brian Matthews shares a fascinating conversation:

http://theubiquitouslibrarian.typepad.com/the_ubiquitous_librarian/2008/04/the-anatomy-of.html

The transparent technologies of flickr and twitter offer tremendous assessment possibilities. We hear about students pulling all-nighters, but this is documented evidence.

4:56 PM
paper + pres due in 22 hours. tick tock. group members unite

6:51 PM 
if I have to pull an allnighter to finish this proj I’ll likely have to skip the gatech awards banquet luncheon thing and get my award later

7:55 PM 
I just talked about epistemological connections in this CS paper. Do I get my cookie now or later?

09:23 PM 
trying to explain color wars in this paper as a way of community-driven convention for subgroups. prof is going to think twitter is crazy.

10:17 PM 
GT Parking is heartless.. giving parking tickets to students parked at the library this late. @flashmob needs to do something about it

11:15 PM 
cramped between @jarryd and @hd_phones in the library near the collaborative computing section.

Read the whole thing. How could this influence your planning in the academic library? How might it change services?

Via Stephen Abram, comes this PDF of results of the Table tracks at the SD SuperConference. There is just so much good here to think about. Please take a look. I’d adapt some of these into a staff meeting discussion or Staff Institute Planning Day.

THE TOP FIVE: 

1. Physical Space 

2. Staffing 

3. Web Technolgies 

4. Collection Technologies 

5. Community Development

NCSU Learning Commons Originally uploaded by mstephens7

There’s just so much good here! Take a look at North Carolina State’s Learning Commons Web presence:

http://www.lib.ncsu.edu/learningcommons/

• Live computer availability
• Web cam of “The Brickyard”
• Flickr photos
• “We want your Ideas” for eboards
• Commenting form
• Borrow laptops, cameras, iPods, GPS units, etc

I’m incorporating this and the Loyola Information Commons into my new talks. 

From the Chronicle February 29, 2008

http://chronicle.com/weekly/v54/i25/25a01501.htm (I think it’s expired )

As iPhones and other “smart phones” become more popular on campuses, and as computing becomes even more mobile, it seems that some form of Twitter-like service may become part of student and faculty life. But the technology has potential costs in terms of money and privacy. Some observers, essentially arguing that there is such a thing as too much information, say that Twittering will never catch on the way blogs and
e-mail have.

David Parry, an assistant professor of emerging media and communications at the University of Texas at Dallas, says he was reluctant to try the technology. Mr. Parry’s first instinct was that Twittering would encourage students to speak in sound bites and self-obsess. But now he calls it “the single thing that changed the classroom dynamics more than anything I’ve ever done teaching.”

Last semester he required the 20 students in his “Introduction to Computer-Mediated Communication” course to sign up for Twitter and to send a few messages each week as part of a writing assignment. He also invited his students to follow his own Twitter feed, in which he sometimes writes several short thoughts - not necessarily profound ones - each day. One morning, for instance, he sent out a message that read: ”Reading, prepping for grad class, putting off running until it warms up
a bit.” The week before, one of his messages included a link to a Web site he wanted his students to check out.

If you have access to the Chronicle, checkout the full article. I’m intrigued with adding Twitter to one of my courses to see how it goes over. 

Watch the video: http://chronicle.com/media/video/v54/i25/twitter/?utm_source=at&utm_medi