E-Books and Exercise

What is your daily workout? Do you exercise both your mind and body?  Each day, do you step onto a treadmill or climb onto an exercise bike to stay in shape while reading or listening to a good book?  This image illustrates my daily visit to the YMCA. 

Download a thick page-turner mystery or best seller, start walking (hold on to the treadmill's siderails or your eReader) and shed pounds while getting your cardio exercise.  This is a book lover's fitness secret. In fact, I bet schools could help fight youth obesity and increase literacy levels with this secret strategy: an hour a day walking with a book. Librarians and coaches could collaborate on how to best use these cool tools: eReaders, eBooks, and treadmills. 


Notice that one person prefers the printed word while the second image shows an eReader, in this case, an iPad and an iPod.


A variety of gift items are available at the Library Advocate's DesignClass with this design.  See cafepress.com/DesignClass

  

Mobility@Your Library - #8 Publishing

Here is #8 of 10 categories of how libraries use mobile devices.

#8- Publishing. Mobile reporting and more. Library Conference bloggers. Library Legislation Day bloggers. Government and School Board Meeting bloggers. Here are some examples of cool tools.

• Gabcast – a podcasting and audioblogging platform to create and distribute audio content to mobile devices.
• GCast - run by the same people that run GarageBand.com.
• Blogger on the Go – blog from anywhere.
• Mobango – download anything to mobile phone

Many of these Mobility @ YourLibrary categories and examples overlap. See also #4-Assistive Technology and #5- Productivity Tools.

Mobility@Your Library - Top 10 List

Over the past year or so, I've been collecting examples of how libraries are using mobile devices -- or could use them in the future. There are tons of consumer and education examples, so now I've sorted examples into 10 categories. This makes it easier for me to continue to build my collection. Here is my 2008 Top 10 Types of Mobile Library Applications, or "uses" of mobile technology.

1. Reference and Research – anytime, anywhere
2. Language Translation Services
3. Disaster Planning/Emergency Preparedness
4. Assistive Technology
5. Administrative
6. Productivity Tools
7. Outreach/PR
8. Publishing – mobile blogging and more
9. Programs
10. M-Learning

I'll elaborate on each of the above 10 Types in separate posts.

Build Your Own Horizon Report - Rachel Smith

"Mashup the Library" was the theme of the annual CARL North IT Summer Workshop, which was held on June 25, 2008 in the new library on the Santa Clara University campus.

This post includes my notes from Keynote Speaker Rachel Smith, Vice President of New Media Consortium. Photo is of CARL North IT co-President Sheila Cunningham and Rachel Smith. Rachel set the stage for her presentation on new technology trends when she used a scrolling presentation by Vuvox collage rather than a traditional PowerPoint Presentation to walk the audience through her overview of the 5th annual Horizon Report. This is the time of year when NMC puts out a “call to scholarship” around topics in the Horizon Report. The technology forecast is written for higher education in general, not a specific group within academia. NOTE: August is an excellent time for academic librarians to contribute to the effort. In fact, in addition to regularly contributing to it, academic libraries should make it a point to acquire a copy of the report each year. It would be a good report for the library to promote to its faculty and add a cover commentary on how the library is using or would use new technology.

The Horizon report has three (3) horizons: 1-2 years, 3-4 years, and 5+ years. Each section focuses on two technologies. The Report represents an effort to capitalize on research done by a few people and to distribute the information to many. It is not predictive. It is a forecast.

This year, there is also a section on metatrends – trends that appeared in multiple years of the Horizon Report. An example of this is Gaming. Three years ago, Gaming was featured in the 5th year. Then, Second Life and World of Warcraft became big so Gaming became a topic called Virtual Worlds. Gaming became big but in an unanticipated way.

Here's how the technologies are selected. The Horizon Report has a 40-member International Advisory Board representing about eight countries. There are no face-to-face meetings, just a wiki. Each year, members start with all possible technologies (about 100) and then each member votes for their top 10 technologies and assigns each a horizon (1, 2, or 3). This reduces the list to 12 topics, and then each is written up. The write-up includes how the technology is or would be used in higher education. There are four topics per horizon. Next, members of EduCause and NMC are invited to give examples. One example Rachel cited was from a South Carolina private university, Abilene Christian University, which gave each student a choice of an iPhone or iPod Touch at the beginning of the Fall semester. All class content and other content were on these mobile devices. At ACU, faculty wrote a horizon report version for their own university.

What was forecast in the 2008 Horizon Report?
YR 1-2:
· Grassroots video (video clips like YouTube, which are easy to capture, edit, and share.)
· Collaboration web (i.e., NING or pageflakes)

YR 3-4:
· Mobile Broadband (like iPhone and iPod Touch). Big shift in downloading via wireless LANS. Broadband and mobile are almost everywhere. See ACU vision film. Other examples are PhoneGuide in museums and video direct to the web.
· Data Mashups – see TED video with Hans Rosling, where he debunks 3rd world myths about poverty by “mashing” statistics – combining two or more data bases to make visual representations of the information. See also annual video mashup contest at the University of Pennsylvania. It is very inventive and creative. Songs or broadcasts are mashed up with videos. See “Info Commons @ U of Penn” music video, “Weigle Info Commons”.

YR 5+:
· Collective intelligence: implicit and explicit. Amazon book recommendations is an example of an implicit collective intelligence. Wikipedia, reCaptcha, and Flickr the Commons (public photo collection) are examples of explicit collective intelligence. So is museum tagging – see http://www.steve.museums/.
· Social Operating Systems: the next generation of social networking. An example cited is xobni which is useful for MS Outlook.

Build your own Horizon! There are a number of regional Horizon Reports planned, such as one from Australia. One group wants to do one specifically for K-12. NOTE: Librarians should contribute to it up front each year, add examples, and also promote and discuss it on campus. The next Horizon Report will be released in January 2009 at the ELI Conference (EDUCAUSE) in Philadelphia, PA.

LITA Top Technology Trends - 2008 ALA Panel

Each year at the American Library Association conference, the Library Information and Technology Association (LITA) Division holds a Top Tech Trends panel. On 6/29/2008, the huge room was standing room only. There was a 10-person panel that included Karen Coyle-consultant, Eric Morgan-University of Notre Dame, JohnBlyberg-CT, Merrian-VT, Roy Tennant-OCLC, Clifford Lynch-CNI, Karen Schneider-FL, Marshall ?, Karen Coons-U of TX Library, Sarah Houghton-San Jose Public Library. Two speakers -- Sarah and Karen -- participated via videoconference.

Here are their Top Technology TRENDS:
1. Open Source systems. ILS was dead, but being re-discussed. OPAL system for K12 library automation market in NY. Much more action on the Public Library front, but will appear in academic libraries soon. There is a move to service rather than resources. Savvy companies will respond to the demand for open source library systems. The open source trend is good, but beware—read vendor descriptions carefully. - Marshall
2. Broadband – never enough and libraries are always playing catch up. It should be better. It is not necessarily a “free market” but a carefully orchestrated agenda” according to Coons.
3. Small print periodical market – If they move it online, they are going to an “open access” model. – Coons
4. Multimedia/Gaming – there are often 40+ people at a time in the library playing games. – Sarah.
5. Huge trend in upgrading rather than better using bandwidth (QoS) – Sarah
6. Sustainability of new and beautiful tools – how many abandoned blogs? – Sarah.
7. Virtual organizations – roots in collaboration across an organization. Now collaborative synch and non synch. “Beyond being there” by the National Science Foundation – telepresence technology. Expectation that travel will be more difficult. Telepresence needs to be better done/used because of the new demand.- Clifford
8. Net neutrality – censoring component (watch!) – Clifford
9. Remote storage/network-based storage/cloud storage – implications for insurance, privacy – Clifford
10. Move by some libraries and cultural heritage institutions to put their collections in places other than their physical locations – like Flickr. – Clifford.
11. Three Ages: Age of experimentation, Age of Game-changing surprises (Google digitizing all library collections), Age of re-tooling for constant change. DATA (get good at taking out data for ILS, ELM for our next system and for analyzing data)/People (individuals must take responsibility for learning)/Systems (take control with open source or turn over control to someone else) – Roy
12. Archiving blogs as historical artifacts.
13. Electricity – look at the amount used by Google and its impact on being “green.” -John.
14. Semantic web – smart index refers from your search and helps refine your search or find other items you may like. – John
15. Converged media hubs – portable devices – highly specialized, brings in RSS feeds. Dramatically changing the way users look at libraries. Users heavily customize their information. – John
16. Mobile devices are becoming more the norm, not computers. How to get libraries’ information onto the mobile devices? - Eric
17. Enterprise systems – Clifford
18. Libraries need to allow users to use content in other ways – for example tag, delete, compare & contrast, verbs, etc. – Eric
19. Handheld devices – want to do catalog search while in the stacks. Need equal capability in stacks and at home!
20. Increased user-to-user interaction.

What types of skills are needed? If you were looking to hire someone, what would you look for in your candidates?
- Thinking systematically and also creatively (art and science thinking)
- Patient (diplomatic, social skills) yet intolerant and not simply accepting stuff.
- People who are impatient with mediocrity.

Lots to think about. Wonder what will be on LITA's Top Tech Trends list in 2009?

Merriam-Webster Goes Mobile

Merriam-Webster's Dictionaries are available for most mobile platforms.

I noticed this when updating my eGames hotlist. There is a good selection of word games offered by Merriam-Webster Online. When I started exploring the site to see what was new, I noticed the Visual Dictionary and searched for school library and library. University shows up as a part of a downtown cityscape. Image downloads for educational, non-profit, and individula blogs are free, as long as the site http://www.visualdictionaryonline.com/ is clearly identified and linked. Kudos to Merriam-Webster for the Cool Tools!

iPhone Text Accessibility for persons with hearing or speech disabilities

iPhone customers who are deaf or have a hearing or speech disability can apply for AT&T's Text Accessibility Plan (TAP). It offers iPhone customers with those disabilities the choice of unlimited text messaging, Web browsing and easy access to email.

Carlton Hill, VP of Product Management for AT&T's wireless unit says "Our Text Accessibility Plan allows customers who are deaf or have hearing or speech disabilities to literally tap out their communications on the go....Now with TAP for iPhone, users can tap, flick and pinch the innovative Multi-Touch touch screen for a completely new world of functionality."

This new plan is available to new and current iPhone users with qualifying disabilities through AT&T's National Center for Customers with Disabilities (NCCD). To qualify for the iPhone TAP, customers must complete an application form for eligibility.

Handheld Devices Help Students with Autism

An Edutopia.org special report on "Overcoming Autism" includes a compelling item on the use of handheld devices such as the PALM PILOT TX to help autistic students cope.

Jeanne Dwyer, program coordinator for the Johns Hopkins University Center for Technology in Education, says "AT (Assistive Technology) has to be handheld, portable, and intuitive for students to use." One example used is students taking pictures of their pets so they can share with other students. It is also "cool" to have a handheld device -- other kids want to see it. Both help students socially. Video and PowerPoint are particularly helpful tools for autistic students.

In Texas, special education teacher Lynn Parsons gives her students PALM Pilots and engages her students in Geocaching, a popular "hide and seek" global positioning tool that requires collaboration and direction-following.