Microhoo!!?

Microsoft and Yahoo combine to give Google a run for its money.
http://money.cnn.com/2009/07/29/technology/microsoft_yahoo_google_search/index.htm?postversion=2009072912 and http://money.cnn.com/2009/07/29/technology/microsoft_yahoo/index.htm?postversion=2009072911

Student Display Names by Karl Fisch

Karl Fisch blogs on 21st century learning skills and works with high school students and teachers in Littleton, CO. Like many media specialists and educational technologists, he and his school have required students to hide behind user names that do not reveal identity for safety purposes. He came to question that policy when it occurred to him that a student's online work is really part of a digital resume or portfolio that would be built up over time. If students do not use their real names, they will essentially lose the work they have done. Why are we asking students to hide their work with vague display names if we are also asking them to develop a positive digital footprint and a robust collection of work for their online resume? http://thefischbowl.blogspot.com/2009/06/student-display-names-i-was-wrong.html

Google Book Search Settlement

The Google Book Search lawsuit has apparently been settled. See http://books.google.com/googlebooks/agreement/ Implications for libraries? See Google's version:

• "We'll...be offering libraries, universities and other organizations the ability to purchase institutional subscriptions, which will give users access to the complete text of millions of titles while compensating authors and publishers for the service. Students and researchers will have access to an electronic library that combines the collections from many of the top universities across the country. Public and university libraries in the U.S. will also be able to offer terminals where readers can access the full text of millions of out-of-print books for free."

My question: cost of the subscription for my library? Access to the collection...will it really be limited to a "terminal" in the library? What about e-book readers like the Kindle or home access? How can this e-collection be integrated into the catalog?

The Search: How Google and Its Rivals Rewrote the Rules of Business and Transformed Our Culture by John Battelle

Published in 2005, so a bit dated at this point, The Search is still very relevant to those interested in what Google is up to and what libraries/librarians should be aware of. Bartelle explores web searching and explains why he thinks "search" will come to rule our economy and maybe even our culture in the near future. His book is packed with information on searching, on Google, on Google's founders, and more, but the key points I focused on were the following:

• how search works/ed in various search engines in 2005,
• who is searching the internet and how (most searchers enter just 1-2 words and do not used advanced search features available to them),
• what they are searching for (according to Bartelle, Google says over 50% of the searches entered daily into its engine are unique! (28) and many searches could be considered "commercial"),
• how money is made via targeted advertising (ads that appear correlate to one's searches and/or clickstream and companies pay Google for keywords),
• why search results will be better as more and more information is digitized and entered into Google's system (ubiquity) and more clickstreams are analyzed
• how web search history (your clickstream) will result in a personalized result set for you and bring up confounding issues of privacy
• how tagging will result in a search more tolerant of semantics (the semantic web)

Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America by Barbara Ehrenreich

Nickel and Dimed has been on my reading list for almost 10 years. I'm incredibly happy that I finally got around to it! Ehrenreich's writing is easy to read even if her subject is not comfortable to read about. Essentially, Ehrenreich questioned the "conventional" wisdom of the late 1990s and early 2000s that welfare recipients simply needed to get out and get a job to live a better life. Ehrenreich tried it herself; she entered the workforce as a displaced homemaker, worked low wage jobs (waitress, maid, cleaning, nursing aid, sales), and struggled mightily to survive. Ehrenreich was not successful at survival, but her narrative of her attempts is telling. The best part of the book, however, is her evaluation of the experience and of public policy.

Ehrenreich will make most of us reconsider our welfare reform, the working poor, and our role in keeping the working poor in their place. To quote: "the 'working poor,' as they are approvingly termed, are in fact the major philanthropists of our society. They neglect their own children so that the children of others will be cared for; they live in substandard housing so that other homes will be shiny and perfect; they endure privation so that inflation will be low and stock prices high. To be a member of the working poor is to be an anonymous donor, a nameless benefactor, to everyone else" (221).

Librarians often need to remind the rapidly digitizing, technologically connected world that there are technological "haves" and "have nots." Nickel and Dimed really cemented the "have nots" side of the world for me.

Mindspot: The Library as Universe

A YouTube video put up by Aahus Public Library. The library of the future? Focus on what is interesting and relevant to the users of the library. Library employees keep an ongoing and open dialog with library users about what the library should be.

The Big Switch by Nicholas Carr

Carr introduces the concept of computing/networking as a public utility (like water, electricity) rather than something that has to be done and supported in-house. Giving up control over one's computing infrastructure and letting it be housed and managed in disparate places throughout the world presents problematic questions of privacy and power. Libraries have always been interested in privacy for their patrons, so there is an obvious connection to the library world there. More interesting were Carr's frequent references to data-mining and how companies are using it to tailor information streaming to specific users. How will this impact searchers if they see only what they want to see and not what they need to see?

Mobile Devices, Libraries and Policy Panel, Shifted Librarian, Jun 12, 2009

Random statistics and quotes that I found interesting/telling are below. This is from a panel at ALA's annual conference in Chicago, July 2009:

• "over 60% of the people on earth have a mobile phone subscription service" --according to what source?!
• twice as many people use text messages than use email --again, source?
• texting is the "single most popular way in which the world accesses data" --source?
• "the early vision for a device is rarely the way it actually transforms the world. Henry Ford: “if I’d asked them what they wanted, they would have told me a faster horse. ”someone has to flip the switch and change things, and we’re very close to that for mobile devices. Clay Shirky - “the tools don’t get socially interesting until the tools get technically boring” we’re right at that cusp"
• For libraries, it isn't about collecting content that is out there, "but bringing your community to the world and making it accessible...you’re (the library) the only one that cares about that content being out there"

Writing to 'Build the Larger Conversation' from Weblogg-ed by Will Richardson, April 9, 2009

Will, one of my favorite bloggers, writes here about the future of writing and points to one of his mentors, Kathleen Blake Yancey and her "Writing in the 21st Century." The piece is excellent, but Yancey's quote, highlighted in Will's blog, is what caught my attention: "none of us really know what the answers are right now, but we are at a tipping point of sorts at least in our recognition that something “large” is happening, and that it’s going to have some “large” effects on our teaching and learning lives." I find that when I think about the futures of libraries and librarians, that I can sometimes panic because I don't know the right direction to pick. It is nice to know that I'm not the only one who doesn't know what the answers are right now!

If We Didn't Have the Schools We Have Today, Would We Create the Schools We Have Today? by Tom Carroll, 2000 CITE article cited by Will Richardson

Will Richardson's June 6, 2009 blog post on Weblogg-ed contemplates the changes in education that are coming and/or need to happen. In particular, he focuses his insights on Carroll's article. One of the quotes he pulls out is as follows:
"In the networked learning communities of the future, expert learners (we call them teachers, educators, scientists, and researchers today) are going to be recognized for their ability to learn and help others learn, as they continue to construct new knowledge and develop their own expertise. Their job will not be to teach – but to help others learn, as they model learning through collaboration to solve problems and achieve goals they have in common. (A significant part of the expert learner’s role will be organizing and managing the collaborative learning community.)"
This quote caused me to pause and think of what future libraries, or learning resource centers might look like...and what librarianship might look like. "Help others learn" and "organizing and managing" jumped out at me. Libraries or Learning Resource Centers should be sites for learning: support for learners, equipment and resources for learners, and expert learners to provide role modeling, guidance, and instruction as needed.