Libology Blog

The 2008 ECAR (EDUCAUSE Center for Applied Research) survey has been released, and they have added a section on social networking (pdf version of chapter here).  Among the findings:

• Slightly over 85% of those surveyed use social networks, with Facebook and MySpace topping the list.
• Younger students (under 30) tended to use Facebook, while older ones tend towards MySpace.
• About 50% use social networking for discussing classwork with other students; only about 5% use it for discussing classwork with instructors.

The only one of these three that surprised me was the tendancy towards Facebook/MySpace by age.  I have thought of MySpace as appealing to younger users than Facebook.

Social networks are definitely here to stay.  In five years we may not be discussing Facebook or MySpace (because they might have been superceded by a yet un-created network), but people will be more interconnected, not less.

The third point is one that should make us take notice.  Half of the surveyed students have used social networks to discuss classwork; the main reason they haven’t discussed it with instructors (and by extension, the library folk) is that we view it as some sort of cyber malt shop, a place only for their peers.

If we make ourselves available on social networks, we aren’t going to find ourselves becoming an overnight sensation.  We will, however, give people one more way to view us as being there to assist them.

Whether we create OPAC search tools to embed (or even highlight the good ones that exist, like WorldCat and CiteMe in Facebook - also here), create an institutional identity, or just make ourselves more visible as individuals, there is much we can do to assist students and promote our services.

We can jump on board the trolley, or be left behind.  The choice is ours, both individually and collectively.  I am on Facebook and LinkedIn, btw… and you should be too.

found via Web4Lib — thanks Gerry McKiernan!

The Annenberg Media website at learner.org is a resource that offers on-demand streaming video for “schools, colleges, libraries, public broadcasting stations, public access channels, and other community agencies”.

These are top-notch programs, several which I recognize as having been used in college-level learning. I stumbled upon this site while attempting to locate a replacement copy of one of the videos offered on the site.  They do require registration (free) in order to view the video streams.

Subject areas include:

• Arts
• Foreign Language
• Literature and Language Arts
• Mathematics
• Science
• Social Studies and History

Two additional subject area not listed on the site’s menu are:

• Education
• Education Reform

I am not sure why these aren’t listed, but here they are in case you find them helpful.  Chalk this up to my always being curious about how web menus are set up (thanks RFS!)

The quality of the video stream is as good as any I have encountered.  The only suggestion I have to the viewer is if you are using Firefox, you should install the MediaPlayerConnect add-on.  You will find this to be a great addition to the browser and saves you from all the WMP (Windows Media Player) plugin mess.

A great, thought-provoking post on the OpenStudents blog : Open Access meets Undergrad Research… Please?

If I were to be researching a paper on a topic that has a strong open access presence (and the easiest way to see these topics is to check out the main page of the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), open access would be my first choice for articles.  Not only is there no hassle in accessing them (you only need a live web connection), but you can be sure that your paper’s readers would have the same, easy access.

Making open access a part of the research process, whether it is coming from an instructor, library reference, or peer, will serve to strengthen people’s research and to add a large group of resources to those we already offer.

found via Open Access News

Free Online Courses from Great Universities is a collection of lecture podcasts organized by topic; organized by Open Culture.

found via Open Access News

Free-Reading is “an ‘open-source’ instructional program that helps teachers teach early reading.” Aimed at Kindergarten/First Grade learners, it is a collaborative means to establish an education program that combines the strengths of those who work on the project, and makes it available to teachers and organizations via a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike license.

Oh, and the State of Florida just added this program to their list of approved textbooks. Not only can they save a significant amount of funds that would otherwise be spent on texts, the class materials will be current and likely to be updated by a wide variety of professional educators.

found via Open Access News

Larry Ferlazzo’s blog is titled appropriately : Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day for Teaching ELL, ESL, and  EFL.   What caught my attention is that he is compiling lists of web resources that contain great sites that should be kept in mind not only for a variety of reference questions, regardless of the English language ability of the person asking the question, but for the many great tools and resources that we can use in library training and education.

A few of his 2007 lists:

• Best Web 2.0 Applications for Education
• Best Science Websites for Students and Teachers
• Best Online Learning Games
• Best Social Studies Websites
• Best Search Engines for ESL/EFL Learners

There are more beyond these, and his blog is a constant review/overview/discussion of web sites and resources.

found via TechCrunch

An interesting video of a graduation project at the Design Academy Eindhoven in the Netherlands.  Enjoy!

found on LISNews

Kind of an interesting application of the Zotero add-on for Firefox : the Center for History and New Media at George Mason University (no relation ) and the Internet Archive are working to create a storage for scholarly annotation of online documents.

The annotation would work through added functionality (in the form of a new button) on the Zotero workspace, and could create an entirely new means to access scholarly critique and commentary. Simply put, this will make one of the most interesting and promising add-ons even better by allowing the user to collaborate with other researchers.

Research 2.0 anyone?

from Open Access News

Additional:  note that this will also create an option to save an archival copy of an electronic document on the Internet Archive servers.  This centralized storage will also provide benefits beyond the initial commons concept.

additional info found on Dan Cohen’s blog

MIT has expanded their OpenCourseWare initiative to include science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) for high school students.  Dubbed Highlights for High School (a name that, for me at least, evokes Highlights magazine), their stated purpose is to “inspire the next generation of engineers and scientists”.

This sounds like it will be a great repository for college level students to review this material, as well as a resource for the general public.  Keep this site in mind for future use…

from Open Access News

Three items have caught my eye this past week, and they all point in the same direction, even though they each are about something fairly specific:

1. First was an article about a bill working its way through the Ohio General Assembly. If passed as is, it would mandate that all state schools must provide via. their libraries two copies of every textbook used in their classes. The cost, in todays textbook market, would start in the hundreds of thousands. (received via the OhioLink-gen listserv)
2. Next was an article in ars technica about the federal education bill that would require colleges and universities to police their networks in order to prevent file sharing. (I wonder if universities will be able to allow legal file sharing at the same time? Some don’t, apparently.) The bill would also mandate that colleges and universities provide an alternate means of acquiring copyrighted files… meaning that they would need to partner with music subscription services. (found on The Patry Copyright blog )
3. Last was an article from The Chronicle of Higher Education detailing a project that works to provide textbooks to people in developing countries. These include donated used texts, but the focus is increasingly moving towards free and open textbooks available online. (found on Open Access News )

Put these together and what do you get? An incredible amount of pressure, financially and legally, placed on educational institutions to move towards open access. If a significant number of texts in use on a campus are available as open access, the issue of providing them becomes more a matter of format (print vs. screen) than of anything else. Look at the costs involved for policing and providing copyrighted materials. Open texts, as well as other open access media, will look very attractive to those who have to implement these laws (assuming they pass).

Think of squeezing a watermelon seed between two fingers… at some point it will move in a particular direction, and very quickly. Be prepared….

WebJunction has launched a Rural Library Sustainability Online Course, and it’s free!

Their site has the following synopsis of the course:

• Visit each of the seven areas of interest critical to sustaining public access computing in your library.
• View case studies of rural libraries that have developed and completed an action plan in each of the areas.
• Create an action plan for your library by assessing your library’s current state and selecting achievable six month goals.
• Follow manageable steps from peer-recommended resources to accomplish your goals.
• Explore each area of the course at your own pace and return to any lesson at your own convenience.

found on BlogJunction

No brand new flashy sites in this post; just a small collection of links on how one deals with the demands of time, projects and learning:

Big or Small? — Jen Riley at the Indiana University Digital Library Program has a post regarding doing a few big vs. many small projects.

Nicole’s Burnout Blues — Karen Schneider, a.k.a. Free Range Librarian, gives her tips on preventing burnout.

Three Hard Things — new guy at OCLC Roy Tennant’s follow-up to his Five Easy Pieces essay three years ago.

Each of these pieces speak to me, as I am preparing to start a relatively involved project that will require a fair amount of time management.  It could work, mainly because the time involved can be very flexible (and who needs sleep when you have a project?).

However, most everyone I know is trying to balance their time, effort, energy, and resources.  Perhaps there is a helpful nugget or two for everyone who follows the links….

A post, Getting change to stick, at Karen Coomb’s blog, has me thinking about change and growth, but not in an institutional sense, but in more of a personal sense.

I think people can fall into the same trap:  we push our envelopes, learning, trying new things, and cannot perceive the subtler changes and growth that occur.  It can take hindsight to see what we have learned and how we have developed.

The trick is to keep pushing that envelope, keep trying and learning, and not to lose that long-term perspective that seems to be critical.

There is a great overview of the history and current status of the Open CourseWare (OCW) project at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Of interest is the discussion on why to spend millions of dollars to provide free access to that which is a core product of the university.  As with many things (news, music, information), the answer to this will be found in some sort of balance.  I suspect that MIT will profit (and not only financially) from this effort in the end, probably many times over.

from Open Access News

Chinese Learning Objects, funded by the U.S. Department of Education and provided by the National Foreign Language Center, are online materials for learning to read Chinese.  The good news is that, starting in July 2007, the materials will be available for no charge online.

If you have a desire to learn to read Chinese, or know someone who might, this is a great opportunity.

from ResourceShelf

Giving Knowledge for Free : The Emergence of Open Educational Resources (Pdf, 153 pages) is a report by the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD)’s Centre for Educational Research and Innovation which details the state of open access education.

This is definitely worth looking over if you are involved with higher education, because you are likely going to be working with open tools and methods, in some form, within the next few years.

from Open Access News

Wide Open Education is a new blog from the Online Education Database.  Each of these links is well worth following:  you will find great information and resources related to the open education movement on either.

from Open Access News

The Encyclopedia of Life is an ambitious new project aimed at creating an online reference for all 1.8 million species of life.  The encylopedia would have multiple user levels (from “novice” to “expert”), multimedia, and interactive means of exploring related species.

from Open Access News

Creative Commons is getting ready to create CC Learn, a new division that will be devoted to “education, broadly defined — from kindergarten to graduate school, to lifelong learning.”  Their immediate need is to hire an Executive Director for the division.

The initial purpose is to establish standard licensing for educational content that can be shared for the benefit of all who seek to learn and/or teach.  An article on eSchool News provides some excellent detail.

from Open Access News

Inside Higher Ed is running a op ed piece by Pamela Snelson, president of the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) titled Libraries at the Cutting Edge.  It is one of the best brief summaries of the value that academic libraries add to their institutions that I have seen in a while, and I recommend that you take a couple of minutes and absorb what she has to say.

from ResourceShelf