I just noticed today something new on Google Maps that connects the map to wikipedia and images! And, you, your staff, and your customers can participate in this as well! Talk about civic engagement... imagine if libraries sponsored a project using these tools!

I started at Google Maps and typed in Boise, Idaho and then on the map where it says "More" I checked off Photos and Wikipedia!

The wikipedia article and the image show up in the map browser, no new tabs, and no new windows! See this one for the Old Penitentiary!

I believe that Google Earth does this already, but this seems more participatory. For more information on adding wikipedia articles see Placeopedia... and on how to add photos see Panoramio!

Found this post on BoingBoing re DRM (digital rights management), and the movement by this group to pressure libraries to stop using DRM in their collections.

But let's back up a bit. What is, actually, this digital rights management? This is Wikipedia's definition:

Digital rights management (DRM) is an umbrella term that refers to access control technologies used by publishers and copyright
holders to limit usage of digital media or devices. It may also refer
to restrictions associated with specific instances of digital works or
devices. DRM overlaps with software copy protection
to some extent, however the term "DRM" is usually applied to creative
media (music, films, etc.) whereas the term "copy protection" tends to
refer to copy protection mechanisms in computer software.

This is from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, "...the leading civil liberties group defending your rights in the digital world.":

Major entertainment companies are using "digital rights
management," or DRM (aka content or copy protection), to lock up your
digital media. These DRM technologies do nothing to stop copyright
pirates, but instead end up interfering with fans' lawful use of music,
movies, and other copyrighted works. DRM can prevent you from making
back ups of your DVDs and music downloaded from online stores,
recording your favorite TV programs, using the portable media player of
your choice, remixing clips of movies into your own home movies, and
much more.

From the Microsoft Windows Media page:

Windows Media Digital Rights Management (DRM) is a
proven platform to protect and securely deliver content for playback on
computers, portable devices, and network devices. The latest version
offers increased flexibility to support a wide range of business models
that provide consumers even greater access to protected audio and video
content.

This article
from the BBC online's Q & A on DRM discusses the very issues on how
libraries must, of course, adhere to contractual obligations in
providing access to their digital resources:

As custodians of human memory, a number would keep
digital works in perpetuity and may need to be able to transfer them to
other formats in order to preserve them and make the content fully
accessible and usable once out of copyright.

In its written submission to the group, the British Library said DRM must not "exert excessive control on access to information.

This will fundamentally threaten the longstanding and
accepted concepts of fair dealing and library privilege and undermine,
or even prevent, legitimate public good access.

I don't know how this might be possible, for libraries to provide
the kind of content (highly steeped in DRM)--and here we're talking
everything form music CDs to videos to e-audiobooks--in a way that
allows people to store and/or share it with others. Libraries, after
all, provide what their communities want, and much, if not all of that
content is protected under DRM policies. And what can libraries do,
really? Budgets are tightly controlled at various levels of government,
there's always a demand for popular music/videos/e-audiobooks, and more
and more content is being made available in digital format.

I don't know if libraries can do much about it, but the
communities they serve can certainly create enough noise that
corporations and vendors will notice enough to start making changes.
What do you think?

The SPLAT del.icio.us account is up and running. I started our "cloud" with some of my favorites and some of the web sites we discussed on May 2.

As SPLAT members discover and share handy sites, we can use del.icio.us to remember all of those URLs.

Please join in and tag your favorites to add to our collective cloud!

Even though I know that sometimes libraries are supposed to be quiet, for the most part, remaining quiet hinders both learning and access. Who is going to ask questions is they are being silenced? Answer? No one.

So sometimes I think that the Nancy Pearl Action Figure is responsible for the shushing that I see. I've seen the doll referred to as the reason to be quiet, as in if someone in the library is being loud, they point to the doll and say, "Shhh!"

I just wanted to point out that Nancy Pearl herself does not think that Shushing is acceptable, and thought everyone would take it like a joke! In an article from The Seattle Times she is quoted:

"Pearl predicts that the shushing motion — triggered by a button on the
doll's back — will determine 'which librarians have a sense of humor.'
She likes to believe that today's librarians are secure enough in their
work that they won't take offense at the old cliché."

If it is an old cliche, but we still shush people at our libraries, are we doing it as a joke, or do we really mean it? And even if we're shushing people as a joke, do the customers think that? The customers do not want to be shushed, so maybe we should all stop our shushing?

Here's the post I wrote in my blog about Twitter but thought you might find interesting:

Twitter, the microblogging application that allows you to post something about your everyday experience in 140 characters or less, is gaining ground as the newest way to connect and interact with other net denizens.

Your tweets (posts) can be as mundane or as elaborate as you want to make them. You can also include links, which are automatically shortened by TinyURL to give you space to fit more text. Spaces and characters count so making the most (or less) of the 140 character limit is an oddly neat way to make your thoughts as succinct (hopefully) as possible.

So what makes Twitter so fun? Let's break it down:

1. It's easy! You create an account here, upload a picture/graphic, and write something. That's it.
2. There are many ways to connect, enhance, and facilitate your use of Twitter using dozens of Twitter applications.
3. You can post from the Twitter website but you can also update from your status bar with TwitterFox (my favorite) a Firefox extension, from your mobile phone, or your desktop.
4. A growing number of corporate entities can be found in Twitter: NPR, PBS, both democratic candidates and browsers too, like Flock and Firefox.
5. You can follow individuals/entities based on same interests, profession (librarians, anyone?), location, or simply because their tweets are so dang interesting.
6. Use Twitter as a heads up on new technologies, teaching tools, or web services. Websites like TechCrunch, Lifehacker, and Mashable (they all Twitter) allow you to keep up to date on new technologies and development.
7. Find out what people are Twittering about, what topics are being discussed, based on specific keywords.
8. Into educational Twittering? Check.

You can follow other Twitterers and get a glimpse of other twits (posts) from other individuals, since the people they follow will be listed as well. Also, you can make your profile public or private, allowing you to make your mundane/erudite tweets accessible by only those people you approve. Here's a sample of my Twitter stream:

I find Twitter a cross between e-mail and chat, a quick and easy way to communicate that is not so in-your-face like chat, but not so removed from the asynchronous nature of e-mail.

Even though you can message specific individuals (you use the "@" symbol with the person's profile name) you can have synchronous conversations if other individuals happen to be online at the same time--i.e., they respond to your tweets fairly quickly.

This short but informative video from the folks at Commoncraft explains the whole Twitter thing rather nicely:

Twitter may not be for you, but I'm finding it a lot more engaging and informative than other social services. If you want to experiment in Twitter by all means follow me and I'll return the favor--we can try it out together!