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Presentations that ROCK!, originally uploaded by _Marianne.

Take a look:

http://mlxperience.blogspot.com/2010/03/presentations-that-rock.html

I really appreciate the points about telling your story and gathering support. The best presentations synthesize current thinking and discourse shared via passionate, unique story.

OK, this is only maginally safe for work so I’m posting it on the weekend. It is, after all, heavy metal and discusses guys’ relationships with their moms. Dangerous ground indeed. It’s pretty funny to me.

This YouTube is less than a week old and already has over 222,000 views and made the top of the All Facebook blog too..

Ladies and Gentlemen:

My Mom’s on Facebook

Here’s another version (Rock and Roll instead of Heavy Metal):

My Mom’s on Facebook

Anyway, I continue to be happy that my own children and all my neices and nephews are friends with me on Facebook. I try to be good and not post things about them that might be embarrassing to them. I can’t say the same thing about their 20 year old pictures of me (Kyle I’m looking at you!).

Either way, I have more FB friends than them all put together. I guess I am just needier or more Millennial?

Stephen

I’ll be at PLA all next week in Portland Oregon. Drop by the Gale Cengage booth and I’d love to chat.

We’ll see if I am blogging more or less at that conference but I thought it might be fun to try another poll during the week of PLA.

The topic I’ve chosen is e-readers since I’ve been reading and testing and playing with them a lot lately. So, it’s just a very short survey and only a few questions. You can take the poll from the link on the side of my blog or by following the link in this post.

var PDF_surveyID = 'FD59240C74C2D9DD'; var PDF_openText = 'Here is the survey - let us know what you think'; Here is the survey - let us know what you think

Like last time, I’ll post and share the results with everyone. Thanks for your participation and I am always thankful for your comments too.

Stephen

I’ll have the privilege of speaking at this “Trendy Topics One-Day Online Conference on the Future of Libraries”

DATE: Tuesday, June 8, 2010 beginning at 11:00 a.m. Eastern Time, 10:00 Central, 9:00 Mountain, 8:00 Pacific, and 3:00 p.m. GMT:

Over the course of the day a group of presenters (including keynote speaker Stephen Abram) will explore and discuss with participants how libraries can understand, embrace, and lead future developments in libraries and librarianship.

Please Note: Participants are required to register for this one-day conference and pay a small registration fee. This is the fifth of nine monthly one-day Trendy Topics conferences that will be held throughout 2010. For more OPAL events follow this link.

Conference Website (includes registration info): Trendy Topics Conference Website

Co-Organizers: Alliance Library System and TAP Information Services

I hope you can be there. These events are priced to fit any budget. The Alliance Library System is being very creative in creating innovative programming for themselves and sharing it with the entire community. Thanks.

Stephen

I lost a few minutes as I delved into this website. I know I learned nothing of use for my life and career but I got all warm amd fuzzy inside just seeing Fred and Wilma’s house blueprints.

Mark Bennett at the Mark Moore Gallery

You’ll also find Uncle Bill’s (Buffy and Jody) apartment, Darrin and Samantha Stevens’ house, Jeannie’s bottle, George & Louise Jefferson’s Co-op, Lucy and Ricky Ricardo’s apartment, Mary Richard’s bachelorette, The town plan for Mayberry, a US map for the Fugitive, Bruce Wayne’s and Rick Grayson’s place, and Frasier Crane’s condo.

Now we should request the Brady Bunch place and the Simpson’s house and neighbourhood.

How cool would that be!?

Stephen

Here’s a fun summary of the state of Google in 2010. It’s probably a little over the top, but, then, it might not be. Great brands don’t get a pass on critical thinking (like that applied to Nike and child labour).

THE BEAST FILE: GOOGLE (‘HUNGRY BEAST’, ABC TV) from Hungry Beast on Vimeo.

Competition and choice in information and information access is essential.

Stephen

I have been talking about this lately and find that many folks are uaware of HTML5 and the role thatis emergng for it. I thought this post from O’Relly Radar was educational:

Why HTML5 is worth your time:
Eric A. Meyer on HTML5’s future and the skills developers need to acquire

Just FYI: “HTML5 is being developed as the next major revision of HTML (HyperText Markup Language), the core markup language of the World Wide Web.” HTML5 introduces a number of new elements and attributes that reflect typical usage on modern Web sites. Some of them are semantic replacements and inline elements. Other elements provide new functionality through a standardized interface, such as for advanced audio and video elements. HTML5 ‘may’ mark an end to Flash and plug ins or mobile Apps (& App Stores). It could be a big step forward in mobile usability.

We’ll see. It will be an interesting stage to watch.

Stephen

One of the great treats I get as a librarian is being asked to speak at conferences and going to them too. I learn so much that way although I suppose I am an outlier by attending 50 to 100 or more conferences a year for the past decade or so.

I have my favourites that I try not to miss (SLA, ALA, PLA, OLA, CLA, etc.) I am also looking forward to speaking at TexasLA next month. Among my favourites are ones that I sit on the advisory committees for and those include many of the Information Today family of conferences; Computers in Libraries is coming up next month in Virginia/DC and I love Internet Librarian (Who could hate Monterey?). The Information Today staff and leadership are the best – setting the bar high for treating speakers and delegates very well and creating a diverse learning and networking experience that rises well above the average.

One of my guilty pleasures is one of their boutique conferences, Buying & Selling Content. (Apr. 18-20) This brings together information content buyers (librarians, licensors, consultants, etc.) and infomation sellers (online companies, agents, lawyers, aggregators, etc.) In these difficult times it more important than ever that buyers and sellers have deeply rooted discussions about our mutually dependent success and strategies. This is one of those conferences and is especially different in that everyone there is there as an equal. Face to face networking is a critical factor in change and innovation.

Anyway, I am chairing one of the two big panels this year and there are several great keynote speakers to challenge and inspire. My panel is about changing licensing models and creating new and innovative services.

I hope you will join us at the Marriott Camelback resort in Scottsdale, Arizona April 18-20th. To obtain a 25% discount, please use the following link: http://bit.ly/aRSYX8. This offer is only good until March 26, so please act now! I look forward to meeting you and hearing your insights into reinvigorating the content industry.

Scottsdale is a lovely place but the golf is bad (NOT!). Unfortunately I don’t golf so I’ll have to settle for a short trip to the pools before breakfast.

Stephen

IMLS has set up a wiki for a big discussion:

The Future of Museums and Libraries: A Discussion Guide

A collaborative resource based on The Future of Museums and Libraries: A Discussion Guide http://www.imls.gov/pdf/DiscussionGuide.pdf (36 page PDF) that is available and used by others across the museum and library fields to continue to stimulate discussion and share knowledge about planning, enhancing, enriching and sustaining the future of museums and libraries in the 21st century.

UpNext!

http://imlsupnext.wikispaces.com/

A collaborative resource based on The Future of Museums and Libraries: A Discussion Guide, [http://www.imls.gov/pdf/DiscussionGuide.pdf] that is available and used by others across the museum and library fields to continue to stimulate discussion and share knowledge about planning, enhancing, enriching and sustaining the future of museums and libraries in the 21st century.

The Goals for this wiki:

•Share ideas, resources and projects that help libraries and museums plan for the future and take action;
•Encourage cross disciplinary conversation and engage experts as well as emerging professionals;
•Use a 2.0 communications strategy to engage citizens in government;
•Provide IMLS with input to consider for its strategic plan and to inform future IMLS research, publications, convening and grantmaking.

Discussion Themes

#1 Changing Roles
#2 Shifts in Power
#3 Place Now Open
#4 Technology & Policy
#5 Learning & Information
#6 New Collaborations
#7 Sustainability
#8 New Metrics
#9 Workforce
#10 UpNext

Join the discussion…

Stephen

I subscribe to a discussion list and newsletter from Stephen Krashen, one of the most eloquent defenders of reading and school libraries and evidence based decisions with respect to K-12 learning. A recent posting was worthy of your reading so I am re-posting it here:

“I [Krashen] just finished reading “Primary Sources: America’s Teachers on America’s Schools” which was published by Scholastic and the Gates Foundation. This report has been discussed in newspapers all over the country. Not mentioned in any of the media reports, and not mentioned in the summary section of the report is an interesting result about where students get their books for their own independent reading. This result was not discussed in the text but is buried deep in the appendix.

Q1505 Where do your students get books for their independent reading most often? Select all that apply.

school library: all levels: 83%. high school 80%
my classroom library: all levels: 68%, high school: 31%; elementary school 87%
public library: all levels: 38% high school: 46%
retailers: all levels: 20%, high school: 35%

This is similar to what has been reported before in the professional literature, as I reported in The Power of Reading, but shows the impact of the school library far more clearly than ever before. If independent reading is a major source of our competence in literacy, this confirms that school and classroom libraries are very very important.
Unfortunately, the study did not look at differences in level of poverty.”

Primary Sources: America’s Teachers On America’s Schools
Scholastic, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
http://www.scholastic.com/primarysources/download.asp

Important stuff.

Stephen

Many people took our poll about smart phones and librarians. Here are the result on one simple chart:

I Phone Survey[1] View more presentations from stephenabram1.

This isn’t the most scientific survey, it’s just a poll of self-selected readers of my blog. It did help that so many people left comments on my blog and Facebook wall as well as tweets. That added colour to my understanding of the penetration of smart phones into libraries versus students and communities.

Watch for more polls on other similar issues. Suggest anything library-related in the comments!

Also, I don’t know how I missed this blog but I am now subscribing.

Musings about librarianship: Keeping track of interesting and cool ideas that might be used by libraries for benefit of users.

The posting that I found useful was this one:
iPhone apps for librarians

It covered and linked to any apps that could be found for libraries and librarians using mobile devices. Other postings before and after this one did the same. Useful. I’ll be reading this one.

Stephen

There’s a really great First Monday article in their latest edition which
covers much of the discussion about Wikipedia. More than a few blogs went wild with discussion about Wikipedia and Britannica, e al. this we too. It was all very interesting.

Anyway, this article also contains some new focus group and survey research on the issue about college students, coursework and Wikipedia that is worth reflecting upon.

How today’s college students use Wikipedia for course–related research
by Alison J. Head and Michael B. Eisenberg.
First Monday, Volume 15, Number 3 – 1 March 2010
http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/viewArticle/2830/2476

“Findings are reported from student focus groups and a large–scale survey about how and why students (enrolled at six different U.S. colleges) use Wikipedia during the course–related research process. A majority of respondents frequently used Wikipedia for background information, but less often than they used other common resources, such as course readings and Google. Architecture, engineering, and science majors were more likely to use Wikipedia for course–related research than respondents in other majors. The findings suggest Wikipedia is used in combination with other information resources. Wikipedia meets the needs of college students because it offers a mixture of coverage, currency, convenience, and comprehensibility in a world where credibility is less of a given or an expectation from today’s students.”

I liked this chart a lot:

Figure 2: Why do students use Wikipedia for course–related research?

It just doesn’t look much different than how I used print sources in the 60’s and 70’s. Wikipedia is a good resource for framing your topic, getting language, beginning your research, and following the footnotes to other sources, print and electronic.

And if you don’t take my word for it, ask Wikipedia:

Wikipedia: Academic use

They offer the two prime directives:
1. Do your research properly. Remember that any encyclopedia is a starting point for research, not an ending point.
2. Use your judgment. Remember that all sources have to be evaluated.
3. Wikipedia links to many credible sources.

Who can argue with that?

And lastly, check out Stephen Colbert’s take on the whole thing:

Wikiality

http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/72347/july-31-2006/the-word—wikiality

Anyway, I’ve been on a number of panels with teachers and professors who ban Wikipedia (and sometimes the entire web) from their students use. (I know of some profs who won’t let students use online articles and insist that they get a print photocopy – what dinosaurs! This is especially distressing when academic libraries have the majority of their article collections in e-format and not in print nowadays.) They betray their own shallow understanding of modern research and the use of finding and contextual tools like dictionaries, encyclopedia, almanacs, indexes, etc. and do their students an extreme disservice by preparing them with skills to survive the middle of the last century. At the end of the debate though, the audiences often continue to be divided about the 21st century skills needed to thrive in the 21st century.

Stephen

Despite claims of its imminent death by some, blogging seems quite healthy. Here’s some stats:

“• More than 133,000,000 blogs have been indexed by Technorati since 2002
• 77% of Internet users read blogs according to Universal McCann
• Two-thirds of Bloggers are male
• More than half are married and more than half are parents
• 60% are 18-44
• 75% have college degrees and 40% have graduate degrees
• One in four has an annual household income of $100K+
• Around half of Bloggers are working on at least their second blog
• 68% have been blogging for two years or more
• 86% have been blogging for at least a year
• 70% of all respondents say that personal satisfaction is a way they measure the success of their blog
• 72% say they blog in order to share their expertise.
• 61% say they blog in order to supplement their income.
• 53% of professional Bloggers are interested in attracting new clients from blogging.
• 72% of those who are self-employed and blogging are interested in attracting new clients.
• 57% say that their future plans include blogging even more (including 74% of 18-24 year olds).
• Part-Timers, Pros, and Self-Employed Bloggers are blogging as much as or more than ever (73%, 76% and 80%, respectively), while Hobbyists are blogging somewhat less.
• 15% of Bloggers spend 10 or more hours each week blogging.
• One in five Bloggers report updating on a daily basis. The most common rate of updating is 2-3 times per week.
• The majority of blogs use tags (85%).
• 82% of respondents say that they post photos to their blog, making images the most popular form of multimedia.
• Bloggers participate in an average of 5 activities to drive traffic to their blogs.
• 72% of respondents are classified as Hobbyists, meaning that they report no income related to blogging
• Of those who have monetized their blogging to at least some extent:
• 54% are Part-Timers
• 32% are Self-Employed Bloggers
• 14% are Corporate Bloggers
• 51% of Corporate Bloggers – 58 respondents – report receiving a salary for blogging.
• 56% say that their blog has helped their company establish a positioning as a thought leader within the industry.
• 58% say that they are better-known in their industry because of their blog”

Source: State of the Blogosphere 2009

More useful commentary here:

Blogging in 2010: What You Need To Know

Stephen

This post was written by Kasia Grabowska for last semester’s LIS 768: Library 2.0 & Networking Technologies class. Kasia has allowed me to repost it here.

After doing brand monitoring research for the past few weeks, looking closely at Skokie Public Library (and not so closely at several other libraries), I decided to put together a list of “do’s and don’ts” for librarians on successfully utilizing social media.

This is what I learned from doing brand monitoring and what I personally would recommend to libraries that are getting started with social media.

Tip #1: Learn how to monitor your brand

Join the RIGHT conversations at the RIGHT time. In other words, stay on top of what people are saying about you and make sure to respond, to let people know that you are listening and willing to join the conversation.

Tools to utilize for brand monitoring include RSS feeds, Google Alerts, Technorati, and staying on top of your Twitter, Facebook and other social media accounts. This is definitely the number 1 lesson I learned from this assignment.

Tip #2: Learn from your brand community

You’re already engaging in conversations, why not ask people for some feedback? There are plenty of quick and easy ways to get good information that will help you keep learning from what you’re doing and improving the process as you go along. Just make sure not to overdo it; remember to always engage in conversations as a person.

Tip #3: Have a game plan

Set goals, measure and iterate your social media efforts in order to continue to grow and improve your efforts. Make sure everyone who is involved in your social media strategy clearly understands the role and goals of this initiative. There’s nothing worse than joining a social network with no purpose, plan or a way to measure what you’re doing.

By using trackable links (like bit.ly or su.pr) to help track what your users are responding to, you will be able to measure your efforts and make improvements.

Tip #4: Promote, promote, promote

I noticed a lot of libraries who do wonderful things on Facebook, Twitter or Flickr yet they don’t include links to their social networks on their websites. Or libraries that use Twitter often but don’t follow anyone; that’s not a good way to start a conversation.

A library website should be an entry point to social media; you need to create awareness. People should not have to search for you on Facebook, or Twitter, you should reach out to every member of your community first.

Tip #5: Allow open, yet governed access for your employees

This is where a social media policy comes in. By making sure everyone who is involved in your efforts understands what to do (what they’re allowed to say, how they should respond in different situations, etc) you won’t have to monitor what each person does. Instead, you will be able to focus on making improvements.

One tip about your social media policy — make sure it’s succinct and to the point, otherwise no one will want to read it.

Tip #6: Stay relevant and be helpful

Use social media to build trust, credibility and awareness in your community. Instead of broadcasting information, try creating conversations. Remember, speaking doesn’t always result in being heard.

Be helpful, stay relevant and focus on your community’s needs. It’s also important to humanize your efforts; don’t hide behind your library’s logo, allow your users to get to know you as a person.

Tip #7: Give your community room to grow

Focus on small, consistent and ongoing change. Let your members decide how they want to use “their” online community. Listen to what they have to say and change your goals and objectives based on how your community wants to utilize social media.

Tip #8: Remember, you’re not alone

By building relationships with key people within your community who also utilize social media you can leverage your efforts and obtain better reach. People who are influencers, those who are natural communicators or leaders in your community can help your social media efforts immensely. Identify these people and ask for help. Word of mouth can be very powerful.

Tip #9: Go where your users are

Remember, you don’t have to be an early adopter. It is much better to wait for your community to start utilizing the technology before adding it to your social media arsenal. In short, go where your users are. It’s much easier for someone to join you on Facebook or Twitter if the person actually uses the technology.

Tip #10: Lead change

This is important, especially for libraries that can be very resistant to change at times: if you want to lead change, find one thing you said no to in the past and give it a try.

This is actually something I heard at a digital marketing conference I got a chance to attend last month, but I think it applies great to libraries and social media.

Kasia Grabowska is currently working on her MLIS at Dominican University. She is a website manager for Train Signal, Inc and the editor in cheif of www.trainsignaltraining.com a blog focusing on IT training and certification.

I have done quite a few webinars with varying results. Some went well and some were plagued by technical issues (speakers and participants). Anyway, this is a format that will increase in use and popularity so Peter Bromberg’s post at the ALA Learning blog is timely:

Five Tips For Successful Webinars

1. Write for the medium:
2. More interaction
3. Know your platform:
4. Test, Test, Test
5. The actual event

Read the whole post.

Stephen

http://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/technology_and_learning/online_education_and_blogging

Joshua Kim writes:

The best preparation I received for blogging was teaching online. One of the most important elements for running a successful online course involves presence. The instructor must be “present” in the course discussion boards and blogs. Teaching online gave me tons of practice in writing rapid, hopefully thought provoking, discussion and blog posts around the curriculum and the student’s work. Much has been written about how teaching online can improve on-ground teaching. I’d add comfort with blogging to the benefits online learning.

Is the ability to quickly produce prose that (at least sometimes) may interest a reader the sort of skill that we want to cultivate in our students? The importance of rapid, persuasive writing is growing as blogs and other social media displace other forms of communication. We all need to learn to make our case, to persuade, to make arguments based on evidence – and to do so in a limited attention economy. For all of us, both writes and readers, time is our scarcest commodity.

Perhaps participating in online courses provides students the same practice with rapid and persuasive writing as teaching an online course. The same behaviors that make for a good online instructor, namely the willingness to be active and engaged with the asynchronous communication tools, are also those behaviors of a successful online student. An online course is all about collaboration and interaction. The best students post persuasively, briefly, and often.

I would venture to say the best preparation I received for online teaching is blogging! Quick posts sharing links and commentary – something bibliobloggers have long been doing – translate perfectly to the way I interact with my online and hybrid classes. I also think the blogging activities have helped my students with their writing – just afeeling, no evidence yet, but it might be a good thing to study.

Lots of link and tweet love for this already but its cleverness is spot on. Watch the whole thing.

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The Library Tweets, originally uploaded by mstephens7.

Nice display at the State & University Library of Hamburg. Photo by Markus Trapp.

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day 3.15: @mstephens7 auf dem bibliothekskongress #bibtag10, originally uploaded by fabi_k.

I was honored to participate in the opening day of the Leipziger Kongress für Information und Bibliothek. Thanks to all who attended!

Here are the slides:

Hyperlinked Library – Kongress View more presentations from Michael Stephens.

Via John Schumacher on Twitter comers this opinion piece from Oregon Live:

http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2010/03/shhh_its_a_library_not_the_cor.html

Ellen Hansen writes about her love of quiet and the lack of it in her library: (emphasis is mine)

No, my full wrath is reserved for library-quiet abusers. When did the library turn into the local coffee shop? One man comes into our library and sets up as if it’s his own, private office space. That’s fine, if you’re reading, writing or even typing on your computer nonstop. But his work entails talking on the phone nonstop, for hours on end.

Others conduct education tutorials or hours-long business collaborations or gadget-comparing conferences at nearby tables. Even if not full-throated, the constant drone of nonstop voices rubs nerves raw.

Another fellow comes in, sits down at the table behind me, pins his ears back and tucks into a tub of cottage cheese, smacking his way through a tall can of pineapple slices as a side dish. He then slurps a half-gallon of orange juice to complete the performance. As choral accompaniment in this flu season, a symphony of sniffs and snorts, coughs and throat-clearings chimes in all around me.

A teacher walks through giving a gaggle of fifth-graders a library tour in full recess-volume voice … two friends carry on an excited and loud conversation in the stacks about a favorite author’s recent tome … a grandfatherly fellow peruses magazines and shouts into his cell phone, “Where are you now? Still in the fiction section? No, I’m over in magazines.”

In fact, the periodicals section is often the loudest section of the library, despite two prominently displayed signs which read: “Quiet Reading Area, No [picture of a cell phone].” One woman plops herself down daily on one of the upholstered chairs, chattering away into her cell phone. When a fellow library patron finally points to the sign not 10 feet from the chatterbox’s head, the woman nods, and keeps on talking.

Maybe it’s my jetlag today, but it concerns me that Hansen has monitored these behaviors for “hours on end” to list out the offenses library patrons commit. No shushing librarians come to her rescue during these hours. I wonder what another patron might say about all the activity? That the library feels “alive?”

I hope a representative of her library responds with some thoughts about library use. I wonder if the building is of such size that mixing a quiet area and more general use spaces is difficult. Maybe the library is in transition now. Any readers have the rest of the story?

Take a look at the full piece and the comments. I’ll be sharing this with my Intro to LIS class – maybe an exercise where we write a response.