I met Laura Woods last Summer in DC at the SLA Centennial Conference. She was the winner of the SLA Europe Early Career Conference Award, co-sponsored by the SLA Leadership and Management Division. We had a nice conversation at a reception about the challenges facing our profession.

She was concerned that there is too little understanding of what librarians and information professionals actually do for those making new career choices and that might represent a possible barrier to atracting people to our profession. With this in mind, she recently set up the Library Routes Project - a wiki to collect people's reflections on how they got into the information professions, how their careers have progressed, the jobs they've done along the way, etc.

The hope is that the project will be a useful resource for people who are interested in the profession but don't really know where to start, or where it could take them. It's been pretty successful so far - since it was set up at the start of October, there are now nearly 60 entries - and, more importantly, the wiki has had over 4000 visits.

So far, it has a UK focus (although I think we've had one or two contributions from American librarians) but they'd really like it to be a useful resource internationally. Therefore I am pointing to it from my blog to encourage folks to visit and consider contributing.

I like the idea of this project "going viral" - it all fits with the web 2.0 spirit in which it was started, and I think people are more likely to get involved if they visit and get a sense that their story will make a difference.

Take a few moments to visit and see if your story fits.

Stephen

Stephen

I showed one of these charts for the newspaper business recently. Here's one for the magazine industry.

The Epic Decline Of Magazine Advertising Through The Decade

Very interesting.

Stephen

FCC outlines seven biggest barriers to broadband adoption

"The Federal Commission has listed seven big bumps in the road towards universal use of broadband in the United States, including the TV set-top box innovation gap and the spectrum gap. The document may be a sneak preview of the agency's National Broadband Plan, to be released in February."

1. The Universal Service Fund.

2. The broadband adoption gap.

3. The consumer information gap.

4. The spectrum gap.

5. The deployment gap.

6. The television set-top box innovation gap.

7. The personal data gap.

Read the whole article.

Stephen

This is an interesting study. We've been reading so much lately on the downturns in newspaperland but this is the most recent study I've seen combining sources of news and comparing readership. I can certainly see that many of the people I know who no longer read a print newspaper continue to be as well or better informed about current events.

Three Quarters of Adults are Reading Newspapers, in Print or Online (PDF; 144 KB)

"Three-quarters (74%) of U.S. adults, or nearly 171 million people, read a newspaper — in print or online — during the past week. This is according to the latest Integrated Newspaper Audience (INA)* finding from Scarborough Research, the audience ratings measurement service for the newspaper industry. The company examined newspaper readership in its recently released Scarborough USA+ Study, which captures media patterns and other consumer behaviors of adults across the country. The data analysis indicates that newspapers are still read in print or online by a critical mass of adults in the U.S. on a daily and weekly basis.
…
The analysis of Scarborough audience data not only indicated that newspapers are being read by a majority of adults in print and online, but also that these Integrated Newspaper Audiences continue to attract educated, affluent readers. In an average week:

» 79% of adults employed in white collar positions read a newspaper in print or online
» 82% of adults with household incomes of $100,000 or more read a printed newspaper in print or online
» 84% of adults who are college graduates or who have advanced degrees read a printed newspaper in print or online

Source: Scarborough Research (via Nielsen)" (Via Gary Price and ResourceShelf)

BTW I'm pretty sure that if you ahve an advanced degree or make over $100K you're in the older part of the sample. Many a retailer regretted staying with their core customers as they aged. Their market shrank over time relentlessly.

Stephen

I liked this article - probably because I know I am not a great listener and try to get better and fail more than I win):

Evolution: The Eight Stages Of Listening

by Jeremiah Owyang

It's an interesting matrix for approaching listening strategies for customers.

Stephen

OK, here's what you can buy me for Christmas (to us alongside my Sony Reader).

The Kindle has finally come to Canada (but it's not as good as the American version).

Kindle Canada is available

"Canada gets all of the following -

1.Free access to the Kindle Store via 3G wireless.
2.300,000 English language books.
3.$11.99 prices.
4.100,000 books under $5.99.
5.Newspapers and Magazines are also available

What does Canada not get?

1.No free Internet.
2.$2 extra for books due to wireless delivery charge.
3.No wireless delivery of personal documents.
4.No Kindle Blogs.
5.Prices in Canadian Dollars. Everything will be charged in US dollars"

Read the rest of the view after the link.

Stephen