Do you blog? Check out the brand spanking new Blog with Integrity website. This site came out of concerns over many bloggers accepting free products or services in exchange for a positive review on their blogs, receiving free trips or dinners from interested advertisers, getting undisclosed ad revenues, never posting negative things (only positive things), plagiarizing others’ work, and other generally skeevy things to do.
The site asks bloggers to take the pledge (basically a sensible code of conduct), which you can read here. If you take the pledge, you can put the “Blog with Integrity” badge on your site (I guess they know how much we like badges). The goal is to have bloggers disclose who they receive stuff from to disclose any potential biases, to respect readers, to take responsibility for our words, to be honest, and respect intellectual property rights. Basically, all the stuff that would happen if librarians and journalists had an intellectual baby 
Take the pledge…I did.
Have you all heard the ads for the Twelpforce? This is a Twitter service created and staffed by Best Buy. The one-line bio reads “A collective force of Best Buy technology pros offering tech advice in Tweet form.” You just add @twelpforce to the beginning of your Tweet, and your tech support question gets sent to the Twelpforce, and they answer. They’re nearing 4,500 followers already.
So…basically this is free tech support, in Tweet format, from Best Buy. What’s in it for them? Advertising and consumer exposure, of course. Subscribe to their feed and not only do you get the Tweets of tech help, but you get product recommendations (carefully crafted in all likelihood) and re-directions from one product to others. Advertising, advertising, advertising! For more info, see the official Twelpforce page on the Best Buy website.
So, what could libraries do along these lines? Twitter reference services, like many libraries are offering now. We’re doing this…we’re just not marketing it very well. We need to use jazzier social networking profile names. Make our social network profile pages look cooler. Advertise the service everywhere in the community, and not wait for them to come to some hidden page on our website proper to find it. We can do this, people! We just need to think faster and smarter.
NPR’s new website recently launched. Take a look if you haven’t seen it yet!
I really, really like it. I’m finding it much easier to find commonly needed items…you know, those patron questions about something they heard on some show on NPR but can’t remember. There is a ton of information on their site (just like library sites!) but somehow, everything is findable. They even offer a video tour so you can orient yourself to the new site.
I have long believed that the NPR website is one of the great un-tapped reference resources on the web. Just about any topic you can think of, including current hot topics, is on NPR’s site somewhere.
TinEye: A reverse search engine. Upload an image and find out where it came from, how it’s being used, and obtain different versions of the same image. Nice! You do have to create an account to use it, but I’ve found it to be worth it.
Healthfinder.gov tour: Take a tour of Healthfinder.gov, learn how to use it, how to search, and what neat features the site offers. This tour would work really well in any library teachable moments about finding health information.
Google Wave: Google’s vision of what web-based email should look like today, reinvented and reinvigorated. Does this look like something you’d use? Better than Outlook?
GovFresh: a live feed of official U.S. Government information posted via YouTube, Twitter, RSS, Facebook, and Flickr. The feed combines data from the House & Senate, the military, Supreme Court, White House, Democratic & Republication National Committees, various departments and agencies, and so on.
Computer Hardware in Plain English: We love Common Craft videos. They cover software, Web 2.0, and more, including how basic computer hardware works. Take a look – this might be the next tool you use in your basic computer classes.
TinyChat: A nice chat room tool, with video! There are many of these services out there, but this is one of my favorites. Fast, high quality, and easy to use.
Some things to pay attention to:
My Info Quest: A brand new international consortium of libraries providing text messaging reference services for the public. 50 U.S. libraries are participating. Users text questions to a number and librarians respond. The service is free, provided through Altarama software, available from 8am-10pm Monday-Friday and 9am-5pm Saturdays, and the first of its kind. The project is accepting new library members if you are interested.
Three recent Pew studies:
- The Mobile Difference: A Pew study of how Americans use their mobile devices. In an ever-mobile world, libraries need to pay attention to how their users prefer to access information.
- The Internet and the Recession: How are people using the web differently due to the recession? What information do they want? How do they access it? As libraries have redirected resources at user needs due to the recession, this report informs us of user needs and wants and can help us to improve services.
- Twitter and Status Updating: How are people using these social networking tools? What kind of information are they putting out there and what do they want to get in return?
Xerox’s take on Information Overload: Xerox has a humorous site dedicated to the effect of information overload on workers. The site contains a cute video, discussion board, some serious resources on managing IO, and a cute “Information Overload Warning” email generator to send to colleagues. Totally worth your time.
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