Librarian in Black Blog – Sarah Houghton

When searching for video, come on librarians…go beyond YouTube!  Try VideoSurf, a metasearch for video that looks at videos on Hulu, CNN, ESPN, Comedy Central, and MetaCafe.  It’s got a nice suggest-as-you-type feature, and the search results are quite good.  Here is a sample search results page for a search for the recent FX show, “Sons of Anarchy.“  The site offers great sorting options, “quick refining,” faceted searching, results embedding, permalinks, a Save Search/Alert feature, and a lot more.  They offer a Firefox extension, APIs, and more tools too.

I liked the user interface (I don’t say that often).  I also liked that full episodes or feature films were marked as such for quick finding.  No complaints whatsoever about VideoSurf from me, though I do hope they add more sources in the coming months, as more in this case can only be better

Twitter is following the social lists trend and now offers Twitter Lists.  Read a summary of what Twitter Lists are and how to create lists & add items on The Next Web.

The nice thing about Twitter Lists is that libraries can create lists, following groups of local Tweeters, topical Tweeters, and more and put those Lists up to share on Twitter (and link to them from your website too!).  What better way for libraries to show that they know what Twitter is, and how to use it — not only to communicate “library proper” information to Twitter followers, but to show that we are information professionals with the ability to suss out information and sources in new technologies?  Here is my challenge to you: Make a Twitter List today and let your community know it’s there!

Have you ever thought about how much data is in your Facebook, Twitter, Gmail, Google Docs, and del.icio.us accounts?  Have you ever considered that you are purely at the mercy of one company, and their server farms, to back-up and preserve your data?  Have you ever wondered what to do about it (if anything)?

Answer: Backupify

Formerly called Lifestream Backup, Backupify offers free and for-pay accounts. The service currently backs up your data on Twitter, Photobucket, and Flickr.  Coming soon is back-up for Facebook, del.icio.us, Gmail, Google Docs, Basecamp, WordPress, and Zoho.  Get more details on exactly what is backed up, and how, in the lower left corner of Backupify’s pricing page.

What you get:

For free:  Twitter back-ups only (always free), up to 10MB

For money:  You can get a 15-day free trial, so check it out! They offer 3 different paid accounts that all include all above social accounts, allow for download-to-PC for your files,  and security options.  See more details below:

• Basic ($29/year):  2GB MB limit
• Premium ($39/year): 10GB MB limit
• Max ($109/year): 50 GB MB limit

Obviously, if you have a lot of photos or other multimedia files, you might want to go with the Max account.

So, how does this work for libraries?  I’d also recommend that account for any library wanting to get started backing up its files.  I know at our library, for our relatively new podcasting/vidcasting project, we’re recommending that folks not only upload their video files to blip.tv, but also store a back-up copy on their shared network drives.  If we had back-up, we wouldn’t have to ask people to do that.  Combine that with also not requiring people to store back-ups of all of their Flickr photos, worry about the archive of their Facebook walls, their Twitter feeds, etc., and $109/year seems like a bargain!  Read more on the Backupify FAQ page.

found via: Robin Hastings (webgoddess) Twitter feed

Library Journal has released their 2009 Placements & Salaries Survey with statistics on library jobs and pay.

• The average starting salary for a librarian went down in 2008 for the first time in over a decade, from $42,361 to $41,579.
• There are fewer full-time jobs, more part-time jobs, and more non-librarian jobs.
• New graduates are having a harder time finding jobs and remain unemployed longer.
• Disturbing to me, being a public librarian, was that full-time librarian placements in public libraries fell bby an astounding 12.5% in 2008.  Wah!

The full report includes more data, but all in all there were few bright spots.  If you pay attention to labor negotiations or budgeting in your own library, you likely know that the numbers aren’t good.  Cross your arms protectively, buckle down, and prepare to have a few more bad years in libraries until any possible reprieve.  I will be writing a future post about ways to deal with bad economic times with creative web services — watch for it!

Was anyone else surprised that Obama declared this month (October 2009) National Information Literacy Awareness Month?  I’m all for info literacy, and work toward that every day for both staff & customers (though I’d prefer to call it something not insulting, like ‘Information Awareness’ or ‘How-to-Find-Stuff-Skills’).  But to have a whole month declared for it?  Strange, but hey…if it makes a few more people able to analyze the junkiness of random web pages, it’s worth it.

So, along those lines, what are you doing in your library to use this national awareness month to help people find reliable information easier?

The Internet Librarian 2009 Conference program is available on mobile devices through a site set up with Mosio, the creators of Text a Librarian.  A great feature is that you don’t have to download or install anything to make this work–a nice change of pace from other library conferences’ mobile sites.  To use the site, you have two choices:

1. Go to http://mos.io/il2009
2. or text INTLIB to 66746

I’ll be speaking at the main Internet Librarian Conference and will also be speaking at the partner Internet@Schools West Conference too.  Below is where you’ll be able to hear me:

• Monday 10/26, 2:15-3:00PM: B104 2.0 Too: Web Services for Underfunded Libraries
• Tuesday 10/27, 11:30–12:15PM: S202 Trying Not to Filter: Internet Filtering Technologies Update
• Wednesday 10/28, 11:30AM–12:15PM: D302 Technology: The Engine Driving Pop Culture-Savvy Libraries or Source of Overload?

Google is planning to launch what it’s calling a “buy anywhere, read anywhere”digital books program called Google Editions.  The launch is scheduled for the first half of 2010.

The books can be purchased from any computing device, and then read on any other device.  This gets around one of the major problems and criticisms of the Sony eBook Reader & the Amazon Kindle — digital rights management that limits the download vs. access on different devices.  Another nice feature is that once you access a book on a device, it’s cached and therefore you can read offline as well.  Nice!

Now, if only Google could come up with an alternative to iTunes using the same access model, they would truly (and I do mean truly) rule the world of computing and digital content.

If you want to read more, Teleread and Engadget have good commentaries on Google Editions’ effect on eBooks.

TAP Information Services and the Alliance Library System is holding an LIS Online Career Fair in January.  Below is the description:

January 12th, 2010, 10am
Are you a new library school graduate – or mid-career and looking for a change? Are you wondering how to improve your career skills or ready to try a certificate program? Looking to refresh your resume? We invite you to join us for the first annual LIS Online Career Fair.

You can read more on the event webpage.

If you’re looking for ways to make your library’s Facebook page better, check out this article from NonProfit 2.0: “Five Essential Apps for Your Nonprofit.” Very useful – check it out.

found via David Lee King’s Twitter feed

Oooh, the first photos of the Barnes & Noble new “double screen e-reader” are here.  Gizmodo has the photos displayed nicely, as well as a ton of comments from readers.  The new e-reader will be revealed officially next week and will include a black and white e-ink screen, but also feature a color touchscreen.  Sweet monkeys of techie goodness!  My birthday is in January if anyone is paying attention and feeling generous