Librarian in Black Blog – Sarah Houghton-Jan

John Gilmore and the Internet Archive win the 2009 Free Software Awards.

via @creativecommons on Twitter

Check out this Library Journal article about Freegal Music Service.  This is a downloadable music service without DRM (digital rights management).  The music is only Sony music (which includes 50 or so labels), so keep that in mind.  The biggest caveat, however, is that the service is limited to 20 downloads per week per person, and works with many different devices (because it’s DRM-free).  How else do you think they got the music companies to agree to offer DRM-free downloads?

I have concerns, fears, and reservations.  All of that being said, I’m still excited to see how this pans out.  DRM-free is the only way that downloadable music will work in libraries.  Like many other libraries, we tried Overdrive’s eMusic service and found that NO ONE USED IT.  No one.  Not even staff.  Downloading music that you get to access for 3 weeks only is not how people think of music.  People want music to persist, to be on their digital shelves.  And that’s why I think this new service might just have a chance.

I am speaking at an online conference on May 12th: Innovation for Libraries in the 21st Century.  This is another great conference online from the Alliance Library System and Learning Times.

There are three tracks (hurrah for tracks in online conferences). Individuals can register for $49 for the whole day, and groups can register for a mere $99.  Not bad, not bad!  There are some seriously great speakers throughout the day, so take a look.

I’ll be talking at 10am (CST) and the title of the talk is “Coordinating a Social Media Presence for the Library.”  If there is anything in particular you’d like me to cover in the talk, please let me know.

A great post about email inbox overload: “10 Steps to a Gmail Makeover” by Lisa Thumann.  In all seriousness, I do all of these & you should too. Seriously, peeps, pay attention.  #10 is my favorite as it is the most effective, and the toughest to  follow:

10. Be Decisive
Hank gave a very wise piece of advice. He suggested that when you get a new piece of e-mail, make a decision about what to do with it. Give it a Label. Read it. Delete it. Archive it. But, don’t just leave it there. It took me 14 days to whittle down from 14,000 e-mails to zero. I feel like I’m going to be more responsive to people now as they are not going to get lost in the shuffle. Well, I hope so anyway.

via @buffyjhamilton on Twitter

The most encouraging article in a while about the relevance of librarians: “Young Learners Need Librarians, Not Just Google” in Forbes, by Mark Moran.

Common Craft has done it again.  The makers of the “in plain English” video series that describes complex technologies in an easy-to-digest visual way, has just released Augmented Reality in Plain English.  Pure awesome.

Spike Jonze’s short 35-minute film “I’m Here” follows a bashful librarian who falls in love with a robot and is online for free for your viewing pleasure.

via @BrodartPulse on Twitter

New post from Cindi Trainor on taking great library photos.  It’s the first in a series, so watch for more!  Cindi is an amazing photographer and has taken two of the best photos anyone has ever taken of me.  If you can hire her to take your photo for something special, do so.  She’s amazing.

via @cindi and @ALA_TechSource on Twitter

Read what the brilliant Jakob Nielsen has to say about webpage scrolling and attention.  Results? 80% of users’ time is spent looking above the fold (e.g. above where they’d have to do a vertical scroll).

In the process of our library’s website redesign, I’ve become a bit of a fascist about keeping content above the fold.  I don’t want people to scroll unless they’ve consciously made a choice to access a large piece of content – e.g. an article, lengthy list of resources, new books list, etc.  If the page is at any navigation level but the bottom, then it needs to stay above the fold.  Rawr!  Come on…just try to pass a page by me that requires scrolling.  Then let’s see how far you get

via @NNgroup on Twitter

For those of you with customers who are curious about health care reform and its impact on them, here are two recommended resources:

• “The Top 10 Immediate Benefits You’ll Get When Health Care Reform Passes” from the Huffington Post
• White House website on Health Care Reform
• Health Care Overhaul Timeline from the Washington Post
• Health Care Reform in the United States on Wikipedia (really – this is awesome and highly accurate)