LiB Sites and Sources – 2010-08-11

August 11, 2010 | Comment (1)

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LiB Sites and Sources – 2010-08-10

August 10, 2010 | Comments (0)

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LiB Sites and Sources – 2010-08-08

August 8, 2010 | Comments (0)

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LiB Sites and Sources – 2010-08-07

August 7, 2010 | Comments (0)

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LiB Sites and Sources – 2010-08-05

August 5, 2010 | Comments (0)
  • Two awesome “history of web search” infographics: http://bit.ly/9nyxY1
  • Rdio offers streaming music service (+ anywhere access to your home collection) for only $4.99-$9.99/month – http://bit.ly/dbgeVg
  • Android users: Did you know you download any app & return it for a full refund within 48 hours? Basically you can try any app for free!
  • Take the LJ/SLJ eBook Survey: http://is.gd/e1mz0
  • Gmail Now Lets You Save Attachments to the Desktop via Drag-and-Drop (from @mashable) – http://mash.to/2kFf0
  • “Plans let the past drive the future. You have the most information when you’re doing something, not -before- you’ve done it.” ~from Rework
  • Psst, III…your evil is showing! Read Karen Schneider’s (@kgs) thoughts on III’s lawsuit against OCLC: http://bit.ly/asKWRa
  • Found via @sanjoselibrary Fur.ly Shortens and Shares Multiple URLS with a Single Link (via @Lifehacker) – http://lifehacker.com/5604219/
  • Neat Women in tech list on Engadget today by @laura_june (via @mrinaldesai) – http://bit.ly/bmVCty
  • Good stuff from @davidleeking: Building the Digital Branch – A Webinar for ALA Techsource: http://bit.ly/9mWscU
  • Try SDMove to easily figure out which mobile apps can be moved to your SD card. @chuckfalzone @jeffjarvis: http://j.mp/bOEN9e
  • California #Prop8 struck down! From @KQED_CapNotes: “Be who you are, love who you love & marry who you wish 2 marry,” plaintiff Chad Griffin

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Staying Current Sarah-Style: Podcast Recommendations

August 3, 2010 | Comments (15)

I get asked a lot about how I stay caught up with what’s going on with the world.  It takes a lot of time, maybe three hours a day, 90% of which is on my own time.  I have a six-pronged approach:

  1. 200 Twitter feeds (increasing)
  2. 60 blog & other RSS feeds (cut down from 400+)
  3. 20 email newsletters and listservs (ever-decreasing)
  4. 10 “old school” periodicals online (also down)
  5. 10 open access journals (increasing slowly)
  6. and 31 podcasts (increasing quickly)

Yes, I am insane.  And no, I do not suggest this many different sources for normal people wanting to stay current on technology and library stuff.  Kate Sheehan wrote a really good post today on the ALA TechSource blog, about the high stress of staying current: “Keeping Up with Keeping Up.”

About those podcasts… About two years ago I got my job at San Jose Public Library, adding a 90-120 minute commute in each direction.  As such, I started looking for good ways to use that commute time.  I started listening to some fun podcasts (NPR shows & whatnot) at home on my computer.  Then I got an Android HTC Eris smartphone, which has Google Listen on it–which automatically downloads all of the new podcasts for my subscriptions right onto my phone, which I plug into my Prius via the MP3 port, and listen away as I drive!  It’s the best.  Not only because it’s super-easy & requires no intermediary step, but because I learn a lot this way.  It’s a better use of my time than listening to NPR news and radio station music that I am only vaguely interested in.

Below is my list of audio podcast subscriptions.  Some of these come in video variations, and there are other video-only “podcasts” that I still subscribe to in Google Reader (like This Week in Libraries).  But podcasts are now my #2 method of keeping up, right after Twitter.

Any podcast with a * after it is from the TWIT network (a 24/7 all-online television and radio network with a ton of other shows that is run out of Petaluma, CA by the always-awesome Leo Laporte–Leo, hire me!), and any podcast with a # after it is from the This Week In network, a TWIT clone of good quality.

Technology Podcasts

  1. FORA.tv Technology Today
  2. FutureTense
  3. MacBreak Weekly *
  4. NPR: Technology Podcast
  5. Net@Night *
  6. Nodalities
  7. The Tech Guy *
  8. Tech News Today *
  9. This Week in Cloud Computing #
  10. This Week in Google *
  11. This Week in Mobile #
  12. This Week in Social Media #
  13. This Week in Tech *
  14. Windows Weekly *
  15. Wired’s Gadget Lab

Library Podcasts

  1. Adventures in Library Instruction
  2. EDUCAUSE
  3. The Library 2.0 Gang
  4. T is for Training

Web Design and Usability Podcasts

  1. User Experience Podcast
  2. User Interface Engineering: Brain Sparks
  3. WebAxe

Music Podcasts

  1. Idyllic Music Podcast
  2. Magnatune Electronica
  3. Magnatune Hard Electronica
  4. Magnatune Space Music
  5. NPR: All Songs Considered

Other Random “Sarah Interests” Podcasts She Listens to When She’s Tired of Learning in the Car

  1. KQED’s Forum
  2. NPR: Fresh Air
  3. This American Life
  4. VegCast

So why these podcasts and not others?  They have the three winning factors:

  1. Good, quality content of interest to me
  2. Quality audio content
  3. Good production quality (show-pacing, musical interludes, regular show segments, interesting guests, etc.)

I’ve probably tried out two dozen other podcasts, and unsubscribed because they ended (Boagworld, AdaptivePath), the content was uninteresting, the audio quality was so bad and uneven that my head hurt from listening, or the show production quality was laughable.  There was a show that overall had good content called AndroidGuys, but the show had seriously uneven volume levels and sometimes wasted 15 minutes at the start of the show with stupid unrelated topics, har-har-har riffing, and general idiocy.  After blasting my eardrums out three times in a row for hour long shows with 15 minutes of hidden awesome content, I just gave up.  I was sad too–they have a good blog.  Another show, The Hopkinson Report (from Wired‘s marketing guy), has good content but he speaks sooooo fast that I cannot both absorb what he is saying and concentrate on the semis cutting me off in 800-N rush hour traffic.

So let that be a lesson to future podcasters: you need good audio and content both!  It’s not all about a cute name, or getting first-time subscribers.  You have to keep them too.

If you have podcasts you like on any library/tech/web/education-related topic others might be interested, list them in the comments!  We’d love to see what you like, too!  Maybe I’ll find another half dozen to add to my ever-growing list!

LiB Sites and Sources – 2010-08-04

August 3, 2010 | Comments (0)
  • 25 HTML5 features to know. Good stuff if you’re just starting with #HTML5 (via @librarianbyday & @UIE) – http://bit.ly/bydYj6
  • Get a taste of what working at Twitter is like – fun video! via @TheDailyShowFan: http://bit.ly/c3YlwN
  • Facebook Unveils Safety Page for Educators, Parents, Teens (via @natenatenate): http://is.gd/e0L3l
  • A great presentation from David Lee King, “Getting Permission,” on how to move your ideas forward in your library.  Basically, it’s your responsibility to advocate for what you believe is right!  Push hard, and don’t let barriers (often false ones) stand in your way.
  • Are you overwhelmed? Do you have trouble saying no? Read “7 Simple Ways to Say No.”
  • We all know that design is super subjective, and the worst part of a design process since it’s impossible to get complete agreement on anything design-related.  Design by committee is evil!  If that sounds familiar to you, or you’re facing a design challenge now, check out “Beyond ‘I hate green’: Managing Productive Visual Design Reviews” by Kim Cullen on adaptive path.
  • Library of Congress Launches Their 1st Mobile App a virtual tour of the actual Library of Congress.  Time to geek out! (via @resourceshelf) – http://bit.ly/doMPIH
  • Need to explain the various ways to follow you or your library online? A good example is what Mashable just did for its readers: “Follow @Mashable Staff Online” – http://bit.ly/d1SKJZ
  • One of the cooler pop-up books I’ve seen in recent memory (showing the evolution of a town), found via Boing Boing.
  • Two awesome “history of web search” infographics: http://bit.ly/9nyxY1
  • Rdio offers a totally subscription-worthy streaming music service that not only gives you access to their music like Pandora or last.fm do, but it also gives you access from anywhere to your home collection of music.  All for only $4.99-$9.99/month.  I was looking at similar services, but now I’m all over Rdio. Whoo hoo music!  Ars Technica has a good review of the service.

The Future of Libraries and Technology: The Phoenix Rises from the Ashes

August 2, 2010 | Comments (5)

This is a fun presentation.  I gave this keynote at the SEFLIN Conference a week or so ago in Miami.  The intention is to look realistically at where our libraries are at, where our customers are at, where we’re likely to go if we stay on the same path, and where our customers will go based on their paths.  Hint: the paths do not magically merge.

We have a real opportunity right now with funding challenges to focus on the service area with the highest return on investment of any unit, branch, or service.  That’s right–digital and web services.  This means eBooks, eAudio, eMagazines, eNewspapers, online services that tutor kids or help you learn a new language.  We have all this stuff…have had it for a long time.  But now that our doors are closing it’s a nice time to say cheerfully “We’re open online, and here’s what you can get!”

I also think we’re in a time where people with ideas they feel passionately about will have the chance to be heard.  If it saves money, increases efficiency, provides a new service cheaply, then management will be all over it.  Because ultimately, management’s biggest problem is $$$.  Oh yeah, that and politics.  But if you can help with the money part with ideas you’ve been holding onto for ages, now is the time to let those ideas blossom.  We are not powerless.  Our libraries can be what we want them to be–they do not need to remain, as they have, for the last few centuries.  It’s time to make a big, bold move people.  So, what’s yours going to be?

The Future of Libraries and Technology: The Phoenix Rises from the Ashes

Augmented Reality

August 2, 2010 | Comments (10)

I love Augmented Reality (AR).  It is HOT HOT HOT.  But most people don’t know what it is yet ,or if they do, they’re kind of scared of it.  I encourage you to take a try with AR once more.  We at SJPL have a $50,000 grant to develop historical walking tours using augmented reality and original items in our history collection.  So exciting!  Below is a presentation I did for Handheld Librarian 3 Conference.  It walks you through some of what’s out there, the differences in the equipment and data, and what that means potentially for library services.  Be ready to be amazed!

Augmented Reality

Coordinating a Social Media Presence for Your Library

August 2, 2010 | Comments (3)

This is a presentation I gave as part of the Trendy Topics webinar series (which is still going on, y’all — get in on it!)  The idea of having an instruction booklet for staff about social media worked…here’s how!

Coordinating a social media presence for the library