More Questions Than Answers: Month 3 of the Year of the E-book

First, a blog post got passed around on Twitter. Then the NYT picked up on it, and the following week this video was posted to YouTube:


(better version of this from Penguin's Digital unit)

Got your mind properly blown yet? (Yes? Good.)

This is just the start of what promises to be a really ground-breaking year of user experience with e-content. In fact, I think we may have to stop calling them e-books. I knew that the iPad would be a game-changing device because of its ability to connect content with video and touch as well as connectivity, but to see its ability to utterly transform content is AMAZING.

I know we're going to see more of this when the Microsoft Courier makes a debut, and as soon as the Asus eee Pad comes on sale later this year the market will be blown wide open. Just as the touchscreen smartphone became the norm in a little over 2 years, it will take even less time for tablets and "pads" to do the same.

But what else will be transformed? The evaluation of this content is going to be paramount for consumers - a traditional book or media review is not even going to start to cut it for interim consumers stuck between now, where we are in a real Wild West stage of development and innovation and the future, where (hopefully) standards for e-content will emerge... in some way or another. The same e-content could look radically different on one device than it does on another, and lose or gain functionality when ported to yet another.

I've said in the past that digital content needs to be device agnostic, and I'm willing to stick to that as an ideal for now. But things are getting very interesting, and it is nearly impossible to deny at this point that the publishing, reviewing, and bookstore/library industries are getting ready to pass through a fundamental change. Will consumers who bought a Nook only three months ago be satisfied once they see what their money could have bought in Apple's iPad bookstore? Can Kindle fanatics reconcile themselves to plain black and white e-ink when interactivity and animations are available on new-style tablets?

Let's see what Q2 of 2010 brings.

Bookend Scenarios - Public libraries 20 years in the future?

The State Library of New South Wales did a little future forecasting and compiled their results in a nice white paper called Bookend Scenarios (pdf). Although they were focusing on particularly Australian concerns, I was surprised by how applicable their vision is to American libraries. We face very similar challenges to our services, and it's worth taking a look at this report if you are concerned about the public library and its future incarnations.

Above is their matrix of change, with a sector for each of four scenarios named after seminal monographs: nonfiction for generalized scenarios, and fiction for the niche scenarios. The predicted outcomes of each scenario will depend on variables in our socioinformatic landscapes.

Right now, I'd say the average American public library is in the How Buildings Learn quadrant - technology is accelerating & formats are unstable but library services & buildings are expanding to meet community desires. Barring some global catastrophe after Peak Oil, I'd say American libraries are typically headed for a mashup between the Neuromancer and Fahrenheit 451 scenarios. In particular, I think that electronic formats will win the day for most sources of nonfiction and the physical paper-based book will become the province of fiction exclusively. I don't think that we will suffer from the lack of relevance forecast in the Fahrenheit 451 scenario, but I do believe we will find value in the Neuromancer prediction: people's skepticism of information could be tempered by situating librarians as arbiters of content, where we help users discern bias and conflicts of interest in the production of specific pieces of information.

Where do you think public libraries are headed in the next 20 years? We will surely follow society's lead, and the four visions in this fascinating project are distinctly possible versions of our collective future.

Vint Cerf & friends on Net Neutrality

At Internet Librarian 2009, we got to hear Vint Cerf with Google as our Monday keynote. I found this great video by way of Alec Couros' blog, which features Cerf talking about the importance of net neutrality.

Net neutrality is a super important concept for today's Internet users to learn about. Here's why you should support it:

-- Right now, it doesn't matter what you type into the address bar at the top of your browser. Whether you ask for this blog, Google.com, the New York Times, a friend's Facebook page, or your mom's recipe bookmarks on Delicious.com, your Internet service provider (ISP) will serve up whatever you ask for at the same speed. Every site is equal in the eyes of your ISP, and they are *neutral* when it comes to giving you access to these wildly different sites.

-- Without net neutrality, the doors are open to wealthy corporations and other people with influence to pressure the ISPs into delivering some sites more quickly than others. Or not at all. Can you imagine paying for Internet access and not being able to go to the sites you want to visit? Or having to sit and wait while the "right" sites are being delivered quickly, and your ISP deprioritizes your choices because the site owners couldn't afford to pay off TimeWarner, AOL, or (your ISP here)?

Net neutrality is something you should know about. It's a wonderful thing, and it keeps the voices on the Internet flowing in a democratic and fair way. Your choice is what matters - not the choices of the wealthy or well-connected.

For more info and explanation, try the Wikipedia article on net neutrality. SaveTheInternet.com, or the DemocracyNow! video on net neutrality.

Happy 2nd Anniversary from IL2009

I'm excited to celebrate 2 years of blogging here! I wanted a new place to collect library thoughts so began this blog at IL2007 in order to do just that. This has been a great space for me to explore the random library, education, and literature-related ideas that flow through my head. Sometimes I feel like I should have named this blog schooling.ME because that's a more accurate way to describe it :) Having a dedicated blog space has really helped me to think deeply about all the bits and scraps I read about in my RSS feeds, tweet about on Twitter, and text about with friends.

That said, there are even more issues (relatively speaking) this year at IL as compared to two years ago. I have been following the Twitter backchannel chat and trying to pull out the themes that seem to be dominating the conversation this year:

THANKS. First, thanks to all who attended our presentation yesterday, with @lorireed & @librarianbyday & myself (@erindowney). For the lady in the audience who wanted to learn more about RSS, I recommend my wiki at http://cyber64edu.wetpaint.com/page/aggregators%2Freaders and to follow up with http://tinyurl.com/2rf25c . Good luck and drop me an email if you're not feeling it gel for you!

PART ONE from Bobbi Newman
PART TWO from me:

Sneaking the Social Web Into Your Library

View more documents from erindowney.

NOSTALGIA. Despite our love of all things shiny & techno, there was a lot of talk in the keynotes about the solitary experience of reading, the scent of paper, and the sensory cues that tune us into this alternate world of deep contemplation. Although we acknowledge that libraries provide a new and wonderful node of community convergence, walking the line between preserving that singular & personal experience with information and the collective experience with the same is proving difficult for us emotionally. (Imagine how this affects how our patrons see us!)

CONTROL. Directors and other decision-makers are no clearer, according to attendees, about the fact that controlling dialogue online is at best illusory and at worst dictatorial. Transparency and extension of professional trust is the sentiment of the day. The boat has sailed: Internet communication means that we've created a sort of uber-democracy where voices cannot be stifled, no matter how much we may not want to hear them. The new proactive approach to service is to constantly scan the conversation and to become a part of it in productive, positive, and meaningful ways. Not participating is no longer a viable option.

LEARNING. Folks have expressed in various forums that libraries are still doing something very well – being one of those places where true learning can take place and personal passion can be pursued. Traditional schooling and the idea of teaching is transforming mightily, and the attendees here seem to be of the opinion that creating life-long learners is a process happening outside traditional institutions of learning. But this means letting go of our egos and seeing ourselves as coaches or facilitators rather than “teachers,” and is a point of friction.

RADICAL CHANGE/BUREAUCRACY. This dichotomy is not working for people. Librarians need to be set free to experiment, to fail, to try and dabble and poke about in order to bring about the change that's needed to keep up with our users. The world is moving very quickly, and we stand the chance to exponentially lose street cred & relevance. Red tape, delays, paperwork, and other things keep us lumbering along like the dinosaurs (and many see us this way). Flexible, nimble, and ephemeral teams are more relevant as an organizational structure for today's library.

From my perspective, these were all topics we were talking about 2 years ago at IL2007 but today's conversations are much more intense. Transformative change only occurs when we can get our home institutions on board and gain critical mass with our own coworkers. If IL2007 was “try something new,” IL2009 is “DO something NOW!”

The coming explosion!

Since my last rather ranty post about e-readers & such electronic devices, the field has gotten crowded with competitors and announcements. 2010 is totally going to be the year of the e-reader!

Time previews some of the new devices

Barnes & Noble will have their own reader for customers

Amazon answers with a price cut & international Kindle access!

Speculations over tablet PCs from Asus and Apple include e-reader capabilities & design

LG's solar powered reader has promising niche appeal, could be huge in remote/rural places & emerging markets like Africa, etc.

And bloggers do the roundup of developments at the AtlanticWire

What this all boils down to, of course, is that computing is becoming even more mobile and interactive. Being able to manipulate interfaces directly a la the iPhone makes tablets ultra-droolworthy, and the emergence of a mainstream e-reader market has come from the desire of the contemporary reader to engage with text flexibly & digitally. Our silicon ways (wouldn't that make a great band name?) have brought us to an interesting juncture - truly ubiquitous computing may be right at our fingertips.

I'm gonna tweet ur old-skool stuff!

One of the newest trends I've been following? Republishing older, public-domain works in installments online. This definitely proves that everything old can be new again! Ranging from the revered and famous to the unknown and pedestrian, people are rediscovering the pleasures of slowly getting a story in bite-sized chunks. Check them out below:

John Quincy Adams' diary entries brought to you by the Massachusetts Historical Society:
http://twitter.com/Jqadams_mhs

Samuel Pepys can help you relive 1666 all over again:
http://twitter.com/samuelpepys

Dracula is republished in real-time on this blog:
http://dracula-feed.blogspot.com/

Tail-end of the Great Depression through the eyes of a girl in rural Illinois:
http://twitter.com/Genny_Spencer/

The Orwell Prize is republishing the writer's diaries in blog form:
http://orwelldiaries.wordpress.com/

If you know of others, let me know and I will add them to this post.

I downloaded a book (and I liked it... sort of)

I felt as though, after my last post, I should play more with electronic books so that I can speak from a position of experience. So, I fired up my Kindle app on my iPhone - downloaded only because it was free - and flipped through my purchases, such as they were. I had only downloaded a short story and a few sample chapters, so I had no real experience at extended reading on my phone.

Because I've been enjoying the TV show True Blood based on Charlaine Harris' novels, I decided to try the first in her Sookie Stackhouse series. I had flipped through them years before, and thought I might give them another try. After all, reading tastes change and I needed an "average" book to try out: something I would have bought in paperback, not too long or too short, just an average sort of book in order to get an average experience reading using Kindle.

Well, that was a mistake.

Dead Until Dark was a fun little book. So fun, in fact, I was eager to see what happened next in the series. And with an electronic book, all you have to do is hit the download button. It's like a direct delivery system for book addicts; Kindle crack, if you will. The rush of instant gratification was a little magical and a little thrilling. There I was, in the backseat of a car, and within moments I was reading the continued tales of a vampire-dating waitress from Louisiana. I was about as happy as a real book lover could possibly be.

But that feeling didn't last very long after I was done. For me, books are just about as social as anything else in the world. So of course I started thinking of people I would recommend this series to. And I realized that I could recommend all I liked, but that I wouldn't be able to lend them my copies of the books! I'd have to hand over my phone in order to lend out my "books." And in my mind, that's a big loss. One of my big readers' advisory mantras is that recommendations are only as good as your ability to connect the reader and book as fast as possible. Nobody likes to wait, and there's a reason why Big Chain Bookstores engage in the "here, let me hand you the merchandise" practice: it cements the deal.

So while the e-book version was convenient for me as a solitary reader, it led me into a dead end. Even if I was able to "gift" my digital copy to another reader, it would still only be able to be read on an iPhone or a Kindle itself. I think the experience left me a little poorer than it found me - although now I've read the books, I'm not able to share that with other people unless they are willing to pay about $6.00 and go out to find the books themselves.

I'm inclined to think that this hurts the publishing industry more than it supposedly helps them. I rarely lend out an entire series of books, but I frequently lend the first copy in a series to friends and colleagues who are willing to give them a try. How many subsequent sales does that drive? Also, the price point seemed pretty arbitrary to me. I could pay between $2.00-$6.00 for a used paperback copy for the same book locally, and have the residual value of the physical book left over for sharing, etc. In theory, e-books are so cost-efficient to deliver to the consumer that it totally disrupts the distribution model. You only need one copy of the book on a central server to make a copy of for each reader, so I hope more of the profits would go to the writer (but I strongly suspect this isn't really the case). And finally, publishers are losing their cheapest form of free advertising. Nobody I encountered that day knew I was sitting there reading Dead Until Dark. They had no clue. When carrying around a physical book in public, I usually get at least basic questions from people I encounter like "is that any good?" or "do you like it?" Now those chance encounters are all closed off.

So in the pros column, we have convenience and portability as well as instant gratification. But in the cons column, I experienced a lot of frustration in trying to share my reading experience. E-books also seem expensive given their limitations and restrictions.

While I won't be repeating this experience with downloadable audiobooks (I am notoriously unable to listen to books, so it wouldn't be a fair experiment), I do feel like I've gotten more insight on the electronic reading experience. If anyone has thoughts to share, I'd like to hear what you have to say in the comments section.

Just call it my Babel wish...

I spent an hour with a patron the other day trying to figure out why, suddenly, her MP3 player refused to let her listen to audiobooks from one of our vendors. It worked before... and now, it wouldn't.

She just wanted to lend it to her students, and let them listen. It turns out that the software installed on her player is a huge problem for nearly everyone, and she would have to reformat the player to even attempt to get it to work.

Digital Rights Management, in its current form(s), effectively prevents libraries from delivering the information people want and need. DRM controls how a digital copies of audiobooks, songs, and e-books are decoded by the consumer, and is seen as essential to preserving the rights of creators and distributors. While DRM prevents people from easily copying and distributing these works, it also prevents them from easily consuming them. The industry seems unwilling to agree on a single standard that would work on any device, instead choosing to elaborately encode digital files with competing technology.

And that's where libraries come in. We are dedicated to bringing patrons the media they want and need, but now find ourselves at a crossroads: there are stories and information out there that are impossible for us to provide to our patrons because of DRM. The perfect example is the novella Ur by Stephen King. Since this story is only available on the Kindle reader from Amazon, we cannot purchase a copy to lend out. Some interpret the Kindle terms of service to mean that you cannot lend the actual device to another person to read the books, which is pretty draconian, but it is certainly well understood that it is a violation of their terms of service to transfer the purchase to another device – in other words, we couldn't even buy a digital copy of the story to lend out to patrons on their own devices! That's as ridiculous as telling someone that they are only allowed to read in certain rooms of their house, but it's roughly the equivalent.

If we come back to my poor patron who could not wrestle her MP3 player's software into submission, we can also see how DRM can ruin the audiobook experience as well. If you've never attempted to borrow a downloadable audiobook from a library, the pitfalls are many: computer issues, device issues, and software issues – oh my!

First, our library blocks downloading at patron computers. That means that when we are attempting to help a patron with their audiobook, we are typically coaching them over the phone or the internet. The process is especially challenging because the patrons may not be computer savvy in the first place, and may need help with basic tasks that are totally foreign to them. Then you have to determine if their cell phone, MP3 player, or other device is compatible with your vendor – we use NetLibrary/Recorded Books and Overdrive between the audiobooks we've bought and the ones we get through our State Library. Even if their device is listed as compatible, they may have some sort of strange software pre-installed by the manufacturer that cripples the process. Finally, there is usually some sort of download involved to the end user's computer in order to translate the DRM coding on the receiving end – and that may not work perfectly and need additional troubleshooting.

While DRM is a component of digital files that can potentially protect copyright and ensure that authors aren't missing out on hard-earned revenue, the industry has failed in its execution (especially where libraries are concerned). When I hand a(n) (audio)book to a patron, I don't tell them that they can only read it in their dining room or in the bathtub. They can take it to the beach, listen on their commute, or read in bed for all I care. Using DRM to restrict digital files to certain devices or certain software is the 21^st century equivalent of deciding the medieval monks got it right by chaining books to the shelves so nobody would make off with them!

While in the past there might have been merit in standing back and letting the industry develop a standard, as in the VHS vs. Betamax format war of the late 1970s, I don't think today's libraries have this luxury. Our patrons are depending on us to deliver information to them that works no matter which device they have purchased, not to sit around waiting to see what sort of highly restricted, totally proprietary system that various publishing industries will invent. It's not out of the question to imagine Rhapsody and the Sony Reader e-inking an exclusive deal with one set of publishers/record companies, while another set decides to provide content only to Amazon Kindles and iTunes. How would we provide access then?

The future of publishing is content that is device agnostic. We need a standard that allows for both ease in downloading and copy protection. And libraries could make this happen sooner than you think.

If publishers want to know what's in it for them, I can tell you right now that it's spelled SALES. Adopt a common currency for distributing media files, make it easy for people to use them, and the money will certainly follow. Libraries are crazy about downloadables anyway because they eliminate the possibility of damage or inevitability of replacement that you get with physical copies of media. (Consumers like all that too, by the way.)

The American Library Association estimates that there are around 123,129 libraries in the United States alone. If each library were to donate just $5 to a common fund, we could start a competition much like the X Prize Foundation. That's a pot of over $600,000 as a prize for developing the best universal DRM system ready for immediate and cost-effective adoption by the publishing industry. I'm willing to throw in the first Lincoln! I've been calling it my private Babel Wish, but I'm open to better suggestions now that I've gone public.

We have a professional obligation to collaborate in ways that expand access to knowledge. This would be one powerful way to do it. Are you in?

Techy Talk via OPAL!

I gave a little talk today to folks from all over the world online! It was delivered via OPAL (Online Programming for All Libraries) and it's still going strong - I'm definitely tuning in tomorrow for more awesome talks!

In these budget-crunching times, an online conference is a great way to network and learn without traveling and spending a lot of dough. I was pleased to talk about education, libraries, and technology... and pleased to see so many interested "faces" in the crowd!

Check it out at OPALescence (my page is here)! It's FREE, it's ONLINE, and it's EASY. Things don't get awesomer than that!!!

Uglies free online!

One of the most popular series for teens is a limited-time free download in .pdf format! Of course, they're promoting Westerfeld's newest book, Leviathan, but who can complain about that? As more and more publishers make their works available in online forms, I can see more and more ways that you could leverage this free/cheap material for classroom use. Of course, the best aspect of the online text is its infinity - instead of having to police limited numbers of physical copies and tell students to hustle and read so others can have access too, every student could log in and read online, or download to their personal device-- no waiting.

On a related note, education stands to gain the most from asking publishers to give up on DRM and concentrate on better ways to maximize revenue.

Welcome to the 21st century library

I am a survivor of many a teen gaming tournament. I've organized and worked at both computer and console gaming events in several libraries, and I can say without a doubt that it's plain hard work. And it's worthwhile work - I'm just as likely to ask a reluctant reader what games they like to play in order to help them pick out a book as I am to ask them about their favorite movies and TV shows. If I was totally out of touch with gaming and other activities that teens love, I would not be able to effectively connect young people to all sorts of media - including books.

If librarians look like they're having fun on the job, it's because we love what we do, not because we get to sit around playing games all day. Unfortunately, this is not the case in Nebraska, where some are accusing the State Library Commission of being wasteful stewards of taxpayer money by purchasing and learning to use gaming equipment with the intent to train public librarians in their state.

This sort of training is needed - in my current library system, we had to hold trainings and create a usage manual for our gaming kits. Using gaming equipment is not exactly an intuitive process, and we need to be just as prepared for gaming programs as we do for any other programs. If librarians didn't study up on games before presenting them to the public, it would be like not reading the book before showing up to facilitate a book group. Or not trying out a database before teaching a patron to use it.

Gaming in libraries is important for several reasons. Reluctant users can see that librarians are aware of and appreciate the activities that are important to them. The library can become less intimidating and comfort can be established for young patrons who are underserved or unserved. Gaming also creates community for patrons who are highly social, helping gamers connect with like-minded people. Libraries collect stories of all kinds, and they can be found in books, music, movies, and games!

But it's not easy to do. There's a lot of work involved. And while it may look like we're just playing around, librarians are gaming with a purpose: to help young people through our doors and into the larger collection - for life-long learning and community building. It looks unorthodox, it may be noisy and boisterous, and it challenges long-held stereotypes about libraries and library atmosphere. Welcome to the 21st century library!

For more information about how our library has phased gaming into our regular services, check out my VOYA article: So You Wanna Play Games? A Start-up Guide for Gaming in the Library.

The year in ed

I wanted to cap off this year's blogging with a good activity. So I decided to use Wesley Fryer's prompt to read the posts nominated for Most Influential of 2008 in the EduBlog Awards.

Chris of BetchaBlog posted on the New Digital Divide. Just more anecdotal proof that the education field is suffering from the same (digital?) malaise as the library field:

I think what often shocks me the most about teachers who don’t take technology very seriously, is just how far behind they really are. They don’t have any idea just how out of touch they are with the kids they teach each day… kids who in most cases are far too polite to say anything about their teachers’ lack of technology understanding. But trust me, they know who you are…

Some of the classic excuses for why some teachers don’t integrate technology might include the following… how many have you heard before?

• “Im retiring in a couple of years anyway” (yes, but your students are not)
• “I’m too old to learn this stuff”
• “I’m too busy, I don’t have the time”
• “I have too much content to get through” (this one is usually followed by “you just don’t know what it’s like”… ah, yes, I do.)
• “I don’t really like computers” (you don’t have to like them, you just have to use them)
• “I just don’t understand technology” (as though they think no one has noticed that yet)

Chris goes on to say he's most scared about the growing chasm between the "information-wills" and the "information-will-nots." I hear that! Honestly, this has nothing to do with age - I meet just as many younger folks who use these excuses as older ones.

Reading all the nominated posts was a pleasure - it was great to hear diverse voices in the field from all around the world! The international nature of online education dialogue is really what will help change the nature of "doing school" in the 21st century. It's not going to be just one school or one state/province/district or even one country - I now truly believe that the education revolution is going to be driven from a global perspective. Is there even any other? Thomas Friedman only said what was obvious: the world is flat, and we affect each other more than ever on a daily basis.

I can only hope that holds true and that this magnificent online educational community will grow, keep learning, and use their voice to speak for true change and authentic learning experiences for students the world over. This movement is more important than ever: if we're all too busy and cannot make the time to do the important work of our day, what sort of example will we set for youth?

The New Ownership

Today I read two very interesting items:

1) CC Learn reports that

the University of Michigan Library has adopted CC licensing for all of its own content. Any work that is produced by the library itself, and to which the University of Michigan holds the copyrights, will be released under the Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial license (CC BY-NC).

2) Scott McLeod is blogging on his attempt to convince ISTE that they should ask their conference presenters to apply a CC license to their presentations for the benefit of the larger K-12 .edu community.

It really seems that a larger awareness of Creative Commons, at least among the .edu technorati, is brewing.  Instead of trying to protect and hide intellectual work behind the total wall of traditional copyright, the new conversation looks like it will revolve around how others should be permitted to use that intellectual work.  

This is a significant shift in the traditional ownership concept.  While U of M is purposefully moving forward in a unified direction with their CC licensing, the other side of the coin is seen in the vigorous discussion among the ISTE folks.  I also believe that this is shedding light on the changing nature of conferences in general.

While meeting in person is incredibly powerful and energizing, technology is making it more and more possible to participate in conferences (while not actually attending).  And the possibility of this is awesome, as it promises to break down distance and other barriers to learning.  However, not all conferences might be as open-minded as ISTE.  You want to get a good return on your investment when putting on a conference, and I can see other organizations afraid to even consider asking presenters to release their intellectual work freely.  To some, this may be seen as devaluing the conference experience and letting people "get all the benefits of attending for free!"  

Dedicated conference-goers know that's not the case.  Attending in person has a power that few other experiences can match.  However, restricting ideas to small groups of only a few does nothing to encourage the free flow of innovation.  If we really want to effect change within our professions, we have to think about throwing the doors wide open to see what happens.  

...and, for a whole other spin on this same topic, check out Will Richardson's post on Larry Lessig's new book, Remix.  

she got her head in the clouds (sharada sharada)

Ok, so the song isn't about cloud computing - but it's close :)

I'm glad I waited to blog on this, because I bumped into a great new book on this very topic. The Big Switch : Rewiring the World, from Edison to Google by Nicholas Carr is fascinating. Carr interweaves history with present-day computing by describing the first switch (from dynamos to electric utilities) alongside the second switch (from local hard drives to computing power in the cloud). Just as electric utilities proved to transform business and life in general, so will this trend towards large computing clusters accessible via the "cloud."

For example, check out Amazon S3. This concept promises to unleash computing power to the masses previously only accessible to large corporations. By eliminating investment in hardware and turning storage and processing into a pay-to-play model, anyone with a good idea and a little code can make their digital dreams a reality.

But unlike the electric utility, we are now trading intellectual property. What will Google, or Amazon, or Apple, or MS DO with your data? Will it be protected? Is your data safe? Should a business, for example, risk exposing customer data to the cloud? The ethics of cloud computing are a compelling reason for people to tread this new water carefully. Electricity is value-neutral. Data is not.

So the price may be right, but the true cost of maintaining off-site machinery is (currently) muddled in this electronic age. This may well be the new frontier: web 3.0, where your storage choice can be a game-changer.

NEKLS Tech Day reflections

If a small business owner comes in the door needing resources, web 2.0 tools may very well be the information that makes the difference for them.
(attribution needed; comment if you can remember who said it!)

This was one of the great revelations of NEKLS Tech Day! I feel as though we are all talking about instinctively knowing that these wonderful webby tools and new technological abilities can help our patrons, but in many ways we have to be prepared to draw lines and make connections for them. We need a broad knowledge of different topics, but also of the tools that harness and enhance knowledge for users. Y'know, power to the patron and all :)

I don't believe that we so-called "techie" librarians are really techie in the sense that we have some supernatural knowledge or abilities. I think you can consider yourself techie if you try to keep up with the flow of information evolution, if you try to tread water in this rapidly unfolding world of data storage, retrieval, and creation.

And that was the best part of tech day - getting to commune with other librarians who are trying to do this same thing. Sharon Moreland did a great job making the day possible, as did all the presenters :) Oh, and if you happened to be in my presentation and still want to hear the audio from the videos I've linked to them here.

Happy tech, y'all. I hope we can keep up the good work treading water together :)

P.S. I nearly forgot! The other awesome topic we covered was cloud computing... it nearly needs a post of its own so I will save that for later this month.

Copyrights (& wrongs)

It's been a busy two months since my last post... besides ALA and some much-enjoyed vacation time, everything seems to have piled up! Off to the right you will see myself and Cory Doctorow, happy to meet briefly at a Tor event in Anaheim. I told him how rad we all found his new YA novel, Little Brother, and he was glad to hear it.

When I got home, I got my new issue of Knowledge Quest in the mail and read with interest the article called "Copyright and Portfolios" by Rebecca Butler. I found the ethical questions of the subject fascinating. It concerns electronic portfolios of graduating seniors where the students have used copyrighted materials such as music and film clips: fair use or infringement? Butler concurs that yes, it's fair use as long as the students were using said clips for public school curriculum and used them to "realize their specific learning objectives." She cites some sources (this was the only online one, sorry) and goes on to say that such "class-generated portfolios" can be used to demonstrate expertise in applications for jobs or higher ed. Butler adds that you should inform students that the portfolios should not be used for profit ("[don't] sell any of the pieces [...] or use them in a paid presentation.")

I was worried after reading this, because a quick scan of the article seems reassuring... if your students have "added entire popular songs to their projects, as well as large clips from movie CDs, DVDs, and videos" then maybe everything is just a-ok and kosher. It takes a close reading of this brief article and a little deep thought to conclude that A) you might need to do more research into fair use before you let students create portfolios with such egregious "sampling" (the last time I checked using a work in its entirety is not sampling) and B) you'll need to figure out how to break it to your students that a more-than-passing understanding of copyright may be the most important "technological skill" thy could have in the 21st century.

While I think it's imperative that students (and citizens) have the right to fair use of copyrighted intellectual work (especially in the cases of criticism and parody), I believe that it may be encouraging intellectual laziness to reach for the latest Coldplay song and pop it in as the musical backdrop to a PowerPoint report. Sure, it's popular culture; sure, it's handy; sure, it's easier in the short run than searching for music where the creators have given explicit permission for its use. I maintain that in the long run, using apparatuses such as Creative Commons can serve to build students' appreciation and understanding of copyright so that they may gradually build up to the use of commercially copyrighted works with full knowledge of the risks and benefits. By making the due consideration of copyright and fair use integral to the construction of such electronic portfolios, we can equip students with skills that they can put to good use in the workplace and/or academia.

Cited:

Rebecca P. Butler. (2008). Copyright and Portfolios. Knowledge Quest, 36(5), 74.

Sherpas Help Teachers

An article from the Christian Science Monitor points out the rewards that teens and teachers in rural Maine get when giving (and getting) tech assistance. I liked the multimedia feature that accompanied the article. But one thing nags at me-- they talk about how relieved the teachers are to get tech help and how the students benefit from sharing their knowledge, but I sincerely hope that this program isn't replacing adequate professional development and training that teachers need to effectively implement technology in the classroom.

When I think back to my high school days in the mid 1990s, the district was bragging about having a computer in every room (for the teacher's use, of course). But who were the ones actually using it? In many cases, students. There were several teachers who didn't know how to do something as fundamental as retrieving files... I vividly recall demonstrating how to save a file to one teacher, who was just baffled by the whole process. I guess we were sherpas, too, in our own way. (Ah, the heady days of Windows 95, so radically different from 3.1!)

I guess I hoped that in 10 years, things would have changed fundamentally in the edtech world. Am I being pessimistic? Should I look at these new tech sherpas as an advancement, the next iteration of the teen tech support desk? Or should I be more skeptical of these glossy stories about how "cutting edge" teens seem to perennially be beside us older folks? (and holy cow, am I older folks now?!?)

This time, it's academic

Wright State University is now providing students with sound-proof spaces for podcasting. This is clearly a trend to watch!

Technically speaking

This week was pretty productive, technically speaking. I did a Cyber 6 Pack workshop with some school library media specialists, and made lots of notes about how I need to adjust the presentation as I forge ahead. But in other news, we discovered that we might have problems giving wireless access to a local school participating in a 1:1 laptop program (Macs!).

Our crack IT teams are exploring the issue and will try to isolate the problem. Even though this school isn't in our service area, the kids with the laptops use our libraries. I think it's vital to provide all users with a great experience to the best extent possible, so the outcome of this situation is important to me. Plus, when we have users bringing in their own laptops it greatly eases the demand for our desktops - resulting in more access for all patrons. It's a win - win.

Another awesome thing I saw this week was a recording studio in a NZ library. I have agreed with colleagues for some time that what we need is a sort of library "gadget lab," where users can come in and explore new technology and find out what it's all about. If it doubled as a recording studio for video and audio, all the better! We are doing more and more podcasting and vidcasting so a room like this would help us as well as patrons. It's called Beatbooth, and lots of users are flocking to its affordable hourly rates and cool library location. You couldn't wedge a 5 piece band in there, but it's got a keyboard, mic, and Mac. Awesome :)

Sharing new tools

Today I tried to imagine how Rollyo could revolutionize our library practice. Here's what I came up with:

Would you like an easier way to find county school information? Try my new Rollyo search! I took all our individual school websites and “rolled” them into one customized search: http://www.rollyo.com/erindowney/joco_schools/

This is but one of the awesome tools we learned about in the Internet@Schools sessions. I can see recommending this tool to patrons who need the “right” information rather than a Google search dump… especially for homework. Help kids pick a handful of trusted and authoritative sites, and they can roll their own search engine that gives them very specific results.

If we don't like to rely on Google, now we have an alternative. Of course, this means adding an extra step and selecting sites in which we place authority. That means that we need to have a better sense of what's out there to use on the web. And again, more librarian job security to the rescue ;)