Here’s my first test Prezi.
When I see the stat about average broadband speed, it almost makes me cry. What the hell is wrong with us?!
I’m so glad that the media keeps providing librarians with great, up-to-date, examples of why it’s important for students not to believe everything they read on the web.
Interesting post that basically urges the PGA to start building stronger relationships with its fan base. On the one hand, it’s hard to understand why a group would want to put the effort into a social media presence if it wasn’t going to reach out to it’s fans. That said, a lot of organizations are not willing to put the resources into building these conversations and some just plain don’t understand how this environment works. They’ve just jumped in because someone suggested that they do so.
So, will the PGA make it? Hard to say. Some sports organizations are going to embrace social networking and do it well, while others don’t. Time will tell just where the PGA will end up.
Neat stuff from Google and I can certainly see applications for this in some areas, such as health. What it really reminds me of, though, is role that people still play in interpreting what the user is looking for as well as the results one gets from a search. Looks like Librarians will continue to stick around for at least a little while longer.
Feel free to debate, dispute, display any of these numbers.
Holy cow. Now you can crank out your own iPhone or Android app with minimal hassle using what amounts to a quasi WYSIWYG interface. Let the flood of similar looking apps begin, but this does provide libraries looking to have a presence in this realm but no skills a way to do it. More will obviously come in the near future.
C&RL News recently published an article called “Reaching Remote Students” by Susan D. Herring, Robert R. Burkhardt, and Jennifer L. Wolf. In it, the authors describe how they implemented an electronically embedded librarian program at their institution - Athens State University. It’s a very interesting read and they provide some great suggestions for others contemplating a similar program.
What I was most struck by, however, was their admission that they were “reaching the limit” of the staff’s ability to take on more classes. It’s not that I’m surprised by this. I think that most of us know that assisting patrons online takes more time than it does when we’re helping them face to face with the same question. At some point, any institution will reach a point where they don’t have enough staff to handle all the virtual questions coming their way.
What I wonder about is how we, as a profession, are going to deal with this issue. Education experts tell us that more and more classes will be moving online either completely or partially. If that happens, will our ability to assist students and faculty slide? Working smarter, not harder, and new technology will help us to some extent, but it remains to be seen just how this will all play out.
I, personally, think that this is event that may spur people to start utilizing librarians outside of their institution. I’m not sure how this would work, think of it as a form of limited crowdsourcing with other librarians. Of course, there would be a huge knot of issues to be resolved such as compensation, but the technology is here now to do this. Maybe we just missing the will and the creativity to make it happen.
This is a very trivial use of this technology, but can you imagine how much easier augmented reality could make the process of finding things in the library? Patrons wouldn’t have to struggle trying to decipher call numbers - they’d just follow the signs in whatever device they were using to display the augmented reality screen (people are working on contacts that will do this!) and walk right to the book, video, etc.
Of course, that still won’t help if the item isn’t shelved properly, but then again maybe it will. If the device is connected to the RFID tag in the book, it should be able to seek it out wherever it is!
Isn’t this the same guy who went in and change a bunch of his privacy settings so that people wouldn’t be able to see ALL the info being blasted out by his own product?
