New survey finds GenY biggest library users December 31, 2007
Posted by Will in libraries, technology.Tags: GenY, Internet, libraries, Pew, usage
1 comment so far
The newest Pew survey surprisingly finds that “62 percent of Generation Y respondents (young adults in the tech-loving group aged 18-30) said they visited a public library in the past year, with a steady decline in usage according to age. Some 57 percent of adults aged 43 to 52 said they visited a library in 2007, followed by 46 percent of adults aged 53 to 61; 42 percent of adults aged 62 to 71; and just 32 percent of adults over 72.”
Cell phones as the essential interface December 26, 2007
Posted by carolyn610 in technology.Tags: access to information, cell phones as debit card, cells phones
1 comment so far
NPR had a story today in their morning program, business section, that examined why cell phones usage was so much more advanced in Europe and Asia. One key point that leapt out at me was the fact that in Asia the commute time is very long and essentially eats up much of their free time. If they couldn’t access the web and television on their cell phones while they were commuting or at work (they talked about bar tenders watching soccer matches at work on their phones), they wouldn’t have the free time to do so. Commute times are increasing around this country.
Second point of interest from that news story: infrastructure. Europe and Japan standardized their systems much sooner than we have. The report stated that our cell phone companies are just getting around to it, but driven by economic opportunity (IPHONE sales are brisk) they see that the infrastructure will soon be available. In Japan you can load your phone with money and then use it to buy gum, pay subway fares, etc. What are libraries doing to ready their technological infrastructre to handle demands like this?
mumbo jumbo web site names December 21, 2007
Posted by Will in online tools, technology, virtual life.Tags: web2.0 names naming web
2 comments
I’m sure you’re as confused as I am by all the Dr. Seuess-style web service names that pop up these days: Doostang. Wufoo. Bliin. Thoof. Bebo. Meebo. Meemo. Kudit. Raketu. Etelos. Iyogi. Oyogi. Qoop. Fark. Kijiji. Zixxo. Zoogmo.
You get the picture. David Pogue at the New York Times has written an excellent analysis of this trend.
Will
What We DON’T Know? December 7, 2007
Posted by susanbarrett in Uncategorized.1 comment so far
From tompeters.com today: (DNK = Do Not Know and connects to a recent prior statement about CIA revelations re Iran)
Reward “DNK” When You DNK
Of course you don’t want to reward “I didn’t bother to …” laziness, but you do want to reward—Big Time—truth-telling. Hence, cheer publicly the person who admits, in front of a boss, that he or she “does not know” the facts here, or the answer to this or that. In fact, …, make a game (serious game!) out of identifying the “DNKs” regarding any analysis or proposed action. Frankly, good inventories of DNKs may be far more important to success than inventories of DKs.(bolding added)
I thought this seemed an interesting angle to pursue, when examining a possible project or activity. It likely has an opposing corollary–of more imminent danger to librarians– trying to list too much before the first action is taken? [Peters has an oft-repeated slogan--"Ready, Fire, Aim!"]
Personal Learning Plans & PageFlakes December 6, 2007
Posted by emiaukea in online tools, technology.3 comments
Before I was torn away to go to Chris’ farewell lunch I was participating in a very interesting WebJunction webinar, part of their ‘Learning’ series. Some of you know how intrigued I am with the idea of developing a ‘Personal Learning Plan’ and trying to encourage others to join me in the journey for themselves and also because I think we’ll all learn more an have fun in a group.
Now to the point…and that is to share this cool web tool I just heard about today called PageFlakes. It’s one of many tool/sites that use a technology called Ajax that lets you create a custom online ‘environment.’ Starting with their wizard and with a little extra (simple!) work on my part about half an hour I was all set-up with my own Start Page. I was able to drag and drop widgets around on the screen (called ‘flakes’) so I can see and access my Gmail, local news and weather, a calendar, several podcasts, a calculator and more! They even have a RSS reader if you have lots of blogs to keep track of.
Check it out! A few hints from my own experience — it’s not that obvious that you need to create an account to save your settings and get a unique URL. Once you do that (and verify your email address) you’ll be able to tell it where you live in your settings.
If you make your PageFlake public, make sure you ping me so we can see each other: my username is elizabeth.iaukea.
