Technically Random

Further to our organizational communication thread, Webchattr is a neat application which creates an instant chatroom for impromptu (or even promptu) meetings.  I like apps like this where there is no sign-in, no set up - nada. It’s pretty ingenious, actually.  Just put this URL into your browser (substituting the part at the end for a room you want to create):

http://www.webchattr.com/go/PUT_A_ROOM_NAME_HERE

A room is instantly created and you are there ready to chat.  Let other potential members know about your little meeting and they can join by simply pointing their browsers to the same URL.  And voila! Instant meeting / chatroom - no muss, no fuss.  The rooms seem to stick around for a while, so you can go back to them.  Best of all, Webchattr works really well on an iphone /ipod touch.  So, let’s meet virtually next time - my new office location is now somewhere called Starbucks.

The latest in the Educause “7 Things You Should Know About …” series:

7 Things You Should Know About Lulu

Lulu is a web-based self-publishing service, providing online access to the tools an individual needs to design, publish, and print original material, including books, brochures, reports, calendars, and posters. Self-publishing offers an alternative to traditional publishing by allowing authors and creators of content to decide what gets published and in what form, allowing anyone to publish a book inexpensively and much more quickly than with traditional publishing. Faculty can use the service to publish more timely textbooks and other material for courses, and by having access to the tools of production, students can see and understand the processes involved.

WOW!  This just in from the WIRED News Feed:

Sources at Google have disclosed that the humble domain, http://research.google.com, will soon provide a home for terabytes of open-source scientific datasets. The storage will be free to scientists and access to the data will be free for all. The project, known as Palimpsest and first previewed to the scientific community at the Science Foo camp at the Googleplex last August, missed its original launch date this week, but will debut soon.

Read more at: http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/01/google-to-provi.html

There’s been some talk going around about library applications in Facebook.  At the Web 2.0 Workshop last summer we talked a little about library and research-related tools that have Facebook apps, such as JSTOR and Books-I-Like.  An article appeared in the Chronicle last week on searching the catalog in facebook, discussing the worldcat.org tool. Mostly this article re-iterated the question: will people use Facebook as a tool for research?  Do they want library tools there in the first place?

Over the weekend, Gerry McKiernan posted the results of a survey to his blog, Friends: Social Networking Sites for Engaged Library Services, on Library Outreach and Social Networking sites.  In part of the survey, students are asked whether they would want library tools available in their MySpace or Facebook.  Take a look at the post for the results . . .

The Library of Congress is putting more than 3000 photos from two of its most popular digital collections on Flickr and inviting people to add tags and other descriptive data.  The announcement here on the LC Blog and here on the Flickr blog.

This is an exciting experiment both in exposing our collections and in involving the community in metadata creation.

You can view the photos on the LC Flickr page.

A couple of related articles came across my RSS reader within a few days of each other.

Virtual Worlds Poised to Become Valuable Work Tools from ReadWriteWeb talks about a new report from Forrester on the use of virtual worlds in the workplace.  I’m not going to repeat the whole post, but it does talk about the ways some big organizations are using virtual worlds, like Second Life, to bring employees together to meet and collaborate.

Prediction Markets at Google: A Guest Post appeared on the NYT Freakonomics Blog a few days later and it discusses some research done at Google on predictors of success in their internal prediction market.  One of the biggest predictors of success, it turns out, is physical location of the individual’s workspace.  Participation on the same cross-departmental project did not have any effect on trading behavior, though participation on similar email lists did yield similar trading behavior.  One of the comments to this post describes how the work spaces at Linden Lab (creator of Second Life) have been arranged so that people do not share office space with others working on the same team or project.  Team and project work happens in virtual office space in Second Life.

These two posts got me thinking about information flow and idea generation in our organization.  We are spread across 700 acres on the Seattle campus and 70+ miles up and down the Puget Sound corridor.  Where’s the water cooler?  We have some intentional sharing gatherings like the Final Friday Information Literacy Group meetings but how can we have those hallway meetings when our hallways are in different buildings?  The articles above show that the physical arrangement of staff and the smart use of technology can go a long way to enhancing communication in the organization.

The beginning of the new year and ALA Midwinter brings lists of top tech trends for the coming year. Here’s a short wrap-up of some of the trends being predicted for 2008:

Eric Lease Morgan (LITA Blog):

• Linux on the server and desktop will increase
• Open access will grow
• Social networking spaces maturing
• Blogging will continue to effect the way we communicate

Sarah Houghtan-Jan (LibrarianInBlack.net):

• Tough Budget, Tech Stays
• Widening of the Digital Divide and our Inattention to It
• User-Centered Content Production
• Virtual Reference Software a la Rest-O’-The-World?
• We Stop Being So Bossy
• Another Day of Open Source

Karen Schneider (Free Range Librarian):

• Interoperability
• Open systems, open data

Karen Coombs (Library Web Chic):

• Ultra-light and small PCs
• New uses of wireless
• Blogging ceases to exist as blogging
• On the Go Applications and Data

Then this from the publishing world, 15 Trends to Watch in 2008 by Mike Shatzkin at Publishers Weekly.

And, finally 10 Technologies That Will Transform Your Life, published by LiveScience during the Consumer Electronics Show last week.

I’ve been doing some analysis of our WebBridge link resolver logs to see if they can tell us anything about usage of our electronic resources.  Mostly it confirms what we already know, use of Web of Science is high, use of WorldCat Local is high.

One piece of data that I’ve been keeping my eye on is the originating links coming in to WebBridge from Google Scholar.  Since going live with the WebBridge linking from GS, we’ve had pretty consistent hit rates per month.  All the more impressive since we never really marketed the service.

note: due to an error in the downloading process, we do not have any WebBridge data for May 2007.

My summary report for the WebBridge log analysis can be found on Staffweb at:
https://staffweb.lib.washington.edu/units/cms/collection-assessment/webbridge-data/webbridge-summary-2007

-Corey

Thanks to Nancy Huling for forwarding this announcement:

Interested in Web 2.0 stuff? This is a ALA Midwinter event not to miss!

Saturday, 1/12, 10:30 a.m. to 12 noon
PCC (Pennsylvania Convention Center – PCC)
Room: 201 B/C

Tag You’re It! Midwinter Hot Topics Discussion Focuses on Web 2.0 Social Tagging Technologies to Increase Patron-Library Interaction

Jointly sponsored by MARS Products and Services and the Hot Topics Discussion Group, this Midwinter Hot Topics Discussion will bring three speakers to Philadelphia to discuss their library’s experience implementing Web 2.0 social software which enables “tagging” to enhance patrons’ interaction with the library and its resources. Jennifer Sweda, Cataloging Librarian for University of Pennsylvania Libraries will speak about the well-know PennTags project. Like del.icio.us, PennTags software allows readers to tag catalogued items and works as a social bookmarking tool for locating, organizing, and sharing favorite resources. Lauren Stokes, Virtual Library Manager at the Las Vegas-Clark County Library District will speak about how her library system is enabling the community to add reviews to resources in their catalog. Hot Topics third speaker Kate Sheehan, Coordinator of Library Automation at Danbury Public Library, will discuss how they have implemented LibraryThing and how it has increased patron interaction with the catalog.

Be sure to “tag” this event for your 2008 Midwinter conference calendar! This Hot Topics presentation and discussion, “Tag You’re It: A revolution in patron-library interaction” will take place on January 12th, Saturday, from 10:30-12 noon in Philadelphia at the Convention Center in room 201 B/C.

Aggregated video walls are great resource discovery tools and a way to track the latest events / products/ trends. Blinkx makes it super easy to create and place custom tailored walls of live, constantly updated video links anywhere you like. I’ve tossed up a UW Libs demo here.

To create a wall of your own, simply go to the Blinkx site (choose advanced search for flexibility), type in your search term, click go, then click “wall it! ” Copy the embed code and paste it into your webpage, blog etc. Using advanced search, results can come from specific news sources, video portals etc. and can be ordered by date, so that the most recent content comes first.
Actually, what you are seeing are snippets linking to the actual video, not a ton of resource-sucking windows - so ITS can rest easy!

You might think there is no academic use here…..bzzzt! Universities, corporations, think-tanks, government agencies, research institutes etc. are increasingly creating portals to disseminate video content. Tagged video aggregation is a powerful way to access the most important / relevant resources. (and it would take several lifetimes to ’surf’ to all of them daily to keep up - J.