Share your library love

This feature for our website was actually planned and developed weeks ago before the current budget crisis to coincide with summer reading. And although the funding for public libraries from the state is still unknown, you can't help but be uplifted by the stories and images shared by our customers. :)


Share Your Library Love

New Neilson report debunks many teen myths

Neilson has just released a new report sharing findings from a recent study on teen media usage behavior which debunks many myths. Here are just a few that they cover:

Myth: Teens are driving the growth of online video

Reality: Teens watch less online video than most adults, but the ads are highly engaging to them: Teens spend 35% less time watching online video than adults 25–34, but recall ads better when watching TV shows online than they do on television.

Myth: Teens are the most avid users of the Internet

Reality: Teens love the Internet…but spend far less time browsing than adults:Teens spend 11 hours and 32 minutes per month online—far below the average of 29 hours and 15 minutes.

Myth: Teens are the biggest gamers of all

Reality: Teens 12–17 made up just 23% of the U.S. console gaming audience and they accounted for fewer than 10% of all of the PC game minutes played in a typical month.

Read the full 17 page report, How Teens Use Media, June 2009 to learn more.

Geek the Library

I'm really enjoying the message behind this new site/campaign... GeekTheLibrary.org



"Brought to you by OCLC, a nonprofit library cooperative, with funding by a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Geekthelibrary.org does not support or oppose any candidate for public office and does not take positions on legislation."

PS ... & ICYW I personally I geek learning, antique furniture and creative thinking.

QR Tags & Concept Leadership

Concept leadership is one of areas that my department, Digital Services, tries to focus on. It’s important for us to continuously keep on top of new and emerging technologies and explore ways that the library and our customers can benefit from them.

QR tags is a technology that has actually been around for a few years. But until the mass adoption of smartphones with cameras, there wasn’t a dominant market yet for their use. When we launched our mobile text-based catalog early this spring we began to think of ways that we could use technology to market it smartly. QR tags seemed like a natural choice, since they are specifically designed for mobile devices. While we’re still playing with this idea some and refining the concept, the idea of placing QR tags in strategically defined places within the library on informational signs does seem to have a lot of merit. Not only does it have the potential to introduce the public to a new technology, it also tells those who are already tech savvy and familiar with mobile QR tags that the library has a mobile catalog.

For those that are not familiar with how QR tags work, here’s a short overview and a video demonstration.

A QR (Quick response) code/tag is two dimensional matrix barcode that can be read by any QR tag reader (ie. Software). The software to read tags is loaded on mobile phone devices that also have camera phone capability , so that when you snap a photo image that contains the tag it automatically launches the reader, reads the tag and redirects you to a website that has been attached or associated with the matrix code.
QR tags come in several forms, the square matrix kind being the most popular. For our tag for the mobile catalog, we choose to create a bee tagg, because it gave us space within the matrix code area to include our logo.

If you want to try out the tag with your mobile device, you’ll need to install a QR code reader. We recommend the BeeTagg Mutlicode reader, because it works with all types of QR codes and also on both iPhones and other popular smartphone devices.

If you want to create your own QR bee tagg, it’s simple and free. Take a look at QR tags and think about the notion of concept leadership. You don’t have to fully implement an idea to develop and test it. You just have to be willing to do the leg work and try. :)


PS: Thanks Jodi and Business Apps for taking the leadership on this one.

Future libraries in the networked world

An open information bar? Or a theatre of knowledge? of something else? The question is "what is the library of the future in a networked world?"

Here's some thoughts from Guy Adam Ailion



Thanks to Åke Nygren for highlighting this video.

Rally @ State Captial - Save Our Libraries

There's a community rally at the State Capital tomorrow. It's so wonderful to see these grassroots support efforts.

Save Ohio Libraries

It feels both scary and horrifically ironic that exactly one week ago today I was giving a conference keynote and sharing with attendees how lucky I felt to work in state that clearly supported and recognized the value of libraries, when today I spent my entire day trying help community citizens know that funding for their local libraries is in immediate danger.

Clearly the proposal to cut the Public Library Fund (PLF) by 200 million over the next two years will devastate libraries and the communities that all over the state by decreasing many library’s (including CML’s) state funding by nearly 50%. With so many libraries already struggling and underfunded, this reduction would leave no other alternatives but to close branches, reduce hours, halt purchasing of new books and materials and shutting down services and programs that are so vital the health of communities and the countries economic recovery.

Our opportunity to act and let the Governor Strickland and legislators know about the impact these reductions would have is dangerously slim as the final budget must be approved by July 1st (only days away). In the last 24 hours libraries all over the state have rallied the call to let their community members know the seriousness that this budget reduction could have on their community and it’s livelihood. Find out more and how you can help by checking out these Ohio library websites:

• Columbus Metropolitan Library
  
• Worthington Public Library
  
• Toledo-Lucas County Public Library
  
• Cuyahoga County Public Library
  
• Public Library of Cincinnati & Hamilton County
  
• Cleveland Public Library
  
• Dayton Metro Library

Follow twitter updates: #saveohiolibraries

Decision Engines

With Hunch, a new start-up set to launch on Monday (backed by Flickr co-founder, Catrina Fake) and the launch of Bing last week from Microsoft, the race seems to be to tackle the next evolution of online inquiry - the "decision-making engine".

Here's a few recent news items offering more background:

Microsoft’s New Bing—The ‘Decision Engine’

Caterina Fake's Hunch.com, launching Monday, is already redefining 'decision engine'

From my experience with Bing this past week, it's "decision making" capabilities appear to much different then those promised by Hunch. It will be interesting to see how Hunch compares not only to Bing, but to the expectations of being able to deliver and assist in the actual "decision" making part.

More later ... it's time for me to move on right now and try and decide if I should tackle that article I have to finish or turn my attention to some mindless tv? :)

Innovation Shift

This slide deck is good enough it really doesn't need an introduction.

Innovation Shift

View more Microsoft Word documents from Denise Caron.

Eureka Thoughts on Libraries and Experiences

I'm fortunate to work with a lot a very talented and innovative thinkers. Jenn Hrusch (aka TypeALibrarian) is one of them.

Today Jenn sent me an email with a link to Time magazine's article, How Twitter Will Change the Way We Live and noted some great thoughts on how it relates to libraries. With permission, I'm reprinting her email here...

I'm sure you have probably seen this, but I wanted to share something specific that really caught my attention. It is this paragraph...

"If I go to grad school and invent a better mousetrap, I've created value, which I can protect with a patent and capitalize on by selling my invention to consumers. But if someone else figures out a way to use my mousetrap to replace his much more expensive washing machine, he's created value as well. We tend to put the emphasis on the first kind of value creation because there are a small number of inventors who earn giant paydays from their mousetraps and thus become celebrities. But there are hundreds of millions of consumers and small businesses that find value in these innovations by figuring out new ways to put them to use. "

Eureka! What a shift in previous thinking (especially in libraries.) It is not only about the experiences or tools we can create for customers, but about the customers molding the experiences and the tools to create value for themselves!

Thanks Jenn for forwarding the article. Good stuff here! I love your thinking :)

Read the full article, How Twitter Will Change the Way We Live.

What thoughts cross your mind as they relate to libraries?

eBooks in the news

The eBook development world is heating up even more... Here's just the news from yesterday.


From NYTimes - Google positioning to sell ebooks

From NYTtimes - e Ink purchased by Taiwanese company

Wired - competition in ebook market going social

And from read write web (chart of developments & future projections)

CLA 2009 - The Experience of Play

Had a great morning helping to close the Canadian Library Association annual conference in Montreal. Thanks to all who attended my talk & a special thanks to Derrek, Lorianne, Marie-Anne & Amanda for assisting me with some bubble fun on the big stage. :)

CLA Keynote

View more OpenOffice presentations from hblowers.

The Future of Reading

Clive Thompson has a small little piece in Wired this month about the Future of Reading. It’s a topic that I’ve been having lots of conversation around these days, especially after some of the trends I highlighted in my Finding the Phoenix talk.

There’s been a lot of rumors lately about Apple creating a new killer device for the ebook to rival the Kindle, and I think if they do (and it has full color screen and an extended battery life) then I think the E-Ink days are numbered. The evolution of the ebook will explode into a full blown cultural revolution.

I’ve played around with several ebook readers over the last few years (remember the rocket reader), but in the last few weeks I’ve taken even more notice. What got me most excited though was not the Kindle or even the new Sony reader, but rather the free Stanza iphone app. I loaded on my iTouch over two months ago. I love this little free reader (which btw way was acquired by Amazon and just a few weeks ago) that provides easy access to both free domain ebooks and popular pay-option titles, but what has been missing for me in any current portable device option out there is the ability to connect with the thoughts of others who are reading the same book.

BookGlutton.com is a website that does exactly that by allowing you to both interact with the book annotations of others and also engage in online chat. I played around with the site today and I have to say that I’m really impressed. Although it took me a bit to figure out how to read the annotations and comments, I really like the ability to see what other people bring to the text. I think once the Kindle or Sony (or rumored iBook) incorporates this type of functionality into their ereader app, then the competition will be over, period. The future of reading will have been born.



Here’s some more screenshots and images related to this post:





PS: Don't forget to read Clive Thompson's piece, The Future of Reading (lots to think about here as to the impact on libraries)

My 49.5 hr tour of the Netherlands

I just realized this afternoon after telling the umpteenth person about the fabulous libraries that I visited turning my world-wind tour of the Netherlands -- 49.5 hours to be exact -- that I hadn't created a post about what I saw.

The trip was packed - seriously PACKED! In 49.5 hours I managed to visit and tour 3 libraries, deliver the keynote address for the UGame ULearn conference, visit the headquarters of Media Labs (creators of AquaBrowser) and exchange ideas with lots of great folks. It definitely wasn't a relaxing trip and to be honest there wasn't even 15 minutes to spar. I didn't even have time to shop for a few small souvenirs for daugthers. Thank goodness the conference gave us colorful aluminum water bottles and that I was coherent enough to grab two. :)

Anyway, as you might guess it's not the type of trip I would recommend to anyone traveling to Netherlands. But even when my schedule necessitated the trip be a tight turnaround, I'm still so glad I went.

Here are a few of my favorite photos from the three libraries I visited. I've grabbed Roy Tanck's great Flickr widget to display them.

Get this widget at roytanck.com

Here's the flickr sets to each library individually:

• Amsterdam Public Library
  
• TU Delft Library
  
• DOK Library Concept Center
  

Innovation Starts with "I"

Every time I do this talk, I change things up slightly or add something new. Here's the most recent version of Innovation Starts with "I", a webinar I presented for Project Play this morning.

Innovation Start with "I"

View more OpenOffice presentations from hblowers.

PS: Enjoy the long weekend

__________ can change the world

I discovered this short, but inspiring, video via thinkpublic and it got me thinking ...



... about how libraries support not only entrepreneurs, but how we can also be them.

"Remember when you were a kid and everything was in reach ... it still is."

PS: What's my fill-in-the-blank for the title above ? I have two. If you need a clue, here's two hints ... the 1st is a 9 letter word that starts with a "L" and the the 2nd starts with a Y (3 letters) :)
Care to guess ?

What's your fill-in-the blank?

"Play date" this Friday from Project Play ...

... & it's free!

Excuse me for this shameless plug, but my reasons for sharing this actually have nothing to do with my talk this coming Friday and everything to do with sharing this wonderful collaborative model and open learning opportunity.

Project Play is a collaboration of South Central Library System, Outagamie Waupaca Library System, and Winnefox Library System in Wisconsin that encourages the on-going exploration of new technologies. The collaboration, as you might guess, started out as combined effort to support 23 Things and has successfully grown beyond the original objectives into an on-going commitment to staff development.

This Friday, I happen to be the guest speaker for one of their popular "play dates" (aka webinars) and will be doing a talk about innovation. Registration is free and I'm told open all. So if you're in the mood for a "play date", why not join us!

Innovation Starts with "I" - webinar, Friday, May 22, 11am est

Special thanks to South Central Library System, Outagamie Waupaca Library System, and Winnefox Library System for creating such a great model to follow.

PS: & don't you just love their tag line ... "Play more. Learn more. Fear less."

What’s your digital footprint?

That digital content is exploding is not earth shattering news. But what I found interesting according to this recent white paper from IDC, is that you only personally have control less than half your total digital footprint. Your “digital shadow” is actually much greater.

"In 2007, the digital universe contained 281,000,000,000 gigabytes, which works out to about 45 gigabytes per person on the planet.

Yet in 2007, when IDC developed the Personal Digital Footprint Calculator, launched this month,vii we discovered that only about half of the digital footprint would be related to individual actions — taking pictures, making VoIP phone calls, uploading videos to YouTube, downloading digital content, and
so on.

We called the remainder “ambient” content. It is digital images of you on a surveillance camera and records in banking, brokerage, retail, airline, telephone, and medical databases. It is information about Web searches and general backup data. It is copies of hospital scans. In other words, it is information about you in cyberspace. Your digital shadow, if you will."

Interested in calculating your own digital footprint? Download the ticker app here.

Here’s a snapshot of mine:



Read the full report, The Diverse and Exploding Digital Universe.

Filed under "Inspired"

In my travels tonight, I stumbled across this great community building project...

Photos by January Jones/WFIU
The “Writing on the Wall” project made a week -long stop at the Monroe County Public Library. People were asked to write their hopes for American Democracy. The wall will next be at the Indiana University Wells Library on the IU-Bloomington campus.

View the full flickr set here.

So simple in design and execution, yet so powerful in impact and community building!

Unleash the Users

Aarhus Public Library does it again with another great video exploring new ways to engage library users. This time in user driven innovation ...



Video found here.