There are two new podcasts in libraryland you should be listening to! I know both of these hosts personally and I can’t recommend their work enough so check them out!

Circulating Ideas

Circulating Ideas is a librarian interview podcast hosted by Steve Thomas. Steve has already had some great interviews and I know the line up he has for the rest of this year and next is going to be great.

You can follow Circulating Ideas on Twitter @circideas, Facebook, the blog or subscribe via iTunes.

Whatever Mathers

Whatever Mathers features creative conversations with fabulous host Amy Mather and a revolving cast of surprise guests from all walks of the creative landscape

You can follow Whatever Mathers on Facebook, the blog, or subscribe via iTunes

 Similar Posts:

• Top Ten Links Week 8
• Top Ten Links Week 37, Success, Hate, Twitter, Keeping Your Inner Jerk in Check, Evernote, Procrastination and more
• Top Ten Links Week 38 – Positive Feedback, Library Trends, TechnoLiteracy and More

My personally selected top ten from the links I shared on Twitter 10.30.2011 through 11.05.2011. In no particular order:

1. Free eBooks, Piracy & Secondhanding

Musing on ebook piracy and free downloads yesterday at Alan Baxter’s blog, I made a passing comparison between the digital distribution of books, whether legally or illegally, and the sale of second-hand hardcopies. In both instances, neither author nor publisher makes money on the transaction, but whereas the former practice is almost invariably viewed as foolhardiness where legal and theft where not, the latter is viewed as a benevolent, even positive, parallel economy – and the more I think about this distinction,  the more arbitrary it seems.

2. Digital Literacy in US Public Libraries 

 Excerpted from the Library Technology Reports August / September 2011 (vol. 47, no. 6) “The Transforming Public Library Infrastructure,” ALA Office for Resarch and Statistics. C

While information literacy has been well defined over the past two decades in our school and academic libraries, public libraries are newer to formal instruction in this arena. For many public libraries, teaching basic computers skills—in classes or as needed—has become a requirement as critical interactions with employers and government agencies demand it from those seeking resources and opportunities and as these individuals come to the library to access such resources. With computer skill classes now a regular part of the library landscape, it is time to raise the bar and expand patrons’ digital fluency and evaluation skills.

3. MediaShift . E-Book Publishers Must Provide Flexible Access to Avoid ‘Media Hell’ | PBS - From the PBS series Beyond the Book

 Consumers like me want to enjoy the digital version of a book when, where and how we want. We love to be able to read it from multiple screens, search it automatically, share annotations, even have the text read aloud as we drive or do dishes.

In theory that’s the promise of the new world of book publishing. But in practice, we’re blocked at many turns and end up looking for other solutions. For publishers and booksellers, that’s not a good thing, and can even be quite costly.

4. What libraries can do when they buy an ebook

 When a library buys (not licenses) a copy of an ebook, it is subject to the same copyright restrictions and allowances as when the library buys a hardback copy.  It has no more legal right to make 10 copies of Wikileaks and the Age of Transparency, to lend out to 10 patrons simultaneously, than if it had bought the hardback.

5 I can’t wait to read how this works out! Good luck! RT@librarianwilk: Life after Google - Follow along as Lane Wilkinson tries to quit Google

Remember when Google was just a search engine? Yeah, me neither. With the way Google has infiltrated every nook and cranny of our digital lives, it’s almost hard to imagine life before Google. For the past two years, I’ve used Google services like Search, Reader, Blogger, Alerts, News, and Buzz as my means of professional communication. I use Chrome on my PC and Android on my phone. I’ve used Picasa to manage photos, YouTube for entertainment, and Earth to explore. And I’m not even going to start with Maps, Calendar, Notebook, Scholar, Images…you get the idea. And now, I’m supposed to join Google+, the future of social media. A seamless integration and consolidation of existing Google services into a harmonious user-experience that addresses the beauty and richness of sharing in–

Damn it. No. Just no. I’m not having this social media crap.

6. Transliteracy, plain language & post-structuralism

So transliteracy is about being able speak, read, write, use sign language, and interpret messages from a wide variety of technologies, including those that come free with our own bodies, and to use those technologies to convey our own messages. In short, it’s about people talking to people however they choose to do so.

That made me think of transliteracy in a completely different way and brought me back to plain language. I think the key to all this is communication. Yes, there are more ways to communicate than ever before but it’s still communication

7. Does culture really want to be free? – Art in Crisis

Are new media companies “digital parasites”? The author of “Free Ride” tells Salon piracy is killing art

8. Change of Subject: Cut libraries? Shush!

A library today is less a destination for knowledge seekers as it is a portal — a point of entry to the ever more vast resources available at the click of a mouse.

The “fundamental function of all current public libraries is challenged by these Internet alternatives,” says “Confronting the Future: Strategic Visions for the 21st Century Public Library,” (pdf)  a 26-page analysis by consultant Roger Levien, a former ALA fellow.

Not just the function, but the funding, particularly when many municipalities are strapped for cash.

In June, the ALA reported in “New library study: demand up for technology, budget cuts limit access“  that 55 percent of urban library districts and 36 percent of suburban library districts have seen budget decreases this year, while 32 percent of urban libraries (16 percent overall) have recently had to trim their hours of operation.

9. the two most important things I know about public speaking Andromeda Yelton shares some great speaking and presenting tips.

10.  Library closures are adding to anxiety for the elderly, says report via @Fight4libraries:

 A charity report found that older people have trouble getting information about public services, such as details of libraries and public transport, because so much of it is kept online.

 Similar Posts:

• Top 10 Links 2.26: Google+, Digital Illiteracy, Staying Positive and More!
• Top Ten Links 2.3 – All About Ebooks
• Top Ten Links Week 35, eBooks, Digital Divide, and Social Media Fatigue

My personally selected top ten from the links I shared on Twitter 10.22.2011 through 10.28.2011. In no particular order:

1. Amazon adds Whispersync for personal ebooks · Hidden Peanuts

Amazon is declaring that they don’t care where your ebook comes from, they just want you to read it on their platform (as long as it doesn’t have DRM mucking things up anyway).

2. great post! -> Amazon, Libraries and Ownership in the Digital Age | Guy LeCharles Gonzalez

The ebooks being borrowed by Amazon customers aren’t the same ePUB files being licensed to libraries via Overdrive, they’re Amazon’s files that they’re allowing their customers to access via a marketing partnership with local libraries.

3.  new ebook payscale? -> Paying for first Some speculation from Seth Godin

Here’s a bit of speculation:

Soon, there will be three kinds of books on the Kindle.

$1.99 ebooks. This is the clearing price for virtually all ebooks going forward.

$5 ebooks. This is the price for bestsellers, hot titles and books you have no choice but to buy because they were assigned in school.

$10 ebooks. This is the price you will pay to get the book first, to get it fast, to get it before everyone else. There might even be a subset of books for $20 in this category.

4. no matter how many kindles are registered to your act, books can only be on 6 devices, delete after reading if sharing This is something I tracked down personally. Believe it or not I have more than six devices to register to my Amazon Kindle
account. The 6 device limit is annoying because I never know what device I might want to read on based on my situation. I was able to find out you can register more than 6 devices but you can only have most titles on 6 at a time. So only load it on those you need to read it on. This works for me because I’m trying to keep my actual Kindle for reading for entertainment versus school work. Also if you and a family member share an account you can both read the same book at the same time as long as you remember to turn off whispersync.

5. Amazon Embraces HTML5 for New Ebooks via@ericrumsey 

KF8 is an improvement over the current Mobi 7 standard, with new features that allow publishers to create richer formats and add more advanced design elements. The emphasis on visuals will play well on tablets and advanced ereaders. Amazon touted KF8′s ability to produce better childrens picture books, comics and graphic novels.

The new format is currently limited to Amazon’s newest device, the Kindle Fire. The rest of Amazon’s readers and tablets will get full KF8 functionality in the coming months.

6. interesting -> Let every book be published digitally. Those found worthy may deserve another publication in print I don’t agree with this and worry about the role of libraries, but it is an interesting read.

Perhaps the e-book is that perishable material. In my vision, let every book be published digitally, the more the better. Those books found worthy may deserve another publication in print. The stores and shelves of print books would shrink, cleared of fluff, distilled to the very best works.

7. Smashwords – School Libraries: What’s Now, What’s Next, What’s Yet to Come – A book by Kristin Fontichiaro A free ebook in pretty much any format you could want

A crowdsourced collection of over 100 essays from around the world about trends in school libraries written by librarians, teachers, publishers, and library vendors. Edited by Kristin Fontichiaro and Buffy Hamilton. Foreword by R. David Lankes. Photographs by Diane Cordell.

8. great tips! How to Effectively Manage Your Time via @vonburkhardt As someone who has taught time management workshops I love seeing tips like these!

9. How to Create a QR Code In 3 Easy Steps | The Daring Librarian – great guide from the fabulous Gwyneth Jones

10. 10 Tips: Managing The Year Of Diminished Career Expectations given the current economy and that as long as I have been a librarian librarians have complained about the lack of jobs this seems very timely.Be sure to read the article for a more in-depth look at each one.

1. Use positive affirmations to get yourself through the day.
2. Teach yourself one new skill a month.
3. Start blogging.
4. Polish your resume.
5. Help a co-worker.
6. Think about what you really want to do when you grow up.
7. Write a job description for your dream job.
8. Network with people who have the job you want.
9. Seek out a career coach to help you examine – and possibly reset – your expectations.
10. Do something for someone else.

Similar Posts:

• Top Ten Links 2.3 – All About Ebooks
• Top Ten Links 2.16: TED Auditions, LISEvents, Piracy and The Sad, Beautiful Fact That We’re All Going To Miss Almost Everything
• Top Ten Links Week 29- Logo Contest, Speaker Tips, Finding Time, The Value of Privacy, and More

1. Seven Reasons Why We Need Internet Activism Now via @CathyNDavidson

1. Privacy
2. Intellectual Property
3. Openness
4. Peer-learning
5. Free Speech
6. Open Media
7. Innovation

2. Amazon retroactively replaces Reamde, repelled readers revolt

Amazon remade its Kindle edition of Neal Stephenson’s new novel Reamde, and is now getting reamed by disgruntled readers, GalleyCat and CNet report. The e-book had been pulled from the Kindle store on Tuesday, and today customers who had bought it received a cryptic (and ungrammatical) email from Amazon advising them that “the version you received had Missing Content that have (sic) been corrected.”

3. Buy This Movie Or Legally Download It For Free: Your Call  via @mattrweaver

PressPausePlay, an award-winning documentary about our new digital culture, premiered at SXSW earlier this year. It is playing at film festivals and you can buy it on iTunes, Amazon, and other digital pay sites. If you don’t want to pay for it, you can now download it via a torrent for free.

4. You are Not a Tinker Toy: Libraries and Reorganization - great article about learning and training on the job.

5. California Governor Signs Reader Privacy Act

California Governor Jerry Brown has signed the Reader Privacy Act, updating the state’s reader privacy law to cover ebooks and online book services. The law will take effect January 1.

The law will establish privacy protections for book purchases similar to long-established privacy laws for library records, according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which sponsored the bill along with the American Civil Liberties Union

6. Ten things we don’t know about the Kindle Fire

1. Will the Fire be able to download and store media locally?
2. Will Android apps in the Amazon Appstore get Fire-optimized versions?
3. Is Amazon freezing out other content providers from the Fire, such as Pandora, Netflix, or Spotify?
4. How will the unnamed dual-core CPU compare to the performance of the Nook Color, as well as more expensive tablets?
5. Will there be either a larger 10-inch version or a 3G version?
6. How much of the 8GB of internal memory is user-accessible?
7. Will the emphasis on streaming video kill the Fire’s battery life?
8. Has the Fire set a new baseline price for 7-inch tablets?
9. Will there be a “Special Offers” version of the Fire?
10. How will the new Silk browser work with Web-based content? Will it play nice with Facebook games?

7.  American Libraries launches E-Content blog

Keeping up with the many varieties of digital content—and how libraries can offer them to their patrons—just got easier. American Libraries has launched an “E-Content” blog that provides information on e-books, e-readers, e-journals, databases, digital libraries, digital repositories, and other e-content issues. The blog complements the new section on e-content that appears in the weekly e-newsletter American Libraries Direct and focuses on similar issues.

The E-Content blog will help disseminate the work of the new ALA Working Group on Digital Content and Libraries, which is currently being formed to proactively address digital content opportunities and issues from both policy and practical perspectives. This Association-wide group of experts, selected by ALA President Molly Raphael, will broadly represent the many constituencies within the library community. The working group’s charge reflects a priority of the ALA 2015 Strategic Plan, supporting the “transformation” of libraries

8. Verizon files suit against the #FCC’s open #Internet rules, claiming that the agency is “overstepping its authority”

After years of debate on the topic, the FCC adopted in late December rules codifying specific Net neutrality principles. The new rules were published in the Federal Register last week, which opened the door to lawsuits.The rules are expected to take effect November 20.

Verizon had filed a complaint in January to stop the Net Neutrality rules from being implemented. But in April a federal appellate court ruled that Verizon’s suit was premature, since the rules had not yet been published in the Federal Register.

9. “Spent”: A new web-based game provides insight into what life is like for the poor and disenfranchised Chances are if you’re online talking about the digital divide you have no real idea what true poverty looks like this game was designed to give you better insight.

 It’s a simple question: what is it like to be poor in the U.S.? You may already know if you earn less than $11,139 each year, the official poverty threshold. Last year, more than two million people (many once middle-class) joined the 44 million Americans living in poverty, the most since the U.S. Census Bureau started publishing figures half a century ago.

10. Digital Underclass: What Happens When the Libraries Die? 

While there are clear advantages to digital media, such as the instantaneous purchase and delivery of that content, elimination of book shortages at bookstores as well as the obvious portability benefits, it has a sociological impact that many have not considered — which is that the “Have Nots” of society may find themselves denied access to an entire range of content they enjoyed previously with the printed book, newspaper or magazine.

Similar Posts:

• Top Ten Links 2.43: eBooks, Easy QR Codes, Time Management and Career Expectations
• Top Ten Links 2.16: TED Auditions, LISEvents, Piracy and The Sad, Beautiful Fact That We’re All Going To Miss Almost Everything
• Top Ten Links 2.3 – All About Ebooks

My personally selected top ten from the links I shared on Twitter 7.2.2011 through 7.9.2011. In no particular order:

1. Comcast targeting digital divide - If you’ve heard me speak or read my writings about the digital divide you know I applaud the FCC’s National Broadband Plan to ensure that high-speed internet access is available to everyone. But that I also express concern that just making it available doesn’t solve the problem, there are still the issues of the affordability of the service, the affordability of the hardware to use it and the skills needed to use it all well. Comcast is addressing the first of these two issues.

In an attempt to bridge the nation’s digital divide, the country’s largest Internet provider soon will offer discountbroadband access to help low-income families get online.

The service, called Internet Essentials, costs $9.95 a month for households that qualify. Also as part of the program, subscribers will be able to purchase a computer for $150.

2. Digital Divides & Digital Literacies: An Ongoing Report | The Young and The Digital #digitaldivide. In this interview S. Craig Watkins, author of The Young and The Digital, talks with Tony Cox about the Digital Divide. Great stuff can’t wait to see/read/listen to more!

Earlier this week National Public Radio’s“Tell Me More” aired a conversation that I shared with Tony Cox about the digital divide. We talked about the ways in which the digital divide is evolving and how the shifting digital media terrain, especially the steady adoption of technology by a growing diversity of young people, is redefining how we think about issues related to technology, diversity, and equity.

I am exploring these issues in a series of new projects that I will be reporting on over the next year.  The projects are designed to examine the digital media lives of diverse young people and how, among other things, their adoption of media technologies are redefining what it means to be a young learner or citizen.

3. The MacArthur Foundation and IMLS offer $4 Million in Grants for Learning Labs in Libraries and Museums. 

These grants will support the planning and designing of up to 30 Learning Labs in libraries and museums throughout the country. The Labs are intended to engage middle- and high-school youth in mentor-led, interest-based, youth-centered, collaborative learning using digital and traditional media. Grantees will be required to participate, in-person and online, in a community of practice that will provide technical assistance, networking, and cross-project learning. Projects are expected to provide prototypes for the field and be based on current research about digital media and youth learning. There will be two project deadlines for this grant program, with the second deadline planned for spring 2012.

4. A Fifth of My Time by @LizDanforth Via @ellenforsyth @janholmquist Love this post by Liz Danforth and I’ve already ordered the book she mentions, 168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think. I have a couple of big projects I’ve been putting off tackling and I think thanks to Liz and her post and suggestions they might actually become a reality.

5. RT @alalibrary: “Every day that America’s 16,000 public #librariesare open, more than 300,000 people search for #jobs“ via @shifted – Great quote from the article The Sound of Libraries Suffocating.

6. 23 Things for Professional Development: Thing 3: Consider your personal brand #cpd23 If you’re not following along with the 23 Things for Professional Development you should be! It’s an international effort with some amazing contributors. Sure some of it maybe old news to you but there is plenty of new perspective like this one on personal branding -

Thing 3 is about your personal brand. We’ll consider how people see your online brand, what brand you would like to convey, and how to match the two.

I have a couple of confessions:

7. before you hand over your phone, PC or other digital device Know Your Rights!  essential advice for any digital citizen or anyone who loves their phone

Your computer, your phone, and your other digital devices hold vast amounts of personal information about you and your family. This is sensitive data that’s worth protecting from prying eyes – including those of the government.

The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution protects you from unreasonable government searches and seizures, and this protection extends to your computer and portable devices. But how does this work in the real world? What should you do if the police or other law enforcement officers show up at your door and want to search your computer?

EFF has designed this guide to help you understand your rights if officers try to search the data stored on your computer or portable electronic device, or seize it for further examination somewhere else.

Because anything you say can be used against you in a criminal or civil case, before speaking to any law enforcement official, you should consult with an attorney.

8. How to Get Long Life Out of Laptop and Cell Phone Batteries

Like all batteries, rechargeable batteries wear out over time. Dell says that a full life span for a garden-variety lithium-ion laptop battery is18 to 24 months. A cell phone battery can last the same length of time, and is good for approximately 400 recharges. The average life span of a cell phone, however, is only 18 months, so a single battery should last the lifetime of a mobile phone.

9. Should We Shrink Wrap Our School Libraries? & Transliteracy brill post by @steelepierce #TLChat via @gwynethjones

In the library U-Scan line, the customer in front of me was perhaps four years old, not much taller than a toddler. Fascinated, I watched as she scanned her stack of picture books.

She stands at the intersection of physical print and technology. What is reading going to be like for her as she grows up? How will literacy be different in her world to come? And how will schools prepare her for that?

10. A Special Issue of NISO’s Information Standards Quarterly Focuses on eBooks (incl. 2 articles abt libraries) #ebooks

Direct to Full Text of Spring 2011 Issue (Vol. 23 No. 2)

• Table of Contents
• Full Text (PDF)

Articles Include:

• EPUB 3: Not Your Father’s EPUB
  by Bill Kasdorf

• Ten Questions and Tentative Answers about the State of E-book Publishing for University Presses
  by Marlie Wasserman

• E-books and the Public Library: the Evansville Vanderburgh Public Library Experience
  by Mollie Pharo and Marcia Learned Au

• Drinking the E-book Kool-Aid in a Large Academic Library
  by Wendy Allen Shelburne

• Standard Spotlight: The Challenge for Standards in the E-book Supply Chain
  by Mark Bide

• Member Spotlight: E-books on EBSCOhost: Combining NetLibrary E-books with the EBSCOhost Platform
  by Michael Gorrell

• The Evolution of Accessible Publishing: Revising the Z39.86 DAISY Standard
  by Matt Garrish and Markus Gylling

• NISO E-books SIG
  by Todd Carpenter

From the Noteworthy Section of ISQ

• NISO Issues Journal Article Tag Suite Standard for Trial Use

Read the Complete NISO Announcement and Summary

Similar Posts:

• Top Ten Links Week 35, eBooks, Digital Divide, and Social Media Fatigue
• Top Ten Links Week 24
• Top Ten Links Week 19

My personally selected top ten from the links I shared on Twitter 6.25.2011 through 7.1.2011.

1. Definitely! RT @pcsweeney: Could Google+ Ruin Your Online Personal Brand? great post from Patrick Sweeney that will get you think about what information we’re supplying Google and others.

I started thinking about the amount of metadata that we are creating for each other and about each other. I started thinking about twitter lists, facebook groups, and other classifications in the multitude of social media platforms that we, our company, or our brand, is being put into against our will and without our control.

2. PBS Launches LearningMedia, Digital Repository for Ed Content via @hackeducation #iste11 @audreywatters #ala11 – this is a prek through 13+ resource. Check it out!

PBS is launching a new repository of digital resources for educators today. PBS LearningMedia offers free access to thousands of pieces of digital content, including videos, interactive media, and support materials. That material comes not just from PBS, but from over 30 local member stations, as well as from other publicly funded organizations including the National Archives, NASA, and the Library of Congress.

3. The Digital Era Needs Human Guides: Why Your School Should Keep, Not Cut, the Librarian via @SpotlightDML

As we’ve demonstrated in our coverage, just because kids are computer savvy doesn’t mean they know how to be information literate. In fact, studies show this generation isn’t as knowledgeable as stereotypes of digital-savvy millennials may lead us to believe.

A recent study by Project Tomorrow calls the school librarian the “go-to” person to identify websites for classroom use, create collections of resources for curriculum support, and to find specific digital content, such as podcasts and videos, to support classroom lessons.

4. Users for Sale: Has Digital Illiteracy Turned Us Into Social Commodities? via @brewinlibrarian read this. Seriously, read it.

The easiest way to figure out who the customer is in an online space is to figure out who is paying for the thing. Usually, the people paying are the customers. So on Facebook, the people paying are marketers. That makes them the customers. And it means we are the product being delivered to those customers

5. Unbelievable RT @theREALwikiman: Wow, this is the worst thing about libraries / librarians I’ve ever seen Save our libraries, fire the librarians via @daveyp

6. “Crafting a good 140 character tweet on Twitter is truly an art“ via @ericrumsey @PCMag 15 tips on getting the most out of your 140 characters

7. Trans-what? A Day of Literacies at the ALA Annual Conference #transliteracy @librarianwilk @gcaserotti @Tombrarian a recap of the Why Transliteracy presentation from the ALA Conference.

8. Working Toward Transliteracy #ala11 @Matherita @brewinlibrarian @ValentineLuLu @kongtemplation @lillylibrarian a recap of the Working Towards Transliteracy Panel.

9. second! RT @pbromberg: Enjoy a little morning inspiration! Loving@Philbradley: What librarians & Google are for...

Also read Net Potters thoughts on Google vs Librarians  Why I’d quite happily never read another comparison between Google and Libraries ever again

10. Give Yourself a Reality Check to Stay Positive at the Office even w hen you love your job there are times when its hard to stay positive.

 Similar Posts:

• 10 Best Links from Twitter – Week in Review
• Top Ten Links 2.44: eBooks, Digital Literacy, Transliteracy, Libraries & Quitting Google
• Top Ten Links Week 12

My personally selected top ten from the links I shared on Twitter 5.7.2011 through 5.13.2011.  In no particular order:

1. Facebook admits hiring PR firm to smear Google /via @engadget This story broke this week and it wasn’t until after I’d tweeted it that I learned that the PR firm referenced one of my blog posts in their attempts to smear Google! Crazy and Weird. Especially since I’ve written far more often about Facebook privacy problems.

2. wow -> Sitting All Day is Killing You Seriously look at that info-graphic. It bothered me enough that I started researching stand up desks and came across this post which I think has some great information. Why and How I Switched to a Standing Desk. I am actually planning to purchase a stand up desk. I’ve hated my current home one for a year or more and been planning to replace it. I thought I’d start small with the home office space and see how I like it. Then, if I do, I’ll figure out how to make it work at work (and  shoudl confess that shoes are my biggest concern). I’m currently investigating options that don’t cost a fortune such as Adjustable Height Stand-Up Workstation, Stand-up Workstation, Medium Oak, but the most likely option looks like the Fredrik desk from Ikea.

3. Work Smart: 5 Easy To-Dos That Keep Your To-Do List Healthy – conquer that to-do list!

1. Choose the right tool:
2. Be in the now:
3. Learn to delegate
4. Prioritize and reward: Y
5. Plan ahead:

4. Facebook seeks exemption from fed’s rules requiring political campaign ads to include disclosures of who paid for them yep. for reals. In case you dont’ see the humor (irony?) in this see this weeks #1

Facebook, the company that has helped put so much of what was once private out in open on the web, is looking for a sort of corporate privacy setting of its own — the company is looking to ensure that it is exempt from federal election rules requiring campaign advertisements to include disclosures of who paid for them.

In a request to the Federal Election Commission made late last month, lawyers for the social networking powerhouse argued that the small ads on Facebook’s website should not have to include disclosures because of the limited amounts of room for text.

5. The Library As Game: What NYPL is Doing Right « Hybrid Librarian – great post from the fab Erin Downey Howerton about the New York Public Library’s all-night geekfest, Find the Future: The Game. Seriously check it out.

6. love this! -> ‘The price of leadership is responsibility…to stay positive whether you feel like it or not‘ – Churchill – this is from a great post titled The 4 Positive Price Points of Leadership.

1. Think Positive Thoughts
2. Speak Positive Words
3. Provide Positive Encouragement
4. Create Positive Solutions

7. The disgraceful interrogation of L.A. school librarians – the stories of what is happening to school librarians in California is shameful and unbelievable. Read a first hand account of the shameful integration of teachers librarians

8. Why Successful People Leave Work Early – now if we could just get based the clock-punching, micro-managing, factory-work mentality of so many work places and people.

9. Stopping Theft at Work or how & why to stop others for taking credit for your work – anyone who’s ever had another take credit for their work at knows the frustrated helplessness and anger at the situation whether it’s a boss or a coworker this article from Harvard Business Review covers how and why to stand up for yourself.

Failing to tell your own story of what is happening and then wondering why you don’t get appropriate credit is little like leaving a wad of cash on a picnic table while you wander off to feed the ducks. If someone else takes it, you could call it theft — the thief will just say, “Finders keepers.” Don’t make it easy for sticky fingers to take things that don’t belong to them. The issue isn’t whether you manage up and out. The only question is how to do it:

10. Sen. Rockefeller introduces ‘do not track’ bill for Internet – Post Tech – The Washington Post

Sen. John D. Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) on Monday introduced an online “do not track” privacy bill that would allow consumers to block Internet companies from following their activity on the Web.

The Do-Not-Track Online Act of 2011 comes amid increased attention by lawmakers on creating privacy rules for the Internet. The White House has called for such rules but has not supported a specific mandate that would block companies from tracking users.

Similar Posts:

• Top 10 Links 2.40: Poverty, Digital Underclass, Digital Culture, e-Content & More
• Top Ten Links Week 19
• Top Ten Links Week 30 – Happiness, Social Media Comptency, eBooks, Digital Natives, Prezi, Facebook Privacy and More!

My personally selected top ten from the links I shared on Twitter 4.30.2011 through 5.6.2011.  In no particular order:

1 TEDucation: 5 TED Talks Librarians Should Watch (and Why) Andy has put together a list of 5 must see TED talks.

1. Ken Robinson – Schools Kill Creativity
2. William Kamkwamba: How I Harnessed the Wind
3. Malcolm Gladwell – What We Can Learn from Spaghetti Sauce
4. Mark Bezos – A Life Lesson from a Volunteer Firefighter
5. JR – Use Art To Turn the World Inside Out

2. It’s not the mistake. It’s how you deal with it by @dontgetcaught I’ve written before about mistakes and learning from failure. This post from Denise talks about how making a mistake while speaking and how to recover from it.

In music or dance, when one performer lets a mistake stop her, it throws the rest of the people off who are performing with her–and that can throw the performance. And even if you’re the only one speaking, a mistake that stops you stops the audience and becomes the focal point.

But the speaker who can figure out, fast, how to keep going will have the audience on her side–either because they don’t know what happened (often) or because they admire how you kept going. (That’s happened to me before when I had to make lemonade out of lemons at a talk.)

3. Transliteracy & Making Your Own Luck – A Guest Post by Jamie Hollier @ValentineLuLu I can’t remember if I’ve talked about it here before, but the Libraries and Transliteracy Project is featuring guest authors, this one by Jamie Hollier discusses the work she is doing as the project coordinator for the Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP) that is being administered by the Colorado State Library

4. Register for ALA’s first-ever Virtual Town Hall!

The first ALA Virtual Town Hall will be held on Wednesday, June 1st from 3:00 – 4:30pm CDT on the ALA ILINC webinar platform.  All members are invited to participate in this online-only event featuring a discussion about e-books and the future of electronic access in libraries, a presentation by President Roberta Stevens on advocacy initiatives during the past year, and Executive Director Keith Michael Fiels presenting on the “State of the Association” and progress implementing the ALA 2015 Strategic Plan.  A special “Open Forum” time will allow participants to ask questions about any Association topics.

Please pre-register for this event at https://ala.ilinc.com/register/tzvwtkr.  The Virtual Town Hall is designed to solicit ideas, comments and questions about the Association from members.  Reports from the Task Force on Equitable Access to Electronic Content (EQUACC) co-chairs Michael Porter and Linda Crowe, and the OITP e-books Subcommittee Chair Bonnie Tijerina will also be posted in advance of their presentations for review and comment.  Time will be reserved during each segment of the Town Hall for questions, comments and reactions to these reports and presentations by participants.

5. Balanced LIfe — 8 Reasons Why Twitter Can Boost Your happiness – I’ve talked in the past about the ways that Twitter will make you better at your job, a better employee and benefit your library but now thanks to this great article by  Gretchen Rubin author of The Happiness Project you can learn how it makes you happier too.

1. Twitter allows you to pursue your passion
2. Twitter distracts you if you’re feeling blue
3. Twitter can get you laughing.
4. Twitter helps you maintain loose relationships and strengthen strong relationships.
5. Twitter lets you help other people
6. Twitter lets you conquer a device
7. Twitter lets you share those funny little observations that float through your head.
8. Twitter makes gathering information easier.

6. A Customer Service Nightmare: Resolving Trademark and Personal Reputation in a Limited Name Space – danah boyd talks about usernames, domain names, urls, personal branding and online identity. Its an important read for everyone but especially, if like me, you use a handle or username. I’m librarianbyday just about everywhere. Except LibraryThing (which is part of why I don’t use it) Facebook. Someone beat me to those. But what if  a company formed with the name Librarian by Day? (I shudder to think what they might be selling).

Who has the legitimate right to a particular identity or account name? What happens when the account is inactive? Or when the person who has the account is squatting? Or when there are conflicting parties who both have legitimate interests in an account name? Or when the account owner has died?

6.1 How safe is your Twitter name? this is sort of a follow up to the previous link but equally important and scary!

7. Happiness Advocacy, Or, How Positive Psychology Will Save Us From Zombies

Happiness. That feeling you get from StuffOnMyCat.com or Skyping with a far away friend. Side effects include: joy, contentment, glee, elation, and surges of confidence, hope, and gratitude. That happiness. If you’re ready to throw in the towel (or this in the garbage), kindly allow me to clarify something. This ain’t yo’ momma’s (or for that matter my momma’s*) self-help book so don’t get all judgmental. If MacGyver can stop a bomb with a toothpick, we can save the world with happiness. ‘Fiction!’ you say? It’s even been scientifically proven. You see, it’s all in the technique, my friends.

8. Doctorow’s talk to ALA’s Privacy & Youth Conf. Digital rights, privacy, filters, & jailbreaking via @shifted@thelib

Speaking to ALA’s Privacy and Youth Conference from London via Skype, Cory Doctorow offered attendees a thought-provoking assessment of the privacy landscape for young people today. His “radical proposition” that libraries become islands of networked privacy best practices — places where young people are educated and empowered to take charge of their digital lives — provided provocative fodder for conference participants’ discussions. Do libraries have a role to play in educating youth about the privacy violations they face at our own institutions? In their own homes? Should we be teaching kids tojailbreak? How can we document the problems and inefficacy of internet filtering technologies, which so often stifle young people’s intellectual freedom and compromise their privacy?

9. IP-Address Is Not a Person, BitTorrent Case Judge Says – nuf said

10. Who Are Your Top 10 Borrowers? (ie: stop treating everyone the same..) via @theREALwikiman @sallyheroes Great post. Read it. Think about it.

Growing your library isn’t just a worthy goal; it is a necessity for your survival. But growth requires focus – a focus on your number one market. A business doesn’t grow by treating all customers equally and neither should libraries.

Now, before you respond with: “but we’re part of council and we must serve all our residents and ratepayers”, or “but how can we treat our students differently, they all deserve our attention”, hear me out. I’m not suggesting you ignore parts of your target market, or that you treat them unfairly. What I’m suggesting is that you focus on your most valuable users within that target market.

Not all users are the same. Some borrow, some read newspapers, some surf the net, some ask for help, and some attend events etc. They aren’t all the same, you don’t treat them the same, and neither should you try to.

 Similar Posts:

• Top Ten Links Week 16
• Top Ten Links Week 30 – Happiness, Social Media Comptency, eBooks, Digital Natives, Prezi, Facebook Privacy and More!
• Top Ten Link Week 49: Dropbox, Tips for the Holidays, Privacy, Trolling, Tech, Speaking, PostPost and more!

My personally selected top ten from the links I shared on Twitter 4.16.2011 through 4.22.2011.  In no particular order

1. 5 Myths About the ‘Information Age’ – Great article from the Chronicle of Higher Education, go read it!

1. The book is dead.
2. We have entered the information age.
3. All information is now available online.
4. Libraries are obsolete.
5. The future is digital.

2. Nominate your favorite blogs for the Salem Library Blog Awards The nomination process is open for the 2011 Salem Press Blog Awards until May 13th, so head over there and nominate your favorite library blogs. They have  Disclaimer: last year Libraries and Transliteracy won 1st place in the General Library Blogs Category and this blog was nominated but didn’t win

2011 Nominations : Please share your favorite blogs with us. Doing so will enter your beloved online reading in our 2011 Awards process. We’ll be accepting suggestions through May 13, 2011. To send us nominations (including a working link to the blog), email ptobey@salempress.com.

Bigger & Better:  This year, Library Blog Awards returns with the same goal—to recognize blogging excellence across the library spectrum—but with a new structure. We have increased the number of volunteer judges (from four to 14) and blog categories (from five to eight) and added a new dimension to the process: the public vote. After our judges complete the first round of eliminations and finalists are announced on May 18th, we will ask readers and interested parties to cast their votes online. The list of winners (one per category) will follow in mid-June.

Categories : The following are our expanded categories for 2011:

• General: Blogs providing broad discussions of library topics and trends
• Academic: Blogs targeting academic librarians and academic institutions
• Public: Blogs addressing the challenges and triumphs of public librarianship
• School: Blogs covering topics relevant to school libraries and K-12 education
• Local: Institution-specific blogs promoting the interests of a public, academic, or school library
• Commercial: Professional blogs written for profit, generally tied to a trade publication
• Newcomer: Blogs by next-gen librarians who have only recently started blogging
• Quirky: Character-driven blogs covering an array of library topics that defy categorization

3. ”The line between #book & Internet will disappear”; publishers should embrace #ebooks a look at how we think about ebooks, and how just considering them a digital version of a print title is limiting the possibilities.

4. Amazon to take on Apple this summer with Samsung-built tablet? This Engagdget article summarizes this article. Why does this speculation matter to librarians? Well in light of the recent announcements, the first, that library ebooks will soon work not only on Kindles themselves but in Kindle apps everywhere (and it sounds like wirelessly) and the second, which got considerably less attention, that Audible users can now download audiobooks directly to the Kindle, wirelessly, its clear that Amazon has something up their sleeve. Plus, as the article points out:

…Amazon, not Samsung or the rest of the traditional consumer electronics industry, as Apple’s chief competition in the near-term tablet space. An idea that’ll be tough to argue against if Amazon — with its combined music (downloadable andstreaming), video, book, and app ecosystem — can actually launch a dirt-cheap, highly-customized, 7-inch Android tablet this summer as Pete predicts. Oh, and the fact that Amazon already has our credit card details will certainly make for easy adoption

5. it’s true my love for Mr. Darcy will never die -> The Darcy Effect: Why Two Centuries Later, Mr. Darcy Is Still The Man This one is more fun, I’m a huge Price & Prejudice fan I think this look at Mr. Darcy is spot on.

6. The Sad, Beautiful Fact That We’re All Going To Miss Almost Everything : Monkey See : NPR I don’t usually say this, but if you’re going to read only one of the links read this one.

7. Now this – THIS – is the ultimate echo chamber escape chance… Want to speak at TED? Now you can audition via theREALwikiman yes its true! You can audition for TED! As Ned points out this would be the ultimate echo chamber escape! If you’re a librarian and you audition let me know!

TED is offering anybody the opportunity to join the ranks of Bill Gates, Al Gore and Jane Goodall as a TED speaker. Starting this month, the organization will begin accepting auditions via YouTube and Vimeo videos for its TED2012 conference.

“We’re holding this audition to give a chance to the undiscovered talent we know is out there — and especially talent that can help us continue to reinvent the ancient art of the spoken word,” reads the online application.

8. Fighting piracy is the dumbest thing you can do | FutureBook: http://bit.ly/dF4O8f via wawoodworth

not only does it cost you time and money (and hardly shows results, again learn from the music industry), it can cost you your image. This might be a difficult one to grasp. Especially if you do not want/dare to look at other industries that have already dealt with this before. The reason people illegally download is not always because they want something for free. Common reasons are: convenience (in a file format of your choice to use on a device of your choice), speed (why wait for it to become available here if you can already get it elsewhere? It feels unfair, and more important: the consumer doesn’t want to wait) or availability (see the Harry Potter example, as mentioned on FutureBook two weeks ago).

9. Check out LISEvents – Do IT! Its one stop shop for upcoming LIS events, if you’re a speaker you can register yourself (like I did), if you’re an event planner you can submit your event or find a speaker.

“LISEvents is a community-based site intended to aggregate listings of library-related events of all types, sizes, and locations. The site also helps speakers find gigs and event planners find speakers.”

Blake’s goal is to list every conference,large and small, that might be of interest to those of us working in libraries.

10. Starting an E-Reader Lending Library « PC Sweeney’s Blog – Patrick Sweeney shares his efforts to create an ereader lending program at his library.

Bonus! These are all about me, say what you want about navel-gazing or self promotion but it was a big week for me! I wrote some questions for OverDrive and Amazon about their announcement earlier this week. (side note I wrote that post on my phone while at vet with my dogs). Later that day the New York Times contacted about an article they were writing. I ended up being quoted in The Times, The Guardian and at ReadWriteWeb!

yep I’m quoted in the NYTs! RT @gcaserotti: Kindle Users Gain Access to Library E-Books http://t.co/XWAI8z3 congrats @librarianbyday!

• Kindle Users to Be Able to Borrow Library E-Books

looks like I’m quoted in the Guardian too! -> Kindle readers can now borrow ebooks from libraries http://bit.ly/g2Cs9B

• Kindle readers can now borrow ebooks from libraries

cool! Thank you for letting me know! RT @audreywatters: @librarianbyday quoted you in this article http://rww.to/gAUVuU

• Librarians React to Amazon’s New Lending Library: More Questions Than Celebrations

Similar Posts:

• Top Ten Links 2.43: eBooks, Easy QR Codes, Time Management and Career Expectations
• Top Ten Links Week 38 – Positive Feedback, Library Trends, TechnoLiteracy and More
• 10 Best Links from Twitter – Week in Review

My personally selected top ten from the links I shared on Twitter 4.10.2011 through 4.16.2011.  In no particular order:

1. Stop BREAKING THE BASIC RULES of presenting! « thewikiman another great presentation from Ned Potter, I think this one spent most of last week on the front page of Slidehsare.net.

2. House passes anti-net neutrality bill via @huffingtonpost VenessaMiemis Gotta love net neutrality being refered to as a FCC power grab. Net neutrality is important people pay attention to efforts to thwart it!

3. Boopsie launches BookCheck, mobile check-out for libraries, now in use at Cuyahoga County Public Library

Leveraging barcode-scanning technology, the new feature allows library patrons to retrieve basic catalog information (real-time access from the library’s ILS system) and content from third-party sources such as book reviews, plot summaries and author bios from anywhere in the library using their mobile phone. Library cardholders can then check out the book with one click of a button. BookCheck is immediately available for Android device users. Support for iPhone and select Blackberry devices will follow shortly.

4. 2011 State of America’s Libraries Report via @tadawes the latest State of America’s Libraries Report from ALA. Even if you don’t read the whole thing read the executive summary.

5. So, I’m dead. What’s the deal with my digital data? I think the comments are more interesting that the article post itself, including what happens to your WoW toons?

6. CIPA Announces ebook Partnership with Douglas County Libraries and Red Rocks Community Library

By June of 2011, the Red Rocks Community College and the Douglas County Libraries will not only offer eBooks from CIPA’s authors for checkout through their library catalogs, but will also allow click-through purchases of these titles.

7. Books Without Batteries:The Negative Impacts of Technology a look at the environmental effects of ereader creation.

To make one e-reader requires 33 pounds of minerals, plus 79 gallons of water to refine the minerals and produce the battery and printed writing. The production of other e-reading devices such as cellphones, iPads, and whatever new gizmo will pop up in the years ahead is similar. “The adverse health impacts [on the general public] from making one e-reader are estimated to be 70 times greater than those for making a single book,” says the Times.

Then you figure that the 100 million e-readers will be outmoded in short order, to be replaced by 100 million new and improved devices in the years ahead that will likewise be replaced by new models ad infinitum, and you realize an environmental disaster is at hand. We will have lost a chunk of our planet as we lose our minds to the digital juggernaut.

Here’s what it takes to make a book, which, if it is any good, will be shared by many readers and preserved and appreciated in personal, public, and university libraries that survive the gigantic digital book burning: recycled paper, a dash of minerals, and two gallons of water. Batteries not necessary. If trees are harvested, they can be replanted.

8. “Five Must-Have Characteristics of Nonprofit Mobile Websites“

1. A simple design with very little images
2. Fresh content.
3. Location and contact information.
4. Social networking icons that link to your mobile profiles and pages.
5. A mobile-optimized “Donate Now” page.

9. Libraries are the only place anyone can go to become anything they want

An imaginarian is built on the concept of imagineer from the Disney Corporation.  The term imagineer is the blending of imagination and engineering.  So I define the term imaginarian as the blending of imagination and librarianship.  Imagineers are tasked with designing and building Disney’s parks, resorts, etc…

Imaginarians are tasked with designing and building the human imagination.  We focus on the creative and learning processes that take place in the human brain and soul.  We help people construct realities and worlds that meet their desires.  Imaginarians help people find their voice, identity and creative-self.  We foster an environment in which these can soar.

10. Legislation Would Let You Opt Out of Online Web Tracking

The bipartisan legislation would allow consumers to demand particular websites stop tracking and selling their online behavior. As it now stands, internet surfers are bound by lengthy and often hidden terms-of-service agreements by which a company dictates how their surfing habits and data will be used.

And a Bonus link  for my fellow shoe fans! Shoes Tips! -> 20 Tips to Make Your Wardrobe Last @librarycourtney @JanieH @buffyjhamilton@lisacarlucci @pollyalida The shoe specific tips:

2. Don’t drive in good heels.

10. Add sole protectors to your shoes

11. Switch to wool athletic socks

17. Never leave sneakers in the car

Similar Posts:

• Top 10 Links 2.40: Poverty, Digital Underclass, Digital Culture, e-Content & More
• Top Ten Link Week 49: Dropbox, Tips for the Holidays, Privacy, Trolling, Tech, Speaking, PostPost and more!
• Top Ten Links 2.44: eBooks, Digital Literacy, Transliteracy, Libraries & Quitting Google