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 10 from the links I shared on Twitter from 5/7/2010 thru 5/13/2010

1. kindness is one of the simplest things that make the biggest different How to Be Kinder: 11 Fine Tips If you only read one thing from this post read this one. We could use a little more kindness in the world and its far too underated. Don’t just look at the list go read the whole article.

1. Be grateful for what you got.
2. Express it.
3. Minimize judgments.
4. Take it easy with the criticism.
5. Try to understand the other side.
6. Make positive observations about people.
7. Remember the small and kind gestures.
8. Remind yourself. It’s easy to forget.
9. Awash yourself in the positive memories of the times when you were kind.
10. Take the smarter and higher road.
11. Be kind to yourself.

2. Internet Archive Launches Library for the Visually Impaired With 1M Books via @ALA_TechSource

The 1 million+ books in the Internet Archive’s library for print disabled, are scanned from hard copy books then digitized into DAISY — a specialized format used by blind or other persons with disabilities, for easy navigation. Files are downloaded to devices that translate the text and read the books aloud for the user to enjoy. To access books visit: http://openlibrary.org/subjects/accessible_book

3. New long post/rant on LiB: “Why internet filters don’t work and why libraries who filter are wrong“:  via @TheLiB – Sarah might call this a rant but it has more facts and statistics than any rant I’ve ever gone on. It is well worth reading and bookmarking should you need to defend your library’s choice to not filter.

4. Parents: Instead of Banning Your Kids from Social Networks, Consider Teaching Responsible Usage via @TheLiB @msauers – a well written response to an email from a school principal advising parents:

Learn as a family about cybersafety together at wiredsafety.org for your own knowledge. It is a great site. But then do everything I asked in this email – because there really is no reason a child needs to have one of these accounts.

5. Not Too Cool for Privacy: Young Adults Monitor Their Digital Reputations

…the young adults are as or more active in protecting their privacy than their older counterparts. Laura Holson reports inThe New York Times that an upcoming Pew Internet Project study finds “people in their 20s exert more control over their digital reputations than older adults, more vigorously deleting unwanted posts and limiting information about themselves.”

6. Girls Carve Out Their Own Space Online

According to an emerging body of research—including recent studies by Northwestern University communications professor Eszter Hargittai —the digital divide is frequently a gender divide.

Yet when it comes to blogging, young women are carving out their own niche. Katie Davis, a Harvard University doctoral student working with Howard Gardner’s Good Play Project, had originally sought out the popular online community LiveJournal to examine adolescent development, but when she discovered that the vast majority of bloggers in her age group (17-21) were female, she became curious. Did the girls’ online writing reflect the adolescent development process? And was it affected by the process?

7. Google Defends Privacy Policies In Letter to Commissioners via @ALA_TechSource

“We do not get everything 100 percent right – that is why we acted so quickly on Google Buzz following the user feedback we received,” Horvath and Fleischer wrote. “We’re also gratified that a number of you, in public statements, have expressed your satisfaction about how quickly we responded to those concerns.”

Both pledged to ensure “that privacy is designed into our products at every stage of the development cycle” and said that Google has a “team of seasoned privacy professionals, including legal, policy, security and engineering experts, to help guide the development of responsible privacy policies across Google.”

8. Awesome! RT @dmlcentral project by NY Times – Images from people around the world taken at the very same moment

9. Gartner’ 10 Mobile Technologies to Watch in 2010 and 2011

1. Bluetooth (3 and 4)
2. The Mobile Web
3. Mobile Widgets
4. Platform-Independent Mobile AD Tools
5. App Stores
6. Enhanced Location Awareness
7. Cellular Broadband
8. Touchscreens
9. M2M
10. Device-Independent Security

10. Ruling: Washington Libraries Can Deny Adults Unfiltered Internet

The Washington Supreme Court issued a 6–3 decision May 6 that affirmed a rural library system’s policy of refusing to temporarily disable an internet filter at an adult’s request. The ruling does not alter federal case law.

Similar Posts:

• Top Ten Links Week 16
• Top Ten Links Week 20 – Job Search Tips, The Future, The iPad, Speaking Tips and More
• Top Ten Links Week 23

As part of National Privacy week I thought I would share some of my favorite quotes about privacy. Hopefully they will get you thinking about privacy, if you weren’t before, and spark some conversation.

10 . Our work to improve privacy continues today. – Mark Zuckerberg CEO of Facebook

I don’t think I really have to comment on this one, its just amusing.

9 .Law-abiding citizens value privacy. Terrorists require invisibility. The two are not the same, and they should not be confused. ~ Richard Perle

According to Wikipedia – “Richard Norman Perle is an American political advisor and lobbyist who worked for the Reagan administration as an assistant Secretary of Defense and worked on the Defense Policy Board Advisory Committee from 1987 to 2004. He was Chairman of the Board from 2001 to 2003 under the Bush Administration.”

8. The real danger is the gradual erosion of individual liberties through automation, integration, and interconnection of many small, separate record-keeping systems, each of which alone may seem innocuous, even benevolent, and wholly justifiable. -Anon., U. S. Privacy Study Commission, 1977

If we ignore small gradual erosions to privacy, especially in the name of convenience or safety, we risk a much larger overall loss that we aren’t aware of until its too late.

7. Every CEO of a social network should be required to use the default privacy settings for all of their accounts on the service. - Anil Dash

Word.

6. It is the first responsibility of every citizen to question authority. – Ben Franklin

Its a great reminder. There is nothing wrong with asking questions and wanting answers, especially in regard to privacy.

5. If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place. - Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google

Oh really? I do all sorts of things I don’t want anyone to know about, nothing crazy or illegal, but personal and private. I don’t want those things  broadcast. Thanks.

4. You already have zero privacy. Get over it. -  Scott G. McNealy CEO of Sun Microsystems Inc

This was said in 1999, yes, really.

3. No matter how many times a privileged straight white male technology executive pronounces the death of privacy, Privacy Is Not Dead. People of all ages care deeply about privacy. And they care just as much about privacy online as they do offline. Making Sense of Privacy and Publicity“

Privacy doesn’t mean the same to everyone and the end of it will affect people of different social and economic classes differently.

2. Once conversations that should be private are undertaken in a public forum, they become theater – meant for the onlookers more than the participants. - Are we surrendering our privacy too easily?

This is fascinating to me. The process of being watch changes how we behave both offline and online. Just as you question the reality of reality tv you should consider the validity of statements and actions carried out in a public forum where the  participant knows there is an audience.

1.  Just because something is publicly accessible does not mean that people want it to be publicized. - “Making Sense of Privacy and Publicity“

This is hands down my favorite privacy quote.  There is a huge difference between something happening in public and it being publicized. If you’re not keeping up with what danah boyd says about privacy you should be. She has a firm understanding of the nuances of online privacy and she explains them clearly so anyone can understand.

Image used courtesy of a creative commons license by practicalowl on fllickrSimilar Posts:

• Latest Facebook Privacy Violation – It is Now Broadcasting Conversations by Publishing The Content of Recent Activity
• What’s at Stake With Facebook is Not Privacy or Publicity But Informed Consent and Choice
• Do you understand Facebook’s privacy settings?

A student’s perspective on Academic Libraries.

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• Empowering Library Users to Work with Digital Media
• Libraries and Transliteracy – the video version
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Yesterday I noticed something new in my google search Results from people in your social circle for google social search. It looked like this

When I clicked on the link that said Results from people in your social circle for google social search it took me to a page that was just content from my Social Circle. I was a little disturbed by this. First I do not want search results from my Social Circle, whatever that means, I want it from everybody. Secondly, where are they getting this information? How did Google know who is in my Social Circle?

So like a good little librarian I started digging. I went back to the page initial page and clicked on the link for My social circle.

This took me too a page with a list of names that make up my Social Circle . There were a LOT of names on that list.  But how did they get there?

There doesn’t seem to be a way to simply add or remove a person either. Google seems to know everywhere I’m connected to these people. Even places I didn’t know or remember I was connected with them.

Frankly I’m creeped out. I do not remember giving Gmail permission to go through my contacts and correlate them to other sites.

Since I’m not interesting in Social Search I started looking for a way to turn it off. Guess what? There isn’t one.

The only option to not see Social Circle search results is to log out of the Google account (or avoid having a single direct connection linked to the account). – ghacks.net

Even more disturbing to me is I can’t find much of anyone talking about the privacy issues. Yes I know this information is already available on the internet, it’s the idea of someone or some company compiling it all in one place.  There is a big difference between it being scattered out there willy nilly and someone collecting an analyzing it.

It does not work the way the original video demonstration said it would. It claims you can remove a network like Twitter. Where? I deleted my Google Profile after all the Buzz brouhaha so I haven’t had one for a while now.

Another early video states you can block your chat list, where?

On my Social Content page it says there is 0 content from my Google profile (because I don’t have one?) Yet on my Social Circle page it tells me there are 145 contacts from links listed on my Google profile. What profile?

According to Google’s Social Search Features page:

You control who is part of your circle. If you want to add or remove someone from your social circle, here are your options:

• Add or remove the person from the social networks linked to your Google profile
• Add or remove links on your Google profile
• Add or block the person in your Gmail chat contact list
• Add or remove the person from your Friends, Family, or Coworkers groups in your Google contacts

If someone you don’t know shows up in your social search results, it’s likely that they’re connected to someone you do know. For example, if you’re following someone on Twitter, and that person is following five other people, those five other people are also included in your social circle. To see where each connection comes from, view the text on the search results page that says “Connected through [person] on [service].”

Again I don’t have a Google profile so where do I go to remove these links?

Frankly, this maybe the thing that finally drives me away from Google. Maybe there is a way to opt out, to turn it off, but I sure couldn’t find it.  It seems like the Buzz fiasco all over again but worse.  This time no one is paying attention.

More info:

• Google’s Creepy Social Search
• Privacy: Why Google Social Search Gives Me The Creeps
• Google Social Search: A New Node in the Personal Learning Network
• Google Social Circle Now Appearing In Search Results
• Search is getting more social
• Google Social Search Goes Live, Adds New Features
• Social Search demonstration YouTube video from Google
• How Google Social Search works YouTube video from Google

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• 5 Reasons Google+ Is A Privacy Accident (Disaster?) Waiting to Happen
• What do you think of Google Flu Trends?
• Latest Facebook Privacy Violation – It is Now Broadcasting Conversations by Publishing The Content of Recent Activity

CC image courtesy of ap. on Flickr

If you’re thinking about transliteracy you almost have to be thinking about the digital divide. What does it mean? Is it real? How will we close the gap?

This New York Times piece Will the Digital Divide Close by Itself? From the Google’s Breakthrough Learning in a Digital Age provides a look at and arguments about the digital divide from two different perspectives.

From Jim Steyer, chief executive of CommonSense Media and co-sponsor of the event

“every kid needs to be digitally literate by the 8th grade” and called for a major public education campaign to make that happen. He argued that technology and learning are synonymous and that schools, parents, and kids must get up to speed in the next five years.

On the other hand:

Reed Hastings, the founder and chief executive of Netflix, contradicted him directly, saying it would take well more than five years to bridge the divide.

Mr. Hastings, an avid education philanthropist and proponent of school reforms, argued that at the advent of any new technology — television, cars, even rockets — people get riled up and wring their hands over a growing gap between the haves and have-nots.

He said that gaps narrow naturally as the market evolves and prices drop, enabling more people to bring new technology into the home and schools.

Most interestingly:

“We need to shift our expectations,” Mr. Hastings said. “This is a natural part of the evolution of technology.”

If I understand this correctly he is saying that the digital divide is part of an evolutionary process where technology and access to technology will be ubiquitous. I’m not sure I make the connection.

Most importantly:

Failed school reform might point to the need for more efforts outside of the classroom.

This is where libraries need to step in. We need to help students close the digital divide because what that means, what were talking about is the same thing as transliteracy. Becoming transliterate closes the digital divide. If schools can’t or wont, libraries need to step forward. We’ve done it for years with literacy, we need to do it now with transliteracy.

More on transliteracy:

• Libraries and Transliteracy
• Transliteracy group on Ning - there’s a special forum for librarians, but you’re welcome anywhere in the group
• Transliteracy Research Group
• Transliteracies Project

Similar Posts:

• Libraries in a Transliterate, Technology Fluent World #intlib10
• Transliterate Divide – Working Definition
• Why Transliteracy? An Introduction for Librarians – a Tech Talk with Michael Sauers

Jessamyn West shared this yesterday

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I’ll admit it, I’m sucker for Google products – Reader, Gmail, Docs, Blogger, Chrome and I know on some level the dangers of that.  I have lots of bookmarks in delicious about it.  This morning while I was watching the news  I heard mention of something new – Google Flu Trends.  According the the site:

We have found a close relationship between how many people search for flu-related topics and how many people actually have flu symptoms. Of course, not every person who searches for “flu” is actually sick, but a pattern emerges when all the flu-related search queries from each state and region are added together. We compared our query counts with data from a surveillance system managed by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and discovered that some search queries tend to be popular exactly when flu season is happening. By counting how often we see these search queries, we can estimate how much flu is circulating in various regions of the United States.

I’m not certain why this disturbs me, I think I want to know how Google knows where I am when I search.  If I go into a computer in my library and do a Goolge search for Flu how do they know I’m in Jefferson City? How?  I looked in the FAQ and How Does This Work section and don’t see it.  I’m sure someone will leave a comment and let me know.  But I’m not sure that will make my unease go away.  Think of everything else they *could* track.  

Read more:

• Google Flu Trends: A Glimpse into the Future of Google Health
• Google Flu Trends’ to Track Influenza Outbreaks
• When the world catches flu, Google sneezes
• Google now tracking flu trends via search
• Google Flu

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After much preperation the time has finally arrived!  This week I’m cohosting a Web 2.0 workshop sponsered by MOREnet and the Missouri State Library.  The topic – They asked us to talk about using Web 2.0 tools in your library! 

Even better, my cohost and I created the whole thing using Google Docs.  How else are two people going to edit a presentation at all hours of the day and night?  These will not be on my slideshare account if you want to see them you’ll have to check them out on the wiki after the end of the week.  They wont all be up until the end of the workshop on Friday. 

If you don’t have, don’t want or just aren’t signed into your Google account you can watch the presentation. 

But if you want to get more from the presentation you should sign in. 

If you log in with your Google account you can see the Speakers Notes.  You’ll be able to see the notes the speaker has entered for each slide, and in this case who is responsible for each section of the presentation. 

Similar Posts:

• Workshop Wrap Up
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