Librarian by Day

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.