Librarian by Day

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