The Infomancer's Notebook

Here's my Multimedia and Internet @ Schools Pipeline Column for the July / Aug. 2008 issue.

Tips 2.0: What’s Hot? How Do I Learn That?

Stephen

Here's my Multimedia and Internet @ Schools Pipeline Column for the May / June 2008.

I quite liked it and think it's a fun way to build skills.

Storyboarding: Comics, Graphic Novels and Engaging Learners

Stephen

I'm way behind on catching up with posting my Information Outlook columns. I'm connected in Brussels airport on the way home from India so I might as well try to catch up now!

July's column (Right after the Seattle conference):
Technology and Value at SLA

September's column:
Making Technology Plans in Shifting Sands

October's column:
Observing Tech Change in the Real World

November's column:
Preparing for Change: Technologically and Economically

December's column:
Access is Not Equal to Know How

November's president's column:
Interconnectedness: Your Global SLA

The end of my year as president of SLA is approaching and on to a year as past-president on the Board.

Stephen

I had a nice day in Peoria with the Alliance Library System and their all day system workshop. Lots of good programs.

Here's mine:

Reality 2.0, Achieving Relevance:
21st Century Special Libraries

Alliance are the innovative folks who do so much neat stuff in Second Life.

Stephen

One of my favourite things to do is to speak at schools of library and information science. I got to do this at Catholic U while I was in Virginia for the SLA board meetings a week ago. Here are the PPTs:

Reality 2.0: Achieving Relevance: 21st Century Special Libraries

Stephen

Did you know about this annual observance? Observed (obviously not an occasion for celebration) on the first Saturday after Thanksgiving, *Misgiving Day* “is designed to break the arc of forced bonhomie that extends from Thanksgiving, hits its apogee at Christmas, and climaxes on New Year’s Eve.” Here is our opportunity to “rue our excesses, our sins of commission and omission, and the overall shallowness of our existence not to mention the gluttony of the recent holiday.”
Anyone care to join me in some sour mash?

Ok, so humor me for a minute here…

Here’s what I LOVE about reading on the Web, when I get into a link flow that dances me from blog to blog, post to connected post and comments, and after about 20 minutes of just letting myself be carried away by the threads of conversations I land on something that makes a small part of my brain blow up in wonder. (This is also, by the way, something that I think too many of us fight when we read online, this idea that if we just let ourselves get caught up in the link trip, reading snippets here and there, scanning there and here, that we’re not really reading deeply somehow. Like my seventh grade English teacher Mrs. Tharp is on my shoulder shaking her head in disdain. It’s just a different depth, I think.)

So bear with me as I try to capture this: somehow I got to Sarah Stewart’s post on the Connectivism course and hopped from there over to this mind-bending post at Mike Bogle’s blog which led me to graze around his site a bit to find this post which sent me to this conversation about Open Educational Resources on Brian Lamb’s site which led me to this comment by Mike Caulfield which provoked me to search for and find this very cool concept of Rip-Mix Learners. Setting aside the beauty of that idea, let’s reflect for a second on that process, one that I’d bet most teachers would dissuade their students from practicing. At every point, my decision to click was motivated by an interest for context, for moving more deeply into the one idea in the maze of stuff that was pulling me most at the moment. I didn’t read half of these posts in their entirety, nor do I feel the need to go back and do so. If I had, I most certainly would not have ended up where I did. And while I know that I just as easily could have ended up someplace even better, I let my interest drive the narrative, not the expectations.

While I’m not suggesting I understand fully the implications of reading in this way, I do know that these flow moments are, on balance, a good thing. I love being lost in it. And it’s almost as if I’ve done this enough to know that if I just give myself to it, the thing I’m supposed to find and learn will eventually make itself known, like it’s finding me somehow. Ok, that may be a bit over the top; suffice to say it’s Zen in a way that I wish all of my moments were.

So anyway…

…this concept of Rip-Mix Learners has my brain taking off in all different directions.:

Rip Mix Learners is a student-run Open Courseware project, in which students make audio recordings of the lectures, compile class notes, and other materials and share them with their peers online.

I’m thinking “Rip-Mix Classrooms” or “Rip-Mix Workshops” or heck, “Rip-Mix Conferences.” I’ve been railing of late at all the paper note talking conference attendees whose observations and reflections and experiences will never be connected after the conference ends. And I know that we’re already doing this to some extent on the conference level and the classroom level (i.e. Darren’s scribes and others.) Problem is, most schools would probably attempt to shut this down and call it cheating, especially if, as this group is doing, they are collecting and adding tests and quizzes to the mix.

The horror!

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So a number of different threads are congealing in my tired brain regarding writing and blogging and why we do all of this stuff. The post that finally led me to try to get this down was Bud’s Brain Dump on NCTE where he quotes council president Kathleen Blake Yancey as saying this:

If you are writing for the screen, you are writing for the network.

Oh. Yeah. How nice that is to hear, isn’t it? Not “global audience,” but “network”. And as Bud unpacks his conference experience, you get the sense that this whole blogging thing may finally, finally, finally be tipping over the edge in terms not just of a tool to publish but of a tool to connect.

And that is a crucial distinction, I think. Yes, we write to communicate. But now that we are writing in hypertext, in social spaces, in “networked publics,” there’s a whole ‘nother side of it. For as much as I am writing this right now to articulate my thoughts clearly and cogently to anyone who chooses to read it, what I am also attempting to do is connect these ideas to others’ ideas, both in support and in opposition, around this topic. Without rehashing all of those posts about Donald Murray and Jay David Bolter, I’m trying to engage you in some way other than just a nod of the head or a sigh of exasperation. I’m trying to connect you to other ideas, other minds. I want a conversation, and that changes the way I write. And it changes the way we think about teaching writing. This is not simply about publishing, about taking what we did on paper and throwing it up on a blog and patting ourselves on the back.

This after-the-publishing part is difficult because we are forced to attempt to do it in filtered, restricted, contrived spaces for learning, spaces that are not conducive to this type of writing or learning.  Barbara Ganley (who was featured last week in the Times as a “slow blogger”) is consdering this as well.

As a college teacher, I thought I was all about collaborative learning, about students taking responsibility for their learning and their lives–together–but how can you do that within an artificial environment? Within a closed environment?…Teaching and collaborating and learning and working inside an academic institution have absolutely nothing to do with how to do those things out in the world.

And I continue to wonder if the two are even possible to combine. Those of us who write to connect and who live our learning lives in these spaces feel the dissonance all the time. We go where we want, identify our own teachers, find what we need, share as much as we can, engage in dialogue, direct our own learning as it meets our needs and desires. That does not feel like what’s happening to my own children or most others in the “system.”

Barbara’s post is worth reading not just for her own reflections but for the connections she creates in the writing process. She took me to Scott Leslie, whose post “planning to share versus just sharing” is as one of the commentors called it, “another doozy.” Scott writes about how frustrating this dissonance is, how difficult institutions make it from a tradition and culture standpoint to make this kind of learning happen.

In all of this lies the tension of the world “out there,” outside the walls, this great unknown, or more likely, this great potential wrench in ointment to what we’ve been so darn good at doing for all of these years. I can’t tell you how many “why me?” looks I get from people who listen politely to my presentations but then probably want to go home and throw up. And I think it’s because they’re not writing for the network. They’re not connecting, seeing the value, feeling the network love. Scott nails it:

Now I contrast that with the learning networks which I inhabit, and in which every single day I share my learning and have knowledge and learning shared back with me. I know it works. I literally don’t think I could do my job any longer without it - the pace of change is too rapid, the number of developments I need to follow and master too great, and without my network I would drown. But I am not drowning, indeed I feel regularly that I am enjoying surfing these waves and glance over to see other surfers right there beside me, silly grins on all of our faces. So it feels to me like it’s working, like we ARE sharing, and thriving because of it.

Oh. Yeah.

(Photo “A fractal night on my street” by kevindooley.)

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Interesting point of view . . .

Why Google Must Die by John Dvorak, PC Magazine (Nov 17)

I've been talking about this for years. Too many library folks say they they want all of our OPACs, federated search, and web site search engines to work "just like Google". Indeed some of the more shallow ones actually implement the Google yellow or blue boxes in their institutions or communities! I have heard that at least four U.S. states have served up their state portals to Google alone.

Should we give up, raise the white flag and just go Google? To that I respond:

OK, which should I implement first:

1. Should I start manipulating the search results of library users based on the needs of advertisers who pay for position?
2. Should I track your users' searches and offer different search results or ads based on their private searches?
3. Should I open library OPACs and searches to 'search engine optimization' (SEO) techniques that allow special interest groups, commercial interests, politicians (as we've certainly seen with the geotagged searches in the US election this year), racist organizations (as in the classsic MLK example), or whatever to change results?
4. Should I geotag all searches, using Google Maps, coming from colleges, universities or high schools because I can ultimately charge more for clicks coming from younger searchers? Should I build services like Google Scholar to attract young ad viewers and train or accredit librarians and educators in the use of same?
5. Should I allow the algoritim to override the end-user's Boolean search if it meets an advertiser's goal?
6. "Evil," says Google CEO Eric Schmidt, "is what Sergey says is evil." (Wired). Is that who you want making your personal and institutional values decisions?

I still remain amazed at how many library folks are unaware of (or choose to ignore) exactly how Google makes billions of dollars in profit alone every year. You serve your primary customer and Google's primary customer is not library end users (or searchers at all). Meeting the ends of advertisers and growing your revenue to meet the demands of the NYSE vortex.

Now libraries should be asking what creates a good saerch result that meets th end users needs - the big question research where the questions begin with 'why' and 'how' - not the simple who, what where, when Google searches. .Can they be as simple as Google? Should they be as simple as Google? Might thought, talent and learning be involved versus simple information transactions?

Libraries should be creating the third way - the one that doesn't serve the needs of advertisers, politicians, special interest groups, etc. - the one that lifts people up in learning environments and communities.

And they should be training users to be aware of the algorithms behind Google and all the search engines.

And they should find their voice to talk to their host institutions and communities about their role.

If we don't, . . .

Stephen

OK, the Christian Science Monitor is going completely web based in 2009.

Now PC Magazine is too:

"An Open letter to PC Magazine (Print) Readers. The January 2009 issue (Volume 28, Issue 1) of PC Magazine will mark a monumental transition for the publication. It is the last printed edition of this venerable publication. Of course, as with any technology-related enterprise, this is not the end, but the beginning of something exciting and new. Starting in February 2009, PC Magazine will become a 100-percent digital publication. So, in addition to our popular network of Websites, which includes our centerpiece, PCMag.com, as well as ExtremeTech, blogs like Gearlog and AppScout, and audio and video content that includes PCMag Radio, Cranky Geeks and DL.TV, we'll offer PC Magazine Digital Edition to all of our print subscribers. The PC Magazine Digital Edition has actually been available since 2002. So for thousands of you, the benefits of this unique medium are already clear. And those benefits will continue to multiply in the coming months, as we work hard to enhance your digital experience."

The eight reasons listed behind the link are interesting. I suppose the PC Mag readership is more ready for this change. I wonder which mainstream library periodicals will take the plunge first?

Stephen

An open response to a random press release sent my way by someone from CBS Evening News. I am not sure why they think I would want to share this along with you, but I had a few minutes sitting here and this kind of tickled my fancy tonight for some reason.

Hi Colin,

While I loved the fleeting thought that CBS News might actually be interested in my little blog, that feeling quickly passed. If you actually read my blog before sending this out, then it might have occurred to you that I would more closely identify with the the real story behind the story you guys covered; The absolute mess of assessment in our educational system.

If students are cheating on tests, the easy answer is to blame the students for their lack of ethics. Given all the positive role models for ethical behavior children have these days (our government, wall street, etc.) then surely it is their fault that they are trying to find an easier way to endure the mind numbing regurgitation exercises we foist upon them on a regular basis.

Instead, it might be a bit more effective to talk about the real story here. Why are teachers using assessments on which students can cheat? Just like with The plagiarism on research papers, the problem is most often not in the copying, but in the failure of the initial assignment to present a rigorous and authentic assessment situation. Only the fault doesn’t lie entirely with the teachers. Though I came from being a classroom teacher, I am not sure I could still face the immense pressures teachers are under these days.

So are my questions When is CBS going to take a stand and look at the need for rigorous, authentic work in our classrooms? When is CBS going to stop focusing on cheating students and focus on cheating test companies and corrupt governmental departments that brought about the total failure of Reading First? When is CBS going to stop focusing on fear-mongering and instead join in the effort to bring about real change in the educational system?

My readers aren’t really in to re-postings of press releases without additional comments, but since I have taken the time to write you back in hopes that someone on your end is reading this I will also take the time to share the news about your story so my readers can construct their own conclusions regarding my interpretation of the story.

Thank you for taking the time to consider my questions.

Chris
__________________________________________________________________
On Fri, Nov 21, 2008 at 6:00 PM, Small, Colin <smallc @cbsnews.com> wrote:
Hi Christopher,

My name is Colin Small and I work for the CBS Evening News. A story aired this week that I think your blog readers might be interested in. Our science and technology correspondent Daniel Sieberg examined videos made by kids, for kids, teaching each other just what teacher’s don’t want them to learn: how to cheat.

Check it out the story here:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/11/20/eveningnews/eyeontech/main4622153.shtml?tag=topStory;topStoryHeadline

And this is a blog post on the same subject: http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2008/11/20/eveningnews/techtalk/entry4620394.shtml

Please let me know if there are any questions.

Thanks,

Colin

The MacArthur Foundation has released an important new study titled “Living and Learning with New Media: Summary of Findings from the Digital Youth Project” (58 page PDF):

To quote: "New media allow for a degree of freedom and autonomy for youth that is less apparent in classroom setting. Youth respect one another’s authority online, and they are often more motivated to learn from peers than from adults. Their efforts are also largely self-directed, and the outcome emerges through exploration, in contrast to classroom learning that is oriented toward set, predefined goals."

Executive Summary

"Social network sites, online games, video-sharing sites, and gadgets such as iPods and mobile phones are now fixtures of youth culture. They have so permeated young lives that it is hard to believe that less than a decade ago these technologies barely existed. Today’s youth may be coming of age and struggling for autonomy and identity as did their predecessors, but they are doing so amid new worlds for communication, friendship, play, and self-expression.

This white paper summarizes the results of a three-year ethnographic study, funded by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, examining young people’s participation in the new media ecology. It represents a condensed version of a longer treatment of the project findings. The study was motivated by two primary research questions: How are new media being integrated into youth practices and agendas? How do these practices change the dynamics of youth-adult negotiations over literacy, learning, and authoritative knowledge?

Extending Friendships and Interests

Online spaces enable youth to connect with peers in new ways. Most youth use online networks to extend the friendships that they navigate in the familiar contexts of school, religious organizations, sports, and other local activities. They can be “always on,” in constant contact with their friends via texting, instant messaging, mobile phones, and Internet connections. This continuous presence requires ongoing maintenance and negotiation, through private communications like instant messaging or mobile phones, as well as in public ways through social network sites such as MySpace and Facebook. With these “friendship-driven” practices, youth are almost always associating with people they already know in their offline lives. The majority of youth use new media to “hang out” and extend existing friendships in these ways.

A smaller number of youth also use the online world to explore interests and find information that goes beyond what they have access to at school or in their local community. Online groups enable youth to connect to peers who share specialized and niche interests of various kinds, whether that is online gaming, creative writing, video editing, or other artistic endeavors. In these “interest-driven” networks, youth may find new peers outside the boundaries of their local community. They can also find opportunities to publicize and distribute their work to online audiences and to gain new forms of visibility and reputation.

Self-Directed, Peer-Based Learning

In both friendship-driven and interest-driven online activity, youth create and navigate new forms of expression and rules for social behavior. In the process, young people acquire various forms of technical and media literacy by exploring new interests, tinkering, and “messing around” with new forms of media. They may start with a Google search or “lurk” in chat rooms to learn more about their burgeoning interest. Through trial and error, youth add new media skills to their repertoire, such as how to create a video or customize games or their MySpace page. Teens then share their creations and receive feedback from others online. By its immediacy
and breadth of information, the digital world lowers barriers to self-directed learning. Others “geek out” and dive into a topic or talent. Contrary to popular images, geeking out is highly social and engaged, although usually not driven primarily by local friendships. Youth turn instead to specialized knowledge groups of both teens and adults from around the country or world, with the goal of improving their craft and gaining reputation among expert peers. What makes these groups unique is that while adults participate, they are not automatically the resident experts by virtue of their age. Geeking out in many respects erases the traditional markers of status and authority.

New media allow for a degree of freedom and autonomy for youth that is less apparent in a classroom setting. Youth respect one another’s authority online, and they are often more motivated to learn from peers than from adults. Their efforts are also largely self-directed, and the outcome emerges through exploration, in contrast to classroom learning that is oriented toward set, predefined goals.

Implications for Educators, Parents, and Policymakers

New media forms have altered how youth socialize and learn, and this raises a new set of issues that educators, parents, and policymakers should consider.

Social and recreational new media use as a site of learning.

Contrary to adult perceptions, while hanging out online, youth are picking up basic social and technological skills they need to fully participate in contemporary society. Erecting barriers to participation deprives teens of access to these forms of learning. Participation in the digital age means more than being able to access “serious” online information and culture. Youth could benefit from educators being more open to forms of experimentation and social exploration that are generally not characteristics of educational institutions.

Recognizing important distinctions in youth culture and literacy. Friendship-driven and interest-
driven online participation have very different kinds of social connotations. For example, whereas friendship-driven activities center on peer culture, adult participation is more welcome in the latter, more “geeky,” forms of learning. In addition, the content, ways of relating, and skills that youth value are highly variable depending on what kinds of social groups they associate with. This diversity in forms of literacy means that it is problematic to develop a standardized set of benchmarks to measure levels of new media and technical literacy.
Capitalizing on peer-based learning. Youth using new media often learn from their peers, not teachers or adults, and notions of expertise and authority have been turned on their heads. Such learning differs fundamentally from traditional instruction and is often framed negatively by adults as a means of “peer pressure.” Yet adults can still have tremendous influence in setting
“learning goals,” particularly on the interest-driven side, where adult hobbyists function as role models and more experienced peers.

New role for education? Youths’ participation in this networked world suggests new ways of thinking about the role of education. What would it mean to really exploit the potential of the learning opportunities available through online resources and networks? Rather than assuming that education is primarily about preparing for jobs and careers, what would it mean to think of it as a process guiding youths’ participation in public life more generally? Finally, what would it mean to enlist help in this endeavor from engaged and diverse publics that are broader than what we traditionally think of as educational and civic institutions?"

If your library supports learning, read the whole thing.

Some commentary from educators here and here and here. It's even covered in the NYT today, "Teenagers’ Internet Socializing Not a Bad Thing ".

Stephen

So here is the money quote from the just released study from the MacArthur Foundation titled “Living and Learning with New Media: Summary of Findings from the Digital Youth Project” (pdf):

New media allow for a degree of freedom and autonomy for youth that is less apparent in  classroom setting. Youth respect one another’s authority online, and they are often more motivated to learn from peers than from adults. Their efforts are also largely self-directed, and  the outcome emerges through exploration, in contrast to classroom learning that is oriented toward set, predefined goals.

I would take a few thousand words to unpack just that paragraph in terms of what the implications are for schools, and if we read that without some sense of both fear and excitement, I just don’t think we’re paying attention.

And please, send your administrators and IT folks this message in 42-point bold type:

Social and recreational new media use as a site of learning. Contrary to adult perceptions, while hanging out online, youth are picking up basic social and technological skills they   need to fully participate in contemporary society. Erecting barriers to participation deprives teens of access to these forms of learning. Participation in the digital age means more than being able to access “serious” online information and culture. Youth could benefit from educators being more open to forms of experimentation and social exploration that are generally not characteristic of educational institutions. (Emphasis mine.)

Finally, sit down, and mull this concept over:

Youth using new media often learn from their peers, not teachers or adults, and notions of expertise and authority have been turned on their heads. Such learning differs fundamentally from traditional instruction and is often framed negatively by adults as a means of “peer pressure.” Yet adults can still have tremendous influence in setting “learning goals,” particularly on the interest-driven side, where adult hobbyists function as role models and more experienced peers.

Let me try to make a few points that come quickly to mind.

• Kids respect other’s knowledge online because their knowledge and expertise is transparent in ways they haven’t been in the past. The study says that kids “geek out” by finding those who share their interests both inside and outside of their face to face groups. What a surprise.
• They are more motivated to learn from their peers because they can connect around their shared passions, most of which the adults in the room don’t share.
• They are self-directed because they can be. They can get what they need when they need it.
• Their learning is “knowmadic”, as is most learning in the real world outside of school. We’re not linear, test assessed learners once we leave the system, are we?
• We have to be more willing to support this type of learning rather than prevent it, but, as always, we have to understand it for ourselves as well.

So stop reading this and go read the report, and let these questions hang:

New role for education? Youths’ participation in this networked world suggests new ways of thinking about the role of education. What would it mean to really exploit the potential of the learning opportunities available through online resources and networks? Rather than assuming that education is primarily about preparing for jobs and careers, what would it mean to think of it as a process guiding youths’ participation in public life more generally? Finally, what would it mean to enlist help in this endeavor from engaged and diverse publics that are broader than what we traditionally think of as educational and civic institutions?

What do you think?

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The latest Pew study has loads of interesting data for libraries. Just in case anyone is telling you that everyone is gettig computer literate . . .

"Nearly half of technology users need help with new devices

Many encounter problems with their internet connections, home computers or cell phones. As gadgets become more important to people, their patience wears thin when things break.

11/16/2008 | Release

WASHINGTON, DC, November 16, 2008 – Although information technology is well integrated into the lives of many Americans, gadgets and communication services require, for some, a call for help. Some 48% of technology users usually need help from others to set up new devices or to show them how they function. Many tech users encounter problems with their cell phones, internet connections, and other gadgets. This, in turn, often leads to impatience and frustration as they try to get them fixed.

New research from the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project shows that:

- 44% of those with home internet access say their connection failed to work properly at some time in the previous 12 months.
- 39% of those with desktop or laptop computers have had their machines not work properly at some time in the previous 12 months.
- 29% of cell phone users say their device failed to work properly at some time in the previous year.

“Struggles with modern gadgetry mean less engagement with the services they enable,” said John B. Horrigan, Associate Director of the Pew Internet Project and co-author of the report. “Time spent dealing with set-up or outages means less time using modern communication services to connect with friends or find information that might help people be more productive.”

Although tech users can usually fix the problems by themselves, with the help of friends, or by calling upon user support, some say they cannot fix tech problems at all. Here are some of the ways device owners fixed their broken technology:

- 38% of users with failed technology contacted user support for help.
- 28% of technology users fixed the problem themselves.
- 15% fixed the problem with help from friends or family.
- 15% of tech users were unable to fix their devices
- 2% found help online

“In an age in which new technologies are introduced almost daily, a new gadget or service can become popular well before the technology itself is understood by the average user,” said Sydney Jones, Research Assistant at the Pew Internet & American Life Project and co-author of the report. “Naturally, some users catch on to new technology more quickly than others, and those who have more trouble grasping the technology are left confused, discouraged, and reliant on help from others when their technology fails.”

Not only did users find different solutions to their device failures, they reported varying attitudes during the course of trying to solve the problem. Overall:

- 72% felt confident that they were on the right track to solving the problem.
- 59% felt impatient to solve the problem because they had important uses for the broken technology.
- 48% felt discouraged with the amount of effort needed to fix the problem.
- 40% felt confused by the information that they were getting. Adults who are most likely to be impatient to fix their devices are those who had the most devices fail, those who use their devices most, and those who rely more heavily on their devices for work or information.

This report is based on a survey of 2,054 adults between October 24, 2007, and December 2, 2007. Some 734 respondents in the survey were technology users who had at least one device fail in the past

Contact: John B. Horrigan or Sydney Jones at 202-419-4500."

Read the whole report, When Technology Fails, here. (14 page PDF)

Stephen

My friend Bruce Dixon pointed out to me a few weeks ago that if you do a search for “lesson plans” in Google you get almost 9 million hits, which, when you think about it, is a pretty amazing number. Not saying that they are all great plans, mind you, but when you think about the scope and variety of classroom related content that we can mine these days as opposed to just a few years ago.

Yet this concept of sharing content online still seems problematic for a lot of educators. As I travel around talking to teachers, very few of them argue when I suggest that this is still an isolated profession, and I get the strong sense that there is very little articulation around plans, practice or classroom experiences using online tools much less any local digital databases of documents or what have you. When I ask teachers to talk even in general terms about the experiences their students have had previous to arriving in their classes, most sit quietly and scrunch their shoulders. I know, I know…there is a time factor involved in doing this, or least a perception of one. But it just seems amazing to me that at this point there is no real shift towards publishing more of what we do, more of what our kids do, not only to expand our own knowledge base but to model for our students that potentials of sharing.

All of this was brought to mind, once again, in an by Issac Mao titled “Sharism: A Mind Revolution.” While I think the ideas may wax a bit too poetic at times, the thesis is powerful: in this world, the less we share, the less power we have. It’s an interesting discussion of the challenges to intellectual property and copyright and to the still ingrained perspective that to own and keep private our own best thinking is in some way protective and sustaining of our cultures.

Non-sharing culture misleads us with its absolute separation of Private and Public space. It makes creative action a binary choice between public and private, open and closed. This creates a gap in the spectrum of knowledge. Although this gap has the potential to become a valuable creative space, concerns about privacy make this gap hard to fill. We shouldn’t be surprised that, to be safe, most people keep their sharing private and stay “closed.” They may fear the Internet creates a potential for abuse that they can’t fight alone. However, the paradox is: The less you share, the less power you have.

Mao discusses a lot of the benefits to blogging and sharing, the rewards we can potentially reap, and the positive consequences for the world. And he touches on the implications for education in terms of at least giving our students a leg up in “communication, collaboration and mutual understanding.” Not to mention the idea of helping our students to create a digital portfolio that can not only serve to help their teachers get to know them and their passions more effectively but that can connect them to other teachers and mentors who share those passions. And that is power, not only in the knowledge that we gain but in the learning relationships we foster.

(Photo “Sharing” by Kymberly Janisch)

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It was a fun staff day at Westport Public Library on Nov. 11th. Here are my PPT slides:

Voices of Innovation: Trendspotting
Weak Signals from the Future

Stephen

I had a delightful visit last week to the SLA Rio Grande Chapter and the University of New Mexico.

Here's the PPT slides;

Reality 2.0 and ALWAYS more.

Stephen

So, I’m thinking it’s got to be a good sign when one of the people Obama has picked to head up the FCC review team has been quoted as saying this:

“We’re not doing at all well for reasons that mostly have to do with the fact that we failed to have a US industrial policy pushing forward high-speed internet access penetration, and there’s been completely inadequate competition in this country for high speed internet access,” she said.

And in a final introductory statement during her talk (that’s likely to send shivers down the spines of telecom company executives) she said that she believes internet access is a “utility.”

“This is like water, electricity, sewage systems: Something that each and all Americans need to succeed in the modern era. We’re doing very badly, and we’re in a dismal state,” she said at the time.

What a concept.

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A few things have been happening at SLA where I am still president through year end. I encourage you to check out the SLA website (and join SLA) but I thought I'd highlight a few things today.

The SLA Salary Survey was just released and we're trying to get the word out. Here's a link to the SLA Blog post about it:
http://slablogger.typepad.com/sla_blog/2008/11/2008-sla-salary.htmlOf course there's a free component as well as the full report for a fee.

Also, check out the SLA Information Center Connections blog (esp. the posts on value). The librarian's librarians point to some cool stuff and it's worth subscribing to.
http://slaconnections.typepad.com/info_center_blog/ They also manage a bunch of RSS feeds for members from NewsGator and Factiva on LIS issues that are very cool.

And 2009 is SLA's Centennial! The SLA Centennial Commission announced the launch of the SLA Centennial Celebration Web site, the official gateway to celebrations for the 2009 SLA Centennial! One hundred years later, SLA continues to promote that spirit of knowledge sharing among information professionals and our value to the global information and knowledge based economy..

It is time to start getting excited for an amazing SLA Centennial Celebration in 2009! The DC annual conference promises to be spectacular. Not sure how to get your own celebration underway? How about getting started on your entry for the SLA Centennial Video Contest!?!

Also we have the cool fact that SLA Granted Observer Status in WIPO. Being granted observer status to meetings of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO grants SLA an important voice in intellectual property and provides an additional forum for advocacy. More here. SLA is also participating in executive discussion at hte SIIA, one of the most influential industry associations as well as being invited to the Google D.C.offices for a private briefing and Q&A on the court's decision regarding the Google, Authors Guild, and the Association of American Publishers settlement. We're getting to the table more often than ever.

Now add to that the additional newer benefits of SLA membership - particiption in the SLA 23 Things, access to the SLA Innovation Lab, access to 1,000 plus eBooks on managment and leadership, weekly business book summaries, access to 23,000 plus technology videos, Gary Price's great advice and links, the CLICK U free course of the month, and more - and you get a pretty cool association that supports it's members in both good and difficult times.

Add to that the new membership tier that offers a great membership rate for anyone earning less than $18,000US (students, semi retired members, part time librarians, international members, etc.) and you've got great value.

Lots of neat stuff and I could go on and on, but progress is being made.

Stephen

This is a nice ARL summary and commentary on the AAP Google agreement that has the power to fundamentally affect both publishing and libraries and bookstores in a very transformational way. It’s an analysis written by Jonathan Band, a copyright expert who does work with ARL:

A Guide for the Perplexed: Libraries & the Google Library Project Settlement (Nov. 13, ‘08)

23 Page PDF

Overview

"On October 28, 2008, after several years of legal wrangling, Google, the Association of American Publishers (AAP), and the Authors Guild reached a settlement agreement concerning Google’s scanning of copyrighted works. The scanning of these works has been done in cooperation with research libraries throughout the United States. The settlement agreement requires court approval by the presiding judge in the U.S. District Court in New York because the case was brought as a class action suit on behalf of selected copyright owners.

In large part, the settlement focuses on in-copyright books that are not commercially available. Public domain works fall outside of the settlement and owners of commercially available, in-copyright books created prior to January 5, 2009, may opt-out of the settlement or opt-in to other terms with Google. As a part of the settlement agreement, Google will fund the establishment of the Book Rights Registry. The Registry, jointly run by authors and publishers, will collect and distribute royalties including an up-front payment by Google of $45 million. Users will have several new opportunities to access scanned books, both free and fee-based, via public and university libraries and through institutional subscriptions for academic, corporate, and government libraries and organizations."

Get your API's running!

Stephen