Publishers Weekly (Jan 14, 2008), reported that at least 5% more books were sold in 2007 than in 2006 (says Nielsen's BookScan). Books are not dead, there just aren't as many blockbusters as other media channels.

Seems lots of folks are in an uproar over how today's powerful yet dull search and discovery tools are doing to young people's minds. They use anything they find and don't discriminate between findings. But is technology really to blame? I say no, I blame the eduction system. Performance standards have been lowered at every grade to engineeer failure out of the system. Kids show up in university using Wikipedia, spending little time on learning tasks, focused heavily on leisure channels (twitter, facebook, IM, Youtube, videogames, etc)not because they are a new breed of learner in our tech society, but because failure is not possible politically today. If a high school teacher held the line on research quality (and took the time to teach the topic), most would fail the assignment or worse. If the line was held, and this behaviour was repeated everywhere, in time people would figure it out, on how to pass. We would see entering students knowing the game they had to play to succeed. It would be all about performance and less about experience. For this to happen, funding models have to change. As long as retention rates are tied to funding, the bar can only be lowered and each previous level in the system lowers the bar too. Look at the disease not the symptom.

Darlene Fichter Internet Librarian 2007

Research Information Network Report

"Changes in researcher behavior: Researchers “seem to be becoming more limited in the range of tools they use as Google becomes better at delivering a result they see as satisfactory…..over 70% of researchers use it routinely to find scholarly content.” Librarians support is needed in the “last mile” to achieve access once the item is “discovered” online.

Demand for electronic resources is on the rise while print use continues to decline. The report found that “when presented with a locally-held option in print or microform researchers are also more likely to abandon their quest than to pursue it.” This is particularly true in the sciences where “if the article cannot be read – or at least located and requested – within minutes, it remains unread”

While e-books are still in their infancy, spending on e-books is predicted to rise to 20% of monograph collection by 2011

Collaborative/Interdisciplinary Research: Technology is facilitating collaborative/interdisciplinary research involving different researchers, at different institutions, in different locations geographically and in different disciplines. Posing a challenge to libraries who want to provide adequate and equitable support.

e-Research: “Rapid growth in the volume of digital research outputs in many different forms; these are likely to create new challenges for librarians in data management, storage and preservation.” . How do we manage all of the data needed/being generated?

NEW ROLES FOR LIBRARIES AND LIBRARIANS

In five years time researchers identified the following as roles for academic libraries: custodian (print and digital collections); manager of institutional repositories; administrator (purchasing/delivery of information services); subject-based information experts; teacher of information literacy and related skills; manager of datasets; and technology specialist. Many other researchers added copyright and intellectual property rights issues as well as support for facilitating the process of e-learning.

In essence, “the business and service model [of libraries] is evolving from acquiring, cataloguing and circulating physical collections to synthesizing, specialising, and mobilising Web-based services”

Allright...now people are starting to get it! Nobody believed us that RSS was needed. It took years of hassle to get vendors to offer RSS. ProQuest surprises us with a widget offering. Imagine if all vendors have this in the next 18 months? Can you imagine the portlets you could develop? I can...

iLibrarian.

You've heard the buzz about new TV's have easy hookups to the PC or the internet...not surprised? Youtube continues to grow and grow and grow. Cable TV watch out!

Okay, we can track dogs by GPS, we're starting to be able to track people by the GPS in their mobile phones, specific children tracking devices are next. Can you imagine a text message alarm if they stray outside agreed geographical parameters? An alarm if they try to ditch the device? We have ankles for cons...it is coming. Parents be prepared for piece of mind!

Another Pew thingie.

I think I'm going to need this soon.

Another tutorial.

PDF Report Download...if you're interested, somehow I'm not.

Jeff Jarvis compiled this list here:

• Google is the “fastest growing company in the history of the world.” – Times of London, 1/29/06
• Google controls 65.1% of all searches in the U.S. at the end of 2007 and 86% of all searches in the UK, according to measurement company Hitwise.
• Google was searched 4.4 billion times in the U.S. alone in October, 2007 (three times Yahoo), says Nielsen. Average searches per searcher: 40.7.
• Google’s sites had 112 million U.S. visitors in November, 2007, says Nielsen.
• Google’s traffic was up 22.4% in 2007 over 2006, according to Comscore.
• Google earned $15 billion revenue and $6.4 billion profit in 2007, a profit margin of 26.9%. Its revenue was up 57% in the last quarter of 2007 over 2006, says Yahoo Finance. As of late 2007, its stock was up 53% in a year. The company has a market capitalization of $207.6 billion.
• Google controls 79% of the pay-per-click ad market, according to RimmKaufman. It controls 40% of all online advertising, according to web site HipMojo.
• Google employed almost 16,000 people at the end of 2007, a 50% increase over the year before.
• Google became the No. 1 brand in the world in 2007, according to Millward Brown Brandz Top 100.

"Internet giants such as Google, Yahoo!, Microsoft, and Amazon are in the middle of nothing short of a modern-day space race: Who can scan the most and the best books in alliance with the biggest and brightest libraries in the U.S. — nay, the world! — while simultaneously providing print on demand, “find in a library,” and “buy the book” links as well?"

Read more...

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology released the MIT Lecture Browser, "a web interface to video recordings of lectures and seminars that have been indexed using automatic speech recognition technology." Users can search on terms or phrases and then play the video at the point(s) in the recording where their search term appears. More...

Libraries are good but they should be great.

Jott is that neat tool where you call in to their service via phone, talk, and your words are transcribed into whatever format and service you choose. Love it!

Thanks DTLJ.

iPiPi allows you to use your cell phone (using SMS) to send emails, or to use your regular email account to send out SMS messages to cell phone users. They offer free trial accounts.