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Friday, February 26, 2010

A Mobile Library on the Backs of a Donkeys, It’s Biblioburro

 
 

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via ResourceShelf by resourceshelf on 2/26/10

It was only a couple of weeks ago when we posted about a mobile library where books are delivered by camel.

Today, we move to rural Columbia to meet, Luis Soriano, 38, [a] primary school teacher who, "spends his free time operating a mobile library from the backs of donkeys."

Soriano rides his "Biblioburro" with a bag full of more than a hundred books through "abandoned regions" in the Columbian state of Magdalena to reach thousands of children who don't or can't attend school. Soriano has helped more than 4,000 youngsters with their homework, geography and reading.

It's not always a safe and easy job.

He has fractured his leg and been "pounced on" by bandits.

Soriano has ridden the donkeys over 4,000 hours delivering books and helping with homework. He has no plans to slow down.

Soriano and his wife have also built the largest free library in Magdalena next to their home.

It's only February but this story will likely be one of the most interesting, charming, and yes, even important stories of the year.

Luis Soriano has been named a CNN Hero and a video about him is embedded in the article. We hope he is also recognized by some of the major library, education, and reading organizations around the world for his work.

A tip of the ResourceShelf cap today to Luis Soriano for his wonderful work.

Access the Complete Article

Source: The Huffington Post

See Also: More About Biblioburro in this CNN story from Today (text)


 
 

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The CartDesk Is Aimed at a Very Specific Type of Traveler [Travel]

 
 

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via Gizmodo by Mark Wilson on 2/26/10

The CartDesk may or may not be for you. The only way to know for sure is to take the following questionnaire:

Is the CartDesk Right For Me?

Do you despise those trendy roller bags?
Yes / No

Is your lap unable to sustain the pressure of a "lap"top?
Yes / No

Would you add 10 pounds to your payload to roll around something up to 20 pounds in weight?
Yes / No

Do you prefer taking up your personal overhead bin space with a bag accessory rather than a bag itself?
Yes / No

Does your rectum excrete invisible chairs upon command?
Yes / No

Do you just like to buy things because you like receiving packages in the mail?
Yes / No

If you answered "yes" to one of any of these questions, the $130 Cart Desk was tailored to your demographic. Enjoy. [ComfortHouse via RedFerret via OhGizmo!]




 
 

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“Libraries just aren’t about reading any more.”

“Libraries just aren’t about reading any more.”: "





Justin Hoenke, a TTW Contributor, posted this video at 8BitLibrary:


http://blog.8bitlibrary.com/2010/02/26/how-has-gaming-changed-the-way-you-look-at-libraries/


"
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Friday, February 19, 2010

Blogger and Google Reader Speed Up, Suggestions Improve

What do you think? Have you explored the improved suggested items and sources on GReader? I found some good stuff.

 
 

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via louisgray.com by louisgray@gmail.com (Louis Gray) on 2/19/10



Two of the major outlets where I produce content and consume content, both from Google, took steps forward on Thursday, as Blogger announced new improvements to load slow-performing pages more quickly, and Google Reader unofficially made a big move, with the likely addition of Pubsubhubbub support, which makes the service real-time enabled both incoming and outgoing. Meanwhile, in a separate announcement, Reader promised improved recommendations for you to find new sources to follow - including similar sites per feed.

I've been talking up Pubsubhubbub for months now, because it is the engine that is playing an ever-increasing role in pushing my data faster and faster from site to site. Google Reader shares had already been powered by Pubsubhubbub to flow downstream, but it had been widely assumed Google Reader was not using the same kind of lightning speed to get updates as blog posts were added. Starting today, Jesse Stay and others figured out they had flipped the switch.

An Instant Update from Posting to Reader

As others confirmed, and I saw later also, posts that used to take upwards of half an hour to hit Reader, without manual polling, were there practically instantly, showing 0 minutes to 2 minutes of delay. With FeedBurner also Pubsubhubbub enabled, there should be no latency between when I hit the publish button, and the posts hitting FriendFeed, Buzz Twitter and Reader all at once now.

Google has recently been talking a lot now about making page load times a more important element of how they are ranked in the company's search engine. This leads to the next announcement, from Blogger, who says that traditionally slow-loading pages, including label pages and archive pages, are now going to auto paginate these pages to deliver speedier load times in the browser. They are guessing not only will pages load more quickly, but total page views will go up. Always a good thing.

Reader Puts Me In Good Company

Recommendations from Coding Horror

Reader's move to Pubsubhubbub was likely part of a larger code push from the team, which did announce improved recommendations for new feeds. Now, in addition to tailored recommendations for you, you can click any feed and see what they believe are similar sites. For example, I found that Reader finds me most like Lifehacker, ReadWriteWeb, Engadget, GigaOM and Walt Mossberg. All very cool recommendations. I also found out that Reader finds Loic LeMeur's blog to be most similar to TechCrunch, Seth Godin's blog, Guy Kawasaki and Robert Scoble. I doubt Loic is complaining either.

The amazing thing about this new feature? It was my #1 request way back in March of 2007. It took almost three years, but it's finally here, and I'm going to spend some time finding new sources to follow.
More: louisgray.com | RSS | Buzz | E-mail | Cell: 408 646.2759

 
 

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Tuesday, February 16, 2010

What Consumers Will Pay for Online [STATS]

 
 

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via Mashable! by Adam Ostrow on 2/16/10

Movies, music, and games top a new list from Nielsen of the content types that consumers are most willing to pay for online. The data, which comes from a survey of 27,000 consumers across 52 countries, also indicates that content created online – like blogs, podcasts, and video – are least likely to attract consumer's dollars.

At face value, the findings might seem like good news for old media companies that are increasingly eying paywalls as a source of salvation, as consumers did indicate more of a willingness to pay for online newspapers, magazines and radio than their user-generated counterparts. You can see all of the findings in this chart:

However, Nielsen also found that "nearly eight out of every ten (79%) would no longer use a web site that charges them, presuming they can find the same information at no cost." In other words, unless your organization breaks lots of exclusive and important stories, charging for content will be a major uphill battle.

How do the findings compare to your willingness to pay for various forms of content? Let us know in the comments.

Tags: media, online content, paywalls, trending


 
 

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Monday, February 15, 2010

WWI pro-reading ad



John Taube
Allegany County Library System
301-697-7384
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Friday, February 12, 2010

Bing, Google, and Yahoo Will Provide Numerous Olympics Resources

 
 

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via ResourceShelf by resourceshelf on 2/12/10

Yesterday, we posted links to three searchable databases from the International Olympics Committee and Vancouver 2010.

1) Database and Basic Profiles of Every Athlete Participating in the Vancouver Games
2) Database of All Olympic Medalists (All-Time, Summer and Winter)
3) Database and Directory of All National Olympics Committees

Now, Elisabeth Osmeloski at Search Engine Land has compiled a wonderful collection of resources Bing, Google, and Yahoo will be offering for Vancouver 2010.

Here are a few highlights. Make sure to visit the actual post to review it all.

Bing (Gold)

Bing Visual Search (which requires installation of Silverlight) has added two galleries, one for the 86 Olympic events, and the other, a visual search gallery of 664 Olympic athletes. Athlete data is not a complete picture by any means, but it does include more than just Team USA data, and is also sortable by a number of criteria, including age, sport, hometown/country, and will update medal counts on an individual basis.

Bing Maps has also created a new application, Winter Games, which will provide real-time information on event venues, medal counts by country, and Winter Games tweets from Vancouver, using their Twitter Maps application to filter out Olympics related commentary. Bing Maps previously announced StreetSide coverage of Vancouver and Whistler with enhanced imagery of the Olympic scenes in Canada.

Google (Silver)

Over at Google, an international landing page has been created to help users Explore the Games with Google, aka, "Google.com/Games10?, with Google Maps being a main component to track medal counts by country, and special "Street View" coverage with the use of a snowmobile to get around the games' event venues.

Real-time and Google News Search are two of the more prominent features as well

Yahoo (Bronze)

Yahoo has unveiled its official sports site for the games at: http://sports.yahoo.com/olympics.

You'll also learn about FanCouver, an entertainment center Yahoo is sponsoring at the Olympics.

Accessthe Complete SEL Post


 
 

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Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Hype Cycle of Emerging Tech Chart


Thanks to this post on ReadWriteWeb for this great graphic of the Hype Cycle of emerging technology for 2009.

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Thursday, February 4, 2010

Database Page Re Designed for Easier Use

The idea behind the new design was to clean up the page and make it easier for our patrons to find the information they want and also for library staff to find answers quickly when answering patron questions. We have so many resources available, that patrons were starting to get lost in all the information, and the page was really lengthy.
The new design takes you directly to the database that will answer 70-80% of your questions. Our new “Start” button allows you to search a database of 7,000 full-text magazines; 3,600 journals; and five newspapers going back almost 25 years.

Our other 50 specialized research databases are still available as they are linked alphabetically and from within our catalog. All the databases are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and with your library card from home, office, or school.

Tell us what you think, check out the database link our web page.
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Wednesday, February 3, 2010

One Maryland, One Book short list: T.C. Boyle, Julia Alvarez and more

 
 

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via Read Street by Dave Rosenthal on 2/2/10

outcasts united

The choices narrowed Tuesday for the 2010 One Maryland, One Book community reading program, as a half-dozen contenders were eliminated, including Michael Lewis' "The Blind Side." The four books on the short list share common themes of immigration and assimilation, and should meet OMOB's goal of sparking group discussions on the issue of community. Interestingly, most of the short list mirrors the comments on Read Street. As we move ahead, let me know which of the four you'd recommend. I've read -- and enjoyed -- the Alvarez book, and plan to read the others before making my recommendation to the Maryland Humanities Council in two weeks. Here's the list:

"Outcasts United" by Warren St. John. How a soccer team of immigrant kids came together.

"How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents" by Julia Alvarez. The tale of four sometimes warring, sometimes loving sisters who came to America from the Dominican Republic.

"The Beautiful Things that Heaven Bears" by Dinaw Mengestu. An African immigrant struggles in a gentrifying neighborhood in Washington, D.C.

"Tortilla Curtain" by T.C. Boyle. The relationship between wealthy suburbanites and illegal immigrants in southern California.

 


 
 

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Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Seth's Blog: Who will save us?

Who will save us?

Who will save book publishing?

What will save the newspapers?

What means 'save'?

If by save you mean, "what will keep things just as they are?" then the answer is nothing will. It's over.

If by save you mean, "who will keep the jobs of the pressmen and the delivery guys and the squadrons of accountants and box makers and transshippers and bookstore buyers and assistant editors and coffee boys," then the answer is stillnothing will. Not the Kindle, not the iPad, not an act of Congress.

We need to get past this idea of saving, because the status quo is leaving the building, and quickly. Not just in print of course, but in your industry too.

If you want to know who will save the joy of reading something funny, or the leverage of acting on fresh news or the importance of allowing yourself to be changed by something in a book, then don't worry. It doesn't need saving. In fact, this is the moment when we can figure out how to increase those benefits by a factor of ten, precisely because we don't have to spend a lot of resources on the saving part.

Every revolution destroys the average middle first and most savagely.

Thanks to Seth's Blog for this re-post.


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Social Networks for Things

This reminds me of when we bundle titles, author studies, criticisms and reviews together. A social network of a book.

 
 

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via ReadWriteWeb by Richard MacManus on 2/2/10

At the recent DLD Conference (Digital - Life - Design) in Munich, Germany, Esther Dyson moderated a panel on the Internet of Things. The subject of the discussion was giving identity to things, just as people have an identity. In essence, creating social networks for things.

On the panel were Ulla-Maaria Engeström (Thinglink), Doug Krugman (Personal Commerce), Michael Silverman (ThingD). Dyson began by noting that people have always had identities and there are countless services for that, but things don't have that yet. So, she asked, will there be networks for things?

Sponsor

Ulla-Maaria Engeström explained that her company Thinglink is about defining the relationships people have with things - who made them, who designed them, who manufactured them, who sells them, who owns them, who likes them. She said it is the "social graph of things" and that "every thing has their own social network."

Engeström said that Thinglink began in 2005 by giving things identities via their product codes, a.k.a. Unique Identifiers. "People and things, they're not too different," said Engeström, "they all connect." Thinglink is in private beta, it currently has 4000 beta users and launches later this Spring.

ThingD is creating a registry of things, according to Esther Dyson. Michael Silverman from ThingD explained that his company is building "a database around all of the things in the world." Things like consumer products, horticulture, even pets.

ThingD also has a platform built on top of the database, which connects people to the things in their lives. What interests you, what you like, own, or want to sell. It's about how people identify themselves with things. Silverman said that the database currently has about 50 million things, maybe "north of 60 million." There are a few thousand early adopter users right now.

Dyson then introduced the company REZZ.IT as "what eBay did for selling, [REZZ.IT does] for renting." Doug Krugman from REZZ.IT explained that "things have a network and their own audience." His company is about managing stuff: scheduling, classifying, content management, pricing, and more. Seeing what other people have, sharing things.

Business Models for Networks of Things

Dyson asked how REZZ.IT makes money off this. He responded that vacation rentals is their biggest market right now. REZZ.IT wants to provide people with the tools to manage those vacation rental assets, plus add a "transactional engine" to them. Other 'things' coming soon to REZZ.IT include apartment rentals, boats, planes.

ThingD's business model is linking people to things. They have signed up product retailers to beta test this.

Thinglink's business models are twofold. Firstly affiliates, for example people purchasing objects in photos. Their second business model is lifestyle brand communities - connecting people who like a company's products, already own them, etc.

Conclusion

Overall, a very interesting discussion about the evolving networks for things. If web 2.0 was largely about social networks for people (which you can certainly argue it was), then the new generation of the web will add things to those networks and create new networks.

Discuss


 
 

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