Daily Thoughts 3/19/2009

Mary Wollstonecraft Tate author of The Vindication of the Rights of Women

Daily Thoughts 3/19/2009

This morning, I read some more of Social Software In Libraries. It was kind of interesting. They had a link to http://www.librarysuccess.org/ a best practices wiki for libraries. While I was glancing through it, I noticed that they had something called an unconference. I am not quite sure what this is yet. Apparently, Brooklyn College and the Metro New York Library is doing an unconference on June 3, 2009. I am going to see if I can go. http://libcampnyc.pbwiki.com/

I also read a bit more coming home. The book focused on sites like Facebook and Myspace for libraries. In my experience most librarians who use Myspace in a library setting are young adult librarians. I am not that fond of Facebook, but I have seen a number of libraries on Facebook. Linked In was another social network that was mentioned. Linked In is very much a professional network, more than Facebook. I don't use Linked In here because it really does seem to require an open identity to work properly.

Google just made 500,000 of its books that were on its server that were in the public domain available to Sony Ereaders. In a way, this does not surprise. Amazon has scanned 1 1/2 million pieces of books for look inside the book. This makes Amazon a direct competitor with Google in scanning books. It is a move designed to make the Sony Ereader more competitive with the Kindle 2. I find the idea very interesting. http://tech.yahoo.com/news/ap/20090319/ap_on_hi_te/tec_google_sony_reader

Today, I spent quite a bit of time on the reference desk. I also made a rough draft of a user survey. I am hoping that it is something worthwhile.