• Recording of Scholarly Perspectives Webinar on research literacy for early career researchers
  My portion of the presentation begins on slide 25
  (tags: webinar presentation informationliteracy learning graduatestudents recording)

• Research literacy primer: Equipping early career researchers with the skills they require to create high quality papers | Scholarly Perspectives Resource Library
  4 external speakers + “Michael Habib, Scopus product manager and former Reference Librarian presents on how early career researchers can use specialist research tools to discern quality and authority in a sea of information.” – Tue, 25/05/2010 – 13:00; Host: Penn State University Library
  (tags: webinar presentation informationliteracy graduatestudents)

• Conservatives Try New Tack on Campuses – NYTimes.com
  (tags: education democracy capitalism traditionalists concervative nytimes)
• Technorati: State of the Blogosphere 2008 – Day 1: Who Are the Bloggers?
  Day one of 5 day report. Demographics of bloggers.
  (tags: bloggers blogging technorati)
• User-generated science : Web 2.0 tools are beginning to change the shape of scientific debate – From The Economist print edition
  (tags: peerreview stm publishing science2.0 blogging)
• Opening Up Education – The MIT Press
  TITLE – “Opening Up Education: The Collective Advancement of Education through Open Technology, Open Content, and Open Knowledge” Free e-book edition available.
  (tags: openknowledge, openingupeducation, mitpress, teaching, education)

• The Benefits of Facebook “Friends:” Social Capital and College Students’ Use of Online Social Network Sites
  via Fred Stutzman: Ellison, N. B., Steinfield, C., & Lampe, C. (2007). The benefits of Facebook “friends:” Social capital and college students’ use of online social network sites. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 12(4), article 1.
  (tags: socialcapital students research socialnetworking facebook article toread)

• Education Application Opportunity – Facebook Developers | Facebook Developers News
  This is a huge opportunity for libraries to integrate our services into course management: “Developers – Now is the time to build education applications on Facebook Platform! Facebook will be phasing out its Courses feature in early August, and we wanted to make sure you were the first to know.”
  (tags: facebook education coursemanagment)
• Career Distinction: Stand Out By Building Your Brand
  This book seems to present strategies based on a well developed understanding of how the Internet is changing the job market. It also has a fun “Online Identity Calculator” that produces a Google Quotient (GQ).
  (tags: reputation jobsearch Career identity branding marketing book)

Title: Toward Academic Library 2.0: Development and Application of a Library 2.0 Methodology

Authors: Michael C. Habib

Issue Date: 17-Nov-2006

Publisher: School of Information and Library Science

Abstract: Recently, librarians have struggled to understand their relationship to a new breed of Web services that, like libraries, connect users with the information they need. These services, known as Web 2.0, offer new service models, methods, and technologies that can be adapted to improve library services. Additionally, these services affect library users’ information seeking behaviors, communication styles, and expectations. The term Library 2.0 has been introduced into the professional language of librarianship as a way to discuss these changes. This paper works to establish a theoretical foundation of Library 2.0 in academic libraries, or Academic Library 2.0.

URI: http://hdl.handle.net/1901/356

Available for download: http://mchabib.com/masterspaper.pdf

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I look forward to hearing your thoughts on the paper. Please leave feedback in the comments. Thanks.

Technorati tags: library 2.0 library-20 library2.0 L2 web 2.0 web2.0 academic libraries academiclibrary20

A few days ago, Peter Bromberg of Library Garden posted a version of an essay called “Library as Place”. I had the good fortune to meet Peter at Library Camp a few weeks ago, and I wholeheartedly agree with the arguments of his essay. However, I feel it is important that we, as librarians, look beyond the walls of the library when discussing library as place. We need to expand our vision to include digital library as place. We are already doing this implicitly by incorporating social tools such as blogs and wikis into our websites. However, by explicately acknowledging this phenomenon, we can utilize what we already know about the physical library as place when building online communities. In fact, I originally created my Academic Library 2.0 Concept Model to demonstrate the parallels between physical and virtual library places. It was only after completing the model that I took the additional step of recognizing the virtual library places as Library 2.0.

When discussing library as place, Peter brings in the concept of “third place”. It is exactly this version of physical library as place that my model hopes to parallel in the virtual world. Peter explains:

By our very nature we offer people a “third place” (not home, not work) where they can come to explore, imagine, think, learn, play, and reflect. Our function as a “third place” has never been more important to our continued health and relevance. If libraries are to survive and thrive we must redouble our efforts and refocus our energies to ensure that we are not only “third places” but destinations of choice.

Taken in a different context, isn’t this exactly what we are trying to transform our web sites into? MySpace, Facebook, and Flickr are wonderful examples of the online third places that people spend their time. What is different about the virtual world is that it is easier to incorporate the library into other third places. For example, if a patron is on your library’s MySpace page, then it could be argued that they are both at MySpace and your Library.

For those who are having trouble conceptualizing of the web as a place, lets look at the example of Second Life instead. As a 3D virtual world, Second Life is more obviously a place. The Second Life Library 2.0 is also the most obvious example of digital library as third place. If a patron is at their house on their computer in Second Life at Library 2.0, where are they? If they are focused enough, they are at the Second Life Library 2.0. Where we are is often more mental than it is physical. By embracing this concept, we will be able to build more compelling physical and virtual places. How might we go about this? Peter asks the following:

Why would someone in our community choose to spend their time here rather than somewhere else? Related questions might be: What does the library look like, smell like, feel like, and sound like? What do our signs communicate? What kind of environment are we offering to the community and how do library staff contribute to the creation of a friendly, welcoming environment?

Outside of smell, couldn’t we apply all of these questions to our websites? To conclude, the next time you find yourself discussing “library as place”, please ask how the discussion would apply to the online world.

Technorati tags: libraryasplace library2.0 secondlife thirdplace academiclibrary20

,or, The Central Problem of Library 2.0: Identity

I am a little late on this topic, but feel it is important to add my 2 cents. Fred and Terrell have already laid the groundwork for what I am going to say by focusing the conversation away from privacy to identity. While much of this repeats what they have already said, I believe my point is a little different. This post will first examine what could have been done differently and then look at the underlying causes of this issue. Lastly, I will examine what this experience teaches us about how we should implement Library 2.0 services.

It has been interesting to see students’ reactions to the “new” Facebook. It appears to me that Facebook’s biggest mistake was rolling it out as an automatic opt-in feature. Chances are that if they quietly added it in the background, it would have spread virally without a peep.

For example, lets say Facebook added a little link somewhere on the page that says, “Want to make it easier for your friends to stay updated on what you are doing, try the new Facebook feeds?” A few students would notice this and think, “Cool now I can use this new feature that no one else knows about.” When one of their friends visited their page next, they would see the feeds complete with the notification that their friend had begun using the feeds. In this way most students would have first been introduced to the service by invading their friend’s privacy and not their friends invading theirs.

The final ingredient for a successful implementation strategy would have been to give students control over what aspects of their Facebook lives they want to share through the feeds. By turning all the feeds on automatically, students were shocked to see something they thought was private broadcast to their networks. For example, many students might be glad to share new groups they joined or friends they have made, but some students might not want all of their comments immediately apparent. To summarize:

1. Bait early-adopters. There were students waiting for this to happen who would have chosen to turn the feature on immediately and then pressured their friends to do so.
2. Let students choose to turn the service on based off their experiences with the profiles of early-adopters.
3. Let students choose what aspects of their life they want to highlight and which they would rather slide under the radar.

This brings us back to the title of this post. When it comes to our identities, we like having control over how we present ourselves to the world. That is one of the reasons that social networking sites are so useful to college students. It is a way to mold your identity so that you can determine who your friends are to be. Social networking profiles and interactions present us as we wish to be seen. Given this, students were using Facebook to present different versions of themselves to different friends. When this illusion was broken, they in effect lost control of their identities. I would thus argue that the underlying concern of most students is not a loss of their privacy, but a loss of their identity. Students don’t mind sharing their personal information with the world, but want to have control over when and how it is shared.

However, if this experience gets students to think more about how they present themselves in their virtual communities, it is a good thing. So far, this experience seems to have done more to drill home the reality of online life than either university instruction or the press.

So what does this mean for Library 2.0?

First, we might want to change Rory Litwin’s primary problem of Library 2.0 from privacy to identity. This might be a better way to explain these principles to a group of students who are accustomed to sharing their data. Privacy is how we think of these issues, but is it how our users think of them?

Second, we can use this as a guiding principle when developing Library 2.0 systems. What people are researching and reading for pleasure presents a remarkable amount about their identity. We need to design systems that allow users to have control over how they present their identity. If a user wants to appear as though they read Joyce and not Grisham, then we need to allow them this choice. We also need to create ways that users can mask their identities or create multiple identities. For example, this blog is a central part of my professional identity and my MySpace account is a central part of my (online) social identity. While I have chosen to attach my real name to both, it is comforting to know that I could have chosen to present one or the other anonymously.

Third, it shows that we have a long way to go in integrating content creation skills into our information literacy programs. However, we now have an excellent example to use when discussing responsible content creation. In my previous response to Rory’s privacy post, I highlighted three information literacy skills that I felt we needed to teach as a result of an increasingly read/write world. Given this movement in understanding from privacy to identity, the three skills we need to teach would now be:

1. Identity
2. Ownership
3. Security

To gain a further understanding of why I feel these are the three primary principles, I encourage you to read my original response to Rory.

Technorati tags: facebook identity privacy socialnetworking web20 library20

If you haven’t checked out Matthew Williams blog yet, here is a blurb from his most recent post:

However, in the information age where these facts are always at our fingertips, the need for memorization is far less important. The more important questions are “can you find the information?” and “can you analyze this information?”

Plagiarism is not the fault of the internet, it is the fault of poorly written essay prompts. Most times, these essay prompts are poorly written because they misunderstand or do not recognize this shift in emphasis from content mastery to higher order thinking skills (i.e., it isn’t what you know, but what you can do with what you know).

There are a few things in his essay I might argue with, but much of it is spot on. This excerpt highlights much of what I think information literacy is about these days.

I have updated the original Academic Library 2.0 Concept Model. The new version aims to maintain the simplicity of the original, while adding a few examples and using more precise language. Also worth noting is that the line separating the physical and virtual environments is now dotted to signify the artificial nature of this boundary.

This model presents a view of how students might view the library as place in relation to their academic and social lives. It is at this intersection that I propose Library 2.0 has begun to materialize. The primary goal of the model is to encourage brainstorming over how we can develop virtual environments that will fit into students’ lives. However, I would argue that new collaborative spaces in the physical environment could also be viewed as part of L2 in so much as they are responses to changing learning styles that are partially brought on by the social nature of Web 2.0 tools. In this way, a definition of L2 that focuses on Web 2.0 might include some innovative services in the physical environment. This said, it is my belief that L2 is primarily useful as a concept for developing new online tools. To learn more about this model, you can check out the post accompanying the first model here. The comments and links at the bottom of that page will help guide one through the discussions of the original model.

I have also created a more detailed version of the model. In this version the boundary between physical and virtual has vanished. Furthermore, this model includes interaction types as well as places. Instead of focusing on exact tasks such as shaking hands (physical) or commenting (virtual), I have looked at interactions in a broader way. At this point, the key is a little confusing on the model, so please use the revised key posted below the model. However, the basic goal is to get people thinking about designing virtual and physical places according to the types of social interactions our patrons will be having in those environments. You will also notice that ALL of the interactions mentioned occur in both the physical and virtual places. Of course we will be seeing more places inhabiting both physical and virtual as well. For example, virtual group study rooms might supplement our physical study rooms.

The scale at the bottom of the model highlights some of the key spectra that lie between a student’s social and academic lives. Again, it is my argument that the library inhabits a space somewhere in the middle ground between these extremes.

I am still working on these models and final drafts will be included in the second part of my Master’s Paper. I am also developing a model to describe Library 2.0 in general. I should have the paper done relatively soon and will post a link to it. Furthermore, the structure of the paper should work well for filling in the wiki that I proposed here.

As always, I encourage feedback. You are welcome to leave comments here or on your own blog. If you are linking to the image on Flickr, please link to this post as well, so that your contribution to the discussion will be included on this page. Thanks.

Technorati tags: library 2.0 library-20 library2.0 L2 web 2.0 web2.0 academic libraries academiclibrary20