The SlideShare blog has recently begun a series of blog posts called Slide Tips which are incredibly useful articles from the world’s leading presentation experts. You can subscribe to the series via RSS or have it delivered to your email box. A couple that I found particularly helpful are:
You can download the Executive Summary here. We got a look at the whole report and it is packed full of great data, including the two top 10 lists of Semantic Web opportunities detailed below.
Also in this post we're giving away 3 free tickets to Defrag for the best suggestions in the comments for 'web 3.0' apps. See below for more details.
Top-10 List [of Semantic technology opportunities] -- Consumer
1 Interest networking
2 Semantic social networking
3 Semantic bookmarks
4 Semantic search & QA
5 Semantic desktop / webtop
6 Semantic blogs, wikis
7 Semantic identity management
8 Semantic mobility
9 Semantic email & IM
10 Reality browsing, avatars, & context-aware games
Top-10 List -- Enterprise
1 Information sharing
2 Semantic search, discovery, & navigation
3 Semantic mashups and composite applications
4 Semantic infrastructure / middleware SSOA, SBPM, SWS, virtualization, policy-based computing
5 Semantic business intelligence
6 Semantic ERP applications CRM, PLM, SCM, HRM
7 Semantic governance, compliance, & risk
8 Semantic web sites, wikis, collaboration, interest networking, & collective knowledge systems
9 Semantic advertising, marketing, personalization, & customization
10 Intelligent systems knowledge-based research, design, engineering, simulation, planning, scheduling, optimization, & decision support.
(NEW YORK, October 28, 2008) Representatives from Fordham University Press, Pennsylvania State University Press, and Columbia University Libraries/Information Services (CUL/IS) will speak at Columbia University on the economics of scholarly publishing and the future of the monograph. The panel discussion, entitled "The Future of the Book: Can the Endangered Monograph Survive?" will take place on Tuesday, November 11, 2008, at 3 p.m. in Alfred Lerner Hall Room 555 on Columbia's Morningside Campus. This event is free and open to the public.
Panelists include Helen Tartar, Editorial Director at Fordham University Press; Sanford Thatcher, Director of Penn State University Press and past President of the Association of American University Presses; and Ree DeDonato, Director of Humanities and History and Acting Director of Union Theological Seminary's Burke Library of CUL/IS.
For humanities scholars seeking promotion or tenure, having a published monograph—a work of writing on a single subject—is often a key requirement. Due to small, specialized audiences and growing financial challenges for university presses and academic libraries, the business of publishing these monographs has long been a troubled undertaking. The panel will discuss the future of the print monograph, especially in light of the increasing digitization of scholarly communication.
This event is the third in the speaker series on today's pivotal issues in scholarly communication organized by the Scholarly Communication Program of Columbia University Libraries/Information Services. Follow the live event remotely via Twitter at http://twitter.com/ScholarlyComm. Video of each event will be available on the Scholarly Communication Program website. For information on the series, Research without Borders: The Changing World of Scholarly Communication, please email Kathryn Pope at kp2002@columbia.edu, or visit http://scholcomm.columbia.edu/events/.
The Scholarly Communication Program is an initiative of the Columbia University Libraries/Information Services' Center for Digital Research and Scholarship. Established in April 2008 to encourage discussion about and innovative solutions to scholarly communication issues, the Program aims to support faculty members, librarians, staff, and students as they consider their options for creating, distributing, evaluating, reusing, and preserving new knowledge in a rapidly changing communications environment.
Columbia University Libraries/Information Services is one of the top five academic research library systems in North America. The collections include over 10 million volumes, over 100,000 journals and serials, as well as extensive electronic resources, manuscripts, rare books, microforms, maps, graphic and audio-visual materials. The services and collections are organized into 25 libraries and various academic technology centers. The Libraries employs more than 550 professional and support staff. The website of the Libraries at www.columbia.edu/cu/lweb is the gateway to its services and resources.
Interested in some free learning? There are a couple of free upcoming webinars from the MaintainIT project that you may be interested in:
Like many librarians, you’re beginning to purchase e-books from a variety of publishers, and you’re confused by all the different licensing agreements, platforms, and pricing models. A solution to this madness? Use an e-book aggregator. Aggregators partner with multiple publishers to supply content (e-books, audio books, other media) and provide a platform for libraries and end users to search, order, access, and download the content on the Web. We’ll focus here on three of the larger academic aggregators—EBL, ebrary, and MyiLibrary. Ebooks Corporation’s EBL (Ebook Library) partners with 250 academic and trade publishers, offering more than 85,000 titles. Ebrary partners with 285 publishers to offer more than 120,000 e-books and content databases. The newest platform, Ingram Digital Group’s MyiLibrary, partners with 250 publishers and offers more than 110,000 titles.
For me, the major advantage of an aggregator is having a single platform or interface to host countless titles, with international coverage, and typically no special players or plug-ins. Furthermore, because aggregators partner with hundreds of publishers, librarians can centralize their selection and acquisitions processes, ordering print or electronic content direct from the aggregator or through one of the many book wholesalers, such as YBP, Blackwell, or Baker and Taylor. As a result of this centralization, only one contract or licensing agreement is needed. And libraries negotiate pricing models up front, so e-book prices are known in advance.
There are several pricing models, but the most popular are purchasing title by title for either single-user or multiple-user access or purchasing an entire e-book subject collection for multiple-user access. Subscription or perpetual-ownership models are available as well. Prices vary depending on the aggregator and number of users but are generally at or above the print list price. Additional benefits of using an aggregator include federated search compatibility, 24/7 access to full text, free MARC records, usage statistics, and the ability to customize the interface or offer it in multiple languages.
Because aggregators have so many advantages in common, I spoke with representatives from EBL, ebrary, and MyiLibrary to find out what they provide that’s unique.
EBL
EBL offers two very distinctive features: course packs and reserves. These allow libraries to create course-specific content, either linking to book chapters already owned or purchasing individual book chapters for reserve or course-pack use only. Both are password protected and can easily be created and edited. Additionally, EBL provides an alternative solution to ILL by offering a purchase-on-demand model in which all titles are visible to end users and rented or purchased as needed, subject to specifications in the negotiated contract. Generally, the e-book price is the same as print list price. The catch, you ask? Access is limited to 325 uses per year. If the circulation climbs above that, libraries purchase a second copy. Kari Paulson, president of EBL, states, “With this model, the library determines the rules for discovery and payment, and very rarely does anyone go above the 325 uses.” On the future of EBL, Paulson says, “Our mission is to continue to innovate both on the library and patron side to make e-books more interactive and make using them more interactive, and with better tools.”
Ebrary
Ebrary has a patented Infotools program as well as their ebrary reader interface. Currently, the reader is a plug-in, but a Java-based reader, which won’t require a plug-in, is in beta testing. The Infotools software is a customized set of utilities that links users to other online sources, including the library catalog, dictionaries, e-book reference collections, databases, search engines, and institutional repository collections. Ebrary also offers distinct APIs (application programming interfaces) to provide single sign-on and integration with course-management systems, like Blackboard. Libraries wishing to create institutional repositories can license the ebrary platform for hosted services or to run on the library’s own server. The ebrary reader software offers a single interface for commercial and library resources; usage statistics; PDF, XML, or other data-format submission; meta-tagging; and customization. Kevin Sayar, president of ebrary, says to expect a redesigned user interface, which will be more intuitive and limit the number of clicks needed to locate information.
MyiLibrary
MyiLibrary, with its connection to Ingram and the Microsoft Live Search Books program, offers a large amount of unique content not available for purchase through other aggregators. Additionally, Ingram Digital Group offers print and digital content distribution and print-on-demand services through their Lightning Source product and hosts content from their clients using their repository feature. Both Stanford University and the University of Toronto currently use this feature. In addition to the pricing models discussed above, MyiLibrary also offers a demand-driven model, where all titles are displayed but not yet purchased. Once the titles are used a designated number of times (a negotiated amount), they are automatically purchased by the library. This fall, MyiLibrary will roll out another new model, allowing end users to purchase or rent titles themselves or request the library to purchase them. According to Rich Rosy, vice president and general manager, Institutional Solutions, Ingram Digital Group, “It’s an exciting time with e-content in the institutional area from publisher and library perspectives becoming more prevalent. Because both publishers and libraries drive these initiatives, we like to talk with them equally to understand their needs.”
Sue Polanka is Head of Reference Instruction, Paul Laurence Dunbar Library, Wright State University, Dayton, Ohio. For more on e-books, check out her blog,No Shelf Required, which provides a forum for librarians, publishers, distributors, aggregators, and others to talk about e-books and their place in libraries.
NetLibrary, due to it’s recent transformation, has a feature article in the Nov. 1, 2008 Booklist issue (and Booklist Online)
Academic aggregators - ebrary, EBL, and Myilibrary - were featured back in May, 2008.
All articles are linked from No Shelf Required, just check out the articles link.
Jessica E Vascellaro writes for the Wall Street Journal Technology section about the mainstream appeal of the Twitter microblogging application.
“Doctors are using Twitter to update patients about office hours. Local groups such as the Los Angeles Fire Department are using it to share details about service calls with interested residents, occasionally with graphic descriptions of the victims’ conditions. And dozens of major companies, like computer maker Dell Inc., use Twitter to share deals and product news with people who sign up for the service.”
Is Twitter mainstream? According to a recent Nielsen report it’s the fastest growig social networking site on the Web today. It’s also an application that Army Intelligence is looking into as a potential terrorist tool.
Well, this might give ebooks the jump they need. Anyone attending Oprah’s “Favorite Things” show? There might just be a Kindle under the seat! If not, you can at least get a discount. Buy it through the Teleread blog.
From my friends at Teleread.
Kindle’s $50 Oprah Discount: Price $309 in Effect
Suggestion, if your heart is set on a K machine and you want to help us: Try ordering through TeleRead (current link). One of the last ordering screens, associated with Order Summary, will ask: “Have any gift cards, gift certificates or promotional claim codes?” Key in OPRAHWINFREY.
Reminder: We continue to hope that Amazon will use a more open approach and, for example, let current or future Kindles read ePub natively.
Andrew Bullen, Information Technology Coordinator for the Illinois State Library, writes about The ‘Long Tale’: Using Web 2.0 Concepts to Enhance Digital Collections in the October issue of Computers in Libraries.
“I firmly believe that the next step for object repositories lies in a melding of wiki and digital repository concepts. This as-yet undeveloped software package would allow the creation of metadata pertinent to the described object and allow the descriptions about each object to be expanded and interlinked by registered users. Existing object repository software does not even begin to allow the development of long tale descriptions, while current wiki software allows too much freedom and provides too little structure. Perhaps the MediaWiki software, being open source, can be heavily modified to incorporate the structures and data protection elements necessary.”
Over coffee this morning my wife called her dentist to make an appointment. At the end of the conversation I heard her say, “This is my home and cell number. My only one.” Then a pause and,“Sure, sending me a text message reminder is a great idea!” I think I’ll switch dentists.
I had my eye on some attractively bound Reader's Digest Condensed Books (I have no pity for them) that were in the local library book sale, but wanted a little more space than one book could give me. So I made a box-type purse out of three.I started by cutting out the attractive endpapers for future use, then coated the text block edges with thinned-down school glue (using wax paper to keep them separate from the covers). Use plenty of weights on the books while they dry or they will warp! I then hollowed out the text blocks, as well as the bottom cover of the top book, both covers of the middle book, and the top cover of the bottom book. I gave the interiors of the text blocks several cots of thinned down glue, then glued them to their respective covers with school glue (leaving the top cover unglued to act as the lid of the purse. E6000 glue was used to glue the stacked books together into a solid block.
"Honest Signals" is the term for the non-verbal cues we send to other people when we're in conversation. Even if we're not consciously aware of them, we pick up on them, letting us know if someone we're talking to is interested in us, for instance, or if the poker player beside us is bluffing. In his new book, Honest Signals, MIT professor, Alex (Sandy) Pentland, argues that honest signals not only influence individual behaviour, they also influence group intelligence, and group decision-making.
I talked to the delightful Sandy Pentland recently for our next episode. I'm hoping to get another piece of the puzzle from you, though, for that show. Can you describe a time when you deliberately chose to go and talk to someone in person, rather than just send an email? Thanks!
An edited version of this interview will air on the Oct 29th & Nov 1st version of Spark. You candownload the full interview, or listen below:
Torley at the Mashable blog has put together a quick guide to How to Master Screencasts in Seven Steps. The author, who has created over 200 video tutorials, shares detailed tips and tricks organized into the following steps:
Sponsor
According to Rubicon's research (PDF), most popular online communities do indeed confirm that 80 to 90% of user-generated content is produced by less around 10% of users. That, indeed, is no surprise to anybody who has participated in these communities. However, Rubicon also found that online reviews drive far more purchase decisions than newspaper articles, reviews by website editors, or advice from store employees. Only personal advice was rated as more influential by Rubicon's panel of 3036 web users over the age of 13 in the U.S.
The role of 'influencers' in marketing is still a heavily disputed subject. This study, however, seems to confirm the importance a relatively small number of users can have over the buying decisions of a larger group.
Rubicon also argue that while it is hard for companies to use the web to communicate with users, it is still a great medium to talk to them. This seems like a bit of an outdated idea to us. According to other studies we have seen from Cone and Universal McCann, users do actually want to communicate with companies through social media sites.
Overall, most of the results in this study do not come as a surprise: frequent social network contributors are, on average, younger and more tech savvy than mainstream users. They also see social networks as a utility instead of as a way of keeping in touch with 'real' friends. This report is well worth reading though, as it might confirm quite a few of your own suspicions about online communities and their users.
DiscussAt last, it seems like the value of social networking is being recognized by "the establishment." Quoting the article:
Have you ever minimized your Facebook browser window when your supervisor walked past your desk, afraid you might appear unprofessional? Social-networking guilt may soon be a thing of the past as a new breed of social networking sites for scientists clamor to be the next great timesaver in the lab--for you and your supervisor. These science-specific, Web-based networks combine handy library and document-sharing tools with a social twist. Such sites permit scientists to "help out each other with protocols, discuss topics, prepare for scientific meetings, maybe even show off your research a little bit," says social network user Erika Gyengesi, a neuroscience postdoc at Yale University.
Sites mentioned include:
The article notes that no site is dominating the scene thus far, so a scientist may need to try several sites and then decide which one fits her.
Over the past few days I’ve had a number of conversations with folks about presentation styles and abilities. David Lee King even suggested that someone give a presentation about giving presentations at a library conference. Until that happens I thought I’d post a list of my thoughts here. Please note that I’m not claiming to be an expert presenter. I’m sure I use terribly too, many, uh, pause words when I’m speaking to people. I also think I caught myself pacing a kinda fast at one point during a talk this week. Oops! Even though I’m sure I have presenting foibles, I bet the following thoughts remain helpful for presentations at conferences, in your own library or on the corner soapbox.
→ Remember that you’re not giving a presentation. What you *are* doing is sharing ideas and hopefully trying to convince people of something. So don’t “give a presentation.” Just talk to your audience. Have a main point or two and tell the story surrounding those points.
→ Often said but worth repeating: Please don’t fill your slides with words. Find some relevant and pretty pictures to support what you’re saying. You can use the pictures to remind yourself what you’re going to say next. Search Creative Commons photos on Flickr and cite the photos with a URL. Your presentation should be *very* incomplete without your narration.
→ Instead of spending time practicing a presentation, use the time to learn more about the subject. The more developed your thoughts on the topic are, the more you’ll know what the audience needs and doesn’t need to know. This also helps with the Q&A portion of the talk.
→ Leave plenty of time for that Q&A session because it’ll probably be much more interesting than your prepared remarks*. If you get stumped during this time, don’t pull a Palin and answer an entirely different question. Ask the questioner to get in touch to talk about the subject later.
*The two end of the day 45 minute Q&A sessions at IL2008 were totally great. They were nothing less than free-flowing, organic conversations among supersmart folks. Audience members included. The one on Tuesday evolved into a discussion about experimentation and failure for about 20+ minutes. Good.Stuff.
→ Quoting other people looks you make smart.
→ Don’t be nervous. The people you’re talking to aren’t out to get you. In fact, they want to see you succeed. Because if you succeed they’ll be informed and entertained. Instead of being nervous, have fun. It will be apparent that you’re having fun and having fun is contagious.
→ Say something outrageous. Big, bold statements get people’s attention and are often funny. People like to laugh. Don’t confuse this with me suggesting that you be crude. I’ve heard “hell,” and “damn” used a one or two times to great effect, but I don’t think anyone would suggest you drop an f-bomb on stage at a library conference.
→ Speaking of stages, get off of them. The podium is not your friend.
→ Read Presentation Zen, The 10/20/30 Rule of PowerPoint (though I don’t agree with it all), Tufte’s classic The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint, watch Steve Jobs andLawrence Lessig.
→ Don’t fret if there’s a software or hardware glitch. With any luck your moderator/handler can help you with it whilst you keep talking. Or maybe the tech is a lost cause (Kate, you were amazing!). If you rely on the web during talks, it will fail on you one of these times. Be prepared with screenshot/casts or just plain talking.
→ Be polite. Thank the audience for listening.
Report Buyer, has added a new report examining the potential impact of digitisation and other trends on the book market in the UK.
“Bookselling: Market report 2008” reports that the greatest challenge facing the bookselling industry is the wholesale digitisation of printed matter.
The report shows that leading publishers are digitising their backlists and preparing to digitise all their new books. Digitisation will make two things possible: e-books and print-on-demand books.
Despite the uncertainty of what the market will be for these types of books, it is clear that a market for them has already arrived. Mills & Boon, for example, is preparing to digitise around 2,000 of its back-list titles, at the rate of around £70 a month.
The study highlights that a growing number of out-of-print books are now available on the Internet through print-on-demand technology and an expanding range of books is being published as e-books, as well as in hard copy.
Authors of the report note that the digitisation of books is presenting a major challenge to the bookshops: The Booksellers Association (BA) believes that booksellers and publishers need to work together to devise a strategy to exploit this new technology. The BA argues that both parts of the book trade will suffer unless they collaborate more closely, and many experts and observers of the book trade agree with this conclusion.
“Bookselling: Market report 2008” is available from Report Buyer. For more information, see website.
Report Buyer product ID: KEY00007
About Report Buyer
Report Buyer is a UK-based independent online store supplying business information. The website now carries over 85,000 business information products, including market reports, studies, books and events. Subscribers receive a free monthly newsletter and email alerts on new titles in their areas of interest. A regularly updated blog provides information on the latest market trends.
The eXtensible Catalog (XC) Project is working to design and develop a set of open-source applications that will provide libraries with an alternative way to reveal their collections to library users. XC will provide easy access to all resources (both digital and physical collections) across a variety of databases, metadata schemas and standards, and will enable library content to be revealed through other services that libraries may already be using, such as content management systems and learning management systems. XC will also make library collections more web-accessible by revealing them through web search engines.
Since XC software will be open source, it will be available for download at no cost. Libraries will be able to adopt, customize and extend the software to meet local needs. In addition, a not-for-profit organization will be formed to provide the infrastructure to incorporate community contributions to the code base, encourage collaboration, and provide maintenance and upgrades.
The project is hosted at the University of Rochester and funded through a generous grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Scholarly Communications Program as well as through significant contributions from and in collaboration with XC partner institutions. The project is in a design and development phase until July 2009, at which point the software will be released under an open-source license.
Steven Dibelius
Deployment Engineer, eXtensible Catalog Project
University of Rochester
stevend@library.rochester.edu
The University of Michigan Library has announced that it will license all of its creative works including bibliographies, research guides, technology tutorials, and lesson plans under a Creative Common Attribution-Non-Commercial license. This will allow everyone to use, remix, and redistribute the library’s content as long as they credit the library and use it for non-commercial purposes. The license will be completely integrated into the library’s website redesign expected this fall.
via Open Access News
BookNet Canada has been tracking the sales of each of the books shortlisted for the 2008 Scotiabank Giller Prize, and they’ve determined that, on average, sales of the books have increased by 195% since the nominees were announced on Oct. 7. According to the BookNet press release:
Leading the pack in percent increase is Barnacle Love, the debut short story collection by Anthony De Sa. Published by Doubleday, Barnacle Love saw a sales bump of 350% in just five days after the shortlist was made public.
Good to a Fault by Marina Endicott and The Boys in the Trees by Mary Swan got lifts of 280% and 252%, respectively. The follow-up novels by Rawi Hage and Joseph Boyden were already selling at a brisk pace before the Giller list was announced;Cockroach increased in volume by 76% while Through Black Spruce saw a bump of 16%.
No actual unit sales were released, however. As always, these early Giller sales stats are most useful as an indicator of which titles had likely not been selling. With an uptake of 350%, Barnacle Love had presumably been in the sales doldrums, while the Swan and Endicott titles probably weren’t doing much better. Meanwhile, judging by its relatively small uptake, we can probably assume that Through Black Spruce was already performing reasonably well.
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