WorldCat Digital Collection Gateway helps libraries maximize Web visibility of digital collections via WorldCat

(July 24, 2009). OCLC has released the WorldCat Digital Collection Gateway, a new service that helps libraries and other institutions maximize the visibility of unique primary source materials, such as digital photos, newspapers, letters and diaries, through WorldCat on the Web. The WorldCat Digital Collection Gateway is available to all users of OCLC CONTENTdm Digital Collection Management software at no additional charge.

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JISC, the UK organization that “inspires UK colleges and universities in the innovative use of digital technologies”, has published a 10-minute documentary on Libraries of the Future.

Beyond Social Networking: Building Toward Learning Communities

by Ellyssa

Ruth Reynard, Dean of Faculty Services for Career Education Corp, writes for Campus Technology about creating effective learning communities using social networking websites in Beyond Social Networking: Building Toward Learning Communities.

“Much has been written recently about the impact of social networking tools in teaching and learning and how educators can build on the skills of their students in using these tools. My discussion here does not negate that good work but introduces the idea that social networking is only the beginning of a longer and more complex process of socially constructed learning and ultimately collaboration and knowledge building. That is, if educators only integrate the ability of students to connect and socialize, deeper points of learning will be missed. While good teaching and learning rests on effective relationships (Cummins, 2000), in an active learning community, those relationships should evolve into actual idea exchange and knowledge construction.”

Twitter 101 for Business: A Special Guide

by Ellyssa

Twitter has launched a getting started guide for businesses who want to learn how to effectively use the microblogging app. Twitter 101 includes everything from specific case studies to Twitter terminology and even offers users the option to download a set of slides in order to train others on using Twitter. The guide is divided into the following sections:

• What is Twitter
• Getting Started
• Learn the Lingo
• Best Practices
• Case Studies
• Other Resources
• Download the Slides

eMarketer has published statistics which reveal that 41.6% percent of Twitter users use the microblogging application to keep in touch with their friends. Other findings include:

• Secondarily, men were interested in finding news and women in updating their status.
• Users under age 35 were more interested in broadcasting their status than their senior counterparts.
• Older users were more likely to use the service for work-related purposes.
• More women interacted with friends, family and celebrities than men, but men were more likely to follow bloggers.

Barnes & Noble launches world’s biggest e-book store

by Suzanne Gardner

U.S. mega-chain Barnes & Noble announced in a press release yesterday the creation of the world’s biggest e-book store comprising “more than 700,000 titles, including hundreds of new releases and bestsellers at only $9.99.” Unlike Amazon’s Kindle-only e-books, e-books purchased through B&N’s store will be compatible with a number of platforms (aside from the Kindle, of course): iPhone, BlackBerry, and most Windows and Mac computers. Through a partnership with Google Books, the B&N e-book store will also offer more than 500,000 free and downloadable public domain e-books.

B&N als announced an exclusive agreement to provide e-books for the forthcoming Plastic Logic e-reader, a device that is geared toward business professionals. From Fortune:

Plastic Logic vice president of business development Daren Benzi says his device is geared for business travelers, and as such will support the display of PDF files, Microsoft’s MS Word, Powerpoint, and Excel, as well as newspapers and magazines. But e-books are a big part of the game plan. “Will we carry every single one of those 700,000-plus titles? I don’t know. We’ll announce that as we get further along,” said Benzi. “But we will have access to them all.

Elsewhere in the blogosphere, The Book Oven analyzes how B&N’s move will affect the e-book market.

Amazon’s Kindle 2: “An alpenhorn blast of post-Gutenbergian revalorization.” NOT!

by Steven W. Beattie

At least, not according to author Nicholson Baker, who has written a long, occasionally pedantic article about his experiences with the machine for The New Yorker. The piece is full of typically florid Bakerisms: he likens the Kindle 2 to “a restaurant accordion,” refers to the “gray and Calvinist” typeface it employs, and complains about the page-turning deficiencies of the Kindle 1, which are “accompanied by a distracting flash of black as the microspheres dived down into their oil-filled nodules before forming new text.”

But the article is occasionally quite funny – offering, among other things, the title of an erotic novel that features “the mother of all orgasms” – and is a welcome respite from some of the more tech-oriented responses to the digital device. Baker offers an infuriating quote from Amazon’s Jeff Bezos (“We think reading is an important enough activity that it deserves a purpose-built device” – yeah, that would be THE BOOK, you chucklehead), and compares switching from an iPod Touch to a Kindle 2 to “going from a Mini Cooper to a white 1982 Impala with blown shocks.”

Baker’s ultimate conclusion is that the Kindle 2 is a viable reading device if the book is compelling enough to make you forget the device itself. He uses the example of Michael Connelly’s thriller The Lincoln Lawyer:

I began pressing the Next Page clicker more and more eagerly, so eagerly that my habit of page turning, learned from years of reading – which is to reach for the page corner a little early, to prepare for the movement – kicked in unconsciously. I clicked Next Page as I reached the beginning of the last line, and the page flashed to black and changed before I’d read it all. I was trying to hurry the Kindle. You mustn’t hurry the Kindle. But, hell, I didn’t care. The progress bar at the bottom said I was ninety-one per cent done. I was at location 7547. I was flying along. Gray is a good color, I thought. Finally, I was on the last bit. It was called “A Postcard from Cuba.” I breathed an immense ragged sigh. I read the acknowledgments and the about-the-author paragraph – Michael Connelly lives in Florida. Good man. The little progress indicator said ninety-nine per cent. I clicked the Next Page button. It showed the cover of the book again. I clicked Next Page again, but there was no next page. My first Kindle-delivered novel was at its end.