library+instruction+technology

I've been busy this month. I just haven't been blogging. I plan on writing more about some of the bigger projects soon. Here are the highlights…

• Reactive weeding and shifting in our reference collection to eliminate a row of shelves to make more room at the computers.
• Withdrawing those weeded reference books from our catalog.
• Selecting books in the juvenile collection for weeding after education faculty confirmation.
• Adding a "Book Quick Search" to go with the existing "Article Quick Search" on the library's web site.
• Adding a MeeboMe widget to the library's web site.
• Decommissioning the Reference Desk in prep for a combined Service Desk at our existing Circulation Desk at the start of Fall term. (How many times can I say desk in one run-on sentence? If you answered three you are correct.)
• Getting ready to switch offices with Brian in two weeks.
• Getting ready for the OPAL conference.
• Finalizing the changes of the redesign of the OPAL catalog.
• Tearing out the kitchen at home. This is the last room to be redone since we started working on the house in July 2004.
• Finding a brick floor in this greenhouse/stall/thing attached to the garage that was full of junk when we bought the house.
• Going to the farm to see my mom and sister who was on vacation for a couple of weeks.

Stay tuned for more details. I may also share the fun as we begin our final descent towards the first day of classes…only four weeks for those last minute projects! 

I now have an answer (kind of…sort of) to one of the questions I posed back in April when talking about Second Life.

The Pew Internet and American Life Project has released a study on home broadband adoption in the US. Pew reports that 47% of US adults have broadband at home. We still don't know if these are fat tubes or skinny tubes running into houses around the country. That would be interesting data that may exist. I haven't really looked for it.

There are certain demographic categories for households with broadband and it shouldn't come as a surprise. "In particular, broadband penetration remains high among Americans ages 18-49, those with annual household incomes over $75,000 and college graduates." These people tend to also live in urban (52%) or suburban (49%) areas.  (p.4)

Hat tip to Stephen Abram. 

The Ohio State University Libraries hosted a Library 2.0 Seminar back in June. Two emails showed up in my inbox this morning indicating that videos of the presentation and handouts have been posted to the site.

If you are curious about some of the uses of 2.0 apps in libraries and have a broadband connection, then here is yet another free way to get yourself up-to-speed.The videos require RealPlayer. It appear that the videos will not play on some older versions. 

Presenters included:

• Stephen Bell – "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad Web 2.0 World" Watch presentation | Handouts
• Chad Boeninger – "Wikis in Libraries" Watch presentation
• Brian Matthews – "Social Context" Watch presentation
• Ken Varnum – "RSS Basics and Beyond" Watch presentation | Handouts
• Eric Schnell – "Mashups" Watch presentation | Handouts
• Ellyssa Kroski – "Folksonomies and Social Tagging" Watch presentation | Handouts
• Stephen Abram – "Our User Experience: Puzzle Pieces Falling in Place" Watch presentation
• Lorcan Dempsey – "The network reconfigures discovery: the importance of disclosure"
  Watch presentation