The University of Malaya
Monday I gave a modified and longer version of my presentation for ICoLIS to Librarians at the University of Malaya, including demonstrations of several sites like Facebook and FriendFeed. It was a wonderful group who asked some great questions. After there was a small tea reception with some delicious Malay food.
Greetings from Malaysia
Today is my first presentation so I thought I’d better write a post sharing what I’ve done over the last two days (besides prepping) before all the official stuff starts!
I’ve spent a lot of time at this desk, tweaking presentations and checking email accounts, this is a work trip after all. Luckily the view is great.
I went to the Butterfly Park, so many butterflies!
I went to the Orchid Gardens, incredible to see and to smell!
-Climbed all 272 steps to the Batu Caves
Viewed the Petronas Towers from the top of the Menara Tower
And walked around a lot at all the different markets and malls!
What do you think of Google Flu Trends?
I’ll admit it, I’m sucker for Google products - Reader, Gmail, Docs, Blogger, Chrome and I know on some level the dangers of that. I have lots of bookmarks in delicious about it. This morning while I was watching the news I heard mention of something new - Google Flu Trends. According the the site:
We have found a close relationship between how many people search for flu-related topics and how many people actually have flu symptoms. Of course, not every person who searches for “flu” is actually sick, but a pattern emerges when all the flu-related search queries from each state and region are added together. We compared our query counts with data from a surveillance system managed by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and discovered that some search queries tend to be popular exactly when flu season is happening. By counting how often we see these search queries, we can estimate how much flu is circulating in various regions of the United States.
I’m not certain why this disturbs me, I think I want to know how Google knows where I am when I search. If I go into a computer in my library and do a Goolge search for Flu how do they know I’m in Jefferson City? How? I looked in the FAQ and How Does This Work section and don’t see it. I’m sure someone will leave a comment and let me know. But I’m not sure that will make my unease go away. Think of everything else they *could* track.
Read more:
YouTube - not just about your 15 seconds of fame anymore
It looks like YouTube will be partnering with MGM to host some full length films (The Magnificent Seven) and old television programs (American Gladiators). I didn’t see anything about the quality of the videos, if you visit YouTube regularly you know the quality of uploaded videos is pretty poor, surely the shows will be better. Maybe if they are willing to play MGM videos at better quality it wont be long before we see the option for other accounts to have better video quality. Like accounts belonging to libraries. 
Read More:
The new MaintainIT cookbook is out - The Joy of Computing
MaintainIT cookbooks are a great (free) resource! “Planning for Success, a guide for the overworked librarian” one covers:
- Planning and Decision Making covers the ins and outs of creating a technology plan that ties to your strategic priorities and goals.
- Communication and Partnerships delves in the fundamentals of day-to-day technology communication from a “techie” and “non-techie” perspective. It also includes some important guidelines for working and collaborating with key stakeholders.
- Buying and Deploying Technology goes through some of the core actions and decisions you need to consider when planning deployments, installations, and upgrades.
- Maintaining and Sustaining Technology offers important insight into the daily management of public computers.
- Networking and Security covers some of the basic standards and practices for ensuring your library’s network security.
- Innovation highlights the true value of today’s libraries and the role in serving as the center of new community conversations via a much higher level of user interactivity and experiences. If you are ready for Web 2.0, this is a good place to start.
You can find the new Cookbook here: http://www.maintainitproject.org/cookbooks/planning-for-success
I’m going to Malaysia!
I know I’ve shared this story with many of you in person, so forgive me if you’ve already heard it.
It seems like ages ago that I got invited to attend the International Conference on Libraries, Information and Society, but it was only in June that I got a Facebook message asking me if I would consider attending. Yes that’s right a Facebook message, about 90% of the communication, planning and details for this visit, were done though Facebook. It seems like I’ve been planning and preparing for it for ages. I know some of you wondered where I’ve been over the last month or so. But the time has finally come. I’ll leave next week! I’ll be presenting at the conference and giving a post conference workshop, but there will be time for sightseeing too!
Summer Storm over Kuala Lumpur, originally uploaded by Stuck in Customs.
Phishing Scams in Plain English
Pecha Kucha
Pecha Kucha - 20 slides 20 seconds a piece on a single topic
Rebecca Jones - I didn’t get good notes, sorry 
Stephen Abram - trendspotting
is television affecting our world, Kennedy vs Nixon debate, then Obama vs McCain, blinking
youtube video of Palin saying she can see Russia from porch
visual popular – twitter
Olympics yahoo trumps NBC
webkinz – when your stuffed animals have a social life online
club penguin – Disney kids on social crack,
soccer mom is average gamer
geocaching
portability
mainly mobile focus – phone not laptops, we’re old with our laptops in front of us
David Lee King
the librarian is the product
libraries have a lot of products magazines, books, databases, websites, search engines, reference we can answer your questions on the phone, at the desk, im, blog comments,
all this lets us show our personality, makes lib more human
what product should we be selling?
Books amazon does it better
info Google does it better
staff? Maybe we should be selling ourselves so the librarian is the product
we need to promote ourselves, our stuff is just stuff, the value added is the ppl
Nancy Dowd
Google answers the question we improve the question
what do we call the ppl who come in? members guests patrons customers – name them
be transparent in marketing
I will not longer support the silence of silos
I will support innovation – pic of Helene Blowers on screen
I will make demands on my vendors
I will make friends with my long tails
I will honor all choices of communication
I will embrace diversity
I will ACT green, no more just thinking green, why are you print brochures? Print on demand
I will find the ‘me’ in my library – pic of Michael Stephens on screen
I will measure the right stuff – measure according to your goal
I will market to voters – the ppl who support our libraries are not coming into our libraries but they want to know that we are transforming lives
I will tell stories so that when ppl think of transformation they will think of the library
multi media story about Sean
Greg Schwartz is going to make us vote for a favorite – looks like Nancy won
questions -
how do staff behind the scenes market themselves? Remind ppl what you are doing and why you’re doing it
you have to identify who your client is, if yo are behind the scenes you client is the front line
question about Nancy’s video – in new jersey they are teaching librarians to tell stories, simple it was voice over still photo
Twitter & how the “twittest” use it for keeping up
Michael Sauers and Christa Burns
cant explain you have to to do it, and you have to do it with friends to get the experience
post – tweet
tweeting
methods – web, desktop client, bookmarklets, via email, via sms, blog to twitter (twitterfeed)
url past 140 character limit will usually convert to tiny url
twitthis
twitterfeed – run rss to twitter account
twirl
@username if replaying
d username message – private message
nudge username
l: location informatin
follow username
leave username
block username
invite phonenumber
#hashtag
direct messages go to only you, other msgs are public,
can have a public or private account, private only ppl you approve can see it
can read your friends via your twitter homepage, also rss
uses
ultra simple blogging
conferences
references questions
new
emergency services
weather
presidential campaigning
website updates
conversations
marsphoenix lander is tweeting, a person is tweeting in first person for the lander
LA fire department has a feed
twitter search to track keywords
twitterference – so many sms to your phone you cant make a phone call
too distracting
if you don’t participate you wont get anything out of it
7 tips to being a good twittter -
http://www.meryl.net/2008/04/7-tips-to-a-good-twitter-experience/
- follow others
- @comment others
- link to your stuff
- don’t take non responses personally
- be patient
- avoid addiction
- use your name
Jezmyne Westcott & Cindi Trainor
choose a twitter name you are willing to be called in public
twitterati – your ppl on twitter, you can get help from them, often there is no one doing what you do where you work
twitterverse
tweetdeck – see your replies and tag cloud
friendfeed – aggrigaor for feeds other than twitter
flock – browser, use tabs and sidebars to show your twitter feed while your working, show media stream at the top of flickr tag
question – how do you meebo thru flock? Meebo plug in for firefox, may work in flock
do you have to ask permission to use twitter, answers – don’t ask don’t tell, its a useful social network tool, you can get answers and help
twitter is like ….. inspired by dave free and peter bromberg
