Wicked Cool

"7 Things You Should Know About..." Is Worth Knowing About

A few months ago LibrarianInBlack mentioned "7 Things You Should Know About..."  It's a series of 2-page factsheets produced by the Educause Learning Intiative, on emerging technologies gaining traction in teaching and learning. The most recent topics are Wii, Second Life, Multi-Touch Interfaces, Ning, Google Apps, and Flickr -- pretty much a laundry list of libraryland buzzwords, if I'm not mistaken!

So keep "7 Things You Should Know About..." in mind for current awareness of new technologies.  The factsheets handle basic questions about each subject, like what it is, how it works, where it is going, and why it matters to teaching and learning -- and at 2 pages, it's just the right size.  Now if only they published an RSS feed...

Life-Long Computer Skills (Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox)

Ever insightful, Jakob Nielsen's latest article is about the life-long computer skills that kids today should be learning. It's no stretch to say most are things librarians should be able to teach, or at the very least, have a handle on themselves. He says they are:

• Search Strategies - this one's a no-brainer for us librarians.
• Information Credibility - follows right on the heels of search.
• Information Overload - it's only going to get worse, but the good news is we are all in control of our info consumption.
• Writing for Online Readers - is not just for webmasters. Honing your ability to be clear and concise will be appreciated by every person you email.
• Computerized Presentation Skills - will also make you popular with your coworkers, boards, and audiences of all kinds.
• Workspace Ergonomics - it's crucial to take care of your wrists and back if you work at a computer all day. Even more critical for kids today, who probably won't be able to retire until they're 80.
• Debugging - never have to call a help desk again.
• User Testing and other Basic Usability Guidelines - this one is a bit of a stretch, and (I think) shows the author's bias. However, he does have a good point that as consumers we should demand better usabillity from the products we buy.

More questions than answers

(With apologies to Stef for totally ripping off our Friday-afternoon conversation...)

Can I just share a quick story this week? OK. It has nothing to do with libraries. Or does it?

A friend of mine asked for help identifying this weird nylon sleeve thingy with chains that had been donated to a big rummage sale. She'd asked a crowd of over 100 people if anyone could ID it, but no one had any idea.

So I took it home, took a picture, posted it on Flickr, and asked my question on AskMetafilter. Within one minute someone gave the correct answer (though it was another hour or so before someone found a photo that matched it exactly). Amazing.

I've been thinking a lot about questions and answers lately, between reading about Google Answers closing up shop, LibraryThing providing kick-butt RA suggestions (and unsuggestions), and Ask MeFi getting major press. Meanwhile, in "real" life, I'm thinking about how library folks can collaborate to provide reader's advisory, authoritative web links, and get the word out about our databases. How do the two come together?