Marketing and elevator speeches

Another useful link from one of the groups I follow on LinkedIn - On men, elevator speeches, and market segments.

"But who uses a library nowadays, anyway?" 

"I can get books somewhere else."

I hear those two phrases much more often than I'd like. The blog post linked above suggests having two or three ideas prepared for people who will ask you "what's the benefit of a library?" In particular, the post concentrates on men, but keeping some suggestions on hand is a great idea.

Usually I counter 'what's a library good for' by listing the features of my local library system:

1. You can get books from all 33 branches and, given a bit of time, they will be sent to the branch of your choosing, which makes it easier to pick them up. You can't do it last minute, since it could take a few days to cross the city. Still - 33 branches is a lot of books. Not being limited to one branch is amazing.
1. You can order books from home. You don't even have to go into a library if you don't want to. Sometimes this is where I throw in something like 'you don't even need to get out of your pajama pants', depending on who I'm talking to.
2. 'You can return your books at any branch' is great for selling this feature, too. 
2. The library doesn't just have books - they also have DVDs, CDs, audiobooks, ebooks, and video games. Usually this garners a look of disbelief - DVDs? Video games? WHY? To make them available to everyone, as long as they have a library card... which is free.
3. Databases! I love databases so much. And I always forget...
4. Book recommendations. Reader's advisory. I am hesitant to offer it out, because reader's advisory is difficult (in my opinion) and hard to do if you haven't read books in the genre the patron's looking for. I fear someone approaching a librarian looking for science fiction only to be told they 'don't know the genre' and 'can't be any help'. 

Thing 8 - Google Calendar and Eggs in Baskets

It's a civic holiday today, and you know what that means! It means I go to my grandmother's and help move stuff around. It also means I can catch up on my neglected little blog.

Thing 8 for CPD23: Google Calendars! They seem pretty useful. I'll admit I've tried to use them now and again but they never stick. Google Calendars do remind me a little of the shared calendars I use at work now. I have to put any meetings or training seminars I'm going to into said shared calendar. It's not the most intuitive name to look up, either, but it'll do. It also flashes little warnings when meetings are coming up, which would probably be more useful if I was actually at my computer and not in a file room.

And now for a cautionary tale: do not put all your eggs in one basket, especially if that basket is Google.

You may have heard that Google+ has been deleting accounts. There are a few reasons, but some people are being locked out for not using their real name, or at least what Google thinks is their real name. This is not so good news for people with screen identities, but the greater problem is losing access to your entire Google account if you have been storing all your data there. DON'T DO THIS.

Keeping all your stuff in one online 'cloud' is an interesting idea. Access it from anywhere, blah blah blah, but always keep backups. Actually, make the cloud your backup. Think of all the things Google can manage: calendars, correspondence, contacts, documents. Now think about what would happen if you suddenly lost access to that data.

On July 15 2011 you turned off my entire Google account. You had absolutely no reason to do this, despite your automated message telling me your system “perceived a violation.” I did not violate any Terms of Service, either Google’s or account specific ToS, and your refusal to provide me with any proof otherwise makes me absolutely certain of this. And I would like to bring to your attention how much damage your carelessness has done.

My Google account was tied to nearly every product Google has developed, meaning that I lost everything in those accounts as well. I was also in the process of consolidating everything into my one Google account. (…)

While the long post the article quotes the paragraphs above from has been taken down, there are other examples of this happening.

I would like to introduce you to something. That black box to the left is an external hard drive. Anyone who's ever had a computer meltdown and lost their data can tell you how much that stinks. This external hard drive allows me to back up all the files I would very much mind losing. It is small, portable, and has a lot of space. This is where you put the kinds of things you don't want to lose.

To the right is something called a day planner. They are also small, portable, and come in a delightful array of styles and colours. You write down your appointments and notes in them. These are both very useful tools.

Please remember, if you hand all your data to Google (or any other one 'place'), you may rue the day.

Super Databases

Oh my gosh this is exciting: EBSCO and H.W. Wilson will be combined into 'super databases'. Among other features, it will include results for 'use for' and 'see also' terms of keywords, presumably removing a step for the user. I will miss access to the school's databases.

Google vs. the Content Farms

Google says it has tweaked the formulas steering its Internet search engine to take the rubbish out of its results. The overhaul is designed to lower the rankings of what Google deems “low-quality” sites. That could be a veiled reference to so-called online “content farms” such as Demand Media's eHow.com.

- Google tweaks search to punish ‘low-quality' sites, Globe and Mail

Google doesn't like content farms. They updated their algorithms. But did it work?

The Beauty of Data Visualization

Another post taken from my Database Searching class, here is David Candless on the beauty of data visualization:

Blind Search

Also snitched from Closed Stacks, Blind Search!

Welcome to BlindSearch, the search engine taste test.

Type in a search query above, hit search then vote for the column which you believe best matches your query. The columns are randomised with every query.

The goal of this site is simple, we want to see what happens when you remove the branding from search engines. How differently will you perceive the results?

...I keep picking Google.

Building Digital Libraries to Contain the Data Deluge

The full article is at IEEE Spectrum, but you might want to dip your toe in with the PSFK article first.

The Coming Data Deluge talks about how digital libraries will be needed to store, filter, and organize the massive amounts of data from scientific projects. This makes me happy, because a) I love science, and b) I would really like to have a job when I graduate, and information management is right up my alley.

In the past, most scientific disciplines could be described as small data, or even data poor. Most experiments or studies had to contend with just a few hundred or a few thousand data points. Now, thanks to massively complex new instruments and simulators, many disciplines are generating correspondingly massive data sets that are described as big data, or data rich. Consider the Large Hadron Collider, which will eventually generate about 15 petabytes of data per year. A petabyte is about a million gigabytes, so that qualifies as a full-fledged data deluge.

Adding Library Catalogue Results to Google Searches

From LISNews to Musings on librarianship: adding your library catalogue results to Google searches.

The Google instinct is very strong indeed. The danger here is students might be just happy with what they get in Google (Wikipedia I'm looking at you) and be done with it. What if a plugin could be installed such that whenever the student did a search in Google/Yahoo etc and it would automatically overlay library catalogue results next to it? This leverages the user's strong "Google instinct" and without any additional effort he can see the library catalogue results together with Google's.

And a comment on LISNews' post:

Things to come

Sahil here, from the WebMynd Team. Thank you for your comprehensive post around our new Content Concierge Platform!

I would love to share a few clarifications and upcoming features that we are excited to get out of the door:

- We are excited to announce that as of next week we now allow users/publishers to add an unlimited number of advanced widgets (as opposed to last week's constraint of just 1 advanced and unlimited simple).

- We do work with sources that require logins such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Gmail etc. - In general, if a user can get to a source and search it manually, we can create an advanced widget for that source. In the next week we will allow anyone to create widgets that require users to log in to an authentication server.

- Also in the next week or two we will complete our revamp of the "User Control Panel" allowing registered users to actually go back and edit/remove any sidebars created using our Content Concierge Platform. We also pushed a build this morning that will generate your search sidebar in <1 minute!- These sidebars are already fully compatible with all other major search engines...Yahoo!, Bing, Google, YouTube - across your major browsers, IE, FireFox, Chrome and soon, Safari.- We are working on a solution that will add more comprehensive logic as to how your verticals appear (in which order) in the sidebar. Currently, we place the vertical/widget that loads first at the top. Soon you will see your widgets that you have added will be locked in the order you enter them in the creation process!- Finally, we are looking to introduce a Content Concierge Gallery that will allow users to browse other generated sidebars - look out for this in November!We are very excited to have you and all your readers taking a look at our product. Any additional feedback is monumental in creating a platform that will serve as an incredibly useful utility for a wide range of publishers/users. Keep an eye out for a few more exciting additions like a full redesign of the sidebar and redesigned customized user landing pages!We are always interested in gathering feedback and helping anyone create a perfect search sidebar for their content consumption needs. Feel free to reach out to to the WebMynd team at support@webmynd.com with any feedback or questions/help requests around the creation process and we will get back to you ASAP.For all of you who do not wish to create a sidebar of your own, please feel free to visit our website: www.webmynd.com, scroll down and download our latest WebMynd Search Sidebar - Turbocharge & personalize your searches with the sites you care about most!Regards,WebMynd Team

Very cool. But WebMynd? Didn't the 'adding Y for I' craze die down in the late nineties? No? Damn.

Lagomorph Watson
Through the Stacks and Down the Rabbyt Hole With a Wannabe Lybrary Technycyan

MY EYES ARE BLEEDING

Mike Shatzkin on "How Quickly Things Change"

Mike Shatzkin at the Idea Logical Blog:

A month ago I was helping my sister clean out some of the old files of my father’s (now gone over eight years, but it takes a while to get around to this stuff.) Among his papers, I found the hard copy of a speech I had delivered at a VISTA Conference (VISTA is now a company called Publishing Technology) in November of 1995. As I started to read it, I realized I hadn’t seen it in a long time. I checked and it wasn’t on my web site. I checked further and it wasn’t in my hard drive.

So if Dad hadn’t saved this printed copy, I wouldn’t have had it to show you. I’m glad he did. Ironically, the speech was titled “How Quickly Things Change”.

It is pretty awesome. He didn't predict iPods, but he got a lot of other things right.

Instant Searching

Google Instant isn't really big news, though it does seem to be irritating people. Looks like a bit of a knee-jerk reaction to me; searches function like they always did, and sometimes it is faster to just pick one of the suggestions from the drop-down bar. Does it really save that much time? No. Has it been done before? Yes, actually.

Also amusing: the Google Instant Alphabet.

Wikipedia Editing War on Iraq War... Now in Book Form

One Wikipedia page, a whole lot of edits, and now a series of books.

Of the printed collection, Bridle says: "It contains arguments over numbers, differences of opinion on relevance and political standpoints, and frequent moments when someone erases the whole thing and just writes 'Saddam Hussein was a dickhead'."

Of Wikipedia, Bridle says: "It's not only a resource for collating all human knowledge, but a framework for understanding how that knowledge came to be and to be understood; what was allowed to stand and what was not; what we agree on, and what we cannot."

James Bridle has taken edits made to the Wikipedia entry for the Iraq War from December 2004 to November 2009 and printed them in a series of books. That's over 1200 edits.

Saddam Hussein was a dickhead.

Handy Google Search Tips

Mostly I skimmed this article on Huffington Post from Catharine Smith and David Vines, but toward the end there were things I hadn't heard about before. Here's the full list in the article:

• Weather: Typing weather and a zip code will show you the weather for that zip code.
  
• Music: Searching an artist will allow you to listen to some of their songs.
  
• Calculator: Put in simple math problems and Google will solve 'em. Use * for multiplication, / to divide, and + and - to, well... you know.
  
• Convert Measurements: What's 5 litres in gallons (1.32086026), how far is 56 miles in kilometres (90.123264), that sort of thing.
  
• Dictionary: Define works like a dictionary. (Like define: lagomorph)
  
• Specific Site Search: You can get Google to only search a certain site by including site:www.whatever-the-site-url-is.com after your search terms.
  
• Directions: Not just driving! Also walking, public transportation, and biking.
  
• Time: Time in places you aren't at. Just type time: city, country-province-state-whatever .
  
• Area Codes: Type in any three-digit area code and Google will tell you where it's from.
  
• Feeling Lucky: Go immediately to the first result of your search, skipping the result list. I consider this one vaguely dangerous. There are things you cannot unsee.
  
• Convert Currency: Dollars to Euros! US dollars to Canadian dollars!
  
• Sports Stats: Search new york mets and get the stats for the Mets.
• Search with exclusions: Perhaps you want information on oil spills, but not the BP oil spill. Type oil spill -bp.
• Numerical Ranges: Now we're getting into stuff I didn't know about. Use like: canadian prime ministers 1934..1956.
  
• Document Types: PowerPoint presentations on whales? Search whales filetype:ppt. Neat!
• Stocks: Type in the stock's name, like GOOG for Google or AAPL for Apple, get stock information.
• Cached Pages: Google often has cached versions of pages stored when you look at your result list - older versions. Apparently helpful to get around employer-blocked sites and times when a site's current contents may not be available.
• Addresses: Don't bother going to Google Maps, just type the address into your search bar.
• Related Terms: A tilde (~). This shows you things related to the word you're searching, like ~scissors will call up results for the word scissors, but also the words clippers and shears.
• Traffic Forecast: You must go to the live traffic page, where you can change the traffic from current to forecast, complete with day and time (like Monday 8AM).
• Phrase Search: Put a phrase in double quotes and the results will be for the exact words in that order. Like looking for "upon the gears and upon the levers" will bring up the rest of that famous speech I couldn't remember last night. This is also helpful when you need to ID a song - I will try to remember a line or two from the song to look it up later. That works best by attaching the term lyrics to the "quoted search".
• Tracking Packages: UPS, FedEx, and USPS. Just put in the tracking number.
  
• Translation: translate.google.com allows you to translate cut and pasted text, upload documents, or put in a web page URL.
• News Archives: There's a timeline option to narrow your news results.

Misspelled Searches

Nobody can spell perfectly all the time, but it's a good thing search engines are better able to deal with phonetic craziness, as shown by this Yahoo Buzz article by Vera H-C Chan.

Then, there are people's names. In a polyglot America, no one rule governs the spelling of proper names. While legions of young girls have glommed onto 12-year-old Web sensation Justin Bieber, a few searchers have referred to him as that "Justin Beaver" singer.

Tee hee hee!

Journal Liberation

John Mark Ockerbloom writes about the problems with the high cost of some academic journals for Everybody's Libraries:

The problem of limited access to high-priced scholarly journals may be reaching a crisis point. Researchers that are not at a university, or are at a not-so-wealthy one, have long been frustrated by journals that are too expensive for them to read (except via slow and cumbersome inter-library loan, or distant library visits). Now, major universities are feeling the pain as well, as bad economic news has forced budget cuts in many research libraries, even as further price increases are expected for scholarly journals. This has forced many libraries to consider dropping even the most prestigious journals, when their prices have risen too high to afford.

His article is partly a primer for how to 'liberate' journals.

Stop Thinking of Internet Privacy in Human Terms

David Hurley from Intellectual Freedom Roundtable (IFRT) writes about how liking Star Trek could hinder your chances at a job in childcare. Sort of. Hypothetically!

Rather than a person knowing discrete facts, the database allows your data to be carefully analyzed as part of the aggregate. And when you analyze such a huge pot of data, you start finding odd correlations.

Stephen Wolfram - Making All Knowledge Computational

Stephen Wolfram talks about his ideas to make all knowledge computational. I'll be honest, a lot of it goes right over my head, but it's worth watching. Stephen Wolfram designed Wolfram Alpha, a curious little search engine that provides very up to date computational facts.

Parameta Data

Start with meta, get your head around metadata, and then consider parameta data. I think I get it.

How Much Information is There?

How much information is there? Not counting books, just the digital information storage.

For most of us, “a crapload” is a sufficiently accurate answer. But for a few obsessive data analysts, more precision is necessary. According to a recent study by market-research company IDC, and sponsored by storage company EMC, the size of the information universe is currently 800,000 petabytes. Each petabyte is a million gigabytes, or the equivalent of 1,000 one-terabyte hard drives.

If you stored all of this data on DVDs, the study’s authors say, the stack would reach from the Earth to the moon and back.

Library of Congress and Twitter

Every Tweet Will Be Preserved for History. Seriously?

I wonder what category tweets go under in the Library of Congress Classification system.

FAQ: Google, China, and Censorship

WIRED.com has made an FAQ (a list of Frequently Asked Questions) regarding Google, China, and Censorship. It is useful!