Save Money@your library

Here is one of my favorite Web 2.0 tools. It is convenient and saves me money! I often have materials out from more than one library and with this tool, someone else reminds me of what is due when and where. Handy.

LibraryElf is an Internet-based tool for keeping track of what's due, overdue and ready for pickup at your library. Users can keep track of one or more library accounts in one place and receive reminders. Reminders are sent when the user wants it -- before items are due (up to seven days advance notice, weekly notice, or everyday reminders). For families or anyone who'd like reminders before an item is due (user-selectable number of days notice). This is a third-party application (not developed/supported by the library or its circulation system vendor). If LibraryElf is for you, sign up for an account.

Some people are concerned about privacy with this service. In theory, you could put in someone else’s library barcode and their PIN (since in most libraries it is set as the last four digits of your phone number) and then see what they are reading. Just why I would want to do that, I am not sure. And, I can change my PIN to a different number if I want to. So, I use ELF and I love it. I did about these issues, but I decided that I was willing to accept the potential risk of privacy loss for the convenience of the service. As soon as my libraries start offering RSS and or other easy reminders on my account, I'll gladly use that rather than my Elf account. Unfortunately, I don't see that happening any time soon.

All Twin Cities area library systems are compatible with Elf.

Google Book

You may know that Google was being sued by authors and publishers over the book scanning project. Well, they have reached a settlement. Not sure if this is good news, bad news, or no news in the sense that not much will change for the user. Except for the need for libraries and universities to purchase a license? According to Google Official Blog,

This agreement is truly groundbreaking in three ways. First, it will give readers digital access to millions of in-copyright books; second, it will create a new market for authors and publishers to sell their works; and third, it will further the efforts of our library partners to preserve and maintain their collections while making books more accessible to students, readers and academic researchers.

Here is each party's take on the settlement.

• Google Book Search’s page on the settlement
• Association of American Publishers’ page on the settlement
• Author’s Guild page on the settlement
• Joint FAQ about the settlement
• Official Google Blog entry about the settlement
• University of Michigan President Paul Courant’s analysis. (University of Michigan was one of the early Google Book partners.)

The library section, down near the bottom of the first link, says:

This agreement wouldn’t have been possible without all the libraries who have preserved these books and now partnered with us to make so many of them discoverable online. We’re delighted that this agreement creates new opportunities for libraries and universities to offer their patrons and students access to millions of books beyond their own collections. In addition to the institutional subscriptions and the free public access terminals, the agreement also creates opportunities for researchers to study the millions of volumes in the Book Search index. Academics will be able to apply through an institution to run computational queries through the index without actually reading individual books.

"...computational queries without actually reading individual books" has a brave new world sound about it, doesn't it

*Update* Harvard University Library weighs in and isn't happy. From Library Journal: Harvard University Library Director Robert Darnton said that

As we understand it, the settlement contains too many potential limitations on access to and use of the books by members of the higher education community and by patrons of public libraries.

Concern of many seems to be that Google is going from "a universal digital library" to a "universal digital bookstore" with Google Book (Paul Courant, UMich President). Libraries have collected these materials and made them available to researchers and others and with the idea of licenses or other payments for materials, some librarians are not happy. The Library Journal article above has a roundup of reactions.

Wikipedia Scholarship

MIT's Technology Review has an interesting article on Wikipedia Wikipedia and the Meaning of Truth: Why the online encyclopedia's epistemology should worry those who care about traditional notions of accuracy.

The author has an interesting perspective on Wikipedia and its standards for truth and accuracy and the question of how do you know what to question on Wikipedia and what to believe.

...Wikipedia's standard for inclusion has become its de facto standard for truth, and since Wikipedia is the most widely read online reference on the planet, it's the standard of truth that most people are implicitly using when they type a search term into Google or Yahoo. On Wikipedia, truth is received truth: the consensus view of a subject.

That standard is simple: something is true if it was published in a newspaper article, a magazine or journal, or a book published by a university press--or if it appeared on Dr. Who.

Worth reading and thinking about in light of reliable resources and student research.

I had to look up epistemology.

Not That You are Middle-Aged or Anything, but...

I was happy to see this article reporting some good news for those of us at the older end of the age scale.

"For middle-aged and older people at least, using the internet helps boost brain power, research suggests."

It is nice to know that what I spend so much time doing might actually have a health benefit, not just keep me informed!

Thing 6. Online Collaboration

Out of order, but....

Here is an interesting use of a wiki. It takes a traditional assignment and adds a virtual twist. It has received a lot of responses. Karl Fisch, the father of this student, is tech coordinator at Arapahoe High School in Colorado. He created a video for one of his staff days that "went viral" and has had millions of YouTube views.

If you have never watched Shift Happens by Karl Fisch, do so. It is a great conversation starter for staff days or any other time the need for technology and information literacy arises. This is Shift Happens 2.0.

Karl's blog The Fischbowl is an interesting read, too.

Thing 7. Search Engines

Google is 10 years old this year--which is a surprise. It seems it has been around forever. In honor of its birthday, Google has made one its earliest indexes (2001) of the Web available for the curious to search. The Washington Post has an interesting article about its efforts at searching "old" Google. The article is here. Not much for Wikipedia, Facebook is still limited to a few Ivies, and blogging is just taking off (according to US News and World Report, 1.15.01). If you want to llik at what was actually on a site back then, try the Internet archive Wayback Machine.

The Google site will be up until the end of the month at Google.com/search2001.html.

Google Docs Blog

I recommend that everyone subscribe to the Official Google Docs Blog. This useful source gives updates to Google Docs features, points out ways to use the product in classrooms, and is just a good way to keep up with what's happening. A recent "contest" asked K-12 teachers to send in their ideas on using Google Docs in their classrooms. The first 50 respondents received a Moleskine journal.

Recent posts highlighted the Table of Contents feature and bibliography templates.

GoogleDocs & Copyright

I am clearly behind on my blogging--like so many of you:-) I hope you are thinking and learning and will share what is happening.

Being behind, I am late in posting this information that responds to some questions about who owns the copyright for material produced using GoogleDocs. There were some rumors/doomsday posts in the blogosphere awhile back asserting that Google owns your copyright.

The answer is that the creator holds the copyright, just as the creator holds the copyright on any written or artistic creation whether or not a copyright is registered for the work. Take a look at Google's Terms of Service.

Google’s terms provide strong protection for intellectual property. Abusing other people's intellectual property rights is forbidden:

8.2 … You may not modify, rent, lease, loan, sell, distribute or create derivative works based on this Content (either in whole or in part) unless you have been specifically told that you may do so by Google or by the owners of that Content, in a separate agreement.

It acknowledges your rights:

9.4 Other than the limited license set forth in Section 11, Google acknowledges and agrees that it obtains no right, title or interest from you (or your licensors) under these Terms in or to any Content that you submit, post, transmit or display on, or through, the Services, including any intellectual property rights which subsist in that Content (whether those rights happen to be registered or not, and wherever in the world those rights may exist). …

And,

11.1 You retain copyright and any other rights you already hold in Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services. …