Monday, May 2, 2011
Minnesota Learning Commons: Overview and Application for the Library Community
For the first afternoon session,I was happy to hear more about the Minnesota Learning Commons from Todd Digby of MnSCU and Mary Ann VanCura from State Library Services of the Minnesota Department of Education. They informed us about the resources and services available, and had handouts showing the components in the Minnesota Learning Commons. I had no idea that the following were all included:
Hippocampus
National Repository of Online Courses
MERLOT (Multimedia Educational Resources for Learning and Online Teaching)
MnCommons/Equella
MnKnows
iTunesU
eFolio Minnesota
Minnesota Transfer
u.Select
GPS LifePlan
ISEEK
Quality Matters
CENTSS (Center for Transforming Student Services)
Lodestar
The main goal for the Minnesota Learning Commons is to be a portal to centralize resources and information for onine learning in the state. We had an interesting discusson on test proctoring which is said to be one of the biggest hurdles in online education. After talking this past week at our campus about the need for a quieter space for tutoring, this topic was very pertinent for me. There was a question about the need for WebJunction and Minnesota Learning Commons, and I know that WebJunction is a site that is I could utilize more.
Scads of Daffodils at the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum for ARLD Day
Photo by jchants of daffodils at Minnesota Landscape Arboretum
THE EVERYWHERE LIBRARYThe Academic and Research Division of the Minnesota Library Association held their annual ARLD Day at the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum on Friday, April 29, 2011 - the same day as the Royal Wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton. After seeing them say their vows, Sandi Mead and I left our homes early that morning.
This year's theme was THE EVERYWHERE LIBRAY with Jason Griffey, Associate Professor and Head of Library Information Technology at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga as Keynote Speaker. Keynote Speaker Links to check out are:
Jason Griffey's Personal Blog: http://jasongriffey.net/
Pattern Recognition: http://jasongriffey.net/wp/
ALA TechSource Blog: http://www.alatechsource.org/blogger/16
In the keynote speech, Jason Griffey spoke of the Everywhere Patron, Gadgets and Gizmos, Personal Technology and the Library, and Trends and Containers.
For library patrons, experiences become expectations. Because patrons interact with technology outside of the library, libraries also need to meet those expectations, Griffey told us. He presented some current numbers for mobile technologies:
There are 5 billion individual contracts in the world for cell phones and currently 6.8 billion people on Earth. Mobile phone technology is the fastest spreading technology in the world. Cell penetration is going for 100%. Currently it is about 96% in the USA. Some countries have higher than 100% because people have more than one cell phone. For example, Hong Kong has 150%, Italy has 147%, Lithuania and Estonia have 146%, and Germany has 130%. The United Nations estimates that by the end of 2011, 90% of the world's population will have cell phone service.
200,000 text messages are sent each second, with text messaging currently twice as popular as email. More data is sent via text than by any other means. As more people switch to "smart phones", 85% of cell phones will be able to access the web by the end of 2011. While other products become more expensive and worse, electonic products become cheaper and better, Griffey told us. Ths cost to make a computer keeps becoming less. In 1990, the cost was $ 937 while today it is $ 51.
Streaming traffic continues to become more dominant. At the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga where Griffey is, 42.1% of all traffic on campus is streaming. As 70% of the USA currently uses Netflix, consumers expect service. Due to the popularity of Netflix, 20% of bandwidth streaming in the USA is between 8-10 PM. Chattanooga currently has the fastest residential internet service in the country.
INFORMATION HABITS CHANGE
For libraries, containers and contents had been the same (books), while with digital formats, the content and container change with the content being independent of the container. Griffley again mentioned Netflix as the current model for patrons which lowers barrier between the patron and the source (library). Other content provider examples he gave: Kindle, Hulu, YouTube, mog.com, and Spotify (mainly in Europe). Griffey also talked about magazines moving digitally and said that while newspapers are online, the business is "dead and dying."
The most popular application in the "app world" is games at 14.83%, with books currently second at 14,32%. They are followed by entertainment, education, lifestyle, utilities, travel, music and reference. New kinds of conatiners make the applications possible. The problem for libraries that Griffey sees is that personal electronics are personal, and designed for one person's interaction. There is a gap between personal and commerical. While Griffey said that "ereaders, are still mildly important, the shape of the future is flat." He talked of the lack of ereaders at the Consumer Electronics Products Show at Las Vegas this year, and the emergence of the iPAD with about 15 billion units sold in the first month. In his presentation he gave many examples of other new products and talked of possible standardization of docking stations in the future.
Griffey said that there are no conclusions, just roadmaps as "even cooler stuff" is coming. He said that "The future is here, it just isn't evenly distributed.'
FUTURE
Of the examples that Jason Griffey showed, I liked the Flip Sacnning from Japan which can scan 200 pages a minute, and the Makerbot which uses 3D printing to print an object rather than a sheet of paper. Plastic action figures and gears to print your own clock are examples, but the cost is still prohibitive.
CONCLUSION
Jason Griffey gave us lots of numbers and examples of changing technology, and talked of how we need to be ahead of our patron base. I liked his quotes from Douglas Adams and Henry Ford.
"Anything invented after you are 35 is against the natural order of things." - Douglas Adams
"If I'd asked them what they wanted . . . .they'd have said a faster horse." - Henry Ford
QUESTIONS & ANSWERS
Jason Griffey clarified that physical books and ebooks are not the same thing. He said that usually whoever stands between content and consumer is eliminated by the Internet, and reminded us that the library actually is a "middleman." The job of hte Internet is to "get us out of the way." A major problem that Griffey sees for libraries is that all funding is now local, so there is no way for libraries to speak with one voice. When asked about a potential Digital Public Library of America, Griffey responded that the project has "Too Many Chiefs." He recommended Wolfwalk, a local history project at North Carolina State as a good example, and told us to read Rainbow's End.
Friday, March 25, 2011
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Friday, February 4, 2011
Friday, January 14, 2011
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