And Time Marches On...

Check out my most recent post, inspired by a student's 3d-printed Christmas gift.

Goodbye Shelfari. Hello Goodreads.

It's been a fun 8 years: http://aislnews.org/?p=3461

Print Reading Preferences by Millenials

This article echoes what I've heard from many students. They like technology for skimming and print for long-form reading, though they don't like long-form reading very much at all because there are so many constraints on their time. Digital Natives Reading Print

Although American University student Cooper Nordquist, 21, uses his laptop most of the day, he still likes to read from the printed word for enjoyment. Despite that fact that most college students do a majority of their socializing and school work electronically, many still like to read from actual hard copy printed books. (Michael S. Williamson/The Washington Post)

 

By Michael S. Rosenwald February 22

Frank Schembari loves books — printed books. He loves how they smell. He loves scribbling in the margins, underlining interesting sentences, folding a page corner to mark his place.
Schembari is not a retiree who sips tea at Politics and Prose or some other bookstore. He is 20, a junior at American University, and paging through a thick history of Israel between classes, he is evidence of a peculiar irony of the Internet age: Digital natives prefer reading in print.
“I like the feeling of it,” Schembari said, reading under natural light in a campus atrium, his smartphone next to him. “I like holding it. It’s not going off. It’s not making sounds.”
Textbook makers, bookstore owners and college student surveys all say millennials still strongly prefer print for pleasure and learning, a bias that surprises reading experts given the same group’s proclivity to consume most other content digitally. A University of Washington pilot study of digital textbooks found that a quarter of students still bought print versions of e-textbooks that they were given for free.
“These are people who aren’t supposed to remember what it’s like to even smell books,” said Naomi S. Baron, an American University linguist who studies digital communication. “It’s quite astounding.”

Earlier this month, Baron published “Words Onscreen: The Fate of Reading in a Digital World,” a book (hardcover and electronic) that examines university students’ preferences for print and explains the science of why dead-tree versions are often superior to digital. Readers tend to skim on screens, distraction is inevitable and comprehension suffers.
In years of surveys, Baron asked students what they liked least about reading in print. Her favorite response: “It takes me longer because I read more carefully.”
The preference for print over digital can be found at independent bookstores such as the Curious Iguana in downtown Frederick, Md., where owner Marlene England said millennials regularly tell her they prefer print because it’s “easier to follow stories.” Pew studies show the highest print readership rates are among those ages 18 to 29, and the same age group is still using public libraries in large numbers.
It can be seen in the struggle of college textbook makers to shift their businesses to more profitable e-versions. Don Kilburn, North American president for Pearson, the largest publisher in the world and the dominant player in education, said the move to digital “doesn’t look like a revolution right now. It looks like an evolution, and it’s lumpy at best.”
And it can be seen most prominently on college campuses, where students still lug backpacks stuffed with books, even as they increasingly take notes (or check Facebook) on laptops during class. At American, Cooper Nordquist, a junior studying political science, is even willing to schlep around Alexis de Tocqueville’s 900-plus-page “Democracy in America.”
“I can’t imagine reading Tocqueville or understanding him electronically,” Nordquist said in between classes while checking his e-mail. “That would just be awful.”
Without having read Baron’s book, he offered reasons for his print preference that squared with her findings.
The most important one to him is “building a physical map in my mind of where things are.” Researchers say readers remember the location of information simply by page and text layout — that, say, the key piece of dialogue was on that page early in the book with that one long paragraph and a smudge on the corner. Researchers think this plays a key role in comprehension.
But that is more difficult on screens, primarily because the time we devote to reading online is usually spent scanning and skimming, with few places (or little time) for mental markers. Baron cites research showing readers spend a little more than one minute on Web pages, and only 16 percent of people read word-by-word. That behavior can bleed into reading patterns when trying to tackle even lengthier texts on-screen.
“I don’t absorb as much,” one student told Baron. Another said, “It’s harder to keep your place online.”
Another significant problem, especially for college students, is distraction. The lives of millennials are increasingly lived on screens. In her surveys, Baron writes that she found “jaw-dropping” results to the question of whether students were more likely to multitask in hard copy (1 percent) vs. reading on-screen (90 percent).
Earlier this month, while speaking to sophomores about digital behavior, Baron brought up the problem of paying close attention while studying on-screen.
“You just get so distracted,” one student said. “It’s like if I finish a paragraph, I’ll go on Tumblr, and then three hours later you’re still not done with reading.”
There are quirky, possibly lazy reasons many college students prefer print, too: They like renting textbooks that are already highlighted and have notes in the margins.
While Nordquist called this a crapshoot, Wallis Neff, a sophomore studying journalism, said she was delighted to get a psychology textbook last year that had been “run through the mill a few times.”
“It had a bunch of notes and things, explaining what this versus that was,” she said. “It was very useful.”
When do students say they prefer digital?
For science and math classes, whose electronic textbooks often include access to online portals that help walk them through study problems and monitor their learning. Textbook makers are pushing these “digital learning environments” to make screen learning more attractive.
They prefer them for classes in which locating information quickly is key — there is no control-F in a printed book to quickly find key words.
And they prefer them for cost — particularly when the price is free. The Book Industry Study Group recently found that about a quarter of 1,600 students polled either downloaded or knew someone who downloaded pirated textbooks. Students, it turns out, are not as noble in their reading habits when they need beer money. They become knowledge thieves.
But stealing texts probably is more a reflection on the spiraling cost of higher education — and the price of textbooks, up 82 percent from 2002 to 2012 — than some secret desire of students to read digitally. If price weren’t a factor, Baron’s research shows that students overwhelmingly prefer print. Other studies show similar results.
The problem, Baron writes, is that there has been “pedagogical reboot” where faculty and textbook makers are increasingly pushing their students to digital to help defray costs “with little thought for educational consequences.”
“We need to think more carefully about students’ mounting rejection of long-form reading,” Baron writes.
And that thinking shouldn’t be limited to millennials, Baron said. Around the country, school systems are buying millions of tablets and laptops for classroom use, promising easier textbook updates, lower costs, less back strain from heavy book bags, and more interactivity. But the potential downsides aren’t being considered, she said.
“What’s happening in American education today?” she said. “That’s what I’m concerned about. What’s happening to the American mind?”
When Baron started researching her book on reading, some of her colleagues responded with pity.
“Did I fail to understand that technology marches on?” she writes. “That cars supplanted horses and buggies? That printing replaced handwritten manuscripts, computers replaced typewriters and digital screens were replacing books? Hadn’t I read the statistics on how many eReaders and tablets were being sold? Didn’t I see all those people reading eBooks on their mobile devices? Was I simply unable to adapt?”
But after learning what millennials truly think about print, Baron concluded, “I was roundly vindicated.”

LA Times - iPads vs. Libraries

I've spent a lot of time considering the digital divide and the roles that schools play in leveling it.  When people ask me if libraries are going away, I don't have an easy answer. I'd like to say no, but they are dependent on continued funding and support. I'm lucky to work at a school that supports both traditional research and innovation. The library is used individually or by classes virtually every period of the school day, and students are waiting when I arrive in the morning. One could argue that some of that work doesn't need to take place in a library now that students have iPads, and they'd be correct. Yet students seem to like working in a space that is devoted to knowledge and discovery. Learning is hard work and it takes effort. I don't see that changing even though facts are more easily retrievable. 

The framing of iPads or libraries as a civil rights issue surprised me. Both libraries and technology require continual support; it's not enough to "purchase" one and be done with the investment. So there is the obvious cost-benefit question, but how much should we consider student preferences about what makes them excited to learn?
http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-constantino-lausd-ipads-or-libraries-20140915-story.html

Technology of Yore

Here's my most recent AISL post about outdated and changing technologies: Technology of Yore

Sharing is Caring - Technology, Privacy and The CIrcle

The repost to my most recent AISL blog..Sharing is Caring

Seriously addicting...

Each week I get an email with tech blurbs, and this one about reading 1000wpm stood out to me.  I'm a fast reader, but I caught myself staring at the image.

Read 1,000 words a minute with Spritz
Carey Dunne writes: “A new technology called Spritz claims to have figured out a way to turn us into speed-readers. By flashing words onto a single point on a screen, much like watching TV, Spritz says it will double your reading speed. In an attempt to redesign reading—and rename it ‘spritzing’—the company streams one word at a time at speeds varying between 250 and 1,000 words per minute. Words are centered around an Optimal Recognition Point in a special display called the Redicle.”..

I went to the site. I lost 30 minutes of my life playing with reading. 

 Want more? Go to the upper right corner and click on the raindrop.
http://www.spritzinc.com/about/
Still reading?

Spritz may let you hoover up text, like speed-eating without chewing, but how does it affect enjoyment of reading? When reading a traditional book, our pace tends to fluctuate according to a sentence's natural rhythm. We can re-read a confusing passage or slow down to savor a particularly beautiful sentence. By rapid-firing words at a robotic clip, Spritz’s system destroys those fluid rhythms and diminishes a reader’s sense of control. After a while, it feels a little like staring into a strobe light.
“If you’re reading Shakespeare, you’re not going to want to do it with Spritz,” Waldman admits. “But with a romance novel, for example, people skim like crazy anyway. They just rip through a book, reading for plot. Are they savoring every word? Probably not.”

 
The demo only goes to 600 wpm, which I find slow for reading though mesmerizing in general. Despite their commentary, it does not stop my subvocalizations. Though they're pretty active all the time, so that would be quite the feat. I like that the company's intent is to encourage quicker processing of mundane reading, rather than to replace more leisurely recreational reading. I agree that it works well for adding to information the reader already knows, using simple words and clear sentence structure. aka, keeping up with the daily news. I was thinking right away about the times when I'm waiting in airport security lines, and it's tough to balance a backpack, suitcase and a magazine. I try to read on my phone, but it seems like I'm clicking to the next page every second. This combines the best of tv and of reading.

What are your thoughts? Do you think it will catch on? Even if your answer is "yes," I'm not calling it Spritzing. Ever.

Helpful Librarian. Unhelpful Librarian

I've heard it said that one bad interaction counteracts 10 positive ones. Makes sense to me. When people get what they want, especially if it's easy, their memories are short on the details. When they are frustrated or angry, that impression lingers.

I was trying to find the original citation for a quotation for a student yesterday.

If you're interested in playing along at home, here's the information I had.

Speaker was Mike Tyson. "Everyone (or everybody) has a plan until they get punched in the face."

After a few searches and a trip to both of my quote dictionaries (yes they exist, and yes they're as awesome as they sound), I decided to try the Ask a Librarian Chat service.

You have been connected to Bryan W - Pasco County Library System.
Bryan W - Pasco County Library System: Hi Christina, I would check the footnotes in the bibliography in the back of the book. This will usually state where or when the quote was said originally.
Christina: It's not in a book. It's on business and sports sites. Can't find the original.
Bryan W - Pasco County Library System: I would try checking the site to see if it is stated anywhere on that site. I would also recommend navigating the Internet a little bit to see where it is mentioned. Youtube may even have interviews that state when and where certain quotes were said.
Christina: Yes, I have done all of that.
Christina: It seems to be an aphorism at this point.
Christina: I have also limited by date to only get earlier references, but there is no original.
Christina: I have also tried quote and phrase dictionaries.
Bryan W - Pasco County Library System: Well in that case I see what you mean. This may have been a quote that could have been said at anytime or place. There have also been various books written on Mike Tyson that may have that quote in them. However if this is a question based strictly on websites I do not know if that will help. Google Scholar may also work for you, it has a lot of information on various topics.
Bryan W - Pasco County Library System: Can I help you with anything else today?
Christina: I would still like to find the origin of the quote. There is nothing on google scholar either.
Bryan W - Pasco County Library System: I will try checking a little bit more hold on
Bryan W - Pasco County Library System: It seems like this could have been said anywhere at any time almost like it was never documented.
Christina: okay. Thank you.
Bryan W - Pasco County Library System: Your welcome. Hope this helped a little.
Bryan W - Pasco County Library System: Thank you for using Ask a Librarian, and we hope you come again.
Bryan W - Pasco County Library System has left the session. 

Your librarian is experiencing technical difficulties. Please stand by while we re-establish contact or find a new librarian... 
Please wait while we find a librarian to assist you. 

You have been connected to Rhonda T - NWFSC.
Rhonda T - NWFSC: Hello, welcome to Ask a Librarian. I am Rhonda T - NWFSC and I will be assisting you today. Please wait a moment while I consider your question...
Rhonda T - NWFSC: This is the information I found and I will send you the URL
Rhonda T - NWFSC: "Everyone has a plan/strategy until they’ve been hit/punched (in the face/mouth)” is a boxing adage meaning that brutal reality can change even the best of prepared plans. A similar saying exists about military planning—“No plan survives contact with the enemy.” The boxing/military saying has also been used in business, government and other fields. “Everyone has a plan until they’ve been hit” has been credited by Wikipedia to the boxer Joe Louis (1914-1981), but it’s not clear if he ever said it.

Brooklyn-born boxer Mike Tyson is most frequently credited with the saying. In October 1987, HBO’s Barry Tompkins quoted Mike Tyson as saying, “They all have a plan...until they get hit.”
The librarian is sending you to http://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/everyone_has_a_plan_until_theyve_been_hit_boxing_adage/.
Christina: Thank you!
Rhonda T - NWFSC: It looks like the quote is from the 1930-40s and was by Joe Louis.
Christina: Wow. Very interesting. It seemed like sloppy journalism that no one mentioned where the quotation originated.
Rhonda T - NWFSC: They get changed - that is the power and craziness of the Internet. One sec. I may have more.
The librarian is sending you to http://www.arlingtoncemetery.net/joelouis.htm.
Rhonda T - NWFSC: trying to find the first mention of it
Rhonda T - NWFSC: sorry -
The librarian is sending you to http://www.tysontalk.com/quotes/quotes-by-mike-tyson.
Rhonda T - NWFSC: This is a place it was attributed to Tyson, but there are no references to back it up.
Christina: That makes sense. This is more than I needed. Thank you so much!
Rhonda T - NWFSC: Welcome!
Rhonda T - NWFSC: Thank you for using Ask a Librarian, and we hope you come again.
Thank you for using Ask a Librarian. You may now close this window.

I fully admit that I use external help for difficult queries. Note the difference in the two interactions. The student got what he needed, and we both learned a lot more than expected about the real history of this quotation. 

Reading Statistics

It may be surprising if you know me to find that I post all the books that I read on Shelfari. Shelfari is a website that tracks reading lists and offers information about books, rather like Goodreads or Library Thing. I recognize that this means my personal information and reading habits are shared with "big data," particularly in the years since Amazon purchased Shelfari. Even the least astute amateur statistician can look at the chart below and see the year that I started using Shelfari. Coincidentally the year I started grad school in Information Science? The reason that some books are backdated is that if I reread a book, I assign a second date with the year I first read it. If you keep in mind that my specialization in grad school was teen lit, then it makes sense that I took the opportunity to reread favorites from my own teen years. 

If you look at the bottom of this chart, you'll see that it tracks your reading pace for the year. Can I say that I'm almost always behind because I catch up on reading during the Christmas break at the end of the year, and thus I generally find this number quite stressful, even though it's *completely* arbitrary and meaningless.I'm only ahead right now because I had three mostly complete books that I finished on New Year's Day, and then read on a 7 hour flight across the country.

 So, as a consolation prize for offering information about my reading habits, I'm able to see statistics about them. Since the last book I bought for myself was ....ummmm....ummmm...I support libraries....not memorable, at least I know that they are not influencing my purchasing habits. I'm aware that the comparison of my reading patterns to those of a group that voluntarily signed up for a book tracking website gives me no additional information about the reading patterns of Americans as a whole. That said, I'm a little surprised about the alignment between my reading and the group's.

Are the less popular categories lower because less is published, and less is publicized, in those fields? I was surprised that romance and thriller were lower for me at first. I'm betting that this categorizes in one field. I don't usually read mass-market paperback thriller or romance. I find those themes in adult and teen fiction. So it's a bit limiting if each book is only allowed one category.

Finally, getting to the point that inspired this the other day, I can see my own rating patterns over time and within genres. For instance, I may think that I like travel books, but of the 20 that I've read, only 1 received a 5. (It was Behind the Beautiful Forevers. When I picked it up, I didn't realize that it wasn't a fictionalized account of true events. It's devastating in it's treatment of Indian poverty throughout recent industrialization.) Proportionally, there should only be 2 5-star books, but there aren't that many 4's either. 

Since I read a lot, I'm not surprised that most books are 3's. If you don't particularly inspire me and you aren't particularly memorable, automatic 3. 4's and 2's swing one way or the other. Some books get 5's because they are enjoyable, and others because I think they are well-written and I learned a lot. It's hard to get a 1. Are there typos or incorrect "facts?" Is it just too pompous to be taken seriously? You don't want to be a 1. (As I look through the list, I'm groaning in remembrance of 13 of the 14. The final was the first book in a trashy teen series that I devour from the Catonsville library every time I go home to see my parents. It's not particularly literary, but I forgot that there was ever a point when I wasn't entertained by it. Memory, thy fickle friend.)

Though it's been helpful to me personally and professionally, in no way am I pushing this or other book tracking services. I'm probably asked for book recommendations more than the average person. If you're searching online after this anyway, the site is Shelfari. If you're on the site, find me, and we can follow each other.

Epic Noise Reduction Fail?

While this picture only shows two players, I have 20+ chess players in my library each day during lunch. I limited boards to 3, yet these are enterprising lads. Other options include:
 
iPad chess. 

Chess that rotates players after each turn. 

Chess tournaments. 

Chess groupies. 

It can get noisy. 

I've heard mixed feedback about decibel readers in libraries, so I conducted an experiment. I placed the Too Noisy app next to the students as they exuberantly played chess.

It's a simple app for little kids, so you either have a smiley face, a worried face, or a sad face amidst storm clouds. It was  too much fun to make the face cry, so noise increased. The same boys who had been unintentionally loud minutes before were now intentionally clapping and whistling. Epic fail?

At lunch today, the boys asked for the app (I wasn't planning to use it again), shushed themselves, and were young gentlemen. Will Too Noisy make a repeat visit to the chess table? Still thinking...

Win a Nook Color from the Public Library

There's no reason not to enter this contest. 

Win a Nook. 

Practice your skills with video editing software. 

Share your love of reading. 

Support Manatee County Libraries!

My Inspiration for the Day

I just finished a book entitled The Librarian as Information Consultant: Transforming Reference for the Information Age, and it's just about as dry as you'd expect. This page, however, captivated me.

Libraries are helpful. Libraries are necessary. Quality of information is more important than quantity. (It's a long quotation, so there's your basic take-home message.)

Although technology reveals exciting opportunities, it doesn't replace human interaction. Yes, the Internet has fundamentally changed reference librarians' work; it hasn't supplanted their value. Today if a consumer needs to translate a sentence from an unfamiliar language to English, he will use Babelfish or another freely available translation website, rather than locate a library's bilingual dictionaries. Further, why should a consumer visit the library to use a directory when phone numbers and addresses for organizations are freely available online? If a consumer needs to know the amount of soybeans produced by Ohio farmers during the last year, he'll seek this fact himself, as statistics which were once only found in libraries' print government documents collections are now almost exclusively online. As long as the consumer can verify the authenticity and quality of the information located, the Internet is a remarkable tool for straightforward, time-sensitive, factually-driven information.

But librarians understand the Internet can also seductively entice a consumer to remain trapped in a void of miscellaneous blurbs, some correct, some incorrect. With everyone as a potential author, consumers must learn to utilize the information found online with caution, and resist the temptation to rely on immediate, instantly gratifying text which can be purposefully misleading or grossly out of context. Many consumers haven't acquired this skill, getting frustrated, terrified, and confused when their serendipitous online wandering fails to satisfy their needs. They realize the Internet is a huge amoeba and find their way back to libraries, seeking the in-depth information that library collections provide. This is particularly true when consumers need to learn a new skill or understand a complex issue. The in-depth collections libraries construct are a strength, along with libraries' ability to organize information.

Learning is a social activity and libraries, museums, zoological gardens, and parks all work to inform their constituencies and stimulate personal reflection. Libraries provide an environment where consumers can slow down, locate information either in a physical or digital form, and assimilate it with their own ideas and values. Libraries contribute to a community's social capital, generating wealth and value by supporting consumers' need for personal and professional growth, providing referral to a community's agencies and organizations, empowering consumers to make informed decisions, supporting cultural awareness and diversity, and making spaces available for individuals to meet. 

Google cannot and will not replace library services. Yes, consumers can obtain factual information on their own, without library mediation. The sheer amount of information retrieved via Internet searches, however, often intimidates, rather than empowers the consumer.  The reference librarian who both functions as and promotes herself as a library and information consultant is better positioned to communicate her skills as an experienced expert who can seamlessly navigate both the Internet and the library, saving the consumer time and energy by matching him with the desired information regardless of format. Funding instead enables libraries to sustain the innovative services and programs, collections, and facilities that consumers value. In such an environment, libraries must become more consumer-focused, defining customer needs in customer terms to develop and customize services and market new and existing products. An additional challenge is overcoming our preference for forcing customers to seek our assistance only after exhausting Internet search options.

Murphy, Sarah Ann. The Librarian as Information Consultant: Transforming reference for the information age. Chicago: ALA, 2011. 

Brain Hive as a New Model for Libraries

I've been very curious about Brain Hive since first reading about it this summer. It provides a new model for libraries that allows them to rent books with $1 per checkout. If the book selection fits our needs, we may be seeing it at Saint Stephen's shortly. 

Brain Hive is creating buzz, and a bit of controversy, with a new business model for delivering ebooks to school libraries. The site claims that its $1-a-read rental strategy will “add thousands of titles to your collection.” Can it deliver? At first glance, I was quite skeptical: $1 a read seems rather high. After all, school libraries in New York only get $6.25 per student in materials aid. When I started doing the math, however, Brain Hive started looking like a much more interesting proposition.
Librarians build collections through art and science, but rarely through math. What if, like insurance companies, we had actuarial tables for each book we purchased? We collectively freaked out about HarperCollins and its 26-loan-per-year license, but in hindsight it is a much better deal than Random House and $84 ebooks. An $84 ebook has to get checked out over 100 times—that is, continual checkouts for four years—to be a better financial deal than HarperCollins offers. So how does the math work out on Brain Hive? Can it deliver a positive return on investment?
Let’s get the easy one out of the way. Would I rather “own” an $84 ebook that can be checked out by one person at a time, or rent a $1 ebook from Brain Hive that 84 people can borrow at once? Honestly, I like the sound of the Brain Hive model here. Buying that $84 ebook is a pretty hefty investment; you are betting that patrons will want to check out that book at least 84 times over the course of 168 weeks. So you might show a positive return on your “owning” the book as opposed to renting it from Brain Hive if a patron still wants to check out the book in February 2016. After it has been checked out continuously for the previous 39 months. Even when compared to an investment in print, Brain Hive seems to have merit. If a hardcover book is around $15 then you are still looking at 15 loans (10 months of two-week checkouts) to show a positive return versus Brain Hive’s rental model.
So, Brain Hive for everything? Absolutely not. What my simple examples above are built upon is the idea of cost per checkout. Especially for informational books, in-library use is a critical element that cannot be ignored. Brain Hive does allow limited browsing to let patrons see if they want to borrow a book; in fact a generous 25% of an ebook rented from Brain Hive is accessible before the $1 checkout kicks in. Right now, Brain Hive is a bit heavy on the nonfiction, and I see that as a weaker area of use in the long term. For me, the model shines in the realm of Big Six publisher fiction. Brain Hive already has books from Random House and Little Brown (Hachette). Not every book, of course: Brain Hive and the publishers negotiate selected-title lists. But there’s also no overhead like some other ebook aggregators charge—and no $84 ebooks.
And … no public libraries.
Brain Hive is a school library service only for now. It is actually a sister company to one of the larger independent publishers in the K–12 marketplace, Lerner Publishing Group, under the parent Lerner Universal Corporation. This has helped Bran Hive jump into the market, but I worry about the splintering of the K–12 ebook market as different independent publishers each work to create their own platforms. While publishers’ concern about buying into a competitor’s delivery technology is understandable, so is the undesirability of end users having to navigate through multiple platforms.
What we really desire is content. And Brain Hive is poised to deliver. Its model may not be everything librarians wanted in terms of perpetual ownership, but I would prefer the straight-up rental proposed by Brain Hive to wondering which definition of “own” is the flavor of the day. And I certainly love the chance to dabble in digital fiction from Big Six providers without having to make an $84, three-year investment in a single title. So I look forward to exploring Brain Hive more … as soon as it develops a consortium model.

As posted in Christopher Harris' column in American Libraries:
School Library Ebook Company Challenges Traditional Business Model | American Libraries Magazine

Video Walls Report

Some college libraries are installing large-scale video walls to share digital materials and facilitate collaboration. Including my alma mater, Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.

Read the full article from the Chronicle of Higher Education:
http://chronicle.com/article/Colleges-Look-to-Big-Screen/131609/

Some of my favorite quotations...

"More and more goes on in the virtual world, and people are just staring at screens," says Gregory D. Hager, a professor of computer science and chair of the department at Johns Hopkins, who is working on the wall together with library officials. "It's sort of a fracturing process." As more and more educational content is available online, he argues, the university needs to pay attention to the benefits of collaborative work on the campus. "It's about people interacting with people, building the community of scholars."

Kel Guerin, a doctoral student in computer science who serves as my guide, pulls up a few projects that he and other programmers are building for the wall. One simply displays two high-resolution pictures side by side, to let researchers compare them. He puts two medieval manuscripts on the screen. Sayeed Choudhury, associate dean for research data management, who is helping to lead the project, says an art-history researcher asked for that function, complaining that the best she could do otherwise was to put two slides side by side on a light table. "She said, 'I want to be able to dance with the manuscripts,'" says Mr. Choudhury.The screens aren't standard TV's you could pick up at Best Buy. They are designed to deliver pictures in extremely high resolution.

"When people come into libraries, they expect to see books, and they identify the libraries with books even though they've been shifting so much to digital materials," says Joan K. Lippincott, associate executive director of the Coalition for Networked Information, a group that promotes digital innovation on campuses. "Libraries need to find a way to make digital information visual so that people come to understand the kind of information that's being developed in digital formats."

I especially love that last quotation. People don't want to lose libraries, and books on a shelf is a quick way to show materials. It's important that we continue to develop new digital media to share our collections as more of them are found online.

Iron Chef: iPad

Ever wonder what teachers do on professional development days when students aren't in school?
I know that I always did.

Today we had a group "Iron Chef" challenge within each division. The secret ingredient was the iPad. (Alright, it wasn't particularly secret since the ticket for admission this morning was an iPad, but we didn't know what we'd be doing with them.)

With two English teachers, a Latin teacher, and the chaplain, my group came up with an interactive, collaborative, interdisciplinary lesson tying together On the Road and The Odyssey, specifically along the themes of journey and self-discovery.

Each division sent forth one team to represent itself against the other divisions. We didn't win, but one of the other Upper Division teams took first place overall. It was a close call after a flurry of voting on the polleverywhere site.