124 posts tagged “web2.0”

I introduced Pinky and Perky in a recent blog post and I used them when I presented my paper on “Library 2.0: Balancing the Risks and Benefits to Maximise the Dividends” at the Bridging Worlds 2008 conference. And recently I used the dancing and singing pigs from the days of my youth when I gave the final invited plenary talk on “Realising The Potential of Web 2.0” at the “Nordlib 2.0 - Get Inspired by Web 2.0 for Libraries” conference held in Stockholm.

In Stockholm I used the video clip to illustrate how the dangers of an over-managed approach to popular culture wasn’t introduced in the Web era - Pinky and Perky were banned from the BBC in 1996: there was a general election about to be held and I assume the BBC were concerned about “pinko lefty” sentiments which they might try to influence young and impressionable minds (after all, where do you think the term pinko came from :-). This reference is available 47 minutes into the presentation (see Google Video or the Zentation link- where its synched to the slide on “Inappropriate Content“).

On the day before the conference I visited the Nordiska Museum where I saw a cigarette case (I think it was - I couldn’t read the Swedish description) which featured a topless model - from the 17^th or 18^th century. Again I felt that this provided a useful example I could use at the conference to illustrate my point that use of new technologies for ‘pornography’ is nothing new.

Now these two examples meant something to me and where likely to be new to the audience, thus avoiding reuse of cliched presentational devices. In the talk in Stockholm I also updated my slides a hour or so before delivering the talk, using a tweet and subsequent blog post from Karen Blakeman in which she commented that PageFlakes had added advertisments on its Web site overnight, without prior notice. “How would you respond if that happened to a Web 2.0 service you used in your organisation?” I asked the audience.

Non of these example made use of learning resources from a learning object repository. And for the objects I used (a YouTube video of Pinky and Perky, a photograph I had taken in a local museum and an interesting discussion point I’d came across a few hours previously) it would make little sense for me to deposit for reuse by others. Their value, I feel, comes from their relevance to me and my style of presentation, their (regional) links with the place I’m talking at and their timeliness. In fact I also made use of a Barack Obama image and the “Yes we can” slogan which again will time out very quickly.

Do we need repositories for learning objects, I might ask. Or are such repositories for the chore presentations (yet another talk on the same old subject to a large group of undergraduates), which won’t be used by speakers who want to provide fresh and relevant talks? On the other hand, perhaps this is mere indulgencies on the part of the speaker. After all, will a group of Nordic librarians ‘get’ Pinky and Perky?  Mm, maybe I should have used the Swedish chef from the Muppets? or Abba, perhaps, if I want to go for the more popular British stereotypes of Swedish culture?

Posted in Events, Web2.0   Tagged: nordlib2008   

Earlier this year the JISC launched a debate of Libraries of the Future. UKOLN recently contributed to this debate by sponsoring the Mashed Library event which was facilitated by Owen Stephens, Imperial College.  My contribution has been in exploring best practices for exploiting the potential of Library 2.0. I presented a paper on “Library 2.0: Balancing the Risks and Benefits to Maximise the Dividends” at the Bridging Worlds 2008 conference on “Libraries in the 2.0 Age and Beyond” held at the National Library of Singapore and gave an updated version of the talk at the Nordlib 2.0 conference on “Nordlib 2.0 - Get Inspired by Web 2.0 for Libraries” held at Aula Magna, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden on 21^st November 2008.

It was a privilege to be asked to give the final talk at the conference, and to have a full hour to describe my thoughts on how libraries should go about “Realising The Potential of Web 2.0“.

The conference blog provides more information about the conference and the talks which were given. The talks were streamed live and the videos are currently being edited and will be uploaded shortly. In addition I used a Flip camera to record my own talk and this is available on Google Video (and Blip.tv) and embedded below.

In addition I have used Zentation to synch the video with the PowerPoint slides, as illustrated below. The slides are also available on Slideshare.

Realising The Potential of Web 2.0 59:32 Talk on Realising The Potential of Web 2.0

I hope these different versions of the talk are useful. But if I was to provide only one version of the talk what, I wonder, should it be. The PowerPoint file on the UKOLN Web site, the HTML equivalent, the Slideshare manifestation (with the ability to be embedded elsewhere), the original .AVI file (warning, large file), the Google Video or Blip.TV video of the talk or the synched version of the talk and the slides on Zentation? And is the provision of a variety of versions a sensible precaution at a time when the sustainability of Web 2.0 may be questionable or confusing to the end user?

Posted in Events, Web2.0   Tagged: nordlib2008   

My colleague Paul Walk recently commented on developments to the COPAC services in a post entitled COPAC gets RESTful.  Paul linked to a blog post on the COPAC developer’s blog which described how the COPAC service now provides Persistent identifiers for Copac records.

I was impressed with the COPAC blog when I came across a post which asked the question To Google or not to Google. This post raised the issue of the tensions between the user benefits of providing links to Google Books from the COPAC service and the privacy concerns expressed by “a vociferous few who questioned why Copac would give Google ‘personal data’ about them as users“.

I feel that raising these issues in an open fashion is to be applauded. And it is far better that this is done on a blog, rather than being trapped in the confines of a COPAC mailing list, which would probably only be read by hardcore COPAC users.

And this is my response to the comment made on this blog recently in which a software developer argued that “the fact that I choose not to talk about work on the internet should have no bearing on my ability to create scalable, secure, and accessible services“.  I feel that the iT profession should be talking more openly with the user community and with other IT developers. 

My thanks to the COPAC team for demonstrating how this should be done.  Let’s hope that other national services in the JISC community follow COPAC’s lead.

Posted in Web2.0      

My recent talk on “Library 2.0: Balancing the Risks and Benefits to Maximise the Dividends” at the Bridging Worlds 2008 conference held in Singapore on 16-17th October (which was possibly the first Library 2.0 conference in Asia) brought back memories of the first time I spoke at a conference - the INET 94/JENC5 conference held in June 1994 in Prague in which I presented a paper entitled “Becoming an information provider on the WWW“.

I can recall how nervous I felt when I submitted my first paper to an international conference and wondered how I would cope with having to go onto a big stage (I later discovered that the auditorium held 1,000 people). While I was waiting to hear if the paper had been accepted I went on holiday to Victoria Falls. And wile I was there I decided to take a trip white-water rafting. After all, I convinced myself, if I can do this, I can do anything, including giving a paper at an international conference. So I did the trip - and even afterwards booked to go bunjee-jumping off the Victoria Falls Bridge (I was told it was the world’s highest commercial bunjee jump). However the jump were cancelled on the day due to bad weather, so I had to console myself with the fact that I had been white-water rafting down the mighty Zambesi. I went on to present my paper at the conference, and have subsequently spoken at international conferences held in France, Portugal, Hungary, USA, Canada, Japan, Taiwan and, most recently, Singapore. And all thanks to overcoming my nerves by going white-water rafting! (Although knowing bit about the Web probably helped too :-).

These thoughts came back to me after I’d given my talk at the Bridging Worlds conference. As I mentioned the talk was entitled “Library 2.0: Balancing the Risks and Benefits to Maximise the Dividends” and in order to demonstrate an approach I take in balancing risks and benefits I described how the slides for the talk were available online with a Creative Commons licence. I also explained that I was happy for my talk to be recorded or broadcast or for the talk to be blogged live - and described that I was using a Flip video camera to record my talk, and would subsequently make this available on Google Video. I explained the reasons I was doing this. I was aware of possible risks - I might make mistakes in my talk which would be preserved for other to see, for example. However I also explained the benefits of doing this - I was speaking at the conference as I had a message I wanted to communicate, and I wanted to maximise the impact of the message and the audience - and I felt that this could be helped by the ‘amplification’ of my talk using a variety of networked technologies.

And it seems that this explanation was appreciated, with Ivan Chew (ramblinglib on Twitter) and a fellow speaker at the conference commenting:

“Brilliant: your explanation of how you weighed the risks Vs benefits of allowing others to vid/ blog/ record your talk“

Ivan went on to further summarise my talk in a subseqent blog post.

I’m sure I’m not alone in feeling that many speakers do take risks when they give presentations - and that this comes with the territory. And participating in amplified conferences can then be seen as a natural extension of the risk-taking and not being fashionable or being rude.

Posted in Events, Web2.0   Tagged: bw2008   

I succumbed! Well, I partly succumbed, buying myself an iPod Touch, rather than an iPhone (which is illustrated, but the user interface for the two devices is similar).  But I have to admit that I am impressed.

Yes the user interface is cool - or if you don’t like the ‘c***’ word the interface is intuitive and easy-to-use. But what I really like are the applications which exploit the device’s WiFi capabilities.  It’s good to access applications such as Twitter and Facebook from a mobile device - even if I have to download the data while I’m connected to a WiFi network; unlike iPhone users I can’t access networked services over a mobile phone network - but then again I’m not paying £40/month to O²!

I’m particularly excited when I speculate about the digital environment we’ll be living in in a few years time. Imagine what it will be like when most people have a device like this as a replacement for the current generation of mobile phones. And combine the richness and ease-of-use of such devices with, it is to be hoped, a more pervasive and affordable networked environment.  We with then have the personal information access point (Google, probably!), communications tool (such as Twitter) and location-aware tool (such as BrightKite) together with links with a desktop environment (I’m using the Netnewswire application on both my iPod Touch and my desktop PC). The digital world will be very different, I feel.

Of course the device will have its critics. Unlike the Google Android the device, the iPod Touch/iPhone’s operating system is proprietary; Google have made the operating system for Android available as open source.

And applications can only be (legitimately) installed from Apple’s walled garden - the iTunes Store.

But I think the world has moved on from the time when we seemed to prioritize certain aspects of the development environment over satisfying the user - we’re no longer dogmatic about open source and open standards, I feel; rather we seek to exploit open source and open standards if doing so can provide a satisfactory user experience. I think it’s good that we have moved to a more pragmatic approach rather than the dogmatic views we had in the past.

Yes, I like my new personal learning environment, personal research environment and personal social environment. Everyone should have one, I feel.

Posted in Web2.0      

One Sunday afternoon a few weeks ago I observed a brief Twitter discussion between Paul Miller and Paul Walk which I found interesting. Paul Miller began by tweeted his thoughts:

Pondering… ’semantic web’ as ‘data cloud’? Cf COMPUTING Cloud metaphor

Paul Walk responded:

@PaulMiller not sure…. cloud works for processing cos we want it to be invisible commodity… want data to be more visible?

Paul Miller replied:

@paulwalk - but shouldn’t data be commoditized too? Or at least AVAILABLE for ad hoc use

and Paul Walk concluded:

@PaulMiller not commoditized - we *care* about data, it’s provenance, accuracy. I don’t want to have to care much where my cycles come from

Paul Miller then expended on his views in a blog post on “Welcome to the Data Cloud ?” and the following day Paul Walk responded with his post on “Any any any old data“.

This discussion got me thinking what should be in the cloud or, more generally, what aspects of IT can be provided outside the organisation?  Some thoughts on the benefits of using a variety of outsourced services are given below:

CPU cycles: As Paul suggested, nobody cares whether the CPU cycles are provided by the computer in front of you, a server hosted within the organisation, a national service or a global service. And if those CPUs cycles are provided by an organisation which can minimise the heat losses to the environment and provide cost-effective and energy-effective delivery of the CPU cycles then this will ensure that the organisation exploiting the service is addressing its own green agenda.

Applications: It’s not just the CPU cycles which can be delivered across the network, application software need no longer by tied to the desktop PC or institutional server.  We are seeing examples of this ranging from bookmark management tools such as del.icio.us through to word processing and other office applications such as Google Docs, Google Spreadsheets, Adobe Buzzword, Zoho, etc.

Data hosting: As Paul Miller has suggested the Semantic Web can perhaps be regarded as a data cloud.  But if this is a vision for the future, remote storage of data is very much a part of today’s IT environment, ranging form the personal data management services provided by companies such as BT through to institutional use of services such as Amazon’s S3.

Software development: Moving on from the IT infrastructure itself, we can also outsource IT development work. We are familiar with this from JISC’s development activities in which software development is funded by project money to develop software which is intended for deployment across the community.

Data creation, input and management: I recently read a press release entitled “Amazon Mechanical Turk Launches New Web-Based Tools That Bring the Power of an On-Demand Workforce to Businesses Worldwide” which announced the launch of “a new set of web-based tools for Amazon Mechanical Turk that make it easy for businesses to use Mechanical Turk to outsource work to an on-demand, scalable workforce via a simple graphical interface - in just a few minutes and without writing any code“. So yes, data input, metadata creation and management, etc can now be more easily out-sourced.  There’s now need to have large teams of data preparation staff in your organisation - although, of course, this has been the case for some time now.

Policies: If institutional or sectoral policies are too onerous to comply with, you could choose to outsource your services which are more flexible. Consider, for example, the terms and conditions which cover registration for the UK Government communities forum which I blogged about recently. If you feel these terms and conditions are too stringent you can also make use of an alternative environment for hosting discussions.

Now there will be many issues which need to be addressed if organisations wish to make greater use of the out-sourcing options which are now available (sustainability, reliability, security, legal and ethical issues, etc.). But is the future, I wonder, a world in which organisations focus on their own strengths and the services which only they can provide, with the chore activities being provided by others? After all, as Andy Powell reported in his live blog summary of a talk by Sam Peters, Google, “does anyone get a competetive advantage by running their own email system?” (posted at 09.57). But if this future does appear to have much to offer we will need to develop a framework to support institutions in making such policy decisions.  Out-sourcing metadata management to an environment which is more flexible, responsive and provides benefits of scale sounds great - but not if the work is out-sourced to children working in IT sweatshops.  We will need, I feel, an equivalent of Fair Trade which ensures that the benefits are provided by more effective use of technologies and better management and not by exploitation.

Posted in Web2.0      

Published back in September, Martin Weller’s post on Twitter, microblogging and living in the stream included an embedded presentation from Slideshare which contained a number of analogies for Twitter including suggestions that Twitter is:

• A digital watercooler
• A stream you dip into
• A cocktail party
• A virtual office
• What knowledgement always wanted to be
• Networking for Agoraphobics

Some of these examples had been floating around the ‘Twitterverse’ for some time.  Indeed several months ago I coined a number of analogies for Twitter and when Martin (and others) recently asked for such examples I tried to find my tweets on the subject. I thought this would be easy - I’d just have to either browse through my old tweets or search for a tweet from me containing the string ‘analogy’.

However I found that my old tweets seemed not be be available. And using Google to search for ‘search old tweets‘ I found various discussions including this one on the lack of a search and browse interface for old tweets.

However with some further searching I discovered I discovered that I could use the search interface on my Friendfeed account to find a number of my missing tweets, as illustrated.

So I can now create links to the copy of my tweets which can be found in Friendfeed including Twitter is:

• Spouting off to strangers about the state of the government, trains, repositories, … [link]
• The family conversation [link]
• The digital watercooler for teetotallers who don’t talk to strangers in pubs [link]
• The bar where everyone knows your name; you’re greeted by the coffee drinkers’ footie fans share moments of joy [link]

What have I learnt from this?  I now realise that the tweets which summarise ideas I might wish to expand on or the tweets from others which I may want to follow up will not necessarily be easily found again, and not because of problems with the Twitter service itself but because it may not provide access to the data.

Does this mean I shouldn’t be using Twitter, because of these limitations? I would say no - in many cases I don’t care about the old tweets.  Indeed I regard Twitter, like an increasing number of Web services, not as a well-defined and reproducible IT service but as a blended service, which has more parallels with real life.  And as I don’t lose any sleep over the pearls of wisdom which I may have shared with others in the pub which I then find I can’t remember, so this is how I regard Twitter. And if I do want to keep a record of useful tweets I’ll do what I did for the list of tweets on useful Web 2.0 music sites and document the resources somewhere.

Posted in Web2.0      

In the guest blog post published on 1^th October 2008 Jo Alcock Hannah Hiles described how the library at the University of Wolverhampton is engaging with use of Web 2.0.  Details of this work were included in the paper on Library 2.0: Balancing the Risks and Benefits to Maximise the Dividends which I recently presented at the Bridging Worlds 2008 conference in Singapore.

This month’s guest blog post has been written by another co-author of the paper. Below Paul Bevan, National Library of Wales describes how a national library is engaging with the opportunities provided by Web 2.0. Paul has recently been appointed to the post of Senior Research Officer (Web 2.0) and, as he describes is “very keen to work with libraries and librarians to explore all areas of emerging Web approaches“.  If you have an interest in the issues described in this post, feel free to respond to Paul, either on this blog or directly with Paul.

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The National Library of Wales is one of the great libraries of the world and has a remit to:

“collect, preserve and give access to all kinds and forms of recorded knowledge, especially relating to Wales and the other Celtic countries, for the benefit of the public, including those engaged in research and learning“

As a result our readers represent a extremely varied demographic, reflecting the diversity of our published material, archival and other collections.

The Web and the online delivery of resources has been integral to the Library’s service portfolio for many years, providing a access to its resources in a way which helps to overcome distance and availability issues. To this end, the Library has an extensive digitization programme which has provided virtual access to some of the greatest treasures in the collections through a ‘Digital Mirror‘ using innovative access methods to deliver an enhanced user experience for remote readers.

Looking to the Future: Web 2.0

We’re constantly building on this solid foundation by seeking new ways of providing access to our resources and ‘Web 2.0′ and the Social Web are key to realising the goal of enhancing our remote provision. The use of Web 2.0 approaches to achieve Library 2.0 delivery is ingrained in the new Library strategy ‘Shaping the Future’ [pdf] which outlines the Library’s desire to explore collaborative and diverse models using external resources. This will allow the Library to leverage Web platforms which are heavily focused on user engagement in order to deliver future services. Leading up to this shift in emphasis for Web developments the Library conducted a review of how a National Library might understand the concept of ‘Web 2.0′ and how we might best make use of our existing digital resources in a Web 2.0 environment.

Of course, the we’re not just looking at the way in which we can enhance our collections through new technologies and platforms - the current Web content represents a proportion of the information produced by the Library and there is a ‘hidden’ silo of professional, training and development information (some of which is exposed through the Digital Asset Management Development Wiki, as well as a range of “lost opportunities” (such as guest talks which could in the future be streamed via the Web). Beyond this there are clear examples from other organisations of best practice in using the Web to communicate internally and to share procedures and information through wikis and other technologies.

The Library has begun to increase the level of Web 2.0 services available by creating presences in online environments (including presences on Facebook and YouTube) as well as by beginning to allow reuse of its data - initially through a pilot Wikipedia project. The Library is also developing an XML feed of its events (including exhibitions and talks) through the Typo3-based content management system underlying the Library’s main website.

Third-party Web environments will be key to the future delivery of library services and we’re also actively looking to explore how the exposure of data in open formats can allow the use of leading edge user interfaces and Web front-ends. One concern for the Library is that the ’spreading out’ of services onto commercial and external sites might conflict with existing policies around accessibility, sustainability, and the commitment to bilingual access.

The Library is also host to a Welsh Assembly Government funded project to provide an innovative and flexible service delivery platform for all types of libraries in Wales. The library.wales.org Web site employs Web 2.0 technologies including social bookmarking and RSS to provide an alternative environment engaging with the public. This project explicitly includes the development of new services and the support of those services, allowing libraries to explore Web 2.0 technologies in a ’safe’ environment where best practice can be easily shared.

The Library is also home to the not-for-profit company Culturent Cymru, which has taken great steps in bringing new levels of interaction to objects from cultural repositories from all accross Wales. Culturenet Cymru projects include Community Archives Wales - where users can upload their images via Flickr - and Gathering the Jewels- which has recently launched an enhanced GIS interface.

What Next for the National Library of Wales?

The Web’s ever-changing nature provides an exciting and challenging environment for any library service and the National Library of Wales has sought to directly engage with the opportunities that Web 2.0 will offer. In order to best do this the library has recently committed to a six-month review of the possibilities of Web 2.0 and emerging Web Technologies.

In my role as Senior Research Officer (Web 2.0) I will be exploring best practice from knowledge organisations around the world as well as possible technological approaches and content partnerships. The resulting Web 2.0 Strategy will provide the Library with a chance to build upon and mainstream the work detailed above and to explore new ways of working with Library users in a networked environment. I’m very keen to work with libraries and librarians to explore all areas of emerging Web approaches, so feel free to get in touch with me at paul.bevan@llgc.org.uk.

Posted in Guest-post, Web2.0      

They say that in a era of multiple media channels we no longer have the shared water cooler moment’ the time after a momentous event when we get together with our friends and colleagues and discuss the event.

It does, of course, still happen - the momentous sports result (which has to be national in order to get group buy-in - perhaps England’s Johny Wilkinson moment in the Rugby World Cup final is the most recent one for English fans); John Archer’s death in the Archers (for the liberal Guardian readers) or the first series of Big Brother (admit it - you remember Nasty Nick). And, of course, the general election result in 1997.

But unless we are in a pub with friends, we normally have to wait until the next day in order to share the memories of the occasion with our colleagues.

But less than an hour ago I had one of the jubilant water cooler moments as I watched the US election result being declared. And although I was at home I could share the joy with many of my Twitter followers.

Maybe that’s the reason to get into Twitter - to be able to say, as I did “I was up for Obama” - and to get an immediate response from someone who gets the reference to Labour’s victory in 1997, and the delight we shared that night.

But let’s hope that in the long run it turns about better for Obama than it did for New Labour.

Posted in Web2.0      

I’ve discussed potential benefits of a variety of Web 2.0 services including blogs, wikis, Twitter, use of audio and video, etc. over the past two years on this blog.  But it strikes me that a reason we can encounter resistance to use of new technologies is that people think that they will have to use them.  I personally don’t think everyone should blog, use Twitter or make use of Second Life, for example - a point I made recently in a video blog post.  Rather I feel that the early users of such services and the enthusiasts should be willing to explain why such technologies can provide benefits to others, but not mandate their use inappropriately.  And the role of managers and policy makers should be to provide an environment in which the diversity of tools which are available can be used to support a diversity of tasks and a diversity of user preferences.

The problem, it seems to me, is the attitude of “I don’t see the point - therefore you should be doing it either” - although I suspect that in my cases the unspoken fear is “I don’t get it, and I’m worried that if I don’t oppose it I’ll be forced to do it“. Perhaps the tensions are between the positions of “I want diversity, you need convincing and he wants things to stay the same“.

On the other hand if you decide that you don’t want to blog, tweet, make use of wikis, etc. and you are an information professional, how employable will you be if you decide to change jobs?

Posted in Web2.0