Can you find the Nittany Lion?

Why The Next Big Pop-Culture Wave After Cupcakes Might Be Libraries

I realize we're picking the bones from the Old Spice campaign at this point, but when I saw that the Brigham Young University parody of the Old Spice ads had gotten more than 1.2 million views (Old Spicy himself — that's what I'm calling him — did a video for libraries), it got me thinking more

"Sixth Sense" Technology

TED is a small nonprofit company devoted to "Ideas Worth Spreading." TED began in 1984 as a conference bringing together experts in technology, entertainment, and design. Today, along with the annual TED Conference in Long Beach, CA and the TEDGlobal conference in Oxford UK, TED includes the award-winning TEDTalks video site, the TEDx community program, and its newest addition, the TEDIndia Conference.

In a 2009 TEDIndia conference, inventor Pranav Mistry demonstrated a wearable device that enables new interactions between the real world and the world of data. Mistry calls his development SixthSense, which is a device that can only be described as a paradigm-shifting paper laptop.

To watch the 13-minute video, log on to ted.com and search for "Pranav Mistry".

Google Books Hopes to "Digitize Every Book Ever Printed"

One of the most popular search engines, Google, began a project now known as Google Books, in 2004. The ambitious project is a service from Google that searches for the full text of books - that were scanned by Google - and converts those scans using optical character recognition and stores them in its digital database. So far Google has scanned 12 million books and has made them available on the internet; however, Google's goal is to scan up to 40 million titles. Director of Google Books, Daniel Clancy, believes that it is Google's mission to organize all the world's information by scanning every book every printed and making them available online.

According to Michael Keller, who is a Google Books supporter and a librarian at Stanford University, Google Books is a valuable program. "The indexing of every word in every one of the books would allow us to get more out of the books. Another goal was to make more accessible the contents of these libraries to others around the United States and indeed around the world."

Although Google Books has many supporters, including the University of California-Berkeley, the University of Michigan, and Stanford University, there are many universities and scholars who do not support the project.

Gary Reback, an attorney from Silicon Valley, CA who represents the Open Book Alliance - which includes members such as Microsoft and Amazon - predicts that Google will begin this project without charging for what it digitizes, but will eventually impose hefty fees. "What Google is proposing here is not like any library you have ever been to. It's not a public library. It's a private library. And it's being run for profit, big profits. Google is going to charge university scholars, ordinary people, even schoolchildren, to get access to books that Google copied without the permission of the publisher or the author."

Selling digital copies of books could be quite profitable, however Google insists its plans and its investment, which it won't disclose, are not based on profits.

Read or listen to the story online at http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/entertainment/july-dec09/google_12-30.html.

UPI.com reports Facebook Personalities Are Fairly "Accurate"

According to a study conducted by psychologist Sam Gosling of the University of Texas at Austin, Facebook users' profiles' "actually capture a person's true personality, instead of an idealized virtual identity."

The findings also suggest that social networking profiles covey such accurate images of their users because those users "aren't trying to look good or because they are trying and failing to pull it off."

Gosling collected 236 Facebook profiles of U.S. and German college-age adults for the study. He used questionnaires to assess the profile owners' actual personality characteristics, as well as their ideal-personality traits. A second group of people, strangers to the first group, rated the first groups's Facebook profiles. These ratings were then compared to the profile owners' actual personality and their ideal-personality.

The study found personality impressions based on Facebook profiles were accurate and were not affected by profile owners' self-idealization. The study is set to be published in Psychological Science.

The CU Online Handbook: Instructional Uses of Twitter

Twitter, a web 2.0, microblogging tool, is now being used as an educational and instructional tool. The CU Online Handbook, published by the University of Colorado at Denver, offers some instances when Twitter can be used as an educational tool. In a 2008 study, students were asked to participate in an experiment where instructors used Twitter as an educational tool. The following two scenarios played out as a result of using Twitter: "A student is reading something in the textbook and has a question about the chapter on multi-modal learning. She immediately tweets her question to the Twitter community, and gets three responses within ten minutes - two responses from classmates, and one from her professor."

"A student sends a private tweet her professor regarding a difficult situation with a project team member. While in the middle of a meeting, Joni immediately tweets back, arranging a time to talk with the student outside of Twitter."

According to the researchers, by using a tool that enables just-in-time communication with the local and global community (Twitter), they were able to engage in sharing, collaboration, brain-storming, problem solving, and creating within the context of the moment-to-moment experiences.

For more information, check out the Mobile Libraries blog at http://mobile-libraries.blogspot.com. To read more about The CU Online Handbook on the Mobile Libraries blog, check out http://mobile-libraries.blogspot.com/2009/12/book-chapter-instructional-uses-of.html.

New e-Readers Take On Textbooks

Although many people are now using e-readers (e.g. Amazon's Kindle (pictured below), Sony's Reader) to read newspapers and novels, textbooks have yet to find a suitable electronic home. Textbooks can be downloaded to e-readers, laptops, and smartphones, however, the small screen displays can have negative effects on a person's eyes.

In an attempt to ease the backlash, some companies are now developing two-screen e-readers that feature an e-paper display on one side and a liquid-crystal display on the other to render graphics and color.

In February, enTourage Systems will release a two-screen reader called the eDGe (pictured above). The device will be priced at $490. The eDGe device uses Google's Android operating system, so other applications like word processing can be added, according to enTourage Systems' vice president of marketing and business development.

Other companies seem to be following suit. Barnes and Noble just released its version called Nook priced at $259. Nook features a small LCD touch screen beneath the reading display to be used primarily for navigation. Spring Design will also be releasing the Alex, which will featue a 3.5-inch LCD screen for browsing the Internet and interacting with the e-reader content. Pricing for the Alex will be announced in January.

For more information, check out the article "Devices to Take Textbooks Beyond Text" by Anne Eisenberg from nytimes.com.

New Kindle App for the iPhone and iPod Touch

For those of you who are iPhone and/or iPod Touch users - and bibliophiles - Apple has recently introduced a FREE Kindle Reader application. By downloading this FREE app, you can read Kindle books - some FREE, others a small cost - on your iPhone or iPod Touch.

New "My Favorites" Feature Through "The Cat"

A new feature available through "The Cat" on the University Libraries website now allows users to keep a list of their favorite subjects and authors.

To add a subject or author to your favorites list, search "The Cat" for a record with your subject or author listed listed as the first subject heading or primary author. Click on "Tell me when new items on this subject are available," which is located to the left of the record, and the subject or author is added to your "My Favorites" list. Your list will appear at the bottom of the Quick Search screen. To make changes to your list, click on the Modify button underneath "My Favorites."

If new materials on your favorite subject or by your favorite author are added to the Libraries' collections, you will receive an e-mail about the materials. E-mails are sent monthly.

Massachusetts Boarding School Trades Books for Kindles

Cushing Academy, located in Ashburnham, M.A., just finished an overhaul renovation of their library that consisted of removing all of the library's books "in favor of going digital." This move from print to entirely digital is believed to be the first of its kind in the U.S.

Instead of a circulation desk, book shelves, and study carrels, Cushing's library now features a cafe, easy chairs, and flat screen televisions. According to Cushing's Dean of Academics, the switch to digital is a result of surveys that were conducted by the school, which showed that students "weren't turning to printed materials for research; instead, they were immediately going online." Although some of Cushing's students are in favor of the new renovations, others are less enthusiastic.

Will other academic libraries follow Cushing's example? Only time will tell.

Read the full article "Digital School Library Leaves Book Stacks Behind" by Tina Antolini at http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=120097876.

Gale Information Access Database Trial Offer

The Gale Information Access database is currently offering Penn State Abington Library a free trial of Global Issues in Context (GIC) and Global Reference on the Environment, Energy, and Natural Resources (GREENR). Our free trials began on November 2 and will be available until December 15. A future subscription to these databases will depend on student and faculty interest. For more information, stop in to the library and ask to speak to one of our librarians.

GIC:
http://find.galegroup.com/gic/start.do?prodId=GIC&userGroupName=psu_trials

GREENR:

http://find.galegroup.com/grnr/start.do?prodId=GRNR&userGroupName=psu_trials