Phil Bradley's weblog

Did you know 4.0

If you watched the original 'Shift happens' video, (and lets face it, most of us did) you may be interested to know that a newly updated version, Did you know 4.0 has now been released. It tends to focus on convergence, rise of social media, fall of traditional sources and comes with lots of facts and figures (together with citations!) It's certainly interesting and I'll be using it in my sessions this year, though I don't find it as compelling as the original version. Sequels huh?

IT managers pressured for more Web 2.0 access

Interesting article from Asia: IT managers pressured for more Web 2.0 access. About half of Asia’s information technology (IT) managers admitted that their users tried to bypass their company’s security policies to access Web 2.0 applications (Hong Kong, 54 per cent; China, 53 per cent; and India, 43 per cent), according to the latest Web 2.0 survey. More details behind the link.

Brief report on SLAINTE Web 2.0 event

I was fortunate enough to be asked to speak at the SLAINTE event Enterprise, engagement and new communications; Web 2.0 in the library which took place yesterday at the National Library of Scotland. This is a brief overview of what took place.

Graeme Forbes, Resource Acquisition and Description Manager, NLS started off the day with an outline of the day, a Web 2 definition, references to Andrew Keen, and making the point that participation was a key element.

Liz McGettigan, Head of Edinburgh City Libraries then talked to the subject "Harnessing collective intelligence". Points included the difficulties of trying to define libraries in the new Web2 world, what Edinburgh is doing in the area. Liz also feels that they've just dipped their toes in the water, but I think she's doing herself an injustice, since they're innovating, blending resources and to be honest, I use them as a good example of what can be done with Web 2.0 resources. She made the important point that it's a mindset change. Communication is key and they can now do things that they've not been able to in the past. She also referred to greater engagement with students, questions relating to making libraries more relevant, and harnessing intelligence to create better resources in the longer term.

I then did an hour session tooking at resources and applications, mapping them onto library based activities. You can see the slideset over at Slideshare though since most of my presentations are image based they may not make a huge amount of sense!

Jason Miles-Campbell, Service Manager, JISC Legal gave an excellent session on "Staying legal: the law surrounding Web 2.0" He made a lot of telling points, the first being that people are using to taking decisions about things like powertools in the building, but it was much more difficult when it came to Web 2 risk management, because we lack knowledge of where these tools are taking us. He talked about the dangers in offering, using and requiring the use of specific tools, intellectual property law, copyright, accessibility and liability issues, data protection, risk and how to mitigate it.

In the afternoon Gillian Hanlon,Information Officer, SLIC talked about Removing barriers: developing national guidelines for library use of Web. She referred to SLICs use of resources such as a blog, Twitter, Flickr, Youtube and so on, why Web 2.0 tools should be used, the barriers, creating guidelines and next steps.

Last up was Dave Errington, CEO, TALIS who talked widely on and around the subject of Library 2.0. He talked about disruptive technologies, the age of some of the resources we use (email is now a 30 year old technology for example), the fact that we're on a journey, people have to start thinking differently, the technology adoption curve, and that Library 2.0 is an attitude.

We ended with a long Q&A session, which since I was involved with it I wasn't able to keep notes, but thankfully A Pretty Simple blog covered that, and the rest of the day as well.

It was a very enjoyable day and I really enjoyed meeting several people that I'd previously only known via Twitter, and I also made some good new acquaintances as well. If you want to follow the day via Twitter hashtag you can find tweets at #web2libraryevent

[Edited to add: Slides from several presentations are available here]

If Lincoln had a Facebook page

If Lincoln had a Facebook page it might have looked something like this. Slightly amusing in its own right, but more interesting to consider how something like this could be used within an educational setting. Facebook pages for the dead and famous!

Edinburgh City Libraries really get 2.0

I had an email this morning from Liz McGettigan who was telling me about what Edinburgh City Libraries are up to, and it really made me cheer. First up they have a weblog at Tales of One City which is a really fun and informative blog, covering a wide variety of subjects, such as public libraries, Web & Library 2.0, events and so on, all backed up with images and YouTube videos.

They're also available on Twitter at Talesofonecity with really useful tweets. Then there is the photostream from Flickr with some really classy images, people using the library services and pictures of different libraries. Then there's the delicious bookmarks (not so many of those yet, but off to a good start!), a bookgroup wiki which is just starting out, a talesofonecity channel on YouTube which is also new. There's also material on Facebook and MySpace as well.

It's a really nice example of how it's possible to take a branding concept with an interesting name, and develop it across a wide range of social networking resources. Moreover, all of these initiatives support each other - the video being posted on the weblog, the weblog pointing towards Twitter, and tweets refering to activities that they're undertaking elsewhere. It makes such a refreshing change to see all of these things being done, and the impact each initiative can have on all of the rest.

Absolutely fantastic stuff!

How to Delete Social Network Accounts

. Decided that you don't want to stay on a social networking site and you want to leave it all behind, except not actually leave it behind, but delete the lot? The article at PC Magazine called How to Delete Accounts from Any Website  will show you exactly how to do this on 23 different services.

Glasgow public libraries blocking social media sites

Really interesting and disappointing experience as described by Christine Rooney-Browne in her weblog The Library of Digress entitled When Acceptable Use Policies Go Wrong!. She found herself unable to Twitter, use Facebook, MySpace, Flickr and YouTube on the public library terminals because they were considered to be 'unacceptable'. What on earth is unacceptable about any of those? What makes this even more insane is that Glasgow City Council has been using Twitter to promote the Aye Write Festival, with buttons on the website encouraging users to visit their Facebook and MySpace profiles.

Clearly something is seriously amiss here, and people are not talking to other people within the service. Still stunned that a library... a LIBRARY of all places is deciding what is acceptable and what isn't. I can (just about) understand why stuff like this is blocked in a work environment, but if people want to spend their computer time email friends on Facebook or searching for a useful video on YouTube or looking up images of Glasgow City Centre on Flickr why shouldn't they?

As Christine says "wouldn’t it be more beneficial, for both the library service and the users,  if more public libraries took on the role of educator rather than censor? "

Facebook - UK usage

Interesting article from The Register which looks at UK use of Facebook. (As an aside, it's also worthy of note since it's almost entirely devoid of their usual rabid foaming at the mouth about anything Web 2 related). 47% of Britons online use Facebook, compared to 33% in the US. Fastest growing demographic is 35-49 age range (24.1 million) and 13.6 million between 50-64, with only 7.3% under 18.

These are figures from a Nielson report, which also tells us that 1 in every 11 minutes is spent at a social network or blogging site, with mobile use becoming more important with UK users visiting in large numbers via their handset - 23% compared to 19% in the US.

Radio 4 Media show and Facebook

Interesting discussion on the facebook debacle on this programme today. You can catch up with it at http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/factual/mediashow/

Top 20 social web sites

Pandia comes up trumps with a good listing that they've found which tells us what the Top 20 social web sites are. To save you the trouble, they are:

1. YouTube (Video sharing)
2. MySpace (Social networking)
3. Facebook (Social networking)
4. Beebo (Video and social networking)
5. Black Planet (Black online community)
6. Tagged (Social networking)
7. Imeem (Social network for sharing music, video and photos)
8. Hi5 (Social networking)
9. Orkut (Social networking)
10. Digg (Sharing and discovering links)
11. LinkedIn (Professional networking)
12. Ning (Create your own social networking community)
13. Stumbleupon (Sharing and discovering links)
14. Friendster (Social networking)
15. Buzznet (Pop culture social networking)
16. Multiply (Media sharing)
17. Twitter (Microblogging)
18. Cyworld (Social networking)
19. Netlog (Blog based social networking)
20. Livejournal (Blog based social networking)