On Tuesday I had a quick post introducing augmented reality(AR) applications. In this post I wanted to talk about some ideas on how libraries can take advantage of this kind of technology.

Image/facial recognition

The first two examples show the most common use of AR, where a computer recognizable image or facial recognition allows the AR software to display images on the screen of a mobile or computer device. Probably the easiest thing in the library to adapt to this method is the barcodes on our library materials. Similar to the Augmented ID, a library book can have a barcode or image on its spine or cover that will automatically display supplemental information about the book. This can include bio information about the author, related books or “you might also like suggestions”, and even retrieve a quick search for other works of the author through a federated search engine. You can also guide users based on where the book is located, displaying the subject areas to the left and right of the book. Once they have a book, they could also self check out using their mobile device.

Location based directions

One way is to combine the AR system with a spine label like ColorMarq that will provide an easy to recognize label for the AR software, and from there guide a user to a certain book. This wouldn’t require any fancy GPS mapping in the library. When someone finds a book in the library catalog, they can have the option to snap a QR code or unique image of the book, which will first store the information about the book. Then the user can first be directed to a specific section of the library, and once they are in the right section they can use a mobile device to scan the book spines to start being guided towards the book they are looking for. It doesn’t have to be an exact location, but more of a hot or cold directional process, where the software will get them as close as possible before telling the user to look for the book some where on this shelf, displaying the full call number as well. The reason I recommend a system that would use information located on the book, is that it would not require catalogers to maintain the location of the book. Instead it would rely on the call number system, and as long as the books are in the right place, would provide a dynamic location system from call number A to Z.

These are just some simple ideas of how libraries could implement an augmented reality. One of my favorite anime series called Denno Coil, shows a near future world where people will wear glasses that superimpose computer generated information over the objective reality.

Any other ideas?

-KF

Augmented reality is an up and coming mobile technology that seems to have a lot of potential in the library field. The basic concept is to use a portable video devicethat can add information to what is being displayed on the screen. Its bit difficult to explain just in words, so here are a few examples of Augmented Reality applications being developed.

GE Smart Grid Augmented Reality

The simplest examples of augmented reality are computer recognizable images that can interact with a webcam to display additional information. This GE example shows a printable black and white image that when used in combination with a webcam and the GE website, allows you to see a 3D model. You can try it out yourself.

The Astonishing Tribe: Augemented ID

This is an example of an augmented reality applications that allows people to show links to content from social networks and other services online based on facial recognition software. this example shows a person turning off his personal social life profile and changing to a professional identity for a presentation. Later on your see someone from the audience take a camera phone and point it at the presenter to see the same links he made available earlier. She then sees a list of available profile links, clicks on Slideshare to see the current presentation, and rates him with four stars for his presentation.

Accrossair: Nearest Tube/Subway

Accrossair has developed an iPhone app that will allow people with the video enabled iPhone 3GS to display directions to the nearest train station. London is the only place supported now, but they are expanding the service to other major cities, including New York City. All you would have to is start the application and point the camera at whatever location you happen to be in. Color coded arrows will point you in the direction of the closest subway lines, along with additional information about distance from your location.

These are just some examples, and more can be found through the Wikipedia article as well. Tune in Thursday where I throw out some ideas on how these technolgies might be used in the library

I thought I would start things off with a YouTube video taken back in the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco in 2008. Its a collection of short interviews asking various conference attendees “What is Cloud Computing?”

YouTube Video

Next is a definition from Wikipedia. I know its Wikipedia, but many articles are pointing to this definition at the moment (02/19/2009):

Cloud computing refers to the use of Internet-based (i.e. Cloud) computer technology for a variety of services,Whereby dynamically scalable and often virtualised resources are provided as a service over the Internet. Users need not have knowledge of, expertise in, or control over the technology infrastructure “in the cloud” that supports them.

The concept incorporates software as a service (SaaS), Web 2.0 and other recent, well-known technology trends, in which the common theme is reliance on the Internet for satisfying the computing needs of the users. An often-quoted example is Google Apps, which provides common business applications online that are accessed from a web browser, while the software and data are stored on Google servers.

The cloud is a metaphor for the Internet, based on how it is depicted in computer network diagrams, and is an abstraction for the complex infrastructure it conceals.

(Cloud computing. (2009, February 19). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 18:20, February 19, 2009, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Cloud_computing&oldid=271830227)

You can also find a rough breakdown of the various types of “clouds” that are available form InfoWorld’s “What Cloud Computing Really Means.“

I recently came across “Is YouTube the Next Google?” at ReadWriteWeb and it got me thinking. Especially the part:

Whenever his son needed any information, he would open up YouTube, type in the search term and then just watch the videos that showed up as matches. He never Googled anything; he never went to any other site; his entire web experience was confined to YouTube videos.

Shortly after, the author tries a few searches and quickly realizes that the search results are not so great for every topic.  Even then, it is possible to find a lot of information through video clips you find in YouTube. Here’s a basic search for “search for scholarly articles” and you can find a lot of tutorials on how to identify and search for articles.

Here is a clip about a basic title search using the library catalog that I used as an experiment to complement a e-mail reference question.

I just happened to use YouTube to host the clip because it was free, but I didn’t even think about how it might end up in the public. This took me 10 minutes to make, which is about how long it takes me to write a detailed written instructions in an e-mail anyway. Eventually, with librarians adding more video tutorials to YouTube, will it get to the point where any basic library question might be answered by a YouTube clip? Will it ever get to the point where anything you can possibly search for will also have a video clip associated with it in the future?

The New Media Consortium (NMC) recently presented their 2009 short list (http://horizon.nmc.org/wiki/2009_Shortlist), and one of the topics being considered to be adopted within the next year is “Cloud Computing.” Cloud computing is a service or application that is provided over the Internet, while all the software and data is stored online. Cloud computing also allows users to access these services without having to worry about the software or the Internet infrastructure that supports these services. Although the concept has been around with services such as Amazon, search engines, and library catalogs, the idea of cloud computing comes from the rise in Web 2.0 applications that have become more elaborate, taking some traditional desktop applications to the cloud. Some examples are office applications like Google Docs and Zoho Suite, which provide basic Office applications as a web based service. Although cloud computing applications are still in development, and provide basic functionality, it is an indication that more people can remain online often enough for these applications to become popular. Cloud computing also gives opportunity for new technologies to provide services in a new way. The following are two quick examples.

The Kindle relies on being connected online all the time so that you can buy, read, and store your reading materials on a cloud based service through Amazon. When you purchase a Kindle, it includes the Internet access through cellular phone networks which allow you access to the Internet based services anywhere there is cell phone service. This little device takes your “book bag” into the clouds, so you can have your digital books available all the time without the physical footprint of traditional books.

Netbooks have grown in popularity as low cost notebook computers that have barebones features for under $1000. Although the netbook may have limited functionality, the netbook can supplement its feature through cloud applications that require an Internet connection, web browser. It is also popular because the everyday needs of many users can be accommodated with cloud applications, such as online e-mail, social networks, and online office suites.

These are just two examples, but I would like to start a series for my own personal research, and as motivation to get me writing again, to take a detailed look at cloud computing and what it might mean for the librarian profession.

-KF

via ACRLog

I was a bit surprised by the numbers, but I am also aware that these are stats form 2006. Call me a pessimist, but I don’t think the numbers may have changed in the past two years. Here is an excerpt from the ACRLog introduction:

For all the time this profession has put into promoting the information literacy concept, I was surprised that data from the National Center for Educational Statistic’s report Academic Libraries 2006 showed an underwhelming lack of penetration into or acceptance by academic institutions. Table 13 has data for the percentage of academic institutions reporting information literacy activities. There are five indicators of information literacy activity. They are:

1. defined information literacy or information literate student
2. incorporated information literacy into institution’s mission
3. incorporated information literacy into institution’s strategic plan
4. has institution-wide committee to implement strategic plan for information literacy
5. strategic plan formally recognizes the library’s role in information literacy instruction

First, here at the corresponding percentages for each of those five items:

1. 48.4
2. 34.3
3. 30.4
4. 17.6
5. 24.8

We have been going through some assessments at Buffalo State College to measure information literacy, and the more I try to come up with ways to “score” information literacy, the more I think its futile to give a numerical value to this particular skill set. I wish there was a Jung/Myers/Briggs-like assessment for information literacy skills. I did a quick search, and even found a research paper discussing how personality types affect information seeking behavior (Five personality dimensions and their influence on information behaviour). Perhaps instead of looking to measure how well a person can do a specific information literacy skill, or ability to find a particular source, we need to measure what kind of information literacy skills we are good at, and also realize our weaker information literacy skills.

[via Library Journal "BackTalk: The Case of the Disappearing Article"]

I often use this example in my library class to show how even a print publication can often “lose” information in the digital age. The Library Journal article talks about a March 2, 1998 TIME magazine issue where an an article written by George Bush and Brent Scowcroft titled “Why We Didn’t Remove Saddam” was published as a sidebar. This was an excerpt from a book called A World Transformed discussing the reasons why Bush did not send forces to Baghdad during the Gulf War in 1991. What’s curious is that the article no longer exists in the Time’s web archives version of the March 2, 1998 issue. Some other curiosities from this issue is the fact that in most of the electronic sources that have indexed the March 2, 1998 issue have an article titled “Selling the War Badly”, but in a print copy of the issue we have in the library, the table of contents show the title “Clinton’s Crisis: How Not To Sell a War.”

The first time I came across this mystery was actually from a web page, that ironically I can’t seem to find anymore, that talked about a school teacher who had assigned the article to students as a search exercise. Unfortunately, the teacher was looking at his print copy and assigned students to look for “Clinton’s Crisis: How Not To Sell a War”, and ended up with frustrated students that couldn’t find a trace of the article anywhere. It wasn’t until the teacher looked for the article, knowing that the article did indeed exist in print, that he realized the title of the article was different in the online version.

This exercise still works if you make a photo copy of the print version of this issue and ask students to look for the same article. Students will see that the photo copied table of contents shows the exact title, but when they look for the article by the title, they won’t find it. Because of the Library Journal article, it is now possible for students to find the article using a Google Search first, to find out that the title has changed, and then look for the article with the new title. Unfortunately, I can’t verify that the title in the print version was actually “Selling the War Badly” either, since the article has been torn out of our print copy. For those of you who think “microfilm,” its not concrete evidence since the microfilm gets delivered much later, and may have been fixed at that point.

Regardless of what the actual title of the print article is, this made a great example of how, without a print copy, there was no way to verify the changes that were made. I don’t suggest tearing out the article form your own copies at the library, but it would make an interesting exercise for your students if you hide the particular issue and say its missing. Then when the students go out to search for it, see how well they do in finding the article.

One last thing I wanted to highlight from the Library Journal article was that there are sites like the Memory Hole <http://www.thememoryhole.org/> that try to preserve information that often times dissappear in the digital world. Its scary to think about how easily the electronic versions can be modified or removed without anyone ever knowing that the change has been made. -KF

via Tame the Web

Here’s the link to the project’s page, with a link to the explaination about the Senior grad project at the Emiliy Carr University.

I especially like the book information readily available on the book wrap. including the citation format in MLA and APA style! This would make the library such a colorful looking place. I hope someone can make a streamlined version of this to print book wraps at the library. -KF

via: Librarians Matter

A while back, I came across this blog post by Kathryn Greenhill discussing how librarians tend to emphasize how to use discovery and search tools, more than evaluation skills.

Surely it would make more sense to teach students how to work out whether an item is authoritative, well researched and/or suitable for citing in an academic work (these factors do not always overlap). Instead of a small section of an information literacy class, what if evaluation of resources was made central? What if, like Iris Jastram of Carleton College, we tried “teaching databases backward” – starting with a resource and looking at what elements were retrieved, how and why ?

I have also been wondering about how effective teaching databases are when:

1. Databases are hard to master without constant practice
2. There is no way to train students in every database user interface (UI) out there
3. There is no guarantee that the database you teach in your class is the one that the student will need for their research
4. The database UI or vendors can change at any time, negating any training you might have done for that database

I usually try to teach an EBSCOHost database in my library instructions, since there is a good chance that the student will use one of them, but I also know that a lot of the techniques I teach won’t work for JSTOR or other databases with a different search interface. If I am lucky I know the professor’s preferred database for the student’s research, and I can train that particular database or resource. I will have to think of some better ways to teach evaluations skills to students in a 50 minute class.

The second step in the All Together Now: A 2.0 Learning Experience is RSS feeds. Here’s the Common Craft video for RSS in Plain English:

Thing #2 of the program takes you through a discovery exercise of:

1. Defining and learning about the basics of RSS through readings, video, and tutorials.
2. Exploring two RSS readers, Netvibes and Google Reader. Michael the instructor prefers Netvibes, but I decided to try out Google Reader as it has always been the RSS aggregator I could not get into.
3. Next they were asked to subscribe to the program’s blog, as well as some suggested blogs from SLJ and some of Michael’s favorites.
4. There is also a nice list of some of the popular feed search engines.
5. Finally participants are asked to post on their experiences with the tools they discover.

That ends my coverage on the Learning 2.0 experience for this week. You can see my response for the program on my Kens12Things blog. Thing #3 will be coming next week.