Now that Google+ has been opened up for anyone to join after two-and-a-half months in closed testing [see http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-14985494] you may be having a look at it and thinking about how it may be useful to you or to librarians and education even.  It is still very early days and no doubt there is more functionality in the pipeline, but in the mean time here are some thoughts.

Like other social communications media (e.g. Facebook, Twitter etc) Google+ is a place where you can create, stream, share and comment on information including photos and links etc and meet with others who share your interests.  You create your own profile and add people (friends colleagues etc) to ‘circles‘, this enables you to share particular things with certain people and not others if you wish.  Your circles are private, others can’t see them and they don’t know which circle(s) you have added them to. Google+ also provides real-time text and video chat functionality (hangouts, similar to Skype). Hangouts may provide an alternative to Library livechat e.g. Questionpoint for example and with the ability to share screens and documents, could be a useful module tutorial/work space.  As with other networks, critical mass (the number of ‘active’ people in your network) is important, you are more likely to find it useful if your network is regularly posting and interacting.

In Google+ you can +1 posts, which is similar to ‘like’ in Facebook, you can also share other people’s posts with your friends. You can save searches in Google+ too, so if a group of colleagues agreed to use a particular phrase e.g. Digital Literacy in their posts then the latest posts on that subject can be found by viewing the saved search.  There are already groups of librarians, students and academics using Google+, it will be interesting to see how these evolve and what aspects of Google+ they find most useful.

This slide (taken from Must See Google Plus Presentation from Zenslide) compares Google+, Facebook and Twitter features.  Those of you who use Facebook will realise that it does also have lists and re-sharing features and, following recent up-dates, it now has a twitter-style news ticker and it’s now possible to only share your status up-dates etc with selected lists and/or hide them from specific people or lists if you wish.  It’s worth mentioning that games (which can be used as a method of attracting and retaining users as well as generating revenue) feature in both Facebook and Google+ but not in Twitter.

Other social networks can quickly add new communications features and as mentioned above Facebook are already doing so, rapidly catching up with those in Google+.  So the ability to search,

“to find updates from your circles, news from around the web and public Google+ posts, giving you instant access to the topics you care about and the people who care about them along with you.“

and the location of Google+ within the Gmail user’s ‘desktop’ environment are perhaps Google’s killer applications.   Not forgetting Google+ integration with other Google apps e.g. Google docs and Picasa which further strengthen its position.  Facebook is also in the integration business, Spotify tied its future to Facebook last week so that new users have to also have a Facebook account (see Is Spotify too friendly with Facebook?).  It seems the race is on for social networking sites to provide the best communications features and more importantly, integrate key online applications and so win new users, with both Google and Facebook sharing the same aim, to increase market share and hence advertising revenue.

At the moment Google+ is focused on individuals and not on organisations or businesses. It’s not yet possible to create a business profile or Facebook-type business ‘page’ or a ‘group’. On July 22nd 2011 Christian Oestlien from Google said:

“…we expect to have an initial version of businesses profiles up and running for EVERYONE in the next few months.  In the meantime, we ask you not to create a business profile using regular profiles on Google+. The platform at the moment is not built for the business use case, and we want to help you build long-term relationships with your customers. Doing it right is worth the wait. We will continue to disable business profiles using regular profiles. We recommend you find a real person who is willing to represent your organization on Google+ using a real profile as him-or-herself.”

So for the moment we can figure out Google+ as individuals, and interact with others in Google+ as ourselves but if we want to we can promote what our own organisation is doing e.g. by sharing links in Google+ to our blog posts.

1. Good quality childcare: Rated ‘good’ by Ofsted, the club provides a wide range of activities, toys, games and runs trips during the holidays, the staff are friendly and approachable and the children love going.

2. Reliability: The club is open during term-time and in the holidays.  It’s important to us that we have a reliable childcare provider, in particular that we don’t have the worry that we’ll have to make other arrangements at short notice because our children’s carer is sick.  An alternative could be a child-minder, but then we’d have to find alternative cover when they are on holiday or take holiday when they do.

3. Flexibility: We can book regular days & one-off sessions. This means that I can be flexible at work (I’m part-time).

4. Excellent value for money: highly competitive fees, wide range of activities and resources available.  We can use our childcare vouchers (e.g. BusyBees and Accor) to pay for sessions and for after-school clubs e.g. Gym.

5. Efficiency: Having the same provider for term-time and holiday care reduces our personal ‘admin’ time around fee payments etc.

6. Links with the school: the club is on the school site so the children are familiar with the environment and have access to school resources e.g. large play areas and after-school clubs e.g. gym.

7. A wide range of other children to play with: They get to play with children of different ages and from a wide range of back-grounds; different children attend on different days during term-time and in holiday clubs. I think this is really important for their developing social skills, confidence and learning.

At Christmas-time in 1970, my Granddad stopped smoking and developed a cough.  He was subsequently diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer, a Pancoast tumour, involving his right lung, 1st rib, clavicle and brachial plexus.

My Granddad was treated with radio therapy (experimental at the time), at the Royal London Hospital, Whitechapel in May 1971 and the family were told that it would probably extend his life by just a few months. Lung cancer has one of the lowest survival rates.  Even now, in 2010, the 5 year survival rate for lung cancer is only approximately 7%, according to the Office for National Statistics.

Below is the list of gadgets that we plan to implement using the NetVibes Universal Widget Application (in addition to the Library catalogue search and the new books list gadgets that are currently available). The Netvibes UWA enables you to write a widget once and run it anywhere, e.g. iGoogle/Pageflakes/Netvibes/Facebook, Vista etc. Is anyone else using this application to create Library widgets? Please share your thoughts on it.

• ORO Search
• OneStop Search
• eJournals Search
• Search boxes for key databases
• Featured links (as per the links box on the Library homepage)
• “My record” (similar in format to the Facebook iGoogle gadget; to enable people to see how many books they have out, how many requests pending and how many items are available for them to collect. Tabs for other Library services e.g. catalogue search, New books, etc)
• RSS feed for each OU Library blog
• New books (individual rss)
• Library news (rss)
• Library events (rss)
• Library seminars (rss)

“Librarians using non-proprietary products and groupings not based on institutional alliances to practice their craft and communicate their practice? Open, collaborative enterprises based on not making money, but often on increasing social capital or extending knowledge?”

It’s about DIY librarianship – using freely available web tools and mashing them up with proprietary systems to facilitate discovery of and access to information and social networks relevant to your field. E.g. David Pattern‘s OPAC hacks which provide recommendations, ratings and comments (and much other functionality too); and the provision of access to information services within social and personal spaces (e.g. Facebook, Ning, iGoogle, Pageflakes etc.) via api’s and rss feeds.

EduPunk has been around for a little while longer than LibPunk. According to Wikipedia, the term was first used on May 25, 2008 by Jim Groom in his blog. Martin Weller’s EduPunk video inspired me to create a LibPunk slidecast:

Primarily just for fun, but I will probably use it at work to generate discussion around the directions that we should be moving in (not that we all need to be colouring and spiking our hair). It includes screenshots of our newly launched “Library toolbox: Externally provided tools list” (powered by delicious) and references to “Everything is Miscellaneous” by David Weinberger. It is set to the song “All the Small Things” by Blink 182. It’s a DIY dub; you need to run the song (e.g. on YouTube) at the same time as the slides.

I decided not to embed the song with the slides due to potential copyright issues. I did try automating the slide transitions in powerpoint but gave up because I couldn’t get it to sync to the song on re-play. The table below should help with the timings. Unfornately slideshare can’t cope with the punk-kid font, and this shows up capitalisation errors here and there. I will hopefully get around to editing it and posting a better version

The book is quite challenging. A few years ago I managed the implementation of document management policies and procedures supported by a document management system in the Library that I work in. We produced a folder structure and a set of file and folder naming guidelines. These aim to help us to organise our information effectively, retrieve documents more easily and reduce document duplication. One of the things that we said was that staff must not label folders “miscellaneous” or documents “Joe Blogg’s report”. Weinberger asserts that organising information in folders is not efficient in the digital world. Every person has a different view of the world. Assigning multiple (unlimited) tags is more efficient; file names become less important.

I am so enthusiastic about “Everything is Miscellaneous” that I want everyone in the Library where I work to read it so that we can discuss it and work together to decide how to shape our strategies for both our online and physical information resources. I would like staff to look at the challenges that we are facing and think about how we should move forward. I have enlisted the help of a couple of colleagues to spread the word and help to enthuse other people. So far we have managed to persuade 17 to buy the book (currently we are eagerly awaiting a bulk Amazon order); at least 4 more are going to read the Library’s copies. So almost a quarter of Library staff will be reading the book and hopefully more will join us.

For fun we plan to ask people to take pictures of themselves with the book in interesting places (whilst on holiday, or away at conferences for example) and we will put these into a flickr group. We will be asking staff to share their favourite quotes from it.

Karen G. Schneider’s post at ALA TechSource: “This is, I repeat, a dangerous book. Ban it, burn it, or take it to heart. The most dangerous part of this book is not that Weinberger says these things, and so much more: the danger comes if we don’t listen.” http://www.techsource.ala.org/blog/2007/05/weinbergers-well)-ordered-miscellany.html sparked off an idea. With the help of a few colleagues, I am going to set up a “dangerous” literature group for Library staff. The group will read and discuss things that it’s dangerous for people working in libraries not to read. EiM will be the first book.

We will also be doing a “dangerous” literature display for the Library staff room, to include EiM and other literature relevant to libraries, the information profession & the digital revolution (e.g. “Wikinomics” by Don Tapscott and “Ambient Findability” by Peter Morville). We will summarise each text and our thoughts on it and will include our favourite quotes from it.

Having had a look at iSoton, I wondered why an organisation would choose to create such a site rather than make something almost identical within a PageFlakes ‘page’ or within an iGoogle ‘tab’ for example (for free)? People could then add and delete applications from their version of the ‘page’ or ‘tab’. New applications produced by an organisation could be publicised via an rss feed (and viewed in the Pageflake or in iGoogle or elsewhere).

The comments on Brian Kelly’s blog post’s include a response from the manager of the iSoton Project.

Personally, I would like to be able to drag one or more applications from within an organisation’s page (e.g. the catalogue search box on my Library’s website; or the new BBC homepage’s news and weather sections; or a flickr photo collection) into the tool that I use – currently iGoogle.

Kindle and libraries see: http://rochellejustrochelle.typepad.com/copilot/2008/01/never-mind-lega.html

http://freerangelibrarian.com/2007/11/19/kindle-doesnt-light-my-fire/

http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2007/12/olpc-and-the-kindle.html

The I-phone: http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2007/01/the-iphone-as-an-ebook-reader.html

…any phone: http://alibraryisalibrary.blogspot.com/2008/02/3845-cell-phones-novel-sources_17.html

Apple eBook reader speculation: http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/03/03/reading-steve-jobs/

Charlesworth, A and Ferguson, N and Schmoller, S and Smith, N and Tice, R Sharing eLearning Content: a synthesis and commentary.

http://ie-repository.jisc.ac.uk/46/