(March 26 I attended an Apple-sponsored AcademiX seminar at MIT. Or most of it--had to dash back to the office for a meeting in the afternoon and I didn't make it back for the end of the day. What I went to, however, was quite good.

Here are my notes, raw and uncorrected except for formatting, with occasional comments in brackets.)

iTunes U: Case Study Panel
Kate James, Open Course Ware, Production Mgr., Video Coordinator, MIT
Jim Marko, New Media Producer, NJIT

Kate James:
In 2000, questions abt how internet would impact education, what to do about it.

Faculty conclusion wasn’t about money, but because of nature of MIT education (collaboration, etc), they recommended putting materials online for free—because it isn’t degree-granting, representative of interactive classroom environment, no contact with faculty. (Occasionally compelling requests are passed to faculty, but not often.)

OCW is free, will continue to be perm at MIT.

Voluntary contribs from ~80% faculty.

Various stats abt OCW. Creative Commons non-com/attrib/share alike audience.
Permitted to mix math lectures with dance beats

Translations happening

60% of access is from outside North America

Every six months entire site burned to drive and shipped to places like Nigeria where bandwidth and connectivity are issues

Inspiring movement—250 institutions in OCW consortium

Production process

Recruiting faculty
diff ways—superstar faculty, durable content, core curriculum, MIT-unique, distinct pedagogy, more and more fac submitting info

Preparation
wardrobe (no white or checked shirts), props and other things to focus on, third-party materials (can’t have NY-er cartoons), student privacy, not Hollywood (mistakes okay)

Capture
Sony HDR-SR11 10.2mp 60gig hi def hard drive handycam
Wireless mics

Scrub and review
every minute reviewed for IP and 3rd party stuff, student privacy etc.
look for actual start and end
create edit sheet if necessary

Edit & Compress
final cut, iMovie, MetaX (neurotic about metadata)
Sorenson media squeeze for compression

(can email KJ for notes)

Publishing
Moving from (couldn’t catch name) to four different models,
iTunes U,
Loves that iTunes supports PDF notes downloads, but it doesn’t support captioning
YouTube enhanced channel with 893 videos 21,000 subscribers
Will put smaller pieces on YouTube, but not iTunes U
Internet Archive for “pesky Linux users”, old stuff, small stuff (files check in at IA, but don’t check out)
Also video lectures.net

Transcribing
as much as they can
recent addition to process
human transcribes, student reviews
increases discoverability
popular with non-native English speakers
need to find way to bring cost down (lecture browser)

Example of finished course page:
http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Mathematics/18-02Fall-2007/VideoLectures/detai...

Jim Marko:
NJIT has tons of legacy materials – started pilot podcasting project in 2005.

iTunes U at NJIT collaboration between Uni Web Services, Uni IS, ??

UWS goal: manage and establish a greater web presence for the university
redesign, embrace Web 2.0, etc.

How do you get from here to there?

Challenge of populating site with quality material? Convert preexisting content, faculty recording , student reporters

Web content writer helped create podcasts to complement stories

Prof on video talking about essay as sole way students report is antiquated. New ways (podcasting, etc.) help them sharpen thinking.

Technical challenges for faculty not such a big deal now.

iTunes compared to network TV, website as premium cable, YouTube as all of the above + public access tv.

iTunes U provided good exposure for early adopters

5 year faculty plan has inspired podcasting.

Take-away tips:
Be a collector, not a curator—you never know what will appeal
Curate for quality and accuracy, but not interest.
Fences make good neighbors—one dept should have keys rather than profs uploading

Convince a professor of podcasting value- that person will get three more profs involved

Things to think about:
• Who will assume ownership
• Technical resources are required to establish a private face
• Getting faculty and university buy-in
(some profs will still think iTunes is only for Mac-using students!)

KJ: value of iTunes U is album unit creation. In YouTube, most lectures are found by other means than the channel—frequent comments from ppl wondering where other material is. YouTube announcing education channels maybe tomorrow.

Instead of editing the previous post...

Pogue's keynote was rousing and inspiring, even for those of us who were familiar with much of what he was talking about. It was beyond fantastic to have such a tech oriented, tech-powered (perfect use of presentation software, videos, live demos) session at AALL--and at the keynote, no less. Big kudos to whomever helped select and bring him in.

While I was eating lunch, I realized Pogue's keynote could just as easily have been a session at SXSW, and that made it rock another time over.

I've never actually liveblogged before, but I'm sitting with some fellow geeks at the AALL keynote and just paid for wifi access, so why not? The twist: I'm also knitting a sock and Twittering.

Honorary badge: "ich bin law librarian!!!"

Mac nut - yay! (Law librarians need more Mac evangelism.)

Slide graphic: "everyone's going to think I'm into Dianetics"

Will focus on five or six macro trends.

Last telegram: an ad for herbal viagra

I didd a lot of research - googled for six minutes

The future: nobody knows. End of Keynote!

Not.

VOIP. Why isn't Skype on a cellphone?

T-mobile hotspot at home - transitions seamlessly to T-mobile network. (This was announced June 29.)

Watching Grand Central commercial. I heard about that one years ago--didn't know it was still around.

Text 466-45 with query to get closest query match from Google.

Other things: weather, flight number, stock quotes, movie name and zip, definitions, driving directions, unit and currency conversions.

Pogue demo-ing Goog411.

Cha Cha. (I know someone who signed up to do this. She is not a librarian. I wouldn't want to do that!)

X-treme sarcasm: voicemail directions "when you're finished, you may hang up" Pogue: NOOOOOO!

Voicemail alternatives/text transcription services: callwave, phone tag, spinvox.

Big news about iphone is not what it is, but how it came about - carriers not consulted. Cingular CEO didn't see iPhone till two weeks before launch. Everyone copying model.

Hulu - one 15 sec commercial. Better than TV, but you're sitting at your computer looking like a dork.

Splintering graph includes mystery items phlogs (phone blogs) and Krogs. Anyone know what a Krog is?

Comcast: 9000 hours/month of on-demand everything. Why should shows come on at a certain time? (Since technical limits are no more. TV as giant jukebox.

It doesn't matter that blu-ray won format war, since it's not going to be about plastic discs - but this may not happen for another decade before 50% of households don't have high speed internet.

We need national movement for 27-hour day--or common sense. (Me, I'd bet on the 27-hr day)

Skpe phones: cost $175, then no fees again, ever

Trend coming: wireless everywhere, everything. Cameras, kindle, etc.

Eye-fi wireless card for camera - will automatically transmit high res pictures to your computer and ~20 photosharing services. An endless memory card.

Talking about Web 2.0. "I don't know if you're aware of web 2.0..."

Microsoft's blog - minesweeper/mimesweeper

Pogue giving us a copyright challenge quiz. When Pogue gave this to a college audience, not a single hand raised.

Ethics/credibility issues related to blogging, YouTube--LonelyGirl15.

Net neutrality. (Glad Pogue discussed this, since the proposed net neutrality program got turned down.)

Rattling off amazing examples we haven't heard of: Prosper (ordinary people making microloans), Kiva (same thing, but third-world countries), Goloco (ridesharing), E-petitions.uk, Who is Sick? (probably the first time the words "bloody stool" have been uttered in AALL keynote.)

Keeping up, overwhelmed...

Give it time, things settle down, people push back (e.g. net neutrality)

Pogue singing history of music downloads in 2 minutes...sing me a song, you're the music/tv man [Steve Jobs]...Tube, I've got YouTube...young man, you've just been sued by the R.I.A.A....people behind me are singing along.

And a well-deserved standing ovation.

The folks at CommonCraft, who brought us the wonderful videos about different web 2.0 applications, have provided a peek at the tools they use to create their videos.

Lots of dry-erase markers, among other things. Neat.

A few days ago, Kathryn Greenhill blogged about LibX, a Firefox plugin created by Virginia Tech Libraries that customizes a wonderful library toolbar to add to your browser. Here's an illustration pointing out some of its features:


I've been wanting to figure out how to customize a Firefox search bar for our catalog for ages. This is even better. And the best part? It was easy. I found the interface of the LibX edition builder a little confusing at first, but once I figured out that it was saving what I input and signed up so I could come back and edit my creation, it was so simple that it didn't take much longer than Photoshopping the above illustration of the finished project.

LibX is set up to automatically detect settings for several major OPAC systems, so all I had to do was confirm them. The only feature I haven't got working is the authentication for articles/databases, because I need to get some info from a librarian at our main library.

There is also an Internet Explorer version that is automatically set up along with the Firefox version, though it is missing a couple features. I haven't gotten it to install on my computer, but one of our other librarians did.

LibX NSU Law has only been around for a day or so, and I want to play with it more before sharing the link or otherwise publicizing it at the library. But did I mention how wonderful and simple it is? I should also add amazing, cool, and just what I was looking for. I'm not in general a fan of browser toolbars, but so far I completely love LibX.

To learn more and see it in action, check out Kathryn's screencast, What Does LibX Do?.

A bit of Friday afternoon fun...Stephen Abram points to a fun list of the Top 87 Bad Predications about the Future. A few of my favorites:

• «And for the tourist who really wants to get away from it all, safaris in Vietnam»
  Newsweek, predicting popular holidays for the late 1960s. [Likewise, I remember how shocked I was to learn that one of my grandfathers used to go on business trips to Cuba!]

• «Remote shopping, while entirely feasible, will flop - because women like to get out of the house, like to handle merchandise, like to be able to change their minds.» TIME, 1966, in one sentence writing off e-commerce long before anyone had ever heard of it. [Ha! This woman avoids shopping in stores whenever she possibly can.]

• «I am tired of all this sort of thing called science here... We have spent millions in that sort of thing for the last few years, and it is time it should be stopped.» Simon Cameron, U.S. Senator, on the Smithsonian Institute, 1901. [Scary, because Cameron's attitude seems to live on all over government. See the Bad Astronomer's post about Hillary Clinton on science for more detail. (Like the Bad Astronomer, I am also still undecided, and not endorsing Hillary.)]

• «The multitude of books is a great evil. There is no limit to this fever for writing; every one must be an author; some out of vanity, to acquire celebrity and raise up a name, others for the sake of mere gain.» Martin Luther, German Reformation leader, Table Talk, 1530s [Luther reminds me of Michael Gorman on bloggers!]

Well, not exactly me, but one year ago today, an avatar named Anne Idler was first rezzed into Second Life, bewildered, aimless and not quite sure what she was getting into.

It's been an interesting year of experimenting, learning, building, networking, rebuilding, teaching, and more. One thing that has evolved along with my virtual skills (and avatar, see left!) is my attitude and confidence about being "that librarian who knows about Second Life," as Kathryn Greenhill put it several months ago over at Librarians Matter. Kathryn was wondering if that was how she wanted to be known in the community, and at the time (back in May), I was wondering the same thing. Alongside the worry about having too much fun, spending time away from "serious" endeavors, and how those factors could impact my professional reputation was the knowledge that this was my first year in the profession, and I was building that reputation from scratch. What if Second Life turned out to be some crazy, flash in the pan folly? What if most of the law library community thought it was silly, frivolous, and irrelevant? Would I would be forever known as "that (silly/frivolous/irrelevant/etc.) Second Life librarian"?

I needn't have worried. About six weeks after I mentioned Kathryn's post and my plans to comment further about it (only now fulfilled), I went to my second AALL annual meeting. To my surprise, I discovered that "that Second Life law librarian" had generalized into "that librarian who's great with technology." Everyone I talked with about Second Life, acquaintances both new and from the previous year, thought it was an interesting and exciting thing to be exploring. I'm sure there are some law librarians who think it is silly, frivolous, and irrelevant all at once--and many more who haven't heard about it--but there were more than enough in the former category that I'm not worried about it anymore.

While it was a reassuring conference on a personal level, it was also eye-opening at the professional level. In the law librarianship course I took in library school, I was made aware that law librarians are often slower to change and try new things than the profession at large. Subsequently having been so encouraged to explore new things in my job, I thought perhaps that was outdated or incorrect information. However, many of my peers in age and/or experience in addition to thinking Second Life was cool, expressed their envy at my getting to explore ANY new things at all, technology-related or otherwise. There may have been some away from home/conference venting going on, but I heard such thoughts from enough people that it made an impression.

Networking with Second Life librarians from all types of libraries has helped to clarify my thoughts on why it is important to play with this new technology, much as it was to tinker with HTML and websites was in the mid-90s. I'm almost done putting together built 2.0 of the NSU Law Library in Second Life, and I'm planning to show it to some of our faculty once it's ready. I'm excited about that, because I think Second Life ultimately has more interesting potential for subject-area learning--role-playing, cultural studies, integration with learning management systems for distance learning, and especially the legal issues relating to virtual worlds, among other reasons--than librarianship. But I also have a new legal research exhibit idea based on some of the ideas I've had and borrowed from others during my first two years of visiting Legal Skills and Values classes to teach online research concepts to our first-year students.

Now if only I had a Second 24 Hours each day...

As numerous bloggers and listserv posters have mentioned this morning, the emoticon is 25 years old today. Library Boy points out Carnegie Mellon's official emoticon anniversary page with a short essay by emoticon creator Professor Scott Fahlman.

Cnet also has an essay on the history of the emoticon from Vladimir Nabokov proposing there should be a typographical symbol for a smile in 1969 to speculation whether avatars will "kill the emoticon star."

What's your favorite smiley? The original :-) has been expanded in many creative ways, but I generally stick to the economical nose-less smiley and its frowney sibling. Simple and direct. :) I've mostly resigned myself to the automatically translated upright circle smiley that Outlook insists on--it still looks like it could have come from a typewriter--but I can't stand the over cute cartoon smileys that completely miss the point.

However you prefer it, happy birthday, dear :) !

Want to take a peek under the hood and learn a little more what's going on in the techie background of all this web 2.0 stuff? Take a look Under the Hood of Web 2.0 just posted by The Other Librarian. He goes over ten programming concepts "that would benefit a librarian who spent five minutes reading about them" in language that is fairly easy for a non-programmer to understand, and uses some fun analogies.

Right after finishing my first post for TLC 2.0, it occurred to me that the stuff I rambled on about computers and tech gadget experience? Totally irrelevant, except perhaps as an indicator of general comfort level with using the computer. I also recalled a friend's report of David Lee King's talk at SEFLIN's Energize 2.0 conference (which I wasn't able to attend). King asked the crowd whether they could edit Word documents, then pointed out that most 2.0 tools are just as simple.

King elaborates further on this theme at his blog:

I drive a car. The car has a computer in it. The computer and the engine that runs the car was created by someone much smarter than me. In fact, the car and the engine were probably created by some type of engineer. So… by driving the car, does that make me an engineer?

[....]

I think my car skills example mirrors blogging skills in many respects. There are two skill-sets needed for blogging. First, there are “blog creators.” Someone has to write the blog software code, someone else has to install the blog software on a server, and yet someone else maintains that server and the server operating system. Those skills are the “techie skills” of blogging. And those skills occur BEFORE the actual blogging begins.

Then, there is the “blog user” [blogger]. This person’s job starts AFTER the techie person has finished his/her job. The “blog user” [blogger] actually uses the blogging tool to blog – they write blog posts, respond to comments, create categories, and delete comment spam. Is this person a techie? No – at least, not in the same way as the server/coder dudes.

It works similarly for many other 2.0 tools. I think the hardest part may be understanding how the concepts work to make things it easier to store/use/organize/share/communicate with information. I still remember being baffled by those RSS/XML links I saw on some websites, and the sorta-HTML-looking code pages they linked to. What was that about? Then I heard Jenny Levine explain how RSS readers work at SLA 2006, it all became clear, and now I'm such an RSS snob, I don't even feel it's worth my time to return to websites unless they offer an RSS feed that I can toss in my Bloglines account to find out when they've updated.

So basically what I'm saying to my fellow TLC2.0 adventurers is: web 2.0 isn't as techie as you may think. If you can edit and format a Word document and fill out forms on websites, you'll have no trouble completing the tasks (and qualifying for prizes) after a little time spent understanding why you may want to use these tools to update the way you use the Internet for yourself and to connect with others.

But don't let that stop you from letting people think you're a tech genius once you're through with the program. :)