Kindle Nation Winter 2011 Citizen Survey Results

LibrarianbyDay shared this on Twitter today: Results of the Kindle Nation Winter 2011 Citizen Survey

Some items worth noting:
93% of respondents were from the U.S.; only 3% a resident of a country other than the U.S., Canada, or the U.K.

70% of respondents are earlier adopters of new technologies, so there is much potential for growth

Reading on Kindles: A superior experience 4.9/5 rating

A majority of users are interested in free books

Shared at ICE Conference by Dr. Henry Thiele

View the tutorial on how to use Google Forms to update events/announcements in a Google Calendar while sharing reminders automatically to Facebook and Twitter Accounts. Something to think about as we envision updates to our library web presence:

Librarians all a Twitter about Overdrive

Librarian in Black is outraged over recent developments with ebook aggregators:

"Consumer market eBook vendors like Barnes & Noble and Amazon don’t let publishers get away with the amount of nonsense that we get stuck with through library eBook vendors. I fault the publishers for not realizing what a huge mistake they are making by not realizing that new formats are opportunities–not threats to be quashed. I fault the library eBook vendors for not standing firm and saying “no” to asinine demands. And I fault the library profession for, to date, not standing up for the rights of our users. Our job is to fight for the user, and we have done a poor job of doing that during the digital content surge."

Read the entire post responding to publisher HarperCollins, and their demanded limit is 26 lifetime uses per copy:

Library eBook Revolution, Begin

More ideas on how to use QR Codes in the library

Read the ideas recently shared on Twitter by librarian Heather Braum who posted this list of ideas from a brainstorming session.

Diane Ravitch: How can we improve schools while cutting funding and demoralizing teachers?

Protest at Wisconsin State Capitol on February 16

The uprising in Madison is symptomatic of a simmering rage among the nation's teachers.
--Diane Ravitch
Read Ravitch's opinions on the Madison Wisconsin protests.  Ravitch basically thinks thatit is not just about unions trying to protect their members' hard-won rights.... It is about teachers who are fed up with attacks on their profession.  CNN ReportIn a recent SLATE post, Egyptian solidarity with the Wisconsin protest puts a real "one world" feel on this.  

Egyptians Order Pizza for Wisconsin Protesters:

"In an act of intercontinental solidarity, an Egyptian has ordered a pizza for Wisconsin protesters, reports Politico. The call from Africa is just one of many streaming into the Madison, Wisc., pizza parlor Ian's from all over the world. So far, people from 12 countries and 38 states have rung up looking to help get free pizza to the Wisconsin protesters clustered in the Capitol. On Saturday, Ian's distributed more than 1,000 free slices and sent 300 pizzas to the Capitol."

Without social media this would never happen. There is strength in numbers. However, the unions have a definite public relations problem.  Read 

"Who is winning the public relations fight in Wisconsin?" to understand how things in Wisconsin are likely to get nastier.

More on QR codes

These QR codes are getting really big and I think we can have fun in the library with them because many of our students/staff have smart phones.  We can partner students up for a library scavenger hunt during orientation!

Here are the ideas of Barbara Schroeder, Clinical Associate Professor with the Department of Educational Technology at Boise State University:

10 Ways to Use QR Codes in Your Classroom

I love the interactivity piece...sending people to further information.  To keep students awake during our own presentations in the library we can even put QR codes into our LibGuides and they can scan them when they are projected on the screen.  I did that with my recent PREZI presentation and participants could get the direct URL for the PREZI sent to their phones.  

So easy to do:  just enter a URL into a QR code generator (many on the web) and then embed the image on your blog, web page, or simply copy & paste it into a word doc.  The mobile phone user just needs a bar code scanner app on their phone.

View the New Trier LibGuide on Ipads in the Classroom

Created by MaryAnn Apple and Jacqui Pritchard this valuable resource contains many useful apps and resources.  Check it out!