Do we need librarians?

Of course we do...the question is sometimes raised...well here are 33 reasons why we still need 'em.

Ultra-portable data projectors

 I've been looking around at very small data projectors for mobile presentations...

Link to Toshiba TDP-FF1A - Google Search

Found this particularly interesting development - it's been around for a while and has not exactly taken the world by storm so obviously has limitations.

What really prompted me to write this short piece were some observations about manufacturers' claims and specs. I mean...just what is ultra-portable? No, I'm not looking for a set definition, and I know that marketing people take liberties...but describing a unit that weighs 6.9 pounds(!) as ultra-portable is stretching things a bit...mostly my arm with the weight...and that's without all the extra clobber like case, cables etc. My own personal limit would be 2.5 lbs but that is arbitrary.

The next thing that I found interesting to look at was the noise issue. One of the main uses for ultra-portables is noise, since you are likely to be close to it giving presentations to small groups on a table top. A noisy fan is very disruptive and I regard this as a crucial point when choosing. The good news is that most manufacturers do quote a noise rating as part of the spec. What I have not been able to find is how these ratings are made. Since it is an engineering specification, there should be a standardised measurement method. But I suspect, as with many things in marketing, that some license is taken with this. Decibels and noise in particular are very variable depending on measurement technique so I really wonder if the numbers mean much.

One important point to remember is that small differences are big differences in noise. A 3dB difference is a doubling in power so if the noise is measured in some electromechanical way, 3dB is lots. On the other hand, it's not much in terms of perceived audible difference. Most people have difficulty in discerning a difference of 2dB. Most projectors are rated between 30 and 38dB - but while it may not look like much, this can be very significant. More importantly, the quality and frequency of the sound is very relevant. Some noises can be ignored more easily than others.

Brightness. Small groups do not need a huge auditorium power projector. But they do tend to meet in rooms with windows so brightness is important. Most manufacturers do quote a brightness rating in ANSI lumens. The ANSI part is important as it states that a standard measure process has been applied. Generally speaking, you need 1200-1500 lumens for a well lit room. Quite a few ultra-portable projectors skimp on that.

To be fair, brightness also varies with distance (or by the square of the distance). So placing the projector closer to the screen, which is often what you are doing with a table top small group presentation anyway, helps with getting more brightness. Actually, it varies more with image size I guess so we should be accurate about this since we are grumbling about accuracy.

A few manufacturers do show projection size according to distance. This depends on the angle of zoom (think the reverse of angle of view for a camera lens). So more zoomed out means a bigger but less bright image. What this all boils down to is that if you keep the projected image size small, you can get away with needing fewer lumens.

Test things out. Try a few before you choose, or get a money back/return arrangement in case you are not satisfied.

The Rise of Design

A very interesting piece on CBC radio tonight with Nora Young. Talking about design, and how badly it is done by so many companies. The most egregious example of this is the American car industry - 30 years of boring designs - no wonder the big 4 are struggling. For the last few years, the only thing that has saved them are the dubious gas guzzling SUVs.

She mentioned a couple of books by Donald Norman - "The Design of Everyday Things" - a book I love, and "Emotional Design". While googling on this topic, I came across this interesting site:

http://www.jnd.org/books.html

Has more information on Norman's work but also many other works on good design.

So why is this relevant to eLearning? Yes, it's tangential I agree...but good design principles should also be applied to our software and hardware. I have found that thinking of the principles espoused in Norman's books have given me a better appreciation for well designed software interfaces.

Long Tail definition

 

The phrase The Long Tail was first invented by Chris Anderson. The concept drew in part from an influential essay by Clay Shirky, “Power Laws, Weblogs and Inequality” that noted that a relative handful of weblogs have many links going into them but “the long tail” of millions of weblogs can have only a handful of links going into them.

Source: http://www.christosmargetis.com/2007/01/18/long-ta...

This is the best dissertation I've seen on the "long tail". The phrase has been used quite a bit in discussing Web 2.0 phenomena. This puts it in context.

National Library of Medicine adds Vivisimo search

 This looks very promising...

Link to National Library of Medicine adds Vivisimo search | InfoWorld | News | 2007-01-18 | By Grant Gross, IDG News Service

...for reasons that might not be apparent from this clipping. Vivisimo are the makers of the Clusty search clustering engine. This is a very useful way to search PubMed. Originally it was called ClusterMed but has gone through a couple of renaming and new URLs since then.

Currently, you can use ClusterMed at this URL...but I have found that the link to this has changed many times. Don't let that put you off - it is a great way to search PubMed where you find that your original search brings far too many results. The results clustering makes it much easier and more intuitive to zero in on what you want.

What I am hoping is that this new relationship between the NLM and Vivisimo will produce some useful integration of ClusterMed into PubMed's offerings. It's not mentioned in the clip but I'd be surprised if that was not part of the benefit in some way. Stay tuned.

Ambient video awareness and visible conversations « Jon Udell

Two interesting items in this piece... 

Link to Ambient video awareness and visible conversations « Jon Udell

Firstly, Jon talks about Hexagon, a room-based presence awareness system...kinda like MSN on steroids...being able to see what participants are doing and to know how to interact with them. Not for general use, as Jon comments, but an interesting look-see at where some of this stuff may be going.

The second part is about a simple online conferencing system called FlashMeeting. Useful in itself but of more interest are Jon's comments about how we use such systems, the pros/cons of different types of speaker interactions, and how little we know about how we interact with each other in meeting situations.

A Periodic Table of Visualization Methods

While puddling around in the social bookmarking tool sites, I came across this fascinating link... 

Link to A Periodic Table of Visualization Methods

A testament to serendipitous browsing and to how these social sites can bring gems to light for you.

Looking like your standard periodic table, this gives a layout, description and examples of every form of visualisation out there. If you float your mouse over one of the elements, it will actually pop up an example of the method. (Might take a few seconds for this to happen if you are on a slow connection). Have fun.

Social Bookmarking Services

 I have been using del.icio.us for a while now but wondered if there was anything better out there...

Link to Social Bookmarking Services And Tools: The Wisdom Of Crowds That Organizes The Web - Robin Good's Latest News

A brief search brought up a number of very good reviews of these social bookmarking tools. This first one listed above is quite detailed on the strengths of each of the picks - not just a tabular feature list, and so easier to get a feel for what you might like.

What is social bookmarking, you ask? Well, if you haven't been "doing it" then all I can say is that you should. Use Wikipedia to get a short description of what it is about, and the reviews that I mention herein also describe some of the benefits. I have touched on the topic before so for this bit, I thought I would concentrate more on the reviews of what tools are out there.

What should you look for in a good tool? Well, to some extent that depends on your personal preferences for style etc. The great news is that all of these are free so it is easy to try them out.

As well as features, and interface design, one of the most important things that you might want to consider is popularity. This is because of the "social" part of social bookmarking. Now, this can be social as in MySpace and other social networking sites, with an emphasis on relating to people, getting friendly etc. But even if you are not interested in that side of things at all, you will still benefit from the network effects of social bookmarking - using the power of large numbers of sentient beings (well, mostly) to help semantically index the web for you. Again, I have written on this in the past. But it does take a large number of users to make that work well...and so, the more popular sites do have an advantage. del.icio.us is the first of these sites and remains the most popular.

A couple of these tools are more oriented towards researchers and clinicians: CiteUlike and Connotea. Neither of them have the very large numbers of users mentioned above but they both have features which make the management of journal references easier. And they both can import/export to formal reference management tools like EndNote, Biblioscape or Reference Manager.

So, get on there...give these tools a whirl and see which ones you like. For the moment, I'm still going to stick with delicious but Connotea looks tempting. This is still an evolving field with some interesting new features appearing all the time. Digg and StumbleUpon both encourage serendipitous browsing and exploration. Check out the Digg Labs - there is a fascinating wee tool that shows you the evolution of new items in real time as they hit cyberspace's collective consciousness.

Erase permanent marker from your dry erase board

 A useful wee tip...

Link to Erase permanent marker from your dry erase board - Lifehacker

...especially for those of us who have had the unfortunate experience of people writing on those nice SmartBoards! sigh...well, now here is an easy way to rescue them.