"The Federal Commission has listed seven big bumps in the road towards universal use of broadband in the United States, including the TV set-top box innovation gap and the spectrum gap. The document may be a sneak preview of the agency's National Broadband Plan, to be released in February."

1. The Universal Service Fund.

2. The broadband adoption gap.

3. The consumer information gap.

4. The spectrum gap.

5. The deployment gap.

6. The television set-top box innovation gap.

7. The personal data gap.

Read the whole article.

Stephen

Three Quarters of Adults are Reading Newspapers, in Print or Online (PDF; 144 KB)

"Three-quarters (74%) of U.S. adults, or nearly 171 million people, read a newspaper — in print or online — during the past week. This is according to the latest Integrated Newspaper Audience (INA)* finding from Scarborough Research, the audience ratings measurement service for the newspaper industry. The company examined newspaper readership in its recently released Scarborough USA+ Study, which captures media patterns and other consumer behaviors of adults across the country. The data analysis indicates that newspapers are still read in print or online by a critical mass of adults in the U.S. on a daily and weekly basis.
…
The analysis of Scarborough audience data not only indicated that newspapers are being read by a majority of adults in print and online, but also that these Integrated Newspaper Audiences continue to attract educated, affluent readers. In an average week:

» 79% of adults employed in white collar positions read a newspaper in print or online
» 82% of adults with household incomes of $100,000 or more read a printed newspaper in print or online
» 84% of adults who are college graduates or who have advanced degrees read a printed newspaper in print or online

Source: Scarborough Research (via Nielsen)" (Via Gary Price and ResourceShelf)

BTW I'm pretty sure that if you ahve an advanced degree or make over $100K you're in the older part of the sample. Many a retailer regretted staying with their core customers as they aged. Their market shrank over time relentlessly.

Stephen

The Kindle has finally come to Canada (but it's not as good as the American version).

Kindle Canada is available

"Canada gets all of the following -

1.Free access to the Kindle Store via 3G wireless.
2.300,000 English language books.
3.$11.99 prices.
4.100,000 books under $5.99.
5.Newspapers and Magazines are also available

What does Canada not get?

1.No free Internet.
2.$2 extra for books due to wireless delivery charge.
3.No wireless delivery of personal documents.
4.No Kindle Blogs.
5.Prices in Canadian Dollars. Everything will be charged in US dollars"

Read the rest of the view after the link.

Stephen

"The list (not in any particular order).

Globalization unravelling
Re-sourcing (industrial repatriation)
Expecting less
Conspicuous non-consumption
Unsupervised adults (UK only)
Constant partial stupidity
Digital isolation
Flight to the physical
Hunger for shared experiences
Fear fatigue (Max Kaeh’s idea)"

Read the bunch here.

Also, you must see his New Trends Map for 2010 based on the classic London Underground map. Awesome.

Stephen

Quoting a Pew study, and yes, maybe I am a little defensive. "In 2006, a popular study by experts at Duke University and the University of Arizona concluded new technologies have been making loners of us since 1985. Earlier this month, this theory was challenged and perhaps debunked. New technologies actually increase our social interactions, not our isolation, the Pew Internet and American Life Project found."

10. There’s been no significant jump in the number of truly isolated Americans.
9. Web users are more likely to seek counsel outside their own family.
8. Many 18-22-year-olds use social networking to keep in contact with nearly all of their key contacts.
7. Internet users like clubs.
6. Technology users have more “core” friends in their discussion networks.
5. Web users leave their rooms.
4. Cell phone and web users make better neighbors.
3. Technology users seek conversation outside their marriage.
2. Sharing those family vacation photos online might make you more politically open minded.
1. Bloggers have more racially diverse friends.

Anyway, it makes sense that when it is easier to stay in touch . . . you do.

Stephen

Some states are better off than others. This report shows where some of the bad spots are.

Stephen

I got to keynote the staff day at the Mississauga Library System (which is right beside Toronto).

Here is a copy of the presentation:

Innovation and Libraries
What is at the Heart of Libraries?

They gave me a cool 2010 lighthouse calendar too!

Stephen

Two recent postings are helpful:

What DO Teens Want? (from The Sassy Librarian)

What Do Teens Want? By Carol Fitzgerald -- Publishers Weekly, 10/26/2009

The charts alone are wirth the link.

Stephen

Here is a copy of the slides:

Innovation for A Better Future
It’s 2010: Get Ready

This is a very cool library with an amazing staff and leadership.

Stephen

News for paranoiacs

"“In Utah, the National Security Agency is building a $2-billion [U.S.] storage facility that will house and analyze all forms of electronic communication … a potential yottabyte of everyone's (formerly) personal data,” Gizmodo.com reports. “So how big is a yottabyte? CrunchGear puts it well: ‘There are a thousand gigabytes in a terabyte, a thousand terabytes in a petabyte, a thousand petabytes in an exabyte, a thousand exabytes in a zettabyte, and a thousand zettabytes in a yottabyte.' … To be fair, the yottabyte figure is just one estimate generated by a Pentagon think tank. The facility could hold a mere hundreds of petabytes. But either way, the prospect is as unsustainable as it is frightening. This one facility will burn through as much electricity as the entirety of Salt Lake City. All this data comes from the book The Secret Sentry: The Untold History of the National Security Agency by Matthew M. Aid.”"

Hmmmm. With our head office in Utah maybe we can get this into the OPAC!

Just kiddin'

Stephen

Lbrary Research Service has provided this:

Peer-Based Return on Investment Calculator

(for public libraries)

Try it out!

And don't forget the November 17th open and free SirsiDynix Institute on ROI with Ulla de Stricker:

We can count 'em...but do they count? Challenges in assessing ROI from information services

Register Today.

Stephen

Most College Students To Take Classes Online by 2014

1. "Nearly 12 million post-secondary students in the United States take some or all of their classes online right now."
2. "This number will skyrocket to more than 22 million in the next five years, according to data released recently by research firm Ambient Insight."
3. "Some 1.25 million students in higher education programs take all of their classes online, while another 10.65 take some of their classes online. The two groups are still outnumbered by students who take all of their courses in physical classrooms, which Ambient Insight reckoned at 15.14 million as of 2009."
4. "This situation will change drastically by 2014, at which time, Adkins forecast, only 5.14 million students will take all of their courses in a physical classroom, while 3.55 million will take all of their classes online, and 18.65 million will take some of their classes online."

Despite the recession, online learning is still growing. This research implies that the context for libraries in academic and college settings will transform very rapidly in the next five years, which isn't a very big window.

Stephen

You see, libraries saved my life. I was the nerdy, small (tiny actually - always the smallest boy in the class) kid who read. I didn't play sports at all. My social skills were a little off (and probably still are). That meant that playground bullying and beatings were the norm. That's part of the reason why I ended up in the school library. I was able to volunteer from grade 5 on with Mrs. Channen and that meant every day before and after school and at lunch. I never had a tan! I also learned to love and feel comfortable in libraries from an early age. I knew that the library was the place to go since I had been using the local public library at our old house regularly and felt safe there too. When my family moved I discovered that the library was the only anchor I trusted as a consistently safe place to read and learn. My bike ride to the far off public library branch was a godsend.

In high school I joined the Library Club and finally grew a lot in grade 9/10 (almost a foot in height over 10 months). I was lucky because my high school library was building a new library wing on stilts over the front door which was to open in grade 10 and it would be staffed by 4 school librarians and two secretaries supporting a school with three tracks (tech, general, academic) and almost 3,500 students. You can imagine that this was a very busy library where automation didn't exist beyond the Selectric. I'll never forget the day we moved all the books using a single chain of students who passed the books from one wing to another and up the stairs and still maintained the order perfectly. A huge library was moved lickety-split. My community also built a huge regional branch of the public library across the street and I spent many evenings there too.

How did we meet again? Well, recently I was at a party given by a friend (and great librarian) to celebrate his first ten years in Canada. It was a lot of fun and I met someone there with whom I had a conversation. He was 80 years old and had gotten his library degree in the same year of graduation as me, 1980. What a coincidence, I said, we're both coming up on our 30th anniversaries. I asked him what did you do before that? He had been a professional choreographer. I asked him if I might have seen any of his productions. He mentioned a few and then mentioned that he had done some high school choreography work too. I finally recognized him as Cliff, the choreographer who had done all of our amazing high school extravaganzas (Finian's Rainbow, King & I, Music Man...). What a small world! I knew that he had been good friends with my favourite school librarians so I asked after them, since I had been unsuccessful at ever finding them. He was still good friends with them and I gave him my card. I heard from Ms Baird, now Campbell, by e-mail the next day. We reconnected and decided to meet for dinner. (My brain was going OMG, OMG OMG. I am a little excitable - little ADHD Stephen still comes out to play occasionally.)

So, on Monday Ms (Baird) Campbell drove down to my neighbourhood and I learned that it was where she grew up. Ms Carter came in from out of town and came with Ms Campbell. My wife was there too (we met in the same high school and she performed in the school band for the musicals. If you watch closely in Saturday Night Live re-runs you can see our school bandleader's name on the wall at SNL.)

I recognized them right away. They looked the same! They quickly became Nora and Judy.
The time flew. We shared stories. I learned about their lives. We gossiped about other personalities in the school. Nora headed another Toronto high school library for 28 years and her two boys are very well educated. She still works part time in a school library. Judy has retired to her home town. I can't believe that they were both only in their early twenties when they made such a difference in my life as an awkward teen. They were always there to talk and advise - on homework, life, whatever.

So, if there are any school or public librarians out there working with kids and teens. Just remember that people remember you and what you do - even when they're 55 and old like me. This was a really big reconnection for me and I've been absorbing it all week. Somehow it was easier to find Little Stephen in myself this time and recognize that he made it through. Sometimes Big Stephen needs to remember that the bullying made him stronger and that he chose librarianship because he saw the difference librarians and libraries make in people's lives - especially his own. There will always be bullies in life and I learned to avoid them at a young age and, when they show up, not to let them deflect you from your path. Some people build up and develop and some people tear people down. I've been involved in almost every sector of librarianship in some way and the best librarians are those who build, lift people up, and encourage the heart. There is a huge gulf between critical thinking and criticism. I love what we do and how librarians can practice everywhere and what a huge difference we make to society when we choose to.

My school librarians did that for me and started me on the path.

Thank you:

Nora (Baird) Campbell
Judy Carter
Marilyn Moore
Margaret Tucker
Mrs. Channen
and hundreds of public and academic librarians too.

It takes a village to raise Stephen.

Stephen

From CIO.com

Smartphone Etiquette: Five Unspoken Rules for the Holidays

Rule 1: If you must text, head to the bathroom
Rule 2: Thou must not use the iPhone during religious events
Rule 3: Three's a crowd on a date
Rule 4: Holiday parties are a time for socializing, not social networking
Rule 5: Turn off your iPhone before it becomes a turn-off

The article has some tongue in cheeky comments.

Stephen

Building Searcher Personas For Greater Customer Engagement and Acquisition by Vanessa Fox

It's from O'Reilly Radar and has a business flavour, but anyone can make the leap to the public sector.

Stephen