I love my President, but I (and tons of other people) are really upset at the absence of libraries in his education budget. The press release from ALA is titled,

“President’s budget freezes library spending, omits school libraries from education increase.”

This is the press release from ALA:

WASHINGTON, D.C. – President Obama today released his FY2011 Budget Proposal to Congress, calling for a freeze to federal library funding under the Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA), the primary source of federal funding for libraries.

Under the President’s plan, LSTA would be level-funded at $214 million.

As Americans deal with the weakened economy, they are using their libraries more than ever before, visiting them over 119 million times each month. American Library Association (ALA) President Camila Alire said freezing federal funding for libraries at this time of increased demand will hinder libraries from serving job-seekers, who are flocking to the library for help with online job searching and applications, resume writing, computer classes and much more.

“During this time of hoped-for economic recovery, public libraries are one of the greatest tools our nation has, and a lack of federal support jeopardizes this critical institution,” Alire said.

“President Obama often speaks about helping America get back to work, and libraries are critical access points to information and resources that are helping job-seekers every day. Unfortunately, countless libraries in our country are suffering from state budget cuts that have resulted in staff loss, reduced hours, or even closures. Many libraries have managed to efficiently use what little resources they have, but they are hanging on by a thread.

Federal funding may be a small percentage of the funding America’s libraries receive, but it is critical. The ALA calls on Congress to support America’s libraries by not only restoring the funding lost to libraries in the President’s budget proposal but by increasing the funding, which is desperately needed.”

The President’s budget also included a $400 billion investment into education but did not include specific funds for school libraries. Alire said the federal government should invest in school libraries to ensure every student graduates from high school with 21st century skills.

“It is alarming that the President did not recognize the value of school libraries in today’s schools and include them in this effort to improve education,” Alire said.

“Research repeatedly shows that a well-funded and fully staffed school library program with a state-licensed school librarian is an integral component of a student’s education.”

Read the press release here, and then write to your Congresspeople that this is NOT OKAY WITH YOU.

(Another installment from my Instructional Technologies class blog, this one a reaction to Neil Postman’s book Amusing Ourselves to Death.)

I do not see plays, because I can nap at home for free. And I don’t see movies ’cause they’re trash, and they got nothin’ but naked people in ‘em! And I don’t read books, ’cause if they’re any good, they’re gonna make ‘em into a miniseries.” — Ouiser Boudreaux (Shirley MacLaine), Steel Magnolias

I have many friends who are part of the “no TV” movement – people who finally pulled the plug on their television. For many, the reasons on giving up TV were purely financial – they could not afford the time or the money to keep cable television in their household. Others were just dissatisfied with the content of television in 2010 – shows of quality losing out to cheap reality television. If Postman were alive today, he would be part of this latter camp, perhaps even angrier, decrying that television – from reality to soap opera to comedy to drama – is evil.

But are we moving from one death knell – television – to another, the Internet? Are we, like cranky Ouiser (quoted above) giving up on intelligent culture because we know it does nothing but lead us down the road of perdition? As City of Glass, I ask the question – how would this book be rewritten in 2010, the digital age? Can you just substitute “television” for “Internet” and get the same result, or is this 25 year old tome meant to be read like City of Glass, a relic of another era?

On one hand, yes. Television in 2010 is still having some effect on our information consumption and interpretation, not as much as it did back in the 1980s and 1990s, but some effect. The conventions Postman details are still there in 2010 broadcasting. (In the spirit of this book, I had my television on as I blogged, hoping to see if I could pick up hints of Postman’s arguments.)

My favorite chapter, and the one I felt had the most relevance to the current entertainment landscape was the discussion on the concept of televangelist programming. All you have to do is substitute “weather” for “televangelist” and you have The Weather Channel in 2010. Here is a network with humble origins in news and information that has turned tabloid. With a snowstorm working its way up to the Northeast and my part of NJ in the thick of it (last I checked, we’re due to get close to 12 inches), the Weather Channel has been on in my household for most of the day. In between weather reports, I see ads for “When Weather Changed History,” “Storm Stories,” “Cantore Stories,” and “It Could Happen Tomorrow.” The “Local on the 8s” forecast is slick with pretty colors and graphics, traffic reports and advertisements! (For comparison: Weather Channel local forecast in 1989 and Weather Channel local forecast in 2010.) I will concede that some of this evolution is from evolution in television production, but advertisements for Orlando RV and traffic reports? The channel whose origins are in news and informations is just too commercial! (For the record, I found the most accurate information on the impending snowstorm on my local news!)

Another extension of the televangelist chapter can be boiled down to a woman many call a saint: Saint Oprah. Tongue in cheek, but very true. It seems anything Oprah touches turns to gold – books, doctors plucked from obscurity (see Dr. Phil and Dr. Oz), DVDs, recipes. And people lap it up, making her Book Club books bestsellers and following her proteges to their own ventures (again, Dr. Phil, Rachael Ray, and Dr. Oz) believing that if Oprah endorses it, it is worthwhile and it will make my life so much more enriching and meaningful. One woman believed this so much she devoted herself to living her life The Oprah Way for one whole year – and wrote a book about it! Celebrity from celebrity!

If there was any one chapter that I felt lacked relevance upon reading it in 2010, it was Chapter 9 and the lengthy discussion on television commercials. Here is where you see the effect of the Internet on television consumption. In the DVR and Hulu era, when commercials can be eliminated with the click of a mouse or a remote, is the television commercial becoming obsolete? Does the commercial have the same power in 2010 as it did 25 years ago when Postman wrote this book? Are advertisers realizing this and moving to other means to promoting products that do not rely on Postman’s traditional commercial conventions (“buy my product and your life will be better, faster, stronger, prettier – more wonderful!”)? Product placement, popular in the early days of television, might be making a return thanks to the DVR, and this might not be so bad. When a major soft drink company (Pepsi) decides not to advertise during the Super Bowl, concentrating instead on social marketing campaigns, is the death of the television commercial underway? Does this mean people might actually show up for the game and not for the commercials? (At least not this year, given the entire Tim Tebow/Focus on the Family fracas.)

Outside of the “is this book relevant in 2010″ questions, there are other thoughts that came to mind.

I was surprised Postman did not bring up the famous Kennedy – Nixon television debate from 1960, the first presidential debate aired on television, and one where the new medium of television played into perceptions of who “won.” Whereas radio listeners who only heard prose concluded that Nixon won the debate, those who watched a tanned and rested Kennedy debate a sickly and tired Nixon believed Kennedy had won – probably not because of content but because of Kennedy’s look. Image was everything in those early days of TV.

On the subject of politicians and their image campaigns, the introductory chapters made the assertion that fat people were “effectively excluded from public office.” I beg to differ! A recent study from the University of Missouri showed that heavier male politicians were considered more reliable and trustworthy. My state’s new governor, Chris Christie, is quite rotund. Even though his weight was the subject of jokes from pundits and his opponents, he still won, quite the feat for a Republican candidate in heavily Democratic New Jersey. Is image still everything?

The inclusion of references to The Day After proved intriguing, and I expected Postman to hold a few more positive opinions on this powerful television movie (so powerful, that after watching it as an adult, I didn’t sleep for three days). It didn’t use the “now…this” convention, particularly in the second half of the movie (no commercial interruptions). The Day After is one of those rare times television had positive effect on world events, influencing emotions and opinions. In a 20 year anniversary retrospective, director Nicholas Meyer recalls receiving a telegram from President Reagan after signing the Intermediate Range Weapons Agreement that read “Don’t think your movie didn’t have any part of this, because it did.” (Reference) There has never been another movie like The Day After and there probably never will be; the made-for-television movie seems to have found exile on cable. It is a shame, for when done right, the power to influence hearts and minds can be endless.

And television shalt not have prerequisites, only being a “complete package in itself?” Or “television shall induce no perplexity?” What would Mr. Postman think of Lost and 24, shows that build on previous episodes and cannot effectively be viewed in a vacuum? (This is why I’m not a fan – I don’t have the time!)

I wonder how my 18 month old niece will grow up in the era of the “anxious age of agitated amnesiacs,” made more so by the use of iTunes, social networking and Google. How are her information seeking, retrieval and interpretation behaviors going to grow and evolve in a time of digital soundbytes? How will this affect our roles as librarians and instructors? If television or the Internet is displacing books and their relevance, how do we teach them?

By the way, I read Amusing Ourselves to Death on a Kindle, and I know I wasn’t the only one opting for the e-book over the print book. I wonder what Mr. Postman would think of that…

Today i had the great chance to meet our friend Fatma Taqi by coincidence in Info connect fair. Fatma was with her sun Hussain who was more then happy for his mother graduation. The master program has effected all of us and family life. All our conversation was about the  attitude of the faculty, a subject that we talk about all of us most of the time. We have high expectations for our faculty and we keep forgetting that they are no more then human and they have different personalities and get effected by regular matters as any other person.

The perfect picture for the faculty is to be fair, just, flexible, knowledgeable, and have more understanding about their image in the eyes of the students. But i guess that will only be in a perfect world.

It was great to meet Fatma today, we almost did not see each other the last semester as we were taking different classes. Good luck Fatma in your quest for taking advantage of your new master degree. May life treat you well.

InfoCamp is an “unconference” for the information community – a self designed, community driven conference format that leaves content and direction up to the participants.    There’s no theme, no call for papers – just show up, pick a time slot, and present away.  It’s a wonderful opportunity for presentation experience without having to go through the formal submission and selection process, and a wonderful way to learn in a relaxed, collegial environment.

InfoCamp started in Seattle in 2007, with a partnership with the ASIST Pacific Northwest Chapter, and the ASIST student chapter at the University of Washington.  The concept is spreading across the world – InfoCamp Berlin was held in 2008, and InfoCamps are being planned for Berkeley, California; Portland, Oregon, and Boise, Idaho.

The movement to start InfoCamp NYC is underway.  With the variety of information professionals and schools in the metropolitan area, the time is right to tap in to this field of expertise.

We will be having an interest/planning meeting this Friday, February 5th at Yuca Bar (111 Avenue A, Lower East Side) from 5:00 – 9:00 PM (may end early due to impending snowstorm).  All who are interested in being a part of planning the first ever InfoCamp NYC are welcome.

Read more about InfoCamp online at http://www.infocamp.info/, or contact Kate Kosturski at librariankate7578 at gmail dot com with questions you may have.

Lily is not favorite flower. Generally I prefer small naturel style fragile-looking flowers with irregular petals and foliage. As you can see, the lily flower has noting to do with the style I described. The only sort of lily I like is the longiflorum which has long, narrow and cream-colored flowers.

However, when I saw these orange lilies with their cute little buttons, I felt very keen to decorate my hall with them. I knew that with the heat at home, the buttons would be open very soon and this can last all the week, maybe even longer. In order to have a denser bouquet, I have chosen white Peruvian lilies and arranged them lower than the lilies.

Usually we pick off pistil of lily because pollen can stain the flowers. Here I have left them because I like their brown color with give a dynamic touch to the bouquet.

What does this photo remind you of ?

One of the perks of the LIS field is opportunities to play with tech toys and gadgets and write it off as work (or school, since I’m still in school).  In this post I will review three of my recent and interesting tech discoveries – the QR Code and two social networking sites, Foursquare and Ning.

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Joe Murphy, a science librarian at Yale and premier researcher into mobile technologies and library applications of same, introduced me to the QR Code when he shared his own.  The QR Code, or Quick Response code (Wikipedia entry), is a two-dimensional bar code created back in 1994 by Denso Wave.  The code can be read by mobile phone cameras, possibly with a third-party application.

With the help of an iPhone app called Quick Mark (if you want to do it online, the ZXSing project has a great web app), I was able to generate a QR Code based on vCard information in my address book:

Hold your smartphone up to the code (iPhone users can use Quick Mark, Pre users can try BeeTag, other smartphones should have similar apps; kindly comment with suggestions), and once the camera reads it, you should see  my contact info in a format that can be imported to your phone in a quicker and easier way than straight typing (and hopefully with less error)!

This can come in handy at conferences or other professional events if you run out of business cards, or can be part of your business card (Joe told us he has his QR code on his business card and stickers with same for name badges).  No worries about lost business cards or forgotten names; the information is right at your fingertips.  Libraries can also use the code for quick and easy transfer of library contact information or other news or information; the Half Hollow Hills library in Dix Hills, New York includes a QR code at the end of their newsletter (PDF) (though when scanned it really did not seem to produce anything of substance).

There are limitations.  Many QR code generators, while flexible in output format (plain text, vCard, etc.) have simple and limited data fields.  Several in the discussion wanted to have multiple URL fields for our blogs, Twitter pages, Facebook pages, etc. but no one could find a generator with this flexibility.  Attempts at using vCard information that can be customized for multiple fields, or using straight text did not work either. (In fact, the straight text did not format well to the vCard style, difficult as this is a popular address file format.) Those with any sort of tremor or unsteady hands might not be able to properly aim the camera at the code, thus not capturing the information or capturing incorrect information.   And why have the QR code when you can just Bump your smartphone and transfer a wide variety of info (contact, friends list, photos, etc.)?

The rise of the affordable, easy to use smartphone might lead to a rise in the QR technology.  With adaptations to increase flexibility, and less sensitive readers that account for shaky hands, the QR code possibilities are endless.

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After seeing several Twitter friends posting “I’m at (insert location here) followed by a 4sq.com website, I became intrigued with the world of Foursquare, a location based social networking site (Wikipedia entry, New York Times article).  Users “check in” with their mobile phone (either through text or the Foursquare app) to update their location to their Foursquare friends (further customization allows for posts on Facebook and Twitter). It’s also a game – users obtain points and awards for visiting different locations repeatedly (you can become “mayor” of your office or local deli!).  The site appears to have taken off late last year after the location model allowed you to check in anywhere, not just 100 specific metro areas.

What benefits can libraries and other businesses have with Foursquare? One word: marketing.  With the tips feature, you can add information about promotions, deals, etc. at your library or business right  from the website or smartphone app that will appear when users check-in.

But this check-in process that might prove the downfall of Foursquare.  Since I would check in from New Jersey, I was consistently adding locations, requiring me to go back and forth between Safari and Foursquare (very cumbersome).  After a while, it became a pain in the butt to even check in on Foursquare.  It would have been easier if you could check in via the web (a la Brightkite) but it’s not all that simple (s you can only add a place via the website if you search it to add a tip first.  Roundabout and cumbersome.)  The app was slow to load on my iPhone, especially during check-in.

My mom aptly pointed out that this also raises a privacy issue – do I really want the world to know where I am at all times? (This is proof that sometimes, your mom is right.  No, she did not pay me to say that.)

The Foursquare experiment was fun, but like my earlier foray into Brightkite, it wasn’t lasting.  The app is already off my iPhone; I won’t be updating anymore.  It will be a while before this kind of social networking catches on, if at all.  I can see a useful application of it at conferences (trying to find your friends or colleagues) but again, it requires user input, not insta-GPS location services. And are people going to have the patience?  Perhaps so, but more likely than not.  If the latter is phased in to either or both of these apps to make the user experience easier (note that this would also have to include privacy settings for those moments when you just feel like hiding), then location based social networking can open literal and figurative doors, and offer one more marketing and publicity tool for libraries.

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My instructional Technologies class this semester is hosting a collaborative space on Ning, an online social networking site that allows users to create their own social networks around an interest, group, or cause. (Wikipedia entry).  The interface is much like a hybrid of Facebook and MySpace – you can customize your page in your Ning network (like Myspace) and add blogs, create and join groups,  post links and videos, and have a profile (like Facebook).  Although Ning has been around since 2004, I only heard of it in 2007, when I tried joining a young librarians Ning and then lost interest.

This is an incomplete review – I expect to review and revisit this throughout the semester as our class works within the space.  Still, there’s some initial impressions based on my two weeks of being a part of my class Ning I wanted to share.

The library application of Ning? Like Foursquare, it’s all about the marketing, offering users in the Ning inside information on library products and services.

I like the idea of the social network centered around a group or cause.  Binghamton University librarian (and fellow Garden State native) Ed Corrado touches on a problem many bloggers (including this one) have – finding direction in a blog that covers multiple interests.  The Ning model offers selective publishing. If want to talk LIS, I can blog about it in my Library 2.0 or Geek Girl Nings.   If I want to talk crafting, I can do so in my American Craft Guide Nings, and no one is bored with sharing of dissimilar interests.  Of course, this requires effort, and sometimes it’s easier for me to just make one blog post and leave the desire to read up to the readers (all four of you .

It also became a pain in the but having to log in each time I found a Ning I wanted to join.  Where’s the universal login?

While on the subject of blogging, I did have to post a blog on our class Ning as part of an assignment.  The interface is similar to WordPress – you can hyperlink, make text bold, etc.  It was fun to actually see the HTML tags instead of visual text (like here on WordPress), which I thought would make it easier to copy and paste into WordPress.  It didn’t.  Something with the Ning and WordPress interfaces did not want to play nice with each other – even after copying and pasting my Ning blog text into my text editor, converting to pure plain text, and then re-copying and pasting into WordPress, I still had issues and had to finagle with the text to make it look the way I wanted to.

I like that you can post to Twitter from Ning, but the reverse is not true.  I wish such a feature was offered.  Universal status updates would also be useful, but this feature was discontinued in November 2009.

The largest drawback by far of Ning is the search feature: There isn’t one.  The basic search feature for Ning was disabled in November 2009 for reasons unknown.  If you want to search for a Ning, you’re given eight basic categories (music, sports, causes, networking, education, art, politics, entertainment) to start.  Click on one of the categories and you see eight networks related to that interests. It’s a good start, but limiting.  I was able to find a few class-related Nings in the education category, but when I wanted more, I was given the same Nings over and over.  Eventually I gave up and went to Google, which proved much more successful.

The rise of Facebook pages might prove the death of the Ning networks – similar application (social network around an interest or cause), selective membership (at least on the users’ end; choice of whether or not to join), interactivity (posting of messages, comments, links, etc.) but easier to find, access, join and use information.

There’s a reason that Ning hasn’t taken off as much as it should – its interface for membership is limiting – difficult search and join capabilities.  Once “behind the velvet rope,” the resources on first blush look easy to grasp and useful.  But you have to get behind that rope first and the service is not making it all that easy to the casual user.  I like the idea of membership control – brings people together with similar interests and keeps the riffraff away (helped when Ning removed networks with adult content in January 2009).  But Ning’s attempts at restriction to improve quality may be going too far…and driving users away.  It’s counter to the mission of a social network. If Ning wants to take off, a la Ravelry, there is a need to give up some control.

You cannot change the world,
But you can present the world with one improved person – Yourself.
You can go to work on yourself to make yourself
Into the kind of person you admire and respect.
You can become a role model and set a standard for others.
You can control and discipline yourself to resist acting
Or speaking in a negative way
Toward anyone for any reason.
You can insist upon always doing things the loving way,
Rather than the hurtful way.
By doing these things each day,
You can continue on your journey
Toward becoming an exceptional human being.

We all know Al Dewaniya talk show on Marina Fm. I over heard this conversation a month a go but that was the time of my enjoyment in doing assignments, presentations, exams, and other stuff required by the master program. So there was no time at all to search for the specific episode and post it here. But, as humanity moves along and things pass and much free time is found, it came to my mind this conversation that your going to listen to in the file attached.

To give it to you short, there was a complain about Yarmook Public Library, some say that the library is closing doors and following standard procedures. the library director is an LIS Master degree holder. Listen to her replay and im sure you will wish to be a public library director on day, or not!

(The following was written for my Instructional Technologies class this semester, based on a pre-semester reading of two texts – Paul Auster’s City of Glass and Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics.  The thoughts here seemed applicable to the primary mission and scope of this blog of late – discussion of communication and technology – so I repost here.)

“The medium is the message.” — Marshall McLuhan

“A typewriter is a means of transcribing thought, not expressing it.” — Marshall McLuhan

I found these two conflicting thoughts from McLuhan when writing a paper for another class, and yet find them just as relevant to City of Glass and Understanding Comics as they were for my original assignment. They bring forth questions about our forms of communication in 2010, how relevant these works written over 20 years ago would be today, and how much weight we should give to the medium in our messages.

(Disclaimer: My reflections on City of Glass are limited to the print version as I have not had a chance to obtain the graphic novel adaptation yet.)

Although it was hard to follow, I did enjoy City of Glass. It wasn’t your typical Nancy Drew-Scooby Doo mystery. There was no neat resolution of the mystery, no “pulling the mask off of the bad guy to reveal his true identity,” though we did get some clue as to what happened to Stillman the Elder. Our protagonist is far from a shining hero with the ideal lifestyle; he’s conflicted, lonely and even a touch angry. I enjoyed watching Stillman the Elder and Stillman the Younger manipulate and work with language, each recognizing in their own way that words are just words and meaning is subjective.

One question that I ask myself after reading this novel is: How would the story change, if at all, in 2010? Of course, one wonders if our protagonist would have been able to hide as long as he did without discovery in our post-9/11 world, but I limit this question’s scope to technology. Would Quinn/Auster still record his notes in a little notebook or would he be typing them out in Evernote on his iPhone? And would that record of his work be found next to his nearly dead self and able to be read or preserved – or would the battery have run out, losing his stream of consciousness to the ages? What would have happened in Mrs. Stillman decided to PayPal Quinn/Auster’s payment rather than a check – would there have still been that dramatic denouement resulting from the check bouncing that contributed to Quinn/Auster’s madness? Would Quinn/Auster have been able to discover that Stillman the Elder’s path spelled out the word “Babel” if he had been following him on his iPhone map, rather than sketching it out in that notebook? Herein lies McLuhan’s two conflicting thoughts – does the medium have an effect on the message or is it just a means of transcription?

Understanding Comics was a friendlier read; McCloud got the point across that comics are in fact an art. The mainstream art world agrees; in 2006 the Newark Museum featured Masters of American Comics, an exhibition that illustrated how “use of humor as a strategy for addressing complex social and political issues combined with sophisticated visual compositions propel these works beyond the realm of popular entertainment, placing them on equal footing with the achievements of other fine artists.” (http://www.newarkmuseum.org/museum_pages.aspx?id=5578). After reading this, I realized why I love my two favorite comics, Peanuts and For Better or For Worse. Both find the balance between words and pictures – simple artwork gives way to compelling thought – sometimes in childlike wonder (Peanuts) or growth in real time and relevance to social issues (For Better or For Worse). One medium realizes that in order to be effective, promote resonance, and provide closure, they must give way to the other.

I liked McCloud’s use of comics from all over the world; some art criticisms (John Berger’s Ways of Seeing for example), are quite pro-Western art. Yet at times he went a little overboard with this, more diversity in examples of “good” comics would have been useful, especially for readers like me who are not familiar with Japanse animation, short of what enters mainstream American culture.

I wonder what McCloud would think of webcomics, like xkcd or pictures for sad children. Some traditional comic conventions are there (simple graphics, scene to scene transitions), yet the seemingly limitless medium of a webpage allow experimentation with layout (the pictures for sad children comic, posted today, 1/29/2010, is a great example of this). And the ease of opening up your browser tab to look up unfamiliar references can take away from the beauty of being “maddeningly vague” to open up imagination; there is potential to receive immediate closure but not from your own point of view. Again, is the medium changing the message or just transcribing it?

If McLuhan were alive today, would he be able to justify his two conflicting thoughts, or would he be asking the questions I pose here? I’m not sure there are easy answers, and I think we’ll keep asking over and over as our means of communication change. I do hope that as librarians and bibliographic instructors, we’ll be able to find some answers, some closure, so that we can pass on a morsel of knowledge to a populace hungry for answers.

Now let’s continue some of the concepts of IC in our second part of this subject..

Elements of Intellectual capital

Many practitioners suggest that Intellectual capital consists of three elements.

􀂃 Human capital, which includes experience, the know-how, capabilities, skills, and

expertise of the human members of the organization.

􀂃 Structural capital (or organizational capital), which includes the systems, networks, policies, culture, distribution channels, and other “organizational capabilities” developed to meet market requirements as well as

Intellectual property

􀂃 Relational (customer) capital, which includes the connections that people outside the organization have with it, their loyalty, the market share, the level of back orders, and similar issues.

Intellectual capital can be thought of as ‘the stored knowledge possessed by an organization’. This knowledge may be tacit (personal knowledge possessed by an employee that may be difficult to express or communicate to others), in other cases it may be explicit knowledge, which is codified and stored by the organization and available to all employees. Most KM projects focus on collecting, storing and making this knowledge available. KM projects can involve a wide range of software tools and products, ranging from simple collaborative software to intranets, extranets, portals and sophisticated databases. 

Leif Edvinsson is a leading expert on Intellectual Capital (IC). He was the world’s first corporate director of Intellectual Capital at Skandia in Stockholm, Sweden. He has been a key contributor to the theory of IC and oversaw the creation of the world´s first corporate Intellectual Capital Annual Report.

See you hopefully in the last part of IC and KM next week InshallaH.

References:

http://www.ejkm.com/volume-5/v5-i2/Kok.pdf

http://www.itgovernance.co.uk/km.aspx

http://innovationwell.net/html/bios/leifbio.htm

Engadget prepared a live coverage for Apple’s event on the 27th of Jan, which they may represent the new Apple tablet (aka iSlate) and other new thing along like the new iPhone OS 4.0 and 8GB iPhone 3Gs.

The event will start on Wednesday 27th of January – 9pm (Kuwait Time) – 6pm (London Time). Most of the Apple fan are waiting for Apple’s 1st event this year. Apple experts says that this event which will be on the 27th of Jan, is going to be the iSalte D-Day. Others says its the event which apple will announce the new apple tablet device plus the new iPhone OS 4.0 .

Here is the link to Engadget live coverage (click here) or iPhone users download Engadget App from App Store or iTunes (click here).

Link: Engadget

Copyright Photo: João Pessoa/Flyingphotos. Ex-Singapore Airlines Boeing 777-212 ER now registered CS-TFM (msn 28513) poses for the camera in the new brand at a rainy Lisbon. The new type will be operated for Bangladesh Airlines by euroAtlantic Airways.

Bangladesh Airlines (Dhaka) has introduced a new color scheme which eliminates the traditional Biman name. This Boeing 777-212 ER is the first Triple Seven for the company. A Boeing 737-800 and Airbus A310-300 has also been painted in the new livery.

Please click on the AG icon for a direct link to the Biman Bangladesh Airlines photo gallery.

After Naseema and Haya, here comes the optimistic part. A third assignment from our dear friend Yaser. If you dont know who is Yaser; he is a 4.0 MLIS student that i have the honor to meet in 503 class in 2008. He is one of the smartest students and the best in the field. Respectful and helpful. Lets read and see what he thinks after graduation:

Dear Mr. Al-Bahrani,

I made a “choice” to enter the program. Please make sure you understand the word “choice”. When the Great God created life, he gave man a “choice” to be what man wants to be and to select the path that man desire.

I am happy that I entered the program and I will never regret being in the program.

There is a different between developed and underdeveloped countries in the concept of library and its employees. I am against the negative social image of a librarian- thanks to the program. I do not mind working as a librarian because it is not an easy job and requires lots of knowledge. I believe that the negative image comes from the library employees having other degrees and working in a library thinking it is an easy job and not meeting users’ expectations. Please, ask the employees in any library and see how many of them have a bachelor or master degree in LIS. Also, ask your friends who have LIS master degree if they want to work in a library or if they were not ashamed of working in a library. The problem is the mentality of some people not the major or the word LIBRARY.

I do not wait to get what I wish for but I try to seek what I wish for.

I wanted to be a researcher and that is what I am doing in my life; a research paper after another. I even have lots of research ideas that I could not keep up with them. I always contact my former colleagues to see a possible chance of doing co-operative researches. Even though my attempts have failed so far, I will never stop asking them.

I apply what I learned in school and I added to it my thoughts and own way of doing things.

I kept my same old job and did not change it because it does not and will not affect my goal of being a researcher. I try to combine my undergraduate and postgraduate majors in my research papers.

I taught in PAAET for 3 semesters and I gained the respect from all my students because of the way I treat them, my different style of teaching, and most of all I understand them. Always in my first lecture I speak their minds.

The most common mistake in my opinion is “هكذا كان آباؤنا يفعلون”.
You, I, and many other students did not like the way we treated and taught while being in school, in some cases and situations. However, many of us do the same things and treat and teach others based on the “negative experiences”, if the expression is right.

I consider all my experiences during studying to be great and positive. I learned a lot from my experiences and I still have a lot to learn in life.

Dear Mohammed, I see in you a serious person, honest to his country, and a hard working citizen. These attributes will allow me freely and enthusiastically leave you with these advices:

It is Ok to disagree with people but you must respect all people.

It is OK to Loss positions and jobs but you should never think of losing people or yourself.

The right talk is easy to be said but the right action is hard to implement.
“Walk the talk”- again this statement is easier to be said than to be implemented.

Always do not hesitate to help others.

Manuals teach you how to do things. You should try to understand the manual book of life, “The Holy Quran”. The holy book has everything you need to adjust and live your life successfully.

You are living in a society that talks about democracy but are not democratic so break the bonds and be free. God gave you a “choice” so do not let people take it from you.

تذكر دائما أن هنالك قوى فساد تحاول أن تجعلك تحيد عن مسارك و إلا سوف تسعى جاهدة لتحطيمك- خاصة إذا كنت حولها باستمرار- حتى تثبت لنفسها و للمنغرين بها أنها على حق.

I agree totally with Yaser. All my friends know that i always say: help as much as you can. Im not trying to be perfect guy here, but im not going to loose any thing if helped others, then why not. You will gain respect and love even if the other side thinks that he is taking advantage of me and im so stupid to know it. I dont care as long as im happy and satisfied.

Good work Yaser, you speak from all our heart.

Names of graduating (Graduated) students this semester fall 2009/2010 ordered alphabetically:

Asmaa AL-Awadhi

Sakeena AL-Alawi

Fadhel Hussain

Fatma Taqi

Saleh Ebrahim

Wadha AL Ajmi

you have became a Master degree holder in Library and Information Science. You have became an Information Specialist. The next step is to be a PhD holder.

If you any other students who are graduating this semester please inform mo so they will be added here.

Congratulations

Yesterday I attended the launch of data.gov.uk, held in the impressive headquarters of The Guardian who are certainly doing more than a bit in the field of open data.  It was opened by Stephen Timms, MP and Minister for Digital Britain and inspirational words were spoken by Sir Tim Berners-Lee and Professor Nigel Shadbolt about the importance of it all and how much had been achieved and how much remained to do (that’s the important bit so stay reading).

It was pretty much exactly as I thought it might be.  At least 80% male, a higher proportion of beards and long hair than you’d expect to see at the usual kind of government confab. (See Paul Clarke’s excellent photo set)  There was a big assumption that the audience would understand some fairly specific technical jargon and the importance of publishing data in very specific formats.  And for the most part, people did all understand that at least to some level (like me) or quite deeply (just about everyone else).

But there was one thing that was a touch unexpected – and that was the lack of local government representation in the room.   Why should that matter, you say, if this all about a project releasing central government data?  Well, because they’re coming for us next.  Professor Nigel Shadbolt is leading a panel of the great and the good in data in local government and it’s all about releasing that data.

As I wrote yesterday, this is not entirely unexpected.  Local data is what matters to local people, and let’s face it we’re all local people.  If open data is to turn into some really useful applications and that are really used, addressing the real problems of real people then local data is all where it’s at.

But I was a little surprised by the brazenness of the “we’re going after the local government data”.  Maybe I shouldn’t have been.   Professor Nigel Shadbolt was quite explicit about it in his Radio 4 interview.

Chris Taggart of Openly Local, a motion blurred Sir Tim Berners-Lee, Prof Shadbolt and Richard Allan of Facebook

The final panel made oblique and direct references to local government, including some of the data that the IDeA has involvement with – such as the data and reference sets held by the ESD Toolkit and all the addressing data which is administered through the National Land and Property Gazetteer by the Local Government Information House.

Tim Berners-Lee predicted that for any given [non-personal] data set, there’s a 50% chance it would be online as open data by this time next year.   This is a guy with a lot of vision – so there 90% chance he’s right.

So for local government this means that we’re facing some clear choices.  We can command this agenda (and thankfully we’re well represented on the local data panel) or we can let it happen to us.

Fortunately, there are some good reasons for opening up.  There are efficiency gains – we can rationalise data middle-men and re-interpreters and stop paying for having data thrown back at us (except where it adds real value).  We can eliminate much of the cost of FOI requests – we’ll just be able to point people to the URL.  And we can get a much better picture of what local performance looks like, better than OnePlace, so we can use this data to better address the really tough issues in the LAA set.  And if the data is used for really useful things, there will be all kinds of improvement and efficiency around helping people to manage their own neighbourhoods and care and access to services without expensive contacts and interventions. And that’s before we even look at issues of transparency and accountability.

But there are some truly big barriers to be overcome as well.  First off, we’re local government.  There are a lot of us.  We have our own politicians and we have our own local priorities.  We have legacy systems and outsourced services covering everything from bins to potholes to equipment for the disabled.  We have a culture of concern – a fear of being done to and being raked over the coals for a bit of bad data or good data that reflects poor performance. And we have mandates for publishing data in not very handy formats – like pdf – which seemed like a good idea at the time.

That isn’t to say those barriers can’t be overcome or there aren’t some people already working tirelessly in local government to achieve consistent data standards to share data (like all those unsung Local Information Systems and data obversatory heroes).

So, we’re living in those proverbial ‘interesting times’, but it’s not a curse.  It’s a challenge and an exciting and rewarding one at that.

There is a strong relation between Intellectual Capital (IC) and Knowledge Management (KM). First let’s get a definition of IC.

Intellectual capital A complex concept that includes human knowledge, information systems, brand names, and reputation. One popular definition is given by the equation: intellectual capital = human capital + structural capital + relationship capital
Here human capital includes knowledge, competences, and the experience and expertise of staff, structural capital includes information systems and databases, and relationship (or customer) capital includes customer relationships, brands, and trademarks.

In accounting, intellectual capital is often treated as being synonymous with intangible assets and valued in the same way, that is, by calculating the difference between the market value of a company and its book value. Measuring the intellectual capital is important if one is buying or selling a company or comparing the performance of one company with another. In some companies the book value is only a small percentage of the market value. For example, in 2002 Microsoft had a market capitalization of $250 billion with tangible assets valued at less than $70 billion. The intellectual capital of Microsoft was therefore valued at over $180 billion. Clearly, the balance sheet for Microsoft is not reporting the all-important intellectual capital of the company, which includes technology, patents, brands, and human knowledge.

“intellectual capital.” A Dictionary of Business and Management. Oxford University Press. 2006. Retrieved January 21, 2010 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O18-intellectualcapital.html

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