Browsing Isn't Surfing

Think Before You Post

2011-07-01T09:18:00.000-07:00

The Permanence of Posting Online is a sobering article worth a read from long-experienced technology observer and writer John C. Dvorak. Yes, he's a self-admitted curmudgeon (and I guess my cross-posting this makes me one, too), but he's a smart guy and--especially for party-loving young people who are (or will be) looking for jobs--his point is worth considering.

Sure, you can limit who can see your Facebook pages and photos to just your Friends, but what if a prospective employer (the person in HR in charge of screening applications) makes Friending him/her a requirement before he/she will even consider your application? If I were an employer I certainly would.

Tablets strong contender for etextbooks platform

2011-06-08T19:12:00.000-07:00

The iPad really kicked the tablet (as opposed to "tablet laptop") into the mainstream as a highly portable, eminently usable, and very capable device for "consuming media"--including text. With its decent screen size, good color and resolution, and ability to easily handle ebook-embedded sound and video, the modern tablet has finally brought us that thin slate we saw everyone using on the Starship Enterprise instead of books, paper pads, pamphlets, clipboards, etc. So it's no wonder it's getting a lot of attention as a major contender for the ideal platform for etextbooks.

I'm not the only one who thinks so. Take a look at 6 Reasons Tablets Are Ready for the Classroom on Mashable. And thanks to Tom Kaun who revealed it to me.

John C. Dvorak on ebooks

2011-04-26T10:47:00.000-07:00

In his 4/21/11 post "The End of the Printed Book?" Dvorak seems to agree with me: ("I don't like the idea that the printed book might be killed off by a combination of the Kindle and the iPad, but I think, on a short-term basis, we may see what looks like a trend in this direction.")

But he also points out a couple caveats about the move from printed to digital books: 1) We really don't know whether or how we perceive and retain information differently between the two formats, and 2) ebooks don't have any "collectors' value" as printed books do.

Re. the latter, I don't for a moment believe all print books are going to disappear, or even that publishing of new ones will cease altogether. There will always be (well, "always" is a very long time) people who collect printed books and thus have a personal print library, and I suspect that even after it is no longer profitable for publishers to publish new books in print, print-on-demand will be in place to allow those few who wish and can afford to purchase them in print to be able to.

Finally: library ebooks on your mobile device

2011-04-25T10:31:00.000-07:00

I love to read but I can't afford to buy books at anything like the rate I read them. I also live in a pretty small flat and simply don't have room for a growing personal library. These are just two of the reasons I love public lending libraries. However, now that I have a good mobile ebook reader (an iPod touch, perhaps someday an iPad or its equivalent), I'm becoming hooked on 1) the convenience of downloading books directly to my device (no trips to the library to check out/in), and 2) the convenience of being able to take my book with me whenever I'm "out" in such a small, light form factor.

I've been waiting years for this to happen, and it looks as though it may actually come to pass: we may be able to check out ebooks from our public library and read them on our mobile devices. Actually, that's been possible for a few years now. But between the ebook "format wars," the variety of mobile devices and their capabilities (supported formats, displays, downloading techniques, etc.), and the relative dearth of ebooks available in the libraries, it hasn't really been much of a viable alternative to driving to the library to check out--and in--print volumes.

It looks as though that's about to change. Amazon has announced that it's partnering with Overdrive (which has already been working with libraries to enable ebook lending) to make Kindle ebook lending by libraries possible: "Amazon Kindle to open up to library lending." (LA Times) This matters primarily because, as the Christian Science Monitor puts it, "With an estimated 7.5 million Kindles in the US, Amazon enjoys a two-thirds share of the $1 billion digital-book market, according to Forrester Research. Amazon’s new Kindle Lending Library feature will open the floodgates to e-lending." Kindle books--readable via the Kindle app on non-Kindle portable devices, too (thank you Amazon!)--are sort of the 800-pound gorilla of ebooks these days.

Oh, I'm not going to get too excited yet. This has only been announced, not implemented, and according to the LA Times article, Amazon "...did not specify when its "Kindle Library Lending" program would start." It may be some time before my San Diego County Library system has it in place, and awhile after that before they start buying new books in Kindle format--assuming, of course, they have the money in these days of decimated budgets. (Which brings up another conundrum for libraries: how to allocate pittance new-book budgets between print and digital, not to mention between book and media.)

But eventually there will be enough ebooks you can download to your portable device for free from the public library system that more people will be doing that than will be physically visiting the libraries and checking out (and in) dead-tree editions. When that tipping point has been passed, there will be increasing pressure to close libraries. For a number of reasons the prospect greatly saddens me, but unfortunately I won't be surprised to see it happen in my lifetime.

"Digital" or "Information" Literacy?

2011-04-05T18:04:00.000-07:00

Two Teacher Librarian (TL) colleagues who attended a recent CSLA (Calif. School Library Assoc.) Southern Section Workshop related that the current CSLA Vice President Governmental Relations is urging us to switch from using the term "information literacy" to "digital literacy." Evidently the rationale is that new California government education initiatives are using "digital." By our using the same term, it will make it more clear that one of the unique value-added services TLs bring to a school, teaching students to find, evaluate, and use information from a variety of sources, is exactly what these initiatives refer to.

That makes sense, but it also brings to mind two other reactions:

"Digital" immediately brings to my mind online--or at least onscreen. If "digital" literacy is a new priority in education, does that leave the broader "information" literacy behind in the dust? Does this suggest that print information sources--e.g. books and magazines--are no longer a priority... or even important? If so, is it because print sources are being abandoned as our students (and their under-30 older brothers & sisters) get their information exclusively online/onscreen... and is this a tacit recognition of that trend?
I mentioned the switch to my wife, who while not an educator is nevertheless college-educated and highly intelligent and well-read. Her response was (roughly), "'Digital literacy' sounds like being able to operate all kinds of modern technology, from computers to DVD players and DVRs to knowing how to use your cell phone and set the time and alarm on a clock or watch. Everything's digital these days." Not exactly the same thing as what we have been calling "information literacy."

Reflections on "Googled: The End of the World As We Know It" (by Ken Auletta)

2011-04-05T18:03:00.000-07:00

I've just finished reading Auletta's book and couldn't help but noting some impressive facts he cites which you might find interesting as well. For perspective, the book was published in 2009, probably toward the end of that year as he writes of events in mid-2009. Bolding and italics in quoted segments are mine...

"By early 2009 there were an estimated 25.2 billion Web pages."
[By the way, if you began building a stack of sheets of regular paper like you'd put in your printer or copier, by the time you had just one billion sheets the stack would be over 66 miles high.]
"...[T]he several hundred million daily searches Google performed in 2003 (today the number is 3 billion)..."
[4 billion/day now, in early 2011? More?]
"By May 2009, Nielsen reported that 230 million Americans had Internet access, 93 percent [of those 230 million, I assume] had high-speed access (broadband) and digital cable service, and 228 million used a mobile phone."
[230 million out of what, are we at 300 million now? I didn't realize Internet access penetration in America was nearly that high.]
"...[A]ccording to a 2007 study by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), when adjusted for inflation, money spent to purchase books 'has fallen dramatically... Nearly half of all Americans ages 18 to 24 read no books for pleasure,' the study found, and the percentage of those 18 to 44 who read books was sliding. It is true that the following year, 2008, the NEA reported a modest increase in reading. But if one asked publishers, or educators, whether they had high hopes for the expansion of book reading, few would say yes."
"According to an Annenberg Center study, the average American family classified as poor spent $180 a month on media services--mobile [does this include voice service or just Internet data?], broadband, digital TV, satellite TV, iTunes, and the like--that did not exist a generation ago, and the average American household spends $260 per month.
[Wow, I'm behind the poor! $75 for two mobile non-smart phones (my wife's and mine, voice and text only), $40 for high-speed broadband Internet, $15 for the cheapest Cox cable TV (analog) available.]

Definitely not the world of our childhoods, and it doesn't bode well for the future of printed ("dead-tree edition") books.

Los Angeles closes libraries 2 days a week

2010-09-16T10:28:00.000-07:00

I just read this long but well-written article: "City of Airheads: Villaraigosa Dismantles L.A.'s Vaunted Library System." Some of its points ...

The citizens most impacted by reduction of library services are the poor and middle class, many of whom can't afford their own computers and/or Internet access;
Libraries are 'safe places to be' in areas where the streets--anyplace but inside your own home (and, sadly, even there for some)--are dangerous;
Libraries are important 'levelers,' providing equal educational opportunity for students who need safe places to work on homework and access to 'Net-equipped computers to do the same.

It's interesting to note that the article doesn't mention the benefit of citizens who can't afford to buy their own books to read being able to borrow them from and use them in the public library. Although this is surely the case--and a significant benefit for a number of library users--evidently this writer doesn't think it's worth pointing out here. Why? Because it's just too obvious to be worth the effort?

Perhaps. But I believe it's because the value of public libraries as institutions that give free access to up-to-date, diverse, well-organized collections of books and other printed materials (and personal, one-to-one assistance in finding same) is much less important than it used to be. That importance is continuing to wane, even while libraries' importance for the other reasons the article points out increases--especially during recession. Yes, the retail print industry is still doing well, but increasingly its sales are for ebooks. (In July '10, Wired reported that Amazon is now selling more ebooks for its Kindle than it is hardcovers, though we must remember booksellers' customers are those who can afford to buy their own books (and/or ereaders).

What do people use books for? Basically, research (education or personal-need) and pleasure reading. Having worked as a high school Teacher Librarian for the last twenty years (and as recently as 2010), I can tell you that--with the exception of some academics at universities--virtually no one uses print collections for research anymore; today's high school students (tomorrow's college and or workers) certainly don't. While I suspect the poorer segment of our society tends to read for pleasure less than the wealthier, the former is far more dependent on public library access for pleasure reading. Why doesn't the article point this out? My guess is because it's just not that important: free access to pleasure reading--especially for the poorer segments of our society--is not a priority.

All of which points to what I see as the future of public libraries--and school libraries, if they survive. Libraries will evolve to supervised spaces which house ('Net-connected, of course) large numbers of no-pay-to-use computers (and/or portable devices) and provide access to not only the "free Web" but library-subscribed databases of pay-access-only periodicals, etc. (That access--paid for by the library but free to authenticated patrons--will continue to be extended to patrons using their own computers anyplace in the world.) Libraries will no longer house collections of physical books; instead they will purchase and manage access to ebooks, available to all patrons on a limited-time-use ("checkout") basis through download to not only a computer but also portable ereaders of all stripes (both those focused primarily on reading text, like today's Kindle, or more multipurpose like today's iPad... though the distinction may disappear). The only circulation of physical objects I imagine to be the checkout and checkin of portable ereaders--or perhaps full-on portable computers--with library-paid 'Net access, maybe for in-library use only or possibly to take home for a few weeks.

What happens to the current prodigious book collections of our public libraries? Some--especially popular fiction of low historical research value and nonfiction rapidly aging to irrelevance--will be sold off to private collectors. Others may go to academic libraries. The rest will be either be housed in "archives"--essentially organized warehouses with small reading areas, still perhaps available by special arrangement to the occasional scholarly public individual who wishes to go there to use them (no checkout allowed) or discarded: covers stripped and paper recycled (currently the fate of most public-school outdated textbooks).

Inevitably, this prediction of the future will turn out to be anywhere from slightly to completely wrong. But, as is becoming a sort of tag-line for me it seems, no matter what happens, "It's gonna be interesting."

...And whither human beings?

2010-07-28T12:57:00.000-07:00

My amazing friend (since kindergarten), Victoria Pynchon*, pointed me to a post she added to her blog on July 28th, 2008 which got me thinking--and writing a long-ish Comment in response (Comment posted July 28th 2010... exactly two years later; interesting). What is the purpose--or direction--of us humans as time goes on? Where are we headed? Do we have any choice in the matter?

If you're interested, take a look: "What if This Were Our Sole Purpose?" (<--Her relatively short blog posting; after reading--and viewing the beautiful image of the Earth and Moon from space, scroll down for my Comment.) *I can't resist touting Victoria. One of the most intelligent--and wise--people I've ever known personally, she practiced corporate law and was a successful litigator in L.A. for a number of years (earning big bucks in the process of course). Then she got sick of it and wanted to better help people in more meaningful ways. She quit her job, went back to law school for a second time, earned her Master of Law degree (in law it's backwards from the rest of academia: first you get your Juris Doctor, then you get--maybe--your LL.M.), and is now a mediator and teacher of other mediators as well as insightful and much-respected blogger on mediation topics (i.e. writes extensively and shares it all with the world for free). She's also finished her first book which is just about to be published: A Is for Asshole: The ABCs of Conflict Resolution.

Ebooks: finally gaining traction? Whither libraries?

2010-07-17T14:40:00.000-07:00

I've been waiting years for the hardware to get good enough and the ebook format wars to settle down for ebooks to start to really get traction... and I think it's finally beginning to happen. Even some "dead tree edition" book lovers are liking the convenience and portability of the Kindle, nook, iPad, etc.--though they're not about to forsake physical books anytime soon either (like in their lifetimes). On a recent cruise where, at 57 and 60-something my wife and I were the youngsters, I saw a number of Kindles and even an iPad (it had only been available for about a week before departure) in use. I myself have been reading a lot of books lately on my iPod touch (just finished Moby Dick--I'd never read it and figured I ought to). Yes, I prefer more on a page at once but tapping the screen to quickly turn a page, being able to read with one hand in bed in the dark, and toting my "book" around in so small and light a package are all welcome advantages.

For research, in general, printed books are pretty much over. The search capability and ease of access from multiple locations afforded by digital information is just too great for "bound books" to compete. Although there will always be some significant number of esoteric/obscure/old books which won't be digitized (despite Google's admirable best efforts) and which scholars needing them will have to go after in print, most "library"-type research is already done online and that trend will continue to grow.

Personal/pleasure reading? It will be interesting to see. I know plenty of "old people" (in which group I include myself) who love owning books as unique and very special objects and who swear they'll never prefer reading on a screen--no matter how good it is--to the "look, feel, and smell" of a "real" book. These are often people who keep their own collections and reread favorite books regularly (this does not include me). For today's teens and twenty-somethings, I don't think all of this matters as much. For them I think portability, availability, and ease of access will trump the collector's zeal.

One of the biggest obstacles for ebooks has been the twin issues of color/graphics and page (screen) size; this is where I think Apple has nailed it with the iPad. It seems an excellent compromise between screen size and portability, has very good color and resolution (and the horsepower to handle it all with snappy response) and presents a large enough viewing area to make reading newspapers/magazines and highly-formatted text with inline photos/illustrations (even videos with sound) reasonably satisfying. For just text my iPod touch is good enough for me, but for browsing the Web or reading a magazine, forget it: way too much scrolling-and-pinching.

I do think that being able to download ebooks to your device so you can access them without a wireless connection is important for pleasure reading. When WiMax (Sprint's "4G" or whoever else might supercede them in the market) is sufficiently built-out so it's ubiquitous and cheap, then this requirement will fall away, but especially in this economy it may be years before we're there. Wi-Fi in its current state is way too rare (available/open connections), and the wireless carriers' "3G" data connections are too slow and expensive... especially when usage soars (this may be one of the problems plaguing AT&T in the San Francisco area: so many people bought iPhones and loved on-the-go Web browsing, etc. that their infrastructure just couldn't keep up).

For research this isn't much of an issue. In fact, since for research we want to search and access large amounts of disparate information quickly (such as a library's collection--or multiple libraries' collections), nonfiction information of potential research value is better used online. This is why I think libraries--especially academic libraries--will continue to transform from collections of physical materials to online digital collections available to patrons. Take a look at Stanford Ushers in the Age of Bookless Libraries. Heck, if absolutely everything in all of Standford's libraries' collection' were available online (well safeguarded and backed up, of course) to Standford students and faculty, there'd be no compelling reason to keep any of it. Think of the money they'd save in staffing alone. (So are librarians no longer worth their salaries in an all-digital age? That's a whole other topic...)

Public libraries are different, as they give information access--for both pleasure and research--to everyone, regardless of income or socioeconomic level. My local public librarians tell me usage has gone up considerably since the recession hit... and not just people checking out books but people using the 24 library computers as well (no surprise there). If things go as I think they might, I can see public libraries eventually morphing into essentially no-charge "Internet cafes" (well, you will have to pay for coffee and snacks) used primarily by those who can't afford their own hardware or online access subscription fees (or have just had their own device stolen)... and without a physical book in sight.

Never gonna happen? Imagine this: In 3rd grade you're given an iPad-like device to use for accessing, interacting with, and creating information in school. All your "textbooks" (if such large, specially-designed info. packets are even still used) and all "library books" are accessed through this device ("check out" a library book and when it's due that copy is instantly available to another student/faculty member and no longer to you... no overdue or lost book fines ever--in fact, no lost books!) Middle school, high school, and college: ditto (though in college of course you still have to pay for the "textbooks"--some things will probably never change). By the time you're through with school and out on your own, how much do you think you'll care about going after a physical, "dead tree edition" of that new (or even not-so-new) book you've heard about and want to read? And then what are you going to do with the thing when you're done reading it? What are you, one of those weird old people who holes up in a house full of cats and dusty bookshelves lining every wall?

Follett Library Books--the 800-lb. gorilla of the school library book vendor world--has over 51,000 titles available in ebook format for libraries to purchase and add to their collections. They work much as described above--except that, for now at least, you can only read them on the computer to which you downloaded them, not your portable "ERD" (ebook reading device... my own term). If the iPad, Kindle, nook, etc. really gain market dominance--or if they'll all agree to play nice and support a single downloading protocol and ecosystem that library book vendors like Follett can become a part of, that restriction may no longer apply.

The San Diego Unified School District, 7th(?) largest urban school district in the country, has embarked upon a 5-year plan ("i-21") to provide netbooks to every student in grades three through twelve that they take home with them (important), along with campuswide broadband wireless at every campus.

The road ahead is full of IEDs which could blow up my little ebook vision. But never gonna happen? Maybe. At any rate, it's gonna be interesting.

Etextbooks & dedicated ebook reading devices vs. 1-to-1 computing

2009-04-08T15:30:00.000-07:00

Wow... Has it really been 15 months since I last posted to this blog? So much for my intentions for School Library Learning 2.0... just fell by the wayside as other priorities took over (namely the confusion and scrambling after being unceremoniously exiled from La Jolla High School, where I'd been Teacher Librarian for 15 years, when my principal eliminated the position, then reassigned as sole library staff at two elementary schools 30 miles away from home). I still hope to get back on the horse and complete SLL 2.0, but it probably won't be until summer vacation starts this July. (My schools are year-'round and not over until 7/21 and then, unless I can retire--which remains to be seen--I'll either be "lucky" enough to land an assignment as TL split between two different secondary schools or wind up assigned to teaching English to five classes of likely 40+ students, back where I started my career 31 years ago.) I write this just in case some lonely soul out there with nothing more interesting to read stumbles across this blog, reads it, and wonders at the gap. But I digress (and, yes, whine a little)...

Recently a Library Tech. at a San Diego Unified (SDUSD) middle school posted a query to the SDUSD library staff listserv. She said she's been asked (essentially) why we're not using digital instead of bound-paper textbooks? Wouldn't that be cheaper and save trees? Her actual words:

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"What is the cost comparison from actually doing Textbooks on line compared to actually having Textbooks on hand since you would think that it would be better financially since if we were to go paperless that we would be saving paper and trees?
"Why would Textbook on line be more expensive?? Does this make any sense and does anyone have an answer for me or do I need to call each publisher and ask why?? Or is there a site I can go to for the answer. I need concrete evidence."
_________________________

Although I certainly don't have all the hard numbers she's looking for, I did have some ideas about some of the factors affecting districtwide adoption of etextbooks, including the issue of providing students with "dedicated ebook reading devices (ERDs)" vs. the newly-available and relatively inexpensive "netbooks". After writing my reply, I thought I'd post some of it here, too, in case it may inform other discussions in other places. I also have a thought about what the impact might be on school libraries if/when a district such as San Diego Unified--which relies on school library staff to process and circulate to students and teachers all textbooks and related teacher materials--converts wholesale from "dead-tree" to digital textbooks and provides netbooks to all students to assure universal access; for this see my P.S. at the end. Here's what I wrote:
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I'm not sure what you mean by "textbooks on line." Do you mean providing etextbooks--purchasing digital copies students read at a computer--as opposed to "dead-tree edition" (bound paper) copies? And by online, do you mean the computer has to have a live Internet connection to view the book, or do you mean the digital copy can be downloaded to the computer, then subsequently viewed even when an Internet connection is not available? The two scenarios are actually quite different and it matters which of them one is considering. The download scenario is preferable from a district standpoint: as long as the student has Internet access at school and can download his/her textbooks there, then the district doesn't have to assure (provide) Internet access at home to comply with Williams. However, when download is possible publishers tend to get nervous about piracy, although recent technology advances have made this somewhat less of a concern.

Then there's the issue of assuring each student has ready, individual access to a computer (or other mobile ebook reading/viewing device, "ERD" for short) both at home and at school (á la Williams). That's one of the biggest hurdles in switching to digital vs. paper textbooks: providing every student with an ERD (except perhaps those willing to sign a waiver saying they already own one). Amazon's Kindle (now Kindle2) has my vote as the best mobile ERD right now, but it's $360 and is not a computer, nor does it support color (a deal-killer for etextbooks in my opinion). Now that "netbooks" (ultracompact laptop computers) are available for about that price--with a color screen and about 5-1/2 hrs. battery life--we're fast approaching the point where "1-to-1 computing" (lending each student a mobile computer) begins to seem feasable, and the educational bang for your buck is hugely higher than just providing him/her with an ERD. In September 2005 (after initial textbook checkout and the dust had settled), I did a rough-and-dirty estimate of how much it cost to provide the average La Jolla High student with a set of just the basic textbooks for each of his/her courses per year (not including the 10-20 supplementary texts required for English: $318 (no doubt more now).*

One thing to keep in mind is that even in digital format textbooks will never be free. One person in the book publishing business I spoke to (not a sales rep.) told me about 85% of the cost of producing a textbook is not the paper, printing, binding, shipping, etc. but the cost of "intellectual property" (money paid to authors and other copyright holders) and layout/design, editorial, and other "brain work" required to assemble and format it all. Those costs aren't going to disappear. Don't assume that we can just stop buying physical textbooks and use the savings to buy each student an ERD or netbook; we will still have to pay for each copy of the e- versions of the textbooks... possibly 85% of what we're paying now (though in time that cost should go down--possibly a lot).

Of course, the publishers have a ton invested in the current paper-based system and have considerable vested interest in things staying the way they are now. They make quite a healthy profit under the status quo and probably aren't keen on investing in new IT infrastructure--especially in this economy--to gear up for all-digital distribution... even if all of a district's students have wireless-connected ERDs or computers. I think that's one of the reasons the textbook publishers are only offering digital versions if the district pays for the dead tree editions. When the (print edition) cash cow keeps on providing the cash, it's relatively cheap to also copy the book onto a CD you paste into the back of the physical textbook, and since you're not going to have potentially tens (hundreds?) of thousands of students simultaneously accessing the text online, it's also not very expensive to also (or instead) throw it up on a relatively low-bandwidth Web server.

--Steve

*For each of 20 students--5 randomly selected from each of the four grade levels--I totaled the cost of all textbooks out to him/her then divided by the number to books out. Then I averaged the totals for each grade level, then averaged those averages. By-grade-level breakdowns were:
9th... $284
10th... $359
11th... $320
12th... $308

P.S. If/when the district does convert from physical to digital textbooks, that hugely reduces the critical importance of classified library staff at the secondary level. Once the ERDs or netbooks are checked out to the students (conceivably not through the library), students download their textbooks themselves. If they have netbooks (as opposed to ERDs), they don't need to use the computers in the library any more. Since--for better or for worse--research is largely performed online now instead of using library books, the library's main functions now become 1) source of library books for pleasure reading (some sites have more students than others using it for this), and 2) convenient supervised student lounge for the few students not assigned a class that period or on extended medical P.E. excuses. It's also a convenient venue for adult meetings (staff, PTA, etc.), student testing, etc., but other adults can always open it up and will be present for those activities. Food for thought, eh?
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SLL 2.0--Week 3, Thing 7--Ebooks

2008-01-06T17:17:00.000-08:00

I could write a lot about this--in fact, I already did: a multi-page posting to an online forum for a small group of tech-interested San Diego County teachers working together to come up with new ideas for how to leverage technology to improve education. This was way back in February of 2002. However, even at the time I realized I didn't want to lose it, so I captured it all to a Word document I titled "Hardware Matters", PDF'd it, and posted it on my little "Shared Professional Resources" Web site where it still lives today. There also is the PowerPoint I used when I presented on ebooks to CSLA ('04 and '05) and CUE ('06).

What I find interesting is that most of the arguments I was making for the adoption of ebooks in 2002 still are valid, and here almost six years later I still believe one of the biggest things holding it up is the hardware. Reading a book on a computer--even a modern "ultraportable" notebook or tablet computer--just isn't going to cut it for most of us used to bound-paper books: the device is still too expensive, too fragile, too short-lived (battery), and the display is far too hard to read under several lighting conditions. To replace bound-paper books, an ebook reading device (ERD) must be as portable, robust, and easy on the eyes (in all lighting conditions); it can't require a computer to get new books on it; it's got to display color graphics (including photos) virtually as well as print; it's got to allow easy markup of your copy (highlighting/underlining and adding your own notes anywhere in its text); and it's got to cost less than about $200.

Since my last ebooks presentation a little less than two years ago, the Amazon Kindle has emerged to trump the Sony Reader as the best ebook reading device (ERD) to date, but IMHO it's still not there yet.

Both the Kindle and the Reader use essentially the same E-Ink screen, which for monochrome (OK, 4- or 8-grayscale) text is a huge improvement over the LCD screens computers use: several reviewers have reported the contrast and sharpness are very close to that of print on paper. The screen also barely sips power--and that only when the display changes (i.e. when you "turn the page" or are making annotations, etc.)--since it is not backlit but reflective, just like a printed page (sorry, bedtime reading is still going to require that lamp on the bedstand!) These devices go for days of typical use without needing recharging (the Kindle recharges in two hours). And the resolution (pixels per inch) is actually sharper than that of a typical LCD computer screen; one report on the Reader said you can magnify"zoom" the text 200% before resolution begins to degrade.

The Kindle adds a hardware QWERTY keypad (real key buttons instead of virtual key spaces outlined on a touchscreen), speed (the Reader was reported to update its screen so slowly that one reviewer said he could "type" several letters before any showed up), and a huge collection of available book titles (90,000 and counting), most available for about $10 each. But most important of all, unlike the Reader which had to be synced with a computer to upload purchased ebooks to it, you don't need a computer (or a cell phone) to get books on your Kindle. Using Sprint's EDGE cellular data network, the Kindle wirelessly connects directly to Amazon's servers. Using just your Kindle, you can browse all 90,000+ titles, purchase one online, and have it on your Kindle in less than a minute. A limited number of magazines and newspapers are available as well: if you subscribe to, say, The New York Times ($14.00/mo.), as soon as the next issue becomes available, it will automatically be downloaded to your Kindle. Ditto for about 250 of the most popular blogs on the Web. (If you're not somewhere within Sprint's EDGE coverage but have access to an Internet-connected computer, you can download an issue/blog--or book--to the computer and sync it to the Kindle via USB. And to save power so you only need to recharge your Kindle about once a week instead of every other day, you have the option of turning the wireless connection off.)

Another important feature is that all your purchased books (and, I assume, magazine/newspaper issues) are archived for you on Amazon's servers... including any markup/annotations you've made to them (Can you annotate Kindle periodicals? Not sure...) This means if you lose/break your Kindle, you haven't lost your purchased library of books: when you replace it, you just download them to the new Kindle--complete with your annotations. And if you run out of storage space (the Kindle holds about 200 average-sized books in built-in memory, and has an SD card slot so you can add gigabytes more if you choose), you can delete some books to make room for new ones knowing they're retrievable later at no charge from your Amazon archive.

What's missing... 1) Affordable price, and 2) Color. Although color isn't necessary for the majority of fiction and nonfiction books most avid adult readers read, it is necessary for etextbooks (and digital versions of magazines and newspapers--ezines and enewspapers?). Until we switch to etextbooks, children won't grow accustomed to reading "books" on ERDs, and the mainstream adult transition from bound paper to digital books will not occur.

When something equal to (and no doubt better than) the Kindle comes along with 256-color graphics at as high a resolution as the text--and for $200--stand back. One reviewer, Steve Gibson, wrote, "Amazon's entry into the eBook market is a BIG deal -- it forever changes the game." Compared to the ERDs that have come before, that may be true... but when good color graphics at $200 are added to the equation, then I'm convinced we'll see a massive shift away from "dead tree edition" to digital books. It's going to take awhile yet (color like this will not be as easy as it may sound), but it's coming.

SLL 2.0--Week 3, Thing 7--Blogging

2008-01-06T15:57:00.001-08:00

"Create a blog post about anything technology-related that interests you this week." Hmm. This could take days... And we're also asked to post a Comment on someone else's blog; more days...

Part of my problem is that I have many thoughts about so much I encounter and have a penchant, once I start writing, to just go on and on (in case you hadn't noticed). The other "problem" is that the Web--just the blogosphere of SLL 2.0-ers--is a rabbit hole into which one can dive endlessly.

Case in point: I decided to read some posts from one of the most frequent Commenters to my own post, "becca." Clicking on the link that is her name on her posts tells me her Profile is not available (and urges me to make my own Profile public, which I have). On the SLL 2.0 "Web" (blog) site, "becca's path" is listed so on a guess I click on that and am taken to the "Becca's path" blog which is clearly an early SLL 2.0-er's own blog of her own SLL 2.0 journey ("Becca"... must be a her, eh?) There she says she's, "Elatedly living and working in Berkeley..." Anyway, there's also a link there to another blog of hers, "Caminante" ("traveler" in Spanish), where she tells "Berkely folks" (of which I'm not one) to go, "For more updated links to active Berkeley blogs." So I jumped over there, browsed her posts a bit, and found one that struck me fancy: "Time: the never-ending story," (now that I can relate to!) I posted a Comment to that post. Still curious, though, I logged into the CSLA Membership Directory and looked for the "Rebecca"s, of which there turned out to be ten. I found one who was CSLA Southern Section Past President and "Professional" (at this point I doubt there are as many "Paraprofessionals" this far along with SLL 2.0), so I took a wild guess and emailed her. Will she turn out to be the "mystery Becca" who's been so diligent in Commenting on my own blog posts? We'll see!...

Not one to well enough alone and move along, I couldn't resist going to find the blog of my amazing colleague Thomas Kaun. A hugely tech- and library-savvy TL (teacher librarian), I know he and I share an interest in ebooks, so I thought I'd see if he has posted any thoughts about them. I don't remember now how I tracked it down, but I did manage to discover what turns out to be just one of his three blogs: Continuing Education! There he has a great "search this blog" tool (which I hope someday to discover how to add to my own here), so I searched "ebooks" and *Bingo*--sure enough: "A Book Is a Book Is a Book?" which he posted 8/17/07. But his post is about a "Fascinating discussion on See Also about the definition of 'book'", so of course I had to follow his link to this discussion, then read it (a post and all its 19 followon comments), then Google "FRBR" to find out what the heck that was to which some of the discussion referred (in case you're curious: "Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records"). (See what I mean about the rabbit hole? Reminds me of line from song from some rock band: "One thing leads to another...")

Once I'd digested that post and its 19 comments, then I posted a comment to Tom's on posting... and had to stop myself before going on for pages about ebooks. But I did say in that comment I'd post something else about them here, so that will be my next blog entry. Then I'll have well and truly finished all the Things for Week 3--and be a week behind my own schedule already!

SLL 2.0--Week 3, Thing 6--Flickr "Services"

2007-12-31T14:30:00.000-08:00

Truly, the assortment of mashup "services"/"tools" available which interact with Flickr is astonishing... and I only took time to look at a few of them. I played with the "Flickr Color Picker" for about two minutes, and looked at some "trips" on the "Travel Planner" for about fifteen, read about Mappr, played with "retrievr" once... all interesting, but not that compelling or useful to me.

Then I went to "BigHugeLabs -- Home of fd's Flickr Toys" and discovered delivr (""Delivr might just be the biggest e card site on the internet with over 3,000,000 images to choose from to create a free ecard.") Now that I'll use personally! Immediately sent a couple to my wife, including a beautiful New Years e-card which will be great to send to friends & family if/when I ever get around to writing my (supposedly) annual personal newsletter.

But the idea of making an ersatz magazine cover especially appealed to me (thank you Helen Blowers/CSLA SLL 2.0 Team for suggesting it!)... and it's something I can share with LJHS faculty in an email, suggesting they consider having students create their own "magazine covers" for individual/small-group "magazines" of student writing (research projects or otherwise). So I used fd's Flicker Tool "Magazine Cover" to come up with the one you see up top--I'm actually rather proud of it. For about 15 seconds I considered paying $4.00 to have it printed as a poster and mailed to me so I could hang it in the library, but it's probably a little too sarcastic for that and I didn't want to spend more time and energy (and the $4.00--probably before postage) creating and tracking yet another login for another Web site. If you want to see it larger (or download the largest image file of it from Flickr so you can use it yourself--feel free), click here.

After creating it I was able to save it to my hard drive, then I added it to my Flickr collection. Rather than try to include it with this post the way I did the photo in the previous post (creating the blog post from within Flickr), this time I'm going to add it to this post from Blogger, uploading the photo file from my hard drive. I'm hoping this works better than adding a Web-hosted photo from within Blogger did.

Hooray... it worked! ...Well, sort of. The text trying to wrap on the left of the image doesn't do it right--leaves a big gap underneath the first few words, but oh well. Next time I want to include a "large" image with a post, maybe I'll try the "None" alignment option and see what happens.

SLL 2.0--Week 3, Thing 5 (more)

2007-12-31T08:51:00.001-08:00

Students using reference BOOKS!
Originally uploaded by Browsing Isn't Surfing

Since adding a Flickr photo using Blogger's tool didn't work right, I'm now trying it from Flickr by using Flickr's "Add to blog" tool. "becca" Commented on my blog that she wasn't able to get a photo to display in Blogger using Blogger's tool, either, and suggested I try this.

I didn't try just uploading the photo file from my hard drive (in Blogger), because the whole point of this little exercise seems to be to do it using these this more-"Web 2.0" directly-from-Flickr-toBlogger tool (becca had this take on it, too).

About to click "Post Entry" in Flickr. If this works, you'll know it because this post--plus the photo in all its glory--will be in my blog! (Wonder if the caption--in addition to the title--will also show up?)

SLL 2.0--Week 3, Thing 5--Flickr browsing

2007-12-28T08:48:00.000-08:00

I almost titled this post "Flickr surfing"... but then you would have thought I was referring to the process of browsing through Flickr photos, wouldn't you? See how you are? ;) It's pervasive, now a part of the language of our Net culture. *Sigh*

Since the next Thing (#5) involves using Flickr, and I wanted to replace the stock image that runs along the top of this Blogger template with a photo of someone surfing anyway, I searched Flickr until I found a decent photo of someone surfing, then edited my blog's template to add it. I was pleased to be able to find a photo of someone surfing my home break, Swami's (at least according to its Flickr tag--and it does look like a Swami's wave). I did have to fire up Photoshop Elements and crop it vertically so it would be more of a band across the top rather than this huge photo you'd have to scroll down past just to get to the rest of the blog. Thank you, "Rick C San Diego" (evidently Rich Clark per his Flickr URL ) for posting this photo--and tagging it with "Swamis" so I could find it--on Flickr! (No, that's not me in the photo... no one's taking pictures of me when I surf.)

I guess what I've done satisfies Thing #5 Discovery Exercise a., but I may do Exercise b. if I have time. I think I have some photos of my library on my hard drive here at home somewhere...

Yup. OK, created a Flickr account (yet another account at another Web site! another login to record! Aaaugh!) and posted the photo. It's of a class last Spring working on a research project in the Reference room, using reference books (what a concept!). Virtually all have their heads down and it's a pretty blurry photo, so I'm sure none are individually-identifiable so I don't have to have parent-signed consent forms from any of them. Now to see if I can post it as part of this blog entry.

Rats! Didn't work. And now when I'm trying to edit this post to do it again, the Add Image icon in the Edit Posts toolbar doesn't bring up the Add Image window as it did before. Hmm... maybe my computer's tired? Back to the drawing board. For now, I guess ll just have to insert it as a URL here. That at least works.

Hmm... Tried again, and something very strange is going on. There's a very faint, almost completely "blank" space at the top of this post... looks like a faint "frame" of some kind. There were actually two of them, but I was able to delete one of them and leave only the one. Since I specified the photo be to the right, with the text wrapping on its left, the first line of text in this blog is "wrapping" around this faint frame... right where the photo should appear. and when you (I) click on that frame, it does switch the browser window to the Flickr-hosted photo of the library! I'm stumped for now.

SLL 2.0--Week 1, Things 3&4--Create blog & avatar; start posting; register

2007-12-24T10:40:00.000-08:00

OK, got the blog going. Coming up with a name for it was a challenge: CSLA wants me to end it with something SLL 2.0-related, but if I'm going to be using this as my blog after completing the 23 Things, I'd rather not have end with some cryptic (to non SLL2.0-ers) "sll20" or "library2" or "tl2" (Teacher Librarian 2.0) stuff. I'd also like it to be somewhat unique (of course), and represent me somehow. Remembering my long-standing annoyance with the term "surfing" having been given a second meaning in the early days of general Web popularity, I decided to use "browsing isn't surfing" (http://browsingisntsurfing.blogspot.com): the phrase states my case, and anyone who's curious can read my first post where I explain it. Although it's a bit much to type, I figure it isn't too difficult or tedious, fairly easy to remember--and hey, you only have to do it once; that's what bookmarks and RSS are for!

Re. the titling of each post with something CSLA SLL 2.0-ers can easily recognize and relate to the "Thing" it's about and evidence of, that makes all kinds of sense (I am a librarian, after all). Though it's a bit more work, I vow to do it--for them--always. After all, one/several of them are going to actually take on the task of reading my posts and logging my SLL 2.0 progress... on top of their "day jobs" and the rest of their life! Thanks, folks!

Creating the avatar in Yahoo! was kind of fun--though I was surprised they didn't have one of a surfer. But then, since I haven't been in the water for months, I'm not really much of a surfer anymore <:-( . Since I've joined the community of the Seaside Center for Spiritual Living and am undertaking some spiritual growth, I figured the guy sitting in the lotus (which I can't and don't try to even approximate) would serve for now. I'd like to put a great photo of a breaking tube along the top of my blog page--and the template I chose looks as if it should allow me to do that--but don't have the time right now to go hunt for one and play with that... eye candy has to take a back seat to creating custom business cards for three people, printing and slicing, and wrapping... Christmas Eve is tomorrow!

Registering my blog w/ CSLA is a must-do, however... Done. A minor glitch here, though:
I tried clicking on the link behind the text "CSLA 2.0 Team" toward the bottom of the "#3" page (http://schoollibrarylearning2.blogspot.com/2007/02/3-week-2-create-your-own-blog-avatar.html) that points to "www2.blogger.com/CSLA2team@yahoo.com" but it only opens a "Not Found / Error 404" page. So I emailed directly from my email client (Eudora) to . That email hasn't been kicked back yet, so hopefully it got through.

SLL 2.0--Week 1, Thing 2--Lifelong Learning & the 7-1/2 Habits

2007-12-24T10:29:00.000-08:00

OK, ran through the "lifelong learning" slideshow and dutifully created my Learning Contract with myself. The content of the slideshow contained little new to me, but it didn't hurt to review it... and it was good for me to lay out a schedule for myself of which Things I'm going to complete by when. If all goes well, I should be able to finish by the middle of March.

Of the 7-1/2 Habits, the easiest for me is probably to accept responsibility for my own learning. The hardest? Probably the last one (number 1/2): "Play!" When do I find the time? (Rhetorical question, of course.)

SLL 2.0--Week 1, Thing 1

2007-12-24T10:14:00.000-08:00

This is a great program/tutorial, and I'm ashamed I haven't gotten on it and dove in before now. Jacquie Siminitus first invited me to be one of the initial CSLA members to go through it back in early 2007--and I agreed and had every intention of doing so--but work (in a library with zero support staff... now still only one library tech. 3 hrs./day) and the rest of life overwhelmed me and I'm just now getting to it.

I'm amazed when I think of the time and effort it took Helen Blowers and everyone else (including CSLA members) to create this. Very impressive! Where ten years ago many of my technology skills were pretty leading-edge, I've just not been able to keep up--I've only read about but not actually used (or at least created or edited) wikis, blogs, RSS feeds, etc. While I'm still not convinced they're all absolutely necessary for teacher librarians--or classroom teachers--in our day-to-day teaching of students (like videoconferencing, I tend to think of them as solutions looking for problems), I do think they're rapidly becoming a part of the world of many of our students--and adults--and we need to be "literate" enough to understand, navigate with, and use them ourselves. I expect this will be my chance to come up to speed in this regard.

"Browsing Isn't Surfing"... Whaaat?

2007-12-24T08:40:00.000-08:00

In case you're wondering...

I first discovered the Web back in about 1991 ('92?). At the time I had a bleeding-edge, 14.4K modem, and an account on the old CORE (California Online Resources in Education), a toll-free dialup Internet connection provided free to California teachers. Mostly I was just reading and posting to LMNET, a listserv for "school librarians," but then I discovered this thing called the World Wide Web. At the time it was not graphical (at least not that I knew of): when logged onto CORE, I could type a command that would bring up a screen full of monochrome text (a Web page) with some words or phrases highlighted (silver letters in a black rectangle instead of black letters against silver on my also-bleeding-edge notebook computer--an actual computer the size of a three-ring binder I could place on my lap!). Using the arrow keys on my keyboard I could move the cursor to a word/phrase, hit , and a new page which was "linked" to that word/phrase would (slowly) scroll into being. Hypertext, with links to pages from all over the world (though there weren't such a mind-boggling number of them back then)! Wow!

As the Web became a phenomenon and began to be written about in the press, it wasn't long before I read the phrase, "Surfing the Web." As a long-time (since 1970) surfer (as in, riding ocean waves on a surfboard), this rankled me. I'd done enough Web browsing to know that the experience of typing URLs and clicking on links to jump from Web page to Web page, amazing as it was, was nothing like surfing. Paddling out, sitting in the lineup judging the swells, paddling for one, taking off, making the bottom turn, guessing every moment what that constantly-changing mass of ocean is going to do next and reacting to it with balance, speed, and the carving edges and shape of your board, deciding how long to continue and looking for an exit spot and maneuver... this is a completely different experience. Browsing the Web and surfing the sea are separate universes.

I figured some poor landlocked Webhead who'd never even paddled a board probably thought this would just sound really cool and so coined the phrase. While I vowed never to myself use the term "surf" to mean "browse" (the Web), I also realized this was already a battle I could not win, and that the term was just too cool-sounding for others to resist... especially when it continued to pop up in other articles and stories.

So when it came time to name my blog, I figured this will be my little revolt. Semantics may be for sissies (or old farts like myself), but I can't resist.