What I Learned Today...

Today I found the following resources and bookmarked them on <a class=

• Shareabouts
  Shareabouts is a flexible tool for gathering public input on a map.
• Blueimp's AJAX Chat
  AJAX Chat is a free and fully customizable open source web chat implemented in JavaScript, PHP and MySQL
• Firechat – open source chat built on Firebase
  Firechat is an open-source, real-time chat widget built on Firebase. It offers fully secure multi-user, multi-room chat with flexible authentication, moderator features, user presence and search, private messaging, chat invitations, and more.
• Live helper chat
  Live Support chat for your website.

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Today I found the following resources and bookmarked them on <a class=

• Brackets
  A modern, open source text editor that understands web design.

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Today I found the following resources and bookmarked them on <a class=

• ZenHub.io
  ZenHub provides a project management solution to GitHub with customizable task boards, peer feedback, file uploads, and more.
• Thingful
  Thingful® is a search engine for the Internet of Things, providing a unique geographical index of connected objects around the world, including energy, radiation, weather, and air quality devices as well as seismographs, iBeacons, ships, aircraft and even animal trackers. Thingful’s powerful search capabilities enable people to find devices, datasets and realtime data sources by geolocation across many popular Internet of Things networks
• Zanran Numerical Data Search
  Zanran helps you to find ‘semi-structured’ data on the web. This is the numerical data that people have presented as graphs and tables and charts. For example, the data could be a graph in a PDF report, or a table in an Excel spreadsheet, or a barchart shown as an image in an HTML page. This huge amount of information can be difficult to find using conventional search engines, which are focused primarily on finding text rather than graphs, tables and bar charts.
• Gwittr
  Gwittr is a Twitter API based search website. It allows you to better search any Twitter account for older tweets, linked web pages and pictures.
• ThingLink
  Easily create interactive images and videos for your websites, infographics, photo galleries, presentations and more!

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Today I found the following resources and bookmarked them on <a class=

• JSON2HTML
  json2html is an open source javascript library that uses JSON templates to convert JSON objects to HTML.

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Brendan Howley opened up the Internet Librarian conference this year. Brian designs stories that insight people to “do something”. He’s here to talk to us about the world of media and desired outcomes – specifically the desired outcomes for our libraries. Brendan collected stories from local library constituents to find out what libraries needed to do to get to the next step. He found (among other things) that libraries should be hubs for culture and should connect community media.

Three things internet librarians need to know:

1. why stories world and what really matters
2. why networks form (power of the weak not the strong)
3. why culture eats strategy for lunch (Peter Drucker)

“The internet means that libraries are busting out of their bricks and mortars”

Brendan shared with us how Stories are not about dumping data, they’re about sharing data and teachable moments.

Data is a type of story and where data and stories meet is where change found. If you want to speak to your community you need to keep in mind that we’re in a society of “post-everything” – there is only one appetite left in terms of storytelling – “meaning”. People need to find it relevant and find meaning in the story. The most remarkable thing about librarians is that we give “meaning” away every day.

People want to know what we stand for and why – values are the key piece to stories. People want to understand why libraries still exist. People under the age of 35 want to know how to find the truth out there – the reliable sources – they don’t care about digital literacy. It’s those who are scared of being left behind – those over 35 (in general) who care about digital literacy.

The recipe for a successful story is: share the why of the how of what you do.

The sharing of stories creates networks. Networks lead to the opportunity to create value – and when that happens you’ve proved your worth as a civic institution. Networks are the means by which those values spread. They are key to the future of libraries.

A Pattern Language by Christopher Alexander is a must read by anyone designing systems/networks.

You need to understand that it’s the weak ties that matter. Strong ties are really quite rare – this sounds a lot like the long tail to me.

Libraries are in the business of giving away context – that means that where stories live, breathe, gather and cause people to do things is in the context. We’re in a position where we can give this context away. Libraries need to understand that we’re cultural entrepreneurs. Influencers fuel culture – and that’s the job description for librarians.

I’m headed to Monterey for Internet Librarian this weekend. Don’t miss my talk on Monday afternoon followed by the book signing for More Library Mashups.

From Information Today Inc:

This October, Information Today, Inc.’s most popular authors will be at Internet Librarian 2014. For attendees, it’s the place to meet the industry’s top authors and purchase signed copies of their books at a special 40% discount.

The following authors will be signing at the Information Today, Inc., on Monday, October 27 from 5:00 to 6:00 P.M. during the Grand Opening Reception