This is a long video but worth watching.  Howard Rheingold talks about literacy, information literacy, digital literacy and critical thinking. One of the things that stands out to me is he borrows the term “crap detection” from Ernest Hemingway. So while he is applying it to the internet the importance of critical thinking has been around long before the internet. It is not a new skill, but rather an old skill being applies to a new medium.

Read more

• Crap Detection 101
• The CRAP Test
• The Essential Skill of Crap Detecting
• Bulls#@t and the Art of Crap-Detection

1. Follow Your Curiosity
2. Perseverance is Priceless
3. Focus on the Present
4. The Imagination is Powerful
5. Make Mistakes
6. Live in the Moment
7. Create Value
8. Don’t Expect Different Results
9. Knowledge Comes From Experience
10. Learn the Rules and Then Play Better

10 Amazing Life Lessons You Can Learn From Albert Einstein includes quotes and tips along with these lessons. Go get motivated!

Two questions that can change your life from Daniel Pink on Vimeo.

What’s my sentence? In one sentence state what lasting impression you want to leave on the world.

For day to day motivation - Was I better today than yesterday?

I have been asked this question many times by librarians so I am way overdue for this post.

Most recently I was asked “….are librarians the people best equipped to define and interpret transliteracy (as opposed to say cognitive scientists, anthropologists, or critical theorists).”  This is a modified version of my original answer.

No librarians are probably not the best people to define and interpret transliteracy. Fortunately we are (or at least I am) not defining it, and we certainly are not the only ones thinking about it.

Where did the word transliteracy come from?
Transliteracies came first, introduced by the Transliteracies Research Project directed by Alan Liu, Dept of English, University of California at Santa Barbara.

“Established in 2005, the Transliteracies Project includes scholars in the humanities, social sciences, and engineering in the University of California system (and in the future other research programs). It will establish working groups to study online reading from different perspectives; bring those groups into conjunction behind a shared technology development initiative; publish research and demonstration software; and train graduate students working at the intersections of the humanistic, social, and technological disciplines.”

Sue Thomas attended the first transliteracies conference and was inspired to form the PART Group (Production and Research in Transliteracy, now www.transliteracy.com)

” PART is a small group of researchers based in the Faculty of Humanities but researching in the Institute of Creative Technologies. The IOCT, which opened in 2006, undertakes research work in emerging areas at the intersection of e–Science, the Digital Arts, and Humanities”. – Thomas, et al.

What is transliteracy? Sue Thomas and her group use this working definition

Transliteracy is the ability to read, write and interact across a range of platforms, tools and media from signing and orality through handwriting, print, TV, radio and film, to digital social networks.

How is transliteracy different from media literacy or digital literacy or technology literacy?

…because it offers a wider analysis of reading, writing and interacting across a range of platforms, tools, media and cultures, transliteracy does not replace, but rather contains, “media literacy” and also “digital literacy.” Thomas, et al

It also includes technological, economic, social, cultural, and global issues (convergence). While it can be easy to tie transliteracy to technology

it is important to note that transliteracy is not just about computer–based materials, but about all communication types across time and culture. It does not privilege one above the other but treats all as of equal value and moves between and across them. Thomas, et al

Is transliteracy new?

No, but it has just been named recently. We are not seeing any new communication styles, only new ways of capturing and sharing those communications.  We are now using video or audio equipment to capture content that could only have been witnessed live.  We are using computers and other technology to share information that we would have previously shared over the phone or face to face.  Getting information from people you know rather than from a reference book or librarian is traditionally information seeking behavior.

What we are witnessing today is thus the acceleration of a trend that has been building for thousands of years. When technologies like alphabets and Internets amplify the right cognitive or social capabilities, old trends take new twists and people build things that never could be built before. – Rheingold (pdf)

Will all this new technology change how we think and act?

Probably. But even the bemoaning of the change in the format in which content or information is shared is new. Socrates beat us to it when he complained the the written word is

an aid not to memory, but to reminiscence, and you give your disciples not truth, but only the semblance of truth; they will be hearers of many things and will have learned nothing; they will appear to be omniscient and will generally know nothing; they will be tiresome company, having the show of wisdom without the reality. Pluto, The Phaedrus

References:

• Transliteracy: Crossing Divides – Sue Thomas, Chris Joseph, Jess Laccetti, Bruce Mason , Simon Mills, Simon Perril, Kate Pullinger
• Technologies of Cooperation (pdf) – Howard Rheingold

CC image used couresy of holeymoon on flickr

My personally selected top 10 from the links I shared on Twitter from 2/26/2010 thru 3/04/2010

1 . Are We Becoming Our Own Puppetmasters? – a thought-provoking post from Venessa Miemis asking the questions

“What do our online personas do to our physical-world identities? As we invest more time into developing our digital selves, is something taken away from who we are? Or something added?”

2. Librarian Essay Contest: 22 Essays in 28 Days via @LISNews: - go vote on your favorite essays and keep an eye out for the winner.

3. Do You Make These 3 Common Mistakes When Trying to Improve Your Self Confidence? – I know I have been guilty of all of them at some point.

1. You sit around and hope that you can solve it in your mind somehow.
2. You focus on the wrong things.
3. You don’t prepare.

4.  Online Content Should Never Have Been Free via @libraryriot @Newsweek:- an interesting look at what we expect to pay for content changes based on the format in which we access it.

5. Has Digital Media Changed American Youth? what effect is the connections of social media having on the young?

6. Brainwashed: Seven Ways to Reinvent Yourself via @VenessaMiemis: Awesome Manifesto by @sethgodins via @SmarttKyle

Years ago, when you were about four years old, the system set out to persuade you of something that isn’t true. Not just persuade, but drill, practice, reinforce and, yes, brainwash.  The mission: to teach you that you’re average; That compliant work is the best way to a reliable living; That creating average stuff for average people, again and again, is a safe and easy way to get what you want.

7.New Pew study on information shift away from print/broadcast: #infoneeds via  @agahran:

A few highlights…

• Popularity: “The internet has surpassed newspapers and radio in popularity as a news platform on a typical day and now ranks just behind TV.”
• Portability: “33% of cell phone owners now access news on their cell phones.”
• Personalization: “28% of internet users have customized their home page to include news from sources and on topics that particularly interest them.”
• Participation: “37% of internet users have contributed to the creation of news, commented about it, or disseminated it via postings on social media sites like Facebook or Twitter. …More than 8 in 10 online news consumers get or share links in e-mails.”
• Socializing: “Getting news is often an important social act. Some 72% of American news consumers say they follow the news because they enjoy talking with others about what is happening in the world and 69% say keeping up with the news is a social or civic obligation. And 50% of American news consumers say they rely to some degree on people around them to tell them the news they need to know.”

8.  Having Ideas Vs Having a Vision [HBR] – ideas are not in short supply, visionaries are, we need more visionaries, they are how things get done. via @VenessaMiemis:

9.  “The Future of the Library: Urban Mediaspace via @dmlcentral

This seems like a great way to both provide a center for civic and cultural life and reinvent libraries for the digital age.

10. The White House Asks: What Does A 21st Century Education Mean to You? – Yes The White House. Go tell them. Leave a comment. Tell them how vital libraries are and why. Do it.

The fabulous Buffy Hamilton gave her Pivot Points of Change presentation at my library’s Staff Day last week.  The points were inspired by post from Seth Godin in which he states changing everything is too difficult. Buffy applied this to libraries and librarians for the 9 pivot points of change.  This is a slightly modified version of  her original 9 pivot points of change for school librarians.

1. Instead of thinking you can only participate in face to face conferences, consider how you can participate virtually
2. Keep your traditional means of connecting with patrons and colleagues, but innovate at every possible touch point through social media and social networking
3. Keep reading your print journals, but use a feed aggregator or information portal to access and organize your favorite blogs, journals, podcasts, youtube videos, and twitter rss feeds to stay on the cutting edge
4. Keep networking with colleagues face to face, but cultivate a personal learning network to broaden your PLN (Personal Learning Network) to include librarians and other professionals from around the world who can inform your thinking, practice, and philosophy
5. Keep your traditional productivity tools, but use cloud computing to encourage collaboration and information sharing
6. Continue sharing your library program goals and reports through traditional formats, but also compose these in a different format, such as a mindmap, video, or other multimedia/visualization medium
7. Keep your traditional services and materials, but expand those services and “containers” of materials to reflect patron needs
8. Keep positing literacy as a primary focal point of your library program, but expand that definition of literacy to include new media literacy and information literacy as mainstream literacies equal in importance to traditional literacy.
9. Keep your traditional sources of authoritative information, but let the research topic and mode of research guide the integration of social media information sources and tools for delivering that content in your subject guides

I have been in awe of the Digital Media Lab at Skokie Public Library since I first heard about it. The Skokie Public Library Media Lab is a space (a whole room!) where patrons can use an amazing array of software and hardware to create digital media. This is the kind of space and service all libraries should be offering patrons to support transliteracy.

Learn more about starting a digital media lap from Richard Kong

There is a video making the rounds in libraryland of a very cute 3 year old named Abby talking about what she wants from her library. If you haven’t seen it, I’ve embedded it below. I saw it when it first started making the rounds and thought cute, but clearly that child has been coached and so dismissed it. She isn’t telling us what she wants, she telling us what the person behind the camera told her to say. She is three,  she has no idea what she is saying.

But then it started to be retweeted, and librarians started holding it up as proof of something. Of proof we need to adapt and change for digital natives. Then I started beating my head against my desk. Because please, anyone can see this child is coached and this, THIS is your proof? If you showed this to me as proof your stance in an argument I would mock you. And you would deserve it.

I don’t argue that we need to change it is why I work so hard on the transliteracy issue, it’s why I started the blog. The struggle to incorporate new technology into libraries is well documented from both sides of the fray. This is an incredibly important issue. If we’re going to discuss it we need well founded arguments not props. Get a study, get anecdotes from adults who know what they are saying, get stats. (email me if you need these I have PILES of reports and pages of bookmarks in delicious)

But please, I ask you, no I implore you, do NOT use this video as proof of anything other than three-year old girls named Abby are freaking adorable.

From the New Canaan High School Library

My personally selected top 10 from the links I shared on Twitter from 2/19/2010 thru 2/25/2010

1. RT @VenessaMiemis: 16 free ebooks about social media via @fredzimny. Just look at this list of titles and authors :

1. Building a Social Media Team, Amber Naslund,
2. ContentCory Doctorow
3. Customer Service, The Art of Listening and Engagement Through Social Media, Brian Solis
4. Fish Where the Fish Are – Mapping Social Media to the Buying Cycle, Chris Brogan
5. Getting a Foothold in Social Media, Amber Naslund
6. Let’s Talk: Social Media for Small Business, John Jantsch
7. New Media and the Air Force, United States Air Force Public Affairs Agency
8. Social Media and Network Starting Points, Chris Brogan
9. Social Media Time Management, Amber Naslund
10. Social Media Tips: Sharing lessons learned to help your business grow, Jeff Hayzlett
11. The Art of Community, Jono Bacon
12. The Essential Guide to Social Media, Brian Solis
13. The New Rules of Viral Marketing, David Meerman Scott
14. The Simple Web: A Philosophy for Getting What You Want, Skellie
15. The Social Media Starter Kit, Amber Naslund
16. What is Social Media?, Antony Mayfield

2. RT @VenessaMiemis: new post – reimagining human/social capital & how to spark innovation - Tapping the Network to Facilitate Innovation – How can the power and scope of social networks, combined with a human capital inventory, be used to facilitate shared creation and innovation?

3. RT @FluffTheBunny: Unlink your feeds – A Manifesto – as someone who is driving slightly (or slightlier) crazy by friends who dump their tweets into Facebook I can’t agree more!

4. Incredibly proud to be involved in the new Libraries & Transliteracy blog with @Tombrarian & @buffyjhamilton – oh come on, you didn’t think I could leave a mention of this out did you? I’m SO excited about this project!

5. RT @rww: On Facebook, You’re Really You - “Psychologists found that “faking it” online is tougher than previously imagined.”

6. No One Knows What the F*** They’re Doing and Feeling Like a Fraud – great read! via @griffey – I don’t know about you but I feel like this all the time, I’m just waiting for someone to notice I don’t know what I’m talking about. I’ve discussed it with friends and some people have called it the impostor syndrome (don’t look at wikipedia’s definition its too

7. RT @zephoria: UX Magazine (@uxmag) has published my “Streams of Content, Limited Attention“ today: Hope you enjoy! – An important read from danah boyd on information flow and “four challenges, points where technological hope and reality collide.”

8. Why are you apologizing? – Like all of Seth Godin’s posts this one is short but gets the point across. Don’t apologize for something you’re doing. Either don’t do it, or do it and don’t apologize.

9. How Social Is Too Social? – not everything is better with friends.

10. Empowering Parents & Protecting Children in an Evolving Media Landscape –  Another important read from danah boyd et al “The FCC published a Notice of Inquiry (NOI) on the important topic of empowering parents and protecting youth in an era of an evolving media landscape.  John Palfrey, Urs Gasser, and I took the opportunity to respond to the NOI on behalf of the Youth and Media Policy Working Group Initiative at the Berkman Center. What we wrote should not surprise any of you who are following our work, but our research-grounded response may be of great value for those of you who are interested in this topic.  For this reason – and because we all believe in transparency – we have decided to publicly share the document that we crafted.”