Academic Earth, http://academicearth.org/, is a site to view free university lectures. Acorrding to the site, they have "thousands of video lectures from the world's top scholars." I found most to be lectures in Business, but it does include some lectures in a broad range of traditional university subjects. Some of these lectures include an entire semester's worth of video. 
"Timothy Leary was a visionary. Realizing the importance of the events of the day, he tenaciously saved records of each phase of his life, capturing not only the budding psychedelic movement and its history, but years later, trumpeting the coming of the digital age of personal computers when this concept was still foreign to most."
"His archival collection contains over 500,000 documents, including hundreds of letters from luminaries of all kinds (Allan Ginsberg, Aldous Huxley, Jack Kerouac, Abbie Hoffman, Robert Anton Wilson), documents from his Harvard research, Millbrook journals, IFIF documents, hundreds of hours of audio and video and thousands of photographs. This collection records not only his life, but the history of the entire psychedelic movement, and more."
"Last week, at a huge reunion event in San Francisco, his estate announced their plans to digitize this collection and place it online as one of the first projects of its kind. Hosted by Brewster Kahle at the Internet Archive, the site will eventually house the entire collection, and it will be completely searchable and indexed. Dr. Leary had this dream before most people even knew what the internet was, or how important it would become."
"We invite you to visit to help support the digitization, by donating to help move the project forward."
When you step back and take a look at the device, it's clear that the most notable changes have come in the form of hardware tweaks. Besides the text-to-speech function, there's not much you can do on the new Kindle that you couldn't do on the old one. Books still cost just as much to download, and you still have largely the same set of options when you get them on the device. The buy-in for the unit itself is $359 -- not cheap -- and everything you put on it is going to cost you a little bit more. After a while, that can start to add up, and we're not convinced it makes sense for just anyone. Ultimately, it boils down to a question of needs, because -- like the first Kindle -- the Kindle 2 doesn't represent such a sea change in technology that we think everyone should run out and buy it.
A lot of people are fond of calling the device an "iPod for books" as if that's just what most people want or require, and we're not so sure of that. Still, the Kindle 2 delivers an enjoyable experience with noticeable leaps in usability, and big leaps in industrial design. If you travel lightly, are a voracious reader, and absolutely love gadgets, you'll probably get this device. Is that everyone? No... but it's a lot of people we know.
this is the first cut of an essay film about technology and control, it describes google, but a lot of it refers to the internet itself and how it has become alligned with making us think in the last few years.
it has some concerns in it about digital imperialism, i think that we need to question the authorities that have such a massive impact on our lives and the way we experience everything (almost). This used to be the news folk like the murdochs, the bbc and the cnns of the world. But this has moved to the web folk.
You’ve got a problem. But you have to build for the future. I mean if you’re — if you’re the guy delivering ice to people’s ice boxes, at a certain point, you better go into the refrigerator repair business or you’re going to have an issue. If you’re the village blacksmith and a model T comes along, you better become a mechanic. People’s lives are better when they get news online versus having to wait for the morning paper. It’s a lot more efficient, a lot more real time, a lot less waste. It’s actually — like everything about the online experience is better. And at some point, you have to — I believe, as a responsible manager, reorient –
"As engaging as the film is, explaining it is tricky: along with traditional 2-D animation there are cutouts, collages, photographs and scenes with hand-painted watercolors as the backdrop. At certain points Ms. Paley mixes laughs with exposition by having three flat silhouette characters dispute the details of the Ramayana's tragic saga of the Hindu goddess Sita, who is exiled by her husband, Rama, who fears she has been unfaithful after she is abducted by a demon king. At other points Ms. Paley weaves in the story of her own collapsing marriage, and the time switches from ancient India to present-day San Francisco and Manhattan, the images hand-drawn and jittery. In between everything else are flash-animation musical numbers featuring Sita in voluptuous Betty Boop-like form -- almond-shaped head, saucer eyes and swaying hips -- accompanied by the warbling voice of a real-life flapper-era singer named Annette Hanshaw."I can't wait! Here is a link to some great "stills" from the film.
Inside Higher Education has a lengthy article titled The Library Website of the Future excerpted here:
“…The primary function of the contemporary academic library Web site is to connect a user to content, be it an article database, e-book or e-journal article, and to do it with minimal barriers and maximum speed and ease. Faculty and students tend to have their one or two favorites, for example, JSTOR for many faculty and Academic Search Premier for students. For those highly popular e-resources the portal may get the job done. A serious flaw needing correction is the failure of the academic library Web site to invite the user community to, in simple ways, discover the full range of resources available for their research. Bruce Springsteen laments having 57 channels and nothing to watch. Faculty and students can access from dozens to hundreds of databases with little or no idea what they are or how to find them.
So it is little surprise that faculty and students rarely use the library’s Web site to connect to content that satisfies their scholarly needs. Instead they invent their own backdoor routes to the content, but in doing so may miss related or new electronic resources made available by the library. You may argue that faculty and students forged their own paths to circumvent the library back in the print only days, but now the possibilities for and associated risks of missing important resources are astronomically greater…”
"We have found that no matter where students are enrolled, no matter what information resources they may have at their disposal, and no matter how much time they have…Research seems to be far more difficult to conduct in the digital age than it did in previous times."
"Many participants considered formal library instruction (one-time, individual class visits) of little value to them, too. Throughout our sessions, participants reported that “library talks” (i.e., bibliographic instruction) made sense at the time, but that it was hard to recall and apply months later, when students were working on a research assignment."
"Other participants reported that they infrequently consulted librarians with the search terms they entered into scholarly research databases. Students told us “we are just as capable to enter basic search terms as librarians can,” “that I’ve been able to get by, so far, without librarians,” and “I don’t need a tour of the library, I just need to find one thing...now.” One student said, “my first step used to be the library, but it was too much information, now I just go to the Web.”
"We found, generally, that when students did not receive (or request) the service they value delivered at the moment they need it from librarians, they quickly change course. Participants found a solution on their own, which is usually found online and derived from self-taught techniques that help them find the context they need."
The best readers are obstinate. They possess a nearly inexhaustible persistence that drives them to read, regardless of the circumstances they find themselves in. I’ve seen a reader absorbed in Don Quixote while seated at a noisy bar; I’ve witnessed the quintessential New York reader walk the streets with a book in hand; of late I’ve seen many a reader devour books on their iPhone (including one who confessed to reading the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy while scrolling with his thumb). And millions of us read newspapers, magazines, and blogs on our screens every day—claims that no one reads anymore notwithstanding.
What each of these readers has in common is an ability to create solitude under circumstances that would seem to prohibit it. Reading is a necessarily solitary experience—like dying, everyone reads alone—but over the centuries readers have learned how to cultivate that solitude, how to grow it in the least hospitable environments. An experienced reader can lose herself in a good text with anything short of a war going on (and, sometimes, even then)—the horticultural equivalent of growing orchids in a desert.
EthicShare is a research and collaboration website for scholars working in the field of ethics. The site features a rich database of literature, with an initial focus on bioethics. The EthicShare collection features scholarly articles, books, archival and digital objects, popular press literature, dissertations, and commission reports, as well as blogs and other sources.
As a research site, EthicShare users can:
The web site is your library's most important feature. Think about it: Where do people go to find out if a book is available, or if you carry a particular DVD or magazine? Patrons use the web site for numerous functions, such as renewing materials, placing holds, requesting information, and accessing databases. The homepage is the place they turn to look up your hours, branch locations, policies, and events. Whether users are at work, at home, in your building, or on their iPhone, the library's web site is the interface that you provide for them.
Roald Dahl moved to Great Missenden in Buckinghamshire in 1954. He wrote all of his children's stories in a writing hut that was specially built in his garden. It was his privte place to write and no one else was allowed in. Take a look inside.
It’s important. If I had to list things that differentiate us from Neolithic club-wielders or fundamentalist Scripture-wielders or videospud remote-wielders, good hot morning toast would be right up there. It seems simple and it is, but not easy.
Basically, you create your own shareable tunes lists of any music you want. The catch is...the tunes are not downloaded. On the positive side of that, there are no copyright issues as with file sharing sites. The downside is you cannot load them into your mp3 player or iPod.
Listen
There are close to 100 comments on the video and over 33,000 views of the video. Track all mentions and embeds of the video and listen to how people are responding to it. If Trader Joe’s isn’t using a conversation monitering service, go with the the tools available out there such as social mention.
Learn
The video is mostly complimentary but shows Trader Joe’s warts and all. Once input has been gathered from across the Web, put together a report with some qualitative findings that can be discussed internally within the organization. Remember, a brand isn’t what you say it is—it’s what they say it is. What can Trader Joe’s Learn if anything
Adapt
Use the video as fodder to figure out how your orginzation will respond to these types of inevitable situations (similar to the volume content generated by scores unofficial Trader Joe blogs). Maybe it’s time for TraderJoes.com to embrace some of these fan blogs/videos? There’s some great stuff out there.
Respond
Engage your customers in the comments. Talk to them—but only after you’ve taken the other steps. Use it as an opportunity to get into why they love your brand and what could be better about it. Then go back to listening—lather, rinse and repeat.
A Mission Statement by Roger and DaveSongs available for down load or playing here.
Roger and Dave will....
A) Record & perform on ukulele all 185 original compositions by The Beatles with 185 guest artists.
B) Write essays to coincide with each release.
C) Make available for download one new recording and essay every Tuesday for 185 weeks, beginning January 20, 2009 (Inauguration Day) and climaxing July 24, 2012 (The eve of the London Olympics)
The Hyperlinked Library is an open, participatory institution that welcomes user input and creativity. It is built on human connections and conversations. The organizational chart is flatter and team-based. The collections grow and thrive via user and staff involvement. Librarians are tapped in to user spaces and places online to interact, have presence and point the way.
The hyperlinked library is human. Communication, externally and internally, is in a human voice. The librarians speak to users via open, transparent conversation.
The hyerlinked library provides spaces and places for users to interact, to collaborate and to create content. In an age of digital tools such as video editing stations, podcast studios and multimedia PCs, this library is a place to have access to all manner of new and emerging technologies. To test drive. To make something.
The hyperlinked library has flattened the organizational chart, breaking down the layers of “permission” and “channels” to get things done, and looks for ways to streamline processes, procedures, and dreaded policies.
The hyperlinked library has a plan for succession management and knowledge transfer— wikis, blogs and other tools maintain the knowledgebase and the “history” of how the library works and what procedures have been successful. No one is the keeper of individual knowledge, so if that person departs the knowledge does not leave with them.
The hyperlinked library is simply the Read/Write library, where conversations, connections, and community are born – in the words of Ranganathan, it is still a “living organism.”
Library services and organizational models are changing with the onset of emerging philosophies, Web 2.0 tools and user perceptions of libraries. Users are responding by creating content and may want to do it with library data and in library space. How should the library respond? In this presentation, Michael Stephens explores a range of important questions for the evolving Hyperlinked Library:
- What makes a library transparent?
- What do nimble organizations do?
- What does the Read/Write library look like?
- What trends are impacting library services
- How have libraries adopted a 2.0 philosophy?
- As new technologies and services become available, how do we effectively plan in libraries?
- How do we plan to optimize staff, money, and time?
- How do we determine what’s important and what’s not?
Official-looking photos of the Kindle 2 have emerged and the new e-reader from Amazon looks thinner, sleeker and lighter! If the pencil comparison is accurate, then the new Kindle appears to shed much of its width, coming in as thin as the Sony PRS-505 reader, and little bit longer than both the original Kindle and the Sony Reader. The Kindle 2 also appears to have a metal back with built-in speakers.The Kindle 2 is expected to hit Amazon on the 24th of February for $359, the same price as the current Kindle. This is still all unconfirmed but the information seems to jive with previous rumors and the source of the leak, MobileRead, is well-known in the e-book world.
I came across the "Truth-o-Meter" which is actually part of the St. Petersburg Times. There are sub-sections for a "Flip-o-Meter" and "Chain Mail Truth" and even an "Obameter" that tracks all 510 promises President Obama made while campaigning. I post it here for no political reasons or agenda, but only because it is an interesting use of technology to track commitments and promises.
“Broken gets fixed. Shoddy lasts forever.”
One of the developers I work with said this after I complained about a lingering issue in one of our products. It rings true. When deadlines are tight, and there is more work to get done than there are developers or hours in the schedule, it’s not the squeaky wheel, but the jammed one that gets the grease. The lesson, then, is to make sure it gets done right the first time. You never know when you’ll have the opportunity to revisit it.
Stolen over at DesignAday
