Here are the slides from one of my presentations: Top 20 Android Apps for Librarians

Top 20 Android Apps for Librarians

The rapid formation of an information layer on top of our reality should cause librarians to sit up and take notice. As information specialists, libraries should be leading, not following, in this opportunity. The tools to create something useful have never been easier.

QR codes are extremely simple to use (Google “QR code generator” for a slew of free options) and can be an early stepping stone for people to begin dabbling in the creation of an information overlay. Why not slap some QR codes onto your DVD collection and link it to a trailer so that people can get a better sense of the content of the DVD than what they’d get from reading the back of the case? Cost: A small square of paper and about 30 seconds of your time. Or how about putting QR codes on book shelves that will guide readers to additional selections? “If Hunger Games is checked out, try something similar from this list.” How about next to the car repair books, a QR code to link patrons to the online Auto Repair database? You’re already paying for the database — encouraging more use gives your library a better return on investment. The uses of these easy-to-make tags are only limited by your imagination.

Moving beyond QR codes, you can build custom apps based on GPS using a free service like Layar. This is a do-it-yourself-able option for creating GPS-based AR apps. The Museum of London’s Street Museum app could be used by any library or museum with an archive of historic photographs. Or use it to locate books on your shelves, or to link those books to alternate resources.

And then there’s Aurasma, an AR building application that uses object recognition to overlay data onto the real world. Whether it’s a photo of your library, your library logo, or any number of objects found in your physical library, you can make them interactive in a way that is both fun and educational. Living books or interactive charts and graphs for data are the low-hanging fruit. Add in some ingenuity and the opportunities are endless.

Augmented Reality is now here and is not going to go away. It will continue to grow and evolve and expand into almost all aspects of our lives. The time to embrace it is now, while libraries can still have the option to play a role in how data is compiled and content is delivered.

Digital People: From Bionic Humans to Androids
by Sidney Perkowitz

This quick (about 200 pages), well written book explores our fascination with immortality through the creation of machine versions of ourselves.

The book starts out with a look at artificial beings in literature and film, beginning with the story of Pygmalion, the sculptor, falling in love with his beautiful ivory statue and Aphrodite bringing it to life for him, and following with numerous examples including Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and the Asimov robot stories. Perkowitz discusses early films such as Metropolis and R.U.R as well as modern films such as Blade Runner and Robocop. And all the while he is not writing reviews or plot summaries, but instead is exploring the underlying philosophy of man’s desire (or obsession) to create a new humanity.

I was surprised to learn how long scientists and engineers have been working on creating artificial life. Perkowitz describes The Automaton Theater way back in the first century (yes, the FIRST century), as well as the Swiss man-machines of the 1700′s.

The second half of the book reports on the breakthroughs in artificial intelligence and robotics in the late 20th century through today. The research in mechanics, behavioral science, programming and cognition are just part of the picture. The book offers a look at what’s going on at MIT and also the Max Planck Institute for Biochemistry.

What is an adroid? What is a cyborg? How do they differ and in what direction is this all heading? How close are we to actually creating artificial life?

This book is fascinating. It’s thorough without being cumbersome. It’s a great resource for finding titles for further reading and/or viewing. And it stimulates thought on what it means to be human. This is a book I will read more than once.

I’ve posted my thoughts at Mouth2Ear specifically on the library of 2020 and on the topic of ereaders vs smartphones, and their implications for future library service. I truly believe that libraries will remain relevant. I don’t think we’ll see books completely disappear from the shelves, to be replaced by electronic-only access (at least not by 2020.) Especially not in public libraries where much reading for pleasure occurs.

However, the way we interact with information, as well as reading, is changing. This will affect the services people will expect from their local library. The current public library model is about books and information, first and foremost. The public library of the near future will be less about books, more about information, and also about user generated content, social space, and technology training. Ereaders will come and go, and people will be more likely to use their smartphone as their primary device for content of all kinds. The web as we know it will still exist, but it will be enhanced by an immersive model. Augmented reality will be ubiquitous; virtual reality will be gaining a foothold among mainstream users.

It’s good that the State Library folks are asking questions now. The dismal state of funding, combined with the shift in technology, is causing all libraries to evaluate who they are and who they will be. Libraries are important. Taking a “wait and see” attitude toward change is what will make libraries irrelevant, not ebooks. This is a case where those who are ahead of the curve will ensure their survival.

Please spend a few minutes on this survey while truly thinking about the near future:

Create your own daily newspaper quickly and easily. It simply aggregates posts from the people you follow on twitter, and yourself, and slaps them together into a nice news format, complete with photos, videos, and tabbed categories. It might be nice to have more control over which feeds it picks up, but for something that requires zero effort, I can’t complain.

Take a look at my Daily Tech News for stories that are current, fresh and geekishly tech-oriented.

Journal of Virtual Worlds and Education

This groundbreaking journal is the first to be devoted exclusively to the use of virtual worlds as education platforms, and is rich with research in this emerging field. The inaugural issue contains more than 200 pages of research on the pedagogical uses of virtual realities, featuring works by educators and scholars from around the world.

As we begin work on the second issue, I am excited and intrigued by the growth of virtual worlds and look forward to research into the educational use of Second Life, Open Sim, Blue Mars, Open Wonderland, Cobalt, Active Worlds, and others. Please check the submission guidelines for more information.

I’ve been watching AR (Augmented Reality) work its way into the mainstream over the past several years. When I first read about it in a 2002 article in Scientific American, I already knew there were people working in this field, but this article really caught my attention and gave a glimpse into what we might expect to see in the very near future.

Now that AR is creeping into our world,  there are some great things libraries can start doing to engage their communities through technology and games.

By now, most people who follow technology and/or libraries have seen the Museum of London’s You Are Here App.  You load the app onto your iPhone and wander through London, seeing an overlay of historic photos on the real-world buildings and places you are viewing.  This app would be a great way for libraries to share their archived images, working with local municipalities to provide an educational experience as well as a nifty tourism treat.

Here’s another thing for the iPhone that would enhance the profile of libraries:

http://mannahattathegame.com/

It’s a location-based game that maps Manhattan’s “historical ecosystem” to a learning game. Using a GPS-enabled phone and QR codes throughout the city, the player goes off on something akin to a scavenger hunt, finding information and learning along the way. What is unique about your community? It’s architecture? It’s historic characters? It’s inventions? Every community has something to show off. Making it fun will also make it memorable.

The TED talk posted today is about building a game layer on top of our world. Seth Priebatsch points out that we have already built the social framework for interaction over the past decade. The next decade will bring us the gaming framework we need to guide this social construct. One can safely assume that libraries can and should be at the forefront of all of this. The tools above are just a beginning.

I’m interested in hearing about what libraries and museums are doing to harness this new technology and provide information in new and exciting ways. Leave a comment and share what you’ve done or what you’ve found others doing!

E=H2O

in which scientists will forecast the future of energy and water in a 24 hour experiment.

Part of  The Signtific Lab’s Massively Multiplayer Thought Experiments, the idea is to bring together scientists and thinkers to solve world problems using a serious games model.

I’ve been working quite a bit in the realm of virtual worlds and education. A conversation with others in the field brought up the point that there is a serious dearth of venues for publication of research in this area. A colleague, David Pascal, suggested we create our own peer reviewed journal. The wheels started turning, and I suggested we create an umbrella organization that would allow us to create other journals and publications in the field as they become necessary. A year ago today, the Center for Virtual Worlds Education and Research, Inc.  filed articles of incorporation. We began our effort to pull together experts in the field to start our first journal, The Journal of Virtual Worlds and Education.

I made a trip to Monterey Bay, California to attend the New Media Consortium’s Summer Conference. I learned an enormous amount about the changing face of education — not just in virtual worlds, but in all aspects of new media. Digital storytelling was a big topic at the conference. Virtual worlds and Facebook were topics. Challenge based learning was an eye-opener. I met some wonderful people who are working hard and working creatively to change the way education gets done.

Shortly after returning from this trip, we gathered up our editorial team and put out a call for papers. Our editorial team is currently comprised of faculty members from Rochester Institute of  Technology, University of Rochester, St. John Fisher College, and University of Nevada, Las Vegas. By the time we reached our November deadline, we had several excellent papers in hand. We sent them out for blind review and have just received them back. Now the editorial process begins, and we are planning for a May publication date.

This has taken up the bulk of my time in the past year. I have also been participating in Urgent Evoke. It’s an online social game created by Jane McGonigal for the World Bank to bring people together to solve very big problems.

I continue to work in Second Life, maintaining a small parcel which I have used for both CVWER and for my real life library system, where I held a Big Read discussion of Call of the Wild last month. I continue to be impressed by the librarians working in Second Life who maintain their real life jobs as well as their virtual world reference services and events. Recently, Marilyn Johnson, author of This Book is Overdue: How Librarians and Cybrarians Can Save us All, was in Second Life for a visit with the CVL group. It’s nice when someone outside the group “gets” what is being done by the in-world librarians.

Lastly, I’ve been spending time on Twitter and Facebook more this year than in the past simply because it’s so easy to make a fast post. I’ve been working my day job at the library and still loving it after 15 years. I’ve been learning martial arts and hiking with my dog. All of these things have been taking priority over my blog, but I do hope to get a little blogging done from time to time — so check back every now and then. : )