The Future of Libraries: Do We Have Five Years to Live?

http://www.thefutureoflibraries.org/

Thursday and Friday, May 1-2, 2014, Toronto

A two-day institute for Library CEOs and  University/College chiefs and their senior staff, to get beyond the nostalgia, platitudes and cliches and explore the significant challenges facing library leaders. A unique program planned by and for public library CEOs/Directors and University Librarians and their senior staff.

In a world filled with turbulent change, are libraries keeping pace?  Are they innovating and engaging their communities with all the opportunities available?  Are they choosing the right focus and priorities?  Join us for spirited discussions and interactive problem-solving!

Confirmed speakers include:

• Greg Buss, Chief Librarian, Richmond Public Library
• Steven Coffman, Vice-President, LSSI
• Jane Dysart, Partner, Dysart and Jones
  
• Ken Haycock, Senior Partner, Ken Haycock & Associates, Inc.
  
• Meg Backus, Chief Maker, Chattanooga Public Library
• Rebecca Jones, Partner, Dysart and Jones
• Mary-Ann Mavrinac, Vice-Provost, University of Rochester
• Joe Matthews, President, JRM Consulting, and Author: Reflecting on the Future of Academic and Public Libraries 2013
• Gary Price, Co-editor, INFODocket and FullTextReports.com
• Lee Rainie, Director of the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project
  
• Ken Roberts, former CEO, Hamilton Public Library, and  member of the Royal Society of Canada expert panel on the future of libraries
• Andrew Wells, University Librarian, University of New South Wales
  
• Daphne Wood, Director, Planning and Development, Vancouver Public Library

Location
The Fairmont Royal York
100 Front Street West
Toronto, Ontario
Canada  M5J 1E3
Tel: +1-416-860-5015
Fax: +1-416-368-8148
www.fairmont.com

OLA and FOPL Members are eligible for a preferred rate for this symposium in Toronto.  This event was very successful in Vancouver and is being done again in our region.

Stephen

Top Resources for Essay Writers

https://plus.google.com/u/1/103650930190663702488/posts

All stages of essay writing can be tricky, from the choice of a proper topic to the organization of the paper to the actual writing. Moreover, you also have to edit and proofread the paper in order to make sure it’s clean of all spelling errors and logical gaps. The content has to be free of plagiarism, and all sources you have used need to be properly referenced. When you have all those rules in mind, essay writing can become really confusing.

However, there are online resources that can help you through every stage of the process, and we will list some of the most useful ones in the continuation.

Help with your topic and thesis

The first stage of the process can often be the most troublesome one. However, there are online tools that offer great topic ideas, which you can later turn into thesis statements with the help of thesis generators.

1. Topic Generator by Custom Writing will allow you to search for a catchy topic for your paper by selecting the type of assignment and its subject. The generator will come up with three topic suggestions for your essay.

2. Thesis Generator 1.0 is a great tool for drafting clear thesis statements for argumentative and persuasive essays. In order to get a suggestion for your thesis statement, you will need to enter the topic and main argument of your paper, along with two reasons that support the main argument.

3. Thesis Statement Creator is also requires you to enter all components of the thesis statement, after which you will get a suggestion for a thesis statement that you can directly use into your essay.

4. How to write a college application essay – 10 practical ninja tips by Ninja Essays. This simple guide offers practical tips for writing impressive application essays. Paying attention to this advice will relieve you from the stress of college applications.

Understand the types of essays

All types of essays have different requirements, so you need guides that will help you understand their principles.

1. Roane State Online Writing Lab provides clear information about various types of essays, as well as samples that will help you get an impression of how great academic writing is done.

3. Writing Detective provides a useful online lesson that will teach you how compare/contrast essays are written, after which you can take a quiz to test your abilities.

The organization of your paper

Proper essay organization isn’t difficult to achieve, but many students struggle with it. These are the tools that will improve the structure of your papers:

1. Writinghouse is citation generator that will create the needed bibliography entries and in-text citations in your paper.

2. Essay Map by ReadWriteThink will help you organize your paper through an interactive guide.

2. From outline… to essay by iCivics is a lesson with side-by-side examples of appropriate organization.

3. Essay Organizer is an app for smartphones, which you can use to go through the detailed steps of essay writing and take notes at any time.

Great essays don’t come without proper grammar and syntax!

These tools will help you make sure your paper is error-free:

1. PaperRater will not only provide you with suggestions on how you can improve your paper in terms of style and vocabulary, but will also check it for plagiarism.

2. Purdue OWL offers any information about essays you could possibly need. It will teach you about proper grammar and syntax, as well as the general requirements for different types of essays.

3. UNLV Writing Center provides practical tips on essay writing that will teach you how to avoid the most common mistakes.

Check the uniqueness of your paper!

Professors don’t forgive plagiarism issues, so you better use these tools to make sure your paper is unique before you submit it:

1. PlagTracker is a simple, but very effective tool that provides links to articles and webpages of duplicate content.

2. Viper is another effective plagiarism checker, but this one requires a download.

Conclusion

Education is an aspect of life that has been particularly transformed due to the remarkable digital changes. Now that you have practical tools within reach, essay writing doesn’t have to be a struggle. Online tools will make this activity less stressful and less time-consuming!

Stephen

Internet Consumption Around the World

http://www.internationalbusinessguide.org/internet-consumption/

Source: InternationalBusinessGuide.org

Internet Consumption Around the World

2013 marked the first year that there are more mobile internet devices than humans.
How do you consume the internet?

Fixed Broadband:
40% of the world is online through fixed broadband

The Big Picture

Fixed broadband access rates per 100 people:
Developed world: 77
World Average: 39
Developing world: 31

By Households:
41% total
Developed world: 78%
Developing world: 28%

Households out of 100:
Europe 77/100
The Americas 61/100
CIS 46/100
Arab States 34/100
Asia and Pacific 33/100
Africa 7/100

Other devices/connections
Phones:
25% of the world is on mobile broadband

Share of total mobile subscriptions:
total: 2.070 billion
Americas: 22.2%
Europe: 20.4%
CIS: 6.2%
Arab States: 3.4%
Africa: 4.5%
Asia-Pacific: 43.2%

With smartphones consuming 92% of global data
(Even thought they’re only 18% of handsets)

Video streaming is half of the data transmitted worldwide
And will be 2/3′s by 2017

Average smartphone behavior:
# of times typical user checks phone per day for:[4]
Messaging: 23
Voice Call: 22
Checking time: 18
Music: 13
Gaming: 12
Social Media: 9
Camera: 8
Alarm: 8
News and Alerts: 6
Calendar: 5
Web: 3
Search: 3
Other: 14

And Tablets
Less than 3 years from intro, surpassed desktop PC and notebook shipments
Devices of All Kinds

Number of internet connected devices by household:
America: 5.7
Europe: 10

By 2017:
23% PC’s
5% Smart PC’s
2% Consoles
67% Smartphones & Tablets
3% Other
WHAT we consume

There’s 9x more content online than there was 5 years ago.

Games
Average Number of Online Gamers and Time Spent Per Day
[region/average gamers per day/time spent on average gaming]
North America: 30.3 million/107 minutes per visitor
Latin America: 14.9 million/67 minutes per visitor
Europe: 45.6 million/97 minutes per visitor
Middle East/Africa: 6.2 million/45 minutes per visitor
Asia/Pacific: 47.9 million/47 minutes per visitor.

Banking
1/4 internet users uses banking sites globally:
North America: 45% of users
Europe: 37.8% of users
Latin America: 25.1% of users
Asia Pacific: 22% of users
Middle East/Africa: 8.8%

Video
Videos per user per month by country:
Canada: 303.7
U.S.: 286.3
UK: 268.6
Turkey: 250.7
Germany: 250.6
Japan: 222.7
France: 190.1
Spain: 178.6
Hong Kong: 160
Singapore: 153.2
Search and Social Networks

Top Site by Country

Europe:
Albania: Facebook
Algeria: Facebook
Armenia: Facebook
Austria: Google
Belgium: Google
Bosnia and Herzegovina: Facebook
Bulgaria: neobux.com
Croatia: Google
Cyprus: Facebook
Czech Republic: Google
Denmark: Google
Estonia: Google
Finland: Google
France: Google
Georgia: Facebook
Germany: Google
Greece: Google
Hungary: Google
Iceland: Facebook
Ireland: Google
Italy: Google
Latvia: Google
Lithuania: Facebook
Luxembourg: Google
Macedonia: Google
Malta: Google
Montenegro: Facebook
Morocco: Google
Netherlands: Google
Norway: Google
Poland: Google
Portugal: Google
Romania: Google
Serbia: Facebook
Slovakia: Google
Slovenia: Google
Spain: Google
Sweden: Google
Switzerland: Google
Ukraine: Google
UK: Google

Middle East:
Bahrain: Google
Egypt: Facebook
Israel: Google
Jordan: Facebook
Kuwait: Google
Lebanon: Facebook
Libya: Facebook
Oman: Google
Palestinian Territory: alwatanvoice.com
Qatar: Google
Saudi Arabia: Google
Syrian Arab Republic: Facebook
UAE: Google
Yemen: Google

Africa:
Cameroon: Yahoo
Cote d’Ivoire: Facebook
Ethiopia: Facebook
Ghana: Facebook
Kenya: Google
Madagascar: Google
Mauritania: Google
Mauritius: Google
Nigeria: Google
Reunion: Google
Senegal: Facebook
South Africa: Google
Sudan: Google
Tanzania: Facebook
Tunisia: Facebook
Uganda: Google

Asia/Pacific:
Australia: Google
Bangladesh: Facebook
Cambodia: Facebook
China: Baidu
Hong Kong: Google
India: Google
Indonesia: Google
Iran: Google
Iraq: Facebook
Japan: Yahoo
Macao: Google
Malaysia: Google
Mongolia: Facebook
Nepal: Facebook
New Zealand: Google
Pakistan: Google
Philippines: Facebook
Singapore: Google
Korea: Google
Sri Lanka: Google
Taiwan: Yahoo
Thailand: Facebook
Turkey: Google
Vietnam: Google

Americas:
Argentina: Google
Bahamas: Facebook
Barbados: Google
Bolivia: Facebook
Brazil: Facebook
Canada: Google
Chile: Google
Colombia: Google
Costa Rica: Google
Dominican Republic: Facebook
Ecuador: Facebook
El Salvador: Facebook
Guatemala: Facebook
Honduras: Google
Jamaica: Google
Mexico: Google
Nicaragua: Google
Panama: Google
Paraguay: Google
Peru: Google
Puerto Rico: Google
Trinidad and Tobago: Facebook
US: Google
Uruguay: Google
Venezuela: Google

CIS:
Azerbaijan: Facebook
Belarus: vk.com
Kazakhstan: mail.ru
Kyrgyzstan: Google
Moldova: Google
Russia: Yandex.ru
Uzbekistan: Google

This is how the world uses the Internet

Internet_Consumption_thumb

Citations

https://www.npd.com/wps/portal/npd/us/news/press-releases/internet-connected-devices-surpass-half-a-billion-in-u-s-homes-according-to-the-npd-group/

http://blogs.technet.com/b/firehose/archive/2014/01/27/in-europe-there-are-10-digital-devices-per-household-and-the-number-will-grow-as-smart-computing-takes-hold.aspx

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/feb/07/mobile-internet-outnumber-people

http://www.businessinsider.com/10-charts-reveal-stunning-facts-about-how-people-use-the-internet-2013-6?op=1

http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/51a619a66bb3f7374b00000c-1200/tablets-are-selling-faster-than-smartphones-in-less-than-three-years-on-the-market-theyve-surpassed-desktop-and-notebook-pc-shipments.jpg

http://press.ihs.com/press-release/design-supply-chain-media/installed-base-internet-connected-video-devices-exceed-globa

http://www.comscoredatamine.com/2013/01/top-10-websites-in-the-middle-east-and-africa/

http://www.comscoredatamine.com/2013/06/asia-pacific-has-largest-daily-online-gaming-audience/

http://www.comscoredatamine.com/2011/12/canadians-watch-most-online-videos/

http://www.comscoredatamine.com/2012/06/1-in-4-internet-users-access-banking-sites-globally/

http://www.alexa.com/topsites/countries

Stephen

How to Avoid Spreading Myths and Misinformation Online

http://lifehacker.com/5798308/how-to-identify-and-avoid-spreading-misinformation-myths-and-urban-legends-on-the-internet

“Even if you’ve never embarrassed yourself by unknowingly spreading an urban legend as fact to friends and family, you’ve at least been on the receiving end of one of these misinformed messages. Next time an email, tweet, or link seems a little fishy, here’s how to spot it before your itchy trigger finger sends it to all your friends or followers.P

Step One: If It Walks Like a DuckP

The first step is the hardest: You’ve got to employ a healthy level of skepticism for what you’re reading, watching, or otherwise consuming—on the internet or elsewhere. You’ve heard it before, but if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

Step Two: Do Your Research

Turn to Snopes

Snopes is “the definitive Internet reference source for urban legends, folklore, myths, rumors, and misinformation”—and for the most part, it actually does live up to that goal. Snopes has been around since 1995, and if you’ve ever attempted to debunk an internet myth or urban legend, you’ve certainly seen Snopes before. The problem with Snopes, particularly in an instance like the much-tweeted misquote, is that it’s not so good with the real-time misinformation. It is exceptional, however, for anything that’s even a few days old, thanks to its active forums. Keep in mind, as Lifehacker reader Joel Rollins noted, “Snopes is an internet source to be evaluated like any other source. That being said….it stops a lot more stupidity than it starts.” Which is to say, Snopes is generally a good, trustworthy source, but don’t throw away your skepticism just because Snopes said so. If you were already dubious, though, it may be enough to tip the scales.P

Snopes isn’t the only site of its ilk on the internet. Sites like BreakTheChain.org,TruthOrFiction.com, and others have similar myth debunking goals.

Searching Google (or, you know, other search engines)

Step Three: Don’t Hit Send

Step Four: Absolution”

Stephen