Two Forthcoming Books on Technology Topics for Librarians

Two Forthcoming Books on Technology Topics for Librarians

Coming later this year — two “Librarian’s Quick Guides” to be published by Libraries Unlimited.

  • Siri, Alexa, and Other Digital Assistants
  • Power Searching the Internet

Here’s what’s in each book.

Siri, Alexa, and Other Digital Assistants
The Librarian’s Quick Guide

By Nicole Hennig

The Amazon Echo, with its “Alexa” voice personality, is one of the most popular digital assistants available. Google offers “Google Assistant,” Apple “Siri,” and Microsoft “Cortana.”

These digital assistants can do many things, such as play music, play audiobooks, play radio stations, play podcasts, answer factual questions, tell stories, and control devices in your home (thermostats, lights, and more).

This technology is improving quickly and will be included in many more devices in the near future — at home, at work, and in your car. Voice computing enables better access for people in a variety of situations, such as people with vision problems, mobility problems, and situations where hands-free computing is useful.

Read this book to:
• Become familiar with the basics of voice computing platforms.

• Understand why voice computing is positioned to become an important paradigm change for more user-friendly and accessible computing.

• Get inspired to include voice computing platforms in library services and events.

• Continue your learning with a bibliography of best sources on voice computing.

1. What is Voice-First Computing?

  • Introduction
  • Definitions
  • Platforms Overview
  • Typical Tasks
  • Third-Party Skills
  • Statistics
  • Advantages of Voice Computing

2. Hardware and Skills

  • Hardware
  • Smart Speakers
  • Smart Home Devices
  • TV Devices
  • Home Robots
  • Voice Computing in Cars
  • Hearables
  • Comparing Platforms
  • Creating Skills

3. Real-World Uses

  •  Hands-Free Situations
  • Workplace Uses
  • Benefits for the Elderly
  • Benefits for People with Disabilities
  • Use in Libraries
  • School Libraries and Classrooms
  • Public Libraries
  • Academic Libraries

4. Privacy and Ethical Concerns

  • The Privacy of Your Voice Data
  • Children and Voice Assistants
  • Sexism in Voice Computing
  • What Librarians Need to Know

5. The Future of Voice Computing

  • A Primary Way of Using Computers
  • Advances in Speech Recognition and Natural Language Processing
  • Possible Uses in Libraries
  • Learning More

 

Power Searching the Internet
The Librarian’s Quick Guide

by Nicole Hennig

Everyone knows how to dash off a quick Google search, but do you know how to go deeper with your searching? This book will show you how to search for many types of information effectively: websites, news, images, videos, statistics, maps, books, definitions, translations, and more. With examples and how-to tips, you’ll learn to effectively search Google, Wolfram Alpha, social media sites, and other internet search tools.

Read this book to:

  • Learn how to search Google and other search engines more effectively.
  • Become familiar with hidden features and filters offered by many search tools.
  • Learn about several different free search tools and when to use each.
  • Get information you can use to teach your patrons about searching.

Chapter 1 – Using Google Effectively

Special features: Instant predictions, Limiting by date

Advanced search features: Limiting by region, by site or domain, by file type, and more

Personalization: Google’s personal results, using Verbatim search, how Google personalizes your results

Privacy: Using Google’s “My Activity” page, Deleting your history, Using Private mode, Other privacy tools: private search engines and browser apps, using a VPN (Virtual Private Network), using TOR (The Onion Router)

Chapter 2 – Using Other Google Sites Effectively

Google News

Goole Translate

Google Books Google Scholar

Google Maps

Chapter 3 – Multimedia Searching

Images: Google Images, Creative Commons licenses, Pixabay, Unsplash, Flickr, Reverse image searching with Google,

Videos: Google video filters, Vimeo search, YouTube filters, Finding videos with captions and subtitles

Chapter 4 – Social Media Searching

Twitter tips and advanced searching, using hashtags

Facebook – using it as a search engine, controlling your privacy

Instagram – people, tags, places, Instagram sites from academics, libraries, non-profits, hashtag search tool

Pinterest – Guided search, Infographics, Visual results, Pinterest sites from sites from academics, libraries, non-profits

Chapter 5 – Finding Old Websites

Using the Wayback Machine from Internet Archive

Using Google’s Cache

Chapter 6 – Data, Statistics, Comparisons

Wolfram Alpha – tips, examples, why it’s good for comparisons using data

Chapter 7 – Conclusion

 


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Mobile Apps News: stay current with mobile apps

Tracking Technology Trends – Interactive Workshop at SLA in Baltimore

Tracking Technology Trends – Interactive Workshop at SLA in Baltimore

If you’re planning to attend the Special Libraries Association conference in Baltimore in June, come to my workshop!

Tracking Technology Trends: Staying Current in a World of Information Overload.

This interactive workshop will offer some of the best resources for keeping up with the latest technology trends, along with strategies to evaluate emerging technologies. In addition, it will include the following activities:

  • A quiz to determine your “tech personality”— are you a visionary or an implementer? Which type?
  • Hands-on demos of two apps that help you stay current.
  • A “worst idea” brainstorming activity for designing library services with new technologies.

It’s on Tuesday, June 12, 3:30 pm – 5 pm.
See schedule of workshops.

This workshop is based on information in my book, Keeping Up with Emerging Technologies.

I hope to see you there, and please introduce yourself to me if I’ve met your virtually but not in the physical world! (Newsletter readers, former students, webinar attendees — you know who you are!)

Tracking Technology Trends – My Workshop at SLA in Baltimore

Tracking Technology Trends – My Workshop at SLA in Baltimore

If you’re planning to attend the Special Libraries Association conference in Baltimore in June, come to my workshop!

Tracking Technology Trends: Staying Current in a World of Information Overload.

This interactive workshop will offer some of the best resources for keeping up with the latest technology trends, along with strategies to evaluate emerging technologies.

In addition, it will include the following activities: 1) A quiz to determine your “tech personality”— are you a visionary or an implementer? Which type?  2) Hands-on demos of 2 apps that help you stay current. 3) A “worst idea brainstorming” activity for designing library services with new technologies.

It’s on Tuesday, June 12, 3:30 pm – 5 pm.
See schedule of workshops.

This workshop is based on information in my book, Keeping Up with Emerging Technologies.

I hope to see you there, and please introduce yourself to me if I’ve met your virtually but not in the physical world! (Newsletter readers, former students, webinar attendees — you know who you are!)

Librarians: Become an Expert in Mobile Apps for Education with These Courses

Librarians: Become an Expert in Mobile Apps for Education with These Courses

Are you the type of person who prefers to learn at your own pace? And do you want to improve your expertise in mobile technologies for education?

If so, then these self-study versions of my online courses are a good choice for you.

I teach other courses on specific dates (through the American Library Association and Library Juice Academy), but many librarians don’t realize that I also offer courses you can work on at any time.

There are several advantages to the self-study versions:

You can go at your own pace, start and finish the course at any time (with no deadlines).

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You’ll have ongoing access to the materials in years to come — so you can review at any time. (I update these courses once a year).

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The prices are more affordable (usually less than half the price of taking them via ALA).

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Previous students love these courses (see testimonials).

Learn more about what’s covered in each course:

Sign up below.

Organize Your Life with Mobile Apps

Learn to use 4 best types of apps for keeping track
of all your information.

Organize Your Life with Mobile Apps: I found this class to be extremely informative and helpful. I learned about applications that help me manage everyday activities while becoming acquainted with applications that assist with storage, organization and security measures evolved for safekeeping. This class also gave me knowledge that I can share with library customers and staff.

Jan Banks

Casey County Public Library

Apps for Librarians

Become an app expert for your community.

Apps for Librarians is a fantastic course! Take it if you want to become confident in acquiring and using apps. Learn how to effectively apply them in an educational setting. The course format and instructor were excellent and galvanized my understanding of these very useful tools.

Ann Kenney

Rice Memorial High School, Burlington, VT

The Book as iPad App

Learn about interactive, multimedia book apps.

This four-week course gets five stars not only for the information it contains but also for the level of empowerment it provides. I signed-up not knowing a thing about book apps, and in a month’s time I am using them at work and collaborating with a library colleague to create a book app of our own for use in story times. The topic is timely, relevant and fun! I couldn’t ask for more.

Susan Hansen

Head of Public Services, West Hartford Public Library, West Hartford, CT

25 ideas for using mobile apps in library services

25 ideas for using mobile apps in library services

In my online course, “Apps for Librarians,”⁠ one of the assignments is to participate in a brainstorming activity about this topic.

Librarians in my course are from many types of libraries (public, academic, school, and special), and this list is based on ideas they came up with.

25 Ideas

    • Introduce graphic novels both print and for mobile devices, do presentation about them with iPad and projector.
    • Have an app share event – everyone shares apps that have been helpful to them. Librarians provide a list of apps to start with. Call this “Appy Hour.”
    • Host app clubs – like book clubs, but for apps.
    • Offer a collection of interactive book apps on iPads for loaning either inside the library, or as take-home devices.
    • Collect and categorize the best reference apps and put them on the iPads used by reference librarians. Use these reference apps to answer questions.
    • Purchase print books that can be used with specific apps (augmented reality books), and make the iPad, the app, and the book available together.
    • Provide tablet stations where people can use tablets pre-loaded with excellent apps in different topic areas.
    • Introduce the Scanbot app to genealogy society members who meet at the library as a way to scan their research treasures into their devices and reduce the amount of paper they have.
    • Use the Kindle app or the Overdrive app for readers with dyslexia. These apps offer the OpenDyslexic font. According to opendyslexic.org, the font helps dyslexic readers distinguish letters and words for easier reading. Features include weighted bottoms for each letter to help indicate letter direction and wider letter spacing.
    • Use a comic strip creation app with kids for a project to create their own comic strips. They can work alone or in groups to tell their stories. The activity promotes creativity, collaboration, and lets them come away with a digital comic strip that they can share with others.
    • Offer a “Student Success Workshop” in order to introduce useful apps such as Dropbox, 1Password, Wunderlist, Evernote, and JotNot.  Also show examples of using Apple’s and Google’s apps for word processing and slide creation, for ease of creating required papers, presentations, and collaborative group work.

 

Do you have more ideas?

Share them by commenting on this post. Tell us what you’re doing with mobile apps in your library programs.

Want to learn more? Join the Apps for Librarians course!

Enhance your career – become an app expert for your community.

Cyber Security and Privacy: July 6 webinar

Cyber Security and Privacy: July 6 webinar

If you read today’s headlines about security breaches, you might be thinking of going back to fax machines and snail mail. Or you might be assuming that privacy is dead and we may as well get used to it (and you have nothing to hide, right?)

While there is no such thing as foolproof security and privacy, there is a middle ground that you can find by understanding and using particular techniques.

Have you ever wondered about the following questions?

  • Is your laptop or smartphone’s traffic being harvested when on public wi-fi?
  • What’s the best thing to do if your device is lost or stolen?
  • (more…)