Convergence and Information Centers

Information centers are often regarded as the cultural and learning hub of their communities. In order to
deepen community engagement and social inclusion, libraries are adopting new
technologies to facilitate a participatory and learning culture.

A variety of platforms are used for the purpose of communicating and providing access to users and there communities at large. The typical gadgets that is the smartphone or tablet now incorporates digital technologies such as Geo-location, audio, video, photo, and web technologies. Bringing all of these technologies into a single device has enabled the development of apps such as Instagram, HistoryPin and Sound Cloud. It has also changed the way users engage with established social networks such as Facebook
and Twitter, and photo-sharing sites such as Flickr.  

Users have the ability to create and share content on an unprecedented scale from any accessible WiFi or mobile phone network. Libraries are embracing these technology-rich apps to interact with their customers in many different ways. 

For example, HistoryPin allows libraries to share their archival collections connecting images with physical space through the use of the HistoryPin GPS app. HistoryPin also facilitates online social interaction where users are invited to share comments or memories about pictures and contribute their own photos to
match old images.

Benefits of using these technologies are

1.  Increased discoverability of library collections can be achieved through creative leverage of established and emerging converged media platforms, thereby increasing the value of library collections to the community. 
2.  Libraries can continue to evolve as transparent, engaged, responsive cultural organizations through the principles of participatory culture, by going beyond the role of trainer to become an active participant.
3. Libraries can enhance connections and must seek more meaningful participation with online communities through opportunities presented in the converged media environment.

 Technology change and the advantage it offers to libraries.

Technology change is affecting basic social structures in a way that a great media research scholar Manuel Castells has described beautifully in his work on “networked society.” The new digital ecosystem has changed social networks, the basic structure of our social interactions.

It has changed the composition of social networks. It has changed the way people use their social networks to navigate their lives. And it has increased the importance of social networks as people use them to make sense of the world.

And this new ecosystem changes the way organizations such as libraries can be parts of social networks.  libraries have always been informal parts of people’s social worlds as they help patrons solve problems and make decisions. But this is even more clear now because libraries can be “nodes” or “friends” in networks thanks to they way libraries help people connect to important, useful information and, these days, help people learn how to become media makers themselves.

the media ecosystem  change has benefited libraries in the following ways:

(a) Social networks-  Some 57% of adults who are internet users and 73% of teenagers use these kinds of sites. They are sharing information about their lives, joining political causes, and passing along other media to each other through social networking sites.scholars and lerners from different institutions pass information to each other through social media networks such as facebook, skype and MySpace. libraries can use these sites as platforms to sell their collections and reach a wide range of readers.

(b) sharing of photographs- people share material online through photographs. Billions and billions of pictures are displayed on social network sites and photo-sharing sites. libraries can become more connected with their users as they post photo albums that detail events and collections in their libraries. this keep the whole lot of readers and the library as a small interconnected village that can easily access information. 

(c) blogs- people can collaborate and create content on blogs. libraries can collectively create an eye-catching blog as well as one that grabs the attention of readers. through this blog, they can share detailed information about their library such as the location of the library, the materials in its collection, opening and closing hours and how readers can reach them. Through this, readers can have a better understanding of the library and visit the library if interested.

Media Convergence and the Transformed Media Environment

Convergence is the interlinking of computing and ICTs, communication networks, and media content that has occurred with the development and popularisation of the Internet, and the convergent products, services and activities that have emerged in the digital media space.

Graham Meikle and Sherman Young observe that convergence can be understood in four dimensions:

• technological—the combination of computing, communications and content around networked digital media platforms;
• industrial—the engagement of established media institutions in the digital media space, and the rise of digitally-based companies such as Google, Apple, Microsoft and others as significant media content providers;
• social—the rise of social network media such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, and the growth of user-created content; and
• textual—the re-use and remixing of media into what has been termed a ‘transmedia’ model, where stories and media content (for example, sounds, images, written text) are dispersed across multiple media platforms

 Graham Meikle and Sherman Youngs dimensions differs with those of Jenkins (2001), where his approach was through:
a) Technological
b) Economical
c) Social
d) Cultural

While technological change is a constant feature of modern economies, the changes associated with convergence, digitisation and networking have been seen as providing the basis for a new ‘techno-economic paradigm’. This is a term developed by innovation economists to refer to 50-year cycles of changes to the technological and knowledge base of societies. A techno-economic paradigm is defined as ' A cluster of inter-related technical, organizational, and managerial innovations whose advantages are to be found not only in a new range of products and systems, but most of all in the dynamics of the relative cost structure of all possible inputs to production.'

Convergence of media platforms and services is now a feature of all established media, as well as being a core feature of new media, digital content services are now very much at the heart of their news operations, and it no longer makes sense to maintain platform-specific organizational practices.

Media convergence has increased the tendency towards media globalization. The globalization of media platforms, content and services is also a critical feature of the convergent media environment.

Convergence requires media companies to rethink old assumptions about what it means to consume media, assumptions that shape both programming and marketing decisions. If old consumers were assumed to be passive, the new consumers are active. If old consumers were predictable and stayed where you told them to stay, then new consumers are migratory, showing a declining loyalty to networks or media. If old consumers were isolated individuals, the new consumers are more socially connected. If the work of media consumers was once silent and invisible, the new consumers are now noisy and public.

Some of the fundamental changes in the media as a result of convergence include:

• content abundance and increased media competition, rather than upon distribution scarcity and monopolistic or oligopolistic media markets;
• technological changes generate new challenges for maintaining technology-neutral or network-neutral media regulations;
• media regulations can have unintended consequences in advantaging or disadvantaging some platforms, services and providers as compared to others engaged in comparable activities; and
• media markets have become more international, and national regulations may not be compatible with these international media and communications markets

New media and storage and classification of books in libraries.

card catalogs existed long ago as narrow drawers one opened to get location information about specific books in the library. Now that library indexing is done by computer, very few librarians would long for the card catalogue.

When Melvil Dewey created his iconic classification system in 1876, libraries had only really begun to emerge as a fixture in cities. Previous attempts to code location data into library books had been problematic amid the growing amount of information, so the Dewey decimal system was a welcome technological advancement in library science.

Libraries  by using RFID or near-field communications systems, tiny chips inside the spines of books that communicate with smartphone apps, e-reader tablets or special book-finding devices available at the front desk can easily trace the location of a book within the shortest time possible. Not only would it feel more familiar to students raised on digital tech, but imagine scanning rows of stacks with an augmented reality viewfinder, looking through the screen instead of at the shelves, hunting for a book that lights up when you’ve found it.

librarians would also use this form of new media technology to reduce time wasted in looking for books and focus on doing more creative things for their institutions. 

Interlibrary loans

Libraries have developed document request forms on the Web allowing faster and more efficient handling of interlibrary loan (ILL) requests. In university libraries, this allows remote users quicker access and more equity in accessing library materials. Remote access to libraries has come to be expected by many students who do not necessarily want to visit the physical library, thereby affecting funding through student choice of enrolments in modern universities. These libraries are capable of delivering ILLs electronically, either by fax, e-mail or in a digitised format such as full text or as a PDF document and ‘when electronic versions are offered alongside a limited amount of interlibrary loans, a reduction in library costs was observed’ (Roussel, Darmoni and Thirion 2001).
Library catalogues are free on the internet and most services are provided without charge. OCLC FirstSearch and Nexis, however, charge for database access. The provision of ILLs by libraries has a comparable commercial service example.
Companies such as Infotrieve, Subito and CISTI provide a fee-based document delivery service. CISTI has a collection of over 50 000 journals in most languages, worldwide conference proceedings and papers, monographs, and over one million technical reports and translations. Both these businesses and libraries actually offer the same end results except that the businesses are making profits. Libraries are, in fact, ceding a traditional service to a commercial company that has modernised the concept into an e-commerce model for profit.
 libraries can develop e-commerce strategies to link with more users by:
Libraries can do this by:

• focussing on quality services and resources that can be differentiated from the general information provided by the internet and maintaining credibility as a source of trustworthy products and services in the online environment.
• re–examining traditional service models for adaptation to online services.
• providing services ‘24 x7 x 365’.
• organising easy, sustainable access to resources and services by developing reliable software and bandwidth connections.
• providing both direct and indirect communication with library staff and reinventing customer service for an e-commerce framework.
• using promotion models where appropriate, to offer further value-added services that users may require.
• developing new e-commerce transactions through innovation and keeping up-to-date with current trends and technology. 
• more on https://www.alia.org.au/about-alia/awards-and-grants/325/library-technician-research-award/previous-recipients-library-technician-research-award

social media and libraries 
Library advocacy is stronger and louder with the use of social media – attracting supporters to campaigns to save libraries or fix budget cuts, promote new products and services or raise awareness of libraries.
Social media is serious business. It has transformed the way many of us do our jobs and live our lives. It has blended the personal and the professional in a way that was as revolutionary as the introduction of the mobile phone. The merging of the two, with smart phones meeting the tools of social media has been another leap forward in the indispensable nature of social media.
Social media (and associated Web 2.0 tools) allows programs such as ours to exist, run by volunteers and using free tools that enable people to connect all over the globe.
libraries have not been left behind in the use of social media. librarians  present at virtual conferences, bring all participants together using virtual meeting software, connect with the global library community through twitter chats and use Storify to capture those twitter chats so anyone who missed out can see what was discussed in the meeting.

 more on
http://interlibnet.org/2014/09/14/discussion-topic-libraries-and-social-media/
http://interlibnet.org/2014/05/17/discussion-topic-library-advocacy-lobbying/
http://lj.libraryjournal.com/2012/09/opinion/john-berry/its-time-to-fix-library-advocacy-now-blatant-berry/

Effective management of social media records relies upon the implementation of a solid records management program for all records, regardless of medium.

For example,

• E-mail and instant messaging can be controlled by the agency. Servers can be managed withinthe agency, or services can be outsourced.
• Popular social media, such as Facebook and Twitter, can’t be placed on an enterprise server.
• Capturing records residing in these third-party social media tools can be labor-intensive, inefficient, and duplicative. 

The  “Web 2.0” systems are developed and designed to facilitate communication, secure information sharing,

interoperability, and collaboration on the World Wide Web. These include social-networking sites, video-sharing sites, wikis, blogs, and other such systems. 

 

What is your take on this, my group members?

Intro to Digital Preservation 1 of 5 - Meaning, Material, or Context?

New media and storage and classification of books in libraries.

card catalogs existed long ago as narrow drawers one opened to get location information about specific books in the library. Now that library indexing is done by computer, very few librarians would long for the card catalogue.

When Melvil Dewey created his iconic classification system in 1876, libraries had only really begun to emerge as a fixture in cities. Previous attempts to code location data into library books had been problematic amid the growing amount of information, so the Dewey decimal system was a welcome technological advancement in library science.Libraries  by using RFID or near-field communications systems, tiny chips inside the spines of books that communicate with smartphone apps, e-reader tablets or special book-finding devices available at the front desk can easily trace the location of a book within the shortest time possible.

 Not only would it feel more familiar to students raised on digital tech, but imagine scanning rows of stacks with an augmented reality viewfinder, looking through the screen instead of at the shelves, hunting for a book that lights up when you’ve found it.

librarians would also use this form of new media technology to reduce time wasted in looking for books and focus on doing more creative things for their institutions. 

The concept of new media in libraries

Cultural institutions such as libraries, archives, and historical societies house remarkable collections of cultural artifacts. materials must be preserved, protected and provide responsible stewardship for the materials, and to the best of their ability, provide continued long-term access.

New media technologies constitute of networks or hybrids that can be expressed in physical, social, aesthetic and electronic terms. The concept of remediation in libraries has been widely applied in the transformed libraries (Digital libraries).

Digital libraries are centers  with a focused collection of digital objects that can include text, visual material, audio material, video material, stored in electronic formats (as opposed to print, or other media), along with means for organizing, storing, and retrieving the files and media contained in the library collection.

• Digitization:Digitization in library environment includes taking a physical object or analog item, such as books, a tape recording, a map, a collection that is rare or unique, fragile materials, and taking photographs of the item, and transferring the photographs to a digital medium. The negatives or prints are scanned into digital format such as a JPEG (1,400 pixels) and even larger, TIFF (Tagged Image File Format, 2000 pixels). Digital files are imported into, and managed with the use of software programs. Digital files may be read, compressed, transferred and retrieved over computer networks then made accessible and viewed on computer monitors. 

• Remediation: example: Microsoft Encarta and Grolier's electronic encyclopaedia are in electronic from and they improve on printed encyclopaedia by providing not only text and graphic but also sound and video and they feature electronic searching and linking  capabilities.libraries can adopt this and provide links to this sites, acquire digital materials or reformat their print materials to electronic form 
• Interactivity : new media in libraries has changed the way people interact and communicate, it grows from one way to interactive communication which allows feedback in every communication process, it has provided ease in access and people can access the library irrespective of time and geographical distance in this case it prevents barriers of centralized control to flow of information. this is achieved through the Facebook pages of various libraries, blogs, twitter among others

use of new media in data mining for libraries

Data mining
Libraries have always had a large database of users, stocks and usage statistics. The objective of collecting library statistics is ‘to assess the quality and effectiveness of services [and resources] provided by the library’ (Poll 2001). Whilst we examine these statistics for such purposes, libraries seldom examine the profiles of their users for marketing. Occasionally, they send out surveys to evaluate the data in the context of their unique setting to enable sound decision-making (Bland and Howard 2003). A continuing trend toward data-driven decision making and accountability requires institutions to store more data in a data warehouse. Data warehousing is simply storing information about customers, clients or users that keeps the records as indexed files, in an ordered usable management system which has been around for many years. In the competitive business environment, this data is increasingly being used in sophisticated ways through use of new technologies in data mining. Data mining is the ability to extract and interpret specific data held within the data warehouse. Telecommunication companies, banks, insurance companies, utilities and retailers compile data about customers by using this new technology. The data gives insights into their customers’ future behaviour and product needs. This newer technology is  more sophisticated than previous data collection and analysis software that gathered for analysis and application simpler data such as customers’ ages, gender, income and geographical location.
Data mining, customer analytics and predictive modelling software often allow the user to select subgroups of customers, track cohort groups, create queries, and build visual representations of data patterns or trends to make changes in products and make long range plans for new directions. Hence data-driven decisions can be made. This actual concept is not so new (Chen, Han and Yu 1995). In the past, staff of the local library could recommend and purchase new stock for customers by developing a personal interest and knowledge of individuals who used its services. Data mining attempts to do this on a larger and more consistent scale and it seeks, through statistical analysis, to reveal that often-elusive relationship between a business and its loyal customers. Libraries have always kept statistics on usage. Customer analytics are a way of making statistics more useful by applying algorithms in a way that makes them easy to use. This yields valuable information for target marketing such library patron profiles. In theory, the more information you can gather about your customers, the better you can anticipate and cater to their needs. By using advanced profiling technology, libraries would be in the position of predicting library users’ satisfaction rates rather than establishing current satisfaction. This involves changing strategies to meet new realities in user demands. It is a perfect vehicle for soliciting unbiased information on current trends and anticipating future challenges. It also facilitates clarification of current needs through the administration of random surveys of pre-existent data that can be mined without the necessity to impose on clients by ad hoc or sustained interrogation.
The ability to develop effective marketing and promotion strategies is another key benefit of utilising the customer profile. Target marketing is available as a means of profiling the library user. For example, even basic statistics can be used to ascertain the nature of information retrieval habits of library users. Staff can identify usage by such things as type of resource, time and how up-to-date the resource is. A sophisticated yield of user profiling would also establish that items were checked out by particular demographic groups, then by cross referencing to a database of information about users, such things as age groups and reading levels would be revealed for examination. As a result we could query the user profile provided by a database and disseminate information to staff of the library who would benefit from the query results, such as appropriate times to run courses.
https://www.alia.org.au/about-alia/awards-and-grants/325/library-technician-research-award/previous-recipients-library-technician-research-award

New Media and Infopreneurship

Infopreneurship is a business model based on the sale of information. Infopreneurship is a highly competitive field because clients are looking for factual, informative, high quality and relevant content.
the technological improvement of the internet and / or the development of the internet as means of both marketing and distribution have provided a myriad form of online transmission, such as, video, audio and electronic publications
Infopreneurship has led to:
1). alteration of the meaning of geographic distance:  it collates people together through the online platform
2). allows for huge increase in the volume of communication
3). provides the opportunities for interactive communication: for example, online education via skype, or group discussion forums.
4). Allows for communication to overlap and interconnect.

libraries can use new media to attract readers and users to their own library. for example, librarians can share their information materials online through photographs. posting photographs of cover pages of rare titles could attract a large number of readers to the library either to borrow or read the book therein.  Billions and billions of pictures can be displayed on social network sites and photo-sharing sites.

librarians can also comment on other libraries' material - on news sites, community sites, hobby sites, and political sites and many more. About a quarter of internet users have done this and contributed to the great, roiling conversation taking place every minute in the online commons. librarians creating this kind of conversation can create interest among users attracting them to their libraries. 
Twitter can also be used by libraries. it is a micro-blogging system where people use 140-characters in a message answering the question, “What are you doing?” About a fifth of internet users use status updating programs and give their “followers” little snapshots into their lives.if for instance librarians use this platform to tell readers what they have in their libraries, then they can draw a good number of readers out of the millions of users.

Blogging is a very interesting tool that can allow libraries to become publishers. About one in seven internet users currently have blogs and about half of internet users are regular readers of blogs.
So, the internet world is full of personal creations – and that is one of the big explanations for why there is so much more digital material in our lives. People are participating in making media, adding to their culture, telling their stories and building new kinds of communities with this material.librarians building up material of what they offer and do in their libraries can create interest among users to visit that library and use their information materials.