Author Archives: Michael Sauers

PUNKCAST2102 Cory Doctorow, author of ‘Pirate Cinema’ (Tor, 2012), judges a video remix contest, reads from, and discusses the book at Word , Brooklyn on Oct. 15 2012.

Peter Gabriel stops by Google to discuss his recent work, including the new “Back to Front” tour, celebrating the 25th Anniversary of “So.” From the latest at Witness to his thoughts about bringing back the original “So” band, Peter covers a wide variety of subjects. This talk was recorded on October 2nd, 2012.

Peter Brian Gabriel is an English singer, musician, and songwriter who rose to fame as the lead vocalist and flautist of the progressive rock group Genesis. After leaving Genesis, Gabriel went on to a successful solo career. His 1986 album, So, is his most commercially successful, and the album’s biggest hit, “Sledgehammer”, won a record nine MTV Awards at the 1987 MTV Video Music Awards, and the song is the most played music video in the history of the station.

More recently, Gabriel has focused on producing and promoting world music and pioneering digital distribution methods for music. He has also been involved in various humanitarian efforts. Gabriel has won numerous music awards throughout his career, including three Brit Awards—winning Best British Male in 1987, six Grammy Awards, thirteen MTV Video Music Awards, and in 2007 he was honored as a BMI Icon at the 57th annual BMI London Awards for his “influence on generations of music makers.” Gabriel was also awarded the Polar Music Prize in 2009, and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Genesis in 2010.

Nebraska Learns 2.0 is the Nebraska Library Commission’s ongoing online learning program. It is a self-discovery program which encourages participants to take control of their own learning and to utilize their lifelong learning skills through exploration and PLAY.

Each month, we offer you an opportunity to learn a new Thing (or lesson). You have all month to complete that Thing and receive one CE credit. You may choose which Things to do based on personal interest and time availability. If the Thing of the month doesn’t interest you or if you are particularly busy that month, you can skip it.

* The Thing for December is: Tagxedo

According to Wikipedia, a tag cloud (word cloud, or weighted list in visual design) is a visual representation for text data, typically used to depict keyword metadata (tags) on websites, or to visualize free form text. Tags are usually single words, and the importance of each tag is shown with font size or color. This format is useful for quickly perceiving the most prominent terms and for locating a term alphabetically to determine its relative prominence. This month we’ll be using Tagxedo to create a word cloud.

Another facet of Nebraska Learns 2.0 is BookThing. Each month we pick a single title that we feel has relevance to librarianship and/or information theory. Some of the titles will be very obviously related; while others may not seem so on the surface but there is a connection. Your assignment will be to read the book and create a blog post answering some questions about the title.

* The BookThing for December is: Alone Together by Sherry Turkle

If you are new to Nebraska Learns 2.0, your first assignment is to sign up to participate at: http://nlcblogs.nebraska.gov/nelearns/sign-up-2/. This program is open to ALL Nebraska librarians, library staff, library friends, library board members and school media specialists.

We hope you’ll join your library colleagues in the fun as you learn about new and exciting technologies!

Meet “Pixel,” the chatbot at the University of Nebraska– Lincoln Library. Artificial intelligence is enabling Pixel and other types of chatbots to be trained and developed to guide and support students navigating the dense library website and complex databases. See Pixel in action and discuss the future of reference services as libraries incorporate artificial intelligence tools. Speakers: DeeAnn Allison, Director, Professor, Computer Operations and Research Services, University of Nebraska-Lincoln and Lorna M Dawes, Lecturer. Learning Community Librarian, University of Nebraska.

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For more information, go to the NCompass Live webpage.

The Nebraska Library Commission has “23 Things,” a web 2.0 experience for librarians, but how do you get teachers involved in something like this? At Westside High School, we developed a shorter program tailored to the needs of teachers. Our “Things” helped them discover new classroom tools and places to look for professional growth. Speaker: Carrie Turner, School Librarian, Westside High School (Omaha, NE).

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For more information, go to the NCompass Live webpage.

Do you have a program or service in your small library that other librarians might like to hear about? Have you implemented a new (or old) technology, hosted an event, partnered with others in your community, or just done something really cool? The Big Talk From Small Libraries online conference can give you the opportunity to share what you’ve done and learn what your colleagues in other small libraries are doing.

Big Talk From Small Libraries got such a great response last year that we’re doing it again. This free one-day online conference is aimed at librarians from small libraries; the smaller the better.

For Big Talk From Small Libraries 2013, we’re looking for seven 50-minute presentations and five 10-minute “lightning round” presentations.

Big Talk From Small Libraries 2013 will be held on Thursday, February 28, 2013 between 9:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. (CT) via the GoToWebinar online meeting service. Speakers will be able to present their programs from their own desktops. The schedule will accommodate speakers’ time-zones.

If you are interested in presenting, please submit your proposal via the online form at http://nlcblogs.nebraska.gov/bigtalk/call-for-speakers/ by Friday, January 11, 2013. Speakers from libraries serving fewer than 10,000 people will be preferred, but presentations from libraries with larger service populations will be considered.

More details about this conference can be found @ http://nlcblogs.nebraska.gov/bigtalk

This conference is organized and hosted by the Nebraska Library Commission (http://nlc.nebraska.gov/) and is co-sponsored by the Association for Rural & Small Libraries (http://arsl.info/).

Questions?  Contact:

Michael Sauers
Technology Innovation Librarian
Nebraska Library Commission
michael.sauers@nebraska.gov

Screencast of a R. David Lankes’ Master Class for the Library School at the Amsterdam Public Library.

On this episode of Tech Talk, Michael will be joined by attendees from Internet Librarian 2012, held in Monterey CA, to share their experiences at the conference. Joining Michael: Nicole C. Engard, Vice President of Education, ByWater Solutions; Brian Pichman, Director of Informational Technology, Digital Innovation Department, Mokena (Illinois) Community Public Library District & Evolve Project; Dave Hesse, Director of Building Operations & Digital Innovation Department, Mokena (Illinois) Public Library; Cecily Walker, Web Services Librarian, Vancouver (British Columbia, Canada) Public Library.

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For more information, go to the NCompass Live webpage.

Bruce Springsteen offered much to take away from his keynote address at Austin’s annual South by Southwest music festival. He advised young musicians to believe in their own greatness — and to admit it when they suck. (Springsteen used that word frequently during his apparently wholly self-penned speech.) Chronicling his own artistic development, he talked about how doo-wop taught him about sex, country music helped him understand despair and Woody Guthrie revealed the political roots of the fatalism he’d heard in Hank Williams — then he made the crowd feel Guthrie’s complicated passion in their own throats by leading a singalong of “This Land Is Your Land.”
http://www.npr.org/blogs/therecord/2012/03/15/148693171/bruce-springsteen-on-the-meaning-of-music