The Source: news about digital libraries and library innovations from around the web

Introducing The Source

From education to work in Australia's creative digital industries: Comparing the opinions and practices of employers and aspiring creatives (Note: PDF)

From the Queensland University of Technology website

This report represents the second of two reports that aim to explore views about the employability of aspiring creatives. The report presents findings from a project that developed the 60Sox Employer Survey, and then administered this survey to 50 employers in Australia’s Creative Digital Industries. The survey included questions on employer characteristics, recruitment and training practices, employers’ views of the capabilities of aspiring creatives, and participation in communities of interest/networks, mentoring and internships. The main purpose of the project was to identify capability gaps of aspiring creatives as well as those factors that enhance or inhibit employers’ views of the capabilities of aspiring creatives – both of which impact on the ability of aspiring creatives to find work in their preferred occupations in Australia’s Creative Digital Industries.
To achieve this purpose, the project team set itself three objectives:

1. Describe the characteristics and practices of employers
2. Explore the views of employers and the views of aspiring creatives in relation to the capabilities of aspiring creatives
3. Identify the factors that influence employers’ views of the capabilities of aspiring creatives
   

A future for our Digital Memory (2): Strategic Agenda 2010-2013 for long-term access to digital resources (Note: PDF)

From the Nationale Coalitie Digitale Duurzaamheid (NCDD) website

Printed documents can be locked away for tens or even hundreds of years without their usefulness being in any way affected. Digital information is another matter altogether. Digital media (CDs, DVDs) have limited life spans, hardware and software become obsolescent in a matter of years, internet links disappear almost as quickly as they appear, and software such as Photoshop makes it increasingly difficult to determine what is authentic and what is not. Digital objects consist of machine-readable rows of ones and zeros, and even a slight change in this bitstream can seriously jeopardise the original purpose.
Digital information is fragile – and at the same time we have grown extremely dependent on it. Who can imagine daily life without mobile phones and internet? In any case, short-term fragility seems to be the least of our problems. It is in the long term that the effects of rapid technological developments grow much more serious – on scientific data which are essential for longitudinal research, on public records which ensure the government’s accountability, on television programmes which become more interesting and precious over time.


Public libraries survey: Fiscal Year 2008

From the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) website

This report includes national and state summary data on public libraries in the 50 states and the District of Columbia, with an introduction, selected findings, and several tables. The report includes information on visitation, circulation, the availability and use of library computing resources, staffing, library collections and services, and fiscal information such as operating revenue and expenditures. The report includes several key findings:

• Nationwide, visits to public libraries totalled 1.50 billion, or 5.1 library visits per capita
• There were 2.28 billion circulations of library materials (7.7 per capita) and 1.21 uses of Internet PCs per capita during fiscal year 2008
• Public library visits and circulations per capita increased almost 20% between FY1999 and FY2008, while the number of public librarians per 25,000 people has remained virtually the same during that same period.
• More than 9,200 libraries were surveyed in the 50 states, the District of Columbia, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands [98% response rate]
• The availability of internet terminals has nearly doubled over the past 10 years in response to patron demand; internet PCs per 5,000 people rose from 1.9 in FY1999 to 3.7 in FY2008
• Circulation per capita has also generally increased during the past 10 years, increasing by 19.7% since FY1999, when per person circulation stood at 6.5. The nation’s libraries recorded 7.7 circulations per capita in FY2008, up from 7.4 the previous year
  

Trends in media use by children and young people

From the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) website

This report provides a detailed look at current media use patterns among young Australians and young Americans, drawing on major studies in both countries. Information covered in the report includes:

• overall media use
• watching television content
• mobile phone use
• listening to music
• playing video and computer games
• computers and the internet
  

Growing up networked (Note: PDF)

From the Office of the Victorian Privacy Commissioner website

This paper, presented at the 'Watch this space: children, young people and privacy' conference in Melbourne on 21 May, explores current practices of youth self-disclosure within online social networks, and the potential risks involved, weighing these against the many values of the practice, and the ways in which the expression and disclosure these websites afford has influenced young people’s current views on privacy and risk. This paper will argue that despite the very real risks inherent in the practice, the benefits and potential of the technology to revolutionise communication cannot be ignored.