T*breaktweets hits the big time with Lobsterotica

We've been using Twitter to promote our digital collections since January 2009 (has it really been that long?). We posted a blog about our experiences a while back. In short, we post one thing from our digital collections twice a day and call them t*breaktweets.

As a digital service manager and someone responsible for promoting our digital collections, I think Twitter is a fabulous way to get the word out about the sheer awesomeness of what the National Library collections hold.

On Thursday 22nd July, during the morning t*breaktweet, at around 10:30am, I pointed people to an article in the 11 March 1921 issue of the Ashburton Guardian in Papers Past about a librarian who successfully hypnotized a lobster:



The tone of the article was salacious and at points NSFW! Here's an excerpt:



Read the full article if you dare.

What happened next was completely unexpected and took me by surprise.

One of our followers, @Bibliodyssey re-tweeted our tweet, which was picked up by @BoingBoing who posted it on their website and also tweeted about it. BoingBoing is a popular blog that publishes interesting titbits of technology, culture and business. It’s a very popular site (I'm sure you've heard of it!), and their Twitter account has nearly 50,000 followers.

The power of Twitter took over and the flurry of conversations and re-tweets began, spreading like wildfire across the web. We even created our own meme: Lobsterotica. Check out search results for Lobsterotica on Twitter and Google.













Comments on BoingBoing blogpost

There were dozens of comments on the BoingBoing blogpost, from comments about the article itself to someone's own experience hyponotising a lobster to praise for Papers Past.









Effect on Papers Past traffic

The number of unique daily visitors to Papers Past nearly doubled from an average of 3,605 to 6,778 on 22 July. We had over 3000 new people visit the site in a single day. That's massive.. for us!

This was, by far, our most popular t*breaktweet and is indicative of the viral nature of Twitter. It proves that if you have something interesting to show people and the right people are watching, it can be shared with thousands of people across the world.

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

Introducing The Source


We still need libraries in the digital age

From The Guardian website

Public libraries have a vital role bridging the digital divide and teaching people how to get reliable information from the internet. An ‘opinion piece’ written by Ian Clark, who works at the Canterbury Christ Church University library and is studying library and information science at Aberystwyth University.


Metadata in, library out: A simple, robust digital library system

From the Code4Lib Journal website

This article describes a lightweight digital asset management system called Acumen, developed at the University of Alabama. Both metadata and source files exist on the file-system using a particular naming convention rather than in a database. Having meaning in filenames, and other architectural decisions, were made under the over-arching philosophy of "Keep it simple, stupid!", the authors arguing that such a system is less prone to fail than the more typically database-driven systems.


Universities and libraries move to the mobile web

From the EDUCAUSE website

The study reported in this article examines the mobile websites of large research universities and their libraries in the United States and Canada. The services available on different university and library mobile websites are compared and contrasted with the literature identifying what mobile web users desire. This analysis across multiple mobile websites provides universities and their libraries with an initial benchmark for comparisons with other institutions. Future research on the mobile web can identify trends and design issues that are currently only objects of speculation


Library standards for privacy: A model for the digital world?

From the Social Science Research Network (SSRN) website

In the ongoing Google Books settlement process, several advocacy organisations, including library associations, have filed amicus briefs to the supervising court demanding provisions for reader privacy. Because the scanned content for Google Books has come from cooperating research libraries, these advocacy groups argued that it was in the public interest that library standards for privacy should follow that content into this new digital context. The recommendation is worth consideration for other extra-library reading as well, both in digital and print contexts. While librarians have been successful advocates for privacy in library-provided reading, the values for reader privacy are the same in individuals’ subscriptions to Google Books, licensed access to e-reader books, reading on the Internet, and purchase of books through online or brick-and-mortar bookstores. This essay shares a librarian’s-eye-view of library standards for privacy and suggests that the law of reader privacy must not only address readers of Google Books, but also other digital reading and even print reading contexts external to libraries in order to protect the privacy of thought for readers.

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

Introducing The Source

The future of social relations (Note: PDF)

From the PewInternet website

The social benefits of internet use will far outweigh the negatives over the next decade, according to experts who responded to a survey about the future of the internet. They say this is because email, social networks, and other online tools offer ‘low-friction’ opportunities to create, enhance, and rediscover social ties that make a difference in people’s lives. The internet lowers traditional communications constraints of cost, geography, and time; and it supports the type of open information sharing that brings people together.


The future of libraries [Audio]

From the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) website

Library usage is increasing across Australia. In a national study over five years, 177 million items were lent to the almost 10 million members of Australia's public libraries. And internet use at libraries is also on the rise. So what does this say about the future library, what will it look like? Will we need those long aisles of books and queues at the counter?


There’s an app for that! Libraries and mobile technology: An introduction to public policy considerations (Note: PDF)

From the American Library Association (ALA) website

This new report, released by the American Library Association (ALA) Office for Information Technology Policy (OITP), takes a look at how the adoption of mobile technology alters the traditional relationships between libraries and their users.


The people's inquiry into the public library service (Note: PDF)

From the Society of Chief Librarians (SCL) website

In 2008, UNISON, the public service union, launched a campaign for the library service. The aim is to defend the achievements of 150 years of the free public library service, to celebrate its successes and to call for its continuation as a key public service in the 21st century. The necessity for such a campaign can be seen by the perilous position of the UK library service. Despite their vital role as centres of learning and leisure in local communities, libraries are often seen as a soft target when councils look for cuts. The pressure will undoubtedly intensify in a period of public spending retrenchment.

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.