Library Gazette

Wake Forest undergrads Corinne Ung, Alana Wilson, Aaron Green, and Marshall Milliken completed the first video project in the ITC Filmstudio late last week. After two days of filming and over six additional hours worth of editing and compiling, the students, with assistance from ITC, created an evening news program for a Spanish class project. Utilizing the green screen setup in the Filmstudio, the students anchor their newscast in front of a Mexico City skyline, conduct an interview in an office setting, and even appear live on location as a street brawl breaks out in the background, each scene created right here in ZSR. Below is the final product, please watch and enjoy!

A special thanks to Corinne Ung, Alana Wilson, Aaron Green, and Marshall Milliken for allowing us to show this video online, as well as to IS, Rick Matthews, and Yip Ching-Wan for making this Filmstudio a reality. We hope to see even more creative use of our facilities in the future.

Right in time for spring graduation, Mark Taylor wrote an op-ed piece for the NYT Sunday edition called End the University as we know it in which he calls for major restructuring of the higher education system. On first glance it is an interesting read in which Taylor calls for more collaboration and interdisciplinary work (two things that libraries are pretty good at). I was struck by his discussion of the role of educational technology in higher education and the impact of technology on student work particularly in light of the increased call for educational technology support that we have seen over the past few semesters.

Granted, along with these ideas, he suggests some pretty controversial changes to higher education including mandatory retirement(!) and a move away from traditional departments. He also comments that universities are training people for jobs that don’t exist or are already filled to capacity. These are some weighty suggestions so read at your own risk

Yesterday I had the opportunity to attend the 2009 Administrative Professionals Conference at Bridger Field House. Our audience was made up of Administrative Professionals from WFU, WFU-Health Sciences, WSSU, UNC School of the Arts and Forsyth Technical Community College. The majority of the audience was female, but there were 3 males at the conference yesterday! We had 206 attendees, which was down a bit from last year due to the economic hardships.

I have been on the Administrative Professionals Committee for 6 years. This year I updated and added new pages to our web site: http://groups.wfu.edu/adminprof/ I was also on the registration sub-committee.

We had 3 great speakers!

Speaker 1 was Cher Holton, her topic was “Living at the Speed of Life, Staying in Control in a World Gone Bonkers”! She presented some really great ideas on how to cope with stress, how to appreciate your self and others, facing fear and growing and building a network. She was a very dynamic and exciting speaker and kept everyone engaged!

Speaker 2 was Denise Ryan, her topic was “Motivation by Chocolate”! We each took a test and based on the test results, we split up into 4 groups. What type of chocolate maker are you?

Group 1 was Forrest Mars - commander, values getting the job done, decisive risk taker, good at delegating work to others, etc. There were only 5 Administrative Professionals in this group!

Group 2 was Mrs. Fields - entertainer, values enjoyment and helping others with the same, full of ideas and impulsive in trying them, wants to work to be fun for everyone, talkative and open about self, etc. This was the largest group!

Group 3 was Milton Hershey - harmonizer, values acceptance and stability in circumstances, slow with big decisions, dislikes change, builds networks of friends to help do work, good listener, easy going, friendly, etc.

Group 4 was Henri Nestle - assessor, values accuracy in details, plans thoroughly before deciding to act, introverted, highly organized, cautious, logical, thrifty approach, etc. For those that know me well, you probably know I was in this group!
We also had a chocolate tasting!

Speaker 3 was Sheri Lynch from the nationally syndicated radio show Bob & Sheri, based in Charlotte - 107.9 FM - The Link. Her topic was; “In the life of an administrative professional, it’s bad enough that you’re at the center of everything. For most women, that “center of everything” is true at home as well with a dizzying number of responsibilities and demands”. Sheri spoke about her life as a radio host and Mother of two girls.

I think this was one of our best conferences! The speakers and food were great! River Birch and Midtown Café catered our lunch! Chick-fil-A (on Peacehaven) donated breakfast, door prizes and 31 table center pieces! The Chick-fil-A cow was also present! Members of our committee collected enough door prizes that each attendee went home with one door prize! A great success!!

Earth Day was observed at ZSR a few days early this year, with the second annual “Celebrating Nature” program that was held on Thursday, April 16. Three speakers gave their perspectives on the importance of recycling in terms of conservation strategies, preservation techniques, and the connections on a local and broader canvas.It was also scheduled to coincide with the Earth Day Fair to be held for the first time on Wake’s campus the following Saturday the 18^th.

Peter Romanov started the program as a substitute for Becky Bowers, who had been scheduled to participate.He gave a brief tour of the Treehugger website, a source of environmental news as well as tips, forums, and quizzes. Peter demonstrated three of these quizzes to the audience:

What’s Your Green IQ?

Are You Green Car Savvy?

What’s the Footprint of Your Food?

Craig Fansler followed with an example of recycling some of the materials that are discarded from the library. By salvaging endpapers, pictures and text from books that have been withdrawn, he created a series of shadowboxes (seen below), flip books, and magnets.

Dr. Robert Browne of the Biology Department, who spoke at the first “Celebrating Nature” event last year, closed the program with several thoughts about the efforts to encourage sustainability at Wake Forest. Different units around campus have been recycling materials as much as possible, from lawn waste to construction materials. Recycling of paper, glass and metal has been gaining ground, but the problems of cross-contamination have led to the disposal of some recyclables as garbage. In the case of garbage, Dr. Browne commented about attempts by Winston-Salem to keep the landfill as safe as possible by finding ways to prevent the buildup of volatile methane gas, either by capturing and recycling it or by “scrubbing” many of the harmful contaminants by a complex filtration system.

Dr. Browne also shared two little known facts:

• A serious methane explosion took place in Winston-Salem on the morning of September 27, 1969 at the old city dump located on Silas Creek Parkway behind the National Guard Armory.Gas that seeped into the armory was ignited by a person lighting a cigarette.Three people were killed in the accident and twenty-five more were injured.
• Some of the marble from the staircases that led to the original main entrance to the library from the fourth floor is still on campus.Several benches were made from that marble and placed along the Reynolda Village Path.If you look closely, the masonry is still visible!

In all, twenty-three people attended this year’s program. Who knows what next year may bring?

This morning our ITC filming studio had its inaugural use this morning. Our own production engineer Barry Davis worked with students to film in front of a green screen so that they can superimpose an image of Mexico City.

Many thanks to Barry for taking on the heavy lifting of this project and to making sure that our students get the support they need for their video projects. If you have always wanted to be filmed in a far away place without leaving ZSR, we now have the equipment and the expertise!

Person Recognized

Heather Gillette

Given By

Mary Reeves

Reason

Kudos to Heather for all her efforts in bringing faculty on board with copyright compliance. What she has done is nothing short of amazing!

Person Recognized

Carol Cramer

Given By

Cristina

Reason

Carol has come to my rescue many times. Today, Carol helped me figure out how to download the 400+ page google book, then delete most of them, so the faculty can have the two pages she needs.

Person Recognized

Ellen Daugman

Given By

Sarah Jeong

Reason

Thanks for your help with distributing nametags for the Authors, Editors, Fine & Performing Artists Reception and Dinner on Mar. 27, 2009.

Person Recognized

Carol Cramer

Given By

Sarah Jeong

Reason

Thanks so much for being the photographer at the Authors, Editors, Fine & Performing Artists Reception and Dinner on March 27, 2009.

Person Recognized

Craig Fansler Dedicated Deacon Winner

Given By

Sarah Jeong

Reason

Thanks so much for creating the signage for the Authors, Editors, Fine & Performing Artists Reception and Dinner on March 27, 2009.

Person Recognized

Mary Reeves

Given By

Sarah Jeong

Reason

Thanks so much for helping retrieve books for the book display at the Authors, Editors, Fine & Performing Artists Reception.

Person Recognized

Charles Bombeld

Given By

Sarah Jeong

Reason

Thanks so much for your help with processing the books in time for the book display at the Authors, Editors, Fine & Performing Artists Reception.

Person Recognized

Kristen Morgan

Given By

Sarah Jeong

Reason

Thanks so much for your help with coordinating with Facilities to move the tables and chairs in the Atrium for the Authors, Editors, and Fine & Performing Artists Dinner.

Person Recognized

Kaeley Mcmahan

Given By

Sarah Jeong

Reason

Thanks for your help with distributing nametags for the Authors, Editors, and Fine & Performing Artists Reception and Dinner on March 27, 2009.

Person Recognized

Lauren Corbett

Given By

Sarah Jeong

Reason

Thanks so much for translating a citation that was written in French.

Person Recognized

H. David "giz" Womack

Given By

Sarah Jeong

Reason

Thanks a ton for helping plan the Authors, Editors, and Fine & Performing Artists Reception and Dinner, coordinating the tables and chairs rental, helping organize the book display, helping with clean-up, and the list goes on…Your help is greatly appreciated!

Person Recognized

Rosalind Tedford

Given By

Sarah Jeong

Reason

Thanks so much for your support and help with the Authors, Editors, and Fine & Performing Artists Reception and Dinner.

Person Recognized

Erik Mitchell

Given By

Sarah Jeong

Reason

Thanks so much for your help with the Authors, Editors, and Fine & Performing Artists Reception and Dinner.

Person Recognized

Susan Smith

Given By

Sarah Jeong

Reason

Thanks so much for your support and help with the Authors, Editors, and Fine & Performing Artists Reception and Dinner.

Person Recognized

Sarah Jeong

Given By

Lauren Corbett

Reason

The faculty author event went without a hitch and Sarah worked hard to make sure all the publications and presentations listed on the program were accurate.

With “Cloud Computing” popping up all over the place, I figured we could use an emerging tech talk on the topic. Today, 13 of us got together to discuss the topic. We started with a brief overview of what cloud computing is, talking about some services we’re all familiar with that fall into the category. We discussed some emerging uses of cloud computing and strategies for choosing services to use. We talked a bit about the privacy issues and other concerns that arise around the topic. I feel like we had a really good discussion.

I chose to highlight two services as exemplary examples of cloud computing that make life a bit easier. One is DropBox. This site allows you to store files “in the cloud” and access them from your computers or mobile devices. Your computer syncs to the DropBox server, giving you a local copy (and an automatic backup “in the cloud”). This service has been a lifesaver for me when I need access to a handout I’m making at home or when I would like to see a conference proposal that I submitted (and saved on my home computer) at work.

I also talked about Evernote. This site stores the notes you take on their server, and lets you sync to have local copies on your computer. You can organize text notes, scanned images, and photos into notebooks (aka folders). You can then do a keyword search and find any time the topic is mentioned in your notes… even if the word was just included in a photograph. I’ve had friends take pictures of the business cards they get at conferences and use Evernote to find contact information rather than an address book. This has been useful to me, for example, when I worried about a project deadline at home and could check all my project notes in my Evernote system to see the deadline was further in the future. It’s been useful at work when I’ve remembered something I need to get at the store and can just add it to the list really quickly without having to worry about remembering it for later.

If you’re interested in the rest of the topics we addressed, you can see the presentation website. If you were there and heard about Kevin Kelly’s talk (or if you’re interested in the topic in general), here it is:

Next month we’ll talk about Net Neutrality. I think of this as one of the biggest information issues of the day, so I’m really looking forward to it! Let me know if you have any specific aspects you’d like to make sure we address!

Lauren, Kevin, Mary Scanlon and Mary Beth gathered in the Tech Cave for a few samplings from Ted.com at lunch today. We started with a short talk from Renny Gleeson who spoke on mobile technology and how it impacts our “availability” (we are constantly connected, even when we don’t want to be). He also sounded an alarm bell about how that constant tug to our mobile device negatively impacts our in person social contacts, sending the message to the person in the room, (our loved ones, our children) that what I am receiving or may receive is really more important than you.

Then we viewed another longer talk by Emily Levine who spoke on Tricksters and how they are really similar to change agents…hmmm.

We had a wide ranging discussion, from philosophy to the importance of calling your mother.

Join us next week for another enticing Ted Talk! Wednesdays at noon in the Tech Cave.

It was standing room only! In case you missed it, or were unable to squeeze into the room or hallway outside 204, I’ve attempted to sum up the wowing presentation of Tim Westergren, founder of Pandora. A last count of attendance totaled 86, but people continued to accumulate in the hallway and stairwell. (if you missed the presentation, here is a link to the video)

Basics of Pandora

Founded in 2000, Pandora is an Internet radio service that stemmed from the Music Genome Project where music could be not only cataloged but navigated and synced. Additionally, playlists are customizable based on user preferences and 400 musical attributes, not simply mainstream popularity. Westergren found that the average time people spend a week listening to music is roughly 20 hours; 17 hours is spent listening to music through the radio and 3 hours listening to purchased music (CDs, MP3s, etc). Radio has always been the principal means of listening to music through mass broadcasting and pre-selected playlists, yet the amount of variety in music played on the radio is only a fraction of the music available. Therefore, Westergren sees the future of music in unicasting–listening to music over the web. Pandora allows users to not only customize their radio stations rather than listening to preset schedules but it also “solves the problem of finding and reconnecting to music” by syncing user preferences with other artists through unique musical attributes or granule details.

Tim Westergren, a Standford University Alumni and former musician and film composer, was so dedicated to the Music Genome Project, usability possibilities, and impact on the future of music, that he and other Pandora employees worked the first 3 years without salaries. He attributes the loyalty of employees during the early years to 1) sense of doing something great 2) an obligation to each other to stay dedicated 3) good leadership and inspiration and 4) a gambling-like addition to the project. Westergren and team began cataloging music by collecting any song or artist ever listed in the Billboard charts since 1957. After realizing the limited pool of variety and artists atop these charts, they expanded their search to include any artist or song recommended by a user or music submitted by the artists themselves. 30% of their artists pool has been added based on user recommendations.

He’s not only the founder of Pandora, but a client. You can check out his Pandora Profile here.

Business Model and Legalities of Pandora

Pandora is a free internet radio service–you only need to create an account/profile in order to save your playlist preferences and have access to the customizable features and recommendations. Pandora relies on both visual and audio advertising. With users interacting with the website on an average of 7 times an hour, visual advertising is the main source of advertising revenue. Audio advertisements on Pandora are still better than regular radio play in that Padora ads run 10-15 seconds and only 2 to 4 times an hour. With these regulations in place, Pandora is a brilliant alternative to illegally sharing music files, risking copyright infringement, and possibilities of copyright damages and lawsuits.

You may wonder how Pandora can do what they do without legal implications and copyright infringement. Well, Pandora can only legally operate within the United States of America under a federal statute of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. This act prohibits Pandora from offering song-on-demand service, imposes a skip-song limitation, institutes a maximum play of 4 songs per artist per hour, and requires Pandora to pay a fraction of a penny per song in royalty fees per song per play. Two years ago, the US Copyright Royalty Board was set to raise the royalty fees to three times what Pandora was paying per song. According to Westergren, this move would bankrupt the company and force it to shut down. After many hours spent in litigation and failed appeals, Westergren organized a grassroots effort to save the online radio service. Having never advertised the website, Westergren petitioned its registered users to contact their congressional delegates and change the proposed rate increase. Over the course of 3 days Congress received more than 400,000 emails. By the end of the renegotiation petition, congressional delegates received 2+ million emails, phone calls, and letters arguing in support of Pandora. This grassroots effort not only saved the website from folding, but illustrated the power of their users and forced a renegotiation of costs.

Employees

Based in Oakland, California, Pandora employs 130 people, 35 of which are trained musicians given the task of assigning musical attributes to each song in the database. These attributes range from gender of the lead vocals and primary melodies to lyrical styles, type of background vocals, and level of distortion of lead guitar…a total of 400 attributes assigned. The 35 musicians spend roughly 20-30 minutes per song identifying these attributes and are so well trained that if you were to print out the attributes assigned to one song and lay them on a table, the musician could simply look at these granule details and hear the song in their head. Pandora employees catalog 150,000 songs a year, 30% of which is recommended through user preferences or submitted materials by the artists. For those music lovers out there that are interested in employment with Pandora, consider these stringent hiring requirements: you must be a professionally-trained musician (possessing a degree in Musicology), pass a song-analysis examination, and withstand over 100 hours of training. However, the rewards are working a 20-25 hour week with full benefits, having the flexibility to choose your workdays, and being a part of a fast-moving internet sensation!

Future Projects

Applications already exist to stream Pandora through smartphones such as the iPhone and Blackberry. However, future streaming projects include an application for the Palm Pre to increase the portability and mobility of streaming music. Additionally, Pandora is working to expand their Music Genome Project to include Celtic, Indian, and Canjun music. Currently Pandora has cataloged English, Portuguese, and Spanish music only.

Pandora statistics:

• 640,000 songs
• 90% of songs are played daily
• 70,000 artists
• 70% of artists are independent artists
• 25 million registered users
• 60,000 registered users added daily
• 4,000,000 users accessing Pandora through iPhones and Blackberries
• 20,000 new users accessing Pandora through smartphones daily
• 25% of users listening to Pandora while in the car
• 50% of users listening to Pandora through WiFi connection
• 150,000 songs cataloged a year
• 20 million dollar revenue in 2008
• 19 million of which was from visual and audio advertising
• 1 billion hours (yes, billion with a “B”) of music streamed in 2008
• currently projecting 3x that in 2009

A group of us went to the UNCG Library and Information Studies Alumni Day Luncheon today to honor Wanda Brown, who was given the Kovacs Award for Outstanding Alumni Achievement. While there, we learned that Lauren Pressley, Giz Womack and Elizabeth Novicki were also being honored for their induction into the library science honorary society, Beta Phi Mu. Those present at the luncheon included Chris Burris, Heather Gillette, Patty Strickland, Lauren Pressley, Elizabeth Novicki, Sylvia Sprinkle-Hamlin (FCPL Director and Wanda’s guest) and Wanda’s friend Linda Carr. The guest speaker, Dr. Randy Testa, was unexpectedly interesting but also unexpectedly looooong. Congratulations Wanda and all Beta Phi Mu inductees!