Here is a mini blog round up from a few blogs I have been following. Here are some of the quotes that jumped out at me as I read:
1. From an interview with Dame Lynn Brindley, Director of the British Library....
"We did a recent study on the information behaviour of the Google generation, which came out with some high - level messages. This generation who've never known life before the internet, who are our readers of the future of course, have mostly great technology skills but have quite patchy information skills - because they use the search engines a lot, they bounce around, they go very broad, they struggle to go deep. They don't have critical research skills to enable them to critique what they're finding. We're doing some major thought leadership on this. This reinterpretation of what are the skills necessary in this new environment is a very big theme and of big importance for the future role of professional librarians.
But it's not what we used to call user education. It is a much bigger theme of media literacy and critical thinking skills - not just trusting what Google gets you."
from: http://publishinghouseresearch.blogspot.com/2008/12/interview-with-dame-lynn-brindley.html
2. This is a post about search engine optimization and the need for Librarians to learn more about it, use it and then teach about it.
"And some more: do academic courses set people up for life outside? Irrespective of whether they do or not, does the library serve students on those courses well within the context of their course? Does the library provide students with skills they will be able to use when they leave the campus and go back to the real world and live with Google. (�Back to�? Hah - I wonder how much traffic on HEI networks is launched by people clicking on links from pages that sit on the google.com domain?) Should libraries help students pass their courses, or give them skills that are useful after graduation? Are those skills the same skills? Or are they different skills (and if so, are they compatible with the course related skills?)?"
from: http://ouseful.wordpress.com/2008/12/13/revisiting-the-library-flip-why-librarians-need-to-know-about-seo/
3. This is a blog which quotes a book chapter by LeRoy Hay entitled “Thinking Skills for the Information Age� in an ACSD book entitled Developing Minds A Resource Book for Teaching Thinking:
"In the industrial-age model of education, all students were expected to master the ability to recall and comprehend information. In recent years, we have added the expectation that students should be able to apply information to problem solving. But mastery of analysis, synthesis, and evaluation skills has been, and for the most part remains, the focus of learning for only the best and brightest. that must change if most of our students are going to be information service workers in the future.
No longer can we rely on a small segment of our population with college degrees to be the thinkers of society. The creme de la creme of our students leave our schools better educated than ever before, with the high-level thinking skills that will serve them well in the information age. The problem is that there isn’t enough cream in the graduating crop to meet the rapidly growing need for information workers. so the real challenge lies with the students in the middle. How can we improve their thinking skills so that they are prepared to succeed in the information-based society of the third millennium?"
from: http://www.virtualcompsci.net/blog/?p=80
This isn't exactly breaking news but I am finally taking a little time to read about it (that is what break weeks are for, right?). This fall and winter Google announced that it will start digitizing thousands of historic newspapers and magazines. 
An interesting post at the Read Write Web has my mind whirling a bit like the snow outside my window: 
"In “Grown Up Digital: How the Net Generation Is Changing Your World� (McGraw-Hill), Don Tapscott tries to shatter the negative stereotypes of the so-called Net Geners, who currently range in age from 11 to 31. His book gives parents from the baby boom generation — like me — reason for optimism."
This may be a glimpse of future publishing trends....beginning in the sciences...
Each year the New Media Consortium and EDUCAUSE produce the Horizon Report with trends in technology in higher education. They have recently released a preview for 2009.
I just finished listing to the Digital Campus podcast on the Google Book settlement (
Have you seen this? It is a portal of academics with a tree structure of faculty, post-docs and graduate students based on University/departments or research interests. It has an international focus and allows users to create a profile and citations to share research.
