Libraries open the door to new books and old favourites; they keep us informed with the most up-to-date resources. They are places of encounters and cultural exchange; places of learning that offer leading-edge technology to meet the needs of members and the demands of the time. Accessible to all citizens, these bastions of knowledge play an essential role in our society. Veritable treasure troves, libraries bring us happiness and the means with which to thrive.
A strong library system is the cornerstone of a strong community. Ontario Public Library Week recognizes the important contribution Ontario's public libraries make to education, literacy and life-long learning in Ontario communities. With more than 1,100 service points throughout Ontario, public libraries’ patrons make over 69 million visits to local libraries across Ontario annually. And now virtually every library branch in the province also provides access to electronic information through the Internet.
Also, some news from Ontario libraries today, they're increasing the amount of hours askON, Ontario's virtual reference service (aka real-time library research service, that sounds so much better), is available. The service is now available 45 hours per week up from 40 hours. Why the increase? Demand! Great to hear.
Since it launched in January 2008, traffic to the askON service, available from the websites of over 35 Ontario public libraries, has increased exponentially. The number of questions and requests for research assistance handled by askON's public library staff in September 2009 more than doubled from September 2008, and demand for the service in October has already outstripped September by more than 10%.
Participating public libraries contribute anywhere from 3 to 10 staff hours per week to the shared askON schedule. askON staff, who are located around the province, use instant messaging services to chat one-on-one with a wide range of visitors including students needing help with school research assignments, job seekers looking for career guidance and businesspeople looking for industry trends.
So, a ResourceShelf tip o' the cap to all of our Canadian librarian readers and an extra nod to those of you in Ontario. Go Leafs! (-:
Ed. Note: If you know of upcoming library events like the ones posted above, please let us know about them. We will do our best to mention them on ResourceShelf.
A family of resources to help information workers be more effective, raise the value of information in their organisations and contribute to success. Read more »
Recently I have found myself cooing over visualisation maps (and heat maps) of health and well being resources. The content rich data is overlayed with mapping technologies, and some interesting themes and patterns are emerging.
A lot of the talk around social media in the last year has been around information overload. Social media has provided us with new and exciting ways to create content. But it has also meant learning new ways to manage and engage with social media tools. Are we teetering on the edge of an information overload precipice?
Information overload is a figment of your imagination. Or a failure of your filter. Or a symptom of your technological submissiveness. Depends on who you ask.
What if you had to sort through 3.5 million articles and social media posts a day and try to pull out the most relevant items for your organisation? What if you then had to cobble it all together into something readable for your top groups and executives in your organisation?
Alacra Compliance saves time by aggregating information from both free and fee-based sources and enabling users to conduct an accurate federated search across these sources (coined “simultaneous search” by Alacra).
FreePint Family
Quilting big data threads
The fallacy of information overload
Information overload: fact, fantasy or filter failure? 
