I would like to personally thank the recipients of the Technology Improvement Awards for Year 3 for their hard work, determination in offering services to their users.  It is always interesting to review applications for these awards.  You tend to get a really good idea of what our member libraries need and the projects they are working on - and this information not only helps the library applying for the award but others thinking about applying for an award.

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The creators of the Second Life, Linden Lab announced their 1st Linden Prize winners last week (http://lindenlab.com/lindenprize). Among the two winners was “Virtual Ability Island”; the virtual island that was created as a part of the Alliance Virtual Library. This is a group of virtual islands use by people with chronic health and disabilities.

The Alliance Library System (ALS) in Illinois, a member of the GMR, worked with the Virtual Ability Organization to plan and build this award winning orientation center. Virtual Ability Island was partially funded by the NN/LM consumer health subcontract - “Share the Health”. The ALS will have the distinction of being the first NN/LM supported project that has received this prestigious virtual award. ALS and Virtual Ability continue to partner on health information services in Second Life.

Prestigious Linden Prize was given to two winners chosen out of 230 applications and 10 finalists. The winners were awarded $10,000 each. Here is the announcement from the Linden Lab: https://blogs.secondlife.com/community/features/blog/2009/04/30/the-linden-prize-goes-to-studio-wikitecture-and-virtual-ability

Please contact Lori Bell (lbell927@gmail.com), if you would like to know more about this award winning virtual island or the partnership! Congratulations!!

Kathryn Carpenter, Director, University of Illinois at Chicago Library of the Health Sciences, the Regional Medical Library for the GMR, has turned her Spring 2009 blog message into a podcast. The audio file is 5:03 minutes long and is an MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3 file, commonly referred to as mp3. Here is a chance to hear Kate in a new format: (.mp3 file). The text of this message is available in pdf: A Message from the RML Director Spring 2009 .

The podcast was recorded using the free software Audacity and then encoded to an mp3, playable on a variety of media players including an iPod, with such software as QuickTime, iTunes or Media Player. Listen to this podcast and use the Comments section let us know your thoughts on what you hear.

If you would like to learn how to make your own podcast, consider taking the podcasting class taught by GMR Technology Coordinator, Max Anderson. To find out more about this class, see: Can You Hear Me Now? How to Make a Podcast.

Today at the Amazon Kindle Event, a new, improved Kindle has been shown to the public.  The vision from Amazon is: “to have every book ever printed, in any language, all available in under 60 seconds on Kindle. We won’t stop until we get there. ” Named Kindle 2, some of the more impressive features include:

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Thinking of hosting an NN/LM GMR technology class at your institution? Here are a few opportunities for you to do so.

Whether you are interested in keeping up with emerging technology trends or just want a review of technologies currently being used by library’s - Geeks Bearing Gifts: Unwrapping New Technology Trends is the class for you.  This class can be 4-hours or 8-hours long and is limited to 20 participants. Requirements for the host institution: computers with Internet access for each participant.  Projector and instructor station for Instructor. More information on the class can be found: http://nnlm.gov/training/geekgifts/.  This class has been approved for 4 or 8 hours of MLA CE Credit.

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Have you ever tried to find a particular page, person or phone number on an NN/LM website and not know where to look? As much as the we try to make our pages easy to navigate, sometimes the information might not be readily found. Here is a tool that is right under our noses. (more…)

Have I mentioned to you lately that the GMR has a Lending Library? Max chuckles softly to himself.

Anyway.  I wanted to let you all know about some continuing education opportunities - you can even do them in your pajamas if you want!

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Or is it?

Many hospital libraries I have spoken with since I arrived on the scene here at the GMR have told me of difficulties in accessing social software tools like blogs, wikis and instant messaging.  The IS/IT departments say they have no staff to deal with any extra software or possible technology troubleshooting that might be required as result of access to some of these tools.

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The Library of the Health Sciences at the University of Illinois, Chicago (UIC) is pleased to announce the launch of The New Americans Health Information Portal (NAHIP).

http://palantir.lib.uic.edu/nahip/

This portal is a collaboration with the Heartland Alliance for Human Needs & Human Rights. Our new portal links to a variety of quality multi-lingual health education documents. Languages include: Amharic, Arabic, Bosnian, Burmese, Chinese, Croatian, French, Haitian Creole, Karen, Khmer, Lao, Russian, Somali, Swahili, Thai, Tigrina and Vietnamese.

We hope this site is useful and welcome feedback. For comments on website: lmassen1 at uic.edu

This project has been funded in whole or in part with Federal funds from the National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health, Department of Health and Human Services, under Contract No. N01-LM-6-3503 with the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Technology typically changes exponentially. I remember when I worked for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Help Desk Staff telling me that RAM doubles in size every 18 months.   At first I didn’t really know what RAM was, so I just said “wow!” Now I do know what RAM is and does, but my brain overfloweth with the number of emerging technologies in the news.

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