Not so fast: US broadband lags behind world
As GPO pushes forward with it's Digital Future System and as the well connected (Internet-wise) Congress moves away from print and towards an exclusively online government information world, they might want to consider this new report published by the Communications Workers of America: Speed Matters: A Report on Internet Speeds in All 50 States http://www.speedmatters.org/document-library/sourcematerials/sm_report.pdf According to this report:
The median download speed for the 50 states and the District of Columbia was 1.9 megabits per second (mbps). In Japan, the median download speed is 61 mbps, or 30 times faster than the U.S. The U.S. also trails South Korea at 45 mbps, Finland at 21 mbps, Sweden at 18 mbps, and Canada at 7.6 mbps. The median upload speed from the Speedmatters.org test was just 371 kilobits per second (kbps), far too slow for patient monitoring or too transmit large files such as medical records. Most people who went to Speedmatters.org to take the speed test used either a DSL connection or cable modem. Very few people with dial-up took the test because it took too long. According to surveys, somewhere between 30 to 40 percent of Americans still connect to the Internet with a dial-up connection. So the median speeds in this report are actually higher than if dial-up Internet users had chosen to participate in the survey. In other words, even these dismal statistics paint a rosier picture than the reality.The report was compiled by people visiting a speed test site and providing their zip codes, so it isn't truly a random sample. Still makes for interesting reading for broadband advocates. And it should make interesting reading for policymakers who desire to eliminate print. And for people interested in constructing a geographically distributed system of electronic federal publications which could be more easily accessed over urban networks than all users dragging every publication from Washington. Continue reading
New Poll: We want your podcast feedback!
As episode 3 of the FGI podcast starts to go into production, we've opened a new poll asking your opinion about the two podcasts we've completed so far. The first episode was very scripted and the second episode more free form. Did you like either, both, neither? Let us know. And if you're in a commenting mood, please leave a comment here or on the poll page letting us know how we can improve the podcast. If you haven't heard our podcast yet, please go to our podcast page and check them out. Continue reading
WorldWideScience.org
"A new portal, WorldWideScience.org, opened today to people interested in international scientific sources, many of which had been unavailable through commercial search engines such as Google.com. "The portal was developed by the Energy Department and the British Library, along with science and technology organizations in Australia, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Japan and the Netherlands. It employs federated search technology..." DOE builds portal to global science data, By Trudy Walsh, GCN, 6/22/07. Continue reading
Nebraska Library Commission has clear purpose in Second Life
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Here is my long-delayed field report on the Second Life Branch of the Nebraska Library Commission.
In short, I'm impressed. The thing I'm most impressed by is that the Nebraska Library Commission offers clear reasons about why they are in Second Life and what they hope to accomplish. They state this on a notecard available in the lobby:
Why we are in Second Life: 1. To network and develop professional relationships with other librarians from around the country and around the world. 2. To explore whether and how libraries might use 3-D virtual worlds to reach out to new users. 3. To gain first-hand knowledge of library activities in Second Life that we can bring back and share with interested Nebraska librarians.Might not be compelling reasons to all, but I'm glad to see that they can explain why they're devoting resources to this in a nice soundbite. All areas of the library appear to be represented, including Government Documents. While there is no formal display of documents that I could find, there was a notecard about Nebraska related questions that included a link to the Nebraska Documents Depository program. In addition there there several Nebraska related maps around the first floor. The second floor is devoted to a display of photos from the Nebraska Memories database developed by multiple institutions in Nebraska. Here is a picture I took of part of the display:
Notecards describing the photos are available, as is a link directly to the photo's Nebraska Memories page where people can see more details and search for related items. It has a nice museum feel to it and as I've mentioned in previous posting on Second Life, I think musueum type displays are going to be natural for virtual worlds like Second Life.
One last nice touch by the NLC staff is a card in the lobby titled "What to do in Second Life" which features staff picks about places to go and things to do in the virtual environment. It has a mix of education and entertainment. I plan to visit several of the places listed on the card, including returning to Washtown, a Firefly inspired enviornment complete with a replica of Serenity. I went there today, but Second Life crashed on me before I could look around much. More proof that the 3D world is coming, but isn't quite here yet in the sense that the web is. Continue reading Get the Starr Report on Digital Natives, Library 2.0 Uses, Gov Info Access
UNT Government Documents Librarian Starr Hoffman is at ALA and posting selected session notes on her wiki. She posted notes on a digital natives session that also explored how college students and other students are reacting to libraries in social media spaces such as MySpace and Facebook. The answer? It depends. Some like, some don't. But check out the notes and see what people are doing. Then think about where you could be shining the light of full public access to government information. Starr's notes on the GODORT Update has some interesting examples showing how government information access is mostly a political issue rather a technological one. Read her notes and then decide whether we are better served by a single Future Digital System housed in an agency susceptible to political/fiscal pressure or by having FDSys be one piece of a geographically distributed, locally built, globally accessed depository library system of the future. Continue reading