Here's an excerpt from the press release:

In the first report, Social Metadata for Libraries, Archives, and Museums, Part 1: Site Reviews, the 21-member RLG Partners Social Metadata Working Group reviewed 76 sites relevant to libraries, archives, and museums that supported such social media features as tagging, comments, reviews, images, videos, ratings, recommendations, lists, links to related articles, etc. In this second report, we analyzed the results from a survey of site managers conducted in October-November 2009. Forty percent of the responses came from outside the United States. The survey focused on the motivations for creating a site, moderation policies, staffing and site management, technologies used, and criteria for assessing success. In our upcoming third report, we provide recommendations on social metadata features most relevant to libraries, archives, and museums as well as the factors contributing to success.

| Digital Scholarship's Digital Bibliographies | Digital Scholarship |

Here's an excerpt:

Two-thirds of online adults (66%) use social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, MySpace or LinkedIn. These internet users say that connections with family members and friends (both new and old) are a primary consideration in their adoption of social media tools. Roughly two thirds of social media users say that staying in touch with current friends and family members is a major reason they use these sites, while half say that connecting with old friends they've lost touch with is a major reason behind their use of these technologies.

| Google Books Bibliography | Digital Scholarship |

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

Traditionally, staff at libraries, archives, and museums (LAMs) create metadata for the content they manage. However, social metadata—content contributed by users—is evolving as a way to both augment and recontextualize the content and metadata created by LAMs. Many cultural heritage institutions are interested in gaining a better understanding of social metadata and also learning how to best utilize their users' expertise to enrich their descriptive metadata and improve their users' experiences.

In order to facilitate this, a 21-member RLG Partners Social Metadata Working Group reviewed 76 sites relevant to libraries, archives, and museums that supported such social media features as tagging, comments, reviews, images, videos, ratings, recommendations, lists, links to related articles, etc. In addition, working group members surveyed site managers, analyzed the survey results and discussed the factors that contribute to successful—and not so successful—use of social metadata. They also considered issues related to assessment, content, policies, technology, and vocabularies.

This report includes an environmental scan of 76 social metadata sites and a detailed review of 24 representative sites.

| New: Institutional Repository and ETD Bibliography 2011 | Digital Scholarship |

Here's an excerpt:

Two-thirds of adult internet users (65%) now say they use a social networking site like MySpace, Facebook or LinkedIn, up from 61% one year ago. That's more than double the percentage that reported social networking site usage in 2008 (29%). And for the first time in Pew Internet surveys it means that half of all adults (50%) use social networking sites. The pace with which new users have flocked to social networking sites has been staggering; when we first asked about social networking sites in February of 2005, just 8% of internet users — or 5% of all adults — said they used them.

| New: Google Books Bibliography, Version 7 | Digital Scholarship |

Here's an excerpt:

In particular, the Centre was interested to determine to what extent social networking sites are usurping the role of Open Access repositories and to what extent they are likely to do so in the future. The study therefore naturally needed to consider the relationship between Open Access repositories and social networking sites, both now and in the future. Furthermore, the study needed to examine the behaviour patterns of researchers in using different web locations for research communications and to attempt to predict future trends.

| Digital Curation and Preservation Bibliography 2010 | Institutional Repository Bibliography | Transforming Scholarly Publishing through Open Access: A Bibliography | Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography 2010 |

Here's an excerpt:

Questions have been raised about the social impact of widespread use of social networking sites (SNS) like Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, and Twitter. Do these technologies isolate people and truncate their relationships? Or are there benefits associated with being connected to others in this way? The Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project decided to examine SNS in a survey that explored people’s overall social networks and how use of these technologies is related to trust, tolerance, social support, and community and political engagement.

| Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Publications Overview | Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography 2010 |

Here's an excerpt:

Since the first Web Technologies study, public libraries across the United States have made varying degrees of progress in adopting Web 2.0 tools. Using the 2008 results as a baseline, the 2010 study was an opportunity to identify new web technologies and track changes in what libraries are adopting, as well as identify characteristics of those libraries.

In general, the results of the 2010 study reveal that most web technologies are increasing in use on public libraries' websites, with some tools gaining in popularity rather quickly and others appearing to stagnate. For example, libraries' use of social media sites took off while adoption of earlier tools including blogs has slowed, and new options such as SMS reference have not yet had a chance to gain much traction. Regardless of the tool in question, most growth was concentrated in the largest libraries, where adoption of new technologies increased at a faster rate than in smaller libraries.

| Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Publications Overview | Reviews of Digital Scholarship Publications |

Here's an excerpt:

We study several longstanding questions in media communications research, in the context of the microblogging service Twitter, regarding the production, flow, and consumption of information. To do so, we exploit a recently introduced feature of Twitter—known as Twitter lists—to distinguish between elite users, by which we mean specifically celebrities, bloggers, and representatives of media outlets and other formal organizations, and ordinary users. Based on this classification, we find a striking concentration of attention on Twitter—roughly 50% of tweets consumed are generated by just 20K elite users—where the media produces the most information, but celebrities are the most followed. We also find significant homophily within categories: celebrities listen to celebrities, while bloggers listen to bloggers etc; however, bloggers in general rebroadcast more information than the other categories. Next we re-examine the classical "two-step flow" theory of communications, finding considerable support for it on Twitter, but also some interesting differences. Third, we find that URLs broadcast by different categories of users or containing different types of content exhibit systematically different lifespans. And finally, we examine the attention paid by the different user categories to different news topics.

| Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Publications Overview | Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography 2010 |

Here's an excerpt:

This document summarizes the various technologies developed in W3C that increases the power of Web applications, and how they apply more specifically to the mobile context, as of February 2011. . . .

The features that these technologies add to the Web platform are organized under the following categories:

• Graphics
• Multimedia
• Forms
• User interactions
• Data storage
• Sensors and hardware integration
• Network
• Communication
• Packaging
• Performance & Optimization

| Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Publications Overview |

Here's an excerpt:

This guide will show how social media can change the ways in which you undertake research, and open up new forms of communication and dissemination. The researchers we interviewed in the development of this guide are using social media to bridge disciplinary boundaries, to engage in knowledge exchange with industry and policy makers, and to provide a channel for the public communication of their research.

The guide is rooted in the practical experience of its authors and of the ten social media users we interviewed as part of the project. We are not trying to present social media as the answer to every problem a researcher might experience; rather, we want to give a "warts and all" picture. Social media have downsides as well as upsides, but on balance we hope that you will agree with us that there is real value for researchers.

| Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Publications Overview |

Here's an excerpt:

In this white paper, we outline the privacy issues relevant to using cloud-based instructional tools or cloud-based teaching and learning environments for faculty members and those supporting instruction. Our discussion of how teaching and learning in an increasingly technological environment has transformed the way we interact and interpret FERPA will help inform various choices that institutions can consider to best address the law, including policy and best-practice examples. We highlight practical suggestions for how faculty members can continue to use innovative instructional strategies and engage students while considering privacy issues. Finally, this paper discusses ways to further explore and address privacy locally and includes a comprehensive resource list for further reading.

| Digital Scholarship |

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

The percentage of all American adults who use Wikipedia to look for information has increased from 25% in February 2007 to 42% in May 2010. This translates to 53% of adult internet users.

Education level continues to be the strongest predictor of Wikipedia use. The collaborative encyclopedia is most popular among internet users with at least a college degree, 69% of whom use the site. Broadband use remains another predictor, as 59% of those with home broadband use the service, compared with 26% of those who connect to the internet through dial-up. Additionally, Wikipedia is generally more popular among those with annual household incomes of at least $50,000, as well as with young adults: 62% of internet users under the age of 30 using the service, compared with only 33% of internet users age 65 and older.

In the scope of general online activities, using Wikipedia is more popular than sending instant messages (done by 47% of internet users) or rating a product, service, or person (32%), but is less popular than using social network sites (61%) or watching videos on sites like YouTube (66%).

| Digital Scholarship |

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

Eight percent of the American adults who use the internet are Twitter users. Some of the groups who are notable for their relatively high levels of Twitter use include:

• Young adults—Internet users ages 18-29 are significantly more likely to use Twitter than older adults.
• African-Americans and Latinos—Minority internet users are more than twice as likely to use Twitter as are white internet users.
• Urbanites—Urban residents are roughly twice as likely to use Twitter as rural dwellers.

| Digital Scholarship |

Here's an excerpt:

The Social Web is a set of relationships that link together people over the Web. The Web is an universal and open space of information where every item of interest can be identified with a URI. While the best known current social networking sites on the Web limit themselves to relationships between people with accounts on a single site, the Social Web should extend across the entire Web. Just as people can call each other no matter which telephone provider they belong to, just as email allows people to send messages to each other irrespective of their e-mail provider, and just as the Web allows links to any website, so the Social Web should allow people to create networks of relationships across the entire Web, while giving people the ability to control their own privacy and data. The standards that enable this should be open and royalty-free. We present a framework for understanding the Social Web and the relevant standards (from both within and outside the W3C) in this report, and conclude by proposing a strategy for making the Social Web a "first-class citizen" of the Web.

| Digital Scholarship |

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

New media, social networking, collaboration sites, image and video-sharing sites, wikis, and blogs offer tremendous teaching and learning opportunities to educators and students, but their use raises concerns about privacy, especially as it relates to work that students are asked to complete as part of a course. New learning environments often leverage Web 2.0 or cloud-based tools that offer limited or no privacy protection. When they do, those privacy settings are frequently outside the control of either the institution or the faculty member. Nevertheless, FERPA places the burden of ensuring the privacy of the education record on the institution. Institutions are beginning to explore the connection between FERPA and student work along with their responsibilities in this area. Information and policy provided at the institutional level can help faculty members make choices about which tools to use and how to use them, and students should be educated about the risks of providing identifying personal information on third-party sites that may be public.