Today, on the Chronicle.com’s Wired Campus blog sociologist “Eszter Hargittai, an assistant professor in Northwestern University’s sociology department, has discovered that students aren’t nearly as Web-savvy as they, or their elders, assume.” Most librarians and many professors have already discovered this. This Q&A article is a good reminder that most “digital natives” are not knowledgeable about web technology nor the many tools (e.g. search engines) they use work. Read the article’s comments too.

I just attended the Off-Campus Library Service conference in Salt Lake Cityand received many good ideas.  One session discussed using screencasting sofware (e.g. Adobe Captivate) and how the library can track usage with Google Analytics.  It appears the average time a student watches a library demo is about 2 minutes.  A few sessions discussed e-resources (proprietary e-books, e-reference, free e-books, government sites, etc).  Two of the session were trying to figure if students use e-resources and how to make student more aware of them.  Another tried a visual display to simulate “browsing” the reference stacks.   There is no doubt on and off campus want more access to electronic resources, but trying to figure out the best way for students to find and these resources is a challenge.

Today, the WashingtonPost ran an article about WEbook.com.  It is “an online publishing platform that allows writers, editors, reviewers, illustrators and others to join forces to create great works of fiction and non-fiction, thrillers and essays, short stories, children’s books and more.”  For example, multiple people may write one book together.  All of the “publications” are online, but this week WEbook is publishing its first print book, Pandora, written by 72 authors.  I could not think of a more appropriate title.

The FBI has just released its 2007 Internet Crime Report.  This page provides a list of the Top Internet Scams, which include:

• Pets scams
• Secret Shopper and Transfer scams
• Adoption and Charity scams
• Romance fraud.