iBraryGuy is Growing!!!

While the rest of the United States is putting its feet up for a long weekend of rest and relaxation, the folks at iBraryGuy will be using the Labor Day holiday to expand their reach and their core team. We are growing again and could not be more excited!

New Faces

First the biggest news . . . The iBraryGuy team is honored and delighted to be welcoming Stosh Jonjak to its core of bloggers and editors. Stosh is a Research Services Librarian with Reed Smith, LLP in Pittsburgh, PA. An up-and-comer in the legal research and information industry, he focuses his expertise on digital trends, applications, and implementing technologies to satisfy the information needs of his patrons. Stosh’s presentation on mobile technologies for legal research to the Legal Division of SLA last year has garnered thousands of views and remains wildly popular.

iBraryGuy founder, John DiGilio, is still with us and will moving into the position of Editor-in-Chief. He is the National Manager of Research Services at Reed Smith LLP and has had a very full plate of writing and speaking engagements both in the industry generally and as Treasurer of the Special Libraries Association. He is most excited to welcoming new blood to the team!

Enhanced Features

In addition to adding new faces to our team, we are also excited to be rolling out more content and enhancing our suite of offerings. The driving goal behind iBraryGuy has been and remains to keep you in the know when it comes to the changes facing our libraries and our profession. Our focus is on the technology that is disrupting and evolving both what we do and how we do it. In that spirit, we have rethought and reinvigorated what this site has to offer.

We recently told you about our curated news and social networking services. The Daily INFOrmant is our daily eNewsletter for librarians and information professionals of all stripes. It is powered by Paper.li and it looks great! Using the Scoop.it! platform, we have also just rolled out our new Legal Information Dispatch. Focused on our colleagues in the legal industry, you can follow it via Scoop.it! itself or RSS. We are working to offer it as a monthly eMagazine soon. Stay tuned!

In addition to these new services, team iBraryGuy is also changing up its site and twitter feed. Hopefully you are following us! Starting next Monday, we will be updating the main site twice weekly. We will kick off the week with our new “App of the Week” review, discussing the good, the bad and the downright ugly when it comes to emerging online and mobile research technologies. Thursdays will feature the “Weekly Soapbox”, where we discuss the big issues in the industry and reach out to your for your own thoughts. It should be educational and fun!

New Collaborations & Partnerships

Everything that we offer here through the iBraryGuy site is free. There is no charge for our newsletters or any of our feeds. We just ask that you tell your friends and colleagues about the work we are doing. In addition, John and Stosh are both available to speak to your organizations or write for your own online and printed publications. We are happy to negotiate financial support for engagements that require travel or large amounts of time. You can look at our Speaking Schedule here on the site to see our up-coming appearances or check out our Selected Publications page to access some of what we have written.

We are always looking for new partnerships, collaborations, and support. Contact us directlywith any ideas you may have or to sponsor this site and help us keep it free for librarians and information professionals everywhere!

iBraryGuy & FreePint Collaborate on New Report!

iBraryGuy is proud to have served as guest editor and curator of FreePint’s latest report, “Enterprise Collaboration”. The folio consists of a series of four insightful articles from the company’s vast archives. Featuring stand-out works from industry luminaries such as Stuart Barr, Andrew Rieder, Connie Crosby, Joanna Ptolomey and Lauren Currie, as well as editorial remarks and additional resources from iBraryGuy editor, John DiGilio, the report is available for purchase from FreePint.com. Based in the U.K., FreePint publishes practical articles and reports about information practice, content and strategy. If you have not seen their product line, it is definitely worth a look.

Here is an excerpt from DiGilio’s introduction to the July report:

“From coworking to crowdsourcing, collaboration in its many forms and degrees continues to shape and, in some senses, even redefine the way we work. The old adage of two heads being better than one has given way to the even grander concept of something taking a whole village…”

Check it out today!

Gaga for Google Docs’ new collaborative features!

Just when we were beginning to really enjoy and get the hang of Google Docs, the company went ahead and got all collaborative on us! That’s right, the cloud-based wordprocesser is boldly going where no free document editing tool has gone before. With the the new features available in Google Docs, the cloud is now more open for sharing than ever before.

More than just some new tweaks, bells and whistles, Google actually claims to have rebuilt Google Docs from the ground up (or is that the cloud up?). Addressing what they saw as a need for better communication and collaboration in the document creation and editing process, the company may very well have revolutionized the way we work. Actually working together on a document just got a whole lot easier!

With the new Google Docs, up to 50 people can collaborate on a single document. Not only can you see who is viewing it, but you can see their edits as they type them (a trick the company first unveiled in Google Wave). Collaborators can even chat right on the screen as they work. VERY cool!

Cooler still, and perhaps more intriguing, is the new drawing abilities that have been added to Google Docs. Yes, those same 50 people who are editing a document together can actually collaborate on a drawing and embed it right into the document. Now that’s power!

Finally, Google has also added some of the “wordprocessor-esque” functionality and feel that Docs has been lacking since its debut. Things like rulers and tab stops now give it a more conventional and comforting appearance akin to what we see in most commercial programs.

To access these new features, users simply need to go into their Google Docs settings and click to enable the new version on the “Editing” tab. With the new Google Docs, the company is getting much more serious about its cloud offerings. Look out Microsoft Word, the silver lining of this cloud is really starting to shine!