The Digital Campus crew finally tackle the Great Recession: the significance of the financial meltdown on universities, libraries, and museums. What will change and what will stay the same? Are there technologies that can help us in our time of need? We also talk more about e-books, campus iPhone apps, and lecture podcasts.

Links mentioned in the podcast:
Google Apps For Your Domain
Duke U. Unveils Application Suite for iPhone
‘iTunes university’ better than the real thing
Tip Jar
Digital Archivists, Now in Demand

Running time: 44:41
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This Thanksgiving week in the U.S. we have a cornucopia of news, starting with the reaction of Harvard to the Google Book Search settlement and including the end of email service for students at Boston College and two efforts to create an “academic Google.” We also launch a new segment, “We Told You So,” to gloat over the predicted death of Google’s virtual world, Lively, and over continuing problems in Second Life. Picks for this episode include a new site on place-based computing, a couple of easy (or bizarre) ways to write a book, and an easy-to-learn programming language.

Links mentioned on the podcast:
Harvard on Google Book Search settlement
Lively No More
“Eric Reuters” on Second Life
Europeana
Boston College Will Stop Offering New Students E-Mail Accounts
RefSeek
Reference Extract
Google SearchWiki
Processing 1.0
Place-based Computing
FortyChapters
QuillPill

Running time: 44:27
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The big news this week was the announcement that a settlement had been reached between Google and authors and publishers over Google’s controversial Book Search program, which has scanned over seven million volumes, including many books that are still copyrighted. The Digital Campus team takes a first pass at the agreement and tries to understand how it might affect higher ed. Other news from a busy week include the release of the first phone based on Google’s Android operating system, and Microsoft’s conversion to “cloud” computing. Picks for this podcast include a new report on teenagers and videogames, a new version of Linux for the masses, and a program to help you focus on the Mac.

Links mentioned on the podcast:
Google Book Search Settlement Agreement
Open Library
Ubuntu
Think for the Mac
Android
Microsoft Azure
Pew report on teens and videogames

Running time: 49:29
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This time on Digital Campus the regulars tackle the notion of “digital natives,” the conventional wisdom that says children born during the Internet era (say, since the late 1980s) understand digital technology intuitively. Are today’s students naturally fluent in the language and customs of digital technology, or are they more like the rest of us, who have to work hard to make computers work for us? We take a look at both sides of the debate. In the news roundup we discuss Google’s latest digitization project (newspapers this time), the publishing lobby’s attempt to close NIH’s open access research portal, and two new foundations to support good things on the web.

Links mentioned on the podcast:

Google to Digitize Newspaper Archives, New York Times
Backlash Against Open Access, Ars Technica
Digital Promise
World Wide Web Foundation
The Generational Myth, Chronicle of Higher Education
Harvard Professor Sees Answers to Nagging Web-Youth Issues, Cnet
A Companion to Digital Literary Studies
What to Look for in Tech Staff, Tech Therapy
Many Eyes

Running time: 48:49
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The Digital Campus crew was lucky to be joined by Bryan Alexander, the Director of Research of NITLE, on this episode. Bryan tracks emerging trends in technology and higher ed, and gives us the inside scoop on what’s up and coming for the 2008-2009 school year. Our wide-ranging discussion in that feature segment and the news roundup covers the latest in mobile technology, ebooks, digital scholarship, course-management-systems, virtual worlds, gaming, and audio, video, and image-sharing, among other topics. We also obsess a bit about the significance of Google’s new web browser, Chrome. Join us for another year of Digital Campus!

Links mentioned on the podcast:
Making the History of 1989
Synthasite
Jason Calacanis on demoing digital products, part 1, part 2
NITLE Prediction Markets
The Shadow IT Department
Google Chrome

Running time: 1:05:53
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On this episode we were lucky to have a live link to Alexandria, Egypt, for Wikimania 2008, the international meeting of those who work on Wikipedia and related open collaborative projects. In the feature segment we talk with Liam Wyatt of Wikipedia Weekly, who gives an insider’s scoop of the issues, debates, and future of Wikipedia. In the news roundup we discuss Yahoo’s new open search service, BOSS, and Google’s new virtual world, Lively, among other things. Picks of the week include some advice from Google’s blogs, some rich web-based applications, and Gmail power user tweaks.

Links mentioned on the podcast:
Wikimania 2008
Wikipedia Weekly
Yahoo BOSS
Google Lively
Aviary
Google Labs Gmail tweaks
Requesting reconsideration using Google Webmaster Tools
Technologies Behind Google Ranking

Running time: 48:03
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Tom and Dan are joined this week by Bill Turkel and Steve Ramsey, who provide fascinating insights into the nature of computer programming and how those in the humanities, museums, and libraries can get started with this foreign language. Bill and Steve were also kind enough to add their comments to our news roundup discussion of the launch of Google App Engine, which raises questions about outsourcing, and myLOC.gov, which raises questions about whether digital collections should have their own personalization tools. Picks for the week include two books on programming, an organizational tool for Thunderbird, and a map for browsing American history.

Links mentioned on the podcast:
The Programming Historian
Google App Engine
myLOC.gov
Network in Canadian History & Environment
Social Explorer
MIT Simile’s Seek
Beautiful Code
The Mythical Man-Month

Run time: 48:17
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Is reading declining in the digital age, or is it simply changing? The Digital Campus team is joined by two guests in our feature segment, Sunil Iyengar of the National Endowment for the Arts and Matt Kirschenbaum of the University of Maryland, to debate the future of reading—and its past. The news roundup covers Microsoft’s courtship of Yahoo and what it means (if anything) for campuses, provides an update on a problematic U.S. House of Representatives bill, and covers the new Horizon Report on digital technologies that will affect universities in the coming five years.

Links mentioned on the podcast:
2008 Horizon Report
College Opportunity and Affordability Act
Aluka
Today’s Front Pages at the Newseum
Amistad Digital Resource

Running time: 50:49
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Think Google is scary with all of the information it gathers about you through your web searches? Wait until Facebook starts its advertising platform based on all of the likes and dislikes you’ve given it, and combines that with the power of Microsoft, which just bought a stake in the biggest social network on campus. We tackle privacy, anonymity, and giving away personal information in this week’s podcast. In the news roundup we celebrate the release of Apple’s new operating system upgrade, Leopard, and whether it and Ubuntu can begin to steal market share from a faltering Windows Vista.

Other links mentioned on the podcast:
New York Public Library Labs
Anthony Grafton on “Future Reading”
Kids, the Internet, and the End of Privacy

Running time: 51:11
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We begin the news roundup this week with a bit of embarrassing news from Dan, then dig into several stories about big media companies entering the online learning market and Google Books becoming more useful for scholarship. In our feature segment, Tom and Mills explain how they try to stay productive in a world of constant digital distractions like email and blog feeds. Helpful links this week include a terrific site for teaching through famous trials, a way to customize Google, and a dead simple online to-do list. And we remember 9/11 through our own site, the September 11 Digital Archive.

Running time: 48:34
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