Gospel Library provides a comprehensive collection of Church material on your mobile device, including scriptures, conference addresses, magazines, manuals, and even videos. Recently the Gospel Library app for iOS has been updated with three new features:

• Improved media playback options
• Study Notebook integration
• LDS Music integration

Improved Media Playback Options

You can now listen to audio narrations for English scriptures, general conference addresses, magazines, and some lesson material. You can also watch videos of general conference addresses and other material. When you’re viewing content with media playback options, a play button appears enabled in the lower-right corner of the app.

When you click the Play button for conference addresses, you’re prompted with either video or audio media options.

We invite you to join us this month for a webinar on Personal Video Conferencing (PVC). PVC is provided by the Church to local leaders and employees worldwide for the purpose of reducing travel while still accomplishing face-to-face communications for meetings, interviews, trainings, and other purposes.

Note: In the initial rollout of PVC, leaders based in Utah are not authorized to use PVC.

To participate in the webinar, you must register in advance by clicking one of the register links below.

When you’re looking for a job, you’re often faced with the following challenges:

• Gaps in employment. When you haven’t been employed for a period of years, the gap creates a problem with your resume. Employers are suspicious as to the reasons for unemployment and prefer to see an uninterrupted track record from one company to another.
• Lack of experience. If you’re looking to move into a specific professional field, you need experience demonstrating competence in this field. Without experience, assertions about skills often have no credibility.
• No portfolio samples. You can compensate for lack of experience or education by showcasing an impressive portfolio of work you’ve completed. But without a strong portfolio, you’re often at the mercy of your resume alone.

Involvement in the LDSTech community can help overcome these three challenges and increase your chances of finding employment. LDSTech is the community effort of the Church for IT projects. In the LDSTech community, project teams work together to develop solutions for technical problems. For example, every one of the official LDS mobile applications (Gospel Library, Mormon Channel, etc.) was developed by the LDSTech community effort.

A new Leadership Training Library site has been released on LDS.org. The Leadership Training Library is a collection of training videos that accompany Handbook 2. You can access the Leadership Training Library on LDS.org by going to Menu > Service > Leadership Training Library.

The Leadership Training Library is now available on LDS.org by going to Menu > Service > Leadership Training Library.

Ray D. Robinson, a director in the Priesthood Department, says the intended use of the site is two-fold. First, it is meant for self-teaching. For this reason, there are “learning helps” at the beginning and end of the videos. Learning helps typically include questions posed by the video narrator. For example, the questions may encourage viewers to do the following:

• Reflect on inspiration the viewer received during the video
• Develop specific goals in the viewer's callings
• Discuss leadership qualities seen in the videos

Developers, engineers, and technology enthusiasts are invited to participate in RootsTech 2012, a leading edge conference at the heart of the fast growing genealogy technology industry. RootsTech 2012 will be held February 2–4, 2012, in Salt Lake City, Utah, and presents outstanding opportunities for technology creators. At this conference you can:

• Explore the latest development technologies and techniques using cloud computing, mobile apps, social networking, geo-mapping, and more
• Learn practical software development skills from industry leaders and pioneers
• Create solutions to challenging problems in a rapidly-growing market segment
• Consider possibilities of connecting genealogy market with other consumer applications
• Compete in the 2nd annual RootsTech Developers’ Challenge

Genealogy is one of the top consumer hobbies and interests worldwide, and family-related web applications are at the core of some of the most popular social media sites. The field of genealogy specifically offers unique opportunities for technology developers to tap into a profitable and rewarding market category or help bridge it to other value-added applications and markets. RootsTech encourages innovative minds to join this evolving industry and help define future consumer experiences.

In preparation for the calendar 2.0 webinars, we recently combed through the forums and pulled out as many questions as we could feasibly answer. The calendar 2.0 FAQs page has been updated with answers to these questions. If you're watching the webinar and you have a question, consider checking the list of FAQs prior to submitting your question via chat. We'll be adding to this FAQ page throughout the webinars as we receive more calendar questions.

Also note that the more general homepage for calendar 2.0 has links to quick reference guides and videos. About 4,000 people have signed up for the webinars so far. Based on this participation, we're looking to do more technology webinars in the coming months.

The slides and a recording of the webinar will be available here later this week.

Last month, the LDS.org team conducted an online study to find out why people visit LDS.org. On Tuesday and Friday evenings, one percent of site visitors were randomly asked about their experience with the LDS.org website.

Visitors were asked to explain, in as much detail as possible, why they came to LDS.org that day. Then they were asked to continue doing whatever they came to the site to do. Lastly they were asked to rate how easy it was to complete their task and comment on the main challenge they faced in completing the task. The team gathered more than 800 responses to various questions.

Faced with a wealth of valuable feedback from site users, the next step involved processing and interpreting the data. While it was relatively straightforward to report the quantitative data—time on task, satisfaction ratings, etc.—dealing with the large volume of qualitative responses was a bigger challenge.

To handle these responses, the LDS.org team used a brainstorming technique called “affinity diagramming.” Affinity diagramming organizes different pieces of qualitative data in a way that surfaces overall themes.

When done properly, affinity diagramming can prevent researchers from being overwhelmed by too much information. It also helps them avoid imposing their own interpretation based on just a few of the most memorable sound bites.

I remember sitting at my mother's knee, listening to stories about my Mormon convert ancestors. They were early missionaries and pioneers, men who tamed the wilds of California and Deseret, and women who built a paradise of milk and honey from a desert of thistle and crickets.

One of the things I missed, living in modern times like I do, was the chance to make a positive contribution to the entire Church and the world. The times when common Church members could reach out and bless hundreds or thousands were over, or so I thought.

Then I found out about LDS Vineyard and LDS Tech—websites where members can volunteer on Church projects. Let me tell you about one effort I’m involved in—the project we have on LDSTech to create an international version of the new LDS Music app for iPad and other iOS devices.

To get the word out about technology to ward and stake members, we would like to offer a regular feature: “Tech News Snippets.” Below are news snippets about Church technology that you can include in ward or stake newsletters, ward program announcements, and other news sources that members check. They are intended for inclusion in print publications.

Tech News Snippets

Webinar training on the new LDS Calendar will be offered Nov. 10 and Nov. 17. For details on registering, go to tech.lds.org and click the “Upcoming Calendar Training Webinars” post. Additional technology webinars will be offered monthly.

A new mobile app, LDS Music, is now available for Apple devices. LDS Music lets you listen to hymns and children’s songs. You can search by title, author, topic, or composer. To download the app, search for the title in the App Store.

A new official Church site was launched: Daughters in My Kingdom: The History and Work of Relief Society. The site contains online and downloadable versions of the companion book. To access the site, on LDS.org go to Tools > Service > Serving in the Church. Click Relief Society in the sidebar. Then click the feature article link.