I've had a personal digital assistant for over three years now, and as soon as the next iPhone comes out it will be history. But it occurred to me the other day that for as long as I've had it I've almost never used the full keyboard (albeit tiny) that it comes with. That isn't a big deal, but it was also a feature that I recall was a selling point for me. I've never been a fan of trying to type things out using standard cellphone techniques (hit this key three times to get an "o"), so I thought having the full keyboard would be neat. It turns out I use the software keyboard and stylus instead. So although it seemed like a good idea at the time, it turned out not to be.

I know that many of us have also had such experiences in libraries. Perhaps we thought that a particular feature touted by a library systems vendor would be the coolest thing a...Read More

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As a frequent speaker, I have a number of favorite statements I trot out at appropriate times (well, I hope they're appropriate). One is the title of this post. It refers to the theory in the famous Everett M. Rogers 1962 book, Diffusion of Innovations, that decribes "how, why, and at what rate new ideas and technology spread through cultures" (Wikipedia).

The graphic to the right (click on it for a larger version) depicts those who create innovations as being the leading edge of a curve that leads into "early adopters", t...Read More

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I realize this is a bit off-topic, but you simply have to see this. The American Library Association and American Libraries teamed up to create a hilarious video on how to get the most out of the Annual Conference. Written, shot, and scored in a 1950s style, it makes what normally would have been dead boring a hoot.

Despite the fact that I've been to more ALA conferences than I care to count, and know exactly how I can be most effective there (even if I don't always completely follow through...), I watched the entire thing. It was just so funny that I couldn't wait to see what anachronistic thing ...Read More

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Recently I was asked to ride herd on three of my favorite speakers for the Texas Library Association Annual Conference in Dallas. I'm on the left in the photo, next to Stephen Abram, with Joe Janes next to him and Karen Schneider at the far right. With folks like this you have to know we had a rollicking good time. There were no shrinking violets on that stage, and I simply posed a few provocative questions and let them go at it.

I began with the question "What keeps you awake at night? That is, what major challenge worries you, or which new opportunity excites you?" (This I blatantly stole from the ...Read More

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Tonight, for the heck of it, I entered "digital library" (without quotes) into Google to see what came up. To my surprise, the Digital Collections of the New York Public Library was the top hit, above the Wikipedia "Digital library" entry, the ACM Digital Library, the California Digital Library, and all other digital library collections or projects. Where did they get the link love?

Well, it's only supposition at this point, but I have a couple guesses. One is that they have a ton of stuff there. For example, some wonderful free audio programming via iTunes as well as books digitized by Google. I can only imagine how many people link to the nypl.org domain to get s...Read More

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While preparing for a presentation on "User-Generated Content" for a Computers in Libraries 2008 program, I ran into a wonderful library project to engage and empower a local community. Dubbed "Bookspace", this is a program of the Hennepin County Library (HCL), now merged with the Minneapolis Public Library. The combined behemoth boasts a collection of more than 5 million titles in 41 branches serving 1.1 million patrons. Their web sites receive over a million hits a month in helping county residents sustain an average check out rate twice the national norm (17 items per year).

So I suppose it sho...Read More

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I said at the end of 2007, unfortunately not in print in so many words, that this year would be the year that open source integrated library systems (ILSs) and similar solutions would really take off. There seemed to be so many signs, with at least two widely known ILS replacement applications available (Koha and Evergreen), as well as a variety of companies ready to install and maintain these applications, and others, on behalf of libraries (e.g., IndexData, LibLime, Equinox Software, and Care Affiliates, among others). Or, perhaps even better, have them centrally hosted so you don't have to.

Now I see a ...Read More

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The Digital Library Federation ILS and Discovery Systems Working Group has a new draft of their Technical Recommendation available on their web site, that has been changed in response to what they term as the Berkeley Accord. The Berkeley meeting was attended by representatives from a number of library systems vendors as well as the working group and other invitees. "At the meeting," the announcement of the accord states, "participants agreed to support a set of essential functions through open protocols and technologies by deploying specific recommended standards" r...Read More

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Norman Oder sent me a link to the article "How Social Networking Could Kill Web Search as We Know It" and wanted to know if I wanted to comment on it. Well, I do. :-)

I suggest you read it, since it's short but intriguing. But for those of you really short on time, I'll try to hit the high points before commenting. In reality, even the author admits at the end that the title is over-reaching. Social networking will not kill web searching, but rather change it, as it already is in some cases:

"Consider how much information you voluntarily provide on your Facebook profile. Now imagine if you could combine that with your Netflix renting and Amazon buying habits. Then throw in the suggestions of your friends and th

...Read More

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About six months ago I wrote a post about picking when to jump to a new integrated library system (ILS). I said, in part, "For those of you who can wait for a bit, I think now is a great time to do exactly that. Why? Because the ILS market is clearly in upheaval, and anyone who chooses a new system at such a time is basically asking for it."

So in light of this I was interested to read the "JISC & SCONUL Library Management Systems Study," which says much the same thing in part. The subtitle of this report is "An Evaluation and horizon scan of the current library management systems and related systems landscape for UK higher education". Across the pond they use the ...Read More

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While driving to pick up one of my teenagers (Parent Taxi Service), I happened to catch part of the replay of a January 2008 City Arts & Lectures show on public radio. The show rocks, check it out. But this particular discussion was Arianna Huffington interviewing Cathie Black, President of Hearst Magazines. A video recording of it is available (in part) from Fora.tv.

But that is all background for what I want to focus on. Cathie said something that resonated with me as a librarian. She talked about how at first the journalist in charge of putting content on the web would be somewhat marginalized at a magazine. Then, before long, that was the job to have. In the end, she realized that it was all about bein...Read More

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Tonight my one of my 15-year-old daughters told me her favorite blog had shut down -- http://brownfemipower.com/. No -- more than this, it had been wiped clean off the Internet. There was nothing left. No archives, nothing. This was a blog that my daughter had as her homepage, that was how important it was to her. She read it every day. And now it's not even history, it's as if it hadn't ever existed.

Sure, I checked the Internet Archive. But it was a nearly a joke. The last time it had been crawled was over eight months ago, and poorly at that. Click on any links and you mostly get a "Not in archive" message -- even for comments on posts. So much for relying on that.

Yeah, I know...Read More

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