Someone call the Olympic Committee!

There's a new sport on the horizon, and its athletes hail from the unlikely ranks of IT professionals. Its name is speedcabling:

A new "sport" based around unravelling the mass of wires that can typically be found beneath computer desks the world over is taking off in the western US.

Librarian 2.0 Manifesto

A video mash-up of the Librarian 2.0 Manifesto by Laura Cohen:



Some of the commentators at YouTube have wondered, condescendingly, what images from the counter-cultural festival Burning Man have to do with libraries. Well, they have a point, although Burning Man is a regular indulgence of Sergey Brin and Larry Page, the two Stanford academics behind Google. And you could make the argument that Google represents the leading edge of Web 2.0 (first dot-com and tech company to succeed in the wake of the dot-com crash), or that Google is the most widely-used information retrieval tool of choice in modern libraries.

However, I think the commentators have a point when they note that in all her points, Cohen does not once mention "reading".

Future of movies in libraries

Libraryman brings up a recent BBC article on Netflix:

US DVD rental firm Netflix is to release a set-top box which will let subscribers download movies and other programmes over the net.

Libraryman considers the implications for public libraries:

True, “Netflix has spent about $40m on the development of its streaming service during the past year.” and that of course surely does not include licensing and revenue related math for the studios, etc. True also that money talks, eh? Still, given the mission of the library (particularly Public Libraries) it seems worth noting that:

As an industry, within the larger library-centric institutions that could make important impacts:
-We are not researching this kind of content delivery in any truly significant way.
-We are not planning to, in the future, provide specific deliverables based around his kind of content delivery.
-We do not have organized, direct or significant relationships with the companies that own the largest collections of popular content and manage it’s distribution to approach them as a potential distribution channel.
-We do not have the legal and negotiation teams that would be required to get our patrons access to the content controlled by companies mentioned above.

Some of people in his comments have suggested OverDrive and similar services as the future of providing content for public libraries. I'm not entirely sure these services have a broad enough selection yet. But maybe we've set ourselves up to fail by placing such pre-eminence on circulation and database usage statistics as performance indicators. Right now at my workplace, there are dozens of students studying for their exams who are not checking out books or using our computers for anything. Are we not providing them a valueable, if perhaps unquantifiable, service?

Reading on a Dream

This library musical was supposedly a prank played on the other patrons, but I have a feeling it was at least partly staged (How do you place all those cameras otherwise?).

Still, cute gag.

Hand-eye coordination

This is a really neat concept--a visual display keyboard, on the same principles of the iPhone or iPod Touch:



Typing Mode



Video Mode

Only conceptual for now, but it's a step closer to making the "flexies" (flexible computer screens/keyboards/cellphones/PDAs) from Alastair Reynolds's Pushing Ice a reality.

Amazon Kindles a new love of eBooks

Amazon's new Kindle eBook reader

Amazon has been getting quite a buzz from its new wireless reading device. Although it would be easy to dismiss the Kindle as just another useless eBook reader, Mike Elgan of Computerworld magazine begs to differ:

Opinion: Why Amazon's Kindle is revolutionary

Last April, I wrote a column titled, “Why e-books are bound to fail.” My reasons: cost, the availability of better alternatives and, most importantly, book lovers love paper books.

I was wrong.

Last week, I set out to deflate the hype about Amazon’s new Kindle e-book reader and to tell you why it will fail. But while researching this column, I became convinced of the opposite: Kindle is revolutionary and will succeed in the market. Some percentage of book lovers, including me, will buy one to replace their beloved paper books, magazines and newspapers.

Read the rest!

Self-service in public libraries

Found a new blog: A Neo-Traditional Librarian. His latest post has some interesting thoughts on expanding self-service options for library customers:

1. A great deal of library service has always been self-service. Many patrons use the library without assistance and with minimal contact with staff and like it that way. They are not unsocial or dysfunctional. Many shoppers don’t like sales associates hanging around them either.

2. Some core functions can not be provided well by self-service. Reference. Reader’s advisory. Teaching people to use the library’s resources. Arts and cultural programming. Libraries should focus on making staff support of these as available and visible as possible.

3. Some core functions work quite well as self-service. Internet access with patron self-registration. Holds pickup. Wireless Internet access. Community gathering space. Displays. Remote use and placing of holds. These all require considerable work to make them function properly, but not at Point of Service.

Check out the rest!