Adventures in Ubiquitous Technology

Quite a few people have been discussing the potential for mobile phone-friendly services in the library. I’ve got a project going on at MPOW (mum’s the word, for the time being), but it really seems like a no-brainer. Take a tool everyone a) uses, b) understands, and c) prefers over other technologies, and find a way to deliver service and content over it. And it’s still novel enough that people take notice when something works for them.

Take this weekend, for example. I went to New York to see my sister’s college graduation. As part of our touristic duty, we went to visit the Statue of Liberty. My parents were concerned about getting in an early group for their flight home the next day. Without means to an Internet station for several hours, they ran the risk of being relegated to the dreaded Boarding Group 4.

I figured there had to be a way to check-in over the phone. Even talking to an operator could be an option, right? My Dad promptly pulled out his Treo, and, lo and behold:

They got their place in line, right at the base of Miss Liberty. If libraries can capitalize on this, good things are in store.

In other news, I finally went ahead and got me some site hosting. I’ll be moving this site over from wordpress.com, so don’t panic if things go wonky for a little while.

Happy RSS Day!

RSS in Plain English

Unforseen side effects of social reading

Many of you out there use one of the social reading/social bookshelf features. Goodreads, Shelfari, and LibraryThing have their positive and negative features. I am currently signed up for Goodreads, mainly due to the fact that a) it’s the one I signed up for first and b) it’s where most of my friends are signed up. Perhaps you’ve had a similar experience. I know another librarian who is signed up for all three, using LibraryThing as her primary site and updating her other accounts at regular intervals. As they say, your mileage may vary.

But I had an experience with Goodreads last night that was totally blogworthy. My hold on Scott Douglas’ Quiet, Please came in yesterday, and like a dutiful little Goodreader I added it to my collection. Not a few hours later I received a friend invite from Scott Douglas, with a message that I enjoyed the book.

I suppose it’s not too uncommon an occurrence in this age of ego feeds, but the immediacy of the response blew my mind. Mr. Douglas, if you’re reading this as well, I look forward to starting your book and I hope more than ever that I enjoy it. Because who knows how awkward that would be if I didn’t.

PLA Notes: Keynote by John Wood – “Dale Carnegie With a Yak”

(note: photo coming soon! Sorry to have taken so long!)

The auditorium for this year’s PLA keynote speaker was lit up like a Van Halen concert. Between the video screens, the blue and green roof lighting, and the lack of house lights, I felt like Diamond Dave was going to emerge from the curtain and start doing jump kicks on stage. Leaving Microsoft to Change the World author John Wood didn’t quite display the same level of physical acrobatics, but he commanded a groupie’s level of admiration by the time his keynote was over.

“World change starts with educated children.”

This quote, which Wood used to kick off his presentation, has been so patently obvious that we’ve all but overlooked it. What’s admirable about Wood is his effort to actually do something about it. By taking the GTD philosophy (or “GSD,” as voiced through his slightly bluer adjustment) and applying it to this sentiment, Wood has turned his organization Room to Read into one of the most efficient charities on the planet. It’s got me thinking about how much we can do to apply GTD to library work, and using the Room to Read principles to our interactions with the community. Is it possible to get things accomplished without the succumbing to the urge to hold one committee meeting after another? Can we trust our community stakeholders enough to use our resources to meet their goals on their terms? It’s a lot to think about, and really makes me wonder how we can strike up a balance between serving as a useful community partner while trusting our stakeholders with the autonomy to succeed. Thanks, John. I look forward to hearing more about your continued success.

A Sadly Truncated Conference

Due to a family emergency, I had to leave PLA a few days early. I’ll send in my reports on the events I was able to attend soon.

ETA: I had the title as “truncaded” for this long and no one told me? Gee, thanks guys.

Tweeting Into Bright New Minneapolis

(with apologies to Craig Finn)

I’m heading off to the Twin Cities for a few days to attend the Public Library Association conference.  Hopefully I’ll be blogging from the conference, assuming the hotel decides to hook me up with wi-fi that doesn’t cost $15 a night. I’ll try to add photos should the situation warrant.

I’m also going to try out this crazy Twitter thing. I’m on there as theanalogdivide, should you want to follow me around.

On the Nature of Things: An Introduction to Library 2.0

I had the distinct pleasure to visit the Glen Ellyn Public Library last Friday to speak about social software during their Staff in-service day. They just began their own Learning 2.0 program, so it was a great opportunity to share the enthusiasm we had at MPOW.

Presentation slides are here. If anyone from Google Docs is reading this, I’d like to reiterate my request to allow users to designate custom colors for link text. This blue just doesn’t cut it with a dark background.

Also, if you can give us an idea as to when you plan to allow YouTube embeds, I think you’d make a lot of people happy, kthxbye.

Today’s Hot Item

Hope you’re out there today doing your civic duty!

Though to be fair, I do miss the days of the old scratch-and-sniff “I Voted” sticker. Nothing quite like the smell of democracy!

(Updated: Here’s some more 2.0-ish SuperFat Tuesday fun:)

Did you vote in Chicago and get one of the aforementioned receipts? Add it to the quickly growing Flickr pool!

Google has set up a special election map that breaks everything down by county. They’ve teamed up with Twitter to display election-related tweets as they occur. As the returns come in this evening, they’ll add video and additional headlines. I’ve had it running in the background, and it’s mesmerizing.

Surprising Sunday Sights

If you’re like me, then you were no doubt blown away by the surprising events that occurred yesterday.

Pepsi paid $5.4 million dollars in which Justin Timberlake suffered various slapstick humiliations in order to advertise its latest contest. Among the prizes you can win are free downloads from Amazon’s mp3 store. In this seeming throwaway bit was the bombshell. Do you see it?

That’s right. Amazon.com is using “DRM-free” as a selling point. Which means that enough people understand what DRM means for them that Amazon* will spend $180000 to point out that its product does not have it.

Of course, this represents a complete 180 in relation to what they’re doing with the Kindle. Things, as our esteemed Mr. Abram would say, are afoot.

* (assuming they paid Pepsi for their share of the ad)

State of the Union as Tag Cloud

I came across this today, courtesy The Shifted Librarian:

The 2008 State of the Union as Tag Cloud

What a great way to take the tag cloud technique – something that most people perceive as having fairly limited potential – and use it to examine information in a whole new way. When so much of our language – particularly political language – is couched in symbolism, new ways to identify the patterns behind the patter are always welcome. McLuhanists, take note.

I am more than a little curious to see how many of those “Americas” were actually “Amrrcas,” given our Commander-in-Chief’s particular diction.