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| | Cell phones and something about Scandinavian Literature (Computers in Libraries conference 2009:3)Published on 2009-04-23 The cell phones are taking over but the concept of the book is still kicking. By one estimate the cell phone activity on the internet will trump the pc:s by 2020. The apps for the I-phone and for the Google Android platform are exploding. There are at least 25 000! And 2400 apps which have something to do with books!! And these platforms have not been out there for long. Megan Fox’s (Simmons College Library) presentation about cell phones demonstrates a new world out there evolving the last year, the last months, especially with these new technologies. She talked wind sensitivity apps (blow a kiss!), accelerometer apps, image identifiers like http://snaptell.com/ (possibility: send the book image to the store/library and get automatically price or loans status), compass mode (Android) and maybe the “worst” app: The Librarian app (voice level checker). Having Bio. (biography.com) and Britannica available via the phone is now a natural thing. There are still some work to be done to have a library system app in full bloom available but e g III and Axiell have versions in different varieties (please try this one http://m.bookdesire.se/lsb). The mobile site builder – On the site MobiSiteGalore you can build mobile web pages and apps for free. “Most Innovative Enterprise Mobile Internet Application” in 2008. And a last tip: Try searchcloud.net where you decide on the relative importance of every search word (from Mary Ellen Bates presentation). And a last notice: Picking up a bookmark at Kramerbooks&afterwords I read the recommendation for the two books from Scandinavia: Stieg Larssons The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo “Swedish financial thriller (what?) with serial killing, cyberpunks, bumping sex, snow and a zillion plotlines. Masterful” Morten Ramslands Doghead “Three generations of a Norwegian-Danish clan. Full of angst, booze, retardation, and tattooed phalluses. Very funny.” We do write some interesting novels in Scandinavia …
Federated index, Flickr Commons, Open Source and Graffiti (Computers in Libraries conference 2009:2)Published on 2009-04-23 Federated search is dead, long live the Federated index. The Elin product from Lund University, the Summa project in Århus statsbibliotek and the Axiell Arena product has the possibility to index different sources, not only the ILS catalogue. Building on this technology Serial Solutions and Ebsco now are working on a new kind of product, Summons respectively Discovery Service, where you change from searching different databases to include these databases in one single index. Then huge connector databases will be obsolete. In theory anyway. If this kind of a mega index covers the most will it then be good enough with a linked search to the rest of my sources, databases? Those sources which cannot be indexed by this "Federated Index" products because it is too expensive, to inefficient or lacks the “local touch”. It will be very interesting to see a combination of this kind of resource combined with a locally driven and locally populated service with user interactivity (like Arena). Proprietary image sites are dead, long live Flickr Commons. The deposits are still there and available with the full quality of the files but the exposition, their “shopping window” is in Flickr. It started a year ago with Library of Congress and now even a Swedish institute is on track (Swedish National Heritage Board). One of the big advantages, besides the “window”, is the community involvement where people can enhance the information about the pictures. Open Source Software is not dying, but not flourishing either. Marshall Breeding in his speech about the “Global Library Automation Scene” still sees OSS as a trend if not as strong as it seemed a year before. API:s are essential and more in focus than e g changing the ILS. Breeding sees cooperation (consortia etc) as a strong trend, gaining economy and efficiency. A facet of that; SaaS (Software as a Service) is coming strong. Buy a service via the net, do not bother about hardware and software. Breeding mentioned SaaS even in conjunction with OSS. On a direct question from me about this “contradiction” he answered that libraries usually are not “tampering with the code” but want freedom in deciding on the vendor. As I have understood it a lot of libraries in US who have chosen OSS either had no ILS before or have been very displeased with the development and possibilities of their OPACs. I think that we need a lot of attention from vendors (like us) on the API:s breeding mentioned.. Please make some graffiti! The Darien Library has writeable (and erasable) glass walls as part of their interior architecture in the youth department. Appreciated by teenagers who among other things use it for school work. The library has some restrictions of the use but it seems to work very well. Why not use this idea in physical 24/7 libraries? Leave a question on the wall, it will be answered till the next day, by the staff or other visitors. Reversing the virtual world by making a physical representation? Or(/and) even, let the writable glass wall show the virtual bulletin board.
Humans are not binary (Computers in Libraries conference 2009:1)Published on 2009-04-23 “Second Life is dead” has been a theme for a year now. I went to a session to see if there is any life kicking in the Library Second Life world. This session did nothing to shed any light in this matter. Ambitious and interesting work is still being done, see http://infoisland.org/ but I cannot see that this area is gaining any more substantial ground among libraries. The hype seems to be over. It’s dead: http://gawker.com/5158190/the-end-of-second-life. It’s alive: http://www.ioltechnology.co.za/article_page.php?iArticleId=4890728&iSectionId=2883. Gartner predicted a breakthrough for 3-d worlds by 2011, not necessarily in SL though. From my point of view the Second Life interface is not, for most people, comfortable and efficient enough to get a reasonable output for their efforts. Also the image of the whole thing is, in my view, not that attractive. Not yet anyway. However, a sites appearance has not bothered Amazon and Facebook users … Facebook applications are dead – (not talking core Facebook here. 200 million active users!). There seems to be an agreement on that Facebook applications from Libraries are not popular. Library applications features are not “Facebookish”. Joseph Ryan from NCSU confirmed this by telling that an average Library App has 15 users per month … He conducted a research on a newly developed Courses application, a university courses collaboration platform with social connectivity. The reaction – “cool, but why Facebook”? There seems to be negativism on Facebook apps in general . There is a manual individual “Block this app” function in Facebook, but automatic blocking facilities are being built, like http://tech.karbassi.com/2007/09/19/automatically-block-facebook-applications/ (I take no credit or blame for this). The digital “native” is dead - Lee Rainie in his keynote pointed out that there are not only digital “natives” and digital “immigrants”, the picture is more diverse. The findings are from a Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project.I take it that we are oversimplifying the internet users when dividing them in two-three groups. And it is often irrelevant. The groups in the survey have a 7- 14% share. The divisions in two main groups and in 5 sub groups respectively: Internet and mobile users
Stationary Internet users
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