(c) Andrew Mason on Flickr

Why do we care about e-books versus “real” books?

I, for one, don’t.

“Tree*” books, “real” books or just plain “books” as they’re often called have been around for 5,000 +/- years and now i swear there are more “ebooks vs books” writings than curls on my head. Why is that? Why does anyone care what format our stories, facts, conversations, and fun come in? Why are we so worried that tree books might be going away? Is it because they are “tradition”? Is it because “books” are what libraries are known for and if they go away, we think we’ll disappear too?

I would like to take this moment to remind you that it isn’t the technology that is important but rather the information it is sharing or the problem it is solving. True, a book is very old “technology”, but that’s what it is- it is just another casing through which ideas, stories, facts, conversations, teachings, are shared. And it’s not the method of transmission that’s important- which is only as good as it’s content. Sure, perhaps you like the feel or smell of the book and it’s pages over a device- but don’t you like the story or knowledge ultimately more? Sure, i might be upset if the next generation doesn’t know what it feels like to read a paperback on the beach- sand between the pages and all- but i’m sure my mom isn’t distraught that i have no idea what an 8 track feels like or sounds like.

Perhaps you argue that we’ll be leaving people behind because not everyone will be able to afford an e-reader- well, you’re right. But I’d like to remind you that no matter how fast things seem to go- a 5000 year old technology is going to take a little more time than overnight to disappear- if it ever does. We will always have books- even if they’re in the archives and 100 years old instead of the library for circulation. If the world’s new normal are reading devices that aren’t today’s “book”, libraries will just change their model and loan e-readers. Because in a world of e-readers and no printed materials, e-readers are cheap like books and we wouldn’t care if they’re lost, stolen, or smeared with jelly.

That’s the point, though, isn’t it?- libraries provide ACCESS and COMMUNITY to those who want it. And neither of those things, along with learning, are dependent on a technology, a medium, or a casing. Yes, the hundred-year stereotype of the library is “book”- but that’s just because a book was the primary source of entertainment and education for so, so long. If our current and modern conception of a “book” truly does go away, i’m not worried- I know that society will still thrive on the transmission, creation, and sharing of ideas, facts, stories, and more. And Libraries will always have a place in that world.

e- or not.

==================

Additional Readings:

Bold Prediction: Why e-books will never replace real books. Jan Swafford, Slate.
Books versus documents: what’s wrong with so-called “e-books.” Jon Stokes, ArsTechnica
Buyers of E-Books Still Like Print Too, Survey Shows. Jennifer Valentino-DeVries, Wall Street Journal.
Will E-Books Really Destroy Libraries?. Charlotte Abbott, Follow the Reader.
The future of libraries, with or without books. John D. Sutter, CNN
Welcome to the library. Say goodbye to the books: Cushing Academy embraces a digital future. David Abel, boston.com

Footnotes

*first heard at #ALA10 as said by Dr. Marie Radford

possibly related posts:

1. CIL2009: Monday Morning Keynote, Lee Rainie: or how to be a node in ppl’s networks
2. Library Day in the Life: Highlighter Day

(via Librarian by Day)

possibly related posts:

1. Not Interested: connecting to a librarian in social web spaces

image courtesy of centralasian on flickr

While i was not officially at ALAMW in Boston, i did happen upon attending the Virtual Reference Discussion Group (VRDG) meeting on Saturday. Lisa Carlucci-Thomas started off the discussions with a presentation about mobile – a topic on which i will speak to later because i have very much to say- and the group got to discussing geolocation services (like fourquare) and augmented reality (like layar). It’s not something in the American mainstream yet, more and more of my tech/librarian twitterati are using it and talking about it. And while on a personal level it annoys me (takes up a lot of the twitter stream these days), i think there’s a lot of value here for libraries.

Geolocation

Geolocation is the identification of real-world geographic location information of internet-based devices like your computer or cellphone. Prior to foursquare, we (at least in the VR realm) were talking geolocation so that customers could automatically be routed into their Ask service if they were already in the state. QandANJ did this when they reached capacity after a successful MTV advert.

But now the world has foursquare which, as they say on the site, “gives you & your friends new ways of exploring your city. Earn points & unlock badges for discovering new things.” Why would you want people to know where you are? Well, maybe you don’t. But as a library, you want people to know what you offer, where you are, and perhaps drum up some interest from folks who don’t use the library but see their friends are there.

David Lee King explains it best with his top five reasons why foursquare has library value:

1. Add your library as a place, or edit the entry if someone else has already added it. You can enter your street address (Google map is included, phone number, and your library’s Twitter name.
2. Add tags relevant to the library. For example, I have added the tags library, books, music, movies, and wifi to my library’s Foursquare entry. If you are in the area (Foursquare is a location-based service, so it knows where you are) and search for wifi – guess who’s at the top of the list? Yep – the library.
3. Add Tips and To Do lists. When you check in to a place, you have the option to add tips of things you can do there, and you can create To-Do lists of things you want to do there. For libraries, both are helpful – it’s a way to broadcast your services to Foursquare players. To Do lists are handy, because you can make the list and other players can add those To Do list items to their lists, too. When they do something on those lists, they gain points. Think of it as a fun way to get people doing stuff at your library! Just think – someone could gain points by getting a library card – how cool is that?
4. Add your big events. Then, you can have an event check-in with prizes for the first person who checks in, etc.
5. Shout outs. These are a type of status update, and can be sent to Twitter and Facebook. So do stuff, then shout out that you’ve done them.

It’s a fun, easy, and *cough* FREE way to get people involved at your library. And, since this isn’t mainstream yet, it’s another way the library can look high tech and forward thinking (you know, not that we’re not already).

Augmented Reality

image courtesy of vanhookc on flickr

Talk about high-tech and forward thinking… even though augmented reality has been in the language since the 1990s, it’s just now starting to come into the mainstream consciousness. It’s the overlay of (computer- or cloud-generated) information, graphics, etc onto real-world scenes.

Why does this have library value? Imagine if you will, a library clean and crisp, bustling with activity. A customer holds her device up to the shelf of books she’s looking at and it tells her that the library has databases on her subject and that on tuesday there is a guest lecture program she might be interested in. Or perhaps that the next in the series is due in the library next month and she can reserve it now!. What a new world! No more messy signage or missed promotional opportunities.

And take open catalogs and websites to the next level and not only allow conversation to happen between customers via tagging or comments but lets customers add their own value to the virtual space around your library! Did sally like this book? Pete found the tuesday tech talks to be invaluable! Rodger was looking for a book on X and preferred TitleA to TitleB. YES!

This is the point at which i admit i do not have a device that can handle any of the augmented reality apps that are already out there (truth be told, i’m waiting for the tablet or at least the iphone to come to vz) but Lauren Pressley gives some great examples about AR you’re already seeing and what apps you might want to check out (like layar).

QR Codes

image courtesy strangelibrarian on flickr

QR codes are those funny looking bar codes you’ve no doubt started seeing recently. Although they’ve been in use in Japan for y-e-a-r-s, they’re only just now infiltrating the mainstream American consciousness. I think i first heard about them back in 2007 in use in Japan for historical monuments. Public parks would have qr codes with additional information about the monument someone was looking at. And indeed when we were in England in September, we saw them on pretty much every drink bottle.

Where’s the value for libraries? Like augmented reality, but perhaps something you can use now, imagine the same vision of customers getting extra information about the things they like, want, or need exactly where they are at that moment. You could cross reference your library and provide customers with more information about what services you provide, programs you have, and maybe even the expertise of and contact information for your librarians.

The world i live in values libraries as innovators and saviors of information access for all. With geolocation, QR codes and augmented reality, we have another opportunity to engage customers with the cool (the tech) and the necessary (the content).  While this stuff might seem scary, uneccesary, or impossible to some but how will you know the value it might bring to you and your customers until you try? Sure, these might be ideas ahead of your library’s times but it’s something simple and easy you can do and has high wow-factor.

Are you or any of your libraries using any of these techs? Please share your experiences or ideas in the comments!

possibly related posts:

1. QR Codes and libraries
2. Why we should stop caring about e-books versus “real” books

I was already in town having spoken at the Princeton Public Library with Amy Kearns on Twitter. Thank goodness i checked my email before i fell asleep that night or i’d have gotten up early, headed back to Maryland and then kicked myself when i found out about it later. Amy blogged about the event over at Library Garden.

The first time i’ve seen him in real life, Jack Dorsey seemed the typical soft spoken nerd boy who could sit around drinking coffee and talk to you about code all day. And that’s what this talk felt like, like it was just you and him chatting about awesomeness and changing the world.

While i did take video, it needs editing for length and uploading. and my sound card has died so i’ll do that at a later date when i can actually hear out of my speakers again. In the meantime you can check out the video TCNJ captured (i just can’t embed it).

Jack spoke about the business side of things in terms of how the Twitter people worked well (or not) together and with their product. It was a very valuable talk and i highly recommend you take a listen to it.

My takeaways:

Start from a place of transparency and openness. It’s always better to be human and communicate with people and tell them what’s going on from the get-go versus locking everything down and wondering why there’s dissent. Be open to criticism. Inspire the same communication and sharing/openness in others.

Just Start! The hardest thing to do is start. But you have to jump in it and get going to know if things are ever going to work out. Don’t keep it in your head and work out all the details in advance. You’re never going to be able to anticipate all the issues without external input. You can have an idea you think is Ah-Mazing but until you get it out of your head, play with it, tweak it, talk it over with other people and let them play with it are you ever going to know if the idea has wings. If it doesn’t, you have to be okay with that and try something else. Nothing can kill something faster than expectations that don’t pan out. Get it out as fast as possible and start to play. Jack had the idea for what today is Twitter when he was 15 (1991ish if i did my math right). Some ideas take time. A lot of time. and as long as you’re still talking, conferring, playing, and tweaking, you’re going to know along the way if it’s time to ditch it or not.

Release unto the world and let things grow. The biggest lesson of Twitter is that they had no idea what it was or what it could do. @replies? user idea. RT? user idea. Jack even mentioned that the company was calling them “status messages” and not “tweets” up until a week ago. Letting things grow organically rather than forcing things into the box you think it should be in is much better for the growth of your idea/product. You may think you know the best use for something, but there’s 6 billion people in the world that will tell you you’re wrong. And that’s when you’ll fail instead of succeed.

Company as editor. With all this user input and ideas from outside (and in), you have to know where to draw the line. You have to be a good editor. When an idea isn’t good for you, your company, or your product, you have to be able to shut it down. When someone isn’t good for you, your company, or your product, you have to be able to let go. Even when it’s your own idea, you have to know when to say when. It’s like Bonsai (from my limited knowledge of it, earned by watching the Karate Kid movies)… you have to prune the right bits so it can grow to it’s potential. Or like carving stone into an elephant… First, get a block of marble and then remove everything that doesn’t look like an elephant. You have to know what’s not your elephant and get rid of it to let the elephant shine through.

Jacks talk lasted a little less than an hour with questions but i could have spent hours longer listening to him. I’m sure he’s perfected what he says over time and time again of speaking but his simple brilliance didn’t assume anything or come from down upon high. You could tell he was “just Jack,” doing what he loves, just happening to be uber successful and on the tip of everyone’s tongues. Rock on, Jack. Can’t wait to see what’s next.

possibly related posts:

1. the perfect help form
2. i can’t see your @replies (or a plea for a twitter app)

The actual theme of the conference was “Net Initiatives for Tough Times: Digital Publishing, Preservation & Practices” making it sound that when tough times happen, we should go electronic. If you think about it, switching your perspective and getting back to what matters is what you should be doing when you are facing tough times. But electronic isn’t what our focus should be. What we should be focusing on are the themes that emerged from the presentations i went to and conversations i had with people-  Collaboration. Community. Connections. Libraries on the whole should always be focusing on our customers and solving problems for them but sometimes we get sidetracked into other things, like glitzy technology for instance. But taking a moment to get back to our customers and the connections we make with them, the friends we make, the word of mouth marketing, and the advocacy we develop will make all the difference.

I spoke on Monday afternoon and i’ll be honest, didn’t do much else before hand. Amy Kearns and I presented another version of our Tweet What? and shared the program time with David Lee King. We all spoke about (this one’s easy…) making connections with your customers. David specifically spoke about “user engagement nirvana:”

1. say the stuff in your head. it puts a personal face on an otherwise potentially faceless organization. be human
2. you have to give to get. the tech’s and engagements are only as good as what you make of them
3. ask and ye shall receive. harness that hive mind, crowd source!
4. listen (first). seek first to understand. then act.
5. dangle a carrot. offer something. ask leading questions (and answers!)

In the “Sneaking the Social Web into your Library” program, I agree highly with one of the things that Bobbi Newman said; “stop talking about the tools. put your focus back on your customers.” If people have stopped listening to you when you speak of “all these new and wonderful tools we should be using” they’ve probably already learned to tune you out as soon as they hear one of those buzz words.

Clay Shirkey said it best, “Technologies don’t become socially interesting until they become technologically boring”  (which not so oddly enough came up in more than one session). Your focus isn’t to do ANOTHER WIKI or “Hey look! we’re blogging!” but rather to SOLVE PROBLEMS for you and your customers. These technologies and tools are only here to sit in your toolbox until the point at which they SOLVE PROBLEMS, not be done for the sake of doing. Although, i’ll be the first to admit that sometimes i do for the sake of doing… and sometimes that’s neccesary, but not when library resources are at a premium and service expectations are higher than ever.

If you are going to use these techs, and other people besides you are going to have to keep up with them, make them as easy as possible for people to use. And if people have taken time and effort to learn these things, reward them & make them feel good. Though, Lori Reed asked “when is learning going to be a reward in itself?” Amen.

Erin Downey piggybacked on that idea saying, “if people are having a problem and you can fix it with web 2.0, people may accept the technology easier.”

On Day 2 of the conference continued the theme of communication. As much as I wanted to see Paul Holdengraber speak again (such energy, that one!) i was mostly on my own dime and was TOTALLY taking the time to sleep in a little. My first session was “Making Virtual Reference Multidimensional” and i had high hopes for it. It kind of missed my expectations but i did come away with a few new tools i can introduce to help make the lack of verbal cues and f2f interaction better:

• sharedcopy.com – for showing people specific areas of websites. similar to CiteBite but with notes!!!
• screenr - a web-based Jing
• linkbun.ch – a tiny url with a bunch of urls

Linda Bedwell of Dalhousie University mentioned their use of the qwidget, the QuestionPoint widget and said that 40% of her students prefer it over the regular QP interface. Well no kidding, why would i want to talk to someone for whom i have to jump hoops (click links and fill out a form) when i can just walk right up to them and start talking? I hope we can start using the qwidget in MD… just as soon as it’s a 24/7 interface like the rest of it.

During the talk, a thought occurred to me… Is the technology getting in the way of our customer connections? Possibly. I don’t know yet how to solve that.

Next up was “Dreaming, Designing, and Using Mobile Library Platforms” well, the second half of it. From that session i got a lot of goodies (that you can read in my notes) but what stuck most was the idea of “monitoring behaviors, not technologies.” It can be summed up in one quote by Henry Ford:

“If I asked them what they wanted, they’d have asked for a faster horse.”

Customers don’t always know what they want. Don’t ask them. Watch them.  Solve their problems. Figure out how you can do things differently.

After lunch was the Library Website Improvement Faceoff which gave me a ton of good ideas and reminders to take back with me for implementing as we move forth with our drupalization and redesign at work (for more, check out my notes.)

• Be human and whimsical. The library isn’t something that can speak. But you can. and you’re human. your content should sound like it’s coming from a human, not a robot. phrase things carefully and be fun. use “grab and go chunks.”
• when people are on your website, they have tasks to do, things they want to accomplish. don’t make it difficult.
• leave breadcrumbs. give people the confidence to find content on their own and explore your site.
• rephrase your Click Here’s. (ie, “You can get a library card.” versus “To get a library card, click here.”
• personalize things. (Dopplr personalizes their logo for each user)
• and my favorite reminder: HAVE A SINGLE USER EXPERIENCE ACROSS ALL PRODUCTS!

Check out:

• Steve Krug’s “Don’t Make Me Think”
• Janice Redish’s “Letting Go of the Words”
• fivesecondtest – Five second tests help you easily identify the most prominent elements of your user interfaces.
• check out usability.nypl.org

Nancy Dowd, in her Mobile Marketing session, reminded me about partnerships (there’s that good ole community again!) and reminded me where to start (what do your customers need? what do you need? start there!). Grow your relationships (via text, in this case) and then get rid of your press releases and your posters. Nancy relayed a story about how at a huge showing at a teens program. When asked why they were all there they said, “you texted us!”

Day three was probably the most important for me. I started the day with the “Selling Tech to Power” session which was being co-presented by my grant’s former supervisor who’s now in California (lucky her). It’s always good to hear (again) from people in power how you should be approaching things. Here’s the basics:

• Communicate. Every step of the way. To everyone. About everything.

• Know the answers to potential questions. Explain how your idea fits into the greater strategy or other plans. Explain how you’re going to use existing resources.

• Have performance measures… when/how will you know if you’re successful?

• Show your passion! Invite people to join you!

• There is no such thing as a “technology project.” I repeat. There is no such thing as a “technology project.” It’s a “business project” with technical components. (You’ve heard this before, haven’t you?) It’s not the technology, it’s the outcome.

• You don’t always need more $. Make sure what you’re doing still does what it’s supposed to be doing.

• Selling stuff to inside people is still MARKETING.

• Have data! for before, during, and after your project!

• Remember that people like having things done BY them, not TO them. Keep people involved along the way, don’t just spring things on them. Shared vision and all that.

• look for things in the high return, low investment areas. Low hanging fruit. low return, high interest? kiss of death. avoid like the plague.

And that, in a very large nutshell, is my IL2009 reporting. For more information about the other sessions, i am happy to report that IL and CIL are one of the most blogged and tweeted library conferences i’ve been to so there won’t be a drought of information and opinions. :-)

If you’re interested in my photos, both conference and Monterey related, you can find them on flickr.

possibly related posts:

1. Reference Renaissance Conference Or Reference is thriving
2. cil2009: Webdesign pitfalls

my new old phone

i’ve had a cell phone since around 1999 or 2000. Mom wouldn’t send me away to college without one. since then the “always connected / always available” bug has slowly infiltrated my being.

in 2007 (July 20th, to be exact) i took them plunge into smartphonedom buying a Palm Treo. i had a lot more going on in my life and i wanted one place to from which i could control/keep track of it all. it took me weeks to stop being enthralled with my new toy, perhaps i never really got over it. it could do so much!

but then the honeymoon ended. tech problems started. i couldn’t sync my work email with the phone. the calendar only went one way. the contacts didn’t go both ways. turns out there was a typo in the file name of the OS and all the upgrades and downloads that would have fixed my sync problems wouldn’t ever work because the system didn’t recognize the OS i was on. because of a one character typo.

so about a year from buying it, i got a new one. and my service provider (Verizon) gave me a new one (replacement) and didn’t even charge me the activation fee. how nice of them.

but about a year after that, every time i went into the memos area, the phone restarted. and then this weekend i had the  battery out for 2 days so i’d be forced to stop looking at the damn thing. (i had since gotten sucked into the “always connected” world so much it consumed me). when i put the battery back in, the phone did the reboot loop dance. “access powered… palm OS splash screen. access powered… palm OS splash screen”. rinse. repeat. back to the VZ store. yep, dead. data gone. it’s very zen, really.

“Have you seen a treo do this before?”
“Nope. But after about a year, they all start to go.”

one year. even with semi-proper care, one year is the best i can hope for? with a life line such as what the treo turned into for me whether i wanted it to or not, you’d think it would have a longer lifespan.

most people i know, including myself, are horrible at backing up their data. especially with their phones. even though it does “everything” it’s still just a phone and “wtf do i have to back that up for?” Verizon caught on to this and now will gladly charge you $ to automatically back up your information. My old old phone backed itself up, but only #s. but really, in that phone the #s were the only real thing of value it could manage to keep track of.

my gripe is this: my 1972 stereo is in primo condition. my 16 year old camera is doing just fine. my 4 year old computer is hanging in there alright. and my 3-5 year old clamshell phone has bailed me out yet again.

how is it that something so … simple?… and so important in a lot of people’s lives is so unreliable and worthless (and yet so pricey?) i’m not one for keeping old tech until it dies, i usually want the newest thing just cause… but i expect that i will want to change BEFORE something dies on me. i don’t appreciate things dying on me that are less than a few years old.

but, i’ve taken this newest death as my opportunity to get out. get out of the smartphone business and get back to basics. i’ve found that since my phone wouldn’t beep periodically when i had to pay attention to it, i was checking it incessantly making sure i didn’t miss anything. and then, of course, once it’s in your hands, you check everything. twitter. email. both of them. etc. smart phones suck your life. at least, they sucked mine.

so i’m back with one of my first loves, my old motorola clamshell.  strangely formatted text messages. no mobile web. no twitter app. no access to my google calendar. it’s a strange world, but one i think i’m going to like again.

hell, i might even start connecting with people f2f or over the *gasp* phone now that i can’t email, twitter, or facebook, them right from the palm of my hand. the only problem i can forsee is work email access when i’m out of the office. but i figure, if it’s an emergency, they’ll call.

and until the day i can control my devices instead of them controlling me, one little clamshell will be more than enough mobile technology for this girl.

possibly related posts:

1. How do you stay organized?
2. “you’re the 4th person I’ve talked to”

But then i saw other people’s baseball cards. I’m on the MLLI 2010 Institute Planning Committee and recently the Chair sent around 2 of the baseball cards that had been produced. Both cards, of two different people, had photos of them with customers. the people in the photos (the librarians and the customers) looked happy! they were interacting with other humans and having a good time! sure, it’s a marketing thing and you have to look happy, but you could tell it was genuine.

in one, the front of the card shows the librarian happily holding a book, explaining something to a customer who looks intrigued as she herself also touches the book. a momentary connection between two people over information. The back of the card shows her pointing to something on the computer to an off-camera customer who i imagine is also very engaged and happy.

on the back of the second card we see the other librarian having an educational playtime with adorable children who look as children should- wide eyed, joyful, and hopeful.

and then there’s me. who, at the sight of these cards, suddenly realizes what’s missing from my life- my customers. I’ve been feeling this lack of connection for a while now but seeing the difference between my photos (which i think very well encapsulates what i do and who i am as a librarian right now) and the photos of the other librarians (who get to see the public on a regular basis) really made it all hit home.

i love my job, don’t get me wrong. i love knowing that through my work and the work of the other 250+ librarians across Maryland and countless librarians across the country, that people are getting answers, getting help, saying hi, at all hours of the day. whenever the customer needs it instead of around our business hours. i love traveling as much as i do and getting my hands dirty in new technology. i love the library community i’m in that’s so involved and invested in this initiative. and i love directly helping people the few times i can a month. But my job is lonely. Sure i read the awesome glowing survey comments but i never get to see the glowing faces and thankful eyes of someone who you’ve truly helped. I can’t reach over the desk or through the computer and touch the shoulder of someone who isn’t sure if it’s going to be okay. it will be okay.

my partner in crime here at AskUsNow! has been feeling the same way and will soon be starting a supplemental job at a real live face to face reference desk at a local academic library. sure, our pockets are mostly empty in these hard times but empty hearts are felt much more. it’s hard when you only see the love in word form and then when you go out into the real world no one seems to have ever heard of your service. how can this be? we help hundreds of people a day! surely i would have run into some of them by this point!

I’ve been feeling this more than the librarians who do this in addition to their regular f2f customer work, i’m sure. For me, it was a gradual but all encompassing thing. For them, they see the stark comparison of knowing if you’re on the right track because the customer leans in or mutters “mmm” versus having to explain or describe every minute detail in order to fill in the void. But in the end, their jobs are with real physical customers. I train on interpersonal communication skills- on how to engage in “conversation” and how to keep people engaged when neither of you can see each other. But really, humans need human contact. There’s only so much text in place of a person one can take.

when it comes time to write my grant reports too, i try to find different ways of presenting who our customers are and how we’ve helped them. I created a story campaign to collect people’s stories, hoping to get a good visual from people of the interactions we’ve had and situations we’ve helped them with. It was successful but we were still missing the human visual component. I have names and stories, but i can’t see their smiling faces. i collect survey comments and am trying to put them into a wordle in order to add some sort of visual component to the words they’ve given us, but there still aren’t any bright eyes.

for our 300,000th question since our launch in 2003, i’m hoping that we can find an excited, smiling person to come meet us, get a plaque and take some photos for a press release. the day will go well, people excited, cake to be had, and we will celebrate the success of our service. and i will finally get to see someone in person who we’ve helped.

if you take a look at my job description it’s clear that my immediate customers are the librarians and liaisons around the state that provide the front line service and indeed i get to interact, hear, and see them on a mostly regular basis. But as explained in that book i had to read for Justice + Pluralism class freshman year of college, no matter how much you love your work, if you never see how your widgets contribute to the whole final product, your widget making can get very very tedious and unfulfilling very quickly.

i dont know how to solve this or the other problems in the world but until then, as so eloquently captured with my baseball card photo, i remain alone with the information. a librarian in her castle, trying to build a drawbridge out into the world.

possibly related posts:

1. Getting customers to conform, or not.
2. using humor with customers

here’s some background of what i’m talking about: @biz’s May 12th post on the twitter blog mentions that while they’re changing some settings, they understand the “importance of discovery.” but it didn’t happen that way and people started to give feedback. we learn that twitter was unable to keep the setting as it had been previously. somewhere along the lines, communication from the twitter hierarchy failed to reach the rest of us and there was a kerfluffle.

this is my official and public plea for any app out there that might be able to restore the missed discovery. i want to be able to see @replies to people i’m not following.

possibly related posts:

1. 23 things: week 6, thing 13 & 14 (tagging)
2. Jack Dorsey, on Twitter (advice for business and life)

Dropbox is a free/paid online tool that helps you sync your files between multiple computers, accessible via the web, mobile devices, mac, windows, and linux.

You get 2gb for free (+ 256mb of bonus space for referrals) or you can opt for the Pro account which gives ou 50 GB + 512 MB bonus space for $9.99 per month or $99.00 per year. (I have the free account at the moment).

So far, my bf and i have linked to each other through DropBox and can share files easily between each other. I’ve been able to keep my important files linked and available no matter what computer i’m on, if it’s the one with VPN, or if i’ve lost my flash drive(s). again.

Check out Dropbox. Use this referral link if you’d like to get (and let me get) an additional 250mb of space added to your account! :-)

possibly related posts:

1. a challenge. (and an update.)
2. 23 things: week 3, thing 5 (365 photo projects)

Computers in Libraries conference
http://cil2009.pbwiki.com/
http://www.infotodayblog.com/
all cil2009 streaming
* tomorrow’s keynote morning will be streamed live from the infotoday blog.

“Information’s pretty thin stuff unless mixed with experience.” Clarence Day

—–
Lee Rainie- Director of the PEW internet project
FRIENDING LIBRARIES: The newest nodes in people’s social networks
Link to slides on slideshare

[insert shameless self promotion and fandom love for Lee Rainie here]

when you have broadband @home, you use the internet differently, it becomes a deep, embedded thing in your life.

10 changes in the information ecosystem

• the volume of information has grown
• the variety of information increases- people have a lot more choices- in the millions. changes the way ppl think and filter information. ppl can go to the things they MOST care about and filter out the stuff they don’t care about.
• the velocity of information speeds up- information that you care about
• the times and places to experience media enlarge- it’s on our time. time and place shifting. we can watch movies now, on the bus. we can read newspapers on the computer.
• people’s vigilance for information expands AND contracts. people can dig a lot deeper about the things they care about. like health searches- we can go from 0 to 1000 mph in expertise on that subject in a very sophisticated way very quickly. people are more and more today are living lives in “continuous partial attention.” (< < make note here about book: Distracted)
• the immersive qualities of media are more compelling
• the relevance of information improves. you can set up alerts and filters and get what you want: the DAILY ME. big change in the institutional relationship ppl have
• the number of information “voices’ explodes and becomes more findable. more than half of adults are content creators. HUGE change in the power relationships people have with information and each other
• voting and ventilating are enabled. people are creating their own taxonomies of meaning and explaining what they see is happening in the world. a lot more opportunity now to talk to the insitutions that used to hold all the cards
• social networks are move vivid.

in a world where everything is bombarding them, people are falling back on their REAL friends- pinging their networks to help them understand the world as it’s happening.

Insitutions can now be a part of people’s networks than ever before. We can position ourselves as the real information sorter/finder/keepers, etc.

Homo Connectus
a different species with a different sense of:
* expectation about access to information
* place and distance
* presence with others
* opportunities to play
* time allocation and use
* personal efficacy
* the possibilities for social networking… and here’s where you can connect and make a difference

The Mobile difference report

35% of people are motivated by mobility (<< this would be me. if my tech doesn’t move with me, it’s useless to me.)
61% are tied to stationary media, have tech but it’s peripheral in their lives

59% of ppl access things thru their cell phone devices. Reconfiguring digital divides, etc.
39% of Americans are “really into this mobile lifestyle” and think well of it.
when ppl get more mobile devices tend to do more content creation than they did before they had a mobile device.

Each group wants something different from you as a person and organization. You have ppl who love they way you’ve always been. but now you have a more complicated world to look at.

Motivated by mobility
1. Digital collaborators 8% of population- the geek squads
iphones, twittering, blogging, cutting edge of technology adoption. they do everything more than everything else. more assets, do more with assets, feel better with those assets.
NOT THE YOUNGEST USERS- internet veterans
** these are the folks who will give you feedback on your tech. give these folks a place to share and plug in. THESE ARE THE INFLUENCERS

2. ambivalent networkers
express strong interest to take a break from technology but don’t feel like they can. feel like to exist in the world, they have to be “on” all the time. mostly students. not email users.
** serve them by giving them permission to be “off the grid.” help them navigate information overload.

3. media movers- the sharers.
these are the people who send you links to youtube and their family’s photos
** serve them b y giving them outlets for sharing… AND STORING what they’re sharing.

4. roving nodes
highly educated, mostly female. technology gives them more control of their lives
** serve them by helping them manage their lists and info flow, avoid information overload. they’d appreciate learning about cloud computing.

5. mobile newbies
just got a cell phone in the last year or two and it’s been a life changing event for them. but mostly used as a cell phone. not really internet users and don’t really care about it too much
** serve them by coach & ment

possibly related posts:

1. CIL2009: additional highlights, thoughts & links
2. cil2009: 25 ideas for collaborating in 40 mins