Category: 2007

Since I’m late to the game I will steal borrow a couple of trends that my esteemed colleagues have already noted and throw in one of my own. New Catalog Possibilities – Starting with NCSU’s Endeca-powered catalog, there has been a definite trend of moving to systems not marketed by the typical (and now smaller) set of library vendors. Another option that large libraries and consortia in particular are exploring is using some form of WorldCat from OCLC as their catalog. Still more options can be found in the open source world, with Koha and now Evergreen. In fact, I believe that Sept. 5, 2006 will long be remembered as the day when the ILS world irrevocably changed. This is the day over 250 Georgia libraries began using an open source ILS they wrote themselves from scratch. The potential significance of this is hard to overstate. Open source goes mainstream…

This is an unordered list of “top tech trends” from Library Land. Season to taste: * Full-text data/information is increasingly available. Now this presents real opportunities (as well as challenges) for libraries. To what degree is surrogate description necessary when full-text indexing an option. * Increasingly libraries are thinking about repurposing existing staff. “I know things are changing. What can I do to remain relevant?” Just asking the question says you are going in the right direction. * iPhones & friends are coming in a bigger way, and user’s expectations will change accordingly. As a profession we enjoy words, and I wonder how we will provide services to such devices when we are unable to be verbose. * Library catalogs are a hot topic. Even though I have been a bit more outspoken about catalogs than most people, I wonder whether or not this is something our patrons/users really care…

Increasingly radical rethinking of the catalog. What is it? What’s in it? What do we need it to do? Does every library really to buy its own, or build its own – or can we all work off of one Great Big Catalog In The Sky (or in Dublin, OH)? Questions that we answered in previous centuries are open for reconsideration and the one fair prediction is that the rate of change for catalogs will continue to go up. Truly portable net access – for real, this time. Being connected everywhere via a device you can carry around in your pocket has been a staple of tech predictions for years. But with a single demo this month, Apple’s new telephone has rewritten the expectations of what such devices should be. Whatever its eventual name, the device currently called iPhone has enough Cool Factor, and will generate enough copycats, to get…

With my mind distracted by a new job, I feel my trends are a bit watery. However, a few readers have vastly improved what I will bring to the table, and I encourage you to keep putting lipstick on my piglet. The one trend of mine I would underscore is the fledgling emergence of the open-source ILS, which is part of an interesting emergent trend of OSS for libraries–at last. Most of us are aware that open source software is more like “free kittens” than “free beer.” It still needs to be maintained and updated, and I grit my teeth whenever a substandard, time-sink OSS product is explained away by someone saying, “But it’s free.” My time isn’t free, and my users’ time isn’t free, either. But an open-source ILS has the potential of being the Apache of library software: the common-sense choice, maintained by a vast community. In fact,…

I won’t be able to join you all for the Top Technology Trends panel, but someone more worthy than I can read this in a good strong feminine voice, and hopefully he or she will be wearing black, so as to most accurately reproduce the experience of actually seeing me speak. My predictions are few this year. The only constant is change (but that’s not new, is it?). RSS goes mainstream With all the subtle introductions of RSS into internet users lives (My Yahoo!, Firefox & now IE RSS-friendly features, etc.), more and more people are being introduced to the wonders of RSS. Despite my unheard plea with the world to stop calling it RSS and call it textcasting instead, RSS is still RSS. But even with its name working against it, more library users, family, and friends seem to be asking about RSS and then using it happily once…