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…
Category: Top Technology Trends
Unordered list of "top tech trends"
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…
Thomas Dowling’s Top Tech Trends
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…
It's Trend Time Again
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,…
Sarah Houghton-Jan's Top Technology Trends
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…
Building the "next generation" library catalog
How will we, the library profession, build the “next generation” library catalog, and to what degree will the process include vendor support and open source software? I must admit that there are few things that do not succeed over time without some sort of commercial interest. Think OCLC. JSTOR. Even NOTIS. The only exception to the rule seems to be when government subsidizes the process. Be that as it may, I will still advocate a large dose of grass roots efforts lead by the library community exploiting open source software over something created by a commercial institution. At least for now. Moreover, when your fellow librarians say things like, “We tried those ‘homegrown’ systems a long time ago, and where are they now? We need vendor-supported software”, I can give you a number of reasons why this is not necessarily the case in today’s environment: 1. Computer hardware & software…
Tool Kit for the Expert Web Searcher now a wiki
As some of you may have noticed, I have had trouble keeping the Tool Kit for the Expert Web Searcher current. In the process of preparing for my latest update, I found that the wiki function had become available, and the Tool Kit seemed ideal for that — um, once Bonnie Postlethwaite suggested it to me, anyway. So here it is: Tool Kit for the Expert Web Searcher. The Web page won’t be taken down, at least for quite a while, because the URL is pretty widespread, and I want people to be able to find the new version. Soon, a cross link should be on the old page. Because of the nature of wikis, this is really an experiment, and I’m kinda skeered about what’s going to happen. I want to open the Tool Kit to the expertise and contributions of others; at the same time, I want it…
My Trends… I know I put them somewhere
I did a rather belated, cryptic post on my personal blog, Free Range Librarian, but though it refers to something Eric brought up–a certain welcome restlessness with the state of “library automation,” to use an icky phrase, or an acknowledgement that the OPAC sucks, to be more direct–it doesn’t quite snap to the grid of what I’m trying to get across. I’d quote from Buffalo Springfield–“Something’s happening here/What it is ain’t exactly clear”–except whenever I get to the part where “there’s a man with a gun over there,” my practical librarian mind kicks in and begins worrying about guns in libraries, evacuating the premises, ducking for cover, etc. So let me force myself to disgorge a few more random blips that might begin to frame some of my discussion this Sunday. * An intentionally naive observation: the Web continues to increase in importance for people’s lives. (Alternatively, I think I…
Sarah Houghton's Top Technology Trends
I won’t be at ALA, but I’ll note three trends I see in full force: Returning Power Over Content to Those with the Knowledge Eric Lease Morgan touched on this in his second trend about blogs and wiki websites becoming the norm rather than the exception. My twist is this: people who have the knowledge will once again be in control of the content. Until recently, most websites (library and otherwise) have fallen victim to the camel through the eye of a needle problem: only the webmasters can post the content, and sometimes such insufficient and incoherent content is given to them, that they end up creating much of the content themselves. Library staff, largely librarians, are responsible for the collections, programming, and services in our libraries–the content. The same should be true with websites. With WYSIWYG interfaces with blogs and wikis, those knowledgeable people can once again be in…
ETIG Program in the Big Easy: Audio Book 3.0 – The convergence of the mobile media lifestyle platform
This program will be held on Monday, June 26 from 8:00AM – 11AM in Rooms 340-341 at the (MCC) Morial Convention Center. ————————————————————————————————— Please Forward to anyone you know will be attending and would have an interest in this program!!! ————————————————————————————————— Please join the LITA Emerging Technology Interest Group for a product presentations, a panel discussion and an interactive question and answer session. The session title. Audio Book 3.0 – The convergence of the mobile media lifestyle platform. ( Please note this title on the program differs slightly, being named Ebook 3.0… While there will be a number of issues raised in the session regarding the way audio books and ebooks are also converging my original focus on ebooks 3.0 appears to be “bleeding edge” at this point and not just yet fully emerging. After extensive discussions with Sony, Apple, iRex and many others the newest push for eInk based…