LITA Top Technology Trends ? An ALA Congrunt
(Note: no wifi makes it into the Ballroom of the Peabody Hotel but the Lobby upstairs offers free WiFi! I?ll post this after the session.)
Ok – The moderator said the names so quickly, said them only once and the room was so full that I never caught them in the way I should have. I will come back and edit this soon but I wanted to post it now before I leave the lobby of the Peabody! Take a look at this page of contributors at LITA’s Web site.
Speakers:
Eric Lease Morgan, University of Notre Dame:
Two different piles of trends: Collections & Services
E-resource management systems: MARC is not good enough to describe our collections, which are much more diverse: leased data, etc.
Open source software is one way to create tools we need to manage collections
?If the whole of the library is a book:? each page is something different ? the library?s Web site is like a Table of Contents and the library?s catalog is like the index in the back of the book. The two compliments each other.
We can create our own collections with Web Services ? OAI is an example of this technology.?
?Collections without services is like the sound of one hand clapping?
People are expecting more and more stuff from libraries. Amazon, Google & eBay set expectations.
?What has the library done for me lately??
Note from MS: I liked this point. What are librarians doing to keep people excited about coming to the library. I’m also reminded of Andrew K. Pace’s point at CIL’s Dead Tech Session that if we dumb down our public PCs in the name of “security” are we really serving our users?
Next Fellow:
Trend: Personal software that sits with the user.
Problem: The world of e-mail: ?systematic destruction? of an effective communication tool. Filters have made systems unreliable. Authentication may alleviate some.
Marshall Breeding:
Library Automation: systems are constantly changing and improving. JAVA is in use as a client-side environment, replacing Windows. If any new protocol comes out that does not support XML it?s in trouble.
Electronic Resource Management: a crisis: we need more tools to manage our resources. We spend a lot of $$$ why has this become a problem? The solution will take care of OpenURL issues, link resolving and other issues.
Open Source: ILS systems could go to Open Source. Look at the Georgia example.
MS: And run to CJ’s excellent post about it at technobiblio!
Networking: Thoughts on what to purchase: Gigabit Ethernet should be the commodity now. (Somone on the podium chimed in:.. some applause in the room…) WiFi: 802.11g is the flavor of the day.
Roy Tennant: (who had his 17? PowerBook on the podium with him and various storage devices)
Three things Roy knows: one that is true, one he hopes is true and one he wishes was true
Know: Storage: This is the year that it became a reasonable proposition for someone to have a terabyte of storage. All devices come with storage.
People are now carrying on their person now than we had on our desktops a few years ago! How will this impact libraries? Will students get their course readings downloaded onto their storage devices?
MS:Dr. O?Connor distributed readings on CDROM.
Hope: We are entering the Golden Age of Digital Libraries: We have developed common terminologies and common experience in creating digital libraries. Basic standards and protocols are emerging. We can create new collections and services.
Wish: Creation of a new bibliographic infrastructure for libraries ? ?MARC must die!? there must be deeper ways to create catalog records. For example, a digitized TOC might be shared between libraries ofr their catalogs.
Walt Crawford:
Four suggestions from Readers:
A Problem: DRM ?Digital Restrictions Management? Why is it so difficult for libraries to circulate legal MP3 files. It could be that libraries will only be able to circ BOOKS!
A Promise: Open Source access may allow huge repositories of scholarly publication, changing the model of publishing
The next two he labeled as “fads:”
Fads: ?Blogging is Catching On? and some blogs are very useful. Example: ResourceShelf.
Fads: ?RSS? ? Growing potential for agencies to deliver documents and alerting people to things they may be interested in.
Joan Frye Williams:
A PL Library?s Web Site should be like a branch. They are management and service related. Leads to a trend: the line between the tech-heads and the front-line librarians has blurred. Librarians are using technology tools to help people.
PLs should run your web site like a branch.
Migration of Info Commons idea to Teen services: to reach the people you want to reach, look at what academic libraries are doing for scholars and apply it.
Problem: Self Check and touch screens do not lend themselves to bibliographic data. Home Depot self-checks have had negative impact on the opinion of such services.
Emerging Trend: UW I School ?Information Silence and Sanctuary? ? info rich environments and what that means to humans. How to construct these environments. Layer on layer of more info and tech changes the way we move through this environment ? classic response is rejection. Maybe there are better ways to create info environments?
Things to be afraid of: biometrics. Watch out for Biometric companies that are romancing local governments ? hmmm, the library has a lot of people that could be identified via thumbprint, etc.
Final point: Kids are born into this technology-laden world. They get it. Wired into it to make sense of it all: cell phones, etc. ?well practice dude.?
Mitch Wolf:
We need to re-conceive our libraries to allow 60+ folks to help us manage resources, etc. They want to help.
Last guy:
Utility computing: outsourcing some IT work. Sometimes makes economic sense, sometimes not.
Watch: JPEG 2000 ? has interesting archival aspects and prospects of interactive manipulation.