New Slide: Techno-banality, originally uploaded by mstephens7. From my VAPLD talk: We do not need to dumb down our services or our technology! I’ve heard Stephen Abram say this many times: “No dumb computers!” The same can be said for any technology or technology-based service we offer in libraries. Fully loaded. Fully equipped. A full service experience is what can separate us from other providers of information and “third place” locales.
Monthly Archives: May 2010
26 posts
Thanks Vernon Area Public Library, originally uploaded by mstephens7. Friday I spent the morning presenting “The Hyperlinked Community Library” to the staff of the Vernon Area Public Library District. I had no idea they were the ones who had partnered with a local high school to create these ultra cool “Save Illinois Libraries” shirts. I had a picture of the shirt in my slides – and at break, Library Director Cindy Fuerst presented with my very own! Thanks to all the staff who participated. I had a great day! The slides are here: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/239835/VernonLibraryStaffDay.pdf (Slideshare – how about a 200MB […]
Benjamin Wheal writes: To celebrate the demise of the video collection and the now unchallenged reign of the DVD, staff felt that the remaining videos must go out with a bang. One weekend staff came in on their own time to film the final stand of the video in a giant domino train throughout the library space as a fitting homage to their service. May the videos now rest in peace. Long live the VHS! The video was filmed earlier this year in Tea Tree Gully, South Australia, and in the Library here we’re all very proud of our effort […]
Three weeks have passed since the Portland Public Library reopened after a lengthy renovation (which I wrote about here). The addition of a teen area is a completely new idea for the community of Portland, Maine. At first, teens didn’t really understand that this was THEIR space. However, over the last week or so they’ve started to trickle in and discover the space. So what are they doing? They’re connecting with their friends on Facebook in our computer lab. They’re relaxing and tweeting on their IPads in our teen lounge. They’re using their netbooks anywhere they can find a spot. And don’t […]
I have a new post up at ALA Techsource – an interview with the National Library of Australia’s Paul Hagon: http://www.alatechsource.org/blog/2010/05/mash-ups-mobiles-a-conversation-with-paul-hagon.html Paul discusses his take on making library collections available in some very unique ways: It’s been less than 2 years since the iPhone (via the appstore) became a viable interface. We now have the iPad. Internet enabled TV’s are just starting to appear. We are interacting with these using gestures rather than through a textual interface. Imagine if your TV had gesture recognition & you interacted with it by waving your arms about, smiling for yes and frowning for […]
Yesterday I gave two talks at the 2010 Reaching Forward conference, a meeting for staff from all sorts of Illinois libraries. Here are the slides: Reaching Forward 2010: Technology Planning View more presentations from Michael Stephens. Reaching Forward 2010: Hyperlinked Services for Young People View more presentations from Michael Stephens. Thanks to everyone who attended!