http://blogs.liblime.com/open-sesame/ Don’t miss Open Sesame where Open Source Evangelist Nicole Engard will be blogging and sharing: This blog will be my platform and I want to hear from all of you who have stories to share or questions to ask. I want to learn from you as you learn from me and others. If you’ve heard me talk before you know that I’m an advocate for open-source solutions in libraries, I’ve found that the open-source community and the library community both follow a similar set of guidelines, making them the perfect partners in a push for change and enhancements for […]
Categories Emerging Technology
353 posts
A few weeks ago I chatted with a reporter about my ALA TechSource post “An Open Letter to the South Bend Tribune.” Somehow he found it and wanted me to comment on my intent for the post. I confessed I should have taken the post farther and addressed what Alan Gray noted in the TTW comments: economic models for feeds, etc. So the result of that brief conversation with Rick Edmonds is here: http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=123&aid=137054 Edmonds actually spoke to the editor of the South Bend Tribune: Tim Harmon, managing editor of the South Bend Tribune, told me by phone that he […]
Rochelle writes: http://rochellejustrochelle.typepad.com/copilot/2008/01/never-mind-lega.html Whoa. Wait a minute. Stepping back from my Kindle krush and putting aside the question of whether or not it’s legal for libraries to loan them, I considered the Kindle issue through the eyes of a public library manager who has to make decisions about how to get the most out of a budget. Duh! It’s a no brainer. There is no way I could justify deploying Kindles, given the present model. The machine itself is 400 bucks and can hold up to 200 titles. Let’s say that the average price of a Kindle title is 10 […]
From Computerworld: Why Japanese kids love books Half of Japan’s top 10 best-selling books last year — half! — started out as cell phone-based books, according to the New York Times. The books-on-phones genre started when a home-page-making Web site company realized that people in Japan were writing serialized novels on their blogs, and figured out how to autocreate cell phone-based novels from the blog entries. The popularity of these blog novels on cell phones sparked huge interest among readers in writing such novels. Last month, the site passed the 1 million novel mark. Some of these amateur writers become […]
My new Macbook thanks me Originally uploaded by nengard Nicole Engard got a new Mac for her job at LibLime! It reminded me that I’ve seen an increase of Mac laptops in my classroom. So, for Nicole and any other interested folks, don’t miss: http://www.mactricksandtips.com/2008/01/top-100-essential-mac-applications.html 100 essential Mac apps! Some are very useful, others are plain old fun, and a few I just couldn’t live without. Handbrake, anyone? 🙂
Are you a decision maker for your library’s ILS? Make sure you checkout this report (which has received some great notice, I am late to the party) Breeding’s observations are useful and concise: Polaris emerged as the system with the highest positive ratings. Libraries that use Polaris rated their system higher in all categories than any of the competing systems and are the least interested in open source alternatives. Only 1.56% of responding libraries indicated they were considering migrating to a new system. (I keynoted their User Group meeting in 2006 – what a cool bunch!) The Library Corporation scored […]
Via Jessamyn, it looks like amazon is giving mixed messages about circulating the Kindle: http://rochellejustrochelle.typepad.com/copilot/2008/01/loaning-kindle.html Thanks to Rochelle and her commentors for supplying this information. I am especially tickled that Rochelle’s library bought a Kindle for the staff to play with.
I’m attending a meeting this afternoon on campus as part of a discussion of emerging technologies and teaching. A few of us were given ten minutes to talk about what emerging technologies we use in our classes. I’ll be highlighting blogs and RSS (and a few other social technologies) for my segment. I’ll be using this post for the brief “show and tell.” Blogs in the Classroom: In 2004, Merriam Webster online announced the most-searched word of the year was blog and noted that one of the most talked about online innovations of Web 2.0 was the use of blog […]
I’ve been mulling the announcement of Apple Movie Rentals for my Apple TV. Macs and iPod the last few days. This morning, via Twitter, John Blyberg points to a piece by Seth Godin: http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2008/01/how-much-for-di.html Godin writes: No, I don’t think Free is always the answer, but I do think the studios are about to make a mistake of RIAA proportions. I’d charge fifty cents for an online rental. It would immediately hammer the rental stores (which is fine with Hollywood) and DVD replicators (also fine with Hollywood) but would instantly teach people a new habit. Then, once the new habit […]
Rock on Steve! Thanks for another great post in the “Learn More” series. http://librarystream.wordpress.com/2008/01/14/learn-more-twitter/