Experts Share Top Technology Trends in Massachusetts

Experts Share Top Technology Trends in Massachusetts
Speakers: Emily Alling, Coordinator, Learning Commons and Undergraduate Library Services, University of Massachusetts Amherst; Scot Colford, Web Services Manager, Boston Public Library; Paige Eaton Davis, Assistant User Services Librarian, Minuteman Library Network; Megan Fox, Associate Director for Technology and Special Projects, Simmons College Libraries; Scott Kehoe, Consultant, Northeast Massachusetts Regional Library System; Rick Levine, Technical Specialist, Central Massachusetts Regional Library System; Bonnie Peirce, Head of Children's Services, Dover Town Library; Amelia Peloquin, Independent Consultant;Elizabeth Thomsen, Member Services Manager, North of Boston Library Exchange; Vicki Wright, Library Teacher, Silver Lake Regional Middle School.
Alling:
Should be a trend RSS has been around but patrons don't seem to be too interested.
Trend. Assisting patrons in saving materials and information in non-traditional media. Storyboarding, video, etc.
Discovery tools. Library Thing CWMars. Aquabrowser. Next Gen tools: Primo Federated Search engines. Serials Solutions has a new product.
Licensing terms, knowing your rights. OCLC has taken away the Marc record. What is available ethically and legally
Sustainability. Open source software. Libraries should start investing in technology savvy librarians and IT support for customization. Sharing of technical services. New job descriptions: Librarians who can publish, archive, use Library 2.0 applications.
People are tweeting: using Masslib09
Colford
iPhone and mobile devices. Microsoft Surface has a tabletop computing platform. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rP5y7yp06n0

Words have become objects. Word cloud art.
Slides are old tech. prezi.com Sign up for a free account and make some presentations. You throw all of your ideal onto a desktop.
Bumptop.com shrink your desktop icons, make them bigger. Toss them around.

Davis
Mobile devices.
New access snaptell http://www.snaptell.com/ is a free download takes a picture of an item.
2 dimensional barcodes. Phone takes a picture of barcode. Example http://www.barcodeman.com/faq/2dbarcode.gif Get nutritional information
Tellme - http://www.tellme.com/ ask for weather, get a text message.

Shazam - who's singing, what song
Location interaction, Gesture interaction turn the
GI Compass mode tilt mode lets you look around.
Transcoding for languages.
Dictionaries, Refworks, Worldcat testing mobil. III has AirPac for the iPhone.
Washington DC library has a libraryApp for mobile devices.
Mobile search. Find a fact. RedSox you get last game, chunks
Spoken/Voice search on Google. It learns your voice and your accent.

SMS Text Search. Google Text. Yahoo Text. Text to call 7:1
Texting being used for digital reference services.
Simmons Library you can send your call number from the OPAC to your mobile device.

Megan Fox, Simmons
Photo story http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/digitalphotography/PhotoStory/default.mspx
Moodle uses multimedia. Simmons uses successfully.

Clickers in class getting ubiquitous. Tablets for write upon.
http://teachingcommons.depaul.edu/How_to/Incorporate_technology/clickers/peer_instructions.html

Levine
Business Phone Information 800-Goog411
Disturbing trend: Balkanization of technology. Everything will be "out there" cloud searching / cloud computing may save information seekers and organize.
Another disturbing one: Proprietary interests. Apple empire - you buy an iPhone, you are hooked into other products, If you buy a Kindle you will buy all your books from Amazon.

Davis
Libraries are slow in implementing "Library 2.0" Librarians are way behind the patrons. Patrons already out there on Facebook, Twitter. Library service old model: Come to the library, the library supplies. Now information finding is more interactive. Users expect an attractive, fun, friendly, engaging library website. Personalize your website, invite interaction, allow ratings, tagging, reviews.

Darien Library in CT http://www.darienlibrary.org/catalog using personal tags. People can tag in natural language. Put a Meebo Me widget on your catalog when ASK LIBRARIAN comes up for missing or damaged material. http://www.meebome.com/
Plymouth State Library can send call number to cellphone. Their catalog is Scriblio http://www.flickr.com/photos/users_lib/2750656935/

Peloquin
Twitter Oprah does it, so it's "arrived."

Pierce
Mobile platforms and QR codes. First used for tracking parts QR Codes are now used in a much broader context, including both commercial tracking applications and convenience-oriented applications aimed at mobile phone users (known as mobile tagging). Code generator http://qrcode.kaywa.com/
Open organization of knowledge.
Location

Thomsen
There is a Facebook boom. Allows people to put pictures, recipes, game scores, info. No need for flicker here, delicious there, blog there. Problem that all these photos and recipes are not out there for public search.

Digital storytelling.
3D applications like google earth
Self promotion. People are creating their personal BRANDS.
Visual searching is growing.
Facial recognition.
Geocoding. You can embed geographical coordinates into your photos, so you can put a photo into a map

Scott Kehoe http://www.nmrls.org/ce/stt/ was not able to present in person, however, he points to his tech tips page.
-- Brenda

Not Your Grandmother’s Library

The former executive director of NELINET, Marshall Keys, was the presenter for this talk. I’m not sure, but I think I sat in on one of his addresses last year at MLA and my opinion hasn’t changed…and neither has his.

He’s a good speaker, and a funny guy. He makes good points about libraries serving the public, but goodness, I have to wonder what librarians he’s been talking to! Every time he speaks he makes us sound like the stereotypical little old lady with a bun, glasses on chains, grumbling about how the internet is “ruining” reading.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t know many folks in my library that are so dead set against new technology that they gripe for the “old days”. Mostly we worry how to balance good information with new ways of giving it to people, but no one’s angry that “These darned kids don’t know a book from a carrot!”

Statistically, they do. Nationally, the number of library users is climbing, and those using traditional services like story hours are on an up, as the presenter of the YSS Meeting segment on Reach Out and Read pointed out.

Still, Keys makes some good points. Looking at how users get their information from hand held devices like Blackberries is a good thing for libraries to do. Most users coming in are looking at cell phones and other hand held devices for their entertainment and info. Having services like stations to download music, and other such ideas serve libraries well.

People want personalized services. Let’s face it, they want quick and easy. They don’t care to learn the dewy decimal system to find a book; they want things done for them. His point is that’s not a critique, its just reality. They want Netflix brought to their door.

We have to look at what patrons want from us, and where they’re going to get it when we can’t give it to them. His point being, look at the competitor and then do what you can to compete in new ways.

Games and computer 3d environments like Second Life are new and exciting areas for libraries that patrons want. We already know they want things like Facebook and MySpace. We have to be able to provide them.

He gave an example of a library that offers things like drinks in the library, a drive through book service, and many other ideas that combine what we like about the instant gratification of many businesses with more traditional library services.

I was pretty surprised to see that he states that privacy is not very important to the newer generation (and I’m 30 years old, so we must be talking teens here). He says that the idea that librarians should protect patron privacy is not something patrons care about, but connivance is.

Far be it for me to cry for the “old days”. I for one am eager to see more technology and expansion of services in the library. Things like Video Games, Anime, Comics, computer usage, production of online videos as part of library culture. I’m all for it, but I have to admit that there’s a part of me that must be an old fogy when I hear that online users would rather have something fast and easy, than worry about who might be looking at it too. Maybe it’s because I never understood the idea of posting pictures of myself in my underwear, but apparently preserving your privacy is no big deal any more.

Still, I found a lot of what he said very interesting. I just wish he’d start hanging out with the librarians I know, and loose the uptight unwilling to change model of librarians he seems to tote.

-Sarah "The Dyslexic Librarian" Hodge-Wetherbe, Springfield City Library