Ab’s Blog

Futurist Joseph Coates discusses some predictions about what you will wear in the Future of Clothing. Among them:

• Clothing will be able to change color and will sense changes in such things as temperature, moisture level, and anxiety
• As they become personal e-billboards and are infused with fragrance and pheromones, clothes will play an increasingly direct role in social interactions
• The internet and high-quality digital photography will make custom tailoring more routine
• Global warming will increase demand for smart clothing that can adapt to fluctuating temperatures

via FutureWire

Claire Dygert of American University Library gave an excellent presentation at NASIG about her library’s use of Blackboard to provide course-related content to professors and students.

American University and Washington Research Libraries Consortium, to which AU belongs, developed a plug-in for Bb called LinkMaker. LinkMaker assists faculty and librarians with the creation of persistent, proxied links to content for e-reserves or other use. It works with most of their subscribed online resources and–drumroll please!–they have made it available as an open-source tool.

The second thing they’ve done is to create a library “course” in Bb that provides information about what library content could be integrated into Bb. Then they model it in a sample course environment. In order to attract more interest, they don’t actually use the word “course,” but rather call it a library “site.” No one wants to join something if they think it means homework and tests!

In addition to the LinkMaker, the library course includes information and sample language about information literacy, contacting librarians, tutorials, and streaming media that professors or other course builders can include in their own courses.

I don’t see the presentations on the conference website yet, but they should be posted within about one week.

I’m giving Google Related Links a whirl over on the right side of this page (for the small percentage of you who are looking at “this page”). It’s probably temporary, but I’m curious to see how it works.

NASIG’s first Vision Session (aka plenary session) featured Robin Sloan of Current TV. The description was intriguing: “…Media is becoming digitized and disaggregated, free to float across the internet and get downloaded and uploaded, blogged and sold, pirated and appreciated, remixed and reimagined…. So what about libraries and scholarly communication?…” What I didn’t realize until he was introduced is that Robin Sloan is one of the EPIC 2014 guys.

Robin showed the EPIC 2014 movie and then talked through a similar scenario concerning libraries in the year 2016.

Two points I took from Robin’s talk:

1. The proliferation of content on the web (including movies like EPIC 2014) means that librarians are becoming less needed as gatekeepers. “Things that resonate can get an audience,” he said–without a formal selection process by a television station, production company, or a librarian. Librarians should think about what their role will be as this trend continues.
2. Many of the trends Robin touched on are related to social networking and online communities. To attract younger library patrons, they should think about how they can provide opportunities for building community online. For example, in an academic library, such a community might be built around a particular area of research.

A few other points that caught my ear:

• Some people are concerned about the possible disorganized, chaotic nature of Wikipedia, but in some ways the original building of the OED was similar: a community of individuals contributing entries.
• The “IV” nature of technology (always on, always connected) changes people’s ideas of what they need to know and what they need to remember.
• Blogs can be described as the “connective tissue” of groups in our society.

Robin is one of two contributors to the wide-ranging blog Snarkmarket and was formerly employed by the Poynter Institute, which has an interesting website.

There’s a lot of talk about “keeping up” in the profession these days. In addition to traditional journals and low-tech ways of learning like conference and workshop attendance, library blogs are proliferating and online conferences of both the free and pay variety seem to be catching on. With so many options just within the library community, the thought of trying to keep tabs on developments in the wider world is a little daunting.

Nevertheless, it’s vitally important to keep any eye on new trends and technologies outside libraries, to know how our patrons use technology, and to understand the expectations they bring to our physical and virtual spaces.

One way to do this, of course, is to observe them when they walk through the (physical or virtual) door and to ask them directly what they expect and want from library services. But it’s also important to think further ahead and to be aware of what patrons might expect one year, two years, or even–gulp–five years out.

With that in mind, here’s just a handful of places to go for non-library technology news, along with examples of the most recent topics covered by each site:

• FutureWire: use of gaming to educate people about the crisis in Darfur, cutting edge cell phones with “digital wallet” capabilities, and new light bulb technology
• Wired News: net neutrality
• TechCrunch: Google Health debut?, personalized news delivery service (EPIC 2014 anyone?)
• BoingBoing: Smithsonion/Showtime update and fallout, CBS’s new free, ad-supported internet “channel,” net neutrality, history of Play-Doh
• Gizmodo: round of new iPod toys (yes, the iPod is a toy, but it needs its own toys too), Intel laptops for kids, professors banning laptops in the classroom

There are many more sites that could be listed here, and I’d love to hear your recommendations.

If the word “daunting” is still running through your mind, consider splitting the workload with colleagues. Agree to follow BoingBoing and forward posts of interest if your friend will do the same with Gizmodo. Start with just one site and follow it for a couple weeks. If it’s manageable, add a second, or switch to another site if you find the first one isn’t worth your while. If you tend to read library blogs, look for one or two that include a lot of references from other industries.

Just be careful that you don’t spend hours of work time reading about Play-Doh!

PS: This blog post was made possible in part by NASIG wireless access. Thank you NASIG for supporting free wireless access for conference attendees!