My five-year-old laptop (would I kid about this?) is due to be replaced soon, so it has me thinking about old and new machines. My first (personal, not work) computer was, believe it or not, a laptop. It was an Apple Powerbook 145 I received as part of the Apple Library’s “Network Citizen Award” back […]
It’s Time for a Format Fee
By on July 11, 2012
Have you ever bought a CD or MP3s of the very same album you own on cassette tape or vinyl? Or even, for those of you old enough to remember, the legendary 8-track tape (pictured)? Of course you have. We all have. Or maybe it was a Blu-Ray disc of a favorite movie that you […]
Of Leavings and Beginnings
By on July 9, 2012
I attended the retirement party of a good friend and colleague recently. It turns out that this was the tip of the iceberg. Someone afterwards sent me an email listing a dozen people from UC Berkeley alone who are retiring, most of whom I worked with in my career. These are, by and large, very […]
Attention Dead Heads!
By on June 29, 2012
The long-awaited Grateful Dead Archive is now live at http://www.gdao.org/. Built on top of the open source content management system Omeka, one of the best features of the site is the ability for anyone to contribute their own Grateful Dead memorabilia or stories. I probably shouldn’t say this, but the site is probably best experienced as […]
“You’re Not Special” Revisited
By on June 27, 2012
Almost five years ago to the day, I wrote a piece titled “You’re Not Special”. In it, I championed the idea of routinizing common library workflows so that staff could be reallocated to services that directly impact end-users. At ALA Annual in Anaheim, which just ended, I had occasion to refer to that piece again. […]
Unglue.it Frees Their First Book
By on June 20, 2012
Just in time for the ALA Annual Conference in Anaheim, the library startup Unglue.it has “unglued” their first book. What this means is that soon this book will be openly available as an ebook. What it took to “free” or, in their parlance, “unglue” it was a collection of monetary pledges from individuals similar to […]
“Hi, I’m Your Tenure Librarian”
By on June 19, 2012
Recently I was speaking at the Academic Librarians 2012 Conference in Syracuse, NY. Although I made the audience fall asleep, the night before one of my favorite library speakers kept the audience enthralled. Believe me, it’s really rough having to follow David Lankes at the speaker’s podium. But enough complaining. I’m here to steal. What […]
Gamifying Your Library
By on April 30, 2012
Librarian gamers have long worked to bring gamers into the library through such offerings as “game nights” at the library. But what if you could make using the library a game in itself? This is the premise behind a product produced by the likely-named outfit Running in the Halls. Dubbed Librarygame™, it comes in two “flavors”, “Orangetree” for public libraries and “Lemontree” for academic.
What’s Required for eBooks to Carry the Day
By on April 23, 2012
In my last post I wondered what qualities make a book a book, in the face of new kinds of book publishing that often ignore past conventions. So I was interested to see this post about one person’s perspective on “the innovation we need to see before eBooks can completely replace pBooks.” His criteria? Make it easier to show […]
