Up-and-comer Emily Clasper has an interesting post on her blog, in which she identifies an intriguing permutation to the traditional activity of library collection development. Rather than considering the latest ways to obtain books or e-resources, she ponders the issues around which apps to acquire for a library iPad. This was spurred by a call […]

Almost exactly a year ago I wrote this: Traditional publishing may not be in freefall yet, but it’s standing on the edge, just one big shove away. That shove is now being applied. It had started being applied by early entrants in the self-publishing realm, such as Lulu.com. But the player with enough muscle to […]

In a move that is astonishing (at least to me) in its utter lack of hubris, Adobe is in the process of abandoning Flash in favor of HTML5. Call it vindication for Steve Jobs if you will, who steadfastly refused to support Flash on iOS, but no one can fault Adobe on how they are […]

I’m presently teaching a virtual course on cloud computing in libraries for Infopeople, and one of my learners recently posted a plaintive message that included this line: “Our IT department is in control and I think that it would be difficult to use even the less major services we’ve talked about in the class.” Unfortunately, […]

OK, I admit it, I’m officially a media fool. I’ve subscribed to Netflix streaming, Hulu+, and HBO-Go, all in the last year or so. Why? Because I have an iPad, and I stream content like there’s no tomorrow. Sure, I’m usually doing something else at the same time, but who said you couldn’t do two […]

My colleague Roger Thompson sent along a URL today that had me thinking. It pointed to a self-described “rant” about the lack of imagination in user interface design. The particular target of his invective was a video produced by Microsoft that provided a vision for how we would work in the future. In a nutshell, […]

Maybe it is the Occupy Wall Street movement, or my offhand watching of a violent space fantasy show via Hulu+ that has me thinking along these lines, but so be it. The deal is this: you can’t reach a goal by using a method to reach it that is completely contrary to your goal. To […]

In one of the clearest statements yet from the Library of Congress that MARC has outlived its usefulness, the Bibliographic Framework Transition Initiative has released an initial plan for their work that is quite revealing. Some quotes: “…the Library of Congress is committed to developing, in collaboration with librarians, standards experts, and technologists a new […]

Recently, thanks to a message sent to the Code4Lib list by Dr. Tim Sherratt at the University of Canberra, I discovered the Commons Explorer. This is a very cool software application, that runs on almost any platform (Windows, Unix, Mac) with Java installed. What it enables you to do, with a required network connection, is […]