Is the Nook a Crook?</h1> <article> <h1>Is the Nook a Crook?</h1> <p>Tom Peters — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 21:22:34 +0000</p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;"><font size="3">Everythi</font></span><span style="font-family:Arial;"><font size="3">ng I read and hear about the forthcoming</font></span><span style="font-family:Arial;"><font size="3"> Nook portable eReadin</font></span><span style="font-family:Arial;"><font size="3">g device from Barnes & Noble</font></span><span style="font-family:Arial;"><font size="3"> (<a href="http://www.nook.com">http://www.nook.com</a>)</font></span><span style="font-family:Arial;"><font size="3">, including Jason Griffey’s <a href="http://www.alatechsource.org/blog/2009/10/barnes-and-nobles-nook-steps-into-the-ring-with-kindle.html">post</a> here on the TechSource blog, indicates that the Nook will be</font></span> <span style="font-family:Arial;"><font size="3">a significant new development in the </font></span><span style="font-family:Arial;"><font size="3">burgeoning </font></span><span style="font-family:Arial;"><font size="3">portable </font></span><span style="font-family:Arial;"><font size="3">eReader device market. It</font></span><span style="font-family:Arial;"><font size="3"> may become the much-a</font></span><span style="font-family:Arial;"><font size="3">n</font></span><span style="font-family:Arial;"><font size="3">ticipated Kindle Killer. <br /></font></span></p><p> </p> <p style="margin-left:0pt;margin-right:0pt;"><span style="font-family:Arial;"><font size="3">The N</font></span><span style="font-family:Arial;"><font size="3">ook clearly is not a crock, but e</font></span><span style="font-family:Arial;"><font size="3">a</font></span><span style="font-family:Arial;"><font size="3">rlier this week, </font></span><span style="font-family:Arial;"><font size="3">a news</font></span><span style="font-family:Arial;"><font size="3"> releas</font></span><span style="font-family:Arial;"><font size="3">e raised</font></span><span style="font-family:Arial;"><font size="3"> another question: Is the Nook a Crook?</font></span></p><p> </p> <p style="margin-left:0pt;margin-right:0pt;"><span style="font-family:Arial;"><font size="3">On November 2, 2009 a small company based in </font></span><span style="font-family:Arial;"><font size="3">Fremont</font></span><span style="font-family:Arial;"><font size="3">, </font></span><span style="font-family:Arial;"><font size="3">California</font></span><span style="font-family:Arial;"><font size="3"> called Spring Design, Inc. issued a news release stating that Barnes & Noble has misappropriated trade secrets and violated a non-disclosure agreement into which the two companies had entered.</font></span><span style="font-family:Arial;"><font size="3"> As a result, Spring Design has filed a lawsuit against Barnes & Noble. At issue is the similarities in design</font></span><span style="font-family:Arial;"><font size="3"> and functionality</font></span><span style="font-family:Arial;"><font size="3"> between the Nook and the Alex, a dual-screen, Android-driven portable eReading device that </font></span><span style="font-family:Arial;"><font size="3">Spring Design has been designing since 2006</font></span><span style="font-family:Arial;"><font size="3">. Both</font></span><span style="font-family:Arial;"><font size="3"> were publicly announced within a few days of each other last month</font></span><span style="font-family:Arial;"><font size="3">. </font></span></p><p> </p> <p style="margin-left:0pt;margin-right:0pt;"><span style="font-family:Arial;"><font size="3">It’s not just a happy coincidence, Spring Design asserts. Throughout most of 2009 Spring Design and B&N have had ongoing conversations and meetings about a dual-screen portable eReading device. </font></span><span style="font-family:Arial;"><font size="3"> Representatives from Spring Design thought th</font></span><span style="font-family:Arial;"><font size="3">e conversations and meetings might</font></span><span style="font-family:Arial;"><font size="3"> lead to a business partnership. They say they were completely surprised</font></span><span style="font-family:Arial;"><font size="3"> and flabbergasted</font></span><span style="font-family:Arial;"><font size="3"> when the Nook was announced.</font></span></p><p> </p> <p style="margin-left:0pt;margin-right:0pt;"><span style="font-family:Arial;"><font size="3"> </font></span><span style="font-family:Arial;"><font size="3">The news release from Spring Design </font></span><span style="font-family:Arial;"><font size="3">states</font></span><span style="font-family:Arial;"><font size="3">, “</font></span><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Arial;"><font size="3">Since the beginning of 2009, Spring and Barnes & Noble worked within a non-disclosure agreement, including many meetings, emails and conference calls with executives ranging up to the president of </font></span>Barnes and Noble.com<span style="font-family:Arial;"><font size="3">,</font></span><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Arial;"><font size="3"> discussing confidential information regarding the features, functionality and capabilities of Alex. Throughout, Barnes & Noble's marketing and technical executives extolled Alex's "innovative" features, never mentioning their use of those features until the public disclosure of the Nook.”</font></span><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Arial;"><font size="2"> <br /></font></span></p><p> </p> <p style="margin-left:0pt;margin-right:0pt;"><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Arial;"><font size="3">The damages sought through this lawsuit and the jurisdiction in which it was filed were not specified in the new release, but </font></span><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Arial;"><font size="3">a PC Magazine article posted on Tuesday </font></span><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Arial;"><font size="3">(</font></span><a href="http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2355246,00.asp"><span style="color:rgb(0,0,255);font-family:Arial;"><u><font size="3">http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2355246,00.asp</font></u></span></a><span style="font-family:Arial;"><font size="3">)</font></span><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Arial;"><font size="3"> states</font></span><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Arial;"><font size="3"> that Spring Design has asked the court to stop production of the Nook and award damages to Spring. While the Google Books Settlement may be a much bigger fish frying in the pan of the emerging portable eReading culture, society, and econom</font></span><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Arial;"><font size="3">y, this smaller lawsuit provides further validation of</font></span><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Arial;"><font size="3"> my short list of key indicators that something </font></span><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Arial;"><font size="3">signi</font></span><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Arial;"><font size="3">ficant is happening in some</font></span> <span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Arial;"><font size="3">new technological, um, nook (small n)</font></span><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Arial;"><font size="3"> or</font></span><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Arial;"><font size="3"> cranny</font></span><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Arial;"><font size="3">. Here’s my list:</font></span></p><p> </p> <ul type="disc"><li><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Arial;"><font size="3">Obligatory </font></span><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Arial;"><font size="3">Format War: PDF versus ePub, check</font></span></li> <li><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Arial;"><font size="3">Lots of big players rushing into the market: Amazon, Sony, Google, Barnes & Noble, check</font></span></li> <li><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Arial;"><font size="3">Lots of media coverage, perhaps verging on hype: check</font></span></li> <li><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Arial;"><font size="3">Lots of lawsuits and general saber rattling: check</font></span><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Arial;"><font size="3"><br /></font></span><span style="font-family:Arial;"><font size="3"> </font></span></li> </ul> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;"><font size="3">Commenting on the merits of this lawsuit here and now would be fruitless. It is too soon to tell which party, if either, is at fault. We can only hope that eventually justice will prevail, and that lawsuits, </font></span><span style="font-family:Arial;"><font size="3">which often crop</font></span><span style="font-family:Arial;"><font size="3"> up as</font></span><span style="font-family:Arial;"><font size="3"> new technologies take root</font></span><span style="font-family:Arial;"><font size="3">, will not choke the new growth and permanently mar the landscape. </font></span><span style="font-family:Arial;"><font size="3"> </font></span></p> </article> <article> <h1>The Sacred Cows of Library Technologists</h1> <p>Cindi Trainor — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 20:22:06 +0000</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Hearing Rick Anderson's recent <a title="KLA" href="http://www.kylibasn.org/">KLA</a> talk, titled "<a title="The Five Sacred Cows of Librarianship: Why They No Longer Matter, and Why Two of Them Never Did" href="http://academiclibrarianskla.blogspot.com/2009/04/rick-andersons-ppt-slides-jsc-2009.html">The Five Sacred Cows of Librarianship: Why They No Longer Matter, and Why Two of Them Never Did</a>," made me wonder what "sacred cows" exist in the field of library technology. I posed the question, "What are the sacred cows of library technology?" in <a title="Google Wave" href="http://wave.google.com/">Google Wave</a>. What followed was a discussion about digital technology among library technologists that generated many ideas and was a great way to try out this new communication tool. Some of the ideas offered up were "sacred cows" to those in the field, but others challenged ideas held more widely in librarianship. </p><p> </p> <p><i><b>"Our users haven't asked for that."</b></i> </p><p> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Some libraries do not experiment with offering services and resources digitally because the patrons in the building say that they do not want them. <a title="Matt Hamilton" href="http://matthewdhamilton.com/wp/about-matt-hamilton/">Matt Hamilton</a> writes<span style="background-color:rgb(255,255,255);">, "When I asked our Reference staff if they'd consider IM reference I was told 'Well, our patrons haven't asked for that.' However the university up the hill actually tried it--and it was so popular they had to readjust staffing for it." </span></p><p> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">A good way to estimate whether a digital service will be successful is to ask users of your website, though even users of your digital spaces may not know right away whether they would use a service if offered digitally. For example, users might tell you now that they are not interested in asking information questions via <a title="Twitter" href="http://twitter.com/">Twitter</a> or <a title="SMS" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMS">SMS</a>, but when those same people get into Twitter because their friends do, your library will be there to met their needs. "A question is a question is a question," writes <a title="David Lee King" href="http://davidleeking.com/">David Lee King</a>, "in-person services should not be weighted as more important than using a similar service digitally."</p><p> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i><b>"Library technology=Windows or Mac."</b></i></p><p> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">While the majority of the use of digital library services and resources takes place via desktop or laptop computers, mobile use is rapidly increasing. <a title="Computers" href="http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/computer">Computers</a> are everywhere—our <a title="DVRs" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_video_recorder">DVRs</a> and <a title="cable boxes" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cable_box_%28electronics%29">cable boxes</a> are computers, as are our in-car GPS units. Perhaps most widespread, our cell phones and other small-screen devices that can access the web, like <a title="Apple" href="http://apple.com/">Apple</a>'s <a title="iPod Touch" href="http://www.apple.com/ipodtouch/">iPod Touch</a> and eBook readers like <a title="Amazon's Kindle" href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0015T963C">Amazon's Kindle,</a> are computers.</p><p> </p> <p style="background-color:rgb(255,255,255);" class="MsoNormal">What does your library website look like on these devices? Can your users send call numbers or phone numbers to themselves via a text message? Can your users chat with a librarian via SMS? Do you provide directions via <a title="Google Maps" href="http://maps.google.com/">Google Maps</a>? Event information via <a title="Google Calendar" href="http://calendar.google.com/">Google Calendar</a>, <a title="iCalendar" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICalendar">iCalendar</a> or <a title="RSS" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSS">RSS</a>? Is your library's <a title="Facebook" href="http://facebook.com/">Facebook</a> page mobile-friendly? Is there an <a title="iPhone" href="http://www.apple.com/iphone">iPhone</a> app that searches your library's catalog? </p><p> </p> <p style="background-color:rgb(255,255,255);" class="MsoNormal">There is an important lesson here for library administrators, and it's not that every library MUST have all of these things, but rather that technology budgets must be nimble enough to arm your technology staff with the tools and training required to create mobile-friendly services. Robert McDonald asserts that libraries must "look at new communication tools and how we can partner with vendors to be viable in this area."</p><p> </p> <p style="background-color:rgb(255,255,255);" class="MsoNormal">"Right now," he writes, "I am talking about SMS text and mobile devices—soon I guess I will mean <a title="wave" href="http://wave.google.com/">wave</a> or some other technology. Email and Chat are for old people like me, not for our current users."</p><p> </p> <p><i><b>"Cutting-edge is better; bleeding-edge is best."</b></i></p><p> </p> <p>Just because a shiny gadget or tool is available, it doesn't mean that there is a need for it in each library. "Anytime we fetishize the container over the information we're creating a golden idol," writes <a title="Joshua Neff" href="http://www.goblin-cartoons.com/about/">Joshua Neff</a>, extending the "sacred cow" metaphor. <a title="Amy Buckland" href="http://jambina.com/blog/about-me/">Amy Buckland</a> agreed, writing, "I'm always amazed that libtechs are so enamored of tools long before they come up with uses for them. Then we try to shoehorn library services into a tool just so we have it." Experimenting with low-cost or no-cost tools like Twitter will only cost staff time, but implementing expensive (think federated search) or complex-but-free technologies (think Drupal) because it's the cool thing to do can be a very costly lesson for a library to learn, in terms of budget, staff time, morale and user satisfaction.</p><p> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i><b>"<insert your favorite software or vendor here> is the only way to go."</b></i> </p><p> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">This is a many-horned "cow" that deserves quick and painless slaughter. <a title="Roy Tennant" href="http://roytennant.com/">Roy Tennant</a> was quick to offer open source software as one of our sacred cows, "Not that it isn't important and useful," he says, "I've been involved with open source projects myself, but it also is not our total salvation. We need to get beyond a religious-like fervor and view all possible solutions more rationally." <a title="David King" href="http://davidleeking.com/">David King</a> offered the idea from a different angle: "Having a 'complete Microsoft shop,' meaning those IT departments that are proud of the fact that their server room only has Microsoft products, Microsoft operating systems, etc." <a title="Jason Griffey" href="http://www.jasongriffey.net/">Jason Griffey</a> chimed in with the "belief that dealing with 'library vendors' for services is the way to go. I'm trying to find ways to get away from that, and go wherever the best stuff is (often NOT library vendors)." Whatever goes in that blank, it's important to realize that it's ok to diversify. Not all library systems HAVE to be open source. Not every server HAS to be Microsoft. Libraries can partner with vendors outside libraryland for tools and services. There is an awful lot of content delivered directly to users via <a title="Netflix" href="http://netflix.com/">Netflix</a>, <a title="iTunes" href="http://www.apple.com/itunes">iTunes</a>, <a title="Amazon" href="http://amazon.ccom/">Amazon</a>—how can libraries become integrated into what Jason Griffey calls these "patron-level content distribution systems"? Should we be trying? Will libraries as we know them survive if we don't?</p><p> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i><b>"Technology is the domain of the few."</b></i></p><p> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Library staff who are comfortable with using and experimenting with technology are no longer solely in the Systems Department. The "technology-minded" can have a role in every department. A library organization whose librarians and staff are empowered to experiment with technological solutions or who are given tools to create their own digital content will be more nimble and able to respond to the changing technology needs of users. Ideas for meeting information or collection needs with a technological tool will be more widely accepted—and therefore more successful among staff—if those ideas originate in the departments that will use those tools. It's a wiser use of staffing dollars to allow technology staff to focus on programming, hardware, web design and systems administration expertise instead of figuring out how to day-to-day uses of Database X or Software Program Y. Of course, it's important for library staff and administrators to realize that technology staff time is finite; that systems and services that requiring technology staff time add up fast; and that thoughtful and strategic technology planning is more important than ever.</p> </article> <article> <h1>Open Source Newbie Tells All</h1> <p>Kate Sheehan — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 14:55:24 +0000</p> <p>TechSource has a long tradition of insightful posts about Open Source Software. I am always mindful that I write for the blog that hosted Karen Schneider's <a href="http://www.alatechsource.org/blog/2007/01/it-and-sympathy.html">IT and Sympathy</a>, which introduced much of libraryland to the idea that OSS is free as in kittens, not free as in beer. As I am about to embark on an OSS adventure (which sounds like the name of a ship to me: <em>The OSS Adventure</em>), I thought I'd add my lack of insight to the fray.</p><p> </p> <p>My open source experience has been largely limited to WordPress installs, Firefox downloads, and some recent excitement over Drupal's form module. As I prepare to immerse myself in an Evergreen conversion project, I'm starting with beginner's mind. I will (I hope) lose my beginner's status at some point, but I want to retain as much as I can of my beginner's mind. Beginner's mind, in Buddhism, is about keeping yourself open to possibilities--Shunryu Suzuki's book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Zen-Mind-Beginners-Shunryu-Suzuki/dp/0834800799"><em>Zen Mind Beginner's Mind</em></a> tells the reader that "in the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, in the expert's mind there are few."</p><p> </p> <p>Beginner's mind is a pretty abstract thing. How do we wipe away what we know and look at things with fresh eyes? As we gain subject knowledge or organizational history, how do we step back and see things as if we were looking at them for the first time? Meditation is one option, but if you're not looking for an existential solution, you might want to check out <a href="http://librarygarden.net/2008/01/16/ten-questions-to-ask-every-new-employee-2/">Peter Bromberg's post</a> about using new employees as a way to see your organization through fresh eyes--a way to regain some of your beginner's mind. I have found that looking through my sent mail to see what kinds of questions I asked is also helpful ("Oh yeah, I thought that was confusing too"). As our understanding of a topic or place evolves, it's easy to forget how things looked at first.</p><p> </p> <p><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/photochiel/27542516/"></a>In the spirit of Beginner's Mind (and also in the spirit of hilariously wrong technology predictions), I'm going to post my current observations about libraries and OSS. Right now, I'm transitioning from public library reference work to a consortium about to embark on a conversion to Evergreen. Hopefully, my beginner's observations will prove to be useful (or at the very least, amusing).</p><p> </p> <p>By now, most librarians are familiar with the term "open source". The general sentiment is that it's good, but the harder sell is <em>why</em> it's good. The whys and wherefores of open source are fairly abstract: "it's good because anyone can get at the code" isn't all that meaningful to most people. Librarians on the front line are also burdened with the obligation to explain any system upheaval to the public. The beauty of, say, GNU licensing is likely to be lost in a "why is the catalog down when I want to renew my books now?" conversation.</p><p> </p> <p>When it comes to moving to an open source system, librarians need concrete information about why the move is worth the stress of an ILS conversion. Cost savings are an easy way to pique interest, but it's not the most interesting or even useful part of open source, plus it's complicated by the kittens versus beer issue. I don't mean to dismiss the issue of cost, but rather to reiterate that "free" is not the easy answer it seems to be, nor is it even accurate. Perhaps the most celebrated benefit to an open source ILS is the ability to make changes to the system without elaborate work-arounds.</p><p> </p> <p>Paradoxically, there seems to be concern that librarians will not actually use of all the very real advantages of an open source system. There is tremendous comfort in the familiar, and as every Facebook redesign has shown, most people get frustrated when familiar buttons move around, change names, change shapes, or disappear entirely. The learning curve, no matter how worthy, is not always welcome. Most library staff spend a good portion of their day using their ILS. Technical Services folks probably spend the most time using their system and are often the most familiar with its inefficiencies and weaknesses. Their use is very different from the circulation staffer who may only do three or four tasks in the ILS, but they're all performed with the added pressure of waiting patrons. When given a blank slate, will librarians simply remake their old tools? I am hopeful that we won't, but the natural starting point is always the system you know. Finding those fresh eyes is tricky and may require cross-expertise collaboration. Why not ask a reference librarian what she thinks would be an efficient process for importing records? Or ask a cataloger to think about the best way to design circ functions? An outsider's perspective can offer ideas for a workflow that makes more sense.</p><p> </p> <p>My favorite aspect of both Evergreen and Koha is their user focus. The design process started with the online catalog and worked its way back. Library products so frequently seem to pit the needs of the patrons against the needs of librarians. It's heartening to see that changing and to see a large scale shift to a user-centric process. Of course, library staff are users of their ILS as well, but we have the advantage of daily use. While a learning curve may be frustrating for staff, it's a deal-breaker for many users.</p><p> </p> <p>As a casual observer of the library open source movement, I think the initial nervousness expressed by many librarians has subsided. So too, has the "gee whiz" enthusiasm, replaced by a more mellow excitement and commitment to the work of promoting, creating, and maintaining open source solutions for libraries. Uncertainty, however, persists the most strongly among those who have limited ILS experience. As I have cut my teeth on a few different ILS's, I've learned that no matter how differently they function, excel, and fail, all ILS's perform certain tasks. After all, open source or no, ILS packages are all meant to provide the same abilities to libraries. Anecdotal evidence suggests to me that librarians who have worked with a single ILS express the most concern about a migration and the most doubts about the capabilities of the open source system they're moving to, though it stands to reason that those same people would be concerned about any migration.</p><p> </p> <p>I am looking forward to that "full brain" feeling of learning a lot of new stuff all at once and I hope this post will help me keep my beginner's mind about open source. I'm thrilled by the potential the open source movement has to advance libraries and allow them to meet the needs of their communities. At this summer's ALA Annual conference, Dan Freeman, TechSource's editor, asked the bloggers where we saw libraries in 50 years. I have no idea what libraries will look like in 20 years, never mind 50. My best guess, though, is that the most successful libraries will be entirely different from each other. Libraries have always adapted to their communities, but I think we'll see that specialization accelerate. A flexible and user-friendly ILS that allows staff to easily access their data is a tremendously useful tool that has the potential to change a library's relationship with its patrons.</p><p> </p> <p>We'll see if I can keep my shiny optimism through multiple conversions! Stay tuned...</p> </article> <article> <h1>Barnes and Noble's Nook Steps into the Ring with Kindle</h1> <p>Jason Griffey — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 19:46:59 +0000</p> <p>The Amazon Kindle's first real competitor saw the light of day for the first time this week, and it looks very, very impressive. The Barnes & Noble Nook launched Oct 20th, and it stands toe-to-toe with the standard that has been set by the Kindle, even exceeding it in many ways.</p> <p><br /> The important bits: The Nook has the same 6-inch eInk screen as the Kindle, and is $20 cheaper (the Nook preorders for $259, while the Kindle 2 is still $279). The Nook also has a remarkable navigation system: a secondary color touchscreen display, directly under the eInk. It's a great-looking innovation, and one that gives the reader's interface flexibility that the Kindle just doesn't have. In my opinion, as you go through the specs, the comparison seems to favor the Nook over the Kindle. Here's the quick rundown of the things I get asked about the most when I talk about eReaders:</p>  <ul> <li>The Nook will handle PDF's natively, while the Kindle 2 won't (the Kindle DX does, but it's really a specialty device compared to these two).</li> </ul> <ul> <li>The Kindle ostensibly supports Word files, but only through an email conversion process. The nook does not support word files at all. On the other hand, the Nook supports the open epub standard for electronic texts, which means that converting your Word files locally should be trivial.</li> </ul> <ul> <li>Nook has a replaceable battery, which is still a big deal for some people given the amount of comments on the topic that still show up around the web. Given that both will run for over a week on a single charge if you switch the wireless connection off, and the lifetime of recharge cycles for a modern battery is longer than you're likely be using the device, I don't see this as a huge issue. Still, some people do, so to reiterate: the Nook has a replaceable battery and the Kindle 2 doesn't.</li> </ul> <ul> <li>Both devices have 2 gigs of internal storage, but the Nook brings back the possibility of expanding that up to 16 gigs via SD card. Considering that 2 gigs is about 1500 books, that's a ton of storage for text. You could probably hold every book you've ever read on a single card.</li> </ul> <ul> <li>Both have cellular data connectivity with the Kindle relying on the Sprint network, and the Nook on AT&T. The massive advantage here goes to the Nook, as it also includes WiFi connectivity, with a business model built around allowing you to use WiFi in B & N stores to shop virtually on the nook. WiFi is a huge leg up, but unlike the Kindle, it doesn't look like the Nook actually has a web browser built in, which limits the connectivity to shopping for books. The lack of a browser is a huge disappointment on the Nook, especially since it's running the Android operating system from Google, and could leverage that browser pretty easily.</li> </ul> <p>The B&N device has another leg up on the kindle with it's new LendMe offering, which allows you to "lend" an eBook you purchased to someone else for their reading. They get it for 14 days and it gets "disabled" on your device so that you can't read it during the lend, then shows up once again on your device after the 14-day period. The other advantage here over the Kindle is that the B&N books will be "lendable" to anyone using a wide range of devices: Blackberries, iPhones, PC's and Macs. The Kindle only "shares" between the iPhone and the Kindle, and even then only on the same account; there is no lending to friends.</p> <p>The language that B&N is using is cagey enough to make me wonder about this service, though. The webpage describing this clearly says that "most" eBooks are lendable, which means that some aren't going to be. I'm assuming that this is a publisher-by-publisher decision, but unless they disclose up-front which books are lendable and which aren't, in my opinion, this is a very limited feature.</p> <p>It's an interesting model, and I'm curious to see if it is sufficient in meeting people's desire to share their favorite books.</p> <p></p> <p>There's a ton more to say about the Nook. While it's not available immediately (Barnes & Noble is taking pre-orders for a November ship date now) it should be in every Barnes & Noble retail location well before the holiday shopping season. It is by far the most interesting eReader to launch since the original Kindle almost 2 years ago. If you have questions about the device, leave them in the comments and I'll answer them there.</p> <p>It's an exciting time for eBooks, and I know we're all curious to see how the Nook holds up.</p> </article> <article> <h1>Sky me a River</h1> <p>Tom Peters — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 15:45:36 +0000</p> <p style="margin-left:0pt;margin-right:0pt;"><font size="2">It’s not every day that a new bibliographic utility bursts onto the library tech scene. Even public services</font><font size="2"> librarians like myself– who </font><font size="2">are</font><font size="2"> generally </font><font size="2">averse to the </font><font size="2">fine</font><font size="2">r </font><font size="2">details of cataloging and metadata matters</font><font size="2">–took notice of last week’s announcement that a new bibliographic utility called SkyRiver (<a href="http://www.theskyriver.com/"><span style="color:rgb(0,0,255);"><u>www.theskyriver.com</u></span></a></font><font size="2">) is forming.</font><font size="2"> Like Hal</font><font size="2">l</font><font size="2">ey’</font><font size="2">s Comet, SkyRiver will grow in brightness over the next few months, with the</font><font size="2"> best </font><font size="2">viewing after</font><font size="2"> it is completely launched in January 2010. <br /></font><font size="2"><br /></font><font size="2">The creators of SkyRiver </font><font size="2">appear to be Jerry Kline from Innovative Interfaces and Leslie Straus,</font><font size="2"> formerly a VP for sales and marketing at Innovative,</font><font size="2"> who has been hired to serve as SkyRiver’s president. A couple of days after the initial official announcement, SkyRiver reported that Michael Markwith has been hired to serve as a sales executive. In the past, Markwith has been affiliated with TDNet, Swets, Faxon, Blackwell North America, and others. </font><font size="2">Although SkyRiver will </font><font size="2">initially be </font><font size="2">sharing some space and support services with Innovative Interfaces, it appears that the long-term strategy is to have SkyRiver exist as a completely independent corporate entity. <br /></font></p><p> </p> <p style="margin-left:0pt;margin-right:0pt;"><font size="2">Like Little Jack Horner, OCLC currently has just about the entire market share of the </font><font size="2">North American </font><font size="2">plum pie of cooperative cataloging. </font><font size="2">For the past few years it has been sitting alone in a corner with that pie, beaming and shouting, “My, what a good bib utility am I!” <br /></font></p><p> </p> <p style="margin-left:0pt;margin-right:0pt;"><font size="2">To garner some sustenance and survive, SkyRiver will need to differentiate itself from OCLC and provide a better option for </font><font size="2">at least </font><font size="2">some libraries. SkyRiver is emphasizing three differentiators:</font></p><p> </p> <ul><li><font size="2">Higher Quality: Although SkyRiver is starting with a much smaller database of bibliographic records than OCLC currently claims–20 million compared to 144 million–the creators promise that it will offer higher quality both at the record and the aggregated database level. Although I’ve never worked closely and extensively with the OCLC Union Catalog</font><font size="2"> (Is it still called that, or am I dating myself?)</font><font size="2">, it has had some quality issues in the past. Even when I was in library school in the mid-80’</font><font size="2">s, using ye olde tyme 3,2,2,1 search statements</font><font size="2">, the issue of the need for quality control was evident. </font></li> </ul> <ul><li><font size="2">Lower Costs: </font><font size="2">SkyRiver promises to provide more bib for the buck when compared to OCLC. </font><font size="2">Marshall Breeding’s <a href="http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6700415.html?nid=2671&rid=#reg_visitor_id&source=link" title="article about SkyRiver">article about SkyRiver</a> in Library Journal </font><font size="2"> mentions that some libraries may be able to save up to 40 percent for their bibliographic services. </font><font size="2">Exact pricing for SkyRiver records and services has not yet been released. </font></li> </ul> <ul><li><font size="2">Record Ownership</font><font size="2"> and Use</font><font size="2">:</font><font size="2"> Controversies and questions persist. Who owns the records contributed to a database of bibliographic records? What are the permissible uses of those records? The dillemas have plagued OCLC and its member libraries for decades. SkyRiver plans to cut through the Gordian knot by not claiming any ownership or rights regarding the records. </font></li> </ul> <p style="margin-left:0pt;margin-right:0pt;"><font size="2">The timing of this development fascinates me. Why now? </font><font size="2">After a long period during which OCLC was acquiring other bibliographic utilities (</font><font size="2">UTLAS, WLN, RLIN, PICA, and more</font><font size="2">)</font><font size="2">, </font><font size="2">in 2009 we have</font><font size="2"> already</font><font size="2"> witnessed the launch of biblios.net (<a href="https://biblios.net/"><span style="color:rgb(0,0,255);"><u>https://biblios.net</u></span></a></font><font size="2">) by LibLime </font><font size="2">and now SkyRiver. </font><font size="2">Those librarians who are experts on matters concerning cataloging and metadata can correct me, but it seems to me that as the amount of full text material that is searchable and available online continues to grow, the overall value of any and all databases of bibliographic records will decline.</font><font size="2"> If this is the basic reality of this market, it seems a little strange that new entries are rushing </font><font size="2">in</font><font size="2"> at this time. Perhaps the overall value that the general public places on bibliographic utilities has little or nothing to</font><font size="2"> do with it. The prime value may be</font><font size="2"> the value the bibliographic utility provides to libraries. </font><font size="2"><br /></font></p><p> </p> <p style="margin-left:0pt;margin-right:0pt;"><font size="2">One unknown variable in all this is how easy it wi</font><font size="2">ll be </font><font size="2">for libraries to switch bibliographic utilities. Collectively, we have so little practical experience and knowledge about these matters. SkyRiver has had several library development partners involved in</font><font size="2">, well,</font><font size="2"> developing the service. Oddly, these development partners remain anonymous</font><font size="2">, although the SkyRiver ur-website does state that academic and public libraries and well as library consortia are involved</font><font size="2">. Breeding states he doesn’t know who they are, and when </font><font size="2">I asked an Innovative Interfaces</font><font size="2"> booth rep about SkyRiver’s </font><font size="2">development </font><font size="2">partners at </font><font size="2">the Illinois Library Association’s annual</font><font size="2"> conference last week, she was clearly ready </font><font size="2">and willing </font><font size="2">to talk about SkyRiver but was not at liberty to divulge the library development partners. </font><font size="2">Why the secrecy? Fear of OCLC breaking a few knees? </font><font size="2">Little Jack wouldn’t do that. </font><font size="2"><br /></font></p><p> </p> <p style="margin-left:0pt;margin-right:0pt;"><font size="2">Collaboration and competition are the yin and yang of postmodern Western society. </font><font size="2">All bibliographic utilities are all about collaboration and sharing, right, OCLC? </font><font size="2">SkyRiver may provide some much-needed competition to the world of bibliographic utilities</font><font size="2">, which would bring that world back into harmonic balance and turn up the volume on the music of the spheres</font><font size="3"><font size="2">.</font> </font></p> </article> <article> <h1>Cody Hanson: Highlights of the 2009 LITA Forum</h1> <p>Cody Hanson — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 17:13:52 +0000</p> <div><i style="background-color:rgb(238,238,238);">As part of our effort to provide some perspective on the 2009 LITA Forum, we're pleased bring you this Forum wrap-up from Cody Hanson. In addition to being the author of a future issue of Library Technology Reports</i><i><span style="background-color:rgb(238,238,238);"> Cody is Technology Librarian at the University of Minnesota Libraries, where he works on digital reference, Drupal, and discovery. He studies mobile technology, and is not ashamed to admit that he once owned a first-generation Nokia </span><a href="http://www.sidetalkin.com/page-2.html" title="N-Gage" style="background-color:rgb(238,238,238);">N-Gage</a><span style="background-color:rgb(238,238,238);">.<br /> -Dan Freeman</span></i> <p>I'm pleased to report that the 2009 LITA National Forum last weekend was thought-provoking and energizing (full disclosure--I'm a member of the <a href="http://www.lita.org/ala/mgrps/divs/lita/litaevents/forum2009/index.cfm" title="planning committe">planning committe</a>). Some have <a href="http://twitter.com/andrewkpace/status/4607415782" title="gone further">gone further</a> in their praise of the conference, but I'll call it a success and leave it at that.</p></div> <div> </div> <div>The theme for this year's Forum was "Open and Mobile", and we on the planning committee attempted to stack the weekend with concurrent sessions and posters reflecting interesting and innovative work being done in academic and public libraries around the world in the areas of mobile services and open-source software development and implementation. </div> <div> </div> <div>I won't attempt to replicate the admirable work of Sean Fitzpatrick on the <a href="http://www.al.ala.org/insidescoop/" title="AL Inside Scoop">AL Inside Scoop</a> blog in describing some of the keynotes and sessions. Instead, I'll just mention a few of the sessions that captured my attention. For <a href="http://twitter.com/codyh/status/4474972551" title="reasons that will become apparent">reasons that soon will become apparent</a> I took an especial interest in the work libraries are doing in the mobile space. The Forum provided evidence of a variety of compelling approaches.</div> <div> </div> <div>Tony Sams from the <a href="http://www.lib.utah.edu/portal/site/marriottlibrary/menuitem.ef20a2517b2174c01a3b9cdbc1e916b9/?vgnextoid=f1f69011888e0210VgnVCM1000001c9e619bRCRD" title="Marriott Library at the University of Utah">Marriott Library at the University of Utah</a> had a poster showcasing their plans for a full iPhone application, designed to take full advantage of the multimedia capabilities of the platform by highlighting their beautiful new facility with wayfinding tools, including 360° views of the library. It's an ambitious project that will be a real showpiece.</div> <div> </div> <div>At the opposite end of the custom app development complexity spectrum, Leslie Adebonojo and Mark Ellis from East Tennessee State University reported on what amounts to a guerrilla effort on the part of their public services staff to provide mobile-optimized LibGuides. Absent a development staff, these resourceful librarians defined their users' needs for mobile services and took advantage of the tools they had at their disposal to create course-based guides. Compare the <a href="http://libguides.etsu.edu/ENGL_1020" title="full version of a course guide">full version of a course guide</a> to its <a href="http://libguides.etsu.edu/content.php?pid=67528" title="mobile-optimized version">mobile-optimized version</a>.</div> <div> </div> <div>You can find <a href="http://connect.ala.org/files/9943/liberry_guides_pptx_18689.pptx" title="their slides">their slides</a> (and those of many other presenters) on <a href="http://connect.ala.org/node/83274" title="ALA Connect">ALA Connect</a>. In particular, I recommend looking at the results of their student survey, which found that students were most likely to use their mobile devices for quick reference queries, and to confirm the availability of a reading (rather than to actually read it).</div> <div> </div> <div>Finally, I should mention the mobile application that Boopsie created for the Forum. I will cop to having been a Boopsie skeptic in the past. I found their mobile web app for this past summer's ALA Annual conference underwhelming, sluggish, and hard to navigate. I installed the native <a href="http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=333254583&mt=8" title="iPhone version of their application for the Forum">iPhone version of their application for the Forum</a> and found it to be a remarkable improvement. It was responsive, looked great, and provided a really handy view of what sessions were scheduled at any given time. Whether these improvements are attributable to updates to Boopsie's technology since the summer, the difference between a web app and a native app, or the much more manageable set of session information for LITA Forum as compared to Annual, it added up to a very useful tool. Boopsie also had perhaps <a href="http://twitter.com/dnw/statuses/4558332442" title="the most interesting product news">the most interesting product news</a> that I heard at Forum.</div> <div> </div> <div>The <a href="http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/lita2010/" title="call for proposals">call for proposals</a> for next year's Forum is available now. The conference will be in Atlanta, GA from Sept. 30-Oct. 3, 2010, and the theme will be "The Cloud and the Crowd". Hope to see you there.</div> </article> <article> <h1>Library 2.0 Gang 10/09: Can the Open Source ILS Business Scale?</h1> <p>Richard Wallis — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 22:05:33 +0000</p>  <p><div style="display: block; float: right; text-align: center; margin: 3px"><br/><a href="http://librarygang.talis.com">More...</a></div></p><p>The current landscape for open source library systems could be characterised as a hand full of companies, often populated by open source enthusiasts and evangelists, with a handful of staff supporting a couple of handfuls of contracts with libraries to install/enhance/support either a <a href="http://koha.org/">Koha</a> or <a href="http://www.open-ils.org/">Evergreen</a> system. The largest and most well known player in the sector being <a href="http://www.liblime.com">LibLime</a> who say that they have “helped hundreds of libraries around the globe upgrade to open source.”</p> <p>The ethos of the open source community is all about sharing innovation, code, resources, and ideas for the benefit of all. The usual business model for these companies is for them to be contracted to create and locally enhance an instance of the software at a library. It is usual for any enhancements to the system that are paid for by the contracting library, to be contributed back to the source code for the benefit of the whole community.</p> <p>In comparison with the rest of the library world, supported by the traditional, closed source, vendors, the open source sector is still fairly small. The question I put to the Gang this month was “Can the open source sector scale?”. Will it be able to grow in it’s current form to become a significant alternative to the commercial vendors?</p> <p>To help <a href="http://librarygang.talis.com/carl-grant/">Carl Grant</a>, <a href="http://librarygang.talis.com/gang-regular-frances-haugen/">Frances Haugen</a>, and <a href="http://librarygang.talis.com/marshall-breeding">Marshall Breeding</a> kick the topic around, we were joined by <a href="http://librarygang.talis.com/guests#brendan_gallagher">Brendan A. Gallagher</a>, CEO of <a href="http://bywatersolutions.com/">ByWater Solutions</a>. </p> <p>Brendan’s introduction describing how a small company operated in this market formed the basis for a wide ranging discussion. We touched on the motivations of those involved with open source systems, and whether there is a fundamental conflict between being a significant member of a community, and the operational realities of running a successful commercial organisation. When comparing the successes of the wider open source world such as Mozilla and Linux, with comparative niche of library software there were key differences around size and leadership.</p> <p>Latterly we moved on to external influences such as the current economic climate, and the evolution of the ILS market place away from what are the ILS systems today. Another enlightening conversation around the virtual Gang table. </p> <p> <param name="movie" value="http://librarygang.talis.com/wp-content/plugins/podpress/players/1pixelout_player.swf" /> <param name="FlashVars" value="playerID=1&bg=0xF8F8F8&leftbg=0xEEEEEE&rightbg=0xCCCCCC&rightbghover=0x999999&lefticon=0x666666&righticon=0x666666&righticonhover=0xFFFFFF&text=0x666666&slider=0x666666&track=0xFFFFFF&loader=0x9FFFB8&border=0x666666&autostart=no&soundFile=http://librarygang.talis.com/podpress_trac/play/296/0/twt20091007_TL2G-19.mp3" /> <param name="quality" value="high" /> <param name="menu" value="false" /> <param name="wmode" value="transparent" /> </object> <br/><br/>Library 2.0 Gang 10/09 [00:48m]:<a href="http://librarygang.talis.com/podpress_trac/play/296/0/twt20091007_TL2G-19.mp3" target="new">Download</a><br/> <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/uk/"> </a></p> </article> <article> <h1>American Libraries Covers the 2009 LITA Forum</h1> <p>Daniel A. Freeman — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 16:49:10 +0000</p> <p>As many of you know, the <a href="http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/lita/litaevents/forum2009/index.cfm" title="2009 LITA Forum">2009 LITA Forum</a> took place this past weekend in Salt Lake City, Utah. While we didn't have a physical presence at the conference, modern technology and networking softened this barrier a bit for us. Throughout the week, we'll providing some coverage and highlights from a number of different perspectives. To start things off, we're proud to syndicate some coverage from American Libraries' Sean Fitzpatrick, who covered the weekend like a blanket for <a href="http://www.al.ala.org/insidescoop/" title="Inside Scoop">Inside Scoop</a>.<br /><br /> Sean started by <a href="http://www.al.ala.org/insidescoop/2009/10/03/making-the-case-for-mobile/" title="summarizing the keynote address">summarizing the keynote address</a> from Joan Lippincott, Associate Executive Director of the Coalition for Networked Information:</p><p> </p> <p style="background-color:rgb(238,238,238);"><i>“80.5% percent of college students today own a laptop,” she began. She added that five years ago that number was less than 50%. “66% of them own internet-capable cell phones,” she continued. For at least a short time after Dan Brown’s new novel </i><i>The Lost Symbol came out, e-book sales topped print on Amazon, she added, although admitting the statistic was problematic.</i></p><p> </p> <p style="background-color:rgb(238,238,238);"><i>Whether they like it or not, librarians would soon have to go mobile with their library’s data. And as the functionality of mobile devices continues to converge, the need to mobilize will only increase.</i></p><p> </p> <p>He also hit on the themes of <a href="http://www.al.ala.org/insidescoop/2009/10/05/lita-forum-saturday-keynote-knowledge-in-the-age-of-abundance/" title="Saturday's keynote">Saturday's keynote</a> from <a href="http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/people/dweinberger" title="David Weinberger">David Weinberger</a>:</p><p> </p> <p style="background-color:rgb(238,238,238);"><i>When David Weinberger, author and fellow at the <a href="http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/">Berkman Center for Internet and Society</a> talks, I listen up. So his opening the presentation by saying that “the Age of Information is pretty much over” was tough news to take first thing on a Saturday morning. (Although we’ve been <a href="http://people.ischool.berkeley.edu/~nunberg/farewell.pdf">hearing that</a> since at least 2002, it’s still pretty shocking for those of us making a living organizing and passing around </i><i>information.) But LITA Forum’s Saturday keynote speaker quickly explained himself, saying that people didn’t stop using stones when the stone age ended; the information age is over because we’ve moved beyond a time when we place so much value on a relatively small amount of data. And whatever this shift away from the Information Age means, we can be sure it’ll be interesting.</i></p><p> </p> <p style="background-color:rgb(238,238,238);"><i>We’ve entered the age of abundance, as Weinberger calls it, where the old ways of reducing knowledge to a few data points and paring things down to, say, whatever can fit on a catalog card or even a full MARC record, have given way to an age where there is simply too much information to handle. While a lot of that information is good, most of it is crap, he said, quickly pointing out that with sophisticated spam filters, pop-up blockers, and so forth, we’re actually better at weeding out the bad stuff than we are at dealing with the good stuff.</i></p><p> </p> <p>Sean then offered <a href="http://www.al.ala.org/insidescoop/2009/10/05/lita-forum-are-we-starting-to-get-it/" title="his own take">his own take</a> on what attendees might have taken away from this year's forum:</p><p> </p> <p style="background-color:rgb(238,238,238);"><i>As a deeply conservative profession, according to the presenters, librarians have been slow to react to technological change. W need to<span class="status-body"><span class="msgtxt en"> employ technologies intelligently, develop technically proficient professionals, </span></span><span class="status-body"><span class="msgtxt en">invest more in areas of future growth while investing less in low-value functions (such as print-based processes that don’t translate well into an electronic environment), and </span></span><span class="status-body"><span class="msgtxt en">break free from traditional organizational hierarchies and management styles thwart younger librarians’ efforts to make an impact (a few audience members were quick to point out that it’s not just the younger librarians who feel thwarted).</span></span></i></p><p> </p> <p style="background-color:rgb(238,238,238);"><i>There's no quick solution to fix all our organizational cultures. At least the packed room of LITA attendees understood the problem; the presenters told the crowd that they get a strong reaction to their findings about future leaders' perception of IT from some crowds. “The first step is to admit you have a problem,” they said.</i></p><p> </p> <p>And finally, he offered something that no library technology conference coverage should be without--<a href="http://www.al.ala.org/insidescoop/2009/10/05/lita-forum-in-tweets/" title="a summary of the forum in tweets">a summary of the forum in tweets</a>.<br /><br /> We'll look forward to bringing you more voices from the LITA Forum as attendees return home, recover from their travel and reflect.</p> </article> <article> <h1>Zap the library!</h1> <p>Kate Sheehan — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 14:29:39 +0000</p> <p>There are roughly 8 gajillion websites devoted to social media. Like many librarians, my RSS reader is crammed with them. I am not above clicking “mark all as read” on a fairly regular basis. Even the blogs that are supposed to act as filters, linking only to the best and most interesting posts, can become overwhelming. Increasingly, I rely on the human filter that is Twitter to let me know when there’s an article worth reading. Earlier in September, my twitter friends alerted me to a post on <a href="http://www.socialmediaexplorer.com/2009/09/07/becoming-a-social-business-is-your-next-big-challenge/">Social Media Explorer about “social business.” </a></p><p> </p> <p>Jason Falls tells us that social business is The Next Big Thing. Businesses that focus on people instead of stuff will do well. To illustrate his point, Falls outlines the <a href="http://www.socialmediaexplorer.com/2009/09/07/becoming-a-social-business-is-your-next-big-challenge/">rise of Chik-Fil-A</a>, a rise that he contends is unrelated to the chain’s chicken. People, not products or dollars can make a company a success.</p><p> </p> <p>This should be a natural fit for libraries. We don’t make widgets or profits. In a moment of Internet synchronicity, I ran across the <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/09/14/090914fa_fact_jacobs?currentPage=all">New Yorker’s profile of Zappos</a> shortly after I read Falls’ post.</p><p> </p> <p>Alexandra Jacobs’ study of the inner workings of Zappos' corporate culture seems designed to prove Falls’s point that organizational culture, both internal and external, matters more than products or services. Zappos, it seems, has achieved its “it” company status under the direction of someone who is totally uninterested in shoes.</p><p> </p> <p>The product does matter a little, of course. Zappos offers a wider range of sizes and styles than the conventional shoe store and it’s hard to imagine a site devoted entirely to, say, pants or hats doing as well. Tony Hsieh, the company’s quirky CEO may not be into shoes, but he is into people. His focus is on corporate culture and Zappos is serving as his home base for his movement to create better workplaces. When he started with the company, “Hsieh was rich, and bored. ‘I just liked working for Zappos,’ he said. ‘It was about: What kind of company can we create where we all want to be there, including me? How can we create such a great environment, where employees get so much out of it that they would do it for free?”’</p><p> </p> <p>These are not the words of an overly enthusiastic shoe salesman. Hsieh’s focus is on experiences and not stuff. While this clearly makes him an interesting boss, does it matter to his customers? It certainly matters to the people who call the company. The policies that grow out of his almost cult-like leadership are enticing for potential customers. But for people who use the site as a way of avoiding both the “hushed, pastel-carpeted salons” of traditional shoe stores and the “enjoyable contact sport” of shoe warehouse stores, do the <a href="http://about.zappos.com/our-unique-culture/zappos-core-values">Core Values</a> really enhance their shopping experience?</p><p> </p> <p>It may not matter to a click and run customer of Zappos that they work hard at having happy employees and that they applaud the person who spent over five hours on one phone call instead of firing her. That customer may just be there for the free shipping and liberal return policy on the 5.5EEEs. Just as intellectual freedom and a healthy respect for patron privacy don’t mean much to the patron who runs in to grab a few bestsellers once a month.</p><p> </p> <p>What Zappos has done so well is to both offer incentives to the click and run shoppers who just want to buy some shoes already and run a call center that provides the assuring and helpful staff of a high-end boutique. On top of that, they’ve done it in a way that’s interesting enough to garner the attention of the business world and The New Yorker (which begs the flip side of this question: does it matter to the employees that they have a celebrity CEO).</p><p> </p> <p>Librarians are frequently on the prowl for lessons from the corporate world, an arena that sometimes offers questionable wisdom. Motivation matters. Libraries are not profit-motivated organizations and can’t measure success in dollars. Zappos risks their bottom line with their return policy, but gains devotion from employees and customers alike. Devotion matters.</p><p> </p> <p>Zappos generates that devotion internally by letting their employees be true to themselves and externally through generosity and honesty. Openness, honesty and generosity are not new to libraries. While we page through our business collections looking for insight into success, successful companies are learning how to do some of the things that libraries do so well already. What are your organization’s core values and how do you stay true to them?</p> </article> <article> <h1>Researching Your Library Tech Decisions</h1> <p>Jason Griffey — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 14:50:39 +0000</p> <p>I spoke this past week in San Diego, at the San Diego Law Library Association's Fall Conference, and one of the members asked me the following question (paraphrased for brevity):<br /><br /><i>How do you make decisions about what technologies to offer or support at your library? With the explosion of Web 2.0 over the last 5 years, how do you decide what to offer your patrons? <br /><br /></i>I decided to share my suggestions on how to make those decisions in your library.</p><p> </p> <p><br /> The first is perhaps the most obvious, and that is to listen to your patrons. Notice that I didn't necessarily say to ask them, but to <em>listen</em> to them. Watch and pay attention to the technologies that they are using. That isn't to say that you should spy on them, but you can learn a lot just by paying attention. </p><p> </p> <p>What software are they using? What websites are they visiting? What types of devices do they have handy? If you see many patrons using Flickr on your computers, that probably means that it's a better place for you to host library photographs than other photo sharing sites.<br /><br /> Of course, you can't base everything on Patron observation. You also need to do your own research to find out which technology tools are the most popular among the general public. Are you more likely to get people to attend a workshop on how to use YouTube, or how to use Blip.tv? I really love Blip.tv, but I know that if I'm selling a workshop to the public, YouTube is the brand for online video, so if I'm trying to get more attendees, I'll probably go in that direction.<br /><br /> My final piece of advice is a bit more complex. I'll put in the context of one of my favorite quotes, one that I use a lot in presentations, from Henry Ford:<br /><br /> "If I'd asked them what they wanted, they'd have said a faster horse."<br /><br /> Ford is, of course, talking about the introduction of the automobile to the US, and how if you'd polled the population about what they'd love to have in a transportation device, they just would have gotten it all wrong. That's because often, the need for a transformative technology isn't recognized prior to its explosion into popularity.<br /><br /> In the Web 2.0 world, Twitter is a perfect example. If you'd asked people what they wanted in a communication method prior to Twitter, I doubt anyone would have said "Well, I'd really like to only be able to communicate in 140 character bursts, and I'd love for everything I say to be public." Yet those two aspects of Twitter have directly influenced its skyrocketing popularity. So, sometimes, you just have to be willing to give radical ideas a try, and then winnow the ones that fail.</p> </article> </main></body></html>