• 55 public library responded to the survey. Only 11 of those libraries (20%) provide one central location for adults and children to access the Internet. The remaining libraries have separate spaces for children and adults to access the Internet.
• The majority of responding  libraries (nearly 62%) do not filter content on any Interent access workstations. Ten libraries (18.2%) filter content on all public access workstations and nine libraries (16.4%) only filter content on the children's workstations.
• Of the 44 libraries that provide separate workstations based on age, 24 libraries (52.2%) allow children to use the adult worksations without any preconditions. Another 11 libraries say that children can use an adult workstation only if they are with a parent or guardian, 4 libraries allow children to use those workstations if they have written permission from a parent,and seven libraries do not allow children to use adult workstations.
• When looking just at the results of the nine libraries that filter children's workstations, only three allowed children to use the adult workstations without preconditions. The rest allowed children to use those workstations in the presence of a parent or with written permission from a parent.
• When looking a the libraries that provide a central location for users of all ages to access the Internet, only one library filters content on those workstations.
• Of the 55 libraries responding to the survey, 11 said they are also providing laptops for use by their patrons.

If your library is at a point where you are revisiting issues related to filters, Acceptable Use Policies, or Internet access workstations, SEMLS will be holding a Virtual Roundtable  at 10 a.m. Wednesday, December 2 to discuss this issue.

Rather than simply reacting to the changes made at Cushing Academy, we can use this case as a launching point for a discussion of what libraries might look like in the future, what we need to do to get there, and how we can best transition to that future.

At the outset, I want to put on the record that I think this decision was a drastic response to the perceived problem of underused library resources . Perhaps the school could have cut back a large part of the collection while devoting more time, energy, and space to electronic options. An e-reader doesn't take up a lot of space, and you do not need to remove your entire book collection to make room for 15 devices.

However, I'm also going to play devil's advocate here. Does this decision mean Cushing Academy will graduate students with subpar research skills and zero love for literature? Not necessarily. It really depends on the school library media specialist and other educators in this school. If they just set the students off to do their research without any instruction or guidance, then, yes, this could be a disastrous decision. In that case, though, I'm guessing these students are already in a lot of trouble with their research skills. However, if this "learning center" includes a team of media specialists and educators who know how to engage the students, will continually work with them to build information literacy skills, and will find creative ways to share their enthusiasm for literature, the absence of print books may not detract from the students' educational experience. It really comes down to the people, not the technology.

And let's talk about the technology. I object to the headline of the article, "Welcome to the library. Say goodbye to the books." I've seen several references to the "bookless library". It is not a bookless library. The library may be lacking in a technology that is commonly referred to as a book, but a book is still a book even if it's read on a PC screen, Kindle, Sony reader, or iPhone. And just because people in my generation and older generations prefer the print format, this preference doesn't necessarily mean the digital format is inferior. My hope is that the school will build large electronic collections on those devices and available for download. If there are not enough e-readers to meet student needs, I hope the school will purchase more to keep up with growing demand.

There are also a lot of unanswered questions, making it difficult to judge the forethought that went into this decision. Did anyone talk to the students to find out why they are not checking books out of the library? Are they all buying print books instead of borrowing them from the library? Are they reading them on their electronic devices? Or are they just not reading them at all? Is there a strong relationship among the teachers and school library media specialist that reinforces the library as a place to support learning? Do the students feel welcome in their library? If not, will replacing the books with a learning center really fix that problem? Was the collection out-of-date and irrelevant? Did it need to be weeded and replenished? I don't know the answers to these questions, but I hope the administration explored them before addressing the perceived problem of low use.

And I also wonder how low the use was. When I originally read the article, I thought it said only 48 books, 30 of which were children's books, had been checked out for the entire year. As I reread the article, I realized those 48 checkouts were for one day in the spring. Which day was it? Was it the week before school ended or when all of the students were working on research papers? Did they measure use at other times of the year?

When imagining what libraries might look like in the future, we need to concede the high probability that many libraries will not carry print books forever, that they will eventually do what Cushing Academy is doing right now. As we advocate for keeping those print books today, it's counterproductive to talk about how we love the feel and smell of print books. Those who believe books are "outdated technology" will just think nostalgia is behind this allegiance to books. As Linda Braun noted in her post on the YALSA blog, we run the risk of sounding like "a group of whining traditionalists." Arguments about what to do when the power goes out don't hold water; it's much easier to read a book in the dark on my iPod Touch than it is to do so in print format.

For many libraries, the nostalgia factor is a real issue. If your users prefer the feel of a print book, then an all-electronic collection will not meet their needs. There are also access issues. Not everyone has a home PC to download electronic texts. In the case of Cushing Academy, though, all the users are younger and less likely to feel that allegiance to print. They also all have their own laptops.

If we brush aside the nostalgia arguments, what is stopping libraries from discarding print and relying entirely on electronic? There are many technical and ownership issues that need to be resolved before libraries can really succeed with an all-electronic model. Many titles are still not available in digital format or are only available for certain devices. During this afternoon's chat, I asked Headmaster James Tracy about this problem. His response: " It can hardly be said that we provided exhaustive collections with 20,000 printed books.   With this transition, we are actually increasing the collection available to the school community dramatically." That may be true, but it still ties the hands of librarians trying to build a collection that may include authors who just refuse to go electronic. Tracy went on to say that in those cases they would purchase the print version.

The big barrier to electronic collections is the limited ability for libraries to share those books in the format preferred by each of their users. It's nice that the library is providing titles on the Kindle and Sony reader, but if the students weren't going to the library to check out print books, what will make them go to the library to check out a Kindle. What I would love to see at Cushing and other libraries is a model where one student downloads a title to their Kindle while another is able to use that same title on their iPhone. They don't need to go to the library to get the device, they just read the content on the device of their choice. It requires that all devices use a standard format and that e-book publishers allow libraries to transfer those titles to the devices of their users. Libraries are not able to provide this service at this time. We may never be able to provide this service if we don't keep pushing vendors, publishers, etc. to make this happen.

When and if the technical requirements come together, how can libraries best make an eventual transition to a "library without (print) books?" To start, the transition needs to be gradual. Many libraries are highly interested in the potential offered by the Kindle and other e-readers. There are a few public and school libraries in our region that are experimenting with Kindle loans. But they are just trying them out and will measure their success before using them to replace even a small number of their print titles. There are also many libraries that have cut back on print collections to create space for an Information Commons. These Information Commons may eventually overtake the rest of the print collections, but only after several years of faculty, student and library staff success with the Commons model.

That success is what ultimately creates the buy-in that is also necessary for this transition. I question whether that buy-in is present in the Cushing Academy case. As I read the comments from Headmaster Tracy during the Boston Globe chat, I found very little with which to disagree. He sounds as if he has some great ideas for creating a space where students and educators can work together. He talked about teaching students to select and evaluate the information they find through the school's augmented collection of online resources.

However, to make this happen, he needs buy-in from faculty and particularly from the school library media specialist. When reading a newspaper article, it is difficult to know if quotes are a true reflection of the interview or simply the spin of the reporter. But it sounds like librarian Liz Vezina is not overjoyed with this decision. In order for this model to be successful for Cushing students, it requires that the media specialist was actively involved in the planning process and is enthusiastic about working with faculty to teach information literacy and foster a love for reading within this new environment. Let's hope Headmaster Tracy has created that buy-in and built the teamwork required to make this plan a success.

There may be a sense that mobile devices are just fun gadgets techies like to play with, but are not relevant to the rest of the library world. If you're inclined to think that way, it may be time to refocus your thinking. Let's just look at some of the numbers highlighted yesterday.

Keynote speaker Gerry McKiernan, author of the Mobile Libraries blog, highlighted the recent Wireless Internet Use study from the Pew Internet & American Life Project finding that 32% of adult Americans have used a cell phone or smartphone to access the Internet, up one-third since December 2007. McKiernan says 5 billion phones are predicted to be in use by 2012 and Pew predicts that "the mobile device will be the primary connection tool to the internet for most people in the world in 2020"(The Future of the Internet III.)

The consensus among all the speakers is that mobile devices will be replacing desktops and that this shift will change the way people interact with their friends, colleagues, communities and libraries.We will need to change our services to satisfy changing expectations of users.

The highlight of the day was the afternoon keynote from Tom Peters of TAP Information Services who presented on Mobile Libraries:  Mobility, Singularity, and The Future of Our Sense of Place. Peters explored the history of mobility and hypothesized how mobile devices will impact the idea of  "library as place."

Human mobility surged during the latter half of the 20th century as technology made it easier for people to travel from place to place. Document mobility came about through Interlibrary Loan and bookmobiles. However, document mobility didn't really change the way people interacted with those documents. With the mobile revolution, on the other hand, information experiences are changing as users realize they can interact with and have different types of experiences with documents.

Peters noted that informal communication has driven the mass adoption of mobile devices. The challenge for libraries and other organizations is to make a place for themselves in this communication channel that is being used for informal communication. This point struck a cord with me as I've seen libraries  try to reach out to users with new technology and struggle with getting those users to participate in a place that is mostly used for personal connections.

An irony of the mobile revolution, Peters speculated, is it could lead to a less mobile society. People won't travel less because it's too expensive, but because they don't need to travel. This transition could enable a return to a pre-industrial sense of place. "We are at a time where we need to radically rethink our sense of place," he said.

But then what happens to the idea of "library as place?" He wondered if  people will still feel the need to get together as mobile technologies advance. And if they do not feel the need to get together, will providing a place to gather be an important role for libraries? Libraries have been receiving a great deal of attention lately as a gathering spot in this bad economy. Peters speculated that this attention could be a sign of "extinction behavior" for the concept of "library as place." He defines "extinction behavior" as any behavior that becomes pronounced just before it dies.

My personal feeling is that humans will always feel a need to gather together for face-to-face interaction. That's why Twitter users like to organize Tweetups to meet each in person. Even Peters acknowledged that "library as place" won't go away completely. Rather, the reasons we go to the library will change. But his presentation drove home the idea that we are facing a major paradigm shift with mobility that leave libraries at risk if they do not rise to changing user expecations. Information is free on the Internet, and quality probably will not be the differentiator that drives people to the library. The question for libraries, Peters said, is how are we going to differentiate our services from other information services.

Some other highlights from breakout sessions I attended:

Everything We Know About Implementing a Kindle Loan Program: A panel discussion with librarians from University of Nebraska Omaha (UNO) and River Forest Public Library, Illinois, discussed their Kindle lending programs. Some interesting points from the disucssion:

• Initially, students at UNO were hesitant about using the Kindle for research because of issues with citation. How do you cite a page number when the page count changes depending on the text size?
• At UNO, circ staff are authorized to instantly download a title to the Kindle if the student requests a book that is not available on the shelf, but is available in the Kindle book store. River Forest Public Library follows a more formal collection development policy.
• River Forest lends Kindles with themes: fiction, non-fiction, mystery & suspense, etc. They also have two Kindles made in honor of people. Those Kindles were loaded with books on topics that were of interest to those people.
• Neither library puts records in the catalog for each individual title. UNO has a MARC record for each Kindle that lists the titles as added entries. River Forest does not list the titles at all because the record became too unwieldy. Neither institution seemed happy with their cataloging solution.
• UNO has an interesting practice where they treat the Kindle as an equipment loan rather than a book loan. Users can download their own titles to the Kindle using their Amazon account. The circ staff at the library then erases the content upon its return. I would like to investigate this idea more - I didn't know users could buy Kindle titles with their own Amazon account.
• Many people check out the Kindle because they are interested in purchasing one and want to try it out first.

OCLC / Boopsie Boopsie is the company that has made mobile apps for WorldCat and for a number of libraries. I was interested in this session because I encourage libraries to meet users where they are online instead of making them come to us. The next big step after creating Facebook pages, Twitter accounts, etc. is to create apps for their mobile devices. And from what Boopsie CEO Greg Carpenter says, it doesn't take much for Boopsie to create a basic Web app for your library's catalog. He said he just needs a MARC record dump, a list of libraries and locations, and one day to create the app. However, he didn't happen to mention how much money you would need to pay to do this.

This basic Web app would not provide live shelf status, but Boopsie has developed an app for Indiana University that shows shelf status. Boopsie is now working on apps that allow users to place holds and to connect to eBooks that are listed in the catalog. "Once you start mobilizing one thing, everyone wants to start mobilizing more things," Carpenter said.

When building a mobile app, Carpenter said, it is important to think beyond the iPhone. You need a solution that works for all carriers. He said it involves more thanjust shrinking the screen size to fit more easily on the device. Speed is an important factor. Mobile phone use is typically done in 30-second increments. If it takes longer, the user will go away and probably will not return.

You can take a look at some of Boopsie's apps at http://www.youtube.com/boopsieinc.

 Texting (SMS)

During the afternoon, I focused entirely on texting with the Public Library Panel and Sending Out an SMS with Joe Murphy of Yale University Science Libraries. Murphy said he doesn't feel like he should need to explain what text messaging is since it should be a basic core competency for library professionals. Although, on some level, I agree that all library staff need to know how to text, when I started thinking about basic technology competencies in our region, I was nowhere near text messaging. We have a long way to go.

Murphy stressed that texting is about more than just sending out messages to users. He said he is not just reading text messages but interacting with them. This idea is something I keep hearing when we talk about Web 2.0 in libraries as well. We can't just use this new technology to shout out messages to our users. We need to use them to engage with our users; to not only talk to them, but also to listen. Murphy said the library is dead if we don't adopt SMS. If you think this viewpoint is a little extreme, just take a look at services like Cha Cha and KGB. People are already using these services when they have a question - what will make them think of sending these questions to the library?

If the library can't spend money on a text-messaging service or to buy cell phones, Murphy said, they can do texting with an AIM hack. Twitter has also been a good bridge between the Web and text messaging, and Murphy, along with most of the audience, thought that Twitter was a viable option for mobile reference.

I'm hoping to pull together a program on the mobile revolution for the fall or winter. Stay tuned...

One of his first slides really hit home for me. It simply said "Wireless Everywhere," a concept that just seems so elusive in this country. Now that I am the owner of an iPod Touch, I have noticed more than ever how few places have free WiFi available to the public. As I arrived at last night's forum, the first thing I did was check for a wireless signal and was pleased to see a network with the name of guest. I was planning to Tweet the conference if could connect to the Internet. However, that particular guest network required a user name and password, and I puzzled over why somebody would put "guest" in the SSID of a wireless network if it was inaccessible to guests. So instead of Tweeting the forum, I'm posting some of the highlights here.

Wireless Everywhere - You can have wireless everywhere (or at least where you can get a cell phone signal) as long as you are willing to pay. AirCards are cards that you can plug into your laptop to get Internet access through a cell phone service provider. However, this card only provides access to your laptop - doesn't help me with my iPod Touch.

This is where MiFi comes in. MiFi is a card you can carry in your pocket. Using a cell phone service, it provides a wireless signal that can be used by up to five devices at one time. I had heard about MiFi several times from the TWiT podcast, but the thing that put me off was the fact thatt I would need to pay anywhere from $40 to $60 per month for this access. However, Pogue mentioned that if you pay more for your MiFi card, you can forego the monthly fee and just pay $15 for each day that you actually need to use the card. The MiFi card is a likely candidate for the SEMLS Technology Sandbox. For more information about AirCards and MiFi, read Pogue's article Wi-Fi to Go, No Cafe Needed.

Eye-Fi - Looks like your standard digital camera flash card, but, if you are in a WiFi hotspot (or have a MiFi card) it will also automatically transfer the photos to your computer or your favorite photo sharing site. Another likely candidate for the SEMLS Technology Sandbox.

Magnetic Electronic Charging - Charge your devices on a $60 mat the size of a mouse pad. The problem is that you need to add an accessory to your device to get it to work with the mat. The new Palm Pre already comes with the ability to charge wirelessly.

Small high-quality cameras - We all like cameras that fit in our pockets. But these cameras will never shoot photos at the same quality of larger cameras because you need a large light sensor to take those high-quality photos. Olympus is about to release a new camera, the E-P1, that attempts to get those higher quality shots from a smaller camera. Pogue's review of this camera, which has not yet hit the market, is forthcoming.

Slingbox - Don't spend money on those expensive movies when you're staying in a hotel. Slingbox allows you to connect to your DVR at home and watch programs on your laptop.

Streaming Movies from Netflix - Your Netflix membership now gives you the ability to live stream selected movies over your TV. It transforms the movie-watching experience.

Voice Recognition Matures -

• Dragon NaturallySpeaking Voice Recognition software works with amazing accuracy. Pogue's demo showed the software picking up on words I would never use in everyday conversation.
• Google 411 is a great way to avoid paying fees for directory assistance. If you need to find a nearby pizza restaurant in Taunton, just dial 1-800-GOOG-411 and say the words "pizza, taunton, ma." Google will not only deliver its top results but will also automatically connect you to the restaurant.
• ChaCha is a service that answers ready reference questions for users who call 1-800-2CHACHA. Take a look at the "Live Questions" box on the ChaCha home page. Do they look like questions you may get at your library? How will your library service change once more people starting using services like ChaCha? Or should libraries work to create an easy-to-remember phone number to provide the same service to their users?
• And the final item in the Voice Recognition area was the new iPhone 3G, which has the ability to dial by voice. If your library's number is listed in your address book as "work," all you have to do is say "call work" to get the iPhone to dial the number.