Supporting the Digital World with Gadgets
Mar 24th, 2006 by Karen
Supporting the Digital World with Gadgets
presented by Hope Tillman - http://www.hopetillman.com
I blogged this session with extensive notes but they seem to have disappeared. For a fuller summary than what I have left check out Michael Sauers post on Travelin’ Librarian. The speaker focuses on the following trends in gadgets: Covergence, personalization/customization, and miniaturation (portablity). She also posed some interesting questions to think about before implemeting gadgets.
- what features lend themselves to information management knowledge sharing
- how to identify gadgets to adopt/support
- what do patrons use now
- who are you listening to?
- what makes your life easier
- what are other libraries doing
- what’s the tipping point
- how do you look at the issue of interoperability and upgrades
My overall impressions were “wow there are a TON of technologies out there that libraries can use”. The speaker talked extensively about various gadgets but the best part was when she talked about how libraries can use the technologies to reach their users better. Her examples were very good. Tillman also talked passionately that attention needs to be paid to the topic of gaming and libraries. She reccomended Parallel Worlds: Online Games and Digital Information Services as a good article on this topic. She also recommended highly Peter Morville’s Ambient Findability as a “must read” book. I’m just recently reread this and Morville really integrates discussion of gadgets with his discussions of “findability” particularly, wireless technologies and RFID. If you are into tech toys pay special attention to what Morville says about how some of these new gadgets are increasing findability.
