So the Special Libraries Association annual conference is being held this year in Seattle and the Seattle chapter of SLA has created a great wiki for attendees and those who want to see what’s going on at the event.  Lots of great stuff there and Daniel Lee, President of the Toronto Chaper, has created a great piece on using Twitter at the conference.  It is part of the Innovation Lab  that current preseident, Stephen Abram, is pushing to get our members our try new technologies and techniques for communicating.  Good going guys!

Love Dave Snowden’s post today, Open Source is not the same as Freeware.   Certainly in this day and age transparency is very important, just as Don Tappscott said in his 2003 book, The Naked Corporation: How the Age of Transparency Will Revolutionize Business.   With some of the intersting discussions that took place at Computers in Libraries 2008 last month, this post really hit the nail on the head for me.  Thanks, Dave.

From ITWorld Canada: “Often, even great new technology needs a partner to really change the world. Here are 10 marriages of technologies that have shaken the digital world over the last 25 years.”

10. DVD’s + Entertainment on Demand: ” The whatever/wherever/whenever model of media consumption is turning both Hollywood and the consumer electronics industry on their heads, and forcing advertisers to rethink ways to capture our attention.”

9. YouTube + Cheap Digital Cameras & Camcorders: “Digital video has made mini-Hitchcocks of everyone. YouTube and its many cousins give the masses a place to put their masterworks. Journalism, politics, and entertainment will never be the same.”

8. Open Source + Web Tools: “The idea that media should be portable is disruptive. The notion that it should be free–and that some artists can survive, or even thrive, despite a lack of sales revenue–is even more so.”

7. MP3 + Napster: “The idea that media should be portable is disruptive. The notion that it should be free–and that some artists can survive, or even thrive, despite a lack of sales revenue–is even more so.”

6. Blogs + Google Ads: “Blogs give everyone a public voice, while Google gives bloggers a way to fund and market themselves–and the economy of the 21st century is born.”

5. Cheap Storage + Portable Memory: “Where would we be today without cheap, capacious, portable storage? No iPods. No YouTube. No Gmail. No cloud computing.”

4. Cloud Computing + Always-on Devices: “For enterprises, cloud computing provides the benefits of a data center without the cost and hassle of maintaining one. For consumers, it offers the promise of cheaper, simpler devices that let them access their data and their applications from anywhere.”

3. Broadband + Wireless Networks: “Broadband has created an explosion of video and music Web sites and VoIP services, while Wi-Fi is bringing the Net to everyday household appliances such as stereos, TVs, and home control systems. Together, they’re making the connected home a reality.”

2. The Web + Graphical Browsers: “Media firms, publishing companies, and advertisers now think Web first, and broadcast or print second.”

1. Cell Phones + Wireless Internet Access: “The ability to be reachable 24/7 is morphing into the ability to surf the Net from any location. And it’s forcing monopolistic wireless companies to open up their networks to new devices and services.”

Five Things We’d (IT Canada)  Like to See Disrupted:

• Plastic packaging: What happened to the packaging industry? Why do people need industrial-strength wire cutters to open the shrink-wrap on a $20 mouse?
• Pop-up ads on TV: We really don’t need to see tiny people dancing across the bottom of the screen promoting the next program while we’re watching this one, thanks.
• Rich-media ads on the Web: If we wanted to watch commercials, we’d be sitting on the couch in front of Oprah. Stop with the swirling, scrolling, popping, video ads; they’re not working.
• Digital rights management: When it comes to music, DRM is on life support, and we’re more than happy to stand on the oxygen hose. But for video–especially the HD formats–it’s still an enormous pain. When will Hollywood moguls learn that their customers are smarter than they are?
• Instant messaging: The Berlin Wall fell. Sixteen nations have collaborated on the International Space Station. But folks are still stuck with incompatible IM services and/or kludgy front ends. Can’t we all just get along?

This article on IT skills just crossed my desk and the following quote refers to technology pros but I think it could be true for information and knowledge pros too!  “Technology pros looking to find new work or secure their current jobs should get schooled on wireless, Web 2.0, and virtualization while also boning up on business basics.”  So true.  Other skills include database management, business intelligence/data mining, application delivery, security and networking. 

Darrell Gunter, EVP/Chief Marketing Officer, Collexis Holdings Inc. referred to an interesting study, Semantic Wave Report 2008: Industry Roadmap to Web 3.0, and you can order the executive summary for free.  Darrell’s discussion of the knowledge plane where you extract knowledge and concpets, “searching to knowing” was very interesting.   He also talked about exploring rather than searching and explained the Collexis fingerprint engine.  From their website: “Collexis High Definition Search enables extraordinary knowledge retrieval and discovery quickly and accurately by utilizing fingerprinting technology. The CollexisFingerprint empowers users to immediately identify and search for documents, experts, trends, and new discoveries more quickly, accurately – and deeply – than conventional search engines.”  They are using this engine with a community of biomed experts.  

Keen, who came out of O’Reilly’s 2004 Foo Camp as a Web 2.0 skeptic, was interviewed by Information Today VP of Content, Dick Kaser at the Buying & Selling eContent event.  Some interesting comments, quotes: 

We have to get beyond the cult of the innocent/child; how can they be wiser than expert?

Best book on Web 2.0 — The Long Tail.

Google chapter in Keen’s book,The Cult of the Amateur, is called 1984 2.0.  Keen believes Google is more successful than Microsoft and an ad monopoly.  It learns about us and our intelligence and wants to know us intimiately so it can sell us personalized ads.

 Keen believes that 3.0 (the next big thing) will bring the return of expertise, professionalism  and the curator.  He used the example of Mahalo.com a curated search engine.

Interesting messages in his talk for information professionals: stay away from the cult of the amateur, don’t be humble –”humility is the kiss of death”, open source software doesn’t translate into open source culture — a crowd can’t author books or write songs, revel in the role of authorative curator and use experts to build communities, like Kids

At CIL on April 8/08 Bonnie Peirce from Dover Town Library, one of Library Journal’s Movers and Shakers and known to many for Library Goddesses blog gave a fantastic session on open knowledge networks as a service model for youth services. Bonnie has initiated the B3OK pilot exploring the possibility of any physical or virtual object/location/space. Check it out. They’ve given kids a physical object they would be interested in - in this case a fossil - with a QRCode, and then let the kids explore all the various connections to pursue their interest in the fossil. This has led to kids talking with other kids locally and all over the world, forming new connections. Bonnie also posed 6 questions that she is posing as they look at the service model for engaging youth in the library —– but, really, these are questions librarians need to be asking about all service models:

1. how can we enable people’s participation with objects, topics, places, etc….?
2. how can we increase community knowledge, and trigger communication among people?
3. how can we enable their participation in their own communities?
4. will I lose my job today?
5. can I keep the platform open?
6. what stories or knowledge are hidden here that could be shared?

We particularly need to ask that 4th question: will I lose my job today? Am I pushing the boundaries to the edge to question the traditions and norms of what we do and how we do it — cuz the norm of yesterday isn’t necessarily the norm of today….but it’s kinda scary to ask that….and the creativity and innovation and exploration elements so essential for libraries rely on questions and courage.

My other ah ha! was from Dan Sich from University of Western Ontario who introduced us to hab.la — a chat application that allows us to keep the chat/IM window with people open on the screen while moving around to various websites. YES!

Just listening to Megan Fox,  Web & Electronic Resources Librarian, Simmons College Library, on a Educiation Institute web conference.  The size of the mobile market is huge and will grow fast over the next few years:

• currently 1 billion PCs, 1.2 billion internet users, 3 billions mobile phones
• US mobile phone market penetration: 84% by the end of 2007, growing more than 100% by 2013
• 115 billion smartphones shipped; 410 by 2012

 The mobile web is growing with lots of  content being born mobile which you can find in .mobi sites — there are now a million .mobi domain names including the Fremont Library.    Ball State Universities has pages they have developeed from scratch for mobiles.   Many library vendors are creating new interfaces for access on mobile device, one now has 90 libraries using their mobile product.  SirsiDynix has PocketCirc which is for the use of circulation staff to assist in their work with inventories and statistics.   Ready reference to go is popular these days with sites like answers.com which have a mobile interface.  You can also take ebooks with you on your mobile deveice.  There are many more Web 2.0 services like Facebook, YouTube, etc. available for mobile devices.

Mobile search is now big especially for newspapers as well as answers and facts.    Google (www.google.com/m), Yahoo (m.yahoo.com), AOL mobile, m.live.com, and 4Info are being used for targetted answers and facts (information search) like stock prices and local search (ATMS, hotels, etc.).   Many of these sites are calling themselves answer engines rather than search engines.

A new business for translating web pages on the fly to mobile small screen format is hot and called transcoding with organizations such as  Skweezer , and www. google.com/gwt/n.

Multimedia on the phone is expanding with TV sessions, chapters of new books (either as text message or audio file), and audio tours for museums or the Library of Congress (which you can call from your own phone).   Our world is changing and becoming even more mobile!  Good luck!