Now for a decidedly non-tech palate cleanser.

For some reason I’ve never thought to keep our stapler out on the Reference Desk for people to use. And I get asked for it probably 7 times per shift. Why has it gone back in the drawer? Most likely because we’ve always done it that way [thanks michael]. That’s really not a very good reason. There are probably 10 other little things that we’ve “always done” that, if changed, would make our lives, and our patrons’ experience better.

In our defense, I have recently heard of some libraries not letting patrons use library staplers. Yikes.

So I’m going to suggest that we don’t wear out the office supply drawer, and we keep the stapler out. I sure hope you’re not thinking: “Aaron’s stapler is going to get STOLEN.”

You know, the QWERTY keyboard was designed to slow typers down, and I wonder if future generations will get *bored* of typing things into a computer. Check out this demonstration of Sony’s DATATiles. That’s “data tiles” for the non-l33t. I really like the part when he sets his phone on a tile to presumably buy and download the song.

This isn’t the only far out interface that I’ve seen lately. The result of Multi-Touch Interaction Research is extremely compelling. Be sure to watch the photo organizing (and enlarging) part of the demo.

There’s also the Mixed Reality Interface [youtube] developed by kommeraz. I hope your German is good for that last link. This one looks like maybe just a little fun at first, but there are probably some big implications for practicing things on a system like this. Surgery, perhaps? Proper shelving of library items? ;)

Panasonic has an “Intelligent’ Table that controls the functions of a house, manages personal data, and represents files in the form of neat little fish.

Another Sony item is BlockJam. It is more of a musical interface than a musical instrument (tho the case could be made for either). It is being billed as a collaborative tool:

We also believe that the divisions of composer, performer, and audience will be blurred, by the introduction of such media.

This idea really takes the notion of participatory consumers - something that we need to continue to explore on our websites - seriously. True to interactive form, you can play with an online version of BlockJam. Go make a nice tune and think about how it might be similar to doing Readers’ Advisory.

I haven’t yet put up my content from PLA, so now’s the chance. In place of putting up my small presentation, I’ll link to my standard, longer, IM presentation. I also said a few words about MySpace and gaming, so I’ll include a few links about those topics here:

whose space
library myspace account action
how about some fun?

Thanks to the big crowd for the great session. One of the most provocative comments was from a woman who told us her local news station has run a few scare stories about MySpace. The climate in which she lives wouldn’t be to keen for her library to use MySpace. I’m sure many people are in a similar situation. Something that I didn’t mention until after the session is that we’re going to offer a MySpace class, for adults, this Fall. Parents needs just as much education on the topic as kids, yeah? Burying our heads in the sand isn’t the right approach to this issue. Kids need role models to mimic, and they’re not getting that right now. Your library MySpace will help kids learn about maintaining an appropriate online presence!

UPDATE: Derik gave me permission to use a sketch!

Sick of going through people’s line-by-line accounts of conference sessions? Check out these sketches!

I got an email this morning from Derik A. Badman telling me about the sketches he make during Computers in Libraries 2006. Here are 45 sketches, including one of me. Another personal favorite is this one of Michael, me, and Amanda and our computers.

“You Play World of Warcraft? You’re Hired! “ is an interesting article from Wired. It details positive workplace skills learned from playing the MMORPG “World of Warcraft“

“I used to worry about not having what I needed to get a job done,” he says. “Now I think of it like a quest; by being willing to improvise, I can usually find the people and resources I need to accomplish the task.”

That’s pretty much what I do at the Reference desk, all the time, isn’t it? Reference librarians embark on a “quest” to find a piece (or some pieces) of information. Sometimes that involves a “massively multiplayer” aspect when we connect with other people to find that information. Or when we directly connect patrons with other people or organizations. Maybe that’s why I like doing Reference work so much…it’s like a game!

Click through for more pics.

Maybe PLA will catch up…http://flickr.com/photos/tags/pla2006.

We’ll see about that, right?

Chris Sherman started his keynote on the state of search by telling us that the media are obsessed with covering Google, and that there’s other interesting stuff going on. I therefore thought he wouldn’t talk about Google very much. While he did cover some new features of Ask, Yahoo and MSN, like most other search coverage, he talked mostly about Google. Totally fine, I understand.

He claimed that Ask now has “true natural language search” now. I find that a bit hard to believe, but I do like one product of theirs. The map feature on Ask doesn’t look extremely special, but it can give both driving and *walking* directions.

His views on Google’s responsibilities of privacy and freedom of information in China were 99% positive. Phrases he used were:

“I still trust google, but I am a bit more cautious.”

“Trust but verify.”

“Savvy Chinese know they can use proxies.”

This last attitude seems prone to reinfornce any digital divide that’s in China.

It’s bad when schools ban the use of or access to wikipedia, blogs, MySpace and other websites, right? Doing this is kind of like burying your head in the sand. I heard a story this morning that can one up this non-technique. In the workshop’s discussion of wikipedia and social software’s preference of consensus rather than expertise, a school librarian told a sad story. Turns out that the librarian of a rival school was holding an instructional session on wikipedia. Instead of encouraging good habits, this librarian had students vandalize rival school’s wikipedia entry.

That’s quite a way to prove that anyone can make edits. Yowza.

hey, i’m demoing how to blog.!! whee!!

While I’m on the topic of phones…

Today I came across some very potentially important news . Sprint is partnering with movie ticketing giant/annoying ad purveyor Fandango to sell and issue movie tickets via cell phones. The issuing mechanism is pretty novel. Once tickets are purchased, a message including a scannable barcode is sent back to the phone. The specific of this aren’t what’s most important however. Just the fact that it is happening is important. Asia has been buying things out of vending machines with their cell phones for years, and we might be *slowly* catching up. But remember, we’re 7 years behind. Here’s a bit more on Asian eCash.

While I think it’ll be neat to pay for a cab or Mountain Dew with my phone, what I’m most concerned about is how libraries will or will not embrace the delivery of content and services via cell phone. Now I know…we’re having a hard enough time letting people pay their fines or apply for a card online, but we should probably be thinking about both today’s problems and tomorrow’s.

About two years ago I wrote a post titled the power of texting in which I mention incorporating texting into holds notifications. Recently, Michael Casey linked to Teleflip, a universal email to text service, and highlighted how it could indeed be used to send a hold notification.

Phones aren’t getting any less featured, right? Right now, it’s more difficult to find a phone without a camera than it is to find a cameraphone. Wow. These little devices will increasingly be an always-on link to the Web and will give us a convenient digital interface to the physical world. But instead of just talking to a physical human being, we could be unlocking our cars, doing our laundry, and feeding our dogs. Perhaps we’ll even be using them as our library cards and paying library fines with them.