Manila Times
01 Oct 2009

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There’s a December 2007 Pew study showing that contrary to popular assumptions, it’s the young African American and Latina women who are among the most “wired”…to their cellphones and pdas at least. One option for libraries is to figure out how to get out helpful information on jobs opportunities, small business, healthcare, childcare, and GED via handhelds and mobiles. An RSS feed on these topics sent directly to a patron’s phone every week for example?

See all the Pew articles and studies about mobile technology

Mobile technology as a “game-changer” for health information

Lake View Terrace Library

HowStuffWorks has an article sustainable buildings, and inlcudes the Lake View Terrace Library in California. Key features: energy from wind turbines, a reading room angled to take advantageof natural light, aerated faucets, and a large amount of recycled building content. No word on how they’re doing on paper consumption from all those printers and copiers though…

I’ve been following the Bruce Ivins tragedy recently, and was struck by this judicial ruling  that the FBI can search public library computers it seized as part of the anthrax investigation. What I hadn’t realized initially was that the computers were taken without a warrant from the C. Burr Artz Library.

The director, Darrell Batson, was “persuaded to give them access”,  even though the library’s procedure for such requests usually requires a court order. Hmmm. The library system supposedly subscribes to the Library Bill of Rights, (it’s posted on their website anyway). Think maybe the director hasn’t read it?

On the other hand, let’s rejoice that the Batavia Public Library Board voted to keep a link to Planned Parenthood’s Teenwire on its website. Unfortunately, TeenWire was moved from the Young Adult Library Web, where it was very easy to find, (there are only 5 links in the teen health section) to the general Web Reference area, where it competes for attention with 26 other “general health” sites…once you’ve navigated there from the gargantuan “health and medical information” site. Think teens are gonna find it there? I doubt it. Read about it in the Kane County Chronicle.

The TeleReader Blog has some pertinent thoughts on accessing ebooks via the iPhone. This great blog (which is devoted solely to ebook issues) also pointed me to Feedbooks, ” a universal e-reading platform compatible with all mobile devices where you can download thousands of free e-books,publish and share your own content.” Yes, it works with the iPhone as well as Kindle, Sony, and various SmartPhone PDAs! Annndddd (take note Overdrive users) it works with iPods.

Another cool thing about FeedBooks: you can use it to create customized newspapers from RSS feeds and widgets which are then readable on any of the above devices. Click this Feedbooks button to see mine:

A former library director sent me this wonderful letter by Jamie LaRue, director of the Douglas County Libraries in Colorado, in which he defends retaining a children’s book about gay marriage. The book is Uncle Bobby’s Wedding, and yes, we do have this in my library.

I admire LaRue’s calm, compassionate and thoughtful response, but I gotta admit, my gut reaction was closer to that of another poster: “F*ck you, bigot.” (Cranky librarians do not make good directors.)

I also admire LaRue’s willingness to share his response, in order to help other libraries facing reconsideration challenges. That’s what I love about our profession: library staff always go out of their way to help each other out!

Another great example of library marketing that is fun and creative. This one has been around awhile, but if you have not yet seen Peeps do Research at the Library from the  Milikin University Library, you are in for a treat.

So we are now an iPhone household. Gotta admit: it’s pretty neat. I love how you can bring up a web page, then draw your fingers apart on the screen to enlarge the view. Although what are we going to do with our oh so passe Motorola phones now? (“predictive text”; gimme a break). We plan to recycle our old phones, but if you’re concerned about where all those obsolete Nanos and Razrs are going, see iWaste in Mother Jones magazine or GreenMyApple.

One great feature of the iPhone is the hundreds of apps designed especially for the iPhone environment. There have been PDA/Mobile versions of popular websites for awhile, (think Mapquest mobile) but the iPhone is pushing the development of products specifically tailored to handheld devices. Browsing the list of apps, you’ll see several relevant to libraries and reference: current mortgage rates, Washington Post mobile, loan and currency converters, U.S. state info, a Congressional directory, youth hostel guides, restaurant reviews, and even (gulp) Powerset Wikipedia.

All of which points to a clear trend: research on the go, via handhelds as opposed to desktops or even laptops. Stephen Abram, the vp for innovation at Sirsi, was talking about this over two years ago: libraries have much better success reaching teens and 20 somethings through texting, IM and other handheld apps than over the web or email. The medical industry is already on to this: there are dozens of health update apps for clinicians and patients. ( Epocrates is a great example.)

Now take a look at your library OPAC, or the interfaces to your EBSCO and Gale and Proquest databases. How well do they work on a handheld? Do they work at all on the typical cellphone or Blackberry? And why isn’t the library community asking vendors about this?

Here’s another idea: I was in line at Borders and heard a customer say she’d just been texted with the news that her book had arrived. Over at the library we’re still thrilled we can offer patrons email notification of their reserves, but how about a text to your phone when your books come in?