Archives for category: User experience
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Margaret Atwood on eBooks, or How Will the Atwood Machine Sign eBooks?

March 29, 2011 //
the atwood machine at work

the Atwood Machine at work

Margret Atwood on the phenomenon of eBooks (via the Globe and Mail):

Every time there is a new medium, people get hypnotized by it: the printing press, radio, television, the Internet. It’s certainly a change in the world, which then somehow adapts. A whole section of society was very upset when zippers came in because they made it easier to seduce people in automobiles. You know, I think we’ve kind of adjusted to zippers by now. Just because you have a zipper doesn’t mean somebody has to unzip it … But you’re talking about e-books and e-readers and text in electronic form and the reading experience…

Well, it’s the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party. Everybody moves round a place. So the Book of the Month Club disappears and something else takes its share of the market. And then big publishers get in trouble and cut back, and that creates space for other publishers to acquire books they otherwise wouldn’t have been able to get.[read the whole interview]

It’s a bit of an odd interview. Atwood tries to take on the eBook issue from a writer’s perspective. The interviewer seems bent on getting her to declare eBooks and their kin to be a danger to society. Atwood doesn’t take the bait. Instead, she affirms eBooks as part of an ongoing evolution in communication technology.

I like how she ends the interview, responding to the question “Will the world be worse off if e-books fail?”:

Well, first let us picture what kind of event might lead to that: 1. Solar flares, which melt all the e-communication services. 2. Widespread plague, which is going to kill anyone running the companies that make them. So that being the case, I would say yes! That the world will be considerably worse off if, the next morning, you wake up and nobody’s reading anything on e-readers because the event that will have caused that is horrific!

There are people in the Library world who have adopted a sort of apocalyptic tone vis-a-vis eBooks. The full measure of what is lost and what is gained from technology shifts (c.f. the printing press ruined oral culture, but gave us the modern world, great books, etc. etc.) takes a while to shake down.

Atwood’s approach in this interview is a reminder that we don’t know what the full economic, cultural, and creative potential of the eBook will be. Or, how long that will take to come about.

***more on the Atwood Machine***

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Categories Book News, Literacies, Technology, User experience

On Things Recently Declared Dead: the Web

March 28, 2011 //

Have you heard the news?

Recently, Wired magazine declared the death of the web:

You wake up and check your email on your bedside iPad — that’s one app. During breakfast you browse Facebook, Twitter, and The New York Times — three more apps. On the way to the office, you listen to a podcast on your smartphone. Another app. At work, you scroll through RSS feeds in a reader and have Skype and IM conversations. More apps. At the end of the day, you come home, make dinner while listening to Pandora, play some games on Xbox Live, and watch a movie on Netflix’s streaming service.

You’ve spent the day on the Internet — but not on the Web. And you are not alone.

This is not a trivial distinction. Over the past few years, one of the most important shifts in the digital world has been the move from the wide-open Web to semiclosed platforms that use the Internet for transport but not the browser for display. It’s driven primarily by the rise of the iPhone model of mobile computing, and it’s a world Google can’t crawl, one where HTML doesn’t rule. And it’s the world that consumers are increasingly choosing, not because they’re rejecting the idea of the Web but because these dedicated platforms often just work better or fit better into their lives (the screen comes to them, they don’t have to go to the screen). The fact that it’s easier for companies to make money on these platforms only cements the trend. Producers and consumers agree: The Web is not the culmination of the digital revolution.[full article]

Or in Clue-speak:  it was the User in the Internet with the App.

Declaring things dead doesn’t have the same bombast it used to, and it’s not entirely new news. Web 2.0 has been pushing it’s way into the Internet-user’s life for a few years now, and Wired is talking about the logical extension of that trend.

But, the article makes an important distinction between “browsing” and “getting.” This has to do with the rise apps-based user expectations and an achieved critical mass of online-content. I think browsing was useful in the past because there was no guarantee anything you wanted was out there. Now, Internet-savvy users are  surprised when something is NOT online. So, it’s not about finding, it’s about retrieving.

Libraries should play close attention to this, not because we’re not in the information/content retrieving business. This is what a good library does well, after all.

The issue at stake is competition.

The barriers to entry in the library’s field of online content delivery (eBooks, reference information, audio books, etc.) have been knocked down or scaled by competition that doesn’t share the same value system, operations cost, or even expectations of open access.

Again, this is not new news, just more pressure on libraries to innovate.

Looking for a counter-point? Try What’s Wrong With ‘X Is Dead’, from the Atlantic

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Categories Academic Libraries, Library Bric-a-brac, Library News, Public Libraries, Services, Technology, User experience

Because it’s fun and reasonably priced!

March 24, 2011 //

Reference Tshirt

I had some extra time last week, so I’ve been able to finally roll this out.

Fans of this site and of my Library Minimalism series can get in on the action.

You see, Drop the Reference Bomb’s merch store is now live!

Right now, there are posters, mugs, t-shirts, and totes that feature the best from my Library Minimalism prints. More items and prints will be added as inspiration and time allows, but I think I’m off to a good start.

Circulation Mug

Why Zazzle?

Because it’s customizable!

Don’t like the colour, fit, type of shirt? Want a stainless steel travel mug instead of a ceramic one? There are lots of options to choose from. I’ll start you off, but the final choice is up to you!

There are lots of library themed stuff out there, but I guarantee there’s not much like this! Plus, big spenders ($50 or more and not just at my store) from the US can get free shipping. I’ll also keep everyone posted about sales as they happen.

Cheers!

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Categories About Me, Amazing News!, Library Minimalism, Services, User experience

A Fun Future Mix of Literacies

March 21, 2011 //

From Scott McCloud's book Understanding Comics (1994)

Recently, I came across a post from the Libraries and Transliteracy blog on a neat collaboration called You Media.

YouMedia, for those of you who don’t know, is an experiment between the Chicago Public Library, Depaul University, and the Digital Youth Network…

The YouMedia experiment is a 21st century teen learning space.  It is really a digital media lab.  But it is so much more.  The YouMedia folks recognize that technology alone will not save us.  The success of this experiment lies in the team that YouMedia has built.  Not only do the kids who use the space have access to librarians and library staff, but they also have access to mentors and instructors.  The mentors and instructors have expertise in the tools, in tapping into creativity, or in just listening to the kids.  They all have the goal of helping these patrons find their voices.  It is in these people that the success of YouMedia is built.

… YouMedia recently witnessed a major milestone.  While the research findings on the success or the failure of the experiment will take years to construct, the kids recently began providing solid anecdotal evidence pointing towards success.  One example of that evidence is the recent results of the Louder than a Bomb Youth Poetry Festival.  The winner of the contest was a young man who represents a YouMedia team of teens, and he even gives them credit.[full post]

For those who’re not familiar with the concept, Transliteracy is essentially the idea that literacy is not limited to simply being able to read print texts. It takes, the notion goes, a complex set of interacting literacies to be able to interpret and communicate what we experience, be it by book, movie, YouTube, bus rides, whatever.

Take for example the excerpt from Understanding Comics, above. Reading a comic book involves traditional text literacy, visual literacy (knowing the way comic strips work or what an abstracted human for is), and spacial literacy (understanding movement and action), and more (i.e. you need to sort of generally understand what a Transformers toy is to get what’s happening – Transformers literacy?).

Because of its multi-faceted approach, Transliteracy is an important concept for exploring how pedagogy and communication will evolve. Projects like YouMedia take this and apply it to make a learning and creative environment that combines traditional print books with new multi-media tools. This sort of mixed-media space is well suited for libraries because they are fast becoming mixed-media spaces anyways.

Libraries have already committed to the importance of core literacies (i.e. reading and being able to use a computer). This has never been more relevant. But, if libraries are poised to take this another step. Ideas like Transliteracy will be useful for building bridges beyond simply reading a book or using a computer.

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Categories Library News, Literacies, Public Libraries, Services, Technology, User experience, web tools

Seditious Serendipity Supporters Suppress Scholarly Shift

March 17, 2011 //
academic awash in books

What do you mean... online?

A little alliteration makes for a good headline. An entirely alliterated title is huge.

Anyways, there is an interesting article from American Library Magazine on the news that Syracuse U. Library has backed down in the face of faculty ‘fury’ over moving some books to off-site storage.

Interestingly, the ALM article is a critique of one the biggest myths of academic library use: the serendipity of browsing the shelves.

Here are some points that jumped out at me:

Although today’s academic library users may feel that browsing is an ancient scholarly right, the practice is in fact no older than the baby-boomer faculty who so often lead the charge to keep books on campus. Prior to the Second World War, the typical academic library was neither designed nor managed to support the browsing of collections. At best, faculty might be allowed to browse, but it was the rare academic library that allowed undergraduates into the stacks. To this day academic-library special collections—real treasure troves for scholars in the letters and humanities—remain entirely closed to browsing…

If browsing does not have a long academic history, one could argue that it is still a desirable thing because it leads to serendipitous discoveries. The problem is that such serendipity depends on whatever happens to be on the shelf at the time of browsing. Because the books in highest demand are most likely to be in use and, thus, off the shelf, browsing academic library shelves is the equivalent of hitting the sale tables on day three of a three-day sale…[full article

Having done my share of work in academic libraries pursuing my own studies, I can’t say all this isn’t true.

There is something wildly capital R romantic about idly dragging your finger along titles in the stacks. But, in practical terms, these little excursions were more about the drama of the liberal arts academic lifestyle and not nearly as effective as actually learning to use OPACs and databases well (or getting in touch with librarians who were always ready to help out).

The article ends with a decent summary of the realities of the situation.

While the presence of books may help to send the message that one has entered a place of scholarship and thoughtfulness… there is no evidence to suggest that the presence of 2 million mostly unused books sends such a message any better than the presence of 200,000 heavily used books. Or that 200,000 books does the job better than 20,000. The notion that there is a relationship between the proximity of large numbers of books and the generation of scholarly thought is a close cousin to the ancient notion that piles of old rags cause the spontaneous generation of mice.

Even if it seems that the proponents of awe-inspiring onsite library collections are winning all the battles, they will eventually lose the war due to a single, unavoidable fact: Huge onsite collections have become an unsustainable luxury.

Old school academics: change is here and more is coming. Please adapt or get out of the way for those who will.

professor doing his research

Someone help me do this better.

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Categories Academic Libraries, Library News, Services, Technology, User experience

Licence Culture Wars! Some Numbers and Alternatives

March 16, 2011 //

The Harper Colllins/OverDrive debate continues, and I want to pull from a couple blog posts that caught my attention. As the discussion continues to evolve more detailed notions about the problem are cropping up.

First, from The Brewin Librarian. He’s done some math to estimate what the HC style licence agreement means for his local library system.

Once I subtracted the CDs and DVDs from the circ numbers he gave me, I found 7566 items in our collection that had circulated 27 or more times. Just for kicks and giggles, I also identified that 942 items had circulated 53 times or more (we would have had to buy them twice).Jason ends up with a number of $12.99 average for an item, and although I agree with one of the comments on the post that $25 is probably a more accurate number, for argument’s sake I’ll use 12.99.

If we were to have to replace these materials under a 26 use policy, this would cost our library system $110,518.92. A number Logan tells me is very close to our total adult nonfiction budget for 2011.

That’s why public libraries are concerned. To give you an idea of how large of an impact this is– our collections budget was $1,135,664 in 2009, according to the statistics from Colorado’s Library Research Service. Throughout the state of Colorado for 2009, materials budgets ranged from $4,577,200 for the Denver Public Library system to a mere $232 for one small rural library. (Yes, you read that number right– TWO HUNDRED THIRTY TWO).[full post]

I like this. It’s good to put this discussion into a context of potential real costs for public libraries.

Matthew also hints at a larger issue.  I’m going to wager that a rural library with a budget that small has effectively been shut out of non-public domain ebooks. Besides the issue over licencing eBooks, real economic and geographic exclusion already exists and will likely be exasperated.

What are some alternatives? Some librarians are hatching manifestos to take control of the eBook market. From Steve Lawson’s blog See Also…:

The result is a plan for libraries to buy, lend, and preserve ebooks which looks like this:

  • Libraries will purchase e books from publishers or other sources. Libraries will not license ebooks.
  • Licenses are not necessary. The entire process will be based on copyright. The publishers’ control over the ebook ends the moment it is sold to the library…
  • Most libraries will employ a third party to be responsible for both access to and preservation of ebooks. Some libraries–probably very large public libraries or research libraries–may prefer to go it alone rather than contracting with such a service…
  • Most libraries will choose to add DRM to ebooks in the form of copy protection in order to satisfy publishers’ desires not to see unauthorized copies proliferate. Copy protection that is acceptable to libraries will be largely invisible, platform-independent, and will serve only to prevent the creation of additional complete unauthorized copies.
  • Copy protection must not interfere with readers’ rights to fair use.
  • Copy protection will never be applied by the publisher, but by the library, or by a third party hosting the ebooks under contract from the library…[full post]

These are all great points, but I’m not sure they’re wholly feasible. This sort of sweeping change will be hard and expensive to implement, and you will see the publishers throwing up roadblocks at every turn.

Since we’re on the issue of costs: how will public libraries pay for all this? What about standards across library systems? Who controls those standards? Oh, to be a private contractor with the know-how if libraries turn their back on the publishers to embrace schemes like this. Cha-ching.

In the end, if libraries are going to get a good deal out of all this, it will be important to identify a strong bargaining position with some leverage to it. I’m not sure Lawson’s quite got the right one, but the ideas will continue to evolve.

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Categories Library News, Public Libraries, Services, Technology, User experience

Library Minimalism! Virtual Reference

March 9, 2011 //


Another entry in the Library Minimalism category: Virtual Reference.

Though, I suppose if an actual poster looked this rough and was hanging in your library, you’d want to replace it. Or, more likely you’d want watch out for wandering hordes of mutants.

I swear I’ll get back to regular posts soon, but these minimalist pictures are just so much darn fun.

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Categories Library Minimalism, Technology, User experience, web tools

Libraries Under Siege! By Puppets and Privitisation!

March 7, 2011 //


A great, educational video via PrivitizationBeast.org, a web-based rallying cry to stop corporate takeovers of libraries.

Here’s a snippet from a recent blog post:

Last year, Santa Clarita’s City Council rammed through a vote to privatize their library system with very little community input. Community members were understandably outraged, and attended several public hearings requesting more community involvement in the decision-making process. Instead of listening to residents, the City Council created a “Citizen’s Advisory Committee” to review Santa Clarita’s library system and its needs and make recommendations for moving forward with LSSI. The committee had no decision-making power, and was widely criticized as a thinly veiled attempt to silence critics.

Oh, but it gets better. The City Council invited LSSI executive Ron Dubberly to chair – or, technically, ‘facilitate’ – this committee. In other words, the committee created to advise on the city’s relationship with a private company is being controlled by that same private company. Dubberly has been President of LSSI’s Public Library Management Operations since 2008.[full post]

That’s madness and a little perturbing. Privatisation is not the best idea. There is no guarantee that privatising something will save costs. For example, last year the Ottawa city garbage workers were able to take away the trash at a cost lower than the lowest private-sector bid.

But, I don’t know if I totally agree with the slippery slope they lay out in the video. Used bookstores and cafés are not so onerous. In the case of cafés, there is an opportunity to build a locally focused business with a strong ethical aspects, such as a commitment  fair trade coffee, compostable cups, etc. Also, no one really is against paying for photocopies, a long standing revenue stream used to offset the cost of the photocopying service. Read the rest of this entry »

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Categories Library News, Public Libraries, Services, User experience

Licence Culture Wars – Who Benefits from the Subscription Economy

March 2, 2011 //

library closed

From Stephen’s Lighthouse:

The movement to subscription models has some benefits:

1. You’re not locked in forever (or until it wears out) as a purchase can sometimes do.
2. You have the opportunity to offload the ‘keeping up-to-date factor’ on things that need replacing too often at high initial cost (software, servers, devices, etc,) or upgrade with annoying rapidity (like software and phone models).
3. You want to spread your investment out evenly in the annual budget over many years instead of investing in risky decisions that have higher upfront costs and commitments to servers vs browser access.
4. You want to reduce the risk of making a poor decision and committing to one choice that may be overtaken by innovation, trends, competition, time and events.
5. Access to bigger collections at less cost per user annually (like with the periodical experience)
6. Aggregated relationships with book publishers as has happened with periodical article access and standardization of e-formats and metadata and OpenURL compliance, etc.
7. Bulk influence on copyright and licensing of larger assemblages of content (a la Tasini, etc.)
8. Etc.[full blog post]

The last “etc.” could stand for the benefit of being subject to easily changed (by the vendor) terms of use of agreements (c.f. my earlier post on the HarperCollins kerfuffle, a kerfuffle, it should be observed, that could include a great many other vendors).

In fact, though thoroughly optimistic, Abrams’ list is also very one-sided. It’s not hard to imagine why – he is the VP Strategic Partnerships and Markets for Gale Cengage.  EBook sales are his business.  Read the rest of this entry »

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Categories Library News, Public Libraries, Services, User experience, web tools

Licence Culture Wars – Librarians Set to Battle HarperCollins

February 28, 2011 //

From LISNews: Librarian News:

Library users, librarians, and libraries have begun to boycott publisher HarperCollins over changes to the terms of service that would limit the ability of library users to borrow ebooks from libraries. A new website, BoycottHarperCollins.com, is helping to organize their efforts to get HarperCollins to return to the previous terms of service.

On February 24, Steve Potash, the Chief Executive Officer of OverDrive, sent an email to the company’s customers — primarily US libraries — announcing that some of the ebooks they get from OverDrive would be disabled after they had circulated 26 times. Soon after, librarians learned that it was HarperCollins, a subsidiary of News Corporation (NWSA), that intended to impose these limits.
Immediately, library users, librarians, and libraries began voicing their opposition to the plan by HarperCollins, with several library users and librarians urging a boycott.[full article]

26 times? I think the days of touting the freedom and ease of access of eBooks via libraries are coming to a middle. The recent excitement over rising eBook usage glosses over the implications of events like Kindle’s Orwellian muck-up a year or so ago.

A face-off with a vendor has been brewing for a while, and more are sure to follow.

EBook providers are going to switch to increasingly intransigent and limiting terms because they sense threats to their profits from other directions, such as piracy. Frustratingly, HarperCollins’ policy and others like it will slowly throttle a library’s ability to supply eBooks conveniently (for the user and the library) and affordably (for the library).

If eReaders continue to boom, and they likely will, people could choose to absorb the cost of eBooks themselves for the sake of quick access. This is unfortunately probable, since people who can afford an eReader of any sort can likely afford the cost of compatible books (related demographic info).

The outcome could be rough. Libraries will eventually loose any iniative  they’ve gained on this front and could be pushed out as an eBook access point. And, as new technology eventually surpasses print, public libraries could end up standing on a fairly bleak precipice.

Enough, doom saying. The collective weight of librarians, library users, and other supporters could roll this trend back. Visit www.boycottharpercollins.com and get involved.

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Categories Book News, Library News, Public Libraries, Technology, User experience
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