Technology

Mobile Devices and a Sensor Revolution

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Have you heard about the emerging Internet of Things? I have been meaning to write about this for a while now but was unable to find time. This term refers to the new and expanded Internet by real-world objects that are connected to the Internet and feeds the massive amount of new data to the Web through its sensors such as a smartphone equipped with a camera, mic, a touchscreen.

The New York Times article, “The Coming Data Explosion” that ran on May 31 reports the coming data explosion that will result from the Internet of Things. The article also talks about “a sensor revolution” quoting Marissa Mayer: “today’s phones are almost like people,” in that they have senses such as eyes (a camera), ears (a microphone) and skin (a touch screen).” The result of ubiquitous smartphone use is that more and more data will be uploaded and made available to the web. Remember all the photos you take with your cellphone and upload to TwitPic, pictures you draw with your fingers and post to Flickr, and video recordings you make and upload to Facebook? If you thought that was cool, now wait until you see a nanosensor that can sense all of these below.

* Vibration
* Tilt
* Rotation
* Navigation
* Sound
* Air flow
* Light
* Temperature
* Biological
* Chemical
* Humidity
* Pressure
* Location

With this kind of a nanosensor, your cellphone is also a thermostat, GPS, air flow detector, molecule reader, etc. Can you imaging what kinds of applications will come out taking advantage of this type of nanosensors that detect multiple senses? I have previously posted on this blog about a cool medical iPhone/iTouch app called Pocket CPR that gives you immediate sensory feedback to a CPR procedure you perform holding your mobile device. If I am pressing a patient’s heart not fast enough, it will tell me to go faster; if I am not pressing hard enough, it will tell me to do so. Even though this app is pretty rudimentary utilizing only the simple movements of up-and-down and the speed of a device, there is something marvelous about it. I think that is because the way the device is used in this case offers us experience that is entirely new to us.

The sensor revolution has the potential of transforming a mobile device into a de facto default device for our day-to-day interaction with the web.

Joomla: A Nice Surprise

Apr 18th, 2010

by Bohyun (Library Hat).

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I volunteered to serve on the web committee of the Southern Chapter of Medical Library Association (SC/MLA) this year. The work I do as the co-chair of this committee is to create a web site for the 60th Annual SC/MLA Conference. The idea of using Joomla for the conference site came from the folks at the Shimberg Health Sciences Library of Univ. of South Florida who use Joomla for their library site.

I have heard about Joomla before but never tried. I heard a lot about Drupal and WordPress at library conferences but not so much about Joomla.

Well, I spent a few days – three days to be exact – working with a Joomla site, and I am very much impressed. Joomla is easy to learn, and I love the fact that it comes with so many useful modules which can be configured and used pretty much out of the box. There are also many free template extensions that can be directly plugged in to create a nice web site. I picked a template and an extension for the banner image, installed and configured the settings, did some CSS editing to customize the overall style of the site, added a bunch of pages with lorem-ipsum content, activated a couple of useful modules such as breadcrumb and footer. That’s pretty much all I have done and Ta-da!

I am a web admin at work but we don’t use a CMS. Now if we ever migrate the site to a CMS, I will shout for Joomla. If you are looking for a content management system (CMS) that is free and easy-to-use, Joomla is definitely something to consider. Interested? Check out the Showcase of the library Websites built with Joomla.

(This is the site I have worked on, which is still in progress: http://library.hsc.usf.edu/scmla/)

After Two days with an iPad

Apr 5th, 2010

by Bohyun (Library Hat).

2 comments

So finally it came. The long-awaited iPad. I got this as a birthday present from my husband. So I can’t really say that I was committed to purchase this gadget myself. I doubt if I would have spent that much $$$ although the model I got is the lowest spec (16GB wi-fi access only). But of course, my wiser half was convinced rightly that I would want one. It arrived yesterday morning with a honk from a UPS truck. I wonder how many same iPad packages the UPS driver delivered that day, but I am pretty sure he had a good idea about what was going on.

So to cut to the chase, this is how it looks. My iPad.

I think I am relatively happy with it although I am not sure how successful it would be as a eBook reader and a PDF reading device, which are the features that I was most looking forward to test. Actually, now that I have spent two days with it, I think I will use the iPad more for watching TV shows/movies (Surprise I rarely watch videos on the computer!) and surfing online. I am not sure if I will use the iPad for any type of serious work other than PDF reading. But the App Store is showing all three productivity apps for the iPad with very high ratings. So I am holding my judgment on this.

The iPad is not as light as I would like, but about half the weight of my small netbook, which can make a big difference when you are traveling. It seems to be pretty sturdy but the screen is very glossy and gets a lot of glare used outdoors or under direct lighting. It is quite fast and the battery seems to last long enough to last the working hours from 8/9 to 5 without recharging. The screen keyboard is usable when the iPad is in a horizontal position but is too sensitive. Lots of typos ensued when I tried to type. The keyboard inputs letters every time the fingers brush on it. Personally, I am very much bummed about the fact that iPad doesn’t support as many international keyboards as the iPhone does. What this means to me is that I can’t write emails and create documents in Korean. Although this may be a feature that is not widely used, the ease of switching keyboards for different languages was one of the features that distinguished Macs from PCs.

I don’t think the iPad will replace my smartphone. Checking emails, Twitter, my calendar, to-do-list, making short notes, taking photos and videos will still be the tasks I perform mostly on my smartphone when I am not using an iPad already for something else. But then there is a chance that I may use the iPad a lot. Iin that case, I will perform these tasks on the iPad rather than on my smartphone. It is to be seen later.

So the question boils down to this: would it be a good reading device? Depending on that, I may or may not carry my iPad around.

First Impression

Yes, you can see your finger prints all over when the light hits the screen. I took it out to the outside. Under the daylight sun, I could see my face and background reflected as if it were a black mirror. The iPad in a box comes with a power code/plug, a tiny little instruction, and nothing else. Not even a cheap wiping cloth.

I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with my iPad. My plan was to think about it once it arrives. Well, I had a very difficult time to get it to work and had to spent hours grumbling. As soon as I unboxed the shiny new iPad, of course I plugged right into the power outlet thinking it will work automatically. It didn’t. Instead, it showed the sign that I have to hook it up to iTunes first. The instruction also said that I should first download the latest version of iTunes. This took a very long time. Finally, I was done, I hooked up my iPad. I only got an error message saying an iPad requires Mac OS leopard or higher. I got only Tiger on my Mac desktop and haven’t updated it. Wouldn’t it have been so nice if Apple put that on the instruction sheet? So I took out my Mac laptop (I know I just have so many computers), which has Leopard, downloaded iTunes again and hooked it up. It worked.

But if the iPad is going to work for grandmas and grandpas, they will definitely need some help from their granddaughters and grandsons.

IPad as a Movie player: Thumbs Up

It is quite accurate to think that an iPad is a big iPhone with limited functionalities but with a bigger screen. Initially my response to an iPad was lukewarm. It didn’t seem to do anything special that I couldn’t do with my iPhone and a netbook. Well, that was my thought until I downloaded the ABC player app and watched a few episodes of FlashForward and Modern Family. IPad rocks as a video player. The screen is awesome for playing a video and the lack of keyboard is a huge advantage in this type of use. I could watch a TV episode lying down on the couch holding it against a cushion. It gets a bit heavy on the wrist after a while, and you may want a holder. But there is no sitting required to watch a video when you use an iPad. This was something I didn’t think that I would use an iPad for. I was impressed how well it works as a video player. The Apple store is also selling a VGA cable to connect an iPad to a TV. I am not sure if it can transfer the audio as well as the video. But I think I may also try that in the future. Try the Netflix app and the ABC player app for this if you have an iPad already.

The only issue I found in video viewing was the shiny surface. The touchscreen is the best if it is used indoors without direct lighting that will cause annoying glare.

For videos that are online, however, the iPad is unable to play any Flash files although it plays MPEG4 files well.

IPad as an eBook Reader: Better but…

I wasn’t terribly impressed by iBooks, which comes with one free book, Winnie the Pooh. (There are more you can download.) There was the obvious advantage of having a larger screen and being a tablet rather than a computer with a keyboard. But I could not zoom in and out freely in iBooks as I did using Safari. IBooks only offer two font sizes. Also, as a reading screen, an iPad is no different from a computer screen except that its surface gets a lot of glare which would make lunchtime reading outdoors challenging. The iPad screen doesn’t use the e-Ink technology, as many noted, and so, is hard on the eyes for prolonged reading. The iPad also seems to lack the accessibility feature of reading out the content of an ebook in iBooks or of a web page in Safari like the iPhone 3GS (although I am not 100% sure). The iPad also is equipped with much-touted iPhone OS’ accessibility features that allow zooming in and out of the screen itself rather than the fonts and make the content on the web read aloud. In order to use this features, one has to go to the Accessibility tab on the Settings. Make sure to double-tap with three fingers when you want to return to the normal screen after you turn on the zoom function.

IBooks also doesn’t allow highlighting and notes-adding feature that the Kindle iPad app offers. And finding a free eBook for iBooks is not as intuitive as it could be. (One needs to go to the App Store first. ) I liked the dictionary function of iBooks a lot but was disappointed that there was no way to use the dictionary as a stand-alone app to look up whatever word I would like. I thought this was very odd. Overall, I was more impressed with the Classics app on the iPhone, which is pretty much identical with iBook except that iBooks lacks the page-turning sound (again, such a shame! the sound makes a big difference).

The iPad hasn’t yet changed my preference for reading a book in paper whenever possible. I think eBook readers have still a long way to go to become even a remote competitor with books in paper.

IPad as a PDF reader: Promising but Awaiting Better Apps…

Reading PDF files is one of the big reasons that made me to get an iPad. But in order to do that, you need to get an app. The iPad allows you to read PDF files online but not to download them on the iPad, which seems to me to be ridiculous. I purchased GoodReader which allows syncing with Dropbox, Google Docs, Box.net, etc. It also allows you to directly search and download PDFs onto iPad from the web.

But I realized that in order for me to save trees, I need to be able to annotate on the PDF files that I read. So I got iAnnotate for that purpose. Both apps work well, and iAnnotate also supports downloading the annotated pdf file back to the computer although I have not tried this yet. The only issue with iAnnotate is that it doesn’t sync with Dropbox or Google Docs and you have to manually upload documents to the iAnnotate application on your computer. I am hoping that iAnnotate adds the sync feature with Dropbox in the future.

I haven’t read much yet on iAnnotate nor GoodReader. But so far it seems to be promising. And if I can get most of my PDF readings done on the iPad rather than printing them out on the papers or reading in front of my computers, it would be a huge benefit for me. Just to store and read PDF files, the Evernote app also does a great job. This app is free and allows voice recording as well as creating notes. (This is how I found out that the iPad comes with a mic but there was no Voice Memos app on the default screen. I realized that in order to use the built-in mic, one needs to go to the Apple App store and download Voice Memos for iPad. This app is free. I think in the future, Apple may add more default apps to the iPad.)

IPad for Online Reading: Excellent

While the iPad is so-so as an ebook reader and it is yet to be seen if it will be good for PDF reading/annotating, it works quite well for online surfing and casual reading onthe web. The USA Today app almost makes you feel as if you were reading a newspaper in paper again. The BBC News app allows one to easily browse news and plays video in a news article.

IPad as a Gaming Device: Promising

I have only tried Scrabble on the iPad, but I think gaming on the iPad will be quite cool since it will provide a larger screen to fill with images and may well provide a more intuitive control for games. I think it would be addictive if a good role-playing game comes out for the iPad but any simple games will be fun as well.

Overall

I think that overall the iPad is an interesting device and that the large part of its success will depend on the apps that can take advantage of the unique features of this device. I am disappointed, however, to find that Apple is offering a lesser version of the iPhone OS for the iPad with the limited number of international keyboards.

As also noted by many, the way Apple designed the iPad to run the silos of applications that do not talk to each other becomes glaringly annoying as one needs to save multiple copies of one and the same file to use it for different applications. One copy for iAnnotate. Another copy of the same file for GoodReader. You get the idea of how inefficient and stupid this is. The iPad also makes it a huge pain to import and export any files. Why no way to exchange files directly between at least the iPad and the iPhone?

I am not going to even bother with commenting on the lack of built-in camera, which is obviously an intentional omission by Apple. (See WePad for example, which runs Flash, comes with USB ports, a built-in web cam, an inbuilt card reader and expandable memory.)

Lastly, it will be interesting to see how publishers and news media will provide content to the iPad users. Already the TIME magazine packaged their weekly magazine as an individual app and priced it for $4.99 in the App Store. This caused a lot of complaints from users who didn’t realize that they were purchasing only one weekly magazine. The Wall Street Journal app also requires its users to create an account even for free content, which I found to be annoying and disturbing.

Mobile Access to Licensed Databases in Medicine and Other Subject Areas

Apr 4th, 2010

by Bohyun (Library Hat).

1 comment

I gave a presentation on the Handheld Librarian Online Conference on Feb. 17, 2010 with the title of “Mobile Access to Licensed Databases in Medicine and Other Subject Areas,” with my colleague, Marissa Ball. (Unfortunately the archived recording is not available for the public and I can’t even access it…) We also gave the same presentation in DCLA (Dade County Library Association) Fair on Mar. 31, 2010. While we had almost four hundred attendees in the online presentation, we had the audience of a dozen librarians at the local DCLA fair. We loved having presentations with librarians in a virtual as well as a physical space. The experience was interestingly different.

In the presentation, we focused on the current status of mobile access to licensed databases. It is worthwhile to look at what is happening in medicine regarding mobile resources because mobile devices were introduced in medicine much earlier than in other areas and are more widely used. There exist more database vendors in medicine and health sciences that offer mobile resources, and medical and health sciences libraries are more familiar with offering and supporting mobile resources for library users. In medicine, the use of a mobile device and mobile resources also provides unique benefits by bringing up-to-date information at the point of care to help healthcare practitioners to make an informed clinical decision. Interestingly, however, there seem to be no such unique benefits from using a mobile device or mobile resources in humanities or social sciences that are comparable to those found in medicine. Hence, the question is if mobile resources and devices will eventually play a unique role in teaching, learning, and research activities in areas that are not practice-based as they are in medicine. we expressed an optimistic view on this question since mobile devices can allow students to learn, teachers to teach, and researchers to research using mobile devices in a way that is completely different from the way they currently do using desktop computers.

What do you think? Here are the presentation slides and also a very inspiring presentation by Dr. Ivor Kovic in Mobile Monday in Amsterdam.

Mobile Access to Licensed Databases in Medicine and Other Subject Areas

Mobile Health by Dr. Ivor Kovic at Mobile Monday in Amsterdam

A lay librarian’s thought on “Nothing is Future”

Feb 4th, 2010

by Bohyun (Library Hat).

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Wayne Bivens-Tatum, a Princeton librarian and the blogger of Academic Librarian, wrote a post “Nothing is the Future” a few days ago, which resulted in many comments including the very excellent one from Tim Spalding at LibraryThing. In his comment in Thingology, Tim Spalding warns about a potential misreading of Bivens-Tatum’s post suggesting that people should use his essay as a way to “kick it up a notch” intellectually, get past the small stuff and confront the very real changes ahead.” Bivens-Tatum also posted a response, “Preaching and Persuading,” making it clear that that his target of criticism is not the adoption of any new technology in libraries per se but the manner in which new technologies have been adopted so far in libraries.

Here are some of the thoughts that came to my mind while reading these blog posts, which have gotten surprisingly long.

——–

In his article, “Academic Digital Libraries of the Future: An Environmental Scan,” Derek Law writes:

“We have reached a point where entrenched and traditional organizational settings give rise to organizational clashes, as new issues and content emerge which do not ﬁt historical patterns. The bundling of functions has imperceptibly changed, but we have become so busy and adept at keeping the library efﬁcient and well manage that we have lacked the space to step back and observe it from a higher level. …… Libraries have fallen into the trap of substituting means for ends and have not considered what is in the interest of their parent universities. It is, then, the purpose of this paper to review and scan the landscape facing university libraries and to attempt to identify the key competencies or core areas of work that the profession needs to grasp as its key to the future.”

His statement is targeted for academic librareis, but the diagnosis may well resonate with any rank and file librarian at differnet types of libraries. The problem seems to be that overall our library world appears lost on what a library should be in the future.

I realize that it is hard to articulate this impression of mine, particularly when there is so much conversation about new technologies and trends that libraries have to consider and adapt thier services for. What I am trying to get at is that most of the conversation is about what’s new and how to catch up. The numerous things get swiftly classified under the “Have To” category from this conversation. But they don’t always seem to have a clear relevance to “Why” and “For what” let alone “How To.”

Today’s library world, which resembles almost the Warring States period of China a long long time ago, unnerves me sometimes because everything seems to be geared towards catching up with the latest trends. Yesterday wiki and blog, today Facebook and Twitter, tomorrow mobile websites, content, and devices. Libraries and librarians have been working hard and frantically.

But, now that we have done so, are we significantly better off? Have our efforts significantly changed the way our users and our parent institutions perceive us? Why this nagging suspicion that we all seem to share and worry about, i.e. libraries are still ill-prepared for whatever the future will bring about? Why doesn’t this doubt cease that we are running in parallel with our users and parent institutions rather than running together as a team?

Staying up-to-date for the future is of course great. But what are we staying up-to-date for? There is no shortage of what libraries may become in the future: a digital repository, a learning commons, a place for innovative user experience, an information hub, what have you. But how do we get there where these visions are from here and now? Where are our blueprints, not another list of to-dos seemingly dislocated from the vision?

This brings back a question I often think about. What kind of an agent a library is in its parent organization as a whole? Is it a dynamic, creative, competent, and energetic enough agent that can lead a change it desires through its parent organization? If libraries are not currently such agents, how do we begin to become so? Changes at these two different levels -internal and external- seem to be intertwined. If we can at least begin to form some answers about these issues, maybe we will finally be able to spend more time on working towards making actual changes to the future of libraries rather than talking about it. Just a thought of a lay librarian.

Persistence and Some Other Virtues for Solo Web-Services Librarians

Feb 3rd, 2010

by Bohyun (Library Hat).

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Last September, I did an online presentation through OPAL (Open Program for All). The topic was “Web Services for Underfunded and Understaffed Libraries.” After the presentation, I uploaded my slides on SlideShare and then completely forgot about it. A few days ago, I got an email from SlideShare that notified me the number of views of these slides. How interesting! Anyhow, so I remembered. Right, I did that presentation, and what was I thinking back then?

I felt funny realizing that what was a burning question to me only about four months ago seemed already close to some distant memory. The presentation was part of my efforts to make sense of the challenges and difficulties I have encountered at my work as a new solo web librarian at a small academic library. I was feeling overwhelmed because I was fully aware of many innovative things I wanted to try, but also there was a very clear limit to what I could do in reality. Also I was somewhat depressed by the fact that some really awesome things other libraries were doing couldn’t be done for various reasons related to limited resources, funding, staff, etc.

Does the fact that I almost forgot about the presentation mean that I came to some kind of conclusion on that topic? Well, probably not. I think it would be more accurate to say that I have rather gotten used to my environment.

However, now that I look back, I think I learned something about patience in getting things done. Trying new things requires dealing with some procedures and forming a teamwork whether it is with some university offices or within one’s organization. Inevitably, it takes time and efforts – sometimes in a seemingly inexplicably large sum. Unfortunately, there is no real shortcut in dealing with all the steps whether it is bureaucracy or paperwork. So what becomes quite important is, more often than not, persistence.

Persistence is also an important virtue and one of the most valuable weapon in a solo web-services librarian’s arsenal. I mentioned in the presentation that almost everything technology-related becomes the responsibilities of web-services librarian in a small library. So, it is unavoidable that things that need to be done pile up while one solo web-services librarian tries to get all the technology-related things requested as well as other things s/he deems to be important done. Some of them cannot be done in the time frame desired and/or requested. Some of them have to go down on the priority list, so that more important things, which keep popping up anew, can be taken care of. But if there are things that need to be done whether it is next month or next season, they have to stay on the list and a solo web-services librarian needs to find time for those. This sometimes requires persuading others and enlisting their help.

Oh, and resourcefulness. That probably would make another blog post. So I won’t talk about it here.

Another thing that I have learned since the presentation is that one library can’t do all and each library’s environment is unique. This seems quite an obvious thing to say. But still many times, libraries waste a lot of time trying to replicate what has been done successfully at other libraries without realizing that there are very different dynamics at work. Particularly for small libraries, it only makes sense to focus a small number of things that they can excel at rather than spreading thin their resources and staff in many different things.

From time to time, I think I should remind myself of these new lessons I have learned, so that I won’t get unproductively frustrated or disappointed and stay positive and efficient at the same time.

The question which still remains in my mind as an unanswered question is how a solo web-services librarian should deal with necessary R&D. Unlike at larger libraries where there are multiple programmers and a large IT staff for example, it is extremely difficult for a solo web-services librarian to engage in any productive and meaningful R&D activities because there are so many daily tasks to be handled that come before R&D. (Also remember many of these librarians are trained first as librarians and not necessarily magical in programming and writing codes?) On the other hand, without R&D, a solo web-services librarian is likely to be burned out and get outdated at the same time. Sadly, I don’t see any systematic support for R&D in small libraries.

This is probably not an issue that can be solved by a lay librarian nor at the scale of individual small libraries. My hope is to see some larger agencies that support continuing education/R&D for library technology staff – maybe funded by multiple libraries – and those libraries again committing themselves to allowing time for such continuing education for their technology staff. Oh, well, wouldn’t that be nice?

For what it’s worth, here is my past presentation at OPAL. I am glad SlideShare sent me the notice. Otherwise I would have completely forgotten about all these questions.

OPAL Program Archive: http://www.opal-online.org/archivelis.htm (Sep. 17, 29009)

Thoughts on To-Do Lists & Personal Information Management (PIM)

Jan 10th, 2010

by Bohyun (Library Hat).

5 comments

Have you ever had an A-HA moment for something that only makes sense in a smart phone?

I had one of those with a to-do list. To-do list apps are essentially personal information management (PIM) systems. Because you carry your smart phone all the time and it is always on, a smart phone is an idea platform for a personal information management system such as a to-do list app. You may not be at your office or in front of your personal computer all the time. But a smart phone? That is always with you permanently powered on.

In addition, the push notification capability of a smart phone allows a to-do list app to remind you of your tasks without your making the effort of actually looking them up. This way, your tasks are guaranteed to appear on your peripheral vision whether you are remembering or not.

(Image from Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/koalazymonkey/3596829214/)

You would think that there would be many easy-to-use to-do list apps in the market. I also expected to find a reasonably good free app in this category because it is something that can be so useful for so many people. Nope. This wasn’t the case unless I give up the feature of a to-do app that initially made me realize how useful it could bee on my smart phone, i.e., push notification. Also, many To-do list apps had a user-interface that is truly far away from user-friendly.

If a to-do list app requires a user to select priority, folder, due date, reminder setting, due time, repeat setting in six different screens after entering the task name, certainly the user will abandon the system. Similarly, if entered tasks don’t send out a push notification, those tasks may never become visible in users’ peripheral vision. So, the value of the PIM system significantly decreases. Also, even a smart phone is not always looked at. Users may have a stretch of time during which they are paying more attention to their emails, Twitter, or calendar on their computers. So the integration with these channels in data-input and reminder-push would significant increase the worth of a PIM system. In addition, nobody wants to work in a hideous-looking interface. So the user interface should be not only functional and efficient but also aesthetically satisfying.

Many information systems can benefit from considering these factors to increase their chances of being adopted and continuously used by users. In today’s environment of constant information overload, attention is a scarce commodity and information organization is a critical activity. Many information systems will need to cater to information consumers’ needs of efficiently organizing their information. How many information management system do we see that succeeds in meeting all these requirements?

P.S. A good article to read :
Jones, E., H. Bruce, et al. (2008) – I Give Up! Five Factors that Contribute to the Abandonment of Information Management Strategies. It lists visibility, integration, co-adoption, scalability, and return on investment as five factors that contribute to the abandonment of information system by users.

Microsoft Surface Table at Libraries

Nov 6th, 2009

by Bohyun (Library Hat).

3 comments

There is this table that has recently fascinated me. It is Microsoft Surface table. With both the commercial and the development version, this table looks absolutely fabulous to my librarian eyes.

What is Microsoft Surface table? Imagine a coffee table whose surface works like an iPhone responsive to touch with its full computing power.

I can see so many applications of this table at a library. I work at a medical library and our students love to use the anatomy software that is loaded on the computers at the library. For this particular resource in mind, the library has ordered a large screen monitor for library computers. Medical students absolutely love it. But as any librarian can testify, today’s students study together. At libraries, group study rooms are always in a short supply and all the tables tend to be moved in a group by students who want to study together. Our library provides forty something carrels for each individual medical student. But students prefer studying as a group in our two group study rooms.

So it is no coincidence that when I saw this MS surface table I immediately came to think about putting anatomy software on it. Students can not only see clear large anatomical images on the table but also can manipulate them with their hands. Even more cool is the fact that multiple students can simultaneously interact with the surface. One can zoom, the other can rotate, and another can annotate.

At this year’s ALA conference at Chicago, DOK Library Concept Center‘s in-house application for MS surface table was also shown, making a lot of librarians fall in love with the table and the possibility of providing useful applications for it at a library.

Multitouch Microsoft Surface: Cultural Heritage Browser from Jaap van de Geer on Vimeo.

Yesterday I have learned that actually the university of Nevada- Reno-library owns two MS Surface tables and that the library’s application development librarian, Will Kurt, wrote an anatomy flash card application for it. (He also published his anatomy application codes for everyone’s use.) A news article from University of Nevada, Reno, reports that these surface tables are in high demand from students. In the first week of the semester, they were used for 70 hours over just seven days at University of Nevada, Reno.

See the demo here:

Some may say, “OK, I see that the table looks cool and maybe good for anatomy and maps etc. But what other use could it have at a library?” Well, Darien public Library purchased this table in December, 2008 and there the surface table was placed at the library’s children’s room. In his blog post, John Blyberg talks about the idea of tagging certain picture books, so that when they were placed on the Surface, a video-recording of a story-time with that book would pop up in his blog post.

The surface table can also be used for gaming, music, and probably history, math, physics, and other humanities and sciences. Just imagine classicists studying old manuscripts on the surface table to decipher the annotations on them! Applied to medicine, the surface table can do so much more than showing two-dimensional images. See this video in which the images of a human heart rendered in 3D being studied, annotated, and discussed. Depending on the quality of images and the sophistication of 3D rendering applied, a whole surgery can be recorded and studied.

I see the use of this MS surface table in architecture too, in which 3D image-rendering is common. Actually any 3D image viewing and analysis would be fantastic on this kind of surface, and the surface would be a wonderful tool for many people to study such images together at the same time.

But guess how much it would cost to get one of these tables? I asked around today in Twitter and found out that it costs $12,500 + shipping and handling. Ok, so it won’t be in any near future that libraries can offer these tables for library users. Will Kurt made a good point saying that these tables are not only heavily used by students but also not extremely expensive compared to some of the online journals and databases that libraries license. However, the table is still hardware, not part of a library’s collection. At the current stage, the purchase of this table would also be wise only if a library already has an in-house application developer who can write some custom applications for the table. So the real costs for a library are even more than the cost of the table itself. Consequently, not many libraries won’t be able to afford a surface table any time soon.

Still, I can’t stop thinking about all potential applications of this surface table at a library because it can make coming to a library much more fun and useful for students. Surface computing enables us to use a computer in an environment that is not designed specifically for computing. Surface computing replaces traditional input devices such as a keyboard and a mouse with our human hands and fingers. And as a result, it can also accommodate collaboration and group study in a more natural manner.

My undying curiosity also prompted me to find out how a surfacetable is built. This excellent blog post by Stewart Greenhill shows how to build a home-made surface table with a relatively cheap LCD monitor with the total cost of $500. There are many youTube videos but this blog post is much more thorough in explaining the mechanism of a surface table.

Now, $500, that’s the price a library can probably afford.

Does Your Library Have a Vision on e-Books?

Oct 11th, 2009

by Bohyun (Library Hat).

2 comments

I have to say I have a love-hate relationship with e-books. I love the idea of e-books. No matter where I am, I can instantly access it and start reading it on an electronic device. That’s great. As an expatriate, I dream about the day in which all the books I want to read written and published in Korean become available in an electronic format, so that the exorbitant international shipping charge (for heavy heavy books) can be instead used for more books I want to read. I love to underline, highlight and save the passage in an e-book for future references as a text file, so that I don’t need to retype it again later. I want to carry multiple e-books in my smart phone, so that my bag won’t drag me down stuffed with multiple paperbacks.

But how so much I hate e-books! Every time I search for certain books on my library’s online catalog and it turned out that the book is available as an e-book, I grind my teeth. I don’t want to read any books in front of my computer. It simply isn’t my favorite manner of reading books. And how so much I hate that restriction that I can only print one page at a time from an e-book! You gotta be kidding me to think that I would need one page of a book for my reference purposes whether I am accessing the book via a library or whether I bought it through Amazon or any other online bookstores. Besides, I want to hold a book in my hands and I want to read it in my comfortable reading chair, not in front of my computer straining my eyes and back. I desperately want a book in paper, particularly the ones that I am going to take some time to read it through. When a book that I look for is not available as an e-book at my library, I get relieved because it means that I can request the book via Interlibrary loan. And I count days until the book arrives! How ironic.

So I am desperate for the growth and maturation of the e-book market. It is just that the vendors are not getting it. That is, what they need to do to make their market to expand. Here are my suggestions.

Go for textbook market particularly in science. They are expensive and heavy. And students need them for classes. They will “buy” them.
Make e-books “significantly cheaper” than print ones. Unless it is cheaper by 50 % or more, people won’t go for e-books. I would personally pay 30 %. The utility of e-books is much less than that of print books. This applies to particularly for non-textbooks such as fiction, bestsellers, etc.
“Standardize” the e-book reader software. Agree on one software that can be used for all types of devices including computer, smart phone, PDA etc. regardless of where they are purchased.
“Don’t go crazy on DRM” to make e-book buyers keep entering password every time people open the e-books they already bought. Make it easy for the owner of the e-book to use it.
Let e-book owners “own” the book. Don’t make them feel that they pay for ownership but are treated as if they were actually only getting a license for the ebooks they pay for. That’s just unfair.

But I now realize that for e-books to become popular, we also need a right device for them. It may be something like Kindle. But it probably should be better than that. If it can be something like a bendable touch-screen e-paper with memory and internet connection, that would work great because right now what bothers potential ebook consumers most seems to be the fact that they cannot read e-books like normal paper books. They need a proper device for e-books. But devices currently available for e-books are hardly ideal for comfortable reading.

Phillipse e-paper technology from YouTube

While I was reading a news article about the University Librarian of University of Michigan, Paul Courant, I came to wonder if libraries should have a vision about e-books.

Let’s see what Paul Courant thinks about books at future libraries. (Source: http://www.michigandaily.com/content/evolution-paul-courant-reshapes-concept-library?page=0,1)

Despite the advantages of having tangible books on hand, Courant said the University Library’s books will be uselessly sitting on shelves while students browse them on their laptops.“This is blasphemous,” he said. “But it’s true. We don’t need to have 3 million books in the middle of campus.” Courant said he predicts the University Library will use converted files to make materials even more digitally accessible in the future. “In a few years, most of what I expect will be in the library (will be) in a form where you’ll be able to load it into something that looks like a Kindle or a Sony Reader and read it very easily,” he said. He added that the stacks will eventually disappear. With this shift, Courant said the role of universities and libraries will become increasingly important as society moves into the “information age,” where loads of information are available at people’s fingertips. “The problem of converting information into knowledge and knowledge into wisdom is every bit as important as it always was,” he said. “The University is the place that’s going to figure out how to do that, and within it, the library is going to be the place in the University that figures that out.”

Well, if the stacks disappear, I don’t think that it will be any time soon because the current technology for ebook devices are still quite below users’ expectations.

But my question is whether this is something libraries should think about and include in their vision. How do libraries plan to deliver information and knowledge in the future? Is it going to be an espresso book machine that can print out and bind whatever old book that a user happens to need to use? Or is it going to be a computer file that can be downloaded immediately to whatever device a user has in their hands? Or maybe both? It is not a matter of whether it is possible now or not. It is a matter of planning for unpredictable future and doing something about it to make the best vision to come true by conscious efforts. That is something that online bookstores or e-book publishers may not be interested in but something that libraries can play a significant role.

Librarians are mediators between knowledge and people. Paul Courant says: The problem of converting information into knowledge and knowledge into wisdom is every bit as important as it always was. I see a great role that libraries can play in solving this problem. We are digitizing a lot of information and knowledge. Now how do we want to deliver it to users? Until the mode of access to digitized information and the manner of utilizing it become almost effortless, digitized information will be less than optimal in being absorbed by people to become their knowledge and wisdom.

How Personal Should a Library Be in Social Media?

Oct 7th, 2009

by Bohyun (Library Hat).

7 comments

How many social media accounts does your library maintain? How do you keep them lively and up-to-date? OK, keeping up-to-date part is relatively easy. You just need to post updates on your library’s Facebook page, to add new posts to your library’s blog, and to keep twittering in your library’s Twitter.

However, keeping it lively is much more difficult. How do you draw attention of library users to library’s social media accounts? How can a library provide the feeling that the library is there for you, its users? What it takes might be just the right amount of personal touch.

Jeff Swain recently wrote this blog post, “Thoughts on the CIC Tech Forum” which reflcts on this issue. He says:

“So the question becomes, why should our audience care to follow us? And how do we stay connected with them through these medium? Do we make informal chit-chat or do we simply post official announcements? It’s not a simple question to answer.

I know I struggle with representing myself and my unit in these areas. When I joined Twitter and Facebook I joined as myself (Twitter: jeffswain; Facebook: Jeff Swain). Quickly I encountered the problem of separating my personal stuff from my work stuff. It all bleeds together in the either where everyone can connect. Now I also am the persona for our symposium and e-portfolio initiative. Well, how do I represent them? Is it strictly business or is it personal?”

I struggle with the same question as a librarian who maintains and updates various social media accounts. How do you engage your audience? The whole point of having a library’s presence in social media is to interact with library users. But most libraries use their social media tools as an one-way announcement mechanism. While it may work fine for library staff as an easy broadcasting mechanism, how do you ensure that those messages will capture the scarce attention of library users?

Image from https://blogs.psu.edu/mt4/mt-tb.cgi/94153

The problem is that people are much more interested in other people than in organizations, and in everyday miscellaneous stuff than in research and other library-related stuff. No matter how interesting library events are and how exciting new library databases can be, it just may not be interesting enough for library users to initiate a conversation with their library. Of course, there is an easy solution to this problem. Librarians can run library’s social media accounts as themselves with a little bit of personal voice added to them. But then, it seems that that is not quite a right thing to do because one individual cannot represent an organization properly.

While I am quite happy to babble about my daily activities in my personal Twitter account, I am often unsure about what to twitter for my library’s Twitter account. I don’t want to keep twittering about library events and research tools because I wonder that may simply bore my library users. But then what else can I twitter about that may be interesting to them without my personal interests mixed in? How should a library’s social media policy reflect address dilemma? What would users want from a library’s social media channels?

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