Overall, I thought Midwinter’s Top Tech Trends was a very positive experience. I’m not terribly interested in institutional repositories, so I think my mind wandered during that part of the discussion. As expected, I found everyone’s comments to be incredibly insightful.

But without any further ado, here are my trends:

Keep an eye on DRM

Last year, we saw Steve Jobs come out in favor of DRM-free music. Shortly thereafter, EMI began releasing music on iTunes sans-DRM. And only a couple weeks ago Warner Bros. announced that it would abandon DRM for all sales on Amazon.

While I think this particular trend is encouraging, we ought not throw a ticker-tape parade just yet. It seems that in place of DRM, studios are opting for digital watermarks. What that means is that every music download will have, embedded in it, a unique serial number that ties that file with the original purchaser. Obviously, this carries with it some significant privacy concern.

Furthermore, there doesn’t seem to be any indication that DRM is being dropped from popular audiobook formats.

Converged Digital Media Hubs

PVRs were really the vanguard of this particular technological revolution and they have been incredibly disruptive to the television advertisement industry. The Apple iPhone was sort of a watershed moment last year in this area because it really is a device that allows users to take advantage of a convergence of media types–music, video, text, and two-way voice communication. There is no question as to how beneficial these types of devices are to the consumer and the market for them is only going to get bigger. Many interesting possibilities for libraries there too.

Location Awareness

If you’re in a room with a hundred cell-phone owners, you can be sure that at least eighty of them are Lo-Jacked. Quietly rolled out under the guide of “Location Services”, most cell phones are equipped with a GPS locater chip. We’re going to start seeing this technology couple with online social networking sites like Dodgeball so that friends and contacts can triangulate on your physical position at any given time. Interesting and very cool from a techie point of view, but also incredibly invasive and potentially scary.

Surface Computing

During the Iowa Caucus and New Hampshire primary, I noticed that CNN’s election center was using a vertically-placed Microsoft Surface. I see this type of tactile computing becoming much more widespread as notions of what ‘computing’ actually means begin to broaden and extend into non-traditional types of devices (think Chumby). Maybe someday, when we have sane APIs into our ILSs, we’ll be able to use surface computing platforms in a convergence of reference, circulation, research, and instruction.

Fat PAN Pipes

Personal Area Networks are sort of luke-warm. I think adoption has been slow because of bandwidth restrictions. That will probably change once we see devices begin to take advantage of Ultra Wideband (UWB)–an extremely high-bandwidth, short-range radio specification. Think USB or Firewire without cables. Couple that with moderate-range wireless energy transfer, and I think we’ll see some very interesting gadgetry indeed.

Privacy is Dead

Yep, no such thing if you’re a netizen. We basically have the choice to connect or live out our lives in quiet and total obscurity. This merits an entire write-up on its own, but needless to say, our approach to individual privacy needs to be dragged into the twenty-first century. Almost all of the trends I mentioned this time around have profound privacy implications.

I was literally getting up at 5am and getting to bed well past midnight during ALA. I suppose that means it was a success.

Many thanks (and fond farewell) to Leslie Burger, who initiated and sponsored the Transformation Track sessions. I didn’t go to three of them so, alas, no T-shirt for me. I felt that the technology session (I co-chaired with Alan Gray) was very good, but how could it not be with speakers like Lori Ayer, Roy Tennant, and Casey Bisson? Incidentally, if your library is looking to retain the services of a first-class library consultant, consider getting in touch with Lori. She has made her presentation available online. Casey has also posted his presentation with commentary. Thanks to these three for a fine program.

Also, Eli Neiburger was kind enough to join me and be the spokesperson for AADL at my “Building the Next Generation Public Library Websites with Drupal” talk. My slides are now available and can always be found on my files page.

Sunday was a crazy day for me, I had about 15 minutes to grab a quick snack and head over the the Top Tech Trends panel. Kudos to LITA, who already has audio online. I really enjoyed participating in the discussion.

OCLC hosted the Sunday night bloggers salon. A big thanks to them for putting on such a fun and raucous gathering of good people. It’s always nice to catch-up with folks and put faces to names.

I had never met Jed Moffitt–King County’s head of technology. He’s a super guy who put together Monday’s “Wiking the Blog and Walking the Dog: Social Software, Virtual Reality, and Authority Everywhere.” A session name that was sure to draw a crowd, and it did. I only wish we had more time. My slides for this presentation are online as well.

Before attending large conferences like ALA, I like to gather some of the thoughts I’ve been casually tossing around in my head. I say casually, because I really haven’t given any of them the benefit of any formal thought process.  At any rate, this is the baggage I’m bringing to ALA:

A library on the Edge?

Like two distinct brands of the same religion, librarians are drifting into two camps–those that believe libraries are in peril and those that don’t. Those who find themselves as a member of the former tend to feel that their libraries need to change in a number of fundamental ways in order to remain relevant. Those who identify with the latter group feel that good old-fashion librarianship is still what their users want or need.  They’re the purists. Perhaps I’m oversimplifying this, but I do believe that all of us sit somewhere between these two poles.

This dichotomy yields some interesting implications for discussions about the future of libraries and what we should be doing now and in the future. For instance, if you’re inclined to think that libraries are in danger of becoming irrelevant, you’re probably going to be more open to many of the more radical proposals and developments we’re seeing and hearing of today. Purists, of course, are just as vehement and passionate about libraries, but want to see the core values of their libraries shored up.  To them, good old fashion reference and circulation is what libraries are all about.

So the question is, how do these two groups find a middle ground that will not compromise us into mediocrity? I’m skeptical about the prospect of creating more excellent middle-of-the-road libraries. That’s what most of us are right now.

Web 2.0 is saturated while Library 2.0 is parched

The library corpus cannot absorb all the 2.0 being thrown at it. I see two major problems that are causing a veritable 2.0-anemia.

First, while Library 2.0 may not be exclusively about technology, it’s hitched its wagon to technology in inextricable ways. That means that in order to be deft L2 wagon-drivers, we need to have great technologists and great technology. Libraries have a severe shortage of both and while we may try to make ourselves gleam to one another as best we can, what we really ought to be doing is focusing on how libraries can be attracting new blood into that particular sector of the industry. There is no doubt that great work is being done by a lot of talented people (and they know who they are). But for most of us, implementation is still that big old swollen caveat hanging out there uncomfortably.

Second, after implementation, integration tends to be awkward, at best. There is a fairly severe disconnect between what the 2.0 pundits say (among whom I count myself), and what is really happening. Your library may have, for instance, a Flickr account, IM reference, a bloglines blog, delicious bookmarks, whatever. But are they truly embedded into the way your institution works? In almost every case, this approach seems like throwing seeds into the air, letting them land where they may. I think it’s time to start talking about how we arrange these components into a more suitable constellation of services. These technical elements of L2 must be aligned along our institutions’ field of influence and expertise so that the seams don’t show. Seams send the wrong message, they say we’re being disingenuous and sloppy. In effect, poorly implemented technology amounts to spamming our users and staff with “new features.”

The user is sometimes broken

Sorry Karen, but sometimes the user is broken. And that’s ok. We’re all broken in some way and that’s what makes us human. Let’s not forget that, at its core, the library is a human construct created by humans for use by humans.  I think we can be there to help fix the user, to enable the user to change in the ways that he or she would like.

There will be times when we get it right and the user still can’t handle it, because the user can’t deal.  We shouldn’t change a good thing for him because accommodating him will send us down an endless rabbit hole.  It’s those cases that we rely on our hospitality and deference to help the user as best we can.

The librarian is sometimes broken

Of course, the flip side of this is that, yes, sometimes the librarian is broken too.  In comparison, it’s much easier to deal with a broken user than a broken librarian.  The broken user is a support issue, and support is simply a commodity.  The broken librarian, if not fixed, is an institutional liability.  But God bless us, we’re a compassionate, sensitive bunch and we’re going to tip-toe around that person’s shortcomings and weave them into the fabric of our organizations.  That’s the way we roll.

Outgoing ALA President, Leslie Burger, is sponsoring the President’s Transformation Track later this month at Annual. It’s a must-attend series of five events covering, what I feel, to be the five brightest stars in the constellation of the American Library: services, technology, staff, space, and community. This track is aimed at giving you the knowledge and insight you’ll need to transform your library into an institution that can make the most of each of these virtues. If you attended Leslie’s inaugural dinner last year, you’ll remember that she wanted to make the theme of her tenure “Libraries Transform Communities,” so there is a nice symmetry to this track.

She writes about this series on the transformation wiki:

I am delighted to sponsor the Transformation Track programs at this year’s annual conference. During my presidential year I’ve talked to thousands of people about the power of libraries to transform the communities they serve and seen hundreds of examples from libraries of all types where transformation is taking place every day. I am convinced now more than ever that when we invest our time and energy in transforming our libraries that support for our libraries and what we do grows in unimagined ways. Come to the Transformation Track programs — get inspired, make new contacts, find helpful tips, and then transform your libraries.

Of course, the technology session will be the best *smile*. Alan Gray and I will be co-chairing this panel of experts Lori Ayre, Roy Tennant, and Casey Bisson. The session will cover a number of germane topics, but we want to give you the opportunity to make your voice heard before the event, not just during the Q&A. A participants notes page is available on the wiki where you can suggest some topics to be covered and formulate some questions to be answered. In addition, attendees can use the discussion tabs for any follow-up dialogue.

Depending on connectivity in the venue, we may try to incorporate IM and *cough* Twitter into the mix somehow. These are longer than usual sessions (about two hours). I often feel that a good session is just hitting its stride after 90 minutes, so I’m looking forward to seeing what will come out of those 30 extra minutes.

We’re extremely lucky to have grabbed these three panelists for this track and we’re looking forward to seeing you there.

UPDATE

I forgot to mention that if you attend three transformation sessions, you get a free T-shirt!

It’s high time I sorted all this out. Among other places, here is where I’m guaranteed to be:

• 6/22 - Friday
  • Noon - 3:00 PM - Movers & Shakers Luncheon
• 6/23 - Saturday
  • 1:30 - 3:30 PM - Transforming Your Library, and Your Library’s Future, with Technology (co-chair with Alan Gray)
• 6/24 - Sunday
  • 10:30 AM - Noon - Building the Next Generation Public Library Web Site with Drupal
  • 1:30 - 3:00 PM - LITA Top Technology Trends Panel
  • 5:45 - 8:00 PM - OCLC Blog Salon
    
• 6/25 - Monday
  • 10:30 AM - Noon - Wiking the Blog and Walking the Dog - Social Software, Virtual Reality, and Authority Everywhere