LITA Top Tech Trends panel

These are my notes from the discussion last Sunday afternoon – for more info, including the trends of these panelists and more in their own words, check out the LITA blog Top Technology Trends category.

Marshall Breeding (Automated systems)
1. vendor changes – product announcments and changes that have derailed migration plans all over the country. This is causing a stir in the calls for open-source ILS development. Interest has expanded to library decision makers. Also, statewide implementation of PINES in Georgia. Open source is still a minority in libraries, but it is expanding and the widespread interest could cause a widespread transition.

2. Librivox, liblime etc. support companies for libraries that want to implement open source solutions.

3. The time is overdue for interface replacement and have moved from complaints to demands.

John Blyberg.
1. the back end of the systems we use need to be adapted to accommodate the front end changes. Movement toward a more modular ILS involves the decoupling the ILS from the OPAC which hasn’t traditionally been done. Interoperability becomes a concern that hasn’t previously existed.

2. RFID doesn’t raise privacy issues.

question, if both the card and the materials have rfid numbers that could raise privacy issues, couldn’t it? it is hard to apply logic to privacy issues because they are political issues.

3. also, materials handling needs to be rethought. RFID technologies – sorters and automated book storage are becoming more necessary for us to do our job most effectively.

If you can’t support the distribution model of the long tail, then you can’t support the long tail.

Karen Coombs.
1. end users as content contributors. What do we do with the content that people are creating and storing on these mediums like flickr and youtube. How will it be captured and preserved. Internet Archive is too confusing for even librarians to navigate, how can we expect our users to figure it out?

ex. picture australia group on flickr – a means to gather digital information and preserve it.

2. digital format as format of choice. The problem with eBooks is not the eBook. It is the reading tool. When that evolves to a tool that people can use effectively, that is how they will want their content.

3. The line between desktop and web apps is going to be obliterated. Development of enterprise level web applications.

What are we going to do in terms of 3.0 or semantic web? Blyberg sees this beginning in academic libraries. Coombs says the problem is with the way html has been deployed. It was meant to be semantic, but it has not been implemented semantically. we need to go far more deeply into xml than the majority of sites have gone.

Roy Tennant.

1. the demise of the OPAC (lets ditch the acronym altogether). Modular solutions to the opac will help us to return the ILS to where it should be. it will also allow us to

2. Don’t run web applications from your own servers. Hosted solutions are a good thing. Locally branded and configured, but remotely maintained by the vendor.

3. Disruptors in the market – opensource catalog solutions, open worldcat,

Walt Crawford -
1. privacy still matters. Before you throw it away, make sure that your patrons really want those services from your (Amazonish) also, make sure that your users really understand the implications of government data mining.

2. Small public libraries as helping to publish/create local books.

3. Modular systems allow you to take best of breed solutions and combine them into a system that work for your needs. Talis platform and evergreen are much more modular then traditional ILS.

4. moving to hosted solution from vendors that keep server maintenance and updates in the hands of those who have the skills, resources and time to keep them running to their peak capacities. Until the consumer community is willing to put value on time. if you do not want vendors to consolidate, be thinking about where you want your them to focus their energies. KC sees that as a testament as to why we need to move to a more modular system. We are asking our vendors to do too much, to satisfy many, many conflicting demands. some disagreement: development of ideas is often tied to maintaining customer base demands. 100 page rfps without priorities. development and support is two different things. In Open source these tracks are different.

MARC xml is a retrofit that doesn’t leverage the power of either MARC or xml.

Joan Frye Williams. focuses on human trends and interactions with libraries
1. . End user focused technologies are being used tactically and not strategically. our persistent thinking remains. ex. i use a cell phone as a phone rather than as a camera and a acomoputer and all that stuff. Using these technologies is not using them if you are not applying them to exploit their strengths to change the way you do things. It’s not about checking the box that you have tried it to

Problem with using technology and adapting to change: this is threatening to many, many librarians. Mentality of “if they don’t need us, will they want us?” example: bookmaton. are we still a library if we do this? there’s no librarian. it might break. what if they think that’s all we are…

Note to libraries — Discovery has already left the building. Delivery is not far behind.

2. We need to take a cue from the AI people. we need to really automate, systemitize the process of learning from our implementations and intelligently revise our systems.

Q. Why are we still talking about ILSs?
A: because we spend a lot of $$ on them and we need their functionality.

Q. global standards for open content creation — tagging, wiki code, etc. how do we handle this?
A. until we stop focusing on describing stuff and start focusing on the circumstances of our users information needs. The answer is integrating taxonomy and folksonomy.

Numbers of visitors are going to drop significantly as library resources and services become distributed via mashups (example putting a catalog search in facebook). bookfeed

KC the nature of the library web site is going to change just as the nature of the physical space has changed.

*the toys are just the tools. it’s the outcomes that matter.

Roy recommends the Ted conference web site – particularly notes the photosynth (blaise delabarca) exhibit

Q. What kind of skills do the new systems librarians need?
A. web, networking, maintaining pcs. nobody knows everygthing – how to learn? find a network Get on the code4lib channel and ask questions. you can’t know it all, but form a committee

Q. How do you find the new stuff?

A. feeds – keep a well rounded feed list in other industries. techcrunch, litablog, business 2.0 magazine, gartner free stuff, lifehacker, trendwatch.com