Technically Random

Yesterday, the University of Washington announced layoffs for 66 positions in UW Technology (the division most responsible for maintaining campuswide online infrastructure here).

Ron Johnson, Vice President for UW Technology had this to say about the cause of the layoffs:

“Things really have changed in fundamental ways. In our world, for a very long time, it was a world of gurus. We were masters of technology, and we would provide it to other people. Now, people are masters of their own technology, and they just need some help. We are much more facilitators of technology now, rather than providers.” - Seattle Times 5/21/08

I was blown away by how this also applies to our academic library world these days. Substitute ‘information’ for technology and the parallels are striking:

‘We are much more facilitators of information now, rather than providers’.

Obviously we still provide plenty of information around here, but maybe the age of the ‘guru’ is drawing to a close for us as well.

More importantly, this fundamental shift has big implications for budgets, staffing, and organization. It’s one thing to discuss and theorize about the future of technology (or libraries) but it really hits home when you see the direct impact.

The latest in the Educause “7 Things You Should Know About…” series.

7 Things You Should Know About Multi-Touch Interfaces

Multi-touch interfaces are input devices that recognize two or more simultaneous touches, allowing one or more users to interact with computer applications through various gestures created by fingers on a surface. Some devices also recognize differences in pressure and temperature. Multi-touch technology introduces users to swipes, pinches, rotations, and other actions that allow for richer, more immediate interaction with digital content. Multi-touch devices and supporting applications offer diverse ways of visualizing information to improve understanding, and they facilitate new ways to foster collaborative creation, permitting several users to work simultaneously on a single screen.

Bringing it back home, how about a multi-touch catalog app that uses the two-finger motion that you use to flip through catalog cards in a drawer.

The May/June 2008 issue of D-Lib Magazine is out.

There are a couple of interesting articles, including one on a Recommendation System implementation in a library catalog.

Check out the full issue at: http://www.dlib.org/

-Corey

Despite classes and articles galore, I struggle with the endless library e-mailflood taking place daily in my inbox.   And I know I’m not alone (you know who you are.. )  So, I’ve decided I need a system.  Check out the video embedded below - a Google Talk from 43 folders’ productivity guru Merlin Mann.  It’s kind of long and a tad gritty but makes a lot of sense and has certainly changed the way I look at managing e-mail.  Onward to Inbox Zero…

Analysis of Q1 2008 WebBridge log file data is done and it pretty much confirms what we already know.

Incoming links to WB from WorldCat Local is growing. Web of Science is still the number one source of incoming links, but WB is getting pretty close and may take the lead at some point.

Incoming links from Google Scholar is also growing steadily, but not at the same explosive pace as last year.

The big surprise this quarter came when I looked at the originating links coming in from Biosis. Our other usage statistics and anecdotal evidence told us that use of Biosis has been declining, but the severe drop in incoming links, especially for February and March as compared to the same months last year is striking.

April and May tend to be big number months for our usage statistics, so it’ll be interesting to see what patterns develop as we close out the academic year.

- Corey