Technically Random

ACRL recently announced the launch of C & RL Preprints.

The addition of preprint articles gives the C&RL editor the ability to release important research articles online prior to publication in the print journal.

You have to be a member of ACRL to open or download the PDFs from the preprint site.  The first batch of preprints looks interesting with articles on information literacy, collection development, assessment and mentoring.

-Corey

The beginning of the new year and ALA Midwinter brings lists of top tech trends for the coming year. Here’s a short wrap-up of some of the trends being predicted for 2008:

Eric Lease Morgan (LITA Blog):

• Linux on the server and desktop will increase
• Open access will grow
• Social networking spaces maturing
• Blogging will continue to effect the way we communicate

Sarah Houghtan-Jan (LibrarianInBlack.net):

• Tough Budget, Tech Stays
• Widening of the Digital Divide and our Inattention to It
• User-Centered Content Production
• Virtual Reference Software a la Rest-O’-The-World?
• We Stop Being So Bossy
• Another Day of Open Source

Karen Schneider (Free Range Librarian):

• Interoperability
• Open systems, open data

Karen Coombs (Library Web Chic):

• Ultra-light and small PCs
• New uses of wireless
• Blogging ceases to exist as blogging
• On the Go Applications and Data

Then this from the publishing world, 15 Trends to Watch in 2008 by Mike Shatzkin at Publishers Weekly.

And, finally 10 Technologies That Will Transform Your Life, published by LiveScience during the Consumer Electronics Show last week.

Library 2.0: an academic’s perspective blog has information about Zotero Commons, a new Zotero collaboration among scholars. (It will rely on the new Zotero 2.0 Server technology when that appears). Zotero Commons is a collaboration between George Mason University and the Internet Archive.

“Its purpose is to create an archive of scholarly resources, contributed by working scholars, in the public domain. The archive will offer a free optical scanning service to make the documents searchable. .. “

An amazing, significant project of course, but what raised some eyebrows was this statement from an Inside Higher Ed article:

“Now, an effort at George Mason University seeks to bypass libraries entirely and delve into scholars’ file cabinets instead …”.

Which, although journalist-speak, raises all sorts of interesting questions, issues and lively discussion in academic libraryland . Anyway, check out the blog post and discussion.

The blog btw is a favorite – deep, thoughtful posts . On your RSS radar, or you can keep up with a live aggregation here (click on Blogs: Libraries and scroll down the page) .

I use Zotero, admire it,  and cuss it regularly because it doesn’t do what I want (yet). But the potential is absolutely stunning. If you can imagine a world (perhaps in the not-too-distant future) where our metadata is free from the OPAC and exists as a plug-in module or a web service, then add scholar-produced tags/links and full text access – you get a glimpse of where this could go.