Mike Godwin has written a great primer on DRM for librarians. Librarians are on the front lines of the DRM wars, since DRM so often interferes with lending, archiving and preserving creative works. Librarians are also a technology-savvy bunch. Accordingly, Mike’s paper is thoroughgoing, smart, and highly recommended.
The San Jose Mercury News recently ran an article predicting the Top Tech Tech Trends for 2006. Wireless tops the list (not surprising)….
The Pew Internet and American Life project has released a new report, which compares internet usage by women to internet usage by men. The study highlights some interesting differences in usage, but in the end, data shows that men and women are more similar than different in their online lives, showing a common appreciation for the internet’s efficiency and for the ability to perform online transactions that simplify their lives by saving time on such mundane tasks as buying tickets or paying bills. Men and women also value the internet for a second strength, as a gateway to limitless vaults of information.
Steve Krug is quoted as saying, “Scratch an expert and you’ll often find someone who’s muddling through — just at a higher level.”
Sometimes you get lucky when you talk to a tech support person and the problem you are having is a problem they have encountered before and they know just what needs to be done to fix things. More often, however, it’s a new problem to the tech support person, too. Contrary to popular opinion, techies don’t hold all of the answers in their head. When they encounter a new problem, they rely on experimenting and exploring to try to fix the problem. Most techies also rely on Internet resources to help find the answers to technical problems.
Some popular resources for solutions to technical problems include:
There are resources for more specific areas, too. For example, the Web4Lib mailing list is a great place to get advice regarding all things “web” in libraries http://lists.webjunction.org/web4lib/.
Next time a technical problem occurs, try a little detective work online. You may discover that someone else has just the solution you need.
A recent MIT study shows that teens are very optimistic about the future of technology. The study also shows that adult attitudes aren’t quite as optimistic….
We all know that a cloud is a large moving body of water droplets in the sky; the interesting shapes capture our attention and imagination (“I see a bunny!”). Have you heard of a “tag cloud”? Have you seen a tag cloud? This NEKLS technology blog actually has a tag cloud. Notice the category listing on the right-hand side of this page? These are the categories we assign to our NEKLS Technology blog posts. The more frequently a particular category or tag has been used, the larger it will appear in the “cloud”. We obviously think that a lot of our postings are “Simply Cool” 
— the benefit of a tag cloud is its ability to demonstrate the popularity of a particular topic. Wikipedia has an article on tag clouds if you want to learn more. What do you think? Useful or not?
Don’t know what to do with your old computers? You could bring them to any of these Kansas companies to dispose of them.
The beginning of a new year means it’s time to be reviewing all that happened in the previous year. Everywhere you look there are best-of lists and more. Technology Review has published a list of what they consider the top 5 info-tech stories of 2005. They include:
They are almost all things we have discussed here on the NEKLS technology blog — except maybe silicon photonics??
The Topeka Shawnee County Public Library (TSCPL) has a new blog called PaperCuts. It includes library news, reviews, and events. They have an RSS feed, so if you use Bloglines, this is a new one to add to your account.
PC World has published a list of the 50 greatest gadgets from the past 50 years. It ranges from 1978’s Speak and Spell and 1970’s Simon toy to the iPod and Treo from more recent years. It’s interesting to consider how many of these gadgets have intersected with or impacted library services… or how many will.
