Library Bailout
Posted On Oct 7 2008It’s always fun to hear a story about libraries on NPR, and the latest one is no exception. But I was a bit puzzled by the title: “Libraries Shine in Tough Economic Times.” First of all, libraries shine all the time. It’s just that some people don’t notice it until $40 seems like too much to pay for a book club meeting where you barely discuss the book. Secondly, the bustling business that libraries do in harder economic times is usually followed by harder economic times for libraries themselves. This boom of library demand is likely to be followed (sometimes …
Data for the Young and Old
Posted On Sep 15 2008I’ve been doing a great deal of thinking about “network-level” applications for the last several months. Some people call it “cloud computing,” others “grid computing”…whatever. Suffice it to say that it is more than software as a service (SaaS), which is sometimes as far as libraries will go in trusting the network to their applications. Now the Gen-X in me wants to be an ageist about this and say that older people just don’t get the power of cloud computing or SaaS. The former head-banger in me (yes, you heard me) recalls the words of Rob Halford, the Beast of …
Sacred Cow #3: Migration
Posted On Aug 24 2008Though I heard it in a much different context once, I like to apply something from religion to the world of libraries (don’t worry). Preparing the congregation for a “radical change,” a senior pastor told his flock: “There’s a difference between ‘tradition’ and ‘traditionalism’.” Tradition is what we do all the time and for some good reason. Traditionalism is what we do all the time but we can no longer recall the reason. I think libraries excel at traditionalism, and I have been giving quite a bit of thought to the processes we use to perpetuate it. In the first …