Ebook update

I’ve continued to follow ebook developments over the past few months, and I’m really curious to see how the new Sony Reader that’s coming out in December and the Barnes & Noble reader stack up against the Kindle. Both have some intriguing features. Barnes & Noble’s Nook (kind-of a lame name) has a really nice-looking dual screen. The Sony Reader Daily Edition uses the EPUB format and will also be compatible with Overdrive ebooks – how cool for libraries! However, I’ve had such a positive experience reading ebooks on my iPhone that I doubt I’ll bother investing money in a stand-alone reader. It would just be one more unnecessary item to carry around. That’s becoming increasingly true of print books as well. On an experience level, I still say I prefer print books to ebooks. But over the past several months I’ve read a lot more ebooks than print books.

Just to satisfy my own curiosity, I compared my ebook downloads with my reading history at the library. Since the beginning of this year, I’ve downloaded 30 books to my phone. Of those titles, I stopped reading one because I didn’t like it. Four are still in “to-read” status. I’m in the process of reading two right now, and I’ve finished 23. 

In the same period of time, I’ve checked out 42 books from the library. Of those, I completely finished four. There were nine others (mostly parenting books), that I checked out in order to read only a particular section of interest. I got what I wanted out of the book, even though I didn’t read it cover to cover. I’ll  count those as finished, too, which brings my total up to 13. The rest I started and didn’t finish.

I’ve finished about 76% of the ebooks I’ve downloaded, but only about 31% of the print books. I always check the library collection first because I like to read for free as much as possible, so there’s a slight bias there. I’m unlikely to purchase a book unless I’m sure I want to read it. However, almost all of the unfinished books on my print list are books I still want to read – the issue wasn’t that I checked out a bunch of stuff I didn’t really want, it’s just that it’s more convenient for me these days to read books on my phone so I’m a lot more likely to finish a book in that format. The comparison was revealing – I knew I was reading a lot of ebooks, but I didn’t realize the shift had been so dramatic.

Internet Librarian so far

Between wifi issues and tinkering with my presentation for tomorrow (damn procrastination!) I haven’t had much time or opportunity to blog. The conference is going pretty well so far, although as usual I have a couple of regrets about sessions I chose vs. sessions I missed. I really wish I had attended the whole “Dreaming, Designing & Using Mobile Library Platforms” session this morning. I caught the second half and it whet my appetite for more.

Yesterday’s keynote interview with Vint Cerf was interesting, although I’m not sure the interview format was the best choice – I think I would rather have heard Vint give a standard presentation. By contrast, this morning’s keynote worked really well in the interview format. Paul Holdengraber might be an unconventional choice for a technology conference, but he does a great job of speaking to the possibilities inherent in libraries – very inspiring! He was funny, too.

Yesterday I was intrigued by the possibilities of using iGoogle to expand the reach of the library. I almost skipped the Super Searcher session and I’m SO glad I didn’t! Mary Ellen Bates is a great presenter and showed me some new uses for familiar tools as well as some tools I hadn’t seen before. As usual, Gary Price offered a lot of great resources – his presentation was jam-packed with goodies – I will definitely be accessing his links.

Anyway, good conference so far, and more details later!

LibCamp Monterey

I attended my first unconference this morning – LibCamp Monterey. It was a great experience – representatives from a variety of libraries (all types) and all over the world. I’m not sure if it’s good or bad that with all that diversity, we still all seem to be dealing with the same issues: getting buy-in for change, prioritizing the end-user experience, deciding what to pursue and what to eliminate when resources are tight, and so on, and so on, and so on…

I liked the unconference format. We were a small enough group that everybody preferred to stay together instead of having breakout sessions. If we had more time, I think it would have worked well to have a large group session in the morning and breakouts in the afternoon to allow more in-depth discussion of topics. As it was, we covered a lot of ground and I got some interesting ideas – it’s always good to hear how other libraries are facing the same challenges we are.

All in all, a nice way to kick off Internet Librarian!

Internet Librarian 2009 – woohoo!

It’s time again for my favorite conference: Internet Librarian. I’m excited to be in Monterey again, as I had to miss last year’s conference. I’m here early enough to attend LibCamp Monterey, which will be my first “unconference” experience. I’m looking forward to it!

I’ll also be presenting this year (another first for me) in the Operations on a Shoestring session on Wednesday at 2:45. I’ll be talking about free and cheap ways of using customer input and usability testing to improve website design. I’m a little nervous, but mostly excited. I’m not planning on live-blogging any sessions this year (tried it once – it’s not for me), but I will be posting notes and impressions periodically throughout the conference.

Reference: it’s not just for libraries, anymore

You know those ads for KGB? I avoid tv commercials as much as possible, but even I haven’t been able to miss these (full disclosure: I first noticed them because they feature Sean Gunn of Gilmore Girls fame). But every time I see them I have this little moment of frustration, thinking “This is just text-message reference, for a fee. Libraries do this for free.” Well, some libraries do, anyway, and that’s a problem.

Libraries traditionally have not been very nimble organizations – we don’t have the response speed we need when new technologies are developed, so we are slow to take advantage, even of those things that are right in our wheelhouse. Which means that while libraries are still struggling to get on board with SMS  and IM for reference, Aardvark is launching an iPhone app that allows people to ask questions of other users and get responses back within minutes. People are crowdsourcing questions on Twitter instead of calling their local library reference desk. As I pointed out awhile back, it doesn’t matter if we provide “better quality” or more authoritative answers if no one is using our services because there’s something quicker and easier that meets their needs.

Of course there’s a financial dynamic involved – it would be great if libraries could all afford to keep a developer on staff, creating apps and finding ways to adapt new technologies for library use, but that’s just not realistic. But I think the bulk of the problem is in our organizational culture. We are trying to adopt the new without making any sacrifices, and it won’t work. Trying to do everything just results in slow and cumbersome organizations. As leaders and managers, we need to prioritize those things that will keep our organizations relevant and able to serve effectively and efficiently in our communities, and make the tough decisions about what to let go.

Power to the People? Google introduces SideWiki

Yowza! I just came across the announcement for Google’s SideWiki, which appears as a browser sidebar and makes it possible for users to comment on any website. For those organizations that have been reluctant to engage with their customers via social media or are determined to control the conversation, guess what? Here’s another clear indicator that that ship has sailed. Customers can now enter comments at your site, whether you give them the means to do it or not. Hoo boy! (Although Sidewiki doesn’t appear to work for our City/Library website right now – I will have to investigate further).

What are the implications? Well, as Jeremiah Owyang points out:

Customers trust each other more than you –now they can assert their voices “on” your webpage. Every webpage on your corporate website, intranet, and extranet are now social. Anyone who accesses these features can now rely on their friends or those who contribute to get additional information. Competitors can link to their competing product, consumers can rate or discuss the positive and negative experiences with your company or product.

Yet, don’t expect everyone to participate –or contribute valuable content. While social technology adoption is on the rise, not everyone writes, rates, and contributes content in every location, likely those who have experienced the product, influential, or competitors will be involved. Secondly, content created in this sidebar may be generally useless. To be successful, Google will need it to look more like Wikipedia than YouTube comments

More reason than ever to engage with customers in every way you can. You can’t control the conversation, but you can participate.

As a sidenote, I was interested to see that Google is releasing this first for Firefox and IE, rather than Chrome. Are they shooting for widespread adoption right off the bat? Or is it because they’re working to integrate it more fully with the Chrome browser (it’s part of Google Toolbar for Firefox and IE)?  I will be very interested to see how this develops. [via Web Strategy]

Cool new app

Liaise is looking like a very cool new productivity app – a task management add-on for email. I know that doesn’t sound terribly exciting, but trust me – watch the demo! It’s in beta, and so far only available for Outlook, but has some very cool features. I’ve downloaded it and will post a review after I’ve spent some time with it. [via ReadWriteWeb]

A new style of leadership?

I came across a good interview with Clay Shirky, where he talks about how social media is creating a demand for new kinds of leadership. I’m not sure it’s the style of leadership that’s new; I think what’s new is the demand. Either way, there’s a shift happening. A couple of good quotes:

There’s a temptation among most managers to view social media tools and crowdsourcing as simply a sort of novel set of instruments, kind of like, “Oh, here are some new tools for us to get our job done.” But this isn’t just about laying our hands on some new tools. These crowds are people. …

It really does involve a degree of openness on the part of existing organizations that we haven’t seen before. In fact, if you’re a manager of a traditional organization looking for control, you will have trouble in this Web 2.0 environment. …

The other question about the new type of leadership is how to get a group of people to all agree that a shared vision is something they’ll pursue even if they don’t agree with every particular.

Go read the whole thing – it’s not too long. [via PopTech]

Corporate Culture and Motivation

I came across a couple of things today that really got me thinking. First is a slide deck that Netflix uses to help new employees grasp the company culture. I work in a government organization (public library) and not everything in this presentation is applicable to that environment (e.g. the way they handle compensation), but there are so many good ideas and practices here. Allow some time – it’s a long one:

I like the values they list. I like the emphasis on Freedom & Responsibility and the way they organize their company around that. I”ll be going back to this one multiple times, I’m sure, as there’s a lot to chew on. [via Black Coffee]

The other thing is this TED talk by Dan Pink.

I really enjoyed Pink’s book The Adventures of Johnny Bunko, and I’m nearly done with A Whole New Mind, which is also fantastic. He’s got a book on motivation, Drive, coming out in December. This talk keys off of some of the ideas from his new book, and it’s actually really good news for organizations like libraries that don’t have the ability/budgets to use traditional incentives (bonuses, etc.), and for companies that used to have the budgets but don’t anymore. Guess what? Those incentives don’t work! The alternatives  would require a major cultural shift for most libraries, but they are at least in the realm of possibility. Again, not all the examples are workable (you can’t eliminate schedules when you serve the public), but there’s enough to start some great discussions. Watch the talk – it’s 18 minutes long, but Pink is an engaging speaker and well worth a listen. Let me know what you think.

Quote of the day

Love this:

If you do something you are really interested in, it shows. It resonates. It bounces off the walls. – Chip Ransler [via Pop!Tech]