Technology trends 2007
From PLN
Technology trends 2007
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Primarily material by Leslie Dillon (Leader's Digest)
Technology trends in general
Technology trends
The next-generation Net will “harness the power of people, making it even easier to zero in on precisely what you're looking for”.
Google and the other search engines still rely largely on matching keywords, but they’re trying “to get closer to matching the intent."
One reason search engines are adding social networking is “for sharing information within small groups.” The social-networking features will increase searchability of the content. For example, as people add tags to other people's video, you’ll get a set of “community-reinforced searchable attributes." (PC World)
Libraries’ Challenge: When search engines can give real answers (the added value that reference librarians regularly provide) and not just a list of URLs, libraries need to be able to add new value to their services.
Technology trends in higher education
One of my favorite reports every year is the Horizon Report from Educause. The report identifies key trends and describes six emerging technologies that are likely to impact higher education. It classifies these technologies into three "adoption horizons": one year or less, two to three years, and four to five years. Here's a brief summary of what they've said, but it's still worth your time to skim through the whole 32-page PDF.
Key trends:
- Dynamic knowledge creation and social computing tools are becoming more widespread.
- Mobile and personal technology will become delivery platforms.
- Consumers increasingly expect individualized services, tools and experiences.
- Collaboration is critical.
Technology areas:
- Social computing. Time to adoption: one year or less. One interesting aspect of this technology that enables interaction and collaboration is "shared taxonomies."
- Personal broadcasting. Time to adoption: one year or less. Campuses are already significantly impacted by podcasting and video blogging.
- Mobile phones. Time to adoption: two to three years. Delivery of educational content to cellphones is "just around the corner."
- Educational gaming. Time to adoption: two to three years. Research into gaming is increasing, and we're about to see "what games can really teach us."
- Augmented reality and enhanced visualization. Time to adoption: four to five years. These technologies "have the potential to literally change the way we see the world."
- Context-aware environments and devices. Time to adoption: four to five years. These environments become "transparently responsive to [their] human occupants."
More trends to watch in 2007
Information Today's Paula Hane has some more trends to watch, in case you don't have enough to keep your eyes on!
- Wiki growth in numbers and importance.
- More interesting and useful content and mashups.
- Ubiquitous "Widgets" (applets or gadgets).
- More mobile computing, including Web search.
- Increasing importance of video.
- Continued effect of Google as a disruptive force.
- Ongoing struggles by media companies to make money "in the Internet era without cannibalizing their existing products".
- Changing news production and distribution.
(Paula Hane, "Wrapping up 2006; looking ahead", Information Today NewsBreaks, Jan. 8, 2007.)
Content Industry Outlook: 2007
Shore Communications, which provides consulting and research services in the content arena has recently released a free report (20-page PDF) called Content Industry Outlook 2007: Reality Checks. It's an overview of major trends in the content industry aimed at buyers, sellers and facilitators of content and content technologies. Libraries buy and facilitate content; they also buy content technologies, so this report is of particular interest. Send the URL to your managers and plan a meeting to discuss it! Be careful, though, to heed Shore's warnings about copying on the cover page.
Significant points (and the library-related questions we need to ask)
- User-generated content (YouTube, etc.) will increase and further challenge traditional content. (How do libraries change their collection development practices to adapt to this new environment?)
- Mergers and acquisitions and "funding from private equity specialists will continue apace". (How will this trend affect libraries' decisions on ILS systems, aggregators, etc?)
- "[T]hose who can point to the world's content and put it in context are gaining the loyalty of today's audiences." (How will we fit libraries into this new model?)
- Enabling...social media [blogs, wikis, etc.]...will be a core element of publishers' future success. (What are your plans for enabling social media in your library?).
Key areas of focus in 2007
- Answers. There's a shift to services that provide answers rather than "collections of potentially interesting content." (Do library reference services provide the kind of answers our customers want, or do we just send them to the shelves or to links on the Web?)
- Audience. Look more carefully at how you reach your target audience. (Libraries need to go where their patrons and nonpatrons are.)
- Aggregation. What the report's talking about here is what we call collaboration: Wikis and other content technologies are allowing collaboration on custom content. (Libraries are experts on collaboration and on aggregation of information. Let's use the new social networking tools to extend our reach! How about building collaborative reference wikis? or contributing to or underwriting the accurate entries in Wikipedia--rather than telling our patrons not to use it--because they will anyway.)
- APIs. (Application Programming Interfaces) APIs are making "it easier than ever to tailor content services..." (Watch what leading libraries and consortia are doing here.)
Recommendations
(While the report's recommendations aren't aimed specifically at libraries, let's look at several from the library perspective.)
- "Rethink content licensing aggressively. The single most crying need for the publishing industry in 2007 is to rethink how it approaches...licensing".
- Listen to your customers.
- Look at ways to integrate content from social software (blogs, wikis, etc.) and premium databases.
(Shore Communications, Content Industry Outlook 2007: Reality Checks, Feb.8, 2007, 20-page PDF)
Tech trends for librarians 2007
Michael Stephens...sums up his list of trends for 2007 this way:
- Learn to learn
- Adapt to change
- Scan the horizon
"How does this impact libraries? A thread running through all of these trends is the idea that the general public to some degree has adopted tools and technologies that allow them to interact with media. This will not stop..."
The trends are:
- Conversations: People want to talk to each other. Web 2.0 tools encourage conversations.
- Convergence: Convergence is a process "distinguished by changing consumer flows through the media landscape" that changes existing relationships.
- Content: User-generated content. "Libraries can and should tap into this trend."
- Redefining LIS jobs: Duties of these new jobs "may include creating online tools for collaboration and creation, developing innovative programs, and serving as instructors and 'strategy guides' for users."
- Citizen journalism: (And their stories are everywhere, true or not.)
- We're human: People want to make connections.
- Openness & sharing: "Openness is the new trend...it's an open world... Sharing content, thoughts and ideas should be the norm."
- Participation: "The best libraries will recognize participation should carry over to their Web presence," e.g. tagging the library's resources.
- Experience & play: "Let's make this stuff fun."
(TameTheWeb, Feb 28, 2007.)
The world of Internet 2.0
Lee Rainie of the Pew Internet and American Life Project opened the 2007 Internet Librarian Conference with a talk on the world of Internet 2.0. As you might expect, “home and mobile media gadgets and omni-functional cell phones are major components of this emerging information landscape.” Here’s a high-level summary gleaned from Tom Peters’ post on the ALA TechSource blog:
- Nearly all teens and three out of four American adults now regularly use the internet.
- Online social networks are the dashboards for the social lives of teens.
- Approximately one of every five young adults has created an avatar in virtual worlds.
- In the minds of many, rating content...[is] perceived as an obligation to the online community.
To understand the meaning of all these developments, examine the Three A’s: Assets (gadgets), Actions, and Attitudes of these networked individuals.
Rainie divided technology users into nine groups, with non-users being the tenth group:
- Omnivores (8% of the U.S. population): They enthusiastically use everything related to mobile communications technology.
- Connectors (7%): This group, trending toward older females, really uses the communication aspects of these technologies.
- Lackluster Veterans (8%): They use the internet frequently, but are less avid about cell phones.
- Productivity Enhancers (8%): They have strongly positive views about how technology helps them increase their productivity at work and at home.
- Mobile Centrics (10%): They fully embrace the functionality of their cell phones, but don’t use the internet much.
- Connected But Hassled (10%): They find all this connectivity intrusive and information something of a burden. They often experience information overload.
- Inexperienced Experimenters (8%): These casual users occasionally take advantage of interactivity.
- Light But Satisfied (15%): They have some technology, but it does not play a major role in their lives. They love TV and radio.
- Indifferents (11%): They proudly proclaim that they don’t like this technology, but they begrudgingly use it a little.
- Off the Network (15%): They have neither a cell phone nor an internet connection. Older females dominate this group.
(Tom Peters, ALA TechSource blog, Oct. 29, 2007.)
- You might want to read a rant from a Lackluster Veteran who was dismayed to read about these derogatory names and to find Pew changing from observer to advocate in Perspective:Pew Do You Trust?
LITA top technology trends
Top Tech Trends from LITA
In case you'll miss LITA's Top Technology Trends panel at ALA Midwinter [2007], don't fret! Three of the panelists have already predicted open source ILS's and OCLC OPACs and ILS's. Here are a few more details.
Tom Dowling
- Increasingly radical rethinking of the catalog.
- Truly portable net access.
- Open source.
- DRM follies; the most common media player is an iPod but most content works on everything but iPods.
Karen Schneider
- Emergence of open-source ILS -- where the "ILS products are OCLC (for libraries that do not have the resources...) and an open-source ILS for nearly everyone else."
Sarah Houghton-Jan
- RSS goes mainstream
- OPAC from OCLC
- Reaching out online
- Web-based everything
(LITA Blog, Jan. 12-13, 2007.)
More LITA Top Technology Trends
Roy Tennant
- New catalog possibilities: OCLC and open source as OPACs.
- Open source goes mainstream: over 250 Georgia libraries are using an open source ILS they wrote themselves.
- Massive digitization means massive opportunities and massive challenges. Tennant doesn't claim to know all the implications for libraries and their users yet, but he urges us to think long and hard about this issue.
Eric Morgan
- Increasing availability of full-text data/information, presenting real opportunities and challenges for libraries.
- Repurposing existing staff to try to remain relevant.
- iPhones & friends are getting bigger and user expectations will change accordingly.
- Library catalogs are a hot topic, but is this something library patrons care about?
- Increasing vendor consolidation.
- Ubiquitous networking.
- Understanding of the advantages of XML is increasing.
- Accessibility issues caused by use of AJAX.
(LITA blog, Jan. 16 and 19, 2007. Here's a link to the 1 hour, 45 minute podcast of the LITA Top Tech Trends program.)
LITA Top Technology Trends
Some of the trends identified by the LITA Tech Trends experts at the recent ALA Annual [2007] should come as no surprise: open source proliferation and ease-of-use, next-generation catalogs and improved discovery (including going where our users are), social software and user-created content. In addition to those trends, I’ve included some others that I thought were worth your attention.
- Jeremy Frumkin (Gray Family Chair for Innovative Library Services, Oregon State University):
- Discovery-to-delivery (D2D): OCLC’s WorldCat local; the University of Rochester’s eXtensible Catalog project, Oregon State’s LibraryFind and a variety of vendor-based products. But despite “new and better technology to facilitate unified discovery, there is still the basic issue of the business models behind content provision to libraries.”
- Beyond D2D: Looking “at how users manipulate the information they acquire...Zotero is one example of a tool developed to address users’ abilities to store, organize, and use information.”
- New ways to interact with technology: Products like the “iPhone and the Nintendo Wii will start to drive user interface design and user experience beyond its current paradigm.” The keyboard/mouse monopoly may be challenged and the increase of new display technologies like e-ink/e-paper will help create new tools.
- (LITA blog, June 24, 2007.)
- Karen Coombs (Head, Web Services, University of Houston Libraries):
- Dominance of XML: Bottom line: if you’re a librarian who works with the web or in technical services, get fluent in XML.
- End user-created content: Who is taking responsibility for preserving the cultural memory of our society in digital format? Libraries need to think about capturing this content.
- More interactive, collaborative web: The web is dramatically changing the way we consume media.
- Digital as the format of choice: More and more users prefer and expect to get their content in digital format. Libraries need to be ready to deliver digital content.
- Line between desktop and web applications obliterated: Desktop applications have hit the web, e.g.,Google Docs & Spreadsheets, etc.
- (LITA blog, June 20, 2007 and [http://litablog.org/2007/07/02/top-technology-trends-ala-annual-2007-part-3/ podcast, LITA blog, July 2, 2007.)
- Sarah Houghton-Jan (Information & Web Services Manager, San Mateo County Library, CA ):
- Concept of the Commons evolves and integrates: Social software (think Wikipedia) is creating information commons. For libraries, the question is: how do we access and advertise the information commons to our constituents?
- Turning online stalking of our users into online “pushing”: It’s not enough just to go where our users are; we need to push out new information and alerts to them, linking calendars, images, videos, podcasts to these presences.
- Libraries accept third party applications: Libraries need to link to and advertise the wealth of free, 3rd-party applications (e.g., LibraryThing, Library LookUp) that can enhance our users’ experiences.
- (LITA blog, June 20, 2007.)
- Marshall Breeding (Director for Innovative Technologies and Research, Heard Library, Vanderbilt University):
- Truly redefined library automation industry: Major changes among ILS vendors are and will continue to be disruptive for libraries.
- (podcast, LITA blog, June 28, 2007.)
- John Blyberg (Head, Technology and Digital Initiatives, Darien Library, CT):
- New methods of materials handling: We need to look at RFID and other new technologies to accommodate changes demanded of us to support the distribution model of the long tail.
- New interoperability: ILS vendors will need to decouple OPACs from the rest of their systems and enable systems to talk to each other.
- (podcast, LITA blog, June 29, 2007.)
- Karen Schneider:
- OPACs: Lots of “tinkering with the catalog.” The goal of this tinkering is to improve discovery, but Endeca isn’t necessarily “the sine qua non of reinvented discovery.”
- Broader trends: Others are extending “into realms we traditionally thought of as ours.”
- (Free Range Librarian, June 15, 2007.)
- Meredith Farkas (Distance Learning Librarian, Norwich University VT):
- Capitalizing on user contributions: Shining examples of this important trend: Ann Arbor District Library, Hennepin County Public Library and the University of Pennsylvania.
- Social software--sustainably: Social software initiatives need to be maintained. There’s a “huge number” of abandoned library blogs out there.
- Going where our users are or letting them use our stuff where they want it: A lot of libraries have created profiles on MySpace, but the “really effective MySpace library profiles are designed to be another branch of the library.”
- (LITA blog, June 15, 2007.)
The rest of ALA Annual 2007
- Editor's Note: There were a couple of others present at the Annual 2007 LITA Top Tech Trends. Since one of them was your Director & Managing Editor, I'm taking this prerogative to include additional notes from the LITA Blog as reported by LIS student Heidi Pettitt
- Walt Crawford (creator of Cites & Insights)
- Privacy still matters. Before we throw away confidentiality we need to consider if users really want us to be Amazon; federal datamining
- Slow Library movement. Locality, library is part of the community; mindfulness, think not just do; Open source where open source works
- Public library as publisher. Larger libraries are already doing so and tools exist that make this practical
- Joan Frye Williams (Independent consultant)
- End user focused technology. Currently adopting technology as a retrofit rather then utilizing it to its full potential (ex. Cell phone as phone or cell phone as MP3 player, camera, text, etc.); fear of “I’m afraid they won’t love me if it’s too easy” and “Will there still be a library if I do this?”
- Abdicating development responsibilities
- The principle of self organizing systems. Designing computing environment that can learn from itself; tendency to create something and then never change/update/evolve it
Related articles
- Technology trends covers more recent trends
- Why look at open source now? helps you get up to speed on open source as a key to future library innovation
- From open stacks to open source - Joe Lucia offers insight on why open source is important for libraries, here and in part of Open source trends, a PLN Challenge.
- Future catalogs: food for thought offers a visionary set of future possibilities for the "catalog."
- Wikis and libraries - A quick introduction for library leaders.
