By Teresa Koltzenburg | Last week, Andy Bridges, from ALA's Washington Office, put together some summary information on the recently released
ALA TechSource Blog
By Teresa Koltzenburg | Wiki aficionados (as well as wiki newbies) interested in contributing to ALA's Midwinter Meeting 2007 Wiki are invited (strongly encouraged!) to do so at http://wikis.ala.org/midwinter2007/index.php/Main_Page.
By Tom Peters | Happy birthday to the ALA TechSource Blog, which turned one-year old today. My great colleague Lori Bell, of the Alliance Library System, commented to me that she thought my dog Max had emerged this year as my bona fide muse. I often think about library and information technology issues as Max and I take our daily, early morning walks through the neighborhood.
By Tom Peters | Despite or because of its runaway success, the iPod/iTunes service from Apple has more than a few critics and enemies. Some musicians and music companies don't like the strategy of ninety-nine-cent pricing. It smacks of the cheesy dollar-store marketing mindset.
By Teresa Koltzenburg | If you've ever visited the user-outreach Mecca that is the Ann Arbor District Library (AADL)—either physically or virtually—then it's likely no surprise to you that the winner of the Talis-sponsored "Mashing Up the Library" competition is none other than AADL's very own John Blyberg (also of blyberg.net).
By Michelle Boule | Every day companies are coming out with new tools to reach their users on the Web. Many companies have learned that rolling out products before they are completely formed—in beta or even in alpha mode—can save them development time and money. By giving their customers an early look at a product, companies are empowering customers to use the tool in new ways and are providing them with an opportunity to ask the company for functionality that product developers may never have considered.Companies in Beta
By Tom Peters | Wowio, an LLC based in York, Pennsylvania, recently launched a free downloadable e-book service. The company's collection at launch is pretty sparse, but it does include both public domain and copyright-protected e-books.
By Michael Stephens | A librarian colleague e-mailed me yesterday and asked about the libraries I'd visited this summer: "Which ones really had some cool things happen? Which ones were innovating?" Truth be told, there were many to choose from, like:
By Tom Peters | Soon after Google announced in late 2004 the collaborative project—currently called the "Google Books Library Project," involving the five research libraries of Stanford,