Wednesday, July 11, 2007

if the nytimes says it's so...

I just ran across this article from the NYTimes: A Hipper Crowd of Shushers

Interesting that it's from the Fashion Section...

Monday, July 9, 2007

Transforming your library with technology

Here's a link to Lori Bowen Ayre's blog about her presentation at ALA:
http://www.galecia.com/weblog/mt/archives/000268.php

From there you can access PowerPoints and/or a podcast of the presentation.

Monday, July 2, 2007

wait on iPhone

One toy we don't need to worry about for now in Montana is the iPhone. And that's because it uses the AT&T (was Cingular) wireless network. A quick look at their coverage viewer shows that Montana only has partner coverage.

And, even if you buy the AT&T wireless plans but try to use it too much in Montana, your service can be terminated.

From the AT&T website popup box about Coverage Legend Terms:

"PARTNER: The areas shown as an orange stripped pattern represent the coverage of unaffiliated carriers and should have sufficient signal strength for on-street or in-the-open coverage, but may not have it for in-vehicle coverage or in-building coverage. Excessive use of Partner coverage may subject your service to early termination, in accordance with your service terms. Data services may not be available. "

So the bad news is we can't be a part of the iPhone craze. The good news is we can save the $499 to $599 retail price to use for something else. Perhaps we'll have coverage in Montana by the time the 2nd or 3rd generations come out.

Text Messaging and Reference

It seems like there are many challenges to offering customers reference via text. How do you have a cell phone number that everyone can check? How can staff constantly monitor text messages? And of course we can forget the issues of money and time (or lack thereof).

The Southeastern Louisiana University Library may have found a solution to at least some of these problems. Check out the following link from the "ALA Tech Source Blog" about the way this library implemented text messaging for students. http://www.techsource.ala.org/blog/2007/06/can-u-txt-the-lbry.html

Of course before implementing anything like this, you need to think about whether or not your customers will want this service. However more and more people (especially young people) are texting these days. Why not give them another way to reach the library?