It’s a bit past the peak time for predictions for 2007, but I thought I’d chime in with my picks for some of the top tech trends for libraries to pay attention to this year.
Going Green | Global Warming, energy efficiency, and renewable resources are going to be hot topics, I’m betting even more so than last year. Libraries will have to add more books and resources for the DIYer looking to go green. Workshops on installing solar systems could be popular programs especially as states add more tax incentives and local governments reduce permit costs. Library facilities will also be able to take advantage of LED lighting, reduce energy vampires, and take advantage of new technologies like solar. Before long, I imagine that all government building construction in California will be required to be green. It’s smart policy and it’s political gold right now.
2. The WebOS | Documents, settings, and applications anywhere. The virtual operating system works through a browser through a set of scripts that emulate a computer environment. If library computers have enough oomph, and a little internal know-how, virtual desktops might be a way for libraries to leverage their resources and collections, virtual scripting handling chat, word processing, spreadsheets, integrated catalog searching and even web browsing.
3. Degraded Privacy | Corporate datamines, hackers, spyware and Uncle Sam all collecting even more information. It’s probably time to steel ourselves and our library users to the fact that a lot of what happens online is collected and archived (not by libraries I hope). To lessen the impact we’ll have to educate ourselves about what to do when we find out that our information has been compromised. Preparing Privacy Breech emergency kits just like earthquake emergency kits might be good have on hand.
4. eBooks | With 500 lb gorillas like Sony and Google getting solidly behind ebooks, I’m betting we’ll see some major deals and major initiatives to do for ebooks what the iPod did for music, making it cheap, portable, and easy to use. All it’s going to take is a major publisher with major authors to be bought by the right people. Where are libraries in this? It would be nice to see if libraries could get a seat at the table when it happens.
There are a few more but I’ll post them later.
