Disruptive Library Technology Jester's Thursday Threads |
Thursday Threads: Looking Backwards and Looking Forwards Posted: 29 Dec 2011 11:42 AM PST As the last DLTJ Thursday Threads of the year, the stories in this post look back to what we saw in 2011 and look forward to what we may see in 2012. Looking backwards is a list of five things we learned about publishing from O’Reilly Media and Google’s 3-minute Zeitgeist video. Looking forward are a list of predictions from Fast Company and from the National Endowment for Science Technology and the Arts in the UK. At this high point when 2011 is slowing and we start down the hill of 2012, I wish you a happy and prosperous new year. Feel free to send this to others you think might be interested in the topics. If you find these threads interesting and useful, you might want to add the Thursday Threads RSS Feed to your feed reader or subscribe to e-mail delivery using the form to the right. If you would like a more raw and immediate version of these types of stories, watch my FriendFeed stream (or subscribe to its feed in your feed reader). Comments and tips, as always, are welcome. Five things we learned about publishing in 2011
I think we can add a sixth thing: The relationship between libraries and publishers is no longer a passive one. Although libraries and publishers were always intertwined, this year we saw more stories where they came head-to-head (HarperCollins/OverDrive and Authors Guild versus HathiTrust) and side-by-side (Douglas County’s Ebook Lending). I expect we will see this trend continue in 2012. Google’s Year in Review- Zeitgeist 2011: Year In Review, Google Within the frame of Google’s newly launched Google+ project, this three minute video provides a perspective on the top news stories of the year. 10 Bold Tech Predictions For 2012
A couple things for libraries to watch in this list. I don’t know if eBooks will dominate, but they will certainly become more prevalent. The first quarter 2012 sales for ebooks will be interesting because many people are expecting a bump in sales that corresponds with e-reader gifts. (Helped, no doubt, by the introduction of the new Kindle models late in the year.) Look for libraries to publish statistics of lending as well, although one wonders how much “head room” is left in the lendable collections after the last surge of e-reader sales. Given that budgets in libraries — and the cities/states/universities over them — tend to lag the business world, I’m not sure that IT spending in libraries will increase although there is some infrastructure that really needs to be updated. And personally I think libraries should punt on the whole Android versus iOS debate and design for a mobile, HTML5-based world. 12 predictions for 2012
This list comes from the National Endowment for Science Technology and the Arts in the U.K., so I think some of the predictions are specific to that country (the mobile wallet prediction, in particular), but I believe most of these are pretty general for the U.S. as well. |
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