Whoo-hoo! LibraryU gets a mention in both Interesting Research Stuff and Library Stuff! Guess we've got some good "stuff"....

o'neil dash voices my thoughts about Palm. It truly is a shame.

"Continuing in the vein of companies trying desperately to lose their markets to Microsoft, take a look at Palm. They had a tremendous, overwhelming dominance of the handheld OS market, and their current share of the market for new handheld sales is a little over 50%. They seem hell-bent on throwing away a market they singlehandedly resurrected with the original Palm Pilots....

Now the big thing that Palm is trying to push is their Palm OS 5. Besides being fully buzzword-compliant, the new OS features the stunning new innovation of Broken Backwards Compatibility. Yes, the only advantage Palm has, its broad range of useful, well-written apps, is being thrown in jeopardy. Granted, the existing Palm OS is such a piece of crap that it's a necessary step at some point. But these are the sorts of decisions that ex-CEOs long regret."

"ActiveBuddy has added five new AIM bots, of various levels of usefulness. ELLEgirlBuddy for teen girl stuff; TattleTeller for Oscar®-related news and gossip; AgentReuters for news and stock quotes; NoBoundariesTV as a tie-in to the useless WB "reality" show that seems to focus around Ford trucks; and My eBay Buddy for, well, make a guess. Fair warning: They're all beta." [MeFi]

I'd still like to write a grant to test if something like this could be an electronic "library greeter." Or maybe it could remind users of upcoming library programs, overdue notices, and new materials. Opt-in, of course.

Just a few posts into my return and already I'm encountering pauses trying to work with the new titles feature in Radio. I advocated this and I applaud it, but now I have to return to my journalism roots and remember how to create good titles. Throwing the Google It macro into the mix makes it even more difficult. It's a cross between copy editing for news, PR for selling an item, and cataloging all rolled up into one. And how to decide which posts need titles and which don't? Do I go for witty and clever or useful and search-oriented?

Very strange indeed.

Disingenuous Comments from Michael Eisner by Tim O'Reilly

"These entertainment and publishing industry executives are either being disingenuous or are ignorant of both technology and history. The software industry faces exactly the same conditions that the entertainment industry fears will destroy its markets. Software is digital, easily and perfectly copyable, and pirated copies are in fact available through a variety of illicit channels, but that hasn't kept companies like Microsoft from going on to become among the largest and most successful in the world....

Entertainment and publishing companies need to embrace the future and offer digital products at a reasonable price, using business models that will grow the market for everyone. If Congress bows to their short-sighted fears and mandates strong copy protection and technological barriers that punish legitimate users along with pirates, we will all be poorer as a result. " [via Sam Ruby's Radio Weblog]

Tim is right that the entertainment industry is not the first to encounter this problem. As others have pointed out, book publishers and photocopy machines go way back in this area. In libraries, we put a standard written disclaimer on our photocopy machines, and the overwhelming majority of folks don't abuse this service. Did I see some people copying more than fair use allows when I was at a public desk? Sure. Did it bring down the publishing industry? No.

Same thing with cassettes, CDs, videos, DVDs, software, magazines, and newspapers. Libraries are incredible bargains for the amount of material they offer, but that doesn't preclude markets for all of those materials. To paraphrase, the only thing the entertainment industry has to fear is fear itself.

Yikes - two in one night. Now here's Bird on a Wire as yet another site for cataloging blogs. Folks, this would be so much easier with meta tags. During my one whole hour on the internet last week, I think I scanned a headline about someone adding meta tags in Radio. I'll search for it, but if you have the cite, please let me know! [via More Like This Weblog]

Cool - Library Journal has compiled its first ever list of Movers & Shakers in our field. Lots of great names doing lots of great work. Those unlucky enough to not be librarians should see yet again Why You Should Fall to Your Knees and Worship a Librarian. Other articles of interest in the current issue include:

• An LJ Round Table with the Aggregators - about "the rapidly growing popularity of aggregated article databases," a trend that ihas parallels to what is happening with personal newsl, thanks to tools such as Radio.
• Benton: Feds Retreat from Fighting the Digital Divide - "Over one half of the people who use the Internet at public libraries are under [age] 25."
• eAudio Takes Off in King County - "The system had over 1200 reserves in January" for the Audible MP3 titles on the librarys' 370 MP3 players!
• B&T Enters E-Book Market with eContent Distribution - they're looking for a summer launch of eContent Distribution (eD) operation service.
• The Digital Librarian Shortage - "It's difficult to find librarians who are conversant with technology and who also are willing to work at the salaries we offer."

Globe of Blogs is similar to The Pepys Project, in that it's trying to organize blogs by location, title, author, birthday, and sex & age. Hmmmmm... I guess we'd need some new Dublin Core meta tags for these, eh? It hasn't gotten much further along than Pepys, but at least people are thinking about this topic. [via MeFi]

Before I go any further tonight, I want to highlight the exemplary staff and service at the Phoenix Public Library. I didn't go to Phoenix for the PLA conference, but I did take the opportunity to check out the Mesquite branch near the hotel and to visit the main library downtown.

First of all, thanks to Yvonne for letting a non-resident get on one of the Internet terminals. A lot of librarians put up barriers to using the library's services, but in Phoenix I experienced a "yes" mentality several times. That's great customer service.

More thanks to Anne at the Burton Barr Library for answering all of my questions and letting me play with their intranet. Their webmaster is doing some great stuff, and Anne clued me in to it.

And final thanks to Marijo for answering my standard question with a great answer. Not only does it sound like PPL is a great place to work, but she detailed how the Acacia branch is beginning a project to use GIS to literally map oral histories from the area. Exciting stuff!

No wireless access (at least, not yet), but they've got a great Web site, remote database access, multimedia content, and a rocking Teen Central. They "get" teens, so I hope wireless access, MP3s, and reference chats are on the horizon.

After eight glorious days in Phoenix, it's time to return to the online world. Yes, I was on vacation from everything, and wonderful it was. I'm trying to play catch up, so I'll start posting actual content in a little while, but for now I'm checking out the new Title and Google It macros in Radio. Well done, Userland! That's one small step for Radio publishers, and one giant leap for Radio blog readers.