I've been more than remiss in noting that Jim sent me a pointer to visual.net's new map for PubMed. My demo disc from VN arrived while I was on vacation and I haven't had a chance to play with it yet. Unfortunately, I am so freaking swamped at work right now that I probably won't have time to do so until April (separate apology to Buzz, too), but I definitely plan to get to it [both] soon. I find these visual maps fascinating, and I'd love to incorporate them into the re-designed SLS site, as well as VIC, IGI, and more (as noted in a previous post).

For the record, I'm complex, not disorganized. Please strike all references to "messy desks" from my past and future work evaluations.

"But why do we pile documents instead of filing them? Because piles represent the process of active, ongoing thinking. The psychologist Alison Kidd, whose research Sellen and Harper refer to extensively, argues that "knowledge workers" use the physical space of the desktop to hold "ideas which they cannot yet categorize or even decide how they might use." The messy desk is not necessarily a sign of disorganization. It may be a sign of complexity: those who deal with many unresolved ideas simultaneously cannot sort and file the papers on their desks, because they haven't yet sorted and filed the ideas in their head. Kidd writes that many of the people she talked to use the papers on their desks as contextual cues to "recover a complex set of threads without difficulty and delay" when they come in on a Monday morning, or after their work has been interrupted by a phone call. What we see when we look at the piles on our desks is, in a sense, the contents of our brains." [at The New Yorker, via MeFi]

Oh, and it talks about Melvil Dewey ("the anti-Walt Whitman"), his Library Bureau ("essentially the Office Depot of his day"), and vertical files. I really have to find time to read the rest of this book someday, as I think I've become a Gladwell groupie.

Dorothea isn't a librarian, but she should be. Check out her take on Baker & Taylor's ED.

Steven ups his good karma quotient, but I'm curious to know why the Atlanta-Fulton PLS didn't try to interlibrary loan the title for him. And yes, this story did make me happy.  :-)

"Why doesn't Outlook send an SMS every morning summarizing the schedule for the day and pending tasks, and a reminder SMS as scheduled meetings approach? Why doesn't Muvico send an SMS every Friday morning with a list of new releases and possibly their schedules? There are countless ways that businesses could "reach out" to consumers via SMS, providing desired information in an acceptable manner....

Of course, such services are readily subject to abuse. Mobile Spam is the last thing that consumers want, on any continent. A safer approach might be for the phones themselves to provide functionality for "subscribing" to information on the Internet and downloading it on a scheduled basis. Think of it as offline WAP. Avantgo essentially does that on most PDA platforms, I imagine that they can easily support SmartPhone (Palm-based phones are already supported)." [Bryce's Radio Experiments, circuitously via ...useless miscellany]

I agree with Eric that Bryce eyes the nail squarely before he hits it on the head. However, I don't think we'll reach that end via this route. I think faster wireless speeds will be a reality before Americans ever truly embrace SMS or IM on their cell phones in large numbers. (Poor cell phone usability will probably keep hindering us for some time.)

That means information will be the big pull, not just messaging. As you already know, I think information is already shifted and promiscuous, and anyone under the age of 25 (plus a heck of a lot of the rest of us) will start expecting our hand-picked news to come to us this way.

Not everything, mind you. If I subscribe to 100 channels in my news aggregator, I should be able to prioritize six to eight of them to come to my phone, too. And when I say phone, I mean the eventual phone/PDA combo. Bryce is right that synching with Outlook will overcome the largest barrier to widespread adoption of these combination devices. When I have my always-on connection, this is what I want to have in my mobile news aggregator at any given time (in addition to my calendar, my contacts, each family member's schedule, and access to email):

• The schedule at my local movie theater
• The weather forecast (especially storm alerts)
• Library Stuff and LIS News (so I can browse them while standing in line somewhere)
• The Illinois library news channel (after we create this, of course)
• My local library's programs
• Current announcements from my kid's school (especially school closings)
• Headlines from my local newspaper
• The NY Times News Tracker
• Frame-by-frame Dilbert and Overdue (okay, I'm reaching here, but it'd be cool)

Basically a mix of news, schedules, and announcements that I choose. I do think that filtering information through news aggregators could be the next major step in harnessing information (a natural evolution after the PC and the internet). That's what Radio is doing for me already. Making it mobile and accessible from anywhere completes the information shift circle.

Maybe I'm the only one that wants this and it won't happen, but I'll snap it up as soon as the tools are available and useful (probably before they're even useful). I already try to screw my round PDA and round cellphone into this square mobile information hole. I think AvantGo became impatient (or is lacking the funding to wait) and are shooting themselves in the foot by weeding out the smaller channels. Those are the ones I want to be able to pull in wirelessly from anywhere, especially the ones I can localize (like the schools). Add voice synthesizing into the equation so that I can hear my mobile news aggregator and location-based services of my choosing and you're reeling me in even faster.

That's the kind of value-added, wireless service for which I would pay extra. However, there isn't even an infrastructure for this yet, let alone a well-constructed interface. Instead, the telcos are too busy focusing on keeping me on their approved sites, showing me what they want me to see, all of which stifles my desire to use their services. The lure has always been choice (AOL vs. the internet), and news aggregation fulfills that promise in the mobile environment. SMS won't be able to fill those shoes because it leaves you scrolling through multiple messages and your inbox becomes cluttered like your emailbox.

I'm becoming more and more convinced of the power of RSS aggregation as a tool in the war against promiscuous information overload.

Score one for the Toronto Public Library. Their SmallBizXpress service looks pretty spiffy, and it lets you personalize the page, too (something we're investigating doing at SLS). I also like how the TPL advertises their Ask a Librarian email reference service. Not only do they break it down into request forms for Adults & Teens and Kids up to Grade 6, but the tag line for the service is "Email a question and receive an answer within 24 hours? AMAZING!" Nice thinking on their part, since most email reference sites take the opposite tact and sternly warn users that they'll be lucky to get an answer in 24-48 hours and even then there's no guarantee. Not to mention that their site is top-notch all the way around in terms of usability, legibility, navigation, use of color, and room for white space. Nice job, TPL! [via WEB4LIB]

"In addition to all the fantastic XML news sources that Radio can bring you, now for the first time, direct from the source, we are proud to offer fresh headlines from The New York Times, every hour, on the News Aggregator page in Radio UserLand." [via Scripting News]

Now that it's official, I'm going to capitalize all of the letters in the word wow, bold it, italicize it, and even change it's color.  WOW!  Check out what you can subscribe to now, straight from the horse's mouth.

 1. Arts  

 2. Books  

 3. Business  

 4. Dining and Wine  

 5. Education  

 6. Fashion and Styles  

 7. Front Page  

 8. Health  

 9. Home and Garden  

10. International  

11. Movies  

12. National  

13. New York Region  

14. Opinion  

15. Politics  

16. Science  

17. Sports  

18. Technology  

Hey librarians, go back and read #2 again - BOOKS! Every time you hear someone use the phrase "the slippery slope," it's in a negative context. For some reason though, I want to apply it to this Userland-NYT partnership. Hopefully this is just the beginning of a coming landslide of direct, professional journalism feeds congregating hourly in my news aggregator. It's the perfect complement to the blogged commentary that's already appearing there, so I'm glad a BigCo finally woke up to this! Who do I have to talk to at American Libraries and Library Journal to get this party started?

Oh and by the way, between this announcement and their recent implementation of the Times News Tracker Alert, I hereby declare the NY Times to be officially shifted! (You folks know it's a given that Userland is shifted, right?)

Mike: "I'm disappointed to see that my favorite character of all time, Phineas from A Separate Peace, isn't on the list. I guess librarians would just laugh if I told them. Damn Librarian elitists."

Just for the record, this list wasn't compiled by librarians, even though the magazine says it was put together by a "panel of experts." I just knew we'd have fun debating it. Also for the record, I agree with Mike 100%. How can Phineas not be on this list?! The full list with short commentaries and factoids for the top ten is at http://www.bookmagazine.com/issue21/100best.shtml . (Hint: if you want to read the whole article, call your local public library and ask them for it.)

Also, check out Mike's blog because he's doing some interesting educational things with it (and in only two days, I might add). PDF flashcards in addition to links for studying for an upcoming test. I don't know if this will remain the focus of his blog, but it's pretty cool.

Dave's been hinting at a big announcement for tomorrow, and the Scottish Lass thinks she knows what it is - News feeds from the New York Times and therefore supplying the infrastructure for 'big' content players to follow...should they choose to. And she's gone digging in Radio to prove it. I know this is the kind of ditto-head post everybody hates, but all I can think of to say is "wow!" Could this finally be the tipping point for news aggregation?

If it's true, I'm going to have every library on the bandwagon in no time. This is what I've been harping on newspapers to do online, so I hope the New York Times has indeed been smart enough to partner with Userland to provide this service.