"The badge on the right is, IMHO, very cool. Run your mouse over it and click on an mp3 link to hear music. If you'd like to give your readers the ability to instantaneously hear the best of EM without leaving your own site, see these instructions." [Gary Robinson's Rants]

My EM badge is over at the bottom of the left-hand column. Mouse over it to check out how cool this service is! This is more for me than anyone else so that I can always access the list quickly and easily. This is a fantastic implementation that I'd love to learn more about.

Imagine having such a badge on your library's web site showing your top 10 reader recommended titles or most popular titles (all dynamically populated from your catalog or a database). What if we could combine statistics nationwide and each library could put a badge on its web site? Heck, it wouldn't even have to be a badge, but that would probably be the easiest to add into everyone's existing designs.

Andrew Drucker has provided some of the most interesting comments I've received yet about my Google Answers versus free libraries question. With his permission, I'm posting some of his comments in the hopes that my librarian readers will take them to heart. All emphasis is mine.

"I associate the local library with having a lot of books, I'm afraid I don't tend to associate it with highly knowledgable people. When I was young, it was the place I went to borrow my weekly allotment of reading.  When I was at University, it was the place you went to discover they only had 3 books between 60 of us on the course. Nowadays it's the rather nice looking building (2/3rds the way down this page: http://homepage.ntlworld.com/g.blaikie/american.htm) that's only open when I'm at work....

And I think you're right that libraries aren't advertised as helpful places that can help you find what you're looking for.  Librarians have more of a reputation as scary people who shush you.  And this is considering that one of my old university friends worked in a library for quite some time, helping tourists track down genealogies and historical details....

I like the idea of libraries very much - I think they're very important, to allow people that wouldn't otherwise have access to books to get access to a huge range of information.  It's just that largely they seem to be more trouble than the use I'd get out of them....

[Interlibrary loan is] partially an incentive, but (and I'm somewhat unusual in this, I know) I tend to buy my books solely online. I read reviews in magazines (real and virtual), make a note in my wants list and then do an Amazon order (or whoever is cheapest that week) and wait for them to deliver. If libraries had a similar service, I'd happily post books back (or drop them back in a slot, like Blockbuster allows).  In fact Blockbuster is a good example.  They're open late, I can just drop in and pick something up at 8pm and I can return the book at any time. I suspect that 'the books are free!' isn't enough of an incentive for me at the moment as I have a fair amount of money....

I wouldn't use it very often, but I'm sure that [remote database access] would be occasionally incredibly useful.  And like most conveniences, once you've used it a few times, you'll wonder how you ever did without it."

We need to pay attention to Andrew's perceptions because they are not unique. The great thing about this is that we could easily win back Andrew's patronage if we did a better job of marketing our services. For example, many libraries provide remote database access, bookdrops, live online reference services, and relaxed rules (eg, we've not going to break your bank over fines).

My home library is pretty small, but residents can access four databases online by just putting in their library barcode number. They also opened on Sunday nights from 5-9 p.m. and this has become one of their busiest times of the week. In fact, the Board just voted to make Sunday hours 4-8 p.m. all year round instead of just during the school year.

In addition, they got rid of the ridiculous rule that you couldn't renew a book over the phone. They let you bring food and drinks into the building, and they put in a drive-up bookdrop. They're talking with Audible about circulating MP3 titles, and they're subscribing to LearnATest.com (online practice exams) for their residents.

All in all, they're doing a much better job of reaching out to the community and making themselves more convenient. We're working on making them more portable (they also got a grant to start bookmobile service this year), but what they really need is a line item for professional marketing. Here's hoping.

"The finale of the Literacy Coalition of Palm Beach County's 'Read Together Palm Beach County' campaign Thursday night at the Watson B. Duncan Theater at Palm Beach Community College was about to collapse with a breep-breep-breep busy signal from author Ray Bradbury's home in Los Angeles.

But West Palm Beach Librarian Pam Smith called her reference desk. The reference librarian called the Los Angeles library. The L.A. librarian looked up Bradbury's phone number in the cross-reference directory, found his address, looked up his street, found a neighbor's phone number and called the neighbor, who then knocked on Bradbury's door and told him to hang up the phone.

'Librarians saved the day once again,' Smith told the amused audience.

Had not the librarians come through in the clutch, the audience would have missed the author of Fahrenheit 451 criticize the education system, rip television news and Jack Nicholson and label Who Wants To Be a Millionaire? the worst show on television....

Bradbury also told stories of how he wrote 451, a cautionary fable of a society that bans books, then sends firemen to root out and burn the books that have been hidden. He rented a typewriter in a typing room beneath the UCLA library for 10 cents for half an hour.

'I moved in the typing room with a bag full of dimes,' he said. Nine days and $9.80 later, the first draft was finished." [Palm Beach Post, via librarian.net]

"I'm so far not really impressed with the quality of answers on Google Answers. A lot of them either seem to hype products to answer questions, give one answer to complicated questions, or just miss the point. Granted, some of the questions suck terribly as well. But what do you expect? "researchers" have one hour between the time they claim a question and the time it needs to be answered. This leaves precious little room for calling or emailing other folks who might be able to help, and forget reference interviews. The interface -- see 25 questions, hit next for the next 25 -- is clunky already, what will it look like with 1,000 questions in the queue? My biggest issue though is the way anyone with a login has the same -ga appended to their handle [I am jessamyn-ga for example]. I would strongly urge a differentiation between researchers and question askers, even if it's just notation. And allowing comments at the same time as answers is like letting other people in line at the reference desk also answer your patron's questions. My prediction is that people bid low on questions and just scan their comments [for free] for answers, or hints of answers. I should be getting the OK to start in answering questions this week, I'll let you know how it goes." [librarian.net]

"If you saw the world through Steve Mann's eyes -- actually, through the glasses attached to his wearable computer -- you'd always have a computer display floating in your field of vision. As you walked across campus, you could simultaneously surf the Web or type notes using a handheld keypad. Or you could look at everything as a kind of television show, filtered through a video camera that brightened or darkened what you saw -- for easier viewing or just to suit your mood.

Mr. Mann, an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Toronto, was one of the first people to propose and develop "wearable computers," now a growing area of research at colleges around the world. He has also taken an unusually personal approach to his work, turning himself into a long-term experiment: For nearly 20 years, he has worn a computer-vision system nearly every waking moment, trying out his latest inventions and learning what it is like to live in the physical and virtual worlds at the same time.

His eyeglasses look like a prop from a science-fiction film. A mirror positioned over his right eye beams a video display into his retina. A digital video camera captures whatever he sees. Wires run from the glasses to a small computer concealed in a belly bag under his wool sweater.

This is an older version of his 'rig,' as he calls the wearable computer. His latest model is smaller and more discreet, fitted into a standard pair of sunglasses. But that machine was damaged by airport-security officials, he says, in a recent incident that has led him to sue the airline. Repairing the damage will take months, he says....

At the university here, Mr. Mann teaches a course on how to become a "cyborg," a term he uses to describe himself. A cyborg, short for "cybernetic organism," is partly organic and partly mechanical. The most famous fictional cyborg is probably Arnold Schwarzenegger's character in The Terminator.

The otherworldly term highlights Mr. Mann's belief that wearable computers are not just a new kind of gadget, but the beginning of a fundamental shift in the relationship between people and technology. Mr. Mann's custom-built computer is not just a tool, he says, but an extension of his perception, his memory, and his identity....

Mr. Mann has also developed software that lets his computerized vision system alter the world he sees. He has set his wearable device to detect billboard advertisements, for instance, and to wipe them out of his visual field....

The technology can also turn wearers into news broadcasters via the Web, sending out live images of anything they witness. Mr. Mann and his students have attended protests in Toronto while wearing their computers, allowing them to disseminate firsthand images of the events before local television stations do....

If you talk to Mr. Mann face to face, however, you cannot be sure whether he is looking at you or reading the latest computer news from an Internet discussion list. The experience can be off-putting, at least to those who are not accustomed to spending time with cyborgs.

But Mr. Mann points out that humans have adapted to other wearable technologies that must have seemed strange at first -- eyeglasses, wristwatches, and such. 'We've adapted to shoes and clothing,' he says. 'It seems reasonable that we should be able to adapt into a higher form of life that is with these kinds of machines....'

[Thad Starner] doesn't usually have a camera in his system. Instead, he uses his wearable computer much as he would his desktop PC -- to write papers and check e-mail. His current research deals with how to turn the wearable computer into a kind of 'personal butler,' automatically displaying information in response to audio cues. For instance, if you talk about scheduling a meeting with someone for next week, the computer might pull up your calendar....

Mr. Starner's wearable computer comes in handy during speaking engagements on other campuses, he says. As he meets colleagues, he can call up their research interests from the Web using a computer display on his eyeglasses and a small keypad. "They're very flattered that I know so much about them, or seem to," he says. "It makes you seem a lot more socially graceful than you are. It's really cool.' " [The Chronicle, via Lockergnome Bytes]

I wanted to quote more from this article because it's a fascinating look at Steve Mann and research in the area of wearable computers overall, but instead I'll encourage you to go read the whole thing yourself.

Potential benefits: talk about making library services portable! This goes well beyond the Knowmobile, even if you're just out in the stacks.

Potential hazards: I'm already a klutz, so I know I'd be walking into things left and right. Even worse would be drivers using these systems!

Of course, this would be really great in meetings....