A perfect desktop...?

Forget Vista. Forget Macs. Ancient history, my friends. Check out this YouTube video from the Dynamics Graphics Project, a visual research paper "Pushing the desktop metaphor with Physics, Piles and the Pen in Bumptop". Its worth sticking to the end of this, as just keeps getting better...

Got sent this from a friend at Codemasters, with whom I've exhanged several conversations on Human Computer Interaction, with obvious reference to the Wii (something I was posting about a year or so ago as changing the interaction metaphor - and having now experienced, am increasingly driven to see this replace my mouse and/or pile of remotes). Coupling the two interaction tools together, a Wii remote with this virtual bumptop, is what I want to experience. Now. Please...

Reader development is so important...

We had a successful recording session today with the Future Librarians, where we discussed Reader Development and a modernised reader service. Will probably be a few weeks for it to be passed through the mill and get onto the podcasts page, so I'll post when it finally goes up.

I must admit to finding these podcasts a massively rewarding experience, mainly as an opportunity to hear such enthusiasm about our profession - doubly so it felt today around this topic. I am known for getting carried away with "my pet passions", and reader dev has always been one for me but I really feel strongly that reader dev is something the entire profession needs to be (and is, it appears) enthusing about.

If we are to present "a really brilliant reader offer", to engage both with users and non-users, to align with the whole "community agenda", it is by being passionate about reading. We have the opportunity, with the convergence of both technologies (Web2) and philosophy (Library2), to drive libraries into a position of dominance in the reading domain. I strongly feel the Talis Platform could be a key to this, and with the ideas exposed today, I am even more focussed on banging the drum in this area. So, keep listening...

Young Librarians of the Future podcast...

So, one of the things I've been up to in the last year is hosting my first podcast "Introducing the Future Librarians Gang" where we discussed current/pending issues in librarianship and the profession. This was something I thoroughly enjoyed, even if it was a tad nerve-wracking. Fortunately, the contributors were all fresh and dynamic (unlike my good self) and we've decided to make an irregular series of this. I'm just prepping for a second recording later this week, this time on reader development (a subject I get VERY passionate about as it was very close to me back in my "library days").

I'll keep people informed of progress through this blog, but hope to have this out in the next few weeks.

Clusty

Clusty offers good examples of both of faceting and tag clouds - worth a look to see how a fairly typical metasearch engine can offer a greatly enhanced user experience with a couple of well implemented tools. I like it.

Well, I'm back...

Nearly a year has passed since my last post. Why did I stop? Why am I starting again? What's happened in the last year?

I stopped because of a "mantra" I'm trying to apply to my work life - "maximum value, minimum effort". I got to a point where I was putting effort/time into blogging that I felt could be far more effective against the 1001 other things that Talis are doing.

I'm starting again cuz (a) of the effort of telling people this everytime I get an "ooo, you've not put anything on yer blog for a while..." is making me twitch (b) I now feel confident enough to not spend more than 5 mins on a post and (c) it's a good medium for exercising the old brain cells

As for whats happened in the last year, I'm sure I'll mention it at some point...