Monthly Archives: February 2008

CLIR workshop on Future of Academic Libraries

Posted by on February 28, 2008 2 comments

Am just back from a very interesting workshop at CLIR where a group of about 20 people discussed the future of academic libraries, launching the discussion with a set of prepared essays from eight of us. Too much was discussed …

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Vanquishing vanishing Berries

Posted by on February 25, 2008 No comments

John Berry’s opinion piece on the Vanishing Librarians has created a tornado of hot air on JESSE, a discussion list for educators in LIS. Most are reacting to his trotting out of the tired argument about LIS schools being ‘invaded’ …

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Clinton and Obama in Texas

Posted by on February 22, 2008 No comments

I had the pleasure of attending the debate here on campus last night (one of the privileges of being dean) and was most impressed with both candidates – their intelligence and ability to debate on their feet in front of …

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IA Summit 2008 and the Third iConference

Posted by on February 20, 2008 No comments

Registration is closing soon for what must now be the 9th summit (not bad for an idea that was supposed to be the basis of a one-off hot topic meeting for ASIST in Boston in 2000). I’ve not attended the …

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Innovation diffusion at work: HD DVD dies before our eyes

Posted by on February 19, 2008 18 comments

When I used to teach students the classic innovation diffusion model of Rogers, I would try to bring up examples of technologies that were more meaningful to them than the agrarian and medical techniques that fill the textbook. The potato …

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The poverty of user-centered design

Posted by on February 7, 2008 32 comments

In the dim distant past, some of us used to distinguish our work from the masses by declaring proudly that we were ‘user-centered’. At one time this actually meant you did things differently and put a premium on the ability …

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