Comments for Krafty Librarian

Comment on The iPad and Thoughts On Usage in Libraries and Hospitals by KraftyLibrarian

KraftyLibrarian — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 16:46:31 +0000

I am not frustrated by a lack of Flash for gaming, I am frustrate that when I go on places like SlideShare, I can view the slides. I am crossing my fingers that HTML5 will solve the Flash issues, along with other platform/software dependent web issues. However until I see it in action, I don’t know for sure if it will. I use the video and multimedia part of my iPhone a lot. It is my computer when I am away from work or my house.
Over here we watch medical videos on the iPhone because our multimedia is block, so the 3G (when it is working) is quite helpful. The people who watch them on their phones fall primarily into two camps: 1. They are looking for something quick that they can later watch off campus at their computer 2. They are showing somebody else something and the iPhone is the only thing that can get multimedia here (because were it is blocked by IT). Personally, I use it to watch videos all the time. When I was in an hour long line with my sons to get the H1N1 shot I downloaded several movies to entertain them. We have used it on plane trips for the same reason. I could use a laptop or DVD player but when you are carrying kid junk with you it is simply easier travel with my iPhone and my old video iPod with some movies preloaded. Those small things are much easier to schelp around than laptop and DVD player.
I am still waiting for city wide wifi. I won’t say it will never happen but I don’t think it will happen as soon as everybody keeps predicting. I also wonder if it is going to be like the airport wifi, pay to play.
Nothing is wrong with EPUB, but people need to know the format is different from Amazon’s format. I think McGraw getting into the EPUB side of things will eventually lead us to more medical titles online…but who knows.
Finding a Mac might be easier in academic medical setting but I still honestly believe Macs won’t/don’t fly in large way in hospital settings. Yeah the have Citrix fro the iPhone but when I have IT tell me “The iPhone is a great personal device, but is not suitable for our institution at this time.” (Yes they did use itallics for personal device.) IT went on to tell me that only approved Blackberry devices were allowed access to institutional email. I just wanted email, not patient information and they won’t even allow email to iPhones. The new 4Corners software (by Citrix) that many hospitals use for secure access is not compatible with Macs! If Macs were widely used in hospitals, you wouldn’t have a secure access software program that doesn’t work on them.

I completely agree that Apple will change the market. I just think it will be indirectly because I honestly and truly don’t see hospital IT departments having Macs in any great quantity in hospital.

Comment on The iPad and Thoughts On Usage in Libraries and Hospitals by Paul Levett

Paul Levett — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 15:15:40 +0000

I thought the future was supposed to be contextual delivery of information at point of need as in this promotional video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V35Kv6-ZNGA

In Higher Education wouldn’t it be great if students were issued an RFID sticker at the start of term to affix to their iPad, and when they enter a lecture hall they could hold up their iPad to a sensor by the door that would trigger automatic downloading of notes and full text readings to accompany the lecture. iPad has the screen real estate, and it’s good to read McGraw-Hill are on board, but we need the apps to make contextual delivery a reality.

Comment on The iPad and Thoughts On Usage in Libraries and Hospitals by leavesamark

leavesamark — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 21:33:53 +0000

Apple is skating to where the puck is going to be, not where it’s at now. Sure, Flash is everywhere now, but HTML5 will make it unnecessary for portables. Flash also gobbles CPU cycles and energy. This is fine for your desktop, not so great on a portable, where battery power is critical. The lack of Flash games on the iPhone doesn’t seem to have put a crimp in iPhone game sales.

I don’t watch videos on my iPod Touch because I want to enjoy the large, wide screen. I do that at home on my 46 inch plasma. The Touch and the iPad will be used for casual viewing while in airplanes or waiting in the doctor’s office. A future iPad might come out with a 16:9 ratio, but undoubtedly people will complain that “it’s too big.”

Another aim toward the future: wifi will become ubiquitous, at least in metropolitan areas. The much slower 3G will only be used when you’re in a car or the middle of nowhere. (And note that no contract for AT&T is required for the iPad.) Many colleges already have campus-wide wifi coverage, and more are planning for such.

The EPUB format is a free and open standard, not proprietary like the Amazon Kindle. Given the price, size and excellent display of the iPad, publishers will be falling over themselves adapting their textbooks for iPad sales. Sure, few to no medical texts are available now, but that’s not the future. By the way, the free app Stanza reads EPUB, so publishers don’t need to write apps, only distribute in EPUB.

Finding a Mac in a hospital is easy, if you include iPhones, the smartphone of choice for residents. The Citrix Receiver app allows Windows applications to be run on the iPhone, and Citrix Receiver will even run Windows 7 on the iPad, with their XenDesktop program. Lots of hospitals use Citrix. Today’s residents who use iPhones will become tomorrow’s chiefs, who want to use iPads, and IT will change their policies.

I’ve read a lot of geek blogs, where people complain about features that Apple didn’t include on the iPad, because that’s what they want now. Apple has consistently ignored the pressure of “now,” and has innovated for “then.” Consider the following advances that Apple introduced (not necessarily invented), all of which were followed by other companies: mouse, WYSIWYG, 3.5 inch floppies, built-in networking, SCSI, PostScript, laser printers, dropping SCSI, Firewire, USB, dropping 3.5 inch floppies, trackpad, etc.

Don’t underestimate the ability of Apple to change the market. Two and a half years ago there were no iPhone or iPod Touch users. Today there are over 75 million.

Comment on Apple Expanding Into Healthcare? by The iPad and Thoughts On Usage in Libraries and Hospitals « Krafty Librarian

Wed, 03 Feb 2010 19:19:53 +0000

[...] believe the platform and applications for healthcare is going to be the biggest hurdle. I said it once before, finding a Mac in a hospital is about as rare as finding a vegetarian in Outback Steakhouse. [...]

Comment on Library Passwords On Facebook by KraftyLibrarian

KraftyLibrarian — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 17:19:01 +0000

Sorry my fingers were going faster than my mind. I have corrected it.

Comment on Library Passwords On Facebook by Andrew

Andrew — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 12:53:27 +0000

Point notwithstanding, it’s Drexel, not Drexell!

Comment on Librarians Need to Stop Going to Library Conferences by Matthew 2.0

Matthew 2.0 — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 17:53:06 +0000

Marlene: I remember being at an AHA (Hospital) meeting about 20 years ago and I was shocked at the size of the Exhibit area. I remember thinking it would be a great place to have a booth

Absolutely. When first reading this post and the comments, I was thinking about how impractical attending a professional conference outside of your profession for the most part would be. How much would a doctor really get out of attending a health librarian conference? But librarianship should have a presence at patron conferences in the form of our associations. In a way, we are vendors for them, albeit usually those that don’t charge anything, and so we need to “sell” our services in general.

Comment on Librarians Need to Stop Going to Library Conferences by Julia Shaw-Kokot

Julia Shaw-Kokot — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 15:12:33 +0000

As library liaison and adjunct faculty for our School of Nursing, I agree that we learn much by getting out of the library and attending non-library conferences. When I have done that, I’ve come back with many new ideas. However, I believe you can start closer to home. There are regular lectures, CE events, local and regional conferences in all the disciplines. I’ve attended many, and sometimes have a faculty member mention they are pleased to know I am interested in a given topic. Attending these activities, and working closely with faculty or staff on planning committees or presentations, gets you viability and invitations to speak. These closer to home activities also fit into our almost nonexistent travel budget.

Comment on Librarians Need to Stop Going to Library Conferences by Rachel

Rachel — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 14:58:38 +0000

Michelle, that’s a good point about advocacy such as for hospital libraries/librarians - I hadn’t been thinking of that one yesterday. I do like the notion of bringing ideas back and being more visible generally. How often do librarians get on the CE programs of other conferences? Would there be interest at other conferences in something like getting the most out of databases like the NLM tools, finding data, etc. - workshops on finding information more efficiently?

Comment on Librarians Need to Stop Going to Library Conferences by stevenb

stevenb — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 14:08:13 +0000

I can agree with the philosophy of the post - librarians have to get beyond the boundaries of their own professional literature and conferences if they want to be more knowledgeable and innovative. That’s a philosophy I’ve promoted for quite some time with the Keeping Up Web Site. It’s more focused on non-library resources than library content. We have librarians here that do attend the conferences of their disciplinary specialties and I think that’s not a new thing in academic librarianship. I would argue that to really understand your users it might not be necessary to go to disciplinary conferences. That’s a great way to immerse yourself in the discipline and current trends and issues. But there’s no saying the people you meet at the conference will accurately reflect your users. There’s probably greater advantage to making an effort to study your local users - and those who want to get better at doing that should pay more attention to the literature and practice of user experience. The real issue is that many librarians either have lost funding for conference attendance or can only attend one major conference. Those that need to present for tenure can’t do that at a disciplinary conference in most cases - so they may have no choice but to go to a library conference. If we have unlimited funds, I’d encourage academic librarians to not only go to disciplinary conferences - but higher education and teaching/learning conferences. As educators we can learn much more about improving our skills in those areas than we can at disciplinary conferences.