Where's the Mouse

I like Clay Shirky's assertion that we are living in the midst of a cultural shift akin to the industrial revolution, and I hope that he's right. We are definitely moving in a good direction--away from being spoon fed mindless entertainment--toward a much more participatory model of shared ideas and information. Viva la revolution!

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

First, let me say that Willie Nelson, with his USB bracelets, is just the coolest.

The DaVinci Institute article about libraries was fascinating. I found trend #4, "Search technology will become increasingly more complicated," especially intriguing. It blows my mind to envision a future in which technology will allow us to search for attributes like smell and opacity. Whoa.
Sometimes I worry about the future of libraries in a world where books will eventually become obsolete. But this article makes a good point--as we come up with more and more ways to perform complicated searches, people will need librarians to help them sift through the mountains of available information and find what they need. Much of what I do as a reference clerk is a matter of knowing how to navigate the catalogue, which combination of search terms to use to yield the best results. As searching gets more complicated, these skills will only become more necessary.