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Truncated version of the presentation with notes is up on Slideshare here (What’s up with the pics not showing up on the first slide, Slideshare?):

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I’ll likely post more Chumby related things soon, but for now, check out this Animoto.com video and imagine what you could do with your own spiffy library promo video. Their videos play on Chumby or a web page, was free, required no coding on my end, used pictures from my flickr account and was up and running with about 30 mins of work and waiting. Pretty sweet, eh?:

It was a real pleasure to present a couple sessions with the amazing Helen Blowers. The real Helen Blowers! One of our sessions was a preconference called “Avatars to Advocacy“. We also did a shorter regular session called “Innovative Marketing Using 2.0 Tools” (you can find those slides by following this link).

And now for a few photographic highlights:

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Cindi’s Cil2008 photoset.

All flickr photos tagged cil2008, ranked by “interestingness”.

Happy unrelated observation:
Say what your will about Chuck Norris but Mr. T is the only guy that can REALLY bring people out of comas. Note to Libraryland: If I’m ever in a coma, please send Mr. T to snap me out of it.

The 2008 gadget of the year? Wonder if *you* will be asking for one as a gift at the end of the year? Hmmm…..

But…what about the oceans of content that just isn’t “free” and/or centrally located and is distributed more and more via electronic means? What about the content in the long tail that only for-profits are doing a successful job of distributing (aka selling in most instances). In libraries there is inter-library loan of course. And there is eBay and Amazon and a host of others that have cut into library business to some extent (not necessarily a bad thing at all, right?). But there is Netflix. Netflix (just for fun, why not check that link out and think about it in terms of what libraries do. Some startling concepts may stand out.), just keeps popping up on my radar over and over again. Brightly. Here’s the latest instance:

“US DVD rental firm Netflix is to release a set-top box which will let subscribers download movies and other programmes over the net.”
*link*

So what does this indicate for the future of content access in libraries?

Granted, there have been a small slew of set top boxes designed to specialize in content delivery in the last couple of years. But with Netflix participation, for me at least, the implications for libraries and content delivery futures grow in significance and immediacy. As these services exist now, and as they are shaping up, libraries are cut out of almost all of this business. Influencing or being included in this sort of content delivery model would take significant investment from larger (or combinations of larger) library related business or organizations (including non-profits and even government agencies potentially).

True, “Netflix has spent about $40m on the development of its streaming service during the past year.” and that of course surely does not include licensing and revenue related math for the studios, etc. True also that money talks, eh? Still, given the mission of the library (particularly Public Libraries) it seems worth noting that:
As an industry, within the larger library-centric institutions that could make important impacts:
-We are not researching this kind of content delivery in any truly significant way.
-We are not planning to, in the future, provide specific deliverables based around his kind of content delivery.
-We do not have organized, direct or significant relationships with the companies that own the largest collections of popular content and manage it’s distribution to approach them as a potential distribution channel.
-We do not have the legal and negotiation teams that would be required to get our patrons access to the content controlled by companies mentioned above.

While the above list is a bit intimidating, is it insurmountable? I keep thinking about the last interview I read with Reed Hasting, CEO of Netflix. It concluded with the question “What is the future of Netflix?”. His answer, was “there is a reason we are named Netflix and not DVDflix”. Obviously and wisely they are eyeing content delivery. And so are libraries? Certainly there are hundreds of other companies doing so, many of which have an eye on (inadvertently I’m sure) further reducing our market share and value. This is all fine and well. But it makes one again wonder: are libraries at large doing the work necessary to be positioned in the content delivery market? What about libraries??? Will we care more when our DVD circulation drops? Or when Netflix becomes NetLibrary (serious point and little inside joke there too)? Interestingly, someone once said to me that “the most valuable asset NetLibrary really has is the name NetLibrary”! Wow. In light of what Reed Hastings said in the interview I keep recalling, it gives pause.

Netflix hasn’t changed their name. Yet. But their mission, and the missions of other content delivery centric companies seems clear. And it is threatening to libraries. And I am concerned that this threat is not being surfaced and dealt with sufficiently across our industry. If we were all watching the Netflix business model evolution closely we might talk about (and work on) this more. Perhaps when Netflix changes their name to NetContent or NetAV..or NetLibrary, more aggressive action will be taken in our industry?

I REALLY wonder what you think though.

And now for something completely different! Me being a dork with my new XO laptop. Woo hoo!

It is the WorldCat application for facebook! It is NOT listed in the application directory on Facebook so you have to receive an invite to get it. It may change, it may stick, it may not. Regradless, as a dutiful beta tester, I’ve included a couple of screen shots here for the curious. Click any image to got to it’s flickr page and be able to see it much larger:

Logged in view of the facebook WorldCat app:

If you get an invitation to beta test it will show up looking like this once you are logged in to facebook (I circled it in red so it would stand out):

When you click the invite, you get something like this explaining the app:

This bug has gone bye bye (I was an early beta tester, lol). You really likely won’t ever see this, but it was funny:

And again, a view logged in to the app. I know, I know, it gets cut off, but this time its bigger (Go away giant MONK ad!:):

I am very grateful to be looped into the testing and am also happy to share that I generously told:

“If you want to, you could blog it. But your readers will need an invite to get the app so that could create some overhead for you.”

Ok. I can handle that. I think. How about this, if you have a facebook account and want to give this a beta run, drop me a line. Email or on facebook is fine. Feel free to friend me on facebook while your at it. If possible, you will get an invite to test based on speed of response. I’ll pass the info along as quickly as possible given the holiday weekend. Assume though at this point that you’ll be put on a list of potential beta folks and that if you get an invite then you get to test. This is a very informal get the word out a little bit of community sharing, not an official work initiative by any means. I am doing this ’cause I like it and it is pretty darn neat in theory. Not really for work (though from work I know) Ahhh.. overhead reduced (and level of my tertiary involvement revealed).

Does the title of this post make anyone wonder about our information creation and consumption environment? Wouldn’t it be good to be able to have a WorldCat that would allow us to flip it and say “You got your facebook in my WorldCat?”

PS-If you look at the pics and ask yourself “Who is Bob Robertson Boyd?”, I would guess you might expect to ask yourself that question a bit more in the future. Bob works with a team of folks on “social stuff” at OCLC in Dublin, Ohio and does some fine work. And just to clarify, I work on the team at WebJunction in Seattle that works on “social stuff” and, as most of you know, WebJunction has some nifty connections to OCLC.

Don’t you just hate moving? I just found out tonight that I have to find a new place to live in the next week (or two max). That means I am in aggressive hunt mode for a nice, quiet, clean 12-24 month rental situation in Seattle (first choice is Ballard but Queen Anne, Magnolia, Fremont or Westlake work very nicely as well). I ‘m a reliable tenant and a good neighbor. If any Seattle peeps know of anything exceptional (or just plain good) and available please drop me a line. I hate large complexes, long commutes and don’t want to live near a campus. A view is a huge plus as well. Ha, ha! Fussy much?

It’s a bit of a sad situation because the the upstairs resident and property owner’s health has taken a turn for the worse and he needs my separate unit/ half of the house for his live in health care provider. Poor guy. Also sad though because this is a truly beautiful location with view that regularly brings me to my knees, full of gratitude and appreciation for the natural beauty of the Pacific Northwest. Oh well, those of you that visited knew it was just too good to last, right?

This ends my personal, non library related post. Sorry ’bout that. I try to keep ‘em to a minimum, but you never know where that helping hand might come from. Thanks! Back to your regularly scheduled libraryman.com….