userslib.com

Some photos I took a couple of months ago of some of our lovely special collections items. Full size here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sukisuki/sets/72157614076348795/

NYPL Mobile

Congrats to NYPL for the beta release of a fantastic NYPL mobile website!

They call it a “very rough beta” but I didn’t see anything rough about it. Not only does it do a great job in providing key information (browse events, contact information, library locations, hours, & directions) in an easily navigable way but it also has a mobile-friendly way to begin a search of the collections (they’re still working on making all of their catalogs mobile-friendly). I particularly like that they managed to include branding and style that is consistent with the rest of their web presence… just because something is scaled down doesn’t mean it can’t have style.

See the NYPL Labs blog post by Michael Lascarides for more information about the interface and some of the work that went into it.

DCPL iPhone app

I’m also late in congratulating the DCPL on their cool Catalog iPhone application. You can read more about it at Aaron Schmidt’s walking paper blog and the DCPL Labs iphone page.

See also my flickr collection of mobile library interfaces.

The latest Horizon Report has just been released.

The annual Horizon Report describes the continuing work of the New Media Consortium (NMC)’s Horizon Project, a long-running qualitative research project that seeks to identify and describe emerging technologies likely to have a large impact on teaching, learning, research, or creative expression within learning-focused organizations.

I always enjoy reading these reports but I found this one especially in sync with my current interest and work concerning mobile technologies. The report lists mobile technology as one of the technologies that will become much more integrated into learning environments within the next year. It’s not new news that mobile devices are ubiquitous on campus and beyond, but with the recent improvements in the technology (faster networks, GPS, integration of more multi-functionality), we will likely seen more and more mobile-friendly websites and services specifically designed for mobile users.

About the project | CommentPress version | PDF

The new bad usability calendar is out for 2009.

http://www.badusability.com/

Book as a block, block as a type = booksetting [Link | via SWISSMISS]

Beautiful stop motion video from apt using 1000 books. [Link | via NotCot]

This Is Where We Live from 4th Estate on Vimeo.

Hakia is a health related semantic search engine that also verifies results and groups the types of resources (credible results, web, user generated, images, etc).

Hakia recently announced that they will now be soliciting help from librarians to make recommendations for credible web sites.
From hakia’s h CLUB page:

hakia is the first search engine to integrate librarians’ collective knowledge of credible Web sites into search results to guide searchers.

As the first commenter on the Mashable blog post points out, there is no evidence that they are paying for the librarian contributions. The commenter finds this “very condescending” because Librarians should be paid for their contributions.

A friend recently asked me for my favorite color picker tool so I thought I’d go ahead and compile them here plus some sites I use for color inspiration. Want more? Check out my delicious collection of webcolor links.

• Adobe’s Kuler Browse color pallets or make your own from flickr photos!
  
• Kris’s Color Stripes This blog is completely dedicated to making color palettes out of beautiful photographs and is great for anyone seeking inspiration or eye candy.
• Color Blender This tool that lets you set a color and it suggests complementary colors to fill out your palette.
• Color Jack I just discovered this one and I think it’s super. Choose a point on the color wheel and it will show you different color combinations (complementary, analogous, etc.) to go with it.



• The Daily Slurp Enter a couple of colors to view a showcase of other websites sporting those colors.

School has been in session for a couple of weeks so please pardon my tardiness.

Beloit College regularly publishes an extensive list of tidbits about incoming 1st year college students.

Here are some of the (techy) highlights:

The class of 2012 has grown up in an era where computers and rapid communication are the norm, and colleges no longer trumpet the fact that residence halls are “wired” and equipped with the latest hardware. These students will hardly recognize the availability of telephones in their rooms since they have seldom utilized landlines during their adolescence. They will continue to live on their cell phones and communicate via texting. Roommates, few of whom have ever shared a bedroom, have already checked out each other on Facebook where they have shared their most personal thoughts with the whole world.

• Students entering college for the first time this fall were generally born in 1990.
• GPS satellite navigation systems have always been available.
• Electronic filing of tax returns has always been an option.
• WWW has never stood for World Wide Wrestling.
• Caller ID has always been available on phones.
• Windows 3.0 operating system made IBM PCs user-friendly the year they were born.
• The Hubble Space Telescope has always been eavesdropping on the heavens.

See the entire Beloit College Mindset List

Tutorial blog put together a nice list of tutorials, graphics, and code to help with developing for the iPhone.

http://tutorialblog.org/designing-for-the-iphone-resources/

I’d also add 2 nice omnigraffle stencils: Ultimate iPhone Stencil and Mobile - iPhone.

Georgia Russell’s amazing The Library Series

[ link | via decor8 ]

Noriko Ambe Cutting Book Series

[ link ]

Jen Khoshbin’s Book Project series

[ link | via poppytalk ]

Su Blackwell’s Book Cut Sculpture

[ link | via decor8 ]

Laura Cahill’s Book Vases

[ link | via boingboing ]