Attendees: Arthur Downing, Stephen Francoeur, Ryan Phillips, Jim Livornese, Michael Waldman.
We began the sharecase by welcoming Jim Livornese, the new Director of Instructional Technology & Client Services at Baruch College. We spent some of our time talking to him about the library’s technology needs.
We also entertained a brief discussion of Drupal and METRO’s offer of two July courses on Drupal. Courses are full and registration is closed. NYPL is also hosting a NYPL Drupal Camp at the end of August which is also full. The interest in Drupal may have to do with NYPL’s recent move to Drupal.
We then discussed a lead from AL Direct referring to a WebJunction survey on librarians’ use of technology tools entitled “Library Staff Report Their Use of Online Tools” The methodology for the survey is not given, so we were somewhat wary of the results; however, it showed librarians are lagging behind in the use of newer online tools such as RSS feeds and Blogs (see image below).
We then discussed finding a way for the library to place books in the public domain on the Kindle, or similar device–Nook or Sony e-Reader, et cetera. Books to be targeted will be English classics that are required reading for literature courses on campus.
The conversation then moved to the iPhone QR code reading application iCandy from Ricoh Innovations. Richoh is also working on integrating visual search into the application. This will allow users to point their device at text on a newspaper, for example, and the app will retrieve results based on the text that is read. It’s similar to the Shazzam application that listens to music and then recognizes the song that was played.
We then discussed the library’s purchase of Kik Scanner Bookeye 2 and how to make it available for use in the library and to the Baruch community.
Lastly, we discussed the state and challenges of student printing.
