Stacey Aldrich talk at San Jose Public Library Staff Development Day

Today at our library's staff development day, California's Deputy State Librarian Stacey Aldrich presented about the future.

She talked about the brief history of eBook readers, including the upcoming Readius. She noted that it's important for libraries fo talk amongst ourselves about where we think the future is going. We need to remember that the future does not happen in a vacuum.

She listed a STEEP acronym as a sway to think about how technologies affect the future (it really works for anything). Society, Technology, Economy, Ecology, and Politics. What are the implications of the possibilities of the future?

How will developments in the outside world affect libraries? She gave the example of cellphones and cool-mobile tools like Midomi and the e-waste they create. Mobile devices also raise issues of copyright and technology privacy as it is now easier to record copyrighted material (concerts etc.).

She also talked about "Fabbing." you send designs to the machine and it creates a real 3D model. Would libraries own fabbing machines to bridge the tech divide?

Stacey's 4 trends

1. Age of integration=making different things work well together like iGoogle, Utterli, Cozi, Socialight, Semapedia, and iTunes. It's all ahout adding value. What does a world that is completely integrated look like?
2. Truthiness=What is truth in a world wbere evergone can create and mash-up information. She gave the example of the cellphone popcorn popping video that was debunked. Do people want truth or do they stop at one piece of information?
3. Evolution of Digital Interaction=Examples: the hug shirt, the wonderfully cute Nabaztag, FlyPen that processes written information and outputs audio, telepresence, the way that the wii has changed our interaction with gaming, and a Sony patent for beaming sensory experiences directly to the brain.
4. Development and Integration of Robotics=4.6million robots in the world today like the Roomba, the Hello Kitty receptionist, the Butterscotch horse toy for kids, and the Philip K. Dick robot (lost by an airline!).

She recommends watching Wired Science (past shows are all online).

Questions to consider: How do people know things? How do people find and use information? What is learning? What is community? What is entertainment? How can we integrate these 4 trends into the library?