Kick it Old School

[Sarah Glassmeyer]

If I know anything about technology, it's that eventually (almost) everything becomes obsolete. Yesterday afternoon on Twitter, a couple of us starting discussing library technologies of the past such as electric erasers and "library hand." As a younger librarian, I had never heard of these things and was fascinated by it all.

So, for you more experienced librarians out there...what technologies or gadgets do you remember that used to be cutting edge are now no longer used or even known about?

On a related note, and so everyone can participate, what technologies of today do you think will be tomorrow's electric eraser?

[Jim Milles]

Shepards in print is already today's electric eraser. Print looseleaf services are on their way out.

[Lyonette Louis-Jacques]

I don't know about cutting edge, but gopher, lynx, Usenet newsgroups, emacs, pine.

Cassette tapes. VHS.

Floppies (have boxes of these that I can't easily find out what's in them any more because of upgrades).

For tomorrow's electronic eraser: I'm just guessing here. The desktop, the standard keyboard. The integrated catalog. WordPerfect. LexisNexis. Disks, CDs.

[Dan Blackaby]

I think that as mobile applications become more available, they're going to grow with the mobile devices to a point of ubiquity. Eventually, as this combines with more advanced metadata and semantic web applications, I think we'll have less platform compatibility issues, and simply have multiple ways into the same information, accessing the same data through a desktop, iPhone like-devices, etc. As information is designed for primarily web publication and utility, we'll have more uniformity/standardization/optimization of data encoding, and usability across platforms. It won't matter if you're accessing it from the OPAC, Facebook, your phone, or your wristwatch, if the data's done right, the machine will know how to read it, and one set of data will supply "catalogs" and databases in multitudes of different interface formats. We're already seeing it. Your phone, TV, music, computer, will all be one thing, and the library's information structure is going to have to adapt to conform and just plain keep up.

What will be interesting is if/when the OWL Semantic Web stuff really kicks in, and we start seeing how searching habits and techniques adapt. I mean, topic clouds are cool and all, but I'm curious as to how the "normal" user utilizes them.

At least that's what I think.

As for older technologies, the first thing that comes to my mind is the Kardex.

[John Nann]

Wow, the Kardex takes me back! Ahh, good times.

Things formerly cutting edge now obsolete have been covered well by Jim and Lyo, though I think that I might add print chronological sets (reporters, periodicals, etc) to the mix. Lyo's catalog of the early online tools (remember archie, veronica and jughead?) were really cutting edge at one time, I'm not sure that they've been made obsolete more than subsumed (as if there is a difference).

I also agree that this entire clunky box in our office or toted around will be gone soon. Constant connection with a small portable device that is probably voice and "pen" operated may be the future.

In libraries, I think that "collections" (by that I mean a selection of material) will be here for the long haul, research and reference support, too. I'm not sure what organizing and describing the collection will look like in the future.

One thing holding electronic libraries back is the tight rein that the publishers are holding on online books. Unless you are connected those that are part of library collections are useless and the practical inability to take the material with you is a disaster. Until that's fixed we'll be spinning our wheels. What's holding e-books back isn't so much the technology as the publishers.

[Lyonette Louis-Jacques]

Jim Milles said:

Shepards in print is already today's electric eraser. Print looseleaf services are on their way out.

What about digests? The Decennials?

[Meg Kribble]

Wow, the Kardex takes me back! Ahh, good times.

I confess I had to Google Kardex, but I have actually seen one!

I'm surprised whenever I see new books that include CD-ROMs. Huh? So early 90s. And I wish instead of preparing CDs of the statutes every year, Florida would concentrate on getting the online versions authenticated. I just got the current year and threw out last year's edition with the cellophane still on it.

Definitely on the way out: proprietary software the likes of MS Office. I still use it for most of my writing and presenting, but I don't envision buying another personal copy with all the alternatives available.

[Ron Wheeler]

Do y'all remember film strip projectors? I do! In fact, a professor I knew who taught in the education department at a small college in Michigan, used to teach a course called "Teaching with Technology" where aspiring teachers were taught to use film strip projectors, overhead projectors, film reel projectors, and the like.

[Sarah Glassmeyer]

Ron Wheeler said:

In fact, a professor I knew who taught in the education department at a small college in Michigan, used to teach a course called "Teaching with Technology" where aspiring teachers were taught to use film strip projectors, overhead projectors, film reel projectors, and the like.

In my Bibliographic Instruction class in library school, we covered dos and don'ts of overhead projectors. That was in 2004. And I haven't seen an overhead projector since.

[Francis Norton]

Sadly, motor-mouthed children no longer hear that they "must have been vaccinated with a Victrola needle."

(I put in a link, to save Google time.)

[Meg Kribble]

Sarah, you've dredged up a memory of my special libraries seminar instructor giving a brief talk about overhead presenting techniques. Early 2005. Scary! It would have been useful, though, had I any reason to use it. I have seen overhead projectors around our law center, so somebody's using them.

[Rita Kaiser]

I read through all this and Did it take me back! I used a Kardex at one time and was part of a group in Washington DC that addressed cd-rom publication standards back in 1997 -
the RESEARCH TECHNOLOGY COALITION
"During the spring and early summer of 1997, an ad hoc group of Washington, D.C. law firm Library and Information Systems Directors, styling itself as the Research Technology Coalition, collaborated on the production of a written statement of policy and technical recommendations concerning the utilization of law-related CD-ROM products and a suggested testing checklist for use in evaluating prospective product purchases."

Totally outdated now, but we were SO concerned because Cd's had so many differenet ways of being loaded and used. It was always an issue! And now I don't remember the last time I used a legal CD-Rom.

[Jo-Anne Giammattei]

Ah, remember when we used "alphabetizers" to help with card filing? And in another life when I worked in a book store, I ordered textbooks from publishers via a telex machine. It was considered very high tech at the time.