Week 15 Notes

What Cloud Computing Really Means

As the article says, cloud computing is really popular. I remember several Microsoft commercials that featured the "cloud." However these commercials also seemed to imply that Microsoft invented the cloud or users could only access it if they bought a Microsoft operating system. Not true.

Is Google Docs a version of cloud computing or does that fall into an entirely different category? Is promoting the cloud even profitable? Do users have to pay?

How can librarians take advantage of cloud computing? Would it help with any library-specific functions or just help to streamline day-to-day activities?


Examining Cloud Computing

Oh, so Google is part of the cloud computing network.

Also, it's interesting to note how many cloud computing alternatives there are to expensive software. For example, Pixlr can perform similar functions to Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator. And it's a lot cheaper (i.e. FREE!).


The Future of Libraries

I think it's interesting that even though smartphones have really impacted the way people communicate, they don't make the list of communication systems. That list ends at 2004. A lot has happened since then. Although the smartphone is mentioned in trend #2, it's interesting that it's not mentioned by name. Also, what will replace smartphones. It's interesting to conjecture.

Trend #4 relates directly to my final project in Organizing and Retrieving Information. Right now, we search mostly by text. That project required us to take a text-based search and create a non-text-based search from it. Making the change was difficult, yet the author believes one day we'll be able to search by smell or taste. God help the people in charge of the metadata for that assignment.

I'm a little concerned by the prediction that literacy will be dead in 2050. If that's the case, the libraries we know now will be completely useless and probably nonexistent. Great job market prospects, there. However, transitioning from a print to verbal society seems almost like a retreat into the Dark Ages. You know, that time where people shunned printed materials and knowledge was lost forever. Somehow, I doubt that prediction.

The author's recommendations for libraries really don't seem too much different than what they already do. Libraries are supposed to function as community centers, and that's how they preserve memories. They are continually reevaluating their policies as patrons give feedback. Many libraries, too, are on the forefront of adapting new information technologies as well as creating spaces where teens, especially, can be creative. If this trend continues, then libraries have nothing to worry about.