Podcasts

The state library of NSW has a number of interesting podcasts, at http://www.sl.nsw.gov.au/podcasts/event/index.html. I like the sound of a talk by Raimon Gaita for the National Biography Award Lecture in November 2009 called "'Truth' as applied to biogrphy & autobiography. It is 58 minutes long.

hulu

I had never heard of hulu until today and a quick look says I can download TV shows. 

First blog for exploring libraries

Today we considered the future of libraries in the context of social networking and the impact of emerging technologies on service provision in libraries.  As a middle aged person who lives with an old person who still has a 78 rpm record player as well as older computers, its interesting to see younger people think that what is emerging now is "it" as in there may not be any major changes in technology soon.  But the elusive "market" is always trying to search for the next big thing so we all spend money on it.  A quick read of the latest catalogues that come in the paper say the next big thing is 3D TV.  Will libraries be providing any services to do with this new technology? Who knows.  Will there be a program so we can turn our computer screens into 3D TV.  Scott (our local computing guru) tells me you would need a high rating graphics card for it.

Josh went to a talk where he heard that booksellers may disappear.  I worked for a book seller for 18 months in Sydney some 20 years ago and they were struggling because some booksellers were heavily discounting big name authors and not carrying smaller 'names'.  Our workplace prided itself on finding any title no matter how obscure, which was a good way to provide a service, but not a good way to make quick easy money.