Author: griffey

Jason Griffey is the Director of Strategic Initiatives at NISO, where he works to identify new areas of the information ecosystem where standards expertise is useful and needed. Prior to joining NISO in 2019, Jason ran his own technology consulting company for libraries, has been both an Affiliate at metaLAB and a Fellow and Affiliate at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University, and was an academic librarian in roles ranging from reference and instruction to Head of IT at the University of TN at Chattanooga.

Jason has written extensively on technology and libraries, including multiple books and a series of full-periodical issues on technology topics, most recently AI & Machine Learning in Libraries and Library Spaces and Smart Buildings: Technology, Metrics, and Iterative Design from 2018. His newest book, co-authored with Jeffery Pomerantz, will be published by MIT Press in 2024.

He has spoken internationally on topics such as artificial intelligence & machine learning, the future of technology and libraries, decentralization and the Blockchain, privacy, copyright, and intellectual property. A full list of his publications and presentations can be found on his CV.
He is one of eight winners of the Knight Foundation News Challenge for Libraries for the Measure the Future project (http://measurethefuture.net), an open hardware project designed to provide actionable use metrics for library spaces. He is also the creator and director of The LibraryBox Project (http://librarybox.us), an open source portable digital file distribution system.

Jason can be stalked obsessively online, and spends his free time with his daughter Eliza, reading, obsessing over gadgets, and preparing for the inevitable zombie uprising.

Categories
Digital Culture Library Issues

Stranger Than We Know

My article Stranger Than We Know was just published by NetConnect! I’m really very happy with the way that this turned out. One of my favorite articles that I’ve written…all about mobile technology, and speculation on where it’s going over the next 5-10 years.  Here’s the intro, go take a look if this seems interesting. And leave some comments, since I’d love to hear what others think, and if I’m on or off track on this stuff.

Arthur C. Clarke once famously said that any sufficiently advanced technology was indistinguishable from magic. The technology that is now a routine part of our lives would have been nearly unfathomable just a decade ago. Moore’s Law has ensured that the two-ton mainframe computer that once took up an entire room and nearly a city block’s worth of cooling now comfortably fits in your hand and weighs only ounces. It is difficult to put the truly amazing nature of this shrinkage into perspective, but consider this: you have in your mobile phone more computing power than existed on the entire planet just 60 years ago.

These new devices are changing the way we interact with information. Their capabilities are even changing how we conceive of information and information exchange, adding significant facets such as location and social awareness to our information objects. The physicist J.B.S. Haldane once said, “[T]he Universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose.” So while librarians are aware that the next five to ten years will bring radical changes to books, publishing, and the way we work with the public, we must remember: the future isn’t just stranger than we know—it is stranger than we can know it.

Let’s see how close we can get to knowing the unknowable.

Categories
Gaming

Internet Librarian 2008 Twitter + Flickr

Categories
Library Issues Personal

Off to Monterey

In just a couple of days, I jet off across the US to lovely Monterey, California, for Internet Librarian 2008. I’m presenting on Sunday as a part of a preconference called Academic Library 2.0 with a host of really amazing people. As it turns out, I’m ALSO doing a preconference on Sunday with my old friend Karen Coombs as a last-minute fill in. So if you see me Sunday night, I’m likely to be exhausted.

On the other hand, I’m so looking forward to seeing friends, and seeing what the rest of the remarkably talented librarians bring to the conference. I always learn an extraordinary amount at these conferences, and I can’t wait to see what’s out there.

Categories
Images Personal

Griffey Men, circa late 1930

Griffey Men - 1930's

The Brothers Griffey in the late 1930s. Picture taken on Griffey Branch, Olive Hill, KY.

Left to right: Milton Griffey Sr., Van Gordon ‘Jack’ Griffey (d. 10/18/1970), James Morgan Griffey, Clay Griffey

Clay Griffey was my Father’s Father’s Father, or my Great-Grandfather…Eliza’s Great, Great Grandfather. Clay had a son that he named Van Gordon after his brother (who no one in my family knew as other than “Jack”…even his gravestone simply says Jack). That Van Gordon was my father’s father.

I had no idea this photo even existed until my aunt was googling for some genealogy information and found it online…amazing the things you can find online these days. 🙂

Photo and information originally found here.

Categories
Library Issues Technology

The Open Library Environment

Sat through a webcast today updating people on the Open Library Environment project, a joint effort between a ton of amazing libraries to build a modern, open source library system. While I wish them the best of luck, I have to say that I have my concerns about the project.

My largest concern is that too many cooks really do spoil the soup. I’ve never seen anything truly great come from committee, and I worry that there are far too many hands in this to really push it where it needs to go. Really amazing breakthroughs and products are almost always the design of one or a very few people, pushing to make the thing inside their heads real.

With that said, I hope this project produces something amazing and proves me wrong. What would I want out of a ground-up library system? A modular design, with logical connectors that allow for data sharing…and that data sharing uses open, web standards (not another “library” standard). Support for a centralized cloud database, with local records being limited to unique, archival items in the library’s special collections. Support for open sharing between catalogs, as well as sharing data between other websites and services, built in. A standards-based OPAC. Built in support for mobile use, including the backend systems. A repository system built in, to hold digital objects of any sort…if I want to catalog a video, let me embed the digital copy right into the system.

There’s lots and lots more. I’m hoping they get it right…I’ll be watching, and hopefully helping where I can.

Categories
Personal Technology

A new, new homepage…and Sweetcron

Sweetcron homepage

So not that long ago, I decided that I wanted a homepage that more accurately tracked me online, and so I posted about hacking together a FriendFeed widget that fed my homepage.

Then, earlier this week, I discovered Sweetcron. A self-hosted php/mysql lifestreaming solution, that supports themes and all sorts of customizations. I had to give it a try, so here it is: my new, new homepage.

There are still a TON of things to figure out. I’ve not wrapped my head all the way around how Sweetcron is handling the feeds, so I’m not happy with the way it’s dealing with things like delicious. But I did more-or-less get the skinning, and was able to create custom feeds for my blog, claimid, and a few others. I’ve not added all my feeds yet, because adding a feed requires futzing with the code to make it display properly, and to make it look nice you have to write some custom css for each feed as well.

So why do it? Well, the big deal for me is that now I have the data…my lifestream is ending up on my server, in my mysql database, that I can backup. Maybe after messing with this for awhile I’ll head back to a simple solution like friendfeed. But I’m hoping with the plugin architecture and such that this garners a little development community and they starting building really cool things for it.

Take a look, and see if this solves any problems for you or your library.

Categories
Personal Technology

Which Timbuk2 bag for me?

I’m seriously considering getting a Timbuk2 Laptop Messenger bag for my forthcoming travels. I love my current laptop bag (a Waterfield sleeve with strap) but I’m needing something with a bit more room. The only thing I’m undecided on, really, is the color/pattern. So, blogosphere: which of the below do you like best? It’s clear that I like the dark orange, and earth tones…but I just can’t make up my mind. So: which do you like best? Vote in the comments!

timbuk2timbuk2timbuk2timbuk2timbuk2timbuk2

Categories
Library Issues Media Technology

Marketing in the 2.0 on Slideshare

Finally got my slides up on Slideshare…got to say, I love Slideshare a lot, but the fact that it won’t take Apple Keynote files is just wrong. If you use Keynote, you have to export as a PDF, and upload it.

In any case, here’s the Slideshare. You can download the PDF from them as well.

Marketing in the 2.0 :: Libraries and the Cluetrain

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: marketing library)
Categories
Books Library Issues Media Technology

Reflecting on the Kindle

I have a new post up on ALA Techsource regarding my take on the Kindle, and what I think of it after living with it for 6 months.

Click on over and take a look, and leave a comment, especially if you have a Kindle as well!

Categories
Library Issues Technology

Marketing in the 2.0

Finally! My presentation from TennShare 2008 on Marketing in the 2.0 is up. Had a hell of a time getting the audio and video synced, and even now it falls a little apart near the end of the presentation, but it works! Hope people find this useful, or at least interesting. Original quicktime can be downloaded from my blip.tv page. I did the presentation in Keynote, and the powerpoint translation of it is pretty bad…the fancy effects go away, and it’s not nearly as elegant as Keynote. So for now, you all get the video version. If you really, really want the PPT, let me know in the comments.