Author: griffey

Jason Griffey was most recently the Director of Strategic Initiatives at NISO, where he worked to identify new areas of the information ecosystem where standards expertise was 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 Library IT and a tenured professor 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 a chapter in Library 2035 - Imagining the Next Generation of Libraries by Rowman & Littlefield. His latest full-length work Standards - Essential Knowledge, co-authored with Jeffery Pomerantz, was published by MIT Press in March 2025.

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.

Categories
Books Digital Culture Media Technology

Kindle in flames?

Two days before I received my Kindle, Roy Tennant published an article on his Digital Libraries blog entitled “Prediction: The Kindle goes down in flames“. I normally agree with Roy on lots of things, but this is a topic where I’m going to pick on him a little.

Let’s rewind to October of 2001, where a plucky little company named Apple released a strange new product called an iPod. With 5 gigabytes of storage, this pocket-sized marvel cost….$399. What did it do? It played music. That’s all it did. Moreover, it only connected to your computer via an esoteric plug called “Firewire” that 90% of the personal computers in the world didn’t have.

It took Apple 3 financial quarters to sell over 200,000 of them, and it wasn’t until 2004 and the cost per gigabyte dropped under $20/GB and the iPod was on it’s third generation that sales really took off.

The Kindle, for all the publicity it has garnered, is only 8 months old. Is it the perfect reading device? I’m not sure yet. I’ve been consuming ebooks for years, beginning with reading them on my Handspring Visor Deluxe in mid-2000. I’ve read them on cell phones, computer screens, and other PDA’s. And I can say without any reservation that after 24 hours with the Kindle that it is a completely new and better reading experience.

The advantages for the Kindle are twofold: a device customized for reading makes reading easier, and the device comes from Amazon. The Kindle is great for reading, not suffering from the issues that, for example, the iPhone might…primarily the issue that an LCD screen just isn’t very good for reading in any form of bright light. The device is driven by Amazon, who has the reach and power in the publishing industry to get books for the device (take a look at the difference between any other ebook provider’s numbers and Amazon’s). Amazon also has the infrastructure to support immediate electronic delivery of any ebook they carry, directly to the device. Anyone else doing that?

The Kindle does several things (it does not, contrary to Tennant’s assertion “only read books”). It allows for reading, annotating, bookmarking, dictionary lookup, and other common reading chores. It also comes with permanent free cellular internet service. Amazon Whispernet gives you, while not a full web experience, a browser and access to the ‘net anywhere you can get a Sprint cell signal. For no additional cost past the cost of the device. Seriously, how much is that worth over a year?

With all that said, I’ve only had the Kindle for less than 48 hours. I wasn’t going to buy one so early in the development cycle, but do I regret having one now? Hell no. It’s a marvelous piece of technology for readers, and I fully expect that in a couple of years I’ll still be toting it around from conference to conference in lieu of a few pounds worth of wood pulp.

If anyone wants to take a look at the Kindle, find me at ALA Annual, and I’ll happily let you play with it. Just holding it, seeing the screen, and seeing how much thought went into the design will make a difference, I promise.

EDIT

Steve Lawson, in the comments, pointed out something that I wanted to address. Tim O’Reilly, in a comment on Roy’s post, says:

“I also struggle with Amazon’s DRM and sole-source approach, which seems to me to be a flawed copy of Apple’s iPod strategy, missing not only Apple’s brilliant design but also the positive externality that consumers could easily add their own music collection to the device by ripping mp3s.”

I am no fan of DRM, and I admit that it gives me pause regarding the Kindle. That said, the “sole-source” approach isn’t true…the Kindle happily ingests any .mobi file you want, and there are plenty of places sourcing native Kindle files of public domain books. First thing I did was put a few dozen of my favorite classics on there, for free. As well, if I had an easy way to digitize the books I already own (in the same rough manner of the digitization of my CDs) I would be doing it, and adding them. The issue there isn’t with the Kindle, it’s that there is no easy digitization of dead trees.

Categories
Gaming

I haz a Kindle!




IMG_4126.JPG

Originally uploaded by griffey.

Gonna be hard to top this Father’s Day present next year, but for my very first Father’s Day, Eliza and Betsy got me a Kindle! (yes I know it’s not quite Father’s Day…sue me, they gave it to me early.)

So far, the thing is really intriguing. The display is magical, the closest thing to paper I’ve ever seen for readability, and it took me about 3 minutes of using it to get used to the controls. The UI could be slight springier, with just a bit of lag between button press and effect, but again, I think something I’ll get used to quickly.

The downside? No EVDO service in Sewanee, which means no impulse buys while laying in bed. That’s actually probably not a downside, now that I think about it.

Anyway, if anyone wants to play with a Kindle, find me at ALA…I’ll have it with me.

Categories
Library Issues Personal

My latest insanity

I announced it on the Twitter, but thought I should record my latest questionable decision here for posterity: I’ve been named Chair of the LITA Program Planning Committee for 2008-2010.

Hopefully this blog won’t devolve into a bitchfest regarding this decision.

Categories
Personal

Again, so very quiet

Very quiet around Pattern Recognition these days, and I apologize. I’m still trying to find the balance between the microblogging I’m doing over on Twitter, and the longer form stuff I’m now writing over at TechSource…not to mention the family-oriented, Eliza-centered writing/photography over at Brand New World. I’ve fractured myself!

So, my goal is now to use Pattern Recognition as something between Twitter and longer-form, at least for now. There’s a lot of stuff percolating, as always, and I’m never quite sure where it will end up. Stay tuned, though. I promise it won’t be quiet forever.

Categories
Books Media Personal

It’s coming…

Very soon, you too can own this very lovely book. Proofs are done, galleys are done, everything on our end is done, done, and done. We’re officially at the printers, folks!

Library Blogging is suitable as a gift for any occasion, and you can pre-order now (pre-order? No, just order, I think) at Amazon…go here and order! Or just wait until I have dozens of copies that I can’t possibly get rid of, and offer me a couple of bucks. Your choice.

Categories
Gaming

I think you’re doing it wrong




PIC-0033

Originally uploaded by griffey.

Bad placement of a sign on my campus. The actual ramp is to the left of the stairs, but you’d think maybe an arrow or something might have been appropriate.

Categories
Books Media

Snow Crash

Betsy surprised me a few days ago with this, which she claims is either a late birthday or early father’s day present: a signed, numbered, limited edition of Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson.IMG_3153.JPG

It’s put out by Subterranean Press, and is gorgeous. Subterranean is a press that specialized in high quality printings of limited edition fantasy, scifi, and horror…I want to own nearly everything they print.

But for now, I will just stare and covet my copy of my preciou….I mean, Snow Crash.

Categories
Library Issues Technology

Your BIGWIG

I’m very, very excited to announce the next step in the continuing attempt to take over the world illustrate modern communication methodologies and community building for the larger LITA and ALA types:

YourBIGWIG

This is a place for members and potential members and interested parties of the LITA Interest Group BIGWIG to gather, talk, and most importantly: do stuff. The site is open…anyone can create an account and participate in the site, add content, etc. It gives us a place to meet virtually, and a place where I hope good ideas are filtered and implemented. Consider it a BIGWIG-driven playground.

The site is Drupal based, and will be chock-full of open source goodness over time. We’ll also continue to experiment with Web 2.0 tools and hope that people use the site to do so.

So: Join us virtually, and then decide if you want to join us at conferences and such. Either way, we’re happy to have you participate in our playing. Come join us!

Categories
Library Issues Personal Technology

Connections are Everything

After being tagged by Amanda, and looking back at the Michael Stephens post that tagged her, I decided to take her up on it. The meme:

Post a picture from a source like FlickrCC or Flickr Creative Commons or make/take your own that captures what YOU are most passionate about for kids to learn about and give your picture a short title.

It was terrifically hard to come up with any one thing that I am passionate for kids to learn about, simply because there are so many AND because both Michael and Amanda hit solid homeruns with theirs. But here’s my attempt (and here’s a link to the original photo).


connections
Connections are Everything. This isn’t just personal connections, although as you go through school, read online, join groups and such, the personal connections you make are central to your success in life. My connectivity to individuals in libraries around the world have made me better at what I do and enabled me to build a rich understanding of practices different than just those I am surrounded with on a day-to-day basis. Maintaining these connections are incredibly important, and the social capital gained from them (both bridging and bonding) is a key to being successful in the modern age.

Read another way, connections are everything in the very technical sense that understanding and interacting with modern information technology can be seen as the management of connections. How do you connect two disparate pieces of IT these days? An API, RSS, JSON, or some other standard. TCP/IP is the connection that runs the world. Building better technological connections make for richer and deeper options for our users, in ways that we may not entirely predict or understand.

If you focus on maintaining and understanding connections, you’ll be a better librarian.

EDIT: The lovely Jenica and Dorothea chime in as well with their take. These are all amazing, and if I taught at a Library School I would seriously think about designing a syllabus around them.

Categories
Books Library Issues Media

Britannica Webshare

The old standard for the Encyclopedia, the Encyclopaedia Britannica, has just launched a new service called Britannica Webshare that is designed to pull the aging reference work into the 21st Century. It also proves the argument put forth by Chris Anderson in his article (and upcoming book) Free.

The central idea of Webshare is that Britannica is giving away access to its online content for free, by giving away subscriptions to its paywall-side service. But not just to anyone, no, no. They are giving a $0 subscription for one year to “Anyone who publishes regularly on the Internet—bloggers, webmaster, and writers who publish on the Web…”. You have to “apply” for the access, which implies some sort of winnowing of applications, although I applied and received an email with a login code within an hour. This code is a sort of coupon that gives you one year of free access to Britannica online, although you do have to fill out the normal application information for Britannica after you’ve already applied for the free access…a sloppy method of handling the process. Even better, the Terms of Service that you must agree to for the account includes things like:

Use of Content: You may display, print or download content on the Services only for your personal, non-commercial use, provided you do not remove or alter any copyright, trademark, service mark or other proprietary notices or legends. You may not publish, distribute, retransmit, sell or provide access to the content on the Services, except as permitted under applicable law and as described in these Terms of Use.

So even though the free account is for the purposes of content redistribution by blogs, in an attempt to gain mindshare on the ‘net against Wikipedia (please, we all know that’s what’s going on)…they haven’t changed the terms of service which would prohibit any blogger that makes any money from his or her blog (got ads? No Britannica for you!) from even using the service in the first place. I’m sure this is an “oversight” and that we’ll see some form of correction of this, but someone should have pointed it out in the first place.

Or worse, they really do mean it, and this is only for bloggers who don’t have any attempts at monetization going on. This blog is ad-free for now, but if I ever chose to use ads I certainly wouldn’t want to have to comb back through my blog to remove Britannica content from it. Oh, but you say “I’ll not put ads on my blog, so bully for me…I’ll use Britannica for all my encyclopedic blog entries.” The next paragraph in the Terms of Service says:

If you want to post, publish, or use content from (or contained within) the Services on your Web site or in any other Internet activity, you will need permission from Britannica, even though your Web site or Internet activity is free of charge.

Oh. Well then.

Which is it, Britannica? Do you want to push your product across the web via free access, or do you want us bound by your Terms of Service? Can’t have it both ways.

There’s also the tip-o-the-hat to Web 2.0 functionality with embeddable widgets for Britannica content, but the widgets are for things that Britannica gives you, not created by users. That is, they have pre-packaged widgets for a handful of subject areas, but I can’t go in and create my own. Not very 2.0, Brit.

In all, this is the right direction for Britannica to be going if they hope to ever be relevant in the 21st century, but they haven’t gone far enough. You need some serious added value at this point to compete. My suggestions: Go free for public access, with ads for revenue generation; Go paid for institutional access and make it worth their $$ by building tools to make it easy for librarians and such to make patrons lives easier. Widgets for use in Course Management Systems, subject page building built in to the site, and customizable RSS feeds that can be pulled by people into their own systems.