This week’s 4cast:
1. Amazon’s Kindle Starts a Fire
The Kindle (Amazon’s new wireless, handheld eBook device) was released this week, followed by lots and lots of reviews, and a few ruminations about the future of books and libraries.
- The Future of Reading (Newsweek)
- Kindling (ALA TechSource)
- all afire for the kindle (walking paper)
- Kindling Openess and Impact (O’Reilly Radar)
2. Speaking of Fire…
Firefox, the free, alternative web browser to Internet Explorer, is readying Version 3 for release (for the very brave, an early Beta 1 version is now available to download and test). Although Firefox continues to increase in popularity, some are beginning to question whether newer versions of Firefox are really all that.
- Firefox 3 Beta 1: The Memory Use Says It All (TechCrunch)
- Hacking Firefox: customizations for my library (LibraryTechtonics)
- We Like Firefox – Do Our Users? (NYPL Labs)
- Will Success, or All That Money From Google, Spoil Firefox? (New York Times)
3. We, the Librarians…
As libraries invest more time and money into technology, they often come to rely heavily on ILS vendors, resulting in sometimes messy, dysfunctional relationships and misunderstandings. Roy Tennant recently wrote a manifesto that sets some basic ground rules for library/vendor relationships.
- Library Software Manifesto (TechEssence.Info)
- Library Software Manifesto (LibrarySupportStaff.Org)
- Which API – yours, mine, everyone’s? (Panlibus)
- John’s Eight Laws of Library Technology (John Miedema)
4. Someone Will Find Us, I Just Know It
Search engine optimization (SEO) describes a set of strategies that webmasters can use to improve their site’s search engine ranking and draw more traffic (see 4cast Podcast #25: Library Web Presence for some library-specific tips). Because many businesses rely on web traffic for their revenue, a whole slew of shady, spammy SEO practices have emerged in an attempt to stay two steps ahead of the constantly changing Google search algorithms.
- Search Engine Optimization and the Race to the Bottom (O’Reilly Radar)
- The Basics of Search Engine Optimization (Google Blogoscoped)
- Search engine optimization, Google Local and broadband access (Blogging Section of SLA-IT)
- Cats and Mice: The Shifting Sea of Search Results (SEO Book)
