Keeping current with emerging technologies
For librarians and educatorsWhy everyone who evaluates mobile apps should read Apple’s iOS Human Interface Guidelines
In my online course, Apps for Librarians and Educators, one of the assignments is to read some of Apple's iOS Human Interface Guidelines. These guidelines are for app developers, but it's also very useful and eye-opening for app users to become familiar with...
Getting over your resistance to using a password manager
Do you still use the same password on multiple sites? Or perhaps you keep a list of all your passwords on paper, or in a file on your computer? If so, I'd like to suggest that it's time to finally give a password manager a try. No system is completely foolproof, but...
Organize your life with mobile apps: online course
I'm in the midst of creating a new online course called Organize Your Life with Mobile Apps. If you've ever lost important information or forgot to bring it with you, this will help. Have you been too busy to find and set up the best apps for organizing your life?...
Available now: Selecting and Evaluating the Best Mobile Apps for Library Services
My latest book, Selecting and Evaluating the Best Mobile Apps for Library Services, is now available from ALA TechSource as one of their Library Technology Reports (vol. 50, no. 8) Last summer ALA approached me about writing this for their series. Instead of being a...
Beethoven’s 9th Symphony as an Interactive Ebook
Touch Press makes several wonderful interactive book apps. One of my favorites is Beethoven's 9th Symphony. Here's a demo video I made about the app.
Why you don’t need to stick with one mobile platform: 50 best apps for multi-platform productivity
How many times have you heard people say, “I’m a Mac person,” or “I’m a Windows person?” That’s pretty common with desktop computing. We’ve all experienced the pain of switching platforms — certain programs only work on one or the other, conversions sometimes get...
Fragmentation frustration – keeping track of your notes in multiple formats
When I was head of user experience at the MIT Libraries, my team and I interviewed undergrad and graduate students about their academic workflows as part of a study of how new technologies were changing how students did their work. One of the problems we heard about...
Apps for Librarians – book release next week
Hey everyone! I just wanted to let you know that my book: Apps for Librarians - Using the Best Mobile Technology to Educate, Create, and Engage is going to be available next week.Libraries Unlimited has set the publication date at September 14. It will be available...
Surprising ways that mobile apps are making information accessible to all
When I think of an iPad or iPhone, with its totally smooth screen and beautiful visuals, it’s hard to imagine it working well for a blind person. That’s what I thought until I came across this story: How the Blind Are Reinventing the iPhone. It tells the story of...
Best recent articles about libraries and emerging technologies
Here's a quick summary of the best articles I saw these past two weeks. Good press about libraries Why the Public Library Beats Amazon—for Now: As E-Book Subscription Services Grow Their Catalogs, the Age-Old Institution Trumps All This Wall Street Journal author...