Lori Ayre's blog

I recently undertook an analysis of the cost savings (if any) of a client's use of automated checkin. This was an interesting project for me because I wasn't sure how it would turn out. Although I'm a big fan of automated checkin for many reasons, I wasn't sure that it would result in clear cost savings for this particular client because they were already using automation in their central sort operation. The automated central sort system included a tote checkin feature -- this means the receiving library only had to scan a tote (or bin) to checkin all the items in the tote.

I just signed on to a letter to President Obama (I love saying that!) urging him to consider expanding the use of Open Source Software in government.
Here's an excerpt from the letter:
Open-source software brings transparency to software development.

Trent Benson wrote a thought-provoking article about one of the more vexing problems humans face today: abundance.
He argues that humans have always been very good at dealing with scarcity, but abundance? Not so much. Think carbon dioxide, garages and basements, traffic jams, off-site storage units, Web everything, and just plain data.
The great problem our culture faces right now, in all ways, is glut.

(60 min podcast)
Radio interview with Andrew Thornhill on Creative Washington, a radio program which aired on 1150 AM KKNW. January 27, 2009, Seattle, Washington.

I've been writing a lot about open source stuff lately, and I find my back getting up everytime I have to refer to Evergreen or Koha as an open source ILS.

Someone asked me recently for an example of good screencast. I came across this one when I was trying to find a good way to explain a) how RSS feeds work and b) why they are so dang handy.
Thought I should share my find!

If you haven't seen the new Amazon Windowshop site, you gotta click on over right away. This is where we are going. It's a complete experience. The user has complete control plus it has audio (music and spoken word) AND it includes great CD and book cover images as well as movie clips. Using space bar to get a bigger view of the items grouped together. Click the space bar again to zoom in. It's fun, it looks great and it walks and talks and sings!
Oh, and you can click on stuff to buy it or download it.

Rather than relying on filters (which we've established are far from perfect, even in the best cases), the Senate has finally come up with an approach that makes some sense: Broadband Data Improvement Act (S.1492).

I was just reading about the Defrag Conference and wringing my hands that not a single librarian was represented among the speakers. Here's what defrag says about their conference:
Defrag is the first conference focused solely on the tools and technologies that are leveraging the "social" aspect of software to accelerate the "aha" moment. Defrag is not a version number.

I've been using the expression "learned helplessness" a lot lately because that's how I see the situation libraries have found themselves in after a decade of integrated library systems.
I find it particularly disturbing because so much of the work I do seems to bump into roadblocks that point squarely at the ILS.