Library Stuff

David Coleman:

“I have written a lot about what I call ‘attention management’ and what everyone else calls ‘Continuous Partial Attention (term coined by Linda Stone).’ Stowe has been blogging about this for months, and he and I have had a few discussions on the subject.”

“I believe that the problem needs to be attached also from the other direction. That is to augment a person’s ability to ‘attend’ to content and events. In my view of the future there are a variety of technology solutions that might help. But I don’t think the scheduling tools that Microsoft and Lotus are building are it. I believe that you will need to multiply your bandwith and attention by multiplying yourself.”

(The bolding took place on my end, not Colemans.)

If you take a look at the whole post, Coleman talks about creating a “virtual self” (he’s not talking about cloning – at least I don’t think he is) to deal with some aspects of what he calls “attention management.” I like the term “attention management” better than “continuous partial attention” and much better than “Information Overload” (IO) because it uses solution rather than syndrome terminology. How are we going to manage the deluge of information? In an upcoming column for Public Libraries (we’re working on getting these columns online) on the myth of IO, I discuss a theory of working backwards (Thanks Steve) when dealing with supposed IO. By this, I mean not looking at the information as the issue but the time one realistically has in order to consume that information. Then, start building an information strategy that works within your time-frame.

So, no need for a clone or “virtual self.” I don’t think my wife wants two of me running around the house anyway, losing double the amount of stuff that always seems to be in my possession last.

One of the side-effects of my publishing a blog over the past 5 years has been the opportunity to travel around North America (nothing in Europe…yet) and speak to library groups on various topics, most of which focus on keeping current and technology. This year has been especially busy.

I am thrilled to be taking part in the Council of Federal Libraries Annual Fall Seminar on September 14th. The theme of the day will be “Ahead of the Digital Wave: Transforming Services, Building Communities,” a topic of great interest to me. Ian E. Wilson (Librarian and Archivist of Canada) will be speaking on “Collaboration and Transformation in the Public Sector – Convergence and Challenges in the Digital Age.”

I’ll be one of the speakers (chatting about weblogs, RSS, and other forms of keeping current) and will be moderating a panel on DRM. If you in the Ottawa vicinity (or plan to be on Sept 14th), why not attend what hopes to be a very educational and exciting event.

The preliminary agenda and registration materials are now available.

Yahoo is now putting pictures in their subject oriented RSS feeds. Screenshot below.

A few colleagues have asked me what I read online to keep up. I’ve always given them a quick list as part of my answer. For those that want to see the full list, I’ve uploaded my feeds to Bloglines. There’s over 400 feeds in there but I only use 3/4 for keeping current purposes in the library/technology field. Also, many are customized subscriptions. This list will probably become outdated soon as I add and delete feeds all the time. But for now, enjoy.

I’m thinking of a Library Stuff redesign for the 5 year anniversary. What do you think of this? (NO need to call the lawyers…)