iPhones and Kindles and smartphones...OH MY!

I attended the Handheld librarian conference January 17th & 18th at Worcester public library. I was very excited to have my phone with web access so I could tweet during the conference. Did you know that more people in the US own a mobile phone than a toaster? That was one of the fun statistics they started with...makes you think, doesn't it? People aren't just using their phones to talk anymore. Actually, I believe people are texting more than talking these days. I know I am. In fact, Worcester Public Library has text to reference. You text your question to their text number and they answer it for you! Ingenious! There were a few libraries at the conference that mentioned having this feature. However, not all questions are created equal. Sometimes people text questions that really aren't reference, like "Who is Taylor Swift dating?" They use the text to reference like they'd use google if they had internet access.

The first speaker, Tom Peters, said "lose the reference desk and the reference schedule." This had everyone up in arms. No one seemed to want to listen to what he said. I understood where he was coming from, though. Maybe because I'm not a reference librarian? The reference desk is NOT where patrons want their questions answered. I never did when I was a student. I would either ask another student or figure it out on my own. If I could have gone online or on my cell phone for the answer at any time of day or night, I would have, but, alas, I was in school before the internet was used regularly. I didn't even have a computer in my dorm room!

Then we started talking about eBooks. The eBook phenom is very intriguing to me. Not only do I think it is very cool that you can carry a few books around in your purse without it getting too cumbersome, but I also think the technology behind the eBook is smart. People are always looking for the newest technology. If you like books, then you'll always read them whether they're on a kindle or on paper. However, if you only like technology the eBook may be the only way to get you to read a book!

The day before the conference Kindle came out with an app on iTunes for the iPhone. These apps also work on the iPod Touch. I was so fascinated with all the app and iPhone talk that I went out and bought an iPod touch over the weekend. I cannot picture reading an entire book on the iPod Touch. It's just not big enough. However, on day two of the conference I had a migraine. Guess what? There's an app for that! http://www.cellphonehi.com/iphone-3g/iphone-app-to-help-migraine-sufferers/

I will be blogging more about this conference once I can review the other material online. The speakers I went to see were more interested in what we were already doing in our libraries to get mobile and less interested in teaching us how to use the newest technologies out there. They had a lot of questions for us. It felt like we were being surveyed more than informed.