Comments on: pictotags link a mobile web app to a materials parking system

By: PLA Blog » Blog Archive » Next Library unconference in Denmark, June 2009

Tue, 23 Dec 2008 15:10:32 +0000

[...] to the opportunity to share a presentation of the Library Outpost service model integrated with a user-generated materials shelving system. I’ll be drawing from data and my experiences at Brooklyn Public Library as a case study. [...]

By: nate

nate — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 15:12:45 +0000

@michael: thanks! now I just have to find a library that wants to build the app and do the user testing!

i’m with the rotating color/number idea, but i’d really like to find a way (and perhaps this isn’t it) to convince the user to make a conscious decision where their item will be located. i hate the feeling of being controlled by technologies, i’m much happier when i’m telling technologies what i want. i think that control issue is going to become a bigger and bigger deal w/ geolocation and dispersed/distributed/environmental technologies. or at least i hope it will, for everybody’s sake…

By: michael lascarides

michael lascarides — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 15:53:36 +0000

Interesting idea! I think geolocation + libraries is going to fuel a lot of innovation in the next 10-15 years. My one concern in the prototype above is having the user select the color and number; it might not be clear to users that all numbers/colors are equal in value (they might think that picking different colors might have a different result). You might want to simply assign a color/number to a user on a rotating basis, then use that screen of the app to direct the user to the right shelf. Just test early and test often– you have more than enough here to get paper prototypes in the hands of some users. Cool stuff!

By: Aileen

Aileen — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 22:22:08 +0000

Great post Nate, understandable even to the un-technologically savvy- can see how this model even in simple form has potential in any field that wants to connect people with services or products. Seeing a future of more efficient holiday shopping, banking and post-office errands…

By: Terence Fitzgerald

Terence Fitzgerald — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 18:16:04 +0000

Facebook offers the best plug ‘n’ play with its FOAF Generator: http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=2626876931

But there are independent scrapers and generators available from MIT for LinkedIn (http://simile.mit.edu/wiki/LinkedIn_Scraper) and this RDF project for MySpace (http://dbtune.org/myspace/).

Also, most social networks allow individuals to export their contacts and preferences, which they usually can then convert to RDF, FOAF, or vCard (which in turn can be converted to FOAF or RDF).

The data’s out there. It’s just a matter of getting some opt-in and a critical mass, because once a social tool is fun, useful, and populated by enough people that you know or want to know, you’re likely to sign up, too.

By: Nate

Nate — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 16:59:34 +0000

@Aaron, yes, this is definitely a starting point and there are already more details then I wanted to put in the post… didn’t want to bore people with a blog post as long as Moby Dick itself. When fully mapped, this whole project gets kind of enormous. I’m going ahead with it though, pretending that some developer might come along and want to try to build it…

The RFID point is a good one. I hear you.

One piece that I’m interested in exploring further- the user profile and profile preferences component. I’m reading more and more about this semantic web stuff, and if I understand it right that school of thought suggests that data from social sites like facebook, myspace, goodreads may actually be able to be exported in some kind of standardized format. It would be very interesting to be able to link your library account to all of that.

The other thing that the ‘parking’ piece gets into that I find kind of fun is privacy issues. People treat privacy differently when they are talking about physical objects than they do on the web, where increasingly people are very public with their info. When you connect the virtual and physical via some simple visual standards, you expose those differences.

By: Aaron

Aaron — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 16:08:50 +0000

This is really great, and I’d love to see you develop the idea further by getting into some of the details. You know, if RFID ever really takes off and our mobiles can interact you could extend this a bit further even.