I am not attending WWDC with my boyfriend, but he will be attending ALA with me. Even though I did not sit through the Keynote and watch SJ deliver the next surprise, I’m still pretty gaga about Apple. I use a MacBook Pro, and I’ve preferred Apple computers since I started using one this time last year. As a recent convert, the differences between Apple’s OS X and Windows XP/Vista are obvious and fresh in my mind. I don’t miss my old large and clunky Dell laptop. When working in the library, I can use both freely, but I prefer a Mac.

Everything I produce on the computer seems all the more valuable if I do it on a Mac. Programs are simple and intuitive: their functionality adheres to the metaphors that inspired them.

One wonderful application for the Mac is Delicious Library 2 by Delicious Monster. Delicious Library 2 allows the user to catalog everything: books, movies, albums, software, videogames, toys, gadgets, tools, and apparel. (The first version of Delicious Library only allowed the user to catalog books, movies, and albums.)

Delicious Library 2 Screenshot

What’s particularly awesome about this application is that it does not require the user to do much work, as far as typing in long strings of numbers or metadata for each object. If the application is installed on a Mac with a webcam, it can be used as a barcode scanner. The barcode scanner picks up the UPC or ISBN and looks it up in Amazon’s database, and then collects the metadata from Amazon associated with that item (e.g. publisher/label, release date, genres, format, dimensions, number of pages, retail price, current value, purchase date, ISBN, Dewey Decimal, EAN, and country for books). And if a working webcam is not available, it is also possible to search by a known metadata field such as title, author, or ISBN. The application also works with a bluetooth scanner, the Microvision ROV Scanner with Bluetooth, which would greater enable cataloging of a larger collection, such as the collection of a small library.

Just like the interface on an Apple computer, simplification of processes provides a friendlier, more enjoyable user experience: things are easy to accomplish, there is a greater focus of energy on creation of content (rather than how to use the tool to do the task), and a state of “flow” is quickly reached.

I wish more designers of interfaces would just simplify, simplify, simplify.

One early morning in mid-December 2007, Joe Osborn and I were inspired. I recently completed a course on human-computer interaction, and the gears in my mind were turning. How could we design a library game for children?

Our ideas quickly accumulated as we ate breakfast. The game would aim to:

• recommend media based on preferences (keywords, subjects, reading levels, previously borrowed materials, data-mining a la Amazon.com, etc.)
• easily guide the patrons to the physical locations of their desired materials
• present the library organization to children in their terms (through exciting technology)
• provide a means to take the library home, allowing access from remote locations

Privacy Concerns

During our conversation that morning, we discussed the potential threats to intellectual freedom. Especially in the time of the PATRIOT ACT, libraries should be, and are often, wary of collecting information about their patrons. However, there are ways in which the information can be stored via this game/service. The catalog should be online, in order to allow for more frequent updates and access to OCLC. As an online service, the site should be secure (https://) with encrypted data.

Goals

This service is still in the early planning stages, but it aims to provide support to a generation very different from the ones before it. Children today and tomorrow will be internet natives, used to, and expecting, flashy interfaces and ease-of-use. The library must work to prove itself valuable in the lives of these children, providing them with the easiest and most efficient access to all the appropriate materials available to them.

The catalog game must be:

• intuitive; easy to use
• highly interactive and fun!
• interesting through its dynamic elements
• useful in aiding children learn how to use the library
• in their terms, through the use of avatars and creative environment design