As a long-time Palm OS Treo user now on a Cen­tro, I’ve been able to add any third-party appli­ca­tion to my cell phone for years. In fact, before my Cen­tro, one of my biggest prob­lems was fit­ting all of the apps I’d down­loaded on the phone and SD card. So it’s with a high level of amuse­ment that I’ve watched iPhone users extol their new abil­ity to add Apple-sanctioned apps to their phones.

Yes, these folks are hav­ing a blast extend­ing the use­ful­ness of their devices because they can finally install non-Apple-produced soft­ware. While I am indeed chuck­ling to myself a lit­tle, over­all this is a good thing, even if it does work only in a closed sys­tem. Why? Because it’s rais­ing the bar for a larger per­cent­age of the pop­u­la­tion. Expec­ta­tions for inter­act­ing with infor­ma­tion are again chang­ing for mil­lions of peo­ple, and that’s going to change how they expect to inter­act with their libraries, too. It’s great to see folks like Peter Brant­ley think­ing about what this means.

But back to all of the new iPhone app users — wel­come to the world of being able to truly cus­tomize and per­son­al­ize your smart­phone. You no longer have a one-size fits all infor­ma­tion device; instead, you now carry with you every­where a minia­ture com­puter designed just for you. Your life will never be the same again, kind of the way things changed when you received your first email mes­sage or surfed the web for the first time.

In the spirit of wel­com­ing you into the fold, I offer you some time-tested advice about your new best friend that you just can’t seem to put down.

1. You’re in that “wow, look at this app” and “wow, look at that app” phase, which is totally cool. I’ve been there myself, and the wow fac­tor is dif­fi­cult to resist. You should be hav­ing fun now that you can finally add func­tion­al­ity to your phone. I haven’t looked at the iTunes App store myself, and I don’t have an iPhone, so I’m tak­ing a guess these are avail­able, but take advan­tage of the tri­als to find out if you’ll really use an app before you pur­chase it. Exper­i­ment­ing is a good thing.
2. Inevitably, you’ll install some apps now just because you can, and a few months from now you’ll real­ize you’re never actu­ally using some of them. It’s okay to delete them. Really. They’re just tak­ing up room and clut­ter­ing up your inter­face. If you really miss it, you can always go back and add it again.
3. Games are a good thing, and I’m thrilled that you’ll finally be join­ing the portable gam­ing world. Hav­ing one or two games is a great thing, espe­cially if you have kids. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been stand­ing in a line, blood pres­sure ris­ing because I hate wait­ing, and then I started play­ing a game, which helped pass the time much more quickly. My step­kids loved using my phone to play games while wait­ing in long lines, thereby main­tain­ing everyone’s san­ity. I’m look­ing for­ward to see­ing what inno­v­a­tive games appear for this new plat­form, so keep us posted on the best ones as they start appearing.
4. As many of you are already find­ing out, that device in your pocket is now like hav­ing a mini-laptop attached to your hip. But the same way lap­top bat­ter­ies drain with con­stant use, so will your iPhone. So all those apps that are con­stantly check­ing the web — see sug­ges­tion #2 above. If you’re not using it and it’s drain­ing your bat­tery, delete it. Ask your­self if you really need to check email every minute or if it’s bet­ter (and health­ier) to check it every hour or even less. Trust me — all of that email will still be there.
5. Or, as Steve Rubel has sug­gested, turn off the wire­less. You don’t need to be hyper-connected 24/7, and it’s okay to put down the iPhone and walk away from it for a while. It — and all of your apps — will still be there when you get back. As Peter Parker’s Uncle Ben said, “With great power comes great respon­si­bil­ity.” You’re car­ry­ing around a lot of power with you now, but you need to con­trol it, rather than let­ting it con­trol you. Don’t get so caught up in the fun and new-found pro­duc­tiv­ity that you lose the abil­ity to dis­con­nect, or worse yet, focus on the peo­ple you’re with. Basi­cally, remem­ber the axiom that just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.

If you’re any­where around North Car­olina on August 14, check out this one-day con­fer­ence brought to you by the Pub­lic Library of Char­lotte & Meck­len­burg County. I met Anas­ta­sia Good­stein last year, although I didn’t get to hear her speak. If I was going to be in the area, I’d def­i­nitely want to hear what she has to say.

About the Conference

The 2008 Tech­nol­ogy Sum­mit Dig­i­tal Youth Wired for Action is a high-impact con­fer­ence designed to inspire new learn­ing and cre­ativ­ity in library staff, edu­ca­tors and oth­ers from around the region inter­ested in youth devel­op­ment and learn­ing. The day will be filled with prac­ti­cal tips and meth­ods to help inte­grate new tech­nolo­gies into the pro­grams and ser­vices you offer to chil­dren and teens.

The event’s keynote speaker will be Anas­ta­sia Good­stein author of Totally Wired: What Teens and Tweens Are Really Doing Online. Her blog, YPulse, is a lead­ing media, tech­nol­ogy and youth devel­op­ment infor­ma­tion source, and School Library Jour­nal recently pub­lished Goodstein’s arti­cle What Would Madi­son Avenue Do? Mar­ket­ing to Teens.

Tick­ets

Tick­ets to this excit­ing event are just $20 per per­son and can be pur­chased online through the Library’s part­ner­ing agency, the Children’s The­atre of Char­lotte, or call (704) 973‑2828. (Note: a $5 han­dling fee will be added to all Inter­net and tele­phone orders.)

Event Sched­ule

8:30–9:00 a.m. Reg­is­tra­tion for morn­ing session

9:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m. Morn­ing Ses­sion A Focus on Teen Services

12:15–1:45 p.m. Break for lunch (maps of nearby din­ing choices will be provided)

1:45–2:15 p.m.: Reg­is­tra­tion for after­noon session

2:15–5:00 PM: After­noon Ses­sion: A Focus on Children’s Services

Venue Infor­ma­tion

Imag­i­nOn
300 E. 7th Street
Char­lotte, NC 28202

First time vis­it­ing Imag­i­nOn? Visit the Imag­i­nOn web­site for direc­tions, a map, and under­ground park­ing infor­ma­tion.

Tech Sum­mit on Sec­ond Life

A live audio stream of Anastasia’s pre­sen­ta­tions will be avail­able on Sec­ond Life at Alliance Library’s InfoIs­land Open Air Audi­to­rium (103, 117, 33). For more infor­ma­tion, con­tact Kelly Czar­necki at kczarnecki@plcmc.org or IM (instant mes­sage) BlueW­ings Hayek in Sec­ond Life.

This is an annual sur­vey done by Dr. Scott Nichol­son, asso­ciate pro­fes­sor at Syra­cuse University’s School of Infor­ma­tion Stud­ies, and is designed to col­lect infor­ma­tion about gam­ing pro­grams run in libraries in 2007. This can be any type of game (board, card, video, chess, puz­zle) at any type of library (pub­lic, school, aca­d­e­mic, or spe­cial). The focus is on gam­ing pro­grams, where the libraries sched­ule an event of some type fea­tur­ing games, and on gam­ing pro­grams that were run some­time dur­ing the 2007 cal­en­dar year.

You can take this sur­vey at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=64bf17n2mW5s4QdKL6ctxg_3d_3d until the end of July.

Data from last year’s cen­sus has been valu­able in help­ing us to under­stand how libraries are using gam­ing and to get fund­ing for other gam­ing pro­grams. Adding data about your insti­tu­tion to our cen­sus will help us bet­ter under­stand how libraries are using data. You can see the pub­li­ca­tions that have used this data at http://gamelab.syr.edu/publications/. The results from this sur­vey will be pre­sented at the 2008 ALA Tech­Source Gam­ing, Learn­ing, and Libraries Sym­po­sium.

Ques­tions? Con­tact Scott Nichol­son at srnichol@syr.edu. I can tell you that hav­ing this kind of data has been cru­cial when talk­ing with reporters, so I hope you’ll help and fill out the form for this year’s sur­vey. Thanks!

While I con­tinue recov­er­ing from the mad fun that was Annual 2008, here’s another dis­tract­ing link — The State of the Web — Sum­mer 2008.

For non-hipsters like me, here are some links to help explain the graphics:

1. Fail Whale
2. Fire­fox Down­load Day
3. Why I’m Not Pur­chas­ing an iPhone 3G and Why Apple is a Bril­liant Company
4. red­dit goes open source
5. MySpace to release major site redesign
6. Hmmm…not sure about the glossy but­tons one. Any­one have a good link to sup­port that one?
7. Where Does Face­book Grow From Here
8. 2 Girls 1 Cup (the video is not for the faint of heart, although this link is safe for work)
9. Google Learns to Crawl Flash
10. Rick­Rolled

From today’s New York Times, this made me smile today. I <3 user-generated content.