I’ve spoken to library staff from libraries all over North America and have heard countless stories about innovative new services that failed. I always ask people why they think the initiative didn’t work at their library and the answer has always been about the culture — whether it was because of controlling IT staff, managers who wouldn’t give staff time to experiment with new technologies, or administrators who were deathly risk-averse. While there are many things a staff member without authority can do to ensure the success of a project, institutional culture is a barrier that can only be fixed by people in charge.

I’ve been spending an inordinate amount of time thinking about mobile technologies. You might blame it on the media for its ongoing love affair with the ubiquity of mobile devices. Or you could blame it on the launch of the iPad (the device that most reviewers and technology pundits are claiming will change the face of computing). Or, you might look closer to home and just blame it on an unhealthy attachment to my own mobile phone (the less said about that, the better). Whatever the reason, if I get excited about a new technology, application, or interface these days, it is very likely that it is a mobile technology, application, or interface.

I’m all for social media, don’t get me wrong. I’m a big fan of and an advocate for things like Twitter and blogs and IM and all the other cool tools that are tumbling out of the 2.0 blitz. I use social media, I recommend social media to others. I am a social media maven. Being one of the first 100,000 people with a Google Wave account is something I’d like to add as a line to my CV. However, I don’t really understand the current advice being doled out to librarians about social media. It largely starts with something like: “If your library isn’t on Twitter/Facebook/Second Life, you’ve missed the boat! You’re dead in the water! You’re a has-been!” In spite of my fully digital-native life (don’t let my birth certificate fool you; I am certainly as digitally native as they come), I just haven’t seen any compelling reasons why libraries absolutely must use social media networks.

Here’s a random list of a few things I did during my workday today: edited a document with four colleagues; added 11 items to my to-do list; read two articles on the future of libraries; flagged about 13 other articles for future reading; created a spreadsheet with another colleague to track our progress on a project; took approximately four pages of notes at various meetings; chatted with a number of colleagues in the staff lounge; and updated my calendar more times than I care to count.

It's not insulting to say that those who run libraries tend not to know all that much about technology. A very different set of skills are needed to run an organization, and those skills do not often come packaged along with technical knowledge and experience. But administrators need to know some specific things about technology in order to do their jobs well, so here is my list.

What does your library website look like on a cell phone? What library services do your patrons want to access on a mobile device? The first question is easily answered. Unless your patron is using an iPhone or iPod Touch, your library website as viewed on their phone will have little resemblance to the carefully crafted site that displays on a laptop or desktop computer. The answer to the second question will depend very much on the types of users that frequent your library.

Plenty has been said about the banality of many Twitter messages. Enough of you probably realize there’s more going on than meets the eye if you are willing to dig. Hash tags, twitter search, and a true global chat (uh, yes, it is basically, in essence, a “chat”) open up entirely new ways to reach out and touch people. Libraries have always been about books, but what is it about books that you’re there for? Essentially information and/or entertainment. The library does this while functioning as something of a community center. Twitter enables the library to reach people on all those levels and do so much easier, cheaper and more regularly than ever before. This article isn’t meant to be exhaustive but is a jumping-off point for any library trying to get some ideas. If you already feel comfortable with Twitter, I would suggest jumping down to “Tweet 5″ at the bottom since this is the biggest way I think most libraries are probably not taking advantage of Twitter.

Contrary to popular opinion, the web is getting smaller every day. Really small. The future of the web is happening on small handheld mobile devices. Soon the majority of web accesses will occur via smartphones or netbooks that are “always on” and always with the user. Apple’s iPhone and RIM’s BlackBerry are the poster children for this kind of device, but there are many others available and many more to come.

I received my first email message from an Access reader a couple of months ago. Not only was it an exciting and momentous occasion for me (fan mail!), it also reminded me of an on-going issue with which we all struggle. My reader, let’s call him Harrison, admitted to being interested in technology and all things 2.0, but lamented the fact that he just did not have enough time to keep up with all the new tools, tech, and terminology.

Does reading in e-ink live up to the hype? With more conveniences, such as wireless access and built-in dictionaries and annotation capability, e-ink devices can build on their main features of low power consumption and highly readable screens. While I was reading a downloaded book from our library, I became absorbed by the text because I was free of the distractions that come from reading on a computer. If we are fully engaged as readers, it does not matter what technology we use to read the text.