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.

"i have a thermos full of my favourite tea. it is making me happy." This is a message I posted to Twitter a couple of months ago. Yes, I am a tea drinker, and yes, having a thermos full of my favourite tea is tweet-worthy. But that's not what this article is about. This article is about what happened after I posted that update on Twitter.

I’d wager that less than half the posts on most library blogs are interesting enough to warrant comments from users. That’s not to disparage any library blogs; rather it’s about recognizing that we’re using our blogs to post announcements and updates that really could be better handled by another tool – perhaps one that allows users to receive updates via text and IM, rather than just RSS (as is the case with most blogs). Enter Twitter.

Cyber what? Cyberinfrastructure (CI) is a new concept that describes the highly sophisticated information technology infrastructure needed to support advanced, groundbreaking research. The components of CI are such things as advanced networks, massively distributed computers, enormous storage, visualization tools, remote sensors, and collaboration tools. And people. Librarians.