According to many sources, this Christmas was a big one for mobile technology! Ebook and app downloads hit record highs! Ebook readership continues to grow while print readership declines!
- E-book Reading Jumps; Print Book Reading Declines via the Pew Interenet & American Life Project
- eBook Downloads From Libraries Hit Records On Christmas Day via Mediabistro’s AppNewser
- Record Volume Of Apps Downloaded On Christmas Day via ReadWrite
It’s an exciting time to be a digital librarian!
Wandering through the library these past couple of weeks, with new technology the talk of the season, I overheard several comments that went something like this:
- “These new devices always think they’re smarter than me!” (Spoken about a new Nexus 7 tablet) [Also – see this article from ReadWrite]
- “Why won’t this stupid computer let me do what I want?!?” (Yelled at a brand new Dell laptop)
- “I guess Word decided I really don’t need to format it that way after all.” (Spoken with dripping sarcasm)
Of course, that last comment got me thinking about how every single online WYSIWYG editor comes standard nowadays with a “Paste from Word” option – because everyone knows that MS Word embeds really stupid coding in documents that can seriously mess up the formatting of your work when you paste it into a web page if you don’t strip it out and clean it up.
Seriously – why is it that technology makers assume that their users are too stupid to be trusted to use their technology as they see fit?
I know, I know… This constant refrain of mine is getting old. But with mobile technology hitting record levels of market penetration this season, this issue is only going to get worse.
John the Librarian 