As you’ve seen me write a zillion times, I pretty much don’t review web sites or web apps that aren’t library specific, but I helped a patron use this one in my library yesterday and it’s worth people knowing about. IP-relay.com is a web site put out by MCI that allows deaf and hearing impaired people a web interface to gain access to a relay operator. They type into a chat-like java applet and a specially trained operator then speaks what they type over the phone to whomever they call. There is an extra cool feature where using a video phone people can converse using sign language. A patron can sign to a video phone [for many deaf people this is their first language and English is second] and a relay operator will translate their signs into spoken English. For more information on deaf telecommunication hurdles in the US, I recommend reading A Phone of Our Own: The Deaf Insurrection Against Ma Bell by Harry Lang.
hi – 31may
Hi. It’s taken me a while to get back on track after travelling. I got some good feedback on my talk from various ALA members and others and am hoping to use it even more in the future. I have also been invited to give a talk on “Emerging Technologies” for a group called Librarians of the Upper Valley [aka LUV] which is the area I live in. I am planning to talk about “technologies” such as voice mail, email, and good signage in addition to more nouvelle tech such as IM, blogs and “ask a librarian” web site features.
book … bags
not board books, but better paper makes books indestructible, almost
what’s being printed this year?
A book I read about books discussed the paper shortage [apocryphal?] that occurred in NYC when the latest Harry Potter book was being published. This led me to think of the paper situation given the first printing of 1.5 million copies of the 900 page My Life, Clinton’s memoirs. For more data on what is being printed this year, you can read Bowker’s statistical 2003 round up. I can’t tell if this press release is the statistical data they have released or of there’s a more fleshed-out report somewhere, anyone know?