[WEB4LIB] Re: Predictions for the next...

[Eric Hellman]

At 10:23 AM -0800 1/1/00, Thomas Dowling wrote:
>[Note: these predictions are only worth the paper they're printed on if you
>bother to print them.]
>
>Library services will increasingly be valued by the degree to which they
>interconnect.  Services that can't take you from citation to catalog
>holdings to full text/ILL/document delivery will be unsatisfactory.

yep.

>
>No universal method for user authentication will be available in the
>foreseeable future.  We'll still be fiddling with reverse proxies, URL
>rewriters, and site-specific kludges when we're asked for our predictions
>in, say, January 2003.

yep. We even covered the zero-width frame.

>
>I predict that a lot of people will predict a major decline in
>print-on-paper publishing, and that those predictions will not come true in
>the foreseeable future.  Among other reasons, publishers' paranoid
>anti-copying efforts will significantly hinder widescale adoption of
>electronic publishing in the consumer market.

yep.

>
>That notwithstanding, display technology will approach the resolution and
>contrast of readable print, making it more reasonable to ask patrons to view
>lower-demand documents electronically.  Currently, of course, the bulk of
>electronic publishing assumes the reader will print the document.

Not yet.

>
>There will be an open-source page desciption language that will be backward
>compatible with PDF.

Nope. Not looking good.

>
>There will be cleaner separations between bibliographic database publishers,
>bibliographic database vendors, data location, and end-user interface.  That
>is, choosing to buy database A will not require you to get it from retailer
>B by connecting to web site C and using interface D.  Having chosen A, you
>will still be able to make strategic choices about B, C, and D.

Yes and no.

>
>Library Internet workstations will go the way of library typewriters as
>Internet access becomes highly portable and wireless.  Think of a Palm VII
>with a paperback-sized 600dpi display and $20/month unlimited access fee
>(it'll probably do telephony too).  We'll provide a small number of devices
>for quick catalog lookups, etc., but that's it.  And yes, this will widen
>the division between technological haves and have nots.

Not yet.

>
>
>Thomas Dowling
>Ohio Library and Information Network
>tdowling at ohiolink.edu

I also made a list of predictions. I got one of seven right:

7. Thomas Dowling's prediction list will have a higher hit rate than mine.

Eric Hellman
Openly Informatics, Inc.
http://www.openly.com/           21st Century Information Infrastructure
LinkBaton: Your Links that Learn     http://my.linkbaton.com/