The Library in your Living Room

[Pat Rapp]

It makes sense to use a tv as a monitor for all your devices. I have a high res 42" tv that is my monitor/screen for almost everything: TV, dvd player, Xbox, playstation, computer -- everything plugs into it and it is big and beautiful. I easily swap it out for my regular desktop computer monitor if I have a large imaging project or 3d sculpting to work on. (It's overkill for using as a monitor if I'm just typing.) At some point, we might just stop calling them TVs and start calling them all-purpose monitors.

-----Original Message-----
From: Web technologies in libraries [mailto:WEB4LIB at LISTSERV.ND.EDU] On Behalf Of Jon Knight
Sent: Wednesday, October 24, 2012 9:57 AM
To: WEB4LIB at LISTSERV.ND.EDU
Subject: Re: [WEB4LIB] The Library in your Living Room

On Wed, 24 Oct 2012, Michael Schofield wrote:
> But the web with its textual links and packed screen doesn't feel 
> right when you're more than 24" away from your monitor.
> [...]
> This has me thinking: what do you think the library will be like in 
> your living room?

For my money, I wonder how many more years folk will be buying big, power hungry screens with DVD players, games consoles, etc, to plonk in the corner of their sitting rooms?  Broadcast TV is already having its boundaries blurred with on-demand programming, timeshift cloud replay services available from multiple devices, etc.  TVs as separate devices may well join the wood cabinets of the radiogram or the record decks of the hifi tower as an element of living rooms past for many people.

If the personal display screen gets really hi res, cheap and popular (and folk like Google seem to be going that way), why would folk want to have a permanently shared screen sitting there 24" from their sofa?  If you're always "wearing" your large virtual display, you could share your virtual screen with friends, family, neighbours and wouldn't even be limited to being physically in the same room.  Then it comes down to the question of what will the library be like when its always available if wanted in your field of vision?

============================

To unsubscribe: http://bit.ly/web4lib

Web4Lib Web Site: http://web4lib.org/

2012-10-24

============================

To unsubscribe: http://bit.ly/web4lib

Web4Lib Web Site: http://web4lib.org/

2012-10-24