written by Angela

Oh, how technology changes everything – sometimes for the (much) better!

I started my library career in 1997 at DPL’s Reference Desk. One of the tasks I was assigned was to create a reader’s advisory newsletter. I started Booktalking, a bi-monthly print newsletter which featured reading lists, anecdotes, and book/author information. I still have copies of the newsletter back to 2001 – don’t know where I saved the older archives, probably on a (gasp!) floppy disc, but at least it was the smaller disc, not the record-album-looking one from War Games. If you’re feeling nostalgic, you can read back-issues of Booktalking on the Library’s website, but only back to 2006. Probably because I recycled old articles and added a new twist.

Most of my reading tastes are still the same – love chick lit by Marian Keyes; love laughing at Carl Hiaasen. But there is a much better way to get this information to the public in a timely and interactive manner. Blogging! (And when I re-read this entry in 5… scratch that … 2 years, I’ll be like, “Blogging – that’s so archaic. It’s all about the microchips in the brain now, man. Read my mind…”). Sadly, we don’t have that technology in Iowa yet, so we blog. And the Reference Department has created a dandy blog that captures the essence of my original newsletter, Booktalking.

So, Booktalking as a publication is gone, but in its place is something beautiful, magical really – “Info Café.” Read it daily (you’re reading it now, in case you didn’t know). I’d tell you to bookmark it, but that’s sort of last year, too. RSS feed it, baby. Don’t know how? Call the Reference Desk – no, wait, who has time to make phone calls anymore? You can chat with them live on the “inter-galactic web” (internet).

Wake me up when technology stays the same for more than day. Until then, read books. The more things change, the more they stay the same.