Fasten Your Seat Belts.....
I don't have much else to add to this except to echo Ryan's thoughts. Pardon the pun, but this rolls into one "device" much of what I talk about in my presentations - constant information feeds (RSS style), The Heavenly Jukebox, mobile labs (OQO + VKB + roll up monitor), etc.
Notice, though, that Ryan doesn't mention libraries anywhere in his speculations. And why should he? Have we proven ourselves yet that we're ready for this brave new world of digital content, delivery, and preservation? We need to make sure we stay in the dissemination and distribution loop so that we can serve patrons (like Ryan) with these types of devices.
As a whiplash turn to make the point, witness the lack of understanding about the role librarians can and will play in a society drowning in information. Even Tom Peters doesn't get it:
"Round two of the revolution is underway. We have a term for job positions occupied by travel agents, stockbrokers, bank tellers, librarians, receptionists, reservationists, and many customer-service oriented jobs--Toast! Not crunchy, cooked-just-right toast. We are talking about burned to the crisp and then left on the counter for three days toast. The kind of toast that leaves a thin layer of toast sweat on the counter. Toast that’s only palatable if you soak it in milk for an hour, plug your nose and swallow." [People & Places that Rock, link courtesy of Simon Chamberlain]
[The Shifted Librarian]
Hey, I did leave libraries out of that. Libraries are going to be more important than ever, and I can forsee users being able to access them and get information from them without stepping through the doors. How?
- Wireless access. I go to the site for my local library, login, and fill in a questionairre about the information that I am looking for. They are probably using a finely tuned Library AIMbot (LAB) for this part of the interview. Once that is complete, I'll start getting basic data fed to my system, most likely a synopsis of the information via a custom RSS feed that the library runs to my account. If I need more information, I can tune the results I want by weighting the articles that I am sent (1-10 scale, 10 being the best).
- Walking through the door. I walk in, and get greeted by a live human, or use a research kiosk where I enter keywords and phrases, author names, etc, all in an effort to get as much information as possible. While I should be able to do this from the net as well, the AIMbot insures that I am getting as specific with my search as possible, and actually conducts an interview, as opposed to just googling for results. I can then go and sit down at a display equipped table (which they should all be), and sift through the data, looking through the data and sorting it according it's usefulness to me.
- Phone. VoiceML combined with your AIMbot above would make for a wonderful combination, assuming that the system can handle a wide variety of accents and impediments in the users speech. Since you would log on over the phone for any inquiries beyond the basics (Hours, events schedule) the system could then email or again RSS feed you abstracts of your own results. This would be great for people on the go who need to learn about a specific topic quickly.
Scenario: A Real Estate Agent (RA) is in a new town, and wants to check his library to see if there are any EPA superfund sites in the area, or if there has been any heavy industry that may have contaminated the soil.
RA: I need to do some research on Townsville.
LAB: What do you need to know?
RA: Is there any history of contamination, chemical spills, or heavy industry polluting in the area, or any nearby superfund sites?
LAB: Is there a time frame you want me to look within?
RA: Anything at all please.
LAB: Let me check, (Search parameters: Townsville, contamination, superfund, EPA [this gets thrown in because of the context], pollution, chemical spills)
LAB: Looking. (10 second pause)
LAB: Still looking.
RA: Can you email me the results?
LAB: Certainly, please confirm your email address. You are REA@famousagency.com?
RA: Correct.
LAB: I will send you the results within the next hour. Thank you for your patronage!
- Lastly, there is the issue of having books available electronically. This is a hot button issue in publishing with authors, publishers, and and users all having differing opinions. I'm not going to get into that here, but I would love to be able to read all the books I own anytime, any where, ina any format I choose. I would love to be able to download books I own to the device of my choice. Lastly, I dream that one day, I will subscribe to a magazine and get a special annual archive edition that has all the articles of the year (as well as some bonus material) in a format that I can store, search, and index locally, obviating the need for me to keep huge stacks of paper. Simply load the contents onto a server in my home, and it gets indexed, noted and kept for as long as I please.
Now, as to Tom Peters, he's out of his head. Librarians play a vital role, as do all of the above people he's mentioned as the front line between users and the information they want. While their postions can be automated, and portions of what they do will likely be automated, there should always be a human on the end of the line for someone to talk to. Computers can't give you a discount of you've been getting horrible service from a company, or make the judgement call to cancel a late fee because your child just broke her arm and you haven't been able to make it into the store to return a film.
It appears that his point is more to the idea that a database can do what humans used to (pushing bits of data about) far more efficiently. But who is going to write that database, and maintain it? A DBA? Which is just basically a librarian who moves bits not books.
9:20:13 AM 
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