Bubble, Blur, Flip, Spin, Hoard, Hug. Part Two: Now

Original version published at: Life of an emerging technologies librarian in the health sciences: http://monthly.si.umich.edu/2013/01/17/life-of-an-emerging-technologies-librarian-in-the-health-sciences/ On this blog:
Part One

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Now

Even 10 years ago, I never imagined I’d be asked, as part of my professional work, to write about the intersection of nanotechnology and tattoos, participate in a personal genomics research study as an extension of writing a book review, or teach a class on how to get dressed in a virtual world; but these are some of the less traditional activities I’ve done in my job. I also have worked in informatics, systematic reviews, written books and articles, taught library skills sessions in classes, and been challenged with some very tricky reference questions. The unexpected aspects of my work are an extension of the expected.

The past few years, I’ve done an annual half-day workshop on the emerging technology trends impacting higher education. What impacts education impacts libraries, as well as many other areas of our personal and professional lives.

Here’s a closer look at what I see as current trends in emerging technologies.

(To be continued … )

While I’m getting to the rest, you might want to take a look at the mindmap I used for the May 2012 Tech Talk, in which I reviewed what I thought was hot at that time.

I use Mindmeister a lot for mentally organizing complex information and outlining things I want to say. I like using it for presentations without a lot of structure in the talk because of the strong structure it provides to provide that context even when it isn’t provided in the presentation itself. Not to mention that it does a nice job of supporting browsing. In the mindmap, the nodes can be minimized to make space, or clicked on to expand. Each node with a small arrow to the right of the text has a live link to a webpage. Clicking on those gives a LOT more information. The message is there is a lot more information crammed into that small space. Here is a screenshot in which I expanded the node that had what was, for me, the most interesting content.

I couldn’t fit it all on screen, but you get the idea. There are a lot of links to explore, if this is something you really are interested in. If you are on campus, I’ll be doing another one of these sessions this coming May as well. Each year is different, although the background resources tend to stay the same. Watch for the Enriching Scholarship announcements. Registration usually is open in April.