One of my friend-of-a-friend friends found out recently that he has won an iPod. He wasn't that excited at first, sure that we was getting a 5GB leftover or something...here was his message:
I have been informed that the iPod's been ordered.
And it's the new 60GB monster.
Lessee. 15,000 songs divided by 250 CDs divided by 12 songs per CD still leaves room for, oh, TWELVE THOUSAND songs. Or a whole season of Lost episodes.
Now, how many WorldCats would fit in there? (OR should I say, how many WorldCats with digital content and reader's comments embedded straight in?)
I mean, the day is not too far away--You synch your digital device up every night and suck in all the content you want to have with you at all times--media/entertainment, (TV shows, movies) written words (books, magazines, blogs, journals), news (newspapers, podcasts)...and much of that content is broadcast to you, by way of the library. Maybe...
You just load up your 600 GB iPod every day and take sips of information, as you wait for the robot to finish ironing your silver space-jumper...
4 comments:
Alice -- Great post. FYI your colleagues in OCLC Research have been carrying WorldCat around for while (See: WorldCat in your pocket) and thought about putting the Library of Congress on a memory stick (See: Entire Library of Congress).
Maybe this could be our 2 billion WorldCat holdings celebration item!
Let's be serious here - which will he get more enjoymjent out of? 12000 personal favorite music pieces randomly presented, or 60 million bibliographic records. I know which one I would take to the beach....
Agree wholeheartedly, Mario. I look forward to the day (speaking ONLY as Alice Sneary, library patron, not as an OCLC rep!) when WorldCat contains the bib. record AND the THING itself. So it can be all that music AND all the interesting metadata ABOUT the music. And so much more--from around the world and in multimedia. Oooo-WorldCat as the new virtual reality. So you can be at the beach wherever you are!
Okay, maybe that's a little far-fetched to be all on an iPod. 60 gig or not...
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