Fantastic Task Manager App for the iPhone

I think I may have found the perfect task manager program for my iPhone.   It’s called “Remember the Milk”  (RTM) http://www.rememberthemilk.com/ With my former phone, the Palm Centro, the only option I was aware of was the Outlook Tasks feature which I found completely useless.  So I was left using my calendar and the “Notes” program.  The Notes program helped but it left much to be desired.  With RTM, I can set tasks for specific days and set due times.  I can postpone tasks.  If a task does not get done on the day it is due, it shows up for the next day and every day that it remains undone.  I can set sound notifications for when tasks are due.  I can classify tasks however I want them classified.  For instant, I have categories for “Personal,” “Work Tasks” and “Work Projects.”  Keeping these separate or combining them is a key feature for me; one that I was not able to do with Notes.  There are a host of other features as well.  Unlike the thousands of free apps out there, this app cost $25 per year, but you can use it free for two weeks.  After two weeks of using it, I was hooked and coughed up the $25.  I’ve found this program to be the best task/time management tool since being able to sync my Outlook calendar with my phone.  If you have an iPhone, I highly recommend trying it out for two weeks.

IOLUG Spring Meeting Details Announced

The Indiana Online Users Group Spring Meeting will be held on May 14th, 2010 at Indiana Wesleyan University Indianapolis Education Center North.  The theme is “You Can Take it With You: Libraries Moving Into Mobile.” Details and registration can be found at http://www.iolug.org/index.php/programs/spring-2010-program/ .

The keynote speaker will be Jason Griffey, Head of Library Information at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.  His talk is titled “The Future is Mobile.”  I will be sharing a session with Bill Helling, Assistant Director and Head of Reference (former Systems Librarian) for the Crawfordsville District Public Library.  Our session is titled “How Friendly are library Websites and Databases?”  Bill’s session will be titled “How Does Your Library Website Really Look Like?”  This focuses on how to create a library website that usable for mobile devices.  My session “Bill Helling, Assistant Director and Head of Reference (former Systems Librarian) for the Crawfordsville District Public Library” is on accessing commercial and free databases with mobile devices.  I will demonstrate using an iPhone.  Right now I am looking at demonstrating EBSCOhost, WorldCat, Encyclopedia Britannica, and USA.gov.  I may add in additional databases if time permits.

Registration is $45 for IOLUG members and $65 for non-IOLUG members.

Outsourcing Librarianship to an iPhone App

Yep, I’ve found a way to marginalize our profession with a simple iPhone application.  I bought an iPhone last week and I LOVE it.  It’s the best invention since the iPod and will be even better once they make the storage on them big enough to hold all my music (other 50 GB right now).  I downloaded an app called “Librarian.”  Yep, our days are numbered!  You turn it on, set the noise sensitivity meter and when the volume goes over that point, it goes “Shhhhhh!”  THAT’S IT, WE’RE FINISHED!!  I mean, yeah now we have more time to check out books, but that is also being taken over by self checkout systems.  So I guess we’ll get to just sit around and do the part of our jobs we enjoy the most, READ!

Seriously, isn’t that what many people think about our profession?  Come on, we’ve all heard it…we tell people we are a librarian and they say “OH!  I love to read!  That would be a great job.”  Or when I was in library school I would have people ask me why I needed a special degree for to do that?  I heard that more when I lived in Kentucky than I do in Indiana – I’m not making Kentucky jokes, just stating a fact.  But even in Indiana, among other professionals and highly educated people, there is general lack of understanding of what we do.  I’ve spoken to people who realize it is a profession and that a Masters degree is required.  They have respect for the field, but still ask, “so what EXACTLY do you do on a day to day basis?”  They don’t know.  So I guess next time someone asks me, I will break out my iPhone, turn on that app, and say, “Well, I used to do this” (and play the Shhhh sound), but now my iPhone does it for me.  I figure that might be a good starting point when having to once again, explain what exactly librarianship is all about.