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Small Size, Big Impact: Three Stories

Posted on: Sunday, 17 July 2005, 03:00 CDT

The tiniest devices can change the way we think about our world of work and play, just like the tiniest questions can launch every kid into his or her future.

Tiny Gifts

I recently had the pleasure of hearing a speaker at the Ontario Library Association Super Conference 2005 who rocked my world. We heard 22-year-old Craig Kielburger-three-time Nobel Prize nominee and founder of the Me to We Foundation [http://www.meto we.org], Free the Children [http:// www.freethechildren.com], and Leaders Today [http://www.leaders today.com]. He told stories about the impact of libraries early in his life. He also told powerful stories that talked about the impact of one person on another's life and the power of working together.

I was particularly impressed by two personal tales. At 12 years old, Kielburger attempted to save the local library in Thornhill, Ontario. When he heard that the local council was about to decide to shut down his local branch, he and a friend got on their bikes and rode down to the city council meeting to be heard-and they were. They stood before the council and explained that there was no other branch within a bike ride of their homes and that they needed the library to study and do homework.

Then, about a year later, Craig was reading about child labor and asked his parents about it. They told him to go ask at the library- so he set off on his bike and asked the librarians to help him understand child labor. Within months the answers to that reference question turned into a school project and a major international movement. Craig even traveled on his own as a young teenager to the Far East to see first-hand and learn more about child labor, making many friends among the child-age workers. Indeed, some of his colleagues have even risked their lives. Craig and his brother Marc now run a group that has built and supported schools that serve 35,000 kids per day. He leads hundreds of thousands of volunteers annually on major global projects. They train more than 17,000 young leaders every year.

Isn't it amazing and inspiring how a single, simple reference question asked about international abuses in child labor at the library steered a 13-year-old toward a life of charity and great impact? Libraries and library workers should never underestimate the impact of our work. The tiniest daily act can make a difference of global proportion.

Tiny Libraries

Most of us are familiar with the small drives we now use instead of floppy diskettes. Variably called USB Drives, Flash-memory, thumb drives, etc., these neat and inexpensive devices are gearing up to change our world. Yes, they do a great job of letting us move software, documents, and files from one computer to another. They're also getting huge! It's easy to find cheap drives that have huge amounts of storage and work on nearly every PC and beyond. They're so ubiquitous that most PC manufacturers have moved the USB slot to the front of the computer with the other drives.

One manufacturer has gone beyond just supporting storage of what we choose. SanDisk's BookLocker was released in early 2005. Have you felt the weight of our kids' backpacks? We are building a steady future income for drug stores and manufacturers of back pain relievers. Our little tykes should cart USB thumb drives instead of huge tomes to and from school. SanDisk aims to change the face of textbooks by providing class collections on a secure drive called the Cruzer USB drive, which carries the BookLocker software that securely provides electronic texts for educational applications and markets (using a proprietary DRM). The big leap is that readers will need a PC or laptop or PDA to read off the BookLocker. Given the size of storage, one can imagine a whole class collection easily and cost-effectively delivered to our learners.

SanDisk is also releasing an SD card with built-in USB so it may even be time to retire your memory card reader. The SD card is about the size of my thumbprint. Amazingly, SanDisk has managed to embed high-speed USB 2.0 connectivity into an SD card, bringing plug-and- play convenience to a new level. Now all you have to do is plug your SD card directly into any USB port to begin transferring your data, images, audio, or video between devices. The new mechanical design does away with the need for a removable cap and even features an LED that blinks when data transfer is taking place. What I find most exciting is that the potential is now there to cost-effectively bring your own content and storage device to your library and your own personalized software too! All you need to do is plug in your thumb drive and start to work; when you unplug, no one need know you were there. Imagine being able to use your own bookmark lists, your own Word and Excel files, and your own browser settings wherever you go. Sounds a bit like the CIA's and KGB's spy technology in the hands of teenagers. Cool.

Tiny Apps

So, how do you get small, powerful applications to put on your thumb drive? Go to a site called TinyApps. org. [http:// www.tinyapps.org], where downloads of mostly free tiny applications are available. What is a tiny app? As defined by this Web site, a tiny app (application) is software weighing in at 1.44 MB or less. This ranges from the miniscule Tiny IDEA (a mere 448 bytes), to the awe-inspiring QNX demo disk, which pretty much fills an old-style floppy. To qualify for TinyApps, a program must:

1. Not exceed 1.44 MB.

2. Not be adware or spyware.

3. Not require the VB/MFC/.NET runtimes. Also, preference is given to apps that are 100 percent self-contained and require no installation, registry changes, etc.

4. Preferably be free and ideally offer source code. Shareware will only be listed if there is no freeware alternative.

The TinyApps.org site supports Windows, Palm, and OS X tiny apps. There are hundreds of tiny applications on the site, including software for the Internet (tiny Web browsers, pop-up blockers, e- mail clients, file sharers, VoIP clients, firewalls, and more), document applications (text editors, spreadsheets, database, PDF readers, and more), graphics tools, system tools, file management tools, and other cool tools-media and music players, calendars, clocks, converters, security tools, and more.

So the day is here when we can put simple, standardized applications, personal preferences, e-books and textbooks, and other resources on a small, cost-efficient device that any learner can run on nearly any computer. Not bad-surely this is an opportunity for schools and libraries. Just imagine when your iPod can do all this and back up your PC too. It can now! And many kids already have an iPod and easily move files back and forth. The tiniest devices will change the way we think about our world of work and play, just like the tiniest questions can launch every kid into his or her future.

Will we be there with them?

The day is here when we can put simple, standardized applications, personal preferences, e-books and text books, and other resources on a smail, cost-efficient device....

by Stephen Abram

M.L.S.

Stephen Abram, M.L.S., is 2004/5 president of the Canadian Library Association and is vice president of innovation for Sirsi Corp. He would love to hear from you at stephen.abram@sirsi.com.

Copyright Information Today, Inc. Jul/Aug 2005

Source: Multimedia Schools

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