Building Technology Bridges

This week I can write about any technology I want and I'm struck by technology bridges.

I came from vinyl 33.3 and 45 rpms. I still have them. My first car had an 8-track player in it and I owned Billy Joel's Glass Houses on 8-track. I copied all my albums onto cassettes to make them portable in my Walkman wannabe and for in my later car. Last year I purchased a car with only a CD player, so all my favorite road trip cassettes are history.

In 2007, the CD turned 25 and earlier this summer there was an announcement that MTV turned 25, both things I remember with clarity. We moved from Walkmans to iPods in the blink of an eye and now my CDs are only good for moving music to my MP3 player. I missed the boat on downloading music because I wasn't technologically ready and then the RIAA began prosecuting.

My husband and I were perusing our local Best Buy and I noticed the newest trend in purchasing music -- purchase a card with a code to download the album from iTunes. Great gift giving idea! I mentioned that I saw this as the beginning of the end of the CD, to which I was told NO WAY! It's much cheaper to subcribe to iTunes and download albums than pay for that card. Besides, too many people use CDs for file storage, they'll never go away. Bells went off -- haven't we heard this arguement before? Can anyone besidse me see this will be the technology we will use to bridge an older generations to the latest way of acquiring music?"

For that matter, aren't libraries and librarians are bridges between the old and new technologies, making information available to all? Aren't we participating in Learn & Play so that we can better meet the needs and expectations of our patrons? Aren't we connecting family, friends and coworkers with our blogs and other Learn & Play activities? We are a bridge, a human connection between generations and technologies. Way cool!

PS: I've been trying to find the first pop album printed only on CD -- I think it was Roxette. I can find the titles of albums first printed on CD (Dire Straits and Billy Joel), but they were also pressed to vinyl (I have Glass Houses on vinyl too). Let me know if you know.