, The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, NV, January 7–10, was “a nightmare/delightful!” Five times larger than even the largest library conference, the show's 35 football field–long bazaar of technology marvels and gimmicks—along with thousands of reps hawking them—was almost enough to put a person off gadget lust for good.
The diamonds in the rough, luckily, give us hope for gadget-kind. These drive the real stories that come out of CES and highlight the underlying ideas and needs pushing technology forward. So instead of thinking about every device debuted at the show—most of which won't ever make it out of the prototype or first-run phase anyhow—I entered CES looking for what your intrepid, technology vanguard patron will expect when s/he walks through the library doors. (Of course, I couldn't ignore the gadgets entirely, so check out the sidebar for some of the goodies from the show.) On the exhibit floor, I imagined myself in their shoes, excited by not just the possibility of porting materials from one device to another but by the potential for media outlets and personal content libraries to converge as well.
