I thought I’d chime in (once again) on the use of Flash, which some at TechCrunch are discussing. Quite simply, I’ve made it the policy at my library to avoid Flash. And this will stand until the usability issues, performance and Apple OS issues get resolved.

As a former Adobe employee, I want Flash to work, but it currently does not…at least not reliably. As a casual web user, you may have noticed how Flash content can cause pages to not load. Or how it doesn’t behave the way other cotent does (no right-click, copying text is problematic, and now the scroll wheel on my mouse seizes up if the cursor falls over a flash object). And, with so many students opting into the Appleverse, it’s not a safe bet to produce crucial resources in Flash at the library.

I don’t enforce this rule, as Library Instruction is very Flash-oriented and has much of their content in Flash. And they have their reasons, which I respect. But on our site, it’s a Flashless experience.