Drexel University Special Libraries Association (DUSLA)

DUSLA Guest Speaker - SPOTLIGHT ON THE INFORMATION PUBLISHING INDUSTRY

2009-01-07T15:00:00.002-05:00

Who: Jill O'Neill, Director of Planning and Communication for National Federation of Advanced Information Services (NFAIS).
What: Trends in the online database publishing industry, and preview of the upcoming NFAIS conference in Philly

When: Tuesday 1/13, 5-6pm
Where: Rush Room 014 (downstairs)
Interactive simulcast online here: http://67.202.209.165/launcher.cgi?room=iSchool_DUSLA

NFAIS serves as the trade group for providers of online database services that aggregate, organize and facilitate access to published information. In other words, the vendors of all the databases your library will ever use are members of this association. From their website: "It is a partnership of government, nonprofit and commercial organizations – all sharing a common mission of improved access to, and use of, information."

This is an excellent opportunity for us to learn more about an industry that we all rely on and that may also be a potential job market for librarians. Ms. O'Neill will also be discussing the NFAIS annual conference taking place here in Philadelphia in February. They are looking for student volunteers to help at the conference and will provide them with excellent networking opportunities.

Questions? Contact DUSLA Program Co-coordinator, Holly Zerbe - hzerbe@gmail.com

Learn more about DUSLA and opportunities to get involved here: http://www.ischool.drexel.edu/sladrexel/

2008-10-30T15:58:00.000-04:00

Please join the Drexel University Special Libraries Association (DUSLA) for an open house at the Conservation Center for Art and Historic Artifacts on November 12th from 4-6 pm.

From their website: "The Conservation Center specializes in the treatment of art and historic artifacts on paper. Established in 1977, CCAHA is one of the largest non-profit regional conservation labs in the country." At the Open House there will be a conservator or technician at every bench prepared to talk about their projects. It's also the time when the "best of the best" materials are out and you can look through everything at your own pace. Food and wine will also be available.

This event is open to the public and everyone is welcome regardless of their affiliation with DUSLA or Drexel. A group of DUSLA students plan to attend this event together and will be meeting in front of the CCAHA around 4. DUSLA welcomes anyone interested to attend the event as part of the group, but feel free to go on your own if you prefer. Either way, the CCAHA does ask that you RSVP, so if you plan to attend please email the DUSLA program coordinator Holly Zerbe, hzerbe@gmail.com, with your name as well as the names of any guests you plan on bringing by November 7th.

What: Conservation Center for Art and Historic Artifiacts Open House
Who: This event is open to the public but some DUSLA members plan on attending as a group. Please feel free to join us or attend on your own.
When: Wednesday, November 12 from 4-6pm
Where: The CCAHA is located at 264 S. 23rd St. (Just south of Walnut on 23rd)
RSVP: If you plan on attending (on your own or as part of the DUSLA goup) please RSVP to
hzerbe@gmail.com by Nov. 7th.

If you have any questions, please contact Holly Zerbe: hzerbe@gmail.com

Gadgets, Gizmos and Gear Exhibit at PaLA

2008-09-17T12:46:00.001-04:00

Volunteers are needed for the Gadgets, Gizmos and Gear Exhibit at the
Pennsylvania Libraries: Leading for Life
Pennsylvania Library Association 2008 Annual Conference
November 9th - 12th, Valley Forge Scanticon & Convention Center.

The Gadgets, Gizmos and Gear exhibit will showcase the Wii, Guitar Hero, Kindle and more. We just need volunteers to answer questions, assist in system operations and maybe give a quick demo of gadgets. Prior knowledge of these gadgets is not required, but will be helpful.

This is a great opportunity for students to network with fellow librarians and get involved in professional organization activities. Free exhibit passes will be available for volunteers. If interested contact Tanya Finney, tfinney@mclinc.org, tdf22@drexel.edu

DUSLA field trip May 23rd at 10:00 AM

2008-05-15T15:49:00.000-04:00

DUSLA will be exploring some of Philadelphia's Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender resources on May 23rd. Come join us on a field trip to the AIDS Library and the Library and Archives of the William Way LGBT Community Center. The AIDS Library is run by Philadelphia Fight a comprehensive AIDS service organization. The library offers access to health and support services, disseminates information about HIV treatment, nutrition, and history and connects people to regional and national AIDS resources. The William Way Community Center Library has over 10,000 books of LGBT-related fiction and non-fiction, one of the largest collections in the country. The William Way Center Archives is Philadelphia 's most extensive collection of rare books, periodicals, video and audio tapes, periodicals, personal correspondence, and other ephemera documenting the rich history of the LGBT community. RSVP to Jessie at jdummer@gmail.com. We will meet at 10:00 AM at the AIDS Library at 1233 Locust St., 2nd Floor.

DUSLA Spring Social

2008-05-06T11:01:00.001-04:00

Join the Drexel Student Chapter of the Special Libraries Association for a Spring Social!

WHO: Your iSchool classmates

WHAT: DUSLA Spring Social

WHERE: The Mary Hagerty Learning Lab (Lower Level of Hagerty Library)

WHEN: Wednesday, May 14^th from 5 PM to 6 PM

WHY: Learn about DUSLA events and meet with your classmates

Spring is here! Join DUSLA on Wednesday, May 14^th as celebrate in style. You'll have a chance to chat with your iSchool classmates and talk about upcoming DUSLA field trips and work shops. Refreshments will be served.

No RSVP required, We hope to see you there!

RUSH @ Hagerty Tonight!

2008-04-17T10:43:00.003-04:00

Hey guys,

Tonight is the Rush @ Hagerty. This is a networking event the iSchool has planned to introduce iSchool students to library and information industry professional associations. DUSLA and PLG (Progressive Librarians Guild), among others, will have tables there and will be available to answer any questions you have about the organizations.

See you all there!

Last Day to Register! Open Source for Libraries: All Grown Up

2008-04-17T10:40:00.002-04:00

Remember, attendance is FREE to all student members!

Open Source for Libraries: All Grown Up
Co-sponsored by DUSLA, Drexel University

Date: Monday, April 21, 2008

Time: Registration 5:00pm - 5:30pm; Presentation 5:30pm - 8:00pm

Location: : Mary Hagerty Room - #L33 on the lower level of the Drexel University Hagerty Library located at 33rd & Market Streets in Philadelphia, PA.

Description: : "Open Source" - a term you may have heard thrown about at conferences and on mailing lists - but what does it mean? This session will not only define the term "Open Source" but will show librarians exactly how it can be used within their libraries. Learn to separate the myths from the facts, learn about the tools that are available to your libraries and most importantly learn about how open source can free you from the costs associated with many proprietary library products. This session will cover open source alternatives to popular products used inlibraries, including, but not limited to an office suite, instant messaging, ILS and web browser.

Presenter Bio: : Nicole C. Engard received her MLIS from Drexel University in 2007. Having worked in libraries for over 7 years, she has recently accepted the position of Open Source Evangelist at LibLime. Starting in web development and moving on to working with metadata and cataloging, she has had the opportunity to work with people in all areas of the library and can be found at conferences around the world presenting on open source and web 2.0 topics. Nicole is best known for her blog, What I Learned Today... where she writes about technology issues for libraries and her work in developing a 2.0 friendly intranet at Jenkins Law Library in Philadelphia. In 2007 she was named one of Library Journal's Movers & Shakers and has published several articles on technology and libraries. In her current position with LibLime, Nicole is responsible for educating librarians both about what open source software is and the many options available to libraries. Her passion for talking to and educating librarians makes this role a perfect fit for her.

Registration Information: Registrations should be sent to Kim Rotter via email at kim.rotter@qvc.com. Registration deadline is Thursday, April 17, 2008. Those not canceling on or before the deadline will be expected to pay the registration fee. Please make checks payable to SLA Phila Chapter.

Cost: : $10.00 for SLA members, $15.00 for non-members, Free for student SLA members.

A light dinner (pizza and refreshments) will be provided.

Program Questions: Please contact Karen Krasznavolgyi, SLA Philadelphia Professional Development Chair, 215-503-2826, karen.krasznavolgyi@jefferson.edu.

***********************************************************************
DEADLINE FOR RESERVATIONS: Thursday, April 17, 2008

To Register, please send an email to:

Ms. Kim Rotter, Kim_Rotter@qvc.com

Phone: 484-701-2313

Name:___________________________________________________

Organization:_____________________________________________

Phone:______________________________

Email:___________________________________________________

Member (SLA/MLA) @ $10.______ Nonmember@ $15 ______

SLA Student member (free) ______

I will pay at the door (payment by check is preferred).

Make checks out to SLA, Phila. Chapter.

*********************************************************************************************************************************

Today! Google Documents Talk

2008-04-03T11:01:00.000-04:00

The Drexel University Student Chapter of SLA will be hosting an
informal talk on Google Docments Thursday, April 3rd, from 5:00 PM –
5:30 PM in the Mary Hagerty Learning Lab (L33) on the first floor of
Hagerty Library.

The talk will be led by Katherine Fischer, who will discuss the uses
and features offered to users by Google Docs. We will discuss how to
create, edit, share and publish files using Google Documents.
Alternatives to Google Docs will be discussed as time permits.

No RSVP required.

Save the Date! Open Source for Libraries: All Grown Up

2008-04-01T15:47:00.000-04:00

Who: Nicole Engard

What: SLA Philadelphia and DUSLA Present Nicole Engard, "Open Source
for Libraries: All Grown Up"

Where: The Mary Hagerty Learning Lab - First Floor of Hagerty Library

When: April 21st, 5 PM - 8 PM

Why: "Learn to separate the myths from the facts, learn about
the tools that are available to your libraries and most importantly
learn about how open source can free you from the costs associated
with many proprietary library products."

Blogging for DUSLA: A Quick and Dirty Guide

2008-03-13T11:12:00.003-04:00

All members of DUSLA are actively encouraged to post to this blog. You can blog about local library events; conferences you've attended; your reactions to recent events in library world; ongoing topics in library world; tips and tricks related to library science you've learned in your classes; or any other DUSLA or library related topic that is relevant to you.

If you've never blogged with DUSLA before, here are some quick instructions for how to get set up:

1. Open a 'Google' account.

If you have a gmail account, you already have a 'Google' account.
If you're new to Google, you can start a Google account at www.google.com/accounts.

2. Email Christopher Curry at curry@drexel.edu and ask to be added as a 'contributor' to the blog

Give him your Google Account name and email address so he can add you to the list of people who have access to the blog.
Christopher will contact you when he has added you.

3. Log into Blogger.com

www.blogger.com.
Use your Google Account email and password

4. Start a 'New Post' in The DUSLA blog

Once you log in, blogger will take you to the 'Dashboard', where you have easy access to all of your blogs.
One of the blogs listed should be 'Drexel University student chapter of the Special Libraries Association (DUSLA).
Click the link 'New Post' under the title of the post. It has a green plus sign icon next to it.

5. Create, Edit and Publish the post

Write your post just as you would a regular word document.
You can add images and videos to your post using the icons on the task bar.
Once your post is complete, click the 'Publish Post' button. Make sure you double check for mistakes!

Christopher Curry, DUSLA's webmaster, has put together a quick instructional video (NOTE: requires the latest version of Javascript to be enabled).

Links to the Video on the DUSLA website (files are larger):

AVI:

http://www.ischool.drexel.edu/sladrexel/podcasts/bloggeravi/blogger.html

Shockwave Flash (requires Flash and Javascript):

http://ischool.drexel.edu/sladrexel/podcasts/bloggerswf/blogger.html

Exploring Penn's Rare Book and Manuscript Library

2008-03-11T10:37:00.002-04:00

DUSLA explored Penn's Rare Book and Manuscript Library on February 23rd, where we viewed a few different collections, the Reading Room, and the staff workroom. We saw the Horace Howard Furness Memorial Library (for all things Shakespeare), the Edgar Fahs Smith Memorial Collection (for the history of chemistry), and the Henry Charles Lea Library (for medieval and early modern history). In the Lea library we looked at a variety of books and manuscripts from the entire rare book and manuscript collection, including a book of hours, a rare monograph printed by Benjamin Franklin, a medieval royal genealogical scroll starting with Adam and Eve, and a book on alchemy with marginalia from Isaac Newton, to name a few. Everyone had a great time and learned a lot too. Check the blog and the website for more field trips coming up soon.

Upcoming Events: SLA Philadelphia Chapter hosts a tour of QVC

2008-03-06T19:14:00.005-05:00

The Philadelphia Chapter is sponsoring a behind-the-scenes look at QVC studios. QVC is one of the largest multimedia retailers in the world. They broadcast live television shopping programs 24 hours a day, 364 days a year.

The tour will be followed by a sit down dinner and a talk on metadata and taxonomy given by QVC staff members.

This is a great chance to get to know your local SLA librarians better and get a unique perspective on QVC.

This event is scheduled for March 26th at 3:30 PM. For more details, visit the event page: http://units.sla.org/chapter/cphl/index.htm.

Upcoming event: The Leslie Nicholas Lecture: Health Information Technology in the 21st Century

2008-03-06T15:34:00.004-05:00

The College of Physicians is hosting a cocktail hour and guest lecture on the topic of health care information technology. The lecture will cover what technologies currently exist and how they will change in the future.

The event is planned for Thursday, March 27, 2008, 6:15 PM, and it's only $10 for students to attend.

Check out the MLA Philadelphia Chapter website for more information: http://www.mlaphil.org/wp/events/2008/02/28/lnl/.

This is a great event for anyone interested in medical librarianship, or anyone curious about how these technologies may affect your health care in the future.

Writing Webinar

2007-06-18T08:41:00.000-04:00

Sirsi is having a webinar in July with a focus on publishing for library professionals. I've been very pleased with previous Sirsi Institute webinars, so if you're interested in learning about publishing for your profession, make the time to attend.

Writing for the Library Profession

Date : Jul 10, 2007
Start Time : 11 a.m. Eastern
Length : 01:00:00

Do you want to inform and influence your colleagues? Do you have a story to tell? Have you done something innovative that delighted your users? We don't have a paucity of ideas and innovation in libraryland, we do have a problem with diffusion. We need to share our ideas and experiences more. From blog postings, to periodical and newsletter articles to website content and even to books library staff are increasingly being asked to write. With the dynamic and rapid change happening in our sector, we have an increasing obligation to share our knowledge and experiences. It's an exciting time to be in libraries.

Newsletter Available

2007-06-17T07:35:00.000-04:00

The summer term newsletter is now available for download.

If you're interested in volunteering for DUSLA, find a list of opening positions on the last page.

BlogPhiladelphia

2007-06-14T14:07:00.000-04:00

BlogPhiladelphia, a social media “unconference,” is taking place on July 12 - July 13, 2007 at the Radisson Plaza-Warwick Hotel in Center City, Philadelphia.

BlogPhiladelphia is an “unconference” for those interested in all forms of social media. It’s a central meeting place for everyone working within the realm of social media (online and mobile) to get together and exchange information and ideas.

Registration is first-come, first-served so register now! There is no fee to attend.

Click on the below URL to register.
http://blogphiladelphia.net/index.php

Careers in Federal Libraries

2007-05-27T17:41:00.000-04:00

I found this event on the OPAL list of webinars today and figured you'd all be interested in checking it out.

Careers in Federal Libraries
Friday, June 22, 2007 beginning at 9:00 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time, 8:00 Central, 7:00 Mountain, 6:00 Pacific, and 2:00 p.m. GMT:

If you are interested in learning more about career opportunities for information professionals as federal employees, this online event is for you. It will be presented simultaneously as an in-person event in the Madison Building at the Library of Congress, in conjunction with the Annual Conference of the American Library Association. A variety of speakers working in various positions throughout the federal government will share their experiences and advice.

Note: This online event will last approximately 3.5 hours.

Sponsors: The

Federal and Armed Forces Libraries Round Table, the
Federal Library and Information Center Committee (FLICC), the
District of Columbia Library Association, the
Washington, D.C. Chapter of the Special Libraries Association, the
School of Library and Information Science at Louisiana State University, and
Library Associates

Future of the Catalog

2007-04-21T22:44:00.000-04:00

Tennant and Spalding on the Future of the Catalog
Originally uploaded by madinkbeard.

Tim Spalding of LibraryThing started out with his talk entitled “The Fun OPAC”. Tim quotes Casey Bisson who said that the OPAC was broken in three ways: usability, findability and remixability. Tim argues that that is not enough - he also thinks it’s missing funability.

He gave us an example from Big (the movie) where Tom Hanks says that one of the toy ideas isn’t fun. Tim says that everyone is a toy company now. Users expect the web to fun and easy. If a site doesn’t change from visit to visit it’s boring - and our OPACs never change!!

Unlike other speakers on this topic, Tim thinks we need to bring the catalog out front and center. He says so used to hiding it behind our websites because we’re ashamed of it - and we can’t change it (which is very true).

So, how do we make it fun?

Allow inbound links!
links into our catalogs are always timed out when you find them in search results. People want to link into this information and they assume it will always be there. One way to solve this is to provide a permalink - like Google maps - but I’d argue that this isn’t enough either!!

Allow links outwards
The more you link outwards the more people will come to you. This includes links out of your catalog. Tim said that some libraries say no to this because they won’t link to commercial sites. Tim asks, why? Your patrons know about the bookstores! Good websites don’t work like malls, where all of the exits are hidden and they try to keep you inside.

Link around
LibraryThing links to 500 libraries around the world and makes everything clickable (the author, title, tag, subject heading). There is also a page for every author, tag, etc etc. Most catalogs do link subjects - but nothing else. You can also link to wikipedia (people are going to go there anyway).

Dress up your OPAC
Dress it up with covers from Syndetics (if you get them from Amazon you have to link to them).

Get your data out there
Stop thinking you’re the only people who can work with your data!! Wisdom of crowds!! There are bored techies out there who want to do fun things with your data. People will think of things to do with your data that you haven’t thought of yourself.

Provide remixable content
Users don’t want your data. They don’t want generic new book lists, they want their own content. RSS feeds for specific searches, authors, tags. They want a way to tell people what they’re reading with widgets. If the user freely consents to show what they’re reading to others, then there are no privacy issues to worry about

Next up - Roy Tennant!!!

Roy was worried that we were all there to see Tim, but everyone stayed to hear what he had to say (well, I left a tiny bit early to make a lunch meeting - but I really really really wanted to stay).

Roy started by telling us that he refused to use the “O” word. And then told us that catalogs have no future - you’ve gotta love him!

Roy does clarify that when he says catalog he is not referring to the ILS (which libraries still need for internal operations). He is no suggesting the death of the ILS just that we rework the finding tool which is the catalog.

He sees a future where there is no local catalog and in his future, all discovery will take place on the network level. If however it stays on the local level, few people will want to limit their search to just books - they’re going to want something that can pull together all of the info on a topic no matter what format it’s in.

This means that we need to look at new models of finding information.

In the new world order, discovery will be disaggregated from the ILS (Google, Open WorldCat, meta search, others). This makess sense because users typically want to find anything they can on a topic. Now we have to explain that you have to look in different places for articles. People don’t like pain so they want to search in one spot and if they can’t then they won’t use your tool.

Most ILS lack cool new features and fall behind our expectations and the market doesn’t look great that we’re going to see these things anytime soon.

Open WorldCat is offering some of the cool tools we want (facets, integrated article index, clean easy to read display) all for free. They also have WorldCat Identities tool which allows for every author to have a page. Maybe the answer is that WorldCat replaces our union catalogs. OCLC already has all of our data (I don’t quite follow this - not being a cataloger - but it sounds good to me). Another tool that they have is Fiction Finder (both this and Identities like the things Tim was talking about with LibraryThing).

These tools are great at exposing the richness of the records we’ve been painfully creating over the years (and this is true - i had a horrible time creating MARC records for one of my assignments).

At this point I had to leave for lunch - but it all makes sense to me and I’ll keep an eye out to see if Roy’s predictions come true!

Technorati Tags: cil2007, cil07

PennTags

2007-04-21T22:43:00.001-04:00

Rob Cagna from University of Pennsylvania came to talk to us about PennTags. The last time I saw this it was a bit rough - it has grown up a lot since it’s birth!!

PennTags is like del.icio.us for members of the Penn community. They can save pages from anywhere on the web, from the catalog and from campus resources to PennTags and share it with the world. They can also keep their bookmarks private if they’d like. Penn has also released bookmarklets to allow people to tag things from their browser without logging into PennTags first (like with del.icio.us extension for firefox).

One neat feature of PennTags is that the users can make projects - which are files of different documents in a particular subject area. This way you can see just a new books list (http://tags.library.upenn.edu/project/14404). Projects can also be made private if the user prefers - Rob doesn’t think that many people have done this.

If you look at this record in the UPenn catalog, you see an Add to PennTags link at the bottom and below that you’ll see the tags and annotations from PennTags - very very very cool!! This is done with Oracle and Perl - you can email Rob if you want the more techie details.

One way this has been used is as an on-demand subject guide. Reference librarians create a project and add links. They then send the project URL to the patron! Students can use these projects as bibliographies - or working bibliographies as they write their papers. And because every page has an RSS feed the patrons or students can subscribe and see new additions as they’re added!!

I am very impressed - and a bit jealous!!

If you like what you see, Rob is looking for partners to help work with the code and make it open source! Email them at: penntags@pobox.upenn.edu.

Technorati Tags: penntags, cil2007, cil07

Guiding Libraries and Info Pros Through Change

2007-04-21T22:41:00.000-04:00

David Lee King gave an amazing talk on handling change within our libraries. He started by asking a few questions and reading a few quotes. The first question was how many of us have had a hard time changing things in our libraries - lots of hands were raised. Then what kinds of change are hard - tech or other? Both! How many of us had to change ourselves while trying to implement change? A good number.

David, like a few others, recommended reading Stephen Abram’s article in OneSource on change within libraries.

He then read a quote from Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap… and Others Don’t by Jim Collins which basically said that spending time to motivate people is a waste of effort - the right people will be self-motivated - but the key is to not de-motivate them! What a great quote!! I don’t have the book, so I can’t write the exact quote, but the gist is right.

Change is gonna happen whether we like it or not - just take a look at librarian want ads these days - they’re all full of new (fun sounding) jobs.

So what is change? Change the old way:

leaders simply ordered changes

goal: getting the change accomplished

when it failed the leaders would review change to see what went wrong

The problem is that they were looking in the wrong place (within their organizations) - because change is external. Transitions (reorientation people have to go through inside before the change can work) however, are internal. The reason most changes failed was because leaders focused on getting the change done instead of getting people through the transition.

So, what are the stages of transition?

Saying goodbye (letting go of the way things used to be)

Shifting into neutral (in between state - full of uncertainty and confusion)
This is where you focus on the details. You have to want to change to get past this phase and unfortunately, some people get stuck here. These people don’t let go of the old ways. On the other end of things, some people get frightened and leave

Moving forward- requires people to begin behaving in a new way

Of course there is going to be resistance to change, in fact, “nearly 2/3 of changes in corporate environments fail”, but resistance isn’t the problem - management’s reaction to resistance is the problem - resistors aren’t seeing it as resistance - they see it as survival!

Three levels of resistance:

info based - not enough info with the new thing, don’t understand, disagree with the idea, confused

physiological & emotional - job threatened, future with organization threatened, respect of your peers at risk (loss of power - feelings of incompetence) - all in your head (but still real!)

bigger stuff - personal histories, significant disagreement over values, etc

So, how do we navigate through change?

Tips just for leaders & techies:

remember that you’ve already come to terms with the change, but others still have their own stages to go through

understand why people might not want to change

understand that it’s the transitions, not the change, that’s causing waves

Steps to take in helping change run smoothly:

describe the change succinctly (1 minute or less) change and why it must happen

plan carefully

help people let go (explain why they have to let go - why it’s a necessary change)

constant communication

create temporary solutions when needed (things to make the change move smoother)

model new behavior - practice what you preach, don’t say we need a blog and then never contribute

provide practice & training in new things)

if you want staff to use web 2.0, you better have an RSS reader and you better be actively using it and reading blogs etc etc

David than reminded us not to do these things:

don’t confuse novelty with innovation

don’t confuse motion with action

don’t keep something going if it still has a “few good years of life left”

More tips & reminders for techies:

you might be able to change quickly

there are areas where you don’t change quickly (it departments have to stop saying no first - think it through)

always share too much… (and do too much training) it should feel this way to you - cause you’re not the user

technojust(ification) - make sure it makes sense (the opposite of technolust)

After all of this if you still won’t change, you need to remember that refusing to change will lead to missed career opportunities and missed changes to expand your network and meet new people (like I do at conferences and through my blog). Most importantly, you’ll miss out on the possibility of shaping your new destiny and reality - don’t get me wrong, it will be shaped, the question is who do you want to do it - you or someone else?

Some final pointers from David:

learn all there is to about change

break old habits

work on stress management strategies

whine with purpose (constructive criticism is good)

What an awesome talk!!! I hope I did it justice in my summarization - and I hope you’re all motivated to change the way you handle change in your institutions.

Technorati Tags: cil2007, cil07

Core Competencies & Learning 2.0

2007-04-20T06:40:00.000-04:00

Before even starting her talk, Helene Blowers posted her presentation information on her blog - check it out here.

Helene walked about the room using her new presentation remote (the same one I have) and talked to us about core competencies and learning 2.0 at her library. She told us a story of librarians in her library who would put an out of order sign on the printers if they were ever out of ink. When she asked why, people would say that it wasn’t their job - it was the IT staff’s job. That means that until IT gets into the library the patrons have to go without printing. By telling staff that they can’t do things like change ink, we’re telling them that technology is someone else’s responsibility -do we really want that? She didn’t so at her library they created some core competencies.

All librarians should know how to do some basic things such as saving documents, printing, entering timesheets online and basic troubleshooting. After that Helene’s library set up three more core levels. See all of the levels here. Other tools for coming up with core competencies can be found on Web Junction or in the newest Library Technology Report.

I like Helene’s definition of core competencies. Core competencies are developed to support changes that have already happened within our daily work lives. To address the future they decided to do Learning 2.0. This way they could make people familiar with the tools that are coming out now.

Before developing Learning 2.0, Helene tried tech talks - short talks on specific technologies. With these talks, she only reached 64 out of 540 employees and was only able to cover 2 topics - at that rate it would take 10.5 years to teach everyone everything she wanted.

Instead she started Learning 2.0 which was a 10 week program that introduced staff to 23 technologies - it was not a training program, it was a learning program and encouraged the staff to experiment with 2.0 tools. At the end of her program - 356 staff members had started a blog - a number that would have taken a lot longer than 10 weeks to achieve using the old way.

Towards the end, Helene asked us how many of us were encouraged to play at work - not many hands were raised!! Hopefully after this talk, people will go back to their libraries with ideas for change in the way technologies are taught!

Technorati Tags: cil2007, cil07, learning 2.0

The new information design

2007-04-20T06:39:00.000-04:00

I’ve said it a hundred times and I’ve talked about others who have said it - but this topic bears repeating - over and over until it’s stuck in everyone’s head!! The way we design web pages needs to change - it’s changing all around us and it’s time to learn from others and use those new rules on our library sites. Today I got to see a test version of a new site for a public library (sometimes public libraries get to do the coolest things!) and it was amazing! I made notes and shared them with work (who are considering a redesign this year). Last week I wrote about user-centered design (an awesome topic). Today, I’m writing about Ellyssa Kroski’s talk on the new information design.

The fact is (if you hadn’t figured it out) the user experience with the web is changing. Users are changing the way they consumer information, the technology is different and most importantly the user’s expectations have changed. Today’s web design should be simple, social and provide alternative navigation structures.

Simple

Ellyssa included a quote from The Paradox of Choice: “The fact that some choice is good doesn’t necessarily mean that more choice is better … there is a cost to having an overload of choice.” And then showed us a picture of MS Word with all of the toolbars turned on!! That is bad choice!

New web apps are just showing the user what’s necessary, there’s a lower learning curve this way. This is also known as the “less is more” philosophy - we’ve all heard it - now we just have to apply it to our web redesigns. Lastly, and we all know this (but most don’t do anything about it) users are expecting a DIY (do it yourself) service model!!

Today’s websites (mostly web 2.0 sites) have clean simple designs. Sites need to be designed with a purpose, just for design’s sake (no need for flash on that library homepage just cause you took a flash class last year). Some formatting choices we’re seeing often are:

centered pages

round edges (provides a casual feel)

san serif fonts

lowercase fonts

large fonts for important concepts

simple persistent navigation

strong colors

bold logos

subtle 3D (like the site I saw a demo of) using reflections and shadows

original simple icons (like our intranet)

zen like feeling by using white space effectively (provides a fresh look)

Social

Just like every other talk at this Library 2.0 themed conference, Ellyssa reminds us that what used to be personal and singular is now shared (pictures, videos, etc). Users are expecting to interact socially with information on the web. This means commenting, ratings, send to a friend, subscribe via RSS, save for later and the ability to see all of that for the other users of the site.

Alternative navigation

Ellyssa showed us some need options for navigation (things librarians would never go for because they’re too chaotic). Some sites are trying to use a visual representation of what’s important on the site. Steve Krug writes in Don’t Make Me Think (great book by the way) that we don’t read pages, we skim them for important items - things that catch our eye. An example of an alternative method of navigation is a tag cloud. Others I’ve seen have included web like graphics linking pages together. Neither should be used as the main navigation - but the option can be there for users who like that sort of thing - it’s an easy addition.

Conclusions

Pretty simple! You have to evolve, be nimble and be willing to abandon bad ideas!! Doesn’t sound to hard - does it?

Technorati Tags: cil2007, cil07

Social Software at CIL

2007-04-20T06:37:00.000-04:00

So, Meredith Farkas started off her talk by telling the audience that I bite!! Yep, that’s right - I’m a biter I’m just kidding, Meredith (and me later today) was in the worst room for presenting. There are 2 pillars in the middle of the room that make it nearly impossible to see the screen. If you’re short and can see the screen you can’t see the bottom half unless you’re in the front row - I’m not a fan of this set-up so far.

But, back to Meredith. She presented on “Social Software: Building Collaboration, Communication & Community Online” - yep that’s the title of her book (which I’m ready to get signed!).

So what are the characteristics of Social Software according to Meredith?

Easy content creation and sharing

Online collaboration

Conversations have changed! They’re distributed (blogs) and they’re in real time (IM)

Capitalizing on the Wisdom of Crowds. Del.icio.us is a great example of this - we can see what others have found interesting. Wikis - conference wikis in particular are a great way to collect knowledge from many sources

Transparency! If you’re a terrible professor (as Lee showed us) then everyone will know. On the flip side, you can make a human connection this way.

Personalization - it’s everywhere and RSS helps you facilitate it

Portability - everyone is using at least one portable device these days - once again RSS lets them take content with them

What can Social Software do for libraries?

Number one - it will help us disseminate information. We can use blogs for library news, research tips, new books, new librarian articles, things in the area news - so many options! Wikis can be used as subject guides. Dowling College Library is doing amazing things with podcasts. Next, we can get feedback from our patrons - like I wrote earlier, no one wants to bother with the comment box at your circ desk - but they’ll comment online. It also makes the patrons feel like a part of the library - like they’re making a difference.

It allows us to capitalize on the collective intelligence of colleagues and patrons! There is so much we can learn from the people who come into our libraries - why not give them a chance to contribute? Also, why not use a reference wiki and share with those around you - what are you afraid of??

What strategies can we use to implement these changes?

First - avoid technolust! Don’t make changes just cause they’re cool - do your homework - very similar to what David was saying. Think about whether patrons will use it - and I’d like to add that even if you think they won’t and it’s free and easy to set up - DO IT!! Why not give it a whirl, maybe you don’t know everything about your users.

Next, involve staff at all levels of planning - they also want to be involved. Help them play with the technologies and see what they’re about.

A great presentation overall - you can see the entire thing online - I love it when speakers get their info up nice and early!

Technorati Tags: cil2007, cil07

Library 2.0: Setting up the New Stuff

2007-04-17T07:30:00.001-04:00

Next I heard David Lee King talk about Library 2.0 "Setting up the New Stuff". While I obviously have a feel for some of the basic technologies that David went over, I'm still glad that I attended this event so that I can share what I learned with you all.

David broke the talk into 3 parts. Part 1 - He answered some questions.

Why?

Just cause we can isn't a good enough reason (but it is a good reason in my opinion to play and experiment - if it's free and easy - why not?). We need to think about how these tools will meet the changing customer needs (Like Lee said in the keynote - web users want to participate on our library websites - they want our sites to act like the rest of the web), how it will help us stay culturally relevant and how we'll keep our digital spaces up to date.

What?

There are lots of options out there to choose from - once again think before jumping. Use your library's mission to help you pick tools that will help you meet those goals. Think about what you want the end result to be - do you want a place to share library news and have users comment? Then a blog might be your answer. David asked how many people had a comment box in their library - and only 2 hands were raised - but he made a good point, don't you think users would be more likely to leave a comment via a web form than that box sitting at the circ desk??

Who?

Specifically - who does the work? Both staff and patrons can do the work. Staff members should be chosen because of an interest in the topic - not because of the department they work in. Patrons can help by commenting, adding to wiki pages, and creating groups with a vested interest in the library and the library site.

How?

Always remember to include administrators and managers - you're going to need them (you never know when you might need to request to equipment). Consider how much staff time you're going to need - not just to start using the new tool - but to keep it going. Last and most importantly, ask yourselves - do we have willing participants, and if not, can we make them?

When?

To quote David "Like, yesterday". A lot of these tools have simple install files or sign up pages, it takes nearly no time at all - remember the Web 2.0 video (The Machine in Using Us)? Well, towards the end of that they create a blog in less than 10 seconds. That said, it does depend on whether you want to start big or small - if you want to use the predefined settings and templates or create your own.

So - that doesn't sound too scary does it?? Next David moved on to Part 2: Content, Container and Customer.

David asked us who had taken a writing for the web class - and not many people raised their hands - which is okay because it's not just about writing anymore - it's about video, voice, and so much more. You have to remember to keep a conversational tone when creating content for the web - this is a hard thing for some librarians because they were taught to be professional and proper at all times - well, that just ain't so anymore :) Once you get the hang of it it really does make it more fun to create for the web. He also showed us a few library blogs started in 2005 that haven't been posted on in as much time - you have to create often - if you can't don't try. If you think it looks unprofessional to write in a conversational tone, just imagine what it looks like to have a page that says "The newest news from our library" that was last updated in January of 2005.

Like I'm about to do with this summary - David says we don't have to write for just one place - we can re-use content all over. I post these summaries to at least 3 (sometimes 4) blogs. David uses blip.tv to upload his videos because they have a service that lets him send his content to a bunch of other places as well. How does this apply to your library? At Internet Librarian last year I attended a session on RSS & JavaScript. The gist was that you don't need to know how to code to get an RSS feed to print on your web page - you can use a blog and copy a bit of JavaScript and you're set. This is one of those ways where you care publishing in 2 places. You can write to the blog, but others can read the content on your library website, pathfinder, or links page.

I mentioned the inviting participation series of posts a while back - what a great time to bring them back to the forefront. There are 2 ways of inviting participation. One is passive and that is to write compelling content and allow comments. There is also an active way (that sounds like a great idea). On David's library's blog (Papercuts) they write a weekly post they ask a question (What's your favorite book? Who's your favorite author? etc) and that makes people feel like their participation is appreciated. This goes for both staff and patrons!

Next the container. Like I said before, do you want your page to use the default template or a fancy-schmancy one? This doesn't just go for you blog either - MySpace and other social networking sites offer you different design options. My recommendation is to play first and design later - make sure it's going to stick before you spend too much time on it.

Last (but not least in my book) the customers. One of the ways that social networking is "social" is that most of these tools have a friends or contacts list. These don't have to be your "real" friends, they can be your customers/patrons - by adding them as your friends they can easily subscribe to your content on Flickr, MySpace, etc etc. Allow your patrons to comment - this can't be stressed too much!! Our customers can also be creators, let them participate and let them contribute - it's what they want.

The last part was a list of the specifics for those I'll point you to Michael Sauers' summary (he was sitting next to me) - he did a great job of listing all of the specifics you'll have to think about - since it looks like I've rambled on enough already!!

Technorati Tags: cil2007, cil07

CIL2007: Keynote #1

2007-04-17T07:28:00.000-04:00

I got to hear Lee Rainie give the keynote at CIL last year - I have to say I'm glad that he gave a different talk this year - I was a bit worried that it wasn't going to be a new keynote.

Lee talked about Web 2.0 and what it means to libraries. He asked us bloggers to remember to note for everyone else that librarians are the people he loves the most! :)

After giving us the general web 2.0 definition that we've all see 100 times he showed us the Ask a Ninja Explains Podcasting YouTube video that he felt showed the grand meaning of Web 2.0. Unfortunately the sound wasn't that great for us - so I have no idea what the ninja said - I'll just have to watch it again later.

Lee says there are 6 hallmarks of Web 2.0 that matter to libraries. I guess 6 is the lucky Web 2.0 number because a lot of other speakers/writers have also come up with six.

Lee's six are:

The Internet has become the computer
- The number of people who use computers and the number that use the Internet has become nearly indistinguishable
- 70% of adults & 93% of teens use the Internet
- Broadband and wireless access is growing
Tens of millions of Americans, especially the young, are creating and sharing content online
- Young people in particular want to share their comments (and they want comments in return)
- Blogs are an example of this - and blogs are not just what the media says, they contain important information on real life issues
Even more internet users are accessing content created by others
- Reading blogs
- Wikipedia
Many are sharing what they know and feel online
- Ratemyprofessor.com - people are rating and ranking people and products
- People are tagging content.
Tens of thousands are contributing their know how and processing power
Online Americans are customizing their content
- My Yahoo!, My Google
- RSS Feeds

I look at this list and 2 items strike me - #4 & 5 - the fact is that our users want to help us create content and yet as librarians we block them out - we treat our content as sacred - and it is - but I think there is a time when we have to let go of some control and see what happens. I'll go over this more in some of my later summaries because it was a re-occuring theme for me today. Lee shares my sentiments and says that users want to be able to do all of these things on our sites too!!

Less continued on to share with us five issues that libraries and all online participants must struggle to address.

Navigation - we're moving from linear to nonlinear (breadcrumbs to tag clouds)
Context - we need to learn to see connections in the dis-aggregated information
Focus - we need to practice reflection and deep thinking, right now we practice constant partial attention - we're always connected. This prevents us from being able to spend time contemplating (note from me - blogging does this for me - even though I am plugged in)
Skepticism - we need to learn to evaluate info (well not really we, but we need to teach others
Ethical behavior - understaning the rules of cyberspace.

Lee ended with the Web 2.0 video that I wrote about earlier. It was great sitting in a room of people who hadn't seen it and listening to their reactions - at the same time it's a bit shocking to me to see that so many people hadn't seen the video. I think that as bloggers we just assume that the majority of people know what we know - simply because we read about it on the biblioblogosphere - when in reality we are a pretty small population among librarians. I found this in later talks throughout the day - speakers would say "I'm sure you've heard of ..." and a lot of faces went blank.

Technorati Tags: cil2007, cil07

The Library Director’s Perspective: Beyond Survival

2007-04-11T09:57:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I had the pleasure of attending a Library Connect event hosted by PALINET. The topic was “What’s Next? - Embracing Change” - the perfect topic for me!

In his introduction, John Tagler, VP of Customer Marketing, Academic & Gov’t Libraries at Elsevier said we’re all dealing with change and we have to “face it and embrace it or we’ll all fall behind” - what a great way to start the event and such a true statement.

The first speaker was Rush Miller, University Librarian at Hillman Library at the University of Pittsburgh. The title of his talk was: “The Library Director’s Perspective: Beyond Survival”. Rush is so passionate about change that he sometimes made me cringe! That said, he was an awesome speaker and the fact that he went off on tangents didn’t seem to bother the audience (or myself) one bit.

Rush started us off by talking about how librarians handle change. He told us this great story of how when he was given his first director job, the technical services librarians all brought him back to the storage room and said “Now if there is a fire, we all run in here and grab the shelf list”. Apparently, this shelf list was nothing to scoff at - big and heavy. Years later when electronic catalogs were available, people still kept their shelf lists because they didn’t trust the new technology. Rush asked a great question - did the librarians really think that if the library had a fire the administration was going to re-order every book that was on the shelves? For years, librarians fought change - it was technology that forced it on them.

He told a great story of how a friend gave him a disk years ago and said “here, you’ve got to try this, it’s a graphical interface for getting on the internet” - that disk had Mosaic on it - and Rush was unable to install it on his work computer because he didn’t have Windows. Why not? Cause his IT staff it took up too much space and was a passing fad! See - it’s not just librarians how fight change - we all do - we fight until we’re bruised and broken and then we have to give in - wouldn’t it be easier if we acknowledged that change is scary and that we’re terrified, but go with the flow anyway??

He talked about how he hated going golfing without a full group of friends because eventually someone was going to ask - “so what do you do” and he’d have to tell them he was a librarian. This would lead to a discussion on whether people actually use libraries anymore - if they’re really necessary and so on. The fact of the matter is - that if we don’t start making the right arguments - people are going to believe that they’re not necessary!! Here’s where Rush and I part ways a bit. Rush feels that it should all go digital - that books are on their way out - slowly - but on their way out. He mentioned that at Pitt they’re closing departmental libraries with no opposition from the departments - he said that book usage is going down (a stat that is the complete opposite of another I recently read).

That said - his next point is right on track - constantly claiming the value of libraries and making arguments is not going to get things done - we have to demonstrate to others how it works.

He then proceeded to give us 8 ideas for changes:

User-centric not user-focused
Provide multiple channels for information delivery and rethink our processes and services. What’s important is what they think not what you think!

Re-think our mission
It’s not about books anymore and it’s not about organizing information, it’s about connecting people to what they want to learn. In short - it’s about people!

Re-engineer our operations
Stop worrying about the quality of the data in your catalog - it’s not the center of the universe
Re-think how space is used
Allow cafes in the library - stop worrying about the stupid carpets! (I actually thought it was worries about the books that made us stop people from drinking in the library - but when we did our renovation it was also about the carpets - why???)

Collaborate and innovate

Communicate our message

Build expertise

Change the culture of our libraries
Stop rewarding the people who won’t change in your library and start supporting those who will. Rewards should not be given on the basis of who’s been there the longest.

So, overall - a great presentation by Rush!! And lots of great info. I’ll provide a link to his presentation as soon as it’s available.

8apps - tools for productive people

2007-04-07T11:33:00.000-04:00

Today I took some time to play with 8apps:

8apps is a suite of online applications that helps you to work better. At the center there is Handshake, a fully-featured social network for you to make new contacts, strengthen existing relationships and find like-minded entrepreneurs.

For those who don't have skilled programmers in house you might want to take a look at this application for collaborating with your colleagues. It has to do lists (which you can share), a project brainstorming app, and plan meetings with people where ever you are. So far, there are only 4 apps, but 4 more are in the works. 8apps is invite only, so if you want to try it out just drop me a comment or an email (remember to provide me with your email address) and I'll send you an invite.

So far, this is a pretty nifty all-in-one package for working with people who aren't sitting right next to you at work.

Want to see it in action? Check out the screencast: part 1 and part 2.

NFAIS 2007: Measuring Change

2007-03-04T09:50:00.000-05:00

Last Sunday, I got to hear Bette Brunelle of Outsell Inc. at the NFAIS 2007 Annual Conference in Philadelphia. Her topic was "Measuring Change: How Disruption Affects to Information Community" - nifty title.

Bette provided us with a bunch of statistics from the Outsell database, but before that, she made a very important point. She mentioned that many of us talk to our current customers to see what they think about our organizations - and to get ideas for change. This is the wrong approach! We should be talking to tomorrow's customers. This model doesn't apply quite as much to academic or public libraries - which I'll come back to later - but most certainly to corporate and other special libraries. For our web redesign project at Jenkins I've asked to interview law and library students to see what they want to see on the website - I want to hear from the future librarians and lawyers so that I can design a site that's going to meet their needs when they graduate.

Before I go into some stats, the disclaimer - in the Outsell database the average user age is 38 and the users are predominately American.

Information Seeking

When asked where users when seeking information for their jobs in both 2001 and 2006 the number one answer (79% in 2001 and 57% in 2006) was the Internet, followed by the office intranet (5% in 2001 and 19% in 2006). The library came in at 3% in 2001 and 4% in 2006 - but we're not surprised since we've seen results like this in many other studies. What's interesting is that when asked how many times these methods resulted in satisfactory answers there was a 31% error rate across all markets (internet, intranet, library) - but when people failed to find info on their intranets they just assumed it was because they didn't search quite right - people apparently are very enthusiastic about their intranets - more so than the internet (yet they're still looking at the internet first for information).

When they fail the users were asked where they go next. 64% will go to an in-house colleague, 18% will go to an out-of-house colleague, and 7% will go to their public library. Sounds about right to me - I work in a library and I still ask my peers for information first.

Email is still king

When asked how people prefer to get their information, 76% still say they want it to come via email. 45% want it to be on their office intranet, 45% want to look to blogs for information (55% of these are under 30 and 43% over 30), 20% choose RSS (23% are under 30, 20% over 30), and 21% get it via podcasts (27% under 30 and 19% over 30).

Remember all of these questions are in reference to work related information seeking/receiving behaviors. Would these numbers change if we were talking about personal information seeking? I know it would for me.

Corporate Libraries

When corporate libraries were asked what technologies they have recently implemented (or plan to in the near future), 40% have said RSS (Great!!), 28% say e-learning, 15% for web conferencing, 9% for blogs (which I find interesting - I would have expected a higher number here), and 7% said e-books.

Here's where it gets disturbing - Bette points out that because corporate libraries are usually dealing with an older population than a public or academic library, it's not where you're going to find the most forward thinking people. When librarians were asked how they went about their daily duties they all gave very traditional methods for doing their jobs.

At this point the slide on the screen was of the New Yorker cartoon where the man is talking to his cat, saying, "Never, ever, think outside the box".

She has my attention now (not that she didn't before - but she's touching on my area of the library world) - and now she's warning the audience to be careful of who you're talking to when you're going to libraries for information. Is this what you expect to hear at an information conference?? It certainly wasn't what I was expecting - but I totally see where she's coming from.

The innovators

That said, if you're looking for innovation and passion in libraries (she says) go to your public library. This is where you're going to find the most passionate staff because they're already dealing with the next generation of library users and they've been forced to keep up with the times. She showed us a few public and academic library sites where innovation was very obvious (tagging, MySpace, Virtual worlds) - and urged us to find out what our future information seekers are going to expect from us.

Thoughts

This was a great talk ... and I'm going back to my library to push that little bit more to instate changes that are going to benefit both our current and our future users - because if we don't start now we're going to be way behind the curve!

Code4Lib: Hurry Up Please - It’s Time

2007-03-04T09:45:00.000-05:00

Karen Schneider did the first keynote. Sorry it took me so long to write this up, but it was a really great talk and the recording I got was a bit muffled and I wanted to get this right.

Karen started by informing us that we're in a State of Emergency in our profession:

We have given away our collections
Allowing third parties to digitize our books (ex Google Books) parties who might not have the same mission as us.

We don’t build or own the tools that manage them
Why aren't ILS built by librarians - the people who know the way libraries work

We provide complex, poorly-marketed systems

We function like a monopoly service when our competition is thriving right under our nose

Of the above, I don't necessarily agree that we're giving away our content - I think we're using the tools available to us to get the job done - cheap! Why not let Google digitize our books and preserve them? I guess Karen's concern is whether they actually will preserve them - maybe #1 just needs some tweaking of the way we're providing content to others with the necessary tools. Why not hand the books over for scanning and storing by Google, but get copies for ourselves as well. I'm not sure of all of the logistics, but I'm all for using the companies that are out there willing to help us with projects we'd never be able to afford otherwise.

Karen went on to describe our work not as "book" work - but as memory work. We are in charge of preserving access to our society's memories. I got the impression that Karen thinks that we have forgotten our path - and wants to bring us back to it.

She urged us to follow the "5-3-1 Rule":

Pick 5 issues you believe are important

Focus on 3

now, make that 1 happen.

While there are many more things (than 5) that we can fix - Karen suggests these 5 to start with:

digital preservation

standards adoption

the sucky state of most library software

third-party library content hegemony

scholarly awareness of key issues in LibraryLand

Out of that list I'd pick numbers 2 through 5 (are you surprised?). Karen picked number 1, 3 and 5. The one we agree on? Our #1 thing to make happen is number 3!!

Some great things are happening in this area already.

Evergreen

Umlaut

Scriblio

The solr search engine

I'd add to that list Koha - which I learned about before Evergreen.

This renaissance of librarian-built software is a powerful thing. It restores the balance of power - the ball's back in our court. It reinstates the direction of our profession - we're now the ones preserving memories and we're doing it our way. Most important (to me) it sends a message to the vendors that we mean business. Who wouldn't want to jump in and help out with this trend (if, of course, they had the knowledge to do so)?

Unfortunately - Karen's message is that nobody cares!

Nobody cares about open source
Nobody cares about standards
Nobody cares about usability
Nobody cares about Evergreen

But, don't take this message the wrong way. What Karen is trying to say is that we need to figure out how to sell these things to an audience who might fear the words "open source" or "free". We need to stop talking to those who make the decisions as if they were programmers - or techies - or geeks - like us. We need to sell these things on what they mean for libraries - on what they can do for us.

From here the discussion turned a bit - Karen explained (from a director's point of view) what directors "know" about Open Source Software. In case you didn't catch that - the word know is in quotes - meaning things directors think they know about open source.

One guy in a garage… probably in a torn Duran Duran tee-shirt
- One car accident away from orphan software

No support model

Cheesy "make-do" quality

Arcane and developer-oriented

Nobody else is doing it

This is a little funny - and a lot sad. The problem comes down to the fact that we aren't selling OSS right. We're selling it like we'd sell it to people like us. We need to sell it to people who sometimes think that homegrown and OSS are the same thing - people who had to work in libraries that were developing their own cataloging systems - people who apparently had a great sigh of relief when ILS vendors came along and took over the work. What they don't realize is that OSS is not the same as those homegrown products of years ago.

My problem is that I've been doing this very thing. Trying to sell people on Open Source when I should be selling them on the product itself. Karen critiqued open-ils.org, stating that the FAQs are not really frequently asked questions. Instead of answering questions about open source the first question should be "Why should I use this?" - makes sense to me - but then again so did the FAQ page the way it was. It's all a matter of us changing the way we view things and trying to talk to the users - in this case our library directors and staff.

Karen warned us that there is no such thing as free software - not something you want to say in a room full of OSS supporters - but what she says has some merit. The fact is that there is always a chance you're going to have to take your software package home, install it and tweak it to your needs - that's not free - my time is no free. Dan Chudnov made a comment during questions and answers that the word "free" when used in conjunction with OSS really means "freedom" - I really like that idea - and maybe we need to start marketing OSS as freedom - freedom from vendors, from locked down software, from systems that don't meet our needs - freedom to alter the code to fit our own special model.

Karen concluded by stating that every library needs a developer. There was a time when libraries didn't have ILL staff - now it's a requirement. Let's make having developers in our libraries a requirement as well. I'd actually go one step further and require that your developers have library experience. I've worked with outside developers who don't know a thing about libraries - and now we're cleaning up their mess.

View the Powerpoint

Technorati Tags: code4lib, code4lib2007

Code4Lib: Breakout 1

2007-03-01T15:59:00.000-05:00

I went to the Library APIs Breakout session yesterday. It turned into a talk about Talis & their products & business practices. It was pretty neat ;)

Rob Styles (of Talis) went off on a pretty neat tangent/analogy. Rob introduced us to his 3 children.

His 18 month old son is at a stage in his life where he will willingly give away anything. He goes around the house and finds things to give to others - if you ask for something he will hand it right over. He has no concept of ownership.

His 4 year old daughter is the complete opposite. She feels that everything that's hers is hers alone. She doesn't share and doesn't like other people to touch her things. She has put up a wall around her stuff and stores it away from others.

Lastly, his 7 year old son knows that if he has 2 toy cars and gives one to a friend he can have much more fun than if he keeps it to himself. He understands that while he's letting his friend use his car - it's still his car - it's just more fun when you share with others. At the same time he can go outside and race bikes with his friends - he knows it's a competition, but 5 minutes later he can come inside and play and have fun.

The library vendor world is like the 4 year old. It's an "it's mine" world. Talis feels that it should be a 7 year old world - this is why they share their APIs and software with others. We should be able to share with our competition - because it's no fun if we're playing alone. The models are changing and people are realizing that they can have much more fun if they share. Web 2.0 - Creative Commons - it's all about sharing!!

What a neat idea. I know it doesn't have much to do with the topic at hand (Library APIs), but it was the best part of the breakout (basically because I hadn't used any of the APIs that everyone was talking about).

Technorati Tags: code4lib, code4lib2007

International library projects

2007-02-08T10:53:00.000-05:00

This morning I came across a few interesting links regarding international book donation projects that I wanted to share with you.

The Camel Bookmobile provides books to children in Kenya, specifically storybooks, fiction, and science textbooks. The author, Masha Hamilton, has written a fictional book about this topic entitled, The Camel Bookmobile, about an American librarian who goes to Kenya to start a camel-borne bookmobile. The book will be coming out in the spring of 2007. This novel is based on the real bookmobile. If you are interested in this project or donating books, more information is available on Hamilton’s website.

Additionally, Masha Hamilton also mentions another global project, called the African Library Project. The website for this organization states “The African Library Project partners with volunteers in African communities to create small libraries for African schools and villages…donated books are collected in the U.S. through book drives organized by volunteer schools and non-profit organizations. The books are shipped directly to the communities who request them.” For more information, please visit their website.

Special Library Panel Series @ Drexel

2007-02-06T09:46:00.000-05:00

Just wanted to remind you all about the Special Library Panel Series they're holding at Drexel - and in particular the GPLLA Night (Greater Philadelphia Law Library Association).

Date: 3/7/2007
Time: 4:30 PM
Location: Rush Building, Room 014

Make sure you attend to learn all about law librarianship.

[update] Important Notice: Tomorrow's Greater Philadelphia Law Library Association Panel Discussion at Drexel has been postponed. The event will now be held on Wednesday, April 4 from 4:30 - 6 pm. [/update]

Future Librarians

2007-01-26T20:38:00.000-05:00

If you're a future librarian - you might be interested in this nifty T-Shirt.

DUSLA Winter Newsletter Available

2007-01-24T06:15:00.000-05:00

You can now read the Winter 2007 edition of the DUSLA newsletter by downloading the PDF from our website.

Book Gadgets

2007-01-07T09:18:00.000-05:00

You may have noticed my del.icio.us bookmark to Kimbooktu - but I have to tell you how cool this site is. Kimbooktu lists gadgets, books, tools, and goodies for book lovers - it's so much fun to read and maybe one day I'll be able to buy some of these nifty gadgets.

TCLC Technology Workshop

2006-12-29T16:21:00.000-05:00

TCLC Technology Workshop:
Social Software and Libraries.
Held on December 12, 2006
I just wanted to share a few highlights from the TCLC Technology Workshop: Social Software and Libraries, held on December 12, 2006 at West Chester University.

For those who couldn’t make it, or who are not familiar with social software, let me explain. Social Software (SS) supports group collaboration or interaction by use of the Internet.

Some examples of SS include instant messaging, RSS, blogs, wikis, folksonomies(tagging), photo sharing, social bookmarking, podcasting, mashups and more.

The workshop focused on SS technologies and their applications in libraries.
See below PowerPoint slides.

http://www.tcnj.edu/~corrado/scholarly/palinet2006corrado-robertson.pdf

What impressed me the most was Social Libraries and in-browser Instant Messaging.

An example of social libraries is LibraryThing.

LibraryThing is an online service for storing and sharing personal library catalogs. Since it’s web-based you can access your catalog from computer. Users can catalog personal collections, keep reading lists , write reviews and make blog widgets.

LibraryThing is an easy way for libraries to display list of “New Books” on their Web site.

Meebo is an example of in-browser instant messaging program.
Launched in September 2005, Meebo is a website instant messaging program, which supports multiple IM services, including Yahoo! Messenger, Windows Live Messenger, AIM, ICQ, and Google Talk. Meebo requires no downloads or installs and, its free. Since you can access all your buddies on any computer its prefect for library services such as “Ask-the-Librarian”.

SEPLA Conference

2006-12-01T20:17:00.000-05:00

The Southeastern Pennsylvania Library Association’s annual conference was held on December 1 at the Upper Merion Township Building in King of Prussia. The conference’s theme this year, The Library As Place, received great interest and because of the overwhelming response, no more registrations were permitted two weeks before the conference.

Librarians and friends of the library attended from as far as Altoona and from Bloomsburg. The keynote speaker, Josie Parker, Director of the Ann Arbor Library System in Michigan, spoke of the library as a place and destination for patrons. She described her hometown library in Mississippi and the nice red, silk covered sofa that made her feel at home in the library. She went on to describe the efforts in her libraries to make all patrons feel welcome, from parents coming in with young children to telecommuters coming in to use the library’s wireless network for their laptop. Their libraries have offered special services such as lounge areas away from the main library with vending machines where teens often come to study or work together on schoolwork. The main branch in downtown Ann Arbor hosted a controversial program where teens had a graffiti art contest and many of the teenage boys (whom Parker pointed out as an audience difficult to reach) were able to make sales on their art. By implementing these programs and making the libraries a destination, the Ann Arbor Libraries have been very successful in getting patrons into their libraries.

LibWorm - Search for Library News

2006-11-26T07:45:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, while I was working on my final projects, news of LibWorm spread throughout the biblioblogosphere. LibWorm is a "Librarianship RSS and Current Awareness Search" by MedWorm’s Frankie Dolan and David Rothman.

LibWorm let's you search for library news across over 1000 RSS feed (including blogs, journal tables of contents and more). I need to poke more before I give my official opinion - but the one thing missing is a way to see what feeds are included. If I find a journal RSS I want to share with others, I want to have an easy way to find out if it's included and I did a few searches and browsed a bit, it was easy to find news (which is the point) but not the sources for the news (not the point - but a handy addition so that I don't waste people's time with suggestions - like adding the DUSLA blog).

Read more from David himself or from LibWorm's About page.

25 Technologies

2006-11-15T07:50:00.000-05:00

I just attended the SirsiDynix Institute on 25 Technologies in 50 Minutes and I have to say that Stephen Abram is a man after my own heart. Learning Learning Learning - make time for learning - that was the theme of this event!

Stephen suggests:

going crazy with images and adding them to our library sites to give us personality (Flickr, Picassa)
using social bookmarking sites to keep track of reference bookmarks (del.icio.us)
recording story hours or events in the library and sharing them with the world (YouTube)
bridging the digital divide by introducing our users to Google Office
searching with a guide (ChaCha)
communicating with our users where they are (Meebo,Trillian,MySpace,Facebook)

Most importantly spend 15 minutes a day playing and learning these new technologies. Stephen suggests setting up a blog - not sharing it with others - but using it as your learning tool. Through your blog you can learn how to use Flickr, tags, Technorati, and so much more. Thinking your too busy? Think about your work day - how much time to you spend checking personal email? Participating is chit chat with colleagues? Talking to family on the phone? Bet it adds up to more than 15 minutes - so why not spend 15 minutes - which is practically nothing - learning something new today? You don't have to become perfect at it - you just have to get a feel for it.

He also mentioned the Learning 2.0 program at PLMC (Public Library of Charlotte & Mecklenburg County) which was inspired by an article Stephen wrote in Information Outlook titled 43 Things I (or you) might want to do this year. In this program the staff was encouraged to learn 23 things in 9 weeks - and it was successful! Putting the staff at this library ahead of the curve when it comes to web technologies.

Stephen ended by saying (I'm paraphrasing) We need to share, be supportive, and we need to learn! If you are too busy maybe you and a colleague can support each other and learn for 15 minutes every other day - taking turns. The thing I love about working in a library is that it's like a family - and families support each other - so why not carry that mentality over to learning?

See all of the links discussed by Stephen on his blog and get learning!

Delaware Book Festival

2006-11-05T20:14:00.000-05:00

I went to the first Delaware Book Festival in Dover yesterday.

I had been looking forward to this since I received the first email from the Delaware Library Association back in the spring. The weather was wonderful and I enjoyed the foliage on the drive down to Dover.

My favorite presentation was the one done by Michael Dixon, who is based in Cecil County, Maryland and also teaches at the University of Delaware. He spoke on "Uncovering the Past" and had a great story about one of his team finding a letter from Thomas Jefferson!

As a future librarian, it was appreciative to hear Mr. Dixon recommend that those who do research should consult reference librarians as they will have the subject matter expertise of what is in a particular collection. In a world where some think that Google will resolve all research issues, this was refreshing.

I also got to introduce myself to someone who spoke in one of my history classes a few years previously. I even saw a co-worker of mine visiting the nearby Johnson Victrola Museum!

It was a great day and I'm looking forward to next year's event.

KMW2006 - Enterprise Blogs for Knowledge Exchange

2006-11-05T08:50:00.000-05:00

This was the session I presented in, but first I listened to Ted Graham talk about blogs at Hill & Knowlton. My favorite thing about Ted's talk was that his blog is titled "Collective Conversation" - what a great name.

Before Hill & Knowlton has blogs, they noticed that a few of their staff was blogging on their own - anonymously. H&K wanted to bring that blogging in house and let the staff blog under the H&K banner without any restrictions on what they can write about (with the exception of the obvious - nothing confidential). This allowed the staff to talk in their own voice and in turn give the company a human feel - and since it was a group blog, no one person had to keep it up and running. In addition to the external benefits, the blogs lead to new groups and collaboration among the past.

It sounds like a great project! One audience member (well at least the one who spoke up) was concerned about legal action taken against the company due to something that was blogged about - and Ted told us that there hadn't been any problems like that. Also, the staff have all been really great about what they've written - nothing petty or rude about each other, the company, or the clients. I think that (provided your employees are happy) you'll find this is the case in most places - the staff just want to be provided with a voice and will use it only for good :)

Technorati Tags: km2006, km06

KMW2006 - The New Shape of Knowledge

2006-11-04T21:45:00.000-05:00

David Weinberger gave an amazing opening keynote on day 3 of KMWorld & Intranets - I think this was my favorite. See the few pictures I took.

David started with what he called the most hideous slide ever (it was very animated - bouncing words everywhere). The point was that knowledge is changing in all ways but one - the who of knowledge is going from experts to all of us (taxonomy v. folksonomy), the where of knowledge is going from people in cubicles to people in public places, the how is going from people sitting in a room to people engaging in conversation, the when is changing from this ribbon we've had of working in private to making it public and not being able to change it anymore - the ribbon is being broken, and the shape is what the whole keynote is about. The one thing that is not changing is the what (the content) of knowledge – and the what is boring.

So what has knowledge been? David starts with Plato who said 2 very important things "Justified true belief" (content) and "The wise man knows how to carve nature at its joints" (order) - the idea is that there are natural dividing places in nature. To explain this (and this was funny if you were there) David pointed out that we all know there are 9 planets. However, now we know how made up and arbitrary these joints (our knowledge) are because the International Astronomical Union came to us and told us that Pluto wasn't a planet anymore – there aren’t 9 planets – there are only 8.

In the other example, David showed us an image of how to cut a pig (something like this only cuter). The idea is that there is a right way to carve a pig - but in truth there are infinite ways to carve up that pig. The problem is that we assume that nature (the joints) is orderly and we try to make it so.

The truth is that there are so many ways to carve up our world - not just one orderly way - which is why we need tagging (great transition - don't you think?). The way we're carving up our world is dependent on our interests, our individual needs, and so on. So, deciding ahead of time that here is the taxonomy - and having only one taxonomy is the same as saying there is only one way to carve up the pig and limits our ability to do what we need and want to do.

David then took us through 7 properties of traditional knowledge. The first of these is that knowledge is in our heads - which is what psychotics believe - it is the definition of schizophrenia – and obviously untrue. The next is that there is only 1 (no plural) knowledge. Third is that therefore it is the same for everyone - there is only one truth and everything else is wrong. It's simple - the world looks really complex, but once we figure it out it's simple. Next, because there is so much to know, most of the opinions we hear are false and which means that we need experts (librarians) to help us weed through it all. Sixth, is that we've assumed that knowledge is not just a collection of facts, it's order, and we prefer to organize things in trees (bird is a vertebrate is an animal..). Lastly, we assume that knowledge is as big as we are - it expands over years.

The reason a lot of these principles match the rules of reality is because the means by which we have preserved and presented knowledge is physical. It's books, it's blackboards, it's white boards. It means that the topics of knowledge have to be divided up because books have to be divided up. It's as if libraries were invented to keep ideas apart. Where do you put a book about the history of military cooking? You can't put it in all 3 places because of the rules of matter, books can only be in one place at one time.

David then introduced us to the 3 orders of order:

Organize the books (put them on shelves). This is a binary decision and forces us to think in trees
Separate the meta data about the books and organize it.
Everything is digital. The information, the content and the meta data.

We are no longer limited by the physical. An example is an online camera store - in the physical store you can only put the camera on one shelf. In the online world you're going to list that camera everywhere you can think of so that it's easier to sell. The thing is that this kind of disorder in the real world is messy - online messiness is a virtue - it enables ideas to come together. Finally, online everything is meta data. In the physical world there are objects and labels for the objects. Online you can go onto Google Books and type in an author and you'll get back not just the titles the author wrote, but the content of the books. This works the other way too - you can search for a line from the book and get that same book. There is no distinction between the content and the meta data. Meta data is now what you know that you're going to use to find what you don't know.

If everything is meta data, the multiplier of knowledge goes up a lot - suddenly everything is a label to help us find something else.

Online we can also re-order data in a way that makes sense to us (if you did this in a real store you'd be thrown out). One of the ways to do this is faceted search. David showed us the NCSU Endeca catalog as an example of this. Any branch on your search results page can act as a root for your search - creating the tree for you. You can limit your search by female authors and then 19th century if you choose or you can choose to limit first by the 20th century and then fiction authors - you're in control. The system is organized around your needs and way of thinking, not the thinking of a catalog librarian.

So now we've gone from the organized tree to a pile of leaves. But it's not just a pile of leaves, it's a pile that's full of links and meta data. This changes the role of the traditional knowledge manager - who's job it was to filter out the crap for us. Now, it takes more effort to delete than to include. Storage is basically free so why take the time to go through the data and delete items? This also means that 3 years from now you'll be able to go back and pull up and article that at the time was insignificant and now is very important. So there is no reason to exclude and every reason to include now that we have tools that let us sort and filter on the way out.

Rather than the experts deciding how things are going to be structured, give the users those tools so that they can decide how they want it organized and structured - postpone the taxonomy until the last step. Taxonomy is not the only way to see data - it's one way - another way is it to let users have a bit of control (tagging).

Next, David gave us 4 things this talk was not about and one that it was.

This does not make things simple

That's okay! The example he gave us what a speech that President Bush gave that was 2400 words - and you know that the speechwriters said, we have to make it simple for the American people. Well, a few hours later David checked Technorati and found that there were over 2400 blog posts about this talk (1 per word). Each post would find something interesting in the speech and expand on it. Bloggers are taking the simple and making it complex - which is exactly what we do in conversation - why? Because we're sick of being treated like idiots (expletives removed) who can only handle little simple ideas, we want the complexity.

It's not about you

You're making a new you online. Our blogs are a new self, we're writing ourselves into existence on the web with each post and populating the online world. Your blog is your new public self in the new public space of the web.

It's not about experts [Wikipedia critics, skip to the next point - heed this warning]

David believes that Wikipedia is a credible source. He knows that the fact that it's in the Wikipedia does not make it fact, but he does feel that the Wikipedia provides resources which can be trusted. Why? Because it's highly edited, because there are discussions going on about the facts that people are including in these articles (and we're going to be able to go back and look at this for years to come), because it provides warning notices that make it more credible (ex. Neutrality is disputed) - this is not something you'll ever see on a newspaper.

It's not about knowledge

David explained this by using the example of businesses. Businesses own their goods they also had all of this information and content - knowledge. They had assumed that it was theirs and that they owned it - building a wall around their businesses. In today's world this model doesn't work anymore, so what's happening is the knowledge (content) is being sucked out, leaving only the businesses as husks to hold the products. For example - Amazon. The content is being moved out of the business and aggregated on the web and having more content added to them (tagging, reviews, images, etc).

It is about externalizing meaning

We get meaning by having the huge pile of leaves (the web) to sort through and putting it together - and we get to do it ourselves - and we want to do it ourselves! This enables understanding.

This does not mean that David feels that the growth of the web is the death of knowledge - we're way too good at being knowers.

Technorati Tags: km2006, km06

KMW2006 - Making Choices in Enterprise Search

2006-11-03T11:30:00.000-05:00

Steven Arnold is a kick :) He came into the room and was just exuding friendliness. He asked people their names and where they were from.

Steve started by offering $1 to each person who asked a question after his talk - much better than the tiny candies I got at IL for asking a question :)

I guess you want to know what I learned from Steve - well here we go.

First off, he is no fan of the word findability - he feels that data should be pervasive. He said that people don't want to search for information - they just want it to be at their finger tips - which I guess is why when people search they only use one or two words in their query. The other problem is that each year search becomes more complex and precision isn't going anywhere. The challenge to raise precision.

Steve showed us some examples of search engines. He started with Exalead with I wrote about earlier. While Exalead is impressive and offers amazing filtering options - Steve feels it's too overwhelming for the average searcher - it's too complicated and too much is going on on the screen. I guess I'm just optimistic in thinking that people would learn to use and when they had they wouldn't want to use anything without filtering options.

Next, he went over Live.com (Microsoft). He said that if you do a search on Live.com you'll get you results faster than you will on Google - but the reason is because the content is all cached on the servers - so you're not searching live up to date info. He mentioned (and I have no experience with this) that if you use the same search technology in SharePoint it will take forever.

Lastly, Google. Apparently Google is working on way to refine their search results. They did some studies and came up with a much simpler interface - one that I don't like at all - for filtering results. They will be providing 2 pull down menus above the search results list - so if you search for recipe you'll get a box with cuisine and one with course - this way you can narrow it down to the type of recipe you're looking for. This contradicts what I heard last week about web design - which is that users don't like pull downs. So, where is the data in the pull downs coming from? It's generated based on search patterns found in the Google databases.

The question is, will this help? My answer is "No" - for the reasons I just stated - If I have to scroll through a pull down menu of filtering options - I ain't gonna do it - and if I'm not going to do it - who's to say someone who's unfamiliar with search technologies is going to use it?

Steve did make one last point that I think you'll all appreciate - he said not to forget about librarians, they go to school to learn how to find info - use them.

Technorati Tags: km2006, km06

KMW2006 - Folksonomies, Social Tagging, & Complexity Theory

2006-11-02T17:33:00.000-05:00

Usually people who are fans of taxonomies do not get along with folksonomy fans. Our speaker, Tom Reamy, made sure that we knew going in that he was on the taxonomist's side of things before he started talking. The funny thing was the next thing he said was that Library Scientists and Folksonomists (or believers in folksonomies) get along even worse that taxonomists and folksonomists - coming straight from Internet Librarian where everything was about social software and social tagging - I found this funny (I do know that the people at Internet Librarian were from one subset of the library science group - and that they're more likely to like new tagging options than those who weren't there).

So are you wondering what a folksonomy is? A folksonomy is a classification done by the user or some amateur - not a professional cataloger. Tom mentions that in addition to being data added by the user it's also a social experience - you can see what's popular by visiting del.icio.us and viewing the tag cloud.

Tom moved on to give us some advantages & disadvantages (all of which I think were from Wikipedia - but I'm not 100% sure).

Advantages

Simple - no learning of formal classifications or heirarchy needed
Lower cost of categorization (using the users)
Open-ended - can respond quickly to changes
Relevance - users are closer to the data and so they can tag things better than an expert
Multiple Dimensions - put together by "communities" of like-minded taggers
Easy to tag any object

Disadvantages

They don't work very well. They're great for personal indexing, but they aren't great when someone else wants to find something.
Don't compare favorably with controlled vocabulary
No structure - "onomy" should not be part of the name - "onomy" = structure
Get caught up in jargon
Subject matter experts are not professionals (I ask you to read what Dave Snowden said in his keynote - and then David Weinberger [not written by me yet])
No quality control - all based on popularity
and many more...

Tom's argument is that the 2 don't compare - they are radically different - I can probably think of a few people who would disagree - but they'd probably be folksonomy fans.

So what does Complexity Theory have to do with this all? While complexity theory does relate to maths & sciences, the key concept is that it is self-organizing.

An example of a complex system is ant tunnels. The ant doesn't know what a tunnel is, it doesn't know why it needs to make tunnels, it just knows that there is something in the way and it needs to be moved. In this case evolution has lead to organization. Other features of complexity theory are feedback, local interactions and large number elements.

Tom goes on to bring this all back to our intranets by making the point that our intranets will not evolve into a structure - we need to put that structure there (something I did by writing my own wiki application instead of using one that depends on links for structure). Intranets are also a great place to use tagging because it's a controlled environment and everyone is tagging within the same context (this is especially true for a library intranet where all of the librarians are also familiar with taxonomies).

So, in order to make tagging more effective Tom feels we need some changes. We need (most importantly) feedback - a way to rank tags and some rules that say if this tag is ranked poorly it's removed from the list of tags - so this is feedback with consequences. We need to allow only certain people to tag - once again get feedback - all for ranking of taggers to see who's using helpful terms in their tagging. Lastly, we need to use a combo of explicit (people) and implicit (software) ranking methods to get better tags and more useful search results.

Overall, a very interesting talk - and it's even more interesting after you hear about some of the speakers who followed (which I better get to writing about).

Technorati Tags: km2006, km06, tagging, folksonomies, taxonomies

KMW2006 - Innovative Enterprises: Leaders' Visions & Stories

2006-11-02T10:09:00.000-05:00

WOW! What a great Keynote we had today. Dave Snowden of Cognitive Edge & Cindy Gordon of Helix Commerce International gave a great show this morning.

I have to say that I'm a little worried about the way Info Today conference Keynotes are headed - last week we had our keynote speaker serenade us and this morning we got a musical slideshow - do we see a pattern here? :)

Anyway, I never feel that I can do justice to great speakers when I sum up what they said, but I'll give it a whirl here.

The question is "What makes a great story?", the answers - Endurance, Relevance, Memorable. The examples that Cindy gave us of memorable characters were Shrek (a movie that almost everyone in the room had seen) and Golumn from Lord of the Rings.

Why do stories matter? Well, Dave wanted us to take a little test before he answered that question for us. I'm going to give you a link to a video - while watching it please count the number of times that someone in a white ball catches the ball - and Dave points out that a bounce and a catch counts. Have you see this video before? If not - watch it now (don't read any further).

*

*

*

Okay - so what's your answer? 8? 16? 24? 30? Did you see the gorilla? (are you going HUH?) Watch it again - this time just watch - don't count. If you saw the gorilla the first time then you weren't paying attention to the task at hand.

Dave says that the problem is either you can count the ball or look for the gorilla - you can't do both. It's not possible the way the human brain is structured, you see the world as a series of dots and you fill in the gaps with memories from previous experience. If you come from a western-based language and you really concentrate, at most you will take in 5% of the data - if you come from a pictorial language group it goes up to 10%.

A radiologist for example looks at an x-ray, scans 5% if they're really concentrating, scans through 40,000+ patterns in their long-term memory, which are roughly sequenced in frequency of use, and having done that makes a first pick pattern match that fits with their previous experience - a first pick - not a best pick. Then they rationalize it - whatever they picked is a rational decision.

Human beings are pattern processing intelligences not information processing intelligences - the only human being that process information in a rational structured way is autistic - which is why they find it difficult to cope with the amount of sensory stimulation within the world.

He then recommends reading The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (a great book). He said he sent several copies to an IT department at a major American company and when they asked why he made them read it is was because they assume their users are autistic - they assume that they can look at everything you present on the screen and make rational decisions.

I find this fascinating!!

I won't go on to quote everything that Dave said, the point is that Content Management assumes you have context - when you don't. This explains why search engines can't find what you're looking for - you're asking based on your stories - your memories. The way that we can explain things that we know is to tell stories. He showed us a diagram where between abstract content and embodied context you find narrative stories. Dave says:

I can always say more than I can write down. I always know more than I can write down. I will always say more than I can write down.

So, narrative stories are the missing link in knowledge management.

He then gave us a quote from Terry Pratchett's Witches Abroad:

Stories don't care who takes part in them. All that matters is that the story gets told, that the story repeats. Or, if you prefer to think of it like this: stories are a parasitical life form, warping lives in the service only of the story itself.

In conclusion, he calls for a combination of stories and content - a way to let the author add keywords to their content (tagging) since they know the context in combination with keywords added by professionals who lack context (taxonomy) will lead to better knowledge management.

I hope I did Dave's talk justice, since it was amazing. I will add a link to the presentation once it becomes available - because the graphics and quotes where too much for me to get down ;)

Technorati Tags: km2006, km06

KMW2006 - Exalead

2006-11-02T10:08:00.000-05:00

Just a quick post on Exalead - who provided us with breakfast this morning. Exalead is Europe based search engine (and enterprise search vendor) that is making it's way over here to the U.S. They pride themselves on having one focus - search. Unlike the other popular search products out there that have spread themselves over many different areas.

As librarians we know the answer to this question - but we were asked "Why does search matter?" The answers: The explosive growth of data has made it impossible to find anything without search capabilities and this need to find information is critial to doing business - and doing business efficiently. Exalead wants to make search easier (sounds like Intellext's Watson - are we sensing a theme here?) - not just for the user, but for the content manager and the IT staff.

The demo we saw of Exalead (the enterprise solution) in action seems to match the way a lot of search tools seem to be headed. In addition to the list of search results you have a left column full of filtering options like language, file size, file type, author, and source. It also offers a desktop search functionality that lets you choose to search the web and your PC at the same time - or any other combination of available options.

The thing I liked the most was they way the combined results appears (see my pictures) next to each result it would read "My PC" or "Web" to make it clear where the result was coming from. Pretty nifty little search - and like I said something we're seeing more and more of - especially in our library catalogs (like the one I mentioned the other day).

Technorati Tags: km2006, km06

KMW2006 - How Do I Get People to Use the Content?

2006-11-02T10:07:00.000-05:00

Jay Budzik from Intellext gave a great presentation about bringing the right content to the user - making it more likely that they will use what they find. Jay tells us that the burden of search is on the user. They have to decide where to search (which site, database, directory) and they have to know the system they're searching - how often do they know the right place and the right methods?

For this reason, we need to make it easier on the user to find what he/she is looking for - and we need to make it easy! Jay mentioned that Motorola has a 5 terabyte intranet CMS and only 1% of the content is used in a year! That's a lot of content to find that it's not being used.

So what do we do? We can get the info to the user by providing RSS and search alert emails - but that can lead to information overload. Jay asked us how many of us actually read everything in our RSS reader every day - no one raised their hands - it's just impossible to read everything - you learn to skim for relevant content - while that's okay for us, we want to provide a better experience for our users.

The following quote from Barry Schwartz, the author of "The Paradox of Choice" was right on point:

As the number of choices grows, choice no longer liberates but debilitates

So how do we limit the number of choices? The answer that Intellext came up with was Watson. Watson shows relevant search results based on what you're working on. So if you're doing a PowerPoint on Knowledge Management, Watson will search the sites you choose (including local CMSs, Intranets, desktop search apps etc) for relevant content related to your topic. I need to tell you all that my notes now read in very big letters - VERY COOL!

This is basically an application you install on your computer that will search while you work without your input - very easy on the user. So my next thought (which is probably what you're thinking - if you didn't click the link yet) was - "How Much??" Watson is free if you don't mind ads and can be purchased to remove the ads.

So, does it work? Remember the people at Motorola? Use of content went up significantly after installing Watson because the content was right there on their screen for them - no search necessary.

I'm certainly going to be installing Watson to give it a whirl - probably on my work computer.

Technorati Tags: km2006, km06

KMW2006 - User Experience: Lessons Learned

2006-11-02T10:06:00.000-05:00

Carmine Porco from Prescient Digital Media (whose company hosts the Intranet Blog) shared some case studies of Intranet redesigns with us. I want to preface this for the librarian readers that a lot of his suggestions apply more to big companies than little libraries - and I also think a lot of his suggestions apply more to our public sites than our Intranets, so think of his suggestions in that context.

Carmine started with a bad practice from August of this year. Radio Shack used email to fire 400 employees!! This was an example of bad use of technology within your organization.

Now into the meat!

#1 it's not enough to be cool when designing your intranet (or website) - it needs to deliver value and if you can't prove that to your higher-ups than the intranet is going fail. Keep in mind that success & value is more than money! Value is employee satisfaction, awareness and retention.

Carmine gave us an interesting example of a survey given to IBM regarding where they go first to find office information. In 1997 the number one answer was Co-Worker with 57% of the vote followed by 54% Manager and 28% Intranet. In 2003 that same survey got a much different result - Intranet was #1 with 71% followed by Co-Worker with 37% and Manager with 31%.

Next Carmine calls for a business plan before re-redesigning and intranet - this is where I think things get a bit too in-depth for a library intranet. But it does make sense that you have some sort of plan or report before designing any webpage. In my case I took the library's strategic plan into consideration when making design and structure changes to our intranet. He also mentioned ROI (Return on Investment) - not something librarians worry about when it comes to an intranet. He gave us some interesting numbers - like the fact that an email box costs $20 a person in storage - so why not put the document you want to share on the intranet (in one place) and stop sending emails?! I'm all for that!

Like I said before, without executive support things will fall apart - so make sure your managers/directors/board (whoever) is behind you and is out there making the employees aware of the changes that are to come. This tip applies to all organizations - large and small - and really fits more with the intranet re-design project more than a public site re-design.

Carmine calls for governance - a hierarchy of people in charge of the intranet - this is probably not possible in small organizations - but if your intranet is also small it might be a good idea to think about this. In the model that Carmine showed us he had an Execututive at the top (director/manager), next a Council of people who will make decisions on behalf of the staff, then an Editor - Carmine notes (and I agree) that your webmaster should not be your editor - IT people are not trained to write content and they should not be writing the content for your organization.

Once you have a governance structure in place it's time to do a content audit. This means going through the data on the old intranet and weeding out the junk. I can tell you from experience that this takes time and needs more than one person involved. In my case I needed to contact each department head and ask them to go through their documents - how am I supposed to know what's important?

Now that your content is ready create a wire design - this is a design without the bells and whistles that shows the users where the content will lie on the page - this way they can move things where they think make sense and all of your hard work isn't down the drain. The design is the final step - as Carmine says it's the lipstick! When it does come time to provide designs - only due 2 designs and make the users pick from the 2 - otherwise you'll end up with way more work than is necessary. Carmine said "Design by committee will kill a project!" - can you disagree? I can't.

Lastly, think about personalization before you go all out with detailed sessions and databases to store settings. Will users really use it? Do the staff in your office change their default Windows settings? If not they're probably not going to customize the intranet. Carmine shows some examples of customization that don't involve the user. When the user logs in they see a weather box specific to their location (this works for big organizations spread out across many areas).

Overall, a very interesting session (and my first here at KMWorld & Intranets) - I'm going to poach some of these ideas for our website redesign and a couple sound pretty handy for our intranet as well!

Technorati Tags: km2006, km06

SLA News Reader

2006-10-29T08:30:00.000-05:00

The Special Libraries Association (SLA) announced today that it has partnered with NewsGator to launch an online service that delivers RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds to the desktops of thousands of information professionals. This exclusive service is free only to members of SLA, and is available at www.sla.org as part of the SLA News Connections.

I got a chance to have a peak at this new reader - it's pretty nifty - especially for RSS newbies. They have predefined sets of feeds that people can subscribe to with one click - which is very handy when you're new to all of this.

Read the Press Release.

IL2006 - The RSS & JavaScript Cookbook

2006-10-28T15:18:00.000-04:00

Meredith Farkas & Paul Pival gave a fun presentation on RSS (something I use tons of) & JS (something I don't use much of).

Using JS and RSS Paul & Meredith showed us how to create a dynamic subject page for your library site. The problem with traditional subject pages is that they aren't updated often, they're not easy to update (HTML required), and since no field is static a static page isn't the right solution. Why not use some of the tools mentioned to create a dynamic page that pulls news, journal updates, and new books from RSS feeds? You can even mix together RSS feeds into one consolidated feed using RSS Mix (doesn't show the source), KickRSS (registration required), or FeedBlendr (shows the source & no registration).

Another suggestion from Meredith - if you don't have access to edit your library's website easily, why not create a blog and put the updates there - then use JS to pull in the RSS feed to your subject guide - that means the webmaster only has to update the page once (to add the JS code) and then you can make updates whenever you want. This works great for people with locked down servers and websites.

One last tool lets you add an RSS feed reader widget on your site. Grazr imports an OPML and lets you put the reader right on your website. Meredith used my IL2006 OPML as an example!

Up until now I have been using PHP to parse RSS feeds for our intranet - I'm going in to work on Monday to switch to JS. Meredith & Paul have provided a nice long list of tools here on their wiki.

Technorati Tags: il2006, il06

IL2006 - Mashup Applications

2006-10-26T10:16:00.000-04:00

So I'm sitting in the presentation about Flickr & Libraries and I realize I wanted to see John Blyberg's talk on mashups - so I run to the other side of the conference center and sit down right in front. Of course I missed the introduction - so I had to jump in in the middle.

The main reason I wanted to see John was because of his PatREST application.

PatREST (Patron REST) is an XML specification developed at the Ann Arbor District Library for the purpose of providing a simple and easy method of accessing various data and methods. The PatREST service is intended to be used by both professional and amateur programmers as it’s data objects are clean, simple and intuitive. The idea behind having a simple interface to online library services is to bring library-oriented development tools into the hands of non-librarians--the library users themselves.

I had skimmed some of the documentation in the past and wasn't sure I really understood. So John shows us all of the neat things he's been able to do - like his award winning Google widgets, most popular books in the catalog and the card catalog images.

Then he tells us that you need III's XMLOPAC "feature" to use this class - and they're no longer selling it!!

So, my disappointment aside - Why should we create applications like this for our patrons?

Creates a sense of stewardship. It lets the patrons feel like they're a part of the library and makes them more likely to become library advocates. Also you're tapping into a community of knowledge you wouldn't normally have access to. John urges us all to get our our Super Patron - just so long as we don't take his.
It encourages innovation (and isn't that what this whole conference has been about so far?)
It has the potential to benefit other libraries - applications that wouldn't otherwise be developed can be shared across boundaries.
It solicits high quality feedback - when the users feel like you're listening and care about their input they're going to give you more valuable information
Most importantly - it's a promotable service - you're offering a service to your patrons to let them have access to your data and mash it up the way that bast suits them.

John was followed by Chris Deweese who told us about Google Map Mashups - I was a little disappointed that he didn't have more time, but he did make me feel like it might be pretty darn easy to add a Google Map to our library's site - so that's something I'm going to add to the mile long list I have of projects for the Intranet & library website.

Technorati Tags: il2006, il06

Bottom-Up Web Redesign

2006-10-25T10:08:00.000-04:00

The description for this talk read:

Web site redesign used to be a chore, but no longer! By using a process that combines evidence-based design, user-driven planning, and extensive user testing, you can create a site that practically designs itself. Wisnewski will map out how a bottom-up design process is both easier, as well as more effective, at producing an attractive and functional Web site that meets user needs.

Sounds promising doesn't it?? Well if you're in a public or academic library it probably is - but I'm not so sure how these techniques will work in an environment where time is money for our patrons. Jeff Wisnewski was a great speaker and fun to listen to. He started by defining bottom-up web design for us. Usually when it comes time to redesign a page we start at the top and list the things we want. Jeff says we should start with the users and work our way up to what we think we want.

Some hallmarks of Bottom-Up Design are:

It is evidence based

Using tools like usability.gov, Library Terms That Users Understand, and Yahoo! Pattern Library we can see evidence that certain web designs work and others don't. The example Jeff used was that drop down menus are not the best design technique and that left menus are better than right. Why should we spend time answering silly questions like "where should the menu be" when they have already been tested and answered? Jeff also reminds us to ask users what they think things should be named - there is no reason for librarians to debate whether it should be called "research" or "reference" because it's likely the user doesn't understand either of those terms.

It is user driven

We have to include the users all throughout the process, not just when it comes time for testing. Keep data logs to see what tasks people are completing on your site and how they're going about doing them. Use affinity mapping to let your users organize the site the way that makes sense to them - trust me it won't be the same way you think the site should be designed. Ask users questions like "If you could design the site - what would it look like?" Let them draw out a sketch or just talk through it with you.

It is highly credible

How willing are people to trust your site? Jeff includes some results from a report (I didn't note with one) that lists the impact certain factors have on credibility when people look at a site. The first was Design/Look with 46% saying it was the most important.

Conclusions

As I said before, it's not quite as easy to get people to stop and talk to you about your website when they have to bill that time to someone, but I'm hoping that we can put some of these practices into play because it sounds like such an obvious (and less painful) way to redesign a site.

Technorati Tags: il2006, il06

OPAC Tips & Tricks for Improving User Experience

2006-10-24T20:49:00.000-04:00

Glenn Peterson from engagedpatrons.org started out this presentation with template that read "Libraries Change Lives Through Lifelong Learning" - I LOVE IT!!

Glenn reminded us of some big OPAC developments in the past year:

ILS Customer Bill of Rights
PatREST (more about this later)
NCSU/Endeca Catalog
NGC4Lib Mailing List
Catalog searches everywhere (Amazon, Google, MySpace)

One of the things that we do at our library and is a pet peeve of mine when other libraries don't is integrating the catalog into the website. This is not an easy task given the inadequate tools our ILS vendors provide to work with the pages - but it's well worth taking the time to implement. Glenn mentioned that this will increase the user's experience (and I agree) and will save the user's time - if you catalog is a separate template than it's not easy for the users to get to other library resources while in the catalog - by integrating everything you make all of your resources available from everywhere.

There are 2 options for this integration. The first is to use a portal - this hands over the control of the design to your vendor - but not every library can have someone on staff with these skills. The second is to integrate the catalog as a web-based resource (like we do at Jenkins) - this option is for users (like me) who don't want their site co-opted by their vendor.

Other suggestions from Glenn include linking right into your catalog from your website (something else we do on Jenkins with our New & Noteworthy section) on booklists, newsletters, and new book alerts. The fanciest thing Glenn showed us was a script that he (or his team - I don't remember) wrote that keeps the patrons logged into the catalog as they browse the site! I love this! This is exactly what he meant by save the user's time.

Nanette Donohue took over from here and talked about her library's redesign project (funded by a grant). I have to say I loved hearing from Nanette, she said so many great things about redesign projects - things I think all librarians need to keep in mind when making changes to the website and/or catalog.

So where do you start? A survey of course (which wasn't very successful for us - but might work better for you). Ask the users what features they're using - give them options and leave room for an open ended answer as well. Ask what they'd like to see - once again provide some options. lastly, ask them what their thoughts are on usability. We need to focus on the user's prospective when it comes to catalog redesigns. Nanette reminds us that we are not trying to make this easier for the departments within the library - it's all about the user!!

So, where else do we look for information before starting our redesign? She suggested consulting (and listening to) your public services staff. They are out there on the forefront all day long, they know the users better than your catalogers or IT staff do. And Nanette reminds us to DREAM BIG! Go in without dismissing anything - who knows what you might be able to achieve - par your list down later if you have to.

What can libraries do to help this process along?

Hire programmers - and if you can't do that grow your own! This will make all of the difference in the world to the end product. I'd like to add a note - that you should hire a library programmer or grow your own - programmers are great at what they do - but they have no idea what we do and it's better to get someone who understands our silly little quirks and rules ;)

We need to only support the vendors who will provide us with APIs - and this means real APIs (Glenn pointed out later that the vendor said they'd give an API - but their idea of an API was not what an API actually is). If you can't find a vendor willing to open up the data (back to Paul Miller's presentation) then go open source - if we all demand this feature or start moving to open source then the vendors are going to have to make some major changes in they way they do work - and that's what we want!!

Along those same lines, insist on features that your "power users" want - these are the features your average users will want in a year or two - why not have it in place for them already?

What can the vendors do?

For starters they can do what Talis is doing - join in the discussion - get out there where you users are and listen to what we're saying! By doing that they will be able to anticipate our needs and maybe have the innovations in place before we ask ;) . They can look at what librarians are doing to "hack" the catalog and offer those features as standard in the next release. And last but not least - OPEN APIs - if Microsoft can provide them then so can our vendors - stop being so stingy - it's our data after all - we should be able to do with it as we please.

What can catalogers do?

Nanette has some strong feelings about cataloging & catalogers (and she's allowed - cause she is a cataloger herself). She reminds the catalogers out there that we are competing with Google and we need to modernize our practices! Catalogs need to understand that tagging is not the end of controlled vocabulary - it's just a way to help provide access on another level.

Nanette ended with this quote on the screen:

Until we change the way materials are cataloged, any enhancements to an online catalog are tantamount to spraying perfume on a skunk.

Technorati Tags: il2006, il06

IL2006 - Cool Tools for Webmasters

2006-10-24T20:22:00.000-04:00

Cool Tools for Webmasters from Darlene & Frank:

Site Maps

Bling
Create Flash animations

Wink
Not very sophisticated - great for tutorials
Powerbullet Presenter
A bit more sophisticated

Maps

Communitywalk.com
yourgmap.com
mapbuilder.net
googlemapbuilder.com (not free - but powerful)

Yahoo! User Interface Library

Flickr

Captionr!
ColrPickr (search for pictures by color)
retrievr (search for pictures like yours)

More Photos

Web Gallery Creator (goes through directories on your computer and creates pages with pictures and thumbnails)
BIMP Lite (compresses photos in batch mode)
Gliffy (quickly draw and share diagrams on the web)

For Libraries

Conduit.com (make a library toolbar)

Firefox

Learn more from Darlene’s Furl List - and hopefully the ppt will be online soon so I can link to that - because this is just the list I was able to catch

Technorati Tags: il2006, il06

Web 2.0 & Libraries

2006-10-24T17:41:00.000-04:00

Karen Coombs started out the session on Innovative Uses of Web 2.0 Technologies by sharing some basic principles of Web 2.0.

Radical Decentralization

An example of centralization is people sending content to one web person and that person making the necessary web edits. Decentralization is the opposite - letting the people change the necessary pages as they need. The perfect example of this is Wikis & Blogs - giving the people the power - and saving us web people from the day to day web edits so that we can spend time developing nifty applications for you (this last bit is added by me).

Small Pieces Loosely Joined

Modular is the key - having huge systems that do everything and having everything intertwined is no longer a good business model. You need to be able to plug things in and pull things out with ease - but you also have to make it seamless for the user.

Perpetual Data

No more lengthy programming processes (kind of sounds a bit like Extreme Programming which we went over briefly in my System Analysis course) - release things early and constantly make improvements. I think that the drawn out processes do nothing but let people’s fears fester - making the change all that more difficult in the end. Karen called this the “Paper Cut” effect - change hurts - I say rip the Band-Aid off quick and it won’t hurt as much :) Also by constantly changing, people are more prepared - they know it’s coming because it’s always coming.

Remixable Content

This is all about sharing data. Why not make the library’s data available to be published on other pages? Why lock it up in the library? And the reverse applies - why should we develop all of the content on our own - why not take some from other places?

User As Contributor

Comes back to the first point - all the users to edit the content - why not - they know it better than we do - we’re in the IT department. Let the users then tag their data so that they can easily find it later and to make it more accessible to other users (I’m going to talk about this more later - because I saw an exciting presentation that has me ready to add tags to our intranet). Why not host blogs at the library so that your members (or students) can create their own content through your site? Karen mentioned UThink at the U of Minnesota).

Rich User Experience

Add fun things to the site to make the experience more enjoyable. Use multimedia like images and videos - maybe a video tour of your library. Allow for personalization of the site - we all want things differently - why not let us pick & choose? And my favorite - offer a space for collaboration - this is key and really makes the user feel like a part of the library.

Next Up - Jason Clark

Jason Clark followed Karen to share his experiences with user tagging (and this is what I was talking about before). Tagging is the act of adding metadata and my Systems Analysis text defines metadata as data about the business’ data.

Jason showed us something I should have known about (considering it’s location) - PennTags. This is a tagging site hosted by the library at the University of Penn. From the site:

PennTags is a social bookmarking tool for locating, organizing, and sharing your favorite online resources. Members of the Penn Community can collect and maintain URLs, links to journal articles, and records in Franklin, our online catalog and VCat, our online video catalog. Once these resources are compiled, you can organize them by assigning tags (free-text keywords) and/or by grouping them into projects, according to your specific preferences. PennTags can also be used collaboratively, because it acts as a repository of the varied interests and academic pursuits of the Penn community, and can help you find topics and users related to your own favorite online resources.

It’s pretty nifty.

So why does tagging work & why should libraries be using them? Jason mentioned the “Wisdoms of the Crowds”. Also they’re adaptable, current, and scale well. It’s not all good - there are some hitches. There is a lack of precision (controlled vocabulary), there is a lack of hierarchy, users can be wrong (but then again so can librarians - yes we can be wrong!), and lastly, there is a chance for people to spam (or “game” the system) to make certain tags more important than others.

After listening to Jason’s talk, I came up with all kinds of ideas of how we can use this in house on our staff intranet - so keep an eye out for upgrade announcements from me!

Technorati Tags: il2006, il06

Shared Innovation

2006-10-23T21:02:00.000-04:00

Today I had the pleasure of getting to hear Paul Miller from Talis talk again. You may remember my enthusiastic post from CIL last year. His talk was not titled Shared Innovation - but it was a lot about Shared Innovation (and the talk had the same title as at CIL so I didn’t want to title another post with the same name :) )

Paul reminds us that library 2.0 is not just technology, but a fundamental shift in the way that we reach our users. Library 2.0 is about opening the library up and pushing the library everywhere.

He mentioned that librarians like to say that the reason the user doesn’t find what they need in the catalog is that they aren’t searching right. Paul says - no they’re not! The OPAC is wrong. It’s the “customer is always right” philosophy - and while I don’t completely buy in to that - in this case I agree 100%. If the users can’t find what they need, than the system is broken!

He went on to remind us that these monolithic library systems are a hindrance on the way we work. We need to break them down into pieces and let the library plug in the bits they want and need. Modular systems are the way of the future, and if the ILS vendors don’t get a clue they’re going to be left behind - there’s only so much us users can take before we decide to move on!

We also need to open our catalogs up so that our data can be used by others (and this is not only on the librarians, but the vendors providing the locked down systems). There’s tons of useful info in there - why aren’t we sharing? This is what libraries need to get better at - opening up our catalogs and sharing, but sharing innovation as well.

This is one of the things I have a hard time with - not that I don’t want to share, but I never learned object-oriented PHP - and that means that my applications are all hard coded for my organization.

Talis has the innovation directory for this very purpose - sharing programs across library boundaries.

Library 2.0 - Why Now?

Dramatically falling cost of storage

Falling cost of computer power

Growing connectivity

…And more

Essence of Library 2.0

Paul used a phrase of Tim O’Reilly’s when he said that library 2.0 is “an architecture of participation”. It is about making it possible for people who wouldn’t normally meet to collaborate together with ease. For this to happen librarians have to come off of their high horses a bit and have some fun with the data - he used John Blyberg’s card catalog as an example.

Some examples Paul gave us were the Georgia PINES library catalog and Talis’ Keystone (a module that can be put on top of our catalogs - as a temporary solution).

Are the Vendors Participating?

Paul asks - are the vendors engaging us - the librarians? Do they have an open developer network? Are they engaging in the communication that is going around? The answer is no - and Paul thinks it’s because they all know that we’re going to buy the products (because there aren’t many choices out there - YET!) and don’t care what we have to say. On this note, I had lunch with Paul and we talked about Talis opening a US office - since they are the one vendor (that I’ve heard of) that are engaging the users and putting themselves out there with us - and sadly the answer is “no” :(

The current model is broken

Paul says the current model for sharing bibliographic data is broken. Why are we paying to share our information? This is something we should be able to do for free. The answer is because it’s difficult to share data because we’re all running different systems - well guess what? Talis has a solution for that as well. Silkworm is a directory of libraries that provides the necessary information for users to use web services to get at the data - I need to check this out more thoroughly - but it sounds amazing!

Conclusions

Paul closed with 2 conclusions that stuck with me. 1) Liberate the Data & 2) Open, Open, Open - open up everything - there is no reason for it to be so hard for us to share and work together!!

Technorati Tags: il2006, il06

IL2006 - Keynote Day 1 - J. A. Jance

2006-10-23T17:02:00.000-04:00

Judy Jance was the speaker for today's Keynote - and while I haven't read her books (or heard of her before today :( ) I'm so glad I got to hear her talk!! When I have time to read something other than a textbook (a year from now) I'm going out to buy one of this woman's books. She has lived through so much and had such amazing experiences and that really comes across when she talks - I can just imagine how great her books are.

Judy was a bit like me - she wanted to be a writer from the time she was in second grade. So when she got to college she wanted to sign up for a creative writing class. Unfortunately, her professor was a real ____ (fill in the blank). He said to her "Girls become teachers or nurses, boys become writers" and he wouldn't let her take the class. Here's where Judy's powerful speaking came in - her responses just made us all laugh. She said (and I'm not quoting here) girls who wanted to become engineers became science teachers and women who wanted to be doctors became nurses, she wanted to become a writer so she married one.

Her talk went on to share stories in her life that brought tears to my eyes one minute and had me laughing the next. After leaving her husband (and a few other details in between - don't want to repeat her whole talk here) she wrote her first book and when her agent said it was no good she started her second book. She has since written 35 books and still has the same agent.

Judy said that her inspiration for writing comes from many places - but her cure for writer's block is anger. I find that very similar to what sets me off on the best writing I do on this blog - anger - and being inspired (like the speakers I'm hearing here).

Why was Judy the keynote at an Internet Librarian conference? Because she says things like this "The Internet allows me to hear from people in a very immediate way." How true is that? That's the whole point of this conference getting to our users and letting them get to us in a very immediate way.

It was an amazing talk & I urge you to visit her site - and read her books - and hear her talk if you ever have a chance! I took pictures but apparently, my camera wasn't happy with the lighting. I'm going to try and edit them - but I'm sure some of the other attendees will post their pictures on Flickr soon.

Technorati Tags: il2006, il06

SLA Reception at Internet Librarian

2006-10-22T23:45:00.000-04:00

I have just gotten back from the SLA reception (and after party). I had such a great time I got to talk to so many people about so many things I'm passionate about! The reception was hosted by InfoToday for the SLA members because they had just held their board meetings here in Monterey (I think I got that right) and the food and wine was great!! The best part was talking to so many people from SLA from such different backgrounds and areas. I was able to have some techie talk time as well as some general girl talk ;)

After the reception (which I have pictures of and will eventually upload) I went out for coffee (tea for me) with some fellow conference goers/presenters. It was fun to listen to everyone share their stories from previous conferences - and it was a great way to keep me awake.

On that note - it's 8:30pm here which is 11:30pm at home and I've been up since 3:45am (home time) so it's time for me to crash - I have a busy day ahead.

Technorati Tags: il2006, il06

The Smallest Airport

2006-10-22T23:43:00.000-04:00

This is the first in a series of Internet Librarian Conference Reports from me.

So I have arrived here in Monterey (with more bags than I care to tell you about). Turns out that Monterey has the smallest airport I have ever been in! You get off the plane by walking down these scary steps and then you have to walk a while (outside - it was a nice day) before you get into the terminal - and by terminal I mean one room with a few desks for you to checkin and another room is a metal - um - can't think of a word - but it's the replacement for the baggage claim belts you're used to seeing. So you stand around in the baggage claim room and wait for the truck to come along with your bags. It comes in and parks next to the claim area and 2 men place you bags on the metal table - and since the "belt" doesn't move you have to push and shove & bump into people to get to your bags.

So finally, I'm out of the airport and it turns out that the airport isn't the only thing that's small - the fleet of taxi's ain't so big either. There are 2 companies and no taxis. So we wait in a line with 20-30 other librarians and slowly the cabs come in pairs to whisk us away!

The point of this rant is that I'm here - in an amazing room and I am exhausted and ready for bed - but I can't go to bed just yet (mostly cause it's 4:30pm here) because I have an SLA reception to go to and then a dine-around with other web geeks like me ;)

Technorati Tags: il2006, il06

DUSLA Meet and Greet

2006-10-13T09:35:00.000-04:00

The DUSLA Meet and Greet was held on Tuesday, October 10. After enjoying pizza, drinks and conversation, Tim Siftar, Reference Librarian for the IST at Hagerty Library, showed a film about the Lubuto Library. The Lubuto Library is a project that creates library collections for orphans or vulnerable children in Africa. By creating libraries the Lubuto Library brings educational opportunities to children affected by HIV/AIDS in Africa. Tim suggested that DUSLA might want to get involved in collecting books to help with this project. After Tim’s presentation, there was a demonstration of DUSLA’s Wiki and blog. These will be great tools to help facilitate communication between DUSLA officers and members.

DUSLA’s officers were introduced and upcoming events for the 2006-2007 school year were discussed. Events being planned include a possible bowling party, happy hours and a round table discussion. Some possible trips will be to the Library Company, Library of Congress, NPR, Jenkins Law Library and QVC.

More details about upcoming events as they are planned will be posted on the blog, the wiki and by email.

New Resources for Students

2006-10-06T19:49:00.000-04:00

Hello all, for my introductory post here at the DUSLA blog I'd like to point out some resources I recently read about that are great for us students.

First, a little bit about me. My name is Nicole Engard, I'm the Web Manager at Jenkins Law Library in Philadelphia and the author of What I Learned Today... I'm in my first term here at Drexel and am hoping to get my MLIS in one year (fingers crossed). You can learn more about me at my blog.

Now for the stuff you really care about. I found these resources recently and they're all worth looking at:

Zotera
Zotero is a free, easy-to-use research tool that helps you gather and organize resources (whether bibliography or the full text of articles), and then lets you to annotate, organize, and share the results of your research. It includes the best parts of older reference manager software (like EndNote)—the ability to store full reference information in author, title, and publication fields and to export that as formatted references—and the best parts of modern software such as del.icio.us or iTunes, like the ability to sort, tag, and search in advanced ways. (if you have an old version of Firefox - check the comments here)
ottobib
Get citations for books in MLA, APA, Chicago, and AMA format just by entering an ISBN.
Library Student Journal
A peer-reviewed student publication of the University at Buffalo Department of Library and Information Studies.
NoteMesh
There are plenty of notes services out there; NoteMesh is a different way of thinking about your notes. Collaborate with your classmates to create a unified set of notes for your class. It's like Wikipedia for your notes.
Back to School with the Class of Web 2.0
A list of handy 2.0 resources for students.

I look forward to working with you all and continuing to share resources with everyone.

Welcome Back! Help us plan for the new Year!

2006-09-18T22:39:00.000-04:00

Hello all,

Welcome new and returning students (and other folks interested in our activities). Next week, classes begin, and a meeting of the minds that make up DUSLA (Drexel University Special Libraries Association) is upcoming. Most likely, this meeting will be held somewhere in the Rush Building on the 26th or 28th of September (Tuesday or Thursday), at around 5pm. Keep your eyes open for final word on time and place. Until then, check out our website, www.ischool.drexel.edu/sladrexel.

Pay particular attention to our new Wiki: www.ischool.drexel.edu/sladrexel/content/duslawiki.html If you're not familiar with wikis, let wikipedia enlighten you: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki.

Basically, wikis are webpages that can be edited by anyone. They serve as excellent collaboration tools. Add your ideas for SLA events to our wiki (www.ischool.drexel.edu/sladrexel/content/duslawiki.html)

Be sure to add your name to this page if you can make the meeting on the 26th or 28th, under the appropriate column, (signifying your preference): http://duslawiki.wikispaces.com/Attendees+for+September+Meeting

Cheers,

Christopher D. Curry
DUSLA Webmaster

Baltimore wrap-up

2006-06-27T16:03:00.000-04:00

The group has been debriefing in conference calls and real live get togethers, but we thought we should share here, too.

Here are a few of the presentations I attended that stuck with me:

"What do they want from us?" Don King summarizing 30 years worth of studies on the information seeking behavior of faculty. He used the economic theory of "contigent valuation" to estimate the financial impact of library services at a University amounted to 20 FTEs per year.
"Branding SOS" with Chris Olson. A logo is not a brand! (More from BrandyKing on the conference blog.)
"Reporting of Negative Results from Clinical Trials" with James T. O’Reilly, Visiting Professor of Law, University of Cincinnati on "SECRECY & DRUG EXPERIMENTATION"
"New web tools" by Gene Tybersi and Gary Price

DUSLA Happy Hour

2006-05-23T21:52:00.000-04:00

Tuesday, 30 May 2005 (5:00pm - 7:00pm)

Come, eat, drink, and be merry on DUSLA's dime to celebrate a great year! We will be meeting at Zocalo, located @ 36th & Lancaster Ave (2 blocks west of IST), directly after the ISI/Thompson Tour. Bring ideas to carry on for 2006-2007 DUSLA academic year.

Those interested in becoming new leaders and/or members are encouraged to attend.

Can’t make it? Email your thoughts to tanya.d.finney-ellison@drexel.edu.

Have the NEED to LEAD!?

2006-05-23T21:41:00.000-04:00

Due to the fact that several of us are graduating this quarter (yay!), we will be unable to participate as DUSLA leaders next year (boo!), but this also means that we have a bunch of positions open for those of you who are interested in becoming more active in our organization (yay again!).

Active participation in a professional association like SLA can be the difference between you and your fellow job seekers, and it's a lot of fun!

We are looking for people to take on the following positions:

President (or Co-President)

Secretary/Treasurer

Program Chair (or Co-Chair)

Newsletter Editor

Social Chair

Membership Coordinator (new & much needed position!)

Please contact Melissa Bishop at mjb952@drexel.edu by Friday, May 26 if you are interested in becoming a DUSLA leader.

See the "Chapter Leaders" page on our website for more information.

Thomson/ ISI Tour with DUSLA

2006-05-23T21:34:00.000-04:00

Tuesday, 30 May 2005 (3:00pm - 5:00pm)

The Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) has been a trailblazer in organizing information for the scientific and academic community for more than forty years. Located one block from Drexel, don't miss the chance to hear ISI staff members with MLIS backgrounds talk about Thomson/ISI, their work, and how their library careers have flourished outside the conventional library setting.

RSVP is required by email to tjs49@drexel.edu, no later than noon on Tuesday 30th.

Online students can check out the ISI timeline, email questions in advance, and then look for the webcast of ISI interviews to follow, on our site: www.ischool.drexel.edu/sladrexel.

Welcome to DUSLA Web 2.0

2006-04-26T21:34:00.000-04:00

This post is being sent out into space in the hopes that DUSLA blog space is soon filled with activity and life. For many of you, this will be the first post you see when you visit our new forum, because I have just invited most of you to join. We at DUSLA are committed to using Web 2.0 technologies to enhance our educational and professional experiences. We are optimistic that this blog will be a forum for breaking new ground in dynamic, collaborative communication that will help us to lead a new generation of visionary, savvy, and effective information professionals.

A couple technologies that we hope to start using in the future follow (I’m new to these technologies, so please do not interpret my links below as endorsements for a particular site/organization/person’s spin on them—feel free to add more technologies/versions that interest you!):

Let’s catalog the web with tags. Learn more at:
http://www.technorati.com/help/tags.html

Interested in more advanced metadata? Check out the webcast of William Moen’s lecture that the iSchool has made available.

Podcasting. Widespread On-Demand Content Distribution=Knowledge (hopefully not in the metaphysical sense). Here’s what Drexel’s CoAS has to say on the matter, a step-by-step, “how to podcast” podcast.

For more information on Web 2.0 technologies, or to just find out what Web 2.0 means, check out our .mp3 podcast of SLA Philadelphia’s March 8th meeting, featuring Kevin Kearney.

So, with all of that out,
Post,
Reply,
Comment,
Collaborate,
Create!

Bob will be posting some logistical information in the near future, introducing some of the helpful features of Blogger, such as posting via email and setting up email notifications of posts, etc. So, stay tuned!

By the way, don’t forget our RSS feed. When this thing really gets rolling, you can have new content pushed right to you using a web-based aggregator like Bloglines, or an application based aggregator like SharpReader (to name just two methods of many!).

To learn more about RSS, visit XML.com: What is RSS?.

Our feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/DUSLA

Cheers,

Christopher

William Moen Lecture

2006-04-26T06:56:00.000-04:00

Recently the iSchool hosted distinguished professor William Moen

Read a description of his lecture and a bio here:
http://www.cis.drexel.edu/calendar/details.asp?event=96

Watch the lecture here:
http://webcast.ischool.drexel.edu/moen.asx

Read
Watch
Digest
Enjoy
Share

Bob

We now have an RSS feed for the BLOG

2006-02-21T22:47:00.000-05:00

DUSLA

Notice the two buttons next to the title of our blog. We now have an RSS feed broadcasting our blog. Click either of the two buttons to subscribe to our feed and that way you'll never miss a post.

If you listen closely when you're at the blog or the DUSLA homepage you can hear it breath. It's alive!

Best,
Bob

Starting Out in SLA - Navigating Opportunities in a Professional Association

2006-01-13T10:07:00.000-05:00

Hi Everyone-

Nice work Chris, setting up this blog. And fast, eh? Now we just have to think of interesting things to say!

Hope everyone enjoyed the talk on Wednesday from the seasoned SLA members. Our plan to tape record it did not pan out - but next time Chris volunteered his MP3 recorder. We did get photos though, some of which I hope to post here in a subsequent entry.

Here's the description of the event just for posterity's sake:
=========================================

Special Libraries Association Meeting
The Drexel student chapter of the Special Libraries Association invites you to attend:
"Starting Out in SLA - Navigating Opportunities in a Professional Association"

Special guest speakers include: Peggy Dominy, MS, MLS, Science Librarian and former Chair of SLA's national Physics, Astronomy & Mathematics Division, and
Lenore Hardy, MLS, AHIP, Medical Librarian, Director, Drexel Health Science Library, former SLA Philadelphia Chapter Secretary and current Chair of the Rankin Directory Project Team.

Meet current SLA members and find out about exciting upcoming SLA events. Refreshments will be served!

Wednesday, January 11
5:00 - 6:00 p.m.
Rush Building, 4th floor lounge

All graduate students are welcome!

Welcome.

2006-01-11T19:55:00.000-05:00

Welcome DUSLA's Blog. Blog Away!