Blogging Section of SLA-IT

Hello World

Whenever you start learning a new computer programming language you usually start with a "hello world" script.  It's a couple of lines of code that produce either a webpage or a window or some kind of output that reads "hello world."  I think of this post as my "Hello World" post.  Sure I've been posting here for a while now, but never as your chair person - so it's a new beginning for me.

So, who am I? In short I'm a special librarian just like most of you probably are.  I worked in a law library for 6 years in the web department and now work in a special academic library (seminary library) as a Metadata Librarian.  I have never worked in the corporate world, but I do know that special libraries live by different rules than the public and academic and that we need to find out how to use the same tools they're using to our advantage. 

I am a big open source and web 2.0 enthusiast - you will frequently find me recommending tools to make our jobs easier that cost little or nothing to play with.  Along those lines, I'm a big fan of "play." I think that if we all took just a little bit more of our time to play we'd learn so much more about the way technology is changing around us. 

All that said, I'd like to invite you to join me in blogging for our fellow SLA members - and librarians alike.  If you're a member of the section and would like to be an SLA-IT blogger, just drop me an email at nengard [at] gmail [dot] com and I'll get you on the list of authorized bloggers.  Also, if you need me or just want to chat about a post or technology, feel free to comment here on the blog or use that same email address.  You can learn more about me on my resume and about page over at my personal blog.

I look forward to a great year meet as many of you as possible in the real and virtual world!

Corporate library use of blogs and RSS

Some surprising results from the latest edition of Primary Research Group's Corporate Library Benchmarks survey.

• Only about 15% of the libraries sampled publish their own blogs, and those only after their organizations had reduced library space.
• The median number of blogs published by the sampled libraries' parent organizations is 1. It's not clear if this includes both internal and external-facing blogs.
• 20% of the libraries sampled organize and maintain RSS feeds for executives or others in their parent organizations, which is higher than I expected. The median number of individuals this service is provided for is 5.

Comments or reactions?

Ten Technologies and Ideas to Improve Library Productivity

Michael Stephens (Tame the Web) did a presentation in Hawaii on "Ten Technologies and Ideas to Improve Library Productivity."  It's always good to hear/see what someone else has to say on this topic.  Michael's presentation can be seen here.

Blog post:: Top 10 New and Improved Apps of 2007

Lifehacker has published its list of the top 10 new and improved applications of 2007.  Likely you know some of them, while others might be new to you.  It is a list worth perusing.

Code4Lib Journal - Issue 1 Released

The first issue of the Code4Lib Journal has been released and the TOC looks pretty enticing - now I just have to find time to read some of these articles.

• Editorial Introduction — Issue 1
• Beyond OPAC 2.0: Library Catalog as Versatile Discovery Platform
• Facet-based search and navigation with LCSH: Problems and opportunities
• The Rutgers Workflow Management System: Migrating a Digital Object Management Utility to Open Source
• Communicat: The Next Generation Catalog That Almost Was…
• Connecting the Real to the Representational: Historical Demographic Data in the Town of Pullman, 1880-1940
• BOOK REVIEW: The Success of Open Source by Steven Weber
• COLUMN: 700 Dollars and a Dream : Take a Chance on Koha, There’s Very Little to Lose

Blogging Section Year-in-Review (2007)

With the end of the year nearly upon us, I thought I'd take a few minutes for an informal year-in-review.

THE BLOG

The number of posts in this blog continue to grow and now we're over 300 posts.  Generally, you're seeing a couple new posts per week from our growing list of authors:

• Nicole Engard
• Stacey Greenwell
• Jill Hurst-Wahl
• Steven Kaye
• Cynthia Larson
• Catherine Lavallée-Welch
• Tracy Z. Maleeff
• Steve Oberg

This is a very knowledgeable group and I'm pleased to be among them.  (And thanks to all of you...this blog would be nothing without you.)

Of course, a blog needs readers and we know from our statistics that our readership has grown this year.  On Jan. 12, we were averaging 24 pageviews per day. On May 30, that number had increased to 34 per day, and I would suspect that it is continuing to increase.  In addition to people reading the blog by going to the blog itself, we have people who are reading it through an RSS reader.  For example, at least 70 people are reading this blog through Bloglines.  HQ tells us that we're one of the more heavily read blogs in the Association!

OTHER SECTION ACTIVITIES

Besides the blog, our only other major activity is the bloggers get together at the SLA Annual Conference.  For several years, this has been an informal activity and a lot of fun! With more people interested in blogging, a question we should ask is whether we should do something more formal at the Annual Conference.  I'll leave that question to the next chair of the Blogging Section.

THE NEXT CHAIR

Yes, I'm passing the torch (or should it be the keyboard) to Nicole Engard, who will chair this section in 2008.  Nicole is very knowledgeable, highly respected and a great blogger.  I look forward to the direction she'll take this section in!

EXIT STAGE LEFT

Yes, I am stepping down as chair of the section, but I am not going far.  I'll be staying on the Board and I'll keep blogging.  And surely I'll be at whatever blogging event happens at the Annual Conference in Seattle!

Best Wishes,

Jill

Facebook Fridays

iLibrarian writes:

Tech company Serena Software is introducing a unique program called “Facebook Fridays” into their corporate routine. Each Friday, employees are encouraged to take an hour to fix up their Facebook profiles and connect with personal and professional contacts (including co-workers) using the social networking software. Serena President and CEO Jeremy Burton is  hoping that using Facebook as a company intranet will bring a sense of community to their 800+ global employees.

Read more about what Serena Software is doing here.

Blog post: Baby boomers v MySpace generation

Every conference seems to be talking about this.  Here are notes from Online Information 2007 on this topic.

For Professors, 'Friending' Can Be Fraught

Good article about professors/teachers being on Facebook.  If you're in academia, you might want to read it.

Quotes from "Library 2.0" article

In an article published in TC Today (The Magazine of Teachers College, Columbia University, Spring 2007, pp. 18 - 23, 40), I found these great quotes about their library which has been recently remodeled and made 2.0 friendly:

"There was much better knowledge access outside the building than there was inside the building - particularly back when the we didn't have technology and when we had restrictions on what could be brought in and what you could do with it and how you could interact with it.  As a result, people were staying away."

"Somewhere along the way, libraries became scholastic and couldn't breathe.  So rule-bound, nobody wanted to be in them.  Now our library is a living, breathing space for knowledge production."

"...it is a place for everyone to find something of interest."

Access 2007 Videos

Did you miss the Access 2007 Conference? I did - but I can feel like I was the videos of presentations are available online.  Check them out here.  In particular Roy Tennant's closing keynote has had some press - eventually I'll find a free moment to sit down and watch it.

The Free Library

When Judith Seiss mentioned The Free Library I thought she meant the one here in Philadelphia ... but that's not what she was talking about. 

 

Since 2003, The Free Library has offered free, full-text versions of classic literary works from hundreds of celebrated authors, whose biographies, images, and famous quotations can also be found on the site. Recently, The Free Library has been expanded to include a massive collection of periodicals from hundreds of leading publications covering Business and Industry, Communications, Entertainment, Health, Humanities, Law, Government, Politics, Recreation and Leisure, Science and Technology, and Social Sciences. This collection includes millions of articles dating back to 1984 as well as newly-published articles that are added to the site daily.

The Free Library is an invaluable research tool and the fastest, easiest way to locate useful information on virtually any topic. Explore the site through a keyword search, or simply browse the enormous collection of literary classics and up-to-date periodicals to find exactly what you need.

What a great resource! I had no idea that it was out there.  Hopefully it helps you a bit with your research - or with assisting your patrons.