Blogging Section of SLA-IT

CIL2008: Avatars to Advocacy

This year at CIL I got to attend my first ever pre-conference.  My session was taught by Helene Blowers and Michael Porter and covered the new paradigm of marketing in libraries.

Helene started the afternoon off by talking about the title of the presentation “From Avatars to Advocacy: Innovation Through Un-Marketing.”  The term “Un-marketing” is in the title because we were covering a different view than the traditional view of marketing.

Library Brand

When marketing people think about the library brand, they focus on the logo - but it’s a lot more!  If you believe the OCLC Perceptions report, the library brand is all about books, but in reality the library brand is all about community!  This is a theme I’ve written about a lot recently. So, as we look forward at where we’re going with marketing we want to focus on that part of our brand.

Marketing

The old paradigm of marketing focuses on controlling the look and feel of the brand - our fliers all look consistent - our websites match our print materials, etc. In 1957 it was very easy to reach your market because 45% of the audience were watching Lucille Ball … today we have so many mediums and niche markets to reach. For this reason, mass marketing is going away - and it’s being replaced with niche marketing.

The new paradigm is to influence the character and portability of your brand - allow people to take your brand with them and embed it into their own space allow them to contribute and participate.  Helene showed us an example from Gmail that I missed.  Google allowed people to make their own Gmail videos and then they merged them into one ad for Gmail.

The question for libraries is how you can enable customers to participate in your branding.  Helene recommends reading The Cluetrain Manifesto: The End of Business as Usual and checking out the website. These talk about how markets are about conversations and brands are about getting people to talk about what you’re doing.

What strategic elements do we need to focus on in order to move our libraries into this model of marketing?

• Engage - to enable customers to connect with library staff its services with each other in meaningful ways (the switch is to allow them to connect with each other)
• Enrich - to provide our customers with a rich online experience that enhances their local branch experience and daily lives (let them find communities everywhere - in the library and out of it - and of course those who come and visit the web)
• Empower - to enable our customers to personalize their library experience allow our community to celebrate themselves (Gmail video celebrates the people using Gmail - not just Gmail itself) - we want our customers to feel good about themselves

Helene shared a great quote with us: “Consumers are beginning in a very real sense to own our brands and participate in their creation….We need to learn to begin to let go” - A. G Lafley, CEO and Chairman of P&G, October 2006.  Another book to read on this topic is Rengen: The Rise of the Cultural Consumer - and What It Means to Your Business by Patricia Martin in which the author says “cultural consumers thrive on information and ideas to fuel to their creative self-expression.”

Real Libraries

Next Michael took over to show us a bunch of great examples.  He pointed out that we’re seeing a lot of these communication tools being used by institutions - so the institutions start the process and they do more than the user - but this is going to shift more to the users.

I agree with Michael when he says that people will give money to things they love - make them love you and they will participate. Look at what Gmail did - it’s cool to be associated with Gmail and so everyone wanted to participate.  Another example of this is the model LibraryThing uses to have people pay for their membership.  They give you choices as to what you can pay.  So if you really like them you can pay more than they’re asking (which I did).  If you put your library out there then they will send it to their friends - the spread of the word of mouth is much more now that we have blogs, social networking and email.

Michael sounds like an evil marketer when he says “get them when they’re kids and teens - never lose a hold on our market” but the truth is that we can do that with a clean conscience because we’re just trying to build up our market.  Libraries tend to had a culture of “no” and we have to get out of that or we’re going to go down. This includes allowing kids and teens to participate in marketing our libraries.

Examples of neat marketing tricks:

• Flickr groups like 365 Library Days Project and libraries and librarians - no one is making money off of it - it’s information so you can use tools like this to repurpose information for your community
• Meebo-rooms - created 365 Library Days Project room - everyone came to the room and asked what it was about
• Second Life Library 2.0 - example from libraryland that can be repurposed

One library that is doing neat things is the Santa Clara County Library. Another is Palo Alto City Library which has a good blog and a presence on other social networking sites such as Flickr and Facebook. Others includes Kankakee Public Library and San Mateo County Library - both are using these tools and twisting them to their purposes. Brooklyn College Library has shown real results by using MySpace.

Michael says “I could give a hoot about the brand name - I care about the functionality - the community and content - and if those tools help our users access content through us then they are successful - we just have to use these things to be better at our missions. “It’s not about us!” - it’s about our community.  How true and awesome to hear someone else saying this!

Engaging Our Community

“Brands are built on what people are saying about you, not what you’re saying about yourself” - Guy Kawasaki

Helene showed us a bunch of other examples:

• Hennipin County Library site where they had pictures of people reading Harry Potter when the latest book was released.  They used the Flickr API to upload images via their site and featured them on the homepage.
• Columbus Metro library has a teen gallery - allowing teens to feature their art on the homepage- it’s about letting them use our space to celebrate themselves
• YouTube & we love our NJ libraries - search for “3 reasons library” - why should libraries be telling you three reasons you should love us? why not have them showcase it for us??
• The Public Library of Charlotte & Mecklenburg County used Big Huge Labs to create inspirational posters - used during National Library Week - no “read” posters of celebrities - encouraged patrons to upload their own images and showcase real patrons
• Denver Public Library last summer encouraged teens to create videos on how they had fun in the library - took a risk by allowing teens to spread the word - winner did a book angel (like snow angel) on a table

• Louisville Free Public Library - last summer - after the summer reading challenge they gave them winners a sign to take pictures on their lawn - and put the pictures on their homepage

Helene then gave us 8 steps to take back to our libraries in order to better market them:

• educate - learn about social media
• experience - participate and join the conversation (can’t just learn from reading books - have to participate in order to understand)
• envision - develop a 2.0 marketing plan (tie into your mission/vision)
• engage - create social celebrations (social situations - things that tie into community events)
• enable - help your library brand and content travel (allow customers to share and repurpose content - widgets)
• expand - play with multimedia (libraries are very text heavy - move away from it)
• explore - learn as your go and track success (as you play you’re going to find things that aren’t relevant - but if you don’t try there is no way you’re going to learn)
• Experiment, Experiment, Experiment

Conclusion

Last note: always remember - the best way to get customer to market our brand is to allow them to promote us (the library) by marketing themselves.

Slides are online and we took photos of our brainstorming session and tagged them cil2008aa and cil2008unmarketing.

Technorati Tags: cil2008, cil2008unmarketing, marketing, cil08

Super Searcher Tips @ CIL2008

This week I'm at CIL.  Yesterday I got to hear an awesome presentation by Mary Ellen Bates in which she listed the following search tips:

• Altsearchengines.com - blog of alternative and niche search engines - click the top 100 tab - subscribe to rss feed
• Keotag - search across web 2.0 sites (technorati, delicious twitter and more)
• MSN product reviews - search for a specific brand
• Google’s new n improved timelines - creates a readable page easy to scan and identify trends (find when there was a buzz about a particular topics) - yellow line at the top shows where there was a buzz
• Watch for blended search results - lower precision results, but more long-tail content, esp. for obscure topics - seeing a lot more other search results (products, directions - what for what else appears at the top of the screen) - look at search results with new eyes
• searchCrystal - touchy feeling
• Carrot2.org - clustering on demand with a choice of search engines - let’s your determine how the search results are organized - uses different algorithms
• Loki toolbar - find location-dependent content - based on IP address or nearby wifi signals - tells you where you are not and locates on map - search locally
• Customizegoogle.com - Firefox fix for Google - nice customization - removes ads - infinite scroll results
• Google has experimental search - new way to see results - add view:timeline or view:info to your search query and you see things like dates or images or measurements on the pages - more efficient way to find images on a page
• Searchmash - unbranded Google site - cool interface - why do i care? it’s extremely cool - that’s why!  free of ads - lets you see other search indexes on the top right
• google date-limiting - advanced search screen (remember a date search on the web is never a reliable thing) can also roll your own - add +&as_qdr=dn to the SERP (search results page) URL - where n is the number of days (d15 = 15 days) - items spidered in the last n days
• Doubletrust.net - a tool for comparing search results - i prefer more results from Google or Yahoo - trust-o-meter
• I’d prefer this… search.live.com - add prefer:word to query - ranks these search results higher - test search “hybrid car prefer:convertible”
• MSN’s misspelling-suggestion engine - lets you find ways to misspell things since things on the web are not always spelled right
• Ask’s maps - both driving and walking directions - maps.ask.com - takes local topography (san fran - hills=bad) into account (i always use this tool when at conferences - to find out how to walk somewhere)
• Exalead.com - use Exalead’s NEAR/n operator — (solar OR sun) NEAR/3 power
• use search engines’ quick answer features - Ask.com Smart Answers - Google’s OneBox - Yahoo’s Shortcuts - MSN’s Instant Answers (at the top of the search results)
• Gigablast - limit to multiple sites - has all kinds of advanced search features
• SnapSearch - visual search results - lets you preview the page and lets you interact with the page on the search results screen - based on the Gigablast search engine
• Pagebull - metasearch tool - entirely visual - no words - all pictures - good if you remember what the page looked liked and can’t remember name
• Factbites.com - search results deliver small fact-bites - max 30 results - pull factual sentence from the search results
• TextRunner “information mining” looks for statements like factbites
• nationmaster.com - source for national stats - cool tool for presenting graphical info (also a statemaster)
• TouchGraph - find relationship among URLs - finds related books in amazon (uses subject terms) - graphical results
• just a reminder here - check out podcast lectures from yale, princeton, uc berkley, stanford, johns hopkins - all providing lectures online for free
• Kosmix - a vertical search engine on steroids - more than just websites - trusted sources - other concepts/related concepts - videos - yahoo questions and answers
• LOUIS - library of unified information sources - searchable documents from congressional reports
• public.resource.org for the full text of us supreme court cases - incomplete now - but keep an eye on this one - bulk.resource.org/courts.gov/c/US/
• librarianoffortune.com

I know this is a very note-like post - but this presentation lended itself to this style.  See Mary Ellen’s list of links.

Technorati Tags: cil2008

Code4Lib 2008: Open Library

In his presentation, Building the Open Library, Aaron Swartz introduced us to his vision of an online library.  In his vision, like Brewster’s, he sees a wiki with one page for every book.  For this reason, the small group (6 people spread out around the world) is starting their project with monographs.

To achieve this feat, the team is using their own database framework called ThingDB:

ThingDB stores a collection of objects, called “things”. For example, on the Open Library site, each page, book, author, and user is a thing in the database. Each thing then has a series of arbitrary key-value pairs as properties. For example, a book thing may have the key “title” with the value “A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius” and the key “genre” with the value “Memoir”. Each collection of key-value pairs is stored as a version, along with the time it was saved and the person who saved it. This allows us to store full semi-structured data, as well as travel back thru time to retrieve old versions of it.

Gathering Data

Obviously a library isn’t anything without data, so to start, the team contacted publishers for their ONIX data - surprisingly they were mostly receptive - they wanted their books to be findable.

Next, they contacted librarians to ask for data dumps for their catalogs - unsurprisingly they didn’t get the same kind of response that they got from the publishers.  Librarians wanted to think about it for a while…  Long story short, they have some library data, but would love more. 

Now that they had book data, they wanted to enhance it with additional content like book reviews from the New York Times, Harper’s, Reader’s Catalog, and the New York Review of Books.  These titles will all soon have their reviews integrated into the site!!

Lastly, they’re scanning books to get data.  This is where the Internet Archive comes in.  They are providing their scans and data for the Open Library project.

The Library

The library itself has to focus on display.  When a user enters a search term you will get back a book page, each book page gives you more info about the book - buy, borrow, download.  From each book page,  each author has a page as well, this way they’ll be able to auto generate bibliography for author.  This is very much like the LibraryThing author pages.

So, now that we have library with pages for books and authors, we need to organize data.  Aaron was awfully funny here - he had librarians arguing - but what subjects should we use?  Which classification scheme do we use?  We’re going to have to think about this!  Aaron says quite simply - there is no need to argue - it’s only we can use them all!!  I love it - very Everything is Miscellaneous - we can organize things in any way we want on the web - we aren’t limited by the physical world!!

There is also a sort of FRBR where you can link books together.

So now we have an online library - how do we keep it updated?  Each page (book, author, etc) is editable - it’s a wiki!! In addition to that, you can easily edit the templates for your own need or make fixes to bugs you find in the templates that the Open Library is using.

The Future

In the future, they want to provide scan on demand - for $20 or $30 they’ll go get a scanned copy of the book.  Then the PDF is put online with a bookplate saying that you paid for that book to be digitized.  Now, the PDF is available to everyone!!

Aaron’s dream is to have a web of books online - all the information about the book - all the people who reviewed it, all the libraries that have it - all the places you can buy it - all in one place - so that everyone can find any book and find out how to access the information it holds.

In order to fulfull Aaron’s dream, we have to share. “We want your data” - share your MARC data with the project (something that a few people at the conference did as a gift to Brewster for his keynote).  If this is to be a open-source project you need to share.  Also, as an open-source project, they need all the help they can get - so chip in!

Questions & Answers

Q: Can we scan on demand now?

A: Scan on demand is not available now - but it should be done in the next couple weeks - we’ll see

Q: Will we get a copy of the items to put in our catalogs if we pay for it to be scanned?

A: The idea is that the book will scanned then a URL will be provided that can be put in the 856 field in your catalog.

Q: What about books that are only published online?

A: Yes - any and all books - get as much in there as possible

Q: Is there an API?

A: They are planning an API - so that you can get any book page in the format they need

Q: Where are you getting cover art? 

A: LibraryThing - user scanned covers, Publishers give covers and we got a dump of covers from Amazon.  We want to let libraries use them so we got as many covers as possible.

Q: Plans for Internationalization?

A: It should be translatable in the future

More Info

Demo: demo.openlibrary.org

This article (subscription required) discusses the potential friction between Open Library and WorldCat.  Will the success of the former spell doom for the latter?  How will librarians respond to the invitation to send records to one or the other, or both?  [via LISNews]

Find more press about Open Library.

Conclusions

There were no negatives out of this guy!!! The project sounds so much better than I had even realized from reading articles and blog posts. I love it - this is amazing and I can’t wait to see more!

Technorati Tags: code4lib, code4lib2008, open library, code4libcon2008

Code4Lib 2008: Code4Lib Journal

Jonathan Brinley, Edward M. Corrado, and Jodi Schneider talked to us about the Code4Lib Journal, a project that had been talked about for years but never implemented until recently. The moral of this story is stop talking and just do it.

They decided to use an agile development philosophy, which basically means don’t over-engineer complicated rules and procedures your might never need - just work on what you need now and the rest will come.

Blog v. Journal

So, why did they choose to do a Journal instead of a blog?  In short they chose a journal because it comes with a bit of a stamp of approval that some people need in order to move up the ladder at their workplace - in particular among those in academia.

Where to start?

Get an ISSN - Code4Lib Journal - 1940-5758.  They thought this was going to be a crazy process, but it’s just a one page form with a few questions.  I’ve actually applied for a few ISSNs - two for work and one for my blog - which Ed Corrado suggested we all go out and do since it’s so easy - but I can tell you that they will turn you down! and if they don’t - let me know and I’ll try again.

Other details

They decided to have rotating coordinating editors so that not one person was in charge all of the time.  They also decided to have a public listserv - c4lj-discuss@googlegroups.com - so that everyone can follow along with discussions about the journal.

Articles can be sent in several different formats - right now the editors have worked with almost all of them.  They then use WordPress as a publishing tool because it has a flexible templating engine that allows you to make a site not look like a blog and allows for private posts, public posts and public pages.  It also comes with stats and other neat plugins that make it the right tool for them to use now - because their agile it may not always be the tool they use.

They’ve gotten their journal listed is DOAJ & Ebsco and it is also being blogged about which is bringing traffic to the site (however - just a note to bloggers for some reason trackbacks aren’t working yet - so post comments on the articles as well).  Along those lines, they’d like to see more comments on the journal site - Code4Lib is a community and they want the journal to reflect that.

Overall an interesting talk with some great ideas for publishing a journal online with free tools available on the web.

Technorati Tags: code4lib, code4lib2008, code4lib journal, code4libcon2008

Code4Lib 2008: The Internet Archive

What a great way to open a conference like Code4Lib.  The first keynote was presented by Brewster Kahle of the Internet Archive.

Brewster started by reminding us that the reason he was there talking to us and the reason he is working on the Internet Archive is because the library metaphor easily translates to the Internet - as librarians we’re paid to give stuff away!  We work in a $12 billion a year industry which supports the publishing infrastructure.  With the Internet Archive, Brewster is not suggesting that we spend less money - but that we spend it better.

He started with a slide of the Boston Public Library which has “Free to All” carved in stone.  Brewster says that what people carve in stone is taken seriously - and so this is a great example of what libraries stand for.  Our opportunity now is to go digital.  Provide free digital content in addition to the traditional content we have been providing.  I loved that he then said that this is not just a time for us to be friendly together as librarians - but to work together as a community and build something that can be offered freely to all!

He went on to say that what happens to libraries is that they burn - they tend to get burned by governments who don’t want them around.  The Library of Alexandria is probably best known for not being here anymore.  This is why lots of copies keeps stuff safe. Along those lines, the Internet Archive makes sure to store their data in mirror locations - and by providing information to the archive we’re ensuring that our data is also kept safe and available.  This idea of large scale swap agreements (us sharing with the Internet Archive, us sharing with other libraries, etc) in different geographical regions finds us some level of preservation.

How it started

The internet archive started by collecting the world wide web - every 2 months taking a snap shot of the web.  Brewster showed Yahoo! 10 years ago - ironically a bit of data that even Yahoo! didn’t have - so for their 10 year anniversary they had to ask the Internet Archive for a copy of what their site looked like!  He showed us the first version of Code4Lib’s site and exclaimed “Gosh is that geeky!” because it was a simple black text on white background page.

While it may have seemed a bit ambitious to archive the web, the Wayback Machine gets about 500 hits a second.  And it turns out that the out of print materials on the web are often just as valuable as the in print information on the web.  People are looking for the way things were for historical or cultural research reasons and this tool makes it possible.

Audio

The Grateful Dead started a tradition in the 60s of allowing people to record their concerts and share them with others - this tradition of tape trading caught on and lots of bands were doing this.  Following in this tradition, the Internet Archive decided to offer unlimited storage and unlimited bandwidth for free to any band who wanted to provide recordings of their concerts to the archive.  It’s a bit different than tape trading, but an amazing idea! They are getting 1 or 2 bands a day - around 30,000 concerts now and it’s working!  Overall the community is building the best metadata Brewster’s ever seen - beautiful work supported by a community - just what I love to hear!!

This shows that librarians can provide a role other than providing information - they can provide back end storage for information.  By giving people like these bands a place to store their music for free, the Internet Archive made it so that concerts are now available online for those in search of them!

Moving Images

1000 movies that are out of copyright are available via the Internet Archive.  Interestingly, the things that are popular are movies you can’t get any other way - movies you wouldn’t expect people to be interested in at all - government films, social behavior films like the ones you saw in high school when you had a substitute teacher - they’re fantastically popular. Brewster theorizes, and I tend to agree that people are using these videos as research tools to see what things were like culturally at different times in history. 

Brewster is a follower of the “it’s easier to apologize than ask permission” philosophy and it has worked very well for him and the organization.  You probably have a closet of video tapes that are just waiting to go online - so put them online and if people ask you to take it down - take it down.  One example that most of us have probably seen are the Lego movies.  Brewster found this genre of movies fascinating - but he mentions that if it weren’t for the free storage on the archive (pre-YouTube) these movies may never have been so widely spread.  He described this as, we as the library supporting a community that had no home before.  We’re here to put things of shelves and give things away - so why not put things online and give them away?

Television

The Internet Archive only has 1 week of TV available so far - 9/11 - 9/18/2001.  This shows a full picture of what people were watching during that horrible week.  (update: I may have misunderstood - as I view the archive site I see more than just this….)

Apparently there is someone in North Carolina out there recording TV non stop on 20 channels in DVD quality.  Apparently it costs him about $15 per video hour to digitize and has over 50,000 videos in his archive.  You can’t get just one point of view (need multiple channels) news may say it’s fair and balanced - but it’s not - you don’t just want John Stewart as your archive of news

Software

Not much because of licensing issues - it’s doable - just not legal yet.

Text

This is where Brewster see the biggest opportunity for traditional libraries to participate.  We have in our charge the responsibility to distribute print/books. 

We, as librarians, have to work very hard on text. Look at what we did with journals - we handed them to many corporations and now we have to rent them back from them   if we had never let it happen in the first place we wouldn’t be wondering how to digitize our journals now.  The same thing is going on with monographs now - we’re handing them over to corporations - we should be doing this ourselves instead and the Internet Archive wants to help.

There are 26 million books in the Library of Congress - one book is about 1MB that’s 26TB in the Library of Congress.  For $60,000 you could have the entire Library of Congress digitized.

Brewster’s goal sounds like a simple one - “one webpage for every book ever published.” What would it take to do this?

First off, we’d have scan a whole heck of a lot of books - and get the catalog data. 

The archive has experimented with a few methods, first they worked with the million book project - they shipped their books to India and they learned not to ship their books to India. Brewster recommends that you have the Indians scan the books they like - but keep your books to yourself.  Instead they found that for 10 cents a page they could scan their own items in house. They came up with the scanner and have a person turn the pages of the book - they tried the robots but they weren’t great (may be better now).  At the University of Toronto this method produces a million pages a month.

So, for the cost of copying a page at Kinkos you can digitize it and add MARC records and share with the world. Most importantly it’s being done by librarians - our of the corporate sphere.  We need to demand the right to give our books away - not have our books owned by corporations who will rent the content to us with exceptions tied to it.

Some quotes from Brewster: “Please help support these scanning centers while they’re up and running … take collections that you’ve got and have them digitized and start building services around them.”  If we’re going to build one web page for every book, we’re going to have to scan a lot of books.  One option of a service you could add is a scan on demand link to your catalog.  Have patrons click this link to have a book scanned - same cost as ILL - might as well scan it and put it on the web for anyone to use.

Then you can provide your digital copies via ILL, Brewster states: “I don’t know what loan means in the digital world - but let’s figure it out!” Why wait for someone else to tell us?

Next, let’s scan all the microfilm.  Someone came up to Brewster after one of his talks and said - “we’ve done this before - it’s called microfilm.” So why not digitize our microfilm as well? For less than 10 cents a page they can do all microfilm.  The Internet Archive is actually doing a large scale microfilm scanning project right now using the Carnegie model.  Apparently Carnegie would build your library for you if you promised to stock it with books and materials.  So the The Kahle/Austin Foundation will donate a microfilm scanner to your organization for X years if you the library will keep it up and running for X hours a week.  This only costs labor and time and no money has to change hands.  In the end we’ve digitized all of our microfilm and made it more accessible.

This made me think of a question - if years ago people said you should microfilm everything and now everyone’s saying you should digitize it - what’s to say that in another 50 years there won’t be another format?  This sounds to me like a never ending loop - but at the same time it sounds like such an obvious progression given the technology we have and the types of users we’re dealing with.

Next, we need better selection - right now we’re just digitizing whatever we’re handed - this means we don’t have full collections.  Because of this the Internet Archive now has 90 sponsor collections - “We need help!”–Brewster asks that we pick an area of cataloged material and share that digitally - think outside of your own library.  For some reason librarians seem to think that they’re only responsible for digital copies of materials they have in their own library - keep digital copies of things from other libraries - why only have digital copies of items you have in print?  You want a full collection on your area of study for your library. This was something I was working on at the Seminary.  I was finding digital copies of materials I thought would be of interest to our students and importing those OCLC records into our catalog.  Just another way to provide access to data.

The next step according to Brewster is to build the catalog and “we finally need to do this FRBR thing - come on guys, it’s not that hard!!!”  Even if the digital copy of the book isn’t available yet, it makes sense to provide pages for the book with catalog data that pulls information from sites like Amazon and other book information sites.

Code4Lib - Day 1
Originally uploaded by nengard

When the books are available, we need to work on our displays.  Many of our displays are lacking.  We need better search functions, open APIs to allow people to re-purpose our data in ways that make sense for them.  We also need to make book images with pages that flip, provide the ability to zoom in and printable.  In fact the Internet Archive offers a service where people can print books out from their service in real paperback looking formats.

Code4Lib - Day 1
Originally uploaded by nengard

Another option is to use the One Laptop per Child as an ebook reader.  The kindle handles ASCII formats okay - but not the types of images that we’re creating for our digital collections.

Conclusions

We have to work together on building this!  We can’t just check back in a year and see what’s happening - instead of waiting for others to do the work - why not contribute? We want to be able to build some great services that will allow people to bulk download these materials and re-purpose them if they want.

One way is to join the Open Content Alliance - there are over 80 libraries now. It’s free to join, you just have to contribute. 

The next step is to get service layers in place - this is where the code4libers come in. We have the skills to make the Internet Archive even more accessible and valuable.

Questions & Answers

Dan Chudnov asked what he called “tough questions” - now that some companies like Reed Elsevier are trying to change their business models from journal sales to other routes, is there an opportunity to go and buy up their journal services so we get our data back?   

Brewster’s answer: there is a way to do this - some people are trying - until it comes to the point where they aren’t making money any more we’re going to have to keep scanning ourselves

Dan’s other question - is power an issue?

Brewster - power is costly, but not running out any time soon.

Another question: the data is only good as long as the disks are still spinning - how do you make it last for years? 

Brewster: the question is a good one - the real way to have long term preservation is to have access - access drives preservation.  dark archives lead to data being lost.  we have to replace our machines every few years to keep up.  tapes suck! have you ever tried to read them back??? if there are at least 5 copies - 5 organizations then I can sleep

Real Conclusion

“if you’re frustrated enough - please come and help!” — Brewster

What an amazing way to stop!  What an amazing way to start the conference! So many people were completely inspired, I can’t wait to see what comes of this talk - I hope some amazing APIs start popping up!

Technorati Tags: code4lib, code4lib2008, internet archive, code4libcon2008

SLA Going Green

SLA has just announced an initiative to go green.  Already SLA Headquarters staff are implementing a number of environmentally friendly initiatives in the office.  According to the press release, SLA members and conference-goers will see some changes, particularly at the 2008 Annual Conference in Seattle.  Bloggers, take special note.  From the press release:

SLA will be working with INFO-EXPO exhibitors and conference sponsors as well as attendees on how they can participate in this initiative by offering options such as providing the opportunity for them to purchase their own carbon offsets, and supplying free wireless Internet access throughout the conference center, allowing attendees to access hand-outs electronically and eliminating the need to print thousands of paper copies. [my emphasis]

This is terrific news.  Go SLA!

NFAIS - Early Bird Registration Ending Soon

Join NFAIS for its:  50th Anniversary (1958 – 2008)

The cut-off date for the early bird conference registration fee is only days away - Tuesday, January 8, 2008!!  The conference, scheduled for February 24-26, 2008 in Philadelphia, PA,  is for all information providers – publishers, librarians and educators - who want to learn more about the user behavior and expectations that are driving the new information order and the technologies, business practices and strategies that are required to adapt products and services to a new generation of information seekers.

The Conference theme - The New Information Order:  Its Culture, Content and Economy will look at how the rapid adoption of information technology is creating a user-centric, technology-driven society with its own unique culture, value propositions, behavior and economy, and will highlight the opportunities that are available to all who are willing to adapt to the New Order. The preliminary program, registration forms and general information are now available at: http://www.nfais.org/2008_Tier_Program.htm.

Highlights include:

• Trends that are driving the new information order from noted author David Weinberger, (Everything is Miscellaneous: The Power of the New Digital Disorder ClueTrain Manifesto, etc.)

• Emerging technologies and the future of information discovery

• User perceptions of the value of content based upon recent surveys from Outsell, Inc.

• Corporate and library business practices and revenue models that reflect the culture of today's information society

• The geographic shift in the information economy and the opportunities offered by China as a new source of content

• Strategies for success in the New Information Order form the perspective of corporate, academic and government executives

This 2008 NFAIS Annual Conference will be a very special event as NFAIS will be marking the 50^th Anniversary of its founding.  The City of Philadelphia will proclaim the opening day, February 24, 2008, as "NFAIS Day," the Gala celebration will be held in the ballroom of the historic Academy of Music, the oldest grand opera house in the U.S. that is still used for its original purpose, and the meeting itself will be held in the Park Hyatt at the Bellevue, a national historic hotel. Join us and find out how your organization can thrive in the New Information Order!

For more information, contact Jill O'Neill, NFAIS Director of Communication and Planning (jilloneill@nfais.org or 215-893-1561) or visit the NFAIS Web site at http://www.nfais.org/events/event_details.cfm?id=44.

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.

Virtual versus physical meetings

I recently attended Internet Librarian and KMWorld & Intranets for the first time, and over on the public/academic side there's been a lot of discussion about the value of physical meetings versus virtual interactions in conferences as well as in library associations.

I've got mixed feelings on the matter: yes, of course we need to realize that work can happen without face-to-face interaction (heck, three of us organized an entire unconference that way), yes of course learning should be something that is ongoing, not limited to reacting to a PowerPoint presentation on a one-time basis. On the other hand, frankly I see a lot more diversity offline than online in the library world, and serendipity has played a larger role for me offline rather than online in terms of useful conversations and meeting people.

How do we embrace the best of both worlds?

New Kid on the Blog

I made good on the promise I made to Stacey Greenwell at SLA in Denver --- I would join the IT Division when I got back home, as a result of the great hospitality I received from the group at the conference.  I'm looking forward to contributing to the blogging section.  To be honest, I'm a little intimidated by the impressive posts and high-powered IT people.  I'll need my training wheels on for a little bit, but I hope to be up to speed and posting like a pro in no time.

For starters, I wanted to share this site about Library Related Conferences.  When I originally composed my thoughts for this post, this site was 2nd on the del.icio.us Hotlist.  Obviously, I'm not the only librarian who saw it.  There is a good amount of conferences of IT interest.  The schedule has events listed all the way to 2015, for those of you who like to plan ahead.

Podcasts from SLA 2007

The podcasts of a number of SLA 2007 sessions are now available via Click U--at no charge!  Some of the presentations, including one of the IT Division sessions, Podcasting the Librarian Way, feature presentation slides and handouts as well.  Some people never make it to conference; it's terrific that SLA is making more conference content available to everyone.

Denver session: Podcasting the Librarian Way

I would like to thank all the bibliocasters who have send me a file to be played during the "Podcasting the Librarian Way" session I moderated at the 2007 SLA Annual Conference in Denver. While the session took place on Wednesday afternoon, a time where a lot of attendees are starting to leave town, we enjoyed the presence of some 60 attendees. The two presenters, Tammy Allgood of ASU, and Debbi MacLeod of the Colorado Talking Book Library, did a terrific job with their talks and answered many questions. Attendees also enjoyed the MP3 files although the poor sound system in the room prevented us from playing three of them. But, no problem as they are now available on the SLA IT Division website (http://units.sla.org/division/dite/2007/index.html#podcasting), along with the powerpoint files of the presentations.

Thank you again to Robert, David, Chris, Christine, Heidi, Daniel and Mary, as well as Tammy Allgood and Debbi MacLeod.

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Technorati tag: sla2007

Bloggers gathered in Denver

You may have already seen Von's posting in the SLA Blog about our get together.  Von wasn't in any of the photos he put online, so here is one of him (seated) trying to blog while we ate lunch!

For the third year in a row, bloggers gathered at the conference to talk and exchange a few tips.  We were a lively group!  Next year, I hope to find us a time spot that is more convenient.  (Maybe the patron saint of bloggers can help us with that? Oops there isn't one yet!)

Several people at the table were not members of the IT Division, but it sounded like they would be soon.  Who could resist a division that is focused on the use of information technology in libraries, Web 2.0, and wild dance parties?!

Addendum (6/13/2007): I forgot to mention that we gathered at the Rialto Cafe on 16th St. in Denver.  They deserve a mention, since they were able to fit in this group of an unknown size in their dining area ("uh...well there might be 12 of us").  And we did enjoy the good food and pleasant surrounding (as well as the wait staff who was able to give us separate checks)!

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Technorati tag: sla2007

Live from Denver

I'm sitting at the Louisville local arrangements booth in Denver as I type this. We've gotten an enormous amount of traffic and interest in Luahvul, so much that we're wondering if we'll have record attendance for the 2008 Leadership Summit in Louisville.  In addition to getting people excited about Louisville, we've had a wonderful time here in the Kentucky Chapter "lounge."

Be sure to follow the SLA Blog for in-depth session summaries, photos, and other information about the conference.

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Technorati tag: sla2007

Podcasting session at SLA-Denver - request for podcasts from the field

I'm the moderator for "Podcasting the Librarian's Way" at the SLA Annual Conference in Denver, CO. The session will take place on Wednesday, June 6, from 1:00 - 2:30PM. Speakers will be Deborah MacLeod of the Colorado Talking Books Library and Tammy Allgood of the Arizona State University Libraries. They will be sharing how they use podcasting in their respective libraries. This will be a "real-life experience" session and it should very good - I hope you can make it.

As an added feature to the session, I would like to showcase other podcasting libraries/librarians. Therefore, I would like to invite blog readers to send me a short podcast, telling me how you use podcasting. Please include your name, your organization or place of employment if relevant, and how/why you, or your library/information organization, utilize podcasting. Please keep your podcast to 3 minutes or less.

These podcasts would be played to the audience between the speakers during the conference session. Please take note that the session itself will be recorded and I would have a release form for you to sign.

Please don't hesitate to contact me for further information at clw@lakeland.usf.edu.

Technical Support Roundtable at SLA2007

The IT Division held its first Technical Support Roundtable in Baltimore, where attendees had a lively discussion and left with new ideas and new contacts (see session writeup in b/ITe).  So back by popular demand, the IT Division is hosting its second annual Technical Support Roundtable in Denver:

Technical Support Roundtable
June 4, 2007 (Monday)
4:00pm-5:30pm

Whether you are a technical support expert or someone in an "accidental" support role (and increasingly, that's many of us), this session is a terrific opportunity to gather new ideas and share your knowledge and experience.

How are you using Web 2.0 applications?  When are you implementing Windows Vista?  How are you dealing with spyware?  What's your favorite Firefox add-on?  What do you read to keep current with technology trends?  Which is better: Bloglines or Google Reader?  What are your 43 things?

Bring your questions and your comments to this discussion of technology and support issues.  Please spread the word to others who might be interested in participating in this open discussion.

Guiding Libraries and Info Pros Through Change

At Computers in Libraries this year, David Lee King gave an amazing talk on handling change within our libraries.   As members of IT, this talk was especially important for us - pay close attention to the tips for techies and leaders.

David 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?

1. Saying goodbye (letting go of the way things used to be)
2. 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
3. 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:

1. info based - not enough info with the new thing, don’t understand, disagree with the idea, confused
2. 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!)
3. 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

Denver Conference: registration and hotel reservation now in operation

The Denver Conference registration is now open. See: http://www.sla.org/Denver2007

The Denver Conference hotel reservation system is now up and running. See:

http://www.sla.org/content/Events/conference/ac2007/travelhotel/ and
http://www2.expobook.com/evt/evt_home.asp?eventid=104

The good hotel rooms will be booked quickly, so don't wait too long!

CES Bloghaus

PodTech.net, famous for hiring Robert Scoble, hosted a Bloghaus at the recent Consumer Electronics Show (CES). Features included a podcasting station, dedicated T1 line, Wi-Fi, and a gaming room. Also a chance to meet and greet with influential tech bloggers.

You can find posts about the Bloghaus by looking for posts tagged Bloghaus in Technorati. Did any librarians attend? Should they have?

Al Gore Speaking at SLA 2007

SLA just announced that former Vice President Al Gore will be speaking at the annual conference in Denver.  How cool.  More information about the conference will be available on the Denver conference website.

The International Calendar of Information Science Conferences

(Cross-posted in Solos Helping Solos Blog)

As someone (diglet) said, we could never attend all of these, but it is good to know that these events  exist.  This calendar lists international conferences that are expected to be of interest to those working in information science and related disciplines.  It is worth taking a peek at. 

"Cool Tools and New Technologies" Conference

Each year, the Darthmouth University Biomedical Libraries put up a well-attended conference for New England librarians. Surprise, surprise this year's program is a lot about social software with the theme Cool Tools and Cool Technologies.

Attendance is capped at 120 participants. The fee is a reasonable $75.

Boston Podcamp

In the Boston area and interesting in podcasting? The Boston Podcamp will take place September 9-10, 2006, at the Bunker Hill Community College. PodCamp is a FREE BarCamp-style meetup for podcasters and listeners, bloggers and readers, and new media types of all stripes. This a free event, you just need to register to get all the benefits, read "schwag" :)

SLA conference review

Well, it looks like I managed to miss all sessions devoted to blogs and related technologies (apart from "Newsroom Wikis", posted about in the IT Division blog) because of various engagements. Have you seen Jenny Levine talk about RSS? Have you attended the National Geographic session about social software? How about the Legal Division "Emerging Technologies Breakfast"? Or others?

If you have, would you please share a few tidbits about it in the comments field for the benefit of all? I hope you had a blast in Baltimore, I did!

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Technorati tag: sla2006

Bloggers Get-Together - pictures!

Jill Hurst-Wahl has posted about the Bloggers Get-Together at SLA on the SLA Conference blog. She also posted pictures on Flickr.

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Technorati tag: sla2006

New contributor and Web 2.0 session

Please welcome a new contributor to the Blogging Section and to the Blogging Section blog, Karen Huffman.

Karen works at the National Geographic Society. She presented, along with her colleague Barbara Ferry, an "Hot Topic" session at SLA 2006 titled "Web 2.0 - Making Use of Collaborative Applications -Wikis, Blogs, CoPs, RSS and Podcasts." I unfortunately missed it since it was at the same time as the IT Division Business Meeting but I heard it was a *great* session. You can view the presentation at http://www.ngslis.org/sla/ (username: conference | password: sla2006). The NGS is ready for Web 2.0!

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Technorati tag: sla2006

Newsroom wikis

I posted a recap of that SLA session on the Information Technology blog.

What?! You didn't know the Information Techonology had a blog? Well yes, this new baby saw birth just before the annual conference. It's a great place to get the latest info about the Division and other topics that interest us. Happy reading!

Internet access at Baltimore Convention Center

Thanks to Ted Baldwin on sla-dche for the info.

Looks like bloggers will still be again struggling to post live in Baltimore at the Annual Conference. SLA HQ will not provide service. Individuals can access wireless internet using the WiFi Internet Café service at the Starbucks in the Pratt Street Lobby entrance. There will also be access at the Main and Outdoor Terrace locations on the 300 Level. My understanding is that it is not free.

So, which one will I buy, the access in the Center or my hotel room? Decisions...

UPDATE: I just learned that ALA is paying for wireless access in the New Orleans Convention Center and that it will be available freely to all attendees in all the building except the exhibits hall. I'll keep dreaming for SLA in Denver next year...

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Technorati tag: sla2006

CE class at SLA Baltimore and Get-Together

Unfortunately, the CE class I was going to teach on Sunday June 11th, "Continuing Education Course- Weblogging for Beginners: A Practical Approach", was cancelled due to low number of registrations. It's just too bad because we were going to have hands-on activities for the participants. I guess the incredibly high prices for the equipment and Internet access, forcing us to put a higher price on the class registration, did us in...

But fear not, the Webloggers Get-Together is still on! See you there!

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Technorati tag: sla2006

Library-related programming from HigherEd BlogCon

Some presentations from the Library & Information Resources track on HigherEd BlogCon are now being published. Good, detailed stuff.

Some selections:
Patrons in the Drivers Seat: Giving Advanced Tool-sets to Library Patrons
John Blyberg
Ann Arbor District Library

Building a Wall of Books
Edward Vielmetti
University of Michigan School of Information

Google Maps and You: Five Steps To Including a Google Map On Your Website
Chris Deweese
Lewis & Clark Library System

Go Where the Patrons Are: Outreach In the Age of Library 2.0
Jason Griffey
University of Tennessee at Chattanooga

Upon the Shoulders of Giants: Building Library 2.0 Together, From the Platform Up
Paul Miller
Talis

Open Access for Teachers
Dorothea Salo
George Mason University

Web 2.0 and the Small College Library: How to take over the World
David Eubanks
Coker College

Blogs, Wikis, and IM: Communication Tools for Subject Specialists
Chad Boeninger
Ohio University