I will be doing 2 Tech Talks in South Jersey at the end of the month. If you’re in the area, sign up and come learn something new.

This two hour tech talk will explain the basic concepts of many web 2.0 tools and demonstrate how you can practically use them to manage information and time more efficiently.

Eleonora Dubicki and Jacqui DaCosta talked to us about how to keep students engaged while teaching about libraries. That said, I went because I wanted to learn teaching techniques that can be used in any instruction - and I did!!

Active Learning

We started with the rules for library bingo. This is the first way to keep students engaged. Basically, we listen which the instructor speaks everytime one of the words on our cards was spoken we marked our cards. Once the card had everything marked we called out Bingo - well not “we” - I didn’t win

This is part of active learning. This technique is about using techniques that shift library instruction from lecturing to guiding or coaching students.

Active learning:

• engages students in the learning process
• elicits student discovery
• captures their attention (in a 45 minute class students would get bored - now takes 75 minutes and it’s hard to get the students out)
• addresses multiple learning styles (oral, visual, exercises - so they can practice as well)
• creates an experience they can relate to and replicate (rather than going step by step and having them follow along, now because students are doing their own searching and keywords it’s an experience they can replicate later)
• provides immediate feedback to the instructor

Confucius says “I hear and I forget, I see and I remember, I do and I understand” - I love it!!

The goal is to reach the bottom of the learning pyramid and try to get students to be able to teach each other:

Learning Pyramid

• lecture
• reading
• audiovisual
• demonstration
• discussion
• practice doing
• teach others

To participate in active learning you have to be comfortable giving up the control of the classroom to the students. This requires more prep time. For bingo you have to know what words will be used in the lectures so that someone can win - you have to print out the cards and get the bingo markers and prizes.

When teaching a class powerpoint slides work really well with visual learners - they hear her say something and then they see it - I am like this - I hate reading slides, but I do like having them there so that I can reference them if I missed hearing something while taking notes. Handouts are always handy because students can take them with you.

Asking for feedback

They also create a one minute evaluation sheet with four open ended questions that allow the students to provide feedback about the class:

• what did you learn
• what are you still confused about
• general comments
• rate the session (ratings are all on the high side - they like the interaction with it)

Another way to get feedback is to give a library session questionnaire at the beginning of the session - or before people arrive. This means that participants have questions prepared if things aren’t covered - so at the end when you ask “do you have any questions” at least one person will have on prepared. You can collect the papers at the end of the session and this gives the instructor a chance to reply to students after session (”we didn’t cover this in class and I wanted to address your question”). Lastly, this helps you prepare for future sessions by showing you what people are expecting based on your description and title.

Cephalonian Method

Another method of active learning that we were introduced to is called the Cephalonia method (yes, I created a page for this on Wikipedia - please feel free to edit and add more info if you’re an expert). The Cephalonian method uses a fusion of color, image, humor and music to keep students engaged in the learning process. This method was started at the Cardiff University by Linda Davies and Nigel Morgan and was introduced to the British Library Public in 2004.

Some quick points about the Cephalonian method:

• been used for large groups (200+)
• been used for small groups
• a variety of institutions around the world
• graduates and undergraduates
• used very much for orientation
• used initially for large group orientation and to replace tours

How does it work? In our small group the instructor passed out 8 colored cards (they were hidden in our packets) with a question or statement on them. There were 2 of each color and each color was associated with a specific category - for your library orientation you might have one for the catalog, one for services, one for rules, etc. For the instructor this means being prepared to answer any questions asked and having the technology to match. Our instructor had a cheat sheet that told her the slide number for each card so that she could easily show that slide in answer to the question (this is because you have no control over what order the questions are asked. For the students this means having questions given to them - it starts discussion and acts as a great icebreaker. The instructor can say “does anyone have a pink card?” and then the students can read the card out for the whole class.

Reactions:

• students seem to like it
• they laugh with you and want to see what’s next
• faculty thought it was wonderful

Benefits:

• good icebreaker
• adaptable for different audiences
• as well as being fun it does meet the learning objectives of being interactive

What can go wrong:

• technology can fail
• students shy
• invite a bit of chaos into your classroom
• colorblindness (you could put the word for the color on the handout)

Mix it up

Another way to keep students engaged is to “mix it up.” You can do this with games like Guess-the-google. This is a great way to introduce library students to keyword searching. It shows a montage of images that all match a specific keyword. At first students don’t participate, but then when see that they have a score of zero they start to compete and have fun with it.

Another way is simply to have a virtual tour of the library playing as students enter the room. There may not be enough time to do this during the class and it gets students engaged right as they enter the door.

Other tools you can try in library instruction:

Exercises

• keyword exercise
• pick a topic and guess the keywords
• brainstorming
• think pair and share - collaborative learning - pick a topic and pair up with a student near them and discuss - then share with the rest of the class

Use creative research topics

• new marketing strategies for video games
• consumers are concerned about identity theft and privacy
• hip hop lyrics draw outrage

Demonstrations

• have students demo a database search (as the student goes through the instructor can then point out things and ask questions)

What did the students have to say about all of this?

• “I think more discussion is good”
• “Letting the students follow along makes remembering the steps easy”
• “the exercises were helpful, fun and informative”

Conclusions

Some of these methods may not be for everybody, these are just some fun ideas that you can mix and match to make your classes more interesting and engaging.

I’m not sure I’d be able to pull off the Cephalonian method - but I’m thinking of creating some open source bingo cards!!

Technorati Tags: njla2008, njlaconf08

Tomorrow I head to the NJLA (New Jersey Library Association) Annual Conference. I’ll be presenting all afternoon on 2.0 topics. Should be fun! I wanted to go for the whole conference, but sometimes life takes priority over conferences.

If you’re there, look for me!!

Technorati Tags: njla2008

Computers in Libraries will be returning to the Hyatt Regency Crystal City in Arlington, VA from March 30 - April 1, 2009. Stay tuned for more information later on this year!

Well, I have two things to say. #1 - Bah to the Hyatt it’s a terrible place for so many of us! #2 - Yippee for the dates I’ll be there pushing my way through the herds of people.

Technorati Tags: cil2009

The videos from the Code4Lib 2008 conference are being added to Google video. Some are also on the Internet Archive site. Keep an eye as new ones appear.

Technorati Tags: code4libcon2008, code4lib2008

Amy De Groff, Head of Library Technology Services talked to us about using open source at the Howard County Public Library. Amy started by telling us that she was not going to convince us that open source is a good thing - the other speakers had already done enough of that.

Amy’s library will be entirely open source by September - which is pretty darn awesome!! With open source software there is nothing you can’t do. That said, she reminded us that open source deployment is going to create emotional turmoil - but what change doesn’t?

Before going on, Amy warned us that she was going to talk about dirty underside of our profession and that it may cause discomfort. The truth is that as information professionals we must know it all and that it’s always been this way - and this is the wrong way to think about things.

The library profession can learn from the open source community and the open source community will benefit from the library profession’s commitment and standards of service.

People ask her how she did it - how she changed the library over to open source - her answer of “we just did” didn’t seem like enough for many librarians - but it was good enough for me! The fact is that we spend way too much time debating and meeting and discussing - and not enough time doing! Good job Amy for “just doing!”

Technorati Tags: cil2008, cil08

Kyrille Goldbeck and Dr. Godmar Back of Virginia Tech talked to us about LibX. I (probably like you) have heard of this tool before - but I had no idea how cool and powerful it was!!

LibX was originally developed as a way for patrons to take the library with them on the web as a sort of a “virtual librarian” that guides user to library resources while they use the web. LibX is a Firefox tool and an IE plugin (view screenshots and screencasts via the LibX site).

This handy tool adds a toolbar to your browser where you can search the catalog for your institution. It even lets you add additional lines for advanced searching and choose the fields you’d like to search. When you perform a search, it opens the results in a new tab/window - so that you don’t lose the page you were on. Another (seemingly simple - yet often overlooked) awesome feature is that the search terms you entered in your toolbar come down into the catalog interface so you can alter/re-run the search.

In addition to allowing catalog searches via the toolbar, LibX also integrates itself into various websites. When on Amazon.com each book page has a LibX link to the library catalog (this uses xISBN) that searches for any edition of the book you’re viewing.

You can also highlight the book title or ISBN and right click to see search options in the catalog (and LibX knows which you’re highlighting - title or ISBN and runs the right search).

Next, if you have the tool installed and you visit Barnes & Noble’s site, you’ll see that the ISBN is linked (the dashed underline means that the page has been altered by an external app). If you click that link you’ll be brought into the catalog with results for an ISBN search.

But that’s not all! LibX also searches for articles! You can choose to search Google Scholar and then on the results page the links automatically reformat to go to the library’s databases (if the articles are available) with openresolver links. This works both on and off campus. If you’re off campus, you can reload the page using EZproxy and access the resources from home.

And as if that isn’t enough!! We’re always told to check the references in the articles we’re reading - well LibX makes this super easy! You just open up the PDF file and drag a reference onto the Google Scholar button on the toolbar. A new tab will open with the results!!

How is it that I went through library school without realizing how handy this tool was???

If you’re wondering how you can get this for your institution, it’s actually pretty easy!

Originally, institutions had to contact Virginia Tech to ask them to create the toolbar for them - but now you can use LibX Editions and create your own toolbar in minutes. Keep in mind that some manual customization will be required to make this toolbar meet your library’s needs.

That said, Editions has had a great impact on the usage of LibX. This tool allows anyone to build a LibX edition, share it, copy it, modify it and distribute it. All in the spirit of open source!

Conclusions

I wish I was still in school so I could use this tool all of the time - for now I’ll have to settle for using it when researching blog posts

Technorati Tags: cil2008, cil08, libx

Glen Horton talked to us about how libraries can give back to open source.

Libraries and open source are fundamentally related - both …

• believe that information should be freely accessible to everyone
• we like to give away stuff
• we benefits from generosity of others (part Glen is going to talk about)
• are about communities
• make the world a better place

One of the ways libraries can give back is to create open source software. In a lot of the cases of open source projects they could have been kept in the libraries that developed them but instead they opened them up to share with others.

If you’re asking, “but Glen .. what if we don’t have a developer?” - you can give back in many other ways.

Teach open source software like this video on edubuntu for libraries.

You could document open source - like I’ve been doing for the last few months. Don’t assume that you’re the only one that can benefit from it - share what you write just in case there are others like you out there.

You can debug open source by reporting bugs to authors and on support forums. You can identify usability issues or if something isn’t working quite right - instead of dealing with these things (which we’re all used to doing) you can share it with the community to make the product that much better.

“But glen - what if we don’t use open source software?”

You can promote open source - just because you’re not using it internally, doesn’t mean your patrons won’t benefit from it - add links to it from your site. Or pass out CDs or sell flash drives with open source on it. Check out portableapps.com.

Open source or die

It’s a strong statement - but it goes back to open source and libraries being linked at the core. Glen points us to the number of sessions on this track (a pretty high number if you look at all of the speakers sharing time slots) and he bets that it’s going to be more next year.

Open Source Desktop

Next up, Julian Clark who uses open source for nearly application on his computer.

Why?

• a lot of people say it’s free - but it’s free as in kittens
• control and customization
• security - with os implementation the security is the same as what you’re running on your servers
• changing marketplace
  • people are becoming less satisfied about what’s being offered
  • windows vista example - people went back to xp because they were unhappy causing ms to keep supporting xp

When is the best time to change?

• no set formula - every library operates differently
• a good idea is when you’re ready for a major upgrade (when you buy new desktops or upgrade your ILS)
  • you’re going to have major changes imposed upon you either way
• another time is when you have reduced funding in your library

To do this…

Assess the hardware

• full hardware inventory
• not all hardware will be oss-friendly (wireless connectivity may be an issue)

Assess the software

• what do you really need/use for productivity?
• what can’t you live without?
• think function, not brand (don’t think you need ms word - think you need a word processor)
• not everything is “ready for prime time”

Assess the organizations

• who runs IT?
• expertise on staff?
• local culture

Where should you start?

• start with your desktop - what apps do you have on your desktop? What do you use most?
• keep in mind that there are some apps that may not have a viable os option

Options for support

Third party support

• can be purchased directly
• does not always require on-stop shoppings
• allows for faster initial setup
• initial setup and maintenance do not need to be very hands on

In-house

• local needs can best be understood
• better integration with local initiatives
• wealth of institutional knowledge

Selling it

• consider your audience
• quantifiy things
• re-allocating resource savings
• be positive

Technorati Tags: cil2008, cil08, open source

I love listening to Marshall Breeding present - it always makes me feel better to know that someone can talk faster than me Marshall started his talk by showing us the lib-web-cats advanced search which allows you to search for libraries running specific systems. He did remind us to keep in mind that the systems shown are the ones that have made a commitment to a system (may not be live yet).

Broad Trends

Open source is highly used in the general IT arena with examples like Linux and Apache. If you believe the blogosphere, open source is going up up up - but it’s not necessarily true - Microsoft is also gaining a footing - showing that they are all good options. You need to make your decisions with all the facts in hand.

Open Source

Did you know that your general library infrastructure is open source? z39.50 is open source! And Index Data has been making tools based on this protocol for a long time (the Yaz toolkit is the main z39.50 tool being used).

Other open source options:

• Federated search - LibraryFind and Masterkey
• OCLC offers some stuff - typically older stuff that they want other people to take care of now
• Digital repositories - Fedora, DSpace, and Keystone

Next Marshall listed some open source discovery products - AKA - next gen catalogs:

• Vufind - based on Apache Solr search toolkit — toolkits make it accessible for relatively small development shops to create this stuff
• Extensible catalog - University of Rochester and the Melon Foundation
• fac-back-opac
• Scriblio - based on WordPress

Open Source in the ILS Arena - Products and Trends

It used to be bold and risky to move to an open source ILS. This move however led to a bunch of projects that are now products. That said, Marshall wants to make sure that people have the best information available to them when they make these decisions - he’s not an open source evangelist he’s a technology evangelist.

3 of the 4 open source ILS that were around in 2002 are now defunct so when Marshall wrote that the open source ILS it was still a distant future - it was true.

… then the world changed

In March 2007 the world had changed, but open source is a minority player. In March 2008 open source is a real option out there, but you need to use the same criteria you use when choosing a closed source system.

Now, April 2008 the open source ILS has launched into the mainstream - there is a lot of room for optimism and there is going to more and more of this over time.

The ILS market is an industry in turmoil with mergers and acquisitions left and right causing disruptions and business decisions to narrow options. This has fueled the open source movement by providing libraries with additional options.

Open Source v. Traditional Licensing

So what side is Marshal on? He says both sides! He wouldn’t want to see a world where one or the other is the only option and thinks they complement the each other. Each library has it’s own personality and can use that in choosing their systems.

Recommendations for making a choice:

• avoid philosophical preference - make choices as business decisions instead
• which best supports the missions of libraries
• which approach helps libraries become better libraries?

Specifics

Koha

• first open source ILS
• Koha + Index Data Zebra = Koha Zoom
• 300+ libraries
• while there are a lot of small libraries - there are also some biggies signing up now
• the system has grown up to a level where it can handle these big libraries
• has the interface we want - facets, clean, book jackets

Evergreen

• developed by the GA public library system
• small dev team
• June 2004 - dev begins
• September 2005 live production
• streamlined environment - single shared implementation, all libraries, follow the same policies,
• one library card
• by far the most people using it are the GA PINES consortia
• it’s a big difference between supporting 250+ small libraries and supporting a big library system (so it will make a difference when the Atlanta area switched)
• has interface we want - facets, clean, book jackets

OPALS

• going gangbusters in the public school system
• created by Media Flex
• south central org of (school) libraries

NextGenLib

• ILS designed for the developing world
• originally traditionally licensed, introduced in 2003
• transition to open source in January 2008
• 122 installations (India, Syria, Sudan, Cambodia)

Learning Access ILS

• turnkey open source ILS
• designed for under-served rural public and tribal libraries
• defunct?? - has been trying to get in touch with these people - but can’t (email bounces)

There is also lot of commercial involvement these days:

• Index Data (founded 1994)
• LibLime (founded 2005)
  • small but growing
  • total of 20 FTP - hiring industry veterans exiting from traditional ILS companies
• Equinox (founded 2007)
  • contracts to GA PINES library system
• Care Affiliates (founded 2007)
  • recently formed founded by Carl Grant
• Media Flex (longstanding company)
• Duke is working on a proposal to create an open source ILS
• …there are others afoot

Issues

Explosive interest in open source is being driven by the disillusionment with current vendors. Given this, Marshall makes the point that the open source ILS would be where it is if it wasn’t for what was happening on the other end of things. Open source allows for more flexible systems and lower costs (however, Marshall still feels that total cost of ownership is the same between the two over the long haul). With open source libraries are less vulnerable to the mergers and acquisitions that are happening in the proprietary world.

Cost Issues

• cost shifted - no license fee
• hardware
• vendor support
• hosting
• conversion
• local technical support
• development costs
• open source vendors should come up with a total cost of ownership report to show us that open source is really cheaper

Open source risk factors

Marshall still thinks that open source is a risky alternative because of a dependency on community organizations and commercial companies to provide development and support services. I’d argue that this is a reason that open source is less risky - with a community of developers and support services you’re more likely to find someone to help you out if your vendor goes under. That said, Marshall admits that the other side is risky too!

All that said the interest in open source (and the market share) is relatively low.

Conclusions

What he’s looking for is a new system (aren’t we all) - built for how libraries are today. This is not an open source system that does what our systems already do today. In short, we have a long way to go on both fronts - both open and closed source.

Technorati Tags: cil2008, cil08, open source

Karen Schneider moderated this very interesting two part session on WoePac to WowPac - a look at OPACs as we know them and would like them to be. As a librarian who has often torn her hair out over the sad state - “or should I say sucky state” of our OPACs she’s the perfect person to be introducing the speakers for this session.

First off, Roy Tennant. Roy started off by saying “I’ve spent the last 10 years trying to kill off the the word OPAC - you can see how successful I’ve been.”

Roy wanted to clarify for us that when he talked about the “OPAC” he’s just talking about the discovery part of our systems - the public interface - not the entire ILS. He introduced us to a few tools that add a new discovery level to our systems that harvests data out of the ILS.

When you’re ready for a change in your library you have a few questions to consider before looking at today’s tools.

• do you want to replace your ILS or just your public interface?
• can you consider open source options? (some can’t)
• do you have the technical expertise to set it up and maintain it locally?
• are you willing to regularly harvest data from your catalog to power a separate user interface?

Some examples of options available to today’s libraries are:

Koha (example from Athens County Public Library)

• faceted browse
• highlighted search words
• availability information
• no harvesting of information required - because it’s an ILS

Evergreen (example from Georgia Pines)

• faceted browse
  • some issues with them - strange terms coming up in the facets
• no harvesting of information required - because it’s an ILS

VuFind

• discovery layer only
• in development (they haven’t started using it themselves yet)
• the interface looks really good
• faceted browse
• availability info shown (it’s being extracted out of the ILS)

LibraryFind (example from Oregon State University Library)

• MetaSearch system
• faceted browse
• clean interface
• you’ll see articles interfiled among the books in results
• you can see databases searched

WorldCat Local (example from University of Washington)

• local branding
• local version of worldcat.org
• articles included from some databases
• real benefit is that you can search the world - so first it searches the local library and then the consortium and then the rest of the world

Next up Kate Sheehan who was part of the first library to use LibraryThing for Libraries. I like Kate’s definition as a bibliophile/social networking mashup (hope the credit for that doesn’t belong with someone else - if so - I’m sorry).

LibraryThing has a ton of data about books and readers and the readers are not afraid to use it. While LibraryThing is all about users (they want to search and catalog their own way) - LibraryThing for Libraries is all about the masses of data.

Kate showed us the search results for “OPAC sucks” in Google and there were 3 pages of results (I got 10 pages).

To improve a woepac, LibraryThing for Libraries takes all the neat stuff that LibraryThing knows and dumps it into your OPAC - any OPAC because this tool is platform agnostic.

Kate gave us a preview of what this tool does:

• it shows other editions of the title that the library has
• shows similar books and it’s really good (once again only based on things in the library)
• can even add reviews with a Greasemonkey script

Computers in Libraries
Originally uploaded by nengard

So how hard is it to implement? Kate says it’s so easy a monkey could do it - really! It’s just a simple javascript that you copy and paste into your template and you’re done.

LibraryThing bases this stuff on what people have actually read (not what they’ve bought - like Amazon). If there is anything wrong with LibraryThing for Libraries, it’s that it doesn’t work as well with non-isbn books - all of these features are based on comparing ISBNs.

So why do libraries want LibraryThing? Basically, data doesn’t grow on trees and LibraryThing has this wealth of information to share with libraries. This is a pretty simple concept.

This is a great tool - especially for libraries with a lot of ISBN materials.

Next up was, Cindy Trainor with a talk titled: “Are we there yet? Next generation library catalog enhancements: an assessment.” Cindi agree with Marshall Breeding (a summary I haven’t written yet) when he says that these next gene systems aren’t really there yet - there is still a long way to go. For that reason Cindi introduced us to her 4 very best websites using her own totally arbitrary system of rating.

Great websites need to have a combination of these 4 characteristics:

• content - print, video, audio, etc
• community - communication - power lies in it’s collectiveness - content created by a community in a community for a community
• interactivity - a single website that people visit and interact with - searchability included in this
• interoperability - APIs - things that let us pull data from multiple systems and merge them into one (Z39.50, RSS)

The more of these elements a site has the better it is - in Cindi’s opinion. Of her four best websites, Cindi went into detail about Flickr which scored a 26 on her scale (which had a max of 32 points). Flickr made it onto her top 4 because it met all of the criteria:

• content (photos)
• community (giant group of users)
• interactivity (search, browse, never run into a dead end)
• interoperability (interface into flickr that lets you go in and do other things with the content - badges, posters, flickr soduko, spell with flickr, flickr mashups)

The other top sites were Amazon scoring 26, Pandora scoring 20 and Wikipedia scoring 21.

So, where are the next gen catalog enhancements on this scale?

• Encore - 10
• LibraryFind - 12
• Scriblio - 14
• WorldCat Local - 16

When you think about what a legacy OPAC looks like we have come a long way - but we still have a long way to go! Cindi showed us a Voyager OPAC and replaced most of the words with blah blah blah - because this is what our patrons see and Voyager scored a 2 using her fake rating system.

Last up was John Blyberg. John didn’t talk to us about our OPACs per say, but the system redressed.

John started with a quote from Robert Pirsig in “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance”:

“The overall name of these interrelated structures is system. The motorcycle is a system. A real system …There’s so much talk about the system. And so little understanding. That’s all a motorcycle is, a system of concepts worked out in steel … the motorcycle is primarily a mental phenomenon.”

He feels that we sort of fetishize our OPACs - the WowPac doesn’t exist - the fact that we can’t put it together is not that it’s hard to do - it has more to do with what sits behind the system. Like the motorcycle our systems are a mental phenomenon.

Consider the library work flow as container versus content - the OPAC is container - the content is then the information in the OPAC.

“I really wish we could get rid of the concept of OPAC - because of the system behind them our OPACs seem to get put into these little boxes - what happens to a plant if you put it in a pot that’s too small for it? It withers and dies and this is what’s going on with our OPACs - they’re being impaired by not getting to the content in our systems.” While I may not have gotten the quote exactly right - this is a really good image from John of what our OPACs are doing to our precious data.

John makes another great point that the OPAC really should be spilling out onto our websites and beyond - Facebook and Flickr and such - not just search boxes - but applications that can trigger based on page content. So if you’re on Facebook viewing something about Harry Potter you get a pop up or a column with library data related to the page you’re on.

We need an understanding of how information flows from point a-b - the term systems librarian is going to be obsolete because we’re all going to be systems librarians (in fact at Drexel, systems is a required course - so in their eyes, we already area). Systems does not have to do with technology only - but the system of our library (the processes we follow day to day).

John also reminds us that in today’s information ecology there is no destination = most people are online to experience information.

A great combination of viewpoints all in one place! I’m glad that I stayed in the room all day

Technorati Tags: cil2008, opac, cil08

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

First off Darlene Fichter and Frank Cervone are like a stand up comedy act with really neat tools to make our lives easier! I just love attending their presentations each year. So let’s get to the meat (excuse my lack of capitalization):

Firefox Tools:

• safecache - protects your privacy - defends against cache-based tracking techniques
• foxmarks - automatically syncs bookmarks with a web version at my.foxmarks.com - works across work and home computers
• FEBE - firefox environment backup extension - quickly and easily backup your Firefox extensions - easily sync your office and home browsers - also backup things that aren’t extensions

Other web tools:

• meebo chat widget - topeka & shawnee county public library - on the no results found page
• LinkBunch - lets you put multiple links in one small link - firefox extension creates a bunch from all your open tabs
• DocSyncer - automatically finds and syncs your document files to google docs - this means everything! “users are even reporting that launching a document directly from their desktop using DocDyncer is FASTER than launching the doc native in microsoft office” - Frank says yeah right!! - very good and simple to sign up (windows, mac, linux) - problem here is that it is everything!! Doesn’t ask you - just does it
• twhirl - desktop client for twitter
• polldaddy - fast and simple way to put a poll on your website

For web development:

• VisCheck - a computer simulation of the entire process of human vision - way of showing what things look like to someone who is color blind
• Feng GUI - automatic alternative to eye-tracking - creates heat maps
• browsershots - creates screenshots in different browsers - open source online service - submit your web address - added to the job queue - distributed to different computers - a bit slow
• Flickr photo badge - have an account for your library and add photos
• photoshop express - tutorial
• add this - forget location: this web distribution - allow people to bookmark things where they want - also gives you button stats
• Google gadgets - countdown
• altavista babelfish site translator
• Google translate my page

Nifty utilities:

• processtamer - monitors cpu usage of processes - reduces the properties of apps that hog the cpu - windows only
• file hamster - real time back and archiving of your files while you work - stores notes about the changes that have been made
• syncback freeware - backup all files anytime with a single click - also allows machine to machine backup via ftp - versioning - scroll down to the bottom where the freeware link is
• linkextractor - get all links from a page to repurpose
• moving large files - mailbigfile.com | zupload.com | yousendit | mediafire (not necessarily private - don’t require registration) - pando - 1GB peer to peer (disadvantage everyone needs pando)
• recaptcha - stop spam - this does good for internet archive too - shows a word that was OCRed
• anonymouse - want to do things privately - check if resources are accessible outside your IP range or not
• prism - an application that lets users split web applications out of their browser and run them directly on their desktop - from mozilla labs - makes the app look like a client instead of a browser

More:

• widgetbox
• google gadgets
• previous cool tools

In true Darlene and Frank fashion they ended by telling us that they didn’t want their talk to be all work and no play. They introduced us to a gag site that we can use to scare our colleagues and friends - lolinator.com.

Technorati Tags: cil2008

An awesome list of tools from Mary Ellen Bates:

• 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

Our first keynote was by Lee Rainie, Director, Pew Internet and American Life Project. As usual, he asked us who’s blogging? He also showed us blog posts about him - from previous years - maybe next year something I’ve said here will be on his presentation

Why does he ask this? Because blogging is about community building and communication - this is what makes the internet so different and so wonderful - and this is what the era of user generated content is all about - which is a great intro into what followed.

Stats Review

2008

• 75% of adults use internet
• 54% with broadband at home
• 78% own a cell phone
• 62% connect to internet wirelessly

2000

• 0% connect to internet wirelessly
• 5% with broadband at home
• 46% of adults use the internet
• 50% own a cell phone

Wireless connectivity has actually brought back the interest in email - the reports of death of email are premature. Wireless also changes people’s ideas about news - people are much more interested in using the internet to connect to news because it’s quick and up-to-date.

In addition to wireless, pictures are now are as important for communication and community as text is - everyone taking pictures (see Flickr for cil2008). In fact, 33% of online adults have profiles on MySpace and Facebook which is amazing - and means they’re sharing information graphically as well as textually.

Which brings us to the fact that blogging is getting hard to talk about because people aren’t seeing what they’re doing as blogging - like if you post on MySpace and Facebook - they don’t realize that that this is actually a way of blogging

Today’s issues

The question this keynote was addressing was how people get information to help them solve problems, this is not a look at general interest information searches. The audience of this study consisted of approximately 169 million adults that have said that they had to find information related to health issues, government, immigration and education.

In the results, 53% of Americans said that they had been to their local library in the last year. But it’s only once you unpack this information that you get to the really interesting part:

• 62% from Gen Y
• 59% from Gen X
• 57% trailing boomers (43-52)

Younger people are using the library more!!! You know - those kids we keep saying can’t read and that we have to get in the door - they’re already there!! In fact, 60% of online teens use the internet at libraries…

Who turns to libraries for problem solving?

• Young adults - 18-29 = 21%
• Older (over 70) = 15%
• Blacks = 26%
• Latinos = 22%
• Lower income < $40,000 = 17%

And the most popular problem-solving searches done at libraries:

1. decisions related to education or getting training (self or child)
2. jobs
3. serious illness
4. taxes
5. medicare

Of these people:

• 69% talked to library staff
• 68% used computers (38% got one-on-one instruction)

Shows that both technology and computers matter - patrons are using both almost equally!! How awesome is that??

When asked what their future intentions for visiting the library were, 29% said they likely would go to libraries - once again it’s the break down that’s interesting:

• Less well off - 40%
• Gen Y - 41%
• Less educated 41%
• Latinos - 42%
• Blacks - 48%

So what are the young people the most likely to come in and come back? Why do they have an affinity for libraries? Lee’s hypothesis is that young people have had the most recent experience with libraries - they’ve done homework there - they’ve been forced to go in - and so they are more aware of how libraries have changed than any other age group - they’ve witnessed the change and they know that we can help - they have had good experiences and they are likely to repeat then.

Lee reminds us that the people who are likely to go to libraries are those who know you and love you best! We just need to educate people on how we’ve changed - put more effort into public education on what you do and how you do it - this could really pay off.

It’s also important to keep in mind that your patrons are happy (and some are zealous) advocates. This being the era of consumer evangelists - some of whom might be influential in your community. Give them the tools necessary (blogs, etc) to share the good news about your library.

Even your “un-patrons” are primed to seek you out. The people who might be more dependent on libraries for help are awake of what you offer and your special skills. Keys for their patronage include awareness of your work, comfort in your environment (embarrassed to look stupid - nervous to ask questions), and mentoring skills (provide tech support and hand holding and get people up to speed).

Conclusions

This is the era of social networks - people rely on these networks more now than they ever have. Libraries should aspire to be a node in people’s social networks - social networks are for learning - social networks are for news and navigation - social networks are for support and problem-solving.

I have to be honest, I was a bit worried that Lee’s talk would be the same one I’ve heard for years here at CIL - but I’m glad I gave it a chance! This was new content and it’s more interesting listening to him talking about it instead of reading the report alone

Technorati Tags: cil2008

If you’re around and want to join in a class I’m giving on open source, please join me at the Central Jersey Regional Library Cooperative on April 2, 2008. Learn more.

Earlier today I wrote that CIL is right around the corner - but what about PLA?? I think I’m blocking that one out because of the cold (bitterly cold) weather in Minnesota. Anyway, I’ll be attending PLA this year for the first time - but I won’t be in sessions with you all - I’ll be on the exhibit floor at the LibLime booth (#1011). If you’re there, stop by and say hi - I’d love to put faces to the names!

Technorati Tags: pla2008

WOW! This years Computers in Libraries conference is right around the corner! Have you added your schedule to the wiki yet? I did. See you all there!!

Technorati Tags: cil2008, cil08

I posted about the new Library 2.0 Gang Podcast a little while ago only to find that I had jumped the gun. Now it is really really available - so check it out - subscribe - and listen often

You can listen to it via Library Journal or the new Library 2.0 Gang page hosted by Talis.

In this issue, we spoke with Aaron Swartz about the Open Library and other Code4Lib conference topics. You can check out my blog post summarizing what Aaron spoke about at the conference if you want more information.

Technorati Tags: library 2.0 gang, talis, library journal, open library, code4libcon2008

Elizabeth McKinney de Garcia, Program Director of Georgia PINES talked to us about how PINES decided to develop their own open-source ILS, Evergreen. Georgia PINES is made up of 49 public library systems which equates to 275 facilities and bookmobiles sharing a joint bibliographic database of nearly 9 million books.

About PINES

The PINES library card is free to residents of Georgia and can be used at any PINES library as if it were their home library. In addition, materials can be returned to any PINES library - how convenient!! ILL is available through entire system for card holders at no charge. All libraries in the system have the same policies so that patrons all have the same experience no matter what library they’re at.

In FY07 the system had more than 540,000 intra-pines loads as compared with just 6,000 in FY00. Patrons like the convenience of one system.

There is one easy to use interface across the board. Users have dramatically increased access to one centrally administered statewide combined library collection.

Time for a Change

When they looked at their contract with their vendor they found that they were writing their policies around the system (once again a reference to the culture of work arounds). In the end they had a bunch of silly policies such as how to enter a person’s name (last, first). They also found that their system was coming to a screeching halt because of the load of the users hitting the system at the same time. In short, it wasn’t meeting their needs.

After talking to nearly all the vendors they found that there really was no place for them to go - in short, they were cornered into making their own system.

Enter Evergreen

The entire development process took a little under 2 years. They had to decide where to put the line - their libraries had never been able to use acquisitions or serials so they didn’t develop that in the initial program. In short, their ILS was designed by librarians for libraries.

Georgia PINES went live in September 2006 with their new ILS, Evergreen. Unfortunately (or fortunately) the first day they had so many hits they came to a screeching halt - this was probably because of all of the press that was sent out to librarians!! Since then, things have been great.

Why Open Source

Elizabeth referred to open source as the difference between renting versus owning. By “owning” the software we’re responsible if the AC goes out or the roof leaks, but it’s a great place to be! We get what we need and we get what we want - don’t have to hope that in 2010 the feature we want will be up for a vote. In the end “owning” leads to an increase in control!

Conclusions

Another create example of how open source can solve a great many problems for libraries. I particularly like Elizabeth’s analogy of owning versus renting. In the end everyone owns the rights to the code behind the open source product, leading to more freedom and innovation.

I can give a personal example of this. When I was renting, I had to live surrounded by boring white walls and abide by rules like no pets and be considerate of your neighbors. Now that I own, I get have a house full of colorful walls and barking dogs!! I’m still considerate of my neighbors, but I don’t have to worry about playing music late at night or having the dogs wake up barking at 5am.

In short - owning your own place is a lot of hard work, but it leads to a more comfortable home (at least in my place).

Technorati Tags: evergreen, georgia pines, valenj, open source

John Stromquist, Executive Director of the WALDO Consortium talked to us about their decision to go with the Koha ILS and LibLime. WALDO is a multi-type library consortium. Of their membership, there are 12 full members (this means they have a shared ils), 11 associate members (this means they share a union catalog), 500+ regular academic members, and 400+ public members. WALDO helps libraries with vendor contracts, John said that “anything that saves librarians time is worth it.”

WALDO’s ILS History

From 1983-2004 the WALDO libraries used the PALS ILS (an open source forerunner that was owned and operated by librarians), but support was dropped in 2004 and they had to find a new alternative.

They decided not to follow the traditional procurement process for libraries which is to write the biggest RFP you can imagine - no less than 12,000 questions will do - the problem with this is that the vendors can lie faster than you can write - the problem with this is that after the fact you remember the things you forgot. This didn’t sound like the best option for finding a solution for their member libraries.

Instead they decided to assess the marketplace for the top 2 or 3 vendors, interview current customers (what a great idea), negotiate contracts with top vendors, and then make the award to vendor with best overall contract offering. The problem was that the second ILS they chose also ended up being sold out.

For the next decision making process, the executive board found other legacy systems equally undifferentiated and really not worthy of a migration efforts - what else could be considered? They decided that they needed to seriously consider open source - especially after Georgia PINES success with Evergreen, like WALDO, they are a large consortium with heavy loads.

Choosing Open Source

Requirements:

• functionally equal to current system
• hosting services
• software maintenance (bug fixing)
• applications development
• 24 x7 help desk

Tipping points in choosing open source:

• open source model itself - control and collaboration
• standards based architecture
• modern development capability (younger and capable of rapid development - have to be careful what you say to josh
• because you make a suggestion and he goes home that night and implements it)
• protection against vendor lock in

If they didn’t go with open source:

• outsider ownership of legacy companies
• troublesome legacy business models
• near certainty of migration anyway (if you stay with the vendor you have)
• diminished service levels (people aren’t happy with the level of service and they’re very vocal about it)
• likely impact of open source commercial vendors (if they don’t go with open source, what will happen to legacy systems as open source becomes popular?)

John mentioned the same thing that Bob did, not many academic libraries are using open source. Right now, open source seems to be used more in the public arena, but WALDO wanted academic library support since that was their primary audience.

They had demos of both Koha Zoom and Evergreen. Koha Zoom presented the best architectural fit for WALDO by offering data and policy independence for each library. John also chose Koha because it was a more mature package overall.

Working with LibLime

WALDO and LibLime worked collaboratively during the initial meetings after making their decision. One day was spent with the librarians talking, sharing their needs with the LibLime folks and the other day was spent with LibLime addressing those needs and telling the librarians what they could do.

After these meetings, LibLime came back to WALDO to work with 6 libraries to make note of all of the requirements to meet their needs.

WALDO set pretty high expectations on LibLime, but the company stood up to the test and came back with what was requested in time. In the end, the time and cost proposals looked favorable to those at WALDO and so they made their final decision.

The Future

In addition to their contract for support with LibLime, WALDO is also paying for over $600,000 worth of development (course reserves - call slip processing - music collection requirements), $200,000 of which is being held for other uses like an ILL module. All of the development that has been planned will be done by August 2008 and then shared back with the community.

In addition to this initial development plan, WALDO is asking new subscribers to contribute to an open source development fund. The initial contribution level will be at 15% of direct subscription service costs. In the end the funds could exceed hundreds of thousands of dollars, all to be put toward developments that will later be shared with the entire Koha community.

Conclusions

John’s talk was pretty impressive. When you see the amount of money being thrown into proprietary systems that are fostering the culture of work arounds that Josh mentioned, and then you see what that same money can do in the open source environment, it’s amazing!! I’m really excited to see what other consortia like WALDO to for the open source community over the next few years.

Technorati Tags: waldo, valenj, koha, liblime, open source

After talks by Joe Lucia, Bob Molyneux and Joshua Ferraro we had a Q&A sessions at the VALE symposium. I’m going to put these in note format so that you can hopefully follow who said what:

Q: One person’s enhancement might be another person’s bug - how do you control that with open source?
A:

• Joe - the release process depends on who gets to commit final changes to the code base - the community needs to figure this out over time - not every enhancement necessarily has to be released to the common code base
• Josh - depends on the project - in the Koha community the community votes on a release manager and that manager gets to decide what’s included in the release

Q: Can you give us an example of what you mean by peer review process?
A:

• Joe - VuFind is a great example - the community is not large get - peer review is dependent on what works well among experts - academic versus non-academic is not an issue as it is in journal peer review
• Josh - two types of peer review - one from the user perspective and the other from the developer’s perspective
• Bob - it’s not a formal process like journals - it happens in the community by peers - but not an editorial board

Originally uploaded by nengard

Q: Can you explain more what kinds of staff changes need to be made to support open source?
A:

• Joe - staffing changes may be at the expense of some librarian positions - but it’s a necessity - it becomes the smart thing if you’re invested in your infrastructure - need to have a technological staff in house that can handle these new systems
• Josh - you have to have technologists involved - they don’t have to be in the library - but they have to be involved - no vendor lock in means you can start with a company and move on to supporting it yourself if you so choose
• Bob - library schools teach IT separate from the library people - you need to teach it both at the same time - there is no reason to have either or (like me) - there is no a critical mass of librarians with these skills because library schools are not turning them out - and this failure has occurred during the golden age of libraries - the patrons are beating their path to our door - but we don’t have the skills - it’s a shame that Josh had to to what he had to do in creating a company to ease his frustrations

Q: People are talking about the ILS going away, why are we developing something new if that’s the case?
A:

• Josh - circulation is not going away - acquisitions is not going away (whether it’s print or electronic materials - they have to be acquired in some way) - cataloging is not going away - these are core functions of the library - the only difference is that with the open-source ILS the community drives the innovation - the community decides what they need and the products are developed to meet those needs - this means we have a more timely product
• Bob (great analogy) - one author writes an article about a problem and then another librarian comes around reads it and sees something the first author missed and writes another article - and the original writers says “thank god - you figured it out” - it’s the many eyes theory (me: this is like my developing at Jenkins - i always had many eyes) - the open source ILS is a more valuable ILS because of this

Technorati Tags: open source, valenj, ils

Bob Molyneux of Equinox was second to speak at the VALE Symposium the other day.

Bob started by filling us in on the state of the open-source software US public library market which is only about 1%, give or take. He didn’t have the data for academic libraries yet, but he was sure it was less than the publics.

That said, a new wind is blowing and big consortia like MassCat, WALDO, Indiana open source ILS initiative, and the Michigan library consortium are all looking into open-source alternatives. The first biggy to switch was Georgia PINES using the Evergreen system that they developed to “scratch and itch” as Joe put it.

What we learned from PINES

Library users like access to the large virtual library - they don’t care about our politics or the difficulties under the hood. Patrons will also bypass libraries without access to consortial resources in favor of libraries with that access. Bob welcomes us to the long-tail

Bob states that “we [libraries] have failed.” We have let our libraries become information silos - separate, barely communicating collections of information - “and Google is eating our lunch.” The logic of IT is to break down silos and to integrate these collections. Unfortunately, we have these problems because of several reasons - some our fault and some the fault of others. Two biggies on this list are that our legacy vendors lack vision and we as librarians lacked vision.

OLS v. ILS

The open-source ILS (OLS) may look similar to our old systems, but under the hood it’s completely different - it’s modular and the code is being shared - even between possible competitors like Evergreen and Koha, simply to make both systems better - we’re not just duplicating what has already been done, we’re fixing the wrongs of our past.

Conclusions

Another great talk! I love the idea of libraries breaking out of their silos and sharing information for the good of the people - or as Joe would have said for the good of the “commons.” I agree that I’d rather search a group of libraries at once than just one local library at a time. When in library school I used to love using DIALOG because I was able to search multiple databases with one search, eliminate duplicates and get citations all in one easy action - why should our catalogs be any different?

Technorati Tags: valenj, evergreen, open-ils, equinox, open source

This week I was lucky enough to attend an event at The College of New Jersey entitled Next Generation Academic Library System Symposium and hosted by VALE (Virtual Academic Library Environment of New Jersey). The goal of this day was for the members of VALE to decide if they wanted to join in on a shared open source ILS community.

The program started with an intro to Open Source by Joe Lucia, University Librarian, Villanova University and President of PALINET Board. Joe started off by letting us know that he thought of himself as an Open Source Evangelist - which made me say “hey, that’s my job!” Throughout his talk, Joe quoted so many great resources that it was hard to keep up. The video and slides should be available online soon (I’ll keep you posted) - but for now, here’s my summary.

Joe called his presentation a thought piece on why open source makes sense for libraries. I did a review of literature for Drexel that was pretty similar to this - but I have to say that Joe found some better resources and makes some better arguments than I did in my paper.

He started off by talking about the concept of the “commons.” Libraries exist to support and extend the commons for the community we serve - particularly the intellectual commons which fundamentally valuable to support access and innovation. — The commons can be a physical location like streets & parks - but is more related to ideas - like the theory of relativity and writings out of copyright in the public domain.

He recommended reading The Wealth of Networks by Yochai Benkler. Benkler says that the “commons” refers to a particular institutional form of structuring the rights to access, use and control resources.

The library as a commons

Libraries are situated within the domain of three commons

• they provide their communities with open access to intellectual and cultural resources - no single individual controls or uses up the resources of a library
• our resources are accessible to anyone who walks in - accessibility to all translates into “open stacks”
• open source is an extension to our culture of openness

The next book that Joe recommended to us was The Success of Open Source by Steve Weber. (start updating your wishlist - that’s what I’m doing).

Open Source & Libraries

If anyone should be doing open source anywhere - it’s us!! Open source shares our values & missions!!

We need to open up our sense of what we’re about - open source software with the “library space” enhances the library as a center for participatory culture and collaborative enterprise.

What is open source?

• open source can be commercial - but is not proprietary - the commercial entities neither own nor control access to the code base
• most good applications begin because a developer needs to “scratch an itch” - a response to something that has to be done that can’t be done with available solutions
• it’s typically built on or extends what’s already been done
• when it’s successful it’s modular - not a big monolithic package
  • this then results in a development process that can be scaled to a very rapid update process because you’re just updating pieces instead of the hierarchical approach of the monolithic packages
• “to many eyes, all bugs are shallow” (from the Cathedral & the Bazaar) - if lots of people are looking at the code base it’s gong to get pretty lean and pretty clean pretty fast because anyone who seeing something wrong will fix it

Why not switch?

Some librarians are surprised to find the open-source products can cost a similar amount to the proprietary solutions. Joe argues (and I agree) that the issue isn’t the cost - but how the costs are distributed and what control you have over it - there is a greater investment in development for open source than there is for actual support. This means that you’re paying for improvements to the application when you’re paying for open source and with the proprietary stuff you’re paying to have someone answer the phone and read through a script with you (sorry that was my negativity - not Joe’s - based on recent experiences trying to get support).

Librarians will often ask “open source sounds all really nice idealistically - but how are we going to do it?” Libraries are sitting on a lot of assets that they invest in proprietary software it’s a matter of how you redirect the money you’re already paying for technology into a different arena. It’s not “can we do it?” it’s “how do we do it?”

Why not take 25% of what we currently pay to propriety software and put it into open source- that would be a significant beginning - could initiate a revolution in library technology. What an amazing idea! I love it - in fact John from WALDO mentions something like this in his talk (which I’ll summarize after this one). We may even need to re-allocate positions to technology development where possible - if we change where we’re putting money it will improve our work flow within the library. Having technologists on staff will make all the difference.

We need to deepen the culture of technology collaboration and resource sharing in libraries - and stop worrying about what’s in our little baskets and start sharing - there is a competition among libraries - who does such and such better - we need to get away from this. I always found this funny - I think of libraries as places to share information - and yet I often find libraries or librarians who are unwilling to share resources.

Joe ended with: “It can be done, and we can do it!”

Conclusions

What a great talk!! Joe did an amazing job of revving the audience up for the rest of day. I also think he gave us a lot to think about and a lot of great resources to check out regarding open source and how it fits into libraries. Keep an eye out for his slides and video!! It’s well worth a look!

Technorati Tags: open source, libraries, valenj

I recently spoke with Aaron Swartz and other Library 2.0 Gang members about the Open Library and other Code4Lib conference topics.

You can listen to it via Library Journal or the new Library 2.0 Gang page hosted by Talis.

You can check out my blog post summarizing what Aaron spoke about at the conference if you want more information.

Technorati Tags: library 2.0 gang, code4libcon2008, open library

Trevor Owens talked to us about Zotero. The slides are already online and the video should be there soon.

What is it?

Zotero is a Firefox add on that lets you:

• store items and take notes
• bring in attachments
• drag and drop into the collection and tag things if you want
• archive entire webpages and highlight text and add sticky notes

Pages that support Zotero have an icon that appears in the address bar in Firefox (like the RSS icon)

State of the Community

• Hundreds of thousands of users
• 2288 discussion on Zotero forums
• 23 language locals all user contributed
• 80k views on quick start guide last month

Get Involved

• Make your tools play nice with Zotero (just a note - Koha does)
• Make your campus a Zotero campus — offer support and promote Zotero among students
• Get your hands dirty and extend Zotero
• Get things to work with Zotero by having them generate COinS
• See who’s recommending Zotero and tell people about it!!

Stats from the Room - and the Future

Trevor asked us a few questions to see how many people were aware of/using Zotero:

• How many people here have used Zotero - almost all hands
• How many are in institutions where Zotero is supported - not many hands at all
• How many are in institutions where other management tool is supported - lots of hands

After these results, Trevor stated: “Okay, this has to change!” He’d love to see more academic institutions using Zotero, the future of the tool hopefully includes moving from being just a client side app in your browser to being an entire suite of tools. They’d love to have a reliable set of syncing plugins for tools like del.icio.us, and plugins for MS Word and Open Office.

He pointed out the SIMILE page at MIT, a project that

seeks to enhance inter-operability among digital assets, schemata/vocabularies/ontologies, metadata, and services. A key challenge is that the collections which must inter-operate are often distributed across individual, community, and institutional stores. We seek to be able to provide end-user services by drawing upon the assets, schemata/ vocabularies/ ontologies, and metadata held in such stores.

Lastly, he mentioned that Zotero will be introducing something in collaboration with the Internet Archive entitled, Zotero Commons, in the opes of encouraging a new type of openness.

More can be found about this at Dan Cohen’s blog:

I’m pleased to announce a major alliance between the Zotero project at the Center for History and New Media and the Internet Archive. It’s really a match made in heaven—a project to provide free and open source software and services for scholars joining together with the leading open library. The vision and support of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has made this possible, as they have made possible the major expansion of the Zotero project over the last year.

Conclusions

I have to admit that I don’t use Zotero that much - I have it installed, but never took the time to explore it. My cousin swears by it and can’t live without it - and others have said the same thing - maybe I should start poking at it. Trevor’s presentation was great and taught me a lot and made me want to learn more about Zotero and how I can use it to my advantage.

Technorati Tags: code4lib, code4lib2008, zotero, code4libcon2008