Last night I got to hear Stephen Abram talk about the future of SLA & librarianship. First (and most important) I have uploaded my pictures to Flickr.

Stephen started with a mini rant (a good rant) about the fact that there is no proof that the book is at risk. Reading stats are going up and book sales are going up. That said, do we hear that librarians are at risk? Ever hear this one, “Everything’s on the Internet.” The fact is that librarians are at risk even if books aren’t. In short, there are some serious issues we have to get stronger about talking about.

Stephen mentioned that we’re about to experience some huge changes. If you think about it, we haven’t had any major changes in a long while. Our grandparents had a bunch of huge changes all hit them at once (phones, tv, 2 world wars, etc) and it’s time for that to happen again. North America is way behind the rest of the world when it comes to technology. In Europe, people are using their phones for everything. They have free TV delivered through their phone and text messages for everything. I’m not a fan of this movement - maybe it’s just because of the costs associated with it here - but - I just want a phone - I don’t need it to double as a TV.

When it comes to digitization, China is only 5 years from digitizing everything written in Chinese. It’s not going to be long before everything is available in digital format. We’re going to need the tools to take advantage of this content.

So, what does this have to do with SLA? Everything! The world is changing and librarians have to change with it and SLA wants to help librarians make that change as smooth as possible. One interesting point that Stephen brought up was the fact that when someone leaves an organization one of the first things they do is clear off their computer - bookmarks and all. This means that all the great resources that long time librarians have collected are lost. We have to start storing our data in collaborative spaces so that we can all benefit from each other’s knowledge. I love this! And this is why I took so much pride in working on improving the Jenkins Law Library research links (a pre-del.icio.us project) - I wanted to make sure we were sharing our resources with any one who might need them.

Stephen asks that instead of sharing the myth amongst ourselves that we’re collaborative, why not be collaborative? I love this! The fact is that the nature of associations is changing - something I wrote about in library school. The main selling point for associations used to be networking - but now with tools like Ning, Facebook and LinkedIn - why do I need an association to find fellow peers? With these tools threatening library associations as we know them, what can SLA do to continue to be important for librarians? The answer is learning and innovation.

One way that SLA is setting itself apart (in my opinion) is their Click-U. Educational events for SLA members. What I didn’t know is that they have a regular presentation by Gary Price where he shares the newest tools he’s found for researching and they have a monthly free course available. Being a recently graduated student, I’m a bit too poor to pay for too many classes - so I love to find things for cheap or free!

SLA also offers members access to over 1000 e-books on leadership and management topics (apparently we were told about this - but I missed it somehow - after writing this I’m heading to the SLA site to check out my member profile). They also offer what they call ExecuBooks Summaries - they are 4 page summaries of new releases.

The thing I’m most excited about hasn’t been released yet, but I’m keeping my eyes open for it, the Innovation Labs. This area of the SLA site will be a testing bed for members to try out all kinds of free and proprietary software without having to install it or pay for it. Some of the big names will include Acrobat, Dreamweaver, Blogger, Survey Monkey and Confluence. It’s basically a place for everyone to play!! This area of the site will also have over 25000 software training videos from atomic learning. How great is that???

While this isn’t everything that Stephen talked about, these were the bits that I was able to write down as he sped through his awesome talk. He certainly made me pay even more attention to what the association is doing for us - I hope he did the same for some of the rest of you.

Technorati Tags: njsla, sla

Karen Coyle has a great post on her site where she calls for help on creating “An easy, online, social library catalog.” Why another cataloging tool? Karen has recently returned from Kosovo where many of the library don’t have catalogs and certainly don’t have the resources to run many of the affordable solutions out there. Here’s Karen’s checklist:

1. A social networking site where the society members are libraries, not individuals.
2. The ability to capture copy cataloging from other libraries or create cataloging on the site itself.
3. Full Unicode support, both for the interface and for the data.
4. The ability to capture and create records using a MARC-compatible format.
5. The ability to export the library catalog records in MARC format.
6. A reports function that could print off the results of searches or even the library’s inventory, so it could be used off-line.
7. The creation of groups of “library friends,” that is other libraries whose data should be included in searches and displays. This will facilitate sharing and also will serve users in areas where resources are scarce and scattered.
8. A search and display interface that looks like a modern library catalog
9. It all has to be easy to use with no training required, and not require any technical support on the part of the library.

Read Karen’s entire post and if you think you can lend a helping hand, let her know.

Did you know that Library of Congress had a personal portal? I didn’t see any announcements about it, so thanks David for pointing it out.

Through myLOC.gov, the new personalized Web site of the Library of Congress, patrons can continue their exploration of the world’s largest collection of knowledge, culture and creativity. Visitors can bookmark areas of interest online and continue their exploration of the Library’s collections by connecting with digital content from their in-person visit. The site also features interactive versions of the same exhibition content physically at the Library, educational resources, information for visitors and a page where users can create their own virtual collection of Library objects.

Via LISNews:

Lynne writes: “Greetings to all librarians. I am Lynne Martin Erickson. I have been the fiscal agent for The Hollywood Librarian documentary film since 2004. I post this in the hope that librarians will respond immediately and repost widely.

As many of you know, this wonderful film is the result of the tireless efforts of one person: Ann Seidl. She single-handedly raised $200,000 to make and distribute this movie, worked on it for over 8 years and she is still working to get it seen by as many members of our public as possible. She is traveling throughout the US and the world to promote the film. Thanks to the librarian network, the film is being seen in dozens of locations by hundreds and even thousands of people.

While Ann has devoted her full-time work to this cause, she has been paid very little. She insists she is not in it for the money. I can guarantee that is the case. She wouldn’t say this to you, but I can assure you that Ann is broke.

During the Banned Book Week release, when tickets sold for $8, we took in about $10,000, but less than $400 was profit. These days, she is asking for a small fee to screen the film but that money is to fund the editing and authoring process for the DVD which she wants to make available this fall. But she must have some financial support to go on working on the film. We can’t let her stop working on the film to take other employment when she is so close to finishing.

If you are a fan of The Hollywood Librarian or of Ann, I am asking you to send her your financial encouragement.

Go here now http://www.hollywoodlibrarian.com/involved.html and click on the Paypal link.”

I never got to see the movie and have been looking for the DVD - I’m happy to hear that it’s in production and hope that we can help this movie make it to the masses!!

New from Blake Carver the man behind LISNews & LISHost:

I started a new site, LISWire - The Librarian’s News Wire (http://liswire.com), and I’m doing my best to spread the word. You can probably guess what the site is all about from the name, but there’s also 2 mailing lists, and a bunch of RSS feeds. Robin Blum and I are running the show and are looking for press releases and other news items of interest to librarians to get things going. You can sign up for an account and submit things you’d like to announce to the library world. I’ll be cross posting most announcements to LISNews for a little while until we see how much traffic we get at LISWire.

I wonder if this means LISNews won’t have press releases anymore - or if this is going to be in addition to that? Either way - I’m subscribed - are you?

I know I’m a bit behind on this, but the Ellen blog has a post about librarians from last month.

Librarians are the opposite of cheerleaders. At the library, if you make any noise, they deal with you immediately. First you get the silent, “How dare you?” look. If that doesn’t work, they give you the universal zip the lip signal. And if that doesn’t work, they do the lock up the lips and throw away the key move. I always trick them. I pretend to throw away the key, but keep it in my hand and slip it in my pocket. I’m sure I’m gonna get some phone calls from angry librarians. Of course, I won’t be able to hear what they are saying.

The 99 (probably more by now) comments that followed vary from the angry to the entertained. I’m on the entertained side of things, but see why some might be upset.

That said, it does make you wonder when the last time Ellen was in a library … is this really a joke post or the way she still sees libraries? I’m going to think it’s a joke.

I also wonder if the mere mention of libraries on a popular site like this is good for library marketing - or if the content is actually damaging?

I’m just sort of babbling now, but it would be interested to hear what some of you think when you read it.

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

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

Well, maybe it’s not the best way to celebrate National Library Week, but it’s always fun to look at pictures of libraries. In the features titled: 18 Sexy Trips to the Stacks Entertainment Weekly shows pictures of scenes in libraries from 18 movies.

A request for help posted to the Web4Lib List that I think might be of interest to you:

This is an appeal to the readers of Web4Lib to help me collect information regarding automation products used in libraries. I maintain the lib-web-cats database and use it as a tool for analysis of what automation products that libraries choose to purchase or implement. Lib-web-cats currently includes over 32,000 libraries worldwide. I believe that it’s important for libraries to have data regarding the adoption and migration patterns of these software products as they make decisions regarding their automation strategies. You can help in this effort by reviewing and updating the entry for your library in lib-web-cats, or submitting your library if it’s not already included.

While I try to carefully track ILS deployments, in this round of updates I’m especially interested in gathering data about the other genres of products such as link resolvers, federated search, electronic resource management, digital library tools, and next-gen interfaces. I’m interested in open source as well as traditionally licensed products. Current data regarding the population served by the library, number of items in the collection, and annual circulation helps in the analysis.

Please go to:
http://www.librarytechnology.org/libwebcats

lib-web-cats is a component of Library Technology Guides:
http://www.librarytechnology.org

I would also like to mention that the annual “Automation System Marketplace” article published by Library Journal is now available in the April 1, 2008 issue and online, this year subtitled “Opportunity out of Turmoil.” The data that I have in lib-web-cats is indispensable in writing this article to corroborate and expand upon what the vendors provide.

http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6542440.html

I appreciate the assistance of Web4Lib.

-marshall

I didn’t respond to Rachel Singer Gordon’s post about what makes a librarian - mostly because I’ve made it pretty clear what my opinion is in the past - but I just have to laugh at this comment and Rachel’s response:

Librarianship is a profession akin to medicine or law. You don’t see people without law degrees calling themselves lawyers; you don’t see people without MDs calling themselves doctors; people without the MLS shouldn’t be able to call themselves librarians.

This comparison is ludicrous. Go ahead: compare your year or two of library school to law school + the bar, or medical school + a residency. Do it with a straight face. I’ll wait for you to compose yourself…

Unfortunately I have heard this one before too! My response (while Rachel’s is awesome) goes a different way. Doctors & lawyers are required to continue their education. They (and other professionals) have to attend X number of credit courses a year in order to keep up with their fields - are librarians? Some - but not all. If librarians were all required to continue their education in order to keep up with changes in the field of research then I’d say this was a valid comparison - but it’s not - because librarians get their MLS and then they get to be called librarians for life - that’s what I consider “ludicrous.”

Tim Spalding has a great post over at Thingology about self publishing sites (specifically LuLu):

Getting Real is an important book. It came along at exactly the right time, said something important. To the extent the greap web-app “explosion” of 2004-2007 had a book, this was it.

And it was successful. According to 37Signals the (paid) version has sold has 30,000 copies. It’s the number six seller on Lulu.com. Passionate, unpaid fans have produced translations into thirteen languages. Google records 166,000 mentions. Even on LibraryThing, where the book had to be manually entered and there is a bias toward the printed version, 37 members have listed it.

Did libraries notice? Not at all.

OCLC’s WorldCat records exactly three copies—MIT, California Polytechnic and the University of Nebraska. That’s three copies of one of the top tech books of the 00’s in most of the US libraries that matter. The Library of Congress? New York Public? Harvard? None of them. For comparison, WorldCat contains 619 copies of Solitary sex : a cultural history of masturbation.

Shocking!

Not only are there some great books published on sites like LuLu, but they’re usually more affordable - so libraries looking for great content for a lower cost should be paying attention.

I’d even add that libraries need to start pulling in digital resources as well. There are a ton of resources out there for free that libraries aren’t adding to their collections. Why? Either because they don’t know that they’re out there, or they just don’t have the resources or time to focus on them and their print collections.

It’s a shame but I do understand - I just wish there was a way to change things to get even more information to our patrons.

After all of my work bug checking and writing the manual for Koha 3, the beta release has finally been announced. I’d love some help testing - so I can’t wait to see what you all have to say!!

Technorati Tags: koha

Stopped by Mishawaka Penn Harris
Public Library to see for Myself
Originally uploaded by mstephens7

I’m sure it’s not the first, but this picture from Michael Stephens is so sad. This is why I love that my job lets me go out to libraries and educate librarians.

Today I went to my new public library - yes, I’m a bad librarian who hasn’t stopped in since moving - and was relatively pleased. The reference librarians were much friendlier than at my last library, the circulation staff looked happy to be at work (another difference from my previous public library) and they had a really neat sign at the reference desk that said “Please disturb”

All that, and I only used the computers for database searching, so I’m not sure what’s blocked - if anything - but the lady next to me was shopping on Ebay - so that wasn’t blocked.

So I invited parents to throw tomatoes at my rant about the article by Dave Gibson in American Chronicle and my mother was the one to respond:

Mom: WOW!! What do I respond to first!!??
Nicole: hehe
Nicole: well for goodness sakes - who does he think we are???? do you damn job - you had the kids - you rase them right - stop blaming everyone else for your failures
Mom: games in libraries…why not books in the movie theater?? or movies in the bathroom?
Mom: there is a place for everything
Mom: It’s not one stop living….
Nicole: hmmmm
Nicole: maybe you should reply - and who says that libraries are just for books? they have DVDs and CDs and photograph collections…
Mom: All for learning!!! I hope
Nicole: games can be for learning
Mom: Libraries are for learning
Nicole: and no the dvds are of HOUSE
Nicole: that’s how i watched house
Mom: you checked the dvd out…you didn’t sit there and watch it in the theater room
Mom: libraries are for resources
Mom: and games are for fun!!
Nicole: reading can be fun
Nicole: ….
Mom: NOW that is what the”grown ups” (ha) need to teach their children
Mom: Tuperware can be fun too!
Nicole: but why not allow them to have games in the library - what about those less fortunate?
Nicole: or what about all of the stuff you can learn from games?
Mom: What makes not having “things” make you less fortunate?
Mom: Games that teach should be played WITH parents…
Nicole: now you’re getting a philosophical with me - i mean what about the kids who can’t afford games - at the library they can play them with their parents or other kids
Mom: Then let them rent the game and GO home to play with their parents
Mom: The library is sacred
Mom: It should be for QUIET learning
Nicole: renting costs money - do you mean borrow from the library?
Mom: yes
Nicole: you know this whole conversation is going on my blog right? Cause I totally don’t agree with you I think that as long as the library gives me a place for quiet learning/reading then I don’t care what’s going on in other sections
Nicole: as a working mother wouldn’t you like to go to the library and do a little quiet reading while your kid was able to sit in the kids section and play a game or read a book of their own?
Nicole: i’ve also heard of libraries giving classes for adults and how parents are so grateful that their kids can come to the library with them and be safe and learn while they learn
Mom: The problem with your firat statement is then why call it a library?
Nicole: who says that the definition of library is a place for quiet learning?
Nicole: you do?
Mom: why call it a grocery store? why a church?
Mom: because they are the labels that dictate a purpose
Nicole: and why can’t those change?
Mom: that should maintain their status as such
Nicole: you have Starbucks in the grocery store
Nicole: and day care in churches
Mom: then again, I ask..why not a one stop world
Nicole: why not?
Nicole: hehe
Nicole: you do your shopping online
Nicole: maybe i think online is only for communication - not shopping
Mom: let’s combine everything in to
Mom: one place and all go there
Nicole: like an international network? or internet???
Mom: that’s the ticket
Mom: instead of forcing us to get a tv service to watch entertainment the way the “experts” say we should
Mom: why not makeevery household internet connected for all our needs
Nicole: it’s getting there
Mom: then we wouldn’t have anywhere that was special to go to
Mom: and the children will suffer
Nicole: but i don’t understand why adding more services to a library makes it less special
Nicole: doesn’t it make it more special?
Nicole: libraries are teaching technology courses - I teach those courses
Nicole: should I not have a job?
Mom: it no longer is “specialized”
Mom: YOU ARE NOT PLAYING GAMES!!
Nicole: Other librarians are!! They’re in libraries teaching people about games!!! There is a keynote address at one of my conferences (for the last few years) just about that
Nicole: I teach people fun things too - not just how to research
Mom: for children?
Mom: or adults
Nicole: I teach them about facebook and flickr and blogging
Nicole: my classes are for adults
Nicole: and for librarians
Nicole: the conference is for librarians
Nicole: but it’s telling them how games can be good for kids!! they’re not all shoot ‘em up games
Mom: agreed
Nicole: you bought us a game that taught us to play piano and to write stories
Nicole: … why can’t those be in libraries?
Mom: and having the right games for parents to decide which to take home from the library to interact with their children is good
Nicole: but some families can’t afford a computer or game system to play the games on
Mom: to have games to play so parents don’t have to bother is wrong
Mom: that’s why I said make it a requirement
Nicole: i totally agree with that!!!
Nicole: That’s what I’m saying - that parents need to bother!
Nicole: but I don’t think having games in the library will stop the caring parents from caring
Mom: these same parents will pay for the “digital service”
Mom: No but it will allow the non caring parents one more way not to parent!
Mom: then the libraries will be blamed (like the schools)for the inadequecies of their children
Nicole: let’s think back - we weren’t allowed to buy books as kids - it was expensive and why buy books when you have a library (and your kids read 10 books a week) - you cared - but you found another way to give us an important experience - without having to pay
Nicole: why should parents have to pay?
Mom: I figured out a way…. Let the parents today figure it out
Mom: make a free gaming center for them if you want
Mom: but NOT in a library
Nicole:
Nicole: this is fun
Nicole: you’re not going to convince me, but it’s interesting to hear another point of view
Mom: not for me. Because I feel so strongly about “dead beat” parents
Mom: I got it!!
Mom: If the libraries want to have games for kids to “learn” then they must be played with adults until the child can appreciate them…just like books
Nicole: okay - i agree - an adult should be present - and i’m pretty sure that one always is
Nicole: just got a message from a friend:

Friend: i was just ‘gaming’ for the first time in a awhile
Friend: the other day
Friend: and realizing how many skills are actually to learn from gaming
Nicole: right!!!
Friend: especially in today’s society!
Friend: in a way, kids with moderate amount of gaming probably come away well equipped to multitask
Friend: and strategize, etc
Friend: there is an argument to be made that direction too
Friend: not that i’m a big gamer either, but I totally don’t agree with that kind of narrow ‘print’ mindedness

Nicole: but aren’t you doing the opposite of what this author did - you’re assuming that libraries are at fault for encouraging “dead beat” parents - like he’s blaming them for not educating kids
Nicole: and by opposite i mean the same thing…
Mom: let me re-read the article
Mom: HUH???
Mom: I re-read it and I think I do agree with him
Mom: He begins the article by saying that libraries are trying to woo teens
Mom: Woo this!!
Mom: if teens are so self absorbed that they need continually wooing to make them appreciate the special places in our world, then the parents should be fined!
Mom: having educational resources to learn available in a learning environment is great,but to put games in , just to get teen quota’s up is dumb.
Mom: let’s find one more way to “entertain” our future leaders so they do not become bored…
Nicole: hehe
Nicole: okay - i see i’m not going to win this argument
Nicole: i still don’t think that libraries having games is a bad thing - or that it’s making kids dumb
Mom: and i kinda agree that allowing teens to “hang out” at libraries to just “hang out” will make them “more” dumb. READ children READ!!!
Mom: Librarians are certainly not responsible for illiterates … parents are
Nicole: okay - at least we agree on one thing

An article in the American Chronicle struck me the wrong way - that is your warning that a rant is to follow.

Author, Dave Gibson, writes:

A recent article in my local newspaper (Virginian-Pilot) about libraries “efforts to woo teens,” caught my eye. Apparently, the works of such luminaries as Rudyard Kipling and Mark Twain have been replaced with the Xbox and Nintendo Wii. It is little wonder that our nation’s literacy rate continues to decline.

Dave goes on to quote such library names as Jenny Levine and Paula Brehm-Heeger as saying that librarians are trying to keep up with what patrons want. Now, I’m not a big fan of gaming - period - but that doesn’t mean I agree with Dave’s concerns that gaming in libraries is going to lead to the dumbing down of Americans.

Dave mentions that when he was young, going to the library was a family thing:

When I was a kid, libraries were places of literate study and my parents took me there every Saturday. I read all of my books throughout the week so that I could check out more the following Saturday. It was something in which the whole family participated and something to which we all looked forward. I did not need movies or games to attract me to the library. It was a place of quiet reverence, not yet another ’safe place’ for parents to dump their kids for free baby sitting!

I think the key to his complaint can be found in this paragraph - not in the hand of librarians. The problem lies with the parents!! I’ve said this before - parents are in charge of the rearing of their children. Parents are the ones who will instill a love of language and reading and libraries in the future generations - not librarians. Dave’s parents did a great thing for him - and mine did a great thing for me - by taking him to the library every week - and I bet that if there was an option to play games and read books at the library, Dave’s parents would have laid down the law or given him a compromise (20 minutes of play for 3 books - or whatever).

I get very annoyed when people assume that it’s our job to raise their children! I don’t have children - I don’t want children - and I sure as heck don’t want to raise your children!

That said, I do not agree that putting games in libraries is going to cause kids to stop reading - and I love that libraries have the resources to provide a bit of fun to kids who may not be able to have these experiences at home.

Okay, rant over! Let the parents start throwing tomatoes!

That’s right, it’s that time of year again! Congrats to this year’s Movers & Shakers! First I want to congratulate my friends:

• Transformer (Peter Bromberg)
• User-Centered Technologist (David Lee King)
• Metadata Man (Tim Spalding)
• Open Source Evangelist (Josh Ferraro)

Now, congrats to everyone else!! This is a great honor! Keep shaking up libraries - it’s the only way we’re going to get anything done

• Grace Under Pressure (Maria Redburn)
• The Man Who Said No to Dewey (Marshall Shore)
• In Context (Hilary Davis)
• Films ‘R’ Us (Jim Cheng)
• Giving Back (Darci Hanning)
• Thrill Seeker (Allyson Mower)
• Deep Impact (Christopher Harris)
• Expanding OPACs (Steven Bowers)
• Multitalented (Evette Atkin)
• Pathfinder (Elisabeth Jacobsen Marrapodi)
• Collaborative Experimentation (Char Booth)
• Geek Librarian (Michelle Boulé)
• Never Satisfied (Caleb Tucker-Raymond)
• Dynamo (Nancy Teger)
• Reader’s Best Friend (Jessica Moyer)
• Push Technology (Marcia Mardis)
• Direct Effects (David Rothman)
• Restoring History (Mark Greek)
• The Translator (Lisa Sweeney)
• Show Me the Evidence (Mark Vrabel)
• Anger into Fuel (Mario Ascencio)
• Global Thinker (Robin Kear)
• Life Work (Annabelle V. Núñez)
• On the Line (Alex Youngberg)
• Leveling the Field (Jennifer Nelson)
• On a Mission (Daniel Cornwall)
• Passion for Diversity (Padma Polepeddi)
• Rural Improvement (Amanda McKeraghan)
• Community Ambassador (Mary Ellen Stasek)
• On the Same Page (Jennifer Schember)
• Do Something! (Amy Buckland)
• Data Tracker (Kim Ricker)
• A Blended Passion (Alexia Hudson)
• Razzle Dazzler (Tony Tallent)
• Creating Customers (Penny Sympson)
• Action Figure (Stephanie Squicciarini)
• Not Clowning Around (Devona Carpenter )
• Better Than Cool (Karen Brooks-Reese )
• Working the Crossroads (Alison Cody)
• Storyteller (Lucía González )
• Spark Plug (Jamie Watson)
• Team Effort (Sarah Erwin & Candice Gwin)
• Paying It Forward (Sol Gómez)
• On Time, on Budget ( Kim Fuller)
• Cowgirl (Lisa Wells)

Thanks Jessamyn for putting all of the names next to the articles.

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

Tim Spalding has posted a bit of code to get free book covers for your OPAC by using Google. Godmar Back has given a different example for getting multiple covers at once. The Google Book Search API seems to have taken off with libraries & librarians!

Technorati Tags: google books, google book search api, book jackets

Next up, LibLime’s Joshua Ferraro. Josh talked to us about why LibLime was started and what both LibLime & Koha could do for libraries.

Originally uploaded by nengard

Why start LibLime?

Josh would often hear librarians saying that they liked the idea of open source, but we have no way to support it. So, Josh started LibLime to offer libraries support for open-source software in hopes that once the company was started that particular objection would disappear.

How LibLime Works

Open-source software is freely avaiable for download on the web - so why do we need LibLime? Like many other open source products (Linux for example) there are commercial entities that offer services for the software in question. LibLime is around to assist libraries in data migration, hosting, development, customization, training and support.

LibLime offers services for multiple open-source products. The key product to this day’s event was Koha, an open-source library system. As a customer of LibLime, ultimately you steer development for the system - if someone sponsors a change or upgrade, it gets rolled right back into the community - meaning we all benefit from each other’s participation. Another great thing about open source solutions like Koha is that implementation of these upgrades usually happen in days and week instead of years and decades (like some proprietary packages).

Has LibLime Worked?

Ask anyone in an open-source company and they’ll tell you that they’re very busy (I’ll tell you that I’m very busy!). In 2005, LibLime had 1 employee and 1 customer, as of March 2008, they have 18+ employees, hundreds of customers - a 400% growth (compounded for 3 years).

Customers are getting actively involved in the process. Freedom to innovate gives us a chance to change the culture in our libraries - we have become used to living in a culture of work arounds (us working around the way our software products are built) - open source gives us the chance to actually have software do what we want!

Conclusions

Josh mentioned that librarians often ask him, “Isn’t open source risky?” Josh answers “Isn’t any decision you make on an ILS risky? Especially in this environment with vendor consolidation - etc etc?” I totally agree - who knows where your ILS will be next year - or who will be controlling the development and the money! Why not have a product you can take with you to whomever you’d like as the landscape changes?

I have heard Josh speak several times - obviously - so I already knew I’d like this talk and agree with him - based on the question and answer session that followed his talk, I think others felt similarly.

Technorati Tags: liblime, koha, valenj, open source

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

Yesterday I had an interesting chat with my sister about library catalogs. We were talking about the post I made regarding IM & SMS and whether librarians should skip over IM and move on to SMS? I told her about the fact that card catalogs are still being used and she replied with “Well, I’d rather use a card catalog, it was much easier to find things that way.” This from my younger sister! We all keep assuming that the younger generation wants technology - but here’s one person who’d rather use the cards than deal with the library OPAC. I asked her why.

She said that the OPAC (my word, not hers) is very intimidating (I opened up a Voyager example and we did a little keyword search and it proved her point … there were too many results, none of which seemed to match her initial intent). Instead of upsetting me, this actually got me a little excited.

I decided to show her a Koha example and see what her opinion was. We did the same search on the Athens County Public Library site and found the perfect result come up as the first result (yes, we did the same search). “So, is this better?” I asked. “Yes, much” she replied. She found that the Koha interface was familiar and friendly, less intimidating. She also said that she feels that the younger generation is less likely to learn what’s old (in her case - card catalogs are the way she learned - so while they’re old they don’t count in this argument) and more likely to stick with what’s new and hip and familiar - in this case the Koha search results reminded her of Amazon and made it easier for her to find what she was looking for without being overwhelmed.

I need to add here that my “younger” sister is only 2.5 years younger than I am - we’re not talking about a teenager here - but we are talking to someone who finished her undergraduate last year and was very recently surrounded by the next generation of library researchers.

I love my job - I love getting to go out and talk to librarians about what’s new and available for libraries - but I also love talking to the non-librarians to see what they want and expect from their libraries - this was a great chance for me to talk to someone about libraries who doesn’t actually work in a library. I think I’ll try to do this more often

Technorati Tags: libraries, koha, opac, ils