Ages ago I got a copy of Zotero: a guide for librarians, researchers and educators by Jason Puckett with the intention of reading it and reviewing it. Soon after I was hit with medical problem after medical problem and even though I read it cover to cover in practically no time at all, the book has been left un-reviewed. So here we go!

I am a huge Zotero fan, in fact I learned of Zotero from Jason Puckett’s amazing research guide on the topic. I thought I had learned all there was to know, until I read this book.

I guess I should start (for those of you who don’t know) with an explanation of what Zotero is and why you’d want to use it. The official website defines Zotero as “an easy-to-use tool to help you collect, organize, cite, and share your research sources.” I call Zotero a bibliography tool, but really it’s much more. I use Zotero to save information on articles, news, blog posts and books that I find on a daily basis, I use it to keep the bibliographies for my books and articles so that I can easily access then while I finish writing.

Jason does an awesome job of explaining how to perform both basic and advanced functions using Zotero. His book is geared not only to librarians, but to anyone doing research, to anyone who might benefit from a research assistant in their browser. The book is organized so that How Tos take up the first 5 chapters and then the last two cover how to teach Zotero to your patrons, students, friends, etc and how to support Zotero in your institution.

This handy guide is a must have for anyone who does research or writes for publication. This guide, for that matter, is for anyone who is tired of using proprietary tools to manage their bibliography and would like a bit more control and a lot more friendly functionality.

I’m sorry it took me so long to share this review with you all, but I hope that you’ll still run out and read a copy of Jason’s book because it’s well worth it!

Related posts:

1. The New Zotero
2. Zotero Groups & Libraries
3. First Book Review

One of the neat new features in Koha 3.2 is the ability to merge bib records together. This tutorial will walk you through the steps to do this.

If you have an idea for a video, please just let me know and I’ll add it to my list of things to record.

Related posts:

1. Importing Records into Koha 3.2
2. Bib records as perpetual betas
3. Disabling Holds in Koha

Part of using an open source library system is being a part of the community that builds it. To participate you don’t have to know how to write code or documentation, you can simply report bugs and make requests for enhancements using the tools provided.

This tutorial will show you how to use the Koha Bugzilla site to report bugs and request enhancements to the Koha ILS.

If you have an idea for a video, please just let me know and I’ll add it to my list of things to record.

Related posts:

1. Open Source ILS Library Technology Report
2. VALENJ: WALDO & the Koha Open Source ILS
3. Updates due to come in Koha 3.2

I am a huge fan of Zotero, so much so that I use it for all of my books and share my bibliographies online with others. Koha integrates nicely with Zotero and this tutorial video will show you exactly how.

If you have an idea for a video, please just let me know and I’ll add it to my list of things to record.

Related posts:

1. Zotero Groups & Libraries
2. Zotero – Live soon
3. The New Zotero

Refworks is an bibliography management tool used by many libraries and this tutorial will walk you through getting bib records out of Koha and into Refworks.

If you have an idea for a video, please just let me know and I’ll add it to my list of things to record.

Related posts:

1. Disabling Holds in Koha
2. Koha 3.2 OPAC Demo Video
3. Short Koha OPAC Video

Koha 3.2 has a new fast add framework that makes cataloging items at the circ desk easy. This tutorial will walk you through cataloging an item in the fast add framework.

If you have an idea for a video, please just let me know and I’ll add it to my list of things to record.

Related posts:

1. Copy Cataloging in Koha 3.2
2. Creating batches of spine labels in Koha
3. Koha 3.2 OPAC Demo Video

This next tutorial in our series will walk you through copy cataloging in Koha 3.2

If you have an idea for a video, please just let me know and I’ll add it to my list of things to record.

Related posts:

1. Disabling Holds in Koha
2. Koha 3.2 OPAC Demo Video
3. Short Koha OPAC Video

This week I’m going to show you how to import MARC records in bulk to Koha 3.2.

If you have an idea for a video, please just let me know and I’ll add it to my list of things to record.

Related posts:

1. Koha 3.2 OPAC Demo Video
2. Short Koha OPAC Video
3. Disabling Holds in Koha

We have done an OPAC demo before, but it was really really brief. Here is a longer OPAC demo video.

If you have an idea for a video, please just let me know and I’ll add it to my list of things to record.

Related posts:

1. Short Koha OPAC Video
2. Intro to Koha Video
3. Music & Video in Your OPAC

After you finish cataloging in Koha you need to print out your spine labels. Once you have a layout all set, you just need to create a batch and print your labels.

As always, if you have an idea for a video, please just let me know and I’ll add it to my list of things to record.

Related posts:

1. Creating Spine Label Layouts in Koha
2. Colored Labels in Gmail
3. Disabling Holds in Koha

The label creator in Koha 3.2 has been completely rewritten and improved. This tutorial will walk you through creating a spine label layout in Koha.

As always, if you have an idea for a video, please just let me know and I’ll add it to my list of things to record.

Related posts:

1. Disabling Holds in Koha
2. Intro to Koha Video
3. Short Koha OPAC Video

As a library patron I love the idea of being able to place holds, but some libraries don’t have the resources to handle holds and want to disable holds in Koha. This video tutorial will walk you through disabling holds in Koha 3.2 and later.

As always, if you have an idea for a video, please just let me know and I’ll add it to my list of things to record.

Related posts:

1. Koha Tutorial Video Series
2. Intro to Koha Video
3. KohaCon10: Ideas for Koha 4.0

Earlier today I posted more of the bibliography on the Koha trademark dispute, but I guess I didn’t search well enough because I just found several more articles/blog posts/radio broadcasts that I had missed. So here’s another update for you all. Just like before these (and all the others I’ve posted) are in the Zotero library.

Related posts:

1. Update on Koha Trademark Dispute
2. Koha Trademark Dispute
3. Plea for help from Horowhenua Library Trust

I posted a bibliography of the news covering the dispute over the Koha trademark a couple days ago. Since there we have been kept up to date via various sources (including Jo herself). Here’s a few more articles that I’ve added to the bibliography and you can see the entire thing on Zotero here.

Technorati Tags: koha, open source, opensource, libraries

Related posts:

1. Koha Trademark Dispute
2. Congrats to Koha & Chris Cormack
3. Plea for help from Horowhenua Library Trust

Yesterday I posted Jo’s plea for help and today I woke to find that the news had exploded!! I don’t think I found it all, but here’s the bibliography so far:

Technorati Tags: koha, open source, opensource, libraries

Related posts:

1. Plea for help from Horowhenua Library Trust
2. New Official Koha Site
3. Congrats to Koha & Chris Cormack

The following was originally posted on the official Koha site by Joann Ransom, but I thought I should share it with you all here as well given my belief and support of open source and specifically the Koha project.

Horowhenua Library Trust is the birth place of Koha and the longest serving member of the Koha community. Back in 1999 when we were working on Koha, the idea that 12 years later we would be having to write an email like this never crossed our minds. It is with tremendous sadness that we must write this plea for help to you, the other members of the Koha community.

The situation we find ourselves in, is that after over a year of battling against it, PTFS/Liblime have managed to have their application for a Trademark on Koha in New Zealand accepted. We now have 3 months to object, but to do so involves lawyers and money. We are a small semi rural Library in New Zealand and have no cash spare in our operational budget to afford this, but we do feel it is something we must fight.

For the library that invented Koha to now have to have a legal battle to prevent a US company trademarking the word in NZ seems bizarre, but it is at this point that we find ourselves.

So, we ask you, the users and developers of Koha, from the birth place of Koha, please if you can help in anyway, let us know.

PS: A fund has been set up to collect donations for mounting a legal challenge.

Technorati Tags: koha, ils, opensource, open source

Related posts:

1. KohaCon10: Open Library and Koha
2. Koha in Library School
3. Open Source ILS Library Technology Report

For the second in our series of training videos, here’s a brief OPAC overview.

As always, if you have an idea for a video, please just let me know and I’ll add it to my list of things to record.

Related posts:

1. Intro to Koha Video
2. Music & Video in Your OPAC
3. Koha Tutorial Video Series

Lately I have been recording a series of tutorial videos on Koha. I’m going to be sharing them here, one per week – and here’s the first in the series:

If you have an idea for a video, please just let me know and I’ll add it to my list of things to record.

Related posts:

1. Koha Tutorial Video Series
2. Intro to Koha Zoom
3. Intro to Koha Redux

I know I’ve been absent for a while, but that’s not because I haven’t been working, it’s because all my efforts have been going in to Koha documentation and training. For that reason I’ve decided to share my Koha tutorial video series with you all! Each week I’ll have a new (to this site) tutorial video on how to use Koha.

Watch for the first video next week!!

Related posts:

1. New Features in Koha 3.2
2. Philadelphia SLA’s Tech-Topics Series
3. Koha Training/Tutorials

When I teach open source I always talk about how the web is powered by open source, this awesome infographic gives us a nice visualization of that fact!

Read the full post for more info.

Related posts:

1. Open Source Web Conferencing Options
2. CIL2008: Open Source Solutions to Offer Superior Service
3. Being a woman in an open source community

In the news recently were a series of articles about the Pawn2Own hacking contest. The results of the contest were not surprising to me, with Internet Explorer and Safari falling to security hackers in the first day and Chrome and Firefox standing strong. This lead me to put together a series of articles and web pages on browser security to share with those of you who have libraries that are still using Internet Explorer.

When I finish training on open source I inevitably get an email from an attendee asking for research on Internet Explorer being less secure than Firefox, instead of emailing a bunch of links I can now point them to this Zotero library, so I’d love to hear from my readers with additional articles that I can add.

Related posts:

1. Wikipedia Browser
2. ALA Recommends IE?
3. FF More Popular Than IE7 – Woo Hoo!

This year at SLA I’ll be teaching librarians how to use WordPress (an open source content management system). If you’re in the Philadelphia area and/or attending SLA this year, consider joining me for “Designing Library Websites with WordPress.”

Date: Saturday, 11 June 2011
Time: 1:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.
Level: Introductory
Instructor: Nicole Engard

Description: Content management systems are making it easy for libraries to create their own websites with little or no web programming skills. Of the three popular open source content management systems, WordPress has become extremely popular in libraries. This workshop will walk librarians through the basics of using WordPress as a content management system. Attendees will learn how to use WordPress to design their complete website, from the pages to the events calendar to the optional blog. Each student will have their own WordPress install set up on the instructor’s servers before the workshop and will continue to have access to it for at least a month after the conference. Attendees will need to bring a laptop to use during the session.

Note: This workshop is appropriate for any SLA webmaster who will be participating in Operation Vitality and is unfamiliar with WordPress.

This CE is cosponsored by the IT Division of SLA.

Ticket Information:

• SLA Member: $199.00
• SLA Student Member: $99.00
• Non-Member: $299.00

Register at http://www.sla.org/content/Events/conference/ac2011/registration/index.cfm

If you are already registered for the conference, you can modify your registration to add CEs. You may register for a continuing education workshop without registering for the entire conference.

Related posts:

1. Uses for WordPress
2. WordPress is for more than blogging
3. Why WordPress?

One open source tool that I use regularly is DimDim. It was the application we used at work and through the SLA for hosting web based meetings. Recently it was announced that DimDim is being sold and when you look at their SourceForge page you see that they haven’t released a new open source version since 2009. So the question becomes, “now what?”

I did some searching today to see what options were out there. There is still WebHuddle which I knew about already but didn’t like as much as DimDim and then there’s a tool I didn’t know about until today – BigBlueButton.

From their site:

BigBlueButton is an open source web conferencing system built on over fourteen open source components to create an integrated solution that runs on mac, unix, or PC computers. In the true sense of open source, we invite you to try out and participate in our project.

Sounds like the perfect alternative!! It doesn’t look like there is a hosted option, so you’d have to install it on your own web servers, but once you do that you have an open source web conferencing application which will allow you to share your screen, slides, video (webcam), text chat and voice over ip. I’m going to look further into BigBlueButton, but I thought I’d mention it to you all in case anyone else was out there searching like I was.

Related posts:

1. Living Open Source
2. Why open source is good for … Everyone!
3. CIL2008: Open Source Solutions to Offer Superior Service

In March I’m doing a day long camp for NyLink on open source software in libraries. If you’re in the area make sure you sign up because space is limited.

The library community is abuzz about open source software. Open source usually refers to an application whose source code is made available for use or modification as users see fit. Make sense? Probably not! Would it help if you knew that open source is not just about programming, but about following a philosophy?

Still confused? Not surprising. What will open source mean to our libraries? More flexibility and freedom than software purchased with license restrictions. This is an important path for libraries to consider. Why open source? Because both the open source community and the library world live by the same rules and principles.

In this one-day camp, Nicole Engard will give you the facts and dispel myths about open source. After an intro to open source, attendees will share their stories and experiences. Nicole will be on hand to answer questions; show possible tools and how libraries are using them; and to facilitate the day. Bring your laptops to experiment and try out new technologies!

Takeaways:

• Define open source and be able to answer basic questions the nature of open source and its uses

• List open source applications for the library, home and office
• Compare open source applications to traditional proprietary options
• Discuss examples & experiences from other libraries

Available Classes

• A 1 day(s) Conference at Nylink 3rd fl. Training Facility Rm. on: 03/08 (9:00 AM-4:00 PM ET)

I hope to see some of you there!!

Related posts:

1. Learn All About Open Source
2. Learn More about Open Source
3. Library Camp – Open Source Desktop

Next week I’ll be teaching two webinars for METRO. They will focus on an intro to open source software (including ways to combat the FUD) and a toolbox of 30+ applications you can use in your library today to provide better services to your patrons without any hidden fees. If you plan to be at your desk around these times maybe you’d like to join us!

• Practical Open Source Software for Libraries – Part 1
  Date: Monday, November 08, 2010 At 10:00 AM EST
  Duration: 1 Hour
  Register for this event
  Registration fees: $20 members; $20 myMETRO; $40 non-members

• Practical Open Source Software for Libraries – Part 2
  Date: Monday, November 08, 2010 At 10:00 AM EST
  Duration: 1 Hour
  Register for this event
  Registration fees: $20 members; $20 myMETRO; $40 non-members

I hope to “see” some of you there.

Related posts:

1. Learn More about Open Source
2. Free webinar on open source
3. Open Source at SLA Annual