2006

Authority Control IG "Questioning Authorities" pt. I: Tagging and Folksonomies

Questioning Authorities: Adapting Authority Control to the Changing Needs of Library Users. Presented by LITA/ALCTS CCS Authority Control Interest Group. June 25, 1:30 p.m. Large room, full-ish but not packed at the beginning. As usual with this IG, this is a long, intense program with quite varied presentations, so I will break into two entries. First three presentations on the agenda deal with user generated organization using vocabularies (tagging and folksonomies, a cool/hot topic); the Library of Congress’s update, given by Beecher Wiggins this time, on the Series Authority Decision and other matters (probably a late add to the program); issues of synchronization of romanized fields with vernacular language encoding in MARC 880 fields when headings are changed by an authority control vendor. These topics show some of the wide range of perspectives that the area of authorities and controlled vocabularies can take – from new insights into psychology, community…

2006

Authority Control IG "Questioning Authorities" pt. 2, "those pesky series": Synchronizing vernacular fields and LC update

Questioning Authorities: Adapting Authority Control to the Changing Needs of Library Users: LITA/ALCTS CCS Authority Control Interest Group (part 2) Manon Theroux, Authority Control Librarian at Yale, gave a thorough and deliberate presentation on the vernacular field authority control issue which was a bit of a relief to this note taker after trying to keep up with the fast-talking Mr. Singer. The issue involves changes made to headings (indexed access points) in records sent from an institution (in this case, Yale) to an authority control vendor (in this case, MARS from Backstage Library Works, whose Authority Control Product Manager John Reese followed Manon’s presentation with the vendor’s eye view) and the complexity introduced by parallel “romanized” and “vernacular” encoded fields for non-roman alphabet language controlled access points such as names, series and subjects. When the record contains “vernacular coding” so that languages in non-roman alphabets can be displayed, and in…

2006

LITA President's Program: Internet Culture: What Do We Know About User Behavior?

Sunday, June 25, 4-5 pm in the Sheraton New Orleans A good crowd appeared for the LITA President’s Program: Internet Culture: What Do We Know About User Behavior? despite some location confusion. The conference program guide correctly identified the location as the Sheraton New Orleans on page 34 but misdirected readers to the Marriott across the street on page 136. I discovered this by going to the Marriott first. LITA President Patrick J. Mullen introduced Cathy De Rosa from the OCLC Online Computer Library Center and John B. Horrigan of the Pew Internet & American Life Project. Both discussed results from demographic research conducted by their organizations. De Rosa’s Powerpoint presentation was much like the good new/bad news routine on the old Hee Haw television program (LITA is going to Nashville this fall). De Rosa’s good news: People still value libraries. 55 per cent say they checked out a book…

2006

Your Library's Intranet: The Hidden Tool, Not So Sexy, But Oh So Satisfying

Sunday, June 25, 1:30-3:30 pm The portions are too large. This can be said when your red beans and rice comes with two fried pork chops and a big pile of onion rings. It can also be said of the presentation Your Library’s Intranet: The Hidden Tool, Not So Sexy, But Oh So Satisfying. Everything was good, but there was too much of it. The three speakers covered a lot of the same ground. By the time I left I was thoroughly convinced of the usefulness of Intranets. I was also ready to flee. To their credit the speakers gave us views of different approaches to building Intranets. Alvaro Meythaler of the Phoenix Public Library showed a model that emphasizes supporting the library staff. Its objectives are 1) that it be easy to use, 2) that it function as a content management system, and 3) that it be account based….

2006

Open Source Programs for the Reference Librarian

Open Source Programs for the Reference Librarian: When Your Budget is More Limited Than Your Vision LITA Open Source Systems Interest Group Sunday June 25 8:30-10 Speakers (in order): Ranti Junus, Michigan State Teria Curry, Johns Hopkins Kirsten Allen, American University Mary Evangeline, Univ. of Arizona George Harmon, Florida State (note: editorial parentheticals are by the scribe. Otherwise this is a loose paraphrase) (About 100 chairs. Two-thirds full at start of session). (A festive mood on the panel; much good-natured laughter. Remarkable for 8:30am). Intro by Gwendolyn Reece, chair of OSSIG Definition of open source software: freely available computer programs. Usually monetarily free also, but not necessarily. The freedom is the freedom to make copies and to make changes to improve the program or make it do exactly what you want. Open source programs are collaboratively developed and tested in a process very much like peer review for academics. However,…

2006

Scenes from the ALA opening session

Very impressive baritone telling people the session is about to start. We need have this guy recorded and announcing that “the library is now closing” all across the country. The session led off with a surprisingly moving video of ALA and New Orleans, outlining the recovery efforts of the past year. They showed some amazing footage of the devastation, and the fixes being attempted. Mayor Ray Nagin, talking about the importance that libraries have played here, Nagin says that “libraries have been the centerpoint of the diaspora.” Mitch Landrieu regaled the audience with the world’s longest joke. Madeleine Albright gave a powerful speach. Some highlights: “Libraries are the laboratories of freedom.” Talking about freedom, she said “what we preach abroad, we also need to practise at home.” The axis of evil is actually “poverty, ignorance, and disease.”

2006

The Annual Top 10 Trends Extravaganza

Top 10 Tech Trends [This is always a great session. This year, the format was a little different and allowed for more time and discussion between the panel members and the audience. I liked the new set up, but I wished the panel members would have gotten a couple more minutes each. They were limited to five and Walt Crawford, as moderator, did a good job of keeping them within their limits. My comments are in brackets.] Marshall Breeding Clifford Lynch Eric Lease Morgan Andrew Pace Karen Schneider Roy Tennant Tom Wilson Walt Crawford, moderator Andrew Pace Findability – Our OPAC doesn’t suck anymore. Reworking the catalog is not a small fix, but a small piece of a larger puzzle. How do we aggregate all the information out there? Right now the people who are aggregating data are not librarians. We need to start thinking about this. Automatic classification and…