LITA Camp was briefly discussed. It will tentatively take place in Dublin, OH and is set for May 4-5 2009.

A systematic review ballot of the published standard, ISO 2108:2005, Information and documentation — International Standard Book Number (ISBN), has been presented to TC46 Ballot Advisory Group. This is an opportunity for ALA to provide feedback on the 13-digit ISBN. ALA’s vote options are Confirm (as is), Revise/Amend, Withdraw, or Abstain (from the vote). Comments are required for all votes other than Confirm. The final deadline for Cindy to vote is Friday, Aug. 29, 2008, and she asks that responses be sent to her at least one week in advanced of this final deadline.

Cindy reminds us that ALA is a voting member of NISO, and NISO is the official U.S. voting member for the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) Technical Committee 46 on Information and Documentation. Please understand that this is not a NISO standard, but is being balloted by ISO’s TC46. ALA is not voting on the standard itself but rather is providing feedback to NISO as to whether to approve or disapprove the standard. NISO will review and consider this feedback prior to submitting the U.S. vote.

NOTE: Permission is granted by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) to electronically reproduce this draft International Standard for purpose of review and comment related to the preparation of the U.S. position, provided this notice is included. All other rights are reserved. Since the document is in a password protected area of the NISO website, Cindy cannot direct ALA members who are interested in reviewing the standard to it directly. However, ALA members interested in reviewing the standard should contact Cindy directly for a copy for review purposes.

In the absence of other recommendations, ALA will recommend that NISO vote to confirm ‘ISO 2108:2005 (ISBN) Systematic Review’ (with comments, if any).

Diane Hillmann
LITA Standards Coordinator

Because the documents themselves are not available to the public from the new NISO website, those who wish to see the the revision proposal and a business case document should contact Cindy at HSLcindy@buffalo.edu (verifying your ALA membership) and she’ll send it to you. Cindy points out that if ALA votes “Yes” on this ballot, ALA will be automatically placed into the voting pool for the subsequent revision that is produced (assuming that the project is approved). In the absence of negative input from ALA members, Cindy will vote YES on the revision proposal and get the organization into the voting pool. Her deadline for comments is August 22.

In addition, NISO’s announcement to voting members indicated that an informational e-mail interest group list will be created for those who wish to follow the project’s work. Those interested in monitoring this activity (again, assuming it is approved), should contact Cindy, who will pass them along to NISO when she votes.

I found the last point about the interest group list notable–I suspect we may see more of this as an outgrowth of the new capabilities NISO is trying to build around their new site and its capabilities.

Diane Hillmann
LITA Standards Coordinator

If so, please take a few moments to tell us what you thought of LITA’s programming by completing an evaluation; your honest, candid answers will assist us in providing quality programs in the future. Click on the link below or copy and paste it into your browser:
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=oLUvesvZzmXutA3DhGEUKQ_3d_3d

Please note, if you attended more than one LITA program, you will need to submit an evaluation separately for each program.

SUSHI- Standardized Usage Statistics Harvesting Initiative (SUSHI) update: http://www.niso.org/workrooms/sushi

Adam Chandler presented an overview of what was happening with SUSHI – it’s available at http://www.niso.org/workrooms/sushi/info/SUSHI_ALA_Annual_2008-nisoupdate.ppt.

First he gave some background on SUSHI itself. SUSHI uses the COUNTER schema – it’s a protocol for moving statistics between two systems. Just the exchange – COUNTER actually codifies what’s in the reports. He presented conceptual diagrams of how the information is exchanged.

Then he talked about a survey of content providers and consolidators done in May 2008. Most consolidators plan to have support for SUSHI 1.5 by late 2008 or one in early 2009. Content providers were mostly going to implement in 2009, although some would be early, and some are still deciding.

Adam also called for volunteers for the NISO steering group, especially those with access to data such as those who work for a consortium. He also called for “Sushi Shokunin” – those who are willing to monitor the developers’ listservs to help people get up and running.

Finally, he mentioned that version 3 of the COUNTER Journals and Databases code of practice will require SUSHI support.

Discussion centered around whether there’s pushback from vendors as the reports get more complicated. It isn’t that it’s technically too difficult, but that there are lots of competing requests for limited resources. The schemas are problematic, but the protocol itself is not changing. It’s possible that it’s because there’s a lack of SOAP knowledge – it’s not hard, but it takes time to develop.

After Adam, group business was conducted. A new vice chair was elected. There was a suggestion to create a sandbox (Drupal server? etc) for between the meetings. Many people implementing ERMs are learning the same lessons, so a social space might be useful. There was some interest, and someone from the Electronic Resources & Libraries conference said that there were two groups that wanted something similar from them as well. Also, it was noted that the chairs are always looking for program ideas, so please send them.

CORE-Cost of Resources Exchange: http://www.niso.org/workrooms/core

Ted Koppel presented some background on how CORE developed. A group of people recognized that libraries should be able to send acquisition information from the ILS to the ERM. They started with ExLibris and Sirsi-Dynix, and decided to create a protocol for the sharing of pieces of acquisition information. The payload is the first part, the delivery is the second part. They did a survey of what data should be shared. Around the beginning of the year, they approached NISO, and about 1 month before Annual were given permission to assemble a working group.

The data is a subset of acquisition data elements, just over a dozen to begin with (out of the 50-60 that are typical) – fund number, order number, paid date, etc. This is just what’s in the payload – completely separate from the delivery method, as they want to keep it simple.

So, they’re looking for working group members.

One of the chairs of the ERM IG is doing something similar with III based on these elements, and recommends looking at your data now if you are interested in this, as inconsistencies cause major headaches later.

KBART-Knowledge Base and Related Tools Working Group - http://www.niso.org/workrooms/kbart

Nettie Lagace presented on this UKSG- and NISO-sponsored group that developed out of the UKSG report “Link Resolvers and the Serials Supply Chain.” It aims to create guidelines, educate all of the stakeholders, and act as an information hub. In the process, they’ll create a list of terminology, define the problems, look for solutions, and engage in advocacy. They meet monthly on a conference call, and will wrap up work in a report to UKSG next April.

Someone asked if this will only succeed if publishers buy in. Nettie suggested that part of the group’s mission was advocacy, and that they don’t yet know if they have publisher buy in because the report is not yet published. Also, they’ll need to educate the community, and librarians will need to bring pressure on the publishers.

ONIX News: http://www.editeur.org/

Brian Green presented an update on ONIX-related initiatives. ONIX is a set of metadata formats (for books, serials, etc) that can be for description, transaction, or licensing. ONIX for books is a trade standard for publishers that has recently gained interest from librarians as well. There is an international steering group in 15 countries. Version 3.0 will soon be able to handle digital objects, deal better with multiple item products, but is still in a period of input. Serials Online Holdings (SOH) provides information on e-serials holdings to libraries. There is a release notification, e.g. Finally, ONIX-PL is used for licensing terms. There are US and European pilots ongoing. Version 1.0 should be ready by July, and the ONIX-PL editing tools should be available in summer 2008. There is no ERM implementation yet.

NISO Update: http://www.niso.org

Todd Carpenter gave a short presentation on the different initiatives that NISO is involved with. The License Expression Working Group is working with EDItEUR to map the Electronic Resources Management Initiative (ERMI) data dictionary to ONIX-PL terms. This will split into two areas: one will have responsibility for ONIX-PL and one will look at issues of maintenance of ERMI.

Tim Jewell is conducting a survey on the ERMI – it was composed four years ago, but should someone maintain it, and who? He will conduct 1-on-1 interviews with vendors about whether it can be incorporated into products, and interviews with libraries to see if they use all of the 300+ data elements. This will be fed into a strategic plan, and there should be a report by the fall.

Things to keep an eye out for:

International DOI standard is moving forward. There shouldn’t be too many end-user changes.

NISO released recommended practice of journal articles publication.

NISO held thought leader meetings about digital libraries and digital collections. Should work with publishers to improve data streams.

The book industry study group is looking at ways to encourage community on the investment of time and energy in data streams.

There will be an xISSN demonstration from OCLC at Annual.

Distinguished science fiction and fantasy authors discussed their ideas about old and new technologies, how technology impacts humanity and future implications for privacy rights. Authors were Cory Doctorow, Eric Flint, Vernor Vinge, and Brandon Sanderson.

Vernor Vinge was first to address the audience. Vernor Vinge, who argued back in 1993 that “we are on the edge of change comparable to the rise of human life on Earth. The precise cause of this change is the imminent creation by technology of entities with greater than human intelligence” (”The Coming Technological Singularity: How to Survive in the Post-Human Era“) began the session with a warning of a possible coming “Informational Dark Age.” He mentioned that Digital Rights Management proponents who favor proprietary formats can hinder technological progress, which he believes is crucial for human progress. He mentioned Charles Stross’s Glasshouse as a useful analogy.

Brandon Sanderson spoke about the appeal of uchronias or alternate histories, where one looks at a time period “through rose colored lenses” in places where modern people and concepts exist. He mentioned that fantasy fans love uchronias, noting steampunk, Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Burroughs, Robert Jordan, and J.K. Rowling. He said scientific uchronias were popular in the early 1900s, involving warrior-heroes, and now the trend is toward wizard-heroes, where physical strength is not as important as mental acuity, where information is power and “the person who gives information is one who wins in the end” adding, “what librarians have always known.”

Sanderson shared that he was initially a reluctant reader because he was given only “classics,” which only taught him that reading was boring and that he wasn’t a “good enough” reader. The book that made him a reader was Dragon’s Bane. This story, though fantasy, was familiar to him because the struggles within it paralleled his own family’s struggles. He said librarians should teach people to love information first and focus on getting readers books they will love because that will make them readers.

Eric Flint argued strongly against current copyright laws. He said the Berne Convention was badly structured and that author copyright protections encompassing 75 years are ridiculous. He believes 40 years is enough to support an author, that anything longer actually hinders authors and other creators. Flint states that copyright law works in favor of corporations and that corporations want to define fair use out of existence.

Flint also talked about the advantages to e-publishing, noting that one format does not rule out another. He mentioned that although his first book is still in print it still sells well even though it is available online for free through the Baen Free Library (which offers 40 authors and 100 different works with no encryption- the only restriction is that you do not make money off of it).

Cory Doctrow said that copying isn’t what the Internet is good at; the Internet is best at making it cheaper to take collective action, which he says is another name for family, library, school, academic disciplines, government, and culture. The Internet is about “storming, forming, and norming.” It is communicating and creating communities of practice.

Doctrow says we are in an era of universal access to all human knowledge. He says that humanity has progressed from the days of hoarding information to sharing all knowledge. He said this is true about developing nations as well and cited his findings from his work with ALA-IFLA in Africa. He said that no matter where you were people accessed technology, whether it be regularly in real time on the Internet or every quarter year by latent links from a CD-ROM.

Doctrow said information architecture is political. He sent a rallying cry to everyone to “fight for the future of civilization. Fight over whether devices will control you or obey you.”

Sharon M. Shafer, Vice Chair, welcomed everyone to the 3^rd meeting of the Next Generation Catalog Interest Group.

The program panelists included Karen G. Schneider, Equinox Software, Sara Davidson, University of California, Merced, and Amy Kautzman, University of California, Davis,

“Running a Free and Open Source Software ILS does Not Equate to a Tightrope Act with No Net”

Karen G. Schneider began her talk with a definition of open source software from Wikipedia. Karen explained that open source software is free to use, free to download, and free to modify. Support is also available from the open source community or from a vendor. Karen further stated that “development” happens out in the “wild,” occurring on IRC, listservs, etc. It is important that development no longer take place in silos. With open source software problems can be quickly resolved. There is no need to wait for the next release. Software code develops rapidly. She also points to the FUD factor as a potential impediment to use of open source software. She recommends reading The Cathedral and the Bazaar.

Karen also discussed the PINES library consortium’s implementation of the Evergreen open source library catalog software. As a support service of Evergreen, Equinox provides migration and support training for implementation, as well as hosting and consulting services. Karen also recommends that libraries considering the use of Evergreen talk with other libraries that have implemented the software and also download the software for evaluation.

“Launching a Next-Generation Consortial Catalog”

Sara Davidson and Amy Kautzman (Members of UC/OCLC Pilot Implementation Team)

“What can you produce when you bring together 10 University of California campuses, the California Digital Library (CDL), an existing union catalog, Online Computer Library Center (OCLC), multiple task groups and the efforts of numerous individuals? In our case, the result is the Next-Generation Melvyl pilot which draws together content from UC’s existing union catalog and provides it on OCLC’s WorldCat Local Platform.”

The presentation included an overview and vision for the project, implementation procedures, the challenges encountered, and the features of the new Melvyl catalog. The project design included ten separate local views/scopes for the catalog and one union catalog view/scope. The goals of the project were to improve search and retrieval results, revise the architecture of the OPAC, adopt new cataloging practices, and a move to a support module based on continuous improvements. Also discussed was the organization of executive and implementation teams, task forces, joint work groups, and the partnership with OCLC. The various groups met challenges on several issues including: communications, working in new ways to handle technical hurdles, working through existing structures, creating new structures when necessary, data issues, managing expectations, and going live.

The most pressing issue being worked on now is how to bring up ten campuses all at once. The data issues include: reclamation projects, lack of OCLC numbers on some records, and the lack of OCLC records from some vendor sets. A recurring issue is the process of keeping the project from expanding beyond the stated goals. Additional features will continue to be developed in partnership with OCLC WorldCat Local.

Cary Gordon of the Cherry Hill Company, a vendor specializing in support of open source software, gave an extremely detailed introduction to Drupal 6.2, the latest version of the open source content management system. The attendees came from a variety of library types, including academic, public, and special, and with a variety of experience levels with the system.

Flash drives with the XAMPP server/database combination pre-installed were distributed along with the components for a Drupal installation.

The morning focused on setting up Apache, the MySQL database, some PHP settings, and a basic install of Drupal. The afternoon covered modules (the building blocks of a Drupal site), user permissions, basic content creation, and an introduction to Drupal’s specialized vocabulary: nodes, taxonomies, menus, blocks. The program concluded with an excellent list of Drupal-related resources available on the web.

The location, the computer lab in the Children’s section of the Anaheim Public Library, added a nice light-hearted touch. Library staff, particularly Thomas Edelblute, were unfailingly cheerful and helpful. ALA’s catering arrangements, among other things handled personally by Melissa Prentice of the LITA office, were excellent and welcome.

Powerpoint slides for Gordon’s workshop, with configuration instructions and lots of screenshots. Watch that site (and this one) for updates and more information.

Saturday, 8 am-noon, Paradise Pier Hotel in Anaheim, CA (Disneyland)

Presenters:
Kim Duckett, Librarian for Digital Technologies and Learning, North Carolina State University Libraries, Chad Haefele, Reference Librarian, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, Samantha Hines, Assistant Professor, Distance Education Coordinator and Social Sciences Librarian, University of Montana, Howard Carter, Associate Professor and Manager, Instructional Support Services, Southern Illinois University Carbondale, and Harvey R. Gover, 2008 ACRL/Haworth Press National Distance Learning Librarian, Acting Chair and Consultant to the Distance Learning Section Guidelines Committee, and Assistant Campus Librarian, Max E. Benitz Memorial Library, Washington State University Tri-Cities.

Kim Duckett believes librarians should adopt a philosophy of blended librarianship. Duckett says a focus on distance learners will lead to better library experiences for all because traditional learners are becoming more like distance learners as more and more students receive their education online.

Duckett says as libraries offer more digital resources for both synchronous and asynchronous learning, offering everything from virtual reference to e-reserves,  a seamless integration of library resources into Web-based course-management systems should be a top priority for librarians everywhere. She asks librarians to increase their presence online and go where their users are. She asks librarians to think about their most difficult patrons, those who do not come into the library, surmising that virtual users, having had a satisfactory online library experience, will actually visit the library.

Chad Haefele’s presented his experiences while the interim head of distance learning services at the University of Alabama in Huntsville.  Before his arrival the distance learning department was isolated, offered limited service, was staffed by non-MLS professionals, lacked formalized procedures, and relied on a paper based system.

Haefele moved the distance learning services to the library and physically relocated it to the circulation desk. This move expanded the distance learning hours of service (7 am to midnight instead of 9 am- 5 pm). He also employed local students  who could relate student and curriculum needs to library resources. Daily tasks were formalized and computerized, allowing for formal procedures to take hold. The end result was a highy efficient service with better communication between departments, faculty, students, and staff.
 
The growing demand for online education, what Haefele calls an “assembly line approach to education,” will result in a greater need for librarian specialists and ultimately, all librarians will become distance learning librarians. Above all, he believes that the distance learning department should not be walled off because it will suffer from stagnation, lack accountability and lack overall effectiveness.

His advice to distance leaning librarians is to assume you will not be there tomorrow and that you are the only point of contact. He says education is becoming a commodity and recommends partnering with others, knowing copyright law, automating the mundane, focusing on students, opening up data sources, and using full APIs otherwise, “students will leave you in the dust…. Isolation doesn’t work.”

Samantha Schmel Hines opened her talk with a quote from Anne Lipow:

Rather than thinking of our users as remote we should recognize that we are remote from our users.

Hines asked us to move from thinking of the library as place to the library as service.  She traced the growth and pervasiveness of the Internet, the rise of digital education, and the challenges we face from the digital divide.

Howard Carter discussed the long history of correspondence education and distance education. He believes the greatest challenge to distance education came with the advent of the Internet and argues that best practices for Internet accessibility results in better experiences for everyone since most library users are online and distance is a disability which needs to be accommodated. He believes that the ACRL Standards for Distance Learning needs to address libraries in general since “technology is a subscription that needs to be renewed.”

Carter laments the lack of library funding overall (he noted that the 2010 book budget at Southern Illinois University Carbondale given the current level of funding will equate to zero) and highlighted the increase in adjunct virtual faculty members and the rise in for-profit universities. New degree models, he believes, should result in more library funding and more opportunities for librarians.
Harvey R. Gover’s role was “bringing some order our of the chaos.” He summarized the findings of earlier presenters and asked librarians to refer to the Blueprint for Success: The National Agricultural Library 2008-2012 and the soon to be updated ACRL Guidelines for Distance Learning Library Services.

Enjoy!

(I apologize in advance for the level of detail here. I wasn’t able to get online and post right away and so I’m working from my handwritten notes - which are difficult to read at times and a bit cryptic at others. So, while I think a few statements are worth providing, I can’t recall the exact context of them. Rather than trying to guess, I’m simply providing them as-is.)

Joseph Janes, from the University of Washington and columnist for American Libraries, kicked off this session with a presentation about the evolution of libraries and how we can define what they are, followed by a panel discussion by the It’s All Good blogging team.

Joseph Janes presentation:

The evolution of libraries isn’t necessarily tied to technology. Instead, it relates to societal and demographic changes, publishing changes, and political, legal, and cognitive issues - all of which create a dynamic environment that libraries react to. Before we can answer the question “What is a library?” we have to answer the question “What does it mean to be in the library?”

The idea of being in the library, or “crossing the threshold,” has always been bigger than the main library building itself to include library branches, bookmobiles, etc. When thinking of the library’s “digital threshold” we begin to include chatting with a librarian, accessing databases, downloading audiobooks, and more.

“Anywhere, anytime, anyway in which people interact with information organized, provided, supported by their own community via their library staff.”

A library is defined by five things:
The place
The stuff
The support
The interaction
The values

If you take away one of these things, it becomes something other than a library.

The library needs to be somewhere and everywhere - with both physical and virtual spaces. Library users have multiple presences and identities that are tied to environments with information needs. Because users tend to use the path of least resistance, we need to be where they are.

We have to be better online. Users need a lot of motivation to come to us online (we have lots of competitors) and the online environment makes it very easy for them to leave.

It’s All Good bloggers response:

Library collections are becoming ubiquitous.

People are creating their own content online. The recent issue of Wired magazine has an article on the volume of data that’s being created by people with video recorders, etc.

Rather than simply using the tools that people are using, ask them why they’re using them and then design services around those needs.

Librarians need to be enthusiastic and passionate to attract and keep users. (If I had to choose one single common theme to come out of all of the ALA sessions I attended, it would have to be that of building relationships.)

Branding should be added to Joe’s list of 5 things that define a library. According to the results of an IMLS project, students don’t always realize that the library is responsible for providing electronic materials (they often think it’s another department or the overall academic institution). Also, youth are taught to avoid strangers online and are hesitant to use anonymous online services. Libraries have to be transparent in their virtual reference services.

Think “Simple, but brilliant.”

Sarah’s bit was next, followed by Clifford Lynch who first wanted to react to the comments about open source that previous panelists had made. He asked that we be smart about it and not overreact in any one direction - it’s not necessarily a panacea for us! He went on to discuss his trends, after that. He pointed out that economic pressures will be forcing a move toward virtual organizations and collaboration - travel is getting too expensive! He touched on Net Neutrality as well, broadband issues that are being discussed today will be affected by this debate. He mentioned cloud computing and the privacy issues involved with having our data in the “cloud” as well as the trend toward libraries and cultural heritage organizations putting their collections in places other than inside their buildings (Flickr, etc.). He finished by talking about information overload.

Karen responded to comments at that point by saying that, in the case of disparate levels of innovation in libraries (in response to Sarah’s trend talk), this also exists within large libraries. Different departments or units may be far more innovative than others.

Roy Tennant came next and he contends that this is an age of experimentation and of surprises. He also said that we need to get really good at extracting data from our own systems. He finished with the observation that we all need to take responsibility for our own professional development and learning. There was a question at that point about how library schools can help with this - his answer was that they really can’t. Either you are embrace change and innovation or you don’t. Concepts and theory can be taught to *help* with innovation and learning, but that’s about it.

Merideth Farkas was next. She thinks that social software should have a role in collecting local knowledge - and that libraries should be collecting this information as well! She also discussed the notion of the library as a creative technology lab for patrons. She finished up with the idea of libraries archiving blogs as historical data.

John Blyberg followed Merideth and he started his list with green tech in libraries. He continued with a discussion of the semantic web. He also touched on converged media hubs for libraries to allow users to access their gadgets at the library. He finished with a discussion of the library as a content creator - not just a content archive.

Karen did her trends next, followed by Eric Lease Morgan. He feels it is going to be very important to provide access to the data that supports articles in journals - not just the articles. He also discussed mobile devices, web APIs and the fact that library sites need a blog.

Karen Coyle was the last panelist to speak, and she talked about catalog and journal searches should be able to be performed from a mobile phone interface. She also thinks that the future of bibliographic control will be a big mash-up, with no input from libraries (like Amazon now gives more bib info than most libraries do). She also thinks that libraries need to foster user-to-user interaction.

There was some more discussion about the kind of people/skills needed to bring us forward - I think it was a question from either the audience or the Meebo room. Eric answered that systematic as well as creative thinking will be required. Merideth said that being willing to question everything, being intolerant of things that don’t work and being patient enough to make stuff work was going to be ideal. Karen Schneider said that we’ll need people who are impatient with mediocrity.

Whew! That was an information-packed session, with lots going on, and I know I didn’t capture half of it!!

It started off with Diane giving a very nuts-and-bolts presentation about basic PC, printer and network troubleshooting. She went through the basic troubleshooting steps for your PC (reboot, check cables, discover “where it hurts” on the machine…) and then did the same for printers and network issues. She gave concrete steps to use when troubleshooting, but also gave pointers for talking to the next level of tech support and what they will need from the end users. It was all incredibly useful stuff!

Brenda started off with an introduction to the MaintainIT project. For those who are unaware of it, this project takes challenges and successes from librarians across the country and makes them into stories and recipes that other libraries can use. They issue free Cookbooks that provide solid technical advice, ideas and help so that other libraries don’t have to reinvent the wheel to get around their challenges. They have also begun creating webinars, in conjunction with Webjunction, that deal with specific challenges in a short, 30 minute, format, as well as a book club that gives librarians a chance to discuss the individual chapters of the cookbooks. After she introduced these, she gave us a chance to break into small groups and discuss our individual challenges and successes with each other. When we all got back from our individual discussions, several people in the audience shared their discussions; finding space - and outlets - for laptops in an older building, dealing with stolen computer parts - and printers, and dealing with the “goldfish effect” - no matter how many computers we make available, the demand keeps increasing at a much faster pace! She finished by saying that the next cookbook will start to become available in July and that there will be a book discussion on chapter 5 of the “Recipes for a 5-star library” cookbook later in July as well.

Jennifer concluded the session with an overview of the Webjunction resources. She discussed the collaboration efforts of Webjunction and some of it’s more notable features! She explained what was available in Webjunction’s Tech Atlas - a set of resources that assist in technology planning, surveying users, budgeting for tech and much more! She also introduced the Rural Library Sustainability Project and some of the results from recent library tech brainstorming sessions. There were some excellent ideas there - including the suggestion to partner with local tech suppliers (Best Buy/Circuit City/Radio Shack) and have them bring in techie gadgets to demo. This could be good advertisement for the company and free tech training for your staff & patrons!

The session was a really nice introduction to both solid skills needed by library techs and to the amazing amounts of resources out there for folks who might need some tech help!

Notification when requested items are added to the catalog
Public comments and recommendations of books read
Blogs, podcasts, reference via instant messaging
Text message alerts
Saved lists of titles checked out or of interest
RSS feeds
Ability to communicate online with other library patrons

She then shared some compelling data from the December 2007 Pew Internet & American Life Project Survey about the ubiquity of mobile communications technologies. The bottom line: MCL patrons want a 2.0 library experience.

Some library patrons indicated that it is important to them that their library records remain private, and some did not. Cindy pointed out that it is librarians’ responsibility to protect patrons’ privacy on their behalf, and then proceeded to illuminate some challenges presented by web 2.0. Libraries are now creating records–such as blog posts and comments, and chat transcripts–that never existed before. We are keeping records like never before (think reading lists and MyLibrary tools), we’re sending records into realms beyond our control (in the forms of text messages, rss feeds, and more), and we’re inviting our users to personalize and participate in the evolution of our products and services.

Cindy aptly drew a comparison between opening the doors of the physical library and to the virtual library. Libraries have policies to protect patrons in the physical library; the same should be true for the virtual environment. The Fair Information Practices section of ALA’s Intellectual Freedom Manual can help libraries update their privacy policies. Privacy warnings can be provided, and patrons should be given the choice to opt into (not out of) of services that involve any risk.

Cindy also talked about what can happen when a library creates a public forum, and pointed out that there are two types–open forums (a.k.a. the “free-for-all”), and limited or designated public forums. Unlike the open forum, the limited or designated public forum has rules, boundaries, and guidelines. Important when using social software to create a limited forum:

Make explicit what you are trying to accomplish
Explain the type of forum and its purpose
Make clear the rules and the penalties for violation
Identify when, how, and by whom posts will be vetted
Create a notice and appeal process

Digital library consultant Karen Coyle then talked about technical and legal issues that librarians launching interactive web-based services need to consider. She pointed out that when we say “privacy,” we often mean “confidentiality,” and that there are three exceptions to the confidentiality of patron records:

Librarians have access to patron records
Records of money owed to the library are not protected
Records are not protected in the case of a court order

Karen pointed out that as social networking and libraries evolve together, the context of the networking is likely to be broader than the user’s “home” library. The larger the network, the greater its value. But the greater the risk as well. Facebook is routinely asked by law enforcement for the personal data of its users, and as a private company, is responsible only for complying with its own privacy policy. Libraries, on the other hand, must comply not only with their own privacy policies, but also with state laws that require libraries to protect certain data.

So how can we protect information over which we have limited control?

We can make clear to our users which virtual spaces are protected and which are not. We can have conversations with our IT departments about allowing users to remain anonymous in certain cases, and again, we can require users to opt into services where records may not be totally protected. We can undergo a security audit, make sure we have the knowledge and capability to secure our systems, and we can discuss with our vendors and help shape the policies and practices they employ when it comes to the security of our patrons’ library use data.

One would expect for something that old (in Google time) such as Ferber (FRBR), which has been around since 1998, to have spawned some kin. Meet Fred, er, FRAD (Functional Requirements for Authority Data). And they didn’t tell you that in this program, you also will meet Farsar (FRSAR - Functional Requirements for Subject Authority Records).

Actually, the first hour and a half of this program dealt with updates on activities at the Library of Congress (by Dave Reser) and at OCLC (by Robert Bremer). The next hour and a half was devoted to the main program topic and the last hour was for a meeting of the LITA/ALCTS Authority Control Interest Group. The cataloging and metadata crowd must have been conferenced out by this time because attendance was low compared to the sessions Getting Ready with RDA and FRBR: What You Need to Know and Creating the Future of Catalogs and Cataloging. Too bad since three rooms at the Convention Center were reserved (210 A-C) for this low-attendance event compared to the use of only 204B for the two overflowing sessions.

The main program consisted of the following:

• Getting to Know FRAD – Glenn Patton, OCLC, Inc., Chair, IFLA FRANAR Working Group
  • Patton apologized to those who have attended the session of Getting Ready for RDA and FRBR: What You Need to Know where he gave the same presentation but noted that a second-go is not necessarily a bad thing. The moderator for the program said that slides from this session will be made available on the ALA Conference Materials Archive. In the meantime, you can access the same slides used in Patton’s presentation here and the diagrams he referred to to explain the FRAD conceptual model can be seen in the draft by the IFLA FRANAR Working Group. Note that FRANAR (Functional Requirements and Numbering of Authority Records) is now FRAD.
• FRAD: A Personal View – Ed Jones, National University Library in San Diego, California
  • Ed Jones’ personal interest in the FRAD model comes from his view that it would help him think about authority data in new ways just as FRBR helped him think of bibliographic data in new ways. He quoted Bernard Shaw to express this view better: “You see things and say ‘Why?’ but I dream things that never were and I say ‘Why not?” His explorations of what the DNB and Wikipedia.de are doing with authority data and control numbers (not to be confused with Identifiers) are especially very interesting.
• An Introduction to FRASAR - Athena Salaba, Kent State U assisted by Lois Mai Chan, University of Kentucky.
  • I believe that the best way that FRAD and FRSAR have been introduced in the program can be seen in one slide (image shown below) from this presentation. [I found basically the same presentation here]. The slide below shows the commonalities and differences between the three models around user tasks. The user tasks in red font shows those that are particular for that conceptual model:

  

I would conclude, as Ed Jones did in his presentation, by noting that conceptual models are growing organisms. They model a certain way that we understand, at a certain point in time, a set of entities that we choose to include in an ontological reality that we agree to exist for certain uses and users. We need to connect our current practices and future goals to these functional requirements so that practice and theory can inform each other as we adapt to changes in how we describe and control bibliographic entities.

John Houser, Senior Technology Consultant for PALINET, and Johsua Ferraro, CEO of Liblime, set out to answer common questions about open-source ILS systems with a focus on Liblime’s support for Koha. The format was an interview, and the resulting questions and answers were recorded. Watch for a link to the podcast version here.

Representative questions and answers follow, but these are only samples of an extremely rich discussion of general and very specific technical details.

Cost
Don’t necessarily plan to save lots of money on an open-source ILS, as planning to contribute to development efforts has many advantages–primarily that you get to set the priorities for new features in the ILS. A representative of a Koha library in the audience pointedly disagreed, stressing that in his case there were significant cost savings.

How does Liblime makes money if the software is free?
By supplying services related to installation, migration, and ongoing support of Koha and Evergreen systems.

How hard is migration?
Migration is hard from any ILS to any other ILS, and Koha is not an exception. But it’s not necessary to have your own staff to do the hard parts.

How does support for an open-source ILS differ from commercial ILS support?
There is no vendor lock-in. Libraries could contract with any vendor to support the system, which is based on widely used web technologies like MySQL and PHP.

How supportive of new users is the Koha community?
Open-source software communities can sometimes be hard for new users to approach, but Koha’s tends to be fairly friendly and helpful, and Liblime staff contribute to it.

The session was lively, and included a lot of audience participation. There were about twenty questions and comments from the audience.

How does custom work for a particularly library get accepted into the project as a whole?
Koha is a smaller project than something like Firefox, and is fairly open to outside input. New code is reviewed and tested.

Will there be support for Vufind?
PALINET will support Vufind from version 1.0

Why should I join the WALDO consortium in migrating to Koha?
Your library peers are setting the specifications and helping to build the system you’ll be using.

What support is there for reporting and statistics?
There are built-in reporting modules, but because the software is built on MySQL almost any report-writing software will work with Koha. And direct access to library data is never a problem.

There were also questions about the cataloging and acquisitions modules, system requirements, API’s for scripting, ERM, digital library software, and many other topics.

Walt Scacchi of UC-Irvine stepped in as a last-minute replacement speaker for Karen Sandler of the Software Freedom Law Center and gave a talk entitled “Research Results for Free/Open Source Software Development: Best Practices for Libraries? (and some legal issues too)” based on his empirical research on open-source project processes, practices, and community development
.
The talk was rich in details on who open-source developers are and what they do. Using the current stats at Sourceforge as a starting point, he estimated approximately 180,000 current open-source software projects, of which approximately 18,000 (10%) are currently being succesfully developed. The largest area of open-source development is in games, in large part driven by the fact that the very successful Sony game systems are built using open-source software.

Open-source developers tend to use the tools they build, which is not necessarily the case for commercial developers. About 1% of open-source software users are developers. Two-thirds of developers contribute to more than one project, 5% to more than ten.

80% of open-source developers say they contribute to projects to learn new tools, new skills, or new software. Most also build because it is fun.

Most open-source developers spend far more time reading online documentation and interacting with other developers than they do writing code. This means the community aspect of open-source software is actually more important than the code, which is contrary to the usual opinion of programmers as anti-social. The social aspect of open-source development, including developing one’s reputation and future job prospects, but also collaborating with other like-minded programmers, is critical to the success of a project.

Open-source developers tend to subsidize their own work by contributing (obviously) time, but also equipment, server space, money, and many other things to their projects. This makes commercial software company comparisons of “total cost of ownership” suspect.

Scacchi described software as literature, and referred to the many thousands of developers as readers of it. Then pointedly asked whether libraries are building collections of it. There was silence in the room, but iBiblio, hosted by the University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill, is actually doing this and hosts one of the largest open-source software libraries.

He also described the confusing array of open-source licensing arrangements and the problems conflicting licenses can cause. A good source of basic advice on these issues can be found in the Software Freedom Law Center’s Legal Issues Primer for Open Source and Free Software Projects.

Small projects tend to fail unless they can forge alliances with other, similar projects. A large project, or a cooperating cluster of projects, can generate the critical mass necessary for success. The question to ask about a project is whether it could or would continue if its current main developer left. He pointed to the example of the Linux kernel, the heart of the operating system, to which the original creator, Linus Torvalds, contributes less than 1% of the code. A sustainable project generates code and a community.

Powerpoint slides for Scacchi’s talk.

Darrell Gunter began by discussing Collexis research projects and applications for libraries. Fascinating work is being undertaken on computationally derived ontology, what Collexis refers to as Fingerprinting. [Bibliographic ontology (like FRBR or FRAD not getting any play in the semantic portion of the presentation). ] Screenshots of tools (presentation slides to be posted to the LITA wiki) included the Knowledge Dashboard, which is being used for Hypothesis Generation by scientists. Biomedexperts.com discussed as a Collexis partner with tools for researchers including expert visualization, social network graphs of who is publishing with whom. Asklepios Group discussed as a user of collexis tools which utilizes mobile technology for patient-side consultation and comparison of relevant treatments.

I would characterize Collexis methodology as relying on computationally derived indexing for data visualization (btw-the intellectual foundations of LIS exist (partly) in the aforementioned FRBR ontology). To some extent one has to question the use of the term semantics here, in that behind their derived “meaning” are sets of algorithms, which don’t actually answer the question “what exists” but rather “what exists in the databases we compute from” - in my opinion. I think of Karl Jaspers and his idea on the limitations of certain kinds of empiricism.

Neeru Khosla of CK12 introduced the Flexbook, a collaboratively authored and produced textbook. Neeru modeled the assembler interface which allows the user to select chapters for their desired book. Flexbook is pitched as a low cost way to create textbooks. CK12 is looking for librarians to provide indices, meta information, keywords to this interface to help organize the chapter content. I would characterize this work as sort of a Textbook2.0 in that the user can easily piece together the book they want and suit it to their exact student needs and not pay an exceedingly high cost. Regarding quality: Neeru informs us that chapters can come from wikis such as Wikipedia and from donated textbook content. If you are interested in learning more contact neeru@ck12.org

If you are interested in semantic type stuff see the w3c.org page.

We got a great crowd of around 20 people for our Drupal ‘Birds of a Feather’. The above is a shot of everybody in the BIGWIG Bloggers’ room — just before we got kicked out by some group from YALSA (bums, we’ll get even)!

(We then proceeded to the next available empty room and had our get-together there.)

First up on the agenda was setting up the Drupal IG, making sure we have enough signatures and asking for volunteers to serve as Chair and Co-Chair. For the first year, Leo Klein (i.e. me) graciously volunteered to serve as chair and Ian Chan as co-chair.

The name for the IG is ‘Drupal4Lib’ and our purpose is “to promote the use and understanding of the content management system, Drupal, by libraries and librarians”.

Next on the agenda was the true meat-and-potatoes of the BoF: shooting the breeze about Drupal and demonstrating a few sites we were working on.

The group consisted of librarians at all levels of experience from expert to beginner. Some were shopping around for a CMS and hadn’t yet decided which one to choose. Some had already deployed Drupal in one way or another — if only locally on their laptop — and wanted to learn more about it.

Jon Blackburn showed us the FSU Library site, Tracy Sutherland gave us a taste of the soon-to-be launched Amherst Library site (public mockups here…) , and finally, Co-Chair volunteer Ian Chen gave us a taste of his wonderful work from his portfolio site.

Unfortunately my nifty little projector was suffering relocation fits and kept on shutting down. [Note to attendees: if you weren't able to show us a site because of projector problems, please post them here].

All in all the surprising thing was how quickly the time went. I personally found the BoF extremely rewarding. There aren’t many opportunities to meet face-to-face with colleagues united by an interest or curiosity in Drupal.

I really look forward to our next get-together — in Chicago?

APIs Galore

Let’s be realistic APIs have hit their stride on the web at large. In libraries they are starting to come into their own as well. However, our focus in libraries has thus far been on bibliographic data. This isn’t the only data of value out there. Libraries need to think about how to use APIs to get digital objects like photos and videos in and out of web-based media service providers like Flickr and Blip.tv . If we do this we will not only be making our users lives easier, we will be increasing the likelihood that we are able to capture relevant born-digital collections. Library vendors wake up, libraries want and need APIs and we don’t want to have to retrofit them ourselves!! Some vendors have realized this and that is great. But PLEASE we need standards for how APIs work. If my catalog API and the WorldCat API work differently I’m going to have to  write two sets of code. Not efficient. Let’s work smarter instead of harder that way we can all share! Below are a few APIs relevant to libraries worth checking out

• Open Library API
• WorldCat API
• Google Books Search API
• LibraryThing API
• APIs for OpenURL resolver products
  • Serial Solutions
  • SFX
• APIs for federated search
  • MetaFind
  • LibraryFind
• APIs for digital object sharing sites
  • Blip.tv
  • Flickr

Virtual Participation in Classes and Conferences hits its Stride (Maybe)

My own participation (via SightSpeed) the Top Tech Trends this year is evidence that virtual participation may have hit its stride. What is really interesting about this phenomenon though is the multitude of forms it can take. There are virtual worlds like Second Life, but there are also more traditional virtual classrooms and applications sharing software like Wimba and WebEx. This years Social Software Showcase demonstrated that a live video stream (via uStream) can be a form of virtual participation as well. I watched the stream and had 3 different conversations with people in the stream’s chat window. Web video conferencing is allowing team work and participation across geographically disparate locations. I regularly video chat using Skype or iChat with colleagues who I am working with at other institutions. Lastly, the nature of the conference call has changed. Greg Schwartz uses TalkShoe on a weekly basis to host his show “Uncontrolled Vocabulary” and allow librarians from across the country to participate and others are following suit.

Mobile devices and technologies

One of the other panelist touched on this trend and I thought that Jason Griffey did a great job talking about this with someone at the Social Software Showcase (Showcase video available to watch!). With the iPhone 3G coming out and Google sticking its fingers in cell phones, mobile technologies and the mobile web have reached a new level. Also consider the fact that most of the world surfs the net on a phone or other mobile device, not a laptop or desktop computer. Libraries need to embrace this movement more. Not just in the way we design our virtual presence, but also in the way we provide virtual services and do our work. I’ve been talking to the subject librarians at UH about how mobile technologies could improve their interactions with faculty. Think about the things we want and need to do on the fly when we leave the library to interact with the campus? Libraries need to start leaveraging mobile technologies in more meaningful ways.

Comments and reponses to other panelists

Marshall talked about Open Data as being an important trend. I think that there are two facets to this, the technology to make data open and the non-technical issues: copyright, licensing, etc. APIs are really helping us to solve the first issue, but I see the second issue as being somewhat tougher. Particularly when it comes to question of “who ‘owns’ this data”.

Sarah talked in her trends about libraries having difficulties in innovating and that we are getting disparate levels of innovation between libraries. I think we are also seeing disparate levels of innovation within libraries, particularly in larger libraries. This isn’t a solely a result of some people wanting to innovate and some not but also organizational, and department structures and barriers. The fact that some departments/people are innovating and others who want to can’t can cause some serious friction within a library and it is something we need to be mindful of. Anyone who wants to try to innovate should be given the opportunity.

I have 5 Trends I’d like to throw out there. I was able to cover three of them (#s 1-3) in the live presentation, but apparently the echo in the room made parts of what I said difficult to hear. So, here’s what I said verbatim, near as I can remember (plus the bonuses of #s 4 and 5). Let’s hit it.

#1: Bandwidth
Every library complains about bandwidth. Many people have faster access at home than at the library, which is a reversal of what we used to see when people came into the library to use our connections. The problem is multimedia, which is wonderful, but it is huge. And when you put 40 people downloading audio and video files, playing live online games with people in Singapore, and streaming radio stations , you get bandwidth clogged-up-ed-ness. And if you’re not set up so your staff network is separated from your public network (which you should be), your staff find that their work is slowed down to a snail’s pace too. There are a number of solutions out there like paying to up your subscription with your ISP to the next level or switching from copper to fiber. But this faces all organizations, not just libraries, so until a global solution is found, I think that we will see more of libraries’ IT budgets going to bandwidth every year…which means other projects may be put off.

#2: Sustainability
We talk a lot about the new and the beautiful. But answer me this: how many abandoned and dead library blogs are on the web? How many no-longer-updated library MySpace profiles are there? Few libraries thought about how much it would take to sustain these presences. Taking a holistic view of how much staff time it takes to maintain the library’s existing web presence, and allowing for additional time for new projects, is something that all libraries should begin. The smart ones do it now, but as our web presence grows and takes up more of our overall resources, we need to pay the same kind of attention to staffing it as we do for a physical library.

#3: Looking away from the bright shiny things and at ourselves instead
Tell me which of the following sounds familiar to you:

• “We wanted to do it, but our administration didn’t see the value in the technology and didn’t want to devote staff time or funds to it.” -OR-
• “We had to go through 6 committees and rewrite 4 library policies to get approval to start a blog, so it took a year to get it going.” -OR-
• “Our web and IT staff have a project back-log of more than a year so any new ideas have to wait.”

Libraries, as organizations, are not nimble. We desperately need to look at how we make decision and how we encourage innovation in our libraries. Nearly all of the libraries I have visited or worked in do not encourage innovation.

In fact, innovation is discouraged through the structure and practices of our organizations. A huge barrier is the generations-old librarian “fear of failure” that is so great that no one is allowed to try anything unless is has been planned to death and has already been implemented in 80% or more of other libraries. Staff are also hesitant to innovate because of the multi-level bureaucracy that libraries seem to love. These bureaucracies are seemingly insurmountable to us regular ol’ staff because of three things:

1. the natural frustration we all have with complex bureaucracies that make us want to cry
2. the reality that “the little guy,” which many of our new librarian staff are, probably isn’t on the committee that makes the big decisions
3. and third, people don’t have the extra time in their workdays for the hours required to organize a project to make its way through the bureaucracy. The staff are already over-burdened by their other duties and few people want to work an extra 5 hours every week just so they can be the ones trying new things in their workplaces.