Top Technology Trends

Virtual Karen's Top Tech Trends

Sarah Houghton-Jan (see her summary and trends) and I participated in Top Tech Trends virtually this past Sunday. It was a blast. I had a little easier time hearing than Sarah, although hearing myself speak was slightly disconcerting. I really enjoyed talking with people in the back channel Meebo chat room. Though some people pointed out that that was distracting from the panelist present in person. 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…

2008

LITA Public Libraries Technology Interest Group Meeting

The PLTIG business meeting focused on further developing our program idea for Annual 2009. The program looks at how various libraries and consortia have used technology to bring their summer reading programs “online”–from patron front-ends to backends for creating statistical and tracking reports. (How many repeat customers did your summer reading program have this year?) Discussion focused on speaker selection, developing guidelines for speakers, preparing a resource list for attendees, and publicity options. The group also discussed plans for Midwinter. Instead of hosting a managed discussion as we have done in the past, we decided simply to hold a business meeting. We’ll work further on the 2009 program at Midwinter as well as begin the process of planning for Annual 2010. As part of the Midwinter discussion, we also touched on the perennial topic of “what’s the purpose of this IG?” We concluded that our purpose was to provide programming…

2008

Live Streaming from ALA Annual 2008

This is not an organized LITA endeavor, but as a proof-of-concept for BIGWIG, I am going to be streaming as much as I can from ALA Annual 2008. The service I’m using for this is called Ustream, and the live channel can be found here: http://www.ustream.tv/griffey Because of the vagaries of internet access at the various convention hotels, it remains to be seen exactly what I will be able to do…but I’m going to give it a try! Even if you miss the live stream, all of the videos will be at the above URL to peruse at your leisure. If you are interested in trying to catch me live, I’ll be announcing it over on Twitter.

2008

Electronic Resources Management IG Meeting in Anaheim

Please join us at the Electronic Resources Management Interest Group (ALCTS/LITA) meeting otherwise known as the “Friday Night Meeting”. When: Friday, June 27th 6:30-8:00pm Where: Anaheim Convention Center Room 203 A Agenda: 1. IG Business (5 Minutes) 2. SUSHI- Standardized Usage Statistics Harvesting Initiative (SUSHI) Open Forum – Adam Chandler and friends. Adam will be presenting the results of a SUSHI survey he is conducting of COUNTER members and then using that as a lead-off for a discussion about what the challenges and opportunities related to SUSHI implementation are. (30 minutes) http://www.niso.org/workrooms/sushi 3. CORE-Cost of Resources Exchange update – Ted Koppel and/or Jeff Aipperspach (15-20 minutes) http://www.niso.org/workrooms/core 4. KBART-Knowledge Base and Related Tools Working Group – Nettie Lagace (15-20 minutes) http://www.niso.org/workrooms/kbart 5. Update report on the ONIX family (Licensing Terms, Books and Serials) – Brian Green (5-10 minutes) http://www.editeur.org/onix_licensing.html 6. NISO Update – Todd Carpenter (10-15 minutes) http://www.niso.org We look…

2008

Top Tech Trends for ALA (Summer '08)

Here is a non-exhaustive list of Top Technology Trends for the American Library Association Annual Meeting (Summer, 2008). These Trends represent general directions regarding computing in libraries — short-term future directions where, from my perspective, things are or could be going. They are listed in no priority order. “Bling” in your website – I hate to admit it, but it seems increasingly necessary to make sure your institution’s website be aesthetically appealing. This might seem obvious to you, but considering the fact we all think “content is king” we might have to reconsider. Whether we like it or not, people do judge a book by its cover, and people do judge other’s on their appearance. Websites aren’t very much different. While librarians are great at organizing information bibliographically, we stink when it comes to organizing things visually. Think graphic design. Break down and hire a graphic designer, and temper their…

2008

NGCIG Meeting at Annual: Next Steps in Next Generation Catalogs

The LITA Next Generation Catalog Interest Group will meet on Monday, June 30, 10:30 a.m. – Noon. Anaheim Convention Center, 213 C We will have presentations and discussion about two examples of recent next generation catalog endeavors. Karen Schneider (Evangelist for Equinox’s Evergreen support) will share what she does as an Evangelist by giving some real world, grounded information on how “Running a Free and Open Source Software ILS does Not Equate to a Tightrope Act with No Net”. Sara Davidson and Amy Kautzman (Members of UC/OCLC Pilot Implementation Team) will present “Launching a Next-Generation Consortial Catalog”. 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…

Standards Watch

New Standard: WARC (Web ARCive) file format

LITA has received news of new standards activity of interest from Cindy Hepfer, ALA Representative to NISO (HSLcindy@buffalo.edu) “A new ballot has been presented to TC46 Ballot Advisory Group: ‘ISO/DIS 28500, WARC file format’. This is a new standard at the Draft International Standard (DIS) stage, and this may be the last chance to provide substantive comments to this standard. If all member bodies vote Yes, this standard can proceed directly to publication.” NISO’s Summary: The WARC (Web ARChive) file format offers a convention for concatenating multiple resource records (data objects), each consisting of a set of simple text headers and an arbitrary data block into one long file. The WARC format is an extension of the ARC File Format [ARC] that has traditionally been used to store “web crawls” as sequences of content blocks harvested from the World Wide Web. The WARC format is expected to be a standard…

Standards Watch

ISBN Systematic Review Is Here!

Those interested in identifier issues should take note of this updated info from Cindy Hepfer, ALA Representative to NISO (HSLcindy@buffalo.edu). “A new ballot has been presented to TC46 Ballot Advisory Group: ‘ISO 2108:2005 (ISBN) Systematic Review’. This is a systematic review ballot of the published standard, ISO 2108:2005, Information and documentation — International Standard Book Number (ISBN). ISO now requires the first systematic review of a standard to take place three years after publication; subsequent reviews will be every five years. This is an opportunity for ALA members 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 reviewers respond to her at least one week in advance of this final deadline (Aug. 22…

General information

Survey from the Task Force on Electronic Membership Participation (TFOEMP)

The ALA Task Force on Electronic Membership Participation (TFOEMP) has been charged with evaluating ALA policy as it relates to members’ ability to engage with and interact with the work of the association through committees and other working groups. A survey of members’ practice and attitudes toward serving on Association committees, task forces, and interests groups at a distance is being undertaken. Through this survey, the TFOEMP hopes to gauge member familiarity, interest, and comfort with various means of participating both synchronously and asynchronously. Please visit this link to respond to the survey. You will be asked to provide your ALA Membership ID. The survey will take 10 minutes and offers both structured and open responses. Member ID numbers will be collected in order to correlate responses in the aggregate to membership participation in divisions, round tables, and committees, as well as by geographic regions and type of library or…