Original Content

Tech Yourself Before You Wreck Yourself – Vol. 4

What a year it’s been, TYBYWYers! Last month, I talked about gratitude. This month, I’m focusing on the future. Let’s put a pretty bow on 2014 and take a peek at all the shiny opportunities 2015 has to offer. I promise I won’t tell your mom you looked at your presents. If this is your first time stumbling upon this monthly feature of the LITA Blog, Tech Yourself Before You Wreck Yourself is a curated assortment of online education opportunities for aspiring library technologists at all levels of experience. I focus on webinars, MOOCs, and other free/low cost options for learning, growing, and increasing tech proficiency. I’m glad you’re here! Monthly MOOCs This coming year, you may have made a few tech education resolutions, and I’m going to help you keep them! If you want to learn to code, the University of Michigan’s Programming for Everybody is a great place…

2011

The World (and Jason Griffey) Interviews Vernor Vinge

Jason Griffey kicked off the session by introducing Dr. Vernor Vinge and talking about his many accolades as a science fiction writer and futurist. Dr. Vinge then talked about how humans are the best tool-creating animal and the only animal that has figured out how to outsource their cognition — how to spread their cognitive abilities into the outside world.  As an example, he talked about how  writing and speaking are an outsourcing of our thinking and money represents an outsourcing of our perceived value for things. As humans continue to outsource cognition more effectively by harnessing powerful machines and complex networks, we move closer to a point of technological singularity.  At this point, where a superhuman intelligence can be achieved by machines or some combination of humans and machines, it will become too difficult for humans to fully grasp the present or to predict the future.  As an example, he talked about how someone might be able to explain the…

General information

Isn't it great to be in the library… wherever that is?

President’s Program: Isn’t it great to be in the library… wherever that is? Sunday June 29th, 2008, 4:00pm – 5:30pm (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…

General information

LITA Top Technology Trends

This is going to have to be more of an experiential post than a factual one, I’m afraid… I attended the Top Tech Trends session and it held my attention throughout the whole thing – everything did. From the larger than life images of Karen Coombs and Sarah Houghton-Jan on one screen that flanked the live panel to the scrolling meebo chat room on the other screen, there was a lot to pay attention to! Karen and Sarah have already written up their trends on this very blog, so I see no point in duplicating their efforts – they can say it much better than I can anyway!

General information

The Open Library: Realizing the Promise and Mitigating the Peril

Cindy Gibbon, Access Services Coordinator of Multnomah County Library (MCL), Oregon, opened the discussion about privacy and intellectual freedom in a web 2.0 world by sharing the results of a study of MCL’s users. Some things MCL users said they want: 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’…

2008

Open Source Open Services – Emerging Technology Interest Group

Joe Ford convened the Emerging Technology Interest group managed discussion on “Open Source, Open Services” 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…

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

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…

2007

Next Generation Libraries: The 2.0 Phenomenon

Next Generation Libraries: The 2.0 Phenomenon Stephen Abram Joe James Stephen’s Lighthouse blog for slides Change is coming and everyone will be effected. FaceBook – get your name and face out there. Let them know your name. Stand behind your word. Get libraries to evolve by de-cloaking. Show who they are and what their specialties are. MySpace merging with Yahoo. Thompson just bought Reuters. Google Scholar serves your students up to advertisers. Advertisers pay to be on first page. Libraries are more complicated than Fed Ex. They only deliver one way. We deliver it out and get it back. IM and Meebo allow you to have a conversation. IM research increase risk students learning because they are familiar with this technology.

2007

Some Thumbs Up

ALA RUSA MARS–Hot Topics Libraries2Go: Library Services for Handhelds Sat., 6/23 10:30 am-12:00 pm J W Marriott Salon IV Moderator, Mark Dehmlow of Notre Dame University joined via Skype. Home (Indiana?) awaiting birth of child. GRE word for the day is ubiquity. 95% of students have cell phones. Libraries need to portal their services to where the users are (except when driving :D). Services for handhelds are user-centered. First panelist, Bradley Faust from Ball State University. http://www.bsu.edu/libraries/lits/mobileproject/project_summary.html The Mobile Computing Project at Ball State began in 2004 with LSTA/IMLS grant. Better, faster higher capacity networks & handheld devices, now integrating with course management systems. Users want: Audio, ebooks, podcasts Mobile search Quick facts Directional tours of facilities, services Video tutorials, instructional videos Texting Regular web sites are unfriendly to small screens. Need short pages, easy to navigate, minimal images, anywhere access. BSU developed a new gateway to their catalog using…