2008

Drupal4Lib BoF at ALA Anaheim

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…

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 Technology Trends from Sarah Houghton-Jan, ALA 2008

I had a lovely time presenting virtually, despite the sound issues on all ends. It still was a rather successful demonstration of virtual participation, and I think that was wonderful. Big thanks to Maurice York for organizing this for myself and Karen. 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…

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…

2008

Official Call for LITA Bloggers at ALA Annual

The ALA Annual Conference is just a few short weeks away, and we are again looking for volunteers to post brief summaries of LITA-sponsored sessions on the LITA Blog (http://litablog.org).  While you’re visiting Anaheim to learn, meet up with old friends, and engage in discussion about the newest new things in library technology, why not take this opportunity to share this experience with others? A current Blog Schedule can be found at http://litablog.org/blog-schedule-ala-annual-2008.  We would like to cover as many of the sessions as possible, so please feel free to pick one (or ten) and join the LITA Blogging Community. If you are interested, just contact me at tiffany dot lmb dot smith at gmail dot com with your name, e-mail and the sessions you would like to cover.  I’ll be happy to answer any questions you might have. Thanks very much in advance!

BIGWIG

Your BIGWIG

The LITA Blogs, Interactive Groupware and Wikis Interest Group (otherwise known by the sobriquet BIGWIG) is pleased to announce a new online presence for the group: www.yourbigwig.com What is YourBIGWIG? Straight from the site itself: BIGWIG has created this website in order to facilitate communication between BIGWIG members, potential members and interested parties. We hope to use this site to enable BIGWIG to be more efficient and effective in the work we do, allow for virtual participation, and solicit feedback and commentary on our activities. So: head on over and check us out. Sign up for an account, and make yourself part of the process of making LITA a more efficient, effective, and forward-thinking division of ALA.