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…
Month: June 2008
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…
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…
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…
BIGWIG Business Meeting – Monday morning
Just reminding any who are interested in getting involved in BIGWIG that we are having our business meeting on Monday morning from 8 – 10 in the LITA Blogger’s Room. This is located in Hilton Hotel in the Carmel room. Just go up 2 escalators from the lobby and take a left down a narrow hallway. We are about half-way down. Hope to see you there!
LITA Blogger's Room
Just so that everyone is aware: the LITA Blogger’s room, open to anyone who needs a quick ‘net connection, can be found at: Hilton convention center, Carmel Room. The Carmel room is up 2 escalators from the lobby. See you there!
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.
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…
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…
Google Map for ALA Anaheim
Cindi Trainor, in a fit of Twitter-induced brilliance, started putting together a Google Map for ALA Annual 2008 in Anaheim. Included thus far are hotels and restaurants, but people are still adding to it, so it’s value should increase as we get closer and closer to the conference. Take a look! View Larger Map