Connecting Librarian

Joann Ransom - Horowhenua Library Trust
“Kete Horowhenua: the story of the District as told by its people”

Kete - telling our stories together.
Their community comes in to help catalogue images in their digital collection, using their own specialist knowledge, enriching the content.

Kete is the maori word for a basket - anyone can weave one, making a useful object from raw materials.

Kete Horowhenua is a digital library of images, audio and video files and documents and even websites which are collected and catalogued by the community.
Uses a web server, internet access, start using it - either as an administrator or user.  Multiple formats are brought together are brought together under topics.
Multiple access points including feature topics, keyword search, random image slideshow, new additions, browse or content by item type.  Search results are returned with latest item first.

Topics are built using a template to help build the data - creating web pages.  Advertised in the local paper for volunteers and were overwhelmed by the response.  People came in or worked from home on digitisation, transcribing and more.  Many worked from home, but regular working bees help create a social network which all the volunteers appreciate.

12,000 images, 1300 documents and other assorted audio, video, website etc, to a total of 14,000 items under 800 topics.

Success: community - local “ours”, contribution - people like to help, valuable - real work being done, non-threatening - teaching IT virgins, pride - “you girls”, personal - can save “my stuff”, easy to find stuff about people and places, addictive.

NZ Strategy - building digital foundations, unlocking content: Kete meets these.  It is a virtual community as well as a collective memory.

Kete code is Open Source - GNU (GPL). Content is under a Creative Commons licence. Won a 3M Award for Innovation in Libraries. WSA Special Mention for excellent e-content.

Other Kete - Taranaki o Te Reo Chartiable Trust, Chinese Association of NZ - Auckland Branch and Auckland City Libraries, Kete project, Orange County (US), Mental Health Commission (NZ), Atearoa People’s Network (NZ).

How to get a Kete - contract it out, DIY or DIY with help.  Developers - Katipo Communications (www.katipo.com.nz)
Source code - download Kete Version 1.0 (www.kete.nz)
DIY then consult Katipo

Koha and Kete both use Z39.50.

Debb Stumm and Christine Sayer - State Library of Queensland
“Queensland stories: community, collections and digital technology at the SLQ (2006 VALA award)

www.qldstories.slq.qld.gov.au

3 strategic priorities in their “Enriching the lives of Queenslanders” strategy - key one here is Queensland Memory - today for tomorrow.
Developing a digital history and storytelling collection.  Review resulted in the directions of single program incorporating oral history and digital storytelling, multimedia focus, online directory, digial presevervation and formatting, user generated content.

Digital storytelling - individual films which can be streamed onto the web, telling a story.  Berkeley Center is the key organisation in this form with many projects around the world.  Memory Grid at ACMI is a local example.

Major components - website - including info on how to contribute content, standards and access, mobile multimedia laboratory, digital story creation.

Digital standards: Metadata - MODS
Digital capture and format: Video - AVI, RealVideo, Window Media Video. Stills - Tiff, jpeg. Audio - Broadcast wave, mp3, real audio, windows media.

Launched in 2004 - challenges arisen.
Copyright and intellectual property - storytellers are advised to use images and sound that they own, can get permission for or is copyright free.  Looking at creative commons licensing.
Cultural and privacy protocols - especially of concern with A&TSI, multicultural and children. Release forms are used.
Resources and distance - limited to how far they can deliver training, bypassed this issue by training the trainer in digital storytelling, who ontrain members of their community in regional centres.

Training is on how to create the story - using the computer, developing a script, etc.  Digital stories is a first person story, not formal interview.

Anne Beaumont, Kelly Gardiner and Stuart Flanagan - State Library of Victoria
“Conversations or evidence - an analysis of responses from members of the public to an invitation to submit their comments about State Library of Victoria images available over the Web”

SLV images are embedded in a HTML page.  Links to info about the image, more search options etc.  Included a link under each image seeking more info.  Linked to a web form which was populated with some info from the image already.  Sent via Lotus Notes to SLV staff.  Have had 4000 comments over a year.  Comments ranged but included corrections - although the comments were not published or added to the record, any alleged corrections were followed through and acted on if found to be valid.
Additional info was also offered on images, often providing a lot of background to the photographer or subject. Comments also came requesting more information - not uncommon  - these were dealt with by the reference staff, rather than the picture staff.  Many comments incorporated several of these types.  Small proportion of comments included non-useful info ie. cool.

Commenters from all over the world.  Majority from Australia, but far from exclusively so.  Most traffic comes from outside the SLV domain, mainly Google, Picture Australi and Yahoo as well as niche sites such as Vintage Caterpillar (old tractor site) etc. Get outside your own domain and people will find you.

Most popular images were ships, places and people. Comments are not yet public, but as they are not published, the conversation is one-sided.

Libraries are using Flickr, Photobucket and other sites are allowing images to get out and invite comments and tags. These sites don’t necessarily allow data back in, to be able to use tags or comments to enhance records or content.  Be interesting to see if there would be any difference in the comments between SLV hosted and Flickr type hosted content, where one is focussing on the heritage, the other is on the photos.

Issues: Management - what do we do with the data and who does the work
Publishing - do we moderate or trust users to be responsible
Interaction - allow one comment or a thread/discussion - interacting with each other as well as the library
Adding value - what data can we use to complement our online offering - can we link them to passenger lists, shipping info, newspaper articles etc
Critical mass - there’s nothing lonelier that an empty comments trail

Findings: People like the chance to respond and interact with our collections
Can provide corrections - benefit to the library,not just the users
If published, comments can provide useful info for other researchers but not part of catalogue record
Have policies in place and a spam filter

Next: Looking at different wasy to publish comments and allowing other user interaction (rating) as part of website redevelopment
Developed new gadgets and distribution techniques to provide interaction
Unexpected response from suers emboldens us to provide more opportunities and better functionality.

Issues of privacy means that the comments have not been able to be published - could be very discouraging for commenters with their contributions just disappearing.
Didn’t seek permission to publish comments so didn’t feel they could.  Only responded to comments where there was a reference question involved. Corrections that were acted upon were not answered back to the original commenter.  What is a trusted source of information and how do you ensure it remains trusted?

Lynette Lewis - Yarra Plenty Regional Library
‘Library 2.0: taking it to the street

It’s about using Web 2.0 applications in your community.
Web 2.0 is not going away, regardless of how we feel about it.
Used Tim O”Reilly’s quote on Web 2.0: it’s participatory, doing.
Used Michael Casey’s quote from the LJ article and his book.

Its about encouraging participation, cultivating communities, collaboration, being in their space, shifting the focus, letting go (Helene Blowers: SLV presentation 2007)
The hardest thing is letting go, letting other people contribute.

Challenge for staff: constantly changing environment
new technologies are readily available to us
staff need to keep up with technology

YRPL - blogs, Library Thing, playaways, wikis, mp3s podcasting, google tools, webpage, federated searching all being introduced
Changing the way we do things in the physical library - changes to reference service deliver (tablet, phone using wireless), RFID.
Learning 2.0 introduced to help staff achieve this.  Gives staff a taste of what Web 2.0 is about (too many applications available to cover them all, more coming out all the time).  Staff resulted in confidence, self motivation, new skills, new technology, pride and enthusiasm to continue.

Learning 2.0 continued into Library Worker 2.0 which has now continued with an Unconference, networking, community spaces and more.  Library Worker 2.0  is abougt finding info - online ref, databases, rss feeds, enabling learning - how to teach small groups, creating content - wikis, celebrating culture, leading the organisation. Running for 2nd year with new content.

Blogs - CEO - new things in the library, genealogy, local history, summer reading club kids,
Wikis - YP books enouraging reading and literacy- author podcasts are added, booklists, participatory; staff training wiki - internal only, can share resources and notes, voluntary but with manager approval
Library Thing for Libraries
Web 2.0 classes
Unconference
Flickr, Facebook, You Tube profiles given a global presence - not about being cool

Networking and Partnerships:
SLV - Victorian Public Libraries Learning 2.0 - to every public library in Victoria, 45 library services, 1000 participants
WikiNorthia - Darebin, Moreland wiki to showcase life in the northern suburbs - history, clubs, events etc

Media coverage - ALJ, Wired, Incite, Sirsi Dynix webinar, conferences etc

Road Ahead - library is everywhere, has no barriers, invites participation, uses flexible best of breed systems
(Do Libraries Matter the rise of Library 2.0 - Chad and Miller 2005)

Libraries will be left behind if we don’t keep up with technology, if we don’t change as our communities change.
Kathryn Greenhill - Murdoch University
“Do we remove all the walls? Second Life Librarianship”

MUVE- multi user virtual environment.  Its real time, client server based, multiple user, each user’s own point of view, 3D rendering, graphics sound and networking which creates an immersive environment.
Webkinz under 12s.

Second Life is overhyped. Gartner - 80% of active internet users will have a second life in the virtual world by 2011.  Also highlighted by the Educause Horizon Report 2008.

Growth is levelling off.  1.4% of user of Second Life are Australian.  Not where our users are,not Library 2.0.

After 3 months of joining up - 90% don’t come back - not usually high for online games.

It is free, full of librarians, has critical mass and is available right now.  It is worth investigating and can only be learnt by doing.

Avatars can talk - via IM one on one or general broadcast, now audio is available, can be modified, can move - run, walk, fly, teleport, dance
Objects - can build them, upload them, buy sell and trade them, animate and script them
Environment - streamed media, join groups and networks, events

Libraries in Second Life - reference, outreach programs (discussions), collections, classes and seminars

Slideshare has Kathryn’s slides - sirexkat

Australian Libraries Building - first social, met people, VLINT, second did things with objects

Advantages for librarians in Second Life: learn new interface, understand users who game, break down professional isolation, increase coding skills, fun creative expression, join collaborative learning community, network about real life library topics, find expert professional support, nimble thinking and adaptable

After 18 months - what have they learned from MUVE
- its a social network
- if you build something you still have to be there

What works - events, reference desk, casual get togethers, outdoor settings, friending, collaboration around subject matter not geography, dance meetings, volunteers working on their own interests.

What doesn’t work - static collections with no people, closed off buildings, clickable object without a how to, solo exploration, buildings without identity

Challenge - create “willing suspension of disbelief”
- immersion vs the possiblities of the interface

I was planning to live blog the sessions at VALA 2008.  Unfortunately, the wireless at the Melbourne Convention Centre is patchy at best and non-existent in the auditoriums. So it was note taking on the computer and now cut and paste into my blog at 11pm at night.

Still, its been a great first day - so here goes with the delayed live blogging!

Andy Powell - Eduserv Foundation - UK
“Repositories through the looking glass”

Repositories are very firmly on the agenda of libraries in the 21st century.  Repositories are a microcosm of the library space.

Repositories need to be considered in terms of Web 2.0 and open access, both which will and are happening.

Issue 1: Have we go our terminology right?
Need to be surfacing the content on the web.  What is the difference between a content management system and a repository - its a fine line.

Focus on content management would change the emphasis - talking about tagging, information architecture, search engine optimization etc.

Issue 2: Service oriented vs resource oriented
Web is resource oriented - digital libraries are service oriented.

Issue 3: National vs global
Focus has been on institutional repositories.  Web 2.0 is global - impact? prosumer, remote apps, social, API, diffusion and concentration (Lorcan Dempsey)
arXiv.org the first repository - started before the Web but has a lot of Web 2.0 features, is global in scale. Depositories have moved away from this.

Thinking about the future:
1. What would a Web 2.0 repository look like
Look a bit like slideshare - deposit powerpoint/pdf presentations - embed, tag etc.
- high quality web based document viewer
- tagging
- persistent URLs
- form social groups
- embed in other web sites
- high visibility to Goolge
- offer RSS as a primary API
- Amazon S3 for accessibility

Would be a global resource.

But they don’t do preservation, handle complex workflows, expose rich metadata.  How do we meet the requirements of the web to make these repositories more accessible.

What do we do?
Use the Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Resources (FRBR)
Simple Dublin Core doesn’t give enough information.

Repositories can learn a lot from Web 2.0.  Simple Dublin Core(DC) is too simple and too complex. Richer DC application profiles such as SWAP may be the way forward. But need to ensure that their use does not over complicate user interfaces and workflows.

Open Access should be focussed on making content available on the web, rather than putting stuff into a repository.  Should be resource oriented, learning about and using REST, semantic web, web architecture.

Have a big week coming up - attending and giving a short showcase at VALA in Melbourne. So before I start blogging that (hopefully live), I thought give my readers some interesting things to read.

Pew/Internet regularly produces reports related to online use. One of the latest was conducted with the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at the University of Illinois on Information searches that solve problems: how people use the internet, libraries and government agencies when they need help.  Interesting results include high use of public libraries by Generation Y’ers for the scenarios surveyed, digital divide is still an issue and the expected result of the internet as a first stop.  Well worth a look at.

University College London has produced another in their series of Ciber briefing  papers, this one on the Information behaviour of the researcher of the future.   The study was commissioned by the British Library and JISC to “identify how the specialist researchers of the future, currently in their school or pre-school years, are likely to access and interact with digital resources in five to ten years’ time.”  Very eye opening with some interesting results.

The Horizon Report 2008 from the New Media Consortium is out.  It aims to “identify and describe emerging technologies likely to have a large impact on teaching, learning or creative expression within learning-focused organizations’.  This is their 5th annual report.  Considering the link between libraries of any type and our learning organisations, this is a key document to be watching.  The key emerging technologies highlighted in this report include grassroots video, collaboration webs, mobile broadband, data mashups, collective intelligence and social operating systems.   You can get the gist of the report through the Executive Summary.  Definitely food for thought for our libraries.

Enjoy!