Connecting Librarian

Tom Tague – Thomson Reuters – Next up? The linked content economy.

In 2008, Thomson Reuters made a decision to give away the Open Calais software. Its a new experience to give something away. There was a rush of ideas, some fascinating people dove in. Interesting 48 hours after article on Slash Dot – bought servers on the fly to stay online.  Resulted in a huge user base, 30,000 registered users and 5 million transactions daily. 90% of users pay nothing – no pornography or hate speech – paying customers for huge transactions.  Open Calais is semantic plumbing. Not really competing with anyone, so people talk to them about new and creative ways of using the product.

Patterns have emerged – naïve users just tag individual documents. Sophisticated users looked at collections of documents and how they could link. First sophisticated user and project was Powerhouse Museum. Resource deprived plus passion equals interesting things!

Looked at ways to take those learning activities, distilling them and sharing them outside their domain. Web 3.0 when we clean up the mess and organise the experience that was created by Web 2.0 (Tom’s definition).

There is value in semantically tagging content that has a short shelf life – eg. Tweets, blog posts, news articles.  However, when gathered together, aggregated into a subject area over a period of time, it has even more value.

Invest 10 minutes in next week – check the Linked Data standard on wikipedia. Use is growing faster than you can imagine.

Live demo site viewer. – http://www.opencalais.com

Some great work is being done – Powerhouse Museum is using it to automatically generate tags for items in its collection; Mediacloud, an open research tool making it easier for users to explore trends in media oreage, blog posts and more; Documentcloud, a unique online resource that will offer public access to reporters’ original source materials, and facilitates the discovery of hidden connections.

What about collection? Getting closer to the iPod moment, where the technology takes the back seat to using it and getting things out of it. Searching ‘big content’ will just work. Mega-scale interoperability is on the horizon.

Providing you and your users with the ability to creatively mine your collections and offer new content mash-ups to your users; the ability to integrate relevant social media and real-time web resources into your collection; intuitive, web 3.0 interfaces that take the burden off both you and your users.

You are part of the linked content revolution. We need your help, we need to enlist your knowledge experience and expertise, commitment to truth trust authority and access, keen understanding of users needs.

Build a tool, share it – link something to the public take the first step, don’t just think end users – think back office, build domain/technology partnerships.  Expose your stuff and see what your users can do with it.

Karen Calhoun – OCLC – The emergent library: new lands, new eyes

Proust – “The real act of discovery is not in finding new lands, but in seeing with new eyes.”

Talking about connections, content and conversations between institutions. Help each other so that in turn we can do the share the same with our end users.

Breakthroughs come about when conventional wisdom and established beliefs are set aside. eg. Copernicus. (earth is round – saw with new eyes)

World has moved on to cloud computing which has empowered connections and conversations in an entirely new way.

Newspapers and other mainstream media are being majorly disrupted by the availability of this content on the internet.

Disintermediation of libraries is running in parallel to media. 2005 OCLC study showed that students began their information searches at search engines as opposed to library websites/catalogues (89% vs 2%).

Brace for change, embrace change.  Darwin – “It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.”

We need plan B, need to adapt to the new conditions facing us. Issues are too big to be solved by libraries working alone. Cooperation on a scale not previously realised, will be required – eg. OCLC, Libraries Australia, NASL.

If we were starting over, what would we be doing?

Embed collections in the web – collections are becoming more universally available and less institutionally focused. Do we know any more what the collection is? (Ross Atkinson – Janus) Karen Calhoun 2006 report to Library of Congress, recommended leadership, expansion, extension. Putting collections out where their users are.  Long term vision: local catalogue linked to a chain of services, infrastructure to support multi level global access, aggregation of content, many starting points and integrate collections and learning spaces. Check out the Discoverability report from University of Minnesota Libraries in 2009. National Library NZ has synchronised and syndicated their images through Flickr Commons, their catalogue, World Cat and other partners. Pushing metadata out, pulling users in.

Cooperating to enable discovery and delivery – of more than just traditional content provided by libraries. Now includes digitised rare content, primary source materials, images, communications, research data, learning objects and more. Problem – these can’t be collected in the traditional sense. Digital collections have been shown to attract a new, interested group of users. Studies show that digital collections are attracting more traffic.  Library of Congress has nearly 3 times more visits to their American Memory site in contrast to their catalogue and legislative information. Open repositories are also gaining in visibility and impact.

Cooperating to understand and engage with local communities – we do not have to choose between local, group and global communities. We are still place, but not restricted to our geographic location. Books continue as the mainstay in US public libraries (study 2004 to 2008), but they are spending a lot more on media and about the same on magazines and electronic resources.  Check out the re-imagining libraries project from NASL. Is there a ways for libraries to collaborate – make their spaces more useful for their users? eg. Information commons, collaboration spaces. ARL Statistics showing that both circulation stats and number of reference enquiries are on a downward slide. There is a marked drop in use of printed materials in libraries.

Cooperating to realise a culture of continuous improvement – can’t do your best, have to know what to do and then do your best. You may be doing great work, but is it the right work. (W. Edward Dennings quote).

Cooperative systems at the crossroads – need to find new levels of library cooperation.

What if?
Libraries could more readily share the effort and costs of collection management – collection analysis, new collection development off-site storage, preservation, e-resources, networked knowledge bases?
What if we could manage collections in the cloud?
What if we could cooperate to move from isolated digital collections to interoperable digital libraries? Eg, OCLC Digital Collections Gateway- a web based self-service tool.
What if we could collectively take better advantage of meta-data already produced and meta-data we could get from other places? Check out World Cat Identities and VIAF.

Linda Burridge and I were the first presenters in this session. Our presentation – From Mess to CMS: the transformation of a library website, which is available on SlideShare.

Rachel Chidlow -Aging gracefully?: Reviewing and enhancing Information Commons services at the University of Auckland

Started with an introductory video about their Information Commons.

Technological changes and staffing model changes made, based on student feedback. They user focus groups, suggestions, etc. Get a lot of feedback from their Information Commons blog – seeks input on software updates, arrangements and more.

What has been changed? Software – more and more varied. Students are very forward in their requests, but library also seeks feedback from faculty. Try to offer the same software as the general software offered in departmental computer labs.

Access to recreational resources online is available but had been charged or offered at a lower speed. New model introduced a flat rate model and data limits with high rates for exceeding limits, which student’s readily accepted. Educational access is still free.

Upgraded university email service and introduced access to Google Docs and Gmail.  Implemented UserLock & PC Booking System, to help with the issue of multiple bookings, while still allowing access to Web 2.0 including social networks. Yet to implement a booking system – looking at MyPC and Pharos Sign-up. Trial of software changed studen’ts minds about it – they complained when it was removed. Software was helpful in giving trend and use information, which help them to determine future booking and use limitations.

13 FTE and 17 casual staff in the 3 Information Commons locations. Permanent staff have portfolio responsibilities, casual student assistants work on housekeeping roles and elsewhere as required.

Finished with a short video showing how busy it gets.

Mal Booth, Sophie McDonald and Belinda Tiffen – UTS – A new vision for universitylibraries towards 2015.

Technical issues – video, then animation, then Common Craft idea based video, showing what their 3 visions for the future of UTS which is getting a new library by 2015.

Firstv Video available on YouTube – UTS Library.  Lots of open spaces, natural light, funky furniture, impressive buildings, technology, collaboration space.
2nd video produced by students,outlining their vision of the future of the library.

Key points: social hub, everywhere all the time, mulitmedia, personalised services, collaboration, both happening in physical and virtual realms.  Mobile catalogue, exploring QR codes. ¾ of collection moving to storage – will change what they are and what they do.

Students content creators – need to provide multimedia content and facilities – encouraging it with competitions and YouTube channel. Encouraging playfulness and more open dialogue with library users – personal relationships.

3rd video – video blog entry from researcher in 2015. Talked about personal information consultants, worldwide collaboration, open access publishing, cloud computing, digital media. (quote at end , if you can type, you can make movies)

Researching in 2015 key points – collaboration, personal service, open acsess, support across research life cycle.

4th video with apologies to Common Craft – working in 2015.
Working culture key points: trusting open culture, flexibile visible and mobile, personal and connected, green aware and sustainable, creative and constantly evolving.

All their videos are available on YouTube – they have a UTS Channel.

David Wells – Curtin University – E-Book usage at Curtin University Library: patterns, projects and strategy

Need to find the correct materials for immediate use and for building a long-term research collection.

Started ebook collection in 2002 (1) in 2004 added records for free Gutenberg titles. Not until 2008 and 2009, where they bought over 6,000 titles.

Acquisition models – publisher packages, subscription services, individual titles, others – including individually sourced pdfs and scanned books. DRM and subscription models also vary dramatically.

Collection Development – try to purchase high-use, reserve and reference titles for course content – initial high use followed by decline. Have also tried user initiated purchases. With the rise of AUD, purchasing collection sets for research and teaching, with demand increasing over time.

For study, selected three ebook targets, Knovel (subscription service), CRCnetBase (publisher package), EBL (individual titles). Numbers were taken in 6 monthly blocks. Usage figures came from vendors of Ezproxy.

CRCnetBase showed consistently highest use in semester immediately after purchase. Knovel collection – use declined from 2007 – unexpected result. Reasons? No competition early on, only selected titles retain long term interest to users?  EBL both mediated and un-mediated auto purchase . Mediated was used to check that requests met collection development policy – only mediated one year, reverted to unmediated. EBL used regularly for high-demand material, but records for non-owned material not put in catalogue. Usage increased dramatically over time. Would expect that use would drop off over time as they were purchased for high demand, at time needs.

Auto purchased ebooks use dropped off dramatically from 2008. Expected this would happen. Same with mediated purchases. Staff purchased titles for high demand were not used highly in semester they were bought, then growth and drop off, before a large growth in 2009. Could be attributable to increasing ebook reader devices and faculty referring students to the resources.

Comparison of ebook acquisition methods – increasing usage in 2009 of all types – particularly staff chosen titles. Could be increasing demand or better marketing.

Pattern of usage is unpredictable? Ebooks are being used – are we reaching the tipping point. Analysis could support collection development. More detailed analysis is required.

Role of Bibliometrics in scholarly communication – Lynne Horwood and Sabina Robertson – University of Melbourne

Context: government policies are setting the research scene, rankings of universities on an international level and more.

SCOPUS was used to submit citation data for research outputs, for the 2009 Trial Submissions. Excellence in Research Australia (ERA) in 2010, submissions being mid year with SCOPUS continuing to be the citation supplier.

ERA is giving librarians the initiative to engage with academic staff and undertake professional development. Librarians need to keep uptodate with the importance and changes to bibliometrics.

Librarians can not only help with research support, but with assistance with finding training opportunities, the best journal to publish in and more.

ERA provided impetus for University of Melbourne to train their Liaison Librarians on bibliometrics, products which collect the data, differences between the disciplines and more. Position descriptions there now include support for grant applications by researchers. They also have provided workshops for supervisors and graduate students.

Value and future of e-resources – Carol Tenopir – University of Tennessee

Value of libraries can be measured in many ways: implicit – downloads, explicit value – interviews, derived values – ROI.

Examples: surveys by Tenopir and King 77-06, ROI in grants Phase 1 University of Illinois 2008, LibValue on value and ROI for grants/research, teaching, student engagement – 2010

Principal purpose of reading: faculty 2004-06. Reflect  on last thing read:51% for research, 20% for teaching, 9% current awareness, 11% proposals, 9% other. No one just reads for one purpose, lots of  reasons for reading. Older articles are judged more valuable and morelikely for research and to come from libraries.  1st year, 47%, 2-5 years 67% and over 5 years 71% came from libraries.

Print or Electronic for scholarly articles. Australian researchers are less likely to have personal subscriptions for print periodicals – slow boat issue – more electronic reading, more reliance on libraries. Younger academics however are less likely to print out electronic – will read on screen.

Outcomes of reading: inspired new thinking, improved results, changed focus, resolved technical problems, saved time, collaboration, faster completion, wasted my time (< 2%) – higher on first few outcomes when content comes from the library.

ROI – quantitative measurement expressed as a ratio of the value returned to the institution for each monetary unit invested in the library. For every $ spent on the library, the university received X in return.

ROI Phases 1 and 2 – Faculty Grant Research Cycle – libraries assist with conducting resarch writing articles, writing report and seminars, but how do libraries get credit for part of the grant monies, the ROI. Found $1 on library was equal to $4 of research grant funds. Phase 2 nearly completed, taking same methodology in 8 institutions in 8 countries. Published soon, Cluster of research focused institutions in science, technology and medicine – ratio between 13 and 15 to 1. 2nd cluster – research and teaching, lots of science, technology and medicine, also have humanities and social science, ration between 1.3 and 3 to 1. 3rd cluster – research and teaching are equally important, all topics, ratio is under 1 to 1 – less grant importance, more on government funding.

Administration values: measuring up – attract and retain outstanding faculty, foster innovative research, build research reputation of institution, promote seamless integration of the library with institutional research activities.

Phase 3 is called LibValue – look for calculations coming out in future.

Final thoughts on measuring value: tied to mission, measure outcomes not just inputs, quantitative data can show ROI and trends, also need qualitative to tell the whole story, no one method stands alone.

Here are my notes from the L-Plate series at VALA 2010 conference.  I am just cutting and pasting from what I took at the time, so I apologise for spelling and grammar, no time to do anything else at this stage.

Hope you get something out of it. I got plenty.

Open Source Software – Kathryn Greenhill
Imperfect analogy – spaghetti sauce – buy it in jar or make it yourself.
Flexibility and control.  Open Source requires particular skills, still has a price, but involves community effort and altruism.

Proprietary software: license, user restricted, no source code
Open Source: free redistribution, source code accessible, derived works, integrity of code, no discrimination, not specific to purpse, device, works with other software

There are checks and balances before any new code goes into the code base.

Key ideas of Open Source – release early – release often, many eyes make bugs shallow, peer review, developer-user relationship.

Koha – open source library management system.
Check http://www.ohloh.net for cot comparisons between proprietary and open source over time.

We already use open source software – linux, apache, mysql, php, firefox.
Who else uses os? Denmark using Open Office by 2011, Trove at NLA, White House uses Drupal, for their website, North  East Kansas Libraries for their LMS.

Examples of open source software: Open Office, Word Press, Drupal, Mediawiki, Gimp, Dimdim, Zimbra, Pidgin, Audacity, VLC media player.

Open source LMS – Evergreen, Koha, OLE project

Discovery layers – Scriblio, Sopac2 and more

Digital resources management – Kete, Omeka

Whats stopping us from using Open Source?  Skills. We need to know about relational databases, SML,  indexing and programming
Cost – of change
Perceived accountability
Centralised IT
Maturity of the products
Consortial impacts
Monopolies – marketing
What users have at home
Cloud computing and Software as a Service (Saas)
Closed hardware

What we can gain by using open source software?
Skills, flexibility, control, nimbleness, accountability, budgetary control.

However, software needs to fit the purpose and the organisation.

Library Mashups and APIs – Paul Hagon
RSS is a common API (application programming interface)
Can be used to interact with other services – application on iphone for eg.
API is used to put javascript showing marker on a Google map.
Don’t have to do the hard work, that is all done for you.

Can use APIs to adapt URLs to change what you are getting out of a site ie. Google calendar display on our website.
Can be used with our website – but they can be fragile, as they can break if you change your website.
Can use microformats – ie. Vcards for phones and internet.

Mashups using more than one data source to make something new – may be totally disparate. One of earliest was chicagocrime. org – Google maps and crime reports.
Libraries are using mashups involving Google maps and Flickr, Picture Australia has an open search interface – can add search to your browser options, Picture Australia with Google maps and geotagging, along with your location giving you photos of local area.

Code alert – a lot of  mashups involve XML. Jquery and YUI can help ease you into the process.

Where to start: Your library catalogue can help – check your RSS feeds – play with the XML and see what you can do.
data.australia.gov.au – data licensed for re-use under Creative Commons.

delicious.com/paulhagon/vala2010-lplate – links to all the resources and demos used.

Tools available to help – Yahoo Developer Network – YQL, use common language to extract XML. Yahoo Pipes, Firebug – plugin for Firefox.

Why? – Our community not just consumers, also producers once data is made available. Some of ours could be creating these sorts of things, if only the data is available – let our geeks loose on our data.

Semantic Web – Tom Tague

Check out stuff on semantic web on Wikipedia – good foundation.

Variety of interpretations: web 3.0, near religious standard, set of technical standards and capabilities we can use – very hard to define

Standards and Capabilities: RDF (resource description framework – form of XML – ugly but it is the standard), RDFS/OWL/Other ontology standards – great debate about these, Linked data, Automated semantic information generation.

OpenCalais – Thomas Reuters initiative to connect world’s business content, free service that brings new efficiencies and productivity to publishers and content creators, fastest easiest way to categorize your contentand tag the entities, facts and events therein; 30,000s of users, 4-8 million transactions daily.

Issues: attaching metadata to content is expensive – both in time and money.

Metadata generation – feed content into their extraction engine, categorizes the stories and returns the metadata to you, also returns links.

Linked data – standard for publishing data on the web – uses RDF -  add data as well as links to other relevant linked data (not webpages, actual data). Standard is exploding, but there is no governance – ‘geeks playing in highway’ – librarians can add a lot of value to this as well as using the data generated.

There are alternatives to Open Calais – Yahoo and more.

Use it to:  add metadata to cotent, content enhancement via linked data, build your own linked data could, but don’t just think source content (commentary, user submitted content)

Think about collections: repositories, trend analysis, harmonization across data sets, federated search.

Cloud Computing – Bart Rutherford
Geek and poke cartoons.

No standard definition of cloud computing – consistently about the internet however.

Charting –  input/processor/output, corporate computing – people with money had these systems (banking, transport).

Progress of clients – fat clients, thin clients, desktop computer as client, browser as client.

How things have changed: mobile as client, internet, cheap storage, broadband, wifi, 3G and LTE, Open source and Linux, Ipv6

Lots of different types of clouds – public eg Facebook, private – Intranet, hybrid. Joined by VPNs and virtualization (servers with sub-servers within it)

Saas, Iaas, Paas
Software as a service – vendor provides hardware and infrastructure, user interacts through PC – eg. Webmail, facebook, twitter, Apples App, Google Docs, BitTorrent, DropBox and so  much more.
Infrastructure as a service – Amazon, Microsoft Azure.
Platform as a service – software and development tools hosted on the providers infrastructure, access and delivery (API) – Google Apps, Yahoo Pipes, Google Maps, Sugar CRM, Finance eg. Paypal.

Complexity runs from low to high – moves from consumer to developer.

Services are based on buy as you use – like utility bills. Scalable – to meet your needs, cost effective – PAYG and low tech input, secure and automated, mobility.

Warnings – no network connection – no cloud, no local storage – no local data,  slow connections no good, what to do if provider is destroyed?

Global outlook – EASE – Everything as a service, everywhere!  Won’t matter where your data is, just need the power and network connection to get to it.

Discovery Layer Interfaces – Marshall Breeding
Crowded landscape of information providers on the web – lots of non-library destinations, ie. Google Search and Scholar, Amazon, Wikipedia, Ask.com.

Digital natives are more experienced than us in web stuff, so when they come to our websites and catalogues, they are way underwhelmed. Don’t want to lose relevancy to this audience who have been raised on those listed above.

Evolution of library collection discovery tools: bound handwritten catalogues, card catalogues, OPACs – many libraries have stagnated here, discovery interfaces, web-scale discovery services.

Not just about books on shelves, but about all our subscription content, digital items and more.

Don’t want a computerised card catalogue, although that is generally what we still have.  Amazon is our competition in terms of user interfaces and information presented.  They make it as transparent to the user as they can.  It has a complex layered structure, but with a simple user interface.

Have a lot of great content and services, but have too many barriers to our users accessing them.

Disjointed approach to delivery: silos prevail – catalogue, databases, website and more and each one has to be accessed individually.

Simple vision – single point of entry to all the content and services offered by the library, but wth precision, nuanced sophistication and multiple dimensions. Doesn’t preclude advanced searching options and ability to hone in on particular services or collections as alternative options.

Modernized interface – single search box, query tools (did you mean, type ahead), relevance ranked results, faceted navigation, enhanced visual displays – covers and summaries/reviews, recommendation services. Must be visually pleasing, give more than a single record and helps users find more.

Can have any front end almost regardless of what back end you use.

Deep indexing – metadata is no longer enough, increasing opportunities to search full content, commercial providers already doing so.

Current phase of discovery tools now focused on pre-populated indexes that aim to deliver Web-scale delivery eg. Summon, WorldCat  Local, EBSCO Discovery, Primo Central, Encore with Article Intergration.

Products available will index the vast majority of content that libraries have in their collections.

Beyond local discovery – eg. NCSU – Summon, Phoenix Public – Endeca (very Amazon like interface), Queens Public Library – Aquabrowser.

Need to make our search compelling, but not overwhelm our users with the guff about what and where they are searching.

Being social: apps for libraries – Kim Tairi
@haikugirloz

Social media conversion scale – image from – darmano.typepad.com

Social apps about conversations, marketing and communications with our users.

She follows High Country Public Library on Twitter – they talk about the library and things that are happening in their broader community as well.

Amongst top 10 tools for libraries – niche networks – eg, NING, built by users, focus on particular interest, UX – User experience, want to create good ones – starts at design and works through testing, evaluating and decision making.

More visual infographics – designing messages so they are clear, short, sharp. eg. The story (so far) of Twitter (image). Move to make visual communication more widespread.

Twitter can enhance your experience – back channel is interesting and adds to the experience. Librarians are sharing. Kim’s presentation was based a lot on the feedback she got from people on Twitter. It gives you a sense of community and helps to build a community. It is self-selecting, creates conversation, can be used for public note-taking and it’s interactive. Great as a personal learning network, both with workmates and colleagues at other libraries. Can get followed by bots or social media gurus, but can control it by blocking them or making your tweets private.

Mobile interfaces for catalogues and websites. Deakin Uni has done this. NYPL has an iPhone app. Can get into mobile interfaces, apps, info literacy, tours and QR codes (see Powerhouse Museu who are doing great things with these).

Technology petting zoos – letting users play with the new technology, as well as staff.

Social apps and networks have taken off since VALA2008 – need to get into it. Australia has now 7.9 million active Facebook users, there over 400 million worldwide.

eBooks – Bart Rutherford

File formats for ebooks include text, html, pdf, mobipocket, DjVu – magazine specific, EPUB – Kindle uses azw which is a modified mobipocket. Some locked in DRM, some not.

Can read ebook content on desktops, mobile phones etc – software includes Microsoft Reader, Mobipocket, Adobe Reader (pdf) and Calibre (open source read and convert).

EPUB – open publication structure – open XHTML, open packaging format – SML, OEBPS Container format – bundled ZIP file. Many readers that originally came out with proprietary formats are now opening up to EPUB. Keep watch out for EPUB and the devices that will read it.

DRM – Digital Rights Management (Bart’s boss calls it Don’t Read Me). PID Personal identification number – can restrict to one user, unlike print copy,  Access levels include print, copy, paste and now lending, depending on device and content.

Content – Amazon: Fiction to Kindle, Dymocks – using eBook library growing fiction, Gutenberg Project, Read Cloud, EBL – nonfiction, academic learning model using Adobe reader.

Should not have to worry about how the content gets on the device, it should just happen.

Publisher rights are still a problem, so a lot of content that could be available, is not because of these issues.

E-Paper technologies: Elerophoretic technology used by eInk, iRex, Sony Reader, Kindle, Plastic Logic Que. Use glass back pane, but they don’t flex so can break.

Cholesteric technology – Modified LCD, being used by Fujitsu FLEPia. Need to have a colour display which doesn’t require a backlight and doesn’t use as much power.

Combination of eInk and LCD – eg. Nook. LCD gets turned off when reading the ebook.

Electrowetting – controlled water/oil interface, then Electrofluidic technology which uses the former.  Deals with the issue of slow display and these devices will be able to show video.

Interferometric – wavelengths of light etc, uses reflective natural light, low power usage, which can also show video eg. mirasol

Growing market – lots of options and many more on the way. Be sure the one you choose does EPUB.

News Limited is launching the Skiff interface – from publishing to reading, including payment process and their own software.

Publishers will hopefully start putting material out in a wider range of formats so that multiple readers can access them.

The Dream for DRM – Desktop reading, when called away, you pick up where you left off on your e-reader, then the same again with your phone.  As you can with a book.