Connecting Librarian

Its Day 12 of the 30 blog posts in 30 days challenge and my pondering today came out of a walk with the dog.

I regularly walk the dog past a water basin in our area, which is heavily fenced off, with a double locked gate being the only entry. More often than not, the fencing is peeled back from the gates or the gates have been knocked off their hinges to enable people to get through. Today, they had been fixed again, but from past history, I know that won’t last long.

So it got me wondering if there wasn’t a better way to achieve the same results. Are they just fixing the gate because that’s the way its always been? I know they are probably restricted for reasons of safety, but as people are going to break in anyway, maybe there is a way of meeting both needs?

And then I started thinking about the sorts of things we do in libraries that are parallel to this situation and I came up with memberships. We are still very much locked in to face to face membership applications. There are libraries who have ventured into online memberships, but many of them only give temporary ones until the user comes in with proof of address (at which time it is made permanent), or the application is only confirmed with the mailout of a library card to the applicant’s applied address.

At the downloadables seminar I attended on Thursday, we talked around users and how it is quite likely that in the not too distant future, we will have three distinct user groups: those who visit to access our physical collections, those who visit to use our facilities and those who only use the library virtually. (there will be overlap with all three groups of course and there are probably more that we haven’t even thought of yet)

So with the future now looking more virtual for a lot of our users, both current and potential, should we be sticking to the old tradition of having to have a physical attendance in our libraries to confirm membership or even to having a physical library card at all?

Can’t we have online memberships which require nothing more than an online application? Do we have to know where people live, particularly in Victoria where you can join any public library service for free? Do we need to know how to get a hold of people if they never take a physical item from the library? Shouldn’t we treat our virtual users more like our physical visitors who never borrow an item, but just our collections in house, or our physical facilities? How we do change how we view these members? And if they do decide to extend their membership to the physical space, how do we make this transition as easy as possible for both users and staff? And how do our LMS’s cope with this, to enable us to track use when a circulation of a physical item is not involved?

What other things are libraries doing, seemingly out of tradition, although the reasons we started have long since changed?

Just some questions that were raised from walking the dog. Hope you have some answers for me.

Its Day 11 of the 30 blog posts in 30 days challenge and as promised, here’s my notes from yesterday’s seminar.

Insight into Victorian Public Library Experience with Downloadables – Thursday 10th June 2010 101m-4pm

Kenneth Harris – Port Phillip Library

They have recently implemented Wave Sound eaudio downloads.

Not many choices in terms of vendors.

They use IP addresses for inhouse downloading. External was organised through referring URL, with authentication provided by the library itself.  Clunky but it works.

Raised awareness through high level links in the catalogue, which link back to the referrer page. Unfortunately you have to login to the catalogue first to get authenticated, so it then has a quick link to the ebooks from the account page.

Once you have logged in, you have to create a Clipper account. Once that is done, you don’t need to authenticate a second time.

Marc records are part of the sub. Links are displayed to everyone – so they needed to be changed to the link to ebooks info.

Took a while to upload the records (588) – took some fiddling and lots of discussion to get it right.

Stats can be retrieved on use, including popular titles, users, checkouts and renewals, activity by subject and more.

Have a 10 item limit for users.

In 6 weeks, they have had 245 accesses 197 checkouts ad 48 renewals.  95 User accounts have been created.

What they’ve learnt so far:
- not much they didn’t already know
- problems with DRM – macs cant play wma files (1/3 of files are wma)
- public PCs can’t  download the wma files due to an issue with DRM and PC deployment
- WMA files wont play on your car stereo
- users find it difficult to locate files they can download
- if it takes more than couple of minutes, people give up
- needs to be improvement in catalogue and subscription integration
- authentication should be done by the vendor, done off the library catalogue login (not by the library)

Marketing – didn’t tell people it was coming. When it came, they used a screensaver on their catalogue PCs, Wavesound provided brochures and posters and want to come and talk to users and staff about the product. Have to promote more – difficult at this time due to RFID project in process.

Authentication: after initial authentication with library card, and setup Clipper account, they can go to straight in to the Clipper page. When they setup, it refers to Port Phillip, so that’s where the account is based and Port Phillip’s limits etc apply.

EZ Proxy authentication is available, but only if it is done by the library. Don’t offer SIP2. However, they may be able to connect using WebFeat, which is what Port Phillip has – but will still be adding extra steps.

Stats don’t show where people come from to get there – whether its from the catalogue or direct from the website (once the account has been created).

Knowing what they know now, they still believe that they made the right choice. A major reason for going with them was that there were no extra software requirements. Works on a yearly contract – they start with a base library and get an extra supply of titles each month. You can opt to choose titles or let them be chosen for you. You have the option to change titles.

Loan period is 3 weeks and can be renewed. Up to 10 titles at a time. Files disappear at the end of the loan period. Can’t return early.

Its a totally separate loan system to the LMS. All statistics are kept separately. Could happen in the future if we get SIP2 connections with our ebook providers.

All the products run using an online store model like Amazon.

No limit on simultaneous users. Fees based on population.

Wavesound has both ebook and eaudio, but Port Phillip only has eaudio.

As login is based on username and password, can’t tell age, where joined etc, etc.

Jennifer Khan, Greg Evans and Tony Brooks from Melbourne Library Service
Melbourne has had Overdrive eaudio books for 12 months.

Have introduced downloadable audio first not ebooks – due to degree of uncertainty in ebook market. Used a staged approach. As there are a limited field of vendors, decided to go with Overdrive because of their proven track record and a good market share. Overdrive provide professional and free marketing support and a very slick product.

Once they signed up, they sorted out policy definitions such as circulation, connection and IP issues, membership exceptions and different card types, which was all pretty straightforward with good technical vendor support. Got access to a development site for testing.

Support from local rep was not good, so dealt mainly with the US via email and teleconferences (6pm there to 9am here).

Greg had already introduced it at ACT, so had great experience to begin with.

Collection management:  never handed it over to Overdrive but eaudio content has been limited. Shifting market makes things very difficult as titles can change with changing publishers agreements.  However, users have taken to them with great enthusiasm.

Overdrive have a number of specialists – Collections, IT and marketing and the support is fantastic. Did a user survey to gauge interest and find out what they would be interested in. Got a lot of people provide email addresses and become their testers and feedbackers.

Marketing – lots of support from Overdrive. Library branding throughout. Got media engagement. Day after it was written up in the Green guide, everything went out. Had to buy more titles. Have about 400 titles now.

Have concluded that they will need to use more eaudio vendors. Next challenge is how to create a seamless interface to all the content being provided by these different vendors.

Vendor training to staff user group was very complex – consisting of a teleconference from the US which was very thorough but over the top. Too much information delivered. Had a overarching marketing emphasis however, rather than technical/user experience. Once completed, they played with the product some more.

Cascading information to general staff was simplified to customer needs and
was compulsory for all staff. They quickly learned what issues may be encountered in a real environment, the key features and bugs and then
redesigned the training again for the public.

Training public was easier as they were all keyed up and ready to go by the time they launched, the integration with LMS was seamless. Public sessions were very well attended – running 2-3 sessions a day for 2 weeks – many people brought own laptops. They also did some individual follow up with special need users and they are getting constant feedback and making minor changes as they go.

Needed a lot of patience throughout the launch process, to help get people on board. Overdrive provides a help service, where individual issues can be addressed – has a 4 hour turn around.

Interface is seamless with the Melbourne website. Although the Overdrive site is external, it looks like the Melbourne website. Overdrive has 2 to 1 WMA to MP3 format. WMA files can be downloaded to a PC however and then transferred to an iPod, during which it gets reformatted to a iPod readable.

However, you do need to download an Overdrive media console to access the content.

Future:
ebooks next – would be easy to go with Overdrive as DRM is less problematic and they have a great range of titles, a nice interface and great support. Checked out different options and have gone with Overdrive.

Issues for ebooks included limited reader functionality and availability, in a market where there is a huge range of devices. Sony ebook readers and Nooks will play the content, but not available here yet.

However, users are fascinated with mobile devices and readers. May yet lend some of the older generation ebook readers that they own, with pre-loaded content. They area also considering the options of bookstores vs vendors and online sellers. iPhone app is also now available for Overdrive. Have been advised to go with ePub format with ebooks.

Issues: format issues – ie WMA vs MP3, licensing vs ownership – different models and some vendors let you own the book, DRM and access to content and limited Oz content. Overdrive is licensing, Bolinda is ownership.

Check out BLIO? – downloads the software with the content and can be played on any device. May be major DRM issues so getting content from publishers may be difficult.

Success factors: critical mass strategy, group of early adopters, DRM minimal vendor, concurrent users, Marc records, ease of circulation, availability of stats, review and user group.

Lot of success due to holistic approach – collections, IT and marketing working together with staff. Staff are enthusiastic and the service has had great use and feedback from users.

Overdrive – one copy one user model. If you want more users, then have to purchase more copies.

Authentication – user is presented with a login screen – uses SIP2 to library system. Overdrive manages the user account, SIP2 is only used to verify that it is a valid user. If you login to catalogue, you still have to login to Overdrive.

Offer optional load periods – one or two weeks. Items cant be checked in, you have to wait for it to expire. Some titles are available in a single file – many titles are in multiple files to download (like CD based audio books). Can download progressively over your loan period.

User stats – have not done much as yet.  Will now look at it now that they are 12 months down the track.

User Experience panel

I was then on a panel of three committee members, who used the Overdrive and Wavesound services as brand new users, using a PC, a Mac and an iPhone (that was me). We are still compiling experiences and hope to add more. If you are interested in the report thus far, let me know and I’ll get a copy out.

Vendor presentations

The early part of the afternoon was taken up with presentations from Wave Sound, NetLibrary – newly purchased by Ebsco, and Bolinda. The first and last only offer eaudio at this time, NetLibrary does both. Overdrive does not have an Australian based rep at this time. Each vendor gave a short marketing spiel and then demonstrated the user interface and answered questions relating to the IT structure of their product.

Vendor panel

We finished the day with a panel involving the vendors answering questions from the attendees. They were:

Will you be offering streaming content now or in the future?  Not yet, but its on the radar for all of them.

Can you see a future where all content is device neutral?  Yes, but no timeline though, everything is changing so fast and at different rates. Eaudio market is much more mature than the ebook market, which is why its much more device adaptable.

What do you mean by fully accessible?  Bolinda downloads can be used by all – including screen readers. Files can be played on most devices – they are all MP3. All titles are remastered into chapters with logical breaks.

What do you mean by exclusive rights?  Why exclusivity?  Lots of money is involved in purchasing rights and publishers aim to get the best possible deals for their content. There are licences for print, audio and downloadable. Not all arrangements are exclusive.  Rights are for a certain length of time, somewhere between 5 and 10 years.  Also depends on the model – purchase model means you have it forever, subscription model means you only have it whilst you have the sub and the vendor has the rights.

Will we end up getting this content from multiple vendors? Yes, the issue then becomes how to make the whole process seamless so that the users experience one process. Library processes are changing. Moving from print to digital including how we join and access collections. Is getting to the point where the whole interaction that users have with the library will be totally digital. Collections offered are different, but so are our users. So we will have to pick and choose from vendors.

Is reciprocal borrowing available? It is through Overdrive in the US, where you can borrow between different libraries. Publishers much prefer consortium purchase, rather than reciprocal borrowing.  Ebsco does consortial arrangements, as does Wavesound. Bolinda does not do consortia, because they believe they are affordable and give each library service flexibility.

Do you have plans to intergrate with LMS’s? Definitely on Ebsco’s radar. Libraries would like to have all their account information in one location, so they can check all their holds, all their loans etc, in the one setup. Bolinda says it can be done because the technology is available.  Importing this data back into our circulation modules for statistical purposes is a lot more problematic. Bolinda has established Web Services with Aurora and SirsiDynix LMSs. In discussions with other vendors, but have confirmed that they will be establishing a SIP2 connection with Civica. This will also require an extra software install at both ends to help improve security.

Do you have any thoughts on offering other media for download?  eg. Film, games, media etc. Bolinda is already looking to do this. Not Wavesound, but Ebsco will look at this as well.

Are there any plans to integrate back into social media platforms? Ebscohost has a module EIT – which has an array of tools with widgets etc, that can be inserted into a range of tools. Bolinda is looking at it. Wavesound works on Ebsco’s platform so they have access to the same tools as Net Library, through Ebsco.

Summary

The day was well received and well attended with about 50 people coming from over half of Victoria’s public library services, most for the whole day and some from quite a distance away. As an organiser and attendee I was very pleased, not only with how the day ran, but from what I got out of it. I feel much better prepared for when we venture into the world of downloadable eaudio, which will be soon.

Ada Lovelace

March 24th means its Ada Lovelace Day and I am taking the opportunity to blog about a woman in technology in libraries that I have great admiration for.

Before I do, if you want to read more about Ada Lovelace Day, check out the website and all the other great entries that will appear there, recognising great women in science and technology. You can also check out my blog entry celebrating the day last year, where I honoured the amazing Helene Blowers.

This year, I have the great delight of acknowledging my friend, colleague, co-presenter (next week) and co-blogger (Libraries Interact), Kathryn Greenhill.

Kathryn is an amazing whirlwind of a person, but if you get caught in her circle, you are happy to be there.

Kathryn Greenhill

She is a dedicated, passionate, intelligent, thoughtful and forward thinking librarian and I wish there were a lot more librarians like her.

She was the first librarian in Australia to recognise the importance of virtual worlds and has been able to successfully expand from that and into other areas of technology. She is a sought after speaker right around Australia and when she speaks she always has something to say that is well worth listening to and following up on.

She is a past Auroran, won the VALA Travel Scholarship and traveled to the USA to study Open Source systems and is working on her Ph.D. Masters’ Thesis. She works in a new public library and is excitedly pursuing options for her local community as well as investigating and offering ideas for the broader Australian and world library communities.

And she has a family, to whom she is dedicated.

I really admire women who can do all this and more, love what they do, share what they love and do so without losing in their family life. For me, Kathryn tops the list.

So Happy Ada Lovelace Day to Kathryn and to all those women in science and technology – but particularly in library science and technology. From one practictioner to many others – your efforts, your passion and all your hard work are so very much appreciated.

There have been a lot of stories going around the last few months, about the future of newspapers and how they are in jeopardy because of the Net. (great links and summary of key articles at Rosen’s Flying Seminar in the Future of News) I’ll refer to some of those, whilst giving a personal perspective and some insight from working with our users and those resources.

I guess my thoughts began even before I saw the Pew Research Center for the People & The Press report from December 2008. The Internet Overtakes Newspapers As News Outlet released survey findings that showed the Internet bypassed all other forms of media, excepting TV, as a source for both national and international news.

Since then, there have been many big stories from the US mainly, about newspapers closing down or downsizing, as their sales slide down.  That’s not to say that people aren’t interested in news, they are just finding it in different ways.

During the February 09 Black Saturday bushfires in Victoria, I was on the Herald-Sun newspaper website several times a day, looking for the latest information and images from the disaster.  That was also the place I went to when we experienced two earth tremors within a few weeks of each in March 09.  I found that besides Twitter (which by the way, the Herald-Sun was also monitoring), that this was the quickest source to pick up the news.

Great for the paper, that people are turning to them online to read that up-to-date content, now they just have to try and make money out of it, so that they can keep providing that content.  What model they will take up is unknown as yet, but it will have to be one that doesn’t scare people aware from using their content, ala New York Times with their paid subs.

Interestingly though, there is a definite interest in the physical act of reading a newspaper, but in an online environment.  A number of years ago, my library subscribed to an online database that enabled the reader to read the newspaper online looking like the actual paper itself. So when you get the newspaper on screen, it looks exactly like the paper copy.  You click on the bottom corner and can turn the page and can continue doing so, from front to back and to front again.  Alternatively, you can skip to particular pages or sections as you like.

We subscribed to that database initially to give our users access to international newspapers, so that local residents could read their home country newspaper, in the language of its origin.  No waiting for airmail deliveries etc, you could read it within a day of its publication (allowing for time differences of course). What has happened in the last year, is that our users are using it to access our major daily newspapers and reading them online as they would physically.  Use of that database has increased exponentially in that time and the vast majority of that use is around the major dailies.

On the otherhand, use of the databases that indexes the same newspapers, the one that students use a lot for assignments etc, has remained fairly static in comparison.

Which brings us to the local level. Our local newspapers have had online presences for a while, but no archive to speak of.  One of our local newspaper chains is now available through a newspaper database, but only beginning this year.  After nearly 10 years of archives of our major dailies, this is long overdue.  But with the disappearance of local papers in the US, I wonder how long our local papers will remain with us and whether this is too little too late.

And if it is, what will happen to local news.  Again the US gives some idea of direction with new Web start-ups looking to fill that gap. Hyperlocal web sites deliver news without newspapers ironically appears in the New York Times.  Go check it out and then think about where your local news will come from if the newspapers themselves disappear.  Is this a gap that the public library can step into and if so, how?

Interestingly, I do still sometimes read the physical newspaper, but only if it happens to be in front of me, I don’t go to seek it out.  With the major dailies, its usually to acquaint myself with the important (or on slow news days, not so important) topics of current interest, but more importantly, to catch up on the comics and the sports I am interested in.   I also read my local papers (we get 3), mainly for things of personal interest or that of my family, or that relate to my local area or promote the library.

Do you still read the physical newspaper, local, major daily or national,  or do you prefer to do all your news seeking online?  Is the format you use dependent on whether you browse or particularly seek, like me?  Would love to hear your habits and thoughts as we all might have to change them in coming years.

Today was the first day of NLS4, which I have blogged about already, but only the last afternoon session and plenary. I missed a lot because I ended up spending most of the day with other public librarians and Erik and Jaap the Shanachietour guys.

I began the day at the State Library of Victoria with friends and colleagues from other public libraries, to talk to the Shanachie boys about what we are doing in Victorian public libraries. I had to leave early to go and present at NLS4 – my presentation is linked from the presentation page. After I had done that, I headed back to SLV for the Shanachie guys and ended up joining them for a tour of the State LIbrary of Victoria and lunch. Check out the photos on Flickr.

Then back to the conference for the days end and then for the Cocktail Party which was held at Experimedia at the State Library. Drinks, finger foods and fun games got us all talking with friends we hadnt met yet. Presentations were made – Kate Davis from Gold Coast Libraries received the Metcalfe Award and Rachel Crowe the ALIA Aurora Scholarship. More photos of this too on Flickr.

Another day of NLS4 tomorrow, which will include a presentation from Erik and Jaap. If you havent checked out the Shanachie tour, I highly recommend you do. And if you have never done a tour of the State Library of Victoria, I suggest you add it to your list of must dos- its an amazing building.

I had the great pleasure of attending the latest stop in the Shanachie Tour down under, held today at the State Library. I introduced myself to them before we started, and as expected, to be absolutely delightful and a joy to chat with. I looking forward to seeing them also at NLS4 on Friday.

So heres my live blogging of the event.

They showed us part of a video of the LBI Shanachie tour of the USA, which told stories of innovation in libraries in the USA, as discovered on tour in 2007. Eric spoke about the need for libraries in the future, for the benefit of our grandchildren, against the expectation that libraries will not be around in future, because the internet will be all everyone needs.

DOK is looking for partners in innovation – have already established a partnership with Darien Library in the US. Looking for a library in Australia to have a concept centre – in partnership with DOK.

They spoke about how the tour started – by being thrown out of the Internet Librarian International conference. You will have to check it out. They highly recommended the conference (I would love to go sometime).

They then showed a short interview with Jenny Levine – the Shifted Librarian, on gaming for a gaming conference they were involved with in the Netherlands. (DOK has been lending games since 1996)

Their videos are at http://www.vimeo.com/shanachietour.

Libraries should be involved in gaming, as at least 30% of the population is involved in it.
Showed a video on Kankakee Library and their gaming program. They used gaming as part of a program which helps teens to develop their social, cooperative, negotiation and other skills – much needed skills for the future workforce. Kankakee has found ways to slide technological skills, reading, writing and more into the gaming they offer.

Their interview with Michael Stephens from Tame the Web talked about how Web 2.0, gaming etc, if used within the mission of the library, can be very powerful. They are tools to be used by libraries for a purpose, not to be used for coolness sake. Libraries can level the playing field, by giving people a place to try new technologies, use fast internet access and more.

Everything is subject to change!

This first trip with Jenny and Michael on gaming, led to the idea of the full Shanchie tour, which they started 7 months after the first one week visit to Chicago. This tour expanded the focus to Web 2.0 and took them across the country, doing video interviews as they went. They would edit their videos whilst still travelling and then find a park for their Winnebago where they could upload the edited content from the day.

They started in New York City. (I love how they do their videos, theyre awesome). Quote mentioned by Eric in the video – the Universe is made of stories, not atoms. Wow! You have to watch this video inteview with Paul Holdengraber – he has great ideas and is inspiring as to what libraries can and should reach for and achieve.

The first question asked of an audience member was about whether libraries should be taking over some of the education that schools undertake. Should libraries be encouraging imagination was asked next. How can it be achieved? – by relaxing rules, creating spaces and giving potential for creativity to happen. Is the librarian in Australia ready to do this – in general no, but there are leaders in the field who are paving the way for this to happen.

After New York, they went to PLCMC and the Imaginon Library, where they spoke with Matt Gullett about the future of libraries and technology in them. Spoke of containers holding information and culture and which form, whether its print, video, online or other and determining the best form for that content. Sees libraries as becoming more community, learning areas – where innovation can be learnt about and also created. Pointed out that the book is one of the best technologies ever created.

The PLCMC visit inspired them to look at portable gaming and they created a portable gaming unit. They showed a video on it. Cool! And its controlled with a remote – the flatscreen monitor rising out of the box is a beauty to behold! (should have been accompanied by the them from 2001: a Space Odyssey) There is definite interest in getting them in Australia, so the DOK guys will be looking at the possibilities of doing this.

The next round of questions was about gaming in Australia. Not much at moment, but its starting to happen. YPRL has started with 2 Wiis at Lalor Library, where they have just started running gaming nights, which they will hold monthly after the library closes next year. Teens were keen, but pizza and manga are great motivations. For some libraries, dealing with Council IT departments, finances, space and other restrictions, is a barrier to having gaming in our libraries. Convincing the public is also a problem, when they dont understand the benefits of gaming and dont see why libraries should be offering it.
Another problem is that a lot of our staff have trouble dealing with young people. Need to see how young people use technology, so we need to change our setups to suit the way they work, whilst still meeting the needs of other users. Gaming is not just about the electronic, its also about board games, lego and more.

They showed another video, this of Michael Stephens Dominican University students and what their hope for libraries of the future. Michael sees the library of the future as encouraging his heart, inspiring and encouraging him and he prompted his students to go and run with their ideas. We should do the same.

After Michael and his students in Illinois, they went to Salt Lake City. Andrew from Salt Lake City Library shared that the library of the future will be more interactive, where people can come together in a neutral playing field, where discourse will be elevated, opposing viewpoints will be respected and heard. The future librarian will be very different to that of the past – we should keep looking to the future, in our own communities and in the wider world and keep responding to our user needs, whist always staying tech savvy.

What skills should librarians of the future have? Willing to make partnerships, work with opportunities that arise – in next 5 years we will be able to work with young people – eg. early childhood literacy, gaming programs and more. Libraries will be important with civic engagement – we need more great people to do that. The library of the future will continue to need to be a welcoming place for all, where people can do what they wish to do. Need to also remember the baby boomers, not just the very young – we have the staff to do it, just need the ideas.

They finished their USA tour in Monterey.

After a short break, where I caught up with a few library friends I hadnt seen in years, we watched a short video interview with Stephen Abram – VicePresident for Innovation at SirsiDynix. Stephen summarised his presentation as our profession being in a renewal, a renaissance in preparation for a future where information is unlimited, but it is not only in print. We need to be open and flexible to different learning styles. He has discovered that people go into libraries for learning and community, which we need to be open to. He said a lot whole more, all of which is well worth watching. We need to be experiential and learn by playing.

The next tour was Jamaica (lifes tough) and we watched a short video of whats happening there.

We then watched a virtual tour of DOK. He showed us a great tool called PicLens from CoolIris, which does fun things with your Flickr images – cant wait to play with that!
Check out nearly 3500 photos of DOK Delft on Flickr.

DOK is in Delft, with a population of 96,000. The library is in an old supermarket and although it has been renovated, amny architectural features from the supermarket remain.

DOK has free wifi, with no login required. They have signage on the their wooden floors – very colourful and very obvious. (way cool) All collections are on wheels, giving the whole library great flexibility. The shelves are organised so that the bottom shelf can be used as a step up to reach the top shelves. Shelving is made from recycled wood and was cheaper than conventional library shelving and are slightly inclined so that books dont fall off. They have a staff member dedicated to applying for grants and seeking sponsorship. Some of this money was used to purchase sonic chairs, where you can listen to music with your whole body! Whole building is wireless and they have internet telephony – 155 megabit speed – as a result, they can live stream music and videos to the sonic pod.
Lighting is very important, as are the comfort of library users and this is reflected in the seating and the architecture.

They lend art, with the option to buy. They have built their own ILS. The consult to other libraries – wow!

They are fully RFID with their 240,000 items. Self serve checkin and checkout. Checkin is one item at a time, checkout can be multiple. They have a pay station on hand, for coffees as well as library charges. Get a recipe from their website, go to the supermarket on site, pick up the ingredients for it from a special display, scan their library card at the checkout and get a 25% discount on those ingredients – omg!

Using Wiis for narrowcasting on 12 big screens around the library, pushing out information. Can also be used for gaming. Have a coffee corner and no restrictions on food and drink in the library. Have a portal for downloading content to mobile phones, using bluetooth – including audio books, music, online magazines. Portals will be able to be installed in community locations. Next iteration of the portal will use touch screens.

Quote = Life is all about having more fun than you can think and it starts at the Library.

They are lending games, including Nintendo DS games and iPod touches. Will have a shop next year which will sell technology and LBI T-shirts as well as library souvenirs.

Finished with a 5 minute video on DOK – a library concept centre. Quote – the most important collection – people.

Question: do DOK staff do outreach to the community – do a summer camp in the country with about 150 kids where they do workshops on creating video, art etc. They have a partnership with health services. Library is used 5 nights a week for programs.

Question: is there a music compilation available? Not at this stage. Different music on the DVD (with the book) to that which we saw on the digital videos.

Question: whats the rest of their trip? Going home on the 7th. At SLV tomorrow and then NLS4 for rest of Friday and Saturday.

Question: what do you look for in staff? Their staff reflect their users, women in their 30s and 40s.

And that was it, a wonderful afternoon. Look for more over the next two days from NLS4.

Re-imagining library services: a new collaborative vision by Alan Smith – NSLA

NSLA comprises the Australian state, territory, national libraries and the national library of New Zealand. They are working to build the next stage of libraries for our users. The 4 key points and 10 projects are making way and getting librarians out of the way.

One library, transforming our culture and accessible content are the core of what they are trying to achieve. 5 year plan with a central office to help push it forward.

Do it now – SLV – opening up services
Access now – NLA and NLNZ – one library card
Virtual reference – SLV – next generation of online reference – not looking at the next version of Ask Now
Delivery – SLWA – being able to deliver content into peoples hands, wherever they are
Community created content – SLQ and NLNZ – communities of geographic and interest, being able to create their own digital libraries
Creating culture – SLSA – organising and storing
Collaborative collections – SLNSW and SLQ – trying to limit duplication and improve resource sharing – consortial arrangements
Flexible cataloguing – improving access to content – reengineering cataloguing
Scaling up digitisation – industrialise it, working on business case for significant national investment
Connecting and discovering content – NLA – improve coverage and quality of data, partnerships to improve discovery – a common catalogue interface and a national metadata store.

Big Stuff – Library Challenges – Stephen Abram – Sirsi-Dynix Institute

We need to tell good stories – tell each other about the good things that happen, not the bad, which is what we usually do.

Stephen said that our stuff is awesome, we are in good standing amongst the libraries of the world. We need to let go of the nostalgia. Change has been really slow relatively speaking, especially compared to the baby busters. Big changes coming, which will be fun if you like riding a roller coaster.

What are we going to do to get good results for our users – how can we negate the skewed results of search engine optimisation – where anyone can make sure their content, true or not, lists high in results.

Some people have 40 year careers. Ensure it is 40 years of incrementally better years, not just the same thing year after year. Choose to make the difference. You need to put your meat in the game = professionals commit.

Libraries matter – the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation grants is just one example. Stephen gave a long list of examples where librarians are making a real difference, doing things that get people connected to the net and to the information they need, saving money, saving lives, saving our culture and our history and so much more. We need to tell our government about the competitive edge that libraries give Australia. Who do you think built Yahoo – librarians were pulled in to make it work.

What is the competitive advantage we have in our environment? The difference between us the internet is us – sensitive, intelligent, helpful – we are not a list. Put ourselves out there, with photo and social networking profile. Show who we are as well as what we can do.

DREAM BIG – start small, but dream big.

We dont know every little moment of truth that happens in the library. We can be the human touch for people. We may never know the difference we make to each individual.

Democracies persist because of libraries. Its not coincidence that libraries are often the first casualty of war. Librarians protect freedom of information, giving access to all, regardless of what our opinion of it is – we are truly bipartisan.

We have to learn the things that are making a difference, improving service to our users. If you dont want to learn, then get out of the profession.

We are a global profession, a bottomless network. Every librarian has hundreds of moments of truth, where we fight for our freedom, save lives, cure disease, challenge poverty and ignorance. Not dreaming 08, but dreaming big. Say yes every chance you get, encourage others and dont get discouraged. Those who say it cant be done, get out of the way of those who are already doing the impossible.

We are about books, we dont have to advertise that, what we do need to advertise is that we have people who can help you with just about anything. Show who we are and what we can do.

Web 2.0 is about things you can do and people you know. When you go online do you see people you know. You need to be where your users are, otherwise you are on a march to irrelevance.

Stuff will change faster now – by 2020, all content ever created will fit on an iPod. Video games outsell most content combined, ringtones are huge! Pocket size devices will dominate, the devices coming out are about having ubiquitous access on your person.

New? Semantic web, the cloud, no choice search engines, GIS oriented search, virtually unlimited fulltext books, streaming media and spoken word search, personalisation 3.0, microblogging, registries and so much more.

Normal now is RSS, blogs, YouTube, social networks tagging, wikis, SEO and GIS. If libraries arent involved in that, then they are behind. Resist the library culture of poverty, victimisation, risk aversion and passive resistance. We have to pass the chasm of early adopters and into the space of early majority. We have a technology lifecycle, we have to get on the curve early and stay there.

If we dont get into social networking, then we are going to miss it when they progress to the next stage – this is just the tip of the iceberg.

So what should libraries be paying attention to? The user-centred universe, be more open to users paths. A few things to do right away – the time is now! Need to play, pilot, trial, experiment. Mobile is important, confirm your presence, be where your users are, how your presence appear – personal,, professional; get good at the cloud (where users are going), play at e-books, get serious at literacy (dont use that term for users) and check out XML, get serious about e-learning, care about our cultures, just expand, know that most physical objects are dead, get real about influence, the next generation content.

Humans are our competitive edge. Be open to lifelong learning, our careers have seasons, need to have reciprocal mentoring – peers, be important, we can invent the future and make a difference. Just have some fun! Dream big!

Web archiving in a Web 2.0 world – Edgar Crook – NLA

NLA has 3 main methodologies for web archiving.

Pandora Archive has developed a world class archive of Australian websites, using PANDA, their digital archiving system. PANDA is a distributed system, so their partners can also use it. Other international library archiving systems are based on or similar to PANDA. They have developed persistent naming scheme and have arrangements with archiving and indexing agencies. As of 1st July 2008, it contained 19307 titles over 53 million files adding up to 2.2 TB of data (now over 2.4TB). Files can be a single PDF page, or an entire website. Over 50% of their files are government publications, but they also archived academic journals, blogs, podcasts and more. It is selective, because of the restrictions on staff resources etc. They have chosen their titles carefully and try to choose sustainable sources.

Domain name harvests – once a year, for between 3 and 6 weeks and in conjunction with the Internet Archive. In 2008, they are looking at crawling a billion files. Copyright is a major drawback. The websites are crawled by the Internet Archive and the files are then sent to the NLA. There are gaps where the website publisher bans bots, and the crawler also cant follow embedded links, so there are gaps in the domain harvests. There is also issues with Australian websites without the .au in their name. Data is not publicly available at this time, although it is being use by researchers.

Archive It – is an Internet Archive product, where you can pay money to have your website archived. Sites archived using this process include the PNG governmental and research institute websites the 2007 general election – including content from YouTube an MySpace, Cambodian election 2008, Burmese monk uprising 2007 and more. There are restrictions in that you cant recapture missed files and cant present it the way you want.
Still working on arrangements with other Web 2.0 content, ie. Bebo, Flickr, Facebook etc.

Librarians should think to tell Pandora about resources they should be archiving. Take responsibility for your web presence, make sure it remains or is archived elsewhere.

Will not be making PANDAs version 4, but in future will be working with international partners to develop a new backbone to the system.

Unpacking the indigenous knowledge centre concept – Jason M Gibson

Idea of a national indigenous knowledge centre was flagged at the 20/20 summit, with the idea of regional centres in support was favourably supported.

Inspiration has come from Mexico and other countries. Suspicion has been aroused by these centres as they seem to appear in countries where indigenous culture has been exploited or neglected.

In Central Australia alone there are 5 regions, with up to 20 languages in each region. Such a centre has to cater to them all.

NTL started testing this idea out nine years ago. Three remote communities were chosen to trial the knowledge centre concept. Had a vision of a physical space which would be interpretive, keeping, a museum, a library etc, the aim to improve access relevant to local communities and with the ability to assist in creating and hosting new content.

Several pilot services were launched but have not been sustained. In 2004, the Our Story database was launched and this has been successful. Research showed that the Our Story database had stimulated communities to conduct further research, including through the use ditigal resources.

Tea Tree Gully has had quite a successful result, with stories, place names, oral histories and much more. Internet access, books and information are available in a centre open 5 days a week. The community has taken ownership of their centre.

Indigenous knowledge had not been acknowledge as a legitimate structure until the 1980s. Indigenous peoples persisted in its maintenance and creation regardless. The need is now for improved access to information in its many and varied formats.

(session ran over time, so had to leave to get to next session)