IL05 - Day 3: Web Winners!, John Blyberg

update: Looking for me? Go to http://www.davidleeking.com

John started off by showing two older versions of Ann Arbor's website (via the Wayback Machine, I think) [Dave's aside - my but haven't we come far in 10 years!].

The previous version of their site used Userland/Frontier as a CMS. It was a proprietary, closed system.

Their current design started out with the library redesigning their whole network infrastructure. Cool. They decided to use open standards whenever possible.

Choosing a new CMS:
- made an informal list of requirements
- Wanted it to be LAMP based
- Extensive API
- Easily theme-able - in order to work with external web designers
- Blog-based technology

Drupal:
- LAMP-based
- 100% modular
- Excellent API - Drupal is an API-Centric Project
- Large user-base
- very active project
- taxonomy based organization
- bloggable - comments, rss, etc

They had over 2000 registered users (username/password) within the first couple of hours of releasing their new site.

Blog posts:
- ability to cross-post blog entries inside multiple taxonomies
- configruable interwiki links to catalog items, wikipedia, wherever

Events:
- you can browse events by location, type (storytime, lectures), subject, and age

They have rss feeds of holds and checkouts in their my account page

Does this new apprpach work?
- teens love it!
- I asked later, and adults like it and leave comments, too - just not as muc as the kids.

III has a patron API - it returns patron info.

Catalog - taking it apart
- turned into a n applciation server
- all non-essential html was stripped from the screen files
- unnecessary options were removed

Used CURL
Client URL - allows software to communicate with many different types of servers using different protocols
- PHP has native libcurl support

Result - the Wrapper
- they can get and update patron information, run catalog queries,etc
- Then they integrated Drupal through API

His Beef: they shouldn't have to do that! Automation vendors should supply APIs!

Gaming - they have an advertisement at the theater - it shows live scores at the theater from the gaming going on in the library. Amazing!

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IL05 - Day 3: Fueling Engines for the Future

Very interesting session on a "year down the road look" at search engines. Here are some (pretty meager) notes from the session:

A9:

• Introduced Open Search
• Common format for search requests for their partners
• It lets you search things like white pages, flickr, nytimes, etc.
• They are adding over one search engine a day to Open Search
• Microsoft is building OpenSearch into the next version of Internet Explorer 7
• Seattle Public Library's catalog is one of those, too (from Greg Notess)

Google:
Recent Search Innovations

• answers - type in question, and get an answer - I need to play around with this some...
• still working on automated translation tools
• cellphone versions of Google
• showed lots of stuff others have done with Google Maps and API

Yahoo:

• FUSE - enable people to find, use, share and expand ... (something... I didn't get the rest of that :-)
• partnering with subscription services
• partner with creative commons - so users can search for stuff they can legally use
• My Web - lets users save, tag, and annotate web content
• books, spoken word archives, historical document - they want to expand into those areas
• they're part of the Open Content Alliance

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IL05- Day 2: Blogs & Wikis Face Off, Jenny Levine and Steven M. Cohen

Successful Library wikis:

1. Library Success wiki works

2. Unofficial ala wiki also works (both created by Meredith Wolfwater)

• included calendar of events, personal schedules, blog links, etc.
• set up before conference - seemed to work well that way

Delicious and Technorati play well together

Interesting side note - someone actually asked for print handouts in the blog and wiki session. Hmm... struck me as ironic, that's all.

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IL05 - Day 2: Evening Session - Google-brary: The Status Quo of Tomorrow's MEGALIBRARY

Very fun, interesting session. Here are some sound-bytes from the panel:

Adam Smith from Google:

• Wants to dispell misinformation about Google Print
• What it is: Their effort to make all books digital (indexed by google) - doesn't mean they have to digitize it
• Public domain - fully available
• Copyright - three short snippets from the book

The question was asked, "how will it look in the year 2020:

SteveArnold compared Google to the old pre-baby bell Bell Labs. Google has room to play and innovate.

Adam Smith... in 2020:

• everything is digitized
• everyone is an author, publisher, archivist - involved in the creative process

Mark Sandler on Libraries in 2020:

• some libraries will disappear (the ones that don't "get it," or that don't change)
• they'll need to change their mission - about access, leading people to content
• develop new strategies to connect users to content

Barbara Quint on libraries in 2020:

• authors are connecting directly with readers more
• librarians are discriminating between good/bad material
• you're paying people to keep you from reading bad stuff
• we become censors... [me - how funny]

Roy Tennant's take:

• we need print around
• (Barbara interjected) print becomes a format!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! an output
• libraries are about providing service

Stephen Abrams said: why do we ill books for $20 when we can buy them for $5 on amazon?

Barbara: ALA could issue a "librarian seal of approval" on good content

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IL05 - Day 2: The Design & Management of Great Information Services, Matthew Manning

improve the user experience
- clean interfaces
- unique data
- unique functionality
- awareness of user's work setting

Clean Interfaces:
- A great user experience is both boring and satisfying. It's like turning on the tap and getting a clear, steady flow of clean water... [that must be the boring part?]
- clean design where tasks are easy to accomplish.
- white space
- weighting - most heavily used items get the most amount of space
- elimination of irrelevant or distracting content
- gave an example of lawyers.com

unique data - hard to find info
- metadata is critical

unique functionality
- content is more dependent on great software to amek it shine online

what to do:
- help the user do what they need to do
- minimal number of steps
- logical links (few of them)
- benignly redundant features

what not to do:
- gratuitous toys
- linkmania

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IL05 - Day 2: Library Blogs - Ethics & Guidelines, Karen G. Schneider

"Formost readers,you are the last stop between the reader and the truth."

Five Rules to Blog By:

1. Transparency (include an about page - can be humorous - also full disclosure and honesty about who you are and why you're writing). Transparency can be strategic.

2. Cite it

3. Be Accurate. "There is nothing more pathetic than a librarian who gets the facts wrong."

4. Be fair

5. Admit Mistakes

[My thought] - Blogging ethics are very similar to normal writer's ethics. And that makes sense, since a blogger is, whether they like it or not, a writer.

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IL05 - Day 2: What's Hot & New in RSS, Blogs, & Wikis - Steven M. Cohen

There's lots of mention (Steven included) about things being in constant beta (GMail, Google News, Flickr, del.icio.us, etc). The reason? Someone stated that these companies are changing so fast, trends are popping up left and right, they simply can't keep up. The person said the continuous beta trend will most likely continue.

Wikipedia - pointed out:

• no one used the World Book to look up info about Hurricane Katrina
• errors in the Encyclopedia Britannica

Netvibes - allows you to create your own webpage. Webmasters - why build your own My Library type of personalized site, when these companies are already doing this, for free, for our users? (I think Sarah Houghton said much the same thing yesterday during a question/answer time after the public library website presentation - awesome idea!).

Mentioned reddit and ratings systems

Library Thing - includes MARC records... user reviews, catalog your own book, RSS feeds for books you read, etc. Free acct - up to 200 books.

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IL05 - Day 2: Social Computing & the Info Pro, Elizabeth Lane Lawley

She has a friend that works at Technorati - cool...

She also mentioned the idea of the "long tail" - something about a curve, links, and blogs... I'll have to look into that some more.

Yahoo's My Yahoo helps her find what she wants. Her trusted contacts in My Yahoo help color her search results so she finds the stuff she really wants. This model works much better than simply typing a search into Google.

del.icio.us works a similar way - people can follow their interests through finding feeds of interest.

She showed La Grange Public Library's del.icio.us feed.

• staff can get to the bookmarks
• patrons can get to the bookmarks (and follow the bookmarks through the RSS feed)

Searching is better when you can filter your search results through people you trust - human filtering rather than automated filtering.

Idea for web dudes: With your Subject Guides and category names for links: when you want to see what customers call things, go to del.icio.us and see what real people are calling them. Then use that term for the guide.

Look at the ESP Game - it's a good excersize in tagging.

"Just brecause it doesn't work for you, doesn't mean it's bad for everybody." - her thoughts to librarians that are wary of constant partial attention.

Read "meet the lifehackers" found in the New York Times

an aside - she called this the Continuous Computing Generation

Pay attention to social bookmarking and tagging.

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IL05 - Day 1: Summary

I'm looking back over my notes from Day 1 at Internet Librarian 2005 - if I had to pick one thought that hit on everything I heard today, it'd go something like this:

"Change is coming... no change is already here, and it's going to speed up even more. Instead of holding onto your hats, strap on your goggles and shift into high gear!"

I spent all day in the Public Libraries Technology Trends track (awesome track, by the way). Here's a summary of what was discussed:

1. Public library websites are changing - they're incorporating social interaction types of applications
2. Public Libraries are changing - they're incorporating new services (ex: iPods)
3. You need staff buy-in for any of this to work
4. You need to train staff if any of this is going to be successful
5. Things our customers want are free (flickr and del.icio.us as examples)
6. We can make our Public PCs work for the customer in this new age

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IL05 - Day 1: Future Tech Trends for Public Libraries

Sarah Houghton, Joe Latini, Ken Weil, Jenny Levine, and Aaron Schmidt

Sarah:
Opening up public computers
- drives are locked
- limited software
- very locked down

Use DeepFreeze

OPACs should work just like Google - just as fast, just as relevant, etc.

Citywide wireless - very cool

Aaron:
Serving the information poor

E-ink and E-paper are right around the corner for libraries

Joe
Risk taking is good
Wants to get young people involved - Rock concerts
New technology needs to be experimented with (like iPods)

Ken
Take the initiative and do something!
Charge a fee if needed - it will still be cheaper for customers
Become a distributor - we'll even come to you
Staffing - use staff correctly
PR and Marketing - we're weak in those areas
Targeted emails to customers
Get out from behind the reference desk!
We have to be willing to fail - so try new initiatives
They tried mailing DVDs to homes - it didn't work for them

Jenny
The two way web
the read/write web
the participatory web
web 2.0

In a library - connecting, collaborating, communicating, etc - just like what we already do

within our four walls

Community involvement with local history - www.westernspringshistory.org:
- picture of old house
- comments from the community

AADL
- comments
- don't premoderate comments
- Director has a blog so she can communicate directly with the community
- 73 comments on the debugging the catalog post
- they have nothing to hide - it's very transparent
- over 400 comments on one post

ProQuest RSS feeds - content changes on the library website - cool

Put entire library IT support in a wiki!!!!!!!

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IL05 - Day 1: Smart Computing at Your Library, Aaron Schmidt, Thomas Ford Memorial Library and walkingpaper.org

Interesting stuff:

Be prepared for:
- saving files to the desktop
- USB storage devices
- IM
- CD burning
- Multimedia content
- Playing games
- Trying to look at TIFFs
- Installing Programs!

If we're not helping our users, what are we doing?

Have a regular maintenance schedule

Use ghosting software... DeepFreeze and Norton Ghost - wipes the PC clean at each reboot

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IL05 - Day 1: Hardware Solutions - Bernadine Goldman, Los Alamos County Public Library

Some interesting points she made:

Researching a solution
- vendor info at conferences
- library literature
- webjunction
- LITA listserv
- Site visits
- vendor websites
- online demos

Chose thin clients
- not vulnerable to tampering
- can be updated from a single server
- takes up less physical space
- use familiar software applications
- in line with our technology plan

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IL05 - Day 1: Jessamyn West and Jenny Levine

Jessamyn West: Flickr, Tagging, and the F-Word

Gave a great introduction to Flickr

Some highlights:
- other people can add tags to your pictures (if you allow them to do that)
- Tags - click the word, you get your tagged pictures
- Tags - click on the globe by the tag word, and you get everyone's tagged pictures
- Explained the coolness of Hot Tags - last 24 hours, last week - shows what's going on

Jenny Levine:

intro to del.icio.us

del.icio.us/Jayhawk - Jenny's bookmarks

These bookmarks are things other people are finding interesting and important

Find others with similar interests

for:username - this will go to that user

LaGrangeParkLibrary
- using del.icio.us at the reference desk
- they can get to it anywhere, and their customers can get to it, too

Thomas Ford Memorial Library
- Aaron moved their bookmarks to del..icio.us, then links tot he RSS feed

Many other places are using folksonomies
- citeulike
- Michael's lastfm page
- 43things
- technorati
- metafilter
- Yahoo's Myweb
- Amazon's search in this book feature
- books we like

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IL05: Michael Stephens: Ten Steps for Staff Buy-In

Michael first asked "why are we doing this?- Need to answer that question- One answer - it's for our users.

1. Listen
- listen to conversations in your organization
- you want buy-in

2. Involve staff in planning
- front line staff know what works in your library

3. Tell Stories
- music gets kids into library
- what can you do with ... ? - ask staff to answer this question

4. Be Transparent
- tell staff why you're planning stuff
- tell staff what you're learning at the conference

5. Report & Debrief
- report what you learned at a conference
- make a next action list of stuff you learned at a conference

6. do your research FIRST
- be prepared before the first meeting
- do your research
- see if it's good for your organization

7. Manage Projects Well
- create next steps!
- The Getting Things Done philosophy

8. Offer training for all technology
- let staff be trained first

9. Let them play
- get staff to try new things

10. Celebrate successes
- really, actually celebrate them...

Bonus: breathe and take care of yourself...

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Internet Librarian 2005

IL05 - Day 1: Digital Content, Digital Audio Books, and iPods

Ken Weil and Joe Latini, South Huntington Public Library

They use iTunes - books from Apple's online music store. Why?

• Audible tends not to sell to libraries
• Apple Music Store was the best way to go for them in terms of price
• Digital book is usually available much sooner to them than the print version

They buy iPods for circulation

"Currently, there is no audio book vendor that provides both universal access and high demand digital content."

Copyright Considerations:- they limit circulation to the number of copies owned by the library

They set up an Apple iTunes music store account!

iTunes software works for Windows and Apples

They search for the audio books using APple store

Download takes about 5 minutes

They now have 20 iPod Shuffles
-the iPods AND the individual titles are cataloged

They advertise it on their website

They include lots of stuff in a camera bag:
- iPod Shuffle
- power adapter/charger
- radio transmitter
- audiocassette adapter
- user's guide
- aux input connector

They hook a title card onto the camera bag

They also circulate laptops!

If you use your own iPod, they make the patron bring their iPod to the library when the book is due - otherwise, there is an overdue fine

73% of surveyed users of their iPods are female

They are exploring podcasting library programs - as a way to keep patrons current, and to stay at the forefront



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IL05: Web Trends and Innovations

I was able to speak as part of this session - it went well! Here's what the others said:

Glenn Peterson, Hennepin County Library:

Their Website:

- 3.5 fte for web services - most part time - also reference librarians, etc. Huh
- 6 million visitors
- 70% of reserves are placed online

leveraging staff:
- web application software helps - so staff can drop info into databases
- Dreamweaver, homesite, etc - much easier to make webpages because of autocomplete
- using reference staff to provide content

Subject Guides are a great way to group different types of library and community information

Their subject guides are two pages of code

Sarah Houghton, Marin County Free Library

She gets 5 hours a week to spend on her website!

Small libraries can:

• blog
• create linked lists - you make these for your library already (bookmarks, paper-based lists) - why not make an online version, too?
• Quick Searches - make a link to searches - new books, DVDs, etc.
• Give patrons a way to talk to you - like comments online
• virtual reference - jybe and sms and IM - all free!
  - jybe does co browsing
  - most of these allow passing URLs

John Blyberg, Ann Arbor District Library
used Drupal (open source CMS)
Used Debian Sarge for LInux
Using LAMP
Apache - defacto standard for open source web servers
PHP is a "fun" language!

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IL05 - Day 1: Lee Rainey (Keynote speaker)

I attended Lee Rainey's keynote presentation this morning. It was a great presentation! Here's what he talked about, in a nutshell:

Asked who was blogging his talk in real time - about 6 people raised their hands - much different from even 5 years ago

The more invisible the technology is, the more it impacts users
- ex - the internet is everywhere
- but is getting more invisible

Many dial-up users are dial up by choice. They don't want more internet in their lives.

What are people doing online?
- email, IM, finance, games, interaction
- chat rooms are being used by fewer and fewer people
- people are communicating in other places online (IM, blogs, etc)

Teenagers and the Internet:
- 12-17 - more connected than ever
- adore IM 3/4's use it
- 1/2 every day
- many have cell phones - they take pictures and text message
- being present with other peole - physical proximity doesn't matter as much
- they play with their identities - images for IM, etc.
- they are saturated in media
- 8 out of 10 play online games - grew 52% in 4 years!
- they are media creators - they make and share photos, artwork, blogs, websites, etc.
- fanatic multitaskers
- they see advertising as one more input

Politics:
- 75 million adults used the internet for some type of political-related activity (he counted news as one)
- more important source of news than newspapers, tv, and radio
- internet users don't just read their own opinions - they read differing viewpoints too. The internet is being used as a door opener


Major Moments for people:
- asked people about internet use during life milestones
- 29 million - pursuing more education or training
- 17 million - helped another person deal with a serious illness
- 7 million - coping with their own illness
- 2 million - marriage help
- divorce too

Other stuff:
- There are public toilets in France with IP addresses (sends "clean me" messages)
- RFID golf balls (so you can find them)
- cell phone as life contraoller - send message to start turkey in the oven, etc.

Continuous partial attention - Scanning alerts for the one best thing to seize upon. This is an enormous behavioral change.

Even more savvy internet users - people still don't know the difference between paid results and real results, and don't know when they've gone to a new site. Sheesh!

Also mentioned that some corporations have email free fridays (huge sigh in the audience)

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IL05 - Things to do before I leave for Internet Librarian 2005 (in fairly random order)

• Email both presentations to myself
• pack paper copies of presentations
• download presentations on USB drive
• make sure book proposal is also on USB drive
• pack extra bag for all the goodies I'll find in Monterey
• Download cool songs for MP3 player (preferably Death Cab for Cutie)
• pack earphones
• Pack laptop for blogging
• pack cell phone
• pack PDA for blogging backup, songs, and possibly a bible
• remember to redownload bible software onto PDA
• pack PDA and cell phone power supplies
• print out e-ticket confirmation
• make sure the van really is picking me up in San Francisco
• Pack grant proposals I need to read
• Pack the book I want to read
• pack hotel confirmation
• download pictures from camera onto home PC, then pack camera
• set alarm clock about five times
• remember to get up when alarm goes off
• pack clothes and stuff
• make sure contact case, glasses, and iboprophen go with me in the plane
• check weather in Monterey
• post something about Internet Librarian 2005 conference
• email schedule and cell phone number to department and supervisor
• tie up any loose ends at work
• give schedule specifics, flight numbers, hotel phone numbers to wife

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Internet Librarian 2005

Presentation Reminder

I gave a 4-hour presentation yesterday for a library-related organization. It was fun! And I realized that one should always be prepared - especially with Powerpoint presentations. The computer I used for presenting didn't have a handy USB port... and my presentation was on a USB key. Bummer, right?

Wrong! Because I usually email my Powerpoint slides to myself. So instead of having to figure out some nasty USB/Network/"Can you copy this for me" thing, I simply downloaded my presentation, and I was off.

So here's what I usually take with me for a presentation:
1. a paper copy, in case the electricity goes out (and I tend to write notes on it, anyway)
2. a USB key
3. a copy emailed to myself

These three copies haven't failed me yet!

Bricks, Clicks, and Pics

Here's a little more ... ahem ... broad thinking about websites being actual destinations, presented in pictures...

This is a brick. It represents the physical library building. It's an actual destination - library customers actually go there to visit, to use the resources, to be entertained, and to find loads of information.

This is also a brick. It represent's the library's physical collection. It is an actual resource used by library customers. Librarians spend much time and money arranging this brick so customers can find and use it.

This is also a brick (although I have been accused of being many other things, too :-). This represents a librarian - an actual person, helping customers. And also a library resource.

This is also a brick. It represents computer resources in the library. It's an actual resource used by library customers. Librarians should spend much time and money arranging this brick so customers can find and use it.

This is also a brick. This represents a library website. It's an actual destination - library customers actually go there to visit, to use the resources, to be entertained, and to find loads of information. It is also an actual resource used by library customers. Librarians should spend much time and money arranging this brick so customers can find and use it.

I think you get my point - the library website, interestingly enough, is where everything comes together in a library - as actual destinations that customers visit, as a much-used resource, and as a place where librarians help customers find what they need.