Upgrade

Libology has upgraded to WordPress 3.0, which is a significant jump ahead in standards and features.  One of the most interesting, for me, will be support for HTML 5.

I have also switched to the Twenty-Ten theme, as it is one of the best WordPress themes I have seen in a while.  It is clean, meets standards, and is meant to be the foundation for building on the new features and support in the software.

I may have to play with some of the widget code, as the blog is no longer standardscompliant.  I suspect that this is mostly due to widgets, and that I need to find updates or update them myself (the joy of open source is that you can fix it yourself!)

The header image is my own, taken tonight when I realized that I should put something original into that space.  Nothing like a few books in a library blog, eh?

Bear with me in the near future, as I begin to see what can be done in this space.  And, as it turns out, what cannot be done… as the Tagaroo Tags won’t work correctly for this post.  It might be a fun few weeks…

Posted in Blogs, Books, Libraries, Library 2.0, News, Open Source, Software, Web Design | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Upgrade

Tragic Death

It has been a long time since I worked there, and I highly doubt that I would recognize or be recognized by anyone currently on staff, but the news of the tragic death of a librarian from the Brookfield Public Library is still shocking.

My condolences go out to her family, friends and co-workers.

=== Update 16 June 2010===

Charges have been filed against a suspect in the murder.

Posted in Death, Libraries, News | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on Tragic Death

Catch-22 Terms of Service

Apple pulled a newsreader called Pulse from their App Store yesterday after the New York Times sent a letter saying that the application violated their terms of service.

The issue seems to revolve around the fact that Pulse is a paid-for app, and having the New York Times RSS feed pre-installed amounted to charging people for the feed.  As far as that goes, I think the Times is only hurting themselves… the purpose of the feed is to get more people to visit their site and read their content (as well as view their ads).

I was curious, however, and looked up the Terms of Service.  Here is the relevant section:

2.2 The Service and its Contents are protected by copyright pursuant to U.S. and international copyright laws. You may not modify, publish, transmit, participate in the transfer or sale of, reproduce (except as provided in Section 2.3 of these Terms of Service), create new works from, distribute, perform, display, or in any way exploit, any of the Content or the Service (including software) in whole or in part.

2.3 You may download or copy the Content and other downloadable items displayed on the Service for personal use only, provided that you maintain all copyright and other notices contained therein….

Having read this, I now suggest that you take a look at their Home Page RSS feed.  I have viewed this link using Firefox 3.6, IE 8, Chrome 5, and Safari 5.  No sign of the copyright information.  It is there, if you download the page and view it with a text editor, but it doesn’t appear to be visible using the most common web browsers, and most feed readers won’t display the copyright information, as it is encased in metadata tags.

This isn’t unusual; it isn’t even uncommon.  Terms of Service tend to be all-encompassing in their language, and if you were to take the above literally, you would be able to “download or copy the Content”, but not “display” the content.  Does “display” also include having the content appear on a computer screen, or does it only come into play when someone puts an article on their refrigerator or bulletin board?

I am a proponent of respecting copyright and licensing, but I am an even bigger proponent of respecting Fair Use and reasonable expectations.  If I print out an article from the Times because I think it will benefit someone else, why should the Times consider this an infringement?  If they don’t want us reading, discussing and sharing their content, they should reconsider their business model.  I suspect that timely, interesting articles may not be the best fit for their website and newsfeeds.

Posted in Copyright, Definitions, Ethics, Licensing, Online Services, Publishing, XML | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on Catch-22 Terms of Service

Library of the Year

The Columbus Metropolitan Library System was named 2010 Library of the Year by Library Journal.

Hoo-Rah!

(And given budget realities, I bet directors were nervous to be called into a surprise meeting this morning!)

Posted in Libraries, News | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on Library of the Year

I will gladly pay you Tuesday for a library today…

Another method of dealing with fiscal woes is beginning to impact library organizations.

My former state of residence, Illinois, has always for years run several months behind in payments to state-funded organizations.  I know this from keeping an eye on the overall budget of the community college where I used to work.

The length of time appears to be increasing, and it has reached a breaking point for one of Illinois’ nine library systems, the North Suburban Library System.

According to their letter:

As you are aware, 80% of our funding comes from an annual grant from the Illinois General Assembly distributed through Secretary of State Jesse White’s office. We have not received 42% of the money owed to us for the fiscal year ending June 30. If we continue to operate without making any service or staffing changes, our money would run out at the end of July 2010. We had hoped to receive additional funding soon, but our latest intelligence tells us that we are not likely to receive any state payments until November 2010 at the earliest. We are told this is not a temporary problem. Rather, there is a trend in Illinois to continue to delay state payments, not just to library systems. This means that cash flow is going to be a continuing and growing problem for NSLS, as well as many other state funded agencies and organizations. Under these conditions, we cannot continue to offer our members the high level of service they expect and deserve.

The system is focusing efforts on keeping Inter-Library Loan (ILL) running, but most everything else is up in the air.  Not only are staff layoffs in the works, but the NSLS Executive Director, Sara Long, and Marketing/Communications Specialist Judy Hoffman are both losing their jobs.

This is a tough situation, and one that is hard to plan for even if foreseen.  650 libraries gain over $9 million dollars in benefits from services provided by the system.  This adds another budget stress to those libraries.

thanks to Elizabeth Neill for the heads-up on this story…

Posted in Government, ILL, Libraries, News | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Academic Library Bubble

An interesting column in Library Journal by Stephen Bell:

The Bursting of the Academic Library Bubble

That is bubble as in housing bubble or stock market bubble.

It is not the academic library that is possibly in a bubble, but higher education as a whole.  Some are convinced that the cost/benefit ratio of a college degree is reaching a breaking point.   The time and effort required to pay student loans is increasing, due to the combination of rising education costs, the shifting of those costs towards loans, and an economy that isn’t able to sustain jobs that can pay back all of those loans.

We are seeing the early stages of what may become strong trends:  the open education movement providing courseware and related materials via open access, further reductions or elimination of libraries at the college level, and consolidation of services.

I suspect (predict, even?) that the last of these will be a major player, and will impact libraries tremendously in the long run.  I am not thinking simply of merging departments on campus (usually IT or tutoring centers being merged with the library), but multiple universities creating consortia libraries.

Each institution would retain a library space, but administration, purchasing, and most especially resource licensing would become centralized.  This not only reduces the costs for administration (directors, coordinators, etc.) but also creates a larger unit for purchases, which will reduce the cost per institution.  Add resource sharing (one ILS installation for the group, for instance) and you could save quite a bit over what is currently being spent on the library.

Is this a good thing?  I personally don’t think so, but it will look attractive to those who handle the budgets.  Libraries in general have not been successful at reigning in cost increases on serials, licenses, and ILS contracts; as a result, any solution that can address these will save a great deal of money across a group of libraries.

There are efforts being made to implement some of these savings in a voluntary and pro-library way (several currently in development for the state of Ohio, where I work), but too often there seems to be an ingrained resistance to altering the way we spend our budgets, even though we would find greater freedoms and additional money for other projects by making changes in the right places.

As always, in times of stress, we have opportunities to attain greatness by facing the challenges and adapting with intelligence and forethought.  Will we?  Or will we have different changes forced upon us, changes that will limit our ability to control our library environments?

Posted in Education, ILS, Libraries, Licensing, Online Databases, Software | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Academic Library Bubble

Anne Frank’s Annex: 3-D Tour

Each year, about one million people visit the site where Anne Frank’s family hid from the Nazis during World War II, which was described vividly in her diary.  Now the Anne Frank House has opened a virtual annex site, including an audio tour:

Visit the Secret Annex…

found via ResourceShelf

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Practical Open Source Software Website

Nicole Engard’s forthcoming book, Practical Open Source Software for Libraries, has a page on the accompanying website consisting of links mentioned in the book.  Not only is this a tantalizing glimpse of the book, but it is a source of information and discovery in and of itself!

found via Nicole’s FaceBook post.

Posted in Books, Libraries, Library 2.0, Online Services, Open Source, Publishing, Software | Tagged , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

The Importance of Taking Breaks

Most people are viewing this with an eye towards the Dewey Decimal System, but what I see is the importance of taking regular breaks:

found on The Cataloguing Librarian

Posted in Books, Classification, Humor, Libraries, Video | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

We are but warriors for the working-day…

Bullet Point : “We live in Shakespearean Times” is an older post on Virtual Dave… Real Blog aimed squarely at librarians, but I think it may apply even more to support staff, as we are in even less of a position to add our voices to policy or to add our ideas to projects.

Read the post, watch the Kenneth Branagh video clip, and think about what options exist for you when you have ideas and energy to contribute.  If you cannot express yourself in your workplace, find an outlet for your productivity.

Some options:

  • Getting together with coworkers and colleagues to brainstorm and network – you never know what could come of this sort of collaboration.
  • Offer your services to libraries that might want to do more, but don’t have the resources – small public, church, and organization libraries are often a few steps behind where they would like to be.
  • Do it yourself – depending on what you have in mind, you can simply apply it to your own personal situation.  Even if you only set up a prototype, you will then have that knowledge and experience in your “toolkit”, and you can never predict when or how this will benefit you (and others) in the future.

It is amazing what even a single individual can accomplish… you simply need to provide the time and attitude to make it happen.

found via a FaceBook post by Buffy Gunter Hamilton

Posted in Blogs, Libraries, Library 2.0 | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

Personality Spectrum

There is an interesting “personality type” post on Dougal Campbell’s Geek Ramblings titled Open Source Personality Spectrum.

In and of itself, it is interesting and basically true.  Giving it some thought, I suspect that this range of personality traits can be used to identify people’s attitude towards not only software, but towards websites, services, organizations, projects, and even people.

We should strive to fit into either of the following categories:

  • Enthusiast – “Likes the application, and is generally positive about it. Will acknowledge that it has some faults, but feels that they are minor enough to ignore, or can be worked around.”
  • Stoic – “Uses the application, but views it as a commodity. If something comes along that looks significantly better in some way, he’ll switch.”

Most of the other categories are missing the point:  software project, and all the other foci I mentioned, will be at their best when the feedback they receive is accurate.  To be unrealistically positive about something or someone is just as harmful as being unrealistically negative.

Posted in Definitions, Groups, Open Source, Software | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Personality Spectrum

DIY Book Scanner for less than $20

If you have reading material that you would like to digitize, but not enough budget to make it happen, this might be your recipe for a Saturday afternoon do-it-yourself (DIY) project:

New & Improved Portable, Paperless, Digital Copy Machine

The price depends on having a spare digital camera available, and it certainly isn’t an automated process.  It looks as though it would do a fairly good job, however.

found via Wired’s Gadget Lab

Posted in Archival, Books, Libraries, Photography, Software, Tutorials | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

iPad Peek

A good service for web designers who want to see how their website will work on the iPad:

iPad Peek

iPad Peek Screenshot

found via WeblogToolsCollection

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OCLC and Data

The OCLC Record Use Policy Council today posted a draft of the WorldCat Rights and Responsibilities for the OCLC Cooperative.

This is the second go-around for updating the 1987 Guidelines for the Use and Transfer of OCLC-derived Records, which is in need of an update due to the changes in accessing and using data brought on by the expansion of the internet into the public realm.

The first attempt to update the guidelines in the Fall of 2008, then called the Policy for Use and Transfer of WorldCat Records (pdf), ran into a storm of criticism, including some from this blog.  I am not going to rehash those, but you can review my posts, which include links to quite a few facets of the debate, through my use of the OCLC Records Use Policy tag.

I strongly recommend  that the draft policy be read and understood by as many library people as possible, and that constructive and fair feedback be given to the Council, among our coworkers, and in social media (blogs, e-mail lists, etc.).

Links to commentary and resources can be found in the Code4Lib OCLC Policy Change wiki page.

I glanced through the document during my lunch hour this morning, and sat down to read through it with more care tonight.  I have purposely not sought out what others might have to say about the draft in order to allow my first impression to be my own.  In doing so, I have come to the following conclusions:

I can see that a great deal of effort and attention was given to creating this draft.  It strives to address the broad issues involved with creating and using data in a networked age, while attempting to ground the policy in the history and tradition of the OCLC cooperative.  I think the council deserves praise for seeking feedback and opening up the process to not only OCLC members, but also to interested members of the public.

However, I do feel that the draft fails in one significant aspect:  Data.

The word data is used only once in the 1987 Guidelines.  It is used five times in the 2008 Policy.  In the current draft, the word appears 38 times.

The problem with this is that OCLC doesn’t have any rights over the data contained in the records.  They have some rights on the records themselves, though there is debate over just what rights a cooperative organization has over member created records.

To state that the OCLC Cooperative has the right to manage and control their records can be supported.  To state the same thing about the public data contained within those records flies in the face of both case law and modern reality.

Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, writing the ruling for Feist v. Rural in 1991, had this to say about data:

“Although a compilation of facts may possess the requisite originality because the author typically chooses which facts to include, in what order to place them, and how to arrange the data so that readers may use them effectively, copyright protection extends only to those components of the work that are original to the author, not to the facts themselves.”

Apply that statement to a collection of MARC records downloaded from WorldCat.  Not only does this strongly suggest that the data contained in the records (Author, Title, ISBN, etc.) is not protected, but that the author (i.e. “creator”) of the record is the one who holds what protection does exist.  How many of the records contained in WorldCat were actually created by OCLC?  Very, very few, I suspect.

What does this all mean?  It means that we all need to recognize that controlling and/or restricting public data (as opposed to patron, personnel, and other such privileged information) is both self-defeating and ultimately counter-productive.

It means that OCLC should focus on providing the highest levels of service to both its members and the public.  It means that the future belongs to those who put the data to use in ways that best suit the needs and desires of the end user.  It means that OCLC as an organization should not attempt to control the data contained within their records.

Control of this sort is elusive.  It offers the illusion of  security and safety, but the time, money, and effort spent attempting to control what isn’t owned will ultimately leave them with less than they started with, and without the good will needed to rebuild.  The trick is to provide more of what is truly unique about the organization:  cooperative services and benefits.

Bibliographic data will get used in new and creative ways  — witness OpenLibrary and LibraryThing.  More of these types of services are coming, as well as concepts that we may not have even thought possible before now.  The question is:  will we be facilitators and partners in this process, or will we attempt to drag our heels and protect our “assets”?

One of these positions will put all of us (libraries, OCLC, and users) in a position to gain, so long as we are open to change and innovation.  The other position carries a strong risk, due to entrenchment and stagnation, of becoming obsolete.

Choose wisely… let the data be free, and focus on the cooperative.

Posted in Cataloging, Copyright, History, Libraries, Library 2.0, Licensing, News, OCLC, Online Databases, OPAC | Tagged , | 2 Comments

Zombie Attack Preparedness

I am a huge supporter of organizational disaster plans.  Not only does this allow for greater safety for staff and users, but a well-made disaster plan can mean that your library can be more functional in a shorter time when a disaster occurs.

From an undead perspective:

How well is your library prepared to offer services to your users when the zombies attack?

found via LISNews

Posted in Education, Humor, Libraries, Library 2.0, Online Services, Video | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments Off on Zombie Attack Preparedness

Taking Library Photographs

Taking Pictures and Telling Stories at our Libraries is a post on the ALA TechSource blog by Cindi Trainor.  It is a good overview for how someone can take decent photographs in a library setting.

The only suggestion I would add would involve flash photography:  I suggest taking photographs both with and without flash.  Not only will this let you choose the photo with the better lighting, but you will find that colors will look different depending on whether you use flash.

found via Librarian in Black

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MARCTHULU

This would be really tough to describe to someone who isn’t familiar with MARC (and with various flavors of Integrated Library Systems), but for those of us with some exposure to each, this is a real treat:

Original can be found here.

found via Stephen’s Lighthouse

Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off on MARCTHULU

OpenDNS Hits 1%

DNS, aka Domain Name System,  is one of those things that is easily taken for granted.  However, the DNS service we use can determine our overall internet experience.

I first encountered OpenDNS at a tech conference, and was intrigued enough to give it a try.  I don’t see myself changing back – the service provides increased connection speed and the ability to control many aspects of one’s connectivity.

They released an announcement yesterday that more than 1% of all internet users are utilizing their service.  That may not seem like much, but according to TechCrunch, this translates to over 18 million users.  Great numbers for a service that isn’t a household name.

The one element provided by OpenDNS that should get the attention of libraries is the ability to filter web content.   I haven’t examined it closely, but it appears that it could do an excellent job in providing a public/school library’s filtering needs.  Libraries and individuals should definitely check them out… you might make your internet access faster, safer, and more under your control!

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Mash-Up the OPAC

ILS user groups can be one of the greatest sources of tips, tricks and inspiration for tech-oriented library staff. There was a recent discussion on the Innovative User’s Group that has led to an interesting way to embed various media into OPAC search results.

Each of these work in Innovative’s Millennium OPAC. I have not had a chance to check whether this will work in other systems, but would greatly enjoy hearing whether or not it works for others.

The key to this is the MARC 970 field, using the subfield |t, which is used for Table of Contents display information. It was observed that the contents of the field were passed along to the browser, and that html code could be passed to the bibliographic display.

It works well, and is a perfect example of a “hack”, utilizing existing functionality in new and creative ways. To date, there are six ways to extend the OPAC.

(note added August 29, 2010:  Mary Strouse of the Catholic University of America posted on the IUG list on August 25th:

“This assumes that you are not using the 970 fields for the purpose for which they are intended.  If you are using 970 fields for TOC data, then using 970 fields to rig up a streaming video link will have some very strange indexing consequences.”

As with any other hack, you do need to try and make sure that there are no unintended effects.)

To try out these examples, simply copy the html code, starting with the |t, and paste it into a 970 field in a bibliographic record. Each of the examples should work as is; some information about how to modify the code, as well as a screenshot of the example is provided.

Displaying an Image:
This is fairly straightforward insertion of an image stored on Flickr. Change the URLs to whatever you need, adjust the pixel height and width, and this will serve you well.

|t<center><object data=”http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3433/3694927599_039309b2e6_o.jpg” type=”image/jpg” width=”400″ height=”600″><img src=”http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3433/3694927599_039309b2e6_o.jpg”></img></object></center>

Screenshot of inserted image

Image Screenshot

Embedding a Search Form:
This code embeds a search form for OpenLibrary, including a selector check box and link to an advanced search page. Search forms can be tricky, and it can be very challenging to get even basic search functionality for some services.

|t<br />Search OpenLibrary:<form method=”get” action=”http://www.openlibrary.org/search”><input border: 1px solid #ccc; width: 100%” type=”text” name=”q” value=”” title=”type_search.” /><button class=”go” type=”submit”>Go</button><br /><input tabindex=”9″ type=”checkbox” value=”mhsncqbxgkup” name=”ftokens”>Scanned books only<br /><a href=”http://www.openlibrary.org/advanced” style=”text-decoration: underline”>OpenLibrary Advanced Search Page</a></form>

OpenLibrary search box screenshot

Search Box Screenshot

Embedding a Video:
This example embeds a YouTube video, specifically the preview for the film “A Streetcar Named Desire”. Previews of videos available in the library, library instructional videos, and author interviews are examples of the types of embedded video that add can value to your OPAC.

The embedding information comes from the “Embed” information from the YouTube result page. You can also simply replace the URL information in the code below:

|t<center><embed src=”http://www.youtube.com/v/ilW32IKJoM0&hl=en_US&fs=1&” type=”application/x-shockwave-flash” allowscriptaccess=”always” allowfullscreen=”true” width=”720″ height=”578″></embed></center>

Embedded Video Screenshot

Embedded Video Screenshot

Streaming Audio:
This example uses a third-party service called Odeo to stream the MP3 audio of Martin Luther King Jr’s “I Have a Dream” speech. The audio file lives on the Internet Archive.

|tTo listen to the speech, click the “Play” button:<br /><center><embed src= “http://www.odeo.com/flash/audio_player_standard_gray.swf” quality=”high” width=”300″ height=”52″ allowScriptAccess=”always” wmode=”transparent” type=”application/x-shockwave-flash” flashvars= “valid_sample_rate=true&external_url=http://www.archive.org/download/MLKDream/MLKDream_64kb.mp3″ pluginspage=”http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer”></embed></center>

Streaming Audio Screenshot

Streaming Audio Screenshot

Journal Table of Contents
This example utilizes two separate third-party services. First, the ticTOCs Journal Tables of Contents service is used to locate an RSS feed for a table of contents, in this case “Educational Research“.

After this, the feed URL is entered into the Feed2js service, which generates the code. To display any RSS feed, simply use the Feed2js service with a feed’s URL.

|t<script language=”JavaScript” src=”http://feed2js.org//feed2js.php?src=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.informaworld.com%2Fampp%2Frss%7Econtent%3D0013-1881&chan=y&tz=-5&targ=y&utf=y&html=a” charset=”UTF-8″ type=”text/javascript”></script> <noscript> <a href=”http://feed2js.org//feed2js.php?src=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.informaworld.com%2Fampp%2Frss%7Econtent%3D0013-1881&chan=y&tz=-5&targ=y&utf=y&html=y”>View RSS feed</a> </noscript>

Journal Table of Contents Screenshot

Journal Table of Contents Screenshot

Virtual Bookplate
This example is simply a proof of concept, but I especially enjoyed putting this one together and hope to create a more polished version in the future. It uses a background image of an open book with blank pages (credit to happysweetmama via Flickr), and then applied Relative Positioning to place text on top of the image.

The text position, font, size, and content are all able to be controlled for each record. This can be a great way to honor those who add to a collection, or to highlight items from a particular collection.

|t<center><object data=”http://www.libology.com/capital/OpenBook500.jpg” type=”image/jpg” width=”500″ height=”364″> <img src=”http://www.libology.com/capital/OpenBook500.jpg” width=”500″ height=”364″></img> </object><div style=”position: relative; top:-225px; left:-125px”><font size=”+1″ font-family:”Times New Roman”,Georgia,Serif;>A Gift from:</font></div><div style=”position: relative; top:-260px; left:125px”><font size=”+2″ font-family:”Times New Roman”,Georgia,Serif;>Josiah H.<br />Blackmore II</font></div></center>

Virtual Bookplate Screenshot

Virtual Bookplate Screenshot

There are, I am sure, dozens of ways that one can use this hack to enhance the OPAC… these are just a start.

Posted in Cataloging, ILS, Libraries, Library 2.0, Online Services, Software, Tutorials, Video, Web Design, XML | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

PictureIt Rare Book Reader

The University of Michigan has unveiled the PictureIt Rare Book Reader, an on-screen reader that is similar to others that I have seen, but faster, smoother, and simply beautiful to see and use.

The first book available online is volume one of John James Audubon’s Birds of America:

PictureIt Rare Book Reader screenshot

Click the image to open the reader

The software will be released under a Creative Commons license at some point in the future.

found via the Blog for Library Technology

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