From the Oxford English Dictionary, via Ron Murray at the Library of Congress, through the Disruptive Library Technology Jester, comes the news that the term “Mash-Up”, with roughly the same meaning as today, is over 150 years old!
The modern re-birth of the term appears to begin around 1994.
A List Apart has been a steady source of thought-provoking inspiration over the years, not only from a website building perspective, but also because much of what they publish crosses boundaries and impacts other projects and interests in my life.
Their current article, Accent Folding, greatly impacts library data in general, and library catalogs in particular. It deals with the issue of Unicode and pattern recognition, namely how one creates search tools that allow for variations in how words containing accents, stress marks, and other non-ascii characters. The most succinct example:
There is no excuse for your software to play dumb when the user types “cafe” instead of “café.”
The article presents methods of “normalizing” text to allow for proper matching, and should be read by anyone who gets to deal with library data for reports and searching aids. If you know how to use regular expressions, you will likely be in for a treat.
The other example they present, this time to demonstrate the limitations of accent folding, uses Japanese to illustrate just how differently the same data can be presented:
These four sentences all say “Children like to watch television” in Japanese:
- Kanji: 子供はテレビを見るのが好きです。
- Hiragana: こども は てれび を みる の が すき です 。
- Romaji: kodomo wa terebi o miru noga suki desu.
- Cyrillic: кодомо ва тэрэби о миру нога суки дэсу.
Even if you don’t end up applying this directly to your work, the information in this article will help your appreciation for the challenges contained within your data, and how tough it can be to make it “just work” sometimes.
Bobbi Newman, a.k.a. Librarian by Day, has compiled some quotes that illustrate the best way for a group to innovate: find people who are inspired to be creative and let them have the room to create their inspirations.
Want Innovation? Get Out of the Way
The one thing I would add would be this:
Other people in the group, including the leaders, need to become involved once the innovation becomes part of the group’s operations. Not only does this allow for others to know how the innovative whachamacalit works, but it gives the group as a whole a chance to add their ideas for improving it. Nothing is ever as good as it could be, and as long as it innovation isn’t subjected to “death by committee”, a good group can make a good innovation even better.
The Public Domain Manifesto is an effort to describe the strengths of public domain, and to encourage support.
Some of the general principles:
I recommend that you review the manifesto, and if you agree with it, show your support by signing it.
found via Open Source Initiative
This is a couple of months old, but it is worth highlighting:
Kenneth Eikenberry illustrates the benefits of being passionate about your work, and how one can encourage and develop those passions.
From the post:
When you are passionate about an activity, event or situation, your satisfaction, success and productivity all skyrocket. If you want those benefits more of the time, it isn’t enough to wait for that passionate feeling; you must look for the opportunities, because until you look, you won’t find your passion.
He extols the benefits of having a good attitude, especially looking for the positive aspects of one’s work, as well as seeking out opportunities to apply your strengths through volunteer work or hobbies. I can certainly vouch for these methods; they can certainly make a difference in your life, as well as providing benefits to others.
found via Library Garden
The Kirkendall Public Library in Ankeny, Iowa wanted to install a self-checkout system. The $23,000 price tag meant that, at best, they would need to wait until they could raise the money to purchase the system.
Eric Melton, circulation librarian and tech support for the library, came up with a solution: he built a self-check system for $1,500, less than 7% of the quoted cost for a purchased system.
Enterprising Ankeny librarian builds money-saving kiosk
How many opportunities can be discovered to save money in how we operate our libraries? For most libraries, this is becoming more critical than ever.
found via AL Direct
Bill Mayer, the University Librarian at American University, has been implementing some fairly radical (for libraries) changes in how the library exists on campus and interacts with the university community:
Next Steps : Change at American University
I really don’t have much of an opinion on any particular changes, mainly because I think that any library needs to seek out the ways to best serve their community. This means hanging on to traditional ways of service, while at the same time implementing out new tools and ways to connect people with what they seek. The best results for this process will be different for different libraries and communities.
I was, however, impressed with his approach:
…one word kept coming up over and over again: trust. “Trust is the most important aspect of the work we do—without it, there can be no change, no movement, no growth,” he said. I asked him how one goes about building trust and his response was simple: listening. “You ask questions and then you listen to what others say and suggest, and then you build up together from there. That’s a key part. If an administrator doesn’t ask, or even worse, asks but doesn’t include aspects that staff suggest, then you lose trust.”
If he walks that talk, then I think he has a good chance of finding the right balance for American University.
As the economy continues to remain weak and budgets tighten for public libraries, here is a study that should encourage any community of the value of high speed internet access via their libraries:
Internet Use and Job Search (pdf)
In a nutshell, the rate of “discouragement” (giving up hope for finding work) is reduced by 50% when job seekers have high speed internet access, and is reduced by 30% when job seekers have access to dial-up internet.
This provides a justification for providing high speed access to the community, in that it will encourage not only a higher rate of employment, but also less desperation in those still seeking employment.
To take this one step further, I would suggest that providing training and support (perhaps through volunteers among job seekers) might improve a community’s results beyond the scope of the study.
The American Library Association has announced the winners for their many youth categories:
There are more categ0ries than I remember… scanning through the lists reveals many interesting titles.
This is a fantastic opportunity for the right organizations with the right ideas:
Note that in their Funding Priorities, they limit grants to “grassroots, constituent-led organizations that are organizing for systemic social change”, so this would be something that might be useful to some Friend’s groups, or beneficial as something that a library could offer support to a community group (i.e. helping to provide books, tools, and access to underserved populations such as the homeless).
Think about how this could benefit your community, and who could effectively organize it. Then think about how your library might be able to add value to the end result.
discovered via an OhioLink e-mail
The American Antiquary Society has a great visual reference on the Anatomy of a Catalog Record:
found via Catalogablog
Eric Leese Morgan demonstrates how to quickly make a 12-page book by making a few cuts in the pages and fitting them together:
About ten years ago I created about 20 handmade books of about 25 pages each. I don’t thing this method would have been effective for that particular effort, but it is certainly something to keep in mind when one wants to put something together that looks decent and works well.
ALA Learning’s Top Ten Customer Service Skills for Library Staff is not only a great review of those habits that can make us more effective when we interact with the public, but are also good reminders of what we can do to improve communication and collaboration with co-workers, vendors, family, friends, strangers, etc.
found via MLxperience
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Libology Blog
Established July 2006
ISSN: 1946-1852
by Rick Mason
