ITI Bloggers October 26th, 2005

What could have been a boring copyright discussion or a battle-royal over the impact of Google’s digitization project proved to be an evening of wit and fascinating commentary—thanks to the hosting skills of the droll and clever Canadian, Stephen Abram, and his sharp-tongued panel of commentators (all over-40 males plus the voice of Searcher Editor Barbara Quint wafting in via speaker phone). Abram asked the panel to project into the future and talk about what it’s like in 2020, after we’ve built the “megalibrary.”

If you want a detailed blow-by-blow of the entire discussion, Liz Lawley posted to her blog shortly after the event (while I went to the bar in the Portola – thanks Liz!). Here it is: http://mamamusings.net/archives/2005/10/25/internet_librarian_the_googlebrary.php.

But, here are some of the notable quotes from the evening’s entertainment.
From Adam Smith, senior business product manager for Google Print: “The notorious snippet is just 3 short excerpts. We’re not giving away the entire book – and this is allowed under fair use.”

From Rich Wiggins, senior information technologist, Michigan State University: “I don’t know if it’s 2020 or 2040, but we’re going to get to the vision that Google has articulated. They’ve forced us to think big. There are technical hurdles, as well as legal and political hurdles.”

From Roy Tennant of the California Digital Library: “Digital does not make print go away and never will. When we’ve put digital up, the print sales go up. Libraries have never been just about stuff, they’ve been about service. What will we be doing – I haven’t a clue. But I’m excited.”

From Mark Sandler, collection development officer, University of Michigan: “The Internet Librarian conference will be called the Librarian conference. ALA will be called the Print conference…Lots of libraries are going to disappear… We’re going to have to give up what we cherish and develop new strategies.”

From Steve Arnold of Arnold Information Technology: “We’re seeing the kind of innovation that emerges when you have smart people who are given the time to play. This is a critical point – an inflection point. This is an opportunity to reinvent publishing.”

Rich and Roy will be facing off over Google’s plans in tomorrow morning’s keynote (actually it’s already tomorrow as I post this). They will probably revisit some of this evening’s discussion and the debate will surely be lively, as their visions for the future seem quite divergent. Don’t miss it—9 AM in the San Carlos Ballroom.

Paula J. Hane
News Bureau Chief
Information Today, Inc.
www.infotoday.com
phane {at} infotoday(.)com

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ITI Bloggers October 26th, 2005

Speakers Adam Smith (far left), for Google Print; Mark Sandler, University of Michigan; and Roy Tennant, California Digital Library, took questions following this evening’s session. 

Dick Kaser
ITI V.P., Content

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ITI Bloggers October 26th, 2005

Tonight’s IL05 programming was light and lively, as panelists mused about what libraries will be like in 2020. Panelists included (from left to right) Roy Tennant, Steve Arnold, and Rich Wiggins. 

Dick Kaser
ITI V.P., Content

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ITI Bloggers October 26th, 2005

Though the hour of the day was late–the session did not even start until 7:30–attendees at this evening’s session on Google’s controversial library program and the future of information were not only kept awake but fully engaged. (If baseball can go on for 14 innings, why not IL?)  

Dick Kaser
ITI V.P., Content

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ITI Bloggers October 26th, 2005

Covering tonight’s live event on Google-brary in Monterey (as well as remotely monitoring related events in San Francisco) were (from right) ITI News Bureau Chief Paula Hane and Bob Berkman, editor Information Advisor. 

Dick Kaser
ITI V.P., Content

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ITI Bloggers October 26th, 2005

Consultant Jean Bedord (Shore Communications) was also spotted in the audience at tonight’s IL05 session. 

Dick Kaser
ITI V.P., Content

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ITI Bloggers October 26th, 2005

Giveaways are a part of most conference exhibitions. I collected as many of them as I could from the IL exhibit hall, and here they are. For this purpose, I defined “giveaway” as excluding a sample of the exhibitor’s product, and I didn’t collect samples of all of the pens that were offered. So, what do we have?

Arranged on a T shirt from Inspec are (clockwise from upper left):
• Mints from EBSCO and Financial Times
• A highlighter from ProQuest
• A stuffed bear from Knovel, Inc.
• A great book of library humor, Funny You Should Ask, from Thomson Gale
• A calculator from EOS International
• From the Oxford Online Products, a handy brush for dusting your PC screen
• A power mirror that unfolds at the touch of a button from Global Securities Information (GSI).
• Two postcards, a pen, and a luggage tag bearing greetings from Monterey from Experian. And the postcards even have stamps on them, so there’s no excuse for not sending one back to your colleagues who could make it to the conference.
• A representative sample of some of the pens. Some of them light up at the touch of a button.
• Buttons in various colors and reading “I Grok” and a term from Grokkis. I wonder if anyone collected a complete set!
• A luggage tag made from my business card.
• Two pens in the shape of chain links from SirsiDynix.
• A notepad/calculator/pen/business card holder from BurrellesLuce. The holder is made to fit on the console of many cars so that it will be handy as you drive.

Don Hawkins,
Columnist, Information Today

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ITI Bloggers October 26th, 2005

As you can see from Dick’s picture, “Blog and Wiki Day” was a great success! I learned a lot about new social communication tools, and, judging from the high level of audience interest all day, so did most of the other attendees. But the simultaneous open blog and wiki that was set up for people to use wasn’t greatly successful—more about that later.

Steven Cohen moderated the session, and he kicked off the day with a review of new developments and trends relating to blogs and wikis. Much of his information-packed presentation consisted of looks at new tools; you can look at his presentation here.

Steve noted that:
• Nothing seems to be released these days without “beta” in its title,
• RSS is a given now; everything new provides the capability of receiving updates by RSS,
• Spam has come to blogs in the form of machine-generated blogs with spam embedded in them. This problem mostly comes from blogs hosted on Blogger, and it has not been dealt with yet, and
• Desktop RSS readers seem to be on their way out.

Even Google is caught up with RSS; look at Google News, and you will find a link to RSS. (Google News is still in beta after 2 1/2 years; Steve thinks this is because they cannot make money from it because they are using other people’s content and therefore cannot put ads on it.)

An audience survey disclosed that Wikipedia is well regarded, particularly as a starting point for research. Steve feels that other sources should also be consulted as a backup.

What’s on your business card? Some people are now including their instant messaging address, Skype name, del.icio.us account, and other ways of communicating with them. It’s a sign of the times that blog companies are buying others, and some of them are being purchased—for lots of money. Yahoo! bought Flickr because it has become the “commons” for pictures and will become the best image search tool.

Steve groups new products into four classes: rating tools, interacting and collaboration, life management, metasearching, and instant messaging. He especially likes LibraryThing, which allows people to catalog their own book collections. The software automatically creates a Library of Congress catalog record, so this tool could be used to allow library users to create their own library catalog account. He also mentioned 43Things.com,
which allows you to enter a goal and tell people what you would like to accomplish. Others can help you and give advice.

Karen Schneider, manager of LII (Librarian’s Internet Index) presented five rules of ethics issues that relate to blogging:
1. Transparency. Say what your starting point is and have a clear About page. Fully disclose your conflicts, biases, and vested interests. Have a commitment to honesty. Transparency can be strategic and can pre-empt criticism. She stressed that the blogosphere can be cruel if a lack of transparency is discovered.
2. Cite it. Link to and name your sources, and avoid anonymous sources. Always check a secondary source because you are responsible for what your blog says.
3. Get it right. Check your facts and then recheck them. Don’t publish until you check your facts again.
4. Be Fair. Don’t let partiality stand in the way of what is right. Let your sources know when they are “on the record”. Don’t present opinion as fact, and present all sides of the issue.
5. Admit mistakes. People need to know what errors you made, so be direct and alert your readers. Add to or modify your posts so that people can see the changes.

This is all excellent advice in free-flowing environments like the blogosphere.

Two marketing presentations followed. Marketing is valuable for librarians, and it should be used when creating a blog. Jill Stover of Virginia Commonwealth University said, “If you have an idea to spread, you are a marketer.” So even with blogs, it is important to define target markets and then follow the “four Ps” of marketing—product, price, place, and promotion.

The session closed with Steve Cohen and Jenny Levine, creator of The Shifted Librarian blog, discussing more new tools. The open blog and wiki failed because of low use. Steve and Jenny wondered if this indicated a lack of need. Some audience members wondered if the blog and wiki should have been established well ahead of the conference because there was little need for them once everyone had gathered in the room. The creator of a successful blog for ALA not only established the blog in advance of the conference, but also created its structure so that contributors would have an idea of useful information and a place to put it. Many other tools were examined; view the list of them on Steve’s “What Happened” wiki.

Don Hawkins
Columnist, Information Today

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ITI Bloggers October 26th, 2005

Stephen Abram, along with Barbara Quint (beamed in by speakerphone from Santa Monica), and our panel of experts entertain and enlighten the standing room only crowd in the De Anza I Ballroom at this evening’s session, "Google-brary: The Status Quo of Tomorrow’s MEGALIBRARY."

Bill Spence
VP, Information Technology

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ITI Bloggers October 25th, 2005

IL05 delegate Dan Lester, Boise State University, found a good place to go wi-fi, drink his Starbucks, and still hear the session in the auditorium. 

Dick Kaser
ITI V.P., Content

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