Archive | October, 2008
October 22, 2008 

Past Technologies: 8-Track Tapes and Ultrafiche

No, 8-track tapes and ultrafiche are not making a comeback. They’re two of the many technologies that have passed on during the past three decades. We had a fascinating trip through technology history, looking at equipment like the Atari player, Apple Lisa, punched cards, Xerox 914 copiers, 8-inch floppy disks, and the Polaroid Cataloger’s Camera from Dan Lester who is about to retire from Boise State University (next week, actually, on Halloween—he started working there on April Fool’s Day and thought it would be appropriate to retire on Halloween). The lessons learned from looking back at technology history are very useful in making decisions today, and Dan gave us the benefit of his more than 30 years in the library technology industry.
 
How can we choose which technology to adopt? Technologies can be put into three categories:
  • Failures: never widely adopted for marketing or technological reasons,
  • Transitions: widely adopted but replaced after a few years, and
  • Successes: widely adopted and used for at least one technology generation (a decade or more).
 For example, 8-track tapes, ultrafiche, and zip drives were failures; film photography, audio cassettes, floppy disks, and dialup Internet access can be considered transitional (interestingly, Dan considers e-books in this category but that could be passionately debated); and digital photography, CD-ROM, DVDs, the Internet, and Google are among the successes.
 
When change is imminent (isn’t it always?), we need to consider the reasons for changing, and perhaps more important, the reasons not to change. Will the technology last? (Because of this consideration, it’s important not to be the first adopter of a new technology.) Will the library staff resist change, and will the users be fearful of the new technology?   To bring about change, the proper environment must exist. You must be willing to fail; the participation of other libraries or consortia must be considered; and you must get a long-term commitment from management. Being a first adopter has an increased risk of failure, but so does being the last.
 
Here are Dan’s predictions for the future:
  • Devices will become smaller, within limits.
  • Wireless connectivity will become even more widely used.
  • Battery life will improve.
  • Amazon, Google, and others will inspire, lead, and threaten us.
  • The concept of “the library as a place” may disappear.
  • And there will be other changes that none of us can predict!
 Dan’s philosophies and things to think about:
  • Everything is temporary.
  • Never buy No. 1 of anything.
  • Try to be on the leading edge, not the bleeding edge.
  • Even sacred cows can be turned into Filet Mignon!
  • The “saving money” reason for trying something new is almost always bogus.
  • Do bad decisions really matter in the long run?
  • Be a shark. Move forward or die.
  • See no. 1 above.
Thanks, Dan, for sharing your wisdom and insights gained from long experience. Enjoy your retirement, and we will look forward to reading your stories and insights on your blog (which also has the complete presentation).
 
Don Hawkins
Columnist, Information Today and IL 2008 Blog Coordinator
October 22, 2008 

Twitter and the “Twittest”

If there is such a thing as an "unbloggable" session, this was it.  Michael Sauers and his colleagues led a very fast-paced and real-time demonstration of what you can do with Twitter and how it can be used for information related applications.  Because it was live, I can’t show you any visuals, but I did learn some very useful things about Twitter.  There is an entire world out there that’s using it in unimaginable ways!

If you haven’t heard about Twitter, it is a rapid messaging service that limits users to 140 character messages.  You can follow other people using it and see what they are up to.  A post is called a "Tweet", so creating them is "Tweeting".  There are even Twitter search engines and aggregators.  It can be accessed via the web, a client, bookmarklets, e-mail,  SMS, or blogs.

Here are 7 tips to a good Twitter experience.

So what has Twitter been used for besides random chatting?  Presidential candidate sites offer a Twitter feed to keep up on where your candidate is and what’s happening in the campaign.  When the Los Angeles Fire Department receives an alarm, it sends a Tweet with the exact location of the fire so emergency responders can go there directly.  It could be used for reference questions in libraries, web site updates, or weather forecasts.  In fact, anything where an ultra-simple blogging application would be useful is ideal for Twitter (that’s why it’s called "microblogging").  And you can search Twitter content with a special search engine.

Twitter can be distracting and intrusive and can use up lots of time if you are following many friends.  In fact, if you receive too many SMS Tweets, your cell phone can become useless because it’s perpetually busy receiving them!

It may seem to many that Twitter is simply a passing fancy or for use only by the younger generation, but the examples cited here show that it may have many "serious" uses.  One thing everyone agrees on, though, is that you cannot understand how it can be useful until you try it.

Don Hawkins
Columnist, Information Today and IL 2008 Blog Coordinator

October 22, 2008 

Ubiquitous Computing and Library Futures

I was intrigued by a talk on ubiquitous computing (Ubicomp) and library futures, and I was not disappointed. Chris Peters, Technical Analyst at Techsoup, and Michael Porter, Community Project Manager at WebJunction, gave us a fascinating glimpse into the future. They define Ubicomp as “a model of human-computer interaction in which information processing has been thoroughly integrated into everyday objects and activities. You can also think of it as computing and information access happening when and where we need it.

It’s no secret that computers have become pervasive in our society, but what is equally obvious is that it has been in an intrusive way. We have been forced to focus on the technology and how to use it, and often that causes us to lose the focus on why we employed the technology in the first place. Ubicomp will be enabled by “calm” technology that is everywhere but effectively invisible. It will not intrude on our focus. The computer will serve you rather than you serving the computer. Some examples include RFID chips in books, an umbrella that flows to indicate when rain or snow is forecast (so you remember to take it with you), and telephony by cell phones (you just turn them on and make your call). Trends and technologies that will drive Ubicomp include:
  • Cheap information processing, cheap memory and storage
  • Wireless networking
  • Interoperability and open standards
  • Universal addressability (every device will have an IP address)
  • Sensors (light level, sound level, temperature, etc.)
  • Location awareness (an example from Wikipedia
For more details, click here.   
 
Don Hawkins
Columnist, Information Today and IL 2008 Blog Coordinator

 

October 22, 2008 

ShanachieTour Returns to Monterey, 1 Year Later

If this scene looks familiar to you, then you were at last year’s IL Tuesday evening session where these Dutchmen did a presentation about their "ShanachieTour," which was a 3-week road trip they took across America in a "campervan" (RV). Exactly 1 year later, they’re back in Monterey (where last year’s tour ended) to talk about that tour and others they’ve done around the world since. Once again, they filmed part of the presentation while they were doing it, which is why you see both the live Erik and the on-screen Erik above.

After showing some opening scenes from the movie they produced about the 07 ShanachieTour, Erik Boekesteijn, Jaap van de Geer, and Geert van den Boogaard settled into their own "welcome to our living room" presentation style. Nevermind that boring podium, they told the hotel’s room set-up staff — their talk took place on a cozy stage with a couch and chair, coffee table, lamps, plants, snacks, and even a refrigerator (used to chill beverages for the guests they brought up on stage to talk with).

 

The guests they interviewed on stage included Greg Schwartz (Uncontrolled Vocabulary) and Michael Sauers. They also Skyped in far-away colleagues and asked them about the libraries of today and tomorrow. Overall, it was a really innovative and entertaining presentation that kept the huge crowd in their seats until after 9pm.

You can keep an eye on future Shanachie adventures on their Facebook page and their web page. In a few weeks they’ll be touring across Australia, speaking at conferences and stopping at libraries. So stay tuned!

~Kathy Dempsey

 

 

October 22, 2008 

A Great Moderator’s Slide

The moderators do a great job at IL sessions!  Thanks to all of them.

Don Hawkins
Columnist, Information Today and  IL 2008 Blog Coordinator

PS.  The above comes from a great site.  It’s very humorous–and addictive (you have been warned!).

October 22, 2008 

danah boyd enjoying internet librarians

 

danah cheerfully contemplates her talk on social media and technology to a packed room of internet librarians.

Marydee Ojala

Editor, ONLINE: Exploring Technology & Resources for Information Professionals

October 22, 2008 

Social Media Changing our Information Ecology

 

This morning’s keynote, by danah boyd, is on social media and networked technologies: research and insights. She’s a PhD student at UC Berkeley and a fellow at Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society. She points out the different takes on Web 2.0. It’s not just technology; it’s the interaction between people and the technology. It has radically reshaped public use from being topically organized to being social. You don’t go a Usenet site to discuss cats, you check what your friends are doing and talking about. She likes the phrase "social network" sites to "social networking" sites.
 
Online you’re only an IP address, your profile is your digital body. People repurpose technology to express themselves as they want to be known. It’s a decoration exercise. But she notes there’s some awkwardness in revealing yourself online. Those who collect lots of friends have different reasons. Think politicians and 14-year old boys. Writing on walls is, essentially, social grooming. Status updates, tweets, and similar microblogging activities give people a peripheral view of what’s going on around them. She thinks this will evolve tremendously.
 
There are important reasons to hang out online. Young people today have decreased mobility; parents don’t let kids out of the house. Fear is one reason, over-structuring of kids’ lives, lack of public transport and no parent to drive are others. So, they hang out online. Sites serve as public space, but they’re not the same as physical space.
 
Persistence is great for asynchronous communication, but since every ephemeral act is now permanent, it can be embarrassing. With technology’s enabling copy and paste functions, replicability means you don’t know how the original communication has been altered. Things can be taken out of context. Scalability means you don’t know who’s reading your posts. (She says the majority of blogs have only 6 readers, but I’d believe our Infotoday Blog reaches a lot more than that.) Searchability can be weird. People may not know where you are, but you are findable online. Parents, bosses, those in power know how search for you, but there are ways to make yourself unsearchable, essentially putting incorrect information in your profile.
 
We have invisible audiences for our social network communications. We also have collapsed contexts and different audiences. As the divergence between public and private shrinks, the issue becomes controlling the public space.
 
This makes for a radical change in the information environment. The practice of the general population in tagging horrifies librarians. What we learned in graduate school is now being done by people with no training. Young people are contributing to the creation of knowledge, again to the horror of librarians. Librarians need to teach media literacy. Another change in the information ecology is authorship breaking down. Think mashups, remixes, fan fiction.
 
Librarians know information very well, but this is an attention economy. What bubbles up may not be the best, but it gets people’s attention.
 
She sees three places where intervention is needed: Net neutrality (all bits are created equal), DRM (locking down journal access and all forms of sharing information, make new cultural artifacts after old artifacts), and mobile (web 2.0 will come into the mobile arena). She has trouble seeing YouTube videos her ISP doesn’t care for. She gets cease and desist letters saying she can’t link to a site—why would this be a violation of intellectual property law? We don’t have standards for mobile interoperability and we need to recognize the delocatability that mobile encourages. Using mobile devices you can take what you locate and broadcast it elsewhere.
 
She believes we’re at "a big melting moment." How shall we shape and move not just information and technology but how people interact with it? Social media and networking technologies will reshape the world as we know it. We need to adapt and use information and technology in new and innovative ways.
 
Lots of fascinating ideas and her slides were mostly photos rather than dense Powerpoints. Very invigorating!
 
Marydee Ojala
 
 
 
October 22, 2008 

Tips for a SharePoint Rollout

The libraries at San Jose State University and San Jose Public didn’t even have email systems that talked to each other. But, when thrown into a joint library SharePoint implementation, they stepped up and worked together. Sarah Houghton-Jan and Shannon Staley shared their experiences of streamlining their libraries’ intranet management.

The project involved IT, a Web Team, and organizational input. They piloted several small sites. They chose to work within their existing intranet structure and grow carefully—it’s hard to move a large intranet over quickly (migrating can be quite time-consuming). They opened up site requests to the rest of the staff

Not all intranet content requires SharePoint for content management. Criteria for using SharePoint include the need for frequent updates, requirement for group collaboration, and other specialized information sharing.

Users can access sites through their own Windows login information. If home access is required, you need to create separate URLs. You can set permissions at the document level. Other key features include blogs, a master calendar, wikis, discussion boards, RSS and email alerts, surveys, task lists, etc. It’s easy to post. It is NOT easy to manage (it’s not intuitive)—just like every other Microsoft product!

It was a long and slow process to launch SharePoint. They recommend offering training materials well in advance. The presentation will be posted at LibrarianInBlack.net.

Paula J. Hane
News Bureau Chief, Information Today, Inc.
 

October 21, 2008 

Solving Problems: Money

Who doesn’t have problems with money?  Library budgets continue to shrink; resources become unavailable; and there aren’t enough people to do everything that has to be done.  So I was particularly interested in the "Solving the Money Problem" session.  Can money problems be solved?  Well, some librarians have found out how!

What a great title and one guaranteed to get your attention!  And Laura’s presentation was fascinating!  She had no money, minimal technical skills, and a website that needed updating.  Could it be done?  She proved that it can!  After looking at a variety of products, she decided to rebuild the Park County Library’s website with WordPress (the same platform on which this blog is hosted), in part because it is free.  Because of her technical development limitations, she cut and pasted code from other sites and was able to put features on the site and train five library staff members to build and maintain portions of it. 

After building the site, Laura did some usability testing by recruiting volunteers to do tasks on the site while she observed them and asked what they were doing and why.  (The $16 for chocolate was used  to reward the volunteers — the only money spent on the site.)

See Laura’s blog for her complete presentation and other resources.

It seems that money problems are everywhere!  Sarah Houghton-Jan from the San Jose Public Library told us about The Broke Library’s Guide to a Better Web Presence, listing 20 steps to achieve that.  You can see her presentation on her blog, where she has the list.

This was a great session, with lots of practical information well presented.

Don Hawkins
Columnist, Information Today and IL 2008 Blog Coordinator

October 21, 2008 

Law Library 2.0

If you thought it was challenging to set up an intranet or a wiki in your public or academic library, think about trying it in a law library, where the management is very top-down, and everything is confidential and conservative. But these speakers manged such feats and lived to tell the tale. The process sounded like a long march of small but steady steps, but there was a happy ending.

Helpful things they did:

  • Find a library champion.
  • Start with the end in mind.
  • Keep the technology simple.
  • Get the partners involved.
  • Do focus groups.
  • Identify detractors and give them reasons to support your efforts.
  • Spell out the benefits of sharing information this way.

All of this advice is good in any situation where you’re trying to implement change that people are wary of.

~Kathy Dempsey

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