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ITI Bloggers April 8th, 2008

Search expert Ran Hock—aka the “Extreme Searcher”—treated an overflow audience in the cybercorner of the exhibit hall to a whirlwind tour of language tools for searching the Net. He started with Google Language Tools, which lets you search using your language to search another language and get translated results. While it’s been a long time since I’ve looked at this, Ran says the advances in the newest iteration are quite outstanding. Google does its translations “statistically” rather than using SYSTRAN and Ran likes the results.

He mentioned some other search engine language options, including the advanced search features at Yahoo!, Ask, and Live. Then he quickly toured some excellent dictionary and translation sites and even some language learning sites. It was a lot to cover in 15 minutes but it gave a good flavor of what’s available. And, lucky for us, Ran has posted the links to all of this at www.extremesearcher.com/languages.html. Thanks, Ran!

Paula J. Hane
News Bureau Chief, ITI

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ITI Bloggers April 8th, 2008

The first InfoTubey awards were extremely well received, and the second ones tonight were no less popular.  The InfoTubey awards recognize excellence in library-related videos.  The videos were required to demonstrate marketing or innovation, demonstrate the library’s services, or convey the value of the library to the community.

 
ITI’s VP of Technology, Bill ("InfoDiddy") Spence, hosted the award ceremony.

The awards were judged by an elite committee of judges.  Here they are, with the InfoTubey awards in the foreground.

 
(L-R) Bill Spence (at podium), Rebecca Jones, Marshall Breeding, Darlene Fichter, Kathy Dempsey, and Aaron Schmidt

Here are the 2008 InfoTubey winners:

The Amazing Library 101 Challenge
University of Ottawa, Morisset Library
Ottawa, Ontario

Accepted by Rosemary Swan (L), Division des systèmes / Systems Division.  Presented by Rebecca Jones

DePauw University Libraries Visual Resource Center – Introduction
DePauw University Libraries
Greencastle, Indiana

Accepted by Caroline Gilson (L), Science Librarian, and Brooke Cox, (Center) Visual Resources Librarian.  Presented by Aaron Schmidt (R).

MCLS Year of the Teen 2007
Monroe County Library System
Monroe, Michigan

Accepted by Paula Loop, Web Designer.  Presented by Marshall Breeding.

 Now Your Library is Open Late Night, Too!
QandANJ.org
Gibbsboro, New Jersey

Accepted by Beth Cackowski (L), QandANJ.org Project Coordinator.  Presented by Kathy Dempsey (R)

Library Zombies
Allen County Public Library
Fort Wayne, Indiana

Accepted by Sean Robinson, IT Manager.  Presented by Darlene Fichter.

Don Hawkins
Columnist, Information Today and CIL 2008 Blog Coordinator

Acknowledgement:  Thanks to Bill Spence for his kindness in giving me the list of award winners and the links to their videos in advance of tonight’s ceremony.  This allowed me to publish this article to the blog at the completion of the ceremony.

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ITI Bloggers April 8th, 2008

To warm up for tonight’s InfoTubey Awards gala, I just attended a session called Video, YouTube, and Libraries. One presenter was Nick Baker, who won one of last year’s inagural InfoTubies. The other was Karen McBride from Des Plaines PL.

These tidbits were among the advice Karen offered to beginning videographers:

• Don’t worry about being perfect — people like to watch videos that are "raw, edgy, and badly lit."
• You don’t have to spend a lot — basic cameras can take good-enough video, and there’s plenty of free, open source editing software out there.
• Make sure you tell people you’ve posted videos!
• "Unleash your inner ham!"

These folks have made fun videos; you can do it too!!

~Kathy Dempsey

Marketing Library Services editor

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ITI Bloggers April 8th, 2008

Marshall Breeding shared his vision of where we’re moving in providing access to library collections. He hates the word OPAC or even library catalog. He prefers to call it a library interface—and it should let users discover and then access ALL content of a library. He urged us to get out of the mode of forcing people to start searching at a specific place based on format. He’s not just satisfied with providing the functionality of our current ILSs or federated search. He has an expansive vision of a consolidated, multi-layered approach.

The “ideal scope” for the next generation library interface encompasses the following:
• Represents a unified user experience—a single point of entry into all content and services offered by the library (with the option of advanced search features)
• Print and electronic resources
• Local and remote
• Locally created content
• User-contributed content

I loved the list of features and functions he enumerated:
• Relevancy ranked results (users expect the good stuff first)
• Facets for narrowing and navigating (faceted navigation with drilldown)
• Query enhancement (“Did you mean?,” spell check, etc.)
• Suggested related results (More like this)
• Navigation “bread crumbs”
• Single sign-on and personalization options

Basically he wants the system to be so easy that users can focus on the content rather than the process. And, you never want to leave the users at a dead end. And he stressed that our systems must go beyond discovery to fulfillment. The process should be Search–>Select–>View. I guess it’s fitting that Marshall’s title at Vanderbilt is Director, Innovative Technology & Research. The ballroom was packed to overflowing for his presentation. I hope many of the library system vendors were there taking notes.

Paula J. Hane
News Bureau Chief, ITI

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ITI Bloggers April 8th, 2008

Boy, l wish I had attended Ohio University’s Chad’s Boeninger’s presentation "Wikis: Managing, Marketing, and Making them Work" before I asked my students in my online Introduction to Social Media class at the New School to create a wiki. I’ve struggled to get participation Chad offered more than a dozen pointers on what makes for a successful Wiki project. Here’s what I found to be some of his most compelling points:

· Define the purpose of the wiki and what problem will it solve
· Get help in choosing your wiki software by going to the site WikiMatrix at www.wikimatrix.org
· Provide structure and content: don’t start with a blank page
· Get ideas from others on what makes for a good wiki: check out the Wikiindex at wikiindex.org
· See the wiki with your older content to get new content going
· Don’t feel bad when people change and edit your content, and don’t expect perfection
· Provide help: lots of it, and in various forms and formats, including personal assistance
· If need be, "force" users to add content by getting a top person in your organization announce the importance of adding content to the Wiki

Maybe it’s not too late-I’m going to start implementing Chad’s tips on my class Wiki and see if I can revive it!

Bob Berkman, Editor of Information Advisor

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ITI Bloggers April 8th, 2008

I have wanted to learn how to do mashups for a while, but it always looked like some  complex programming was involved. So I was really glad to attend a presentation by Jody Condit Fagan, who made it seem so easy.  She illustrated Yahoo Pipes and said that it’s for NON-TECHIES.  And indeed all it takes is the ability to drag and drop various elements on to a workspace, then join them and click "Run Pipes".  (Well, it can be a little more complicated if you want to get fancy!)  Ignoring Murphy’s First Law of Online Demonstrations (The more important the demo, the more likely the connection will fail!), Jody created a mashup of several RSS feeds from some libraries, sorted them, and annotated them to show which library they came from.  Jody’s presentation is available on the CIL Wiki.  She also provided a handout and a "homework assignment".

All of Jody’s examples involved RSS feeds, so I asked her how to do a simple Google map with addresses plotted on it.  She said that Google Maps can be used with Yahoo Pipes, and afterwards, a helpful attendee showed me that if you go to Google Code, you will find a tutorial on how to do it.  I’m looking forward to trying it out!

Don Hawkins
Columnist, Information Today and CIL 2008 Blog Coordinator

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ITI Bloggers April 8th, 2008

 I was just one of many people who were delighted to see the roving Shanachies again. And what a keynote they gave this morning!

Showing their innovation yet again, these Dutch library evangelists decided to forego the usual podium and instead had a couch and coffee tables on stage to give their presentation the feeling of a cozy living room chat.

They explained their 2007 U.S. Shanachietour and how they drove across the country visiting innovative libraries and asking about best practices. This morning they showed some great video clips from their road trip and also brought some attendees up on stage and did mini interviews.

You can read more about DOK, the Library Concept Center where they work in Delft, The Netherlands, in the latest issue of Marketing Library Services newsletter. It’s all about librarians trying new things, being excited about their work, and serving their customers well. Nobody tells the libraries’ stories like these guys! Long may they roam.

If you’re interested in having them stop at your library on a future Shanachietour, please Friend them on FaceBook. Become part of the library revolution!

~Kathy Dempsey

Marketing Library Services editor

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ITI Bloggers April 8th, 2008

Four editors of ITI publications gathered in the Exhibit Hall for a "Meet The Editors" session:  (L-R) Barbara Brynko, Editor of Information Today, Dick Kaser, VP of Content, Bob Berkman, Editor of Information Advisor, Marydee Ojala, Editor of ONLINE, and Paula Hane, ITI News Bureau Chief.  Not shown and attending by phone was Barbara Quint (a.k.a.  BQ), Editor of Searcher.

Don Hawkins
Columnist, Information Today and CIL 2008 Blog Coordinator

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ITI Bloggers April 8th, 2008

At last year’s Internet  Librarian conference, three visitors from  Delft in The Netherlands gave a memorable account of a tour they took across the USA interviewing librarians about the future of libraries and related topics (you can find the account of that by checking out this blog’s archives–just click on IL2007 as a category).  They came again to CIL, and here are Erik, Jaap, and Geert (I won’t attempt their last names!) giving us an update at today’s keynote.  You can see the videos they showed and read the detailed account of their trip, the Shanachie Tour, on their web site.  Some of their interviewees were in the audience, and they were invited up to the stage to join them as the clip of their library was shown.

Here are a few of the impressions I gained:

• Libraries should not be mausoleums for old books. Paul Holdengraber of the New York Public  Library wants to make the famous lions roar and "oxygenate" the library by making the building less formidable and daunting. Libraries can take over the role of what the schools are doing. We need inspiration everywhere.
• (Charlotte-Mecklenberg Public Library); Books are containers for information and culture. What is the best way to transmit that culture?  It depends on the genre. The role of library will change to a community area—community innovation centers, a place where people learn about new things. The book is one of the best technologies ever invented, but it is a technology. Economic forces will determine the future of books. There are still generations that love to hold books. E-books will change things, but books will still exist and have different uses. The most provocative thing we can do to convince policymakers to fund libraries is to tell stories about what people do there. Show them what people are doing. The big thing we do is to make open environments. Technology is getting so much cheaper and smaller that you can do a lot in a small space.
• Library students at Dominican University:  Make sure libraries provide material for people of all ages. Create a place for everybody so they will want to come to the library.  The library of the future will inspire me. Make your visions happen—break down barriers and provide access. Help the library evolve so it doesn’t die out in the age of the Internet. It’s something we can use to better the library’s position in society. Skill for librarian of the future: ability to adapt to change.
• Delft Library Concept Center: Everybody will be mobile, so information must be capable of delivery on mobile phones. The library can’t be without games because more than 1/3 of the population plays games. It’s all about people, how they share their stories. If we care for them, keep their stories, and share their stories, then we have done our job.

Don Hawkins
Columnist, Information Today and CIL 2008 Blog Coordinator

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ITI Bloggers April 8th, 2008

Getting ready for today’s keynote, Dick Kaser, ITI’s VP of Content was spotted on stage with one of the speakers.  I wonder if they were conversing in Dutch??

Don Hawkins
Columnist, Information Today and CIL 2008 Blog Coordinator

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