Category Conferences

Entries 62 Total Description

Reporting on conferences.

customizing mediawiki for internal use

Nov 8, ’06 2:13 PM

After Internet Librarian, ricklibrarian was jazzed up about using a wiki for an internal knowledge base. I should have called him “wiklibrarian.” So, last night I installed Mediawiki on the TFML website. I’ve done a few installs of Mediawiki which made this one fast and smooth.

What did, however, take a little bit of searching and a little bit of time was to find what I needed to add to LocalSettings.php to secure the site. Here’s what needed to be done, in order of security strength:

  • Only registered users can comment
  • Only registered users can see the wiki
  • No non-user can register to be a user

This will allow for staff to post freely, and will keep the library’s internal business internal. To perhaps save you all some time, I’ll list here the code I added to LocalSettings.php to achieve the above results. This will give you a private wiki without having to mess with .htaccess or other authentication. Yay. Note: If you prevent user registration, you’ll have to pre-register people and give them usernames and passwords.

## stuff i'm adding (ADS)

# This snippet prevents editing from anonymous users
$wgGroupPermissions['*']['edit'] = false;

# This lists ages anonymous (not-logged-in) users may see (only the log-in)
$wgWhitelistRead = array("Special:Userlogin", "-", "MediaWiki:Monobook.css" );
$wgGroupPermissions['*']['read'] = false;

# This snippet prevents anonymous users registering
$wgGroupPermissions['*']['createaccount'] = false;

For the sake of transparency, a case could be made for having this wiki’s content open for all to see. In fact, I’m sure library users would enjoy browsing some of the sections like “Staff Recipes,” and “Sure fire books” in the YA section, but it might be best to start with it protected. If the content turns out to have any utility for the public, perhaps we could move to protecting only specific pages.

Comments (23)

internet librarian 2006 impressions

Oct 28, ’06 12:08 AM

What struck me most about the conference wasn’t something from a presentation I saw. What struck me most was how many laptops the crowd had. Four years ago there’d maybe be two in an audience. This year there were dozens. I don’t know why there was such a dramatic increase, but I’m not complaining. After all, the professions techies *should* be using technology, no?

This trend of hardware usage was matched by a change of attitude. I spent Tuesday moderating the social software track and it was inspiring for a number of reasons. The content was good, attendance was high, and the audience’s attitude is what was fantastic. I’m not saying previous groups were cross and mean, but plenty of them seemed quite skeptical about using social software. This year I didn’t find any skeptics in the crowd. I even asked for naysaying during some of the Q&A periods. I’m interpreting this as people catching on. People seemed convinced that we need to be in our users’ space. Now they want to know *how* to do it. Good thing the tools are essentially free and easy to use. Certainly it can be useful for us to step outside of an echo chamber to debate ideas, but I’m happy there even is an echo chamber for librarians learning about this stuff.

Presenting styles are maturing. Michael Stephen’s use of Apple’s Keynote was fantastic. His slides were simple, attractive and legible. Also, he wasn’t chained to the podium. Darren Chase used Jessamyn West’s nifty CSS-based presentation markup. I’ve stopped using Jessamyn’s method in favor of trying to use PowerPoint slides in a non-evil way. My attempts are usually either just one large photo/screen grab, or one sentence in white letters over a black background. Ideally I’ll soon modify the CSS presentation and do it with this. David King did similar things with fonts sized 100+, short phrases, and high contrast, especially in his Introduction to Videoblogging [pdf] presentation. Michael Porter seems to be approaching this too. In addition, he coordinated some prerecorded audio and slides, which seemed like it would be a decent amount of work to pull off.

Good show all!

Comments (4)

flickr at IL2006

Oct 27, ’06 11:53 PM

It is a bit nutty how popular flickr has become at library conferences. Look at the growth of photos taken, uploaded, and tagged with:

il2006 – 1,880
il06 – 117
total – 1997 (as of this blog post)

il2005 – 326
il05 – 564
total – 890 (as of this blog post)

That’s more than double in a year. And there seems to be more agreement on the preferred tag, though I think the one favored wasn’t the reported “official” tag. Guess that didn’t matter.

Looking at nearly 2000 photos over the past week has taken some time and at first I was concerned that the signal to noise ratio was too high (“Another sea lion pic!?!”) I think I’ve changed my mind though. I think. Insert a discussion of the long tail and wisdom of the crowd here.

One more comparo for you. The tag ala2006 has 3,647 tags. Ala2005? Only 631.

Comments (2)

myspace/facebook/flickr/etc a fad?

Oct 26, ’06 6:07 PM

Tomorrow’s Soaring to Excellence program – Best New Technologies: Keeping Up with the Storm – is going to be a solid program. I’ll post some sweet video once I have access to it. Brian Mathews is joining us via telephone for a portion of the program and said something great during rehearsal. In regards to social software sites being fads, he responded:

“The URLs will change, but the behavior will continue.”

Well said! He also mentioned that he recently asked Mike Murphy, the Chief Revenue Officer of Facebook about the deletions of library Facebook accounts. Murphy said he didn’t know why that happened and would get back to him. We’ll see.

Comments (1)

new gadgets presentation

Oct 24, ’06 11:05 AM

Yesterday I gave a presentation with Barbara Fullerton and Sabrina Pacifici about new and upcoming gadgets. We intended the session to be fun as well as informational. Judging by the laughs, we were successful. I don’t use too many gadgets (ok, maybe I’m in denial – cell for camera/internet/text, GPS, bike computers, more ipods than I care to mention. oh, and that doesn’t count my proclivity towards kitchen appliances…) but think it is useful for us to think about them. Not every gadget in the presentation is 100% library related, but they still help flesh out what kind of world libraries are and will be operating in. Can you imagine trying to provide recipe content for people’s electronic refrigerators? That’s enough for me to start longing for a card catalog.

Here is it: Gadget,Gadgets, Gadgets [pdf]

Comments (0)

bonus questions

Oct 20, ’06 12:47 PM

The LiB and I bombarded our audience for our SirsiDynix Institute program with a bunch of ideas and information. Since it was only an hour session, this left plenty of questions. We took some time to answer them, figuring they’ll be useful for more than the individuals that asked. Here they are.

How do I convince my library that it is safe to post pictures of events online (especially of teens), and to allow kids to do podcasts, etc.? My library is soooooo litigation scared.
This is the perfect opportunity to counter a why with a why not? Do the admin/board in question have any hard evidence about library getting into hot water for using pictures of their patrons? Libraries are public places and can be photographed. Indeed, private places open to the public can be photographed as well. Anyway, chances are they we’re all getting our pictures snapped more times per day than we’re aware. The worst that can happen is that someone asks for an image, podcast, print book review (whatever) be taken down. Then the library takes it down. This is unlikely to happen. I’m not saying that we should be publishing full names, ages, and Social Security Numbers, but a photo of some kids at the library? Of course! Here’s a decent article titled “New digital camera? Know how, where you can use it”

What if you have a board that definitely won’t allow im or chat? (they’ve been that way since we first received computers in 1996-patrons have complained to the board and they won’t budge!)
The board is certainly not doing their job if they haven’t even responded to *patrons* asking to use IM on the library’s computers. How long are the board member’s terms ;) Isn’t it their job to be representatives of the community? Perhaps showing them examples of what other libraries are doing with IM, without any troubles, would help your cause. They need to know that this policy is preventing the library from growing.

About IM, my board has banned IMing on our public access computers (concerns about predators, mostly. they see it as similar to chatrooms, which for them have negative connotations). How can i overcome this fear on their part? Any evidence, stats, or ways I can alleviate their fears about safety?
Take a look at the 2004 Pew Internet and American Life report on instant messaging: http://www.pewinternet.org/PPF/r/133/report_display.asp. As we mentioned during the presentation, these stats are old now, and the numbers now are much higher, but they show that IMing isn’t just for kids, and that’s it’s become a vital way for many people to communicate. For many, if you’re not available via IM, you don’t exist. Show them the huge list of libraries that are successfully offering reference services via IM. Tell them that many websites (like MySpace, Meebo, etc.) include a built-in IM feature that gets around any IM-ban they’ve put in place technologically, so there’s no way to really ban it. If people want to IM on your computers, they are finding a way. All the library does by banning it is make itself look technologically regressive and out of touch with what today’s users need from our computers.

Any suggestions for getting on user’s buddy list? we are an undergrad 4 year school.
The best way to get students to add your screen name to their buddy list is to provide great reference (or otherwise) service during hours convenient to them. IM enthusiasts will add their library’s screen name to their buddy lists out of convenience, just like they might bookmark their library’s website. It could be fun to hold some sort of contest, the addition of the library screen name as the entry, but there’s no good way to see who has done this

Difference betweem offering content for IPOD’s vs. the new play-a-ways?
The Playaway all-on-one audiobooks could be a decent option. However, they lack the mass appeal of the extremely popular ipod. The great thing about providing content for ipods (whether it is purchased audiobooks or library generated content) is that it uses technology that patrons are already using. It shows that the library understands the information preferences of its users, and is convenient for them to use.

When loaning ipods for borrowed books or music, do you lose some? They are expensive…
Yes, they aren’t cheap, but the TFML hasn’t lost any, and I haven’t heard of any other library with any theft issues. Libraries can set the replacement fee at a price of their choice.

How do we do IM reference when we are often not sitting down at the desk? We are often getting up and down for to help people and do projects.
Away messages can help with this. Setting an away message every time you get up will take some habituation, but it can be done. Otherwise, IM reference can always be done off desk.

Are you saying that it is alright for teens to play any type of games on the computer. I have seen some weird games being played
Heck yes! Weird is in the eye of the beholder. If it isn’t illegal (and I don’t know of any illegal games) libraries have no legitimate right to prevent people from playing it (or reading it, looking at it, etc). Anything short of this is censorship.

Do you think if you “market” these different venues (IM etc.) to teens, will it automatically crossover to adults?
I think services that are useful to teens are also useful to some adults. I also think that without appealing to teens and getting them interested in libraries, we won’t likely see them again until they have children and come back for storytime.

quick question about meebo…away message? Is there a way to set one up? I’ve just been logging off everytime I step away.
Look towards the top of your buddy list. The default is “I’m available.” Clicking there will let you change and customize your message.

What about cell phone disturbing other patrons?
Libraries already have noise/behavior policies in place. Enforce them—whether or not the user is using a cell phone, talking to a friend, or simply yelling to get attention. Address the behavior, not the technology…because the technology keeps changing and there’s no way to keep up.

When considering these changes, have you taken into consideration the security of the materials in the library?
We talked about a lot of different changes during our webcast, so we’re not sure we understand which ones you’re referring to that would in any way impact the security of library materials. We haven’t said anything about removing security strips, taking down the security gates, or leaving the doors unlocked—
which are the only things that would affect the security of library materials.

What is a blog?
Blog is short for “web log.” A blog is a website. That’s it. Most blogs are presented in a format where the newest entries are at the top, and older entries are automatically archived by date and/or subject. Blog software allows just about anyone to create a webpage—with no HTML coding skills necessary. Here is the Wikipedia entry on “blog”: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blog

Do you have suggestions for helping school districts understand the BLOGS shouldn’t be blocked by filter…reason “personal page” – go figure!
First, I would ask WHY the institution is blocking them in the first place. If it’s simply because, as you say, it is a personal webpage, then I would counter with examples of helpful institutions and government agencies and educational groups that are blogging. The White House has blogs, for goodness sake! Schools and libraries have blogs! Authors and artists and teachers have blogs! I would also be curious as to how they are blocking blogs: are they blocking certain blogging websites (like Blogger, Typepad, etc.)? If that’s what they’re doing, there’s no way to catch every blog, as there are hundreds of blogging sites, and many sites have their own domain names so the filter wouldn’t catch them. Basically, their system isn’t even working.

What service provides the books via iPod? We can’t do that because of DRM that isn’t supported on iPods.
Unfortunately, there is no audio content service that sells in a platform environment (like Overdrive or NetLibrary’s Recorded Books) to libraries that also works with iPods/Macs. What libraries are doing is purchasing eBooks, as consumers, through either iTunes or Audible.com and then pre-loading them onto library iPods and checking the device out, or allowing users to bring in their own iPods and loading whatever book/album they want onto the user’s iPod.

How can we allow iPod use on our PCs? My understanding is that iTunes is so highly customized that it’s impossible to use in a multi-user environment.
iTunes can be installed on Macs and PCs. The library we discussed loaded all of their CDs into iTunes on their public computers. So…users could listen to the music on the library’s PCs without having the CD in hand. We’re not sure if the library allows people to bring their iPods in, actually, to transfer the files from the library’s iTunes account to their iPods. iTunes is an individual library of songs, but can be used in a multi-user environment. It just depends on what you’re trying to do.

I work in a multi-branch public library. Can you recommend online games that teens at my branch can play versus teens at another branch?
As Aaron replied to a similar question during the webcast, the best recommendation we can give you is to ask the teens in your area which games they would like to play. Some of the games that seem to work well in a competition environment, though, are those that go quickly so teens can take turns playing: driving/racing games and Dance Dance Revolution come to mind.

Hi – this was good – it’s 2am where I live so I’m off to bed. Have a happy day!
Thanks for getting up so early and listening!!

Comments (7)

upcoming speaking schedule

Sep 14, ’06 10:18 PM

Will you be at Internet Librarian or any of the following events? Make sure to say hello!

Internet Librarian 2006 – 22-25 October
-Moderating the Social Computing track. It’ll be fun!
-Preconference workshop: Social Tools for Your Library
-MySpace & Facebook, with Cliff Landis
-Blogging Update: Applications & Tips, with Karen Coombs and Walter Nelson
-Gadget Update, with Barbara Fullerton and Sabrina Pacifici

Soaring to Excellence Teleconference - 27 October
-Best New Technologies: Keeping Up with the Storm, with Steven Bell

Hawaii Library Association – 10-11 November
-New Literacy and New Opportunities: Gaming in Libraries
-Social Tools for Your Library

Michigan Library Consortium – 15 Novemebr
-Having a Phone: IM Reference (also on the schedule that day are Meredith Farkas and Jessamyn West. Yay!)

North Suburban Library System – 30 November
-IM for the Reference Librarian

Comments (1)

just asking

Sep 13, ’06 3:08 PM

is your library a nanny state?

Comments (0)

quick educational gaming links

Jul 13, ’06 12:30 PM

Wrapping up the Digital Natives conference there was a huge brainstorming session in which people worked together (just as if they were DNs themselves!) to come up with some great ideas to get started on. The presenters recapped what went on, and I chose to spend my time highlighting the theme of gaming in libraries. There were a number of edu-gaming links in my aggregator this morning that really came in handy. They mostly came out of the NECC I’m pretty sure, and in particular from Tim Lauer’s site. So, here are some games with great potential:

Dimenxian – Learn Math or Die Trying. Homework just got Hard

PeaceMaker – Be the Prime Minister of Israel or Palestinian President

Disaffected – Be a Kinko’s employee

Darfur is Dying – Prevent genocide

Food Force – Prevent hunger

Peter the Packet – Play the role of a packet of data on the web.

Comments (6)

our libraries need to be brighter and noisier

Jul 12, ’06 9:30 PM

I’m in Eagle, Idaho for the awesome “Evolving Library Services for Digital Natives” mini-conference put on by the Idaho Commission for Libraries. Last night we got to hear Stephen Abram talk, this morning we heard Alane Wilson talk about the OCLC Perceptions study, and in the early afternoon we heard from a panel of real life Digital Natives! And we just listened. Then Sarah Houghton, Stephen and I were moderated (ha!) by Alane while we had what was essentially a nearly three hour Q&A/show and tell session with the amazing audience. Tomorrow we get to workshop in the morning, and help groups plan services for Digital Natives. This has been a top-notch event! The librarians of Idaho should be thanking Gina Persichini and State Librarian Ann Joslin (and I’m sure others) for putting this on.

Kris and Jen have been blogging about the conference at Russet Vixen, so check that out, but I want to include my notes on the panel of Millenials. Stephen did a bang-up job asking them questions, which I’ll include right here so you can copy, paste, and ask these to a group of teenagers in your library.

What was the last song you listened to?
How do you listen to music?
Should the poor have access to college education or should it be only parents money?
Agree or disagree: It is better to be seen as a peer group than too smart by the group.
When did you last exercise, what did you do?
When was the last time you volunteered outside of school?
Will the world be better or worse in 10 years?
What will your standard of living be like? Same, better or worse than your parents?
How many friends are of a different ethnicity?
How many close friends do you stay in constant contact with?
What brand of jeans do you like?
Do you play an instrument?
Have you put content on the web?
Do you IM?
How much text messaging do you do?
Do you have a MySpace? Tell me about it.
Do you play videogames?
When did you last visit a public/school library?
When was the last time you were in a big bookstore?
Do you believe that gay marriage should be legal?
What is your career goal?
If you had money to spend on parks, libraries or schools, where would you put it?
Do you consider yourself a Republican, Democrat or independent?

Sarah did a great job writing some prose about the questions, so here’s the notes I took. After the ones Stephen asked, there are a few that were asked by the audience. In case you don’t read that far, let me pull out a few things:

  • Even though some of these kids have grown out of IM (for the time being I suspect), and even though they are NOT library users, they unanimously thought that being able to contact the library via IM was a great idea.
  • The number one things they’d change about the library teen spaces is the color. They want something very bright. So bright that you’d think it was totally gross.
  • Every participant was very enthusiastic for gaming events in libraries.

Ok, here’s how they answered the questions.

Music?
radio – rock/pop
MP3 – can’t remember song
delilah (local woman)
wicked musical
delilah, not by choice!
lincoln park
hip-hop
radio

how do you listen to music?
split between radio and ipod. no CDs

what brand of jeans?
american eagle
BKE – the buckle
cheapest!
american eagle/aeropostle
whatever fits
don’t wear jeans, i like cargo pants
levi
old navy
don’t care

how many close friends do you stay in constant contact w/?
3-4
15-20
phone a lot
3-4 local friends
2-3
3-4, with them a lot
groups, 10-12
10, around the state, everyday, phone
5-6
(girls have more)

how many friends are of a different ethnicity
0
2
not many
2
0
everyone!!!
2-3
small minority
3

what will your standard of living be like? same better or worse than parents
better
aiming for better
better
better
same, but better
better
better, prolly the same
better, same is ok
better, prolly the same

will the world be better than 10 years?
same, prolly better
worse
worse
same, or worse
worse
worse
some aspects better (tech), but worse because more poverty
worse
maybe better because of tech! environmental concerns

when was the last time you volunteered outside of school? – 100% of the crowd!
every fall, church related
spring
church, carwash
carwash, church
church
church, family friends

when did you exercise, what did you do?
this morning, weights, running
this morning, pilates
skateboarding is not excercise
today
yesterday
this morning
two days ago
yesterday
yesterday

it is better to be seen as a peer group than too smart by the group – agree?
that’s the way things are
i agree, you’ll be left out otherwise
depends
really better to be smarter
i get picked on for being smarter
good to be smart, but don’t be cocky, friends shouldn’t care
what he said
better to be part of a peer group, if you’re smarter, you might be seen as making people stupid
people should accept you

should the poor have access to college education (government) or should it be parents money?
if they’ve worked hard, social status shouldn’t matter at all
same thing, if you work hard you should be rewarded
agreed
agreed, not your fault if you are poor
the government should help
agree. everyone should be able to do it. money does not equal smart
the rich should have to pay, the poor should not

do you believe that gay marriage should be law?
boy – nope, should not be law
boy – nope, it is not right in my beliefs
girl = it SHOULD be law
girl – shouldn’t be illegal
girl – can’t control it, called something different
girl – yes, ppl should be able to do what they want
boy – marriage no, being together okay
boy – gay marriage i disagree totally
boy – marriage no, being together okay

when was the last time you were in a big bookstore? (nothing w/in walking)
month ago
2 weeks
quite a while ago
quite a while ago
long time ago
i don’t read unless it is assigned, don’t visit them
when harry potter 6 came out
winter to buy books

when did you visit a public/school library?
really really long time/school often
couple months for big projects/constantly!
quite a while/don’t go in there much
couple weeks/not for a while
when i was 9/school year
when i need to get a study book or project, couple days ago/regularly
only been there once, a month in a half ago, didn’t have da vinci/for projects
winter/last day of school

do you play videogames?
yes, xbox and ps2 – tony hawk
no, sometimes like DDR
quite often – king of hearts 2
yes, mario, gameboy
few weeks ago, xbox motorcycle, computer
ps2, don’t play often, role playing games
daily, war games, call of duty, madden, xbox
this morning, the sims
late last night, xbox, all the games that i owned, halo. i was bored. i played a while ago, yesterday

do you have myspace, tell me about it
2 accounts, one real, one test, i talk to friends that way
don’t do it too much anymore, switching to facebook
don’t use it too much any more, i got over it
don’t have one, my friends do
trying to get it canceled
don’t have it, don’t get it
don’t have it, don’t get it
my parents hate it, think it is unsafe, won’t get it
don’t have it, made one up for fun

text messaging? how much
1000/month
unlimited! all the time
all the time, 3000/month
don’t have a phone
1000/month
no phone
would have to pay for it, no
don’t have phone
no phone and i don’t see why not. i want one!

IM?
MSN, Yahoo, and AIM, but I use myspace. used to be obsessed w/IM
in middle school i IMed all the time
yahoo, msn, aim, don’t use it much anymore
don’t have IM, parents won’t let me (has secret one)
msn, AIM, yes
msn, aim, yes
used to use it when i was younger (boy is 16), homework help
parents won’t let me
no accounts, my sister has three accounts, on it constantly

have you put content on the web?
yes
yes
nope
nope
yes, friends set up site for homework help
yes, video

musician?
yes, tried things
viola
drums

republican, democrat, independent?
republican, but some dems are okay
republican
no idea
independent
independent
whoever i agree with
republican
democrat
democrat (my mom might kill me otherwise)

what would make you go the library!?
group collaboration!
sweet computers, flatscreens – sexy!
plan ahead of time for research
talk and make noise
an area where you can have bigger groups
faster computers, way to find the books easier
easier way to find books
(boy thinks his library doesn’t have internet, window 98 is getting SLOW)
faster computers, easier to find books

parks, libraries or schools?
schools
schools, parks
library
schools
parks
schools
schools
schools
schools
(their concerns are better equipment)

what is your career goal?
photographer
physical therapist
graphic designer
marine biologist
medical field, physical therapy
undecided, medical
engineering
computer programmer
football player, navy pilot

would you go to the library if there was gaming?
of course
yes
yes
yes
yes
my friends would, tons of people would
if it was closer

what would your space in the library be?
barnes and noble, sit and read
bright colors, contemporary, sunken in floor
trendy colors
more colors, couches
food stand
music playing, headphones
comfortable seats

do you know any librarians as friends
my grandma

what would be in the library?
videogames
magazines and books
girls magazines
game rental, play it there and take it home
big TV, game nights like the library
laptops

what would you need in a study space?
3-5 people, 2 computers or big monitor
2 computers, doing different things (multitasking)
smartboard!
touchscreen
wireless keyboard/mouse

IM reference?
yes
yes
yes
yes
yes
yes (willing to pay!)
easier to drive,
never phoned the ref desk

we have this stuff. how should we let you know?
something on the internet
radio
video announcements

how do you FEEL about the library?
they are not so nice, eagle library is nice tho. depends
the library is a friendsly place (the homeless scare me), i’ll get what i need
depends on library and librarian, for the most part, good
always willing to help
i don’t know enough to know
they are nice for the most part
they want to help
it is a friendly place

have a favorite search engine? do you have a strategy?
dogpile, gives you the least amount to go through
google
google, spell correction
google, yahoo ads suck
google, the first i used
google
google, yahoo
google
google, used it first, i’m learning how to use it well

has anyone heard of lili databases (local stuff) 2/9 :(

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