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Month October 2006

internet librarian 2006 impressions

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!

flickr at IL2006

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.

Is something up with the Library of Congress’ QuestionPoint service?

I’ve recieved a few emails from the Library of Congress’ “Ask a Librarian…” service that I wasn’t supposed to get. Either patrons have started entering in my email address as their own for the past two weeks or there’s, well, something wrong with the service. I don’t know which is more likely.

One reason why I don’t think that the error is coming from a faulty patron side input comes from a small bit of detective work. The help link at the end of the email leads to a password recovery box. I entered in my email address and never received and email. I *think* the form works because the URL for the page changes, but nothing changes on the page. Not a good user experience, eh David King?

Here’s the latest email directly from my account, spacing and odd left/right carats around URLs intact. Dont read it all because it is long and a bit unwieldy, which I wouldn’t expect from a mostly boilerplate, “We can’t/don’t want to answer your question” document. I want to include it all here to show just how big and hard to read it is. Another reason why I think something is up with their software is because the email answer is also found in the “question history” portion of the email. How does that work?

Yeah, I’m a bit cranky because of my previous bad feelings about QP, but I think the whole thing is odd!

Hello [patron’s name]

We suggest that you spend some time searching the Library of Congress online public access catalog (OPAC) to find titles of books that are relevant to your topic. Then you can see if your local library has copies of these books, or can arrange to borrow them through interlibrary loan.

To search the OPAC, go to the Library of Congress home page at: < http://www.loc.gov/ > Click on “Search our Catalogs” or go directly to < http://catalog.loc.gov/ >. Click on either “Basic Search” or “Guided Search.” A “Basic Search” will allow you to search by author, title, subject, call number, keyword, guided keyword, or International Standard Bibliographic Number (ISBN), International Standard Serial Number (ISSN), or Library of Congress Control Number (LCCN). For a “Basic Search,” first you must choose your “Search Type,” and then enter the appropriate information in the search box. A “Guided Search” will allow you to perform a keyword search in specific fields of information, such as title, subject, author, publisher, series, or notes or a wide search in all fields. Boolean searching can be performed using a “Guided Search.”

Before performing your search, please take time to look over either the “Basic Search Tips” or “Guided Search Tips” which provide detailed and specific examples of search strategies. A detailed help guide is also available for all types of searches. The Help link is found at the bottom of each search page.

We also suggest that you discuss your needs with a reference librarian in a nearby library. For help in locating a library in your area, please look at the suggestions on our website at < http://www.loc.gov/rr/askalib/local-library.html >.

You might also wish to search for appropriate websites at The Librarians’ Index to the Internet at < http://lii.org/ >.

The Library of Congress online catalog is a catalog of bibliographic records. Unfortunately, except for very rare instances, full-text books cannot be found online at our website. It is likely that you will need to go to your local library to find the book itself or ask them about interlibrary loan if they do not own the book.

The Library of Congress has digitized a small portion of its collections focusing on graphic materials such as maps, photographs and manuscript materials and which are primarily historical Americana. If you are interested in seeing these materials, please look at our American Memory collections at < http://memory.loc.gov/ >.

There are numerous organizations that offer digitized books, though at present most free online books tend to be “classics,” i.e. older materials no longer covered by copyright. Some publishers also provide electronic versions of contemporary books but there is usually a fee involved (or you may be able to access them through a public or university library which subscribes to them.) You can find links to a number of organizations which offer free access to online books by using the search engine Google.com and typing “full text online books”. Specific sites which you may find helpful are:

Digital Book Index
< http://www.digitalbookindex.com/about.htm >

Online Books Page, University of Pennsylvania < http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/ >

Full Text Books Online, College of Saint Benedict/Saint John’s University (see the “Free of Charge” section) < http://www.csbsju.edu/library/books/online.html >

Internet Public Library Online Book Page < http://www.ipl.org/div/books/index.html >

Full Text Books and Journals, Australian Catholic Universities Libraries (arranged by subject) < http://www.acu.edu.au/library/ACUlibrary/fulltext.htm >

A free service from Bowker < http://www.e-booksinprint.com/bip/default.asp > lets you search for e-books (electronic) and on-demand titles from the “Books in Print” database.

Search E-Books < http://www.searchebooks.com/ > is a search engine for electronic books.

pbp
Reference Specialist
Main Reading Room
Humanities and Social Sciences Division
Library of Congress
101 Independence Ave. SE
Washington, DC 20540-4660
202-707-3399

———————-

Question History:

Patron: hello my name is [patron’s name] i was wourding if you have any books on the coins or any papers on the coins i can do so i wouldn’t bee so board. from [patron’s name]

Librarian 3: We suggest that you spend some time searching the Library of Congress online public access catalog (OPAC) to find titles of books that are relevant to your topic. Then you can see if your local library has copies of these books, or can arrange to borrow them through interlibrary loan. [The email then continues to repeat itself]

Is something up with the Library of Congress’ QuestionPoint service?

I’ve recieved a few emails from the Library of Congress’ “Ask a Librarian…” service that I wasn’t supposed to get. Either patrons have started entering in my email address as their own for the past two weeks or there’s, well, something wrong with the service. I don’t know which is more likely.

One reason why I don’t think that the error is coming from a faulty patron side input comes from a small bit of detective work. The help link at the end of the email leads to a password recovery box. I entered in my email address and never received and email. I *think* the form works because the URL for the page changes, but nothing changes on the page. Not a good user experience, eh David King?

Here’s the latest email directly from my account, spacing and odd left/right carats around URLs intact. Dont read it all because it is long and a bit unwieldy, which I wouldn’t expect from a mostly boilerplate, “We can’t/don’t want to answer your question” document. I want to include it all here to show just how big and hard to read it is. Another reason why I think something is up with their software is because the email answer is also found in the “question history” portion of the email. How does that work?

Yeah, I’m a bit cranky because of my previous bad feelings about QP, but I think the whole thing is odd!

Hello [patron’s name]

We suggest that you spend some time searching the Library of Congress online public access catalog (OPAC) to find titles of books that are relevant to your topic. Then you can see if your local library has copies of these books, or can arrange to borrow them through interlibrary loan.

To search the OPAC, go to the Library of Congress home page at: < http://www.loc.gov/ > Click on “Search our Catalogs” or go directly to < http://catalog.loc.gov/ >. Click on either “Basic Search” or “Guided Search.” A “Basic Search” will allow you to search by author, title, subject, call number, keyword, guided keyword, or International Standard Bibliographic Number (ISBN), International Standard Serial Number (ISSN), or Library of Congress Control Number (LCCN). For a “Basic Search,” first you must choose your “Search Type,” and then enter the appropriate information in the search box. A “Guided Search” will allow you to perform a keyword search in specific fields of information, such as title, subject, author, publisher, series, or notes or a wide search in all fields. Boolean searching can be performed using a “Guided Search.”

Before performing your search, please take time to look over either the “Basic Search Tips” or “Guided Search Tips” which provide detailed and specific examples of search strategies. A detailed help guide is also available for all types of searches. The Help link is found at the bottom of each search page.

We also suggest that you discuss your needs with a reference librarian in a nearby library. For help in locating a library in your area, please look at the suggestions on our website at < http://www.loc.gov/rr/askalib/local-library.html >.

You might also wish to search for appropriate websites at The Librarians’ Index to the Internet at < http://lii.org/ >.

The Library of Congress online catalog is a catalog of bibliographic records. Unfortunately, except for very rare instances, full-text books cannot be found online at our website. It is likely that you will need to go to your local library to find the book itself or ask them about interlibrary loan if they do not own the book.

The Library of Congress has digitized a small portion of its collections focusing on graphic materials such as maps, photographs and manuscript materials and which are primarily historical Americana. If you are interested in seeing these materials, please look at our American Memory collections at < http://memory.loc.gov/ >.

There are numerous organizations that offer digitized books, though at present most free online books tend to be “classics,” i.e. older materials no longer covered by copyright. Some publishers also provide electronic versions of contemporary books but there is usually a fee involved (or you may be able to access them through a public or university library which subscribes to them.) You can find links to a number of organizations which offer free access to online books by using the search engine Google.com and typing “full text online books”. Specific sites which you may find helpful are:

Digital Book Index
< http://www.digitalbookindex.com/about.htm >

Online Books Page, University of Pennsylvania < http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/ >

Full Text Books Online, College of Saint Benedict/Saint John’s University (see the “Free of Charge” section) < http://www.csbsju.edu/library/books/online.html >

Internet Public Library Online Book Page < http://www.ipl.org/div/books/index.html >

Full Text Books and Journals, Australian Catholic Universities Libraries (arranged by subject) < http://www.acu.edu.au/library/ACUlibrary/fulltext.htm >

A free service from Bowker < http://www.e-booksinprint.com/bip/default.asp > lets you search for e-books (electronic) and on-demand titles from the “Books in Print” database.

Search E-Books < http://www.searchebooks.com/ > is a search engine for electronic books.

pbp
Reference Specialist
Main Reading Room
Humanities and Social Sciences Division
Library of Congress
101 Independence Ave. SE
Washington, DC 20540-4660
202-707-3399

———————-

Question History:

Patron: hello my name is [patron’s name] i was wourding if you have any books on the coins or any papers on the coins i can do so i wouldn’t bee so board. from [patron’s name]

Librarian 3: We suggest that you spend some time searching the Library of Congress online public access catalog (OPAC) to find titles of books that are relevant to your topic. Then you can see if your local library has copies of these books, or can arrange to borrow them through interlibrary loan. [The email then continues to repeat itself]

myspace/facebook/flickr/etc a fad?

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.

new gadgets presentation

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]

bonus questions

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!!

MySpace Invaders

myspace invaders
The title slide for my presentation about MySpace and libraries.

ranganathan stickers!

I made a “André the Giant” style image starring our friend Ranganthan some time back. A LIS student from Simmons email to ask if he could make some stickers for his classmates and then sent me some. I only have about about 12, but I’ll bring them to Internet Librarian coming up. Find me if you want one!

a lesson from puma

[Puma Anjan 2 by bobafred]

In my SirsiDynix Institute talk with the Librarian in Black this morning I mentioned that putting our users in control is a good idea. Sarah gave the concrete example of how power-enabled teen advisors can invigorate a YA department. We weren’t advocating letting the inmates run the asylum (or maybe a better phrase would be “vacationers steer the cruise ship” – let’s not compare our patrons with inmates – behave!), but rather being as user-centered as possible when appropriate.

Then I came upon this article from Fast Company: The Catalyst: How open-source design (and a big shot of fashion) saved Puma, and invented an industry . There are a few good ideas for libraries in the article that echo our sentiments from the morning.

Puma has since become the fourth-largest athletic apparel company in the world, a transformation that testifies to Zeitz’s vision and willingness to roll the dice. After spending several years kicking the company’s bad habits…he decided to put an unrestrained 21-year-old skateboarder named Antonio Bertone in charge of a new division.

When Bertone was put in charge he was probably more like the demographic that Puma was hoping to reach than a retail exec. I’m sure it took some trust for Zeitz to put him into place, just like it takes trust and for us to open up our institutions to contributions from patrons. As Puma did, libraries benefit from it.