Digitization 101

SLA Leadership Summit: Notes on running an effective meeting via conference call/video conference

2012-01-26T10:25:00.000-05:00

These are notes from this morning's brainstorming session (not in order of importance):

Set a agenda with time limits for each item.
Establish rules for meetings.
Use Robert's rules or other agreed upon rules for running the meeting (be consistent).
To set a meeting time, use Timeanddate.com (international meeting planner) and/or Doodle.com.
Know which items you need a decision on.
Know who is supposed to be voting.
On the phone? Mute yourself.
Ask specific people on the "call" for their comments.
Don't just use last month's agenda.
Is there nothing to report? Take it off the agenda.
If your item isn't on the agenda,then it is not going to be discussed.
The Chair does have the prerogative to change the agenda at the last minute, but this should not be a normal activity.
Allow time for people to unmute themselves.
Can you collaboratively write the minutes? e.g., Google Docs, blog post, Box.com
In your minutes, capture actions and decisions, not the entire discussion.
If you're using a tool to disseminate the agenda that allows comments, ask people to comment before the meeting.
Know the purpose of the meeting. Is it a working meeting or a meeting for disseminating information?
How do you disseminate information from the meeting out to the membership? Blog posts, newsletter, brief highlights?
Assign action items to specific people and set deadlines.
Be ready to take some topics offline and then have a report given at the next meeting.
Start and end promptly.
Identify yourself when you speak.
Learn how to use the technology in advance.
Reports should be written ahead of time and disseminated.
Board members and meeting participants should read reports ahead of time.
Get notes out as quickly as possible.

Additional Resources:

Here are "9 Tips for Effective Online Meetings", http://www.productivity501.com/9-tips-for-effective-online-meetings/7468/
Conference Call Tips, http://www.tollfreeconferencing.com/conferencing-tips/

My January - July 2012 schedule (or at least how it looks now)

2012-01-18T11:00:00.001-05:00

Besides teaching graduate classes at Syracuse University (SU), I will be attending (and sometimes speaking at) these events during the first half of 2012:

SLA Leadership Summit, Jan. 25-28 (with SLA Board of Director meetings on Jan. 24-25), InterContinental Buckhead Hotel, Atlanta, GA

First Mondays / A Conversation with Jill Hurst-Wahl, Feb. 6, Solvay Public Library, Solvay, NY - I will be talking about careers, providing career advice, and discussing the book The Information and Knowledge Professionals Career Handbook. Participants are encouraged to bring questions.
Computers in Libraries 2012, Mar. 21-23, Washington Hilton, Washington, DC - I'll be moderating Track E - 21st Century Library Systems & Operations on Mar. 22.By the way, the SU iSchool will be exhibiting at CIL, so I'll likely spend some time in the booth.
SLA Annual Conference, July 15 -18, McCormick Place, Chicago, IL. I will be giving a Career Connection session entitled "Make the Most of a Difficult Situation: Solutions to Get You Through." (SLA Board of Director meetings will occur before the conference begins.)

I'd also like to make it to the next Olin Innovation Lab at Olin College, which I expect will be in April. (details on the last one) These are small,informative events focused on IT and engineering.

As always, if we happen to be at the same event - or even in the same vicinity - please reach out and say "hello". If possible, let's find time to meet for a cup of coffee!

Event: DigCCurr Professional Institute: Curation Practices for the Digital Object Lifecycle

2012-01-17T10:55:00.000-05:00

As received in email.

Registration Now Open!

DigCCurr Professional Institute: Curation Practices for the Digital Object Lifecycle

Supported by IMLS Grant Award #RE-05-08-0060-08

and the School of Information and Library Science, UNC-Chapel Hill

May 20-25, 2012 & January 7-8, 2013 (One price for two sessions)

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Visit http://ils.unc.edu/digccurr/institute.html for more information.

REGISTRATION LINK: http://cfx.research.unc.edu/res_classreg/browse_single.cfm?New=1&event=612E21BE7477F79D361921C40901D94BE49885E1

The Institute consists of one five-day session in May 2012 and a two-day follow-up session and a day-long symposium in January 2013. Each day of the summer session will include lectures, discussion and hands-on "lab" components. A course pack and a private, online discussion space will be provided to supplement learning and application of the material. An opening reception dinner on Sunday, Continental breakfast, break time snacks and coffee, and a dinner on Thursday will also be included.

This institute is designed to foster skills, knowledge and community-building among professionals responsible for the curation of digital materials.

Registration:

Regular registration : $950
Late registration (after April 15, 2012): $1,050
Summer Institute accommodations (includes 5 nights of a private room in a 4 room/2 bath dorm suite on the UNC campus, with kitchen, linens, and internet access): $300*

*We highly recommend that you choose the on-campus accommodations but many area hotels will be available. This fee covers accommodations for May 2012 only.

If you are a grant recipient working on a digital project, we recommend that you check with your program officer to request approval to use available grant funds to attend the institute.

Institute Instructors Include:

From the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill: Dr. Cal Lee, Dr. Richard Marciano, Dr. Helen Tibbo.
Dr. Nancy McGovern, from the University of Michigan.
Dr. Seamus Ross, from the University of Toronto.
Dr. Carolyn Hank, McGill University.

Institute Components: (may be subject to some revisions and reorganization)

Overview of digital curation definition, scope and main functions
Where you see yourself in the digital curation landscape
Digital curation program development
Engendering Trust: Processes, Procedures and Forms of Evidence
LAB - DRAMBORA in action

Strategies for engaging data communities
Characterizing, analyzing and evaluating the producer information environment
Submission and transfer scenarios – push and pull (illustrative examples)
Defining submission agreements and policies
Strategies for writing policies that can be expressed as rules and rules that can automatically executed
LAB - Making requirements machine-actionable

Importance of infrastructure independence
Overview of digital preservation challenges and opportunities
Managing in response to technological change
Detaching Bits from their Physical Media: Considerations, Tools and Methods
LAB - Curation of Unidentified Files

Returning to First Principles: Core Professional Principles to Drive Digital Curation
Characterization of digital objects
LAB - Assessing File Format Robustness
Access and use considerations
Access and user interface examples
How and why to conduct research on digital collection needs
LAB - Analyzing server logs and developing strategies based on what you find

Overview and characterization of existing tools
LAB - Evaluating set of software options to support a given digital curation workflow
Formulating your six-month action plan - task for each individual, with instructors available to provide guidance
Summary of action plans
Clarifying roles and expectations for the next six months

January 7-8, 2013
Participants in the May event will return to Chapel Hill in Jan. 2013 to discuss their experiences in implementing what they have learned in their own work environments. Participants will compare experiences, lessons learned and strategies for continuing progress. Friday, January 4th will be a public symposium, free to the Institute participants. (Accommodations for January will be the responsibility of the attendee.)

Visit http://ils.unc.edu/digccurr/institute.html for more information.

For more information, contact Angela Murillo (amurillo@email.unc.edu) for Institute questions or Wakefield Harper (wharper@email.unc.edu) for payment or registration questions.

Proposed U.S. Laws - SOPA and PIPA

2012-01-15T15:40:00.005-05:00

More is being written each day about the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA). In an effort to point you toward helpful information, I am providing the links below. (I have included a couple of pro-SOPA/PIPA pieces, so you can hear the "other side".) If you are in the U.S., please use these are a place to start educating yourself.

Why are people opposed to these proposal? While the bill names (or nicknames) sound like something that would be helpful, each could be used to stifle free speech. In addition, they would give the government new power and would make it difficult for people (web sites) to share information online. I'm sure there may be other reasons why these bills are "bad", but those are the three that come to my mind.

If you find yourself opposed to these proposed regulations, check the links under "Protests" and add your voice to one of the protest efforts.

If you have additional information or comments that you would like to share on SOPA and PIPA, please feel free to leave them on this blog post.

Proposed Legislation:

Additional Information:

Pinterest, PIPA, Parrot (podcast) - listen to the 1st six minutes for their take on PIPA.
T is for Training conversation between Maurice Coleman & Jill Hurst-Wahl primarily on SOPA (~60 min. podcast) [added 1/17/2012]
Obama Administration Responds to We the People Petitions on SOPA and Online Piracy
White House Will Not Support SOPA, PIPA
The Concerned Librarian’s Guide to the 2012 ALA Midwinter Exhibit Hall
Statement from Copyright Alliance Executive Director Sandra Aistars, RE: Introduction of H.R. 3699, the Research Works Act
Smith to Remove DNS Blocking from SOPA
Motion Picture Association of America Inc. (MPAA), Jan. 13 press release

Protests:

VETO the SOPA bill and any other future bills that threaten to diminish the free flow of information (Petition at WhiteHouse.gov)
Stop the E-PARASITE Act (Petition at WhiteHouse.gov)
Fight the Blacklist: A Toolkit for Anti-SOPA Activism
Boing Boing will go dark on Jan 18 to fight SOPA
Simple Stop Sopa - A WordPress plug-in that will take your site dark on Jan. 18 so you can join the protest.

For New Yorkers: Notes from the Regents Advisory Council on Libraries, Jan. 12

2012-01-12T11:59:00.001-05:00

These are my informal notes from today's conference call meeting of the Regents Advisory Council on Libraries.

First, here is text that I wanted to share from the minutes of the December RAC meeting:

Update on Funding/Staffing for the State Library. The Cultural Education Fund, a special revenue fund which supports the Office of Cultural Education and the ongoing operations of the State Library, State Archives and State Museum is still in deficit - $12.7 million. Budget restrictions continue to be extremely tight. No staff positions have been filled or backfilled in the State Library since January 2009. The State Library has lost 65 FTE since the Great Recession began in December 2007 (a 36% reduction). The Acquisitions Budget has dropped from $4.27 million to $2.5 million.

2020Vision Process Action Plan and Next Steps - John Hammond

The 2020 Vision will be presented at the April's meeting of the Board of Regents. It is hoped that the Board will vote on them during that meeting. After that, the Council will work with the New York State Library on implementation.

The Council will seek to have time at the NYLA conference to update the library community on the 2020 Vision. The Council will also volunteer to talk to other groups about the plan.

Office of Cultural Education Update - Jeffrey Cannell

This covers four different program areas: The New York State Museum, State Library, State Archives, and the Office of Educational Television and Public Broadcasting.

The office has been looking at its strategic goals for the next three years. The themes for this time period are:

OCE as a Statewide Institution
Partnerships with other USNY institutions
Collections Stewardship and Research
Increase and expand public access to the collections and our programs

Relevant minutes: 12/11 Cultural Education Committee Meeting

News:

Nov. 29, 2011, Assembly Hearing on Funding Public Libraries

Notice: ASSEMBLY STANDING COMMITTEE ON LIBRARIES AND EDUCATION TECHNOLOGY

Info from NYLA: Assembly held a day recently talking about library funding

Senator Farley Announces Establishment of Senate Library Committee

Heard brief updates on:

Joseph F. Shubert Award – Mary Muller, Chair (committee members)
LSTA Committee – Louise Sherby, Chair (committee members)

Event: Ophan Works Symposium, April12-13, 2012

2012-01-04T10:40:00.001-05:00

Oh, this sounds interesting!

Orphan Works Symposium

"Ophan Works & Mass Digitization: Obstacles and Opportunities"

Claremont Hotel, Berkeley CA
April 12-13, 2012

Sponsored by the Berkeley Law Center.

Agenda Outline:
Session 1: Who wants to make use of orphan works and why?

Session 2: Who is concerned about broader access to orphans and why?
Session 3: What is the best approach to addressing the orphan works problem?
Session 4: What role should registries play in averting orphan work problems? What mechanisms will facilitate information sharing about which works are public domain, orphan, or open access?
Session 5: Who wants to do mass digitization and why?
Session 6: Should data mining and other non-consumptive uses of in-copyright digital works be permissible, and why?

Full details and registration at http://www.law.berkeley.edu/orphanworks.htm

Event & Call for Papers: IADIS International Conference e-Society 2012

2012-01-03T09:15:00.000-05:00

See the announcement below that I received in email.

-- CALL FOR PAPERS - Deadline for submissions (last call): 27 January 2012 --

IADIS INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE E-SOCIETY 2012

March 10-13, 2012 – Berlin, Germany

(http://www.esociety-conf.org/)

* Keynote Speaker (confirmed):

Dr Conor Galvin, University Lecturer and Director MA Programme, UCD Dublin, Ireland

* Conference Background and Goals
The IADIS e-Society 2012 conference aims to address the main issues of concern within the Information Society. This conference covers both the technical as well as the non-technical aspects of the Information Society. Broad areas of interest are eSociety and Digital Divide, eBusiness / eCommerce, eLearning, New Media and E-Society, Digital Services in eESociety, eGovernment /eGovernance, eHealth, Information Systems, and Information Management. These broad areas are divided into more detailed areas (see below). However innovative contributes that don't fit into these areas will also be considered since they might be of benefit to conference attendees.

* Format of the Conference
The conference will comprise of invited talks and oral presentations. The proceedings of the conference will be published in the form of a book and CD-ROM with ISBN, and will be available also in the IADIS Digital Library (online accessible).

Some of the best papers will be eligible to be extended and enhanced as book chapters for inclusion in a book to be published by IGI Global. There will be a special issue with extended versions of best papers published by the International Journal of Interactive Technology and Smart Education (ITSE) and also best paper authors will be invited to publish extended versions of their papers in the IADIS Journal on WWW/Internet (ISSN: 1645-7641).

The conference proceedings will be submitted for indexing to INSPEC, EI Compendex, Thomson ISI, ISTP and other indexing services.

* Types of submissions
Full and Short Papers, Reflection Papers, Posters/Demonstrations, Tutorials, Panels and Doctoral Consortium. All submissions are subject to a blind refereeing process.

* Topics related to the Information Society are of interest. The extended list of topics - including digitization - can be seen at http://www.esociety-conf.org/topics.asp. Topics are in the areas of:

eSociety and Digital Divide
eBusiness / eCommerce
eLearning
New Media and E-Society
Digital Services in E-Society
eGovernment /eGovernance
eHealth
Information Systems
Information Management

* Important Dates:
- Submission deadline (last call): 27 January 2012

- Notification to Authors (last call): 15 February 2012

- Final Camera-Ready Submission and Early Registration (last call): Until 24 February 2012

- Late Registration (last call): After 24 February 2012

- Conference: Berlin, Germany, 10 to 13 March 2012

* Conference Location

The conference will be held in Berlin, Germany.

* Secretariat

IADIS Secretariat - IADIS INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE E-SOCIETY 2012

Rua Sao Sebastiao da Pedreira, 100, 3

1050-209 Lisbon, Portugal

E-mail: secretariat@esociety-conf.org/

Web site: http://www.esociety-conf.org/

* Program Committee
Program Chair

Piet Kommers, University of Twente, The Netherlands

Conference Chair

Pedro Isaías, Universidade Aberta (Portuguese Open University), Portugal

Committee Members:*

* for committee list please refer to http://www.esociety-conf.org/committees.asp

* Co-located events

Please also check the co-located events:

Information Systems 2012 (http://www.is-conf.org/) - 10-12 March 2012

Mobile Learning 2012 (http://www.mlearning-conf.org/) - 11-13 March 2012

* Registered participants in the e-Society conference may attend Information Systems and Mobile Learning conferences’ sessions free of charge.

Wayback Wednesday: Looking back over 2011

2011-12-28T20:00:00.000-05:00

I cannot let the last Wednesday in 2011 go by without looking backwards over the last 12 months. What stands out amid the growing din of the "news"?

Google

Google shut down its newspaper digitization program. (post) This was one of many things that Google did away with in 2011, in an effort to rid itself of those products and services that have not had the desired impact. (article) Of course, after its long shopping spree, something was bound to be let go. (post)
Google's amended Book Search settlement was rejected. (post) This was, of course, a surprise to no one.

HathiTrust

In 2011, the Authors Guild turned its attention to the digitization work that the HathiTrust had been engaged in. (post) The trial is scheduled to begin in November 2012. (article)

Georgia State

I keep thinking that the copyright lawsuit against members of the George State University administration should be settled by now. The judge was expected to release his decision in early fall. I've searched for any recent news and found none. Because so many colleges and universities are using digital course reserves, this will have far reaching implications. (related blog post)

And...yes...those all (above) have to do with copyright.

Kenneth Crews (post), Clifford Lynch (post) and Henrik de Gyor

I am always amazed by the people I get to talk to...from Henrik de Gyor (Another DAM Podcast), who is a fellow blogger, to people like Clifford Lynch and Kenny Crews. While these weren't news highlights for you, they were for me!

Martin King III and Ambassador Andrew Young

In April, I was invited to a meeting with Ambassador Andrew Young and Martin King III. The photo on the right was taken on my iPhone and you can see Ambassador Young checking his iPhone!
Is this digitization related? Yes. JPMorgan Chase has been working with the King Center to digitization over one million documents. (article) This fall, Syracuse University's library announced plans to digitize audio and video materials in the King Center archive. (article) The idea for SU to get involved with digitizing materials at the King Center was born at this meeting.
There were other digitization-related ideas that came out of this meeting, and I hope they come to fruition.
The lesson...you never know who is interested in digitization! The project of your dreams may be waiting for you in the next meeting that you attend.

Amazing Digitization Programs

There are many amazing digitization programs going on now and they people involved aren't always who you would imagine. For example, it's JPMorgan Chase that is working with the King Center on its digitization efforts. JPMC didn't hand the project off to someone else, instead they learned what needed to be done, how to do it, and then got to work.
Among the programs that I should be following more closely is the Digital Public Library of America. This sounds like an effort that more people and organizations need to know about and get involved in.
The need to handle "big data" - which can be created through digitization - is growing, and so some of the "projects" people need to get involved in are around analysis, open access, preservation, etc. These projects may not be glamorous, but they are definitely necessary.
We have so much born digital content now that comes to us in a variety of way, that digitization doesn't have that "oh wow" affect on people. People are concerned about ebooks, new apps, tablet computers, smartphones, etc. Digitization remains important when people look for something from the non-computer era, but that isn't something that people do every day. Does this mean that we should digitize less? No. But it does mean that we need to continue to educate people about why it is important.

On a Personal Note

I wrote more than 130 blog posts this year in Digitization 101. While that will sounds like a lot to some people, actually my blogging has slowed down...and my focus has shifted. I find myself drawn more to copyright concerns these days, even though the topic of digitization is important to me (and my teaching). In 2012, look for a continued stream of posts on digitization, digital libraries, copyright, etc., but don't be surprised if you see a greater proportion of blog posts on copyright.
Teaching at Syracuse University has kept me quite busy. (Sometimes too busy!) Yet this was a prolific year for me in terms of publications. In March, The Information and Knowledge Professional's Career Handbook written by Ulla de Stricker and I was released and has received positive reviews. In April, The Atlas of New Librarianship, which was written and edited by David Lankes, was released. It includes a section on "special librarians" written by Ruth Kneale and I. And finally, Academic Entrepreneurship and Community Engagement: Scholarship in Action and the Syracuse Miracle which contains a chapter that I wrote.
I've done my best to enjoy every day! I hope you've done the same.

Events: Upcoming conferences that may be of interest to you

2011-12-27T10:03:00.014-05:00

I have not been posting regularly about upcoming conferences that may be of interest to you. My apologies. Here are a few that have recently appeared in my mail.

Born of Disruption: An Emerging New Normal for the Information Landscape
NFAIS Annual Conference
Feb. 26-8, 2012
Philadelphia, PA
http://www.nfais.org

Future Perfect 2012: Digital Preservation by Design
March 26-27, 2012
Wellington, NZ
http://futureperfect.org.nz

DIGITAL DIRECTIONS: New Foundations: Creation - Curation - Use
Sponsored by The Northeast Document Conservation Center
June 13-15, 2012
Boston, MA
http://nedcc.org/dd2012/

Blog Posts: Digital formats

2011-12-27T09:48:00.001-05:00

Carl Fleischhauer, a Digital Initiatives Project Manager in NDIIPP, has written two excellent blog posts on digital formats:

These are not blog posts to be read quickly, so take your time and follow the links in them.

Blog Post: Supporting Open Source Tools for Digital Preservation and Access

2011-12-26T09:46:00.000-05:00

As Bill LeFurgy writes:

Cultural heritage organizations and others from around the world have developed a host of means to facilitate work during each phase of the digital content life cycle. Many of these tools are open source, which permits broad community sharing. A search for “digital preservation” on SourceForge, for example, currently yields over 30 programs.

Read the full blog post to see what the Library of Congress has contributed to this effort.

May the holidays bring you joy, peace and love

2011-12-24T09:00:00.001-05:00

No matter which holiday you celebrate during this December, may it bring you joy, peace, love, good health, and hope for the future!

One of the Macy holiday windows from 2007.

The words "library" and "librarian"

2011-12-24T08:30:00.001-05:00

Over the past several years, I have been involved in conversations about the respect that the words "library" and "librarian" receive. Tell someone that you are going to a "library" and that person will instantly have an image of what the place might look like and what its services might be. The word conjures familiar images, and often those images do not fit our current reality. Libraries rely heavily on technology, contain cafes, might contain studios where people can work on creative endeavors, and can be quite noisy - which all fly in the face of that traditional image we all have.

The same is true of the word "librarian". Thousands of people around the word are professional librarians (with a masters degree), and they serve their users/patrons/customers/members/owners in a variety of different ways. Often these people are not in physical libraries and they may not have the title of "librarian", yet they are part of the "library" profession. Saying that they are a librarian communicates something about their skills and knowledge, as well as their values. However, the word "librarian" can also put that person in a box that limits what people believe they can do. Would you seek out a librarian to help you handle, organize, and analyze massive data sets? Would you turn to a librarian for help in bringing an invention to life? Would you put a librarian on the front lines in your operation, knowing that the person could access and analyze information quickly, and thus ensure that the front line team had the information it needed to make quick, accurate decisions?

Research conducted on behalf of the Special Libraries Association (SLA) during 2007-2009 showed that (and these are my interpretation of the results):

Many members did not hold the title of "librarian". In fact, there were thousands of different job titles among the SLA members.
Although many didn't have the job title of librarian, a vocal segment of the membership did value the word and saw themselves as being librarians.
Those that hire "librarians" value their skills and knowledge. If fact, it is the skill and knowledge that is most important, not that the person is a "librarian".
What we call ourselves - as librarians - may not be in agreement with the image that our employers have of us. The word "librarian" may conjure the wrong image in their heads. An image that is limited and limiting.

Which brings me to a question that was asked of Dave Lankes this fall:

so which is more important, the name ‘librarian’ or what librarians could accomplish...?

I must admit that this question made me stand still and think. I have called myself a consultant, analyst, supervisor, manager, and professor...but have always considered myself at the core to be a librarian. What if I totally stopped using that word; would their be a negative impact? Could I use words that are more descriptive? Could I use words that resonate better with the communities where I'll be talking about what my [library and information science] students can do for them?

And what if people said, "gee...that kinda sounds like a librarian?" I could acknowledge it and then point out that what we do now is so much more than the image that comes to mind.

We are the analysts and information organizers that people have been seeking.
We're the information and digital literacy trainers for the community.
We are the researchers and advisors for innovators and entrepreneurs that are bringing jobs back to economically stressed regions.
We are the people skilled in handling big data as well as ferreting out hidden details.

Finally, when you go into a doctor's office, the person has his degree on the wall. The fact that the person has a degree gives you some level of confidence. This isn't just someone who was hired off the street to provide medical services. This is someone who was trained and vetted. The person was selected by the medical group because of the knowledge that person had acquired starting in medical school. In the same way, our employers need to look for people to handle their data who have the right degree for that activity. Too often organizations think that anyone can do it, but we know that is not true. They need to seek out the people who have studied that activity and who are intent on making it their life's mission (just like our doctors).

I know...the words "library" and "librarian" are just words and how they are used or interpreted should not matter. Sadly, however, it does matter and maybe not to you, but to a colleague that is job searching, a student that is graduating, or an organization that needs a skill and isn't sure where to find it. In those and other situations, the words may hindering what is truly possible.

Podcast: Copyright & Commerce: Orphan Works & Fair Use in a Digital Age

2011-12-13T08:30:00.003-05:00

From the Beyond the Book web site:

From the perspective of copyright, 2011 has been a year like so many others in the Digital Age. Suits and counter-suits over copyrighted text, music, film and video continue to fly in and out of court. The long-standing “Google Books” case is, for now, scheduled for trial in 2012, while the HathiTrust — a consortium of university libraries — has drawn a new lawsuit from authors for announcing plans to post online copyrighted texts that may or may not be “orphan works.”

A panel of IP experts and commentators offered their answers and insights into these compelling issues ... at the Newseum in Washington, DC. Maria A. Pallante: The 12th Register of Copyrights and Director of the United States Copyright Office; Cecilia Kang: National technology reporter for the Washington Post; and Victor Perlman: General Counsel, American Society of Media Photographers spoke with CCC’s Chris Kenneally.

The podcast is 77 minutes in length. (mp3)

Wayback Wednesday: Is every librarian a digital librarian?

2011-12-07T08:24:00.008-05:00

In September 2010, I wrote a Wayback Wednesday on digital libraries. Now I want to write another post on the topic, but with a different focus.

We have this concept of a digital library. If you follow the links below, you will see that there are many definitions of what a digital library is. (more here) Very very simply put, a digital library is some manner of online resources. There are graduate students who study digital libraries with a goal to become a digital librarian. What the students learn how to do is to be a librarian whose tool set include the application of normal library ideas to a digital realm. Indeed, because most libraries now contain electronic/digital resources, every librarian is involved in a "digital library".

I interact daily with students that are interested in digital libraries and who want to take classes in the subject. Yet, I look at courses such as "reference" and see the amount of digital content in them. Reference is not a course related to the area of digital libraries, yet many digital libraries are used in reference services. Reference librarian are involved with contract negotiation, discussing the installation of digital resources, etc. They need to understand a bit about how those digital resources are constructed, in order to teach how to use them. Does that make a reference librarian a digital librarian?

A cataloguer (or metadata librarian) may not have studied digital libraries, yet the person's work is vital for the creation of digital collections and digital libraries. Are those workers digital librarians?

I see students learning the latest technologies and delving into database construction, etc., but who do not take digital library specific courses. Yet when they graduate can they call themselves digital librarians?

Or perhaps as hinted in the title of this post, the phrase "digital librarian" has outlived its usefulness. Maybe it is time to admit that every librarian is a digital librarian.

What do you think?

Previous blog posts:

The future of information access, part 2

2011-11-28T09:30:00.007-05:00

In an earlier post today, I wrote about the future of information access. Here are the resources that I used for that guest lecture.

7 things you should know about haptics, http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ELI7029.pdf
How Haptics Will Change the Way We Interact With Machines, http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/gadgets/news/4253368
The International Society for Haptics, http://www.isfh.org/
Fabian Hemmert: The shape-shifting future of the mobile phone (video), http://www.ted.com/talks/fabian_hemmert_the_shape_shifting_future_of_the_mobile_phone.html
Jan Chipchase on our mobile phones (video), http://www.ted.com/talks/jan_chipchase_on_our_mobile_phones.html
Pattie Maes and Pranav Mistry demo SixthSense (video), http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/pattie_maes_demos_the_sixth_sense.html
The Future of Gaming, http://www.futuristspeaker.com/2008/06/the-future-of-gaming/
The Future of Libraries, http://www.futuristspeaker.com/2006/11/the-future-of-libraries/ - This is not just about libraries.
Look out: The 10 rising tech trends of 2012, http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/hiner/look-out-the-10-rising-tech-trends-of-2012/9470
MIT Media Lab: Information Ecology, http://www.media.mit.edu/research/groups/information-ecology

The future of information access, part 1

2011-11-28T08:30:00.168-05:00

Earlier this month, Sean Branagan, who is the director of the Center for Digital Media Entrepreneurship in the Newhouse School of Public Communications, asked that I guest lecture in his class on the topic of the future of information access. The class is seeking input from a wide variety of industries on what the future may hold and its impact on communications (e.g., news). In my 1.5 hour lecture, I spoke about the following ideas, some of which are evident in today's environment:

Game-like interfaces - more digital controls are taking on the look and feel of game-like interfaces. In some cases, the impact may be subtle. Why is this happening? Considering the number of people that play computer games, these have been test grounds for what works and what doesn't, in terms of interface design. A good game needs to be quickly understood by the player, which is the same thing that we want from our other digital technology.

Gamification – the use of game design techniques and mechanics to engage an audience - Gamification is happening everywhere, including in education (and that's not a bad thing). If engagement is the goal, then we need to use whatever design principles that work.

Virtual reality - It wasn't surprising to me that only a few students had heard of Second Life, which was the darling of virtual reality. Virtual reality has not caught on as it was hoped, due to a number of factors including hardware requirements. It is has caught on in gaming and has influenced augmented reality.

Augmented reality - Overlaying a virtual environment on top of a real environment is being done in some games and smartphone apps (e.g., Yelp). This allows for information to be displayed or overlayed on what a person is seeing, based on what the person is seeing. This could even be information that has been digitized from a local history collection that is displayed - using a smartphone app - when the user look at a specific street using the camera on the phone. The camera (and GPS) would know what the user was viewing and then would use the app to also display additional information about the area.

Personal, unique experiences – sixth-sense technology – Rather than trying to explain what I mean, watch this 9 minute video and imagine that you could interact with information in this (or other) ways. Yes, this is the ability to literally interact with information.

Access in your hands – mobile devices –According to the Pew Internet and American Life Project, 83% of all Americans own some type of cell phone. Increasingly, access to information is happening in people's hands and not on other devices. Results of the Pew survey show that people are being impacted by the ability to have information literally at their fingertips. Pew also notes that 35% of adults have a smartphone, and that number is growing.

Technology provides an expression or experience of the information – e.g., the weight-shifting and/or shape-changing mobile - A picture is worth a thousand words, so watch this video in order to understand the concept:

Interesting, huh?! I'm not sure how this would really be implemented, but I can see some benefits to the idea.

Tactile (haptics) – “Haptics technologies provide force feedback to users about the physical properties and movements of virtual objects represented by a computer.” - Educause. For example, "Medical students can use haptic devices to develop a sense of what it feels like to give an epidural injection, perform laparoscopic surgical procedures, use dental or orthopedic drills, or any number of other highly tactile techniques. Such simulators give users the opportunity to develop a tactile sense of the structures, organs, and tissues of the body."

Technology helping to aggregate information from friends - We see this already in Facebook and Google+, for example, but I wish it worked better. I want technology to understand really what I want to see and know, and to be able to refine that selection criteria based on what I click on or ignore.

Information as entertainment - Stephen Cobert and Jon Stewart have already proven that serious information can be delivered as entertainment. And it is clear that people respond to receiving information in this way. May of us may remember a teacher that taught history (or some other topic) in an entertaining way, and how it helped us learn. Can we do more of this? Should we?

Who you know, not what you know - Because more people are using Twitter, Facebook, Google+, etc. as their news sources, who you know is important. Who you know will influence what news or information that you see. It will likely bias what you are exposed to, unless you work to include people (friends) who have opposing viewpoints from you. Even if you visit a news site, it is likely that what you see will be impacted by what your friends (contacts) have "liked". This will make it harder for some news to get in front of your eyes and it could make you world smaller, not larger.

I know that this topic raised several questions in the classroom and so I wonder what questions (or comments) that you have? Do you see these trends? Are there others that should be mentioned? Leave a comment and let me know.

Thanks to Christopher (Toph) Lawton for his help in researching this topic.

Interview with Kenneth Crews (audio, 17 min.)

2011-11-25T08:30:00.003-05:00

Here is an audio interview with Kenneth D. Crews on copyright conducted on Oct. 22, 2011 (17 minutes) for my class, Copyright for Information Professionals. (Kenny Crews gave his permission for it to be shared with a wider audience.) Crews is currently the director of the Copyright Advisory Office (CAO) at Columbia University. He has served as a faculty member for the Munich Intellectual Property Law Center since its inception in 2003.

For over twenty years, Crews has has focused much of his research, policymaking, and teaching on copyright issues. He has been instrumental in helping library and information professionals understand the impact of the law on libraries.

Kenny Crews hold a J.D. from Washington University in St. Louis, and an M.L.S. and Ph.D. from UCLA’s School of Library and Information Science.

Wayback Wednesday: Copyright lawsuits

2011-11-23T08:30:00.008-05:00

In the copyright class that I teach (Copyright for Information Professionals), we have been discussing lawsuits that involved copyright. While Google came to everyone's mind, we discussed Texaco and Legg Mason, too.

This blog has always contained posts about copyright, including a number on the Google Book Project. I've mentioned some of the other "famous" lawsuits in passing. Allow me now to provide more information about those that seem to come to my mind whenever I think of copyright and the courts. The links below lead to a number of sites (noted in parentheses).

Cambridge University Press et al v. Patton et al (Justia) - also known as the Georgia State case, which deals with course reserves. (ongoing)
Research Guide on Georgia State University Course Management System and E-Reserves Lawsuit (Rutgers)
Georgia State Copyright Case: Resources (Educause)
The Authors Guild, Inc. et al v. Hathitrust et al - Litigation over the making, storing, and providing access to scans of digital books. (Hathitrust) (ongoing)
The Authors Guild, Inc. et al v. Hathitrust et al (Justia) (ongoing)
Google Books (Charles Bailey Jr.) (ongoing)
Audio recordings on the Google Book Settlement (Copyright Clearance Center) - I have mentioned a number of these in individual blog posts over the years. In addition, this post provides links to many of them and to several transcripts.
Field v. Google, Inc. - "Google did not infringe on Field's copyright by indexing and caching his online story. Website owners can use meta tags or robots.txt files to keep a search engine from indexing a particular page. Also Google's use of the materials in their database was fair use." (from the Stanford Copyright & Fair Use site) (2006)
Perfect 10 v. Google, Inc. - "Google's creation and public display of 'thumbnails' likely do directly infringe P10's copyrights as part of a preliminary injunction decision." (from the Stanford Copyright & Fair Use site) (2006)
Feist Publications, Inc. v. Rural Telephone Service Co. "Rural's white pages are not entitled to copyright, and therefore Feist's use of them does not constitute infringement." (Justia) (1991)
American Geophysical Union v. Texaco - "A corporate researcher who made copies of journal articles for his files could be infringing copyright, and should license the articles instead." (from the Stanford Copyright & Fair Use site) (1995)
Tasini v. New York Times (Justia) - dealt with the rights of freelance authors. (2001)
Tasini v. New York Times: With the Freelance Settlement Rejected, What's Next? (from Digitization 101) (2011)
Lowry's Reports v. Legg Mason (Outsell) - Litigation over systematic illegal photocopying within an organization. The two sides reached an undisclosed settlement after the verdict. (2004)

This list contains those that I find myself mentioning and it is not exhaustive. (more here)

As I told my students, as a corporate librarian, the Texaco case got me more interested in copyright. That case affected what I did (and didn't do). It had a definite impact and would have had a bigger impact if it had gone to the Supreme Court. I also point to that case as an example of how long a court case can take until it is truly finished. That one lasted 10 years.

What copyright litigation has caught your eye and made you delve deeper into the law? Leave a comment and tell me. I and my students would be interested to know!

Podcasts on developing a professional portfolio

2011-11-08T14:21:00.001-05:00

This is quite off-topic for this blog. These are podcasts on professional portfolios that I developed for my library and information science students. I'm placing them here so that others can access them easily. Each is under 5 minutes in length.

About Portfolios #1: who needs one? (mp3)

About Portfolios #2: what goes into a portfolio? (mp3)

About Portfolios #3: where can you house your portfolio? (mp3)

About Portfolios #4: when can you use your portfolio? (mp3)

About Portfolios #5: final words of wisdom (mp3)

NYLA11: QR codes in libraries

2011-11-04T21:00:00.002-04:00

Meredith Farkas did a presentation at the New York Library Association Annual Conference on QR codes. As a person who has been incorporating QR codes in student assignments, I was pleased to see someone promoting QR codes to the library community. Here is her presentation:

QR Codes Rock the Library on Your Phone

In order to demonstrate a unique QR code application, Meredith showed this video:

I received a couple of questions via Twitter during the session from people who have not seen QR codes catching on in their community. I believe that QR codes need a champion as well as training. In other words, if you believe that they are useful, then you need to use them and teach others about them. You should point out where they are appearing in advertisements and marketing material, for example, so that people know that they are all around us.

Others have done presentation on QR codes including these by Renata Curty:

Qr codes & libraries

Brown bag bird_library_march282011

And this one from Joe Murphy and David Lee King:

Qr codes workshop il2011

I've also written about QR codes, including:

If you need more on QR codes, search Slideshare for additional presentations on the topic.

NYLA11: Preliminary Recommendations for the 2020 Vision and Plan for Library Service in New York State

2011-11-04T20:34:00.002-04:00

Today at the New York Library Association (NYLA) Annual Conference, people gave comments on the draft report entitled Creating the Future: A 2020 Vision and Plan for Library Service in New York State. The comments were received, without any discussion, by Regent Roger Tillis (Chair of the NYS Board of Regents Cultural Education Committee) and Deputy Commissioner of Education Jeffrey Cannell as well as two members of the Regents Advisory Council on Libraries (John Hammond and Jerry Nichols). Besides the received verbal comments, everyone was encouraged to provide comments in writing. In addition, comments may be submitted by members of the public, library staff, library students, and others via email to NYSLRegComments@mail.nysed.gov by November 15, 2011. After that, members of the Regents Advisory Council on Libraries will revise the 2020 Vision based on the input reserved. The goal is to give the completed document to the Regents in the spring (April/May) and ask them to act on the recommendations. Some of the recommendations may require legislative action.

For additional information on this document and process, go to this web site.

Thank you, SLA Upstate NY Chapter!

2011-10-24T15:30:00.000-04:00

On October 15, the Upstate New York Chapter of the Special Libraries Association honored me with this Chapter Merit Award. Me? Wow! Thank you to Elaine Lasda Bergman for her kind words at the event and for giving me this on behalf of the Chapter.

I joined SLA in 1990 and went to my first SLA conference in 1992. According to my records, I began volunteering at the Chapter level in 1995 and been active ever since somewhere in the Association. Over the years, those in SLA have been important to me - even helping me find consulting clients - and, in return, I have given of my time to the Association (where we all met).

Thank you to those who were active in the Chapter in the early 1990s! Some of you inspired many of us to get involved and stay involved. And thanks to those elsewhere in the Association who were informal mentors over the years, and who also pushed and pulled me into various activities and committees. A piece of this award belongs to all of you!

Dear digitization company, are you meeting the needs of potential clients?

2011-10-22T08:45:00.000-04:00

Earlier this week, I spoke with someone who has overseen a rather large digitization program this year, which digitized a variety of materials. The person said that they had not planned on building their own digitization facility for this program, but ended up having to. They had thought that they would be able to find a company that could handle all of the work, including digitizing a variety of material types. Unfortunately, companies that convert materials specialize in specific types of materials. In addition, companies that do conversion may not create metadata or load items into the asset management software. However, that isn't what all organizations want. Some organizations want to work with a company that can do it all and do it well.

If you are a digitization vendor and someone came to you to do it all, could you? Would you? Or would you let a prime opportunity (and income) walk away?

For New Yorkers: Notes from the Oct. 13 Regents Advisory Council Meeting

2011-10-13T11:30:00.002-04:00

The Regents Adivsory Council on Libraries met via conference call on October 13. Due to our schedules, the meeting was delayed from its original September date. Below are my informal notes from the call. (These are not official minutes.)

Gerald Nichols was elected chair of the Council for the next year and John Hammond was elected vice-chair.

2020 Vision: John Hammond gave a report from the 2020 Vision Task Force. A first draft has been disseminated through several discussion lists. It will also be sent directly to the Regents. A second draft will be prepared to include feedback on the first draft.

There will be a session at NYLA about the 2020 vision and look forward to hearing comments that occur then. Deputy Commissioner Jeffrey Cannell and Regent Roger Tilles plan to be at the event. There was much discussion about how to ensure that the Council receives a lot of feedback from those that attend the NYLA session.

The goal is to give a final report to the Regents in April.

2012 Meeting Schedule: The Council will have a conference call on January 12 to review the next draft of the 2010 Vision. The Council will also meet on March 13 by phone. [The final meeting for 2011 will be held in December in NYC.]

Update on the Research Library: The Research Library has now been open for a full year on Saturdays. Anecdotal data shows that people are traveling to use the State Library on Saturdays and researchers (including graduate students) are using the expanded hours. The Library is doing a survey of researchers in order to gather more input. Loretta Ebert noted that the Dutch collections are receiving increased use.

There is a goal to open a public computing center on the 7th floor of the State Library, part of the BTOP grant to create computing centers across New York State. Ebert mentioned a desire to increase collaboration and alliances in this area. More information on the BTOP grants is available on the Library Development web page.

There are discussions about how to allow collaborative licenses across entities. This is something that came up during the 2020 Vision process and has been mentioned in other context.

Division of Library Development: Carol Desch reported. There are two BTOP grants in NYS - one for Upstate NY (over $9 million) and one for NYC. All of the 30 computing centers are up, except for the one at the State Library. Video conferencing is part of the hardware that is being installed in these centers.

Thanks to NYLA for helping to get the law amended about construction grants in NYS. The new law sunsets after three years, so it will be important see the impact of this change and advocate for its extension, if the impact is positive.

LSTA funding was cut at the federal level for 2011-2012. Money coming to NYS from LSTA is based on population and the State's population has been decreasing. Carol gave more details about the impact of this, which I couldn't type fast enough to capture. LSTA funding is used for some work/staff at the State Library, NOVELny and grants to libraries/library systems.

Jerry Nichols asked about the new 2% tax cap: How will this impact libraries? The law will sunset in eight years, but what will happen to libraries before then? What data is the State Library collecting and will we be able to understand the impact of the tax cap from that data? (Yes)

Relevant Meetings at NYLA Annual Conference in Saratoga Springs, NY: Based on the conference call today, here are relevant sessions at the upcoming NYLA conference:

Thursday, Nov. 3, 9:15 a.m. - Comments from the NYS Education Commissioner
Friday, Nov. 4, 8:00 a.m. - Bond Basics for Financing Public Library Capital Projects
Friday, Nov. 4, 3:45 p.m. - 2020 Vision for Library Services in NYS: the Discussion Continues
Saturday, Nov. 5, 8:00 a.m. - Declare Financial Independence: Become a Library District!
Saturday, Nov. 5, 9:30 a.m. - School Library Initiatives from NYSED
Saturday, Nov. 5, 9:30 a.m. - Tax Cap Impact on Libraries
Saturday, Nov. 5, 11:00 a.m. - Technology Policy and Planning from USNY

Information Media and Equipment (AIME) v. University of California at Los Angeles

2011-10-11T09:13:00.000-04:00

This is not a lawsuit that I was familiar, so thanks to Peter Murray for bringing it to my attention via Google+.

Quoting the Chronicle of Higher Education:

Those plaintiffs [AIME and Ambrose Video Publishing Inc.] claimed that UCLA had violated copyright and breached its contract by copying DVD’s of Shakespeare plays acquired from Ambrose and streaming them online for faculty and students to use in courses.

The judge dismissed the lawsuit and provided "a little bit of good news, hardly definitive, for the fair use claim that was being made by UCLA." (Quoting Peter Smith)

Here is the even better news, according to The Chronicle:

UCLA decision increases the chance that the HathiTrust digital-library consortium will prevail in its effort to fight off a separate copyright lawsuit brought by the Authors Guild over the digitization of books from university libraries.

That insight was given by James Grimmelmann, an associate professor at New York Law School. Of course, it is up to the court to decide about the Authors Guild lawsuit, but we could use some good news in terms of copyright and digitization.

What we learned from 5 million books (video)

2011-10-03T12:40:00.000-04:00

The research in this 14 minute TED video was made possible by Google's book digitization efforts. The two researchers present this serious information in a fun way and demonstrate that reading isn't the only thing these digitized books are good for.

Washington Declaration on Intellectual Property and the Public Interest

2011-09-26T09:36:00.000-04:00

Quoting...

The Global Congress on Intellectual Property and the Public Interest, August 25-27, 2011, convened over 180 experts from 32 countries and six continents to help re-articulate the public interest dimension in intellectual property law and policy. This document records the conclusions from the Congress and is now open for endorsements and comments.

I just heard about this and so do not know what the Global Congress intends to do with it. Are they looking to affect law? If you have any insight, please leave a comment.

Clifford Lynch, Scholarly Works, Big Data and Libraries

2011-09-23T09:20:00.001-04:00

Clifford Lynch, executive director of the Coalition for Networked Information (CNI), spoke at Syracuse University yesterday. Lynch's talk was entitled "The Changing Landscape of Scholarship: Implications for Libraries and Scholarly Communication". He believes that you must look at the future of scholarly work first, then look at how that work will affect libraries.

A great deal of scholarly practice is becoming data and computationally intensive, and across all disciplines. Funding agencies are increasingly requiring that data produced as part of a grant be stored, maintained, and often shared (even before the research is completed). This has led to new areas of study, including data curation, eScience and data science, as well as new jobs, etc. However, it is not clear what the real need for data curation experts is. Nor clear where they will or should reside. Where is an important question since we don't have a national effort in the U.S. to store research data.

Lynch did make an important distinction about two types of research data. First, there is data that can be easily recreated. Do we need to store this data in perpetuity? Perhaps not. Then there is observational data which can be difficult, if not impoosible, to recreate. This data does need to be stored and maintained.

He described two used of research data. The first is to support the original research as well natural extensions of thar research. The other use of data is as proxy data and you cannot predict those uses. For example, data about high tides could be used by the shipping industry, but also could be used by environmentalists. Since you can't predict its use, the whereabouts of data sets needs to be known and access available.

Lynch spent a long time talking about access. When talking about big data, we all assume data that is digital, however, Lynch talked about the tremendous about of data - including specimens - that is not yet digital and that is very fragile. Who is going to create the digital surrogates? Where will the funding come from?

Universities sit on a tremendous amount of data that might be "hidden" in various departments. The library might not even know where it all is. Lynch believes that at some point various university offices will get involved in how data is stored, maintained and shared including the office of risk management and those that audit varous processes.

Near the end of the question and answer period, Clifford Lynch made the point that people outside of our research institutions cannot easily get to scholarly material anymore. (He used the phrase "scholarly material" in a broad sense, including data, databases, etc.) For me, that raised the question of how libraries will make scholarly information available to people are not part of their user-base.

Lynch mentioned that the UK had been a poster child for creating systems for storing data, but that funding shifts had harmed those systems. He mentioned both AHDS and JISC. In the U.S., there isn't a natural focal point in order to build systems similar to the UK.

Lynch also touched upon:

The unauthorized sharing of scholarly information.
Ethical constraints on research data.
"quantitative measurements of illusive things" - journal impact factors and other bibliometrics.
Managing nontraditional "publications"
Open access, self publishing,and specialized web site which have replaced specialized encyclopedias.
"Report from theResearch Data Workforce Summit"

Lynch would like to see people studying the "science of data" with theoretical underpinnings. He believes that archival practices are not enough in order to understand and handle the problems with scholarly data. He does believe that libraries have the processes and mission that will lead them to attack the problem of data sharing and data curation.

Several of my students attended Lynch's talk. Two mentioned being inspired by it and now being interested in knowing more about eScience. They saw a vision of an optimistic future. One student heard in Lynch an air of pessimism. Lynch, however, would say that he is neither an optimist nor a pessimist, but just a realist.

ARL Resource Packet On Orphan Works: Legal and Policy Issues for Research Libraries

2011-09-14T07:23:00.002-04:00

Prudence Adler (ARL), Jonathan Band (policybandwidth), and Brandon Butler (ARL) have written a 17 page report entitled "Resource Packet On Orphan Works: Legal and Policy Issues for Research Libraries" which provides background on orphan works and their associated legal and policy issues, the University of Michigan’s Orphan Works Project, and other material that will allow people to understand the issues faced by Authors Guild v. HathiTrust et al. Quoting the report:

Recently, the University of Michigan announced the initiation of the Orphan Works Project. The focus of the Project is on US digitized books held by HathiTrust, a partnership of major research institutions and libraries working to ensure that the cultural record is preserved and accessible long into the future.

HathiTrust provides a variety of secure long-term preservation and, in some cases, access services to the nearly 10 million scans that resulted from Google Book Search and other digitization efforts by research libraries. Digitizing these works has made identifying and locating high quality sources of information—both copyrighted and public domain works—far easier, thereby significantly increasing the value of library collections in support of research, teaching, and learning.

On September 12, 2011, the Authors Guild, together with authors’ associations from Australia and Quebec and eight individual authors, filed suit against HathiTrust and five universities claiming that the making, storing, and providing access to digital scans of copyrighted works is illegal, objecting particularly to the Orphan Works Project.

One of the things I really like about this report is that it goes through the four factors of Fair Use for the materials being digitized by HathiTrust. The amount of detail is excellent, which makes it a wonderful example. (Looks like something I will need to assign as a reading for my copyright class.)

Article: New Web Site Unabashedly Trades Free Digital Copies of Pirated Textbooks

2011-09-07T13:10:00.000-04:00

The Sept. 2, 2011 issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education (p. A17) contains this article on textbook piracy. According the author, the created of this new web site - LibraryPirate - hopes "that a groundswell of textbook piracy would force publishers to bring down the prices of e-textbooks, which he sees as unfairly high." What I find amazing is that LibraryPirate is being hosted in the Ukraine where it reportedly does not violate copyright law.

The good news about worldwide access is that it is worldwide (universal access). The bad news is that disparities in the law can be exploited.

The article is in the print edition of The Chronicle but does not appear on the free section of its web site.

Tasini v. New York Times: With the Freelance Settlement Rejected, What's Next?

2011-09-01T09:15:00.001-04:00

The case of Tasini v. New York Times, which deals with the copyrights of freelance writers, was first settled in 1997. Because of various appeals and rulings, the settlement was not final and:

On August 17, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals sent the parties in the long-running class action suit known shorthand as Freelance back to the drawing board, rejecting an $18 million settlement struck in 2005.

This article talked about the current status and what it means for:

For Publishers & Database Operators
For the Plaintiffs
For Libraries and the Public
For the Google Settlement

If you have article databases that you or license, are a freelance author yourself, or are just interested in how this could impact Google, then take time to read this article.

It will be interesting to note what happens next...and when....

Copyright and Art Issues

2011-08-31T09:08:00.001-04:00

Christine L. Sundt maintains a web site titled "Copyright & Art Issues" which she started during the days of the Conference on Fair Use (CONFU) (1996). This spring Sundt reported that the site has been updated, with links checked and more content added...and she is continuing to update it. Sundt reported that she is interested in comments and suggestions to help improve the site.

Christine Sundt is the former Visual Resources Curator at the University of Oregon (1985-2005) and a former member of the board for the College Art Association (2003-2007).

The Copyright & Art Issues web site can be found at two slightly different URLs:

Report: Puzzling over digital preservation – Identifying traditional and new skills needed for digital preservation

2011-08-30T13:16:00.001-04:00

This paper, written by Thomas Bähr, Michelle Lindlar and Sven Vlaeminckas was recently presented at the IFLA World Library and Information Congress. The 14-page report includes pointers to additional useful resources. Abstract:

Digital preservation is a task requiring library and information science as well as information technology skills. It simultaneously utilizes traditional library skills and requires knowledge from information technology that goes far beyond the traditional roles of library and archive staff. But where does one start when implementing a digital preservation program? What knowledge is needed? What tasks can be covered by existing personnel? Where can one acquire expert knowledge needed? What information resources exist? Can a scalable approach be implemented to gain necessary skills? The paper is based upon a gap analysis conducted by the Leibniz Library Network for Research Information “Goportis”. It describes necessary know-how identified, ranging from digital curation skills needed to evaluate digital data carriers to specialist digital preservation knowledge of file formats needed to describe information with the goal of sustaining accessiblilty over long-term. It shows how central tasks of digital preservation like process description and preservation planning require expert knowledge of traditional librarian and information technology skills as well as new knowledge which is described as digital preservation skills.

Selecting materials to digitize

2011-08-26T15:30:00.000-04:00

A couple of weeks ago, I was contacted by Jay Park who lives and works in New Zealand. Jay was interested in talking about how libraries select materials for digitization and wanted to talk by phone. One Aug. 24 we both got on Skype for our conversation and found that his Internet connection was stable that day. I offered to record my response to his question and then give him a link to the recording. Since it may be of interest to others, I'm placing it here also. It is 20 minutes in length and done without any notes, which makes it very "off the cuff" and informal.

If you want to download the audio, you can do so here.

Jill's alternate to the 2015 Beloit College Mindset List

2011-08-25T09:00:00.157-04:00

Beloit College has released it 2015 Mindset List ® and, as I did last year, I'm going to write my own take on the mindset of this year's incoming college freshman class.

Incoming college/university freshmen were born in 1993. Here are some other things - and odd pieces of trivia - that you need to know about them: (My apologies for the list being a bit U.S.-centric.)

Mobile technology - in a variety of forms - has always been a part of their lives. (It is interesting to note that the iPod and iTunes store were introduced in 2001 and 2003 respectively.)
Peer-to-peer file sharing - which began in 1999 - is normal for them, no matter if it is done legally or illegally.
The Iraq War (or Second Gulf War) is the only war that they know. (It began in 2003.) The first Gulf War was before they were born (1990-1991).
They have lived through two economic recessions (2001-2002 and 2008-present).
They have always known of people that were out of work because their employers downsized, outsourced, or went out of business.
They have watched their older friends have problems finding full-time work and may already be anxious about their own job prospects.
Financial security may be a foreign concept to many of them.
The increased security protocols that occurred after Sept. 11, 2001 are not abnormal to them.
They have grown up using debit cards and online banking, rather than relying on checks and in-person banking like their parents and grandparents.
Business casual is standard work attire for them. The idea of suit-up Friday (which is an informal event in some communities) is cool because that level of dress up is a novelty.
Rap and hip hop music are mainstream forms of expression in their world.
Rapper Tupac Shakur, who has had a lasting impact on the music world, died before they knew who he was (1971-1996).
They have grown up listening to Eminem (born in 1972) and may consider him an "old guy".
Politicians recently have been talking about "Reagan Republicans" and mentioning other things about the Reagan presidency. President Ronald Reagan was in office from 1981–1989, before our incoming freshmen were born.
Need to give cardiac resuscitation? Doctors have recommended doing the compressions to be beat of "Staying Alive". That song was released 16 years before they were born and is music associated with some funky era their parents went through.
The idea of a global economy is normal for them and has been reinforced by such things as:

The formation of a single market for the European Union (1993).
The enforcement of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) (1994).

They don't remember Hong Kong as being a separate country from China. (Britain turn it over to China in 1997.)
They never knew Czechoslovakia as a country. (It dissolved in 1993.)
OJ Simpson, to our freshmen, has always been someone known for his legal problems and not for his abilities as a football player or for his airport sprints in a Hertz TV ad.

There's lots that I could say about this list and what it means for the worldview of our freshmen, but I'll comment only on the "employment". I grew up when it was much easier for people to find a job. Even people that were average workers could find meaningful employment. That is no longer true. Our freshmen know bright people that are out of work. Some may be surrounded by people that are working several part-time jobs and see that type of employment to be more normal than working one job full-time. And when they graduate from college, those things will likely impact how they look for a job and perhaps even what type of work they look for. It will also impact them for the rest of their lives in the same way those that lived through the Great Depression were impacted by it.

If you have comments on this list (or on Beloit's), I would enjoy hearing them. Please leave a comment!

Digital preservation policies: guidance for archives

2011-08-24T09:35:00.000-04:00

This is old news....

The National Archives in the UK have developed guidance on the need for a digital preservation policy. The document discusses the main success criteria for a digital preservation policy and its relation to other policy areas.

Report: Funding for Sustainability: How Funders’ Practices Influence the Future of Digital Resources

2011-08-19T16:14:00.004-04:00

This 60-page report was published in June 2011 by JISC. Reading the executive summary, these words resonated with me:

Content developed through the course of a grant may end up on a platform that is not well maintained or developed over time, where few are likely to find and use it. In a worst case scenario, a project team disbands and the resource languishes, available to those who may know where to find it in the short term, but at risk in the long term.

The report outlines problems as well as ways that funders could help the situation. Of course, we all must admit first that we have a problem and I hope this report will help us to do so.

Lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer...

2011-08-19T16:04:00.003-04:00

As Nat King Cole sang in the early 1960s:

Roll out those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer
Those days of soda and pretzels and beer
Roll out those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer
Dust off the sun and moon and sing a song of cheer

I just realized that I hadn't added to this blog in a week. And while my blogging has become more sparse at times, I had gotten on a good "roll" recently...but then summer called to me (as well as preparations for the fall semester) and blogging took a back seat.

One of the joys of summer is "doing things"...in other words, taking advantage of what we can do in real life. On Tuesday, I went to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY. While the Hall of Fame has online exhibits, there is nothing like seeing the stuff live and experiencing everyone's reaction to it. (And nothing like a Yankee fan dad making his Red Sox fan son stand next to Yankee memorabilia to have his picture taken!) A good reminder that getting away from the virtual/digital is always a good thing to do.

And in case you need a "pick-me-up" and a reminder that this is summer in the northern hemisphere, listen to this.

P.S. - I'll try to get another quick blog post out this afternoon, so you'll have something substantial before the weekend.

Blog post: A is for Archives: the ABCs of preserving digital information

2011-08-12T09:21:00.001-04:00

Yesterday Martha Anderson began "a series that will explore the topic of digital preservation in an alphabetical way. Each post will use a word or phrase as a device to explore a concept and point to a what [she hopes] is a useful resource for understanding a specific aspect of the practice of digital preservation." I'm looking forward to reading this series and especially seeing how she incorporates letters like "x"! If this series interests you, you can subscribe to that blog (look at the top of the page).

Event: Mysteries of Magnetic Tape Revealed!, Oct. 19-21, 2011

2011-08-12T08:30:00.000-04:00

I bet there are institutions that need this unique workshop, so feel free to pass along the word on this one.

Mysteries of Magnetic Tape Revealed!

Plan now to attend this practical and informative workshop on preserving and managing audio-video tape, hosted by the Midwest Archives Conference to be held Oct. 19-21, 2011, at the Sioux City Hotel (formerly the Clarion Hotel and Conference Center) in Sioux City, IA.

To register, go to http://www.midwestarchives.org and choose "Registration."

Analog audio- and videotape formats dominated the recording of sound and moving images for the better part of the late 20th century, stretching back as far as the 1950s. Whether acquired through in-house creation or external donation, these machine-readable formats have become increasingly common denizens of archival holdings all over the world. And their growing numbers, the recent alarms regarding their uncertain physical viability and their dependence on largely obsolete technology serve only to further perplex the collections manager who is more comfortable with paper and born-digital records.

This symposium gathers archivists and practitioners to discuss the basics of magnetic audio and video media. Topics such as physical characteristics, preservation issues, format obsolescence, collections management, description, use and options for reformatting represent some of the content of this valuable exploration of the mysterious world of analog magnetic media. The symposium has been approved for ACA certification credit.

The symposium, sponsored by the Midwest Archives Conference, will be held Oct. 19-21, 2011, at the Sioux City Hotel (formerly the Clarion Hotel and Conference Center) in Sioux City, IA. Join us for the opening reception, 5-7 p.m. , Wed., Oct. 19, at the newly-opened Sioux City Public Museum across the street from the hotel.

For more information, go to http://www.midwestarchives.org.

About the speakers:

George Blood of George Blood Audio and Video (formerly Safe Sound Archive) in Philadelphia is an expert in preserving and transferring magnetic recordings, both audio and video. He will discuss the technical aspects of magnetic media and their care, the digitization process, and working with vendors.

Elizabeth Clemens is the audiovisual archivist at Wayne State University in Detroit. She will share her experiences working with magnetic media from an archivist's perspective, covering topics such as preservation, selection, description and access.

blog post: When I Go Away: Getting Your Digital Affairs in Order

2011-08-11T10:50:00.022-04:00

Wondering how to get your digital life in order for your heirs? Mike Ashenfelder provides details on the steps you will need to take. The process is not easy. (Definitely not as easy as creating your last will and testament.) As Ashenfelder notes:

Planning is tedious but crucial and your heirs will appreciate your considerate forethought.

Report: The Bookends Scenarios - Alternative futures for the Public Library Network in NSW in 2030

2011-08-10T12:39:00.002-04:00

I am not sure where I ran across this report, but it seems like something others might be interested in.

This 64-page report is the output of a strategic planning project. It "provides a framework for the NSW public library network to monitor trends and developments in society that will inevitably have an impact on our future services and customers."

Save My Memories: Digital Photo Storage

2011-08-09T13:13:00.000-04:00

Five members of the International Imaging Industry Association have created this educational web site geared toward end users. The site is divided into five categories:

Learn
Prepare
Protect
Recover
Resources

While you may not have use for this site, you may not of a user (perhaps a friend or family member) who would benefit from seeing it. Go ahead...pass it along!

Universal Photographic Digital Imagins Guidelines, v. 4.0

2011-08-09T12:49:00.000-04:00

These guidelines (four pages) are not specifically for a digitization program, but they still may be useful. At least worth taking a look at.

Article: What Big Media Can Learn From the New York Public Library

2011-08-09T12:39:00.000-04:00

If you haven't read or skimmed this article - published in June 2011 - then you should. Here is a teaser:

The library clearly has reevaluated its role within the Internet information ecosystem and found a set of new identities. Let's start from here: One, the New York Public Library is a social network with three million active users and two, the New York Public Library is a media outfit.

Event: Digital Preservation Training Programme (DPTP), London (UK), Nov. 14-16

2011-08-05T09:04:00.000-04:00

I've received several inquiries recently about digitization-related workshops and what's available. I generally post anything I receive that is a multiple day event. If you are looking for something shorter, check with your state/province library or regional library consortium to see if they know of an event you can attend (perhaps a webinar).

We invite you to book your place on the next Digital Preservation Training Programme (DPTP) in London, 14th - 16th November 2011. Please book now to guarantee your place: http://bit.ly/DPTP_NOV2011.

The DPTP is a modular training programme, built around themed sessions that have been developed to assist you in designing and implementing an approach to preservation that will work for your institution. Through a wide range of modules, the DPTP examines the need for policies, planning, strategies, standards and procedures in digital preservation, and teaches some of the most up-to-date methods, tools and concepts in the area. It covers these topics via a mixture of lectures, discussions, practical tasks and exercises, and a class project. (The course does not, however, offer hands-on training with any of these tools, and is not an 'enabling' course).

The course is aimed at multiple levels of attendee: people from technical and archival professions come together, to learn the same standards and methods for digital preservation. The overall aim of the course is critical thinking, assessing ways of acting and planning at an organisational level.

Bookings for the DPTP should be made via the ULCC online store. Please note that currently only payment by credit/debit card is fully automated online, and this would be our preferred method of payment. However, if you require to be sent an invoice, please see the 'more info' tab on the DPTP booking page for further information.

The training is £650 + VAT

Please see the links below for further information:

DPTP online: www.dptp.org

Booking: http://bit.ly/DPTP_NOV2011

Low cost digitization

2011-08-02T08:53:00.011-04:00

Sometimes I start a blog post and then never finish it. This is one of those. This announcement arrived in March and it has been sitting patiently waiting to be reformatted and published.

The project web site says:

The online finding aid serves the primary point of entry to the online material. This provides users with the same context, provenance, and order as encountered by a researcher perusing the analog materials in the reading room. Additionally, this workflow provides quick and efficient online access to content, at a remarkably low cost. Out cost of digitization throughout the project (including administration and the usability study) was less than $1.87 a page. Creation of minimal item-level metadata is automated through the software, saving time and money.

The actual scanning was completed students under the supervision of a staff member.

More information about the project and processes can be found on its wiki page.

Completed UA Libraries Grant Project Provides Model for Low-Cost Digitization of Cultural Heritage Materials

The University of Alabama Libraries has completed a grant project which demonstrates a model of low-cost digitization and web delivery of manuscript materials. Funded by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC), the project digitized a large and nationally important manuscript collection related to the emancipation of slaves: the Septimus D. Cabaniss Papers. This digitization grant (NAR10-RD-10033-10) extended for 14 months (ended February 2011), and has provided online access to 46,663 images for less than $1.50 per page: http://acumen.lib.ua.edu/u0003_0000252.

The model is designed to enable institutions to mass-digitize manuscript collections at a minimal cost, leveraging the extensive series descriptions already available in the collection finding aid to provide search and retrieval. Digitized content for the collection is linked from the finding aid, providing online access to 31.8 linear feet of valuable archival material that otherwise would never be web-available. We have developed software and workflows to support the process and web delivery of material regardless of the current method of finding aid access. More information is available on the grant website:
http://www.lib.ua.edu/libraries/hoole/cabaniss .

The Septimus D. Cabaniss Collection (1815-1889) was selected as exemplary of the legal difficulties encountered in efforts to emancipate slaves in the Deep South. Cabaniss was a prominent southern attorney who served as executor for the estate of the wealthy Samuel Townsend, who sought to manumit and leave property to a selection of his slaves, many of whom were his children. Samuel Townsend’s open admission to fathering slave children and his willingness to take responsibility for their care, combined with the letters from the former slaves themselves, dated before and after the Civil War, will inform social and racial historians. Legal scholars will be enlightened by Cabaniss' detailing of the sophisticated legal mechanism of using a trust to free slaves. Valuable collections such as this have a promise of open access via the web when the cost of digitization is lowered by avoiding item-level description.

Usability testing was included in the grant project, and preliminary results indicate that this method of web delivery is as learnable for novices as access to the digitized materials via item-level descriptions. In addition, provision of web delivery of manuscript content via the finding aid provides the much-needed context preferred by experienced researchers.

Event: Future Perfect Conference 2012 - Call for proposals

2011-08-02T08:30:00.000-04:00

I received this in email. Sounds interesting!

Future Perfect Conference 2012: Digital Preservation by Design Museum of New

Zealand, Te Papa Tongarewa, Wellington, NZ

26 – 27 March 2012

Call for Contributions now open

The Digital Preservation by Design theme of Future Perfect 2012 seeks to stimulate discussion about how, when and why influencing the design of systems can ensure that today’s information is available tomorrow.

The call for contributions is now open and we welcome proposals for original presentations and demonstrations on the following topics:

Where do we start with digital preservation – create a custom-made system or buy off the peg?
Who should do digital preservation? Where does preservation fit in the wider organisational context?
Case studies of working across disciplines, organisations and the lifecycle of information to ensure that information is successfully preserved (e.g. creating preservation ready objects, including preservation requirements in business systems, taking a cooperative approach to preservation)
How do you identify your digital content – using preservation formats and format libraries
What are we preserving and how? Are we preserving appearance, structure, behaviour or content?
Repository examples, requirements and examples of innovation -Challenges of preserving data and databases
What tools are in use and what skills are essential?
Opening up data and information through standards

We want to hear about innovations, success stories, war stories and challenges. Your submission can be in the form of a presentation or demonstration. If you would like to discuss your idea before submitting your
proposal, please contact us. More information can be found on our conference website www.futureperfect.org.nz

Submissions

Please submit the following information:

Name
Title
Organisation
Email
Title of session
Session type (presentation, panel, demonstration, etc) Abstract (100-300 words)
Personal Profile (100-200 words)

The deadline for submission of abstracts and accompanying documentation is August 31st 2011.

Send details to:

Mick Crouch, Conference Convener

Email: mick.crouch@dia.govt.nz

Phone: +64 4 496 1389

www.futureperfect.org.nz

We look forward to discussing ideas for contributions and receiving abstracts.

Video: Cornell University Staff Notes: Discussing the digital library with Jim Del Rosso

2011-08-01T08:30:00.036-04:00

In this 20 minute video, Jim Del Rosso, the Web and Digital Projects Manager at the Cornell University Catherwood Library (part of the School of Industrial and Labor Relations), talks about their institutional repository, social media, networking and other topics. I'm sharing this because I found it interesting to hear what they are including in their institutional repository, which includes asking for material in digital form as well as digitizing content.

8/2/2011: Fixed the video URL. Not sure what happened. Sorry.

Video: Authors@Google: Douglas Rushkoff

2011-07-29T09:57:00.047-04:00

Douglas Rushkoff - author and theorist - coined the term "digital natives". He thought digital natives would be able to surf the digital terrain like "natives", but that has not happened. In fact, they are "way way worse at discerning between valid information and crap online...."

To hear him talk about this, view this video beginning at minute 9:15. (Although if you start at the beginning, a couple of the analogies will make more sense.) If you listen until minute 13:13, you will hear the core of his argument...and it is very interesting! (The rest of the video is also VERY interesting and worth listening to, if you have time.)

This is of interest to me because of the continued discussion at conferences and in the media about "digital natives" and "millennials". Like some of my colleagues, I'm tired of us looking at millennials - who are assumed to be digital natives - as being naturally better at technology. They are not. (That may be a shock to you and I'm sorry.) And after a recent rant about this in Google+, a colleague pointed me toward this video.

You might ask, "Jill, how do you know that digital natives aren't better at technology?" I watch them as well as those that are digital immigrants. Those that are focused on how technology works - and what it is meant to do - will use it better than those that are not. Another way of thinking about this is that those that use an iPhone don't inherently understand what an iPhone will do best (and how to make that happen).

After listening to Douglass Rushkoff, I am vowing to stop using the term "digital natives", unless I'm explaining to someone why that term should not be used. If you listen to him, I hope you'll vow to do the same.

Blog post: Scanning is different from digitisation

2011-07-28T09:15:00.001-04:00

You may be thinking "of course, they are different!" Still it is worth being reminded what the difference really is. Richard M. Davis does a wonderful job discussing it in this blog post.

Boiling down his blog post to one sentence, digitization is about thinking about the entire process and then acting accordingly. As Davis points out:

Without some conception of the end result, how the materials will be used and managed most effectively, all the scanning in the world isn’t going to amount to a successful digitisation project.

So true!

Blog post: Digitization is Different than Digital Preservation: Help Prevent Digital Orphans!

2011-07-28T09:00:00.007-04:00

Kristin Snawder, a 2011 Junior Fellow working with NDIIPP.has written a passionate blog post about the difference between scanning and digital preservation. Snawder wrote:

Digital Preservation is an active, long-term commitment; scanning is a time-limited process.

Scanning is a process fixed in time. You scan something once and if you do it correctly you are done and can move on to the next project. Digital preservation is different, because it involves active management over time. If you scan and then forget about the digital file, it may not be usable to future users. You have to look at it as a long term commitment. Think of it in terms of our orphaned data being adopted by a loving digital preservation department somewhere.

If you have someone who needs to be reminded quickly why digital preservation is important, have them read Snawder's blog post.

Wayback Wednesday: Advice

2011-07-27T08:37:00.001-04:00

Recently, I have been spending a lot of time giving advice, whether it be advice on careers, grad school or job hunting. After I found myself pointing someone toward an old Digitization 101 blog post, I realized that I needed to resurface a few advice-giving blog posts that are still relevant. They are:

And then there is the book that Ulla de Stricker and I wrote, which was published earlier this year. (blog post) The Information and Knowledge Professional's Career Handbook is full of advice for new and seasoned information and knowledge professionals. Some of the advice from that book is in a 20-minute podcast, which was mentioned here several months ago.

If there is a piece of advice that you are seeking that is not covered above, leave a comment or send me a message and I'll consider making it a future blog post.

Report: Rapid Capture: Faster Throughput in Digitization of Special Collections

2011-07-26T09:06:00.001-04:00

In May, OCLC published a new 23-page report entitled Rapid Capture: Faster Throughput in Digitization of Special Collections. According to an announcement, the report:

...provides examples of how to simplify and streamline digital capture of non-book collections. Nine case studies illustrate processes and procedures institutions have adopted to increase the scale of digitization of special collections. The intent in sharing these vignettes is to enable others to consider whether or not any of the approaches could be applied to their own initiatives to increase the scale of their digitization efforts.

Those featured in the case studies include:
Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution
Archives of Traditional Music, Indiana University
Prints & Photographs Division, Library of Congress
Digital Collection Unit, The Bancroft Library, UC Berkeley
Southern Regional Library Facility, University of California, Los Angeles
Archives and Special Collections, University of Minnesota
University Archives, University of Minnesota
Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina, and
Department of Manuscripts and Rare Books, The Walters Art Museum

If you have already read the report, how has it changed what you are doing?

Blog post: Rescuing 5.25″ Floppy Disks from Oblivion

2011-07-26T08:49:00.002-04:00

Jeanne Kramer-Smyth, the author of Spellbound Blog, has written a piece on transferring data from old 5.25" floppy disks. This follows Jason Scott's July 12 post where he offers to help people retrieve data from these old disks. He also wrote a procedure for how to do it. Scott said that a growing number of organizations and people are focusing on this, but that they are focusing on it too late. The data on those disks may already be gone. However, if you have 5.25 floppies, check out the Kramer-Smyth and Scott blog posts for information on how to rescue that old data.

If you have 3.5" floppy disks, you should be considering what to do with them now. There are still 3.5" disk drives around, so you do have the possibility of reading those disks and transferring that data from them, without a huge amount of hassle. Now would also be a good time to decide if you just want to toss the disks in the trash and forget about them. If you are going to throw away any disks, remember to render them unreadable by harming the media, especially if you think the disk contains any sensitive or confidential information.

Article: New Register of Copyrights: "Unfortunately, I start with enforcement"

2011-07-20T10:13:00.000-04:00

Maria Pallante has been selected to be the new Register of Copyrights. She has the acting Register of Copyrights since the previous person stepped down in 2010. In this interview, Pallante talks about fair use, DMCA and other topics. The article title gets at one of key key points:

...I start with enforcement because, if you don't have exclusive rights in the first place, you can't get to the other questions.

In general, Pallante appears to be open to dialog and to change. I hope she will work with all sides and listen to many opinions.

Event: Goportis Digital Preservation Summit 2011

2011-07-20T09:01:00.001-04:00

Received via email.

fourteen renowned speakers, best cases, discussions and workshops, fascinating talks, many networking opportunities and direct contact to digital preservation experts – that is how the Goportis Digital Preservation Summit 2011 presents itself – the international conference by experts for experts.

I am very happy to invite you on behalf of Goportis – Leibniz Library Network for Research Information to our international meeting from 19-20 October in Hamburg.

Complete programme now online! www.digitalpreservationsummit.de

Dr Adam Farquar, Head of Digital Library Technology at the British Library and founder of the Open Planets Foundation, will open the conference. He will give an overview on the necessary preparations for digital preservation of objects, identifying risks and underestimated challenges. The day concludes with different workshop sessions, where participants get the chance to ask their questions and find joint solutions.

On day two of the conference Prof. Seamus Ross, Dean of the Faculty of Information at the University of Toronto, will introduce the Ingest process by giving examples from different digital collections. The following presentations will be on tools and the implementation of Ingest workflows for different types of material.

The Digital Preservation Summit 2011 will conclude with a panel discussion with Twitterwall on the topic of organisation & infrastructure for digital preservation.

Organiser of this global summit is Goportis – Leibniz Library Network for Research Information.

Find the complete programme now online: www.digitalpreservationsummit.de

If you register before 21 September 2011 you can profit from our special early bird price. Take the chance and participate for a reduced rate.

Blog posts: The Future is Collaborative Part I & II

2011-07-19T08:11:00.001-04:00

Last year, Günter Waibel, Program Officer at OCLC Research, wrote a two-part series on collaboration:

Waibel wrote:

...the 17,500 museums in the U.S. effectively divide what they have to offer over an equal number of institutional websites. To make matters worse, cultural content is not only silo’d into segregated sites, but further dispersed across 122,356 libraries and countless archives (I literally couldn’t find a count) across the U.S. All of them believe that they are at the center of their user’s universe – and none of them truly are.

I have written here before abiut the need for collaboration. Waibel's words serve as another reminder of their benefit.

If you haven't yet collaborated, what are you waiting for?

Digitization 101 - Improvements

2011-07-18T11:31:00.002-04:00

As I announcement on Friday, Digitization 101 is getting a few changes and they've been implemented! The changes are:

Consolidation of labels - those tags (on the right) that allow you to see posts on similar topics. I eliminated several labels that were not heavily used and added several new ones. Those labels will retrieve the most recent blog posts in those categories.
A Google search box - This has been added above the "Popular Labels". It will load the search results in that sidebar. Any Internet search engine is not perfect, including Google. If your search term is used in one of the sidebars, Google will retrieve many more pages that are necessary. My suggestion is to try several search terms, perhaps selecting first a term that is not as popular in this blog (e.g., digitization). Yes, you will occasionally see Google ads (a feature that I can't control).
The addition of "AddThis" - If you look below this blog post, you will see options that allow you to share any blog post more easily.

While I've been testing the changes, I would appreciate feedback from you, especially if something is not working correctly (or could work better). Thanks!

Changes coming to Digitization 101

2011-07-15T09:39:00.000-04:00

Some changes are coming to Digitization 101:

Consolidation of labels - those tags (on the right) that allow you to see posts on similar topics. That consolidation has already begun, which means that currently there are some labels (tags) on the right that will retrieve nothing. If that happens, select a similar term. I'm consolidating in order to group information better and eliminate needless or redundant terms.
The addition of a search box, so you can search the archives easily.
The addition of "AddThis" which will allow you to share posts more easily.

I am looking to have all of the changes done in 7-10 days.

Thanks for your patience!

Report: Funding for Sustainability: How Funders’ Practices Influence the Future of Digital Resources

2011-07-15T09:10:00.001-04:00

You may have already seen this report, which was published in June by Strategic Content Alliance/Ithaka S+R. "Funding for Sustainability: How Funders’ Practices Influence the Future of Digital Resources" provides information on current funding practices, including areas that can be improved in regards to defining and planning for post-grant sustainability.

Quoting the press release:

According to the report, which is based on interviews with representatives from more than 25 funding bodies in Europe and North America, funders engage in a rich range of planning activities to address different aspects of sustainability, including technical, content-based, access and discovery, and audience impact requirements. But, many funders only engage with their grantees at the beginning of the grant period and, all too often, funders and project leaders alike rely heavily on a university or other host institution as a back-up plan for long-term sustainability.

While the report is 60 pages in length, anyone who flips through it will see information that will draw him in, including questions to ask potential projects. Those preparing to apply for a grant may find this useful in order to surface important questions/ideas in advance.

Blog Post: What Skills Does a Digital Archivist or Librarian Need?

2011-07-14T09:30:00.000-04:00

Bill LeFurgy, digital initiatives librarian at the Library of Congress, wrote:

I often hear from students and others with questions about the skills they need to compete in the job market. What programming languages should I learn? How much do I need to know about specific digital formats? Which standards should I study in detail?

“No, no–those are the wrong questions!”

That’s what I want to shout when I hear this line of inquiry. But I don’t yell because it’s rude and because I know the impulse flows from my own bias toward broader, more adaptive skills.

Read his complete answer, especially if you're a student wondering about the skills you really need!

The Right to Sell a Legal Copy of a Work

2011-07-13T14:42:00.003-04:00

I just heard John T. Mitchell talk about "Copyrights v. Copy Rights: Current Law on Tactics Copyright Owners Use to Circumvent the Rights of Copy Owners" (a Center for Intellectual Property member event). During his talk, he brought up UMG v. Augusto, which was decided by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals earlier this year. Quoting Mitchell:

In a case we had been watching for some time (UMG v. Augusto), the Ninth Circuit finally upheld the district court’s holding that self-serving restrictions placed on so-called “promotional” CDs could not limit the right of the owner of the CD to sell it without permission.

In the U.S., we recognize this right as being part of the First Sale Doctrine (which actually requires no actual sale). Mitchell noted that we - because we've been brainwashed (my words) - and the Courts do not apply the First Sale Doctrine to software because the software industry has insisted that it doesn't apply. However, I can sell a used book, but why can't I sell a used piece of software? I can lend a book, so shouldn't I be able to lend software? I can give a book away, so shouldn't I also be able to give software away?

By the way, the Center for Intellectual Property (CIP) holds monthly conversations for its members. Member fees seem very reasonable, even for students.

Article: Do Not Forward This Article!

2011-07-08T10:12:00.000-04:00

Quoting:

It is an all-too-common workplace scenario in the digital age: An employee receives an e-mail containing a weekly business newsletter to which his employer has subscribed for years. Thinking the information will be useful to others at the company, the employee forwards the e-mail to his boss and co-workers, and also posts the report to the company's intranet site...What the employee does not realize, however, is that this seemingly innocuous business practice could expose him and his employer to civil liability for copyright infringement.

The legal case mentioned in the article cost the company $20 million in damages for years of copyright infringement. The case and other information are laid out to remind you that you shall not copy, but doesn't discuss fair use at all (or risk). Still it is worth reading AND worth reminding your colleagues about the law, any guidelines you have put into place, and who is actually taking the risk when copying is done.

Courses for Electronic Records Management and Digital Preservation

2011-07-08T09:51:00.000-04:00

I received this via email. A good reminder that there are good online options for learning more.

There are still some places left on the following accredited distance learning courses offered by the Centre for Archive and Information Studies (CAIS) at the University of Dundee. The courses are tutored by experts and delivered online via an interactive, fully-supported, virtual learning environment. Further details of the courses are listed below. Please note that the closing date for applications is the 29th July. Courses begin on the 19th September.

- Electronic Records Management (15 weeks)

- Management and Preservation of Digital Records (15 weeks)

CAIS also offers a Postgraduate Certificate in Digital Recordkeeping (60 credits) and is accepting applications for this and for Masters in

- Archives and Records Management

- Records Management and Information Rights

- Records Management and Digital Preservation.

The deadline for Masters applications is the 15th July.

For more details and an application form please visit http://www.dundee.ac.uk/cais/cpd/ or contact armtraining@dundee.ac.uk.

Further Details:

Electronic Records Management

Electronic records and their management: key concepts and terminology; unique properties of electronic records; implications of these properties for their management; understanding and coping in hybrid paper and electronic environments
Incorporating electronic records management into the information fabric of your organisation: drivers for electronic records and information management; key elements of a successful electronic records program; mandates and policies; technical and social infrastructure; establishing collaborations with key personnel
Getting started: simple first steps to begin managing your organisation’s information; understanding your organisation’s information landscape; sources of information to help you manage information; gaining practical experience; learning from the experience of others

Management and Preservation of Digital Records

Computer science basics for recordkeeping and preservation
Digital archiving and preservation processes: comparing digital archiving and analogue archiving technologies
Systems to support digital recordkeeping and preservation: current status and limitations; the Open Archival Information System (OAIS) standard
Metadata standards and metadata maintenance
Organisational and business considerations
The future agenda: how might the management and preservation of digital records evolve in future?

Call for Papers: IADIS International Conference WWW/Internet 2011

2011-07-05T10:24:00.000-04:00

As received in email.

-- CALL FOR PAPERS - Deadline for submissions (2nd call): 29 July 2011 --

IADIS INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE WWW/INTERNET 2011

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 5 - 8 November 2011

(http://www.internet-conf.org/)

* Keynote Speakers (confirmed):

Professor Maria Bielikova, Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava, Slovakia

Professor Nivio Ziviani, Professor Emeritus at Federal University of Minas Gerais, Brazil

* Conference background and goals

The IADIS WWW/Internet 2011 conference aims to address the main issues of concern within WWW/Internet. WWW and Internet had a huge development in recent years. Aspects of concern are no longer just technical anymore but other aspects have aroused.

This conference aims to cover both technological as well as non-technological issues related to these developments. Main tracks have been identified (see below). However innovative contributes that don’t fit into these areas will also be considered since they might be of benefit to conference attendees.

* Format of the Conference

The conference will comprise of invited talks and oral presentations. The proceedings of the conference will be published in the form of a book and CD-ROM with ISBN, and will be available also in the IADIS Digital Library (http://www.iadis.net/dl). The best paper authors will be invited to publish extended versions of their papers in the IADIS International Journal on WWW/Internet (ISSN: 1645-7641) and also in other selected Journals.

The conference proceedings will be submitted for indexing to INSPEC, EI Compendex, Thomson ISI, ISTP and other indexing services.

* Types of submissions

Full and Short Papers, Reflection Papers, Posters/Demonstrations, Tutorials, Panels and Doctoral Consortium. All submissions are subject to a blind refereeing process.

* Topics related to WWW/Internet are of interest. These include, but are not limited to the following areas:

Web 2.0

- Collaborative Systems

- Social Networks

- Folksonomies

- Enterprise Wikis and Blogging

- Mashups and Web Programming

- Tagging and User Rating Systems

- Citizen Journalism

Semantic Web and XML

- Semantic Web Architectures

- Semantic Web Middleware

- Semantic Web Services

- Semantic Web Agents

- Ontologies

- Applications of Semantic Web

- Semantic Web Data Management

- Information Retrieval in Semantic Web

Applications and Uses

- e-Learning

- e-Commerce / e-Business

- e-Government

- e-Health

- e-Procurement

- e-Society

- Digital Libraries

- Web Services/SaaS

- Application Interoperability

- Web-based multimedia technologies

Services, Architectures and Web Development

- Wireless Web

- Mobile Web

- Cloud/Grid Computing

- Web Metrics

- Web Standards

- Internet Architectures

- Network Algorithms

- Network Architectures

- Network Computing

- Network Management

- Network Performance

- Content Delivery Technologies

- Protocols and Standards

- Traffic Models

Research Issues

- Web Science

- Digital Rights Management

- Bioinformatics

- Human Computer Interaction and Usability

- Web Security and Privacy

- Online Trust and Reputation Systems

- Data Mining

- Information Retrieval

- Search Engine Optimization

* Important Dates:

- Submission Deadline (2nd call): 29 July 2011

- Notification to Authors (2nd call): 9 September 2011

- Final Camera-Ready Submission and Early Registration (2nd call): Until 30 September 2011

- Late Registration (2nd call): After 30 September 2011

- Conference: Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 5 to 8 November 2011

* Conference Location

The conference will be held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

* Secretariat

IADIS Secretariat - IADIS INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE WWW/INTERNET 2011

Rua Sao Sebastiao da Pedreira, 100, 3

1050-209 Lisbon, Portugal

E-mail: secretariat@internet-conf.org

Web site: http://www.internet-conf.org/

* Program Committee

Program Chair

Bebo White, Stanford University, USA

Conference Co-Chairs

Pedro Isaías, Universidade Aberta (Portuguese Open University), Portugal

Flávia Maria Santoro, Universidade Federal do Estado do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Committee Members: *

* for committee list please refer to http://www.internet-conf.org/committees.asp

* Co-located events

Please also check the co-located events Applied Computing 2011 (http://www.computing-conf.org/) - 6-8 November 2011 and CELDA 2011 (http://www.celda-conf.org/) - 6-8 November 2011.

* Registered participants in the WWW/Internet conference may attend the Applied Computing and CELDA conferences’ sessions free of charge.

Event: Educational Programs from the Center for Intellectual Property (CIP)

2011-06-30T09:29:00.001-04:00

I spoke with people from the Center for Intellectual Property (CIP) recently and picked up a list of their upcoming events. If you have an interest in intellectual property courses or events, check out the CIPs offerings. Note that members of the CIP have access to additional programs (e.g., Community Conversations).

Event: International Conference on Theory and Practice of Digital Libraries 2011

2011-06-29T10:29:00.001-04:00

The International Conference on Theory and Practice of Digital Libraries 2011 (TPDL), which will be held in Berlin (Germany), September 25-29, 2011, has extended its early bird registration to July 11, 2011. The conference program is now online at http://tinyurl.com/ProgrammeOverview.

Article: The First Decade of Web Archiving at the Library of Congress

2011-06-29T08:50:00.000-04:00

Abbie Grotke, from the Web Archiving Team Lead at the Library of Congress, had written the first of several blog posts about the LOC's web archiving activities. In providing context about their activities, she wrote:

We’ve collected over 240 terabytes of content, in almost 40 event and thematic collections. Our strengths are in government, public policy and law: we archive U.S. national elections, house and senate and committee sites, changes in the Supreme Court and legal blawgs.

We also build web archives with our special collection divisions – the Manuscript, Prints and Photographs and Music divisions are archiving sites related to their physical holdings. In recent years Library staff in overseas offices in Egypt, Brazil, Indonesia, India and Pakistan captured born digital content documenting elections and other events.

In her next post, she will discuss the collaborative work that they've been doing. Check the The Signal blog for the follow-up post.

Thinking 20 Years into the Future

2011-06-24T15:25:00.001-04:00

This blog post is based on the plenary session I gave at the 2011 New York Archives Conference (NYAC) and is not a transcript of my talk. I must admit that taking a long view is starting to color many of the conversations that I am having. If you have thoughts on this, please share them with me by commenting on this post. Perhaps thoughts on your organization's long-term vision or on the strategy planning process that you are using? Or how the long-term vision is impacting your work today?

I love gardening! I grow flowers, herbs and a few vegetables. I work in the yard - maintaining all of the plants - so they will look good this year and next. The results please me and others. (I do have the best looking yard on the street!)

Maintenance does take time and sometimes is hard, but I do it because it is necessary. And I do it even though I spend part of June - when the yard is full of blooms - at the SLA Annual Conference. Just because I don't get to enjoy the flowers all the time doesn't mean I'm not going to do the work to keep them looking beautiful.

Do you know someone that owns a bonsai tree? A bonsai tree will outlive its owner and should outlive several owners. Anyone who owns a bonsai tree isn't just maintaining the tree so that it looks good today; the person wants the tree to look good for years to come and for the next owner. That person is thinking even longer-term than I am when I work on by garden!

Each of us - who works in a library, museum, archive or some other cultural heritage organization - does all we can to maintain our organization's resources. We all work hard to keep the organization alive and sometimes that is not easy.

Right now we are all focused short term...let's say the next 12 to 24 months. What's going on?

We worried about the economy and how it is impacting our budgets (and tightening them).
Our staff members are stressed. They may be stressed because some of them have been downsized. They may be stressed because they are fearful that they will lose their jobs. They may be stressed because they are doing more with less.
We are worried about our competition, which includes other cultural institutions, stores, games, the Internet, etc. We are all trying to figure out how to get our users/customers/members to pay attention to us and not to our competition.
We need our users to not only pay attention to us, but to also be loyal. We need them to be loyal - and do demonstrate their loyalty - in order to help us gain more funding and support. (It is likely that we're stressed because we don't know how to assess our impact on our users or the level of their loyalty.)
We're also trying to change because we know that we can't do things the same way as we have in the past. Change is never easy, yet change is necessary.

Yes, the short term - the next 24 months - has us stressed (panicked). The good news is that stress can help us focus and get things done.

We aren't thinking too much about the long term...let's say the next 10 years. However, we should be gathering information on what futurists and other think the next 10+ years will be like. What technologies will we be using? What services will people want? What will the economic, business and regulatory environment be like? And what will our living environment be like? There are people who are thinking about these things and publishing their ideas. Reading or listening to what they have to say can help us determine our own path and the things we need to focus on longer term.

By the way, we shouldn't just read the futurists that agree with our point of view. We need to hear as many ideas as possible because neither will be completely accurate. Sadly, we won't be able to judge their accuracy until the future arrives, so getting a broad picture of the future can help us consider the steps we need to take to make our version a reality.

However, let's not think about the next 10 years; let us consider the next 20 years. 20 years means that we're thinking about the next generation. I would assume that none of us will be working for our current employer in 20 years, so this means we're thinking about what will be going on for our successor or our successor's successor. Yes, the view out that far is fuzzy, but any insight we can garner will help us set our compass. (By the way, stop and consider what you think your organization will be like in 20 years. Can you conjure a vision?)

In my vision of the future, I see:

Your organization still exists! Yes, it may be quite different than what it is now, and that is okay. (As I lay out the rest of my vision, you'll see why your organization still exists.)
Your organization has built tight collaborations with other cultural and service institutions. For example, your organization has recognized that the business across the street shares the same customers, so why not collaborate on programs, marketing, or perhaps just one event? How about collaborating or partnering with a social service agency? By 2031, your organization has decided to collaborate with everyone and that has made it stronger (and its reach greater).
Your organization is co-located. It has both a physical and a virtual presence, and there is no difference between the two. None. Whatever I can do in the physical space, I can do in the virtual space. And virtual is the same no matter what device or technology is being used. We won't be thinking about what we do on Facebook, on a smartphone or on some other tool. We'll just be thinking about what we can do virtually.
Your organization will deliver information and content to users wherever they are. Users will be able to access information/content 24x7 from anywhere in the world. Everyone who accesses your information has access to it all.

As I said, it is a fuzzy vision, but if that what 2031 will be like, what do you need to do now?

Expand your definition of "patron". We use several different words for those people that visit our institutions including users, customers, clients and members. I like the word "owner". If members have privileges then owners have responsibilities. We want those people that use our services to understand that they are responsible for ensuring our funding and our access to resources. It is a very different way of thinking and it can change the relationship between you and those people that come through your door. How do you get them to see themselves as owners? Start now - in small ways - to educate them about their role as owners in your institution. Start to change your language, how you talk with them, the information that you give to them, and your expectations of them. This will take a while to implement and to reap the rewards, so you'll need to be patient.

You will also need to take the limits off of who your institution serves. I know there are budget and funding implications in this, so it is not something you can do overnight. However, start the conversation now about who your organization should be serving and be ready to think differently about the answer.

Take the limits off of your definition of "virtual". Don't think in terms Facebook, Twitter, web sites or whatever. Think in terms of what you want to offer, and then work to offer the same features and functionality e-v-e-r-y-w-h-e-r-e. Again, this isn't going to occur overnight, but it is something you need to begin to discuss with whomever helps you with your technology needs. Get them on-board and then work toward this goal.
Explore new and cutting edge way of delivering content. Your user/member/owners will migrate to the new, cool tools and will expect you to be there too. I know...technology changes, which means you'll need to change technologies likely more frequently than you're used to. That's okay. You don't need to be on the bleeding edge. Be on the leading edge or really close to it. If that scares you, then find someone to collaborate with.
Enter into collaborative arrangements and find those that will last. Collaborate with the business across the street and the agency across town. Collaborate on one-time events, on market efforts, on longer term projects, or whatever you can a collaborate for. It's okay to start small. Do one this summer and then don't wait too long to do another. And keep doing them!

Most importantly...start n-o-w! Take small steps, recognizing that each step will move your organization closer to being (remaining) a vital and important organization in 20 years. Yes, every step you take will help your organization be sustainable and have a bright future.

Where will you be in 20 years? Wherever it is, see yourself reading the news about your old organization. Yes, it still exists, although perhaps differently than it does today...and it is doing wonderfully! As you read the news, you remember an idea you had in 2011. It was a small idea...a little step forward...and look at what you started!

James Kane & Loyalty

2011-06-22T08:30:00.205-04:00

At the SLA Leadership Summit in January 2010, James Kane spoke on loyalty. Out of that came the loyalty project that several SLA chapters are doing with Kane as well as his appearance at this year's Leadership Development Institute (LDI) on June 12 and his keynote on June 15. Having now seen him twice, I understand why people were so enthusiastic about him. He is an excellent storyteller with a message that every organization needs to hear in order to understand its members/users/customers.

First here are the handout from James Kane related to his keynote and notes from Don Hawkins. Neither is a substitute for being in the audience (and neither will my notes). If you get an opportunity to see Kane in person, take it.

Kane has studied loyalty. He had defined what loyalty is and discovered what makes each of us loyal. What surprised me is that loyalty is more complex that I imagined.

While we are focused on people being loyal, we need to recognize that people (e.g., our members) fall into four categories:

Antagonistic
Transactional
Predisposed
Loyal

Amazing as it may seem, there will be people who are involved in your organization (e.g., members, customers) who don't like you! For some reason, they are still involved with you and they - as a group - will never go away. Thankfully, antagonists comprise a small percentage of the group.

Most of your members/customers/users are either transactional of predisposed. Those that are transactional buy a product or service without feeling any long term obligation. To borrow an analogy from a former boss, they see the organization as a soda machine. They put their money in and get a soda. Next time they may go to a different machine or even decide to forego a soda and head to a drinking fountain instead.

People that are predisposed like what you have, but would go someplace else if something better came along. These are the people that were happy to shop a the Great American grocery store until Wegmans came to town, and then switched where they bought their food. (This eventually led to Great American going out of business.) As Kane says, having customers that are happy with you isn't enough, because happy customers will leave when they realize they could be happier someplace else.

People who are loyal do not measure the relationship based on price or convenience. They are loyal because the organization (or store, etc.) makes their lives better or easier. In one of his slides at LDI, he had a goal of having 20% of the organization identify themselves as being loyal. (Identification is done through a survey on those factors that demonstrate loyalty.)

Now here is what interested me the most...not everyone will be loyal! We all know that to be true, but we don't stop to think what that means to our organizations/businesses. Yes, we want people who are truly loyal. The truth is, though, that we need those people who are transactional or predisposed. We need to attract them, even if it means attracting a different group of them every month/year. And if we want to build organizations only for those that are truly loyal, then we need to spend time thinking about what that means in terms of services and obligations, as well as the number of customers/members/users.

Thinking about conferences (and not just about SLA), those that are predisposed will attend if - for example - their employer will pay for it, it is geographically convenient, the sessions seem to be useful, and there isn't another conference that looks better.

Someone who is transactional will attend the conference but may have sensitivities about place, topic, etc. I could imagine that person might even join the organization in order to get a lower registration fee, but wouldn't see that as a long-term commitment.

Those that are loyal will attend no matter what! With them there is the feeling that which trumps everything (e.g., geography, etc.) that the conference will make their lives better.

Thinking about the Computers in Libraries (CIL) conference, about 50% of the audience each year is attending their first CIL. Of the other 50%, there is some segment that has attended many of them. For them, the conference is a "family reunion", where sitting around and talking is as important (or more important) than the sessions. These are also the people who will go the extra mile to help make the conference a success, because it is "their" conference.

James Kane is working with several SLA chapters on a loyalty project. The goal is to help the chapters engage their members so that more of them are loyal. Kane's handout gives an overview of the things that must be considered when developing loyalty. You'll notice that loyalty is a two-way street. You must give of yourself in order to receive loyalty. Giving isn't always easy because we think we might be giving something away for free. That "giving", however, can take a number of forms and what is received is important (loyalty).

Kane has written two books and I suspect a few articles. I need to get my hands on some of his writings to inform my thinking, because I'm going to be thinking about this for quite a while. I'll try blog about this more as I gather more information.

What I did at SLA Annual Conference Now that I'm on the Board of Directors

2011-06-20T08:30:00.004-04:00

The Special Libraries Association (SLA) Annual Conference is now over. In past years, I've blogged the event either here or in the SLA blog during the conference, but this year didn't have time to do either. Remember that last year, I was a candidate for the Board and "being a candidate" dominated my conference. Now that I am on the Board, I spent most of this year's conference carrying out Board duties. In this blog post, I want to tell you how I - a member of SLA's Board of Directors - spent my time.

Friday, June 10:

Had a seven-hour Board meeting, which included spending time working on a strategic plan for SLA. (Relevant blog post by Rebecca Jones, who facilitated the strategic planning.)

As we do our strategic planning, we are focusing on the year 2014. We understand that is only three years into the future and it is a recognition that moving forward cannot wait. As someone (not on the Board) said, "change is hard and change is good" and that seems to be very appropriate for our process.
Prior to attending SLA, I gave the plenary speech at the New York Archives Conference, where I asked attendees to think 20 years into the future. I think there is a benefit to looking 10-20 years into the future - even if the view is fuzzy - so that you can begin to consider how an organization will exist for the next generation. I'll blog about this later this week.

Had dinner with the Board of Directors, SLA staff and Board candidates (each paid her/his own way).

Saturday, June 11:

Had a 1.5 hour open board meeting, which included several reports on various Association activities and time for members to address the Board.
Worked with other Board members on the strategic plan for three hours. We still have work to do, but we made an amazing amount of progress over the course of seven hours total. Thanks to Rebecca Jones for donating her time to facilitate the process.
Had dinner with the members of the SLA Information Technology Division board (each paid her/his own way). I have been their professional development chair, so I attended the dinner as a member of that group.
The SLA Baseball Caucus had an informal get-together and I stopped late in the evening to say "hi". (I'm a member of that caucus.) According to an email afterward, 83 people attended this event!

Sunday, June 12:

Attended the Leadership Development Institute (LDI) from 7:30-11:00 a.m., but had to step out at 8 a.m. to troubleshoot something with a continuing education course that the IT Division sponsored (and which I helped to arrange). I left LDI at 11 a.m. so I could get lunch for the CE instructors, who were also teaching in the afternoon. (Their teaching schedule gave them no time to get lunch and have time to relax. It seemed like getting lunch for them was the least I could do so they'd have time to breathe.)

James Kane, our closing keynote speaker, talked at LDI about loyalty. His SLA survey data on loyalty was very interesting, as well as what he knows from working with other organizations. Based on their responses, people fall into one of four categories: antagonistic, transactional, predisposed, and loyal.While we may want everyone to be "loyal", he believes an organization like SLA should have 20% of its members who are truly loyal. Most will be divided between transactional and predisposed.

From ~12:30-1:30 p.m. I attended in the IT Division board meeting. Because of a conflict, I couldn't stay for the entire meeting. I attended this meeting both as a member of the IT Division board (Professional Development Chair) and as its Board liaison.
From 1:30-3 p.m. I attended the Information Outlook Advisory Council meeting as their Board of Director's liaison. The Council asked two companies to present information on making Information Outlook an ejournal. The two presentations were interesting and will help the Council better frame what it wants to consider.
At 3 p.m. I ducked into the exhibit hall (Info-Expo) for a few minutes before heading back to my hotel room so I could change for the evening events.
I attended the awards ceremony and opening keynote from 5:15-7 p.m. The keynote was given by Tom Friedman, who wrote The World is Flat. (notes, notes added 06/21/2011)
Went to the Awards Reception, which all of the Board members are expected to attend.
Stopped by the IT Division Game Night to support that effort (as an IT Division member). (Yup...got back to the hotel room late in the evening, which is actually normal for the conference.)

Monday, June 13:

Proctored the Food, Agriculture and Nutrition (FAN) Division Business Meeting (breakfast, 7:30-9:30 a.m.). Proctoring means that I took some specific notes which I'll give to the SLA Division Cabinet Chair. All Board members are expected to proctor division business meetings.
Attended the Academic Division board meeting (10:00-11:30 a.m.). I am their Board liaison and so I attended in order to get to know this division better. They did give me a few questions that I need find the answers for!

Besides the IT and Academic Divisions and the the Information Outlook Advisory Council, I am also the Board liaison for the Virtual Worlds Advisory Council, Emergency Preparedness and Recovery Advisory Council, and several SLA chapters (Kentucky, Florida and Caribbean, Iowa, Arizona, and Oklahoma).

Neal-Schuman hosted Ulla de Stricker and I in their booth for an "meet the author" event from 11:30-12:30. Neal-Schuman is the U.S. distributor of the book we wrote.

12:30 - Lunch!
Attended a session entitled "Going Mobile at the Smithsonian" (1:30-2:30-ish). Inspiring to see the apps and mobile websites they have developed, as well as hear their thinking behind some of this work. (notes, added 06/21/2011)
Talked to Maurice Coleman, host of T is for Training, who then turned our conversation into an interview and podcast. Once I have the podcast URL, I'll include it.
Attended the SLA Baseball Caucus meeting (4-5:30), which had Doug Glanville, Nadia Dajani, and Dickie Noles as its speakers. (notes)
Attended the International Reception (6 p.m.)
Ended the evening between the Elsevier Dessert Party (music and dancing) and the IT Division Author Night (quiet conversation).

Tuesday, June 14:

Members of SLA's Board of Directors are asked to personally thank exhibitors for being in the Info-Expo. I had 16 exhibitors (vendors/companies) to thank, which I did between 10 a.m.-noon and 3:00-5:30 p.m. I not only thanked them, but also tried to engage them in conversation about their SLA experience as well as their products.

The exhibitors I visited were the Electrochemical Society, Aurora WDC, Research Solutions, ICE Publishing, Digimind, Future Science Group, ST Imaging, Oriprobe Information Services, American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Sage/CQ Press, American Psychological Association, Disclosure Insight, ASME, Mary Ann Liebert (publisher), Haver Analytics, and National Technical Information Services.

FYI - Disclosure Insight is not related to the old Disclosure company. They hadn't even heard of the old Disclosure until people kept coming up to ask.
I was told by several exhibitors that they were pleased with the level of real interest from conference participants. Good to hear!
I had a good conversation with one company that would like to extend its participation in SLA in smaller ways. I suggested that they consider sponsoring events in specific chapters, even if they could not attend the event. A sponsor can always send material to be exhibited at an event, sponsor specific unit activities (even webinars), or place advertisements in a unit's publications. If you (a vendor) have not been contacted by a unit that is of interest to you, contact that unit's leader with an email and make him/her aware of your interest.

Attended the session "60 apps in 60 minutes", which was a very popular and information-packed event (noon-1:30 p.m.). (presentation)
Attended the Emergency Preparedness and Recovery Advisory Council as their Board liaison (2-3 p.m.).
Attended the Division Cabinet meeting which began at 5:30 p.m.
Attended the Joint Cabinet meeting which started after the Division Cabinet meeting had ended. It ended at 8 p.m. (While I may not have truly needed to be at these two evening meetings, it was very useful to hear what our unit leaders are thinking.)
After a late dinner, I went to the IT Division Dance Party, which is one of the events of the conference. Had the pleasure of talking to several SLA members from the UK who were attending their first SLA conference.

Wednesday, June 15:

Had breakfast with a friend/colleague.
Attended "Opening the Special Library:Open Source, Open Content and More" (10-11:30 a.m.) Mike Linksvayer, one of the speakers, has his notes in SlideShare. The other speaker talked about DocumentCloud.org. (10-11:30 a.m.)
Attended "All of Your Copyrights are Ours", which speaker Dorothea Salo retitled "I own copyright so I pwn you!" ("pwn" is a term used in gaming and it basically means "own", but with more intensity.) (The slides are okay, but you really need to her what she said on each slide.) (12:00-1:00 p.m.) (notes, added 06/21/2011)
Quick lunch!
Attended the Association's business meeting and the closing keynote by James Kane (2:00 - 4:45 p.m.). While Kane' keynote was on loyalty (as is the project he is doing with the Association), he has blogged for SLA on the topic of "selling what others need". Meeting someone's needs is one component of building loyalty. (notes, added 06/21/2011)

I'll need to write a separate blog post on Kane's presentation. Between his comments on Sunday and those on Wednesday, he gave us much to think about in regards to SLA as well as our places of work.(My blog post, added 7/7/2011)

After 5 p.m., got dinner and a brew with members of the Kentucky Chapter as well as a growing number of "honorary" members. After a long week, it was then back to the hotel, where I worked on this blog post. (It took me a lot more writing and editing before I got this blog post done.)

Random Notes:

I'm pleased that I was able to attend five conference sessions, plus the two keynotes. Given the things that kept landing on my schedule, I feared that I wouldn't be able to attend any sessions.
It is very interesting to have a lengthened conference because of my Board commitments. I ended up being in Philly for six nights related to the conference. Our longer time at the conference means that our conference expenses are more than those for other conference participants. (We also meet before the Leadership Summit and meet monthly via conference calls.)
Board members are often approached with questions, ideas, praise and complaints during meetings, social events, etc. That actually means that we never have real downtime, except when we're in our hotel rooms. We're "responsible" and our members don't let us forget that (thank you!).
An SLA member had asked me prior to the conference what the dress code was. SLA is not as informal as Computers in Libraries or some other library/information conferences. Maurice Coleman noted that SLA attendees and vendors generally dress alike during the day (business or business casual). Personally I believe that what we wear shouldn't matter as long as it doesn't get in the way of what we're trying to do.
I created a Paper.li for the conference - an instant free newspaper that finds stories based on Twitter. Paper.li allows you to specify which Twitter streams it will search for stories (URLs in the stream), then does the selection based on its own algorithm. I used the conference as a reason to learn about Paper.li. The results - a daily newspaper - garnered a few readers and kudos. Now I'm going to turn it into a weekly newspaper and modify the criteria so that it will remain relevant (I hope). Will it really remain useful? Time will tell.

If you are curious about the Paper.li that I created, you can view its archives and read past stories. Look for the word "Archive" on the right side of the paper (near the top). You can select a specific date to view.

Maurice Coleman also noted that SLA is not a conference where people haul around a lot of technology (laptops, iPads, cameras, smartphones). I think part of this has to do with the amount of walking that we do because of the space the conference covers. Hauling a laptop from session to session sounds less desirable when getting from session to another may have you walking two blocks (inside the convention center). It may also have something to do with our attitude. Perhaps we don't see this as a high-tech conference. Clearly the rooms are not laid out to be amenable to the audience using lots of devices that must be plugged in.

While I did take my laptop to the Board meetings on Friday and Saturday, I used my iPhone for the remainder of the conference for tweeting notes and occasionally used pen/paper.

The 2012 Leadership Summit will be January 25-28, 2012 at the Intercontinental Hotel Buckhead, Atlanta, Georgia. For those of you unfamiliar with Atlanta, Buckhead is a suburb and is not downtown. It does look like there are low-cost ways of getting from the airport to the hotel (train).
The 2012 SLA Annual Conference will be July 15-18 in Chicago, IL. Yes, the conference will be in July! The Academic Division is checking with its members to see if this will cause financial headaches because many academic institutions have a July-June financial year, and this places two annual conferences in the same year for them. If there are a substantial number of people who are affected by this, perhaps there would be a way of shifting some of the costs into the 2011-2012 financial year?
Finally...always good to see old friends and make new owns! And while this was my 20th SLA Annual Conference, there are still many people that I do not know. I hope to continue to meet more of you whether it is via some online social site, email or a face-to-face event. I don't want you to be a stranger to me and I don't want to be stranger to you!

Video: A Day Made of Glass...

2011-06-16T09:04:00.002-04:00

While this is a promotional video for one company (and one of my former employers!), as we think about the future, it is important to consider how, when and where user might connect to information. What if it will be like this? What would that mean for us (libraries, archives, schools, digitization programs, etc.)?

My June schedule and thoughts about the future

2011-06-06T09:15:00.023-04:00

I have a busy two weeks ahead of me and hope that I'll see some of you.

June 9, 8:40-9:15 a.m., New York Archives Conference (NYAC), Saratoga Springs, NY - Plenary - “Convergence & Sustainability: Why Our Future is Bright”
June 11, 9:00-10:30 a.m., SLA Board of Directors Open Meeting (participant), Pennsylvania Convention Center, Philadelphia, PA
June 12-15, Special Libraries Association Annual Conference (SLA) (attending), Pennsylvania Convention Center, Philadelphia, PA

I have been in several conversations over the last year about the future of libraries and the information profession. My talk at NYAC will build upon some of those conversations and the thinking that is going on in various sectors. With everything that we've experiences in the last two years, our focus has become focused on the short term (now through 2 years). Several conversations are focusing on the next 10 years, yet I believe that we need to look 20 years into the future and what we want to see at that point in time, then decide what we can do now in order to make that vision a reality. If you will be attending NYAC, be prepared to be challenged in your thinking and attitude!

Article: Out of Fear, Colleges Lock Books and Images Away From Scholars

2011-05-31T10:33:00.000-04:00

Many colleges now have the ability to digitize a wide variety of collections for broad use but frequently back away. And that reluctance harms scholarship, because researchers end up not using valuable documents if they can't afford to fly to a distant archive to see them.

Good to see this topic addressed in the Chronicle of Higher Education. It is worth reading (or skimming) the entire piece.

Information about careers in digital asset management

2011-05-30T09:06:00.000-04:00

Henrik de Gyor has recorded two of his blog posts that provide information about careers in digital asset management (5:30 minutes and 4 minutes respectively).
Listen!
Listen!
You might also be interested in this one (3:34 minutes):
Listen!

Videos on "Copyright and Commerce"

2011-05-24T10:02:00.001-04:00

The Copyright Clearance Center and its Beyond the Book podcast hosted a session recently on "Copyright and Commerce". The session was video recording and is available online. Very much worth listening to or watching.

Marybeth Peters, 17 minutes

Jon Baumgarten, 15 minutes

Tim Jucovy, 10 minutes

Article: A Moment in Time Preserved 163 Years, Newly Accessible

2011-05-23T09:26:00.000-04:00

It is worth reading the entire article. Here an excerpt:

The library had the original eight polished silver plates, each 6 ½ inches by 8 ¼ inches, in storage for over 60 years. Now it has raised about $150,000 to preserve and safely display the irreplaceable plates in special housing at its main building downtown.

As part of the project, the library has also installed two giant touch screens that use digital microscopy to zoom in on high-resolution images from the entire two-mile stretch of riverfront. The Eastman House, with the aid of a Getty Foundation grant, bought equipment to magnify the panorama’s imagery by 16 times. A few individual zooms can be magnified 32 times.

The library's press release is here.

Article: Google Shuts Down Ambitious Newspaper Scanning Project

2011-05-20T09:40:00.001-04:00

Yes, Google is shutting down one of its digitization efforts. In a statement to Search Engine Land, a Google spokesperson said:

Users can continue to search digitized newspapers at http://news.google.com/archivesearch, but we don’t plan to introduce any further features or functionality to the Google News Archives and we are no longer accepting new microfilm or digital files for processing.

Google's efforts were in partnership with several North American newspapers, ProQuest and Heritage Microfilm, according to a 2008 news report.

In reporting on Google's decision, the Boston Phoenix wrote:

News Archive was generally a good deal for newspapers -- especially smaller ones like ours, who couldn't afford the tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars it would have cost to digitally scan and index our archives -- and a decent bet for Google. It threaded a loophole for newspapers, who, in putting pre-internet archives online, generally would have had to sort out tricky rights issues with freelancers -- but were thought to have escaped those obligations due to the method with which Google posted the archives. (Instead of posting the articles as pure text, Google posted searchable image files of the actual newspaper pages.) Google reportedly used its Maps technology to decipher the scrawl of ancient newsprint and microfilm; but newspapers are infamously more difficult to index than books, thanks to layout complexities such as columns and jumps, which require humans or intense algorithmic juju to decode. Here's two wild guesses: the process may have turned out to be harder than Google anticipated. Or it may have turned out that the resulting pages drew far fewer eyeballs than anyone expected.

The lesson is that jumping on the Google bandwagon can be good thing, if the wagon keeps on moving. A lesson that those involved in Microsoft's book digitization program also learned the hard way.

Addendum (10:53 a.m.): Gary Price at INFOdocket wrote a good piece on this. Price noted:

New leadership is in place at Google and new leadership can often bring changes. This is likely one of them.

Wayback Wednesday: Looking at the future of libraries [Important for New Yorkers]

2011-05-18T08:22:00.006-04:00

The timing of Seth Godin's blog post about libraries on Monday was fortuitous because Monday I was part of a discussion on that topic at the Regents Cultural Education Committee in Albany, NY. There are indeed many discussions occurring on what libraries will or should be in the future. Even though there is no agreement, all of the discussions are very necessary so we can get every idea and every option out on the table.

To that end, the Regents Advisory Council on Libraries began last year to solicit input in order to "develop and recommend to the Board [of Regents] a 2020 vision for library services and an innovative plan for ensuring the greatest access to information for all New Yorkers." Our public work on this began at the NYLA conference last November. This spring, we asked people to repond to 10 questions and nearly 100 responses were received from individuals and organizations. A timeline has been developed for seeking additional input and then developing a draft - and final - plan. While we will keep the Regents in the loop along the way, we have promised to have our final plan to them by May 2012 and ready for their approval. All of this work is in an effort to update the statewide plan developed in 2000.

On Monday, Norm Jacknis, John Hammond, Sara Kelly Johns, John Monihan, Mary Mary Muller, Louise Sherby, Jerry Nichols and I met with Regents Tilles and Dawson (chair and past chair of the Cultural Education Committee) and Regents Cea, Norwood and Cottrell, who are not part of the committee but who were compelled by the topic to attend the meeting. (As is often the case, there was a competing meeting, which some CE committee members needed to attend.) While it is clear that the Regents are interested in a positive future for our libraries, it seems - to me - that the articulation of that future needs to place libraries firmly and obviously in context with the other educational activities (and changes) occurring in the state. While you may think that this is obvious already, then consider that the connections need to be blatantly obvious not only to the Regents but to all of the other stakeholders (including members of the education and business communities).

As they have in the past, the Regents connected libraries in the discussion to other cultural heritage and educational organizations, as well as other cultural activities. Like us, they don't see libraries as standalone entities. They do want those connections to be meaningful and visible. It is as if they are throwing their arms wide open and (in their best Southern drawl) saying "y'all". Recognizing that libraries are entwined in their communities with other organizations, etc., the Regents have asked that we solicit input for the 2020 vision from a wider cross-section of people and we'll do that.

Back to Seth Godin, who is fueling a public and heated discussion on libraries. This time, people are agreeing with him, but some don't agree totally with him. Allow me to pull some highlights from his blog post. Godin wrote:

A librarian is a data hound, a guide, a sherpa and a teacher. The librarian is the interface between reams of data and the untrained but motivated user.

He then spent a lot of time talking about books, which makes me wonder if he understands what libraries actually do. But then he wrote:

The library is no longer a warehouse for dead books. Just in time for the information economy, the library ought to be the local nerve center for information.

And...

The next library is a place, still. A place where people come together to do co-working and coordinate and invent projects worth working on together. Aided by a librarian who understands the Mesh, a librarian who can bring domain knowledge and people knowledge and access to information to bear.

Thankfully, Godin ends up advocating the type of libraries that we all want.

As you ponder about Godin's blog post and the future of libraries, here are excerpts from some of our colleagues:

Caroline J. Posynick:

Whether it's a library, museum, shop, or government office, it's the people who work there that create a connection to the information and value of the institution, one person at a time.

Bobbi Newman:

We ARE fighting for the future of the librarian as a producer, concierge, connector, teach and impresario, but we know to do that we need books. We need the information contained in those books, so we DO need “clever ebook lending solutions”. Information is not free, it costs. One of the many roles of the public library is to ensure that all people have access to that information.

Nancy Dowd:

I know many of you may feel we are already doing these things. We’ve been calling libraries community centers and offering tech support and classes, but I think Seth is calling for a new mindset. He isn’t asking us to improve what we are doing, he is suggesting that we need to change the core thinking of what we do, re-imagine the core purpose of why libraries exist. Revamp our perceptions from “people should” to “people are” by accepting that the changes in technology are changing the needs of people. It isn’t that we need to add a tech center, it’s that we need to change our mindset. Don’t be disappointed that people aren’t reading; embrace communication as a fluid process that encompasses all mediums- print, visual, auditory. People are free to use whatever medium they chooses to use to communicate the ideas. Don’t be worried that people aren’t using the “best” resources; understand that information needs are relevant to the solutions people are seeking. Don’t defend the need to remain the way we are because we must provide internet access or books to the poor, look beyond to see a world where connections are the commodities that people will need to succeed.

Buffy Hamilton:

My takeaway from Godin’s post is that we may not all agree on the details, but the value of these kinds of posts is that they can initiate and sustain conversations about how we can better improve the work we do and the roles we play in better helping our communities.

Diane Cordell:

Change is not only an option, change is an imperative. Don't just get your feathers ruffled: inquire, assess, learn, adapt. Evolve.

Wayback Wednesday posts are meant to surface information from previous blog posts in order to keep that content alive. This one, however, is a reminder that this topic is not new to Digitization 101. Related Digitization 101 blog posts:

Podcast interview with Jack Van Antwerp on digital asset management

2011-05-17T14:12:00.001-04:00

Henrik de Gyor does weekly podcasts on digital asset management. All are interesting (especially the recent ones that provide career advice). This one (12 min.) struck me as being a great overview of the benefits of a DAM in a way that most people would understand.

Listen!

Call for Contributions: iPRES 2011, Nov. 1-4 in Singapore

2011-05-13T13:02:00.000-04:00

I received this in email. Oh, how I wish iPRES was streamed live...

Call for Contributions

iPRES 2011 - 8th International Conference on Digital Preservation of Digital Objects

November 1-4, Singapore

http://ipres2011.posterous.com

iPRES, the main international conference on digital preservation, is calling for proposals for original full and short papers, panels, workshops, posters and demonstrations.

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

Domain-specific Challenges (Cultural Heritage, Technical and Scientific Processes and Data,
Engineering Models and Simulation, Medical Records, Corporate Processes and Recordkeeping, Web
Archiving, Personal Archiving, e-Procurement, etc.)
Systems Life-cycle (Requirements, Modeling, Design, Development, Deployment and Maintenance)
Trusted Repositories and Governance (Risk Analysis, Planning, Audit and Certification, Business Models, Cost Estimation, etc.)
Case Studies and Best Practices (Processes, Metadata, Systems, Services, Infrastructures, etc.)
Innovation in Digital Preservation (Novel Challenges and Scenarios, Innovative Approaches)
Added-value of Digital Preservation (Emerging Exploitation Scenarios and the Long-Tail of Digital Repositories and Archives)
Training and Education
Theory of Digital Preservation

Call for Papers - iPRES 2011 invites submissions for full and short papers reporting on novel previously unpublished work. Full papers are expected to report innovative research work, while short papers are expected to present new relevant challenges and work in progress. All papers will be peer-reviewed by at least 3 members of the scientific Program Committee. The accepted papers will be published in the iPRES2011 proceedings (in digital).

Call for Posters and Demonstrations – Submissions are encouraged for a special session that for posters reporting emerging issues or work in progress, and also for demonstrations of innovative systems.

Call for Panels - Proposals for highly relevant panels are welcome. Panels are expected to be important community building actions, by promoting discussions on relevant issues and be presented by provocative expert panelists willing to engage with the audience.

Call for Workshops - Proposals for workshops, to be held after the main conference, are welcome.

Instructions for Submissions

Proposals for full (8 to 10 pages) and short (4 pages) papers, and for posters or demonstrations (2 pages) must be submitted to the electronic submission system according to the conference’s template:

Submission system: http://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=ipres2011
Paper’s template: http://www.acm.org/sigs/publications/proceedings-templates

Proposals for workshops or panels must be submitted by the workshop or panel chair, by email, to ipres2011@gmail.com

Proposals for panels must detail the subject, the intended experts’ panel, and the proposed model of interaction with the audience (this is going to be a key detail in the evaluation of the proposals).
Proposals for workshops must detail the subject to be covered, the process for the call for participation, the important dates, the duration, and the proposed organization and scientific committees.

IMPORTANT DATES

15 June 2011 - Workshops proposals due
01 July 2011 – Full and short papers, posters and demonstrations proposals due
22 August 2011 – Panels proposals due
28 August 2011 - Acceptance notification
15 September 2011 - Camera Ready Full and Short Papers
30 September 2011 - Early Registration

Previous iPRES Conferences: http://rdd.sub.uni-goettingen.de/conferences/ipres/ipres-en.html

Reports on maximazing the effectiveness of your online resources

2011-05-03T09:10:00.001-04:00

Stuart Dempster sent this message to me a while ago and now having flipped through the three documents, I'm sorry that I didn't get this blog post up earlier. There may be nothing startling here, except the recognition that we do owe it to our funding agencies to use every option to ensure that our online resources are broadly used.

Maximising the effectiveness of your online resources

The proliferation of computing and network devices has meant that, over the past 10 years, the internet has become the primary driving force in the access, use and engagement with information. Easy access for all to simple social networking and the explosion in interconnectedness has also turned marketing on its head forever.

In an age when media, business, government and almost every aspect of modern society vies for the users’ attention, how can we ensure that the resources that are being created through public funds reach and engage with their constituent audiences?

The reports, guides and case studies below summarise the key principles in maximising your online effectiveness and present a condensed version of the highly successful series of workshops commissioned by the Strategic Content Alliance and undertaken by JISC Netskills in 2010. Pictures, videos and materials from the workshops which supplement this work can also be found at: http://scamore.eforum.org/cgi-bin/default?section=about

Guide to maximising your online presence (PDF) [15 pages including a checklist for value from the internet]
A checklist for value from the internet (PDF) [2 pages]
Reports from the field – Experiences from those ‘at the coalface’ April 2011 (PDF)

Video: Google’s Secret Class System (and it does mention digitization)

2011-04-30T15:40:00.009-04:00

Gizmodo has an article and link to video (below). The article states:

Google [employees] work under a caste system: employees wear different colored badges to indicate their status. That's not new or surprising, and doesn't really mean much, other than that you can spot a Google intern (literally) a half a mile away. They're the ones in green. White badges are full-timers, and red badges—numbering in the thousands—are contractors...there are the yellow badges. A class of employee that exists largely apart from the rest of the Google hive, sequestered to building 3.1459~, denied the benefits that nearly everyone else shares in.

As it turns out, those with yellow badges are reportedly scanning materials for Google Book Search.

The video is Andrew Norman Wilson discussing how he stumbled upon this information. In the video, Wilson's delivery is purposefully flat, perhaps to take the emotion out of the piece and leave you focused on the words and images (both on the screen and those being created in your mind). It is both a news story and an art piece.

If you decide to watch the video, be sure to read the Gizmodo article too for a slightly different perspective.

BTW Andrew Wilson is a 2006 graduate of Syracuse University's Newhouse School of Communications, which makes me even more interested in the video and story. (Go Orange!)

Event: JPEG 2000 Summit

2011-04-28T09:18:00.000-04:00

As received in email...

JPEG 2000 Summit

May 12-13, 2011

Library of Congress, Washington, DC

The Library of Congress will host a JPEG 2000 Summit on May 12-13, 2011. Th= is program is being sponsored by the Federal Agencies Digitization Guidelin= es Initiative and supported by the National Digital Information Infrastruct= ure and Preservation Program (NDDIIPP).

The objective is to bring together JPEG 2000 users, developers, and other interested parties for two days of education, information sharing, discussion and planning related to the current state of JPEG 2000 in the cultural heritage community. The meeting is aimed at members of non-profit and Federal institutions engaged in digitizing cultural heritage materials.

The summit will include an international group of experts and representatives from institutions currently employing JPEG 2000 or researching the benefits/risks of using it as part of their workflow.

The program starts with a half-day tutorial on JPEG 2000 on the morning of the first day, followed by two sessions of presentations. The program will conclude on the afternoon of the second day with a small invitation-only working session to identify key objectives and collaborations for broadening the understanding and use of the technology.

**There is no fee to attend, but registration is required due to limited seating. Participants may register for the tutorial, for the presentation sessions, or for both.

For more information and to register, click here: http://www.nccsite.com/jpeg2000/

Event: Archiving 2011

2011-04-22T10:23:00.000-04:00

FamilySearch and the Society for Imaging Science and Technology invite you to Archiving 2011, the international digital archiving conference covering the most pressing issues in imaging technology, digital access and preservation.

Archiving 2011 offers a unique opportunity for imaging scientists and those working in the cultural heritage community (curators, archivists, librarians, etc.), as well as in government, industry, and academia, to learn from peers and experts about:

Developing a digital archive with appropriate processes and flows
Preserving and providing access to digital artifacts
Latest trends in imaging science technology

The conference will be held May 16-19 in Salt Lake City, Utah at the Salt Lake City Marriott Downtown.

The Archiving 2011 Conference Committee has put together a technically rich meeting that balances an exciting papers program with fun and interesting networking events.

The stimulating program includes more than 30 oral presentations and a host of interactive papers. The program also contains behind-the-scenes tours of cultural institutions and the following industry-leading keynote speakers:

David Ferriero, 10^th Archivist of the US National Archives: Creating a Digital Future: The National Archives and Information Technology
Jay Verkler, President and CEO, FamilySearch International: Preservation in a Digital Age
Michael Wash, Deputy CIO, US Department of Transportation: Preservation Starts from the Beginning

The Archiving 2011 program and additional information are available at http://www.imaging.org/ist/conferences/archiving.

Mark your calendar for what promises to be an outstanding program at Archiving 2011.

Wayne Metcalfe and Kate Zwaard, General Co-Chairs

Event: 7th International Digital Curation Conference - CALL FOR PAPERS

2011-04-14T10:03:00.000-04:00

As received via email.

7th International Digital Curation Conference - CALL FOR PAPERS

Title: "Public? Private? Personal? navigating the open data landscape"

5 - 7 December 2011, Bristol, UK

IDCC11 will be presented by the Digital Curation Centre, UK in partnership with the Coalition for Networked Information (CNI). The Programme Committee invites submissions of papers that reflect current concerns in digital curation and specific concerns arising from our conference theme:

Lessons learned from the inter-disciplinary use of open data: examples of enablers, barriers and success stories
Curation of mixed data collections, with open and sensitive or private content
Gathering evidence for benefits of data sharing
Building capacity for the effective management, sharing and reuse of open data
Scale issues in the management of sensitive data
Tensions between maintaining quality and openness
Linked data, open data, closed data and provenance
Technical and organisational solutions for data security
Developing new metrics for open data
Ethical issues and personal data
Legislation and open data

Full details of the Call for Papers can be found at: http://www.dcc.ac.uk/events/idcc11/call-papers

Submissions will be accepted from 9 May 2011

Wayback Wednesday: Seth Godin

2011-04-13T12:22:00.000-04:00

It has been announced that Seth Godin will be speaking in Syracuse on May 17 as part of the Famous Entrepreneurs Series. Of course, the first thing that came to mind was how Godin rubbed librarians the wrong way in January 2010 (post, post). I also thought of a blog post I did in 2008 for SLA about his appearance at the SLA Annual Conference in Seattle. Then searching my older posts here, I've realized that I've mentioned Seth Godin quite a few times.

First, here is an excerpt from my SLA blog post about Seth Godin:

Wednesday afternoon was the closing keynote speaker and the Association's annual meeting. A year ago, I knew that "the event" of the conference -- for me -- was going to be Seth Godin's keynote. I had read his book Unleashing the Ideavirus on my PDA and have followed his blog for a number of years. Godin recognizes that changes that have occurred in marketing in recent years and the need to change our paradigm from shouting our message at everyone to getting people in our niche to spread our message themselves.

Some people seemed to be typing every word he said, so I hope his points better than my notes (e.g., here). Here are some quick thoughts from my chicken-scratch:
"Ideas that spread win."
"The people who don't know they have a problem aren't listening to you."
"The spamming isn't working the way it used to." (Meaning that inundating people with messages isn't working.)
"the amount of noise...is excessive."
"Every Google search is its own [media] channel."
"Connect people who want to talk to each other."
Rather than finding customers for our products, we need to find products for our customers.
Rather than insisting on commitment before success, we need to have success before commitment.

The "marketing" cycle is now Be Remarkable --> Tell A Story to Your Sneezers (those who will spread your message) --> They Spread The Word --> Get Permission (from those who are interested in you) --> Be Remarkable {and the cycle continues}

There were four questions asked at the end of his presentation, and I asked one of them. I had read Unleashing the Ideavirus on my PDA and wondered what he had learned about the future of the book from that experience. Godin said that books have become souvenirs, memorabilia and artifacts. He originally disseminated Unleashing the Ideavirus as an ebook for free and it was quickly downloaded by thousands of people. After a while, people asked for a print version that they could have on their shelves and point others to. Do we use all of the books we own? Not really. In fact, he had just given away his entire business library because he found that he no longer referred to the hardcopy books. So what was the lesson he learned? Give away information. Write short books and given them away. Then have people pay for the longer version or a customized version of the book. He said he made more money on a free book, than many have on books that they sold in hardcopy. "Free" allowed his message to spread quickly and then got people to talk to him and hire him.

And here are links to other blog posts where I've mentioned Godin while talking about a variety of different topic: (Enjoy!)

UNYSLA Spring Meeting: Toot Your Own Horn: Measuring & Meeting Your Objectives

2011-04-08T18:26:00.000-04:00

Today the Upstate New York Chapter of the Special Libraries Association has its spring meeting and the theme was "Toot Your Own Horn: Measuring & Meeting Your Objectives". The speakers were Jim DelRosso, Sean Branagan and myself.

Why Assessment Matters: Defining Your Results -- You can see my slides below. My key message is that we -- libraries, librarians, library services/projects -- need to capture how we are impacting our users in the near-term as well as for the long-term. (Yes, think long term!) The data and stories are important for demonstrating our worth to our administration or management. Yes, we do great at capturing numbers such as circulation or number of users, but not always how our services have changed or impacted our users. Can you assess the impact that is occurring now? In the future, can you do another assessment to see what the continued impact has been?

Plural of Anecdote: Assessing the Success of a Digital Repository -- Jim DelRosso talked about the Digital Commons@ILR and how they have assessed it. Three things stood out to me:

Define your target audiences and then create personas to represent each target audience. (Jim said he got this from someone who is in the Boston area, but I didn't catch the name.) The persona is created by understanding what the demographics of the that audience (group of users) is, as well as other information that makes that group of users different from other groups of users. The persona is the "picture" or description you can refer to so when you talk about your target audience (users), you have persona to help you can visualize what that audience looks like.

You need data and the anecdotal stories. In fact, sometimes the data will tell you a story OR point out that there is a story there that you don't know. Jim noted that we always tell stories. He also said that we make up stories when we see data, so why not provide the stories rather than having people make up stories that could be misleading?
Sometimes you only need one story (or one data point). Jim told a story about one use of the Digital Commons that got other people interested in it as well as outside recognition. One use. Don't ignore stories even if they are based on what seems like a small use or data point. They could be very powerful evidence.

Branding and Message Development -- Sean Branagan talked about how you develop a brand and told a number of stories. Your brand should be distinctive and communicate what makes you -- your library, your service -- different from others. It occurred to me that libraries don't do a good job at talking about what makes our individual libraries unique (and why each library thus needs to exist).

One activity that Sean advocated that we do is to create a 500-word story about our specific libraries or services (one story per library or per service). The story (narrative) should communicate what the service is and how it should be used, its benefits, etc. It needs to talk about the service from the user's point of view. Once you have that narrative, start cutting the number of words used. Go from 500 words to 125 words, which means you need to select your word more carefully and think about what is important to communicate about the service. Once that is done, edit down to 50 words, then down to 25 words. After you have described the service in 25 words, edit down to 10 words and then to three words. The three-word description is likely your tagline or slogan; however, you may find the 10 or 25 word description to be appropriate to use on different marketing pieces. It is likely that the 125 and 500 word versions will be narratives that could continue to be used internally to remind staff about the vision of the service.

I can see the benefit of creating personas and stories, yet I know that neither is easy and that many will not stop to do the exercises. However, I can see the benefit in both and will look to incorporate those activities into one of the classes I teach (Planning, Marketing and Assessing Library Services).

Finally, I have to give thumbs up to the ice-breaker activity Chris Miller had us do. He gave each of us a piece of paper that contained a space for us to each write a question we would ask others over lunch. The paper then has spaces for 11 names and answers. Our task was to ask our interview question (e.g., where is your favorite place to go for a walk?) to 11 different people and write down their answers. After lunch, each person was introduced and then we chimed in with any pieces of information we had learned about him/her. With ~25 people in the room, it took a half hour to get through everyone, but it was fun and informative! We all learned something new about each other and it definitely was different than the normal introductions. I can see using that exercise again.

The Upstate New York Chapter will have another meeting in the fall. The web site and the chapter's email list will be used to announce it.

Audio interviews with Ulla de Stricker & Jill Hurst-Wahl on defining and creating your success

2011-04-06T18:35:00.001-04:00

Dennie Heye in the Netherlands interviewed myself and Ulla de Stricker about our book, The Information and Knowledge Professionals Career Handbook: Define and Create Your Success, for the SLA Europe Chapter. Dennie asked use about the book in general, then narrowed in on a couple of specific chapters. Our interviews are indeed different, so feel free to listen to them both.

Updated 7/1/2011: The podcasting service that the Europe Chapter was using ceased to exist very suddenly. Thankfully Dennie was able to find a new home for the podcasts. In order to hear the audio, please follow the links below which will take you to the SLA Europe blog and the audio's new home.

Interview with Jill (20 min.) - Jill talks about the valuable concept of social capital and the importance of using business cases to sell our ideas to management and stakeholders.

Interview with Ulla (~15 min.) - Ulla explains how the book is a collection of many years of experience, the myths around writing a good resume, why you need a professional tag line and why passion alone does not sell an idea.

Related blog post: Announcing: The Information and Knowledge Professional's Career Handbook: Define and Create Your Success