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

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

As received in email...

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JPEG 2000 Summit

May 12-13, 2011

Library of Congress, Washington, DC

Register here:  http://www.nccsite.com/jpeg2000/  Registration deadline:  May 5, 2011

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

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

As received via email.

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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

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!)

• Wanted: Champions!
• Seth Godin and libraries
• More from Seth Godin on libraries
• My top seven presentation tips
• U.S. Presidential Election
• Aqua Teen Hunger Force guerrilla marketing in Boston
• Blog post: Godin on Trademark
• Blog post: They didn't get the memo
• Can I have that digital asset to go?
• Book: Tribes - We Need You to Lead Us
• Seth Godin talks about creating bibliographies
• The information life-cycle
• Search is hard (off-topic)
• The Best of Eyetrack III: What We Saw When We Looked Through Their Eyes

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

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

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

Event: Archiving 2011

As received in email.

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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

CIL2011: Final wrap-up and looking toward next year

It's been over a week since the Computers in Libraries Conference ended and I'm finally writing my last blog post about the event.  Consider this stuff that didn't fit anywhere else.

What's in a name? I had several conversations this year - outside of the conference - about the conference's name.  The name "Computers in Libraries" no longer captures what the conference is about.  This is a conference that attracts people that are passionate about what libraries can do, who are creative in their approaches (innovators), and who - yes - see technology as an enabler, but not always as the most important thing to consider.

Renaming the conference would be a hassle, but could broaden interest in the yearly event.  Perhaps there is an appropriate name with the same acronym?  Creative Innovations in Libraries (CIL)? [Update 7/7/2011: I'm pleased to report that, although CIL has not changed its name, the theme for 2012 is "Creating Innovative Libraries".  CIL Program Chair, Jane Dysart, tweeted yesterday her thanks for my suggestion which they turned into the theme. Cool!  The Twitter hashtag will be #CILDC.]

The CIL web site - I have always appreciated the CIL website, which contains information on all of the sessions, speakers, etc.  It is easy to navigate and requires nothing special in order to use it.  Information Today always makes the presentations available on the web site, after the conference is over, for anyone to review.  That level of sharing reflects the level of sharing that the CIL community desires (and on occasion has demanded).

Mobile conference program - This year, Information Today launched a mobile conference program and told people how to add it to their smartphone's home screen.  Nothing like having the program on your phone so you can quickly check what sessions are going on, where they are, etc. 

Add sessions to your calendar - There was also an iCal version of the schedule that was available for people to add to their Google calendar.  And once in Google, it could be synced to other calendar programs.  Again the emphasis was on making it easy for people to access the schedule.

For those three things above, Information Today gets two thumbs way up!

A community - CIL isn't just a conference, it is a community that welcomes new participants.  I don't know that newcomers always recognize that they can (and should) engage in conversations with anyone and everyone that is at the conference.  It is through conversations that we all learn. And...yes...important learning does happen outside of the sessions.

Next year - CIL 2012 will be held March 21 – 23, 2012 at the Washington Hilton.  I'd encourage you to find a way of getting there in order to hang out with this creative and innovative group of people (all 2000 of them).  Yes, there are less expensive hotels in DC and you can cut costs even more by sharing a room.  If multiple people come from the same organization, Information Today has offered a price break in the past and I'd hope they would continue that.  

If you are interested in presentation at CIL, look for the call for proposals likely in August-September 2011 (my guess). 

And let's hope that the Washington Hilton has spent money upgrading its communications network and Internet connection.  While CIL isn't just about technology, this is a group that carries a lot of technology with them and we want/need reliable Internet access!


Related blog posts:

• CIL2011: Three Keys to Engaging Digital Natives
• CIL2011: Planning & Realizing the "Fourth Place"
• CIL2011: Different models of learning spaces  
• Community, Collaboration, and Learning: Time for the Fourth Place
• CIL2011: Topeka's QR Code Scavenger Hunt
• CIL2011: Going Mobile
• CIL2011: Value through Longevity: File Format Migration Using Open Source Tools 
• CIL2011: How Libraries Add Value to Communities
• CIL2011: Community Tagging by Cataloguing Staff
• CIL2011: Random Thoughts
• CIL2011: Innovative Marketing Tools and Strategies 
• CIL2011: Search tips from Mary Ellen Bates
• CIL2011: Monday mornings keynote (not!)

CIL2011: Three Keys to Engaging Digital Natives

I'm just realizing that I hadn't published this blog post from Tuesday, March 22.  My apologies. 

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The Tuesday keynote speaker is Michelle Manafy - Director of Content, Free Pint Limited.

(BTW I wish her screen shots were larger.  The graphics on her PowerPoint template take up too much space.)

Her three main points were:

• Public opinion not private lives
• Knowledge sharing not knowledge hoarding
• Interactions not transactions

The remainder of this blog post are rough notes from her talk, including pointers to many web sites that she mentioned.

The term digital native was introduced in 2001.  Digital natives have had a lifelong immersion in digital technologies. They actively speak the language of digital phones, the Internet, etc.  Many of the people in the room at CIL

By the time they graduate from college, they will have:

• spent 10,000 hours playing video games
• sent or received 200,000 emails and IMs
• spent 10,000 hours talking on cell phones

By 2018, digital native will have transformed the workplace, changing organizations, sweeping away may previous expectations in the process.

Andy Warhol's saying "everyone will be famous for 15 minutes" has change to "everyone will be famous to 15 people." - Tara Hunt, The Whuffle Factor

Shift in privacy, for example:

• IJustMadeLove.com
• Police routinely monitor Twitter for gang activity.  Gang members openly use Facebook to talk about their lives.

It is a communal generation.  They will gladly share details of their lives.

The inclination to live publicly allows police to crowdsource an investigation.

Social sign-on -- allow people to sign onto your site using their ID from their social site (e.g., Facebook).  Allows for more information sharing and community building.

TakingItGlobal - leveraged social sign-on to integrate user data, to create a sense of community, and to allow users to promote TakingITGloblal back in their social networks.

SparkNotes

"Crowdsoucing is the act of taking a job traditionally performed by a designated agent (usually an employee) and outsourcing it to an undefined, generally large group of people." - Jeff Howe

HAUL videos (Youtube) - videos about shopping sprees (hauls)

When we bring digital natives into our organizations, we then limit they're ability to innovate through information sharing.

Quirky - social product development - provides real-time market feedback.  Marketing starts will the product is being discussed and well before it gets to market.


Local Motors - the largest community of car designers.  All vehicles are designed in an open community process.

ProPublica - Crowdsourced journalism

DigitalKout (sp?) - play games to improve the accuracy of scanned documents.

Schools app - on Facebook - allows universities to create private areas in Facebook.

Knowledge shared is power.

Digital natives are more likely to purchase products and services that they helped to create.  They also have more confidence in peer created/shared content.

This is a generation that wants to do business with itself.

Kids today have a really different view of currency.  Currency doesn't need to be money.  It could be ratings and reputations.

Companies need to engage their users - listen, respond, react.  Be constructive.

Threadless - crowdsourced t-shirt designs


PBS Digital Nation Project - Project team posted rough video from the project.  User feedback was factored into the documentary.  People are still engaging there talking about how living digital has changed their lives.

There is a UK library that is being rebuilt and re-envisioned from the ground up.  Want to build a community around information.  They are going to leverage mobile technologies.  The library is leveraging QR codes, GPS and virtual reality to help users navigate the physical library.

More reading on the rejection of the Amended Settlement Agreement in the Google Book Settlement Case

Lois Wasoff recommended this readings during a Copyright Clearance Center webinar on this topic (March 30, 2011):

• Inside Judge Chin's Opinion 
• Book Ruling Cuts Options for Google
• Google Block: The Google Books settlement should teach the company humility. It won't.
• A Digital Library Better Than Google’s

Event: Digital Preservation Management Workshop, SUNY Albany, June 5-10 - Applications Open

As received in email.

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Call for Applications

We are very pleased that our colleagues at the University at Albany, SUNY will host the five-day

Digital Preservation Management workshop this June in Albany, New York.  Application Form available on April 13, 2011 at 1:00pm ET at http://www.regonline.com/DPMworkshop-Albany2011.

Digital Preservation Management: Short-Term Solutions for Long-Term Problems

Location:  Albany, New York, USA

Dates:  June 5 – 10, 2011

Tuition:  USD $ 950.00

 Who Should Attend?

The intended audience for the workshop series is managers at organizations of all kinds who are or will be responsible for managing digital content over time. The workshop begins on Sunday evening with an opening session, continues Monday -Thursday 9am - 5pm, and concludes on Friday at noon. 

Additional information about the workshop content and instructors is available at:

http:// www.icpsr.umich.edu/dpm/workshops/fiveday.html.

Instructors and Keynote Speaker

Nancy McGovern is the lead instructor for the workshop and will be joined by three topical instructors.  The Keynote speaker for the Albany June 2011 workshop is Theresa Pardo, the Center Director of the Center for Technology in Government.

Application for Registration

Workshop applications are reviewed before a formal acceptance and registration for the workshop may occur – a two-step process.  The application system will be available at 1pm ET on Wednesday, April 13, 2011 and will remain open until the workshop is full (24 participants).  We have already had a very high level of interest in the workshop and encourage early application. Apply online at: http:// www.regonline.com/DPMworkshop-Albany2011

Please Note: Applicants will be notified within five (5) business days if they are accepted to register for the June Albany, NY workshop. Until then, all applicant status will be ‘pending’.  Persons accepted to register will be able to do so at the beginning of May when the registration and tuition payment system will be made available.

About the Workshop

The Digital Preservation Management Workshops, a series presented since 2003, incorporate community standards and exemplars of good practice to provide practical guidance for developing effective digital preservation programs. The workshops were initially developed at Cornell University beginning in 2003 under the direction of Anne Kenney and Nancy McGovern.  Since 2006, McGovern has continued curricular development and directing the workshop from ICPSR at the University of Michigan. This has included development of Special Topic advanced workshops and a Train-the-Trainer program.  Through 2010, the workshop series was developed with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities. 

 If you have questions, please contact us at: digital-preservation @ icpsr.umich.edu