Science Library Pad

links related to science library blogging presentation

Earlier this year I did an internal presentation about blogging.  Some of the main points being "look, adults do it to, in real jobs and everything" and also that even if you don't blog yourself, you may want to consider other impacts: Reading blogs for professional development and monitoring them for your organization's market presence, Enabling your own content to be more bloggable, and Controlling through policy what your employees can blog (including comments they may make on their personal blogs).  I also made a point that if the public moves to using more search engines that only look at RSS feeds, if you don't have a feed, you are invisible.

Anyway it's basically mostly a long list without a lot of context, maybe you will find it useful

http://scilib.xwiki.com/xwiki/bin/view/Main/ScienceLibraryBlogging

In case you're wondering, this was all already wikied on my internal wiki, which I can't really expose, and as a bonus, every wikilanguage is different, so I had to translate it to post it on XWiki.  Welcome to the world of wikis!  No more HTML!  Instead, a half-dozen incompatible wiki dialects.

serious business blogging

Sometimes I still have to give the "blogs are not just teenage diaries" spiel, so it's useful to have the

Fortune 500 Business Blogging Wiki
This is a directory of Fortune 500 companies that have business blogs, defined as: Active public blogs by company employees about the company and/or its products.

via BusinessWeek Blogspotting - If a magazine is cutting staffers, can it afford to increase blogging? and Micro Persuasion - 2006 Trends to Watch Part VII: The Empire Strikes Back

human reference - various answers

I'm not sure really what to make of these answers sites.  Isn't every discussion forum basically the same thing?  What does it tell us that people keep reinventing "generic answers" sites?  Is it just part of the ongoing battle to create communities?  Need answers = need enough people answering...  In the post-USENET world, with specialized discussions scattered on thousands of sites, is it even realistic to try?

Anyway:

• Google Answers (selected experts, and you have to pay)
• Yahoo Answers (anyone can ask, anyone can answer, AFAIK)
• Wondir (any to any)

Have libraries missed an opportunity?
Could the Wikipedia community be leveraged?  (I guess Answers.com is doing that in a way.)
Do enough eyeballs make any question answerable?

It will be interesting to see how the tension between new and established, between decentralized and centralized, continue to play out.  It seems to me that many organizations that have moved to the Internet world have lost sight of their audience.  Most libraries are surely intensely local organizations.  Are they making that connection?

After having pondered these things and written my posting, I see Gary Price has lots of info from earlier in the month along similar lines: Other Q&A Services, Most Available For Free.

adults that aren't adults? US university bloggers

Go to university, be a free adult?  Not so much.

Nine [under the age of 21]^* students at N.C. State are facing charges of violating the school's alcohol policy after a residential adviser visited one of their profiles on Facebook and found links to pictures of them drinking. Facebook, which lets students create and share personal profiles, is enormously popular on campuses nationwide.

...

Cases similar to the one at N.C. State are cropping up across the country. Northern Kentucky University reportedly fined five students and put one on a one-year probation from campus housing after finding pictures, via Facebook, of the students with a keg of beer in their dorm room. The University of California at Santa Barbara recently warned that students living on campus can be disciplined for the content of their Facebook profiles. And Fisher College in Boston expelled a student this fall for posting threatening comments about a campus police officer on the site.  

An official at N.C. State emphasized the public nature of the forums and stressed that students shouldn't assume such virtual material won't have consequences in the offline world.

"There is no reasonable expectation of privacy" on these sites, said Paul Cousins, director of the office of student conduct at N.C. State. "So I have no concerns about any university becoming aware of issues via Facebook and then following up on those concerns."

^* 21 is the legal drinking age in the United States.

I begin to wonder where, exactly, we are left with a "reasonable expectation of privacy".

Sympatico - MSN - CNet As teens embrace blogs, schools sound an alarm

Is there anything that doesn't alarm schools and parents?

"Here's a cool new technology, let's react with paranoia and orwellianism."

sigh

Of course, it's not like there aren't consequences for blogging post-university either.

GlobeTechnology - December 30, 2005 - Beware skeletons in Web closets

What's written in the far, dark reaches of cyberspace is often more permanent — and damaging — than you think.

"I think it's going to be a lesson for everyone to be a little more careful with what they do," says Tamara Small, a political and Internet studies doctorate candidate at Queen's University in Kingston, Ont.

"It's this warning to people that blogs are in the public sphere."

Michael Klander's downfall from executive vice-president of the federal Liberal party's Ontario wing followed an on-line avalanche of condemnations over nasty remarks made on his Internet web log.

Still, I think there's a difference between an adult in a public position (election campaign) writing something stupid and getting caught, and deliberately policing university blogging looking for infractions.

digitization for Canadian books: Alouette

A major effort to digitize millions of books and other documents at libraries is beginning across Canada.

Canadian research libraries have formed a digitization alliance called Alouette Canada to get their books online.

The process involves scanning the millions of books available in Canadian libraries so they can be read by internet users. Parts of the virtual library should be available beginning next year — and it'll be free to use.

Tim Mark, executive director of the Canadian Association of Research Libraries, says Alouette is taking on a large project that will extend over several years.

"The initial estimate is three to four million titles so the scope is huge," he says. "I think it's fair to say that librarians and research libraries in particular have seen the vision and the possibility and the potential for universal access to all knowledge."

University of Toronto chief librarian Carol Moore will head a group of 27 major Canadian academic research libraries that have joined the Alouette Canada project.

...

The Canadian group is working with a big international effort to digitize books, the Open Content Alliance, based in San Francisco.   Canada's libraries will be co-operating with international libraries, such as the U.S. Library of Congress and the British Library, which already have large digitized collections.

via CBC Arts: Canadian libraries join race to digitize books, 29 Dec 2005.

Also reported on CBC Radio - World at Six on the same date, at 22 minutes in.
(Note: I don't think these shows are archived, so the audio is probably no longer available after Dec 30.)

As far as I understand they will be scanning out-of-copyright books only, and making them available for free.  They are aiming at something like 3-4 million books of historical significance to start.

The CBC story seems to be the only information available about this project.

I found it blogged at Ian's Messy Desk.

UPDATE 2006-01-03: Presumably this is related to (or just a new name for?) the CARL Open Canada Digitization Initiative that I blogged about on November 25, 2005.

As a member of CARL, CISTI will of course be participating in this initiative.

UPDATE 2006-01-23: There is also a brief write-up at KnowledgeSpeak.  Unfortunately it does not appear to be possible to link to it, but you can search on "alouette".

Alouette will accelerate the digitisation process by making available rare documents such as fragile works from the 16th century, Banting and Best's papers on their discovery of insulin and crucial documents related to the history of Newfoundland from ... Memorial University.

UPDATE 2006-06-24:  The AlouetteCanada initiative has officially launched.

2006 IEEE SOA Industry Summit CFP reminder

The 2006 IEEE SOA Industry Summit will be co-located with the IEEE Web Services and Service Computing conferences, September 18-22, 2006 in Chicago.

The 2006 IEEE SOA Industry Summit encourages industry people to submit presentations and one-page abstract instead of 8-page research papers. The accepted papers will be published in the SCC 2006 Proceedings.

I assume the deadlines are the same as for the main conferences (CFP):

            Abstract Submission Deadline: January 16, 2006
            Paper Submission Due Date: January 16, 2006
            Decision Notification (Electronic): April 24, 2006
            Camera-Ready Copy Due Date & Pre-registration Due: May 31, 2006

Previously:
2005-Dec-11  service-oriented computing conferences

how to: create a Firefox search plugin

A common question, and libdev has produced a detailed answer, using Open WorldCat as an example.

I have added this info to LibSuccess: Web Browser Extensions.

an unhappy encounter with a university library

countably infinite » University of Toronto Library gives public the cold shoulder

Within the first week of arriving in Toronto, I decided to hit up the University of Toronto’s library. After all, wasn’t this the one-time stomping grounds of the father of Canadian Communication studies, Marshall McLuhan? And his contemporary and fellow luminary, Harold Innis, has a residence and a college named after him. As a Communication-reared undergrad, how could I resist? So I went with a skip in my step, glowing at the prospect of all that new-old knowledge, just waiting to be discovered—only to find my nose smashed against several glass doors of technology and information access policies.

via Just a Gwai Lo

Web 2.0: the reckoning cometh

Web 2.0: reliable enough?  sustainable?

Micro Persuasion - 2006 Trends to Watch Part V: Crash 2.0

we're going to see a shakeout among the startups that are hoping to build a business around online advertising. Those who have established a sizable audience footprint and have started monetizing it I am sure will be fine. I have no doubt Google, Yahoo and Microsoft - the axis known as GYM - will no doubt succeed. However, for everyone else planning to build a yet-to-be-launched business that's built on online advertising, the noose is tightening.

walkah - what happens when web2.0 is down?

the web feels much more, well... entangled.

so, what happens when pieces fall off the map? what if they're big pieces?

lovers near books

Well, it's not N@ughty Librarians, but...

In the halls of knowledge, amidst the towering stacks of books, more than just fact and fiction awaits.

No one knows this more than Madeleine Lefebvre.

You see, the University Librarian at Saint Mary’s University in Halifax, NS, is the editor of a newly released book, The Romance of Libraries (Scarecrow Press Inc., 2006) which is now on sale at the Saint Mary's bookstore.

Lefebvre read some excerpts at a book launch at the Saint Mary’s University Art Gallery last evening. The event attracted droves of people, many of whom purchased her book.

This work, which is now available at bookstores, is a collection of true accounts of emotional attachments formed in and with libraries and the library field, and both young and old share their tales of love.

Lefebvre gathered most of the stories through her website, www.libraryromance.com

She had assumed that the stories would all be based in North America, but thanks to the internet, “before long they were coming in from all over the world,” she says.

via SMU News Releases - Love in the Library - December 14, 2005

Michael Gorman, esteemed head of the ALA, wrote the foreward (PDF).
According to Madeleine Lefebvre's bio, she is currently the head of the CLA.

information overload?

Or information underavailable still?

Consider books.

Nicole Quaranta, 22, is a typical youth. The New York University grad student in education does most of her research online. She'll check databases for academic journals and newspaper articles -- but rarely books, even though she acknowledges an author who spent years on a 300-page book might have a unique perspective.

"The library is daunting because I have to go there and everything is organized by academic area," Quaranta said. "I don't even know where to begin."

Were books as easily searchable as Web pages, she'd reconsider.

Otherwise, they might as well not exist.

from CNN.com (AP) Age of information overload December 26, 2005

year-end wrapup

It was fun.
I'm on vacation.
See you in 2006.
Below are all-time totals (counting from blog creation in November 2004).

I don't know whether this will cause you to perceive SLP as smaller or bigger than you thought, but anyway

Posts: 916  | Comments: 91  | TrackBacks: 60

direct hits as counted by TypePad:

Total number of page views:	48182
Average per day:	121.37

FeedBurner Daily Circulation Trend

Dec-20

Circulation:117

Clicks:74

Hits:140

(Note: I don't force people to my FeedBurner feed.)

Bloglines:
FeedBurner feed 80 subscribers
Atom feed 40 subscribers
index.rdf 32 subscribers
rss.xml 06 subscribers

Metcalfe's law and library site communities

Metcalfe's law is really about networks, but you can kind of extend it to the "network effect".

The network effect means that an active site with a lot of users will attract more users.
This is one of the reasons I think initiatives like OCLC WorldCat reviews will have a hard time gaining traction.  Hasn't Amazon won the mindshare for book reviews?

It's a challenging issue.
For example, I see all these new Web 2.0 BMO (Buy-Me-Out) sites pop up.
"we do social networking bookmarks, with visual tagging!"
Um, yeah, but delicious has pretty much captured that space, so sad, too late is your fate.

There are only so many genres of applications, and once one choice dominates within a genre, it is very hard for any (even much better) choice to gain traction.  Microsoft Word / PowerPoint / Excel etc. anyone?

If everyone is putting photos on Flickr, then am I going to put my photos on your new PhotoWizzBang site?

There is always a tension going on there between One Central Site and specialized sites.
For example, USENET was wonderful in that all the discussions were in one place.  Got a question?  Go to USENET, that's where everyone is.

Now discussions have exploded across the net.  Got a digital photography question?  Well, there's still rec.photo.digital hmm, but maybe DPreview Forums is better?  Now imagine that you try to start your own digital photo discussion site.  Your site: two forums, four postings.  DPreview: dozens of forums, hundreds of thousands of postings.  Where do you think people are going to go, even if your forum offers lots of cool features?

So there is a big tension around creating sticky portal sites, and using offsite resources, and how you build a community when you arrive late to the game, when other communities have already formed.

You're a research library?
How long does it take scientists to bookmark ScienceDirect rather than navigating through your site every time?  How are you ever going to get them to stick to your library portal?  Do you even want them to?

But on the other hand, if your site is just a list of pointers that say e.g. "use connotea for bookmarking", not only are your scientists gaining the benefit of bookmarking in a collaborative space with other scientists... but they're also taking a risk, as is your organization.  Connotea blows up?  Good bye local collective organization wisdom.  (I'm just picking it as a random example.  ANY site that is not controlled within my internal infrastructure I consider to be at risk of disappearing at any time.)

So maybe there is a compromise?
Store or at least copy the data locally, but use APIs so that your users are transparently integrated with the big networked communities.

For example, no one is going to use book tagging if your catalogue has like three tagged books.
But use an interface to Amazon to suck up book tags from there, plus build a local tagging interface that captures tags that your users add: none of your data lost if Amazon turns off tagging, while in the meantime you get thousands more tags than you could just from local users.

Stephen Abram's article The Shop Window: Compelling and Dynamic Library Portals got me thinking about this.  Because I think a lot of people think "if only our library could be Amazon.com" -- the problem with this is, there already IS an Amazon.com so why should I come to your library for some lite version of the same functionality, with thousands? millions? fewer people contributing to the community.

I agree mainly with the idea that you have to create value around intensely LOCAL, community-specific concerns.  That means your audience is either the local community (public library) or your researchers (research library) or your university or....  (Personally I'd be happy if libraries started making web sites for ordinary users instead of librarians, as a start.)

Darcy Quesnel inspired some of this thinking.

search plugin excitement

Some buzz around Firefox search plugins from LCLS Labs from Shifted Librarian and Tame The Web.

Incidentally, we have been updating the Firefox extensions on CISTI Lab.
Apologies for the site, it is still very beta, lots of the links don't work yet.
We'll try to get it fixed up a bit better in the new year.

I think the contact form on Lab is working now, if not, please contact me if you have any questions about the site or the extensions.

How does a "build your own Firefox extensions" workshop sound :)
I don't know what venue would be appropriate.  For example, Access 2006 might make sense, but many of the people who attend are already pretty technical, so I don't know how much value it would add for them.
Maybe a hackfest to build extension-builders for each major catalogue type, in the same way Jon Udell's LibraryLookup build-your-own is set up for the major catalogue vendors?

The contributors to LibSuccess: Web Browser Extensions have also tried to provide as much info as possible about library-related extensions, including links to tutorial information.  Please feel free to add your own relevant links to the LibSuccess wiki.

Previously:
January 31, 2005  CISTI catalogue Firefox search plugins
February 12, 2005  experimental CISTI sidebar for Firefox
March 15, 2005  CISTI experimental sidebar 0.2
March 25, 2005  CISTI bookmarklets
October 10, 2005  ILI2005 - presentation - Web Browser Extensions

Firefox extensions for Connotea

Connotea is a social bookmarking tool for scientists.
There are Two New Tools For Firefox Users, one that greasemonkeys an add-to-connotea link into PubMed results, and a search plugin.

Ohio Library Council IT Division blog

An apparently new and good blog (by which I mean, a blog that writes favourably about my postings :)

Information Technology Division of the Ohio Library Council blog

the library 2.0 coder discussion continues

John Blyberg writes

The model that we should be adopting looks more like a meta-coop in which libraries work together via a developer’s network using a set of platform independent, standards-based tools to create open-source projects, programs, and snippets. That is the real Utopian vision.

I think this is the key point.  Every library doesn't need a coder IF the overall community can produce enough code pieces (toolkits? services?) so that each library can be an integrator or consumer of the overall capabilities developed.  If your library doesn't yet have that capacity, to use code and services developed elsewhere in ways customized for your environment, then yes you do have a gap you must work to close.  All libraries need to work together as well to establish this vision of a cooperative library developer's network.  Sites like libdev and conferences like code4lib are already a great start.  Vendors do have a role to play, particularly in opening up their systems, but given past (dis)service to the libraries from the vendors, I suggest the vendor role should be that of junior partners, not development leaders.

As a disclaimer, I should mention that CISTI is working on a vision of a Canadian scientific infostructure, based around providing services (in the Service-Oriented Architecture sense, which means in some cases using Web Services, in other cases using REST interfaces) as well as supporting partner services.

You can also see us playing with bits of code (which you are welcome to adapt for your organization) in the CISTI Lab.

You can read more in my OPAC category for my opinion of these rather sad systems (good at inventory, useless for anything else).

Also see previously:
December 20, 2005  librarians should be scripters
December 07, 2005  librarians 2.0 don't need to be coders 2.0

Network World magazine on IT Architect career

The position of IT architect has become increasingly important to the ever-changing IT industry, and is one that established corporations and start-ups are seeking.

...

As IT positions become more specialized and include increasingly detailed responsibilities, there's a need for someone who can tie several silos of expertise together, says Al Volvano, a product manager for Microsoft's Learning Group. Enterprise architects aren't just technology experts; they are leaders with broad IT knowledge, the savvy to apply it to business problems and the communication skills necessary to coordinate the people who will put their plans into action, says Bill Liguori, senior vice president and co-founder of the placement firm Leadership Capital Group.

Jim Phelps, a senior IT architect for the University of Wisconsin's Department of IT, is charged with assessing the effect and fit of technologies, and aligning technical solutions with the university's IT goals. As he describes it, the position requires "broad vision to fly at 30,000 feet all the time but drop down low to the ground every once in a while to get enough detail." In particular, he concentrates on collaboration, identity management issues and integration patterns.

from Network World (USA) - The rise of the IT architect - December 9, 2005

Also reprinted in Network / IT World Canada (requires free registration, or use of BugMeNot).

In case you're wondering, my salary is nowhere near what they quote.

The article goes on to talk about certification, about which I would like to state my universal opinion on certification: it is bulls--t.  Certification is an excellent business... for the certification companies.  It is a waste of time and money for everyone else involved.  People are qualified or not qualified.  Certification is meaningless.

The illustration in Network World Canada shows an architect climbing an endless set of fiery stairs - I guess this is the opposite of the Waterfall Model.

not so innovative Canadian libraries

I took a tour around trying to find innovative Canadian library websites and what I found mostly was unusable sites designed for librarians.

Ottawa Capital SmartLibrary
http://www.smartlib-bibliogen.ca/en/zportal/zengine?VDXaction=ZSearchSimple
Ok, simple search box, that's good.
But as soon as you type a search and hit return it says "The previous session has timed out or been disconnected by the server. Start a new session."  PLUS it pops up a box saying "The page has already been submitted.  Resubmit again?"

AMICUS
Let's assume you know "Web Services for AMICUS" actually means "search box", and that when you get to http://amicus.collectionscanada.ca/aaweb/aalogine.htm you know you can search without actually needing to login.

Let's do a search
Title Search
davinci

The first hit:
"Davin, the politician : a play"

And should you be so lucky as to find something with a location, AND know to click the location button smooshed up with a bunch of other buttons, you get the location... coded using some LAC code.  What?  You haven't memorized the LAC institution codes?  I guess you haven't been properly trained.

National Library of Quebec
http://www.bnquebec.ca/
If you type a search and hit RETURN, it... doesn't search.
You have to click the little arrow next to the search box, whereupon it does a very slow federated search.

Virtual Reference Canada
http://www.collectionscanada.ca/vrc-rvc/
Ok, this sounds good, virtual reference, all with the innovation and such.
Except, you have to register.
Oh, and it is only a service for librarians, by librarians.
Oh and by the way, you need training, let's start with an instruction manual.
Oh and guests get a different manual from Full Members.

That's it.
I give up.

Nature calls for scientists to contribute to Wikipedia

The comparison that Nature did between Britannica and Wikipedia got lots of attention.  Personally I could care less.  I use Wikipedia, it usually gives me the info I'm looking for, that's good enough for me.

What I find much more interesting is their call for scientists to be active participants:

Judging by a survey of Nature authors, conducted in parallel with the accuracy investigation, only a small percentage of scientists currently contribute to Wikipedia. Yet when they do, they can make a significant difference. Wikipedia's non-expert contributors are, by and large, dedicated to getting things right on the site. But scientists can bring a critical eye to entries on subjects they study, often highlighting errors and misunderstandings that others have unintentionally introduced. They can also start entries on topics that other users may not want to tackle. It is no surprise, for example, that the entry on 'spin density wave' was originated by a physicist.

...

Nature would like to encourage its readers to help. The idea is not to seek a replacement for established sources such as the Encyclopaedia Britannica, but to push forward the grand experiment that is Wikipedia, and to see how much it can improve. Select a topic close to your work and look it up on Wikipedia. If the entry contains errors or important omissions, dive in and help fix them. It need not take too long. ...

Nature - Wiki's wild world - Published online: 14 December 2005 - doi:10.1038/438890a

via Tom Keays Blog - Good Articles in Nature

top searches 2005

I'm not convinced these give us any deep insights, other than Britney Spears is bizarrely popular, but anyway:

• Google.com 2005 Year-End Zeitgeist
• Yahoo Canada Year in Review 2005
• Yahoo Canada Buzz blog on searches - http://ca.buzz.yahoo.com/

innovative Canadian libraries online

I may have an opportunity to promote innovative Canadian library sites... which would require me to know of any.  I know in the US e.g. AADL has gotten lots of attention.

Are there any Canadian libraries doing similar things (even in "beta")?

http://cybrary.uwinnipeg.ca/ comes to mind

UPDATE in response to comment: I'm thinking about sites that as a local public library end-user, I would find compelling.  e.g. "This library site is almost as good at helping me find books as Amazon.ca" :)  WorldCat and RedLightGreen are one library interface that users are probably unaware of, but I don't know how many Canadian public library catalogues they cover.  "davinci code" in RedLightGreen returns zero results, in WorldCat for my local it returned University of Ottawa but not Ottawa Public Library.

Furl Firefox extensions

I use Furl for all my work-related bookmarks (library technology, information security etc.) - http://www.furl.net/members/rakerman

Via Contentious I find a couple handy tools:

• Firefox search plugin that searches your own Furl bookmarks (My furl archive)
• Firefox toolbar from Furl

Web 2.0 and science and libraries

I liked this posting from the Contentious blog - Web 2.0 and Science: Behind the Hype

I think “Web 2.0″ will affect the scientific establishment, but only indirectly and incrementally – and science is very much about establishment, for better or worse.

That said, I do think Web 2.0 tools will make it easier for scientists (especially amateur scientists) to have “unofficial” discussions and exploration, and to publicize their collective efforts through unofficial channels. It might also make certain kinds of research easier, or possible – but any technological advance can do that.

I think the same applied to Web 2.0 and libraries.  Increased collaboration and communication will benefit libraries greatly, but I think we need to be wary of the "transformational technology" hype.  Digital is transforming libraries completely.  Web 2.0 is a tiny bubble in that tide.

librarians should be scripters

(dis)content management writes

originally from a private forum, reproduced here by request.  it’s commentary on this article about librarians as coders.

In general, I disagree with that diagram. There’s a level *below* application called ’system,’ and it isn’t in that diagram because IBM wants to sell you systems that you write your applications on.

...

However, the graph is also missing a column called ‘Deployment,’ which comes after Development. This is where ‘Scripting’ comes in. ‘Scripting’ is the process of writing code to retrieve and manipulate information from the system, and also changing the state of the system.

I just want to mention that the one and only point of the diagram I chose was to illustrate that there are more roles in the process of system development than just "business / librarian" and "coder".  There are lots of much more complicated diagrams (including many from IBM) that present a much more accurate picture of system development; I chose the simplest one that met my needs.

That being said, I do think there is a useful distinction to be made between application developer/coder and scripter.  I do think that there is more value for librarians in learning lighter-weight scripting languages, particularly JavaScript, than in trying to duplicate the depth of knowledge and programming complexity associated with being e.g. a trained C++ applications developer.  Scripting lets you glue existing systems together in interesting ways - I suspect that is most often what librarians want, rather than the ability to develop entire systems from scratch.

UPDATE 2005-Dec-21: Incidentally, the forum discussion is from forum.optica8.com - Conferences - Online Northwest, and it's unprivate enough that I can read it, anyway.