Planet Code4Lib

Tennant, Roy: Lessons From the River: Introduction

Roy Tennant — 2013-06-18T17:59:36+00:00

I was 20 and living in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains when a friend of mine suggested that we train to be commercial river guides. It was the Spring of 1978, and a large snowpack had finally broken the drought of the mid-1970s. River companies were scrambling to hire more staff to take advantage of the sudden opportunity. She was right — it was the chance of a lifetime, and I thank her for this guidance to this day.

My very first training trip had me joining a group of trainees who had already been at if for several days. All I saw was crashing and burning. This culminated when a trainee blew it and our boat came up against a razor-sharp rock (the rapid is called “Razorback” if that gives you any idea). Our trainer, an experienced guide, made the mistake of putting his hand out to push off the rock. He cut his hand, and became so disgusted with his boatload of newbies that he told us to put our paddles down.

For the entire rest of the trip (basically half of the river’s length), he took the boat down the river himself. We sat there immobile and ashamed. Seven people in a paddle boat and he guided the boat himself with a hand he couldn’t use. This was indelibly etched on my memory.

I learned a lot that day.

First, all I had seen to that point had been garbage. No one knew what they were doing except our trainer. This made me feel better. Second, I understood that it was possible for a single person to take a boat down that river by him or her self. I vowed that I would be able to do that one day. Soon, I could. Third, I understood that this would not be easy. Little did I know at the time how difficult it would be in the end.

I’ll skip over the difficulties to later that year when I got my chance to prove myself. I had been trained to guide a paddle boat (six passengers all with a paddle) and the boat I was given for my test was an oar boat (the guide rows with long oars and the passengers just ride). Rowing an oar boat is very different than guiding a paddle boat. Did I say anything about this error? Of course not. Even back then I wasn’t that stupid. Once I had done it, I said to myself, they could never say I couldn’t.

So after getting down the Stanislaus River in that oar boat moderately well I was approved to be a commercial whitewater river guide. It was also my 21st birthday. My boating friend and I jumped in my beat-up Sunbeam Alpine convertible and drove to Yosemite to celebrate.

That was just the beginning of my learning process, and I will be sharing those lessons in a series of posts that I hope you will find relevant or at least interesting.

ALA Equitable Access to Electronic Content: Libraries & Health Insurance: Preparing for October 1

Emily Sheketoff — 2013-06-18T16:36:09+00:00

Is your library prepared to deal with the rush of patrons who will need help filling out Affordable Care Act health form applications this year? In October, library patrons are expected to come to libraries in great numbers to learn about new insurance requirements and options available. Libraries will need to know about the resources that will help library patrons.

Get ready for the health program by going to a new session at this year’s 2013 Annual ALA Conference. To learn how to serve patrons on the new health program, participate in “Libraries & Health Insurance: Preparing for October 1,” Sunday, June 30, 2013, from 1:00–2:30p.m. in the McCormick Place Convention Center Room S501BCD. Speakers include Jackie Garner Medicaid consortium administrator; Susan Hildreth, director of Institute of Museum and Library Services and Kendra Morgan, senior program manager, OCLC Webjunction.

View all ALA Washington Office conference sessions

The post Libraries & Health Insurance: Preparing for October 1 appeared first on District Dispatch.

Open Knowledge Foundation: Opening the weather, part 1

Theodora Middleton — 2013-06-18T14:13:42+00:00

Red sky at night, shepherd’s delight
A cow with its tail to the west makes the weather best
Onion skins very thin, mild winter coming in

Humans have always wanted to know what the weather has in store for them, and have come up with a whole load of ways to predict what’s coming; some better than others.

Weather forecasting as we know it began in earnest in the nineteenth century, when the invention of the electric telegraph revolutionised long-distance communications and made it possible for information about incoming weather to travel faster than the weather itself. Since then weather forecasting has become ever-more accurate, with improvements in the technology of reporting and communicating, as well as in the predictive models, making it possible for us to know the future weather in greater detail than ever before.

The data collected by weather stations across the world is translated by algorithms into predictions about the weather which is coming. But while some raw data is freely available to those who wish to use it, other datasets are locked behind towering paywalls, and all output predictions are generally the closed property of big forecasting companies.

Two projects which have emerged recently to challenge this are OpenWeatherMap.org and OpenMeteoData.org. As Olga Ukolova from OpenWeatherMap explained:

“We believe that enthusiasts joined by one idea could achieve more than large companies. We believe that meteorological data must be available, free and easy-to-use.”

An open weather forecasting service has the ability to harness the input of enthusiasts around the world, to produce forecasts of greater precision and detail than can be achieved by monolithic companies. Inspired by the success of community-driven knowledge creation in cases like Wikipedia and OpenStreetMap, the guys at OpenWeatherMap are looking to improve the quality of available information, while at the same time wresting control from the hands of profit-driven corporations:

“The project attracts enthusiasts to the process of data collection and estimation of data preciseness that increases accuracy of weather forecasts. If you have a weather station you can connect it to OpenWeatherMap service. You will get a convenient interface for gathering and monitoring data from your weather station. And you can embed the weather station data into your home page.”

The results are available to developers openly and for free:

“Mobile apps developers can receive any weather data for their applications by using JSON / XML API. Lots of weather applications for Android and iOS use OpenWeatherMap as weather data source. By the way the data can be received from WMS server and can be embedded into any cartographic web-application.

Web-application developers that use cartographic services can easily add weather information to it. OpenWeatherMap provides libraries for OpenStreetMaps and Google map. Plug-ins for Drupal and other CMS are available too.”

Map from OpenWeatherMap.org

Later this week, Nicolas Baldeck from OpenMeteoData will tell us more about how he came to be interested in opening the weather, and what future he sees for the project.

Rochkind, Jonathan: Upgrading a Blacklight app from Solr 1.4 to Solr 4.3

jrochkind — 2013-06-18T14:00:32+00:00

updated version of post previously published, then unpublished, more content added

Our public catalog is a Blacklight-based app. It went live using a Solr 1.4 index, and it still does.

Meanwhile, the latest Solr is now 4.3. It’s time to upgrade our Solr. I’ve spent a few days getting things working with Solr 4.3; haven’t deployed it to production yet, but it seems to be working out. I have a bit more testing to do, then just figure out how to schedule the switchover.

Here are some notes for some things I had to change or do for a switch all the way from 1.4 to 4.3. I think some others of you are in the midst of just such a long awaited jump-update too or soon will be (cause it’s summer maybe?), so maybe this will be helpful.

I can’t neccesarily cover everything I changed here exhaustively. I was basically guided by

comparing my existing solrconfig.xml and schema.xml to the new example ones from the Solr 4.3 example app;
as well as comparing to the solrconfig.xml and schema.xml from the current Solr 4.x-ready Blacklight example solr app; although I am not sure any Blacklight committers are actually using the out of the box example Solr in production, so I don’t neccesarily trust it to be optimal or error free.
Also, very useful, check the “Logging” section from left-hand sidebar in the (amazingly improved) Solr admin console, for any deprecation notices or other warnings.

Update SolrMarc

If you use SolrMarc for indexing, you need to be using a version that’s compatible with Solr 4.3.

Blacklight comes with a SolrMarc.jar, but it can be confusing to figure out which version you have built-in, depending on what version of Blacklight you’re using, etc.

However, the built-in rake tasks in Blacklight that use solrmarc (such as `rake solr:marc:index`) will also use a local SolrMarc.jar if one is present.

I downloaded the most recent pre-built SolrMarc.jar, and put it in my local app at ./lib/SolrMarc.jar. The built-in rake tasks will find it there, and use it.

Logging .jars

In Solr 4.3 for the first time, you need to supply your own logging-related jars, they aren’t bundled in the solr war. At the time I was doing this, the Solr docs weren’t neccesarily clear (to me anyway) on this, and I spent a bunch of time dealing with it.

If you just used the example jetty bundled with Solr 4.3, you wouldn’t run into this issue, because it’s already got the required jars. But we’ve been using tomcat here (not neccesarily for any good reason, I don’t neccesarily recommend it), and were trying not to change all the moving parts at once as part of this switch.

So you’ve got to copy some jars from the example jetty to the relevant place in your tomcat (or other). Or you get some not very explanatory error messages.

We have a tomcat “split install” where $CATALINA_HOME and $CATALINA_BASE are not the same. Ideally, it made sense to me to put the custom jars in the (instance-specific) CATALINA-BASE’s lib directory. But I could not get that to work (and could not figure out why it wasn’t working through debugging of tomcat’s configuration files; it really looked like it ought to have), so ended up giving up and putting them in the cross-instance $CATALINA_HOME.

New built-in ICU analyzers for unicode

Previously, with Solr 1.4, I was using Bob Haschert’s custom unicode normalization jars for handling unicode.

(A number of us have been using these, but I am honestly not certain where, if anywhere, source and/or compiled jars for this code lives on the web, or even what it’s official name is for googling. Sorry!)

These did a couple things:

Normalize all unicode to Normalization Form KC. This is absolutely required for any indexing of unicode, really, to avoid unexpected behavior.
Additionally, normalize to an “English ascii” character set, for instance normalizing an e with an accent to just plain “e”. This is something that you absolutely would not want to do in some non-English contexts, and even in English may or may not want to — but for our use case, it was essential, searching for ”Simón Bolívar” should find “simon bolivar” and vice versa.

In Solr 1.4, there was no built-in way to do these things, thus Bob Haschart’s custom code came to our rescue. Some time in between there and Solr 4.3, now there is: Include the ICUFoldingFilter in your analyzer chain, to do both of these things.

The ICUFoldingFilter, unlike Bob’s, also normalizes up/downcase, so I could eliminate the LowerCaseFilterFactory I was using before.

As long as I was at it, and noticing it was there, I also changed from using a WhitespaceTokenizerFactory to the new multi-language-aware ICUTokenizerFactory. In addition to splitting on whitespace, for letters from non-Roman scripts it will sometimes tokenize in other language-appropriate places.

(Note, some, such as Tom Burton-West at umich and Naomi Dushay at Stanford, have found that the basic approach I’m using is not sufficient for effective Chinese/Japanese/Korean searching. But my Solr 1.4-based index wasn’t doing the things they are trying to do anyway, and at this point I’m not trying to improve that aspect of my index).

To use these ICU filters, you need to copy a number of optional jars from the Solr example distro to your Solr core `lib` folder (or other place on the classpath for your webapp).

icu4j-49.1.jar
lucene-analyzers-icu-4.3.0.jar
solr-analysis-extras-4.3.0.jar (Note this one is not mentioned by some of the applicable Solr documentation that mentions the other two, but is needed too).

Here’s my standard text field definition for Solr 4.3:

    <fieldType name="text" class="solr.TextField" positionIncrementGap="100" autoGeneratePhraseQueries="true">
      <analyzer>
        <tokenizer class="solr.ICUTokenizerFactory"/>

        <filter class="solr.SynonymFilterFactory" synonyms="punctuation-whitelist.txt" ignoreCase="true"/>

        <filter class="solr.WordDelimiterFilterFactory" generateWordParts="1" generateNumberParts="1" catenateWords="1" catenateNumbers="1" catenateAll="0" splitOnCaseChange="1"/>

        <!-- folding need sto be after WordDelimiter, so WordDelimiter
             can do it's thing with full cases and such -->
        <filter class="solr.ICUFoldingFilterFactory" />

        <!-- ICUFolding already includes lowercasing, no
             need for seperate lowercasing step
        <filter class="solr.LowerCaseFilterFactory"/>
        -->

        <filter class="solr.SnowballPorterFilterFactory" language="English" protected="protwords.txt"/>
        <filter class="solr.RemoveDuplicatesTokenFilterFactory"/>
      </analyzer>
    </fieldType>

It is potentially an unusual choice to combine a WordDelimiterFilterFactory (which generally only does sensible things with English), with a ICUTokenizerFactory (which is intentionally language-agnostic, and may not be what you’d choose if you knew your input was English) — But I decided it made sense for me. I want to optimize for English, and my corpus and users are mostly (but not entirely) English, but I still want to do reasonable things with the non-English (which is generally mixed in with the English), where it can be done without causing any significant problems for English. I think I’ve done so here.

solr.UpdateRequestHandler replaces XML and Binary subclasses

This is just one example of things pointed out as warnings or deprecations when I checked the logs after starting up. I forget if this was just deprecated and would still work or not, but when doing a switch like this, I’d just as soon update anything deprecated that I notice.

Previously found in my 1.4 solrconfig

<requestHandler name="/update" class="solr.XmlUpdateRequestHandler" />
<requestHandler name="/update/javabin" class="solr.BinaryUpdateRequestHandler" />

Now the standard solr. does both XML and binary, deciding which based on http headers:

 <requestHandler name="/update" class="solr.UpdateRequestHandler" />
 <requestHandler name="/update/javabin" class="solr.UpdateRequestHandler" />

Solr schema 1.3 => 1.5

My schema.xml in Solr 1.4 had a version=”1.3″ attribute in the root <schema> tag.

This actually identifies the version of the Solr schema language itself, for backwards compatibility maintenance. I could have left it 1.3 for compatibility with my existing schema, but I find it makes for less confusing maintenance in the long run to try and keep everything up to date when you do a migration like this.

So I changed this to the “1.5″ version that is latest for Solr 4.3 — and then made one change to my actual schema.xml to keep it (for now) semantically the same as it was when it was Schema version 1.3, after consulting the docs on changes between versions.

Added `autoGeneratePhraseQueries=”true”` to the field type definitions of my text field types.

Update ISBN/LCCN normalization

I had been using some custom Solr analyzers from Bill Dueber to normalize ISBNs and LCCNs. The idea is that ISBN-10 and ISBN-13 should be interchangeable, and so should various alternate forms of LCCN that mean the same thing according to LCCN normalization rules.

These custom analyzers had to be rejiggered a bit to work with Solr 4.3. Which I somehow convinced Jay Luker to do for us out of pure kindness (my Java chops and familiarity with Solr under the hood sourcecode are…. not great).

The source is now available for you too on github though if you want it https://github.com/billdueber/solr-libstdnum-normalize

Blacklight: Deal with weird escaping of Marc21 binary

We store Marc21 binary records in a Solr text field.

With Solr 1.4 and previous versions of SolrMarc, somehow this just worked — although it’s not clear to me if it should have, what SolrMarc may have had to do (possibly using techniques not documented to be supported by Solr) to get the binary data (including control characters) into a Solr text field, in a way that it somehow came out the other end as intact string literals including control characters. I honestly don’t really understand what was going on.

But I can say that with Solr 4.3 and the latest SolrMarc… it stopped working quite like that. The binary data still made it into the Solr text field, but when my Blacklight app on the other end made requests to Solr and received back responses with the stored field with the marc21 in it…. the control characters come back… oddly. As for instance the control character represented by hex `1D` comes back as literal ascii “#29″. Which is some kind of escaping, yeah, I have no idea how it happens as an interaction of SolrMarc, Solr, and what else.

Long-term, the solution is to stop trying to use Solr in this weird undocumented way. Either store MarcXML or Marc-in-json (non-binary, ordinary text stream), or store Marc21 binary in a Solr ‘binary’ field (requiring Base64 encoding and decoding on the client end), or stop storing it in Solr at all, etc.

In the near term, I just want to get things working as closely to how they did in my Solr 1.4 version as possible, with as little work as possible.

No problem, just add some code to my local Blacklight-based application to over-ride the Marc fetching code to properly unescape.

In your local `./app/models/solr_document.rb` (which was generated into your app by Blacklight), I added this (my local Solr stored field where the marc is, is called ‘marc_display’):

  # Custom hack to unescape Marc21 control characters that
  # SolrMarc escapes weirdly, and somehow were automatically unescaped in
  # Solr 1.4, but no longer using Solr 4.3. I don't understand it. This is a mess.
  # This is no longer needed when we stop using SolrMarc, or stop storing in binary Marc21,
  # or both.
  module LoadMarcEscapeFix
    def load_marc
      if _marc_format_type.to_s == "marc21"
        value = fetch(_marc_source_field)

        # SolrMarc escapes binary marc control chars like this, we need to
        # unescape. Yes, we might theroetically improperly unescape literals too.
        # it's a hell of a system.
        value.gsub!("#29;", "\x1D")
        value.gsub!("#30;", "\x1E")
        value.gsub!("#31;", "\x1F")

        return MARC::Record.new_from_marc( value )
      else
        return super
      end
    end
  end
  use_extension(LoadMarcEscapeFix) do |document|
    document.key?( :marc_display )
  end

It might be nice to somehow contribute this fix back to Blacklight… but I can no longer comprehend what’s going on, all the various interacting software, what’s actually supposed to be happening at each point, what’s intended by the code designers/maintainers (if anything), what the backwards-compatible choice is, etc. I’m overwhelmed. (And still using Blacklight 3.5.0 here, not the latest BL).

That’s about it

Doesn’t sound to painful, does it? It still took me, oh, probably in aggregate nearly a week (although spread out over a couple) to work through all this, plus some other details here and there, testing, etc. So it goes, it’s why it’s taken many of us have been running Solr 1.4 for so long. Hopefully these notes will reduce time for someone else.

So now I mostly just need to figure out how to transition in production.

I already operate with a Solr master/slave replication, where I index to the master, and periodically replicate to the slave — only the slave serves queries from the production app.

This has definitely ended up a convenient setup for any kind of maintenance, to have these two Solr servers.

So to update with no downtime I’ll probably:

turn off the replication
Upgrade my master to Solr 4.3, including switching to the core ‘conf’ directory I have in a “solr4.3″ branch in my git project for my solr configurations.
Re-index my entire catalog to master. (overnight).
Temporarily point the production apps to be served by master instead of slave.
Upgrade my slave to Solr 4.3, replicate master to slave, point production apps back to slave.
Non-Profit!

Filed under: General

ALA Equitable Access to Electronic Content: Don’t Miss: Learn How to Maintain Teen E-Collections

Jazzy Wright — 2013-06-18T13:31:44+00:00

Would you like to build a robust teen collection for your library? In “Maintaining Teen E-Collections,” a new Annual ALA program sponsored by the Young Adult Library Services Association, participants will have the opportunity to talk to experts about building strong teen e-collections. The interactive session will take place Monday, July 1, 2013, from 10:30a.m.-12:00p.m., in the McCormick Place Convention Center, room S106A.

Attendees will get the chance to connect with experts who are piloting teen collection projects and developing best practices. Session experts include:

Christopher Harris, Coordinator of the School Library System for the Genesee Valley (NY) Educational Partnership
Gretchen Kolderup, Supervising Librarian for Teen Services, Bronx Library Center, New York Public Library
Courtney Lewis, Director of Libraries, Wyoming Seminary College Preparatory School, Kingston, PA
Rachel McDonald, Teen Librarian, King County Library System, WA
Jackie Parker, teen librarian for Lynnwood Library, Sno-Isle Libraries, WA
Marijke Visser, Assistant Director of OITP and Staff Liaison to ALA’s Digital Content Working Group

View all ALA Washington Office conference sessions

The post Don’t Miss: Learn How to Maintain Teen E-Collections appeared first on District Dispatch.

unalog for code4lib: Robot Wars: An oral history of the birth and death of BattleBots - SBNation.com

2013-06-18T12:56:30+00:00

Open Knowledge Foundation: OKCon 2013: selected proposals, updated programme and Early Bird tickets!

Beatrice Martini — 2013-06-18T11:37:34+00:00

Cross-posted from the OKCon Blog.

We received more than 300 proposals and selecting the submissions that we could fit in the 2-and-a-half-day schedule was a real challenge. We had to leave out several truly exciting applications and believe us, that wasn’t easy.

But today: here we are, ready to announce the list of selected proposals and our freshly updated programme! Please find them in our Call for Proposals and Schedule pages. Workshops, talks, lightning talks, panels, sessions and a selection of fine bars and clubs to bring on the conference discussions and working groups plans after dark.

Some highlights?

Monday:

kick off afternoon with workshops – from Open Data Census to CKAN, a collaboration between The Engine Room and the Information Innovation Lab and a data viz hands-on session by Interactive Things
Law Mining Hackathon, first day (the hackathon will end on Thursday, 19th September), run by Christian Laux and Jean-Henry Morin
a selection of high-level Swiss speakers presenting the state of the art of open data in Switzerland
a session of talks from our global community focussing on open government with projects and presentations from Nepal, US, North Africa, Asia, Europe & more
launch of the Swiss Open Data Portal, a milestone for openness in Switzerland, and celebratory drinks

Tuesday:

keynote lectures by Ellen Miller (Sunlight Foundation) and John Ellis (CERN)
Open Data, Government and Governance session: with Kimberly Roberson (UNHCR), Chris Taggart (OpenCorporates), Amparo Ballivian (World Bank) among the others
Technology, Tools and Business talks and panel: with speakers such as Francis Irving (ScraperWiki), Thomas Gauthier (Geneva School of Management/ Biometis), Khristine R. Custodio (GEF/UNEP/SEASTART IW:LEARN)
Open Science and Research session: with Victoria Stodden (Columbia University), Ernst Hafen (ETH Zurich), Kaitlin Thaney (Mozilla Science Lab), Puneet Kishor (Creative Commons)
LinkedUp Award Ceremony
Urban Data Challenge exhibition and vernissage

Wednesday:

Open Development and Sustainability talks and panel: with Chris Vein (World Bank), Jack Townsend (University of Southampton), Florian Bauer (REEEP), Anahi Ayala Iacucci (Internews) and many more
Evidence and Stories: with Justin Arenstein, Federico Ramírez Corona (Fundar), Eva Vozarova (Fair-Play Alliance), Julia Keserű (Sunlight Foundation) and further speakers to be announced
Open Culture: with Anna Gold (Kennedy Library, California Polytechnic State University), Merete Sanderhoff (Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen), Building the Digital Commons Workshop team and the Open Humanities Award ceremony
a booming closing party, of course!

Thursday, day dedicated to satellite events around town, like:

Scholarly International Infrastructure Technical Summit
KNOWeSCAPE workshop, by Christophe Gueret
Is Open Source Drug Discovery Practical? Workshop run by Matthew Todd
Build a Better Transparency Technology Project: Lessons from the TAI mentors: panel with Sarah Schacht, Lucy Chambers (Open Knowledge Foundation), Gabriela Lula and Miriam McCarthy (Transparency and Accountability Initiative)
Law Mining Hackathon, final day and demos

Further details will come in the next few days and weeks, keep your eyes peeled!

Have you got your tickets yet? Now’s the time to buy, the Early Bird tickets are only on sale until 23rd June and after then the prices will rise.

We can’t wait to meet you all in Geneva, it’s going to be amazing!

Panlibus (CAPITA): Panlibus 28 – now available online

Mark Travis — 2013-06-18T10:48:30+00:00

I am pleased to announce the summer issue of Panlibus is now available online.

The further and higher education landscape is changing. An increase in tuition fees in higher education and changes to further education funding are contributing to an uncertain future. In this issue we focus on the academic library agenda.

Planning for the future in these uncertain times is key to growing the library. Andrew Simpson from the University of Portsmouth shares his thoughts on what university libraries can do to continue improving.

The ever increasing use of mobile smart devices is prompting yet more change in universities. The University of Northampton realised it needed to proactively embrace these changes and provide students with an native app and adapt their web services. MOOCs are currently a hot topic for universities. Prominent learning technologist Gerry McKiernan gives us an overview of MOOCs and strategies for promoting them in libraries.

The library management system must also adapt, whether for public or academic libraries. Capita’s Paula Keogh provides us with insight into were the LMS will go in the next few years. We also have an extract from Capita’s recent white paper ‘Protecting library services’, focussed on technology in public libraries.

Capita’s Additions Partners provide a wide range of solutions designed to improve the library service. In this issue we feature articles from Bibliotheca, 2CQR and 3M.

I hope you enjoy this issue, and as always, I encourage you to get in touch with your thoughts on any of the articles. If you have any topics you would like to share with the library world, I would be extremely pleased to hear them. Please contact me on mark.travis@capita.co.uk.

Panlibus (CAPITA): Strategies for Promoting Open Educational Resources for Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs)

Mark Travis — 2013-06-18T09:33:32+00:00

This is an article from the recent Panlibus Magagine (issue 28) by Gerry McKiernan, Associate Professor and Science and Technology Librarian, Iowa State University Library. This includes all the links that we weren’t able to include in the print version.

As defined by Wikipedia, a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) is “… an online course aiming at large-scale participation and open access via the web”.

In late autumn 2012, the New York Times declared 2012 as the “Year of the MOOC”. Earlier, the MIT Review, claimed that they were “the most important education technology in 200 years”, and in a cover story, Time, characterized MOOCs as a major factor that was “reinventing college”. The MOOC phenomenon has also been covered by The Guardian and the Times Educational Supplement, among numerous other educational and news media.

In mid-March 2013, the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, hosted a two-day conference titled “MOOCs and Libraries: Massive Opportunity or Overwhelming Challenge?“. Co-sponsored by OCLC® Research, the event included a session on Copyright, Licensing, Open Access and one on New Opportunities for Librarians: What Happens When You Go Behind the Lines in a MOOC?

Participants in the former session members discussed “the challenges for licensing and clearing copyright for materials” used in MOOCs, and explored the potential “opportunities for advancing the conversation on open access with faculty,” while members of the latter reported and speculated on the roles of libraries and librarians in the MOOC environment. Among those noted were: serving as an advocate for different resource licensing models, identifying and organizing public domain images, as well as encouraging Open Access publishing, and the use of institutional repository content, among other initiatives

Compared to discussion of copyright and licensing negotiations and fair use of proprietary content, however, consideration of Open Educational Resources and their use in MOOCs was not as extensive and implementation strategies were not discussed in detail.

To become more engaged in Massive Open Online Courses and Open Educational Resources, librarians should become more knowledgeable about each.

Open Educational Resources

Professional Development

Librarians can begin to become more knowledgeable about OERs by reading major reviews and white papers such as the Guide on the Use of Open Educational Resources in K-12 and Postsecondary Education, Open Educational Resources as Learning Materials: Prospects and Strategies for University Libraries, and The Roles of Libraries and Information Professionals In Open Educational Resources (OER) Initiatives. Librarians should also become knowledgeable about significant Open Resources projects and sites, as well as other significant work, through such site as the

Community College Consortium for Open Educational Resources, “to develop and use open educational resources, open textbooks, and open courseware to expand access to higher education and improve teaching and learning,” Jorum, a collaboratively-created database that provides access to thousands of OERs that can be searched or browsed; MERLOT, “ … a free and open online community of resources designed primarily for faculty, staff and students of higher education from around the world to share their learning materials and pedagogy”; OER Commons that provides access to OER sources, training, and support; the Open Professionals Education Network (OPEN) whose site provides information about OER events, resources; and other services; the OpenCourseWare Consortium, “ … a free and open digital publication of high quality educational materials for colleges and universities”; and the OpenOR Hub, a ‘hub for research data and OER excellence in practice.”

Librarians can also become knowledgeable about ORs by attending conferences, seminars, and workshops, either in-person or virtually. Of particular note are the OpenEd Conference held in the United States, the Open Educational Resources conference held in the United Kingdom and the World Open Educational Resources Congress held at the UNESCO headquarters in Paris, France.

A most appropriate opportunity to learn about OERs and massive Open Online Courses is to take the Locating, Creating, Licensing and Utilizing OERs (OER-101 MOOC, “an open, self-paced online community course that has been built to demonstrate how to find, adapt, and develop OERs step-by-step”).

Current Awareness

To remain informed about ongoing developments, librarians should read or subscribe to OER blogs, such as the Open Resources: Influence on Learning & Educators (ORIOLE), and the OER blogs of the University of Bath and the University of Leeds.

Librarians should also consider subscribing to appropriate electronic discussion lists, such as the Library 2.0 Open Educational Resources group; the IL-OERS listserv, the electronic discussion list of the Information Literacy Group and Community Services Group; and the OPENED@JISCMAIL.AC.UK mailing list.

Librarians should also consider following relevant ongoing OER developments via Twitter hashtags (e.g., #oer, #opened, #ukoer).

Promotion

To increase an understanding of OERs within their communities, librarians should actively become involved in promoting each.

Librarians can promote awareness of Open Resources in general by preparing appropriate guides as have the Houston Community College, Renton Technical College, and the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

Librarians can further promote OERs among their colleagues by engaging in relevant research and scholarship such as Open Education and Libraries, Reaching the Heart of the University: Libraries and the Future of OER, and What Do Academic Libraries Have To Do With Open Educational Resources?

MOOCs

Professional Development

Librarians can begin to become more knowledgeable about MOOCs by reading major reviews and white papers, such as MOOCs: Massive Open Online Courses, MOOCs and Open Education: Implications for Higher Education, and MOOCs Are On The Move: A Snapshot of the Rapid Growth of MOOCs.

Librarians should explore the offerings of MOOC providers by searching or browsing the contents of a variety of directories, for example Class Central; the MOOC List and OnlineCourses.com.

They should schedule time to take a MOOC individually or as a library group. An ideal MOOC may be the MOOC MOOC (http://www. moocmooc.com/ ), a MOOC intended as an “examination of the MOOC phenomenon.”

Librarians should attend conferences, seminars, and webinars, in person or virtually. Notable recent events include Digital Literacies Conference 2013: The Online Leaner and MOOCs held at the University of Southampton (UK), Leveraging Innovations in Online Education to Improve Cost Effectiveness and Increase Quality, and Understanding the Implications of Open Education: MOOCs and More, the SPARC-ACRL Forum to be held during the 2013 American Library Association Annual Conference,

Librarians should also review available recordings or slides such as Embracing OER & MOOCs to Transform Education…, Massive Open Online Courses as Drivers for Change and MOOCs & Librarians. Of particular note is the 2013 ELI Online Spring Focus Session: Learn and MOOCs a two-day program held in early April 2013 that addressed several major issues relating to MOOCs, notably their accreditation; design and implementation; faculty perspectives; student demographics and motivation; and their potential benefits to a campus.

Current Awareness

To remain informed about MOOC developments, librarians should subscribe or regularly visit websites that offer significant news, such as the Alt Ed, a blog “devoted to documenting significant initiatives relating to Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), digital badges, and similar alternative educational projects,” The Chronicle of Higher Education, EDUCAUSE, and MOOC News and Reviews, “ … an online publication devoted to thoughtful critique of individual MOOC courses and to discussion of the evolving MOOC landscape.”

Librarians should consider subscribing to the EDUCAUSE Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) Constituent Group Listserv, and join the Linkedin MOOC – Massive Open Online Courses group (http://www.linkedin.com/groups/MOOC-Massive-Open-Online-Courses-4652870 ) and the Facebook MOOC group (https://www.facebook.com/groups/216224345082359/).

Librarians should also consider following relevant ongoing MOOC developments via Twitter hashtags (e.g., #moocs, #onlinelearning, #coursera)

Promotion

Librarians can promote MOOCs by compiling library guides about this learning environment, such as Nova Eastern University, University of California, San Diego, Washtenwa Community College.

Librarians can further promote MOOCs among their colleagues by engaging in relevant research and scholarship such as Are You MOOC-ing Yet? A Review for Academic Libraries, Run aMOOC?, Using Information Expertise to Enhance Massive Open Online Courses, and The MOOC and the Library: How Massive Online Only Courses Could Change the Future of Library Instruction.

NEXT STEPS

While Open Educational Resources are among the most well-known of Open Resources, there are others that should also be investigated and considered for integration within the MOOC environment, namely institutional and subject repositories, Open Data sources, Open Access dissertations and theses, Open Access journals and monographs, and Open Textbooks.

Rosenthal, David: Not trusting cloud storage

David. (noreply@blogger.com) — 2013-06-18T09:00:00+00:00

I'm trying to work through my stack of half-completed blog posts. Some months ago Jane Mandelbaum at the Library of Congress pointed me to Towards self-repairing replication-based storage systems using untrusted clouds by Bo Chen and Reza Curtmola. It received an “Outstanding Paper Award” at CODASPY 2013. Let me start by saying that the technique they describe is interesting and, as far as I can tell, represents an advance in some important respects on earlier work.

However, it is also an example, if not a severe one, of the problem I discussed in my post Journals Considered Harmful of authors hyping their work in order to be published in a higher-profile forum, and reviewers failing to catch this exaggeration. Follow me below the fold for the details.

Chen and Curtmola propose a system with a client, the data owner, and a number of servers cooperating to store the owner's data reliably in untrusted storage. They describe their work as motivated by two insights:

The storage servers should be required to store replicas that are different, so that a malign server cannot forward a challenge to prove that its replica is undamaged to an unwitting confederate.
The storage servers should cooperate to regenerate a failed replica rather than placing the burden on the data owner to retrieve a complete replica to complete the process.

As a system preserving data for the long term, the LOCKSS system cannot rely on the continued existence of a single, external data owner, so it is not directly comparable. The second problem observed by Chen and Curtmola is in fact a requirement for a system such as LOCKSS that does not have a data owner to drive the repair process.

LOCKSS nodes store replicas that are the same, but mitigate the first problem using random sampling from the nodes and two nonces, one shared by all nodes in a sample, and one unique to each node in the sample. The malign node cannot be sure that the node to which it forwards the challenge will not also receive the same shared nonce from another node; an unambiguous signal of malfesance. Because, in effect, the per-node nonce makes the content being challenged different at each node, a conspiracy trying to behave as N nodes has to do N times as much work as a loyal node.

Chen and Curtmola's scheme imposes the extra cost of ensuring that each challenge is different once per replica, during its creation, instead of once per challenge, albeit a much smaller cost, as in the LOCKSS case.This, and their use of Proof of Possession (PoP), which checks a sample of the content, rather than the LOCKSS system's use of Proof of Retrievability (PoR), which checks the entire content, makes integrity checks cheaper and thus potentially more frequent. More frequent checks increase the system's reliability, although this must be balanced against the possibility that the sample of a PoP check might exclude some damage. The disadvantage of their scheme is that the initial ingest of the content to the system is expensive. To defeat the replicate-on-the-fly attack they require that generating each new replica be computationally expensive, but during initial ingest the client must generate all the replicas. On balance, in Chen and Curtmola's context their approach has significant benefits. It is not clear that these benefits transfer to other contexts.

Chen and Curtmola claim:

However, in all previous work [12,7] the Repair phase imposes a significant burden on the data owner, who needs to expend a significant amount of computation and communication.

and:

To the best of our knowledge, we are the first to propose the server-side repair strategy and an RDC [Remote Data Checking] scheme that implements it in the context of a real-world CSP [Cloud Storage Provider].

and:

Similar with [sic] the work of Reiter at [sic] al. [18], our scheme relies on the idea that only a prover which has the data can respond quickly enough to pass a challenge.

Very nearly 10 years ago, my co-authors and I won a Best Paper award at SOSP for Preserving Peer Replicas By Rate-Limited Sampled Voting, which was later expanded to LOCKSS: A Peer-to-Peer Digital Preservation System and published in ACM Transactions on Computing Systems. In it we describe a peer-to-peer storage system in which there is no data owner, and in which repair happens entirely between peers. Its defense against attack is based, in part, on the idea that a peer has a very limited time to respond to a challenge. Like Chen and Curtmola, we assumed a powerful adversary capable of conspiring among a large number of peers. This work forms the basis of the LOCKSS system, which has been in production use since before there were cloud storage systems such as Amazon's, which launched in 2006. Other similarities are described above.

These are not obscure papers; one is in a top conference and the other is in a significant journal. Between them, Google Scholar reports 88 citations. Among these citations are Chen and Curtmola's references 3, 4 and 11. Each of these references includes Curtmola as a co-author.

I am not arguing that it would have been appropriate for Chen and Curtmola to cite our work. It is a decade old and the field has moved on, making more recent works more relevant citations. Their context and that of the LOCKSS papers are significantly different. My concerns are two-fold:

That, knowing of our work, they made sweeping claims of novelty against "all previous work" which can only be substantiated by the narrowest of readings of their text. Their claim of novelty against "all previous work" may be valid if by "all previous work" they mean "all previous work on client-server based systems using conventional cloud storage providers", but that is not how it would be read, and reading it that way would significantly reduce the claimed impact of their work.
That, based on our fairly well-known (if older) papers, the reviewers (presumably) did not contest these sweeping claims and suggest less ambitious ones.

The paper by Brembs et al. that formed the basis for my recent post says:

Without reform of our publication system, the incentives associated with increased pressure to publish in high-ranking journals will continue to encourage scientists to be less cautious in their conclusions (or worse), in an attempt to market their research to the top journals.

This illustrates how important it is that reviewers not blindly accept the author's claims for novelty and importance. The difficulty reviewers find in doing so is a strong argument for journals such as PLoS One, whose reviewers are not asked to judge the novelty or impact of a paper. Since the reviewers cannot be swayed by exaggerated claims, authors have less motivation to make them.

ALA Equitable Access to Electronic Content: Digital Literacy Tool Website Launches at Annual

Jazzy Wright — 2013-06-17T19:27:16+00:00

Do you offer access to computers and training or assistance with digital literacy in your library? You’ll want to be at the launch of DigitalLearn.org, a new online hub for digital literacy support and training. The launch of DigitalLearn.org will take place during the 2013 Annual ALA Conference on Sunday, June 30, 2013, in the Convention Center Room N139, from 10:30–11:30a.m.

The session will provide an overview of the digital literacy website and an opportunity to discuss the ways that DigitalLearn interfaces with other initiatives. Session speakers include Jamie Hollier, DigitalLearn project manager, and the web development team that built the website.

Additionally, the session will include a panel that will share how they intend to utilize this new site in their organizations. Panelists include Richard Kong, digital services manager, Arlington Heights Library; Shane Southwick, OWL Network Coordinator, Alaska State Library; and Crystal Schimpf, program manager, Community Technology Network.

DigitalLearn.org is being undertaken in partnership with ALA’s Office of Information Technology Policy and Chief Officers of State Library Agencies, and brings together a diverse group of stakeholders, including representatives from national agencies, public libraries, community organizations, and many others. The online resource builds upon and the efforts of libraries and community organizations as they work to increase digital literacy across the nation.

The new website is managed by the Public Library Association and funded by an Institute of Museum and Library Services grant.

View all ALA Washington Office conference sessions

The post Digital Literacy Tool Website Launches at Annual appeared first on District Dispatch.

Rochkind, Jonathan: Umlaut 3.1.0 released, with new Bootstrap-based visual design

jrochkind — 2013-06-17T19:05:21+00:00

I like to be confident that open source code I wrote is pretty stable and robust before recommending that others use it.

So I usually try to run any new code, or new versions of existing code, in production myself for a couple weeks before actually releasing it as a stable release.

I’ve been running Umlaut 3.1.0 in production for a couple weeks now. Some minor problems found by reviewing the logs for uncaught excpetions, and fixed. It’s ready for a release.

Umlaut is an open source aggregator of “last mile”services, working with your link resolver and other services to provide consolidated and efficient discovery/delivery service provision.

Umlaut 3.1.0 has now been released. Please see the release notes, especially if upgrading from a previous version of umlaut.

The major change is a complete overhaul of the visual design, based on bootstrap, and small-screen friendly. Thanks again to Scot Dalton from NYU for the initiative to make the Bootstrap-based redesign finally happen.

Filed under: General

Evergreen ILS: Google Summer of Code 2013 – Evergreen Project

Ben Shum — 2013-06-17T14:46:39+00:00

The Evergreen Project was accepted for the third year into the Google Summer of Code for 2013 among 177 other open source projects. We asked for and received one student slot; our intent this summer is to focus on providing quality community guidance and mentoring for this student.

As always, the mentors took careful review of all student proposals submitted for GSOC projects with Evergreen. While we wish we could have chosen more of the best proposals, ultimately we could only choose one.

Congratulations to Dmitry Nechai, Chernihiv State Technological University, who submitted a proposal to work on “Build a customizable dashboard to show library usage and server health“. Coding is scheduled to begin soon and we expect to hear lots from Dmitry as he begins his work. His IRC nickname is “laque”, so look for him in our IRC channel to say hello.

Jason Stephenson (Merrimac Valley Library Consortium) and Benjamin Shum, (Bibliomation) will be the primary mentors working with Dmitry on this project. That said, Google Summer of Code is intended to introduce student interest in working with open source projects and we invite the whole Evergreen community to participate by communicating openly with our student. Together, we hope for a positive learning experience, some new code, and some fun this summer.

More to follow!

Open Knowledge Foundation: Africanising the Open Government Partnership

Kenneth Okwaroh — 2013-06-17T10:07:46+00:00

This is cross-posted with permission from the Development Initiatives blog

“OGP will be real, only when it starts to make sense to the citizens out there” (Robert Hunja – World Bank)

The government of Kenya recently hosted the first ever OGP regional forum in Africa. The event aimed to establish guidelines for OGP activities for African countries; track and take stock of progress on the agenda to date and to think about how to Africanise the global OGP movement further. It attracted a range of delegates from across the continent involved and interested in the pursuit of open governance – government representatives, civil society actors, academia, the media, private sector, and multilateral institutions (see link for details).

Open governance is built on the principle of the universal right to access to information on the conduct of government and it places its value in enhancing effective public oversight. It aims to open up government affairs, (previously kept secret) to make it easier to scrutinise public officers and hold them to account. The argument is that access to government information enhances public participation and facilitates the audit of government actions. The Open Government Partnership (OGP) is a new multilateral global governance and transparency initiative formed in 2011. It aims to secure commitments from governments to promote transparency, empower citizens and harness new technologies to strengthen governance. The OGP outlines a set of principles augmented by a declaration that form the basis of the open government. To date 45 countries (three African) have endorsed the declaration, 11 others (two African) are currently processing commitments and many more across the globe are working towards attaining eligibility.

At the heart of the event was the question of how different partners could together put in place a strategy to strengthen open governance in the continent and bring forth an African perspective to the global OGP movement. Participants shared their experiences on the push for open and transparent institutions, accountable to the people, and brainstormed ideas on how the global OGP could respond. Discussions focused on: the role of big data, public statistics, analytics and technology’s role in improving service delivery; managing extractive industries to ensure processes are open, transparent, participatory and accountable; and how to leverage technology and the media to bolster citizen engagement and enhance public integrity.

Key issues emerging from the discussions included:

Inadequate understanding of the concept of open governance in Africa
The absence of strong champions for the agenda;
The impact of technocratic language used by OGP practitioners and how it fails to resonate with people at local level;
The lack of engagement among African leaders/governments and failure to share experiences;
The apparent overlap in governance monitoring mechanisms (OGP, African Union and United Nations, African Peer Review Mechanism etc ) and how this could be stifling progress
The need to explore both supply and demand side issues in scaling up OGP
The quality of information coming through existing open governance platforms
The inadequate engagement of African legislatures and private sector who have great influence, political muscle and interest in good governance in the continent.

The Civil Society/Government disconnect

Participants made the point that success of the OGP depends largely on trust and cooperation between government and civil society. Nonetheless, deliberations over the two day conference illustrated the clear tension between government and CSOs that must be addressed if we are to achieve meaningful progress.

There is currently a clear disconnect between the motivations, intentions and expectations of civil society and that of government, despite both working towards the common good of the citizen. Much work related to open governance appears to be taking place in silos with little coordination, mutual awareness and strategy. Though the need for effective partnerships between government and CSOs was emphasised, participants cautioned against very cosy relationships that create complacency and that could potentially jeopardise the watchdog role played by civil society.

“The era of sloganeering, CSO obstruction, political activism is gone [...] CSOs must reorient and repackage their engagement with government [... they] must begin to perceive themselves as partners with government”

– (Fred Matiang’i, Cabinet Secretary for ICT – Kenya)

It is our view that the African OGP steering committee must support states and civil society to collaborate with sufficient space for objective and constructive CSO monitoring and feedback in the role of ‘critical friend’. This will ensure better delivery and further progress in open governance.

Transforming commitments into action

It is encouraging that three African states are already members of the OGP, two others are processing commitments and a couple of others are eligible and looking to submit applications for membership. However, real success of the OGP will depend on implementation, monitoring and evaluation of the action plans developed by participating countries. Otherwise OGP membership risks being viewed as an end (utilised to score political mileage in the global political economy) rather than a means towards a greater goal of realising good governance and transparent and accountable government institutions.

We think that the OGP support unit must play an active role in monitoring participants to ensure they invest sufficiently in open governance, set realistic goals in their action plans, implement and accurately report on progress. Further, it must safeguard against monopolisation of the process by government (capable of overstating progress and being overambitious in planning) and minimising dialogue between CSOs and government The African experience must, in turn, inform the wider movement.

Hochstenbach, Patrick: Paris, Rhodos, California, Singapore

hochstenbach — 2013-06-15T15:49:39+00:00

This woman on the 08.00 train to Gent had travelled the whole world and was happy with the listening ears (?) of some backpackers on their first trip to Paris. Learned today in comics class about Strip Search the

Hochstenbach, Patrick: Mega Mega Chill Cool

hochstenbach — 2013-06-15T15:43:38+00:00

Entering a comics class I also get into contact with the next-generation artists who like to start conversations in a 50-50 English/Flemish mix language. Filed under: Cartoon Class, Comics, Doodles, Sketches Tagged: doodle, Urban Sketches

Hochstenbach, Patrick: I Ching

hochstenbach — 2013-06-15T15:38:26+00:00

For some weeks I’m consulting the I Ching. Not that I believe in it. Wasn’t it Niels Bohr who replied to a visitor to his home in Tisvilde who asked him if he really believed a horseshoe above his door

Rosenthal, David: Cliff Lynch

David. (noreply@blogger.com) — 2013-06-15T09:00:00+00:00

Two quick plugs. The first for Mike Ashenfelder's profile of Cliff Lynch in the Library of Congress' Digital Preservation Pioneer series. Cliff has helped the LOCKSS Program in too many ways to count. Personally, I'm particularly grateful for his occasional invitations to speak to his class at UC Berkeley's School of Information. They have provided an essential spur to get me to pull my thoughts together in several important areas.

The second is Cliff's article on e-books for American Libraries recent e-book supplement. There is a lot to digest in it. I hope to return to some aspects in a later post, but his conclusion succinctly describes the threat to libraries:

If we have not come to reasonable terms about e-books both the access and preservation functions of our libraries will be gravely threatened, and as a society, we will face a profound public policy problem. It is in every-one's interest, I believe, to avoid this crisis.

ALA Equitable Access to Electronic Content: Library of Congress Union Support Treaty for the Blind

Carrie Russell — 2013-06-14T22:35:05+00:00

The Capital Area Council of Federal Employees, Council 26 of the American Federation of State Municipal and Federal Employees has sent a letter to the U.S. delegation to WIPO in support for the “treaty for the blind.” This union includes many staff members from the Library of Congress including those working at the National Library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped (NLS).

The diplomatic conference to finalize the treaty begins in Marrakesh on June 17th. Over a two week period, the U.S. delegation will work with other WIPO member nations in negotiations. A 2006 WIPO study revealed that less than 60 member nations of the 186 nations represented at WIPO have an exception that allows for creating an accessible copy for people with visual impairments, leaving the majority of nations, particularly in developing regions without the lawful ability to serve the visually impaired. Moreover, ninety percent of the 314 million people who are blind or have visual impairments live in developing nations, making the need for an exception obvious.

The post Library of Congress Union Support Treaty for the Blind appeared first on District Dispatch.

ALA Equitable Access to Electronic Content: ALA Task Force releases recommendations to advance digital literacy

Marijke Visser — 2013-06-14T20:04:49+00:00

Today, the American Library Association’s (ALA) Digital Literacy Task Force (which is led by the Office for Information Technology Policy) releases its recommendations (pdf) to advance and sustain library engagement in digital literacy initiatives nationwide. These recommendations build on the January 2013 Task Force report Digital Literacy, Libraries, and Public Policy and constitute a call to action on the part of the ALA, library education programs, front-line librarians, various funding bodies, and the diverse stakeholders who use and support library services.

Libraries of all types – school, academic, and public – play a vital role in ensuring all people have the skills and abilities to succeed in the Digital Age. These conclusions and recommendations culminate the Task Force’s work over 18 months and include comments from several public programs held at ALA conferences, as well as two online virtual public programs and task force meetings that included observers from different stakeholder groups.

One over-arching recommendation is that ALA should continue to have a member body that focuses on digital literacy and libraries. This group should consist of members with broad ALA representation. It would provide library leadership in digital literacy initiatives across and beyond the library community and track progress against these recommendations.

“Having a member group would provide a central place for ALA units to collaborate on digital literacy projects,” said Task Force Chair, Rosanne Cordell. “A permanent group could facilitate the sharing of resources and develop advocacy that speaks with a single library voice.”

Other recommendations made focus on:

increasing investment in digital literacy;
developing and sustaining robust partnerships and collaborations;
strengthening and expanding research and assessment; and
increasing access to digital literacy programming;

Though the Task Force officially ended its work at the 2013 Midwinter Conference, digital literacy remains an important focus for librarians in all types of libraries and remains a hot topic issue on the national level among government agencies and many policy groups. ALA will continue to stay abreast of issues and work on keeping the library voice part of the conversations.

In fact, OITP and the Public Library Association invite you to join the launch of DigitalLearn.org at the ALA Annual Conference. Funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), DigitalLearn.org is an online hub for digital literacy that supports several of the Task Force’s recommendations. It includes a collection of self-directed trainings for end-users to increase their skills and a community of practice for digital literacy trainers to share tools, best practices, and more. Panelists will discuss how they are planning to leverage this tool in their organization and share ways librarians can get more involved in the project. The program will take place Sunday, June 30, from 10:30 to 11:30 a.m. at the McCormick Convention Center Room N139.

The post ALA Task Force releases recommendations to advance digital literacy appeared first on District Dispatch.

Ng, Cynthia: Revised Contact Us: Making it Simpler and Shorter

Cynthia — 2013-06-14T16:29:42+00:00

While the Contact page is one of the most visited pages, I had put it off for a time, wanting to redesign the pages that really needed work first. While not the best, the Contact page was functional and was easy enough to skim. After redoing the other pages though, the Contact page started to look ugly in comparison.

The Old Page

The existing Contact page worked, but the use of icons was inconsistent, the page was longer than necessary, and the Ask chat area wasn’t distinct enough (e.g. some thought the hours referred to general library hours instead of just chat hours).

The Mockups

I wasn’t sure how I might redesign the page, so I went and looked at other sites. Rather than library sites, I searched for list of best contact pages and such. I looked through quite a lot, and in particular, the embedded location map was an idea from another site.

The separate accessibility link was taken out, since it’s already in the folder, and instead, added to the list of emails (though that’s not reflected in all the mockups). The suggest a purchase was also taken out, but we have it linked in various places, particularly where users might not be finding the items they want. There is also some discussion about putting it as a shortcut on the main page.

While I didn’t really like all of the mockups, I took all of these to the web committee anyway. The group liked mockup #2a with the icons and the yellow box, but we decided that the yellow box was a bit much, so I changed it (based on a recommendation) to an outline instead of a solid fill.

The New Page

Some minor changes were made based on feedback from staff. I went back and forth on whether to have the location and phone in one heading or as two separate headings, but I decided that since the map was part of the location and not the phone information, it would make more sense to put it all under one heading.

I think the goals of making it shorter and the chat part visually separated were met. Hopefully, information is clearer too. (Someone did notice an email address that had always been there!) I’ve gotten some positive comments already!

Filed under: Project work

Open Knowledge Foundation: G8 Science Ministers Support Open Data in Science

Jonathan Gray — 2013-06-14T13:17:36+00:00

As you may have seen, open data and transparency is set to be a major topic of discussion at the G8 Summit in Northern Ireland next week.

We were pleased to see a joint statement from the G8 science ministers released yesterday – expressing a strong commitment to open data in science. The third section of the statement says:

Open Scientific Research Data

Open enquiry is at the heart of scientific endeavour, and rapid technological change has profound implications for the way that science is both conducted and its results communicated. It can provide society with the necessary information to solve global challenges. We are committed to openness in scientific research data to speed up the progress of scientific discovery, create innovation, ensure that the results of scientific research are as widely available as practical, enable transparency in science and engage the public in the scientific process. We have decided to support the set of principles for open scientific research data outlined below as a basis for further discussions.

i. To the greatest extent and with the fewest constraints possible publicly funded scientific research data should be open, while at the same time respecting concerns in relation to privacy, safety, security and commercial interests, whilst acknowledging the legitimate concerns of private partners.

ii. Open scientific research data should be easily discoverable, accessible, assessable, intelligible, useable, and wherever possible interoperable to specific quality standards.

iii. To maximise the value that can be realised from data, the mechanisms for delivering open scientific research data should be efficient and cost effective, and consistent with the potential benefits.

iv. To ensure successful adoption by scientific communities, open scientific research data principles will need to be underpinned by an appropriate policy environment, including recognition of researchers fulfilling these principles, and appropriate digital infrastructure.

We decide to build on the existing work to coordinate and enable international data collaboration.

It is encouraging to see such high level support for open access to scientific research and for open data in science. We hope that in the coming months this high level support translates into policies that mandate compliance with principles such as the Budapest Open Access Initiative 10 Year Recommendations and our own Panton Principles for Open Data in Science.

If you’d like to join discussion about open data in science you can sign up to our open-science mailing list:

Open Knowledge Foundation: G8 countries must work harder to open up essential data

Rufus Pollock — 2013-06-14T09:00:59+00:00

PRESS RELEASE. Cambridge, UK, 14th June 2013.

Also available in Chinese, German, Russian, Spanish and other languages here.

Open data and transparency will be one of the three main topics at the G8 Summit in Northern Ireland next week. Today transparency campaigners released preview results from the global Open Data Census showing that G8 countries still have a long way to go in releasing essential information as open data.

The Open Data Census is run by the Open Knowledge Foundation, with the help of a network of local data experts around the globe. It measures the openness of data in ten key areas including those essential for transparency and accountability (such as election results and government spending data), and those vital for providing critical services to citizens (such as maps and transport timetables). Full results for the 2013 Open Data Census will be released later this year.

The preview results show that while both the UK and the US (who top the table of G8 countries) have made significant progress towards opening up key datasets, both countries still have work to do. Postcode data, which is required for almost all location-based applications and services, remains a major issue for all G8 countries except Germany. No G8 country scored the top mark for company registry data. Russia is the only G8 country not to have published any of the information included in the census as open data. The full results for G8 countries are online at: http://census.okfn.org/g8/

Rufus Pollock, Founder of the Open Knowledge Foundation, said:

“We’re delighted that many G8 countries have indicated their support for open data but today’s results show that progress is lagging behind promise. We call upon them to make good on their commitments and take a leading role in opening up the world’s data, to enable real transparency and accountability.”

Andrew Stott, former UK government Director for Transparency and Digital Engagement, who currently sits on the UK’s Public Sector Transparency Board, said:

“This is excellent work by the Open Knowledge Foundation’s community on measuring the reality of open data for the most important datasets. It shows that good progress has been made in recent years. However it also shows that there is more for all countries to do in order to deliver the open data vision and it gives each country a clear agenda for further improvement.”

Chris Taggart of OpenCorporates, the largest openly licensed database of companies in the world, said:

“Company registers are the fundamental public record of the creation and existence of companies. Today we live in a world where large corporations can consist of opaque networks of thousands of interlinked companies, avoiding scrutiny and competition. Criminals, money launderers, corrupt officials and fraudsters routinely use networks of front companies to hide and move money. In this context it is essential that access to the statutory information is not just freely available, but available under an open licence and as machine-readable data. Today’s results from the Open Data Census show that this message hasn’t yet got through to many of the world’s largest nations.”

David Eaves, co-founder of Open Data Day – which this year saw participants in 100 cities – and Openness advisor to the Mayor of Vancouver, said:

At a moment when many G8 members are trying to find ways to make government data more accessible the G8 Open Data Census could not be more timely. As a tool it offers a simple, easy to understand and clear way of evaluating how the different G8 countries are performing. I hope the leaders of each of those countries look at the census and use it as a way to learn from their peers and drive further change within their own government.

Charles Arthur, co-founder of the Free Our Data campaign and technology editor at the Guardian newspaper said:

As co-founder of the Free Our Data campaign, I’d say that it’s more important than ever for governments to make data available to us all so that we can understand and improve the world around us.

ENDS

To join the conversation about the Open Data Census, sign up to the Open Data Census mailing list

CONTACT
For enquiries please contact: press@okfn.org / +44 (0) 7795 176976 The Open Knowledge Foundation, St John’s Innovation Centre, Cowley Road, Cambridge, CB4 0WS UK.

NOTES FOR EDITORS

The G8 countries are meeting in County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland, UK, from June 17–18, 2013. The G8 countries are Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Open data and transparency are one of the three main topics for this year’s event. See: https://www.gov.uk/government/topical-events/g8-2013
The Open Knowledge Foundation is a global movement to open up the world’s data and see it used and useful, empowering citizens with new knowledge and insights, and enabling fair and sustainable societies. The Foundation catalyses activities which promote and build on freely reusable open data and open content – including public information, publicly funded research and public domain cultural content. See: http://okfn.org/
The Open Data Census is coordinated by the Open Knowledge Foundation, using a network of local data experts around the globe to audit the levels of openness in each country. Full results for the 2013 Open Data Census will be released later this year. The datasets in the census are: Election Results; Company Register; National Map; Government Budget (by sector); Government Budget (transactional level data); Legislation; National Statistical Office Data (economic and demographic information); National Postcode/ZIP database; Public Transport Timetables; and Environmental Data on major sources of pollutants. For further information about the census, see this blog post. The preview results for the Open Data Census for G8 countries are available online at: http://census.okfn.org/g8/
The Open Definition sets out the principles which define “openness” in relation to data and content, to ensure that it can be freely used, reused and redistributed, and that it is interoperable with other open materials. Open materials must be freely usable and distributable by anyone, anywhere, for any purpose. To ensure this, the Open Definition requires that open material is accessible, in a suitable format, and has an appropriate open licence associated with it. See: http://opendefinition.org/
The United Kingdom and the United States both say that open data is a priority issue for their countries and for the world. US President Barack Obama and UK Prime Minister David Cameron have both made strong, explicit commitments to opening up official data. In May 2013 Obama released an Executive Order “making open and machine readable the new default for government information”, which was widely heralded as a major step. Over the past few years, the UK has released some of the most detailed spending information released by any government.
The Open Government Partnership is an international initiative to gain multilateral action on government openness, founded in 2011. Fifty-nine countries have subscribed to the Partnership so far. Half of the G8 countries are members of the Open Government Partnership (Canada, Italy, UK, US) and half are currently not (France, Germany, Japan, Russian Federation). Russia withdrew from the Open Government Partnership in May. See: http://www.opengovpartnership.org/

ALA Equitable Access to Electronic Content: ALA Joins Others to Demand Civil Liberties

Lynne Bradley — 2013-06-13T22:14:07+00:00

The American Library Association recently joined 86 other civil liberties groups, Internet activists and authors to sign an open letter to Congress, calling for a congressional investigation committee, similar to the Church Committee of the 1970s. The letter is in response to the recent leaking of highly classified documents about the government’s monitoring of private Internet and telephone communications.

“We hope these efforts will bring more sunshine to the surveillance processes,” said Maureen Sullivan, president of the American Library Association. “The public deserves transparency on these complex issues, and we need to better balance the protection of our civil liberties with the government’s need to investigate and fight terrorism.”

The letter calls on Congress to:

Enact reform this Congress to Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act to make clear that blanket surveillance of the Internet activity and phone records of any person residing in the U.S. is prohibited by law.
Create a special committee to investigate, report, and reveal to the public the extent of this domestic spying.

The letter was accompanied by the launch of StopWatching.us, a global petition calling on Congress to provide a public accounting of the government’s domestic spying capabilities and to bring an end to illegal surveillance.

Read the full letter

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Rochkind, Jonathan: on the internet, and power

jrochkind — 2013-06-13T20:37:33+00:00

Bruce Schneier writes on how our internet lives are frequently dominated by a few huge internet companies with immense power over those internet doings:

There are a lot of good reasons why we’re all flocking to these cloud services and vendor-controlled platforms. The benefits are enormous, from cost to convenience to reliability to security itself. But it is inherently a feudal relationship. We cede control of our data and computing platforms to these companies and trust that they will treat us well and protect us from harm. And if we pledge complete allegiance to them — if we let them control our email and calendar and address book and photos and everything — we get even more benefits. We become their vassals; or, on a bad day, their serfs….

…So how do we survive? Increasingly, we have little alternative but to trust someone, so we need todecide who we trust – and who we don’t — and then act accordingly. This isn’t easy; our feudal lords go out of their way not to be transparent…

In the longer term, we all need to work to reduce the power imbalance… We need to balance this relationship, and government intervention is the only way we’re going to get it.

I’ve also been thinking a lot about trying to create more cooperatively controlled internet infrastructure as a way to balance this power and bring (economic) democracy to the internet.

And, with regard to libraries, in many of our fantasies the institution of libraries, collectively, would be a force in internet life, a civic, public sector, decentralized but massive in aggregate counter-balance to the ‘feudal’ internet companies. If libraries can find, keep, and expand a sustainable role as internet actors.

Filed under: General

OCLC Dev Network: ALA Around the Corner (and Down the Street)

hostetls — 2013-06-13T19:03:43+00:00

It’s a whole different experience when a conference is in your city, don't you think? I tend to think of it as a working staycation. And I’m really looking forward to this one, not just because I live in Chicago(land), but because it's my first chance to meet some of you face to face. If you're planning to go, let's find a time to meet! I’d really like to hear about what you’re working on, your experiences with Developer Network, and your advice on what we can work on together.

ALA Equitable Access to Electronic Content: Education technology trends and the role of the school librarian

Marijke Visser — 2013-06-13T19:02:17+00:00

How do trends in education such as “bring your own device,” social networking and collaborative learning spaces influence how students learn and how educators teach? In what ways can school librarians take advantage of these technologies and the interest in using them in K-12 education to support student learning long-term?

Learn how public policy shapes K-12 education by attending “National Public Policy, School Libraries, and Technology,” an interactive ALA Conference session that will take place Saturday, June 29, 2013, from 3:00-4:00p.m. in Convention Center room N427BC. The session is hosted by the ALA’s Office for Information Technology Policy.

Participants will hear from the following experts about current trends in technology and education as they relate to school libraries:

Stacy Lickteig (moderator)
Lickteig is a Lead Teacher in Library Services for the Omaha Public School District. She is currently the president of the Nebraska School Librarians Association and member of AASL’s Affiliate Assembly as well as a member of the OITP advisory committee. She is working on a Doctorate in Educational Leadership through the University of Nebraska at Omaha.
Michelle Luhtala
Luhtala is the department chair of New Canaan (CT) High School Library, which received a number of prestigious awards in the last few years. Michelle facilitates a professional learning community for over 4,000 school librarians at www.edWeb.net/emergingtech. She serves on the American Association of School Librarians’ (AASL) Board of Directors and the Connecticut Digital Library’s advisory committee on databases. Michelle is a contributing author to Growing Schools: Librarians as Professional Developers, and is frequently published in professional literature for educators and school librarians. She blogs at www.Bibliotech.me.
Lisa Perez
Perez is a Library Coordinator for the Chicago Public Schools Department of Educational Tools & Technology. In her position, she supports several hundred high school and elementary librarians, provides technology training to all of the librarians in the district, and manages the district’s Virtual Library. She is a Google Certified Teacher and a Google Apps Certified Trainer. She is the 2013 Illinois Computer Educators Technology Administrator of the Year. In her spare time, she volunteers as a member of the AASL Best Apps for Teaching & Learning Task Force; the President of ICE-CAP, the Chicago chapter of the Illinois Computing Educators; and as a member of the International Society for Technology in Education’s Public Policy and Advocacy Executive Committee.

View all ALA Washington Office conference sessions

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Summers, Ed: thoughts on SHARE

ed — 2013-06-13T13:46:35+00:00

My response to Library Journal’s ARL Launches Library-Led Solution to Federal Open Access Requirements that I’m posting here as well, because I spent a bit of time on it. Thanks for the heads up Dorothea,

Let the nastygrams begin. http://t.co/7THbOt8AmZ

— Ondatra libskoolicus (@LibSkrat) June 13, 2013

In principle I like the approach that SHARE is taking, that of leveraging the existing network of institutional repositories, and the amazingly decentralized thing that is the Internet and the World Wide Web. Simply getting article content out on the Web, where it can be crawled, as Harnad suggests, has bootstrapped incredibly useful services like Google Scholar. Scholar works with the Web we have, not some future Web where we all share metadata perfectly using formats that will be preserved for the ages. They don’t use OpenURL, OAI-ORE, SWORD, etc. They do have lots o’ crawlers, and some magical PDF parsing code that can locate citations. I would like to see a plan that’s a bit scruffier and less neat.

Like Dorothea I have big doubts about building what looks to be a centralized system that will then push out to IRs using SWORD, and support some kind of federated search with OpenURL. Most IRs seem more like research experiments than real applications oriented around access, that could sustain the kind of usage you might see if mainstream media or a MOOC happened to reference their content. Rather than a 4 phase plan, with digital library acronym soup,I’d rather see some very simple things that could be done to make sure that federally funded research *is* deposited in an IR, and it can be traced back to the grant that funded it. Of course, I can’ resist to throw out a straw man.

Requiring funding agencies to have a URL for each grant, which can be used in IRs seems like it would be the first logical step. Pinging that URL (kind of like a trackback) when there is a resource (article, dataset, etc) associated with the grant would allow the granting institution to know when something was published that referenced that URL. The granting organization could then look at its grants and see which ones lacked a deposit, and follow up with the grantees. They could also examine pingbacks to see which ones are legit or not. Perhaps further on down the line these resources could be integrated into web archiving efforts, but I digress.

There would probably be a bit of curation of these pingbacks, but nothing a big Federal Agency can’t handle right? I think putting data curation first, instead of last, as the icing on the 4 phase cake is important. I don’t underestimate the challenge in requiring a URL for every grant, perhaps some agencies already have them. I think this would put the onus on the Federal agencies to make this work, rather than the publishers (who, like or not, have a commercial incentive to not make it too easy to provide open access) and universities (who must have a way of referencing grants if any of their plan is to work). This would be putting Linked Data first, rather than last, as rainbow sprinkles on the cake.

Sorry if this comes off as a bit ranty or incomprehensible. I wish Aaron were here to help guide us… It is truly remarkable that the OSTP memo was issued, and that we have seen responses from the ARL and the AAP. I hope we’ll see responses from the federal agencies that the memo was actually directed at.

Rosenthal, David: Brief talk at ElPub 2013

David. (noreply@blogger.com) — 2013-06-13T09:00:00+00:00

I was on the panel entitled Setting Research Data Free: Problems and Solutions at the ElPub 2013 conference. Below the fold is the text of my introductory remarks with links to the sources.

One of the few things that most people actually trying to preserve large amounts of digital content agree on is that the number 1 problem they face is not technical but economic. Unlike paper, bits are very vulnerable to interruptions in the money supply. To survive, or in the current jargon to "be sustainable", a digital collection needs an assured stream of funds for the long term. Very few have it. You can tell people are worried about a topic when they appoint a "Blue Ribbon Task Force" to study it. We had such a task force. It reported 2 years ago that, yes, sustainable economics was a big problem. But the panel conspicuously failed to come up with credible solutions.

You, or at least I, often hear people say something similar to what Dr. Fader of the Wharton School Customer Analytics Initiative attributes to Big Data zealots:

Save it all - you never know when it might come in handy for a future data-mining expedition.

Clearly, the value that could be extracted from the data in the future is non-zero, but even the Big Data zealot believes it is on average probably small. The reason the Big Data zealot gets away with saying things like this is because he, and his audience, believe that this small value outweighs the cost of keeping the data indefinitely. They believe that storage is, in effect, free.

So how free does storage turn out to be? This concern has motivated a good deal of research into the costs of digital preservation, efforts such as CMDP (PDF), LIFE, KRDS, PrestoPrime, ENSURE, and others. Their conclusions differ, but broadly we can say that typically about half the total cost is ingest, about one-third is preservation, mostly storage, and about one-sixth is dissemination.

It is easy to understand why ingesting content is expensive, at least it is easy if you have ever tried to do it on a production scale. There is a lot of stuff to ingest. In the real world it is diverse and messy. People want not just the content, but also metadata. This has to be either manually generated, which is expensive, or extracted automatically, which is a great way of revealing the messy nature of the real world. It is easy to understand why disseminating content is a small part of the total, because preserved content is, on average, very rarely disseminated. Why is storage, an on-going cost that must be paid for the life of the collection, such a small part of the total?

It is easy to understand why disseminating content is a small part of the total, because preserved content is, on average, very rarely accessed.

Why has storage, an on-going cost that must be paid for the life of the collection, been such a small part of the total in the past?

The reason is this graph, showing Kryder's Law, which says that the areal density of bits on disk platters has increased 30-40%/year for the last 30 years. The areal density doesn't have a one-to-one relationship with the cost per GB of disk, but they are closely correlated. The effect has been, for the last 30 years, that consumers got roughly double the storage at the same price every two years or so.

If something goes on steadily for 30 years or so it gets built into people's models of the world. For digital preservation, the model of the world into which it gets built is that, if you can afford to store something for a few years, you can afford to store it forever. The price per byte of the storage will have become negligible. Thus, the breakdown that has storage costs being one-third of the total has built into it the idea that storage media costs drop so fast that the one- third has only to pay for a few years of storage.

If you look on my blog, for example at the talk I gave at the UNESCO "Memory of the World" meeting last year, you will find a lot of detailed explanation of the technological and economic reasons why Kryder's Law has slowed, and will continue to slow, and what this means for cost of storing data for the long term. But there's a much simpler argument to convey the basic idea.

Bill McKibben's Rolling Stone article Global Warming's Terrifying New Math; uses three numbers to illustrate the looming climate crisis. Here are three numbers that illustrate the looming crisis in long-term storage, its cost:

According to IDC, the demand for storage each year grows about 60%.
According to IHS iSuppli, the bit density on the platters of disk drives will grow no more than 20%/year for the next 5 years.
According to computereconomics.com, IT budgets in recent years have grown between 0%/year and 2%/year.

This graph projects these three numbers out for the next 10 years. The red line is Kryder's Law, at 20%/yr. The blue line is the IT budget, at 2%/yr. The green line is the annual cost of storing the data accumulated since year 0 at the 60% growth rate, all relative to the value in the first year. 10 years from now, storing all the accumulated data would cost over 20 times as much as it does this year. If storage is 5% of your IT budget this year, in 10 years it will be more than 100% of your budget. If you're in the digital preservation business, storage is already way more than 5% of your IT budget. Its going to consume 100% of the budget in much less than 10 years.

Lets look at the economics of each of the three components.

Ingest: This is a one-time, up-front cost, so it can in principle be grant-funded. The big cost is generating and validating metadata that is good enough to allow sharing. This is hard to automate, so it is expensive. The cost falls on the owner of the data, but the benefits accrue to the re-user of the data. This makes it hard to motivate the data owner to fill the gap between metadata that is good enough for their own use, and good enough for sharing and re-use.

Worse, the potential beneficiaries of this effort are competitors for recognition and funding. The mechanisms for getting credit for re-use of data don't work well, precisely because they depend on the competitor to assign the credit, which isn't in their interest.

Thus, for the data owner, the costs of re-use are likely to exceed the benefits. And, unless the data owner takes pro-active steps to market the data to competitors, re-use isn't likely to happen.

Dissemination: If the data owner doesn't provide good metadata and doesn't market their data well, it won't be accessed much and thus the access costs will be low. It isn't hard to pay for the outcome we don't want.

But if data, especially large data, gets popular the access costs can be significant. The market price, just for data transfer, is roughly $120/TB. These costs are borne by the data owner, so the better job of marketing they do the more costs they incur.

Further, these costs are unpredictable, so they are hard to budget for. And they're an on-going cost that can't be grant funded.

We all want the data to be open, but that implies that the access costs can't be recovered from the readers. And selling ads on data isn't a viable business model. Worse, much of the data is either burdened with rosy projections of the IP that can be generated from it, or contains personally identifiable information, so cannot be made open.

Storage is an on-going cost, but unlike access it is somewhat predictable. This makes the endowment model possible, where data is deposited together with a capital sum thought to be adequate to pay for its storage "for ever". The endowment model enables grant-funding of long-term data storage.

Unfortunately, my joint research with UC Santa Cruz, StonyBrook and NetApp shows that the endowment needed is rather large. The market price right now is probably around $8K/TB. Few institutions have been willing to take the risk of such projections being wrong, I only know of Princeton (PDF) and the Internet Archive. Both are asking endowments that appear too low.

This price is so high that funders, used to Kryder's Law and thus assuming that "storage will be free", are unlikely to agree to fund storing everything. But allowing data owners to select the data to be stored for re-use is a very bad idea. We see that from the dire effects of selective publishing of the results of drug trials. Thus either no data should be shared, or all data should be shared.

Given these economic hurdles, one can expect that data sharing will continue to be the exception rather than the rule, no matter how much society might benefit.

ALA Equitable Access to Electronic Content: Honoring Library Champions

Emily Sheketoff — 2013-06-12T20:48:01+00:00

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of attending the White House’s “Champions of Change” ceremony, an event where twelve libraries and museums were honored for making lasting differences in their neighborhoods and communities. The event awarded institutions that were providing innovative learning experiences for families and offering services for hard-to-reach populations.

It was truly an honor to hear from so many passionate library leaders who are creating environments where children can become lifelong readers and where new immigrants can feel at home.

Champions include:

Jennifer Manley
Queens, New York

Vice President, Government & Community Affairs, Queens Borough Public Library — Jennifer Manley is part of the leadership team for one of the busiest libraries in the nation, circulating over 13 million items from a 7.5 million collection annually and welcoming over 13 million visitors a year to its 62 library locations. Immigrants make up more than 50 percent of the borough’s population and the library has become a leader in providing services to new immigrants. Thousands of immigrant adults and their families come to the library to learn English, learn about citizenship and become full participants in democratic society. Manley believes in the power of information and education to improve lives, one at a time, neighborhood by neighborhood.

Harriet Henderson Coalter
Richmond, VA

Director of Richmond Public Library – Harriet Coalter is a driving force pursuing innovative library efforts to serve children and parents and work toward school readiness. In Richmond, the public library system serves as the lead agency for Richmond’s Campaign for Grade-Level Reading initiative. This effort has engaged 30 community organizations to improve the educational outcomes for children ages 0-8. Coalter also co-chaired the national Public Library Association’s Every Child Ready to Read project, which has become the foundation for public library outreach to parents and caregivers of preschool children, as public libraries engage the child’s “first teacher” in preparing children for learning.

Homa Naficy
Hartford, Connecticut

Chief Adult Learning Officer, Hartford Public Library– Born in Paris, a native of Iran and now an American citizen, Homa Naficy joined the Hartford Public Library in 2000 to design and direct The American Place (TAP), program for Hartford’s immigrants and refugees. TAP has become a magnet for new arrivals seeking immigration information, resources for learning English, and preparing for United States citizenship. In 2010, the program was awarded two major grants, a citizenship education grant from the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (the only library in the nation to receive such funding), and a National Leadership grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services designed to promote immigrant civic engagement.

Sandy Tharp-Thee
Perkins, Oklahoma

Library Director, Iowa Tribe of Oklahoma — Sandy Tharp-Thee is an enrolled member of the Cherokee Nation. She and Iowa Tribe of Oklahoma chairperson, Janice Rowe-Kurak, were honored with a 2012 Library Institutional Excellence Award from the Association of Tribal Archives, Libraries, and Museums. It recognizes an indigenous library that profoundly demonstrates outstanding service to its community. In three short years, the library evolved from an organization with no budget and no viable programs to a well-funded organization that is considered an “essential service.” The library now is widely-recognized for its work in advancing print and digital literacy among young and old, providing resources in employment and health, as well as activities to help preserve the Iowa people’s culture and history, and much more.

Matthew Winner
Columbia, Maryland

Teacher Librarian, Longfellow Elementary School, Howard County Public Schools, Maryland –Matthew Winner believes that school libraries play a vital role in creating lifelong learners and that gaming and game-based learning are highly effective tools in engaging and supporting the academic success of our students. Winner is the co-author of Teaching Math with the Wii, which will be published in October 2013 by the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE). He is the author of the Busy Librarian blog and was recently named a 2013 Library Journal Mover & Shaker in the category of Tech Leaders.

Sue Considine
Fayetteville, New York

Executive Director, Fayetteville Free Library – The Fayetteville Free Library serves as a model for other libraries because of Sue Considine’s leadership and ability to relentlessly innovate. She has recruited and developed a team of dynamic professionals, support staff, and community members who offer cutting-edge library services in a state-of-the-art environment to an engaged community. Considine is a pioneer in the field of new librarianship and has worked to redefine the role of a librarian by creating opportunities for staff to lead at all levels. She believes in the idea of integrating emerging technologies – even if disruptive—into library services and recently launched the library’s digital media Creation Lab and Fab Lab.

Jamie Hollier
Denver, Colorado

Owner/Consultant, Anneal — Jamie Hollier is a project manager, entrepreneur, and consultant who is passionate about technology and using it to create stronger communities. Hollier is the owner of Anneal, a consulting firm, and is a partner at Commerce Kitchen, a web development, design, and marketing company. She serves as the project manager for DigitalLearn.org, an online hub for those who teach and support digital learners. Before that she worked as the project manager for Colorado’s Public Computer Centers, which brought computers and training to 88 locations throughout Colorado and has already seen more than three million users. Hollier is a board member for the Digital Public Library of America and consults for Open Government and Startup communities in Colorado.

Gloria Tibbs
Kansas City, Missouri

Teaching and Learning Services Librarian/Diversity Liaison, University of Missouri – Kansas City Libraries — For nearly a quarter of a century, Gloria Tibbs has worked as a librarian. She has been with the Kansas City Libraries since 2001 and also serves as the Library’s Diversity Liaison, a role that enables her to diligently promote the principles of diversity, inclusiveness, and respect throughout the libraries, the campus, the greater Kansas City community, and the profession. In collaboration with colleagues, Tibbs develops programming opportunities to enhance cultural understanding, celebrate diversity, and engage UMKC students, faculty, and external community members in non-traditional means of intellectual discovery.

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ALA Equitable Access to Electronic Content: The Census, Your Patrons and the DataFerrett

Jazzy Wright — 2013-06-12T19:17:04+00:00

How can your patrons use Census figures which are now available? On Saturday, June 29, 2013, join officials from the U.S. Census Bureau during the session “The Census, Your Patrons and the DataFerrett,” a hands-on workshop that will teach participants how to use Census datasets. The session will be held in Hyatt Regency McCormick Place, Burnham Room 23A-B from 3:00–4:00p.m.

Stephen Laue, information services specialist for the U.S. Census Bureau’s Chicago Regional Office, will teach participants how to access Census statistics via the American Community Survey. Attendees will learn how to use DataFerrett, an analytical and visualization tool that searches and retrieves data across federal datasets and creates complex tabulations, business graphics and thematic maps. This program is an introduction to the basics of locating variables and creating custom reports and data presentation documents.

This workshop will demonstrate how to browse available datasets, select variables form datasets, create new variables from existing ones and produce customized analyses using tables, graphs, and maps. Great for patrons of public, K-12 school and college libraries.

View all ALA Washington Office conference sessions

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LITA: Jobs in Library Technology: June 12

vedmonds — 2013-06-12T17:40:14+00:00

New vacancy listings are posted weekly on Wednesday at approximately 12 noon Central Time. They appear under New This Week and under the appropriate regional listing. Postings remain on the LITA Job Site for a minimum of four weeks.

New This Week

ALA Equitable Access to Electronic Content: USA PATRIOT Act Revisited

Lynne Bradley — 2013-06-12T15:38:21+00:00

New revelations of government surveillance programs are raising questions in the civil liberties community about ways to improve the balance between individual privacy rights and terrorism prevention.

Library advocates are encouraged to participate in the “WE TOLD YOU SO…Proven Use of the “Library Provision,” an interactive session on surveillance issues that will be held during the 2013 Annual American Library Association. The session will take place in the McCormick Place Convention Center (in room S501BCD) on Sunday, June 30, 2013, 3:00-4:00p.m.

Mike German

Michael German, senior policy counsel, of the American Civil Liberties Union, will teach participants about the latest wholesale use of Section 215 by the Administration to get cell phone records from cell carriers and how those carriers just turned over all subscriber phone records.

Attendees will also have the opportunity to hear about surveillance of AP Wire Service reporters, the search for whistleblowers and the implications for the First Amendment and Freedom of the Press of these activities.

German develops policy positions and pro-active strategies concerning national security and open government. Prior to joining the ACLU, Mr. German served for sixteen years as a special agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, where he specialized in domestic terrorism and covert operations.

Mr. German served as an adjunct professor for Law Enforcement and Terrorism at the National Defense University and is a Senior Fellow with www.GlobalSecurity.org. Mr. German’s first book, “Thinking Like a Terrorist,” was published in January 2007. He has a B.A. in Philosophy from Wake Forest University and a J.D. from Northwestern University Law School.

View all ALA Washington Office conference sessions

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Rochkind, Jonathan: Scientific publishing has some problems beyond business models

jrochkind — 2013-06-12T15:16:14+00:00

From an open letter in the Guardian:

Early in their training, students learn that the quest for truth needs to be balanced against the more immediate pressure to “publish or perish”….

…This publishing culture is toxic to science. Recent studies have shown how intense career pressures encourage life scientists to engage in a range of questionable practices to generate publications….

…At the same time, journals incentivise bad practice by favouring the publication of results that are considered to be positive, novel, neat and eye-catching. In many life sciences, negative results, complicated results, or attempts to replicate previous studies never make it into the scientific record. Instead they occupy a vast unpublished file drawer….

As academic librarians, our role is to be experts — not in any specific field — but in the phenomenon of academic publishing in general. In our educational role with students, we ought to be helping students understand and think about these issues — to problematize and complexify the world of research publication. Despite our patrons desire to have blacks and whites that let them complete their assignments with as little thinking as possible (yeah, I said it) — it’s our professional duty to not only help them complete their assignments as conveniently as possible but also understand problems and current issues in academic publishing in general.

And to make the case to administrators and faculty that this our rightful role. Not all faculty will welcome critique of the scholarly publishing enterprise that is essentially their livelihood either of course (go read that letter in the Guardian we began with, again).

This reminds me again of Karen Coyle’s excellent points about the phenomenon of “predatory publishers” – we over-simplify if we suggest that publications can easily be split into problem-free ‘good’ and untrustworthy ‘predatory’ problems.

We do disservice to our patrons to imply that as long as they steer clear of identified ‘bad’ publishers from some librarian-endorsed list, then of course anything that’s “peer reviewed” becomes absolutely trustworthy gospel through the magical transubstantiation of ‘peer review’.

And we do disservice to ourselves and our professional capacities to avoid critical engagement with our domain of expertise — academic publishing. We are — or ought to be — academic professionals, not just clerks and secretaries for the university community or salespeople for scholarly publishers. Could it help restore professional credibility and respect to librarians if we participated at the front of research into research, of the history and critical analysis of the enterprise of scholarly publishing?

Filed under: General

Rochkind, Jonathan: Take control of delivery and access with Umlaut

jrochkind — 2013-06-12T14:55:59+00:00

In a recently published editorial in ITAL, Services and User Context in the Era of Webscale Discovery, Mark Dehmlow writes:

A major issue that continues to confound me is the lack of fully integrated request and delivery services that many discovery systems lack. Of course, all of them implement full text linking to every online article that they can create a link to, but as the sphere of scholarly data stretches beyond just articles, library print collections and delivery services have continued to be neglected primarily because implementing those services in an intuitively integrated way, beyond the “link to your old OPAC” methodology, remains a complex task. My main concern with this deficit is that there is a significant amount of scholarly material only available in print and to focus primarily on
electronic access limits the ability of our users to perform comprehensive research and reduces access to significant resources and services that libraries provide.

The open source Umlaut software (for which I am principal developer) has been aiming to fill this gap for over 7 years now, aiming to provide an aggregated and integrated path to delivery and access cross-cutting library departments, systems and services, accross the entire library business.

To be sure, Umlaut is not a magic bullet. It’s more a platform to design the best solution you can in your actually existing infrastructure. To make the most of Umlaut requires local developer time and creativity to figure out how you can use it to tie together your various systems and services as seamlessly as possible. And a typical lack of good integration API in much of our existing (proprietary) infrastructure is an added challenge, generally increasing cost/time of developing a good solution. But Umlaut is designed to be a platform supporting local solutions to integrating delivery, access, and specific item services — giving you the common skeleton on which you can hang your custom local functionality.

I agree with Dehmlow (and others I know I’ve read essays from but can’t find now) that the ‘last mile’ of access and delivery ought to be a priority for libraries — among other reasons, because access and delivery of the mountains of content we still have that is not both online and freely available, is something that we uniquely provide to our patrons, with much less ‘competition’ than for search and discovery services. If our services aren’t good, our patrons don’t have other options (such as Google) to get (eg) printed monographs for their research (without just buying them).

And, at this stage in the development of our technological infrastructures, this is not something that a proprietary vendor-provided open-the-box-and-turn-it-on solution is going to be able to do well. Integrated access/delivery necesarily involves cross-cutting multiple pieces of local enterprise software (catalog, ILL, local identity/SSO, and that’s just the start) and policies (can you request locally held books to be delivered to your office? Does it depend on who you are and where the book is?). It requires custom local policy and integraiton logic. It’s not going to be feasible/economical for a vendor to provide one-size-fits software that actually works well in this arena. So I’m not as

At least, until your entire library enterprise infrastructure comes from one vendor and consists of an actually integrated single-business cloud platform. This does seem to be where the industry is heading and what, for instance, OCLC, Ex Libris, and Serials Solutions are trying to provide. I know some of these vendors are trying to provide integrated ‘last mile’ services taking advantage of the consolidated integrated cloud infrastructure they provide — although it’s seldom highlighted as an advantage in their marketting, perhaps because most library customers aren’t yet seeing what an advantage it is, what a stumbling point this is for our patrons — where we should be uniquely distinguishing ourselves as able to provide seamless delivery/access, we’re instead just again showing our patrons our ability to provide them with a disjointed, inefficient, frustrating, confusing, experience.

In the meantime, there’s Umlaut, to help you try to stich together a pleasant and fast delivery/access experience. It hasn’t received quite as much attention in the academic library world as I would hope — I think that’s in part because administrative decision makers have not realized the importance and benefits of improving our ‘last mile’ services, and certainly standing up an Umlaut at your institution does take some local development resources. However, in addition to my place of work, NYU and Vanderbilt have been using Umlaut for a while. Recently, I’ve heard of potential interest from several other large research university libraries. I am hoping that at some point there will be sufficient critical mass of library developers using Umlaut that we can use the platform to take the ‘last mile’ to even greater levels of convenience and integration for our users than I’ve had the resources to do with Umlaut so far.

Filed under: General

Schneider, Karen G: Shared print initiatives: Skating to where the puck is going to be

K.G. Schneider — 2013-06-12T14:35:29+00:00

Let’s go to the library!

In 2012, our library completed a major, thorough facility inspection and a consultant-led space planning program (yes, with all kinds of buy-in and focus groups and active sessions… by the end, I was thoroughly tired of being perky). Our next step is to tie this work into an architectural vision of what our library, post-renovation, will be.

In commissioning the building program, I specified to the consultant that I wanted two scenarios: one based on retaining most of the print in the library (excepting those materials that we are culling due to being duplicates, outdated materials, or irrelevant to our mission), and another in which 80% of the materials — those that are very low use — are off-site in shared storage, where they can be retrieved within one or two days.

The latter scenario accomplishes several key objectives.

Points one and two: it’s all about me (and us)

First, in our compact but lovely building, we get much more space for student learning: classrooms, carrels, study rooms, computer stations, ultra-quiet area, etc. In the end, shared regional storage will be much more reasonable per square foot than new construction (if new construction were even a possibility on our campus). Reusing existing space is the green approach.

And for anyone who has seen our library, if you can look past the ancient furniture and ghastly 1950s linoleum (hey ma, I learned a new phrase! “9 hot, 12 not”), the building itself has a striking Midcentury design that’s worth preserving for at least one more generation if not longer. Milton Pfleuger may have been 50 years ahead of himself in extravagantly daylighting the main level of a campus library, but we’ve caught up to him today. (Unfortunately, so has global warming — with all-time-high usage and no a/c, on warm days it’s a wee fragrant.)

Second, relocating the low-use materials makes our higher-use items far more visible. Every librarian understands that when you weed a collection, circulation goes up. And in case you think that 80% is too sharp, well over 90% of our print collection has not circulated in the last ten years if not longer–a very typical statistic.

In which I digress about the power of a good (e)book

(I have a sidebar regarding circulation that I absolutely must include because it’s so fascinating. We have a small popular-reading ebook collection — the kinds of ebooks you can check out on tablets and phones. Not too many titles, around 500; circ activity looks modest at first glance. I was actually thinking, in the manner of someone who manages the budget and the work effort, should I keep or kill this service? So I looked at our two-year circ behavior yesterday: 60% of that collection has circulated. I can tell you that with every effort to promote materials, less than 5 percent of our standard print collection circulated in the last academic year. I still need to break out our new-book and popular-reading circ, which will be better, but especially with exhausting our book budget by January, which meant no more new books, period, paper or electronic, until, well, next week, that’s pretty interesting. I am sure faculty and staff are driving the ebook circ because our students don’t have tablets, for the most part, reflecting Pew’s recent findings.)

Write this down: shared print is good stewardship

Uh, where was I? Anyhoo: third, for those who understand that not only is not everything “online,” but not everything is ever going to be online, shared regional storage is crucial stewardship for print books. Let me repeat: shared print is good stewardship. Stored print is just a way to house books today, not that I wouldn’t give my eyeteeth for an easy solution to all that “stuff.” Shared print is long-term curation–the stuff of leadership.

Shared print forces us into intentional curation agreements where we understand how many copies of a book are retained, who is retaining them, and under what conditions any one item can be deaccessioned.

Fourth, shared print provides a sharing alternative for scholarly resources. Ebooks are convenient, until they aren’t, and a key reality is they can’t be shared.

Every time I bring up our two-scenario building program with an architect-type, the first thing they ask me is if this shared storage exists. My answer is “Not yet.” This is usually followed by a moment of silence, as if I had specified a library parking pad for flying cars.

Here’s that puck deal, and I don’t really understand sports, let alone ice hockey

But here’s the deal. When I arrived in late 2009, I immediately agreed for us to join a new resource-sharing network, so new it had no members and no name. (A facetious early name was “The Dude,” as in “get it from the Dude”; its final name, an homage to a historic road, is Camino, which has a shared catalog you can actually visit but in our own library is part of the secret sauce of our library discovery.) That was pretty daring because our library had been circulating online for less than six months, most of its collection had not migrated online, and we essentially had no interlibrary loan service (if by “essentially” you mean anything other than paper forms).

Camino is still, but it’s growing, and it works. Camino provides a significant alternative to the many academic libraries in California that for one reason or another do not have access to Link+. And Camino gave us a premium resource-sharing service to offer our users–the ability to request books from libraries worldwide with a simple click on a button labeled “request.” (Simple to you, dear readers; there are many moving parts that make that happen.)

Plus, providing the logistical framework for making shared print happen is a major reason why, when Rick Burke approached me about Camino, I enthusiastically embraced this idea (and I kind of miss that Karen, the one who was so precipitous, though the new version of me is a much better manager).

Now I am one of many librarians saying shared print initiatives can, should, and will happen. The main reason I specified an alternative building program, based on the lack of such an initiative, is to make it clear why and when this should happen. As in, stewardship, and yesterday.

Let’s talk this to death for another twenty years, no please don’t

It doesn’t need to happen in one monolithic manner. There are shared initiatives everywhere. None of the answers we come up with today need to be the answers we use tomorrow. I keep saying that about Camino; the technology isn’t important, what’s essential is the commitment to resource sharing and the muscle-memory we’re gaining about how to cooperate and move materials among libraries that’s super-critical. I could make a cheap joke about the technology, Navigator, not being important to OCLC, either, based on the lugubrious pace of critical updates, but I’d have to exclude our ever-patient and wonderful implementation manager, who is all kinds of awesome.

The one thing I’d really like to avoid is having us hem and haw for twenty years and go around and around and around with the same conversations. Working with some amazing colleagues here in the Golden State, I’m doing everything I can to move us past the “kawfee tawk” phase and into some serious activity. I’m not the only one and I’m not even a major brain behind it all (though our library will be housing a major conversation later this month, so I am at least the food-hotel-and-conference-room brain). My cranium is mostly taken up with the first semester of my doctoral program, and yes thank you, there is some irony in the study of leadership eating up brainpower that could otherwise be deployed in the practice of leadership. But it’s a worthy investment (yes, all is well, too busy writing to write, etc.), and all of it will happen, more slowly than I wish, but still it will get there — the doctorate, shared print, and our collective future.

Bookmark to:

ALA Equitable Access to Electronic Content: Are You Ready for DigitalLearn?

Jazzy Wright — 2013-06-12T14:06:40+00:00

In just a few weeks, DigitalLearn.org—a new online hub for digital literacy support and training—will launch at the 2013 Annual American Library Association Conference (the launch will take place on Sunday, June 30, 2013, in the Convention Center Room N139, from 10:30–11:30a.m.).

Have you preregistered for the online resource? According to the site, nearly 200 people have pre-registered for the DigitalLearn.org community. When it launches in June, the community will be a central point of sharing best practices in digital literacy, asking questions of colleagues from across the country, discovering new ideas, and more.

With the launch of DigitalLearn.org fast approaching, our project team is eager to ensure that the site is a hub of valuable digital literacy resources, collaboration, and community. To do this, we need your help! Your knowledge, tools, and ideas have the power to inform not only learners, but also other practitioners. Help us make DigitalLearn.org the best resource it can be for you and your colleagues.

How can you help?

Share and collaborate. Pre-register for the community, so you’ll be ready to go when we launch!

Create classes. Work with us to create more of the self-directed classes that make up the core of learning on DigitalLearn.org. Almost 300 people have completed one of the sample classes we already have on the site. In order to grow the site and reach more learners, we need to develop new classes and update the ones we have, Share your knowledge and expertise by writing scripts for classes, providing narration, and translating our tutorials. Please email Jamie Hollier, project manager, if you can help with this portion.

Spread the word.

The more people we have engaged and involved with the site, the more content and assistance we will be able to provide to one another. Become an advocate for the site! Present at conferences, write blogs, tweet, or find your own unique way to let people know about DigitalLearn.org. We have information on the about page of the site that you are welcome to use for talking about the site, including a sample powerpoint presentation that you can download and use.

When it comes to the work of libraries, nonprofits, and community organizations, we are our most impactful when we work together. If you are currently providing digital literacy support and training in your organization or are looking to add that element to your service offerings, please get involved with DigitalLearn.org.

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Open Knowledge Foundation: Panton Fellowships: Apply Now!

Ross Mounce — 2013-06-12T10:11:11+00:00

The Open Knowledge Foundation is delighted to announce the launch of the new Panton Fellowships!

Funded this year by The Computer & Communications Industry Association, Panton Fellowships will be awarded to scientists who actively promote open data in science, as per the Panton Principles for Open Data in Science.

Visit the Panton Fellowships home page for more information including details of how to apply.

Further Details

We firmly believe that “open data means better science”. The Panton Fellowships have been created in order to support scientists – particularly graduate students and early-stage career scientists – to explore this idea, and to tackle those barriers which currently prevent science data from being made open.

Dr Cameron Neylon, Advocacy Director at PLOS, and one of the Panton Fellowships Advisory Board, commented on the ‘real potential’ of the Fellowships to influence practice surrounding open data in the scientific community:

‘Panton Fellowships will allow those who are still deeply involved in research to think closely about the policy and technical issues surrounding open data.’

By allowing scientists the scope both to explore the ‘big picture’ – gathering evidence to promote discussion throughout the community – and also to work on specific technical solutions to individual problems, the Panton Fellowship scheme has the potential to make a real impact upon the practice of open data in science.

Panton Fellows will have the freedom to undertake a range of activities, and prospective applicants are encouraged to formulate their own work plan. As Fellows will continue to be employed and/or study at their current institution, activities undertaken for the Panton Fellowship should ideally complement and enhance their existing work.

Fellowships will be held for one year, and will have a value of £8k p.a. For more details and information on how to apply, please visit http://pantonprinciples.org/panton-fellowships/. Read about the work of our previous Panton Fellows; Sophie Kershaw here (PDF), and Ross Mounce here.

ALA Equitable Access to Electronic Content: “Advocacy Recycling”: Leverage existing events and resources for lasting advocacy impact

TWegner — 2013-06-11T17:19:55+00:00

Between reading programs, hosting community meetings and classes, assisting students in summer school, and everything in between, summer is a great time for all types of libraries to really shine. As we all know, when decision makers don’t understand what a library does and how it benefits your community or school, they might feel tempted to cut funds or other methods of support. Now is the time to leverage your existing resources, calendar and events to really show (not just tell) how valuable you are to the people a decision maker represents.

In this library advocacy session, we’ll look at 10 quick and easy ways to use something you’re already doing to impact the policy arena. Think of it as “advocacy recycling.” If you’ve wanted to help make a difference but were never sure you had the time, join this session for some practical tips, techniques and case studies from the library world.

Date: Tuesday, June 18, 2013
Time: 4:00 PM – 5:00 PM EDT

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Open Knowledge Foundation: News from the Open Knowledge Foundation Events Team

Naomi Lillie — 2013-06-11T16:37:22+00:00

Events have a significant role for the Open Knowledge Foundation. They focus attention on the key issues of the day, gather interested individuals and organisations around specific topics, and represent the public face of the open knowledge community and its many and various projects. They also provide occasions for open data enthusiasts to meet face-to-face, working and learning (and socialising) together.

The Open Knowledge Foundation runs a multitude of events every year, from major international events to local meetups, and supports events organised by others around open topics. Also, we are involved in many events at which our staff and community speak on the Foundation’s behalf.

So what are our main events – OKCon and OKFestival – and what’s coming up this year and next?

OKCon A conference-style event, OKCon is primarily organised by Local Groups – an Initiative or Chapter – in collaboration with OKF Central. It can be more formal than OKFestival, with a centrally-planned 2-3 day conference format rather than a big multi-stream festival, and can have a specific focus (such as a topic or local emphasis). The programme may be topic and/or region specific. This year, OKCon in Geneva will be running over 3 days (16th-18th September) with a fantastic programme plus additional workshops and exhibitions. We’re currently working on how to develop the format for future events, in different countries and with variable frequency.
OKFestival This is our major international event for the whole community, with an informal, relaxed and celebratory feel. Organised by OKF Central, it is a place for debate and networking where all elements of open knowledge are welcome. Offering a crowd-sourced multi-layered programme spanning about a week, it also includes lots of satellite events, workshops – and parties! Our next one will be in 2014 – just in time for the 10th anniversary celebrations of the Open Knowledge Foundation!

We want to ensure all these events get excellent support and promotion, and for this reason we have strengthened our team in 2013:

Beatrice Martini joined us in January as Events Coordinator. She kicked off her work developing how-to guides, encouraging our project managers and Local Groups to run great events for the organisation and community, both big and small, online and offline. While supporting events of all formats, from the global Open Data Day to a great School of Data workshop in Berlin, Beatrice has been working with our community and the Swiss Chapter on OKCon 2013 and is preparing a brand new Events page premiering soon on the Open Knowledge Foundation website.
Elaine Shaughnessy joined the team as Marketing and Events Manager in May, and is working with Beatrice on the Foundation’s global events as well as with the Network Team on marketing activities.

(Want to know more about how we can support you locally in running open knowledge events? Apply to become a Local Group Ambassador today!).

We will keep you posted about all our events; in the meantime, keep yourself up-to-date following the OKCon Blog, join us in Geneva (Early Bird tickets are on sale until 23rd June!) and watch this space to be the first to know about the upcoming plans of our Events team. See you soon!

ALA Equitable Access to Electronic Content: Winning Libraries Share Cutting-edge Services at Annual Conference

Jazzy Wright — 2013-06-11T16:08:49+00:00

Does your library offer cutting-edge library services? Learn about how four ALA-recognized libraries are using cutting-edge technologies in their libraries during the session “Cutting-edge Technology in Library Services,” which will be held June 30, 2013, from 8:30–10:00a.m. in McCormick Place Convention Center room N427BC.

The Cutting-edge Technology in Library Services recognition is presented by the ALA Office for Information Technology Policy and the Library & Information Technology Association and showcases libraries that are serving their communities using novel and innovative methods.

Featured speakers include Brigitte Doellgast, Director, Goethe-Institute Library: German Traces NYC; Chris Harris, Coordinator, School Library System, Genesee Valley Educational Partnership: WEBOOKS; Mary Anne Hodel, Director, Orange County Library System: Right Service at the Right Time; and Leslie Sult, Associate Librarian, University of Arizona Libraries: Guide on the Side.

“This year’s winners represent creative and cost-effective engagement with technology trends including BYOD (bring your own device), augmented reality, e-government, crowd-sourcing, and online learning,” said Marc Gartler, Branch Manager, Madison Public Library, who chaired the selection subcommittee, and will moderate the conference panel. “We are excited to recognize these fantastic projects and believe they have the potential to be replicated by many libraries across the country.”

Boston College High School’s Corcoran Library also was recognized as one of the 2013 winners, but is unable to join the panel. Brief information about each of the projects is listed below, and more detailed case studies of the projects will be available online later this month.

German Traces NYC, Goethe-Institut New York Library with Pratt Institute School of Information and Library Science, New York City
The Goethe-Institut and Pratt Institute teamed up to develop German Traces NYC. This mobile experience uses an augmented reality app to allow learners to explore German cultural heritage in New York City. After downloading the app, users can simply hold up their mobile phones and view archival photos layered on top of the images visible through the phone’s camera. The mobile experience also features archival documents, photographs, and multimedia narratives to bring U.S. history to life. It allows users to create a custom walking tour via GPS and access multimedia content. Finally, users can add their own stories to the German Traces webpage. More than 19,000 people visited the website in the year since launch.
WEBOOKS, Genesee Valley Educational Partnership School Library System, Le Roy, N.Y.
Genesee Valley addressed two needs of rural schools with its crowd-sourced WEBOOKS: improved access to digital content and a way to do this at a time of devastating budget cuts. The library system created a Drupal website that allowed librarians across 22 school districts to pool together a portion of their individual library materials aid while maintaining control over spending through a participatory selection process. By purchasing together, the system was able to buy more e-books than each would have been able to afford individually, and the project demonstrated to administrators that the libraries are working together to find creative solutions. Several districts provided additional funds because of the promise of the project.
Right Service at the Right Time, Orange County Library System, Orlando, Fla.
OCLS’ Right Service at the Right Time (RS/RT) mobile-optimized website addresses a growing need in public libraries to aid library patrons seeking government assistance, which increasingly is accessible only online. RS/RT uses a database-driven decision-making engine to connect people in need of government and non-profit public services with the appropriate provider. Need areas addressed include family assistance, healthcare, housing, jobs, and transportation. The site was based on feedback from users who access the Internet solely with mobile devices, and it currently offers four language versions. In 2012, the service expanded from five to 36 Florida counties, and it had more than 10.3 million total page views.
Guide on the Side, University of Arizona (UA) Libraries, Tucson, Ariz.
With the launch of Guide on the Side, the UA Libraries turned 12 years of lessons learned developing e-learning tools into an open-source software package that librarians worldwide can download and use to quickly and easily create online, interactive tutorials based on principles of authentic and active learning. The key: a WYSIWYG interface that reduces or eliminates the need for programming assistance and provides considerable time savings. The UA Libraries have developed more than 25 tutorials using the tool, and these tutorials received nearly 73,000 uses in one year. Other libraries have installed the software, begun creating tutorials and joined a discussion group to continue improving the software.
Mobile Digital Learning Tools, Boston College High School’s (BCHS) Corcoran Library, Boston
The Corcoran Library is “meeting students where they are” through their mobile initiative designed to showcase the library’s online resources through mobile sites and apps optimized for mobile searching. BC High adopted a new cell phone policy which allows students to use their cell phones for research purposes in the library. Librarians orient students to the new mobile resources through the school iPads and the students’ smart phones. The aim is to foster an understanding of how these digital learning tools can enhance student information literacy experiences. The initiative can be replicated by other libraries in schools that are either BYOD (bring your own device) or 1:1 programs by reviewing the library’s website.

View all ALA Washington Office conference sessions

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Open Knowledge Foundation: Announcing the Global Open Data Initiative

Christian Villum — 2013-06-11T11:25:19+00:00

The Global Open Data Initiative (GODI) is a new initiative led by the Open Knowledge Foundation, Open Institute, Fundar, Sunlight Foundation and the World Wide Web Foundation. It mission is to share principles and resources for governments and societies on how to best harness the opportunities created by opening government data.

The initiative is intended to provide a roadmap of policies and institutions that countries can use to build meaningful new open data reforms and initiatives, informed by the successes of others. Through GODI and associated work, we intend to expand awareness of open data and related issues, stimulate the development of the global open data community, provide a leading vision for how governments approach open data – as well as gather, expand, and amplify the evidence base for open data in general. Specifically:

Serve as a global guiding voice on open data issues

Civil society groups who focus on open data have often been isolated to single national contexts, despite the similar challenges and opportunities repeating themselves in countries across the globe. GODI is intended to help share valuable resources, guidance and judgment, and to clarify the potential for government open data globally.

Provide a leading vision for how governments approach open data

Open data commitments are among the most popular commitments for countries participating in the Open Government Partnership. GODI recommendations and resources will help guide open data initiatives and others as they seek to design and implement strong, effective open data initiatives and policies. GODI resources will also help civil society actors who will be evaluating government initiatives.

Increase awareness of open data

GODI will work to advance the understanding of open data issues, challenges, and resources by promoting best practices, engaging in online and offline dialogue, and supporting networking between organizations both new and familiar to the open data arena.

Support the development of the global open data community

Civil society organizations (CSOs) have a key role to play as suppliers, intermediaries, and users of open data, though at present, few organizations are engaging with open data and the opportunities it can make available for their work. Most CSOs lack the awareness, skills and support needed to be active users and providers of open data in ways that can help them meet their goals. GODI intends to help CSOs to engage with open data and use it as a key tool of their strategic programmes and activities in addressing issues such as climate change, democratic rights, land governance or financial reform. In addition, we hope to integrate the work of those CSOs already engaged in open data issues and usage, and to provide a map of the landscape of these and related actors.

Amplify and broaden the evidence base for open data

While the broader community of open data experts has come a long way in developing a research agenda and related resources, there is still a significant gap between the questions that can empower an open data agenda and those with the capacity to help answer them. GODI will work to identify areas for further study and development and will help build evidence-based policies and resources. We will also examine how open data can inform and strengthen decision-making processes within government.

Gather and strengthen existing resources

Open data resources and analysis have been explored and prepared by a number of different organizations, though this work is often scattered across the Internet and difficult to find. GODI seeks to aggregate these existing resources for inclusion with the resources we, too, will develop to create a central point of reference for governments and CSOs interested in open government data.

Find out more

You can find out more about the Global Open Data Initiative on its website and you also sign you to the mailing list.

Image: open government data (scrabble) by justgrimes on flickr, CC-BY-SA

Reese, Terry: MarcEdit 5.9 Update Posted

reeset — 2013-06-11T06:42:25+00:00

I just posted a new update. The update includes a major rewrite of the merge algorithm, as well as a few bug fixes and small enhancements. Here’s the list:

Update: Merge Function – this is a rewrite. The function was rewritten to provide a bit more flexibility, better performance, and a framework for exposing the values used to calculate match points so users can modify weighting if they have specific values that they want to give more importance.
Bug Fix: Find all jump list would report not data found when LDR data was queried.
Bug Fix: Jump to record – wouldn’t jump if the record was the last item on a page.
Enhancement: Z39.50 – removed the 3 database query limit. Limit has been bumped up to 250, though at some point, I need to take a look at redoing the interface to make this type of query casting more friendly.
Bug Fix: Change Indicator Function – when using two wildcards, the indicators search would report no items found. This has been corrected.

As always, you can find the new updates at:

–tr

Hess, M Ryan: Mouseflow heat map

mryanhess — 2013-06-10T23:33:26+00:00

OMG, have you seen Mouseflow yet? It’s my new favorite analytics tool.

I have bragging rights to click analytics at my institution. After seeing Tabatha Farney’s presentation on click analytics at LITA a few years ago, the first thing I did was purchase a subscription to Crazy Egg and began using click analytics as a central part of my user analysis. After giving a presentation to the data managers group on my campus, many others, including our marketing department also got interested and now they’ve come back to me with a new tool: Mouseflow.

Mouseflow is basically a better mouse trap to Crazy Egg. It does all of the heat maps, scroll-maps and in-page analysis you get with Crazy Egg, but it adds on top of this recordings of actual mouse movement on your website(s). That’s right, as creepy as it sounds, you can place the code onto your web pages and then watch actual videos of users’ mouse pointers as they move across the screen, stumble over trouble areas and click through from page to page.

I ran this on our research guides for a day to test the tool. The result were dozens of recordings of actual user sessions on our research guides. It’s as if you’re sitting behind someone and watching their movement around your site. You get to see where they pause, where they click, how long it takes for them to decide where to go and even watch them try, fail and fail and then either succeed or give up. You can even tell by the movement of the user mouse (often) where they have stopped to read or where they are lost.

It’s fascinating. It’s powerful. It’s possibly a violation of privacy (more on that in a second).

On the back-end, Mouseflow lets you filter by IP range (good for filtering out your staff) and control several parameters to improve your data quality. And you have varying account levels so you can find one that fits your needs and budget. With a paid account, you can download your most telling videos.

It’s truly remarkable for analyzing your site architecture, designs, content. And you don’t need to recruit users for a formal study. But your IRB might still have some concerns as might any regulators or other privacy advocates who might be minding your store. So you’ll (and we’ll) have to do a little due diligence before we roll this out.

Still, Mouseflow does allow you to NOT capture IP information, adding another layer of anonymity to your data. So on the surface, it does seem to be something you could probably use without violating FERPA…except for one thing: I’ve heard it records what is typed into forms (visually), which was the primary reason our marketing was interested in Mouseflow. I didn’t see this as our research guides have displayed:none the internal search boxes in LibGuides. But this could definitely complicate the approval process.

So, check it out. The first 100 recordings are free!

Engard, Nicole: Bookmarks for June 10, 2013

2013-06-10T20:30:03+00:00

Today I found the following resources and bookmarked them on Delicious.

Skillcrush
Skillcrush is the simplest, easiest, and most collaborative way to learn about technology.

Digest powered by RSS Digest

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ALA Equitable Access to Electronic Content: Do you know what’s going on in Washington?

Jazzy Wright — 2013-06-10T18:59:47+00:00

The American Library Association’s Washington Office will discuss policies that affect libraries and offer hands-on advocacy training during the “Washington Update” session at the 2013 Annual ALA Conference in Chicago. Learn insights about national policy and implications for the library community during the session on Saturday, June 29, 2013, from 8:30–10:00a.m. in the McCormick Place Convention Center Room S502.

Telecommunications policy expert Susan Crawford will anchor the session. In addition to Crawford’s speaking role, the Washington Office will host several breakout sessions:

Gigabit Libraries

10:30a.m.–12:00p.m.

Professor Jon Gant of the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign will lead a discussion on a new Gigabit Library Initiative funded by IMLS. The purpose of the project is to help libraries develop applications and services that will meet the needs of the public, leveraging ultra-high-speed Internet service. In particular, the project focuses on socially-inclusive library experiences that meet critical human development needs, particularly for underserved populations. The session will take place in Room S502a.

How Do I Become A Citizen? Libraries And E-Government: Meeting the Needs of Your Community

10:30a.m.–12:00p.m.

Learn how a new website (www.libegov.org) can help librarians more easily serve the e-government needs of their communities. Through partnerships with USCIS, the IRS, state library agencies, public libraries, and others, the site brings agencies and libraries together to collaborate and serve the public. Speakers include Information Policy & Access Center leaders John Bertot and Ursula Gorham-Oscilowski. The project is funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services. The session will take place in Room
S402a. This session will serve as the official launch of the e-government web tool.

View all ALA Washington Office conference sessions

The post Do you know what’s going on in Washington? appeared first on District Dispatch.

code4lib: Code4Lib 2014 Conference Prospectus for Sponsors

rtennant — 2013-06-10T17:17:09+00:00

The Code4Lib 2014 Sponsorship Committee has put together a prospectus for potential sponsors (see attached file). This full-color PDF file describes the conference, lists representative past speakers, provides quotes from attendees, and lists all of the sponsorship opportunities and their attached benefits to sponsors.

If you wish to contact a potential sponsor, please contact the committee before doing so to prevent multiple contacts of the same sponsor.

This is the first time that such a brochure has been created in support of obtaining conference sponsorships, so the 2014 crew gets major kudos for stepping up our game this year. Tim McGeary of UNC Chapel Hill is the committee chair.

Koster, Lukas: Resilience, connections and a clean slate

2013-06-10T16:30:11+00:00

The inside-out library at ELAG 2013
This year marked my fifth ELAG conference since 2008 (I skipped 2009), which is not much if you take into account that ELAG2013 was the 37th one. I really enjoyed the 2013 conference, not in the least because of the wonderful people of the local organising committee at the Ghent University Library, who made ELAG2013 a very pleasant event.This year’s theme was “the inside-out library”, a concept coined by Lorcan Dempsey, which in brief emphasises the need for libraries to shift focus 180 degrees.

Sylvia Van Peteghem opening speech

Before you read any further I strongly suggest you read Rurik Greenall’s post on ELAG 2013 first. He covered most of the programme in his usual thorough and analytical way.

In my personal overall conference experience major emphasis was on research support in libraries. This was partly due to my attendance of the pre-conference Joint OpenAIRE/LIBER Workshop ‘Dealing with Data – what’s the role for the library?’ on May 28. It was good to have sessions focusing on different perspectives: data management, data publication, the researchers’ needs, library support and training. I was honoured to be invited to participate in the closing round table panel discussion together with two library directors Wilma van Wezenbeek (TU Delft Library) and Wolfram Horstmann (Bodleian Library), under the excellent supervision of Kevin Ashley (DDC). An important central concept in the workshop was the research life cycle, which consists of many different tasks of a very diverse nature. Academic and research libraries should focus on those tasks for which they are or can easily become qualified.

Looking from another angle we can distinguish two main perspectives in integrating research: the research ecosystem itself, which can be seen as the main topic of the OpenAIRE/LIBER workshop, and the research content, the actual focus of researchers and research projects. I will try to address both perspectives here.

On the first day of the actual conference Herbert Van de Sompel gave the keynote speech with the title “A clean slate”. Rurik Greenall aptly describes the scope and meaning of Herbert’s argument. Herbert has been involved in a number of important and relevant projects in the domain of scholarly communication. My impression this time was: now he’s bringing it all together around the fairly new concept of the “research object”, integrating a number of projects and protocols, like ORE, Memento, OpenAnnotation, Provenance, ResourceSync. It’s all about connections between all components related to research on the web in all dimensions.

This linking of input, output, procedures and actors of research projects in various temporal and contextual dimensions in a machine readable way is extremely important in order to be able to process all relevant information by means of computer systems and present it to the human consumer. In this respect I think it is essential that data citations in scholarly articles should not only be made available in the article text, but also as machine readable metadata that can be indexed by external aggregators.
Moreover, it would be even better if it was possible to provide links to research projects that would serve as central hubs for linking to all associated entities, not only datasets. This is the role that the research object can fulfill. During the OpenAIRE/LIBER workshop I tried to address this issue a number of times, because I am a bit surprised that both researchers and publishers appear to be satisfied with having text only clickable dataset citations. That is even the case the other way around with links to articles in dataset repositories like Dryad. I think there is a role here for information professionals and metadata experts in libraries. This is exactly the point that Peter van Boheemen made in his talk about producing better metadata for research output. Similarly Jing Wang stressed the importance of investigating the role of metadata specialists and data librarians for interoperability and authority control in her presentation on the open source linked data based research discovery tool Vivo.

Again there are two perspectives here. Even if we have machine readable metadata on research projects and datasets, most systems are not adequately equipped with functionality to process or present this information. It is not so easy to update complex systems with new functionality. Planned update cycles, including extensive testing, are necessary in order to adhere to the system’s design and architecture and to avoid breaking things. This equally applies to commercial, open source and home grown systems. Joachim Neubert’s presentation of the use of the open source CMS Drupal for linked data enhanced publishing for special collections illustrated this. Some very specialist custom extensions to the essentially quite flexible system were needed to make this a success. (On a different note, it was nice to see that Joachim used a simple triple diagram from my first library linked data blog post to illustrate the use of different types of predicates between similar subjects and objects.)
Anyway, a similar point can be made about systems and identifiers for people (authors, researchers, etc.). I participated in the workshop on ISNI, ORCID and VIAF : Examining the fundamentals and application of contributor identifiers led by Anila Angjeli and Thom Hickey, one of six ELAG workshops this year. Thom and Anila presented a very complete and detailed overview of the similarities and differences of these three identifier schemes. One of the discussion topics was the difference in adoption of these schemes by the community on the one hand and as machine readable metadata and their application in library systems on the other.

Here comes “resilience” into play, a concept introduced by Beate Rusch in her talk on the changing roles of the German regional library consortia and service centres in the world of cloud computing and SaaS. Rurik Greenall captures the essence of her talk when he says “… homogenous, generic solutions will not work in practice because they are at odds with how things are done …” and that “messy, imperfect systems… are smart and long lived”. Since Beate’s presentation the term “resilience” popped up in a number of discussions with colleagues, during and after the conference, mainly in the sense that most systems, communities, infrastructures are NOT resilient. Resilience is a concept mainly used in psychology and physics, meaning the ability of someone or something to return to its original state after being subjected to a severe disturbance. Beate’s idea with resilience is that we can adapt better to changing circumstances and needs in the world around us if we are less perfect and rigid than we usually are. In this sense I think resilience can also mean that a structure could permanently change instead of returning to its original state.
In the library world resilience can be applied to librarians, libraries, library infrastructure and library systems alike. In my view “resilience” might apply to the alternative architecture I have described in a recent blog post, where I argue that we should stop thinking systems and start thinking data. In order to be resilient we need an open, connected infrastructure, that is of the web (not on the web). The SCAPE infrastructure for processing large datasets for long term preservation, presented by Sven Schlarb, might fit this description.

A number of presentations focused on infrastructure and architecture. The new version of the Swedish union catalogue LIBRIS could be described as a resilient system. Martin Malmsten, Markus Sköld and Niklas Lindström showed their new linked open data based integrated library framework which was built from the ground up, from ”a clean slate” so to speak. I can only echo Rurik’s verdict “ With this, Libris really are showing the world how things are done”. Contrary to the Library of Congress BibFrame development which started very promising, but now seems to evolve into an inward looking rigid New Marc. This was illustrated by Martin Malmsten when he revealed to us that Marc is undead, and by Becky Yoose, who wrote a very pertinent parable telling the tale of the resurrection of Marc.
Rurik Greenall described the direction taken at his own institution NTNU Library: getting rid of old legacy library and webpage formats and moving towards being part of the web, providing information for the web, being data driven. It’s a slow and uphill struggle, but better than the alternative. A clean slate again!
Dave Pattern presented a different approach in connecting data from a number of existing systems and databases by means of APIs, and combining these into a new and well received reading list service at the University of Huddersfield.

Back to research. In our presentation, or rather performance, Jane Stevenson and I tried to present the conflicting perspectives of collection managers and researchers in a theatrical way, showing parallel developments in the music industry. Afterwards we tried to analyse the different perspectives, argued that researchers need connected information of all types and from all sources and concluded that information professionals should try and learn to take the researcher’s perspective in order to avoid becoming irrelevant in that area.
The relationship between libraries and researchers was also the subject of the talk “Partners in research. Outside the library, inside the infrastructure“, by Sally Chambers and Saskia Scheltjens. Here the focus was on providing comprehensive infrastructures for research support, especially in the digital humanities. Central question: large top-down institutionalised structures, or bottom-up connected networks? Bottom line is: the researcher’s needs have to be met in the best possible way.
A very interesting example of an actual digital humanities research and teaching project in collaboration between researchers and the library is the Annotated Books Online project that was presented by Utrecht University staff. The collection of rare books is made available online in order to crowdsource the interpretation of handwritten annotations present in these books.

Besides research support there were presentations on other “inside out library” topics: publishing, teaching, data analysis and GLAM.
Anders Söderbäck presented the Stockholm University Press, a new publishing house for open access digital and print on demand books. I was pleasantly surprised that Anders included two quotes of my aforementioned blog post in his talk: “...in the near future we will see the end of the academic library as we know it” and “According to some people university libraries are very suitable and qualified to become scholarly publishers … I am not sure that this is actually the case. Publishing as it currently exists requires a number of specific skills that have nothing to do with librarian expertise“. But of course Anders’ most important achievement was winning the Library Automation Bingo by including all required terms in one slide in a coherent and meaningful way.

Merrilee Proffitt presented an overview of MOOCs and libraries, Sarah Brown described the way that learning materials at the Open University in the UK are successfully connected and integrated in the linked data based STELLAR project. Looking at these developments the question arises if there are already efforts to come to a Teaching Object model, similar to the Research Object?
Andrew Nagy described the importance of analysing huge amounts of usage data in order to improve the usability and end user front end of the Summon discovery tool. Dan Chudnov presented the Social Media Manager prototype, used for collecting data from twitter in order to be used in social science research.
Valentine Charles described the activities carried out by Europeana to contribute large amounts of digitised library heritage resources to Wikimedia Commons by means of the GLAMwiki toolset in order to improve visibility of these resources the Open Access way. The GLAMwiki toolset currently appears to offer a number of challenges for the interoperability and integration of metadata standards between the library and the Wikimedia world. Another plea for resilience.

Then there were the workshops. The combination of these parallel hands-on and engaging group activities and the plenary sessions makes ELAG a unique experience. Although I only participated in one, obviously, I have heard good reports from all other workshops. I would like to give a special mention to Ade and Jane Stevenson’s “Very Gentle Linked Data” workshop, where they managed to teach even non-tech people not only the basic principles of linked data, but also how to create their own triple store and query it with SPARQL.

Summarising: looking at the ELAG2013 presentations, are we ready for the inside out library? Sometimes we can start with a clean slate, but that is not always possible. Resilience seems to be a requirement if we want to cope with the dramatic changes we are facing. But you can’t simply decide to be resilient, either something is resilient or it isn’t. A clean slate might be the only option. In any case it seems obvious that connections are key. The information profession needs to invest in new connections on every level, creating new forms of knowledge, in order to stay relevant.

ALA Equitable Access to Electronic Content: Reforming National Surveillance Laws

Lynne Bradley — 2013-06-10T15:36:05+00:00

Last week, reports appeared regarding the U.S. government’s program PRISM that obtains the internet records from nine U.S. companies: Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, AOL, Skype, YouTube, and Apple. This followed the earlier disturbing revelation on June 5th that the FISA Court had ordered Verizon to turn over the phone records of all customers over the last seven years.

It appears that emails, photos, online and social networking activities as well as the phone records have been obtained by the FBI and NSA. These two revelations about the amount of personal information received by the government, if true as reported, is very troubling.

We are, frankly, saddened that two major revelations about our country’s surveillance practices confirm our gravest worries: the government has obtained vast amounts of personal information about the activities, especially electronic communications of all kinds, of essentially everyone in the United States, including millions of innocent people.

We repeat the call for a true public dialogue on our nation’s surveillance laws and procedures and how to fix the flaws in laws such as FISA (the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) and the USA PATRIOT Act. The public needs a way to become engaged to determine what degree of public accountability is needed and how to improve the balance between individual rights and the need of government to investigate terrorism and other harmful acts.

There needs to be effective legal review, judicial oversight permitting transparency and public accountability – not wholesale fishing expeditions – to get personal information on millions of innocent people! Our country needs to find the right balance.

The post Reforming National Surveillance Laws appeared first on District Dispatch.

Open Knowledge Foundation: From PSI to open data – LAPSI is ready for a new round of legal questions

Katleen Janssen — 2013-06-10T12:01:18+00:00

In February, 23 partners kicked off the LAPSI 2.0 thematic network on the legal aspects of public sector information in Leuven, Belgium. The network, consisting of academic institutions and stakeholders from 15 countries, will continue where the previous LAPSI network left off, and look at the remaining legal barriers hindering the full and open availability of public sector information in Europe. The network will enable knowledge exchange between stakeholders; showcase good practice on how Member States and public bodies deal with PSI issues; and provide policy recommendations on how the European legal framework can support open data.

This European legal framework is currently being challenged by the emerging open data ecosystem. PSI is gradually being replaced by open data in people’s minds, throwing up a lot of new questions. For instance, over the years, many efforts have been made by national policy makers and public authorities to create more transparency in licensing procedures and to develop standard licences (although more transparency would still be very welcome!). However, this has led – somewhat counter-productively – to a proliferation of licence models, even among the open licences. Therefore, the LAPSI 2.0 network is focusing its attention in the first year of activities on the ‘legal interoperability’ of licences. What strategies can help to prevent conflicting (open) standardised licensing models from arising, and how can existing problems due to a lack of interoperability be addressed?

Another layer of complication with licenses comes from the shift from the provision of data via bulk downloads to the creation of web services, requiring the combination of a data approach with what is traditionally known as terms of service or service level agreements. Moreover, the one-source, one-way delivery of information from the public sector to the users is increasingly being replaced by participatory data sharing, the introduction of feedback loops and the integration of PSI with user generated content. It is questionable if the current legal framework is ready for this.

The LAPSI 2.0 network will also be working hard to embed PSI and open data in the institutional culture of the public sector, and – if this does not work – on the enforcement of the rules on PSI and open data through efficient and effective redress mechanisms. While many public bodies have embraced open data, there are still many more that need to be convinced about the benefits for economic growth, participation and accountability.

Whatever LAPSI 2.0 recommends, it will have to function against the background of the new Directive on re-use of PSI, which is due this summer. While the new directive is definitely a step in the right direction, its exact impact can currently only be guessed at by the rumours that are seeping through about the trialogue process. We anxiously await the final version of the directive, and look forward to playing a role in the translation of the text into Member States’ domestic law.

Over the next two years, LAPSI 2.0, in cooperation with other projects and initiatives, will organise two conferences and a number of workshops on the legal aspects of PSI and open data. Our first conference is already planned: on October 24th, we hope to see you in Ljubljana for a great day on “The new PSI directive: what’s next?”. We are also planning workshops at the Samos Summit in July and you can find us at all the important open data events, including the OKCon in Geneva.

If you are interested in knowing more about the network and our activities, check out our website or register for the stakeholders newsletter.

Eaton, Alf: Internet Surveillance

2013-06-10T10:49:32+00:00

Unencrypted data

Collect the information passing through copper wires (voice, internet).
Combine the individual packets of information to reconstruct the original messages.
Install beam-splitters at main internet junctions of fibre-optic cables, send the data to local/remote storage for analysis.
If there is no land-based junction, fit a submarine with equipment for accessing undersea junctions/cables.
In a data warehouse, query for specific information; use network analysis to identify population/individual behaviour; run pattern-detection algorithms.

Encrypted data

Ask companies for a copy of their private key + passphrase, so that data can be unencrypted.
Try to decrypt the encrypted communication stream, using brute force or partial knowledge of the message contents.
If the encryption key is known/discovered, decrypt the stored historical data (unless the service has been using "forward secret" encryption keys).
Obtain a "valid" (i.e. verified by a trusted certificate authority) certificate for each domain, and insert your server between the two endpoints (man-in-the-middle attack).
Ask companies to provide a live feed of data as it reaches their servers, after being decrypted.

Historical data

Ask companies to provide a snapshot of data matching a query.
Add a real-time update stream to this query.
Automate the process of querying for this data.
Prevent logs being stored, so that the content of the requests remains secret.
Send someone to a company to run queries on their data.
Ask Amazon for access to the servers/databases where the company stores their data.
Insert software that allows querying of data stored by a company without them knowing.

Information Technology and Libraries (Journal): Editorial Board Thoughts: Services and User Context in the Era of Webscale Discovery

Mark Dehmlow — 2013-06-10T00:00:00+00:00

Editorial Board Thoughts: Services and User Context in the Era of Webscale Discovery

Information Technology and Libraries (Journal): Editorial Board Thoughts: "India Does Not Exist."

Mark Cyzyk — 2013-06-10T00:00:00+00:00

Editorial Board Thoughts: "India Does Not Exist."

Information Technology and Libraries (Journal): Animated Subject Maps for Book Collections

Tim Donahue — 2013-06-10T00:00:00+00:00

Of our two primary textual formats, articles by far have received the most fiscal and technological support in recent decades. Meanwhile, our more traditional format, the book, seems in some ways to already be treated as a languishing symbol of the past. The development of OPACs and the abandonment of card catalogs in the Eighties and Nineties is the seminal evolution in print monograph access, but little else has changed. To help users locate books by call number and browse the collection by subject, animated subject maps were created. While the initial aim is a practical one, helping users to locate books and subjects, the subject maps also reveal the knowledge organization of the physical library, which it displays in a way that can be meaningful to faculty, students, and other community members. We can do more with current technologies to assist and enrich the experience of users searching and browsing for books. The subject map is hopefully an example of how we can do more in this regard.

Information Technology and Libraries (Journal): First Aid Training for Those on the Front Lines: Digital Preservation Needs Survey Results 2012

Jody L. DeRidder — 2013-06-10T00:00:00+00:00

Every day history is being made and recorded in digital form. Every day, more and more digitally-captured history disappears completely or becomes inaccessible due to obsolescence of hardware, software, and formats. Although it has long been the focus of libraries and archives to retain, organize, and preserve information, these communities face a critical skills gap. Until we have in place the infrastructure, expertise and resources to distill critical information from the digital deluge and preserve it appropriately, what steps can those in the field take to help mitigate the loss of our cultural heritage? This article argues for the need for practical, accessible free or low-cost digital preservation training webinars, and reports on the results of a survey to identify the most important topics and types of materials on which to focus.

Information Technology and Libraries (Journal): Assessing the Treatment of Patron Privacy in Library 2.0 Literature

Michael Zimmer — 2013-06-10T00:00:00+00:00

As libraries begin to embrace Web 2.0 technologies to serve patrons – ushering in the era of Library 2.0 – unique dilemmas arise regarding protection of patron privacy. The norms of Web 2.0 promote the open sharing of information – often personal information – and the design of many Library 2.0 services capitalize on access to patron information and might require additional tracking, collection and aggregation of patron activities. Thus, embracing Library 2.0 potentially threatens the traditional ethics of librarianship, where protecting patron privacy and intellectual freedom has been held paramount. As a step towards informing the decisions to implement Library 2.0 to adequately protect patron privacy, we must first understand how such concerns are being articulated within the professional discourse surrounding these next generation library tools and services. The study presented in this paper aims to determine whether and how issues of patron privacy are introduced, discussed, and settled – if at all – within trade publications utilized by librarians and related information professionals

Information Technology and Libraries (Journal): Content Management Systems: Trends in Academic Libraries

Ruth Sara Connell — 2013-06-10T00:00:00+00:00

Academic libraries, and their parent institutions, are increasingly using Content Management Systems (CMSs) for website management. In this study, the author surveyed academic library web managers from four-year institutions to discover whether they had adopted CMSs, which tools they were using, and their satisfaction with their website management system. Other issues, such as institutional control over library website management, were raised. The survey results showed that CMS satisfaction levels vary by tool, and that many libraries do not have input into the selection their CMS because the determination is made at an institutional level. These findings will be helpful for decision makers involved in the selection of CMSs for academic libraries.

Bisson, Casey: Peeking into other people’s photo rigs

Casey Bisson — 2013-06-09T21:03:28+00:00

This all started because I went looking for a way to remote trigger a Panasonic Lumix LX 3. The internet is pretty certain that the only way to do it is mount a servo to mechanically press the shutter button. Sad.

But that led me into Cris Benton‘s world of photography from poles. Yes, he mounts his camera at the end of a carp fishing pole (a noun so unknown to me I almost put it in quotes) to loft it up to 30′ in the air. His pole rig seems very well thought out. As for carp poles, they’re easy to find in the UK, but Amazon’s US store knows nothing of it and I can’t find any US distributors.

Still, my searching did lead me to Pierre Lesage, who’s also done his share of both KAP and PAP (behind that scene). His KAP rig has me realizing how many things I’ve been doing wrong. Simple additions to my kit would include decent gloves for easier handling of the line and a harness+carabiner to hold the kite and give my hands a break.

More significant additions to my kit might include a proper camera mount (I hang my Go Pro like a pendulum now). KAPshop is a nicely organized UK distributor for all things KAP, BAP, and PAP, but many of their products come from Brooxes, which sells kits in $US with domestic shipping. Their SERVO-BEAK appears to be exactly what I need:

Extra: discussion of infrared photography with an LX3.

Engard, Nicole: Bookmarks for June 9, 2013

2013-06-09T20:30:15+00:00

Today I found the following resources and bookmarked them on Delicious.

Zanran
Zanran helps you to find ‘semi-structured’ data on the web. This is the numerical data that people have presented as graphs and tables and charts.
Girl Develop It
Girl Develop It is an international organization, certified by the Board of Education, that exists to provide affordable and accessible programs to women who want to learn software development through mentorship and hands-on instruction.

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The post Bookmarks for June 9, 2013 appeared first on What I Learned Today....

Engard, Nicole: Bookmarks for June 8, 2013

2013-06-08T20:30:09+00:00

Today I found the following resources and bookmarked them on Delicious.

Clipping Magic
Easily remove the background from your photos to create masks, cutouts, or clipping paths, all done instantly online with ClippingMagic.com

Digest powered by RSS Digest

The post Bookmarks for June 8, 2013 appeared first on What I Learned Today....

Hellman, Eric: Publishing Hackathon a BookSmashing Success

Eric (noreply@blogger.com) — 2013-06-08T02:53:00+00:00

Thursday, HarperCollins announced its BookSmash Programming Challenge. The book industry is nothing if not trend-driven, and after the success of the Publishing Hackathon, the BookSmash announcement qualifies "hacking" as a book industry trend.

The Hackathon turned out to be more significant than I expected. We should never underestimate the power of juxtaposing people with non-overlapping ignorance. I had the chance to talk to some of the other hacking teams last week, and they feel they learned a whole lot about the publishing industry. I also talked with Rick Joyce, one of the drivers of the event and Chief Marketing Officer at Perseus Books Group. He wrote me that his two revelations were "1) the importance of putting 'shareable data' (i.e. metadata) into a form developers want to work with (i.e. API's) vs. the feeds [publishers] traditionally supply to [their] trading partners. The world of developers are not going to incorporate you into their brilliant new lego creations if you don't give them lego-bricks to build with. And 2) this whole Open Innovation model is pretty mind expanding."

The organizers of the Publishing Hackathon got a lot of things right. The space was wonderful, the food was publisher-quality, and the publicity was excellent. (I admit that even the hype-laden website blurb that I criticized did its job well.) The variety of sponsors lent an open and collaborative atmosphere to the event. Even libraries were represented. It was a good decision to set a theme of "book discovery" for the event; this helped focus the participants and created a set of discussions that are likely to continue. Having the final presentations on the floor at BEA was brilliant. The party afterwards was fantastic.

The projects that were created at the hackathon won't solve the book discovery problem. The winning project, Evoke, won because it's both plausible and totally out of left field. But it's likely the knowledge gained by hackers and publishers during the process will advance the state of the art.

As with anything new, there are a number of things that could be improved on in future hackathons. Here's my list:

Everyone is a VIP. During the presentations, three rows of chairs in the front were set aside for "VIPs". No one sat in them. Next time, make the hackers the VIPs.
More prizes, more fun prizes. The gift economy of hacking and the cash economy of startups both need nurturing and cross-pollinating. Having one cash prize of $10,000 is less motivating than 5 $1000 prizes, and how do you split it if you have a big team? A prize consisting of dinner at a nice restaurant or some theater tickets might be a stronger motivation for participation.
Hacker Judges. None of the 10 judges for the 2013 Publishing Hackathon actually do any hacking. Only 3 of the 10 qualify as technologists. None of them are designers. (As far as I know.) If you want to send a message that design, technology, and code are important to publishing, then build that dialogue into the judging process as well.

Now about BookSmash.

At first, I was seriously underwhelmed by the BookSmash challenge. It seemed to be a way for HarperCollins to prop up the sad, desolate ghost towns that are the OpenBook API and the OpenBook Content API. (The OpenBook API was launched in April of 2012 with the support of Mashery; the forums had attracted exactly one developer in the last year.)

But perhaps I judged prematurely. The competition website claims that a number of authors, including Peter Drucker, Eloisa James and C. S. Lewis, will be "making their full works available via the BookSmash Challenge version of the OpenBook API." This could be really exciting, but as far as I can tell, it seems to be a bit of an exaggeration. I checked James' Desperate Duchesses; the content API returns the first 20% of the work. I tried Prince Caspian and got this result:

epubFetch unable to display this book
Sorry, we have not loaded this book into the system as yet.
We are loading books on a regular schedule, so please check back.

Still, I can imagine some interesting things that might be done with this data.

Update June 18: Have been working with the friendly people at HarperCollins to iron out documentation issues that had been blocking my access. I'll put some hints in a new post.

/START RANT/ In 2013, Metadata APIs like Harper's are NOT enough. The metadata is not very good, and there's not enough of it. Why would a sane developer go to HarperCollins for product metadata when she could go to Amazon or Google Books and not have it limited to HarperCollins products, not have it limited by HarperCollins Terms and Conditions (which forbid any commercial use), AND have the selling price included, too??? Also Prince Caspian Movie Tie-in Edition (digest) is NOT the title of a book! If you want interesting things to happen with your metadata, let developers download THE WHOLE DATASET! That's how you get the data to Amazon and BN, and that's how you should get it to developers! /END RANT/

It's like Rick Joyce said. If you want people to build cool things, you have to give them lots of cool bricks.

Ng, Cynthia: Digital Odyssey 2013: Big Data, Small World Notes & Takeaways

Cynthia — 2013-06-07T20:27:17+00:00

Big Data

90% of the world’s data was created in the last 2 years
can tell us much that other information cannot
emphasize the need for analysis and interpretation
your data is mined and used to make decisions for you, even more so in the future
to prepare, know that big data will affect data management, discovery tools, new jobs, revised skills requirements, and revised infrastructures
businesses will be made up of who has the most data and knows how to best use it

Data Visualization

Patrick Cain

examples: homicide map, number of registered organ donours, bedbugs, drunk driving, crowd sourced neighbourhood maps
providing information on what is otherwise a closed database
problem is analyzing the data and drawing conclusions
made people look at their community/neighbourhood in a different way
more examples: includes information on free visualization tools
a lot of public documents are behind a wall
finding the balance between potential harm and making data open
the data is imperfect, but help to tell a story
have information on where the data comes from
raw data gives you more power, can ask your own questions, but still have the difficulty of interpreting the data

The Changing Face of Toronto Public Library’s Data

Alan Harnum

patrons do the usual: borrow, use ref, ask questions, attend programs, use computers, wireless, visit the website, etc.
end up with a lot of transactional data, but it’s not all one big system, and not always available right away, in the form we want it, or at all
conceptualization and modelling of data
usage patterns are changing: digital borrow increasing, data needs are changing, policy needs are changing
understanding data relationships: what influences what e.g. How many people use the library only for wireless?
need for real-time data to improve service planning, responsiveness to inquiries, decision making
policy implications
- privacy – need to balance wanting to collect data with protecting customer privacy (datasets can be deanonymized)
- service delivery – robust data, but without losing what patrons like
- evaluation and measurement – how to use effectively while remembering that data is not the only decision making tool
most important to remember: not everything that counts is counted, but not everything that is counted counts

Lunch Time

Sleepy Time?

Lightning Talks

Big Data in Libraries

MJ Suhonos

not actually as big in libraries: LoC: 1.9mill, Europeana: 20mill
big data varies depending on the capacity
think really complicated, but not actually that complex
big data = cumbersome, out of our reach
we don’t have to use the old tools, there are new ones
have new opportunities
cloud is not a magical bullet, just another tool – can do it in a more flexible way
less about size and more about freedom and new opportunities because we didn’t have the tools in the past
increasing the capacity around you
can increase the discoverability of the long tail
how to improve tools a little bit to solve problems we couldn’t before all over the place
linked data is metadata infrastructure
open data is policy infrastructure
“The cloud is a lie”

Engagement and Impact of Twitter by Canadian Libraries

Angela Hamilton & Sarah Forbes

found mostly analytic tools for marketers and for profit companies
used tool to pull tweets: at 38k
looking at the content, so no way to automate
coding considerations: retweets, mentions, content type, tone, hashtags, links and media
should have double coded to be more accurate
should have gotten more help

On Dentographs

William Denton

DDC in checkerboard to visualize depth and breath of the collection
particularly good for collection comparisons
LC in mountain version
could do animation of how it changes year to year or day to day
if use internal data, could do it based on circulation or holds
by doing visualization, know what to do next time
going from one medium to another, can extend
Presentation Write up
Code4Lib Journal Article

Open Data Policy in Canada

Tracey Lauriault

examples: Open North, Hacking Health, Treaty Process, Residential School Map, municipal quality of life, AAAS remote sensing

where to get data

Federal Data: opendata.gc.ca, research data Canada, data.gc.ca, Canadian International Development Agency
Provinces: Ontario, Alberta, Quebec, BC, Saskatchewan
Cities: 36 cities right now
Community Data Portal

data advocacy

Community Data Canada
Canadian Council on Social Development
Data Liberation Initiative

data policy

not a lot of funding that requires data management
Canadian Insititute of Health Research – encourage, but not policy
Open Government Resolution by Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada – unfortunately don’t have a lot of power
GeoConnections policy primers and guidelines
Open Government Partnership – but only federal
cippic – do everything in Canada
should make public anything that is publicly funded

Privacy by Design: Big Privacy for Big Data

Michelle Chibba

Ontario’s Information and Privacy Commissioner
philosophy: consultation, cooperation, and collaboration
confidentiality not the same as privacy
privacy is all about the individual, and individual rights
if unique, persistent, and linked to individual then it’s personally identifiable information (PII)
people must be able to trust that organizations will manage their information properly
forget the content, the metadata is what identifies the person
most importantly, the information is persistent
any digitization that can be intercepted and recreated into understandable information, then it is a record
actually fairly easy to deanonymize information based on a few data points
good data security is not the same thing as privacy
most privacy breaches remain unknown
need privacy by design
- proactive
- default
- embedded
- full functionality
- security
- viable and transparent
can de-identify data using proper techniques based on the objectives/needs: Dispelling the myths surrounding de-identification
data comanagement: accountability, minimization (collect little, use central registry), security, access
UI design concepts tied to transparency and trust focused on context, awareness, discoverability, comprehension
big data touching on privacy, example: connect un/structured data by casinos: card counter, relative of employee, or other relationships with the casino
need to be able to use both unstructured and structured data to connect the dots
features for next-generation sensemaking systems: full attribution, data tethering, analytics on anonymized data, tamper-resistent audit logs, false negative favouring methods, self-correction false positives, information transfer accounting
your identity is your most valuable possession

Summary of Talk

via @mjsuhonos

Filed under: Events

Morgan, Eric Lease: Drive By Shared Data: A Travelogue

Life of a Librarian — 2013-06-07T20:11:18+00:00

Last Friday (May 31, 2013) I attended an interesting symposium at Northwestern University called Driven By Shared Data. This blog posting describes my experiences.

Driven By Shared Data was an OCLC-sponsored event with the purpose of bringing together librarians to discuss “opportunities and operational challenges of turning data into powerful analysis and purposeful action”. At first I thought the symposium was going to be about the curation of “research data”, but I was pleasantly surprised otherwise. The symposium was organized into a number of sections / presentations, each enumerated below:

Larry Birnbaum (Northwestern University) – Birnbaum’s opening remarks bordered on the topic of artificial intelligence. For a long time he has been interested in the problem of “find more like this one”. To address this problem, he often took initial queries sent to things like Google, syntactically altered the queries, and resubmitted them. Other times he looked at search results, did entity-extraction against them, looked for entities occurring less frequently, supplemented queries with these newly found entities, and repeated the search process. The result was usually a set of “interesting” search results — results that were not identical to original but rather slightly askew. He also described and demonstrated a recommender service listing books of possible interest based on Twitter tweets. More recently he has been spending his time creating computer-generated narrative texts from sets of numeric data. For example, given the essential statistics from a baseball game, he and his colleagues have been able to generate newspaper stories describing the action of the game. “The game was tied until the bottom in the seventh inning when Bass Ball came to bat. Ball hit a double. Jim Hitter was up next, and blew one out of the park. The final score was three to one. Go home team!” What is the problem he is trying to solve? Rows and columns of data often do not make sense to the general reader. Illustrating the data graphically goes a long way to describing trends, but not everybody knows how to read graphs. Narrative texts supplement both the original data and graphical illustrations. His technique has been applied to all sorts of domains from business to medicine. Interesting because many times people don’t want words but images instead. (“A picture is worth a thousand words.”) Birnbaum is generating a thousand words from both a picture as well as data sets. In the words of Birnbaum, “Stories make data meaningful.” Some of his work has been commercialized at a site called Narrative Science.
Deborah Blecic (University of Illinois at Chicago) – Blecie described how some of her collection development processes have changed with the availability of COUNTER statistics. She began by enumerating some of her older data sets: circulation counts, reshelving counts, etc. She then gave an overview of some of the data sets available from COUNTER: number of hits, number of reads, etc. Based on this new information she has determined how she is going to alter her subscription to “the Big Deal” when the time comes for changing it. She commented on the integrity of COUNTER statistics because they seem ambiguious. “What is a ‘read’? Is a read when a patron looks at the HTML abstract, or is a read when the patron downloads a PDF version of an article? How do the patrons identify items to ‘read’?” She is looking forward to COUNTER 4.
Dave Green (Northeastern Illinois University) – Green shared with the audience some of the challenges he has had when it came to dealing with data generated from an ethnography project. More specifically, Green is the Project Director for ERIAL. Through this project a lot of field work was done, and the data created was not necessarily bibliographic in nature. Examples included transcripts of interviews, cognitive maps, photographs, movies & videos, the results of questionnaires, etc. Being an anthropologic study, the data was more qualitative than quantitative. After analyzing their data, they learned how students of their libraries used the spaces, and instructors learned how to take better advantage of library services.
Kim Armstrong (CIC) – On the other hand, Armstrong’s data was wholly bibliographic in nature. She is deeply involved in a project to centrally store older and lesser used books and journals owned by CIC libraries. It is hard enough to coordinate all the libraries in the project, but trying to figure out who owns what is even more challenging because of evolving and local cataloging practices. While everybody used the MARC record as a data structure, there is little consistency between libraries on how data gets put into each of the field/subfields. “The folks at Google have much of our bibliographic data as a part of their Google Books Project, and even they are not able to write a ‘regular expression’ to parse serial holdings… The result is a ‘Frankenrun’ of journals.”
small group discussion – We then broke up into groups of five or six people. We were tasked with enumerating sets of data we have or we would like to have. We were then expected to ask ourselves what we would do with the data once we got it, what are some of the challenges we have with the data, and what are some of the solutions to the challenges. I articulated data sets including information about readers (“patrons” or “users”), information about what is used frequently or infrequently, tabulations of words and phrases from the full text of our collections, contact information of local grant awardees, and finally, the names and contact information of local editors of scholarly publications. As we discussed these data sets and others, challenges ranged from technical to political. Every solution seemed to be rooted in a desire for more resources (time and money).
Dorothea Salo (Univesity of Wisconsin – Madison) – The event was brought to a close by Salo who began by articulating the Three V’s of Big Data: volume, velocity, and variety. Volume alludes to the amount of data. Velocity refers to the frequency the data changes. Variety is an account of the data’s consistency. Good data, she says is clean, consistent, easy to understand, and computable. She then asked, “Do libraries have ‘big data’?” And her answer was, “Yes and no.” Yes, we have volumes of bibliographic information but it is not clean nor easy to understand. The challenges described by Armstrong are perfect examples. She says that our ‘non-computable’ datasets are costing the profession mind share, and we have only a limited amount of time to rectify the problem before somebody else comes up with a solution and by-passes libraries all together. She also mentioned the power of data aggregation. Examples included OIAster, WorldCat, various union catalogs, and the National Science Foundation Digital Library. It did not sound to me as if she thought these efforts were successes. She alluded to the Digital Public Library Of America, and because of their explicit policy for metadata use and re-use, she thinks it has potential, but only time will tell. She has a lot of faith in the idea of “linked data”, and frankly, that sounds like a great idea to me as well. What is the way forward? She advocated the creation of “library scaffolding” to increase internal library skills, and she did not advocate the hiring of specific people to do specific tasks and expect them to solve all the problems.

After the meeting I visited the Northwestern main library and experienced the round rooms where books are shelved. It was interesting to see the ranges radiating from each rooms’ center. Along the way I autographed my book and visited the university museum which had on display quite a number of architectural drawings.

Even though the symposium was not about “e-science research data”, I’m very glad I attended. Discussion was lively. The venue was intimate. I met a number of people, and my cognitive side was stimulated. Thank you for the opportunity.

Denton, William: Digital Oydyssey talk: On Dentographs

wtd — 2013-06-07T19:39:07+00:00

(This is the text of a short talk I gave today at the Digital Odyssey one-day conference run by the Ontario Library and Information Technology Association. Thanks to Steve Marks for inviting me.)

Hello everyone. My name is Bill Denton, and I'm here to talk about a kind of data visualization I invented called a dentograph.

This here is a dentograph. It is a one-by-one checkerboard dentograph. I'll explain more about it in a minute, but I'm not going to get into any technical details. Every technical thing I could say I said in a paper in the Code4Lib Journal last year called On Dentographs, A New Method of Visualizing Library Collections. If you search your favourite search engine for "dentographs," you'll find it. Also, I'm putting this talk up on my web site and there will be a link to it from the OLITA site. The paper has all of the data, all of the code and all of the commands you need to make dentographs. You can just copy and paste line after line from the paper and make all of the images that it shows. Every step is there. Everything is fully reproducible.

So, no code today, no slides. I'm just going to talk. I'm going to talk about three things: dentographs, data, and art.

Dentographs

A dentograph is a way of visualizing the breadth and depth of a library's collection, and it's especially useful for comparing different collections at a glance. There are two kinds so far: checkerboard dentographs like this, which work best with the Dewey Decimal Classification, and mountain dentographs, which work with the Library of Congress Classification. Today I'll just talk about checkerboards.

A brief reminder about the Dewey Decimal Classification. Given some part of the universe of human knowledge, such as a book, you follow a complicated set of rules and end up with a call number such as 512.7 KNU. Dewey numbers always begin with a three-digit number from 000 to 999, then possibly a decimal expansion, then some kind of Cutter number and a bunch of other stuff. The main subject of the book is encoded in those first numbers: 512.7.

Melvil Dewey built the system in a very rigid way. The hundreds divide all knowledge into ten broad categories: the 0 hundreds today are computer science, LIS and general works; the 100s are philosophy; the 200s are religion; and so on. The tens divide each hundred up into ten smaller subdivisions. The 500s are science, and within that the five-zero-zeroes (500 to 509) are general science, the 510s are mathematics, the 520s are astronomy, and so on. Within each ten that more specific subject is divided into ten still narrower areas. In this case, 512 is algebra, and within that there are ten more subdivisions, and 512.7 is number theory.

In reality, not every object in the universe and every concept humans have thought of divides and subdivides naturally into tens in a neat hierarchy, but Dewey made this Procrustean scheme and it's what public libraries use. It's what the Toronto Public Library uses.

This here is the Toronto Public Library's collection. It's a ten by ten grid of coloured squares. It works this way: the columns are hundreds and the rows are tens. It goes from the zero hundreds on the left to the 900s on the right, and from the zero tens at the bottom up to the nineties at the top. Bottom left corner is 000–009, above it is 010–019, and so on up to 090–099. In the bottom right corner is 900–909 and so on up that column to the top right which is 990–999.

The squares are all coloured differently, and the lightness or darkness shows the number of holdings in each ten. The lighter the square, the less TPL has; the darker, the more. (This is equivalent to what Katie Legere did with volume, but here it's with value.)

Knowing this, if you know Dewey, you can tell a lot about the TPL's collection just by looking. The column of the 300s (social sciences) is pretty dark and stands out especially compared to the 400s (language). The square four over from the left and four up from the bottom is the 330s, economics. On the right at the bottom of the 800s (literature) you can see the two darkest squares: the 810s are "American literature in English" (which includes writing about Canadian literature) and the 820s are "English and Old English literatures."

Note that fiction isn't included here, because like most public libraries TPL files fiction in a FICTION section and doesn't give it a Dewey number. Fair enough. We use what we have.

In my paper I put TPL side-by-side with with the San Francisco Public Library, with the two collections measured to the same scale. If you look it up you'll see that it does let you compare them at a glance. Toronto has a much, much richer and deeper collection than San Francisco. The general collection patterns are similar, the lights and darks are in roughly the same proportion, but in San Francisco both the lights and darks are much, much lighter.

That's no judgment on San Francisco. It's a smaller city with a smaller public library system, so you would expect this. But why am I comparing Toronto and San Francisco? Because of the availability of data.

Data

Like all other visualizations, dentographs require data. When I wanted to build some, I went to the Internet Archive. There is a collection of data files there that are MARC records uploaded to help the Open Library. (Remember that the Open Library was conceived by Aaron Swartz, who committed suicide in January because he was being persecuted for actions he took because he believed knowledge should be free.)

The Toronto Public Library uploaded its MARC records three years ago, in April 2010. No updates since then. I'm not singling them out: the San Francisco Public Library's data is from December 2010 and not updated since then. Anyway, who am I to criticize anything? I work at York University and our data isn't publicly available. It was MJ Suhonos who got the TPL data uploaded in his brief time working there, and I thank him for it. I have an inkling of how hard it must have been. It was probably equally hard at the other libraries that have made their catalogue dumps freely available. But it's because that data is available that I could do my work.

You need data to do your work. And when you have some data it makes you think about other data. And when you're working with some data it makes you think about working with other data. New ideas arise in the doing. This dentograph is a representation of the non-fiction holdings of the Toronto Public Library in April 2010. What was like it like two months ago, in April 2013? Wait a minute, what was it like in April 2011 and April 2012? If we had that data we could compare year to year, and then we could do an animated visualization of how the collection is changing year to year.

Why just year to year? Why not day to day? What if there were daily dumps? And what if it wasn't just the collection, but other activity? What if anonymized borrowing records were available, and you could do an animated visualization of them day to day? Imagine something like this but alive, and flickering and changing fast before your eyes, showing all the borrowing patterns of Toronto citizens, responding to the ebb and flow of the school year and summer vacations and Christmas holidays. That would be fascinating to see.

Or what if it wasn't borrowing but the holds people have put on books? The TPL has a wonderful system where if a book isn't available at your local branch you can put a hold on it and they will drive it over there from wherever it happens to be. That's a real indicator of a strong desire for a book. What if you had all that data and you could visualize that?

A full set of anonymized Toronto Public Library usage data would definitely be big data … big public data … except it doesn't exist. Maybe there's a TPL person here that can help liberate it. I hope so. Or if not, maybe they can at least get access to it internally and analyze it and make the results available.

And for all of us here today, if we can go back to where we work and get access to data from our own institutions, we can make our own visualizations, and then ask more questions and have other people ask questions about what we've done, and then get more data, and so on. Where I work, we're asking these questions not just about our collections but also about our users and about what happens at our reference desks. We're just beginning but there's a hypothesis we're going to test and the results could reshape what we do.

Art

Finally, about art.

This is a painting. I made the visualization on a computer, and then I painted it. It's done in acrylics, dated 2013, and it's called "TPL One-by-One Checkerboard Dentograph."

When I made the first dentographs I was looking at them on my computer screen, and I liked them, but then I began to think, what if it was bigger? Maybe I could generate a huge 600 dpi image and take it to a print shop and get a poster printed. Then I could hang it on my wall. That would look nice.

But then I though, wait a minute, I could paint it. For the last few years I've been taking painting lessons and doing some amateur drawing and painting. I've found that the more I do, the more I enjoy it, and every painting I do, the more I learn and the better I get. One day I had the idea: what if I painted a dentograph?

So I went out and bought the biggest canvas I could find, four feet by four feet. I hung it on my wall, and it stayed there for months. Here's a unexpected piece of interior decorating advice: if you need something to put on a wall, try a blank canvas. It's more interesting than most paintings. On the one hand, the play of light and shadow on the white canvas through the day is fascinating, and on the other, every time you look at it, you'll think, "Hmm … what could I make there?"

I made a dentograph. Once I had the supplies it took five days: one to prepare the canvas and four to paint it. I drew the lines in very very faint pencil, and because the canvas isn't perfectly square I had to do what you do when you're tiling a floor: I started in the middle and then worked out to the edges. I had to buy a four foot level so I could draw perfectly straight lines. I drew the ten by ten grid and then I masked off every other column and every other row with tape. I mixed ten jars of paint of varying shades and I painted the squares according to the intensity required by the raw numbers in my data analysis. I let it dry over night, then I took off the tape for the rows, remasked, and painted in the other missing rows, then the next two days I did the same for the missing columns.

When I do it again, I'll do it differently, but it's only by doing that I know what I'll change next time—just like it's only by doing data visualizations and hacking on them that you know what to change next time or ask next time.

Making art makes you think about things in different ways. Transferring something from one medium to another causes new ideas. Physically making something causes new ideas. Doing a painting or performing music gives us new insights and can make us go back to the original work in new ways.

It can also extend the work into new frontiers. A visualization on a computer screen is one thing, but what if you make a painting of a visualization you've done? What if you did several? I have plans to paint more dentographs. (In fact, if I can get more current TPL collection data, I will paint a dentograph of my neighbourhood branch and donate it to them. If there is anyone here from TPL that can help me with that, please talk to me after.) Maybe you will do some paintings of your own. Then we could have a show! Then artists and art critics would come and they look at the work from an entirely different point of view, and have fresh insights into it and interpret it in an entirely new way.

The same thing is true of sonification, like Katie Leger was showing. She had some data and she turned it into music. And she actually performed it. It's impressive enough what she did on computer, but then she and other musicians played it live. By doing that, they moved it into a whole new realm of performance and changed it into a whole new work of art.

Conclusion

To finish up, I want to say that of course we need access to big open data. That's a given. We need to be able to take it, reshape it, reform it, analyze it, ask new questions, get new data, answer those questions and then ask more questions. Visualizations will help with that. We need to look for the best available visualizations and we need to make up new visualizations.

And then on top of that we should push that work into art. We should turn the data and the analysis into music or into painting or into other disciplines. With the same set of TPL data maybe Katie could make music and I could make an animation and someone could put it together into a movie. Maybe someone could take the combination of sound and movement and turn it into a ballet. Maybe you could make a sculpture. Or maybe you're good with materials and you could make something out of cloth—imagine a quilt that looked like this.

Whatever you do, I encourage you to make something new in an entirely different medium, and take it out to new audiences and show them that you're taking something from our world into theirs, from library data analysis into fine art. We who work in libraries need to push out into new domains—"the library is a growing organism"—and this is one way we can do it. Thank you.

Summers, Ed: recent Wikipedia citations as JSON

ed — 2013-06-07T17:49:26+00:00

Here is a little webcast about some work in progress to stream recent citations out of Wikipedia. It uses previous work I did on the wikichanges Node library. Beware, I say “um” and “uh” a lot while showing you my terminal window. This idea could very well be brain damaged since it pings the Wikipedia API for the diff of each change in selected Wikipedias, to see if it contains one or more citations. On the plus side, it emits the citations as JSON, which is suitable for downstream apps of some dimensions, which I haven’t thought much about yet. Get in touch if you have some ideas.

Open Knowledge Foundation: Open knowledge at the Open Government Partnership conference in Mombasa, Africa

Christian Villum — 2013-06-07T09:33:20+00:00

Last week, the Open Knowledge Foundation had the pleasure of attending the Open Government Partnership conference in Mombasa, Kenya. Participants from all over Africa as well as the rest of the world convened to discuss transparency, citizen engagement and open knowledge – including open data – in this inspiring event to set the course for an open Africa.

The Open Government Partnership (OGP) is a multi-stakeholder coalition of leading governments and civil society organizations working to advance transparency and accountability in government with the goals of increasing the responsiveness of government to citizens, countering corruption, promoting economic efficiencies, harnessing innovation, and improving the delivery of services.

At the Open Knowledge Foundation we support these principles and attended the conference that attracted over 100 government and civil society leaders from Kenya, Tanzania, Ghana, Sierra Leone, Uganda, Mozambique, Liberia, South Africa, Malawi, Tunisia and other countries. There was also representation from other agencies such as the OGP Support Unit, the Independent OGP Civil Society Coordinator, the World Bank Institute, the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, UNESCO, APRM Support Unit and The World Bank.

The meeting secured agreement on several milestones, which are covered in detail in the summary on the Open Government Partnership blog, but most notably the event saw an increasingly visible and trustful relationship between government and civil society representatives – as well as the highlighting of open data in talks across several sessions as a central means to pursue the ideals and goals of the partnership.

To see a photo gallery from the event, visit the Kenya Open Data Facebook-page.

State Library of Denmark: Spinning drives with 32GB of RAM

Toke Eskildsen — 2013-06-06T22:29:22+00:00

A recurring question on the Solr mailing list is “how do I speed up my searches” and a recurring answer is “equip the machine with enough RAM to have your whole index cached in memory”. That answer is also given when the size index in question is 200GB.

So what is wrong with that?

Technically nothing: Lucene & Solr search eats IOPS like candy and having the full index in disk cache is close to an optimal solution (optimal would be a full in-memory index without the file access indirection, but I digress). There is the matter of getting updates into disk cache, which does involve some trickiness if the index if updated in a master-slave setup and copied. But that can be solved with even more RAM, so I guess that falls under the same “buy more RAM”-logic. What cannot be solved is the long warmup time if the server is rebooted or the disk cache is otherwise cleared, but that is a rare occurrence.

Economically, copious amounts of RAM does not make sense. Yes, you guessed it, this is about Solid State Drives.

Their price is 1/10 of RAM (or 1/5 if you want RAID 1)
They suffer a lot less from the cleared disk cache problem
They can be easily RAIDed for TB-scale
They even draw less power than the same amount of RAM

Of course, it all boils down to how fast SSDs are, compared to the humongous disk cache solution. We experimented with this 5 years ago but hardware and software has improved since then, so it was time for new measurements.

Setup reasoning and methodology

5 years ago, our measurements were very close to the Lucene 2.x searcher itself. The search results were extracted, but there were no web services or similar transport overhead. We chose to do so as this gave us very clean data for comparison.

This time our tests uses the standard Solr 4 web service, with the server and the test-client being on different machines. While the non-trivial transport overhead gives a less clean comparison, it has the distinct advantage of providing real world numbers and thus useful for informing readers of what they can expect from a similar setup. The tests were run a multiple of times with the best results being used for all the charts. A ZIP with the full result set as well as the test scripts is available upon request, should anyone be interested.

Like last time, the test corpus is our local index at the State and University Library, Denmark.

It has 11M documents at 49GB
Queries are edismaxed over 30 fields
The result set contains 5-10 fields per document for a maximum of 20 documents and is about 30KB of XML
Faceted queries involves two fields: One with 10M unique values (15M instances) and one with 626 (1.5M instances)
The test queries are logged user queries, which are being issued by multiple threads using JMeter
Between each test, Solr is shut down, the disk cache cleared and Solr started again
The first query is not measured
MMapDirectory is used.

Hardware

The test machine is an 2*8 core “Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2670 0 @ 2.60GHz” with 64GB of RAM, with the amount of RAM being software adjustable. Storage is 3 * 7200 RPM drives in RAID-5 and 3 * 200GB Dell MZ-5EA2000-0D3 SSDs in RAID-0.

Addendum 2013-06-07: The SSDs does not have TRIM enabled and has been used for 2½ years, during which a lot of indexes has been created, along with a 10M+ file test and some 40GB database tests. They should be fairly fragmented by now.

Test results

The most eye-opening graphs are for 8GB RAM + SSD vs. full memory cached index. Keep in mind that 2 of the 8GB are used for the Java heap itself and some memory are used for general bookkeeping, leaving a little less than 5GB (or 10% of the index size) for caching.

SSD with 8GB of RAM vs. fully cached index, non-faceting searches

SSD with 8GB of RAM vs. fully cached index, faceting searches

(Please ignore the strange U at the end of the first graph; it is a long story that warrants another blog post)

As can be seen, the “8GB RAM + SSD”-solution is very close to having the index fully cached in memory for our setup. Your mileage may vary, but this is consistent with our general observation at Statsbiblioteket: Our main search servers each has 3 active search installations with a shared index size of 110MB+ on SSD. They are equipped with 16GB of RAM each and has ~7GB free for disk caching.

Further supporting the case for SSD, the 95 and 99 percentiles (calculated using a sliding window over the last 1000 searches) for the searches are nearly always below 1 second: The users are getting consistently snappy results. Again, please ignore the part of the graph after 200 seconds.

SSD with 8GB of RAM, non-faceting searches

The SSD-solution is not independent of the amount of RAM available for cache though. We tested with 4GB of RAM, which leaves just 1GB (2% of index size) for caching. As can be seen below, performance is 1/4th of the 8GB of RAM + SSD setup.

SSD with 4GB of RAM, non-faceting searches

Just for kicks, here’s a chart showing the performance using spinning disks on an unwarmed index.

Spinning drives with 32GB of RAM, non-faceting searches

The graph does illuminate a big problem with spinning drives: If the searcher is warmed using queries, it takes a very long time to reach peak performance. Copying the full index to /dev/null is faster and the result is maximum performance, but that trick is only effective if the whole index fits in the disk cache.

Conclusion

Using SSDs as storage for search delivers near maximum performance at a fraction of the cost of an equivalent RAM solution. As always, do test before buying.

ALA Equitable Access to Electronic Content: Only we can demand more accountability

Lynne Bradley — 2013-06-06T22:07:30+00:00

As news breaks that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court has been renewing (every three months for seven years) a Section 215 order to obtain phone records of all Verizon customers, the American Library Association is calling on Congress to provide more accountability and transparency about how the government is obtaining and using vast amounts of information about innocent people.

In a public hearing on Thursday morning, Senator Diane Feinstein (D-CA) indicated that the order is just a “regular” renewal of an order that started seven years ago. We are gravely concerned, but unfortunately not surprised, at this week’s revelations.

“The library community welcomes a renewed public debate on how to balance the need to fight terrorism and the need to protect personal privacy and civil liberties,” said ALA President Maureen Sullivan. “Millions of innocent customers, at least Verizon’s, have had their personal phone records released to the government without their knowledge and without allegations of specific facts supporting the relevance of their records to a federal terrorism investigation.

“We must demand more accountability and transparency in all of these surveillance issues,” she added. “Our nation’s libraries are a tremendous information resource for those who want to better understand the issues and a place to begin debates about these issues”

Barbara Jones, Director of ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom, said, “The lack of transparency is symptomatic of the growing trend in our secret laws and we must correct the flaws. Are these new revelations just the tip of the iceberg? Did other companies received such subpoenas and what other records has the government been obtaining on such a broad scale? What about library records and those of our users? The public needs to know.”

“Our community calls for public dialogue about how to open up FISA and other surveillance laws so that there can be true accountability and an improved balance between individual privacy and the need of government to investigate terrorism and other crimes, said Lynne Bradley, Director of ALA’s Office of Government Relations. “We need to make changes to our surveillance laws.”

The post Only we can demand more accountability appeared first on District Dispatch.

ALA Equitable Access to Electronic Content: Supporting the multi-user environment

Jazzy Wright — 2013-06-06T21:53:52+00:00

Today, President Obama announced the ConnectED initiative, which aims to connect America’s students to high-capacity broadband and high-speed wireless. In response, ALA President Maureen Sullivan released the following statement:

ALA is encouraged by President Obama’s announcement of the ConnectED initiative to ensure that libraries and schools have access to robust, affordable high-capacity broadband for many years to come. School and public libraries provide rich opportunities for students to actively engage and collaborate with peers and mentors using increasingly varied technology tools. As the digital revolution continues to unfold, libraries and schools will need substantially more powerful network capabilities. Inadequate bandwidth must not be the weak link in student success.

Like a K12 school, the public library is a multi-user environment. At any given point in the day a library can enable: a student live-chatting with an online tutor for homework help, a parent communicating with his child’s teacher via the online course management system, a high school student taking an Advanced Placement course online, a small class taking an online GED training course, students of all ages participating in real-time distance learning, and a professional completing a recertification course. These are just a few of the Internet-based services the E-rate program helps support in America’s libraries. Virtually all public libraries provide no-fee access to computers and the Internet, including WiFi.

However, the E-rate program already is oversubscribed and currently won’t be able to support the critical technological innovations needed in our libraries and schools. Thus, ALA supports this initiative to ensure that libraries and schools are able to connect students and patrons with next-generation broadband.”

The post Supporting the multi-user environment appeared first on District Dispatch.

OCLC Dev Network: Authentication and Authorization: User Identifers

librarywebchic — 2013-06-06T15:35:32+00:00

This is the third post in our topical series on Authentication and Authorization for OCLC web services. In the first posts we introduced authentication for web services and our WSKey system.

In the Library, With the Lead Pipe: Adventures in Rhetoric: The Traditional Library

Kim Leeder — 2013-06-05T21:48:29+00:00

In Brief: Librarians make frequent reference to “the traditional library” yet there is no accepted definition of the term. Responding to a debate that began at the 2013 ACRL National Conference, the author presents the results of a literature survey that explores the rhetorical usage and meaning of the phrase. Results indicate that the “traditional library” is commonly defined as a physical space emphasizing physical collections, and is often invoked as a counterpoint to the “modern” or “digital” library. A discussion of the potential value of such rhetoric follows.

Partial results of a Google Image Search using the keyword, “tradition.”

First: A Bit of Context

In a recent Lead Pipe editorial I accused do-it-yourself (DIY) library culture of being a survival strategy (Dorney, Ford, Leeder, & Vandegrift, 2013). “A traditional library,” I said, “is a dead library.” I repeated this statement as part of a panel presentation in front of a large group of librarians at the Association for College & Research Libraries (ACRL) National Conference in Indianapolis in April. I repeated it knowing full well that such Chicken Little rhetoric was likely to irritate, if not infuriate, a substantial proportion of my audience, but hoping that it would jump-start a constructive, creative conversation. I did not expect applause, nor did I receive any.

Instead, I found hornets. Glorious, buzzing hornets.

In case you missed the subsequent exchange, here’s a quick review. After a brief but lively debate in which several people passionately defended the traditional library’s future, the panel went on to explore examples of DIY culture such as Library Juice Press and the Library as Incubator Project, and to discuss how DIY might interact with longstanding, as-yet-unavoidable institutional structures like the academic tenure system. There was a lot of constructive, idealistic discussion, as well as a healthy dose of rabble-rousing.

Anecdotal feedback after the panel was encouraging. Attendees on Twitter and elsewhere described feeling empowered and excited to effect positive change in their libraries. Conference-goers even cited the panel as an “honorable mention” in the ACRL 2013 People’s Choice Awards. Yet a few days after the session came a blog post by library administrator Brian Mathews (2013). While Mathews refrained from participating in the discussion in Indianapolis, he wrote that he was “surprised by the attitude that the session generated. There was a lot of ‘damn the man’ talk,” he says, which he interprets as egotism and pessimism. According to Mathews, DIY culture is destructive while “startup thinking” is innovative. Unfortunately, he omits his references on startup thinking and refrains from sharing examples of such thinking in libraries beyond a nod to the #makeithappen philosophy. He concludes, “DIY feels more like a political statement than an innovation statement.”

Mathews appears to have missed the point: it’s both.

Meredith Farkas (2013), who was also at the ACRL panel session, responded to Mathews, noting that “[m]ost of the people at the presentation were talking about finding space to make innovative projects happen within traditional libraries.” Interestingly, in the same post she later returns to attack the same rhetoric, stating, “The notion that there is a ‘traditional library’ and that we need to move away from that is a fallacy. Does every generation think they invented change? Libraries have been changing and adapting and becoming what their communities need for at least the past century.” Her comments are echoed by Maoria Kirker (2013), who acknowledges that “tradition exists and will forever remain an element of librarianship,” but asserts that “[w]e need to stop using the word ‘traditional’” because it is so commonly misunderstood.

Ah, but there’s the rub. The “traditional library” is so deeply rooted a concept that even those who object to it can’t avoid using the term. It is a baseline against which we compare our progress, the tick marks on the wall against which we measure our growth. Without a traditional library there can be no modern library, no concise phrase that captures our past, and no thumbnail of our future. So what, exactly, is a traditional library? This article is a rhetorical adventure into that core question.

The Rhetoric of Tradition

As any scholar of language will tell you, the only true way to determine the meaning of a phrase is to survey the literature and see how it’s being used in practice. Regardless of what we think of the term, what do we mean when the words slip out; when we talk about the “traditional library” in our conversations and publications? The next section of this article presents the results of a literature survey of both the professional and popular library literature to pinpoint the active, everyday meaning of the phrase. I present the following amalgamation of quotes after searching Library, Information Science, and Technology Abstracts, JSTOR, Google, and Google Books for the term “traditional library.” For those interested, a crowdsource-friendly spreadsheet summary of the results is available for review and additional contributions.

While a wide array of librarian authors freely employ the phrase “traditional library,” only one specifically defines the qualities of such a library in detail. A panel of authors led by Raj Reddy (1999) from the International Technology Research Institute published a report on Digital Information in Japan that identifies the traditional library as an institution characterized by these traits:

emphasis on storage and preservation of physical items, particularly books and periodicals

cataloging at a high level rather than one of detail, e.g., author and subject indexes as opposed to full text

browsing based on physical proximity of related materials, e.g., books on sociology are near one another on the shelves

passivity; information is physically assembled in one place; users must travel to the library to learn what is there and make use of it (6).

According to this perspective, the traditional library is equivalent to the physical library: it is driven by a focus on physical items and physical spaces. The priority in such a library, as reflected in traditional library building design, is the housing and protection of the current and future print collection. As a result, write Latimer & Niegaard (2008), “[m]ost library buildings were, and still are, large, intimidating, and frequently unwelcoming” (55-56).

Reddy et al. are not alone in equating the term “traditional” to “physical”; on the contrary, the wide majority of those who referenced the “traditional library” based their work on the same definition. For instance, L.A. Ogunsola (2011) addresses the concept in an article entitled, “The Next Step in Librarianship: Is the Traditional Library Dead?” published in Library Philosophy and Practice. He writes, “[t]raditionally, libraries were collections of books, manuscripts, journals, and other sources of recorded information…. In a traditional library, the catalogue is used to find traditional library materials” (2). The apparent redundancy of this statement only underscores the embeddedness of the term “traditional” and its close ties to the physical world. Even popular sources such as Ask.com (“What is the difference,” n.d.) and LISWiki (“Digital library,” n.d.) define the traditional library as “manual” and “confined…within a physical boundary,” respectively.

Also common in the literature is the use of the term “traditional library” as a counterpoint to discussion of the “digital” or “online” library. Authors repeatedly employ the concept of the traditional library to frame discussion of how rapid changes in technology are affecting libraries. The comparisons reinforce the idea that traditional means print. David Lee King (2007), for one, crafted a Library 2.0 spectrum in which “[o]n the left-hand side of the spectrum are the Luddites. These are very traditional libraries and librarians who really don’t understand the need to change and/or adapt to emerging trends.” Or consider Diane Kresh’s statement in The Whole Digital Library Handbook: “While traditional libraries are limited by storage space, digital libraries have the potential to store much more information” (2).

The Traditional Library in Context

Historically speaking, the focus on print materials in a “traditional” library addressed the needs of the community and the times. In an article in The Library Quarterly, Dan Lacy (1969) writes “The original, we may properly say ‘traditional,’ pattern of library service in the United States was based on a relative immobility of users and of materials and on a political system that looked to local sources of support for social services of all kinds” (13). Lacy describes the early interlibrary loan system, noting its limitations due to the slow speed of mail and lack of rapid transit. In a brief yet insightful article in Scandinavian Library Quarterly, Roland Persson (2003) makes the similar observation, “[t]he traditional library is in harmony with the industrialised society and the modern library with, what we initially call the information and media society.” The distinction is based upon the economics of the time in which the library exists: those born in industrial times focus upon industrial products, while those born in information times focus upon media products. The boom in mass-production during the industrial period fed the traditional library’s emphasis upon print books.

When considering the historical implications of the “traditional library” concept, it’s helpful to revisit Farkas’s comment from above. She wrote, “Does every generation think they invented change? Libraries have been changing and adapting and becoming what their communities need for at least the past century.” She is not the only librarian to see the concept of the “traditional library” as a moving target. As described by Donald T. Hawkins (2012), a recent debate at the 2012 Charleston Conference argued this statement: “The traditional research library is dead.” A vote of the audience at that session found that popular opinion was divided nearly in half, with 52% of attendees agreeing that traditional libraries are dead, and 48% objecting. Hawkins encapsulates debater Derek Law’s (con) position as such: “Tradition is about evolution. Research libraries have existed for about 3,000 years. Traditional libraries have always adapted to changing media.”

Perhaps the traditional library should be considered more of a spectrum than a point of comparison, or perhaps it is one point upon the spectrum. Persson writes:

Most libraries find themselves in a state of motion transporting them from the traditional to the modern….Evolution is not constant or equally fast in all spheres. It is not unusual to see organisational changes adapt libraries to the modern model, whilst a library’s entire mentality and developmental strategies belong to those of the traditional model.

This may explain the apparent frustration expressed by some DIY-ers, where they are ready to embrace services or concepts relevant to modern libraries only to find resistance where traditional processes remain. In this case, then, where “traditional” is one point on a spectrum and “modern” is the opposite point, libraries can measure their progress against the qualities of each to determine their success by popular standards. If there are points where they still harbor traditional models, those points are brought into sharp relief by the comparison.

In the end, the common usage of the term “traditional library” is inseparable from its association with print collections and physical spaces. Even Michael Gorman (2000) admits, “I use the word ‘traditional’ with great reluctance and simply for want of anything better–its pejorative overtones of clinging to the past, of being place-centered and exclusively book-centered, bear no relationship to the experience of modern libraries.” The traditional library is a physical library: a building constructed first and foremost to house print collections; people are secondary. This characterization of the traditional library has become a touchstone against which librarians at every point in our ongoing journey into electronic media can evaluate, assess, and use to reassure themselves that they are, indeed, moving the field forward into the future. As David Lankes (2011) observes, “[t]housands of years of tradition serve as inspiration for our future, not as a set of shackles binding us” (1).

The Traditional Librarian

While this article is primarily concerned with representations of the library as institution, it can be difficult to separate portrayals of the “traditional library” from those of the “traditional librarian.” The rhetoric shifts easily between the two, as the place and the people who created it are tied closely together. If the traditional library emphasizes collections over people, the traditional librarian must, by definition, be book-oriented. If the traditional library prioritizes the preservation of print materials, the traditional librarian must be a gatekeeper. Discussion of one leads to discussion of the other. For instance, Kirker begins her recent blog post by challenging the “traditional library” concept, but then goes on to comment, “if an outsider was looking in, it’s my opinion that they’d hear the word ‘traditional’ and apply the age-old stereotype of The Music Man‘s Marian the Librarian.” While the traditional library rhetoric revolves around physical spaces and print collections, the traditional librarian concept is a culturally recognized image: bun, glasses, and all.

Rhetorically speaking, the term “traditional librarian” is not commonly used, but may be replaced with the “librarian stereotype,” which is frequent in the literature. From studies of Hollywood characterizations of the profession (Walker & Lawson, 1993) to Pinterest boards collecting images depicting librarians (for instance, the “Librarian stereotypes” board by Peter Alsbjers Blogg and Ruth Kneale), the librarian stereotype is a concept both prevalent and provocative that inspires extensive debate and commentary. In fact, it is so widely used that it has inspired substantial rhetorical study already (Lutz, 2005; Stoddart & Lee, 2005; Carmichael, J.V., 1992) that need not be replicated here.

So What?

Regardless of whether we agree with the usage of any particular term, rhetoric has meaning and impact. At its essence, “rhetoric [is] a form of communication that uses particular symbolic expressions to persuade a targeted audience” (Lansford, 2011, 1478). While Farkas and Gorman both object to the rhetorical concept of the “traditional library” as it is commonly used, and the fact that it is a term frequently employed to signal the end of a particular era, they overlook the intrinsic, symbolic value of the term. It is political and innovative, providing a platform for those seeking new ways to embrace change.

If we define it rhetorically as an institution focused on physical spaces and materials, then there remains no question: the traditional library is dead. That doesn’t mean libraries as an institution are dead, nor does it mean that the physical library as a component of some larger organization is dead. The traditional library has been replaced with an expanded vision of itself, one that encompasses traditional values and features but extends outward to include the vastness of free and licensed digital resources as well as spaces and services that are entirely people-focused. The contemporary library, in contrast to the traditional library, resides online, teaches, reaches out and asserts its value across its community.

Gorman (2000) writes, “my idea of a ‘traditional library’ is one that selects, collects, and gives access to all the forms of recorded knowledge and information that are relevant to its mission and to the needs of the community it serves, and assists and instructs in the use of those resources.” Though unable to alter the common usage of “traditional,” Gorman reminds readers of the root functions of any library, regardless of platform or format. Lankes takes this one step further, noting that librarianship “is not about cataloging, or books, or buildings, or committees–it is about learning, knowledge, and social action” (1). Those who object to the rhetoric of tradition point to the long history of libraries and their constant adaptation to new directions in culture and technology.

Language is always a moving target, and the rhetoric employed at any single point in time serves as little more than reference point against which to compare the past and the future. The concepts of “traditional” and “modern” will always be relative to the present and, as such, have ever-evolving definitions. Yet flawed as these terms are, they still serve a purpose in informing the field, inspiring comparison, and inciting continuous improvement; in short, rhetoric inspires change, and change is how we survive.

What do you think? Do you find “the traditional library” to be a useful concept, or is it more damaging than it is valuable? You’re invited to continue the debate in the comments below.

Acknowledgements

Many thanks go to Julie Jergens of Hi Miss Julie as well as several Lead Pipe editors — Brett, Ellie, Emily, and Erin — for their thoughtful feedback that helped to shape and improve this article.

References

Carmichael, J. V., Jr. (1992). The Male librarian and the feminine image: A Survey of stereotype, status, and gender perceptions. Library and Information Science Research 14, 411-46. Retrieved from http://libres.uncg.edu/ir/uncg/f/J_Carmichael_Male_1992.pdf.

Digital library [Wiki page]. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://liswiki.org/wiki/Digital_library#A_shift_from_traditional_library_to_virtual_library.

Dorney, E., Ford, E., Leeder, K., & Vandegrift, M. (2013, April 3). Editorial: DIY library culture and the academy. In the Library with the Lead Pipe.

Farkas, M. (2013, April 24). DIY vs. startup. or false dichotomies and labels [Blog post]. Retrieved from http://meredith.wolfwater.com/wordpress/2013/04/24/diy-vs-startup-or-false-dichotomies-and-labels/.

Gorman, M. (2000). Our enduring values: Librarianship in the 21st century. Chicago: American Library Association.

Hawkins, D.T. (2012, November 10). Hyde Park corner debate: The Traditional research library is dead [Blog post]. Retrieved from http://www.against-the-grain.com/2012/11/hyde-park-corner-debate-the-traditional-research-library-is-dead/.

King, D. (2007, August 1). Am I a 2.0 librarian and the library 2.0 spectrum [Blog post]. Retrieved from http://www.davidleeking.com/2007/08/01/am-i-a-20-librarian-and-the-library-20-spectrum/#.UaYunJz3XRY.

Kirker, M. (2013, May 6). Tradition and the rhetoric of the modern library [Blog post]. Retrieved from http://maoriakirker.wordpress.com/2013/05/06/tradition-and-rhetoric/.

Kresh, D., Ed. (2007). The Whole digital library handbook. Chicago: American Library Association.

Lacy, D. (1969). The Traditional library. The Library Quarterly, 39(1), 13-22.

Lansford, T. (2011). Rhetoric. In G.T. Kurian, (Ed.), The Encyclopedia of political science, v. 5, (p. 1478). Washington, DC: CQ Press.

Lankes, D. (2011). The Atlas of new librarianship. Cambridge: The MIT Press.

Latimer, K., & Niegaard, H. (2008). IFLA library building guidelines: Developments & reflections. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.

Lutz, C. (2005). From old maids to action heroes: Librarians and the meanings of librarian stereotypes. (Unpublished Master’s thesis). University of Maryland, College Park, MD. Retrieved from http://drum.lib.umd.edu/handle/1903/2670.

Mathews, B. (2013, April 14). DIY vs. STARTUP: Choose your flavor of change [Blog post]. Retrieved from http://chronicle.com/blognetwork/theubiquitouslibrarian/2013/04/14/diy-vs-startup-choose-your-flavor-of-change/.

Ogunsola, L.A. (2011). The Next step in librarianship: Is the traditional library dead? Library Philosophy and Practice. Paper 606.

Persson, R. (2003). Traditional and modern in the library world. Scandinavian library quarterly, 36(1). Retrieved from http://slq.nu/?article=traditional-and-modern-in-the-library-world.

Reddy, R., Ager, T., Chellappa, R, Croft, W.B., Davis-Brown, B., Mendel, J.M., & Shamos, M.I. (1999). WTEC panel report on digital information organization in Japan. Baltimore: International Technology Research Institute. Retrieved from http://euro.ecom.cmu.edu/people/faculty/mshamos/1999DigitalJapan.pdf.

Stoddart, R.A., & Lee, A.R. (2005). Paradoxical views of “librarian” in the rhetoric of library science literature: A Fantasy theme analysis. Georgia Library Quarterly, 41(4), 5-10. Retrieved from http://scholarworks.boisestate.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1006&context=lib_facpubs.

Walker, S., & Lawson, V.L. (1993). The Librarian stereotype and the movies. MC Journal: The Journal of Academic Media Librarianship, 1(1), 16-28.

What is the difference between traditional library and modern/digital library? [Website]. (2012). Retrieved from http://www.ask.com/answers/175814981/what-is-the-difference-between-traditional-library-and-modern-digital-library.

Schneider, Jodi: QOTD: communicative competence, ethnography of speaking

jodi — 2013-06-05T17:17:41+00:00

An ethnography of speaking is centrally concerned with `communicative competence’ (Hymes 1972c), what speakers need to know to communicate appropriately in a particular speech community, and how this competence is acquired. Competence includes rules pertaining to language structure and language use as well as cultural knowledge — for example which participants may or may not speak in certain settings, which contexts are appropriate for speech and which for silence, what types of talk are appropriate to persons of different status and roles, norms for requesting and giving information (of particular concern to ethnographers), for making other requests, offers, declinations, commands, the use of non-verbal behaviours in various contexts, practices for alternating between speakers, for constructing authority, etc. This focus on the skills members of a community display when communicating with each other entails a broader notion of competence than linguists advocated. Hymes included communicative as well as grammatical competence in conditions of appropriate speech use, embracing aspects of communication such as gestures and eye-gaze, whereas Chromsky caustioned that to incorporate aspects such as beliefs and attitudes into a study of language would mean that `language is chaos that is not worth studying’ (Chomsky, 1977:153).

We have … to account for the fact that a normal child acquires knowledge of sentences, not only as grammatical, but also as appropriate. He or she acquires competence as to when to speak, when not, and as to what to talk about with whom, when, where, in what manner. In short, a child becomes able to accomplish a repetoire of speech acts, to take part in speech events, and to evaluate their accomplishment by others. This competence, moreover, is integral with attitudes, values, and motivations concerning language, its features and uses, and integral with competence for, and attitudes toward, the interrelation of language, with the other codes of communicative conduct. (Hymes, 1972c:277-8).

-page 287 from “The Ethnography of Communication”, Elizabeth Keating (pages 285-301) in SAGE Handbook of Ethnography

Resolving above References
Chomsky, Noam (1977) Language and Responsibility, Based on Conversation with Mitsou Ronat (tras. J. Viertel). New York: Pantheon.

Hymes, Dell (1972 c) “On communicative competence”, in J.B. Pride and J. Holmes (eds), Sociolinguistics. Harmondsworth: Penguin. pp. 269-85.

ALA Equitable Access to Electronic Content: Time enough to read

Carrie Russell — 2013-06-05T17:00:35+00:00

It’s the Twilight Zone. What could go wrong?

Sign the petition to support blind reading rights today!

Those watching early television reruns may have come across a show called The Twilight Zone. A “teleplay” made during the “golden age” of television, this series was based on strong compelling stories and starred then unknown actors of the time. But The Twilight Zone was special. It had a spooky quality with particularly twisted and ironic endings. No wonder – it was created by Rod Serling.

There’s one episode that I am sure many librarians and people who love to read can relate to. It was called “Time Enough at Last” and aired in November 1959, starring Burgess Meredith (who also played the Penguin in the Batman series). Meredith’s character, Henry Bemis bemoans the fact that he doesn’t have enough time to read (something I myself am always complaining about). No time in the day to read. But Henry is an extreme case. Henry is obsessed, and like a drug addict, he has to get his “reading fix” even though his addiction threatens his marriage and his livelihood. Like an alcoholic burying bottles of vodka in the backyard garden, Henry hides books under furniture cushions so he can secretly read whenever there is time.

Compare Henry’s predicament to the visually impaired. For people with print disabilities, time to read is not the issue. The desire to read is just as powerful, but woefully few accessible copies exist to quench their thirst for books. ALA, the association best associated with reading and equitable access to information, is trying to advance an international treaty that would make it easier to make accessible copies for the visually impaired and make it legal to share accessible copies with other nations.

The idea is to reduce duplication of effort – creating an accessible copy (like Braille, audio recordings, or accessible digital files) after a book has been published is tremendously expensive. Many countries cannot possibly afford making accessible copies, plus the act of making an accessible copy is a violation of their copyright laws. If we could share our accessible copies, the diversity of content available to the blind would increase dramatically. In the United States, we could also gain access to copies in languages other than English, meeting the needs of the blind for whom English is a second language.

There is no downside to this treaty. And yet, rights holders are opposed. The publishing industry does not want to sell accessible copies in the market, BUT they don’t want anyone else to facilitate the need. The motion picture industry says it supports a treaty, but only one that is weakened by additional legal conditions reducing the number of accessible books that can be made. And the patent industry! What is their problem? Surely it will not hurt the bottom line of corporations like Exxon or General Electric. Their opposition is based on power and control, in claiming complete “ownership” of intellectual property [sic][1], to make copyright and patent law as all-encompassing as possible. They argue if we let blind people have an exception to copyright law, then all hell will break lose. Next the libraries will want an exception, and then there will be the teachers, and people with hearing impairments and the list goes on. A scenario described by the Intellectual Property [sic] Owners Association as a threat that will “upset the fundamental balance on which our US and global IP system is based.” Really? That will happen if blind people have more books to read?

Yes, this is clearly hyperbolic “lobbyist speak,” but it is the kind of talk that the Obama Administration seems to take seriously, at least lately now, that the copyright industries have started to whine. We, on the other hand, are not being hyperbolic. We are advancing this treaty because there is clear evidence that the blind are not being served by our copyright system. The advancement of knowledge and learning, the purpose of the copyright law, is not happening for the blind.

You can help by signing a petition in support of the treaty. Do it now, because on June 16^th final treaty negotiations begin. Librarians cannot in good conscience be untroubled by this issue. We can turn the tide and ensure access to information for all by making our voices heard.

Now back to poor Henry Bemis. You can watch the TV episode and see how it ends. I don’t want to ruin the ending. Hopefully, you will not turn your back on the blind.

[1] “Intellectual property” is a misnomer. Rights holders do not own property, they hold exclusive right.

The post Time enough to read appeared first on District Dispatch.

Rochkind, Jonathan: how to make apache fake a 500 http response

jrochkind — 2013-06-05T15:40:18+00:00

For experimentation or testing (manual or automated, if automated usually captured by vcr), I sometimes need a URL guaranteed to always return an HTTP 500 error response.

Here’s some configuration you can drop in an apache conf to generate a simple default 500:

Redirect 500 /error500

Accessing http://yourserver/error500, or /error500/more/path, or /error500/more/path?with=query, all will return a 500 response with apache’s default 500 body.

The command is ‘Redirect’ becuase this is normally used to generate a redirect with “Location” header, so you can use it for mocking any 3xx with Location too (third argument, if present, value of Location header), but it also works fine for mocking up other status codes like 500 or anything else, so long as you don’t care too much about what the body looks like.

Filed under: General

Open Knowledge Foundation: Second Open Economics International Workshop

Velichka Dimitrova — 2013-06-05T09:44:45+00:00

Next week, on June 11-12, at the MIT Sloan School of Management, the Open Economics Working Group of the Open Knowledge Foundation will gather about 40 economics professors, social scientists, research data professionals, funders, publishers and journal editors for the second Open Economics International Workshop.

The event will follow up on the first workshop held in Cambridge UK and will conclude with agreeing a statement on the Open Economics principles. Some of the speakers include Eric von Hippel, T Wilson Professor of Innovation Management and also Professor of Engineering Systems at MIT, Shaida Badiee, Director of the Development Data Group at the World Bank and champion for the Open Data Initiative, Micah Altman, Director of Research and Head of the Program on Information Science for the MIT Libraries as well as Philip E. Bourne, Professor at the University of California San Diego and Associate Director of the RCSB Protein Data Bank.

The workshop will address topics including:

Research data sharing: how and where to share economics social science research data, enforce data management plans, promote better data management and data use
Open and collaborative research: how to create incentives for economists and social scientists to share their research data and methods openly with the academic community
Transparent economics: how to achieve greater involvement of the public in the research agenda of economics and social science

The knowledge sharing in economics session will invite a discussion between Joshua Gans, Jeffrey S. Skoll Chair of Technical Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto and Co-Director of the Research Program on the Economics of Knowledge Contribution and Distribution, John Rust, Professor of Economics at Georgetown University and co-founder of EconJobMarket.org, Gert Wagner, Professor of Economics at the Berlin University of Technology (TUB) and Chairman of the German Census Commission and German Council for Social and Economic Data as well as Daniel Feenberg, Research Associate in the Public Economics program and Director of Information Technology at the National Bureau of Economic Research.

The session on research data sharing will be chaired by Thomas Bourke, Economics Librarian at the European University Institute, and will discuss the efficient sharing of data and how to create and enforce reward structures for researchers who produce and share high quality data, gathering experts from the field including Mercè Crosas, Director of Data Science at the Institute for Quantitative Social Science (IQSS) at Harvard University, Amy Pienta, Acquisitions Director at the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR), Joan Starr, Chair of the Metadata Working Group of DataCite as well as Brian Hole, the founder of the open access academic publisher Ubiquity Press.

Benjamin Mako Hill, researcher and PhD Candidate at the MIT and Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Univeresity, will chair the session on the evolving evidence base of social science, which will highlight examples of how economists can broaden their perspective on collecting and using data through different means: through mobile data collection, through the web or through crowd-sourcing and also consider how to engage the broader community and do more transparent economic research and decision-making. Speakers include Amparo Ballivian, Lead Economist working with the Development Data Group of the World Bank, Michael P. McDonald, Associate Professor at George Mason University and co-principle investigator on the Public Mapping Project and Pablo de Pedraza, Professor at the University of Salamanca and Chair of Webdatanet.

The morning session on June 12 will gather different stakeholders to discuss how to share responsibility and how to pursue joint action. It will be chaired by Mireille van Eechoud, Professor of Information Law at IViR and will include short statements by Daniel Goroff, Vice President and Program Director at the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, Nikos Askitas, Head of Data and Technology at the Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), Carson Christiano, Head of CEGA’s partnership development efforts and coordinating the Berkeley Initiative for Transparency in the Social Sciences (BITSS) and Jean Roth, the Data Specialist at the National Bureau of Economic Research.

At the end of the workshop the Working Group will discuss the future plans of the project and gather feedback on possible initiatives for translating discussions in concrete action plans. Slides and audio will be available on the website after the workshop. If you have any questions please contact economics [at] okfn.org

Pattern, Dave: The 2nd UK Information Literacy & Summon Day – July 25th

Dave Pattern — 2013-06-05T09:05:44+00:00

After the success of the first event, held at Sheffield Hallam University last July, we're pleased to announce that Manchester Metropolitan University Library Services have kindly offered to host the next UK Information Literacy & Summon Day on Thursday July 25th.

Put the date in your diary and keep an eye on the event blog!

http://summonil2013.wordpress.com/

The venue is easy to get to from Manchester Airport