Remixing Libraries

The Cloud's Silver Lining

2009-02-23T19:10:00.000Z

Without going into detail, I recently had to replace my laptop and decided that this was about the time to make the jump to a Netbook (specifically an Acer Aspire One 8GB SSD with Linux - yep, just before the new 10" model comes out).

Now I've lost laptops to various catastrophes in the past and every time has been an extremely stressful experience. This outing, however, was different - for about a year I've been regularly backing up (using rsync) all my files to a home server and storing my photos, music, etc on that.

So, I was confident that most of my data was safe but what really surprised me was how simple it was to return back to a full working setup because of the way I've gradually shifted to the cloud. In the past getting Outlook (with it's Calendar, Email and Contacts) working has been a significant part of the hassle. Using Gmail and other services meant that once I'd set up the web and opened Firefox I was 90% of the way back to normality.

Switching away from Windows was straight forward as well (I already dual-booted Ubuntu and XP but used Windows more often than not) but with Firefox installed, once I'd got Skype and Pidgin on board there was little left to do.

This whole episode has illustrated to me just how different a working environment the cloud is and underlines how the PC is becoming a host for the browser (and therefore the web). By far the most annoying aspect of having to move to a new machine was the loss of all the Chrome saved passwords (and, of course, Chrome itself which hasn't yet made it to Linux properly).

The Potential of Latitude

2009-02-20T22:44:00.001Z

In case you're not aware, Google have launched a new product - Latitude - which falls firmly into the 'building block' category of services. The core product lets you share you location (updated manually or via a google maps application) with select Google contacts.

An interesting feature of the Google Maps application is that it will stay resident on your device, updating your location in real time. Scary stalking and surveillance opportunities aside, the general idea is that you can see which of your contacts are near to you now.

I mentioned in my 10 predictions for 2009 that I think location will be important this year and Latitude is a good indicator that net access on the move will be a key area for service development. The current application doesn't really catch the imagination but the combination with Twitter-like services (and, of course, a level of ambiguity about where exactly you are) provides some really interesting possibilities.

One thing that really struck me when playing with Latitude is the huge impact automatic updating makes - suddenly the service goes from a point of interest to a useful way of seeing who's actually nearby right now.

Leading on from this, I realised the impact that having Latitude on might have on your mobile phone bill - and how important unlimited (or virtually unlimited) data plans will be for these kind of services. At the moment networks charge astronomic amounts for very low levels of data use (Orange charges me from £4 for 4MB up to £88.13(!) for a gigabyte).

Ubiquitous computing requires not only a high level of connectivity (through whatever available means) but also a low enough cost threshold for entry. The iPhone's £30/month for 'unlimited' data is a pretty good start but, until most plans provide this kind of feature, services like Latitude will never reach their full potential.

And of course, as soon as a proper Mobile Broadband service that can compete with ADSL (at least for those for whom web surfing is the key usage) is available then we may well see the death of the traditional Home phone line...

Facebook Breaks the Social Media Social Contract

2009-02-18T22:55:00.005Z

It seems that Facebook's attempt to revise it's T&Cs has resulted in a rapid backtrack. Admitedly, Zuckerberg and his team seem to have handled this well - going straight back to the community to discuss issues rather than sticking with the "Well, it's our site" line. In the past - particularly with the redesign issue - the community's voice went unheard but with this particular issue Facebook has promised to listen to everyone.

It's interesting to draw contrasts between this situation and the OCLC response - essentially both revolve around rights issues but in the case of OCLC there's money - and a client/provider relationship - involved and that's not true of Facebook. The money in Facebook comes through advertising and not (directly) from the user.

Facebook - like many similar Web 2.0 services - is 'free'. Free software evangelists talk about "Free as in speech, not as in beer" and Facebook (and the ilk) are closer to the free beer than free speech. Although, of course, free access doesn't mean that there's no cost to users in terms of attention.

In addition, Facebook has something more complex; an implied relationship which is directly contradicted by Terms and Conditions - a kind of Social Contract for Social Media. Only when there's an attempt to enforce, change or highlight the 'actual' rules does this implicit set of responsibilities come out.

For better or worse, people have extended the Google mantra of 'Don't be evil' to other web companies. Rights grabbing and restrictions are expected of 'old' leviathans like Microsoft and (to some extent) Apple - often far more than they actually deserve.

Google may own pretty much everything we do in their part of the cloud but how many people really expect them to do anything about it? And what would the reaction to a (truly) evil act be?

How I learned to stop worrying and love the sidebar...

2009-02-06T21:25:00.002Z

A few days ago I decided to go back to trying Twitter after ditching it when they dropped SMS updates. Prior to this Twitter was useful to me as a kind of passive group messaging service among friends - a way to give presence information out into the ether and see what came back.

I did try and keep using it post-SMS but it never really had the same attraction, and I watched from the sidelines as it became more and more popular with net and non-net 'celebs'. My decision to give it another go has been hard thought, I've seen several blogs turn down hill as well-thought out posts give out to a stream of consciousness series of tweeted links and "on the train" type comments.

So why go back? Well I have gradually begun to understand that that 'passive group messaging' function is still just as useful in a work environment. With Twitter, it's not necessarily about conversation (although it can be) and more about the quick and easy posting of thoughts and statuses. Ok, some are totally useless for some followers but they're aimed at others and they are - most importantly - easy to ignore.

One of the reasons I hear for people using Twitter (or Jaiku or Yammer or one of the other similar services) is that it forgoes the question 'what do you do?'. I tend to meet a fair number of people who work in ways which are non-traditional, who scowl when people say "You work in a Library? You must read lots of books!". For those of us who cross boundaries (and for the few who enter entirely new frontiers) job descriptions become quickly irrelevant.

Of HTML and Meta Headers...

Anyway, how does this relate to the sidebar? Well as well as pretty much writing off Twitter I'd also written off the role of the Sidebar in Firefox - what's the point? I thought, it's just chopping the side off your browser for bookmarks or history (two things which generally deserve to be hidden).

That was, until, I started using Twitter again. After a brief purging of my old tweets I set about looking for a good desktop app (I settled on Twhirl in the end) and started following a few notable people I've met along the way. Great stuff, I thought, as I watched the tweets (about #uksnow, mostly) roll in.

Then I went into work. Ah, well - with some things you can cope with having a service in another window but after a few hours of ALT+SHIFT+TABing to check on Twitter I was getting fed up. After a bit of surfind around I eventually found this post which described how to get twitter in your sidebar.

So, now I have an effective use for that stupid slice on the left of my browser and Twitter's low maintenance mobile solution can sit there and only catch my eye when it changes. One thing I noticed was that the mobile interface doesn't refresh - good on a costly mobile connection, but not for me. The solution was a short html file stored on my local machine and bookmarked in the browser:

<html> <head> <meta http-equiv="refresh" content="120" /> </head> <frameset cols="0,*"> <frame src="#"> <frame src="http://m.twitter.com" name="showframe"> </frameset> </html>

A brief bit of dodgy HTML and I now had a pretty effective Twitter interface with zero installation requirement. It's amazing what you can find on the web...

Coping with RSS Overload

2009-02-04T21:36:00.002Z

Just when I think I've got my email all sorted it suddenly becomes apparent that my Google Reader has over 200 'Starred' items. My pattern for reading blogs through RSS (and, realistically, I hardly ever read anything any other way if I can help it) involves scanning the description and 'filing' the post for a proper read if it's a) too long to read now and b) interesting.

Train journey's are a perfect time to catch up but, unfortunately, too many blogs only give some of the post via RSS - which means that I end up having to go online to read them anyway. This is my third most disliked blog-habit* and makes me pine for a lovely netbook with built in 3G

Organising Feeds

There are some feeds which I always just scan through, some which occasionally need further reading and others which nearly always end up Starred. Most of the time, the Starred posts are work-related and are an analysis of something I follow up on - or post on myself.

So, once in a while I tend to plough through the Starred file to try and get to 'RSS-Zero', I normally do this by 'sifting' the posts several times.

The first sift is for fun stuff, or passive things (YouTube videos often end up here as I tend to be a reader rather than a viewer).

The second sift is to sort out themes within the posts - I've already scanned all the posts during the first sift so I can no go through and pick out all the posts about (say) happenings related to LibraryThing/Bowker. These can then be treated as a whole (I tend to try and tease my way back to the 'original' element and then scan the posts after for the analysis elements) and read or possibly even turned into a blog post.

The third sift identifies all the remaining posts which need a good solid read - these are usually going to inform me directly (lifehacker posts tend to end up on the Starred list from time to time) and I tend to pick a few of these posts to add to a 'Useful Links' post which are useful to go back to in the future.

The problem is I always end up with a few 'posts' which have piqued my interest but can't be dealt with there and then. A good example of this is this post by Lorcan Dempsey about the publication of the proceedings of the first M-Libraries conference.

The post interests me for 2 reasons: Firstly, I'm interested that there's a second conference in June this year (not that I'll be able to wangle my way to Vancouver, mind) - that's easy, I just fire an event into my calendar prefixed "Watch:" and then I can forget about it until June.

I'm also interested in reading the proceedings of the first conference, so I check my Library's catalogue and.... oh, it's not there yet. So I leave it starred and check again next time I go on an RSS blitz.

But...

This is OK for one post but I'm now down to such a level that I have 30 or 40 posts at any one time 'sitting' waiting for the world to change in some way before I do something about them. Eventually, I know, I'll declare RSS-bankruptcy and just ditch them. It's sad but it's true.

* First is having feeds which only contain the title, which is a surefire 'unsubscribe' for me and second is making links which look like they're going somewhere link to a blog's previous posts on that subject (you know who I mean, Engadget).

2009 Predictions

2009-01-31T12:01:00.004Z

So, January - if any month was a goldmine for bloggers it's January. Firstly, it's just been Christmas so all those odd gadgets are ready and waiting for your community review and secondly it gives everyone an opportunity to try and guess what the New Year will bring.

And why not? Here's my top 10 trends for 2009:

1. Mobile Web - it's not just about the iPhone, 2009 will be the year that sorts the wheat from the chaff in terms of mobile websites and applications. Those who should be offering services to the small screens will be starting to panic by December if they don't have a top class interface. After all, mobile is the new black.

2. Always On -in many ways this is an extension of the Mobile Web but WiFi (free, no warranty and unsecured) will continue to expand and the gaps will be filled by 3G and other technologies.

3. Location Sensitivity - Mozilla Geode, GPS in phones, and all kinds of geo-mashing means that by the end of 2009 we'll be starting to expect that web applications know where we are when we use them. This will lead to all kinds of cool Library applications.

4. Reality Will Be (even more) Augmented - the first three predictions will start to work together to provide more augmented experiences. Who hasn't seen someone walking down the street, with google maps on their iPhone? The next step will be continually updated information which can be used to 'enhance' your experience of the real world with all kinds of metadata - imagine google earth but in the real world.

5. The Google OS Comes of Age - more people will ditch e for g, google docs, gmail, calendar and other cloud apps will become far more prevalent and people's first reaction will be to go online. Windows 7 might even boot straight to IE...

6. IPv6 - There'll be an increasing push on moving to IPv6 in order to cater for all those cars, phones, watches and spoons which will need IP addresses.

7. Chrome will Catch Up with Firefox - Well, maybe not by the end of 2009 but Google will package Chrome in as many ways as possible and this will eat into the 'anything but IE' market. IE 8 will probably win some floating browsers back and will, of course, have the core 'bundled with Windows' market. It's not unthinkable that we'll enter into a second browser wars with Google and Microsoft head to head in 2010.

8. Fibre Becomes Political - Obama's already stated that building a new communications infrastructure is a key part of his technology agenda and Gordon Brown's jumped on the bandwagon. Whether this is modern day boondoggling or not we'll end up with a better spread of high bandwidth access in the end. 2009 will probably be more about preparing, posturing and fears of a new digital divide.

9. Twitter Jumps the Shark - Are there any celebs who aren't tweeting (or at least having their assistant tweet for them?). People will start to see that Twitter is mostly divided between 'broadcasting' A-listers and banal "@jon - had beans for tea" individuals - all the effective use in the middle will shift to business or social-network based presence services.

10. Better Language Processing - Ok, maybe this won't come in 2009 but it's just on the horizon. It would be fantastic to think that the semantic web could be fueled by well formatted, and easily accessible, XML data but there's going to need to be something that bridges the gap and can identify and attribute triples from the language of text. We might see increasing use of simple approaches in 2009 (identifying phone numbers, places, postal codes, etc) at least.

Here's some other 2009 lists for those who are interested: Robin Hamman, Trendspotting, Tame the Web, Pew, Horizon Report - A & NZ and various LITA people.

Link Round Up

2009-01-30T17:18:00.002Z

Yet more great stories you might have missed.

It turns out that 73.4% of Wikipedia is written by 2% of the users and people are claiming that this undermines its authenticity - all the more reason to be an editor. In related news, did you know 90% of books are written by 1% of people who can read?
If your OCD has reached new heights why not write an annual report about your life?
LibraryThing ~~sells it's soul~~ signs up with the Cambridge Information Group and then coughs quietly hoping people will go back to thinking about OCLC.
NetLibrary are offering Sony Reader compatible eBooks - which is great for me!
Google have a cool new crowdsourcing service which allows you to apply user responses to improve your site.
Brian Kelly goes back to basics and defines "web site" (triggering off a terminology discussion in the comments).

Oh yeah, and the rest of the UK started to take note of the OCLC situation once it made it into the broadsheets (just after they'd postponed and suggested a rethink). UPDATE: The Grauniad has issued some corrections on the original article).

What to do With Accessibility?

2009-01-29T17:40:00.007Z

Anyone who hasn't been on Mars will know that the W3C has just released version 2.0 of their Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. In due course these will become a British Standard (BS 8878) (draft here - which apparently goes past it's sell by date on the 31st...).

One simple thing that's worth stating is that the speed of the web and the speed of any committee are so far apart we can all be pretty confident that the new guidelines will be out of date in some capacity as soon as they were confirmed. W3C have had a fair amount of trouble trying to strike the balance between practical and content-agnostic, I'll leave it to you to decide how well they did.

If you want a solid overview, there' a great video introduction by Paul Boag here. My suggestion is that you go watch that, or if you're brave/underworked go read the full spec here. It's ok, I'll wait...

Great, - who knew that WCAG is pronounced 'whuk-ag' eh!

There's a few interesting points which have real relevance to anyone wanting to provide Web 2.0-y services - and a few questions that popped up in my mind.

Principles vs Practice

Here's an issue I have with accessibility guidelines: they start off with a straightforward and fair principle (such as "Everyone should have easy access to web resources") and then try and draw up rules or approaches which instruct you in how to meet that principle. The problem is that, in reality, the idea of 'universal access' is so wide that it's impossible to pin down - running the gamut from sensory disabilities (blindness, deafness) through to varying levels of literacy problems.

At the end of this attempt to tie down such a wide topic to a list of 'dos' and 'do nots' you're then forced to go back and correct the principle in order to make it fit the inherent flaws in the practice (WCAG2.0's is to"...make Web content more accessible to people with disabilities" - note the more). Wouldn't it just be better to trust organisations to meet the original principle, and to explain how they do (and are striving to) individually?

Ok, ok, if we let everyone choose how they want to meet the principle of "accessibility" then there will probably be a huge proportion of people who just ignore it... oh wait, doesn't that happen now?

Content vs Technology

One of the best aspects of WCAG2.0 in comparison to version 1 is that it's much more content focussed. Version 1 was, lets face it, written with the idea that the W3C is the guardian of the Internet - only W3C technologies are supposed to be used and the assumption is that they would be able to to keep up with the Web (ah, didn't we all think that last Millennium?).

So, WCAG2.0 accepts that - yes - the technologies will change and allows you to take advantage of that whilst still retaining some level of accessibility (by allowing you to rate content individually rather than as a single blob of web content). So the language and terms you use are as (if not more) important than the mere technology which provides them.

What this means, in practice, is that everyone who writes for the Web needs to be thinking about accessibility issues from the second they put fingers to keyboard (no, this isn't the case at the moment for most organisations - think about all those people who write in Word and email it to someone to copy/paste into your CMS...). Do your content writers have guidelines?

People vs Programs

One aspect of WCAG(1 & 2), which is iterated more clearly in BS 8878, is the idea that real accessibility is best achieved by testing sites with users who have varying levels of disability. In my view, there's no other option - sure I can use a screen reader and fire up a contrast testing program but I'm not really judging the entire process from my own experience - as a disabled person would.

I'd go further to say that rather than seeking out specific groups who offer 'testing services' we should really be seeking out people who use our sites - what better evaluation can you get than from your own users who will give feedback on the context of the feature or content you're testing and not just the specific 'tick list' that most consultants provide.

Controled vs Cloud

Here's a question which every organisation is going to face in the next few years - where do our responsibilities in regard to accessibility end? It's no longer the case that we keep to our own web domains, store our servers two floors down and have total control over every piece of our web estate.

Even if we take every step to keep our hosted sites AAA compliant what level of responsibility do we have over our spaces on Flickr or Facebook? For these sites it's the market that drives their need to cater for various access needs - and we cannot guarantee that they will always cater for the kinds of requirements WCAG or British Standards require.

Cost vs Benefit

Now here is a tough one. What kind of steps should we take to make our web content accessible? How do we, pragmatically, ensure that we fulfil our legal and moral obligations whilst, at the same time, not falling foul of 'designing for the minority'.

How simple (technologically and linguistically) should we make the web? More importantly, if we choose not to sacrifice some aspects of our approach how do we explain this to users?

BS 8878 (in draft) says:

"Any user claiming conformance to this British Standard is expected to be able to justify any course of action that deviates from its recommendations."

but what form of justification isn't made clear. WCAG suggests that we:

• Consider using a combination of technologies to achieve your goals.
• If a technology meets some but not all of your criteria, consider providing an alternative solution, which provides disabled people with access to the same content, updated at the same time as the original content.
• If a technology meets none or only a few of your criteria, and an alternative, accessible method of providing that content is not reasonable or possible, ensure you let your disabled users know why this is the case.

In many cases we might seek to make content available to a wider audience by putting it on the web. Take video or streaming of talks and training sessions for example.

An event which might have been 'accessible' only to 20 or 30 participants who can physically make it to a room can be streamed or, better yet, recorded and posted online for very little cost. At this point the content is obviously more accessible than it was because it can be accessed by more people.

On top of that, the content is no less accessible than it was when the physical event took place (it's still lacking audio description or textual transcription). Adding transcriptions or other accessible assitive content can often cost far more than the original event.

The alternative for many is just to not put such content online - is that really the best solution? Is universal equality through universal poverty of access really acceptable?

Perhaps another alternative exists, Paul Boag's video has a community created transcript. If we provide the means for crowdsourced additional information perhaps we can, then, bridge the gap between wholly inaccessible (ie offline) and partially-accessible (non-WCAG compliant) content?

A Final Note

Often the reaction to the potential legal ramifications of the Disability Dissemination Act (and thus WCAG and BS guidelines) is disproportionate concern. Meeting the key principles of access, and justifying your approach, will probably negate the worries of most users - and the most important thing (far more important than meeting the specifics of W3C and BSI documents) is that we listen to users when they talk to us about our websites.

Accessibility guidelines can also tend to be manipulated, or oversold, by companies eagre to sell their accessibility services and by web designers who would rather not have the hassle of learning a new technology or improving their own skills.

PS: Brian Kelly (all round UKOLN web guru) has some great posts on accessibility over a fairly long period - his ideas about Accessibility 3.0 are interesting, he seems to be erring more toward the principles approach - and the application of API-type approaches to solve access issues. His other posts (1, 2, 3, 4) are all very interesting too - particularly the last post on Adaptability.

Back at the Keyboard

2009-01-29T17:07:00.002Z

At the start of December I moved to a new role, on temporary secondment, within my work where I'm putting my research and web experience to good work. Since then time has seemed to be compressed as I've settled into the new role and been jumping from having my head buried in stats to holding focus groups.

It's all been very exciting and, I'm afraid, this blog has fallen a bit by the wayside. The new job carries with it it's own blog (well... sort of) but that doesn't mean I'll be giving up on this blog but it has helped me to redefine what will go where.

I'm not sure if they will both live in tandem for ever and ever (I think that depends a lot on the types of content which end up on the Work blog) but for now they're two separate entities.

Anyway, if anyone thought I'd either given up or fallen off the planet then apologies but normal service has been resumed.

[PS: I very nearly considered leaving this post 'till February 2nd just to make it 2 months without any updates!]

How easy is your catalogue to search?

2008-12-02T19:08:00.000Z

One of the eternal questions, and worries, for Libraries is the user-friendliness of their search mechanism. For most of us that means the OPAC provided by our library system vendor and traditionally Libraries have been prone to simple 'out-of-the-box' implementations or (perhaps even worse...) turning 'on' all of the catalogue's added-value features.

Recently, however, there have been more attempts to provide a coherent - and contextual - approach to the OPAC. Let's face facts: No one reads help pages or FAQs. It's true - check your own web logs. So how do you help your users to get the most out of their search (and most importantly, not just walk away)? Here's some ideas.

Little and Often

Ok - so the big chunks of help don't work but there's nothing wrong with a nudge in the right direction. Check out any popular website and you'll see succinct clues to how and why results appear as they do. The best trick I've found is to try and write a short sentence to explain a function and then cut it down to half the time.

Reuse! Reuse! Reuse!

Take a look at the University of Huddersfield Catalogue (the work of Dave Pattern) - data's been pulled from search and usage logs to create neat little features like the Tag Cloud on the front page and the Amazon-style 'other people also searched with' feature on the results page.

Don't Fight Google

It's done. People expect your search box to work like Google. In fact, not just like Google but better than Google. We can moan about the 'dumbing down' of researchers but as soon as people see that empty white box they expect to stick a string of (misspelled) keywords into it and get a result they like within the first page of hits. The sooner we learn to work within these parameters, and not fight them, the sooner we can build better mechanisms for search. And don't even think about making the default search anything except keyword.

Know Your Data (& Fix Your Indexing)

In any kind of searching consistency is everything so we all need a firm grip on our data. A beautifully constructed catalogue record is one thing but if your search parameters and indexing are so complicated that complex combinations are required to achieve useful search results perhaps it's time to reflect on the value of that data. A few coherent indexes with consistent data will always beat a hundred 'correct' ones.

Accept the Complexity

Sometimes, however the gap between user expectations and the data is just too vast. Say, for example, that you're predominantly a science library but you've also got a small audio collection - how do you provide a straightforward service to your 90% of science users but also support the 10% of audiophiles? Sometimes it comes down to accepting that you're going to hit issues and making innovative use of zero results pages, 404s, "Email a Librarian" functions and hey - maybe even a live 'search help' facility.

A fair number of libraries are starting to look faceted and other 'innovative search solutions' (Primo, Aquabrowser, VUFind, and so on) to try and give a kick start to their user experience. These products are great but we still have to remember to be clear in our approach to tailoring that user experience.

The final approach is to embrace the major search engines and to focus on exposing your catalogue and Search Engine Optimisation. I have to admit to having some sympathy for this approach - rather than trying to constantly improve your own search it should be possible to just have a first class landing page and leave the rest of the work to Google, Yahoo! and the next great search engine through a site-search. Of course, this all depends on how open your catalogue is to indexing - or how up you are on XML site maps.

Mashed Libraries

2008-11-27T09:20:00.001Z

I'm off in London today to attend the Mashed Libraries event at Birkbeck college. It looks
like a great opportunity to explore some of the approaches and, for me, I'm hoping to get a
grip on how others are approaching their own resources/data sources.

There seems to be a hefty practical element, it'll be interesting to see how that goes for
those of us who are perhaps (ahem...) not code-minded! I've been given the opportunity to
outline what we're doing at our library and - I hope - get feedback on the approach. Hopefully
I'll be able to return home jam packed with ideas for how our library can do some really
innovative things with our sources and resources.

Understanding the Value of an Information Qualification

2008-11-23T16:20:00.002Z

Meredith Farkas [via Andrew Eynon's Library Blog] has posted the results of a brief survey into how prepared people felt by their academic Library School courses (and her own analysis). The results make for interesting reading - and it's interesting to see the sheer number of times that a lack of technical skills preparation appears. In many ways the information community places an almost iconic focus on the ideal of the (academically qualified) 'professional' but it's clear from even this small survey that there is a gap between the theory and practice.

Although I agree that there's always a need to keep these kinds of courses current and relevant I'm not sure that equating the idea of a 'professional' librarian with a trained librarian is all that useful - experience is an essential part of building an engaged career and (at least in the UK) lots of library studies students undertake their course whilst employed.

If librarians are signing up for courses to extend their practical knowledge with theory then surely course coordinators can, at the same time, learn practice from the students? I dubious of the suggestion that study can make anyone 'professional', a qualification is one thing but professionalism is a heady cocktail of study and practical experience.

Where is library2.0 'happening' except in libraries? One of the challenges for academia is that it has to engage with practice whilst also maintaining enough of a distance to allow far-sighted theory and research patterns to develop. To expect that, at the end of a course (never mind an undergraduate one), a student is equipped to move into the leading-edge of any field is unreasonable - for most, study is about learning key skills which can be applied to a work environment in order to expand and extend their capacity.

[Photo from Andrew Schwegler]

Review: Sony Reader

2008-11-22T21:39:00.000Z

About a month ago I took the plunge and bought a Sony Reader after having used an iRex iLiad as a test device in work. All in all I've found the shift from paper to e-ink mostly trouble free. In Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next series (disclosure: Big fan!) books are just one type of ImaginoTransferenceDevice and once you get past the initial oddity of reading off the e-ink screen you quickly become immersed.

After a prolonged period of reading on the device I've tried to sum up my experiences in three key areas: build, interface and content.

Build

The screen of the Sony Reader is considerably smaller than the iLiad (6" vs 8.1") and, as a result, so is the device. The weight is also considerably less and all in all the reader is as easy to handle as a paperback book.

The case is metal, and the buttons etc are really nicely placed for my style of reading (right hand on the right edge, left on the bottom-left corner). I've had no real problems using the buttons but the forward/back buttons on the right edge do feel slightly flimsy and I've got my fingers crossed that they stand up to long-term use.

In general the device feels very stylish (unlike the iLiad I had no fear of using it on the train) as well as sturdy. No doubt the screen would suffer from any direct knocks, and I doubt it would like being used in the rain but the leather cover provided with the device helps to give some protection, and to ensure the device looks more like a designer accessory than a mini computer.

Interface

This is an area where I fully expected the Reader to lose out to the iLiad - but I was totally wrong. Firstly, the difference in boot time (from flicking the switch to reading a page) is astounding. With the iLiad I would turn it on, and then settle in to read (and even make a cup of tea) - with the Sony the delay from "Switch" to "On" is undetectable unless you've added some content, in which case it briefly indexes the content.

Unlike the iLiad, the Sony doesn't have a touch screen which means that there's no capacity for notes or other advanced features (although Sony's new PRS-700BC offers similar features). For me this isn't a problem, and in fact the limited '0-9' menu buttons work very well and disguise the lag which exists in all e-ink interfaces.

Changing pages is easy, and I prefer the placement of the buttons to the iLiad's 'flip' - which requires that you keep your left hand on the side of the reader continuously. There are additional features (MP3 playing, bookmarks etc) which seem to work well but are really secondary to the 'reading' function which is simple and elegant.

One down side is that the reader only offers 3 levels of zoom, whereas with the iLiad you're able to dynamically zoom using the stylus or use up to 5 levels of zoom for text files.

Content

The reader copes with PDF, ePub, TXT, RTF, LRF & LRX formats (see here for more info). You can also convert from additional non-DRM formats (for which I use the free Calibre software). One annoyance is that often material (both free and purchased) is poorly formatted, with one 'page' taking a screen and a half on the Reader (leading to a half-blank page every two page-turns). I can't understand why this is as the formats and reader clearly allow re-pagination, it seems like a lack of effort on behalf of the ebook publishers.

Free sources like Gutenberg are great places for content and you can buy books from Sony's partner - Waterstones (who have a truly awful ebook site) - along with other sites like Fiction Wise, W H Smith and Penguin.

It's in the content that the Sony falls down (to be fair, as does any ebook device). The range of ebooks available from online stores is tiny in comparison to print and it's common to find that only one book from a series is available online. The pricing is also, to put it mildly, insane! Commonly the ebook versions cost more than the paperback's in-store price, never mind Amazon or the used market.

As a quick example, here's prices for Tom Holt's book "Falling Sideways":

Waterstones Online e-book: £7.99

Waterstones Online Paperback: £7.99

Amazon.co.uk Price: £5.99

Amazon.co.uk Cheapest New Price: 38p
Amazon.co.uk Cheapest Used Price: 1p

To me, ebooks should cost considerably less than the printed copy - surely?

One final note: Annoyingly, the Reader doesn't support Mobipocket format ebooks which means that all the DRM'd books bought for the iLiad won't work on the Sony device. There's a lesson here I feel...

Conclusions

The good and bad in brief:

The choice of content is (at least for now) disappointing and, unless you're willing to go down the route of bit torrent material of dubious quality and legality, you'll be paying more for it.
The device itself is lovely, and you'll soon wonder why books seemed so special
No back light is a good thing - you don't get tired reading the e-ink screen.
No. You can't read in the bath - and you'd have to be brave to take it to the beach. But as soon as you count the weight difference between 2 paperbacks and this you'll still pack it for travel.
I definitely read more - especially as finishing a book on a Sunday afternoon doesn't mean I have to wait until I get to the shops next Saturday. A few clicks and I've got a new book ready to go.
Shopping is an unpleasant experience. Remember online book shopping before Amazon? Just like that, but with a range of incompatible formats to deal with as well. And non-net savvy users will probably stick to Waterstone's (poor & pricey) selection.

So, would I buy again? Absolutely. Would I recommend it? Well, that depends. If you're an avid reader it's a great way to keep content without filling up your spare room, but it's pricier and less flexible than dead tree. Who would get the most out of the Reader? If you're the kind of person who travels on trains and planes a lot, or carries loads of books this will be a great buy. Similarly, if you tend to constantly read and don't plan ahead (like me...) you'll appreciate the convenience of instant delivery. Oh, there's a lot of pulp lit as well by the looks of things if you're a fan.

For £199, the Sony Reader is a great buy but buy with your eyes open. This is an area ripe for growth and Amazon's decision to launch the Kindle platform has in many ways left them out of the more general eBook sales world. I'm not sure if that situation is sustainable, but if they don't start selling other formats I'm sure some other vendor will combine a breadth of stock with a simple interface and corner the market. Maybe Fiction Wise could do this with a sleek interface and brand growth.

Link Round Up

2008-11-20T20:31:00.004Z

Some Fabulous Posts you might have missed:

The Association of Research Libraries review of the publisher/google settlement. (Also, by Laurence Lessig here)
Prepare yourself for Web10.0!
The Christian Science Monitor is abandoning print and so is PC Magazine - who's next?
Has RSS reached the plateau of productivity?
Will a recession kill Libraries or is it a crisatunity?
Watch a library being built in real time [via Library Stuff]
Ever wanted a website for those people who can't search?

Social Networks for Digital Natives

2008-11-19T18:55:00.000Z

Generally, there are two reactions to Facebook (and the ilk): What an opportunity! and What a waste of time!

Whatever your view, Facebook is an environment which allows libraries to connect to users (particularly 16-35 year old, middle class users...) and some libraries have made great use of the resource (example, example, example).

But, you'll find that it's mostly Higher Education (and some Further Education)-type libraries that are really engaging with Facebook. Why? Because lots of organisations have banned access - especially council authorities hosting public libraries.

Here's an interesting post on why Social Networking sites shouldn't be blocked [via Library Stuff]. It's a fair point, those of us who are 'heavy' web users don't find it easy to differentiate between 'work' and 'play' (and that swings both ways!). Those social networks are in both arenas and the tools are used in both ways. Ironically, the blurring of work and play which is often blamed for wasting time is probably going to be as essential as email over the coming years.

IT and personnel departments need to think carefully about exactly what they are preventing access to when they block these kind of sites (even if it's for 'ideological' reasons). Closing the door on opportunities by using technology to try and replace sensible and pragmatic management is never a good long term strategy and will only result in librarians losing out on skills, and patrons losing out on services.

Thought of the Day

2008-11-19T08:23:00.000Z

Photo by Silversprite [via The Surly Librarian]

Jump Starting Your Web 2.0 Knowledge

2008-11-18T21:07:00.002Z

UKOLN has published a set of Briefing Documents on Web2.0 (and other) issues which would act as a great introduction for anyone looking to catch up quickly with the technology in the area.

Well worth reading and sharing.

Skyscrapers Need Solid Foundations

2008-11-18T20:09:00.003Z

There's a lot of interest in metasearch platforms/ discovery portals and the like and I've heard a lot of libraries talk about their experience with the 'dark records' - the poorly catalogued or generally dodgy data which lies within every Library Management System - which are brought to the surface by faceted navigation.

The Cataloguing Librarian has a great post on this very issue, which points out the one key piece of information every library should know: a state-of-the-art interface is only as good as your core data will let it be.

OCLC Round Up

2008-11-18T19:24:00.005Z

Wow, there's been a lot of talk about OCLC's change in policy (which they had a few goes at - here's some the policy differences wikified). A fair amount of the reaction from librarians has been anger that the new policy might impede the work of LibraryThing and similar projects. It's strong to refer to records passed through WorldCat as 'infected' but you can see how an unfriendly policy can poison the viral spread of information.

As of February next, OCLC's new policy kicks in and - in essence - the rights of libraries over records contributed to WorldCat will change, and sharing (particularly for commercial reasons) will be more tightly controlled. Knock on effects are likely to be felt by both the open library community (deliberate non-caps there) and even organisations like Talis.

There's been an 'interesting' response from OCLC in the form of an open letter [pdf] - which seems to reflect many people's fear that OCLC is essentially circling the wagons and not trying to engage with the community.

For libraries, there are some key questions which need to be answered before February:

What do we get from our arrangement with OCLC? Is it worth it?
What are our plans for data which might be affected? How are the affected?

(ok, big gulp... and)

Does OCLC represent the future or the past?

For me, it's the attitude that might be worrying. Take, for example, how Karen Calhoun (OCLC) refers to the idea of Commons:

OCLC's and the members' central asset is the WorldCat database that we share. It is our common investment, our "commons." I believe it is the right course to protect the commons.* Thus, as Garrett Hardin has suggested in his writings about the "tragedy of the commons," it is appropriate to regulate the use of the commons. OCLC needs to manage WorldCat data sharing to assure that benefit accrues back to the members who have invested in WorldCat, and that the WorldCat commons is not exhausted through over-exploitation. Protecting the commons means adopting "some rights reserved" as the data sharing model. While a data sharing model based on "no rights reserved" is a laudable ideal, if OCLC were to adopt such a policy, it is possible, if not likely, that the WorldCat commons and the OCLC cooperative would not survive.

If OCLC really want to engage with librarians (as opposed to Library managers) they need to quickly realise that WorldCat represents part of a wider metadata commons - and decide whether they want to fence off 'their' part with over-the-top guidelines or play and active role.

In case you need more, here's a good synopsis of the situation and there's a good page on the code4lib wiki - here.

Slow Posts

2008-11-18T19:20:00.002Z

You may have noticed the lack of posts recently. I'm currently moving to a new role - with a specific focus on Web 2.0 - which, while very exciting, has meant a lot of time handing over 'old work'.

Expect a trickle of posts until December....

Photo from edmittance

Brewster Kahle: The Closing of Library Services... The Opening of Library Services"

2008-10-22T20:21:00.007+01:00

I'm currently enjoying a (constantly buffering....) stream of Brewster Kahle's John Seely Brown Symposium on Technology and Society keynote it's an interesting lecture which, hopefully, will be online soon. Here's some key points that I found noteworthy:

Because of licensing we are actually becoming more closed, even though we're making things available online - publishers have too much power
Staff are service-orientated but not IT service-orientated
Libraries have a preference for outsourcing service development rather than developing in-house
It's likely that libraries who develop in-house will specialise (eg MIT in engineering resources)
Open data leads to better data mining [Hmm, there's an assumption that vendors data is not open, which might be true of some but not necessarily 'Google-type' companies]
Open books = easy Print on Demand (at $3) [One of my personal faves]
He says you can scan and store a page (inc Metadata) for 10cents [for how long...?!]
Multiple repositories are safer than one 'trusted' repository [LOCKSS-like]
It's just as easy to migrate 100 movies as 1000.
JPEG2000 is the IA's choice for high-resolution archival versions.
Trying to get rights for out of print materials is difficult - lack of answers because there's lack of interest.... unless something suddenly 'turns' valuable.
Being accessible does not mean being 'cost free' [hmm, this kind of contradicts the idea about libraries becoming more closed because of their relationship with publishers]
Libraries can build an open world by:
Scan a core set: 1million book library = $30m and then you do 'scan on demand' - and this could be funded through purchasing budgets [maybe in the US...!]
Free access to Public Domain, Integrate in-print products from publishers as necessary, and then loan out-of-print (digital files) out [how this loaning will work with in-copyright material is still unclear]
Encourage bulk access to allow computational reuse (such as AI learning, translation etc) - this is the same as 'research' access. This requires open contracts.
This is our 'responsibility as libraries'

Digital lending will be a really interesting application of DRM and DRM-like technologies. It'll be interesting to see how things develop in this area - there's much to learn from video/audio loaning services. His idea of making Library Books "look different" to make them guilt ware or personally tied to an individual.

It's interesting to hear Brewster talk about the creation of Libraries, but his approach is totally dependent on 'others' creating services built on the principle of Libraries as Data Archives. At the start of the talk he describes how libraries are becoming more like "spaces to think" and it's this 'value-added' that we need to give in the digital world along side the traditional world. To accomplish this we have to explore whether Libraries can offer actual mediation to data and resources rather just the resources themselves.

Note from the Panel Session: John Seely Brown discussed how 'value added' information (such as annotations) are going to be more important and how such meta-information enhances the material - including by speeding up the processing of that information. [Think Uber-CliffsNotes....]

More information on the talk here.

Link Catchup

2008-10-17T20:51:00.003+01:00

Here's some great links you might have missed

What's do IT staff, Librarians and Drug Dealers have in common?
Which one book would you save? [via LISNews]
Take a new look at your library by Working Like a Patron
A great example of searching a whole range of resources has gone online at the Ohio Web Library.
You can now subscribe to Google web results via RSS.
Some libraries aren't as real as you might think.

Oh, and I'm also keeping an eye on Kathryn Greenhill's live blogging of the Bridging Worlds Conference.

An Irish Example

2008-09-30T21:22:00.003+01:00

It's great to hear some good news from libraries and the Irish libraries council has just that in the 2007 PLUS report (pdf) let's sing a few praises:

82% rate the book choice as Good or Very Good

81% said they were successful in finding what they wanted

98% found the staff service Good or Very Good

92% rated the staff's knowledge of library equipment Good or Very Good

96% said libraries are a safe place to visit

93% rated the service overall as Good or Very Good

And visits are up 17% on last year....

Using Book Covers in Library Systems

2008-09-30T20:52:00.000+01:00

LibrarianinBlack links to an interesting post on the LibraryLaw Blog which discusses the use of book covers by libraries. It's not uncommon for library system vendors to offer solutions which provide these but they're increasingly available for 'free' via services like LibraryThing (but not Amazon...).

I certainly feel that images make a huge difference to catalogue results - I haven't seen any research to say whether records with covers attached get more views (and requests) than those without but it wouldn't suprise me at all. The LibraryThing service is really interesting in both it's aims and future opportunities - but Mary Minow's advice on LibraryLaw is worth consideration, and possibly review in different legal environments.

Building a Diverse Organisational Web Presence

2008-09-29T20:30:00.003+01:00

Here's an interesting article from Lifehack about building credibility online. Although much of what is said is aimed at bloggers there's still a lot of useful information for organisations or professionals looking to engage with the diversity of a Web2.0 Internet.

One of the issues for any significant organisation (especially a public one) is about hitting our 'standards' when using external sites. Whilst we might have procurement guidelines, accessibility requirements and brand/identity constraints which we judiciously apply to our own domains we live firmly within the boundaries Facebook, Flickr and other Web2.0 sites lay down.

Anyone can create a page on most sites purporting to be "Neb Library" but to really tie into the core brand some element of content control and design needs to be put in place. Of course we absolutely have to adapt perspective, level and tone for different media (especially blogs) but we can hope to reflect our organisational identity across a multitude of environments through judicious use of branding.

Branding Breakdown

There are two ways to approach branding - as a product or as elements. It has been common in the past for projects and organisations to buy in a specific brand in one lump, hoping for "brand synergy". This has often resulted in people buying websites as a package: design along with functionality.

This is a universally bad idea. The resources for project sites in particular are often very low and functi

onality is always the first priority. If you can find a company capable of fulfilling the functional requirements and presenting even a passable design you're doing very well.

The solution is to break down the brand elements into two areas:

Organisational Brand: Your logo, fonts, layout, requirements and framework

Specific/Project Brand: Any other brand elements, including sponsors and partners (subtlety is key here!)

By buying the core brand elements at an organisational level you not only get more value for

money but also retain your identity from your main website, through projects and even into external Web2.0 services. It also allows you to use project resources to expand and update your brand elements if necessary whilst allowing the development-orientated suppliers to get on with what they're good at - fantastic functionality.

Now I am not a fan of the London 2012 brand but it does transfer mediums well - it can be static or animated, change colour to match sponsors and stands out (perhaps not for the right reasons though). This is the kind of approach we need to take - pulling out our core brand into different representations which work in all kinds of online and offline environments.

The Meaning of Beta

2008-09-29T16:22:00.007+01:00

Lifehacker have tried to reflect on the meaning of Beta in the modern web. It's often difficult to define beta in a way which makes sense to a lot of web users. Compare, for example, wikipedia's entry with the short paragraph on the library.wales.org Cat Cymru service. Actually, one of the main meanings of beta today is "new" - and it's often flagged in the same way as mid-90s 'new' tags on links.

For projects that I've worked on we've used beta as synonymous for 'might not work, new

feature, tell us what you think' - and it's been really great in engaging the professional community in particular with on-going project work. All too often we've become used to the classic project cycle - where the content and functionality are released at the final stages

, where funding is coming to an end, with a monolithic "Ta-Da!" launch event and press release.

If the shift towards beta in Web2.0 will break down this single process into multiple iterative cycles then that can only be a good thing - with better deliverables at the end of the day for us all. At the same time projects can begin to engage better with the communities they're seeking to serve and - hopefully - come up with a better solution before they enter the "sustainability" (aka maintenance-only) phase.

RLG Collaboration Report

2008-09-29T16:13:00.002+01:00

As knowledge institutions Libraries, Museums, Archives and Galleries (GLAMs) have to work together - our boundaries are becoming more and more blurred as we move forward into the digital age. Lorcan Dempsey has posted on an RLG report on collaboration in the sector (link to pdf) with some interesting case studies which is well worth a read.

Seattle Law Professors Debate The Future of Print

2008-09-29T16:04:00.004+01:00

Here's a really interesting post on how academics (in this case US law professors) see publishing moving forward - no firm conclusions came out of the meeting in Seattle but if there's going to be a dramatic change in publishing models it'll probably come from the academic publishers, many of whom are universities in the first place.

m.libraries

2008-09-23T18:43:00.006+01:00

Today could well be a watershed in mobile technologies. The first phone running Google Android has been announced - T-Mobile's G1. Android is absolutely a new approach - the hardware is just a platform for the software and User Interface. This in itself isn't really that different from Microsoft have traditionally offered - and puts google right opposite Apple (the iPhone is a total hardware/software solution and Apple have taken steps to tightly control that software).

I don't think that google will cause a revolution for mobile use but I do think it adds fuel to the evolution that Nokia, Windows Mobile and the iPhone have been part of, and in this post I'm going to take a deep breath of realism and explore some of the issues that might well affect libraries in a 'mobile age'.

The web is a platform - the mobile web as a separate approach is coming to an end. We need to move to technologies and systems which work on all kinds of devices- and we need to start now. This has some significant impacts on our catalogue technologies and especially on the navigation structures we have in place for our web content.

Geography is important - we can assume that phones will be location sensitive (GPS most likely) and we need to see if our services can be delivered spatially. People are beginning to expect maps on the web but the need for kml delivered via web and local applications is not far away.

Little Bits for Short Attention Spans - Don't worry, there's no criticism of the web ruining our ability to think long-term from me. My gut feeling is that we just value our attention more - and will no longer spend it on things which we can get in shorter time. We need to think about how we can present our resources in small 'bits' which people can consume on the move or in "attention gaps".

A SIM for Everything - One of the principles behind IPv6 was that more devices would be coming on line over the next 5-10 years and that these would all need IP addresses. The 3G SIM is likely to be the gateway to in-car, mobile and embedded networked connectivity and we need to think ahead to what might have a SIM in it in the future? In some ways it's hard to think of what won't... certainly any environment in which you spend any significant period of time will probably be home to a connected device.

Every part of our industry - from system vendors down to content makers - has to start thinking now about mobile technologies. Text message reminders for loans is all well and good but we have to provide our services in a more agnostic way to allow us promote use on mobile devices into the future - who knows what form they'll take.

Change or Be Changed?

2008-09-21T23:35:00.000+01:00

It's great to see more publicity about 'modern' libraries but what interests me most about this article from The Times is the comments that have been left. It's not uncommon to hear librarians complain that Libraries are something that "people want to have, not to use" - that is to say that a library is a sign of a healthy society, even if it's empty.

Lots of the comments reference Camden's approach as "dumbing down" or attempting to pander to the "lowest common denominator" but the fact of the matter is if people want libraries to stay as quiet places of 'serious study' they need to start using them! You can't blame us for trying to actually get people to use Libraries can you?

Stats from Scotland

2008-09-19T17:31:00.004+01:00

An interesting post about how Scottish school students are primarily using their libraries to borrow books. It's great that 67% of young people in Scotland use the borrowing facilities of their libraries but I wonder how this reflects on the emphasis being put on 'value-added' services (DVD rental, Internet Access and latterly video-gaming) - the Library 'brand' still means books for most, for better or for worse.

DCMS Announce Review of Public Libraries in England

2008-09-18T19:43:00.003+01:00

It seems that DCMS is looking to conduct a review of Public Libraries. Whilst DCMS's remit covers only the Public Libraries in England (something which doesn't come across very clearly in the articles I've seen) the results will be of real interest to us in Wales and Scotland. It seems clear that there won't be wide ranging changes but nevertheless there'll be some signs of what kind of library services the UK government sees as a priority, and what kind of resources will be available to deliver them.

Digitising Everything

2008-09-18T19:03:00.006+01:00

It's interesting to read about the Smithsonian's plan to digitise their entire collections. One of the classic questions for memory institutions is whether to digitise whole segments of the collection (or even the entire thing) or to cherry-pick items to fit with particular themes.

I've seen both types of projects - yes, of course, some parts of collection based digitisation projects are not as interesting as others but the very nature of their presence in the collection means that they are an important element (if not a shining light, perhaps a supporting player). Overly selective projects can suffer from decontextualisation, resulting in a very pretty exhibition which doesn't fulfil longer term preservation and access goals.

Of course, the classic problem with selection is that huge emphasis is placed on the selection process. A digitisation programme can live or die based on the objects chosen as well as the way they've been presented. The Smithsonian's approach is deliberately aimed at avoiding this problem - they making everything accessible in an attempt to better engage with the talents which exist in the digital creative sector (and through these, school students).

This is a really bold move and it'll be exciting to see how things progress. As I'm sure they're keenly aware this kind of strategic approach requires a commitment to digitise everything that enters the collections from now on. Those whose job it is to prioritise (and, no doubt, seek funding for) the objects will constantly be weighing up the benefits of digitising the existing collections or the new, and exciting, things that have just been purchased.

More on E-Books

2008-09-16T20:07:00.007+01:00

This weekend's Independent on Sunday Magazine is devoted to the future of books - although for books read Novels in this case. One of the areas which didn't get much coverage is print on demand.

For me, it's print on demand that's really waiting for it's "Technology Trigger" - that golden moment when everyone goes "oh yeah". I think that E-Books have their uses - especially for

high-density readers, those who want to cut down the weight, people stuck in hospitals, etc - but there's always going to be a need for bound paper.

Here's a couple of scenarios which I think will really bring Print on Demand for books into the mainstream.

Airport Bookterminals - Simply a 'vending machine' - hey if you can buy an iPod why not books? - which has a limited array of books pre-loaded which can be run off for you on demand. Multi-lingual, cheap, 24-hour and loads of selection - perfect for closed environments like travel hubs.

eBookstores - What's great about Amazon? Choice - The Long Tail. What's great about the high street? Immediacy. Bookstores with huge print on demand catalogues meet both of these needs - there's no need for anything to be out of print ever again, no need for short-run publishing, just a simple case of having a huge portfolio of eBooks which can be printed and bound as quality hardbacks or cheap paperbacks quickly and easily. Want a copy of Emma? - Which version. Fancy the newspaper from the day you were born? - No problem.

Now there's got to be a huge change in business models for publishers in order for print on demand to really take off. I can foresee a situation whereby publishers have to sell themselves to authors and rely on significant lock-in contracts. If the suppliers get on board with authors then they can split the profits, with authors working with publishers providing the editors, proof readers and marketing to those who want it.

But what for libraries? Well we could think about doing away with stock... just a thought but if our future is as a public-private memory space then a mixed provision of eBooks (for in-Library reading) and print on demand (take it home for a price, return it for free?) could work. Of course it's an interesting dilemma for Legal Deposit libraries - what exactly is 'publication' in this environment and who has the responsibility to deposit with you? International publication is more likely so the geography of publication becomes more complex.

At the same time there's easy access to the Long Tail of material - what kind of impact might this have on the large-scale digitisation schemes? Will we sell our unique material via print on demand machines on the high street? I for one will be fasciated to see how the shift to e-publication and print on demand will affect us as all.

UPDATE: Looks like the University of Michigan Library are already moving forward with print on demand. [via LISNews]

Sharing Made Simple

2008-09-10T21:06:00.007+01:00

I've just come back from a really interesting day at UW Newport on Web2.0 for Libraries, Museums and Archives facilitated by Brian Kelly of UKOLN. I was lucky enough to speak in the morning session (as a stand-in, admitedly) but I found the afternoon breakout sessions on the oportunities and barriers particularly interesting and it was a great chance to get at the key issues for GLAMs in Wales.

It made me reflect again on how useful the library.wales.org work really could be and that we do need to keep putting this message accross to libraries all over Wales. Not that we should try and compete with Wordpress, Blogger etc but just to say that "Ok, there's a space here for you - want to use it?"

It was nice to meet Andrew Eynon, who I've spoken to a few times by email/phone and whose blog is firmly in my feed reader. His 8 Library Quest sessions seem to be a great primer for anyone in Libraries who wants to get up to speed on Web2.0 quickly so take a look.

It's really great that we have these kind of centrally (CyMAL) funded sessions which really bring together people from different services.

Pimp My Bookcart

2008-09-08T21:18:00.002+01:00

Now this is a great idea - looking at the results from last year it's one to keep your eye on... I don't think much of the prizes though!

Ten Years, Five Lessons

2008-09-08T20:01:00.008+01:00

Google is 10 today(ish) and has just pushed it's digitisation programme even further. After a decade of ubiquitous multicolour rule what does Google's success teach us? I've listed five quick lessons which libraries can draw from Larry and Sergey's approach:

1: Services not Products

Google has taught us that you don't actually need to sell a product to make money, only a service. It's especially good if this service is advertising. In fact, selling a simple service (Ads) through multiple services (search, email, calendar, etc) greatly increases both your revenue and your respect in the community.

Libraries are already ahead of the game in this area as we're all about fantastic services aimed directly at our customer, what we have to remember is that we should avoid attempts to comodify those services into 'products' which limit our users and they way in which they can interact with them.

2: People Are Interested - if you are too.

Ever heard a rumour about a 'new' Google product? Or closed beta? The reaction from Android developers is a prime example of how keen people are to use Google's technology. The public are willing to invest time and energy into testing incomplete products primarily because they think that their feeback might be listened to and lead to a better results at the end of the day.

The lesson here is simple - listen! It's easy enough to pay lip service to user feedback but true user engagement requires concerted effort but yields real results, we should always be happy to receive comments and suggestions, take them seriously and give credit where it's due.

3: Give Your Staff Space to Develop

Google is famous for being a great employer, and part of their approach is to give staff '20% time' in which to pursue their own projects. This doesn't mean slacking off, staff have to present on this work and take comments from colleagues.

Libraries know full well that training is key to keeping staff providing great service but how much time do we give our staff to explore their own work-related interests? Let's not pretend that any of us have Google's capacity or funding but the lesson still stands - great staff need space to develop themselves and we should encourage that development whilst also ensuring that it's relevant by providing an environment where staff can present their work and comment on others'.

4: Employ Creative and Driven People

Ok, now here's a no-brainer - Google employs a large number of PhDs because they feel that they're creative and driven. Because their entire service portfolio is built around a core of information searching creativity is key, and new ways of working are essential to preserving their edge - the technology and development are essentially just adjuncts to the core information base.

Libraries still need to pay attention here - it's just not about hiring chartered Librarians, it's about recognising the need to hire and develop creative people who are driven to work with information. Because it's information, and we providing creative ways of working with it, that is at the centre of our business and everything else is adjunct

5: Change, but Don't.

Isn't it great that Google offers new services all the time? That the homepage logo reflects different events and that your gmail space is constantly ticking higher and higher? But deep down, under this ever changing fascia, is a stable core. A large part of the respect Google has is because it hardly ever compromises on it's central values.

Now this is tough for any public institution - not least libraries. We all have to deal with changing wider strategic frameworks which sometimes make it hard for us to pursue our own long-term plans. However, we need to make sure that we retain our integrity whilst adapting and evolving to meet new challenges.

Comments?

What About Web Archiving?

2008-09-07T14:32:00.001+01:00

Some of my role involves working on a large web archiving project. One of the questions that's often asked by those who use the UK Web Archive, Internet Archive and the like, or are looking to start web archiving themselves, is about the 'quality' of archived web pages in comparison to the original.

The key issue to get across is that website aren't 'things' you can locate, pin down and put in a box - even the most static collection of HTML pages exists in the continuum between server, network, browser and screen. More simply, there's no such thing as a website¹.

Web archiving is more akin to photography; most of what we do is to make copies of sites, trying to make them fit with our own individual construction of them at the particular moment and conditions of archiving. Similarly, the problems associated with archiving dynamic content can be compared to taking photographs of a city: images of 1940s Cardiff don't capture the entirety of the city but do provide insights and representations of a transient experience, just as an archive of Amazon.com will only give a glimpse into the constantly moving community beneath the surface.

The question we, as the custodians of information, have to ask ourselves is: is this enough? Should we strive for completeness even if that means emulation of servers and proprietary software and when all we'd be keeping is a shell of the original (akin to a digital St Fagans)?

With web archiving we need to engage with the content more directly. At the moment it seems cheaper to keep things than to select them but this isn't always going to be the case. If we take an object in to our collections we're looking to keep it in perpetuity - and the lifetime costs of keeping that single file will be infinite (this is true, of course, for physical things as well).

For domain level harvests it's clear that captures will only ever be superficial. It's my view that there will always be a place for selective archiving - both of sites which fall within collection policies of organisations but outside of the domain and in terms of effort put into the processing and checking of specific sites selected to be of special interest.

It's tempting to equate domain harvesting to the collection of printed material through legal deposit however there are some key differences. Firstly, the range of material (and therefore preservation requirements) of printed material is limited, not necessarily small but limited whereas web content will contain every obscure file format you can think of stored in all kinds of different ways. Secondly, there is a significant cost in printing material which reduces duplication (although, of course, it also reduces the range of material - for better or worse).

By putting our information on the web we're all becoming our own librarian-archivists (hooray!) - although we've not yet taken the next step and become records managers. (My Gmail currently tells me that I'm currently using 534 MB (7%) of my 7081 MB - if this keeps up I'll never need to delete anything and, as long as search technologies keep up, I will be able to find them again too.)

There is a movement within our information society towards keeping all the iterations of content as part of the services themselves. We're constantly seeing statistics which suggest that the amount of information available is increasing exponentially but, if Wikipedia and blogs are anything to go by, most of this will be drafts, previous versions and backups!

Similarly the web is notoriously difficult to time. Print and even 'formal' e-Journals are published on a specific schedule whereas blogs and other forms of social content can be started, flourish and die out in a short period of time (perhaps even between large-scale harvests). Part of our engagement with content has to be a realistic and positive in our engagement with content creators.

If you look at the short history of the web you can begin to see a shift from silos of content (personal and corporate websites, each with their own domain) to portals (where the silos are connected by indexes and directories) to dispersed content (where photos live on flickr, blogs live on wordpress.com, updates on twitter, videos on youtube and links on delicious)- it's easy to believe that this dispersal was the inevitable consequence of hypertext.

Of course this changes the way we archive and - more importantly - provide access to archived sites. If all the information on particular subjects is spread across user pages on multiple websites which are reliant on the major search indexes like google to link them together then we need to think about not only capturing the separate content but also the links between them. At the moment we work primarily at site level, preserving the links between pages but treating them as immutable objects - in the future we will need to let the harvesting agents roam freely, capturing snippets of content which make up a web2.0 website.

Ultimately, the archiving of the web is a positive thing and it's certainly a great area to work in, I know that every site we archive is a resource preserved for future research. The challenges that face us shouldn't put us off adding these important cultural assets to our collections but we do need to begin to engage with them before they seem insurmountable.

¹ In fact it's this facet that really attracted me to working on Web Archiving in the first place. A substantial portion of my doctoral research was centred around the social construction of the web and the fallacy of the monolithic websites. If you ever want a long and overly detailed conversation about constructivism and the web you know where to come...

Antisocial E-Books?

2008-09-03T22:28:00.003+01:00

On the day that Sony launch their E-Reader in the UK (via Waterstones stores and online) I read this wired article which suggests that E-Books are 'antisocial' - admittedly only as a turn off to girls.

Interestingly enough, I've been conducting my own 'long term test' on the iLiad E-Book platform - not just me, in fact, but also my wife. We both devour books but she's found the ability to buy books online, on demand, very useful. Perhaps the problem for Charlie Sorrel is that he thinks that a iPhone is a good way to read....

SOPAC, NOPAC

2008-09-02T20:17:00.005+01:00

It's not uncommon for users to mix up a library's OPAC and website and why not? Gone are the days when a database of any description was kept distinct from it's host website. In fact, libraries are some of the worst offenders in terms of drawing artificial lines between services.

So it's of real interest to me that Darien Library has just launched it's combined website/OPAC. Essentially they've built a Drupal module that ties, via a connector, to any ILS - more here. It's a really neat move, and one which I'm sure we'll all be watching with interest.

Image from jblyberg

Microsoft Surface

2008-09-02T20:08:00.000+01:00

Engadget has reported that Sheraton Hotels have started to install a few Microsoft Surface stations in their hotels. I think these are one of the coolest things ever for libraries. The Object Recognition element should be fantastic for anyone with digital content which can be used to enhance physical material.

Forget the capacity for actually accessing, flipping pages and interacting with digital content for the moment (although this does take the 'Turning the Pages' idea to a whole new level). Instead I can see the system recognising ISBN'd material lain on top of it from the barcode and unique material from the (equally unique) back surfaces.

From there you can see how interpretive data created by libraries and user comments can be lain around the surface, with the physical item linked to all kinds of complementary digital content - whether it be "See also..." type information, biographies or user reviews. In addition, library services can be marketed by laying them out next to relevant material.

There's not much information on how cultural organisations might use this kind of technology - Microsoft seems to be pitching this at Bars and, obviously, Hotels. It's a shame because I can honestly see museums loving this as a concept - and libraries should too.

Google Chrome Announced

2008-09-02T08:33:00.005+01:00

Apparently today will mark the launch of Google Chrome - Google's own open source web browser which purports to be lightweight with better resistance to tab crashes taking down the whole browser. This is interesting for three reasons:

Google has put significant support into the Mozilla Foundation (home of Firefox).
Google chose to develop their own open source browser to fix what seems to me as a quite 'small issue' - why not fix it in one of the existing open source browsers?
The announcment echoes Google's web-app philosophy; " To most people, it isn't the browser that matters. It's only a tool to run the important stuff -- the pages, sites and applications that make up the web." which is could be an interesting look at the future of any browser wars: IE as a 'fully featured' browser, Chrome as a lightweight 'window to the web' only and Firefox and Opera somewhere in the middle (although, with all the user add-ons bloat is a severe possibility for Firefox).

All in all, there'll be a lot of talk on the web about a new browser war even though this may well be another short-term 'product to fix a problem' from Google.

(Typical Google, they launched with a comic.)

UPDATE: Ok, Chrome is fast! And on my little 12" laptop it's very nice - I can really see this as the start of a web-OS. (Oh, and all my websites work with it - yay!).

Online Poster Goodness

2008-09-01T20:45:00.005+01:00

A fair few library bloggers have been singing the praises of the ALA Online Poster Maker which allows anyone and everyone to create their own poster to compliment the ALA's own promotional efforts.

What a great idea! Whilst 'outline' posters are available for lots of different library promotional programmes, allowing the public to make use of them is a new thing. The National Year of Reading website (for England only) allows you to play with the logo and 'design your own' - which is a nice touch - but the ALA interface really benefits from its simplicity (although, a few more designs would be nice).

Plus, "READ" is such a great slogan (if such a simple thing counts as a slogan) - it gets round the whole "shouldn't we say that libraries have more than books?" temptation that seems to raise it's head whenever more than three librarians get together. More please!

Attention Searchers!

2008-08-31T21:53:00.001+01:00

Reading about the recently released Pew search engine use report (via LibrarianInBlack) [pdf] only serves to remind us all how searching has become an inherent part of online life.

Search is a really important thing to me. Almost everything that I do is focused around making material accessible to the end user (either now or over time) and search is a huge part of that. Search isn't just something that the public use, it's also of critical importance to staff, but it's the end user who is likely to have the most difficulty with a new search interface.

When I was a researcher, and a user of the resources I now play a part in providing, I sought information in ways which seem somewhat insane to me now. How I ever found anything of use is beyond me. Let me give you a quick précis of my "search strategy":

Fire a keyword into the OPAC (at this point I was only looking at printed material, I had no idea that there was anything else available or how to search it)
Scan down the results and order anything that looked vaguely relevant (it's free right?)¹
Look at my stack of material and immediately sort it based on the cover, blurb and index
Read the four remaining books and note down the references that looked useful
Go back to the OPAC and request those items (or at least those that I could easily find). Rinse and repeat.

(For me, journals weren't something you searched; you'd read the last 5 years worth and only go further back if there were specific articles referenced in other papers.)

That little vignette helps to remind me that even though I now know about authorities, subject headings, cross references and formats there's no reason that end users do or even should.

The perennial question with searching surrounds how much effort you expect users to put in to the locating of material. The problem is that every searcher, every potential user, has a different level of attention² that they're willing to spend on the search process. Here's a few examples:

An undergraduate student might be happy with any resource which gives them some level of information and might spend very little time searching. These are the searchers who might favour instant access (think e-Journals) and small results sets.

A family history researcher might be looking for one specific document (a probate record, a historic map, etc) or for any information related to a particular individual. They might have higher reserves of attention but they are looking for specific items, reference number searches, combinations and authorities are key for these people.

A professional researcher (academic or otherwise) might want to be more comprehensive, they might want access to a wide range of unique material or to take long and complex journeys through policy documents. Their level of attention is high when it comes to exploring the material but lower when it comes to locating that material. Unlike the undergraduate they're not looking for 'a resource' but 'the resource' however in contrast to the family history researcher they might not have a clear idea what that resource is or even what form it might take. For these types of searchers the ability to easily combine complex searches is key.

Members of staff are likely to be looking for specific records rather than items (as cataloguers or desk staff) and have the highest level of attention. They can tap into the resources required to use back-end search tools and to restrict searches by elements which they can be confident are in the data and they have the knowledge of the collections required to limit searches from the outset. Staff will know to use control numbers where possible and to follow the rules of controlled vocabulary.

Of course, in a perfect world we could answer all these needs simply by presenting the user with an empty search box, google-style. However, we have to remember that google and libraries aren't the same thing. Firstly, google's success and revenue comes from accumulating small amounts of attention from a large amount of people - in essence, it's in google's interests to provide the resource that's selected only at the point where the users attention is almost exhausted (of course, you can't bank on any specific level of attention so it's best to try and get the most appropriate result first).

Secondly, google indexes data more than metadata. Despite the trends towards the digital most of our material as cultural organisations is not searchable in any kind of thorough fashion. Instead we're limited to hand made metadata records which are not only subjective but also tread the line between brevity and usefulness. Finally, the creators of web content (and the systems which serve that content) are often concerned with making it easy for google to index their data, if publishers of traditional material had the same incentive perhaps we'd see them providing high quality catalogue records themselves?

How do we give the reader the tools they need to find the resources they want within the attention they're willing to spend? If we think they'll read them and make use of them we can produce guides, give training sessions and create FAQs and this kind of strategy will work for members of staff.

But for users these kind of approaches aren't ever going to be as effective. A struggling searcher might look to help guides and FAQs if they are confident that the item they seek is in the collections, or might make an enquiry about the item at the desk or via email. Or, they might just as easily give up. Realistically it's too much to expect that users will pre-read documentation on searching before just entering a search but we shouldn't under estimate the willingness of users to learn from failed searches and to improve their own strategies (assuming that the data they're searching is consistent enough to support this...).

I can see how facets, FRBR/RDA, WorldCat, exposure to google and other record combining approaches will help to move us beyond the current library OPAC search provision but even then I'm not convinced that they represent a panacea. It's interesting to note that some libraries are now providing a request form for material that cannot be found on the OPAC (note: that's subtly different from material that isn't on the OPAC and accepts that the gap between some users and the OPAC is too large).

We often try and elevate google as a shining example of simple searching for complex data but we have to remember that they're starting from a different position. If google were to swap content with a large library or archive it's probable that they would start their resource discovery work with a programme of mass digitisation which would facilitate the full indexing of the resources. Of course, that's one option for libraries but in lieu of a huge input of funds we can still take steps to improve search-based resource discovery.

Improve metadata - by making use of auxiliary resources, upgrading records from other systems and by making sure that our cataloguing is not only consistent but also focuses on the provision of metadata hooks which explicitly facilitate search strategies which we expect users to use.
Improve Search Interfaces - if the metadata is the fuel, the search mechanism is the engine. It's not unreasonable to expect that search interfaces will need to be tweaked, upgraded and even replaced on a more regular cycle than library systems have required in the past.
Expose Your Metadata - Every hit on your metadata, regardless of where that takes place, is a potential use. Exposing good quality metadata to sector and non-sector resources (including search engines) is key to getting someone into the system. If someone only uses google to find records in your library system this does not constitute a failure - they've found the resource haven't they?
Provide Simple Help Focused On Particular Uses - Where there's attention to be spent provide resources which shortcut the learning process (including making good use of the "zero results" page). However, general information is only useful if you're looking to support general searching - if you know your users want to search one particular collection provide a very simple 'how-to' for that collection with some tips.
Study Users - Ouch. It had to come didn't it? Usability studies cost money and are often ineffective. A large proportion of studies are conducted with pre-determined groups (often existing users) and flag up detailed problems which experienced find irritating - this can be useful but you need to think about all those people who spent their attention long before becoming an experienced user and as a result feel alienated.

¹ This is why I ordered one particular children's book, with an appropriate seeming title, over and over again. Subject headings? What are subject headings?

² If you haven't read Davenport & Beck's book you need to - seriously.

Library Lending: A Northern Hemisphere Phenomenon?

2008-08-30T10:14:00.010+01:00

Take a close look at this map¹ of "books borrowed from public libraries - which lend books to members for free or for a nominal charge." and you can see two things; firstly, most of the lending seems to take place in the nortnern hemisphere (where's Australia?) and secondly the poorest countries seem to come have the least lending of all - in fact the entire continent of Africa is reduced to a thin line.

It's also worth noting the obvious lending culture in Eastern Europe and how Japan still lends large amounts of material even though it is a highly technologised culture. I was also shocked by how low levels for Ireland are (compare to Northern Ireland for example).

Now, these figures are from 1999 and since then Ireland has developed the fantastic BorrowBooks.ie service (which helped inform our own Cat Cymru developments), allowing inter-lending across the country via the web, so I'll be interested to know if the levels have increased since and by how much.

As a final point of note: the UK is huge (it looked at first like Scandinavia to me), which implies that our level of lending is something to be proud of. With all the rhetoric surrounding declining usage I think we should be careful to look at global trends (economic and cultural) along side our own local statistics.

¹ It's well worth checking out the pdf for the map, which has more raw data.

Injecting some GLAMour into libraries

2008-08-29T21:24:00.012+01:00

I've just come back from the 2008 Society of Archivists' Conference in York¹ and it's made me think yet again about how artificial the boundary between cultural institutions has become.

I've spoken at the annual SOA event a few times and each time I've taken pains to say that I work in "a library, an archive, a museum and more..." to reflect the quantity and diversity of our collections.

As someone who came from outside the sector I have sometimes had difficulty differentiating between the archival and library functions (the best description I've heard thus far has been that a big library is "at the same time an artisan chocolatier and a high-volume sausage factory"!). Highly skilled staff can delicately tease the key themes and structures from a seemingly incomprehensible array of personal papers and diaries whilst others can pull in hundreds of catalogue records for legal deposit material through z39.50.

The role of Museums, Libraries and Archives seems to be merging ever closer - we already have some convergence at the policy level (at least in Wales and England) - and it's getting harder to determine collection policies as data stubbornly refuses to fit into our existing boxes.

Lorcan Dempsey adds Galleries to the list and calls them 'GLAM', which I have to say has a nice ring to it. In many ways we're all trying to be a bit more GLAMorous; improving access to our material and attracting the public to our resources, whether online or in person.

Convergence is, however, not the same as unity. We can learn from each other as organisations - that much is clear - but there are still some fundamental differences in terms of training, perspective and operation. True, archives are showing off their unique collections, libraries are leaning more towards interpretation and everyone is engaging with the visual medium of the web but there's still life in the old constructs yet.

As an example, Librarians view everything on the web as published, but a large proportion of this is unique material which fits into our traditional view of archival material - either way a lot of it is ephemeral. In the digital age we can all have a copy, so this shouldn't be a problem (remember, LOCKSS is a philosophy, not just software!) but we can't really afford to duplicate effort so the problem remains.

The challenge for those of us working in GLAMorous organisations is to find out what terms and activities best link in to the public psyche in an age of Google Books, self-archiving, free museums and Who Do You Think You Are? without compromising our core values as cultural organisations.

¹ By the way, the irony of the all the SOA conference information disappearing from the website on the last day of the event isn't lost on me. This is a prime example of how a CMS can be anti-informational.

My Rules for Blogging

2008-08-28T18:18:00.001+01:00

Sometimes I tend to find it difficult to shake off the freedom I had as an academic (well, proto-academic, perhaps). Debate and discourse were an encouraged part of work and I have to admit that there have been times when I've had to remind myself I'm paid to contribute to an opinion, not to have one. In fact, this blog is partly a way of channelling that energy by expressing my own personal views about the sector I work in on a personal blog.

Before starting this blog I spent a great deal of time thinking about what kind of impact blogging might have on my personal and professional life. We don't have a blogging policy at work but I've reviewed a plethora of posts from librarians and non-librarians alike and have come up with my own rules which, I hope, I'll be sticking to on this blog:

Don't say anything that you wouldn't say in total public: This means no sensitive information, no talking about vendors or the non-public activities of other organisations that I might be privy to.
Don't blog about personal things: This could get confusing. If I start talking about my new car or favourite music genre it not only detracts from the basis of the blog and might tempt me to break one of the other guidelines here.
Make it clear that these views are my own, not my employers: Hence the disclaimer on the bottom of every page. I did wrestle with whether to 'own' up to my employer but have decided (at this point) not to. If a policy comes in at work that requires this then no problem, but until then I'm not concealing where my pay cheque comes from and nor am I publicising it.
Don't blog from work: Even though our Acceptable Use Policy wouldn't negate this (on break time) it's useful to draw the line between work activity and personal activity.
Even though this is personal, don't breach work guidelines: If there's a policy in place to cover work activity then I'll treat it as if it applies to blog posts - even if they don't cover personal activities.
No specific information unless it's already public: There's some development-level stuff that I'd love to share but unless it's already out there in public (through presentations, reports and so on) I'll keep stumm.
No professional communication: This is a rule for you too boys and girls! If you want to talk about work-related subjects please get in touch with me via my employer.
Speak About the Sector, Not the Library: When I'm saying "we should" I always mean 'libraries' not my library. The blog is called remixing libraries and my views will, I hope, speak generally rather than specifically.

There was a point when I thought blogging about anything even remotely connected to work was a no-go, however the world's changed. There are several active bloggers employed at my library and a few occasional ones, lots of people have 'social' content (flickr, facebook, etc) where they often post content linked to work (and even conduct work communication through).

Useful guidelines: BBC, Yahoo!, IBM

NOTE: Fair warning: I do hope to update this post as time goes on, and my experiences change.