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Access 2008 in Hamilton Ontario

Posted October 14, 2008 by jandawson
Categories: Library and information studies, conference, information, information professionals, internet, librarians, libraries, libraries and education, library, library technology, open access
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From Oct 1 to 4, I had the pleasure of attending Access 2008, a conference for library technology planning and development held in Hamilton Ontario. The following are selected summaries from the first day of the conference when I didn’t have volunteer responsibilities.

The always incredible Karen Schneider (of Free Range Librarian and Equinox Software) gave the opening keynote entitled “Open: the synergy of creativity and open source”. She gave us a peak at the new evergreen skin and stressed several key points:

  • importance of documentation for knowledge share
  • teaching librarians how to engage in the open source process via trickle-up engagement
  • end users are all alike while library workflows are all completely unique and therefore, should be flexible
  • open code opens communication
  • notion about open source being a last resort (ie. when you don’t have money) needs to change
  • meritocracies for development communities: best code wins, best coders get best street cred, etc. and the highest honour is when you get to commit code
  • importance of dogfooding (a user experience phrase)–eating your own dog food or using your own product
  • when code isn’t secret, you can develop training materials right away

Dale Askey (of K-State Libraries) delivered “We love open source software. No you can’t have our code” and stressed the following points:

  • avoid quirkiness—the sense that the institution’s software is so unique that there’s no sense in sharing which will eliminate redundancy 
  • nature of open source: If you need functionality, find code and get to work. Share, collaborate, communicate, etc.
  • ITSO CUL: Integrated tool for selection and ordering for Cornell University Library
  • Find a way to share software between libraries—an efficient evolution of Rutgers’ idea for libraries posting own code
  • Hire Mark Leggotts of the world ;p

Eric Lease Morgan (Head of Digital Access and Information Architecture Department at the University Libraries of Notre Dame) delivered “MyLibrary – A digital library framework and toolbox”

  • Mylibrary is really a big part of our vernacular these days. It is made up of 4 things: information resources, patrons, librarians, and facets and terms. The idea is that you create information resources for the other things
  • Mylibrary is a toolbox and not an application
  • Use it to make a reading list or use the MyLibrary Facebook widget
  • My library has been used by Notre Dame for 5 years. Created a tagging function for students where students tag with facet term combos.

A HUGE thank you to organizers of Access 2008 for letting me tag along.

Access 2009 will be held in Charlottetown, PEI.

Comments: 2 Comments

spreadin the werd about Akoha

Posted September 25, 2008 by jandawson
Categories: Library and information studies, blogging, cool, cool site, information, information professionals, internet, librarians, social networking, social tagging, technology
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amy blogged about akoha yesterday and i wanted to help spread the word. what a great idea and so fun!

here are two snippets from akoha’s website, then blog:

“Akoha is the world’s first social reality game where you can earn points by playing real-world missions with your friends. Missions might include giving someone your favorite book, inviting a friend for drinks, or buying a friend some chocolate.”

…

“Invite a friend for coffee” is just one of the many Akoha missions. Other mission cards include activities like “Donate an hour of your time”, “Give someone a book”, and “Send drinks to a couple in love”. Many more missions are constantly being added as the community and the game grow.”

sign up now

Comments: 1 Comment

ask nuna nishi project update

Posted August 24, 2008 by jandawson
Categories: Library and information studies, facebook, information, information professionals, internet, librarians, libraries, libraries and education, library, library 2.0, technology, web 2.0
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Week four of free reference service on Facebook and things are going well:

  • week one: 4 questions, 3 patrons, 8 friends on Aug3
  • week two: 5 questions, 3 patrons, 47 friends on Aug10
  • week three: 4 questions, 4 patrons, 1 anonymous, 56 friends on Aug17

Patron types:

  • message-writers: anonymous questions = 1
  • wall-writers: non-anonymous questions = 12
  • regulars: returning patrons who have used the service more than once = 4

Question types:

  • directional: asking for a recommended place to go (virtual or otherwise) = 0
  • ready-ref: factual questions; closed-ended questions = 8
  • research: recommended resources; open-ended questions; starting points to further info = 4
  • reader’s advisory: recommended reading materials = 1

Noteworthy observation: A user read a question on the wall and provided their knowledge as an anonymous answer–an excellent contribution that was cross-referenced and added to the final answer given to the wall-writing patron.

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Operation Nuna Nishi: Free Reference Service via Facebook

Posted August 3, 2008 by jandawson
Categories: Library and information studies, facebook, information, information professionals, librarians, libraries, library, library 2.0, open access, second life, second life, social networking, technology, virtual environments, virtual worlds, web 2.0
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The Free Reference Service

A soft launch has been performed of an idea that I’ve been cultivating for several months now: to provide free reference service via Facebook. If people use this service, I would hope to collaborate with other information professionals to create an application which serves the same purpose. My second motivation was to gain experience giving reference since it’s a part of what I want to do.

How to Use it

Users can post questions on Nuna Nishi’s wall or message her if they wish to remain anonymous and the interaction can be confidential. To view questions and answers, users can view the “wall-to-wall” on Nuna Nishi’s profile. A weekly recap of reference questions will also be posted on Nuna Nishi’s blog and this will be imported via the Notes application.

Setting up

Facebook doesn’t allow new profiles with the word librarian in the name. I was only interested in applying my idea to profiles since I could see the effectiveness of using the wall to wall and message features as the platform. It seemed logical to have Nuna perform the service since she is in fact a virtual reference librarian in Second Life on Info Island International.

The First Week

The first week was a success. Visit Nuna’s reference log for details. Four questions in four days. Of course the first question was provoked to test the experiment. The next three questions came within the next two days with Nuna only having a total of about eight friends. There are still a few kinks related to the new facebook interface. For example, the new wall won’t allow a shared link with the posted answer. For now, I’ve remedied this by reverting to the old interface when I answer a question and it works great.

Is there a market for this? I’ll just have to wait and see what happens.

Comments: 4 Comments

one big library unconference

Posted July 8, 2008 by jandawson
Categories: Library and information studies, information, information professionals, librarians, library 2.0, semantic web, technology, unconferences
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On Friday July 27 2008, I attended York University Library’s One Big Library Unconference.

90 participants were registered and invited to propose a session that they would also lead. Proposals were arranged on tables and voted upon the morning of the unconference. The schedule was made by unconference organizers based on participant votes. The following is a brief summary of the sessions I attended:

I use Zotero already. Here is everything you need to know about it. I use it because it is a Firefox add-on that is ever-present on my browser. I can easily collect articles, websites, and store .pdfs as collections in my Zotero library. It is hoped that the next development for Zotero will be to provide remote access by becoming web-based. Also development on social aspects would enhance user reference sharing.

Drupal is an open source web content management system. It is modular so as the user develops, they download modules to activate things. The Onion and the LSW’s (Library Society of the World)’s VERY new website are examples of Drupal.

Evergreen is an open source OPAC that is also built in modules. Here is a demo. A feature that I found interesting was that Evergreen has the capacity to pass messages using an instant message vehicle similar to google talk. An interface that allows for message passing opens up many possibilities for funcionality user relationships. As a functioning OPAC, there are several features which are currently lacking such as the organization of acquisitions, serials, recalls, and reserves. I’m sure it won’t be long though…

This was my favourite session as it addressed many thoughts I have been having regarding the access to information and finding ways to balance controlled vocabulary with natural language and social tagging. Our information society has changed our interaction with information by moving from a transaction to a relationship. We find something, tag it, pass it on, blog about it, and related it to other materials. I feel it’s our responsibility to capture user-generated content and organize it.

A major point I feel passionate about is the idea that we can’t dismiss users who tag with emotional tags such as “boring”, “sucks”, and “cool” because emotional tagging adds another dimension: the review! We need to find a way to balance social tagging and controlled vocabulary so that info has exhaustive points of access. It’s obvious, yes?

The Unconference was a huge success. I met my brilliant Twitter friends and I met brilliant librarians and technologists. Lastly, the inspiration and innovation is resonating with me as I plan my move to TO and my career in the community of Toronto librarians.

I hope we’ll do it again next year!

Comments: 4 Comments

more mir

Posted June 5, 2008 by jandawson
Categories: Library and information studies, artificial intelligence, information, information retrieval, technology
Tags: , , , , ,

music-ir.org describes itself as the “virtual home of music information retrieval research”. on this website, you can find useful MIR info such as:

      1. the IMIRSEL (International Music Information Retrieval Systems Evaluation Laboratory) project
      2. a research bibliography, “vital research papers in the field of Music Information Retrieval”
      3. links to past conferences and meetings: ISMIR (International Conference on Music Information Retrieval); SIGIR (Special Interest Group on Information Retrieval) 2003 Workshop; Mid-West Regional Colloquium

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music information retrieval (mir)

Posted April 14, 2008 by jandawson
Categories: Library and information studies, information, information professionals, internet, library
Tags: , , , ,

I’ve been interested in learning more about music information retrieval systems. here are a few resources i’ve been looking at:

*There’s a Google Tech Talk called “ from sound synthesis to sound retrieval and back” by Xavier Serra of Music Technology Group at the University of Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona. Serra has quite a few projects in development from sound retrieval systems that look for similar harmonic structure or rhythm to developing tangible interfaces. He also demonstrates the “ reacTable” which is an instrument that Bjork used on her Volta tour.

Some really cool things happening with MIR. With signal processing, users can access more than just what libraries normally catalogue (info attached to the physical format, digital info like text, digital sound data) and go further up the symantic ladder to obtain info like pitch, duration, timbre, intensity and further up the ladder as high as type of music, key of music, melody within a polyphonic piece, etc.

* “Information Retrieval for Music and Motion” by Meinard Muller is one of those good Springer books. I’m just getting into it now, but it looks pretty comprehensive. Two major parts: part 1 Analysis and retrieval techniques for music data; and part 2 Analysis and retrieval techniques for motion data.

Comments: 3 Comments

ubiquitous computing and the future

Posted April 12, 2008 by jandawson
Categories: Library and information studies, MUVEs, artificial intelligence, futurism, information, information professionals, internet, librarians, libraries, libraries and education, second life, second life, semantic web, technology, virtual environments, virtual worlds, web 2.0, web 3.0
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Just stumbled upon this video: Vision of the Future (Part 1): the intelligent revolution

a very good explanation of Second Life, MUVES, web 3.0, and artificial intelligence. just watch it, man.

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new issue of ABQLA bulletin

Posted April 10, 2008 by jandawson
Categories: Library and information studies, conference, information, information professionals, librarians, libraries, libraries and education, library, library 2.0, second life, web 2.0, workshops
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The Spring 2008 issue of the ABQLA Bulletin is out.

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web2.you videos are up on the wiki

Posted April 1, 2008 by jandawson
Categories: Library and information studies, blogging, conference, information, information professionals, internet, librarians, libraries, libraries and education, library, library 2.0, second life, second life, social networking, social tagging, technology, virtual environments, web 2.0, workshops
Tags: , , , , ,

check out videos of two web2.you workshop presentations:

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