Peter Darlington
Obligatory Paula Ryan joke. 🙂

Talking about taking a leap out of libraries into IT. Different but a lot in common as well.
Started in basement of NatLib. Experienced earthquake there – fantastic – sounded like train – everything swaying, sewer pipes above heads.
Later at help desk at NZBN. When talked to computer guys then they’d tut-tut as if answer too far over heads.
Got job with newfangled PC network though hadn’t seen one before. Access a key issue.Customer service Internet came around at same time as did self out of job by joining networks together. But had learned tremendous amount in meantime of running network.
Got job in IT for money; influence decision-making; make business work better – tech is a great business-enabler.

Why are IT people so evil?
Look up “BOFH” on google….
Tricky part of new job was learning how to be disliked – had to make unpopular choices. Eg everyone using different applications., and he brought in a single package – robably not forgiven yet.

• performance is king – needs to be dependable. Everything affects everything else like an ecosystem.
• security – viruses, spyware, etc – you can’t do anything but you’re safe…
• complex sstems – new things affect old things
• cynicism – – coming out of bad solutions. Trying to limit number of new projects because of things falling over.
• planning for the worst.

Neat ideas automatically filtered up through all these points – if it survives then IT will be on board.

Living with the enemy

• learning to speak the language – living in the digital world – being comfortable with the stuff and knowing what things can do.
• understanding the repercussions – two sides to every fence
• learning about the business –
• getting involved – bring own skills into it projects
• learn about processes and projects

My inconsequential view: Informational literacy among customers as important to it as to reference; good at description/classification; letting customers loose.

Questions
Comment that need to educate them about your own needs

re building relationships – developing trust vital but informally what about service level agreements? – If you must have them, keep it simple. And remember ‘agreement’ is negotiated, not forced on you.

often translating what IT role back to clients – how can a client deal with when X blames Y and Y blames X for a problem? Don’t know – is in a small organisation so not an issue.

still happy with having combined library and council networks (as library needs less security)? Nowadays can separate network but keep connected.

Jane Robinson
(Julie Batchelor was to be here but AirNZ cancelled her flight.)

CPIT project. Three on team – reference librarian; academic in infolit, elearning; disability coordinator

Many students not coming in to tours as just not the right time for them. Wanted tour available to them at the right time and in the right format.

Thought about

• users’ expectations – read much about web 2.0 – people wanting to engage with library in different ways
• social software; wanted to be “engaging students where they live”

Had idea of library tour but went on to do different things as well.
Wanted to focus on deaf students, students with specific learning needs, and Te Reo speakers. (Want to do podcasting in Te Reo.)

Branding important – to claim materials as your own, tie everything together and give it a theme.

Podcast library tour – audio in English with stills; video in NZSL; audio in Te Reo with stills hoped for. Other ideas: screen readable formats for print resources; use of ‘read and write’ software for text->MP3; braille-ready information; digital recorders for individual student needs ($100 from Dick Smith) eg instead of taking notes in lectures.

Endnote example: a couple of stills and then speech for three minutes.

Into public setting – podcasting of book reviews.
Advertising – slot in radio, in newspaper.
Enhanced podcasts – include video clips

Issues

• what technology? – Windows MovieMaker good for audio but not video. So moved to Mac (GarageBand) which is set up for creating podcasts – saved a lot of time and hassle to use this.
• need of buy-in – need to communicate well with staff to disseminate technologies, and empower and get buy-in
• pedagogically-driven – not just for the sake of the tech
• reliance on specialists – much reliance on tech experts
• time issues – fun but time-consuming
• haven’t had time for many great ideas as initial development work has taken a lot of time
• continuity – shot on two different days and NZSL signer wearing different clothes

Where to from here?

• recording of lectures with dictaphone as has most potential

Questions
Compatibility – audio with all mp3 players, video only iPod
How promoted – not promoted yet

Joann Ransom
Played audio of builder who’s never seen computer in his life but within hour and a half of entering library was cataloguing images etc of machinery for Kete.

Had problems in the historical sectors aof aging and dying volunteers, huge backlog. “Digital library building in my inbox”. Council concerned. Much stuff in private hands; much in people’s heads. Researched initiatives offshore, licensing options, etc.

Important to develop with open source. Brainstormed what records it could draw on from various databases, various organisations.
Greenstone considered but rejected because suitable for something creative and published whereas Kete needs to be dynamic
Ruby on Rails – development framework and Zebra indexing engine. – tested on 10million records with Koha – works with Koha.

Developed on the fly. 3 instances of server: development, test, live. Has allowed very rapid development and kept librarians involved in building. Content added even while developing – as soon as anything available.

Needed volunteers – advertised in newspaper “interesting work, lousy pay” – overwhelmed with replies, retired secretaries etc. 20 regulars working from home.”I can do half an hour a day I guess” – now working four days a week.

Radical trust concept – being afraid isn’t a reason not to do it.
Creative Commons – content may be amended etc but not for commercial use, credit original author, derivative work on same terms.

Web 2.0 stuff included – the new sudoku – people can go in and play. contact people with similar interests online or offsite (opt-in).

Catalogued in natural language; people can add extra tags. Topics point to diferent file types.
With clean screen didn’t know what to look for so provided various access points including featured topics, keyword search, latest 5 topics. Browse list of entire contents arranged by formats in tabs. Random image as slideshow. Featured baskets (locked baskets – administered by owners and protected from editing but viewable).

Text edit – wiki. Allows image and tables etc. Templates for creating topics.

Successful: it’s local, belongs to community, it’s “ours” – people like to help build a fence, build a database… valuable, non-threatening (teaching IT virgins) – pride in itpersonal, easy to find stuff, addictive!

Problems solved: no backlog, originals safe, working on unidentified photos, raised profile, getting more donations now proved that it’ll be looked after,

What next:
Have got more funding to strip out customisation and let people download software to use for self. Kete 1.0 in November. Guided install and skin module.Mass import. Establish a kete.net.nz community.

Other kete in process – in Florida, Taranaki (Working on bilingual, adding Maori Subject Headings, building Taranaki wordlist), Chinese Ass. of NZ (working on federated searching). (More info contact Rachel @ Katipo)

Lessons learnt:
don’t underestimate application forms for funding
short time between expession of interest and full application
be scrupulous in record keeping

More success stories of variety of older community members participating – dedicated community

Sue Sutherland
No written paper accompanies it because need to read the strategy itself.

It’s a whole of government / whole of country strategy. Genesis in Digital Strategy 2005 with three Cs – connection, content, confidence. NatLib given task of developing digital content strategy. Received 90 submissions inuding composite submissions so huge amount of info to absorb.Won’t be a strategy for five years as everything changing. Virtual strategy so will be updated/modified as things cchange.

Four influencing factors

• public digital space – formal/informal, public/rivate
• high-speed broadband
• digital convergence
• content on demand – ease of use and easy of discovery – if not, won’t be used – how do we ensure our content is visible?

Five element framework

• creating and protecting digital content

  • need to think about access and protection directly when it’s being created – tension between control of rights and availability of information
  • responses include creative commons for NZ – building iCT skills and knowledge individually, not just the techies. – participate in debate on cultural content

• accessible and discoverable content

  • challenge to optimise content for search (standards etc) and others
  • new initiatives: te reo maori and pacific languages metadata project (between NatLib, Te Papa, Archives NZ to develop metadata standard); digital NZ; research NZ (funded TEC and unis fudning institutional repositories)
  • responses include: digisation, adoption of interoperable standards, indexes online, repositories, accessibility on other devices eg cellphones

• sharing and using content

  • new initiatives – stats NZ to get data online and accessible; national heritage; people’s Network;
  • responses: unlock public content, free internet access, web 2.0 strategies

• managing and preserving

  • digital archives preservation, documenting creative and performing arts project

• digital content is understood

  • world internet project – international study out of AUT to get data on impact of internet on everyday lives
  • responses – read, read, think!

Roy Tennant
Libraries were created to pool resources to be able to provide to people who can’t afford them. – “buying clubs”
In past used to go to a library – Now go to google.
In past used t thmb through card catalogue – Now

• Amazon, (some librarians say hard to find in catalogue so go to Amazon first and then catalogue once have title in hand) Many students familiar with finding boks on Amazon – know how easy and effective – then come to our library and are dismayed. Why hard in library?
• Google Books – entire libraries being digitised (copyright problems.

Being social then – in libraries to get a date in foyer. 🙂 Now on MySpace You can initiate IM, find out when friends are online. Facebook (started in colleges, now opened up to all). Twitter (keep up with what friends are doing right now – useful at conferences to find out quickly which programmes you should be at; where to meet people at bar etc – if wireless acces ).
Reasons for users to come to us are dropping away.

Change

• We no longer conger control access to information – lots of other places to get it.
• Have to collaborate outside of the profession. (Hence WorldCat and Google).
• “Our need for inventory control should not define our discovery systems” – need one discovery environment that brings together books, journal articles, etc in one place – this is our users’ first assumption. This is what Google does and they’re used to.
• Some of our professional standards are archaic. – (“MARC must die”) – need to build infrastructure that allows Dublin Core, museum/art/etc standards – to index and display any metadata we come across. Willing to let MARC die of old age rather than murder.

What to do?

• “Wake up and smell the coffee” – things are changing and have changed. New reality –
• Our users

  • have lives – don’t want to spend time learning how to use you – they have other things to do
  • don’t enjoy pain – don’t enjoy having to standaon heads to figure out archane system – want things to be easy.
  • satisfice – “this is good enough” – only willing to put in a certain amount of effort for a certain gain – effort/time different for each thing / dependent on mood.
  • seek efficiencies – want to make sure time is spent well.
  • are diverse – generational differences, but with caveats. Millenials are diverse too!
  • their needs are diverse too – change from one day to the next.

• Our systems

  • we don’t have one system but many: catalogue, databases, website, etc etc etc – and not obvious wheich to use when. Requires librarian intervention almost every time.
  • painful to use – view with fresh eye, as if new to uni – – esp in comparison o Google
  • don’t offer everything users expect – expect everything at once. Or everything we have.
  • are tailored for our use, not theirs – designed by librarians for librarians – Berkeley system is a good bad example
  • don’t enable activities similar sites allow (eg Amazon has wish list, can enter review, rating) – cognitive mismatch of what expect and what get.

• Print collections

  • important but not as much as we think
  • enhangeced by access to other collections
  • increasingly exposed to wider audience so
  • will increasingly be called on by others (->doc delivery)

• Our services

  • need review in light of user need
  • may not be what we’ve done in the past – forget same old. Will have to stop doing some things. Prioritise based on users
  • may be at network level, or regionally, or locally, or a combination – connect to consortia, world level, … OCLC putting our library books into google. Increasing mix of where service happens.

Focus on strengths

• the long tail – Amazon can have records of books that are no longer being actively published, eg used books, rare books, etc. Might sell one of a given title every couple of years, but the number of titles might make this greater volume than volume of popular titles. Personalisation features, user recommendations to move from popular to obscure.. Libraries likewise have a lot of unique stuff on offer.
• More than 20 million worldcat records have only a single holding attached. – more than 25%10 or more 7 or more; 2% 100 or more.
• bring unique content to network – eg kete project. Calisphere – digitised California history, wrapped into themed subpages, tailored to specific audiene and need.
• participate in large aggregations – info re collections so people can discover us in new ways – find us on the interneteg WorldCa. (registry of libraries to give key info about libraries – keeps IP addresses. OpenURL link resolver to allow Google -> WorldCat -> your library.) (*Can these be used to instead of location information?)
• get really really good at doc delivery – material getting exposed more so need to be good at shipping around
• become part of the grid – machine ways that things knit together. – wouldn’t it be good to see on worldcat results page whether book is on shelf or not. –API at NCSU API for their catalog to let software communicate with other software. Service so if send query re bok id it’ll send back info to tell you if book is on shelf or not.
• info may want to be free but it isn’t – searching on Google scholar things still cost. – So this is still one of our strengths, to license resources on users’ behalf.
• recognise our biggest cost center: staff get efficient at using staff.Need to use staff to best advantage
• strive for efficiency in basic or redundant activities eg “marking and parking” (accessioning); chicking books in and out;
• Find place on curve and adjust it as need be. (Curve of innovativeness – innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority, laggards) “Neither an early adopter nor a laggard be” – wait for bugs to be shaken out but don’t wait so long that it’s no longer popular!
• create an agile organisation –

  • use standing committees for communication –
  • create task forces to accomplish work – can get the right people. When taks finished, disbands.
  • Use best people for the job – janitor if need be if they have knowledge that’s important for that task.
  • reward innovation. – people who take risks and put heart and soul into work
  • punish loitering – at least don’t advance them. (Libraries bad at that because we hate confrontation)
  • take risks – some things won’t go anywhere, but need to try
  • invest in infrastructure – eg people. Don’t make expensive resource be wasted waiting for computer to slow computer. Let staff come to conferences, professional development

• Become agile yourself

  • take responsibility for own professional development – need to be absorbing info all the time
  • make strategic learning decisions – can’t learn everything, so triage. Quick look, enough info to assess whether it’s something that’ll impact soon. – Ignore some things to pay attention to important ones
  • learn as you breathe – all the time without thinking of it.. Pick up journal, blog, etc to keep up to date
  • take risks (individually) – “beg for forgiveness rather than ask for permission” – usually works out…
  • strive for flexibility; thrive on uncertainty – world changing
  • be ahead of the organisation – organisations are slow, conservative by nature for good reason. They can get stultified so individuals have to be pushed, dragged, et forward.

What will work

• know clientele – recognise they change over time
• learn new technologies – what’s available and appropriate to serve needs
• imaginatively apply those technologies to serve unique needs of users – users won’t tell us what to do, they don’t know what the ossibilities are. Find out how they think, work, and we apply experience/knowledge to problem
• provide easy access to what they want, how and when they wan it. – to their desktop where possible.
• market services well!!! Often great services that no-one knows about
• rinse and repeat

Questions
Re vendors not being innovation – Vendors want to be successful ie to sell product to you. If they hear from customer that product is substandard then they’ll listen. [From vendors’ perspective they feel we’re pushing against innovation.] Can often push them forward by doing things outside vendor systems eg NCSU with Endeca – got lost of attention and got attention by other vendors. Open source eg Koha, Evergreen – when vendors see this they get nervous and busy. So don’t be quiet – talk to vendors about what we want

Re putting services out to where clients are – how does this scale – myspace and facebook etc, what do we pick, and what when everyone’s left facebook? OCLC can play at this level in the way individual libraries can’t. So cooperative solution rather than individual library, to let libraries be there but don’t have to put effort in individually.
Followup: currently works with WorldCat and holdings – but is the same model going to work with Vufind etc? –Holdings via Worldcat, individual library via Facebok API. So complementary.

Digital Content Strategy – how would you mash up a whole country? Once things described could be mashed up in all sorts of ways through harvesting. People should be able to find things in all sorts of different ways. Once stuff described then all sorts of opportunities to expose in all sorts of other systems. This one strengths of intrnet to focus on own content and everyone benefit from what everyone else is doing.

(My thoughts

• market in Canta – regular columns!
• study how students study (cf study already done elsewhere if I can find it again…)

Fairly exhausted by now but talked briefly with the people showing the poster re Auckland Uni Library’s catalogue tutorial “Te Punga”. Black and white version for people with slower connections. They did three lots of usability testing, before during and after, in developing it – tweaked things as a result but the basic graphic novel format got their interest right from the start.

Paul Reynolds
(blogs at McGovern Online)

Inevitable Paula Ryan joke – comments that he’s put on a tie.

“I have always imagined the information space as something to which everyone has immediate and intuitive access, and not just to browse, but to create.” –Time Berners-Lee (Possibly overstating things…)

Web as platform – as opposed to desktop. Internet as the place “in which we all live and breathe.” User controls own data. Web 2.0 privileges the user. “The core creator, formerly known as the user, formerly known as the audience.”

Key ideas

• Individual production and user generated content – radical decentralisation of information and content. Of course there are some rubbish blogs. But lets people engage at the level they want to – whether regular or irregular, serious or silly.

  • Acknowledges Christchurch City Library blog – esp sending people up to festival. Hyperlink from blog to catalogue.
  • Hokianga exhibition blog
  • NZ Book Month blog – voice started stiff, now unwinding, relaxing. (Need to watch the voice. Interesting to find a blog you like, and look back to see how the voice has developed.)
  • Beattie’s Book Blog – criticised as being ‘too prolific’ (posting 3-4 times a day)! Working on voice but hasn’t found it yet as too excited about what he’s doing.

  Technorati – indexes blogs. For a blog to work it needs to be connected with other blogs.
  Mashups; personalised pages with embedded content from other websites.

• harnessing the power of crowds – folksonomies (tagging, flickr, del.icio.us, etc
• data on an epic scale: “Invisible rain is captured by web 2.0 companies and turned into mighty rivers of information. Rivers that can be fished.” (from powerpoint) -> mash-up – the programmable web. Where are the programmable applications coming out of libraries? Imagine your knowledge assets – photos, texts etc – tagged onto a map.

  • Goocam
  • TheyWorkForYou.co.nz – citizen created content site following what government is up to. (Includes development blog.)

• architecture of participation – opening up not just code to developers but content production to all users.

  • TradeMe – works because thousands of traders doing it

• networking effect – the more people on a network the more effective it becomes (some contentious research on this
• openness

  • open api (application programmable interface) – bit of software to go somewhere, get a bit of data, bring it back, do something with it; or something built by owners of data to let others take it away.
    • Te Ara: authoritative content, great website, wonderful, unique, doesn’t get enough credit – not another site in the world does the same thing so well. And 10-year project – there’ll be a lot more, including more clever pieces of software. But – its own world, its own sense of control – never going to become wikipedia, and shouldn’t – provided it “opens the windows”, using APIs to allow exporting data out to school sites, student learning area, federated searching, etc
    • Matapihi: same thing: great site but need work to ‘open the windows’
    • 100% Pure New Zealand layer on Google Earth
    • the fitch: a record re reference queries – fits into a wiki – can be built on. When a customer comes to a reference desk, they’re the pulse of the community. Done around keywords, which are represented as tags, and new items in each tag can be sent out as RSS feed.

  • standards
  • public data.

• putting it all together

  • formal – informal
  • taxonomy – folksonomy
  • closed (can’t use without permission) – open (mashable by default)
  • them – us
  • network – our space (not just a place to get stuff, but a tool space)

• Digital Content strategy five-element framework – creating, accessing, sharing, managing, understanding. Where does this leave libraries? – library websites has to dance to these principles – allow peoples’ stories to be up alongside formal catalogue etc. But not just putting into repository and sitting there; put into context. Web 2.0 should be a participatory space. It’s not a fad sitting over there in a corner.

Questions
No time so go to his website!

Smita Biswas & Whetu Marama Te Ua

Using just own content management system – dreamweaver etc.
Inspred by PutMohio – wanted to create same thing with minimum cost. Putumohio worked with Millennium but they couldn’t afford this or work with vendor.
Got editable OPAC templates working as skins to pull catalogue database through so didn’t need to be hard coded of library management sstem and can be readily updated in future. Only needed $600 for templates.

Main goal to use simple sentence structure. Used Williams dictionary.

Macrons wouldn’t stick in the templates. Came up with dual opac templates.

Macrons but when saved just got squares – font doesn’t support it. Changed to Arial.
But Hamilton city kaumatua say they don’t use macrons – use double vowel.

Concept of iframes – inline frame – html element allows embedding another html page so two pages can be run at once..
Reduces need to reload entire page
Gave appearance of staying within website. Retain look and feel. Also pulls catalogue database from behind firewall.

If have database and webpage on server can avoid using iframes.

Iframes cause problems for older browsers

Questions
Have had good feedback (other than spelling! re macrons). Some tutors um and ah about macrons but mostly just glad something’s up in Maori.

Impact on council – first thing done in te reo so good for council. Has helped look at how to improve things for Maori in Hamilton – first time Council have had Maori issues on agenda.

Ksenija Obradovic

Users don’t want to perform complicated search
Not all relevant literature is on web
Searche engines return thousands of irrelevant hits
catalogues provide organised and consistant resources

Uni of Auckland library’s efforts to improve access to resources. Information retrieval depends on data quality.
Integrated Library Systems hasn’t kept up with times. Not easy or cheap to replace.
Recently alternative programs.
MarcEdit; Marc Wizard; Marc Report and Marc Global.
These last used by Uni of Auckland.

Ephemera collection in vertical files – almost 2000 files but only listed in MS Word list so students unaware of them. Converted Word document with artists’ names into Marc records. More subject headings added. Then authority work, holding and itm records.About 45 hours work (40hours took 40hours) – would have needed to be done anyway. Result – considerable increase in usage.

Database of books, documents, articles but with no marc records. Some years ago added urls to records of print versions. But this not ideal as each manifestation should have records.. Exported from Voyager, added details, reloaded back to Voyager.

Not using library system to full potential – eg gateway to theses. Thesis gateway -> canned search into catalogue with limits preset. No additional software, no extra expenses, just collaboration between cataloguing and diital services (and enthusiasm and time.)

Marc carries a lot of information – more than we use. Any mistake compromises retrieval.

Cataloguing departments face lack of time, money, people; face high demands, big backlogs, the value of their work is questioned.

Shortcuts (eg short bib records) prove costly in long run.

Solutions

• international collaboration
• being part of big communities eg OCLC
• contributing with copy cataloguing
• automating workflows – explore systems to enable workflows that save time

Check e-book marc records – quality of vendor e-book records varies widely. Mistakes can compromise searching or cause rejection in batch loading. So files run through MARC Report to identify mistakes first.

Conclusion

• catalogues need improvement
• don’t know direction of developments in future
• developments will be based on premise that cataloguing rules were followed – so goal to create good quality metadata: explore opportunities of technology

Questions
RDA – some changes haven’t been finalised so still unsure of impact. Hope more efficient to create metadata. Criticised for not being general enough and for being too general.

MARC report software – very useful esp for files outside of Voyager. (Not so useful within Voyager as has to be moved out and back in. But helped identify many mistakes with theses that had been wrongly catalogued.) But great for vendor-originated records.

Te Ahukaramuu Charles Royal
(researcher, writer, composer)

Sharing ideas about emerging creative paradigm. What it might mean for libraries and archives.
Maaori communities dominated by quest for social justice and desire for cultural restoration. Now yielding creative potential. (Have been creative in past, but now coming to the forefront.

All creative activities involved in — research, even music — NZ libraries and archives have been vital. Libraries improving in how they handle Maaori materials. (Still needs improvement in manuscripts.)

Masters programme at te Waananga o Raukawa in Maaori Matauranga. Theme of M culture as living culture, new ideas – modern, alive, vitalised (not just reconstructing/restoring pre-existing knowledge). Equipping students to become creative with matauranga. Develoop inspired and creative individuals within matauranga tradition.

Creative Potential paradigm

• source of national pride – colonisation/disenfranchisement led to turning inward and away from pakeha influences. Creative potential paradigm seeks to overcome the idea that Maaori activities should stand in a corner. Challenge to undertake activities to which broader society can connect with though inspired by own culture).
• interleaved distinctiveness – modern runanga has traditional background but often is a corporate entity too. Distinctive organisation but also legal entity – participating with others.
• mana as creativity – often translated as ‘power’ but leads to idea that need to acquire (Crown) power. But can also be mana as expressed through creativity. –Get out of competitiveness.

Viewed from Maatauranga Maaori

• moving through tangata Maaori to tangata whenua – from old paradigm of restoring Maori culture; experience of being Maaori; now that have some idea of identity can move into challenge of what it means to be tangata whenua today. From Maori vs world, to philosophical idea of what it means to be tangata whenua. Identity is only first step. Moving into humanity as a whole using traditional knowledge.
• moving through Te Ao Maaori to Te Ao Maarama – world bounded by term ‘Maaori”. Te Ao Maarama -> the world at large. Using world “Maaori” a reductive formula, glossing over variety, diversity of values and views. Terms create barriers. Being Maaori as starting point, not end point.
• Moving through maatauranga to waananga – (from knowledge to creation of new knowledge) . Was obsessed with whakapapa, karakia, waiata… First step; but next step is to create new knowledge.

Thoughts for libraries and archives:

• digital sources of maatauranga Maaori rather than oral
• digital natives need oral guidance and mentors
• cultural historians rather than claims historians – looking forward to history of love; history of perfume (7 traditional perfumes) as history of land is not so needed for claims process.
• researchers or maatauranga Maaori enabling new creativity

paper available from his website.