My dream library technician job

My little Library Technician job mash-up pulled out what sounds like my dream library technician job:

Library Technicians - $46,640+
Canadian Security Intelligence Service / CSIS (Ottawa ON)

Not only could I live in Ottawa, city of wonderful bike trails, but I could get as close to being (the male version of) Chloe O’Brian as I likely ever will.

But my “barely passing grade 8″ French dooms me from ever getting a sniff at a job in Ottawa.

One thing you’ll probably never see in a Canadian library

Users in my library could use a machine like this.

But the copyright police would probably have machines like this destroyed at the border.

Thanks Jim Prentice!

You say library technician, I say librarian…

It is an ongoing issue in the world of librarians about how touchy MLIS holders should get when non-MLIS holders get called “Librarian”.

When it comes to the public, the people that come in and use libraries, I believe the vast majority don’t care about the particular educational achievements of the person they are getting help from, they just want them to provide the service they need.

In this article from the North Country Times in California:

ESCONDIDO: Bernardo parents, students fight to keep librarian

the writer and the people quoted in the article use the terms library technician and librarian interchangebly. All the parents care about is that they may have to share with other schools the library technician they admire and beleive helps their children. To them, a person who provides all these services at such a high level is a “librarian” in their eyes.

While I certainly beleive in the general concepts behind the occupational divisons between library technicians and librarians, I think anyone who gets hung-up on how the public uses the title “librarian” needs to find other things to worry about.

Firefox 3 says the OLITA blog is dangerous

I’ve just downloaded Firefox 3 and when I went to read the latest post from the OLITA blog I got this scary looking warning:

 

May be a false-postive type of situation but the OLA web gang may want to look in to this.

Here’s what you see when you click ‘Why was this site blocked?”.

 

Images In Vogue

One of my main duties at work is helping ensure that faculty and staff are following proper procedures when it comes to the use of copyrighted materials.

Given the ease with which people are sharing/re-mixing/stealing all manner of content these days, I believe faculty and staff are surprised when we tell them that some of the activities they are taking part in are in violation of the school’s copyright policy.

One of the most common sources of surprise involves the Google Image Search. Faculty are constantly looking for the quickest source of images for PowerPoint, to upload to Blackboard, etc. Needless to say they are often able to find the perfect image through a service that indexes over a billion web pages.

If a teacher was looking for crayfish images they tend to turn to Google and I’m sure the majority simply use the images they find in a number of ways. But for those poor souls who ask for our guidance we have to tell them that all those images are in no way owned by Google. They are simply providing thumbnail size versions of images that they scrape from all the sites they index. Without trying to explain them to them the intricacies of Perfect 10 vs. Google we tell them they need to go to the actual site the image comes from and check their Terms of Use document to see if they can use it for educational purposes.

As an aside, I’m aware I might be sounding hypocritical given that I’ve just uploaded this screen shot of a Google page (with a number of copyrighted images within it, yikes!) without any formal permission but my work duties mean I have to help ensure that the college is never accused of copyright infringement (sorry Georgia State). As an individual I am more than happy to push back against restrictive interpretations of copyright law.

We are doing are best to instruct college employees about the wealth of material that can be found with Creative Commons licenses. Pushing them in this direction helps ensure respect for copyright and saves me time from having to send out a bunch of permission requests.

While I find the flickr search tool adequate most of the time, I think the less tech savvy find it lacking (few results per page, interpreting the various licenses, etc.)

ReadWriteWeb mentioned a new flickr search tool called compfight that I’m very impressed with. The most obvious feature is the large number of image previews it brings up when you do a search.

There are number of other features that make it so useful. By clicking the text with blue font on the main screen you can:

• Choose to search for pictures with Creative Commons licenses and for ones with specific types of licenses (commercial use, etc.)
• By clicking the black button by the search box you can search the text supplied alongside the image or just search the specific tags applied to it.

Of course searches on a user-generated site has its limitations. If a teacher is looking for an image that shows the nervous system of a crayfish (do they even have one?) chances are it won’t be found in flickr. But many times they want fairly generic images and the more tools like compfight make searching for copyright flexible material the easier it will be to get school employees to buy-in when it comes to respect for copyright.

And I can have more time to read my RSS feeds.

Friday at the OLA Super Conference 2008

After being exhausted from trying to handle two days at my first OLA Super Conference (1, 2) I decided that one day was enough this year.

So I braved the Toronto snow storm on Friday and made my way down to the Metro Convention Centre.

Session 1009 - Google: The New Library Vendor
This session was given by Greg Sennema from Wilfred Laurier. The OCULA blog gives a good description of the talk. I saw his session about WordPress last year and again he put together a very solid presentation. Having a keen interest in all things Google, I must admit I already knew about some of the topics he touched on such as iGoogle and Custom Search Engines. However, his main point in showing some of the new tools Google is creating was to ask the question about how they will effect the services libraries provide in the short and long-term. A thought provoking idea he mentioned was whether projects like Google Books (scanning all of the books in libraries like the University of Michigan, etc.) will replace the traditional delivery of ILL. While the full-text of copyrighted books are not being provided to the public through Google Books, you can imagine that in the future that various universities that are part of the Google Books project may come together to provide full-text access to each others’ user communities, thereby making all the staff time and cost of traditional ILL irrelevant. I’m sure the copyright-owner lobbyists may have an objection or two to this however.

Session 1100 - Slow in the age of speed
This presentation by Carl Honore, author of “In Praise Of Slow“, inspired me to try and make more time to nap in my office. I’ll report back on how my supervisor feels about this effort to be more productive.

Session 1204 - The Kids Are Alright, Or are They?
Any session named after a Who song has to be good. The content of this very interesting talk is summarized well on the OCULA blog. I’m already an avowed Mohawk Library fanboy so it was interesting see and hear from two of the schools’ main librarians. I think the lovely (and award winning) Jennifer commented on my post back in the day. They talked about how educators, library people, etc. are inundated with the idea that today’s students (millenials, etc.) have all these specific characteristics (naturally tech-savy, able to do their homework while listening to their iPods, have differently wired brains, spend all their time in Second Life, etc.) so we must change the ways we instruct and interact with them. They talked about how these claims did not always square with their experiences at the reference desk. I know how they feel. Seeing students struggle with Microsoft Office documents that open inside WebCT and not knowing how to print them, I question the theory that because a kid plays World Of Warcraft all day that he somehow becomes a savant at how various software systems interact.

The speakers did a great job at peaking behind some of the research the Mark Prensky’s of the world use to back up their claims and showing the lack of solid scholarship at the heart of much of it. I knew I recognized that name when they mentioned it and I remembered that I did a copyright request for the use of some of his materials. Hopefully the department I did the request for isn’t basing all their plans on Prensky’s work.

All in all, an excellent example of evidenced based librarianship. Check out the blog they created for their research: http://kidsarealright.wordpress.com/

Session 1318 - Scholar’s Portage. Avoiding the Waterfall: Leveraging Social Networking Tools And Scholars Portal Data
Come 3:45pm on a snowy day, the third day of the conference, people are naturally getting a little tired. Add to this a session that some people may consider a little on the ‘dry’ side and it added up to a sparsely attended event. Luckily I dig ‘dry’ and throw in a cute librarian who’s really into music giving the presentation so I found the session very worthwhile. While it has very little effect on my duties I am always curious about what exactly Scholars Portal is and what the future plans are for this joint effort of Ontario’s universities. The speakers gave some interesting insights into what they do now and were open about their thinking process in trying to decide how to evolve their services in a way that truly is a benefit to their users and not just Library 2.0 applications for the sake of Library 2.0. As usual I’m doing a lousy job of describing the session so here is:

• A web document.
• Google presentation slides.
• A video with slides. (use OCUL as the Login and Password)

Conclusion
All in all it was another very well organized event with interesting speakers and topics. My only complaint was the lack of a free pen in my conference package. Also I can’t really be seen carrying around a bag covered in butterflies so I had to give the conference bag away to my Mom. I also forgot to see if Access Copyright was giving away free mints again this year. There’s always next year.

Facebook and GW Librarians

My custom Google News RSS feed picked up this story from the George Washington University student newspaper:

Gelman finds a new book. Librarians make resource out of Facebook

The article talks about an effort by GW librarians to promote their profiles on Facebook and make themselves upon to interacting with students in that space.

There is an anecdote about a student needing last second virtual reference assistance. She did not have the particular IM software (AOL) the library uses installed on her computer. She also mentions a lack of enthusiasm for email as a form of communication, saying she does not check it that often (those wacky millennials aren’t ‘down’ with email). So she got in touch with one of the GW librarians on Facebook and got the help she needed.

You can see on the article an image of the poster they use to promote the service. I tend to fall on the side of the fence that finds library staff trying to “friend” students a little creepy. But, the connection to the librarians grows out of the fact that students in a course at the school are assigned a personal librarian so there is a personal connection to start with.

There is not a lot of evidence of promotion of the service on the libraries web site with the Ask Us part of the site providing information on the conventional ways to contact them. However, this librarian provides a link to his Facebook profile on his blog.

It looks like they are taking time to evaluate how to evolve their services using tools like Facebook. They are asking for student feedback via an online survey.

DIY Facebook Applications

Ever since Facebook opened up their platform to outside applications I have noticed that a number of services have developed tools for us non-programmers to create Facebook applications.

The one I read the most about was Dapper. ReadWriteWeb has a good post and short video about the service.

So I thought I’d give Dapper a try (also, I didn’t have time to commute to Stanford). I decided to create an application using a basic RSS feed from Google News. I tried to think about what ongoing news story I would want updated stories about in my Facebook profile. Of course I thought about the upcoming Rambo movie. So using the Google News feed I followed the simple steps laid out in Dapper’s AppMaker. A few minutes later I had created and published my first Facebook Application. At this point two strangers have added this application so I consider that a success. However you can’t officially add your creations to Facebook’s application directory until you have at least 5 users.

After I got this basic one out of the way I thought about how to create a library-themed one. Since I can’t create a technical wonder like the University of Alberta’s search application, I thought about a tool I would have appreciated during my periods of unemployment, a one-stop RSS feed that brought together the library technician job postings from various job boards.

The problem in creating such a tool is that few job boards provide an RSS feed. Again Dapper came to the rescue. All you have to do is enter in a URL and it can distill which content you want to track and create an RSS feed for.

Then I took the 6 different RSS feeds I had for library technician job postings and entered them into a new Yahoo Pipe. While creating a basic Pipe from multiple feeds is simple, the problem was that without filtering the results in some way, I was getting a final feed that included jobs for librarians, unrelated technical jobs and other off-topic postings.

The solution to this was to use the Filter tools provided. After much trial and error I ended up with the following Pipe:

Considering the fact that I was pulling out content from very different types of web pages I am quite happy with the final result. In order to track and continually refine this tool I have created a new page on my blog which will detail my progress and provide links to the Canadian Library Technician Jobs Facebook application and a separate RSS feed.

Facebook Fan Pages & Libraries

The Globe & Mail had a story today about universities setting up Facebook Fan Pages.

Universities

• University of Guelph
• University of Toronto

Libraries have been trying to find their place in Facebook and as I wrote about earlier, they have been stopped from the traditional avenue of creating a Facebook Profile and were left with creating a Facebook Group which is not as powerful a tool for interacting with an audience.

In the last few weeks the blogs have been starting to fill-up with information about various libraries setting up one of these Fan Pages.

Libraries

• University of the Pacific
• Lucy Robbins Welles Library
• University of Victoria Library

As a test I created a Fan Page for a fictional library, the Happytown Library.

The Fan Pages provide a lot of options for the type of content you can present. You can add any of the applications created for Facebook. I added the “My Feeds” application and I was quickly able to upload entries from my blog which I think a library with a separate news blog would find quite useful.

One of the most interesting aspects of the Fan Pages is the information that can be gathered about the “Fans”. Facebook created this ability with the goal of getting you to buy targeted ads for your company but the data is useful even if you don’t plan to create an ad.

Unfortunately, I don’t have enough fans to see just what type of demographic data is provided but I imagine it would be sex, age, network affiliation, etc.

From a quick scan of the various Fan Pages there does not appear to be a lot of activity but since they are so new and I’m not sure the various libraries/schools are actively promoting them yet, this is understandable.

Of course this again raises the question of whether libraries will create a Fan Page just to be “current” and “hip” or will they take advantage of the opportunities it provides.

This article does a good job of describing of how companies should use Fan Pages, with the point being that it makes no sense to just create another page where your users can get the same information they can from your web site.

The author says the whole goal is to create a “conversation hub”. But when I look at the page for the University of Toronto they have eliminated the Wall and the Discussion Board. It is a very one-way space for communication.

The University of Victoria Library on the other hand has their Wall and Discussion Board up and running (even if it is mainly the library posting comments at the moment). As well they have already integrated the JSTOR Search application and a search box for their catalogue.

It will be interesting to see these Fan Pages six months to a year from now to see if they have really grown in to places where users ask questions , provide feedback, etc. I suspect users will be much more open to “Faning” a library as opposed to “Friending” one given all the personal information you are liable to share with your Facebook friends (no one at the library needs to see a students’ pictures from the beer-bong showdown in the dorms last weekend).

Piping Hot

Having some free time over Christmas, I have gotten around to playing around with some of the new mashup for dummies technologies being made available.

Besides Microsoft’s Popfly and Dapper, I have spent time trying to understand the basics of Yahoo’s Pipes. Some of the Pipes people are creating are quite complicated with geocoded maps and lots of localized information. In trying to figure out how to create something simple and at the same time wondering how tools like this can be used in the library environment I tried to think of ways to combine various RSS feeds. Here’s what I’ve come up with.

Ontario Nursing News
When I think about the future evolution of the traditional library subject guide I feel a big part of it should be automated updated content. We have a lot of nursing students in our library and I imagine a feed they could view which had up to date relevant information to them would be useful.

So I went about creating a Pipe from 3 different feeds. I created a simple Google News RSS feed for a search for stories that mention Ontario Nurses. But I also wanted to extract the news sections from the Canadian Nurses Association and the Ontario Nurses Association which do not provide their stories in a RSS feed. Pipes mentions using the tool Feedity, which scrapes a basic web page and creates an RSS feed from it. You can see below what this Pipe looks like:

The results list is not as perfect as I would like. For some reason when Feedity scrapes the ONA site for stories it includes the ads from the site in the results of the Pipe. But overall, it does what I intended it to do. And now I can use the output of this Pipe as an RSS feed.

Access Copyright News
With all the news about copyright law changes coming I wanted to create a Pipe that combined a variety of feeds that mention everyones’ favorite copyright collective Access Copyright. This pipe is fairly basic and combines a feed from an Ebsco search and ones from Google Blogs, Google News and Yahoo News.

The Filter module was needed to make this Pipe useful because with the Ebsco, Google and Yahoo searches it was not easy to verify that the phrase “Access Copyright” was returned and not the word access and copyright separated by a paragraph or a period. Before I put the filter in I was getting a lot of unrelated stories which had the word access as the last word of the articles and the copyright notice at the bottom of the article. Now I have a useful feed that keeps me up to date when Access Copyright news is happening or when articles that discuss the collective are written.

Library Catalogue Alerts on NCAA/College Basketball
Finally, I wanted to try a library focused Pipe. Knowing that there are a growing number of libraries with modern OPACs that create RSS feeds for searches I created a Pipe on the topic of basketball with a filter for NCAA/College basketball. I used the catalogues from Ann Arbor District Library, Plymouth State University Library, and North Carolina State.

I’m not sure how useful this particular Pipe is. It was more of an effort to see if it would work. I can imagine that if WorldCat had a way to create similar RSS feeds, the ability to filter results that Pipes has would allow you to create some interesting alerts about books on very specific topics being added to libraries across the continent.