Tim Spalding on Social Cataloging and the Fun OPAC: Notes

Photos

Tim Spalding was fun. And we have something in common. We both like big. The movie. The one where Tom Hanks plays a kid in a grown-up’s body.

Spalding, the founder of LibraryThing, referred to a scene from the movie where Josh, the character played by Hanks, challenges the thinking of Paul, a marketing man, behind a new toy:

JOSH: I don’t get it.
PAUL: What exactly don’t you get?
JOSH: It turns from a building into a robot, right?
PAUL: Precisely.
JOSH: Well, what’s fun about that?

—Source: Script-O-Rama

The reference was made in connection with Spalding’s feelings about discussions regarding next generation OPACs, which do not fit his idea of “fun.” According to him, “The library is the most fun you can have with your clothes on,” but he also says that librarians keep their websites and OPACs separate because it’s their “secret shame.”

Art Rhyno and Dan Scott on Evergreen: Notes

Photos | Slides: Rhyno, Scott (pdf)

Note on Rhyno’s slides: Click on the screen to move to the next slide. If you would like to go to specific slides, point your mouse at the bottom-right corner, and wait until the navigation menu appears.

Evergreen is an open-source integrated library system (ILS), which was developed for a consortium of 252 public libraries. Art Rhyno provided an introduction to open source and Evergreen, while Dan Scott presented the business case for adopting an open source ILS.

If you would like to find out more about the technical aspects of Evergreen, check out Open-ILS.org, which includes links to the FAQ, a blog, listservs, downloads, and even a documentation wiki that features a document called, “The Harried Library Developer’s Guide to Using OFBiz as an Acquisitions/Serials Module” (pdf).

Beth Jefferson on the BiblioCommons

Slides | Photo
1:30 – 3pm; Room 205.

In her Digital Odyssey 2006 session, Beth talked about the research being conducted with BiblioCommons and since then the project has received funding from Knowledge Ontario to further the work of buidling a proof of concept by implementing a pilot project with Ontario public libraries.

Key ideas:

Social discovery (vs. social software)

Averages hide important differences

Introduction:

• Consider that: “A good hockey player plays where the puck is. A great hockey player plays where the puck is going to be” (Gretsky)
• The question then is, what kind of player plays where the puck has been?
• Many are frustrated with existing OPACS, so what can be done about it?
• Next generation catalogue functionality (already) include the following: spell-checking, field weighting, truncation, sort flexibility, in-line query limiters; (and for more advanced examples) faceted search, duplicate detection (FRBR), ratings, reviews, tags…
• Libraries are behind commerce in this area; therefore there is an opportunity here for libraries to ‘leap frog’.
  Where are things headed? ‘Social searching’ (not about blogs, podcasts) but using what others have found to help discovery of resource.

Bess Sadler: Open Source ILS and Library-in-a-Box

Bess Sadler is Head of Technical and Metadata Services at the University of Virginia and co-chair of eIFL-FOSS.

Contact: bess.sadler@eifl.net

What is eIFL-FOSS?
Electronic Information for Libraries—Free and Open Source Software

• eIFL is concerned with providing and developing access and support for electronic library services in developing and transitioning countries around the world
• providing alternatives to vendors and proprietary library systems
• contributing to the overarching trend in open access and open source: “Libraries doing it for themselves”
• library members who are part of eIFL-FOSS are often seriously under-funded and have inadequate services

Open Source Software and Library Systems

• what is open source?
  • after writing a computer program, you have to compile it; vendor software is packaged and already compiled which means you can’t make changes
  • free software is not always what it sounds like; there’s a difference between something that doesn’t cost any money (as in beer) and something that allows you to participate freely (as in speech); and something that is easy to come by (free: as in kittens) but has maintenance costs and long term commitment
• UVirginia and eIFL-FOSS are interested in avoiding licensing fees, but willing to pay for developers and maintenance

Tim Spalding on Social Cataloging and the Fun OPAC: Photos

Tim Spalding, founder of LibraryThing and closing keynote speaker, put the quotes around the word “fun” in the title for his session, but recently he changed his mind about the quotes. Well, just for this post, his wish has been granted =)

Notes will follow.

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Posted by Von Totanes

Beth Jefferson on BiblioCommons: Photo

Beth Jefferson, the founder of BiblioCommons, emphasized that the next generation online catalog should be about discovery, not just finding. Read notes on her talk here.

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Art Rhyno and Dan Scott on Evergreen: Photos

Evergreen is an open-source integrated library system (ILS), which was developed for a consortium of 252 public libraries. Read session notes here.

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Jeffrey Trzeciak – University Librarian – McMaster University Library

Slides | Photos

Opening session (9:15am – 10:45am)

- purpose of talk was to speak about creating a “Culture of innovation”, and preparing the Library of today for the learner of tomorrow

About Him
• More than 20 years experience, started career in public library, but most experience in academic libraries
• From Wayne State
• Experiences primarily in the IT realm
• Blog – http://ulatmac.wordpress.com/
• He is a gamer, with a passion for World of Warcraft, spending 20-30 hours a week
• On Second Life
• On Facebook

Digital Odyssey 2007 Begins

The sold-out event began this morning with a welcome from OLITA president Catherine Steeves at the Faculty of Information Studies, University of Toronto. Photos below show Jeff Trzeciak, the opening session speaker, and the audience. Read notes from his talk here.

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Schedule Change

We regret to announce that David Fiander will not be able to present at Digital Odyssey this year. David’s experience with the Evergreen ILS is of great interest to libraries in Ontario, and his presence will be missed.

In his place we will be having Dan Scott from Laurentian University co-present with Art Rhyno. The topic of the session will remain the same. Dan is Systems Librarian at Laurentian, and a great contributor to the open source community, having worked on the development of PHP, Apache and Linux. Find out more about Dan at his Coffee|Code blog.