One of the reasons that I decided to re-start this blog was because of Rachel Singer Gordon’s post at the Liminal Librarian. Specifically, it reminded me of the haze of bright eyed enthusiasm with which I started writing and, I guess more importantly, the way that blogging gave me a strange sense of connection to the library world. Since starting my new job I’ve been even more convinced that I would never want to be anything else but a librarian (which makes all these budget cuts even more stressful- I just want to be a librarian; is that too much to ask?!) and reflecting on blog posts I read, or ideas  for projects that I had really helped streamline my thoughts. So there you are. Blogging=Zen. You heard it here first.*

And of course, the Movers and Shakers have just been announced, along with the hilariously named Shovers and Makers. I know some people are disparaging about this award, but it does interest me, and make me excited for libraries. Which is probably quite geeky, but really, bothered?!

So this is a pretty dull entry but I need to find interesting things to blog about now I’ve been reincarnated. Watch this space!

*Or probably not, seeing as there are almost 1 million hits on Google for that…

Today I discovered Educause. Well, discovered isn’t quite right, but it’s been tagged on my del.icio.us for a while, and I hadn’t quite got round to looking at it. I’m finding that’s the problem with my delicious- I’m using it as a to be read pile, but I forget that it’s there, to be read…Maybe I should get some yahoo pipes action going to pipe me my To be Read Pile. Periodically. With a big flashing “look at this” sign…

At any rate, the boss sent me an extract from James Neal’s podcast “A Steady Vision for Libraries“. It was pretty good; I’ve been put off by op-ed issues from bigwigs before… I thought his vision of libraries in the Millennial World was pretty inspiring actually,

We still have a core responsibility to identify, to capture, to organize, and to enable the scholarly record from across the world- through use and then preservation. Whether that information is captured in print or in various multimedia formats digitally, our responsibility doesn’t change. p1

Hurrah! You heard it here first- format is dead…

I thought his comments about staffing were pretty insightful too

And I think we are seeing much more of an entrepreneurial spirit in libraries today. We hire people who are committed to rethinking traditional structures and traditional processes to enable us not only to use our resources much more effectively and efficiently but also to be at the front end of some of these changes that we are experiencing. . . .

I’ve been thinking a lot about technology in the library recently; partly because I’m interviewing at a library where I’ve been warned that one of the interviewers is a print fanatic. I came across this quote from Renoir, (y’know, as you do) who stated that photography released painters from the drudgery of portrait painting. One of the next big movements that came along was Impressionism, one of my favourites, so great things happened in this case. I consequently started wondering what drudgery computers released librarians from? Ready Reference? Search? To a certain extent, yes, but we all know there’s an awful lot of bad information about there and people still have trouble finding what they need, even though theoretically there’s infinite times more stuff…. Or maybe it released us from the drudgery of, well, libraries, and allowed us to look more at publishing (digital libraries), content provision, access, copyright etc etc. It’s a tricky one- at first I was I up there with Renoir, but on reflection, I still use print sources (IMF, I’m talking to you), I still really respect librarians with traditional search techniques, and I want to learn more from them. In a way, I guess I was trying to explore the technology divide; I immediately interpreted Renoir’s quote as “oh my gosh I’m so lucky to be a librarian today; think of a library without [insert technology of choice here]” but, I think Mr Neal’s quote really puts it all in context. Librarians have always wanted to connect patrons and information, and I don’t think all the technological advances of the past twenty years have changed that; we’re just reinterpreting library provision, as Mr Neal says.

Well, I’m not sure I make any sense, but I really liked that quote and wanted to get my first thoughts down. More to follow possibly!

It occurred to me on the way home (some of my most creative ideas have hit me on my walk home; maybe I really should consider becoming a professional pilgrim if my library career doesn’t work out…), that I could very easily adapt the subject guide blog I made to an academic library career (my current professional goal.) I could pipe in Table of Contents from relevant journals/ New books from the library catalogue, and the blog format would be especially good to be able to tag stuff by subject/piece of literature eg La Celestina- which would help me in my campaign to eliminate all this format hassle. I wonder how hard it would be to embed a blog in the course management software? I’m also pretty excited about the tag cloud concept, which I’d been aware of, but hadn’t really considered before. Check out the way UC Boulder used it to help students narrow down paper choices. (scroll down a bit) This could really easily be adapted to a specific subject/book/topic. Though I think you’d have to be careful how granular you go; librarians seem to love dividing and conquering, but less is more in this case. No-one else likes to cogitate on whether a resource fits into renaissance or mediaeval or golden age categories; just whack it all in! (And choose the original resources well!) I think in the mind of most people more results= more relevant results, even though they rarely look beyond the first page, and most of the results are fairly dross like anyway…

Well, I hope my interviewers will be impressed anyway!

Project-tastic; I presented both my library turorial project and the blog project today- I think they were received pretty well! Hurrah!

Blog
Even though I say it myself, the blog subject guide turned out super-fantastico. The artistic colleague designed a great banner using fab images from Getty Images; my Yahoo Pipes RSS feed and Rollyo searches had a satisfying wow factor, and the whole thing looked polished. Later in the day one of the librarians from the Library of Congress to whom I had presented recommended that I present at the upcoming SALALM conference; unfortunately my original presentation proposal was mislaid (…) but the reference and bibliographic instruction committee asked for presentation ideas- and I was accepted! Yippee! Here’s hoping the workplace doesn’t impede my participation.

Tutorial
The fake ppt slides done in html and css worked a treat! It took me a couple of hours on Friday to tinker with them and to recall my very rusty css skills, but I cobbled and copied and within no time had a fairly workable Academic Search Premier tutorial to present to the boss and the rest of the reference team as a prototype. I was very happy with the way they turned out, and especially pleased at how little time it took me to adapt them. The uninspired-reference-colleague thought that they were “ok”- his enthusiasm was particularly thrilling, but I’m still waiting for feedback from the other colleagues, fingers crossed. I’ve a horrible feeling they may want something more flashy and with fluorescent moving parts, but hey, they don’t have to make the things, and judging by typical library speed, I think it would be easiest to get something basic out there and then use these basic ideas as templates/story boards for the flashy stuff if and when we ever get approval/more hours in the day to start snazzing. On verra…

My name is Linda and I’m a project-a-holic… Ok, it’s not that bad, but I just read about the coolest thing that I have to try. So Project number 94 (you know, in addition to my circulation/ reference/ ILL/ webpage/ instruction/ Collection development duties) is tutorials. When I arrived at my current library almost a year ago, I’d come from a large ARL library, which, even though the morale was pretty bad because nothing ever seemed to get done, was actually a shade short of perfection compared to the new library. The website was basic, half the links were broken, or <!–> out, everything was only organised alphabetically…It was a disaster, because they were changing ILS, and it’s so useless that the poor systems librarian had to spend all her time ironing away at all those kinks. Luckily most of the website is now under my crazed power grab control so it looks more well nourished at any rate. And the systems librarian just keeps ironing…

This is just the beginning though and I’ve got lots more ideas to implement. One of which is tutorials. The database page was very sadly denuded when I arrived. Just a list of names- anyone know what BOPS was, off hand, for example?- no explanation, no help, no idea. Each database now has information about it. And so I turn to tutorials. About a third of our library patrons are now abroad ie not in HQ, so el boss was pretty amenable to my suggestion of database tutorials. Consequently I spent a large portion of the winter with my nose buried in video tutorial sites/books/advice columns/ants before I came up with my mini strategic plan. Get me… El boss was pleased, but things seemed to stall as more library drama unfolded. And, I have to say, that I was never 100% behind the idea of video tutorials. I mean, I don’t even have a tv for goodness sake… I guess that I can never be bothered to watch video tutorials as I prefer to skip and jump around inside the tutorial, also it seems to be reinventing the wheel slightly when all those good folks over at ANTS are showing off their tutorials.

Just today though, I read about this RSS tutorial (yes, I’m obsessed, I realise…I promise I don’t have a Google alert set up for “RSS”) Very cool. It’s a tutorial that’s easy to design, make, implement, will be easy for our patrons in our less bandwidth happy countries to view, will let me practice my html/css skills that I’m rapidly forgetting and can be easily used as a reference tool! Marvellous!! It’s “a concept by Librarian.net’s Jessamyn West and was created in HTML using CSS…adapted… for Google Documents and you are welcome to use it as your own template, with credit.”

Feverishly I searched at Jessamyn West’s blog for the template and am now off to play. I may be some time…

(PS Thanks to the unknown Jessamyn and the MLxperience!)

I’m trying to work out a way to hack Bloglines. Bloglines was my first, and up to now, only RSS reader- through Bloglines I discovered mon petit amour RSS, and I’ve been very happy with its basic features. Consequently, I recommended it when I introduced the library to feed-readers, and really should be earning commission now…We also use it as the hub for our very advanced subject alert service…

One day, after sending off over 35 subject alerts I decided to see whether I could start making the process more automatised. If this post had been around, I would have been galvanised… At any rate, Inspiration numero uno was the realisation that I could automatically post from the Bloglines reader to the Bloglines blog, with very little hassle. In the two seconds it took me to try this feature, visions of tagging the posts and then setting up RSS feeds based on tag filters which were sent automatically to patrons filled my head. So I was a little crushed when I realised, very quickly that part 1b of the cunning plan wouldn’t work as Bloglines had no tag feature in the blog. Yes, I did a double take too; I felt betrayed… Could I look Bloglines in the eye again? Needless to say my addiction to RSS is so strong that I jumped straight back into its arms. However, things has changed between us. I secretly started investigating other RSS readers…

This post examines Bloglines vs Google Reader. Most of his arguments didn’t persuade me one way or another- the River of News feed isn’t that relevant for my needs- but then I saw the Share This feature. (Though no mention of tags?) This could be what I was looking for. The things is that I’m not the world’s biggest fan of Google. In fact I had managed to stay away from any type of Google account till my favourite mailing list migrated. So now Larry and Sergey have my data. And I’m not too happy about it. I decided that even if Google Reader had great features I would try and look for another solution to my problem.

I started looking up ways to hack Bloglines. Maybe I would be the one to make it change… This post spurred me on. Sadly as I don’t have a TV, the TIVO hack wasn’t much use, nor am I addicted to a Blackberry. However, the hack to use the email to send feeds to blog software was interesting, as was the hack to post direct to del.icio.us.  Hmmm… The brain started whirring.

Ultimately, though I didn’t find a complete solution. Though my enthusiasm has waxed again after reading about ScribeFire; maybe that could hold another piece of the puzzle.

[Update: I'm now using the del.icio.us hack instead of the clippings section of Bloglines for my personal use. (see right hand menu) The words nail and coffin are springing to mind...]

To be continued…

Beta News reports that M$ is hoping to become the window to the web with its new service Live Mesh. The name isn’t doing much for me but maybe that’s because I’m ROTFL about the idea that Microsoft may allow us to “seamlessly share information”… As a Mac convert, the words Microsoft and interoperability form the definition for oxymoron. Not that Apple is much better at times with its hoohaa about iPods and iTunes.

Snide comments aside though, I’m intrigued by the idea of more interaction between applications (no more emailing stuff to myself! Hurrah!) as well as repelled by the thought that one company wants to “be the web”. In layman’s terms, M$ has finally realised that hey, we don’t all rely on M$ products anymore, (37% used Firefox in March, come on my son) so they’re going to design a “Windows for the Web” so you can synchronise (ie the latest version) your work wherever you are working. It’s even supposed to work with Safari and Firefox… So you put your photos in the mesh on your desktop, and then can access them through your iphone halfway up a mountain in Scotland. You add some comments to the photos while waiting for the rain to stop and your comments are synchronised via the mesh and updated in your desktop.

As far as I understand it anyway. At any rate, I like the flexibility. And potentially it will be easier to find everything, which makes more sense. And anything built on my favourite friend, RSS, can’t be bad! However, whether or not it will actually work out is another thing. M$ has just been so proprietary before hand, that I just can’t see them facilitating access to all the other fab non M$ applications out there. Besides, most other applications are better than M$ ones too- I mean, Firefox is just the greatest thing since sliced bread, imho and gave us such a sense of what could be done, compared to what we were told could be done. Now that’s it’s a lot easier to customise things, I get so frustrated by non-customisable products- why won’t my yahoo mail do what I want it to? And I don’t think M$ will ever give us that sense of freedom.

However, I like the idea of being able to organise stuff by subject rather than by format- something that we should do in libraries. Who cares if it’s a print journal article or an e-print- I just want the information. SFX has started in the right direction with this, but there’s a long way to go. We may also have to surgically remove cataloguers from their obsession with format too…

It’s time to write about one of my favourite inventions, ever; Ladies and Gentlemen, the right Honourable RSS! It’s always been at the back of mind to write about RSS, but it just seemed such a vast topic that I kept putting off R-Day. Until ReadWriteWeb rather belatedly reminded me that May 1st was actually RSS Awareness Day- aagh! I feel that I’ve let my trusty friend down by not celebrating- I mean stuff workers’ rights, this is far more important…

Anyway, I’m going to start with one of my pet RSS projects, because if ever I needed help with a project, it was this one. No yahoo pipes-esque inspiration yet, and I’ve been working on this for a lot longer… In a nutshell, the library is getting cut; people think everything is on google, no-one knows who those folk in specs and dowdy cardigans are anymore, blah blah blah. It’s hardly ground breaking news. So, we at the library make the obvious connection and decide that we need to start reaching out to people rather than wait for them to come to us. One of the librarians, who has been there for eons, states that in the past, when she received interesting emails she used to send them to interested people, a la SDI. Did they teach SDI at library school anymore? I have no idea what SDI is, and am trying to visualise the trusty acronym dictionary in my head in the vain hope that that might help me. It doesn’t. Bearing in mind I had only been at my job for less than two months, I decide to risk a cautious no. Right answer and full explanation ensues. (FYI, it’s Selective Dissemination of Information…right.) So she explains, and RSS immediately springs to mind. I had probably been indulging in some illicit feed reading moments before… Why don’t we start to build this up, with proper distribution lists of interested specialists (as I know about 4 people in the Bank. Knowledge Management indeed) and draw in more content with RSS? Library colleagues were a little hazy about RSS but that led to some ego boosting teaching opportunities and being known as the RSS guru, so it worked well for me… But anyway, this was last July, and I haven’t been able to move on from this basic idea yet. Basically, I set up distribution lists in most wonderful Outlook of joy (…), entitled “Health” or “Environment” for example. I set up RSS feeds for as many different providers who might provide interesting and worthwhile content that our patrons would like to see. I scan Bloglines twice a day, copy, paste and send the information to the patron distribution lists. It works. People are happy as they get new material which has been vetted by a librarian. We’ve expanded the service to include new journals and books. And we’re happy as we’re reaching people for sure, rather than just providing a RSS feed and hoping people sign up.

BUT- its not very cool. It was half cool maybe in 2004, but we’re in 2008. It’s very time consuming. It’s not automated. But I think it could be!! From the SLA listserv, it seems that no-on has much more of an idea than we do. There’re a couple of services: Ozmosys is one fr’instance, but although everyone wanted to know more about services, no-one seemed very happy with any of the solutions.

I’m fairly happy with the basic layer of the service- ie the groups of specialists and the information we’re receiving, though it would be good to expand this. The alerts are very relevant too, as they’re handpicked. Some of the ideas that I have been pondering in order to improve this involve:

• The Specialist Locater that the workplace may eventually crack on with sometime this millennium, (extract the tags/info that people add about themselves and their interests) (more about this later),
• OR somehow tag all the relevant information by publishing it in a blog (Bloglines has this feature to publish, but no tagging, sadly) and then extracting an RSS feed filtered by tag and sending it automatically to the distribution lists. (hmm, in my dreams?! Not sure about presentation issues…)
• OR as yet some other inspired solution!

I’ve been scouring the web for information about similar problems- and will write later about AideRSS, Readburner, and the like. Well, I will when I’ve read about them; the blog is really making me get my thoughts in order which is F.A.B!

David Lewis, Dean of the University Library at Purdue wrote a paper last year entitled “A Strategy for Academic Libraries in the First Quarter of the 21st Century”. Now, I’ve gone off Deans of Libraries slightly since my last job when the Dean appeared to be in cahoots with the very anti-literate Dean/Chief/President of the University. He always wore chinos and seemed to be the type who only discovered email in the 2000s. Very un 2.0.

Consequently, I read this paper with some trepidation and although some parts are wonderfully vague “retire legacy print collections”- has he ever worked with Latin America, for instance? One of the Libraries of a Latin American Central Bank with whom we work doesn’t even have a computer… some parts are at least fairly interesting. One of his five strategies for maintaining the library is:

“5. Migrate the focus of the collections from purchasing materials to curating content.”

As an erstwhile e-content librarian my ears pricked up at this. On page 13 he assumes that the new special collections will be formed by “digital versions of traditional special collections” and increasingly “born digital documents and digital outputs of the research enterprise”. True, but unlike Mr Lewis, I don’t think that libraries have a proper handle on maintaining either of these collections of digital objects yet.

In all honesty, I was a little disappointed by this part of the essay. Strategy number 5 is catchy; it made me think about e-content, I was excited; but the expanded version of the strategy wasn’t very practical. It wasn’t even visionary. It just talked about the budget and how librarians need to help all campus units. Hmm. I guess, when I think curating e-content, it makes me think, wow, special collections, how to present subject resources, digital libraries, how to start capturing and gathering together e-content and including it in the library’s resources, and even, is this really the role of libraries? E-content has grown at whatever crazy exponential rate, and even people like Intute can only capture a miniscule percentage of e-content. How do we make sense of all that data? Should each library keep working on its only little collections? Is this reinventing the wheel? Or is better than letting my arch nemesis Google get their sticky mitts on it all? It frustrates me. Library 1 builds a great collection on whatever. Library 2 builds a great collection on similar whatever. Will people know to search both places, or the 36 places that have info on whatever? Can the libraries talk to each other, technically and physically?

Yes, far too many questions. But I keep cogitating and ruminating on this subject and working out that subject guides are a necessary evil. So how can I make them better, to incorporate all this necessary data/info/resources in a cool 2.0 way? And I don’t mean add a facebook widget to my subject guide. Incidentally, this article from PC World explains some of my misgivings with current social networking very neatly…

Plus ça change…

I had a bit of an exciting breakthrough moment on Friday- very 2.0… I mentioned in one of the last posts how I invited myself along to the meeting between the library and the subject group who wanted to display their subject guide/bibliography in a modern way. I was a little worried that I hadn’t been invited, but they soon realised that they would be much better with me and I have now wopped and added that project to my mandate with relative ease. We decided on a blog to display the bibliographic search that one of the other librarians did for us- this way people could add to it, and the group, who had minimal knowledge of anything technological (one up, the library!) could manage it. So, I was working on the blog for them (after much hassle from the corporate workplace of doom which is very un- 2.0. I feel the library needs to invest in multiple copies of The Cluetrain Manifesto (a cracking book) and leave them lying around casually) and I decided that I should add an RSS feed to the sidebar so they would get all the new material on the subject. (The bibliographic search runs 2000-Jan/Feb 2008). Only, there is not one single RSS feed that would cover all their topic. And this is where my da-da moment came in- why couldn’t I mash up and filter a few RSS feeds with Yahoo Pipes and put this is my customised RSS feed in the sidebar? Ok, so it’s hardly a giant leap for mankind- but it was a small step for me and I was briefly very proud of myself! So I know have about 10 RSS feeds coming into my yahoo pipe and consequently their blog; half with one filter, 4 more with another and then I added a sprinkling of customised database searches exported to RSS feeds as a bonus- and tada lists! A customised RSS feed! The only thing that worries me now is archiving or storing all the good material that comes up on that RSS feed. Hmm, I guess I need to dust off that RSS/Bloglines class from last year, really.

Now if only I was within earshot of some real bagpipes to triumphantly pipe in the idea-

Fair fa your honest sonsie face, great chieftain of the yahoo pipes race…