Category: Conferences Notes

Getting to the Eureka! Moment

Julian Aiken, Access Services Librarian, Yale Law Library

Google Model for Innovation Using (and Abusing it) at Yale Law School

Brilliant but Rummy (Odd) Idea No. 1

Personal Motivations.

Idea #2

When in doubt, cheat, copy, steal, and pillage.

Google.

It’s from Wikipedia, so it must be true.

Google 80/20 innovation model. Gmail, Google News, Google Shuttle, etc., came from it.

Google Earth.

Google’s Model: 80 % of staff time spent on core projects. 20% of time spent on company related projects that interest them personally. If you have a great idea, you’re supported to run with it.

Achieving Institutional Buy-in.

  • staff are asked to do more with less.
  • why then take them away from core duties for 80/20 models
  • this is a way to reward staff.
  • Ex. “reserved for employee of the month” parking passes

Adversity inventions during WWII

  • chicken dinners
  • t-shirts
  • tom and jerry
  • spam
  • frisbee
  • duct tape
  • joystick
  • synthetic rubber
  • accurate brassiere cup sizing

This model can improve inter-departmental relationships: esp technical services & public services.

new and richer understanding of each other.

You know we’re two hearts believing in one mind…la la la… Phil Collins

By working in reference, Technical Services librarians took a lot of what they knew about the collection already through cataloging… [wildebeasts slide]

Cross training.

Initiatives developed through this model

Questions

  • Pilot project that was developed in a 6-person dept. 4 of the 6 staff working currently; other two will join shortly. If it works, it will move to the larger library. Many other libraries are using similar models.
  • How close to the institution does the project need to be? library-related at least.
  • Cost? Time or financial too. Repository required software purchase. But the others didn’t. [idea had already been tossed around before this model was used]
  • Question raised. Using work resources while off the clock to do professional things.
  • Speaker discusses this model has allowed him to interact more with ILL and learn the other areas. It does depend on how well-staffed you are, but even when tight-staffed, it’s still worked.
  • No cases where “No” has been said, but idea has been further developed to fit the library’s needs.
  • Outreach ideas can come from this model.

eBooks and their Growing Value for Libraries Panel

Amy Pawlowski, Web App Manager at Cleveland Public Library

Sue Polanka, Head of Referene and Instruction at Wright State University Libraries, Author of No Shelf Required

Ellen Druda, Librarian, Internet Services, Half Hollow Hills Community Library

Rosemarie Jerome, Librarian, Half Hollow Hills Community Library

Bianca Crowley, Smithsonian

Amy Pawlowski & Sue Polanka

Public Library

  • 72% of Public Libraries are offering eBooks (LJ report)
  • 55K thousand titles in the Cleveland Public Library eBook collection
  • 5% of public libraries circulate preloaded ereading devices, while 24% are considering it. Kindle was the top device.
  • 1/5 of the US online population reads at least 2 books per month. How to capture that audience?

Academic Library

  • 94% of academic libraries already offer ebooks
  • 80% by 2020- academic econtent expenditures
  • 87% of students say online libraries/databases have impact on learning (Cengage study cited)
  • 50% found positive ebooks/textbooks impact
  • LJ Mobile survey: 65 % of academic libraries offer services via mobile

Value fo Libraries

  • 24/7 access anywhere
  • econtent meets users where they are
    • distance learning
    • virtual reference services
    • mobile websites
    • Course Management Systems
    • Online instruction
    • Self-service research
    • lots of free eBooks available — expand library’s collection that way [CLiC MARC record project]
    • Staying current/relevent by delivering a service to a growing demographic
    • eReaders and tablet market
    • Mobile market

Economic impact for Public Libraries

  • Collection Development Budget
  • Current Cost effectiveness stats

How to Position Your Library: Public Libraries

  • The waiting is over; don’t say you can’t afford it. Join consortiums, etc. [My comment: But still, What about rural libraries with tiny budgets?? Sigh; is there a digital divide in libraries?]
  • Know the platforms and products and how they work
  • Start planning for the future now
  • Consider circulating eReaders and Tablets (still disagree with this PoV)
  • Plan for collection development
  • Training and marketing

How to Position Your Library: Academic Libraries

  • the future is econtent
  • understand the current limitations
  • Advocate for a sustainable future
  • Access/discovery are key
  • Brand your content
  • Ownership has its privileges
  • Be open to new ideas and experimentation
  • Talk to vendors
  • Customize the interfaces

Ellen Druda and Rosemarie Jerome

  • Marketing: Staff received buttons (and script went with buttons for in case someone was asked about eBooks)
  • Skype an author (iDrakula discussion)

Bianca Crowley’s Slides

Teching Up: Traditional Library Programs

Sue Scott

Marlboro Free Library

Why care about technology?

  • Bridging the digital divide
  • showing what is possible
  • speaking to digital natives
  • digital literacy (access not enough; have to know how to use it)
  • balance caution with enthusiasm
  • everything in moderation

Children’s Programs

  • Skyping Toddlertime
    • (2 laptops with cameras and skype; external speakers)
    • LCD TV with video cable to laptop
    • singing storytime; librarian was at home; kids at the library
  • Technology Tuesday camp with 4th and 5th graders
    • 8 weeks after school program: movie creation; game development; gaming; tech crafts
    • Movies:
      • Publisher to create movie premier flyers;
      • took digital camera pics of kids and had them use PAINT to create scary masks;
      • used audacity to import music CD tracks of scary sounds as MP3s into Adobe Elements
    • Game development:
      • set aside 6 computers
      • used web based game tools like Ben10 and Star Wars
      • Went through Scratch tutorial
    • Crafts:
      • Created Starship Enterprise or notebook out of floppies
      • Opened up old computer

Other Kids Programs

  • Cooking: enhance trad’l porgrams with some video games, websites, online movies, multimedia (cooking club
  • Babysitting Class: plays flash games, www.oyunlar1.com/index.asp
  • Book club with online movies: www.patrickcarman.com/enter/skeleton-creek
  • Use video games as part of programming to entice new demographics to visit the library.
  • Buy books for the collection based on video game worlds
  • Kinect/Rock Band require equipment they may not have home; encourage multiplayer, tournaments.

(Comment: Lots of videos in this session — great! Wonder if they’re online anywhere (telling stories better than statements or descriptions –also true for videos over powerpoint bullets)

 

Library videos everything; they are all on the library’s YouTube channel

Partnership with Boy Scouts

  • Belt Loop
  • Academic Pin Requirements

Technology Petting Zoo FAQ

  • borrow stuff for people to use; people bring in their own devices
  • Many websites listed on the slides to show (will try to get and add later!)

Applications used: all free ones from CNet.com/dowloads

Programs for Teens

Celebrating the release of Breaking Dawn: Book Club Idea (Dinner party)

  • Note the slideshow of stills on the TV from the upcoming Twilight Moon
  • Music playing from Twilight CD and Muse (Stephenie’s Meyer’s favorite band)
  • Interviews/Reviews filmed for our YouTube Channel

Alternative Fashion Show

  • Teens walked to their favorite song (used the chorus)
  • iTunes + AnyVideo Converter + Audacity for the process to get the 20 second clip of the songs

Adult Programming

READ posters

Use author websites; blogs; wikis or forums; for book club discussion

Senior Wii Bowling League

Create Computer Classes

http://gameslib.wordpress.com

Patron Computer Desktop: Have experience that patrons would have at home.

  • Multiple browser options available
  • Image editors
  • Google Earth
  • Tax forms links
  • Blogs on the library websites

Library website uses WordPress. Easy to do 🙂 [yep, WordPress is awesome: www.mykansaslibrary.org; nekls.org] Easy to create mobile site with WordPress.

PSA video from the library, or watch it below

Questions

  • Does your library train patrons and staff on how to use the Open Source software available? No. They are told to go to watch YouTube videos on the software in question. You can learn anything from YouTube.  [Great idea!]
  • Concerns about waivers. Shoot videos from the back. No names. If faces shown, waivers signed.
  • Flickr site: library doesn’t have one; write blog entries with pictures.
  • Marketing to teens? they don’t. no budget for teen librarian. have the library pages who then draw in other people

Empowering the Reader in a Digital World

My notes from the session are below the embedded slides.

Empowering the Reader in a Digital World

Al Carlson, Tampa Bay Library Consortium

Chad Mairn, St. Petersburg College

Program Goals:

lots of great topics coming in this session!

What’s a book?

cave paintings; babylonian tablets; scrolls; Gutenberg (Codex); tree sliced very thin covered in cardboard; Kindle (eBook)

The form of the book has changed; the book is the content, not the package.

What happens when the package undergoes a drastic change?

Cassette tape -> CD -> MP3

VHS -> DVD -> Streaming

Book -> eBook???

Diagnosing the DVD Disappointment: A Life Cycle View, Judson Coplan, The Leonard N. Stern School of Business [highly rec’d report]

Rate of adoption of new devices, has increased more and more throughout the 20th century.

DVDs took 6 years adoption fully penetrated. eReaders?? we’ll see.

History suggests that eBooks will rapidly invade the codex space. Will be replaced by better package.

As libraries — we won’t be ready. We’ve NEVER been ready!

Books aren’t dead (Newsweek cover story).

What is a dedicated ereader? nook, sony, kindle.

Long battery life; small format with huge capacity; eink; reflect light the way paper does.

Boombox –> iTouch

Book –> eReader

1 book –> 1000 in pocket

Kindle 2 and Kindle DX; 3500 books holding capacity (4 tons of books)

Nook; Sony Reader; Copia other devices.

Non-dedicated eReader: a device designed for some other larger purpose that can also read epublications. (tablet (iPad); mobile devices; Kindle for PC/Mac; Stanza app; Nook apps for multiple devices; Kindle apps)

Android eReading apps.

Which one is better? Dedicated vs non-dedicated

Dedicated: excellent for etended reading; fall into book.

Non-dedicated: quick reading;

Is it ok to have both? YES!

Who knows what they will look like 50 years from now…

ePub Formats

Check out the Wikipedia article

Overdrive: ePub and PDF formats

Netlibrary: PDF, HTML, DJVU format (changing?)

Dueling formats: the cassette/CD format format difference is easy for our patrons to see and understand; eBook formats not so much.

AZW vs. ePub.

They don’t care — just want to read!

If format were the only issue (www.calibre-ebook.com)

Same Format, dueling DRMs

Sony: ePub w Adobe Adept DRM

Apple: epub w Apple’s Fairplay DRM

Kindle: AZW using Amazon’s DRM

Nook using Adobe DRM

Is DRM a good thing or an evil thing? YES!

Patron perspective: users don’t care about drm or formats they just want to read

Any devices we see will be quaint in a few years

ePub and Public Libraries

  • Access – website becomes “the” library (my library has a website vs. my website still has a library)
  • Delivery: instant home delivery. no need to visit the library. or wait.
  • Delivery: your costly, polluting, labor intensive inter-branch delivery vanishes.

Effect on Public Libraries

  • Overdues: book self-returns when due
  • Storage: your entire collection fits on a one or two Terabyte harddrive (about $50 per terabyte at CompUSA
  • Service area: why have a ‘local’ library?
  • What happens to ownership? Storage on OD’s servers; CKO via OD’s software; Access via Netlibrary website
  • Do we own the book we “bought”?
  • Publishers’ reluctance to sell to libraries
  • Term limited eBooks
  • Limited range of vendors

Homework/Quest One

  • Create OSS that enables a library to store and check out eBooks without needing an “overdrive”
  • Think Apache
  • Mailman

Question Two

  • Devise a purchasing plan that benefits all.

Question Three

  • Find out and share the true cost of publishing a book in hard copy vs publishing that same book as an eBook

eTextbooks

  • http://laurafreberg.com/blog/?p=13
  • Student Attitudes Toward Content in Higher Education survey (75% still prefer print textbooks)
  • 2011 Horizon Report
  • Campus Technology 3/11
  • St. Petersburg Times 2/17/11
  • Arizona Republic, 7/6/10

[links coming later]

eTextbook Options

  • CourseSmart
  • Amazon.com
  • CourseLoad (browser based eTextbook written in HTML5)
  • Flat World Knowledge
  • Inkling

[links coming later]

Kno, textbook tablet (dual or single screens). Interesting….

Nook.

Browser-based ebooks = truly device agnostic.

Books in Browsers 2010: The Future of Reading on the Web conference [link later]

Appropriate Library Response

  • issues like this that keep us relevant and employed
  • powerful and FUN
  • evolution in action
  • show me the rules that say libraries may not convert ePUB to AZW for patrons or never ever mention Calibre or Feedbooks

Hands on empowerment

  • Calibre
  • have a DRM free eBook available
  • Have a Kindle with Cable
  • (Ask me about DRM afterwards) [is this legal or not legal — not gone to the Supreme Court; it’s not illegal to know how to do something; Agatha Christie murder mysteries, anyone! –speaker]

Recap

  • DRM schemes are a possibly necessary evil
  • Current treebook CKO is primitive DRM
  • DRM schemes can be beaten, and it’s not illegal to know how
  • We can be the eBook source with the least annoying DRM and often none at all.

How do we stay in the game?

Vendors??

One New Model (SHRED)

  • Search
  • Holds List (current alternatives cost money & time)
  • Rental (lease)
  • Electronically Purchase
  • Donate to your library

Possible Academic model?

  • find and borrow or buy an ebook
  • add notes in a photoshop like layer
  • return or sell back the book
  • retain the notes
  • sell the notes to next term’s students to be overlaid on the ebook (or used bookstore could do this)

Who do we buy from?

Empty shelf space; repurposing staff

  • community center (Yin to Starbucks’ Yang)
  • eGov and the stigma of food stamps
  • Library expertise on ePub (OCLC Perceptions study)

Note to self: Really need to get to work on that MARC records eBooks project for NExpress (thanks to Colorado’s records)…

Further resources

sites.google.com/a/tblc.org/digital-delight

sites.google.com/site/epublishingtrendstblc

eBooks Vendor pitch & Community Tagging sessions

Dick Kaser, VP Info Today (moderator)

1. Ken Breen, Director, eBook Products, EBSCO Publishing

NetLibrary

eBook in 1997. on CD-ROM. system requirements are a hoot (25Mz processor)!!

124 pg print book explained how to use the ebook.

In July, NetLibrary will be completely under EBSCO.

Purchase plans.

This tweet sums up the presentation. Vendor sales pitch.

2. Leslie Less, VP of Content Development, eBrary

another sales pitch. Walked out after it was over and switched to Community Tagging.

(Overdrive rep was on the panel later; tweets from the session on his time looked interesting)

Overdrive Tweet 1 Overdrive Tweet 2 Overdrive Tweet 3

Community Tagging session.

SOPAC at Darien Library

Tagging Solves an Access Need.

Student Assignment assisted through tagging. Beats searching and gets hundreds of results

Staff Participation. Guide the students (and teachers) to the tag.

“Meet us on main street” book talks on the street. Then staff tag what they talked about so it’s easily findable.

“User Generated Tags” Go from longform handwriting book lists (or initials in books?? — it happens!) to lists and tags in different ways.

Working with users to promote tagging

Kids and tagging:

  • tagging what they want to read and what they have read using this in conjunction with summer reading
  • kids feel empowered by using the tagging and contributing

Inappropriate tagging question: Gretchen hasn’t seen bad tagging ever (and systems that allow tagging, can be moderated).

Bad reviews allowed: Gives patron buy-in; many of the bad reviews are hilarious (especially from kids). [Comment: these do give you feedback on your collection.]

What about adults tagging at Darien? Some users in the community are engaging, especially comments and reviews.

[The tagging session gave me some food for thought to bring back to NEKLS for NExpress as we try to get more use out of the tagging features in our Koha system (OPAC here).]