101 Things I Learned at the Conference, Some of Which I Report on Here

2007-05-01T09:46:00.000-07:00

The Computers in Libraries (CIL) Conference is a big event
The CIL conference is a three-day conference focused entirely on advanced digital technology. It is a full packed conference offering 4 tracks each day with 6 sessions in each track. That's 24 sessions every day! Attendees may switch between tracks as they wish. In addition to the track sessions “CyberTours” are held throughout the day. CyberTours are quick 15-minute sessions on various topics. Each day also begins with a keynote speaker. There were 2,061 delegates at this year's 22nd annual conference. They represented all US states (except Dakota?), Canada, Europe, Asia and Africa and came from a diverse group of libraries. Even if you are not heavily involved in providing and creating technology services in your organization, almost anyone can find something useful here and learn something new. I would encourage everyone to attend at least one CIL conference and to consider applying for the CLLG Travel Grant for possible funding.

Many library "celebrities" can be seen at the CIL conference
Gary Price of ResourceShelf & Ask.com, Darlene Fitcher, University of Saskatchewan, Northern Lights Internet Solutions, Ltd., Mary Ellen Bates of Bates Information Services, Marydee Ojala of Online magazine and Online Insider, Steven Cohen of Library Stuff and many other" stars".

It’s all about sharing content (Web 2.0)
The theme of the conference was Beyond Web 2.0. Web 2.0 is about people and sharing. It refers to the way the Web is used to facilitate collaboration and sharing between users. It involves web based communities such as social networking sites, wikis, and folksonomies. Geez... and I was just learning to master Web1.0! Electronic resources and social software enables us to offer our users (clients) the library and its services online and in real-time. Read more about Web 2.0 at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_2.0 . But all is not well with the Web 2.0. There are security concerns about all of these web 2.0 (social tools) where employees may be sharing employer information. Read the article, "Web 2.0 sites could encourage data leaks" at http://www.itweek.co.uk/itweek/news/2186203/web-sites-encourage-leaks.

The Internet has become the computer
The Opening Keynote speaker, Lee Rainie of the Pew Internet & American Life Project, which surveys Internet usage trends spoke about Web 2.0 and what it means to libraries. Web 2.0 is the platform for collective intelligence (regular people contributing to the Web) and what is important is data and the sharing of that data. The Internet has become the computer, people who use computers use the Internet and they do it over high-speed broadband. People go online from more places. High-speed broadband turns the Web into a destination. Broadband makes people use of the Web grow to include text and video. It makes people’s use of the Web social. Libraries should address issues of:

navigation – from linear to non-linear (linking)
context – learn to see connections
focus – practice reflection & deep thinking
skepticism – learn to evaluate information
ethical behaviour – understand the rules of cyberspace

Offer library services directed at the Millennial Generation
The Millennial Generation are your associates born 1980-2000. The Millennial will be the next group of clients in our libraries. This generation has an innate ability for technology, is comfortable with varying types of digital media, are multi-taskers and have an interactive style of working. Consider their specific needs in developing collections. Focus on digital collections, that can be accessed anywhere, anytime. Make content available to them through web links, blogs, podcasts, video, games and mobile tools. Create websites that meet their expectations. Millenniums want pages to load quickly, with interfaces that are more visual and less text-based.

Sometimes social search (Web 2.0) involves humans
Humans instead of computers are the crawlers, not the computer. People rank and relate links. See

http://www.ask.com/, http://jeteye.com/ , http://shadows.com/ and http://prefound.com/ . If you track information about competitors, check out Competitious an “easy, confidential way to discover and share competitive information collaboratively across your organization, and keep your company competitive.” Notes from the social search session given by Gary Price are available at http://tinyurl.com/3x9lqh .

Not every application or tool works behind the firewall
Many of us work behind firewalls, so before you dive in, make sure that the new technology will function properly behind the firewall. Some do not.

Knowledge about finding things once they are gone is becoming more important

Internet Archive
Archive it
Newspaper Archives

Effective searching on the Internet means moving beyond the Big 3
Mary Ellen Bates in her presentation, "30 tips in 45 minutes", about searching on the Internet, advises that Information Professionals (IPs) need to move beyond the big 3 (Google, Yahoo and MSN) . She suggests using:

Search engines that cluster and narrow results ( Ask X, Exalead, Clusty, Quintura )

Vertical search engines for topical searches topics (law, business, health)

Custom search engines. These are search engines you can create by adding a search box to your website and then filtering the search by limiting what is displayed (sites, domains, etc.) You can even add your library logo, to further customize the search results. Try Yahoo Search Builder, Google Co-op, or Rollyyo. I know that Rollyyo does not work behind a firewall, not sure about the others.

Searching for a definition for word you know exists (ie. being tried twice for the same crime) but you can't seem to come up it? Try http://www.onelook.com/reverse-dictionary.shtml, a reverse dictionary that offers a list of possible terms which then directs you to a number of online dictionaries for the definition.

Share Your Work with Yourself and Others
Do you need to quickly write a document and show it to others for review? Do you want to access that document from anywhere, any computer? Sick of mailing updates again and again? Use Zoho Writer, Google Docs , Google Notebook or YourDraft.com to share documents with yourself or others instead of emails.

RSS is still Cool!
RSS is still an excellent way to stay current. "Why hop around all over the Web to get the information you need when you can subscribe to feeds and have the information come to you?" And best of all, RSS does not clog your e-mail inbox. Use RSS to subscribe to table of contents of journals, government news, legislation, court decisions, new books and more. So, what’s Cool in RSS according to Steven Cohen of Library Stuff ?

Libworm! Searches library blogs and library feeds. Better than Google Blog search and Technorati for library related content. Also provides an RSS feed of the search results which is then sent to your feed reader
Page2RSS – helps you monitor web sites that do not publish a feed for their pages by creating a RSS feed for that site and delivering it to your RSS reader or aggregator. Unfortunately when the date on the web site changes you will also be notified of that as well
Techmeme – RSS feed for what’s hot in technology. "TechMeme automatically determines news headlines on its site by analyzing linking patterns among influential blogs"
Open Congress - provides RSS feeds for official government data, including bills, with news and blog coverage of what's happening in the US Congress
Justia Federal District Court Filings & Dockets– Get a RSS feed for legal proceedings filed with US federal district courts and keep track of US clients facing a lawsuit
RSS feeds in Library Catalogs – Be notified whenever a library adds new books to their catalog

Steven's own top 12 favourite tools are:

Internet Archive – http://www.archive.org/ - see what websites used to look like and say
Snapper - http://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/2703/ - a Firefox add-on used to take a screen shot
Browster - http://www.browster.com/ - opens a link in a new mini browser
BugMeNot - http://www.bugmenot.com/ - bypass sites that require passwords
TinyURL - http://www.tinyurl.com/ - shorten long url links so they fit in your documents or emails
GoogleGroups - http://groups.google.com/ - a free groups and electronic mailing list service from Google
CiteBite - http://www.citebite.com/ - service that creates a link directly to the exact passage on a web page you want to reference. "There's no searching and reading the entire page to try to locate the specific section of interest."
Picnik – http://www.picnik.com/ – edit online photos from one place. Fix underexposed photos, remove red-eye, or apply effects to your photos.
Missing-Auctions – http://www.missing-auctions.com/ – search for misspelled auctions and eBay typos Twitter – http://www.twitter.com/ – see my entry, "There's a buzz about Twitter" below
Meebo – http://www.meebo.com/ - web's instant messenger (IM), lets you access IM from anywhere
PBwiki – http://www.pbwiki.com/ - lets you quickly set up your own free, hosted, password-protected wiki to edit and share information.

All of the RSS tools mentioned in Steven Cohen's session on RSS are available at http://stevenmcohen.pbwiki.com/CIL2007

Bloglines fans are switching to Google Reader
Google Reader is slowly taking over Bloglines as the favourite reader/aggregator of RSS feeds. Some are divided over features available in Bloglines not included in Google Reader and remain uncommitted. I have to confess, I have switched! One of the nice features, that I like about Google Reader, is that I can select and share information that I receive with my clients in a headlines type of setting on our Intranet or Internet.

There are cool tools for webmasters too

http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/- Yahoo Pipes acts like a feed reader that you can filter. Use it to list journal titles
http://www.whatismyipaddress.com/ - Don’t know what your IP address is and are clueless as to how to find it? This link will help you
http://developer.yahoo.com/ypatterns/ -Yahoo Design Pattern Library – a design database with questions and answers
https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/docs/en/about.html - Google webmaster tools
http://www.oswd.org/ - Open source web design
http://everystockphoto.com/ and http://www.openstockphotography.org/ - royalty-free stock photography for your website or documents
http://www.pixer.us/ - Need a quick fixer-up for that photo? With this tool you can edit your photos online using only your browser

Information Professionals (IPs) Love to Search But Our Clients Only Care About Finding

Marydee Ojala, Online Magazine notes that IP's love to search. IPs understand the structure and like to communicate what makes searching fun. Clients, on the other hand, don't care about searching, they want to find. They often do not care about sources, only quick answers. Findability is the flip side of finding. Web site creators want their web pages to be found, optimizing their sites to show up at the top of the web search results. This skews the results that searchers "find". In web findability, search is pervasive but unstable. It is possible to "game the system" and there are quality and educational issues. Traditional search techniques include Boolean, pearl growing and building blocks. Web searching is "squishy" Boolean, where algorithms take over, not quite pure Boolean. Web is personalization (results are skewed depending on who you are, good for individuals, not so good for IPs who need non-biased, non-personalized results) . The worst case scenario for the future is one where there is a controlled information enviornment. Where search engines only display what they want you to find, where consumerism and entertainment triumph over research. The best case scenario is one where information is accessible and available, producers are profitable, interfaces are intuitive and searching and finding come together.

Use Wikis and blogs to manage projects
Using wikis and blogs can keep all staff involved in the project “in the loop”. They also ensure that all communications are documented, that the information is not lost and everyone involved has the same information. A wiki or blog eliminates all those emails, back and forth. There is also a history or archive of all communications that is searchable. A project wiki or blog is particularly beneficial within organizations that have a large staff or are located in different locations and need to coordinate efforts. Check out PB Wiki at http://pbwiki.com/ and WysiwygPro at http://www.wysiwygpro.com/

How to creat "library groupies"

Know that you have competition (Google, Yahoo Answers, Wikipedia, the geek down the hall), especially with the Millenial Generation

Treat those who come to the library as clients and not patrons or users. "Clients" choose to come to you

Follow the money generators in your organization ( know who brings in the money for the library)

Talk to your clients. Develop half-hour learning sessions and do it on the web

Stay in touch with your clients. Create a daily news briefing for clients, maintain an electronic rolodex of internal and external experts, do podcasts of presentations given in the library, provide them with weekly news that they can use

How can you always be there for the client to keep them from going to Google?
Develop tools to provide better reference service. "Be there at the point of need".

Staff at a University Business Library (forgot to write down which one) created a custom toolbar just like Google that students could download to their desktop. Instead of creating a standard web page list of resources, the MyMel Toolbar links students to library frequently used tools (subscription databases, catalog, courses, etc.). Conduit, a free community toolbar builder was used to create the toolbar. Very cool indeed!

Footprints - is IT Software used to manage incoming questions. The software allows you to add questions into it and builds a knowledge databank. Staff used it to create BizFAQ, a knowledge database of of reference questions which could also be used for statistical purposes and training.

BizMap - a map of library resources that launches specific inhouse databases directly from the map.

There’s a Buzz About Twitter
According to Steven Cohen of Library Stuff, “Twitter is a cross between blogging, instant messaging and social networking on crack.” Actually, Twitter is an application that allows you to IM (instant message) a group of people rather than one individual. Each Twitter registrant has an RSS feed for their messages. Twitter allows you to subscribe to others' feeds and combines them together for you. You can send a message ("tweet") by IM, text message or from the website itself. Even if you just have a cell phone, it is very easy to participate. You can have messages sent to you via text or IM or read them from the website. Twitter makes it easy to keep up with where your friends are and what they’re doing or thinking. Let’s say you are at a conference and want to meet up with your friends for lunch, just twitter a place. It is particularly useful in collaborating with people who are in the same place geographically without having to notify each individual. It is not clear what role Twitter will play in libraries. Steven Cohen of Library Stuff is predicting that that Twitter will be the new feed reader.

Podcasts are not just for teens
Podcasts are a hot new hot social computing application and some libraries are getting into the act by creating podcasts of instructional materials, readings, discussions and services. If you want to produce a podcast you will need some recording equipment but if if just want to listen to podcasts, you only need your computer, you do not need an IPod or MP3 player. If you want to be notified of specific podcast updates via RSS, just as you do with blogs, you will need a podcast reader or aggregator such as Juice or Bloglines’ ListenUp . Listening to podcasts is not just for teens. Lawyers, courts and governments are all podcasting. See http://www.cba.org/cba/PracticeLink/TAYP/podcasting.aspx for a discussion on podcasting and who is podcasting.

Clients want to access all library resources from one interface or location (Federated Search)
Federated Search is being introduced by libraries to provide "one stop shopping”. Federated searching or searching many information bases at once, is the next generation in library services. Federated search implements a computer program that allows users to access multiple data sources with a single query string located within a single interface. The user enters a search query in the portal interface’s search box and the search string is sent to every individual database that is incorporated into the portal or federated search list. This must be programmed by the portal owner. A law library might include databases of reference works, journals, e-books and in-house content and search engines. Federated search systems rely upon vendors to create commercial portals.

Introducing knowledge management services into your organization can be challenging
Getting Knowledge services initiatives going in your organization requires a variety of considerations, the most important being the need for an advocate or sponsor at the senior level to support your initiative. Also, expect that people do not necessarily want to share their information. Get a directive from management and set up procedures for where the information is to be sent. Eliminate silos of information in the organization. Expect that it will be difficult to get people to use your product and that they will expect that your in-house product behaves like a Google product. Show them how your product will help them do their work with very specific examples. Get the word out about your product on a regular basis. Brag about it. Read, “Brag!: The Art of Tooting Your Own Horn Without Blowing It” by Peggy Klaus.

Everyone is a publisher, photogopher, performer
Technologies such as RSS have empowered a new generation of self-publishers - bloggers. They are normal citizens involved in the reporting process without the filter of editors and reporters. Some bloggers have established substantial readerships, using nothing more than a PC, an Internet connection, and some free software to challenge established magazines and newspapers. The keynote speaker on Day 2 spoke about the new media and Web 2.0, a timely topic in the wake of the Virginia Tech shootings which occurred on the first day of the conference. Bloggers were posting real time accounts of the shooting, while journalists searched social networking and popular blog sites looking for eye-witness accounts. Citizen journalists, bloggers, camera phone and video phone users were a treasure trove of firsthand information. The Citizendium, "citizens' compendium of everything," is an open wiki project aimed at creating an enormous, free, and reliable encyclopedia. The project, started by a founder of Wikipedia, aims to improve on the Wikipedia model by adding "gentle expert oversight" and requiring contributors to use their real names.

Accelerated planning is not an oxymoron
Accelerated planning is the methodology or process of working progressively and quickly through a project. Successful accelerated planning requires:

That you know where you want to end up
That you develop and document the plan, but do it quickly, all in draft mode. It should not take months to develop a plan. Draft the document as you go along.
Get everyone involved in documenting the plan with a wiki
Have clear rules of engagement for everyone Implement the plan. It does not have to be perfect before you implement it
In preparing the plan, keep in mind the power of 2: 2 minutes to answer a question, 2 hours to conduct a meeting, 2 months to develop a new service initiative, and 2 years to complete the plan.
Eat complexity “one bite at time”
Know that you will not please everyone and that you will make mistakes.

The World Digital Library (WDL) Initiative, will not be just a another big website
The keynote by John Van Oudenaren, Senior Advisor, World Digital Library (WDL) at the Library of Congress, spoke about the progress of this huge inititative, the $3 M support from Google to create the plan, the prototype to be released later this year and the completion of the plan at the end of 2008. The WDL initiative will offer "free of charge and in multilingual format, significant primary materials from cultures around the world, including manuscripts, maps, rare books, musical scores, recordings, films, prints, photographs, architectural drawings, and other significant cultural materials." The Library of Congress has partnered with seven organizations around the world and currently has four facilities worldwide doing the actual digitization. The keynoted ended with a video of what the project might look like in the near future.

The look of the new web is changing

The way web pages are designed is changing. The new design is simple, clean, uncluttered, almost Zen like with lots of white. It has a clear focus and is social. The new information design uses:

centered pages
round edges (provides a casual feel)
san serif fonts
lowercase fonts
large fonts for
important concepts
simple persistent navigation
strong colors
bold logos
subtle 3D using
reflections and shadows
original simple icons

There are changes also in user expectations of a web site. It is social. Web sites are no longer personal and singular, they are shared (pictures, videos, etc). Users want to interact socially with information on the web which means adding commenting, ratings, send to a friend, subscribe via RSS, save for later and the ability to see all of that for the other users of the site. It incorporates previews, forms and wikis. The new information design sometimes uses alternative navigation with visual representation, tag clouds or graphics that link pages together. Although this type of navigation should not be used as the main source of navigation, it can be offered to users who like visual representations of content. The full presentation of this session may be accessed directly at http://infotangle.blogsome.com/2007/04/02/information-design-for-the-new-web/

There are a whole lot of bloggers blogging about the conference
Connie Crosby of Weir Foulds in Toronto, was the only other person I knew at this conference and she has summaries of the sessions she attended on her blog, some of which I was unable to attend. You can read her posts and other blogger posts by searching LibWorm for “cil2007 or cilc2007”. As well, many of the slideshows and resources used in support of the conference presentations are available from Information Today at http://www.infotoday.com/cil2007/presentations/default.shtml

Some Final Thoughts:

After all is said and done, don't implement new technology just for the sake of it!

Male librarians work in IT or systems positions in libraries. Never saw so many men at a librarians' conference!

The Hyatt Hotel has awful conference chairs. Or maybe it was because I sat for eight hours a day?

Law Librarian Insights

101 Things I Learned at the Conference, Some of Which I Report on Here