by David Lee King on March 28, 2007
There’s an interesting discussion going on right now about speaker fees, registration, and state library conferences. I have faced the same type of thing in the past with the Missouri Library Association.
From the discussion and everyone’s comments, it looks like the common practice is this: if you’re in-state, you’re welcome to speak – but you have to pay registration and don’t get any honorarium or travel expenses. If you live out-of-state, your travel expenses are covered and you might get an honorarium and a comped registration.
To fix this stupid problem, you can do two things:
- Discuss it – and this is happening via blogs right now – so that’s good. Well, except for the fact that percentage-wise, most librarians are probably NOT reading the blog-based discussion. So maybe we should ALSO be discussing it elsewhere…
- Get involved in your local library association. And I don’t mean the pay-the-yearly-dues, get-the-magazine type of join. I mean the run-for-office, serve-on-committees type of join.
That’s the only way these aged behemoths (ie., the associations) will change – get people who actually WANT TO CHANGE them in charge of them.
Period.
by David Lee King on March 28, 2007
This, of course, SHOULD be coming from a librarian… but whatever. The Read/Write Web has a great list of alternative (as in, not Google) search engines. It looks like it’s a monthly feature on the blog.
This month includes some cool stuff, like:
- FindSounds, an audio search engine
- PureVideo, and video search engine
- A variety of clustering search engines
And towards the end of the article, there’s a “Top 100″ list of search engines. Check out the article!
by David Lee King on March 26, 2007
Here’s where I’m speaking in 2007 (so far – my list is slowly growing this year):
- April 12: Wiki Panel. Kansas Tri-Conference.
- April 16: Planning and Implementing Library 2.0. Computers in Libraries 2007.
- April 17: Guiding Libraries & Info Pros Through Change. Computers in Libraries 2007.
- April 19: Podcasting and Videocasting Bootcamp (postconference session with David Free). Computers in Libraries 2007.
- May 11: Emerging Trends. New York Public Library.
- May 16: Web 2.0 in libraries. 2007 Central Kansas Library System Spring Assembly.
- June 22: Videocasting for Public Libraries (preconference), ALA 2007.
- July 18: Making time for web 2.0. SEFLIN 2007 Energize Conference (Energize 2.0).
- September 25: Keynote. Allegheny County Library Association.
- October 4-7: Keynote. LITA national Forum.
- November 2: Keynote. Tampa Bay Library Consortium 2007 Annual Meeting.
by David Lee King on March 26, 2007
Seth Godin apparently hasn’t visited his local library recently. In a recent blog post, he points to a cool new Amazon service that lets you see which books mention a book you like. Then Seth says “try doing that at the local library…”
Upon reading that, I had a couple of thoughts. My first was the traditional library one… “well, there’s the Science Citation Index…” But then it dawned on me. If Seth visited my library and asked to do that, we’d simply sit him down at one of our 177 public computers, and say “now go to amazon.com…”\
Seth – OF COURSE you can do this at your local library.
Update – oh yes, I forgot. Seth’s own company, Squidoo, is having a contest for Lens of the year. One of those is the Library 2.0 lens! Sorta ironic, don’t you think?
by David Lee King on March 24, 2007
I’ve been tagged in this non-library blogs meme thing at least twice now, so I feel I must respond! Here are five of my favorite non-library blogs that I’m reading right now:
- Read/WriteWeb – great stuff about web 2.0 and emerging trends. Tends to go more in-depth than other emerging trend blogs, which I like.
- Daily Dilbert – not really a blog I suppose, but still – Dilbert is great.
- Worship Guitar Guy – a guy who writes about using electric guitar in modern rock worship settings – right down my alley.
- Creating Passionate Users – Kathy Sierra’s blog about, well, about creating passionate users. Always inspirational.
- The Hype Machine – I just discovered this. It aggregates a bunch of other mp3/music blogs, and schmushes all the info (and tunes) together. I’ll never have to buy music again!
SO – those are some of my favorite non-library blogs right now. I’m not going to tag individuals (because it’s late, and I’m uninspired tonight). Instead, if you read this blog, and you DO, in fact, blog… consider yourself tagged.
So SHARE already!
by David Lee King on March 23, 2007
Here’s something I’m doing at my library right now, and thought I’d share. The managers at my library meet every week (I’m a manager, too). Part of that weekly meeting is “my time.” We’ve been calling it simply “Cool Stuff” – I usually do a short presentation on a Web 2.0 product or concept, or talk about an emerging techie trend, then we hold a discussion about it. It usually lasts for 10-20 minutes of our 2-hour meeting.
So far, here’s what I’ve talked about:
- mindmapping software (showed MindJet’s MindManager Pro)
- discussed our library’s Digital Branch plans and progress
- Google Docs & Spreadsheets
- AADL catalog and AquaBrowser
- How I keep up with blogs
- Twitter
- Toured our Second Life storefront and discussed plans
Outcomes so far? We’re purchasing a 10 user license of MindManager; all managers know the direction we’re going with our digital branch; they’re getting familiar with web 2.0 tools; they’ve seen what OPACs can do (especially timely, since we’re a Horizon site); and they have been introduced to Second Life and know what we plan to do with our storefront.
So, IT/Technology manager – what are YOU doing to keep your managers up-to-date with technology?
by David Lee King on March 21, 2007
I recently read an article about technology change on Lucas McDonnell’s unCommon Knowledge blog. This is definitely worth a read – especially for IT managers and IT departments.
Why? Lucas says this: “the increasing pace of technology change requires us to be more innovative in how we both adopt and maintain technologies,” and then provides some tips on how to do this. The tips are:
- Research technologies not only before you adopt them, but also while you’re using them.
- Don’t get emotionally attached to a particular technology.
- Continuously research competing technologies to the ones you are using now.
- Don’t build yourself into a corner.
I have heard more than one library IT department say things like “we are a Microsoft shop” or “we’ll never go Mac.” Instead of saying these things, why not do this instead: look at the technology landscape, assess your library’s needs, and then base your decisions on goals and potential outcomes? if you did that, it’s quite possible that some of those “Microsoft Shop” types of statements would go away.
For example, in the web world many libraries are traditionally IIS/.asp/MS SQL users. But if you really assess emerging web trends, you might notice that most of the emerging web uses Linux/Apache/MySQL/.php (better known as LAMP) these days. And many of the newer APIs and add-on web 2.0 services gravitate towards LAMP. So – is your web and/or IT department starting to look seriously at migrating from Microsoft to Linux? From IIS to Apache? And if not, why not?
Another thing to think about – how many of your IT departments understand web 2.0 – blogs, RSS, Wikis, and instant messaging, for starters? Not just grasping the general concept, but actually participating in it? Using and testing out these new web-based tools? My guess is not too many. It’s important for IT departments to not only understand how to maintain the back-end of a blog on a web server, but to also really know how they work. And that requires a certain amount of immersion into the technology. It requires them to read and subscribe to blogs; see how trackbacks work; find out how to hack into some APIs to make these fledgling services better. Etc.
Becoming a technology agnostic will steer us out of that corner and back onto the innovation track.
by David Lee King on March 16, 2007
by David Lee King on March 13, 2007
Update: Here’s a link to the official press release.
You might have seen some posts about Sirsi/Dynix here, here and here… well, they sent an email out to SirsiDynix customers – here’s the email (I’m assuming this will resemble the press release that’s supposed to be released later on today):
Dear valued SirsiDynix
customer,
Later today, SirsiDynix will make an
exciting announcement for both our company and the library market. Before the
announcement becomes public knowledge and a press release is issued, I wanted to
personally share now what the rest of the world will hear shortly – as well as
explain to you what it means for customers of SirsiDynix Horizon, Corinthian,
and Dynix Classic integrated library systems.
SirsiDynix will unveil that we are
blending the strengths and best features of Horizon/Corinthian, Unicorn, and
other solutions to create a new, versatile technology platform to serve
21st-century libraries and consortia. Code-named “Rome,” this
platform goes beyond the traditional integrated library system to encompass the
full range of technology building blocks for managing library operations and
resources, while providing meaningful user experiences to your information
consumers.
Rome is built on the architecture of the
industry-standard Unicorn Library Management System – with its record of
stability, quality, and performance – and will include an impressive set of new
solutions created as part of Horizon 8.0/Corinthian development. The first
release of Rome will be available in the fourth quarter of this year. The target
time for the second release is late 2008.
What does this mean to
Horizon/Corinthian and Dynix Classic customers?
There are several key points you
should know:
- SirsiDynix will continue to maintain
and support Horizon 7.3/7.4.
- Horizon 8.0/Corinthian, which is
already in use at a limited number of sites, will not be generally released.
Horizon 8.1/Corinthian and Unicorn GL3.2 will not be released. Instead, the new
functionality of both will be incorporated into Rome over time.
- We will focus our
research-and-development efforts on Rome. In doing so, we will be able to better
deliver the capabilities expected in Horizon 8/Corinthian, but faster and on a
more stable platform. As a result, Rome will be the platform for all SirsiDynix
users in the future.
Here are the upgrade or migration
paths for customers planning to move to Horizon 7.3/7.4 or Horizon
8.0/Corinthian, or for those on the Dynix Classic legacy system:
- Customers in the queue to implement
Horizon 7.3/7.4 can choose to continue on this path. They do so with the
understanding that their next upgrade will be to Rome and that additional
training and other activities might be required for Rome.
- As there will be no further
implementations of Horizon 8.0/Corinthian, customers in the queue to implement
Horizon 8.0/Corinthian can move to Horizon 7.3/7.4, if they are not already on
that version.
- The immediate Dynix Classic
migration option is to move to Unicorn GL3.1, just as those sites would have
migrated to Horizon 8.0/Corinthian. Otherwise, they can follow the migration
path to Rome in the coming months. Migrating to Unicorn GL3.1 will later
minimize additional training and upgrade activities required for moving to
Rome.
The upcoming press release will
offer more information about the major features and benefits of Rome. I cannot
stress enough that this new technology platform will provide the “best of both
worlds” – the stability you require and the features you need.
As always, if you have questions
about your particular case, please contact your SirsiDynix account
representative.
Regards,
Talin Bingham
Chief Technology Officer
SirsiDynix
by David Lee King on March 13, 2007
You might have seen some posts about Sirsi/Dynix here, here and here… well, they sent an email out to SirsiDynix customers – here’s the email (I’m assuming this will resemble the press release that’s supposed to be released later on today):
Dear valued SirsiDynix
customer,
Later today, SirsiDynix will make an
exciting announcement for both our company and the library market. Before the
announcement becomes public knowledge and a press release is issued, I wanted to
personally share now what the rest of the world will hear shortly – as well as
explain to you what it means for customers of SirsiDynix Horizon, Corinthian,
and Dynix Classic integrated library systems.
SirsiDynix will unveil that we are
blending the strengths and best features of Horizon/Corinthian, Unicorn, and
other solutions to create a new, versatile technology platform to serve
21st-century libraries and consortia. Code-named “Rome,” this
platform goes beyond the traditional integrated library system to encompass the
full range of technology building blocks for managing library operations and
resources, while providing meaningful user experiences to your information
consumers.
Rome is built on the architecture of the
industry-standard Unicorn Library Management System – with its record of
stability, quality, and performance – and will include an impressive set of new
solutions created as part of Horizon 8.0/Corinthian development. The first
release of Rome will be available in the fourth quarter of this year. The target
time for the second release is late 2008.
What does this mean to
Horizon/Corinthian and Dynix Classic customers?
There are several key points you
should know:
- SirsiDynix will continue to maintain
and support Horizon 7.3/7.4.
- Horizon 8.0/Corinthian, which is
already in use at a limited number of sites, will not be generally released.
Horizon 8.1/Corinthian and Unicorn GL3.2 will not be released. Instead, the new
functionality of both will be incorporated into Rome over time.
- We will focus our
research-and-development efforts on Rome. In doing so, we will be able to better
deliver the capabilities expected in Horizon 8/Corinthian, but faster and on a
more stable platform. As a result, Rome will be the platform for all SirsiDynix
users in the future.
Here are the upgrade or migration
paths for customers planning to move to Horizon 7.3/7.4 or Horizon
8.0/Corinthian, or for those on the Dynix Classic legacy system:
- Customers in the queue to implement
Horizon 7.3/7.4 can choose to continue on this path. They do so with the
understanding that their next upgrade will be to Rome and that additional
training and other activities might be required for Rome.
- As there will be no further
implementations of Horizon 8.0/Corinthian, customers in the queue to implement
Horizon 8.0/Corinthian can move to Horizon 7.3/7.4, if they are not already on
that version.
- The immediate Dynix Classic
migration option is to move to Unicorn GL3.1, just as those sites would have
migrated to Horizon 8.0/Corinthian. Otherwise, they can follow the migration
path to Rome in the coming months. Migrating to Unicorn GL3.1 will later
minimize additional training and upgrade activities required for moving to
Rome.
The upcoming press release will
offer more information about the major features and benefits of Rome. I cannot
stress enough that this new technology platform will provide the “best of both
worlds” – the stability you require and the features you need.
As always, if you have questions
about your particular case, please contact your SirsiDynix account
representative.
Regards,
Talin Bingham
Chief Technology Officer
SirsiDynix
