June 2007

Copyright vs Creative Commons on Library Websites

by David Lee King on June 16, 2007

I was just looking at Nashville Public Library’s website – very attractive site! They redesigned last year, and now have a great website, full of web 2.0-ish goodness.

And then I saw this in their footer: “Copyright © 2006 Nashville Public
Library, All Rights Reserved.” I don’t have a beef with NPL – the same type of thing can be found on my website and many others, too.

But I do have a question: is this really necessary? Copyright is generally placed on a website to say “ask before you use the stuff found on this website.” So why not go the extra mile and use a Creative Commons license?  That way, instead of having a sign on your website that says stop!, you’ll have a sign that says “feel free to re-use our content – we wrote it for you, after all! Just let us know about it!”

It’s a small way to encourage your customers to start conversations – remember my Inviting Participation mantra?

4 comments

One Way to Improve ALA

by David Lee King on June 15, 2007

Aaron Dobbs has a great idea or two on improving ALA, so he created a wiki called the Improve ALA Wiki.

Go check it out and contribute!

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ALA is Videoblogging!

by David Lee King on June 13, 2007

Some of you probably know I like to play with video once in a while… well, apparently ALA does, too! They now have a videoblog, called AL Focus. Very cool, indeed. Jenny Levine has a bit more info about the videoblog.

Now I need to update my presentation I’m giving at ALA about videoblogs…

1 comment

A Blog from Britannica Should Know Better (or, Gorman is blogging?)

by David Lee King on June 13, 2007

I’m sorry. It’s just so hard to not write about this! If Gorman were a mainstream celebrity, and I was, say, Jay Leno, I’m be lampooning him heartlessly on late night tv. But I digress…

So… MG is blogging. (Reader: Hmm… didn’t he coin the term “blog people” a couple years ago about those people who “read what they want to read rather than what is in front of them… ?” David: Yep. Same dude.). Upon first read, I wanted to pick apart his two posts bit by bit. And then it dawned on me – I don’t have to. Instead, I can complain about the Britannica Blog!

On the Britannica Blog, under the “About this Blog” section, it states: “We’ve given our writers encouragement and a lot of freedom.” I’m guessing that also means the Britannica Blog doesn’t have an editor. Case in point: read the title of Gorman’s [cough cough] “blog posts,” and then read the posts themselves.

The articles are titled “Web 2.0: The Sleep of Reason” – so you’d think the articles would actually be about web 2.0, right? Wrong. His two articles focused on how “printed authoritative sources” are somehow better than online sources (part 1) and on how young people prefer collective rather than individual sources (part 2).

So… how are those two topics about web 2.0, you ask? Beats me. He DID mention the Internet and Sergey Brin of Google… but he didn’t actually write ANYTHING about web 2.0. Not one jot or tittle. Nada. Nothing.

Come on, Britannica – you can do better than this. Your blog is subtitled “where ideas matter.” At the least, let’s get a clear idea up there… not a loose ramble.

As for Gorman, he claims “I’m no Antidigitalist.” And yet, he has written about the evils of blogging and attempted to write about web 2.0 being the “sleep of reason” (although again, he didn’t actually manage to mention anything remotely web two point oh-ish). I begin to wonder… since Gorman is now blogging, and his blog posts to date simply don’t make much sense, I think it’s “entirely possible that [his] intellectual needs are met by an accumulation of random facts and paragraphs.” Instead of, say, the Wikipedia article on web 2.0.

(For some reason, I keep hearing the song, “I am My Own Grandpa” playing through my head… [stop it, David!] :-)

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My Twitter Presentation – Part of the BIGWIG Social Software Showcase

by David Lee King on June 11, 2007

(update – the BIGWIG sites seem to be down, but there are updated links to both twitter presentations. Enjoy!)

I was asked to participate in the first ever BIGWIG Social Software Showcase “unconference.” (site seems to be down). What is the Showcase, you ask? From the LITA blog: “LITA BIGWIG (Blogs, Wikis, and Social Software IG) is pleased to present the first ever online, unconference at ALA Annual 2007. The Social Software Showcase will be occuring around and during Annual. We have gathered eleven librarians and leaders in the field to present on cutting edge technology and social software. Regardless of where you are in the world, you will have the opportunity to view and discuss the presentations on the official Social Software Showcase Wiki.”

For my part, I added a screencast about Twitter add-ons, meant to be a part 2 to David Free’s Twitter, Part One (updated links to each presentation).

So – go read about the Showcase, watch/listen/read all the presentations as they get added to the Showcase wiki, and participate!

,

10 comments

Labels – Consistency and Context

by David Lee King on June 10, 2007

labelsI’ve been pondering website labels lately… (boy, that David – he’s truly a geek!). No really – we’re going through a major website overhaul right now, and we’re to the point where we’re looking at labels (ie., does “Databases” really mean anything to our visitors?).

And so here are a few real-world examples of labels – or more appropriately, mis-labels.

The first one deals with consistency. I recently stayed at this hotel in New York City. It was a fine hotel, but I haven’t any idea what the name of the hotel actually is. Why? Take a look at all the names of this hotel:

  • Jolly Hotel Madison Towers
  • Madison Towers Hotel
  • Jolly Hotels
  • Jolly Madison Towers Hotel
  • Jolly Master Hotel
  • and … jollymadison.com !

labelsThe hotel has at least six different names! They need a little consistency, don’t you think? And, web people, we can use this lesson to make sure we are consistent in our naming and labeling schemes, too. Make sure you keep html titles, link labels, headings, etc. consistent across your website, on printed things, in articles and even in press releases. The goal is to have all labels match so there’s no confusion.

i hit thingsAnd now for context. OK – I bought this way cool t-shirt recently, at vinniecolaiuta.com (he’s an amazing drummer – think Sting, Frank Zappa, etc). So I’m at this drummer’s site, I see this shirt that reads “I hit things” and immediately think what any other drummer would think – “that’s cool!” and I bought it.

But now, having worn it out a few times … when I walk down the street, people stare at me, and give me a wide birth. When I’m at a store, they either say “don’t hit me” sort of sheepishly, or they ask “what do you hit?”

The problem? I don’t hit things! (well, other than drums). I’m a fairly gentle person when it comes to the propensity to want to hit things – I dont’ go around starting brawls, anyway! 

So, I have labeled myself out of context. If I wore this shirt while drumming, it’d make perfect sense. Or maybe if I was a mean lookin’, tattoo-sportin’, hairy guy… But when I wear this at the grocery store, it doesn’t fit my personality very well (well, other than my extremely sarcastic, I think it’s funny ’cause no one else gets it bent).

Lesson #2: On our websites, we need to label things in context. Some of that has to do with jargon. My t-shirt uses drummer jargon that no one else understands … our library websites use jargon, too. Instead of using jargon, make sure to tag your services appropriately for your audience and for the content and purpose surrounding the labels. So if I’m with a bunch of drummers, my “I hit things” makes sense. But out at walmart, my shirt should say “I play drums.”

Just some food for thought…

10 comments

Topeka Has IM

by David Lee King on June 7, 2007

IM in Topeka!My library has just started two things, really:

  1. IM reference! (Yippie!)
  2. Using the Meebo Me widget

We have wanted to begin IM reference for over a year at least. One of the cool things about being the Digital Branch Manager at this library is that the library as a whole is excited about new ways to reach out to customers, and doesn’t shy away from all this new-fangled technology stuff (translation=everything I do).

Our Adult Services Department actually came to me and asked if they could start IM – they even had a plan in place to use the Meebo Me widget, so they could get everything up-and-running quickly (we’re also in the process of installing Trillian on all staff computers). Basically, all I had to do was say “go for it.”

So far, the Meebo Me widget is working out well. The things we’re working through are more procedural issues, like what to do when reference staff receive a phone call and an IM question at the same time (ie., do we go into away mode or just quickly type “hold”?).

So – this should be just the tip of our Digital Branch iceberg!

17 comments

Another Cool Person at ALA

by David Lee King on June 6, 2007

David Free is moving to ACRL! He’s going to be the editor of College and Research Libraries news. Why is this neat? David (besides being a great dude) understands emerging trends… for example, he originally announced his new job via twitter, and then today he told me about it via Google Talk. This is sure to be a good thing.

Congratulations, David Free!

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OZSDUG Meeting and Demo of Rome

by David Lee King on June 6, 2007

The Gordian Knot blog recently mentioned the OZSDUG (OZarks SirsiDynix Users Group) meeting that took place on June 5th… I attended the meeting – here are my notes:

First up, a SirsiDynix Sales Rep answered a list of pre-prepared questions:

  • Question – Can we trust SirsiDynix promises? Answer – “No.”
  • The company that bought Sirsi told them to drop one product, so they could focus on making just one thing (makes sense)
  • There has been no end of life announced for Horizon
  • They will support Horizon 7 for the next 4-6 years (see the first point, above… :-)
  • Claimed Unicorn is a modern ILS
  • Unicorn/Rome has a very open API – is this true?
  • Unicorn/Rome is closer to Horizon 8 in terms of functionality
  • Rome is simply the next release of Unicorn (ie., 3.2) plus whatever they can swipe from Horizon 8
  • Rome releases 1, 2, and 3 – some functionality will be in 3 rather than in 1 or 2
  • Rome will be beta testing this summer
  • They will release a new version once a year
  • Lots of Horizon functionality won’t be in Rome 1
  • SAAS – they don’t host it – it’s outsourced to a server farm in Atlanta (makes sense) – Sirsi handles the software upgrades
  • San Diego Public and Kansas City Public are currently using SAAS
  • Rome is simply a marketing term – they’re working on renaming it

Then another sales rep did a demo of Unicorn EPS:

  • It’s ugly (my opinion!)
  • It does (finally) have built in RSS feeds on searches (yippie!)
  • Includes federated search as part of the base package, which also works with the RSS feeds (yippie!)
  • Don’t have to subscribe to Rooms to get RSS and the federated search portion – both are part of the base package
  • Sirsi updates Rooms – not the customer! That seems odd
  • Claimed that Sirsi spent lots of time designing the default Rooms look – then the speaker spent a lot of time pointing out the three-column design and explained the eye-tracking F thing…
  • However (my opinion) the base package is extremely ugly. It looks like it was made in 1999 rather than in 2007. Sirsi could certainly spend some time and money doing little itty bitty visual tweaks to make the customer web-based piece look at least normal, if not truly modern – just hire or contract with a designer!
  • One thing that really amazed me – on the default product in the list of results, do they highlight the title of the book and put the title at the top of the record? No… instead, they put the call number up at the top, in bold and in a larger font. That doesn’t seem customer-friendly to me.
  • This guy for some reason came off as being insincere – after the Sirsi people left, a question was asked “did anyone like [sales dude]?” Almost everyone said “no!” pretty loudly (which surprised me)! I think that was because of his presentation style (he was trying to be funny, but it came out being more edgy/sarcastic) – again, my take!

Finally, the Sales Director, East spoke about future directions and answered a few questions:

  • I asked a question – with the SAAS service, do you have to look like you’re hosted at Sirsi (most hosted sites I’ve seen have a sirsi.net/libraryname URL)? They didn’t know, but called in the question (which was cool – thanks!), and yes – you can use whatever domain name/URL you want to…
  • They’re working on a web staff client – there will be a limited release later this year
  • He admitted to swiping slides from Abrams… :-)
  • Working on a faceted and visual search – I think they showed screenshots of a mock-up. It looks to be much the same as Aquabrowser, Endeca, or that new Worldcat thing that’s out
  • text messaging holds and overdues – this functionality was in Horizon 8. It is “in queue” for Rome (didn’t say which version)
  • Someone made the comment that what we see when Stephen Abram speaks or when we listen to the SirsiDynix Institute seminars and what we see when we actually see a SirsiDynix product or talk to a sales rep seem to be two very different things. To that, the Sales Director said (my summary here): we walk a fine line with Abrams and with the SirsiDynix Institute – we don’t want it to appear like we actually do all the stuff that Abrams says (apparently because he speaks at lots of non-Sirsi things??? – just what the rep said…), or what the Institute teaches. I didn’t like the separation he put between what appears to libraryland as the
    voice of the company and the actual product – if the voice and the
    product say two different things, well… that’s not good!
  • And to be fair, he DID say that Abrams has a list of stuff that HAS to be in Rome for it to be successful (so that’s something, at least). But he did NOT say that SirsiDynix was working to include that list in Rome. And

So – to sum up… we heard:

  • don’t trust Sirsi
  • they made us drop horizon
  • we promise to continue to support horizon (see #1)
  • Showed us what they consider to be a modern ILS (Rome/Unicorn)… the audience didn’t agree (gleaned from the discussion after the Sirsi reps left)
  • When Abrams says something cool, or when you hear something neat about an ILS system at the SirsiDynix Institute, don’t expect it to appear in an actual Sirsi product.

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