Computers in Libraries

I’ll be tossing out some random video this week - they’re all snippets of my time at Computers in Libraries 2006.

This one an exciting narrative of my subway trip into Washington DC.

One thing I’ve noticed rather quickly with the Treo 650 video - it doesn’t pick up sound (as in, my voice) very well. I’ll have to see if I can figure that one out a little better (hmm… one of those earpiece/speaker combo things for cell phones?).

Anyway - enjoy.

CIL2006, vlog, videoblog

This talk by Frank Cervone and Darlene Fichter is always good (translation: I always learn about new tools!). Here’s basically a list of most of the tools they mentioned, with a brief description of some of them. So go check them out!

PHP Editor - paginas.terra.com.br… professional-grade PHP editor

PHP Expert Debugger - run and debug php code

Firefox extensions:
- colorful tabs 1.1
- web developer 1.0.2
- editcss
- html validator
- screen grab!
- Copy plain text
- view formatted source
addons.mozilla.com

livehttpheaders

eyeonsite - client on local machine - monitor another server, sends email

link popularity check - checkyourlinkpopularity.com

widgets - konfabulator, flickr photos, personalized weather

a to-do-list widget!

widgets.yahoo.com

eXactMapper Lite - sitemaps - free, generates a sitemap.

web based organizers - zoho planner, remember the milk, backpackit

sticky brain

chronosnet.com… “and now I’ll drag this to my sticky brain” $40, for mac users

password keepers: roboform (COSTS), keepass (open source), agatra (web based)

superglu - several feeds, one page - superglu.com

MultiRSS - fancy RSS chicklet that supports 39 different feed readers

Wink - creates flash animation for simple things, like reference instruction sessions…

Powerbullet Presenter - a little more powerful version of wink - free!!!

file exchange utilities - dropload, yousendit, sendthisfile, mailbigfile - mail large files

Nvu - free open source web editor (wow - lots of comments on this product)

zoom in - zooms in and out of photos

web gallery creator - creates a web gallery - automatically creates the HTML

Thumbshots - liven up your web links - thumbnails of URLs…

altsoft xsl-fo debugger - debugs xsl stylesheets

meta tag expert - creates meta tags for web pages - will do dublin core or more traditional tags

zoomcloud, tagcloud - tag clouds… zoomcloud provides stats

google sitemap builder - it helps google index your site better. sitemapbuilder.net - a good google sitemap creator

map web visitors: gVisit, ClustrMaps - maps out web visitors

Google Maps and Library Site…

tinyurl.com/gg2vd - how to add a google map to any web pages in less thatn 10 minutes

Or - add directions - google directions. tinyurl.com/cfmbb - add directions to your site without api

yahoo pattern library - patterns - they published their soutions to common web design problems. Hmm… they include things like breadcrumbs, search results, tabbed navigation, product ratings, etc. - they have tons of data that says “this worked best for Yahoo” - it will probably work well for others!

antispam encoder

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Frank Cervone:

70% of all searches are keyword searches and they pretty much get article searches

Students don’t understand the concept of “metasearch” and federated

Federated product - good place to go for starters

students have strong expectations about how results should be displayed: relevance order - it’s the search engine model…

advanced users tend to head towards databses

If it’s not federated, it’s ignored. The hope is that people will click through to the native interface when appropriate

finding the right group of databases for subject areas is important

long lists of databases - students find them confusing and make them feel stupid

they group databases by “best bets” or the three major databases in any given topic area.

It’s critical that they work from the perspective of the patron.

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Jeff Wisniewski:

Webfeat - live since Sept 2004

majority of searches come from the quick find search on their website’s main page

They provide three access points: federated product, a-z list, and subject list

Google has set the speed standard - they get “it’s kinda slow” comments

Speed constraints - be selective - dont’ want a “earch all” when all equals 300+ databases

monitor usage stats, especially turnaways

implement a formal evaluation process

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Ying Zhang: MetaLib Implementations

spoke about her organization’s implementation of MetaLib

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Athena Hoeppner:

Usability aspects of their federated search product

Most users use the quick search feature

They believe customization would help - trying to label things differently

Metalib isn’t an ideal solution for them because of the lack of easy customization

They’d like to add lots of help features, add useful icons, and have the visual design mirror their website

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4 people spoke about collaborative e-learning and webjunction:

Anna Leavitt:

What is e-learning?
electronically delivered methods…

blended learning - a mix of educational approaches. Mixes e-learning and face-to-face learning

blended=
- dominant mode for offering educational materials online
- still a need for human contact and face to face interaction
- peole learnign in multiple ways
- still large gaps in production of educational contant for online learning

Pros of blended learning:
- stronger sense of community than either traditional or fully onlne
- consistent delivery of message
- ability to self pace
- refresher on your time
- reduced classroom time - big benefit
- more effective staff training

Cons:
- some don’t like the term…
- developers - how to manage and design it correctly
- how to manage roles, responsibilities
- how to meet expectations, control costs

hard to tell if someone is engaged and active if it’s an online class!

WebJunction: an online community for library staff to share

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Elizabeth laukea:

webjunction - a state partner’s perspective

webjunction can be a great tool to use when implementing a blended learning program - webjunction has the backbone and apps in place

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Laura Staley:

WebJunction’s spanish language outreach program

they did a pilot project

blended model

in-person: train the trainer institute, local workshops, follow up

Online Elements: online content and resources, message boards, webinars, online courses

they also do a live meeting (online?) at about the 6-week point

Why Blended Learning?

extends and reinforces learning - you can share things online easily
builds an online community of interest
make info available to the broadest audience possible
meets a range of experience levels - because it’s a national - level project. Ex - a rural library that suddenly has a hispanic pop surge - they need resources fast!

benefits/challenges:

in-person workshops - hard to coordinate
message boards - easy way to collaborate and connect with. But - can’t assume comfort level, it’s not an immediate answer
webinars - (live meeting sessions) a way to connect. but - have to have access to a phone line AND an internet connection.
online course - figuring out how to integrate it into curriculum - 4-hour self paced course - lots of material to develop, expensive

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(Karen Coombs was the speaker)

summary - open source is cool!

sometimes it’s not free… there might be a licensing cost

still need hardware and time

advantages: change and expand on the source code if you want to, offers an active developer community - very nice!

Foundational Software:

apache, tomcat - another java-based web server
php, perl, python, ruby - open source programming languages
mysql and PostGres - more robust

Content Management:
Drupal - weblogs.ucalgary.ca - for the students
Plone - Requires Zope application server - stony brook suny runs on plone (health sciences site)
Textpattern - much simpler, fewer features

Bloging Software:
wordpress - probably best-known (LITA’s blog runs in wordpress)
WordpressMU - mu.wordpress.org - alpha stage, multiple blogs
or you can do a wordpress farm to run multiple blogs…

Movable Type - create multiple blogs with multiple authors (UHouston uses this) - another university runs thousands - mt is very scalable

Wiki software:
- mediawiki, PHP Wiki, Pm wiki - usc aiken gregg-graniteville library - runs on a wiki…

maintenance
awstats, w3c link checker, log validator - checks to see if your HTML is valid

other tools
Nvu, opensourcewebdesign - free code
tinymce.moxiecode.com - wysywyg html editor - open source, incorporate into your site. It looks like word. It can be incorporated into a CMS

htdig, Lucene - full text search engines written in Java

Furl and Wikipedia both use Lucine… hmm…

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(Jason Clark was the speaker)

Examples:
- Google maps, sproutLiner, Yahoo Instant Search, Google Suggest, Scriptaculous wiki
- Rather than everything on the page changing when you request new info, only the new info loads (no page refresh) - this makes the page and the site faster.
- scriptalicious - showed a drag and drop interaction

AJAX uses:
- javascript
- xhtml
- xmp httprequest() objects
… to communicate with a server side request

Library use of AJAX:
- browsing subject titels
- predisplaying indexes and database categories
- complex ILL or contact forms
- federated searching
- opac and digital library interfaces

Used the right way, ajax can help save the time of the user - that’s good.

He showed something  he built - it searches amazingly fast, only the new info changes (in this case, the search results) - nothing else on the page changes

There’s a lot of potential here…

Why is it good?

open standards. Reduces number of pages needed
faster interface
more efficient use of bandwidth
the xmlhttprequest object - becoming a w3c standard

why is it bad?
- breaks the back button
- decreased usability
relies on client side processing (many didn’t actually work during his examples)

when to use it?
search functions
streamlining
processing large datasets
validating complex forms
predictable, controlled user environment (this is needed) - right now, it should be add-on functionality)

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First, for Tom Hogan’s opening remarks:

• 2380-ish attendees this year!
• 150 speakers and moderators… wow.
• 60 exhibitors

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Keynote: Search Engine Update, Chris Sherman

Starting to see true differentiation and divergence among the major search engines:

Ask:

• Jeeves retired. first-class search engine, as good as or better than the others
• They also have Gary Price
• Many new tools. Web Answers - a natural laguage search that actually works.
• great map tool - better than google and yahoo. Even gives driving/walking directions, depending on what you want to do

Google:

• Google is: advertising company, microsoft killer, ISP, Banker, etc, etc, etc…
• Not just focused on search anymore
• Suggest, Q&A, Desktop, Video, etc - lots of options

MSN:

• still spending money to develop a search engine and a search advertising network
• You need version 3.0 with all microsoft products… so wait awhile
• Clustering (sorta like Northern Light used to do)
• Birdseye and street level imagery - nice satellite imagery

Yahoo

• Pace seems to have slowed at Yahoo
• turning into a “people mediated” search - with tagging and personalization
• Yahoo Mindset - a version of the search engine that has a slider that can be dragged towards shopping or research to personalize search results

Google and Books

• Google is probably legal
• Publishers VCR myopia factor - it will probably be better for publishers in the long run - it will help sell more books
• Publisher will control how much content is displayed - they alwo authorize Google to scan the books
• You can’t copy or print the text…
• They plan to link to Worldcat pretty soon
• Browse full text of public domain materials
• He thinks they are scanning books so Google can learn and improve search technology…
• lots of lawsuits

Google’s DoJ Request

• asked for 1 million random web addresses and records of all Google searches for one week. Other search engines complied! Yikes
• Google refused because of privacy concerns - good for them.
• 50k random URLs & 5k queries will be ultimately provided
• many problems and absurdities with thte request in the first place:
• won’t show what people are searching for…
• random URLS don’t show searches, relevance, algorhythms, etc
• also doesn’t factor in automatic queries

China and search:

• US is bashing search engines over China censorship
• But the search engiens are simply obeying the law
• The Chinese people prefer the censorship to not having search engines at all
• only a relatively few topics are censored
• savvy chinese web users know they can reach virtually any web site using a proxy

Conclusions:

• search is getting exciting again
• new tools are making content more searchable
• threats to privacy and individual liberties are subtly increasing in the US, while ironically things seem sto be improving in China

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Getting to Washington DC wasn’t too bad this time. I flew on Midwest Airlines, and had a pleasant trip - it was nonstop, it was cheap, and they gave me a chocolate chip cookie (they mad a big deal out of that, so I guess it’s their thing).

And I found my hotel just fine, too… well, at least, the hotel I THOUGHT I was staying at. I had booked the Windsor Inn - it’s close to the Washington Hilton, and seemed both inexpensive (for DC) and safe (from reviews). When I arrived at the Windor, everyone was extremely polite - and they were extremely polite when they apologized for a booking mix-up, too. They had decided that the people staying in my room could, in fact, stay there… and they sent me to the Braxton Hotel. At a better price.

The Braxton Hotel is still within walking distance to the Hilton (although a little farther away), and… well… It’s not the nicest hotel I’ve stayed in, to say the least. But I suppose it will do for the week.

So - Midwest Air - good. Windsor - Polite, but unorganized. Braxton - I’m withholding judgement for now. On to the conference!

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