Cynthia Ng

Code4lib Day 1: Lightning Talks

Cynthia Ng – RULA Bookfinder

Link to the full write-up

Julien Gibert – Turning a Solr Response into a RDF file

Theses.fr
Sorry, this went by me, plus I was busy running back to my seat

Bill Dueber – Datamart Report Generator at UMich

actually talking about spreadsheets
want to support data-drive decision making, but it’s boring, and canned reports tend not to do it
can end up in substring hell
solution: build data warehouse
took Aleph oracle COBOL store, removed insanity and put it in another oracle database
funds and inventory reports now possible
running 20-25 reports a week
more than when we ran it by hand, and saves lots of time

Jonathan Rochkind – bento_search

RubyRails gem
external search services e.g. Google books
federated e.g. primo, eds, ebscohost, scopus, worldcat, google books
can use whatever you want, just need to add it
can customize to have link resolver
github.com/jrochkind/sample_megasearch/
much more functionality

Masao Takaku – saveMLAK project for two years

came out of the effort to save museum, library, archive, kominkan (community centre) after the big earthquake
gather information of facilities in damaged area using a wiki
coordinate activities to rebuild
efforts are still continuing

Jon Stroop – Loris Image Server

define syntax for image access
can specify width/height, part of image, quality
Talk link

Ross Singer – How are you managing copyright?

lazy attempt at crowd-sourced business development
copyright is complicated
there are standard licenses, but then there are a lot of exclusions and exceptions
still, roughly the same model
management already being done in some capacity by the universities
but in US/Canada there is fair dealing and fair use
Slides

Eric Nord – Candybars for Bugs

Harold B. Lee Library
worked on maps in library
pop up map
will give candy bar if found error
only had to give away 18
have a ‘report a problem’ with this item
builds the idea to power the patron

Megan O’Neill Kudzia – Games for Pedagogy in the Library

working with faculty
a lot of interest, but no opportunity to talk about it
purchasing games on an ask basis
working out how to make accessible, in catalogue
licensing issues for PC/console games

Geoffrey Boushey – GEDI Reference App for InterLibrary Loan

General Electronic Document Interchange (ISO Standard)
used by Ariel
headers added to a file when sent from one institution to another
basis for making an easy to use tool so different ILL systems can communicate with each other
on Github

George Campbell – three.js: 3D Objects in the browser

used to have to use flash or flip through images
can now use interactive 3D graphics
can scale, add text/images, move

John Sarnowski – Audio Archiving with Full Text Search

ResCarta Toolkit
display and play audio
add metadata
use conversion tool
embeds into XML portion
final file can then be searched
words can be highlighted just like a text file

That’s the end of Day 1! Join us tomorrow. Time for a nap.

Code4Lib Day 1: RULA Bookfinder: Getting People to Books Fast! Lightning Talk

Video on Internet Archive

Not a New Problem

mapping the shelf where an item is located
common implementation: stackmap
but paid
implementation into catalogue similar, add button to click on to get map

What’s Different

full screen = bigger map
links to video tutorials in lightbox/fancybox
share map through link, and via email
automatically prioritize by loan period (regular vs. reference only) and availability, while still showing you the other locations
responsive
integrated search, built for mobile
shelf signage (though seen 1-2 other libraries doing this as well)

Are People Using It?

Launched mid-Nov, Dec exam period, Jan first real indication
desktop ~2/3, mobile ~1/3 of usage

What Do Users Think?

Demo’ed at Learning Commons Open House just before launch – a lot of positive feedback
Usability Study
most agree/strongly agree: easy to understand, easy to follow, prefer having shelf number
a couple didn’t like look/colours of floor plan, but most still liked it
most importantly: level of frustration = lower

Code4Lib Day 1: Afternoon Notes

Practical Relevance Ranking for 10 million books

Tom Burton-West, University of Michigan Library

Search Challenges

multilingual, 400+ languages
OCR quality varies
very long documents
books are different from what they normally have

Relevance Ranking

how to score, weigh
default algorithm ranks very short documents very high
needed to tune/customize parameters
average document size is ~30 times larger
did prelim testing with Solr4 and didn’t see the same problem, but need more testing
dirty OCR complicates things, as well as language
occurrence of words in specific chapters vs. whole book – should we index parts of books?
similar issue with other objects e.g. bound journals, dictionaries & encyclopedias
difficulty too is inconsistent metadata, breakdowns of articles/chapters/etc. will be inconsistent
creating a testing plan and adding click logs

n Characters in Search of an Author

Jay Luker, IT Specialist, Smithsonian Astrophysics Data System
Slides

Goal of a search is to match user input to metadata. e.g. author names

Building the next generation of the ADS 2.0. Trying to increase recall without sacrificing precision.

Requirements

match UTF-8 e.g. matching ASCII version to versions with diacritics/markings
match more or less information e.g. first name initial but without triggering substring matching
need to work with hand curated synonyms e.g. pseudonyms, maiden/married name

Solving the Problem

normalization – strip out punctuation, rearrange name parts – based on whether a common is entered
generate name part variations to whatever can be realistically expected
transliteration – use index instrospection for list of synonyms
expand user queries at each step:
1. user searches
2. normalize
3. name part vars
4. transliteration
5. name parts vars of transliterated entries
6. curated synonyms
7. transliteration of anything added
8. name part variations to catch everything
9. assembled into large boolean query

Implementation

Python/JavaScript prototype
actual – Solr/Lucene

Evolving Towards a Consortium MARCR BIBFRAME Redis Datastore

Jeremy Nelson, Colorado College, jeremy.nelson@coloradocollege.edu
Sheila Yeh, University of Denver

Presentation Slides

I think this presentation speaks for itself.

Journal Article: Building a Library App Portfolio with Redis and Django

Hybrid Archival Collections Using Blacklight and Hydra

Adam Wead, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum
Presentation

Centre of everything is the Solr index. Blacklight puts everything into Solr. Library materials is easy enough, but with Archival collections use EAD with many items (not just one item as typical of MARC).

Extended Blacklight to search EAD

index collections and single items from a collection
search results include books, entire collections, and items from collections

Digital Content

kept in Fedora – objects described using Rubys
use Hydra to manage the content in Fedora – manages RDF relationships
indexes into Solr
Need to related Fedora content to its archival collection
content originates from sources in collection, and part of series
collection metadata already exists in Solr
create RDF representations of collections
Hydra queries Solr for collection meatadata
creates objects for series, subseries, items

Issues

terrible Solr performance for series, 500+ items
no EAD “round tripping” – EAD can go into Solr, but not back out
currently 60% complete

Citation search in SOLR and second-order operators

Roman Chyla, Astrophysics Data System

Sorry, I don’t have notes for this. My brain is a bit fried by this point. Will post link when I get it.

Break Time

Breakout Sessions – reports will be available on the wiki

Next Up – lightning talks

Code4Lib Day 1: Morning Notes

Was trying to do too many things this morning, so sorry if the notes are not complete.

ARCHITECTING ScholarSphere: How We Built a Repository App That Doesn’t Feel Like Yet Another Janky Old Repository App

Dan Coughlin, Penn State University
Mike Giarlo, Penn State University

Presentation Slides

Trying to make it less confusing without exposing what system it’s using.

Simple Metadata Management

building metadata widgets
required: title, creator, keyword, rights
hide most non-required, have ‘more’ link for rest
limited to a set numbers, with tooltip
use jQuery autocomplete to suggest authority vocabulary

Dashboard

list of uploaded files
list of files have access to

Background Jobs

I got lost here talking about rescue jobs, sorry
has tracebacks for

Permissions Widget

set visibility
share with specific people

Version Control

can restore previous versions

Social Features

not in initial requirements
profile
contributions – “trophies”
activity – follow/following

8 months to develop, but spent 2 months just doing usability and responding to feedback.

Available on GitHub.

Pitfall! Working with Legacy Born Digital Materials in Special Collections

Donald Mennerich, The New York Public Library
Mark A. Matienzo, Yale University Library

Presentation Slides

Disk Images Process

process
stream – digitized analog magnetic signal
sector – stream decoded using algorithm(s)
object
physical – entirety of device
logical

Pitfalls

formats mean different things
communities of practice use different kinds of container formats
no single solution

Quest for Access

delivery format
what allowed to be done with material
need usability testing

Pitfalls

no ideal single model
decisions through the life cycle have an impact on access
capacities of institution

Collection

faculty papers – 162 floppies
goal: “recover” backup into something useful with minimal changes, repeatable process
Vita Russo Papers
goal: preserve original, describe and arrange, access

Conclusions

Time consuming
acknowledge researchers
need to work on communities of practice

Hacking the DPLA

Nate Hill, Chattanooga Public Library, nathanielhill AT gmail.com
Sam Klein, Wikipedia

A rally to get involved.

It’s an API, and a community.

Examples

Biodiversity Heritage Library
Minnesota Digital

Events

Digital Public Library of America Appfest
Launch at Boston Public Library April 18-19

Documentation and API Creator is on GitHub.

EAD without XSLT: A Practical New Approach to Web-Based Finding Aids

Trevor Thornton, New York Public Library

Side note: EAD = Encoded Archival Description — a way of describing archival collection.

Project Goals

enable multiple presentations of the same data
support dynamic web apps
cross-collection search with component-level specificity in results, and faceting on common access points

Archives Data Management Application

system using Ruby on Rails + MySQL + Solr
based on existing infrastructure
stick with what they know
didn’t need to do anything more complex
key functionality: data import, search index, API

Core Models

collection: collection as we know it, may also be single volume
component: some collections at item level, some not
description: some data has descriptive attributes
access term

I just felt like I was copying the slides at this point, so I’ll try to get a link to the presentation slides instead.

The Avalon Media System: A Next Generation Hydra Head For Audio and Video Delivery

Michael Klein, Senior Software Developer, Northwestern University LIbrary, michael.klein AT northwestern DOT edu
Nathan Rogers, Programmer/Analyst, Indiana University

Demo!

can upload from computer, but also shared dropbox
forced to enter some metadata

Avalon

is a stack
media streaming server

Content Processing

with Matterhorn
workflow pipeline – batch/unattended ingest – uploading one delimited file with names of files that should be related
pingbacks for status updates
caching of key metadata/images

Stream Security

support different types of streaming (for desktop & mobile) and authentication
use authentication tokens
half is media ID, add another half, whole thing is auth token

Lunch Time

Code4Lib Day 1: Opening Keynote – Leslie Johnston

Want to talk about communities and community building. It was a partial contextual shift as to her place in a number of communities.

Thought a lot about where she fits in. Have had a lot of identities, and thinks of herself as: nerd, geek, wonk, curator, archivist, woman, leader. Originally thought of herself as just another person, but everyone in this room should take on the role of leader.

Everything we do is part of the community, everywhere. Everyone in code4lib is part of a

community that succeeds through relationships.

Take the ethos of code4lib back to each organization.

Software Development

Every software requires a community. Each person is part of it cares. Sustaining software requires a community of people who really care. We need to think about who uses our software. This

community is not just about people who write code,

it’s also about people use the software.

The most important thing is to work with those groups of users.

Communications

These communities are built using communication, inclusiveness, consideration, even more communication, and sense of ownership.

Need to think about users, stakeholders, researchers.

Everyone should read this blog post on backchannel conference talk.

Seen projects fail because they’re shared with the world but no one really takes ownership. Ownership goes both ways. Owning what you release, but also helping other projects be a success. Not everything fails, but it needs a community to thrive.

This is what we’re looking for in our communities and in our projects.

That they thrive.

You want a community that participates, looks out for each other.

What Defines a Successful Community or Project?

Participation. One project was a massive failure because no one participated.

Enthusiasm. Who would even want to fund it?

A sense of pride. ‘I’m part of that, made it happen, succeeded in part because of me.’

Learn from the history and the people who can be your mentors. Look at what you’re doing and what came before. Part of inclusiveness is acknowledging that you’re not the only person who has ever worked on the problem, who can work on the problem.

Adoption. A sign of success is that they’ve take it, use it, and contribute to it.

Now we will discuss.

Q&A Session

This supposedly not shy group, but is actually shy a lot of time.

Do we not think we’re not ‘real’ coders? Have the self imposter syndrome. But actually, she is a coder too.

Why does this community has to self-organize? Actually, awesome that this community has self-organized. Used to think every collection is unique and not doing the same thing, but we’re seeing emergence of communities that are realizing this is not true. For example, linked data community cross-fertilizing regardless of the type of collections they had. We self-organized was a sense of shared problem and shared passion.

No one organization can do it alone. We all need to work on it together.

Two most attributes to fail projects. One person thought it was a good idea, but no one else knew they were working on it. It didn’t succeed because there was no sense of participation, because no one was invited to participate. No one should work alone. We fail because we don’t collaborate.

How do you convince someone that they are a leader? Tell them that they are a success.

How do you adopt something when the leaders are not on board? ‘But everyone else is doing it, dad.’ Adoption by others. It’s really hard to be the first one though, we know.

Data-Driven Documents: Visualizing library data with D3.js

Bret Davidson, North Carolina State University Libraries