Author: Cynthia Ng

Code4lib Day 2: Lightning Talks

Scott Hanrath – Zotero and SHERPA/RoMEO API mashup

  • quick and dirty way to filter a collection of articles by publisher policies
  • use Zotero and SHERPA/RoMEO APIs to tag articles with publisher policies
  • work flow?
  • zotero plugin?
  • Code on github

David Walker – Basic Learning Tool Interoperability (LTI) Protocol

  • Need LMS to pull all the relevant library information, items, etc.
  • In LMS, register library tool as if it were a native building block
  • When insert into course, make a little iframe of tool
  • Hidden form elements post it to tool with data of course, data, security (OAuth)

Peter Murray – Introducing FOSS4LIB.org

  • Lyrasis’ response to survey on what librarians wanted
  • open source adopters are still in the early adopters stage
  • thus, website was created
  • determine whether OSS is right for the library including cost
  • help to select software
  • Call to action: register packages, releases, events, providers

Mark Matienzo – I’ve Got Good News

  • C4L11: fiwalk with me – using open source digital forensics software to support pre-digest work
  • update of work since then
  • pluggable
  • could integrate anything
  • two working plugins: virus scanner, file format identification against PRONOM
  • Code on github
  • BitCurator

Mike Durbin – Edge Cases – Digitizing and delivering undescribed items in EAD

  • should automate as much of the workflow as possible
  • items selected for digitization, scanning, created/updating spreadsheet with ID and sequence, name image files according to ID/sequence
  • put it in for automated processing including quality control, files pushed into master file archive, ingested into Fedora, and e-mail is sent to collection manager
  • Finally, publication

Ryuuji Yoshimoto – Introducing CALIL.JP, scraping/mashup all of OPACs in JAPAN! PDF Slides

  • OPACs have no API
  • so start scraping OPACs, fighting with dirty HTML
  • 2 months to scrap 200+ OPACs
  • CALIL.JP
  • realtime holding by through the CALIL API by ISBN, returns XML or JSON
  • item information from amazon and Google
  • now have many third-party apps e.g. browser extension

Kåre Fiedler Christiansen – Chucking all the software components in a library together to present recorded radio and tv

  • built MPEG -> streaming server
  • website -> cool design
  • cool design, website, streaming server, access control -> cool website
  • except lawyers, oh noes!
  • PDF Slides

Joel Richard – Introducing Macaw: Metadata Collection Tool for Book-like things

  • digitizing lots of book-like things including pamphlets
  • most libraries sent to Internet Archive then to the Biodiversity Heritage Library
  • but some items too large to fit on usual scanning hardware
  • had to use camera, but had to add metadata
  • Macaw collects metadata but doesn’t really do workflow
  • two views: thumbnails and list
  • take data from wherever, using Z39.50 or CSV, into Macaw
  • custom export from Macaw, including Internet Archive, the library
  • each piece is modular
  • Code on Google Code

Rachel Frick – LOD-LAM Incubator Project

  • Linked Open Data for Library, Archives, and Museums
  • lightweight approach in terms of funding and consultation
  • timeline: March – May = recruit panel, fundraising, open comment

Mao Tsunekawa – Project Shizuku : Making Friends in Libraries

  • Shizuku 2.0
  • software development project in supporting encounters among library users
  • not recommending books, recommending users instead
  • visualize circulation data for finding other users reading the same books
  • can share history of reading books
  • developing Baron which allows searching OPAC and then making friends

Keith Folsom – Archivists’ Toolkit Database Server on an Amazon EC2 Instance

  • multi-institutional
  • hosting on small instance of amazon
  • Ubuntu/MySQL
  • single open port
  • download kit with PuTTY
  • going out of pilot

Rebecca Jones – Call for Services

  • InnovativeInterfaces
  • provide SQL access
  • working on RESTful services
  • What services would people like to have?
  • Live Beta in March

Code4lib Day 2: Mobile Breakout Notes

Just a few notes if anyone is interested:

  • digital collections tool: wolf walk, digital images
    • geolocation using JavaScript to make it availble in HTML5
    • find it easier in app store, means more people use app
  • HTML5 more clunky with jQuery mobile
  • native app smoother, especially Google Maps
  • mobile site: only force on homepage and opt out using query string
  • mobile app/site needs to be interoperable
  • designing: mobile framework better at bringing out ideas vs. developing web version of a website
  • how do you build up services? concentrate on what is needed on mobile devices
  • should have just what you need and do it well while taking advantage of mobile aspects e.g. bluetooth, GPS
  • how best to build?: REST layer on top of what’s available
  • time resource: if know objective C, then just adding functions
  • voice use: comfort level? accurate enough? difficulty with quiet/study areas/floors?
  • phone tap to reserve seats/room, other application?
  • staff use in stacks? Shelflister: barcode scanner inserts into web form for shelf reading or collection development, including circulation data
  • mobile hours: just give today’s hours or closed (give tomorrow’s hours)

Code4lib Day 2 Afternoon: Notes and Takeaways

An afternoon of more presentations, which were a bit more technical in terms of data indexing, storage, and use. As a result, there are no detailed posts, but here are a few notes and takeaways.

  • Be careful when you try to parse a bunch of files you download from the web. Parse and store, distribute up front, and build a test index first.
  • Making Software Work – read it
  • The results of one study is not the truth.
  • It’s hard to make a study repeatable.
  • Does agile work? That’s the wrong questions. Really, when does bug fixing has the highest cost?
  • High-risk bugs should be done as early as possible, instead of the easy bugs.
  • What language? Depends on the problem.
  • Make developer happiness hours. (block off time with no meetings)
  • Give people open sight lines instead of high cubicle walls.
  • Be as transparent as possible (e.g. JIRA) including progress.
  • Put projects into short iteration cycles.
  • No code without passing tests!
  • Slides (PDF) for the last talk: Practical Agile: What’s Working for Stanford, Blacklight, and Hydra by Naomi Dushay

In-browser Data Storage and Me

by Jason Casden, North Carolina State University

  • Suma: data collection application using in-browser storage.
  • Indexed database API (aka IndexedDB, WebSimple DB) is where things seem to be going, but limited browser support.
  • Web (DOM) Storage is basically universally supported.
  • Web SQ DB still viable option.
  • lawnchair: object storer, but have adapters for a long list of DBs/APIs.
  • persistence.js: asynchronous JavaScript object-relational mapper and adapters are being built out. Can be used with node.js and MySQL.

Slides

Code4lib Day 2 Morning: Notes & TakeAways

I didn’t take full notes on all the presentations. I like to just sit back and listen to some of the presentations, especially if there are a lot of visuals, but I do have a few notes.

Full Notes for the following sessions:

Building Research Applications with Mendeley

by William Gunn, Mendeley

  • Number of tweets a PLoS article gets is a better predictor of number of citations than impact factor.
  • Mendeley makes science more collaborative and transparent. Great to organize papers and then extract and aggregate research data in the cloud.
  • Can use impact factor as a relevance ranking tool.
  • Linked Data right now by citation, but now have tag co-occurrences, etc.
  • Link to slides.

NoSQL Bibliographic Records: Implementing a Native FRBR Datasotre with Redis

No notes. Instead, have the link to the presentation complete with what looks like speaker notes.

Ask Anything!

  • Things not taught in library school: all the important things, social skills, go talk to the professor directly if you want to get into CS classes.
  • Momento project and UK Archives inserting content for their 404s.
  • In response to librarians lamenting loss of physical books, talk to faculty in digital humanities to present data mining etc., look at ‘train based’ circulations, look at ebook stats.
  • Take a look at libcatcode.org for library cataloguers learning to code as well as codeyear hosted by codeacademy.

Code4ib Day 2: Stack View: A Library Browsing Tool

by Annie Cain, Harvard Library Innovation Lab

What’s the point?

Why recreate the physical stack? Why not just use a list? There are advantages to display books like books.

Advantages

  • If you have multiple branches, you can put all the materials into one shelf.
  • More visual, such as using page numbers to create thinner or wider images.
  • Add more information – color can represent such as frequency of checkouts.

How to Get Started

  • build HTML objects and draw using CSS
  • works as jQuery plugin
  • Start with book data – wrestle data out of your catalog, extract pieces you want and feed it into Solr, or use API, such as WorldCat
  • pump out stack view using JSON

Code available on github.

Q&A Comments

  • Usability testing gives mixed reviews. Librarians and those used to browsing the library are happy with it, but others don’t seem to care.
  • Experimentation with items other than books is to come.
  • No plans yet for catalogue integration as not much use case, but working on it.
  • Also take  a look at Chrome WebGL bookcase.

More information on available on the Harvard Innovative Lab website, and below is a demo.