Category: Events

including conferences and workshops

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

I'm Hungry
‘Nuff Said

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.

leslie johnston doing the opening keynote

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

code4libTO December Meetup Talks

BagIt Profiles – @ruebot

  • directory of data
  • bag has what you’re bagging, data, contact email/name, organization information, profile identifier (JSON via a URI)
  • pull in all the field values
  • validate
  • wrote a spec and send it to digital curation community
  • can look up profiles in the registry

Okay, I got a little lost, but you can see more on github.

Internet Archive Torrent Collections (iaTorrent) – @ruebot

Bookfinder – @TheRealArty & Steven

  • I will write this up later probably as a separate blog post, or maybe journal article

TPL’s Web Services Architecture: Understanding the Big Picture – @waharnum

  • many different systems that don’t easily communicate, which needs specialized knowledge even to do basic tasks
  • address the challenges by translation, simplication, standardization
  • Three tiers: Front End Systems (requests to back end) / TPL Web Services (REST) / Back End Systems (responds to front end)
  • Example: TPL Website -> Account Web Services -> Symphony Web Services (Symphony) – and back
  • can add new features and functions
  • helps to solve the challenges mentioned
  • also helps with reusability e.g. in addition to website, build mobile-friendly website, iPhone App
  • Might end up with:
    • Front End (Website, mobile, App)
    • Middle Tier (Account Web Services, ebook Web Services, online payment web services)
    • Back End (symphony, overdrive, payment gateway, accounting systems)
  • other benefits:
    • increase ease of knowledge transfer about how our systems work
    • follow modern best practice approach to building interoperating systems
    • reduce cost and integration time
  • reduce learning time for new staff or consultants
  • metrics: wish had resources
  • bolting together a lot of things, not using a lot of custom code

Ladder (aka MyTPL 2) – @mjsuhonos

  • wanted to solve problem: discovery layers suck
  • problems:
    • not scalable
    • inflexible
    • read-only
    • expensive
  • goals:
    • better than open source options (VuFind, Blacklight)
    • cheaper (than proprietary)
  • scalable as WorldCat
  • design:
    • schema-free/multi-schema (e.g. Dublin Core)
    • horizontally scalable (multi-node)
    • modern OSS components
  • simple data model (RDF)
  • Features:
    • hierarchical relations
    • clustering/de-duplication
    • versioning
    • real-time import & indexing
    • multi-thread/process
    • responsive UI
    • fully multilingual (18/10)
    • dynamic faceting
    • dynamic mapping modification
    • digital content storage (coming soon)
  • built on a linked data
  • not a discovery layer; it’s an integration platform

Heritage U of T – @ajmcalorum

  • News Announcement and Promotional Video
  • previously not centralized: hard drives, flickr, etc.
  • need central repository for tri-campus initiative with search & discovery, preservation, long-term access to content and metadata, support for multiple formats (e.g. images, books, documents, video, exhibits)
  • Drupal + Solr (search) + Fedora Commons (collection management, batch ingesting, metadata crosswalk, digital preservation) == islandora (digital asset management system)
  • pilot: 8 parent collections (by format, by campus)
  • exhibits in Drupal, not through islandora/fedora commons
  • modules: internet archive book reader (OCR on the fly), galleria, colorbox
  • official launch: 2 weeks ago

That’s it! Food and drinks time!

Notes on Building the Information Literate University

Bill Johnston & Sheila Webber

Information Literacy

It’s big and complex. A lot has been done and researched, but not put together.

The information literate person is an information culture needs a broader, more creative and critical information and media education, not only to enjoy the economic benefits of digitally based infrastructures, but to fully engage either the social, political, and creative dimension of the developing information culture of the 21st century.

Hoping to lead to wise and ethical use of information.

Information Literacy as Discipline

  • professional associations and journals
  • international community
  • academic departments
  • graduate students
  • id with the discipline
  • distinctive language
  • knowledge and research base

Continuing to use the term, because it’s used at the international level. In essence, doesn’t really matter what term we use if we can connect the different areas. Partly, because there is no real alternative term. What you need to keep in mind is that the meaning may change depending on the context (work, subject, country), and users will express different needs.

Information Literate University

This includes graduates, academic peers elsewhere and wider society, but more specifically include:

  • Info Literate Curriculum (in curriculum, as discipline)
  • Info Literate students
  • Info Literate Research
  • Info Literate staff & managers
  • Staff development for IL
  • Management for IL (strategy, policy, resourcing, infrastructure, knowledge & research)

To move towards such a university, need to think about what forces can bring about this change, including:

  • whole course redesign
  • strategy for education (in institutional plan)
  • specific student learning environments
  • theoretically informed case studies

Institutional Strategies

A chance for opportunity spotting. For example, cross disciplinary research, and cross organization research. Another example is engaging students through thinking about how to integrate learning instead of just one off workshops, and using tools to enrich learning. Information literacy might be the discipline of the librarians (as faculty). Zones of action might include workshop model of educational development for librarians with subject/university focus with themes of assessment and online learning objects.

Mainstreaming IL

Many ways to to engaging academic staff.

  • pre-empt negativity
  • identify downside of not shifting
  • identify lecturers who have refixed the rate (combining staff time, etc.; transmissive vs. constructivist)
  • develop scenarios for refixing the rate

Teaching-Learning Environment

Student spending more time engaged in:

  • acitivites designed for deep processing of info
  • developing knowledge of reliable sources
  • etc.

Need to think about:

  • specific pedagogic approach

    • a

  • infrastructure such as classroom setups
  • e-learning: process of; focus on approach, not learning objects

Conclusions

  • Think BIG
  • Associate IL eith global themes, educational achievement, and institutional success
  • teach, learn, research, and communicate through IL
  • Challenge doubters and convince supporters

Workshop Notes

In the afternoon, we worked in groups to come up with different strategies to mainstream information literacy.

Aims and Strategies

  • Research a core group at every level and convince faculty of the value
  • Have students understand that the information they are looking for is available at the library
  • Education of the faculty
  • Building relationships with faculty
    • sharing successful stories and strategies
    • become more embedded: courses, research
    • building enough of a relationship to do a course redesign
  • maintain face to face contact
  • ensure programmatically implemented
  • testing critical student thinking
  • e-textbooks
  • audit course outlines and develop IL arguments or zones of intervention, then include statement
  • IL becoming component of the institutional teaching methodologies, sneaking it in
  • subject related divisions within OCUL which don’t exist
  • student survey on student info seeking and help behaviour
  • co-teaching

Key Levers

  • new strategic plan and new administration
  • related committees in teaching, curriculum, and info literacy
  • dealing with funding changes due to university specialization declarations
  • collaborations cross-university
  • integration of tutorials, tools, and services into environment e.g. Course Management Systems
  • making use of existing communications and marketing avenues e.g. Taking advantage of assessment to get support from upper administration
  • AACSB (accreditation)
  • program/course proposals
  • program review
  • online courses/e-learning
  • copyright
  • faculty meetings
  • conferences

Partners

  • faculty liaisons and subject experts
  • library “champions”
  • other university departments e.g. Writing centre
  • librarians at other universities
  • Student services
  • Academic support
  • Teaching co
  • quality assurance framework
  • OCUL

Connecting It All

The key points to be taken forward.
Sustaining

  • Teaching chairs (R)
  • Teaching & Learning commons (Y)

Growing

  • growing learning commons to include topics of academic integrity
  • building on tri-mentoring to find out what info literacy skills employers are looking for (R)
  • meta-level points for engaging faculty in importance of IL e.g. Info society, ethical issues
  • getting upper admin buy-in and budget
  • opportunities for embedding and assessment

Initiating

  • R-Y partnership to talk about success & challenges specific to subject areas building on informal network
  • writing IL modules for courses that can be collaborative and shared
  • syllabus audit looking for IL opportunities
  • IL committee

Partnering

  • college (workshops, drop-in)
  • career centre
  • learning skills
  • tri-mentoring
  • other librarians in same subject
  • accreditation bodies: building on industry expectations
  • within the university: faculty liaisons

Developing library staff

  • more intensive opportunity to discuss these issues with outcomes of program documents or policies, etc. beyond just a one day workshop
  • retreat
  • instruction peer assessment
  • communication: key messages & how to convey them
  • time and training for IL
  • reexamine what IL should or can look like