Category: Technology

TRY 2012: Digital Signage at the Robarts Library (UTL)

This presentation actually not only talks about digital signage itself, but also the work culture change that happened in the systems department at UTL.

Presenters

  • Sian Meikle
  • Bilal Khalid
  • Graham Stewart

Good Signs Can Make a Difference

  • brief
  • consistent
  • easily read

Writing the Message

  • simple
    • reduce: punctuation, pictures, words
    • headline: 22 characters
    • body: 10-18 words
    • short URLs
  • brief
    • 5 seconds per slide
    • 8-10 seconds total
    • usually less is more
  • clear
    • call to action e.g. Chat with a librarian
    • photographs can be powerful
    • coherent design

I don’t know that I agree with all of these, but then it was clear that it depends on the size and distance of the sign as well as where it is.

Presenting the Message

  • Chunking
    • group things together
  • Coding
    • add headings
  • position
    • prime spots on a list: first and last get noticed the most

What Makes Digital Signage Different?

  • easy to update
  • can differentiate content by
    • time of day
    • audience
    • viewing time

What Users Say

  1. Help me make better decisions
    • chat with a librarian, workshops
  2. Save me time
    • maps: library, stacks, workstations
    • directories: by floor, service, name, library
  3. Show me something relevant to me
    • news, community content
  4. Tell me something new and interesting
    • exhibitis, events, news
  5. Give me ideas
    • collection highlights

This is not what their actual users were saying. These ideas were based on a talk done by someone outside of the library and the list here is how those ideas might be applied in a library setting.

Touchscreen Kiosks

  • PHP – CodeIgniter
  • jQuery
  • MySQL
  • Closed Environment – not open to the Internet
  • Javascript Keyboard

Interaction

  • Most Frequent Pageviews
    • since May 2011
    • Libraries & Hours
    • Robarts Directory
    • Workstations
  • User Feedback
    • Let me find a book
    • Let me access this information from my phone

What’s Next

  • catalogue search
    • entire catalogue available
  • StackMap
    • map of physical item location, with directions
  • Responsible Design
    • designed to be used on any device

This is interesting, because we’re working on something similar at our library and we were considering how responsive to make the site. Obviously, we need to seriously consider designing from desktop down to mobile.

Overhead Signage

  • 4 vertical screens
  • PHP + AJAX
  • Media Commons
  • JavaScript video player
  • Fishers Rare Book
  • screensaver

Features

  • auto refresh
  • detection of new content
  • remote control
  • ability to have different slideshows
  • control to switch between slideshows
  • control through phone

What’s Next

  • Scala software across all overhead screens
    • content regions e.g. time at bottom of screen
    • RSS Feeds to Drupal based on another content type
    • Scheduling e.g. times of day

Building Directories

  • one PHP + JavaScript page per vertical pylon (two vertical screens)
  • alternating event feed display (from Drupal, via AJAX)

Development – Devops Movement

  • focus on increase collaboration and cooperation
  • agile methodology applied to system administration
  • agile development and teams (self organizing, cross functional, quick daily meetings, open environments, face to face meetings, encourage input)

On System Administration

  • timeframes all shrink
  • web presence critical
  • software is developed much faster and changes are more frequent
  • massive growth in automation tools
  • growth in OSS: sharing and collaboration

Devops Goals

  1. Eliminate stereotypes
    • developers are careless, arrogant while sysadmins always say no and work all night
  2. Increase communicatin between developers, operations, and management
  3. Continuous systems improvement
  4. Break down barriers and silos
  5. Develop methods to encourage all team members to see the organization’s goals

Advantages

  • all staff use all their skills
    • diversity
    • use knowledge outside defined roles
    • roles expand
    • cross pollination
    • creativity
    • “many minds”
  • enhanced mutual respect and communication
    • greater trust
    • shared responsibility
    • everyone feels a sense of ownership over the end product
    • greater commitment to the product
    • everyone focused on the organization’s end goal
  • happier, move productive staff

Implementing DevOps With Digital Signange

  • operations and development involved jointly from the start
  • weekly full meetings and as necessary (often daily) with quick interrupts/one-on-ones for specific issues
  • fast code releases: several times/week
  • “many minds”
  • two screen display: one browser? 2 PCs?
  • disabling right click
  • URL shortening
  • Planning and execution
    • browser choice
    • OS choice
    • development options
    • design decisions
  • New and experimental project
    • innovative methods required

I thought it was interesting that they spoke a lot about the more technical aspect as well as development methodology. I think it’s a good lesson for a lot of library IT departments that agile development with integrated back and front end staff can be very beneficial, particularly because it makes more development faster and more flexible.

One of the things that came up during the code4lib conference too is that developers should have a small amount of time to work on whatever seems interesting to develop new tools or services.

TRY 2012: Mobile Device Loans at the Library

Panelists

  • Mandissa Arlain – RULA
  • Monique Flaccavento – OISE Library, UTL
  • Ricardo Laskaris – YorkU Libraries
  • Fangmin Wang – RULA
  • Jenaya Webb – OISE Library, UTL

Loaning Device

  • Laptops
  • iPads (with covers & cables) at OISE
  • York also provides many other gadgets & accessories
  • most 4 hour loans (York 1-4 days), restricted to university community

Marketing

  • posters
  • social media: twitter, facebook, blog
  • LCD screens
  • website
  • branding of bags

Popularity

  • iPad > laptop at OISE
  • 12.5% of circulation stats at Ryerson
  • laptops & iPads at York

Security

  • sign waiver first time
  • replacement fee for losts
  • personal data cleared by deep freeze software once powered down
  • iPads cleared manually (~20 minutes each time) whenever returned
  • theft reported to security & IT
  • repairs sent to IT

Staffing Considerations

  • training sessions for staff including hands on experience
  • basic use and troubleshooting help
  • technical support & issues to IT
  • working group meeting to discuss issues
  • chargers with devices

Financial Support

  • education commons as pilot project at OISE
  • library itself & one-time funding from provost office to upgrade at Ryerson
  • library paid & some donations at York
  • apps purchased with gift card so as not to associate credit card #

Software & Apps Selection

  • laptop software same as what’s on desktop
  • productivity apps e.g. Dropbox
  • educational
  • preferred free, but some money to purchase apps

Age & Replacement Schedule

  • no formal refreshment cycle
  • mostly depends on budget, try to repair existing laptops
  • replacements determined by IT

User Feedback

  • informally, anecdotal
  • from student committee
  • studies planned for future: focus groups, survey

Future Directions

  • meeting demands, so unlikely to expand
  • no money to expand
  • future to encourage students to bring their own devices

 

How to Manually Update Firefox on MAC

I thought I’d put up this short post because I was having problems with this last week.

For whatever reason, Firefox would not update automatically through its update channel and was still stuck on version 9.0. So, I figured why not just manually install it?

When trying to update it, as usual, I dragged it into the Applications folder and tried to replace my existing one. Only to get this message:

The operation can’t be completed because you don’t have permission to access some of the items.

I unlocked the Firefox.app file and made sure I had proper permissions, but still got that error. When I wanted to look up a solution, my Firefox had ceased to work!

After much searching, I finally found a thread on the Firefox support forums that provided the simple solution: delete the old app (just the .app, don’t use an app cleaner) then drag the new one in.

I would’ve reported it, but I can’t seem to reproduce the problem now… maybe they fixed it.

Stop Living in a Bubble: Privacy & Tracking of Google and Others

With Google’s new policy in effect, there is currently no shortage of news articles and blog posts about how to protect your information from Google. I think it’s great that people are becoming more aware of the effects of how one big company can track you, but this has been going on for many years, just never in one nice neat package as Google is talking about now. [Too long? Skip to the Summary at the bottom]

It’s Not Just Google

While zdnet.com and many others focus specifically on Google, but just recently in the news, Target figure out a teenage girl was pregnant before her father, and NYTimes did a piece on how it’s not just Target, but any and every corporation you shop with. Mind you, if you shop at various stores for various people, it might be harder for one single company to track you, but online is a whole other world.

Living in a Bubble

Online is different, because you can be tracked from one website to another. Particularly when you’re signed in, every search you do is put into your history. Even when you’re not signed in, you’ll be tracked by IP address (but on the up side, rarely does anyone have a truly static IP at home or at work). Your search results will be skewed based personalized data, not just ads, but search results as well. dontbubble.us provides a nicely illustrated explanation of how it works and why it’s important.

Big Brother (and Everyone Else) is Tracking You

Online is also different because it’s not just Google tracking you, trackers are built into sites that follow you on the web to build a profile on your behaviour (and very few sites do not have this). Check out donttrack.us for another illustrated explanation, but if you really want to see how insidious behavioural trackers are, take a look at Collusion, which will give you a demo on a short journey on the web from IMDB to news sites.

What to Do

So how do we protect ourselves from all of this? Live in a cave. No really, practically speaking, there is no way to prevent being tracked and having personal information stored some way or another. It’s no secret that every app and every site that has access will keep information on you and many will sell it to advertisers.

Nevertheless, while it’s virtually impossible to prevent tracking altogether, you can prevent advertisers from building a profile about you to a larger or lesser degree.

Opt Out of Google History

Just about everyone has covered this, and zdnet.com provides a nice summary with lots of links, but here are some direct links:

You could also of course, delete your Google account completely and not use any Google products. (Just saying.)

Browser Plugins

Plugins are nothing knew as a way to help manage privacy and security in browsers. At the bottom of donttrack.us, there is a list of browser plugins you can consider. Some of these are only supported by one or two browsers, but similar plugins are available for other browsers. In particular, I use:

For greater anonymity, add HTTPS Everywhere and Tor. Not on the donttrack list is: TrackerBlock for Firefox, and Internet Explorer.

Browser Settings & Options

Changing some of your security and privacy settings in your browser will also help. The farther down the list, the more extreme you get, but they’re there to consider.

  • Change your default search engine
    • I use duckduckgo, which doesn’t track or bubble and has a neat !bang syntax.The drop down next to the search icon also gives you options for searches it doesn’t have built-in like images and news. (Plus it has an awesome logo)
    • Just set it once. If you’re in doubt, here’s the ‘search URL’ to enter: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=
  • Do not allow sites to track physical location
  • Disable Third-party Cookies
  • Disable Cookies Altogether (optional: add exceptions for sites you visit frequently and want auto-login)
  • Do not allow local data to be set
  • Clear all data when closing the browser
  • Browse privately – use InPrivate (IE), Private Browsing (Firefox, Safari), Incognito (Chrome), Private Tab (Opera) – and set it as the default (if possible)

Opera actually has a great guide to security and privacy covering a lot of Opera settings on one handy page.

Change Your Browsing Habits

Admittedly, I find it hard to do without using any Google products having a gmail account including googletalk, and Google Reader (if someone has suggestions on an alternative that is just as good, I’d love to hear it). Nevertheless, at work, I will log into Google with one browser while using a different browser for everything else. At home, googletalk pops up email in my default browser, so I make sure to log out when I’m done.

On the more extreme side of things, you can set up your work flow such that nothing is stored locally, check out a blog post on microcosm about browsing privately.

Non-Techsavvy Friendly

While some of these options are great for those who are tech-savvy enough, many of these options will create barriers for those who would prefer some protection but with the same experience as before. In those cases, I recommend:

  • All the Google History stuff
  • Adblock/plus
  • Ghostery + making sure common sites are not blocked e.g. facebook, twitter
  • Changing the default engine in the address and search bar
  • Do not allow tracking of physical location
  • Disable third-party cookies + making sure common sites are added to exceptions e.g. bookmarklets

Of course, it’s all about the individual. If they can handle NoScript (which is fairly easy to use once you’re taught), that’s great. The problem is always if the user encounters an error or some functionality that isn’t working properly because it’s being blocked. It’s great if they’re willing to call you and you can talk them through it on the phone, but otherwise, we all know how frustrating it can be for something to not work like we think it should.

Summary

Some key takeaways if you thought that was a bit long to read through.

  • Remove and opt out of all Google history and personalization
  • Install some easy to use plugins, and adjust your browser settings
  • Most of all: Use duckduckgo.com for your default search engine