Thursday, September 11, 2014

Notes from the Upper Midwest Digital Conference

Postcard from Minnesota Reflections.
The Upper Midwest Digital Conference from August 18 and 19, 2014 was an excellent conference which was both educational and inspirational.  
Here is my report in which I incorporated forwarded notes from a young colleague whom I met at the conference.

  • Linked Data

Linked Data is about using the Web to connect related data that wasn't previously linked, or using the Web to lower the barriers to linking data currently linked using other methods. More specifically, Wikipedia defines Linked Data as "a term used to describe a recommended best practice for exposing, sharing, and connecting pieces of data, information, and knowledge on the Semantic Web using URIs and RDF."
An excellent example is the New York Public Library Labs Linked Jazz project.
Music, recorded interviews, biographical and professional information/relationships, visual materials in form of photos and videos are uploaded and present a comprehensive  picture of a topic.
  • “Scan days” a DIY Local History Project
A nonprofit organization comes into a library for several hours on one day and supplies the technical equipment and staff to create local archives.
In addition to this free technical service, we could invite the public to contribute valuable historical documents to us.  I searched the New York Public Library and found their  Community History project in which they invite the community to participate at:
To find out when NYPL's Community Oral History Project will be coming to your neighborhood, learn how to get involved, or share your story, please contact oralhistory@nypl.org or 212-621-0552. 92. 2-7
  • Ron will investigate about implementing a possible project.
  • We could consider scanning projects.  On “Scan Day”, we could inquire about suitable scanners from the experts.
  • Online exhibitions can be created
Marketing
  • Many libraries “market” their digitized materials by placing a prominent place/link on their home page.
  • Some libraries sell reproductions of their scanned maps which seems to be quite successful.
  • Facebook increases the visibility of certain parts of the collection, for example maps.  When possible, post an image or a video and be vigilant of the activity of your page.
Three free Photoshop websites were provided by Greta Bahnemann:
ContentDM Update:

.Christian Sarason
CONTENTdm® makes everything in your digital collections available to everyone, everywhere. No matter the format — local history archives, newspapers, books, maps, slide libraries or audio/video — CONTENTdm can handle the storage, management and delivery of your collections to users across the
∙ Enhancements (must complete upgrade, did we do this?)
o Usage stats with Google Analytics
o Automated sitemap generation (Mar 2014)
o Can now “Drop Files” into the website config tool
∙ Examples
o New Mexico Digital Collection
o Ohio Memory
∙ Under tools > SEO > create a public URL
o First, must select a URL like: http://yaledigital.contentdm.oclc.org or http://content.library.yale.edu (email update to contentdmsupport@oclc.org)
∙ The User Community
∙ The Road Map—For FY15
o Mobile UIs
o Search Improvements
o Dynamic Collection Definition
o Sharing
o Technical Dept
∙ The Future
o Malcolm Gladwell knowledge card
o WorldCat Works as linked data (article)
▪ Registering our ContentDM servers with the Digital Collection Gateway (this is to share with WorldCat) is this something that Curtis is interested in?
▪ Create OAI sets for each collection so that others can discover
Annual User events
Sanata Monica Public Library
Gery Ingram
Responsible Web design
Metadata questions: Best practices


Keynote


 ∙ Matthew Butler, Univ. of Iowa Libraries & DIY History
∙ DIY History
o Provides the public with the opportunity to engage with materials
▪ Patrons can help transcribe diary entries
∙ Iowa Byington Reed Diaries
DIY History lets you do it yourself to help make historic documents easier to use. Our digital library holds thousands of pages of handwritten diaries, letters, and other texts -- much more than library staff could ever transcribe alone, so we're appealing to the public to help out. Through "crowdsourcing," or engaging volunteers to contribute effort toward large-scale goals, these mass quantities of digitized artifacts become searchable, allowing researchers to quickly seek out specific information, and general users to browse and enjoy the materials more easily. Please join us in preserving our past by keeping the historic record accessible -- one page at a time
▪ transcribe a letter in DIY history
▪ write an 800-word blog post
▪ Record a 1:30 to 3 minute screencast
▪ Write a follow up blog post
▪ Omeka and Scripto were used for transcription platform
∙ Omeka → Scripto → MediaWiki
▪ Code available on GitHub (history transcription platform)
∙ Omeka version 1.5
▪ Contact:
∙ github.com/mbutler
∙ IN: matthew-butler
o They are moving away from Scripto and MediaWiki


Digitizing Maps at the Wisconsin Historical Society

∙ Laura Farley and Shannon Wilsey
∙ Team members
o Director
o Metadata librarian
o Map cataloger
o Limited term employee
o Graduate students 2-5 students working 10-20 hours per week
      • Maps are too large for TIFF, convert to JPEG2000 (high resolution)
             Use oversized scanner
                                 Google DOC- uploads images
      • Software & equipment
Next Image – scanning copying,
Photoshop for editing, stich together, allows altering, overlaying, removes imperfection
      • Contentdm                                                                                                               Scalable, allows large images, can be searched through WorldCat, compatible with finding aids EAD.  Allows some room for custom made projects.
      • Assign Metadata                                                                                      
        Microsoft Google Docs
        If not satisfactory, (Moire lines, vertical streaks) re-scan and use Photoshop
      • Upload in badges
∙ Outreach
o Facebook organizes
▪ Increase visibility (of the yearbooks? Discuss in PR Team meeting)
▪ The Librarian’s Nitty-Gritty Social Media Guide http://www.alastore.ala.org/detail.aspx?ID=3723
▪ Wording: short and to the point, unified voice, don’t use (!), not a robot
▪ Post twice a week
If possible, post an image or video
Be vigilant of activity
Represent the collection
Consider scanning and sharing with other institutions such as local architect firms
Keynote: NY Public Library Labs

∙ Matt Miller
∙ Building Discourse and the Crowd
o Digital Libraries + Labs
▪ Digital imaging unit
▪ Permissions/reproductions
▪ Metadata Services
▪ NYPL Labs
o Linked Jazz
o Discourse (history of ideas, making hidden connections visible, linking ideas with statements)
o Archives Portal @ NYPL http://archives.nypl.org
▪ Ruby on Rails
o Tulane University
o John Cage, Diary: How to Improve the World (You Will Only Make Matters Worse)
o http://menus.nypl.org/ (menus crowdsourcing)
o http://ensemble.nypl.org/ (Theater transcription Crowdsourcing)
o http://oralhistory.nypl.org/ (oral history annotation crowdsourcing)
NYPD labs
Linked Jazz Project
Using the web to connect other methods to connect relevant data.
Linked Jazz project definition.
“Linked Jazz is an ongoing project investigating the potential of the application of Linked Open Data (LOD) technology to enhance the discovery and visibility of digital cultural heritage materials. The goal of this project is to help uncover meaningful connections between documents and data related to the personal and professional lives of musicians who often practice in rich and diverse social networks.”
Several steps are taken.
  • Bootstrapping – identification
Highlights knowledge, fills gaps, sharing
  • How can we discover and analyze?
Primary sources, oral history, interviews
  • Identifying
Reading transcripts check names and filter out same names only
  • Querying
DBpedia can be used, converting Wikipedia and data
DBpedia provides URL’s, fluid
  • Mapping
Filter DPedia jazz file,  script logic (ScriptLogic Corporation is a software manufacturer of network administration products for Microsoft Windows-based networks) and python used to filter out jazz musicians.
is a crowd-sourced community effort to extract structured information from Wikipedia and make this information available on the Web. DBpedia allows you to ask sophisticated queries against Wikipedia, and to link the different data sets on the Web to Wikipedia data. We hope that this work will make it easier for the huge amount of information in Wikipedia to be used in some new interesting ways. Furthermore, it might inspire new mechanisms for navigating, linking, and improving the encyclopedia itself.
LC abstracts can be downloaded with DBpedia .  Data will be checked to match.
  • Applying the data
Use name directory to locate individuals in interview transcript.  This project phase involves 50 transcripts.
Because of URL’s we can infer a relationship between 2 individuals.
Transcript Analyzer Tool
New data set has created an LOD project (Linked Open Data).
  • Provide Access
other methods
Digital library and labs, digital imaging unit
Permissions/reproductions
Metadata services
NYPL Labs
Oral historical transcripts and the sounds are used to map the network of musicians
Oral History Annotations:
Ingest, a linked open data interface is used:
using methods using the web to connect related data
linked open data, makes data available on the web under an open license as a structured data,.
ScanDays” a DIY Local History Project

∙ John Sarnowski, ResCarta


∙ ResCarta Foundation supports the creation of local cultural archives by holding events called “ScanDays.”
o Free and Open Source (available at their website)
∙ ScanDays
o Location and volunteers
o Promotion of the event (word of mouth works better than anything)
o Training of operators
o Networking and computers
o Scanners/cameras (even items for oral recordings)
o Image and audio conversion tools (scanning small images or putting tapes on CDs)
o Software
∙ Objects in high resolution
o Tif for photos and Text info
o Broadcast WAV upt to 96khz 24bit for audio
∙ LC Metadata
∙ TomCat Server included
∙ JOAI (create a repository at this website)- http://www.dlese.org/dds/services/joai_software.jsp


       


Backs Matter: Reformatting Postcards in CONTENTdm
        Greta Bahnemann
Postcards are slower to create and to upload.  They are of historic interest for post stamp collectors, stamp history and their hand written messages provide historical information.  In the 19th century the majority of postcards were produced in Germany. They were quite beautiful, however, there was a change after WWI.  Since 1907 they carried the line that divides both sides.
Orientation-horizontal
Image taps-Canvas size
Anchor-how canvas size is identified
Top middle square (arrows) verticle left outer middle
Copy and paste the two fronts with arrows to adjust to merge 
            the  front and back  together
Flatten image in Photoshop into one layer
Running action script (Photoshop)
Master Files
Font 123 a.tif
Back to tif, merge
Save into Master File Folder
For the ones who do not have Adobe there are three free Photoshop websites:

  Other uses for this technique:
  • Baseball cards
  • Advertising cards
  • Greeting cards


--Barbara @Central


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Monday, August 04, 2014

ALA 2014, Part One




My time at ALA was spent largely exploring two rather disparate interests; service to the homeless, which had its own Preconference on the day before ALA actually began, and Readers Advisory sessions. The most enjoyable national speaker I made time for this year was Stan Lee, and he did not disappoint! He was great fun, and obviously amazed by the adulation that follows him around. See an excerpt here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIleEa0GZ-0. I did stop in to listen to Ilyassah Shabazz  (part of an interview here): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obqt44sD3S4

The President’s Program with  Lois Lowry and Jeff Bridges, which started out promising, ended up being a rambling mess which I walked out of.  It seems as though they were both under strict instructions to talk only about the new movie of The Giver, which is coming out this summer. Had they been allowed to follow their own paths, it might have been a real highlight of ALA this year. As it was, it was pretty sad. No excerpt appears to be  available of their talk but here’s Lois Lowry talking about her library experiences as a child: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPfWfXYvg2w
On the plus side, the preconference was an eye opener and the sessions on RA were mostly excellent. Here’s a (not so short) short course on what I found noteworthy:
Serving People Experiencing Homelessness in Academic and Public Libraries Preconference :
Halfway through the conference, we changed the name of the conference from Serving the Homeless to Serving People Experiencing Homelessness. This was done after we were challenged by the representative from the National Coalition for the Homeless, David Pirtle, who pointed out that Homeless is WHAT “they” are, not WHO.  An important distinction, which deserved to be considered. Even as we began to try out this new way of referring to the homeless, we found ourselves reacting differently, even to the information being presented. Semantics  do matter, people! Try it yourself and see. His reminder that they, too, would rather be at home did not fall on deaf ears. The organization NCH, http://www.nationalhomeless.org,  whose main work is to work for useful legislation and to educate the public, does work with libraries to create programs which help both staff and the public to better understand the truth behind homelessness, rather than the myths that seem to rule both our policy decisions and our sometimes inexplicable lack of empathy for people living in day to day survival mode.  David had several suggestions, including having programs and events designed to interest people experience homelessness, having providers come into the library, and providing a secure space for their baggage and possibly hiring one of them to secure and watch over excess baggage that we don’t want coming into the library.
Especially interesting was the Winston-Salem Public Library, who got a grant which they used to hire a Peer Support Specialist. A PSS is someone who was at one time homeless, and is therefore able to speak to (and probably does in fact know) many  of the people experiencing homelessness in the area.  The person chosen makes all the difference, of course. In their case, their PSS, David, was an amazing young man. His ability to connect with people at the library was so pronounced, they are now working very hard to maintain his position.  We hope to get a look at the training that he and other providers created to help develop heightened sensitivity among both the staff and the public. They invited providers to use their meeting rooms, created specific programming, including classes on how to expunge debt, which I thought would be worth trying here.  Other ideas that were tried in Winston-Salem include a Second Run Cinema (relatively current movies that would be shown on a regular basis), art/writing classes (as a therapeutic activity, they have been shown to be very valuable in a variety of settings) and  bringing providers of services to this group to the library, both to dispense services and to help create sensitivity training for both staff and the public.
Other speakers included Scott Muir, an academic librarian in Arizona, Sydney McCoy from Frederick County Public Library System in the DC area, David Singleton, the director of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Library, Jean Bosch from Ft Collins, Colorado’s Old Town Library and Julie Ann Winkelstein, a postdoctoral researcher from the University of TN, Knoxville. Julie Ann, whose doctorate was on GLBTQ teens reminded us that current statistics are alarming. It is estimated that 40% of those currently experiencing homelessness in America are youth under the age of 18.  
She asked for one specific thing that could be done tomorrow at many libraries around the country. Can’t we provide at least one gender free bathroom on our premises? Any bathroom which is single use and lockable could be considered gender free, we just need to change the signage.
But I think the biggest takeaway from the entire day of discussion and lecture was this: Libraries need to stop wringing their hands and hoping that this “problem” will just go away.  We will not end homelessness ourselves, but we can do the same things we do for other constituencies. Programming, collaboration with outside agencies and considering the issue as worthy of discussion, education and respect seems like a good start.


--Doris @Central
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ALA 2014, Part Two

Cleveland Heights Library Computer Lab


There were several sessions that dealt with Readers Advisory Services and the future. The first one that was of interest to me was “My Librarian: Personalization and the future of RA” with
Terrylin Chen and  Alison Kastner (and special guest Laural W, one of the brave souls who is  a “My Librarian”) of Multnomah County Public Library.
Multnomah is at it again! Now they’re transforming relationships into online RA. As they see it, sharing=vulnerability, which is the key to interaction with their customers. So, they have taken online RA to its next logical place -- introducing their customers to individual librarians, letting them get to know what’s of interest to those librarians, and letting the public request reading suggestions from whichever individual appeals to them, rather than the computer. Munltnomah does still maintain their personalized reading list option, but it pales in comparison to the reaction they have had to My Librarian. They had several reasons to head in this direction, including the fact that privacy rules tend to hamper our ability to retain information for our customers (likening it to the public having to deal with librarians who are apparently memory impaired, since they have to be told everything over and over again). Another reason was that they did some focus groups, which pointed out a dismaying fact; for their customers, librarians came in dead last as a source of suggestions for reading. Even the bookseller’s clerks beat us! It’s not that they don’t respect us, it’s that they “don’t want to waste our time”. Sigh. So, they secured grant funding (the librarian’s best friend) and began to transform their readers advisory services. They have always done basic RA training with all staff, but those who volunteered received more specialized training. These staff members also participated in what they referred to as training on “zesty blogging”, since each librarian maintains their own blog of what they are reading/doing.  Multnomah hired a professional photographer to take pictures of these librarians for the website and these pictures were meant to mirror what that particular librarian was passionate about, be it cooking, crafts, cinema or whatever. And then they brought up the page in January 2013. Since the inception of this service, they have had 800,000 clickthroughs on their homepage to the My Librarian site. Pretty amazing.
I also had the privilege of listening to Duncan Smith from Novelist and Tina Thomas, Director of Marketing for the Edmonton Public Library at the session: Turning Books into a Cool New Tool: RA Marketing in the age of Maker Spaces. Duncan Smith began with an extremely apt quote from Marshall McLuhan, “A new medium does not extinguish the old, it transforms it”. It is Duncan’s contention that books are the original “Maker Space”, since that is where most of us find the inspiration, know-how and ideas to further our reach. His use of simile was exemplary -- he decried thinking of our brains while reading as mere photocopiers and reminded us that the brain, while reading, more closely resembles a 3D printer. We create worlds, scenario and characters out of everything we read. No two people have ever read exactly the same book. You bring yourself to what you read, and by doing so, transform it. This led him to remind us that although books are the “brand” of most libraries, our business is reading. However our customers access our materials, whether they read, e-read, listen, watch, they are sharing the author/creators work and transforming it according to their own understanding. We need to get out from behind the desk and engage more than just the passionate and engaged reader, and to help all of our customers make the connection between reading and their own lives.
Tina Thomas went beyond Duncan’s cerebral approach and talked about how Edmonton Public Library markets their RA services. By the way, she began her talk by telling us that EPL’s mission statement consists of 2 words; “WE SHARE”. How utterly simple and lovely. She began by reminding us that the narrowing of choice is more powerful than overabundance. Too many choices can paralyze a customer. She also described the difference between reference and RA, using the new term for RA -  discover - by explaining that in reference, you are looking for a specific bit of information, while Readers Advisory is actually a form of discovery, because it is a chance to be delighted by something you didn’t even know you were looking for. In the minds of our users, end-caps are recommendations straight from the library to the reader. Figure out a way to standardize staff picks, either through shelf talkers, bookmarks or displays so people know where these picks are coming from. Find ways to converse with people individually. Tag your experts in the community for reading lists, but remember that while personality is important, content is king. You may have a terrific and colorful expert, but if they don’t choose relatable material, don’t use it.  RA may be everyone’s job, but specific responsibilities are necessary, to ensure that it is done at all. As for staff, it’s best to have generalists with some specific areas of interest or passion. And finally, set expectations accurately and up front. If you falter, get up and keep it going. Her personal mantra seems to be: INCUBATE, CREATE, MEASURE, REPEAT.

Miscellaneous:
Environments by Design:  was a chance to see several interesting redesigns of both interiors and exterior additions to various libraries. Four separate buildings were looked at from the perspective of restoration, refurbishing and reuse. The building from the 1940’s (Cleveland Heights in OH) bought an old YMCA gym which was situated across the street from their Central Library. The gym was re-purposed into a computer lab, a quiet space and a collaborative space over a period of 18 months and with a budget of $800,000. Pretty amazing transformation, actually. Big takeaway: Don’t force something to be what it’s not. Less is more sometimes.
The 1960’s building was at the Cleveland University, and was in need of space for a Math Emporium. They weathered the loss of around 300,000 old periodicals (which were largely available online) in order to accommodate the change. Timeline: 8 months. Budget:  $789,000. Takeaways: Focus on the big picture, don’t get bogged down in the process. Be prepared to make sacrifices to get it done.  Be prepared for unintended consequences.
The 1990’s were covered by Arnold Hirshon of Case Western Reserve University. By applying what he referred to as experimental method to space planning he was able to transform a classical library into a tech wonderland. Once he had the trust of the students and faculty, and proved that if an experiment did not go well that it would be changed, the ideas came thick and fast.  He created an in-house art gallery using the frames of unused shelving units, among other eye openers. Timeline: 3 years, Budget: $1,000,000.00 spaced out over several projects. Takeaways: Involve the community. Don’t be afraid to experiment and change again (or even back to the original) if necessary. Create a plan for continuous change.
And, last but not least, Adrianne Ralph of King County WA talked about several of their new buildings, and some of their more appealing virtues.
Other sessions that were useful and quite well done will be noted in brief here with links to their Powerpoints or other notes:
Finding Dead People: Highly recommended for anyone doing geneaology:
http://www.slideshare.net/brockamberj/finding-deadpeopleala2014caseweible

 --Doris @Central
 
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Tuesday, July 22, 2014

Using HathiTrust to Locate Government Information

hathitrust1.jpg

Hathitrust is a digital repository of over 11 million volumes from 90 partner libraries that is full-text searchable. “Hathi” (pronounced hah-tee) is the Hindi word for elephant, symbolizing memory, wisdom, and strength.

Out of the 11 volumes,  over 500,000 are United States government documents. Over half of these government documents have been viewed at least once since 2010.

Hathitrust has a government documents planning and advisory group whose goal is to expand and enhance access to government documents.

Cool features of Hathitrust::

  • Allows access to old government documents that are fragile and need to be preserved - now they can “circulate” on the Internet.
  • Can use during government shutdowns or any time government web sites are unavailable.
  • Patrons can search for themselves.
  • Can find references within a document without searching the whole text.
  • Can read on mobile devices.
  • Accessible to the visually impaired and those with learning disabilities.
  • Patrons don’t have to understand SUDOC numbers.
  • More government documents available than an individual library can offer.
  • Improved metadata making for more and better ILL requests. Some documents were not cataloged until they were entered into Hathitrust.
  • With the addition of an Espresso Book Machine, partner libraries can offer print on demand.

Hathitrust can be searched either as a library catalog, or as full-text. If you want to limit to public domain items only, check the “full view only” box.

if you find issues with a documents scan or bibliographic record (or it should be public domain, but isn't),  you can give feedback. There is an easy-to-fill-out form, and Hathitrust usually responds in a day or two.

Even non-partner libraries can use Hathitrust to build their government document collections. After creating a University of Michigan friend account, anyone can create a collection of documents on a particular topic. Hathitrust documents can be embedded on a web page and there is a search box widget that libraries could add to their government documents page to offer patrons more access to government documents with no cataloging required.

Currently, downloading is not available  with a guest account, even for public domain items. Downloading is allowed in the building of a partner institution, such as the University of Minnesota.

There is overlap with Google books, but also different items. Unlike Hathitrust, Google makes everything post-1923 unavailable as full-text, even government documents, which are all public domain by law.

Hathitrust content is available in the Digital Public Library of America.

What’s next for Hathitrust?



Presentation slides are available here.



--Andrea @Central




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Monday, May 05, 2014

THE WONDER OF MICROSOFT PAINT

Hidden deep within our staff and public Internet computers is a little program called Paint.

paint 1.jpg

It’s great for patrons looking to make small changes to their photos before uploading them to Facebook or using them as a social media avatar.
paint 2.jpg

You can resize photos:
paint 3.jpg
You can rotate photos:

paint 4.jpg

You can crop photos:

paint 5.jpg
Staff can also use it to edit picture for use in flyers and presentations. See how I used drawing to highlight important information in the above photos? I find it much easier to work with than Word.

You can even do freehand drawing, though I don’t recommend it:

kitty.jpg


If a patron wants more advanced drawing and photo options while using the Internet, I recommend the free webapp Sumo.fm . Photo Editor by Aviary (iOS, Android) and Brushes 3 (iOS) are good free mobile apps.


--Andrea @Central

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