Digitization 101

It's been over a week since the Computers in Libraries Conference ended and I'm finally writing my last blog post about the event.  Consider this stuff that didn't fit anywhere else.

What's in a name? I had several conversations this year - outside of the conference - about the conference's name.  The name "Computers in Libraries" no longer captures what the conference is about.  This is a conference that attracts people that are passionate about what libraries can do, who are creative in their approaches (innovators), and who - yes - see technology as an enabler, but not always as the most important thing to consider.

Renaming the conference would be a hassle, but could broaden interest in the yearly event.  Perhaps there is an appropriate name with the same acronym?  Creative Innovations in Libraries (CIL)? [Update 7/7/2011: I'm pleased to report that, although CIL has not changed its name, the theme for 2012 is "Creating Innovative Libraries".  CIL Program Chair, Jane Dysart, tweeted yesterday her thanks for my suggestion which they turned into the theme. Cool!  The Twitter hashtag will be #CILDC.]

The CIL web site - I have always appreciated the CIL website, which contains information on all of the sessions, speakers, etc.  It is easy to navigate and requires nothing special in order to use it.  Information Today always makes the presentations available on the web site, after the conference is over, for anyone to review.  That level of sharing reflects the level of sharing that the CIL community desires (and on occasion has demanded).

Mobile conference program - This year, Information Today launched a mobile conference program and told people how to add it to their smartphone's home screen.  Nothing like having the program on your phone so you can quickly check what sessions are going on, where they are, etc. 

Add sessions to your calendar - There was also an iCal version of the schedule that was available for people to add to their Google calendar.  And once in Google, it could be synced to other calendar programs.  Again the emphasis was on making it easy for people to access the schedule.

For those three things above, Information Today gets two thumbs way up!

A community - CIL isn't just a conference, it is a community that welcomes new participants.  I don't know that newcomers always recognize that they can (and should) engage in conversations with anyone and everyone that is at the conference.  It is through conversations that we all learn. And...yes...important learning does happen outside of the sessions.

Next year - CIL 2012 will be held March 21 – 23, 2012 at the Washington Hilton.  I'd encourage you to find a way of getting there in order to hang out with this creative and innovative group of people (all 2000 of them).  Yes, there are less expensive hotels in DC and you can cut costs even more by sharing a room.  If multiple people come from the same organization, Information Today has offered a price break in the past and I'd hope they would continue that.  

If you are interested in presentation at CIL, look for the call for proposals likely in August-September 2011 (my guess). 

And let's hope that the Washington Hilton has spent money upgrading its communications network and Internet connection.  While CIL isn't just about technology, this is a group that carries a lot of technology with them and we want/need reliable Internet access!


Related blog posts:

• CIL2011: Three Keys to Engaging Digital Natives
• CIL2011: Planning & Realizing the "Fourth Place"
• CIL2011: Different models of learning spaces  
• Community, Collaboration, and Learning: Time for the Fourth Place
• CIL2011: Topeka's QR Code Scavenger Hunt
• CIL2011: Going Mobile
• CIL2011: Value through Longevity: File Format Migration Using Open Source Tools 
• CIL2011: How Libraries Add Value to Communities
• CIL2011: Community Tagging by Cataloguing Staff
• CIL2011: Random Thoughts
• CIL2011: Innovative Marketing Tools and Strategies 
• CIL2011: Search tips from Mary Ellen Bates
• CIL2011: Monday mornings keynote (not!)

I'm just realizing that I hadn't published this blog post from Tuesday, March 22.  My apologies. 

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The Tuesday keynote speaker is Michelle Manafy - Director of Content, Free Pint Limited.

(BTW I wish her screen shots were larger.  The graphics on her PowerPoint template take up too much space.)

Her three main points were:

• Public opinion not private lives
• Knowledge sharing not knowledge hoarding
• Interactions not transactions

The remainder of this blog post are rough notes from her talk, including pointers to many web sites that she mentioned.

The term digital native was introduced in 2001.  Digital natives have had a lifelong immersion in digital technologies. They actively speak the language of digital phones, the Internet, etc.  Many of the people in the room at CIL

By the time they graduate from college, they will have:

• spent 10,000 hours playing video games
• sent or received 200,000 emails and IMs
• spent 10,000 hours talking on cell phones

By 2018, digital native will have transformed the workplace, changing organizations, sweeping away may previous expectations in the process.

Andy Warhol's saying "everyone will be famous for 15 minutes" has change to "everyone will be famous to 15 people." - Tara Hunt, The Whuffle Factor

Shift in privacy, for example:

• IJustMadeLove.com
• Police routinely monitor Twitter for gang activity.  Gang members openly use Facebook to talk about their lives.

It is a communal generation.  They will gladly share details of their lives.

The inclination to live publicly allows police to crowdsource an investigation.

Social sign-on -- allow people to sign onto your site using their ID from their social site (e.g., Facebook).  Allows for more information sharing and community building.

TakingItGlobal - leveraged social sign-on to integrate user data, to create a sense of community, and to allow users to promote TakingITGloblal back in their social networks.

SparkNotes

"Crowdsoucing is the act of taking a job traditionally performed by a designated agent (usually an employee) and outsourcing it to an undefined, generally large group of people." - Jeff Howe

HAUL videos (Youtube) - videos about shopping sprees (hauls)

When we bring digital natives into our organizations, we then limit they're ability to innovate through information sharing.

Quirky - social product development - provides real-time market feedback.  Marketing starts will the product is being discussed and well before it gets to market.


Local Motors - the largest community of car designers.  All vehicles are designed in an open community process.

ProPublica - Crowdsourced journalism

DigitalKout (sp?) - play games to improve the accuracy of scanned documents.

Schools app - on Facebook - allows universities to create private areas in Facebook.

Knowledge shared is power.

Digital natives are more likely to purchase products and services that they helped to create.  They also have more confidence in peer created/shared content.

This is a generation that wants to do business with itself.

Kids today have a really different view of currency.  Currency doesn't need to be money.  It could be ratings and reputations.

Companies need to engage their users - listen, respond, react.  Be constructive.

Threadless - crowdsourced t-shirt designs


PBS Digital Nation Project - Project team posted rough video from the project.  User feedback was factored into the documentary.  People are still engaging there talking about how living digital has changed their lives.

There is a UK library that is being rebuilt and re-envisioned from the ground up.  Want to build a community around information.  They are going to leverage mobile technologies.  The library is leveraging QR codes, GPS and virtual reality to help users navigate the physical library.

This blog post is mostly for my students, who I'll be talking to about CIL.
 
If you want to see/read all of the blog posts I wrote on the Computers in Libraries Conference, this link will show all of them to you.  (BTW I should be writing one more post to wrap things up.)

Yesterday afternoon, Paul Signorelli, Maurice Coleman and I did a session on Planning & Realizing the "Fourth Place".  Because Paul could not physically come to Computers in Libraries, he was going to Skype-in to do his portion of the presentation.  We checked with the Information Today IT staff in advance and knew that it should work, but that was before we all realized that the Washington Hilton's Internet connection sucked.  Thankfully, (1) this is a topic we had been discussing for months; (2) we had Paul's slides; and (3) Maurice had gone over the slides with Paul.  thus, Maurice and I handled the entire presentation, improvising when necessary.  Paul was eventually able to Skype-in and hear us, but we could not hear him. Amazingly - and likely because we're all professional trainers with a great idea - it all went well and was well received.  (You can read Paul's account of the event here.)

What is a fourth place? Ray Oldenburg’s idea of the Great Good Place tells us that home is the "first place" in our lives, while work is our "second place". Those are the two places where we spend the majority of our time and they are places where we should feel comfortable.  Places like Starbucks want to be our "third place"...that place where we hang out.  We envision the "fourth place" as being a place of learning.  Yes, libraries are a place where people may just hang out and they are a place of learning, but our vision of fourth place emcompasses what libraries could become (and some already are).

The idea of "fourth place" came up in a T is for Training podcast last August, when someone who called himself Walter Salem called into the program.  As  Paul wrote in his blog:

Salem was exactly what we were seeking: a person who is not involved in training but who expressed a passion for what libraries are, what they have been, and what they are becoming. While he was commenting via the audio portion of the program, a few of us noted via the typed chat that he seemed to be describing Oldenburg’s third place, and we actually suggested that to him. At that point, he corrected us by emphasizing that what he really loved was the sense of a place where he was surrounded by learning and the potential for learning, and that’s where we started translating his thoughts into something concrete for libraries and any other onsite or online community willing to use all the tech and human tools available to us.

Walter Salem wanted a space where all types of learning activities could occur, including activities that are noisy or messy.  He wanted the space to be outfitted with lots of stuff that people could use.  And he saw it as a place for collaborative learning.  Our minds raced and we understood how libraries could be this place for learning in ways that many libraries do not consider.

Consider gardening.  Where do you users go to learn how to garden?  Do they come into the library with plants and ask the reference staff to diagnose problems?  Do they bring in compost and ask staff to tell them why the process is going slowly?  No...someone who is wants to learn about gardening talks to another gardener.  Yes, the person may consult some books, but the real learning comes from interacting with people who have knowledge, the plants, and the earth.  The Northern Onondaga Public Library (NOPL) has created a LibraryFarm where people can check out a garden plot and learn.  The library supports the garden by loaning tools, providing space for discussions, etc.  It facilitates the learning activity, but is not directly involved in it  In other words, people are learning to garden from the library but from other LibraryFarmers.

There are other examples in and out of libraries that are similar.  There are libraries that loan cake pans and other items for hands-on learning.  A great example came up after our session.  One person mentioned that he had worked at a library many years ago where one of the staff members ran a bicycle chop shop on the weekends, out of view of the administration! 

My job yesterday was to get the audience thinking creatively about fourth place activities (especially those that are messy), as well as how to add space for it (e.g., shipping containers).  My slides are below for you to look through.  Feel free to ask me any questions you might have. Paul's slides are also below.  Maurice's are not yet online.  One of the things  we emphasized was to allow the users to define how the space was going to be used for specific activities and to allow them to run with their ideas.  In others words, get out of their way!  Be a facilitator of learning, but not necessarily the trainer (or even the person who defines exactly what learning will occur).  Help the get the resources they need, but don't then feel that you need to strictly control those resources.

I hope you will see the possibility of creating a fourth place for your community.  If you're unsure of the possibilities, but are intrigued by the idea, consider sharing these slides with your colleagues and then engaging in a real brainstorming session where you don't automatically censor the ideas. 

Finally, thanks to Information Today for allowing us to do this presentation.  A special thanks to JD Thomas and Bill Spence, who oversee the IT stuff for the conference.  You gave us advice and stood by ready to help.  And when the technology didn't work, you stepped back and allowed us to improvise and didn't worry about what we'd do!

Addendum (3/27/2011):  Julie Strange emailed me about folding shipping containers.   This is seen as a way of using less space for shipping empty shipping containers.  I don't know how the idea of them folding could be used "out in the wild" (e.g., when using a container as a building), but I'm sure somebody will think of something!

Paul, Maurice and I have been contacted since Wednesday by people who have follow-up ideas or who are seeking additional information.  We are thrilled to hear from all of you!  Let's keep the ideas flowing and the information moving!

The speaker was David Lee King from Topeka and Shawnee County Public Library.

They did the big read.  Gave away paperback books.  Had the book as an ebook.  Had related dinner theater, etc.  There was a QR code near the books in the library, which told you what you needed to do for the scavenger hunt.  The scavenger hunt was held around the town (outside of the library).   Two businesses adopted QR codes after hearing about it from the library.  When you were done with the hunt, you were entered into a drawing.

Promoted the QR code scavenger hunt with T-shirts and other items.

Did it work?

• There was info on the QR code in their newsletter
• Shared info on Facebook, etc.
• News media picked up on it.
• 300+ people started, but only 8 people finished.  Fingered that people didn't want to go all over the city and perhaps ask where the code was in an establishment. People may have felt obliged to buy something in the businesses and so didn't go.
• Learned from it.
• Now are using it to connect users to the library's mobile web app.

Parts of this session turned out to be more technical that I anticipated, so my notes are minimal.

Putting You Library in the Hands of Your Patrons - Ronalee Ciocco and Jessica Howard from Gettysburg College

• They started by doing research on mobile usage including looking at research from Pew Internet and American Life Project
• Gettysburg College added free wifi which increased usage.  Usable is still growing.
• Mobile use of the library's web site is increasing.  1% of their traffic comes from mobile devices (Feb. 2011)
• Call numbers can be texted from the library's catalogue to someone's cell phone.  1000 uses per month.
• Looked at other libraries mobile web sites to see what was possible.
• There is already a mobile version of the college's web site.  Created with free software called iWebKit.  They college also developed an iPhone app aimed at prospective students.
• What do users want?
• Survey in spring and fall 2010
• Most using iPhone and iPod Touch
• What did they want to use? Renewing items and quick informational things
• Marketing the site
• Tent cards
• QR codes - Google URL shortener to track usage
• Lessons learned
• Keep it simple
• Start small
• Be flexible

Shian Chang - Georgetown University (too technical for me...sorry)

• Used Drupal, iWebKit, PHP and other tools
• Georgetown mobile web site is at http://www.georgetown.edu/mobile/

 Kimberly Griggs, Oregon State University

• OSU mobile library web site - http://m.library.oregonstate.edu

Donna Scheeder, the track moderator said that one area that Lee Rainie (morning's keynote speaker) missed was that we can add value by preserving information.

Lisa Gregory and Jennifer Ricker - State Library of North Carolina

Tasked with preserving state digital publications forever.

Strategies

• Emulation
• Migration - transferring the files to a stable format.

Small library, with a small staff & budget, and almost no IT support.  Have started doing some migration testing.  Focusing on using open source tools (free and well supported).

Currently using ArchiveIT for web harvesting, CONTENTdm and OCLC's digital archive.

Approaching to Migration Testing

• What file formats do they have?  ~20 different file formats, including older file formats. Mostly text files.  Digitized and born digital files.  Included some corrupted files (they corrupted them).
• Tools - Ffmpeg, Inkspace, PLANETS testbed, XENA, ArcMap/TerraGo.  Not all transformations were successful.  Tools where free, open source, documented, supported, audit trail/reporting, easy to use, and versatile. 
• Expectations - no visual/auditory loss of content, no loss of metadata, minimal degradation in quality, etc.

Findings: (more details/tables in their presentation)

• ffmpeg - not so successful with one file format
• Inkspace - some font changes, but acceptable
• PLANETS Testbed - many document file type.  Most worked beautifully.  Word 95 didn't work.  Converting to PDF/A did not work from some specific software packages. 
• Xena - Many of the same tests that they did with the PLANETS testbed.  Similar results.
• ArcMap and TerraGo are both proprietary software tools.  Worked.

Where are we now?

• File format observations - Challenges that they expected and found
• Complex and related files - No open source tool that could migrate these and keep the file relationships
• Had trouble with files that had layers (e.g., Adobe Illustrator)
• Proprietary formats that are not widely used (e.g., Microsoft Publisher)
• Surprises
• Audio-video formats have their own complexities
• The files are huge
• Frame rates, compression and codec, oh my! My want to find someone who already knows this stuff, rather than coming up to speed yourself.
• PDF/A (argh!) -
• 1A -1B restrictions plus  lower level of performance.  Better accessibility.
• 1B - self contained, no external references, lower level of compliance, digitized materials, metadata required.  Could be 1B compliance with Adobe Acrobat, but not with open source tools.
• Tools to have
• FFmpeg
• FITS
• FLAC Frontend
• Ghostscript
• Inkscape
• MPEG streamclip
• PLANETS Testbed (RIP?)
• XENA
• More helpful knowledge
• Free and open source has downsides
• "Free in upfront costs
• Might be developed by a single person or by hundreds
• Learning curve can be steep
• Documentation can be confusing or nonexistent
• Can you rock the command line?
• Build in time for stops along the road
• Tool installation
• Troubleshooting
• General Googling for assistance
• There are still unknowns
• QA- what should we use / rely on?
• How can we facilitate batch processing?
• On the fly or scheduled bulk migration?
• QA - how much should we do?
• ARC to WARC?
• Overcoming challenges to production implementation
• Usual culprits - staff time, resources, IT restrictions, programming skills
• Testing Archivematica by Artefactual Systems - OAIS complaint
• Formal workflow descriptions - striving to be OAIS compliant
• Tackling at-riskier files
• Older files
• Older formats
• Obsolete formats
• Databases
• More work on A/V formats

They don't see emulation as being sustainable.

Lee Rainie from Pew Internet and American Life Project

Pew Internet and American Life Project is a fact tank - they generate information that is useful to others.

24% of people (U.S.) only have a cell phone only.  Higher for those under 30 years old.

First revolution - 79% American adults are using the Internet.  93% of teens.  Since 2007 that growth has been flat.  Very few new people are coming online.

Home broadband connections - 2/3 of American adults have broadband access at home. 4% have dial-up at home.  With the Administration's stimulus funding, will the numbers go up?  Pew will be doing a new survey to check that out.

Rural areas have continued to lag behind urban and suburban broadband use.

Demographic factors correlated with broadband adoption  (similar for wireless connectivity)

Positive correlations (in order of importance)

• Household income of $75K or more per year
• College degree
• Parent with a minor child at home
• Married or living with a partner
• Employed full-time

Negative correlation (in order of importance)

• Have a high school degree or less
• Senior citizen
• Prefers speaking Spanish in our interviews
• Disabled
• African American

 Consequences for info ecosystem

• Volume
• Vibrance
• Velocity - information is coming more quickly on those things that the individual cares about.  What matters to me?  We are our own gatekeepers.
• Valence / relevance

  Networked creators among Internet users

• 62%  are social networking site users
• 55% share photos
• 33% create content tags
• 14% are bloggers
• 12% use Twitters
• 4%-17%??? use location-sharing services - are working to get a better reading of this.  Next survey will ask several questions about this in order to get better data.

Big value-add by libraries

1. Cover access divides - 44% of those living below the poverty line used library connections.  61% of those ages 14-24 used them for school.  54% of poor senior citizens used library connections for health and wellness.  63% used library connections to help others.
2. Cover participatory divides
3.  - 60% of library connectors use them for social purposes.  42% for education purposes.  37% health and wellness purposes.

Relevancy and digital literacy are primary factors for not going online

• Relevancy 48%
• Price 21%
• Usability 18%
• Availability 6%
• Other 7%

Second Revolution 

Cell phone owners - 85% of adults - cell phone adoption around the globe has been faster than other technologies.  40-45% of cell phone owners use their cell phones to connection to the Internet. 57% of adults have wireless connectivity.

35% of Americans have apps on their devices, but fewer use the apps. 

The web is really good for who, what, when and where.

Apps provide more focused information from trusted sources. 

The web is still good for lots of people wide ranging queries and interactions).  The apps world is good for navigating an inhospitable environment.

Data from January -

• 55% of adults own laptops
• 50% of adults own DVRs
• 45% of adults own MP3 players
• 42% of adults own game consoles
• 7% of adults own ebook readers - Kindle
• 7% of adults own tablet computer - iPad - doubled in 6 months

The wireless environment has changed people's sense of place and presence - anywhere, any device, any time -> Alone together

Big challenge for libraries - People used to come to us, but now we need to go to them.  The library as place becomes the library as a placeless resource.

Our value-add is "how" and "why" in regards to apps vs. web vs. traditional resources.  Help people access real-time information.  Augmented reality is a space where we can help to provide context of the information.  People do still value libraries as a sanctuary (quiet space).

Social networking revolution 

The social networking population is more diverse than you might think.  Half of all Americans use social networking sites.  Big growth rates for those over age 50.

Positive Correlation

• Under age 30
• Female (overall)
• Male (frequency)
• Parent with a minor child at home
• Some college
• Urban

Negative Correlation

• Senior citizen
• Rural
• Non-cell users

Big social impacts

• Online social networks + ubiquitous mobility (FOMO - fear of missing out)
• It is your social dashboard
• Pervasive awareness of what is going on in your world (i.e., your friends) - May find out that our friends are not just like us.  People can form networks on the fly.

Value-adds for libraries

1. Can be embedded in people's networks

• Attention zones
• Intervene when people want to do deep dives (in a topic).  
• Be available when people's attention moves to an area where we can help. 
• Info-snacking
• Day dreaming - fading - give people permission to be in this space
• Media zones
• Social streams
• Immersive
• Creative / participatory
• Study / work

2. Can be nodes in social networks

• As sentries  - word of mouth matters more
• As information evaluators - they vouch for/discredit a business's credibility and authenticity
• As forums for actions - everybody's a broadcaster / publisher

Cosmic big value-add by libraries
1. Can be teachers of new literacies

• Screen literacy - graphics and symbols
• Navigation literacy
• Connections and context literacy
• Skepticism
• Value of contemplative time (think I typed this correct)
• How to create content
• Ethical behavior in new world

2. Can help fill civic gaps

Suzanne R. Graham, Cataloging Services Librarian, University of Georgia School of Law Library
 
Can our users get where they need to go?  Community tagging helps to solve this.

The things Suzanne wants to look at for tagging were:

• things that were unindexed - Moving to new software, information had been lost  How could tagging help recover this?  (e.g., genre headings)
• users had unsuccessful searches - She can get a report of searches with no direct hits.  Niche searches.
• things that were unintuitive (unintuitive cataloguing)  - e.g., adding "NAFTA" to records about that treaty.
• places where user had tagged - look where broader tags might help.  She runs reports in her system to find places like this need to be enhanced.

New tags are placed in the 655 field.  That field is shown in the software's tag cloud.

Focus on access.
Be efficient, effective  and reversible.

Gretchen Caserotti, Head of Children and Teen Services, Darien Library

They are using SOPAC2 for their catalogue.

Kids do everything in a keyword approach / Amazon mentality

For example - Eight grade students are required to read a memoir, but how do they find the right memoir?  The catalogue returns 760+ hits, so how do they get to something more appropriate?  She had staff go into the catalogue and tag two books each with the tag "middlesex memoir" to create a list of pre-selected titles.

Kids are using tagging to keep track of their summer reading - what they read and/or what they want to read.  Having unique tags for each kid isn't a problem and it makes it fun for the students. 

Young people are willing to jump in and get their hands dirty.  We need to let them.

Question - How do you get staff to participate in tagging?
Answer - Limit how much you are asking staff to do.  Can the do one each?  Keep it bit size.  Over time, they will realize that it is not difficult.
Answer - Tags can create a cheat-sheet that the reference librarians can use when the desk is busy. 

Question - How do you prevent people from creating inappropriate tags?
Answer - You can't, but you'll find those tags  You can delete if you need to...and they haven't needed to.  User reviews seem to be fun and honest in terms of whether people are pro or con.

Question - Are adults tagging at Darien?
Answer - Yes, some users are engaging with the materials, e.g., writing reviews.  She thinks that they are also tagging.  Her focus, though, is working with kids.

Question - Can they identify individual patrons from their tags?
Answer - They could track back to figure out who the registered user is, but they don't (Suzanne).

The Computers in Libraries Conference (CIL) is back in the Washington Hilton after fives years at the Hyatt in Crystal City, VA.  When the conference moved to Crystal City, people mourned for the Dupont Circle ares of DC and familiar territory.  Then we got used to Crystal City and the Hyatt. Now we must become reacquainted with the Hilton and Dupont Circle.  For example, the Hyatt's lobby and bar area was great for lobbycon (the informal conference in the lobby).  The Hilton's lobby is much more upscale and isn't conducive to sitting on the floor with beer and laptops in a big informal meeting.  The Hilton does have a cool outdoor terrace and that is becoming the informal gathering space here, in good weather. 

This year, we will all re-learn the Hilton and the area around it.  Next year, we'll be old-timers in this location and we'll hit the ground running!

Gaining consistent access to wifi has been a challenge.  Information Today builds a wireless network at CIL, but I think the Hilton's Internet "tube" cannot handle all of the people here who have laptops, cell phones, iPads, etc.  It is rumored that the Hilton spent $15 million renovation this hotel.  If true, couldn't they have installed an Internet network/connection that would carry them into the future?

Food-wise, I want to put in a good word for Thaiphoon, where 18 of us (the T is for Training crew) went for lunch.  Dinner was at Raku on Q St. NW (between Connecticut and 19th) and is also very good.  Both are reasonably priced.

The speakers are Stacy Bruss and Nancy Allmang from the Information Services Division, National Institute of Standards and Technology.

Their library always did marketing, but decided to branch out.  The bought "Podcasting for Dummies" to learn how to do podcast.  They used a small classroom and Audacity to record the podcasts.  Since the files were MP4, they added rotating photos to give the listener something to watch.  The podcasts were one minute in length.  But since they were spending so much time on audio podcasts, they decided that they should do video podcasts (vodcasts).

The first vodcast cost $5000 and took 7 months (Lab Liaison Program) [4+ minute].  It was done by others in the organization, who had the expertise to do it.  The podcast has a narrator, video from NIST employees, and text.  Understanding what was done with that podcast, the library was able to understand how to do their own faster and cheaper.  They used a Macbook and a video camera.  Their first video - on their own - was actually more exciting then the one that was done for them.

Tips -- Voice overs should be done later.  Add photos to make it more interesting.  Keep the videos short.  Save in two separate formats - one for streaming and one for downloading to iPods.

How else could they use videos?  Use videos in new employee orientation.  Hopefully get people to remember more about the library.  The video shows people the physical space...and we know that photos are worth a thousand words.

How else are they promoting the library?

• Cork board outside the library
• Posters from conferences
• LED text board
• Digital display board - may be PowerPoint slides.  Reader should see the slides change.  Change perhaps every 4-7 seconds.

BTW one tool being used for this presentation is PPTplex.  It is also something the use for their marketing materials.

They are experimenting with adding other video to their digital display.  For example, how to access specific databases. They are using Camstudio.

They are dong videos to promote internal workshops and training sessions.

Use multiple channels to get across the same message, since not everyone will pay attention to the same marketing channel.

You should repeat marketing messages.  People need reminders.  BTW Need to repeat messages without people realizing that you are repeating,

They are using Presi.com to create moving- non-linear - presentations, and then placing them on the video display.

Now are using animated videos created with XtraNormal.

Finally, they are doing cross promotion.

Mary Ellen Bates gives phenomenal search tips for the various search engines (e.g., Google, Yahoo, Bing)!  Rather than trying to give you notes, go and get her presentation which will be available at http://www.batesinfo.com/extras/.  You also may be interested in some of her past presentations. 

What strikes me is how the Internet search engines continue to add features that help people do better searches, yet most people don't know about them (or use them).  Which is why people should take a class or workshop on effective search techniques (hint...I'm teaching a class on this at SU in the fall).  The other things that strikes me is that some of these features are what we (librarians) use in fee-based services...especially those services that have not dumbed down their search interface.

BTW have you heard of DuckDuckGo.com or Blekko?  Yeah...this is why Mary Ellen rocks.

1992 participants in CIL this year including exhibits, speakers, etc. Will go over 2000 with onsite registrations.  People from:

• 44 states plus DC
• 14 countries outside the US

The keynote presenter from Google tried to take the red-eye to get here for this morning's session and failed!  The flight ran late, so Roy Tennant, Dick Kaser,Stephen Abrams and Marshall Breeding filled in admirably.  Roy was the moderator. (He will speak during lunch, however, and it will be streamed and archived.)

First question – What are some of the implications they see with the new players in the ebook environment?

Marshall – Wasn’t long ago that digitizing the world books was inconceivable. But you can’t count on Google for everything! Google has the resources to go into the world’s best libraries and digitize them. A world changing phenomenon. He looks at it from the aspects of discovery. You can now search across books. Search for and search inside. The challenge is this search aspect. The discoverability is more exciting.

Stephen – What are the unintended consequences? Is this really about books? What are the consequences of putting all of these books online? Immersive entertainment experience versus the information finding experience. Disaggregation of books. What is the difference between chapters, books, articles? The books are discoverable, but it is the ability to search in that will change things.

Dick – Analogies to the journal digitization that occurred. There was a controversy when the first libraries signed with Google. Remember that Google is a vendor. Interested in the impact of digitization on what libraries do. With this content outside of the library catalogues, what is left for the library catalogue to do?

Libraries can digitize materials from their community and from their online collection – data, archival records. National Archives received money from Ancestry.com…so getting money from companies is not out of the question.

Roy – Years ago, he argued that the Library of Congress would not be fully digitized. He is now willing to eat his hat!

Stephen – Why do you digitize books? Demand Media has said (1) To put advertising within reading. (2) Use the books to control search engine results. In an advertising-based company (Google), why digitize books?

Marshall – Libraries have more books due to the books that are digitixzed. Enticing for smaller libraries. Have to do a “deal with the devil” in order to do it. Thinking of the Google Book Settlement, do libraries get what they want and need?

Internet Archive approaches digitization in a more library friendly way. Yes, libraries have to pay for part of the digitization that the Internet Archive does. However, the results are more frienedly. WE need to find the right deals that benefit libraries and library users the most.

Dick – What is the sttus of the books being digitized by Google? Can we really see the content from all of the books? Are some books still under copyright protection?

The publishers are digitizing books very rapidly. There is a vast rush to digitize books and make them available to ereaders. There is an ebook standard. Also HMTL5 – more flexibility.

Stephen – Sometimes in 2011 the Supreme Court will make a decision about the in-copyright books being digitized by the Google Books Project. The Google Books Project will limit access to the content at the libraries who have access to it. Libraries will need to pay for additional access –printing/saving. This is a major disruption in the force.

Roy – Harper Collins – the ramifications of leasing access to content.

Dick – IN the Netherlands the 26 loans is seen as fair. (odd) Lending ebooks scares publishers.

Marshall – Libraries are based on legal models that apply only to books. What is the library’s role when things are streamed? What is the library’s role with things are published digitally? There is a real struggle between what the publishers are worried about and what the libraries understand how to do. Most books will soon be in digital form.

Dick – ebooks are in place in many research centers. Lack of DRM.

Stephen – The Harper Collins solutions is a version of whack-a-mole. The two biggest publishers won’t let libraries have their ebooks at all (i.e., Simon Schuster). Why are we upset with Harper Collins? There are others that we need to be concerned with.

Obama Administration announced that it is going to refocus on copyright.

Roy – What kind of impact of having these massive collections of ebooks will have on our print collections? Can we ship more books to storage? Can we get rid of a few?

Marshall – A shift in how we handle backfiles. Put things in remote storage. The working collections will become smaller. The vast amounts of materials, if discoverable, will be available in some way. Long form readng is different than reading articles.

Stephen – Do I want Amazon to control what goes on an ereader? Do we want Apple to control how we read/comment on books? Do we want someone to have that type of power? How many libraries would allow one person to ban a book? Yet we allow Jeff Bezos to ban books. Why is the library profession silent on this issue?

During the Computers in Libraries Conference (CIL), I'll be speaking on Wednesday on "Planning & Realizing the Fourth Place.  What is a fourth place?  It is a re-imagining of the spaces we use for learning activities.  The session description says:

With the rise of learning commons and collaboration laboratories (COLABs), people are using space differently in order to engage in learning. Rather than a third place as defined by Ray Oldenburg, these fourth places are becoming where people go to participate in specific learning activities. Paul Signorelli discusses the difference between third and fourth places, and how this learning fourth place is different than the library settings we’re used to creating. Maurice Coleman and Jill Hurst-Wahl outline how a library can create a fourth place using existing or recycled space (e.g., shipping containers) as well as the library services and resources that would support fourth place activities. Included is an interaction brainstorm about partnerships the libraries can pursue in order to bring this vision to reality.

The fact is, this is not something futuristic; we're already doing it.  Our goal then is to get people to think more creatively and to let go of some of the stereotypes of what a learning space is.

With that in mind, I want to share a story of one recent learning activity.  On March 9, there was a brown bag session at Syracuse University on scholarly impact.  (The term "brown bag" infers that people should bring their  own lunch or snack to eat while listening to the speaker.)  The group that put together the session wanted the session to have a different level of impact than a normal in-person brown bag session.  A Twitter hashtag was created and used prior to the session to promote it.  A video camera was used to stream the session live on Ustream.  A person (me) in the room was designated to follow the chat conversation in Ustream and to tweet updates during the session, as well as monitor the Twitter hashtag for comments.  A Twitter-fall was projected behind the speakers, so that people in the room could see the tweets.  The result was that the packed room (30+ people) were joined by 16+ people in Ustream and an unknown number of people following in Twitter.  Questions were asked via Twitter and Ustream from North Carolina and Illinois.

You may consider that example to be fairly normal.  In fact, there are learning sessions happening all the time that are similar to that.  At CIL, Maurice, Paul and I are going to push the envelope further - blow the wall off of normal! - especially in regards to how libraries can think about creating learning "spaces".   We've even thought differently about how we're giving the presentation, since Paul will be giving his portion live from California.  Our session is Wednesday at 2:45 p.m. (session A304).  If you're at CIL, please stop by.

On Monday March 21 at 5 p.m., I'll be in the Neal-Schuman booth at the Computers In Libraries Conference (CIL) talking to people about The Information and Knowledge Professional's Career Handbook: Define and Create Your Success.  Neal-Schuman is the U.S. distributor of the book. If you are at CIL, please stop by to say "hi" and to see this work that was a major effort for me in 2010.  If you are interested in purchasing the book, Neal-Schuman will be offering a 20% discount to those that purchase the book at CIL. If you order the book at CIL, but have it shipped to you, Neal-Schuman will give you a 10% discount.

I have had several people comment that the book would be useful to anyone, not just information and knowledge professionals.  I agree!  With that in mind, I would suggest that you consider ordering a copy for your library.  You and your staff would likely benefit from the book, as well as your patrons.  And having the book in the library makes it more affordable for everyone.

The book remains available through other booksellers including Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble (online), and Woodhead Publishing (Chandos).

I've got several things on my schedule that I want you to know about, in case there is an opportunity for our paths to cross:

• Feb. 22, 1 p.m. ET: CIP Community Discussion on "IP & Social Media" (online event)
• March 6-7: Attending the Olin Innovation Lab 4, Needham, MA
• March 21-23: Attending the Computers in Libraries Conference in Washington, DC.  Presenting on March 23, 2:45-3:30 p.m., with Maurice D. Coleman and Paul Signorelli on "Planning and Realizing the Fourth Place"
• June 9: New York Archives Conference, Saratoga Springs, NY, presenting on "Convergence & Sustainability: Why Our Future is Bright" [exact time to be determined]
• June 12-15: Attending the SLA Annual Conference in Philadelphia, PA

If we do happen to be in the same place - online or in person - please do take time to say "hello"!  It would be a pleasure to meet you.