First Draft of Shire Oral Histories Blog

A couple of weeks ago I posted about my quest to publish Sutherland Shire Libraries Oral Histories online as a podcast, asking for advice on how best to open up the data around the audio files.  Well I've had my first go at publishing them.

I created a blog at http://shireoralhistories.blogspot.com/. If you take a look please leave me any feedback you have, bearing in mind that:

• There's no effort been put into design yet - just a standard Blogger template.  When I'm happy with the functionality I'll worry about a bit of look and feel.
• Enclosures were added for the audio files and the resulting feed works as a podcast in iTunes.
  
• I used Blogger in Draft's beta geotagging feature. Each post can be located on a map so the associated feed becomes a GeoRSS feed.
• I've used the Internet Archive to host the files and licensed them with a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike license.
• Each Interview will be cut into chunks so that they can be tagged and geolocated separately, in case you want to search for all audio about a single location or subject across all interviews, for instance.

The geotagged feed makes it easy to see all the entries on a Google Map, however, it would be nice to have the info link back to the individual posts from the map. I'm not quite sure why this doesn't work but it must be something to do with the coding of the feed I think.

So, what do you all think?

Big Changes for the Integrated Library System?

Are we about to see major changes in the way Library Management Systems work?  I've been listening to the Library 2.0 Gang podcast a bit lately and they've covered a lot of territory around ILS developments in recent months.

I wrote about it (with links to relevant episodes) on the RISG New Technology blog - Changes in the Library Management System Landscape.

Looking for Advice from more Technical Folk than Me

At Sutherland Library we have a bunch of oral histories stored as .wav files.  We would like to publish them online. My first thought is a blog with enclosures for the audio files, which I can turn into a Podcast.

But I think we should engage with the whole idea of Open Government and Open Data and I'm not sure if this is the best way to go to meet those objectives.  So I'm calling on all developers, Gov 2.0 experts and mashup artists to give me some advice...

Keeping in mind that I'm not a developer, so I need point and click tools, how would you suggest we go about publishing these oral histories and related data?  If you were going to use this data in mashup how would you like it presented?

Where should I store the audio files online?  The Internet Archive, a Cloud service like Box.net or on our web host's virtual server?

Apart from the blog itself, is an RSS feed an appropriate format to make the data available for public consumption?  If not, how else could it be published?

How Can I turn the standard blog RSS feed into something more useful? For instance, each oral history discusses a number of locations in and around the Shire and it would be really good to geo-tag them. Should explore Yahoo! Pipes or Google Spreadsheets for different outputs?

Please, please, please lend me your expertise and lead me onto the righteous path by leaving a comment.

Name that Presentation!

In the spirit of community participation and engagement I would like to crowdsource the title of my presentation.

Leave a comment and tell me what you think it should be called...

enjoy!

Are Books the Future of Libraries?

kawashima image generator
Originally uploaded by The Shifted Librarian
The quote that follows is a response from a staff member at MPOW to this thought-provoking article, The future of libraries, with or without books, about how some libraries see their future in a world where the information landscape is changing rapidly...

Noooooooo. Never. Please!!! That is not sharing information. That is simply changing a Library to a cinema / video / Twitter et al. ie the quick and easy gratification. That is not promoting or encouraging imagination or the solving of problems through research ie involving the brain. In the future someone will come up with the idea..let's have books / 'they used to have them once' / they give solitude.

There may have been an element of 'tongue in cheek' about this comment but I think the sentiment is quite clear. It may even be unfair to write such a considered response to what was undoubtedly an off the cuff reaction to the article. But I'm not trying to direct my response to any individual. I would, however, like to put forward my views on why I think the changes described in the article are actually a positive thing for Libraries and our communities.

Firstly, let me say that I think that it will be a long time before books are not central to the existence of (at least public) libraries. 'Books' are the library brand. Ask any member of the public what they associate with libraries and I'm very confident the overwhelming response will be books.

But the information landscape has changed to such a degree already that libraries are not the first choice of most people who are seeking 'information'. I'll give you a guess at what is...
(that's right, Google)

Our own recent Enquiry Completion Rate (ECR) survey showed that 61% of all enquiries to the library were for customer service rather than information. I wonder how many of the 39% of information enquiries were people asking if we had a particular book? - The type of enquiry that does not require any particularly professional skills from the librarian.

So can libraries exist as a place reserved for the quiet contemplation of books into the future? Maybe for a while albeit with a distinctly different staff structure. Armed with the data from the ECR why would any funding body hire so many professionally skilled library workers in an environment where the work that required those specific skills was such a small part of what actually goes on? (especially in light of the articles brian pointed us toward) Is it really sustainable? What would Councillors 50 years in the future think about pouring money into a place that stores books when every book is available immediately online?

However, I actually think library story is about much more than just a place for quiet contemplation of books. It is about encouraging imagination or the solving of problems through research. But that just isn't happening in libraries today. If we want to be involved in that way in people's lives then we better start providing spaces where that can happen in libraries and start interacting in the spaces where that is already happening - online! The tools for rapid group self organisation and online conversations already exist and are being used. Libraries can ignore them but the conversation will go on, with or without libraries.

That doesn't mean that libraries should be jumping in to all the programs described in the article - technology spaces, gaming tournaments and social networks. I do think libraries need to explore how they will remain relevant to their communities into the future with all sorts of new ideas. However, new ideas and programs must be accompanied by evaluation, and a willingness to drop them if they they don't prove their worth. I don't think anyone knows what libraries will be like in 20 years time. Introducing new services and programs is about creating a transparent, user-driven library service that adds value to the community.

I believe the prospect of not changing what a library does is far more frightening than any impacts associated with exploring these changes now. The train is leaving the station, get on board...

Hello, World

I've been a bit quiet on the blogging and twitter front lately. Not necessarily by choice, though. I've been flat stick preparing for the launch of a brand new shiny Intranet for MPOW. Well today it was unleashed on the staff and, I'm thankful to say, to almost exclusively positive reactions.

We had a few early morning hiccups but for the most part things went smoothly and by 2.00pm I was wondering what to do. It was a nice change from the last 2 or 3 weeks of feeling like there were so many things to do that I didn't know which one to do next.

I think I can give you a sneak peak...

Finally, I'd like to give the guys at Seamless a MASSIVE wrap. We shouldn't have launched today but for their amazing technical competence and supreme dedication, no matter what obstacles we presented them with. If anyone's in the market for a new CMS I can't recommend them highly enough.

Location Aware Data is NOW!

Check out this cool video of a new iPhone app that uses geo-location very impressively.



When access to the network is ubiquitous what data won't benefit from being location aware? What new services are we going to see?

Print on Demand Bookstores

Will print on demand bookstores change the game? I recently read this post written by someone who's perfect bookstore contained banks of Espresso Book Machines.

I personally think that bookstores offer more than just the option to purchase a book. There's no serendipity in getting a paperback printed from a print-on-demand book machine.

Then again...

I used to think that cover art was an essential part of the music buying experience along with the joy of flicking through racks of CDs. But I haven't bought a CD in a shop for, well, more than 4 years.

I wrote about it on the RISG New Tech blog.

Libraries=Books, or do they?

I've just written a post on the RISG blog that was provoked by this article: Libraries for a Postliterate Society.

It argues that reading longer works of fiction and non-fiction is in decline and that libraries need to legitimise non-print materials, services and programs.

It got me thinking though, about whether a library in which books do not play a fundamental role in the reason for their existence, ceases to be a library? Are books fundamental to a library?

Go over and read If Libraries=Books, Then Where to Now? if you're interested.

Testing Twitterfeed

I've just set up twitterfeed to automatically tweet new blog posts. Nothing to see here. Move on.

Libraries Belong in the Public Sphere!

In a burst of inspiration fueled by the 2nd Public Sphere event, Government 2.0: Policy and Practice, I wrote a lengthy post on the RISG blog exploring the relationship between public libraries and Government 2.0, creatively titled, Libraries and the Public Sphere. You should read it if you're into that stuff.

The Role of Libraries

I was excited to read John Blyberg, Kathryn Greenhill and Cindi Trainor's thoughts about the role of libraries in The Darien Statements on the Library and Librarians. You or I might not agree with everything they say but I think libraries are facing radical changes in the coming decade (or less?) and it's fantastic to see the debate being carried out in public.

If we can get some perspective on the fundamental role of libraries then we can really start focussing our time and resources on the most important aspects of libraries and librarianship.

I wrote a short post about the statements on the RISG blog.

RSS 4 Libraries

Here is the presentation I recently gave at the Reference @ the Metcalfe Seminar about using RSS feeds in Libraries. It covered three areas - professional development, connecting with your community and syndicating content on your web site.

I tried to demystify RSS and show people that it's very easy to get started using this technology. It's a relatively simple, time saving tool non-techies.

RSS At Your Library

View more presentations from Martin.

RSS is only a starting point. As libraries start employing staff with a few more technical skills (programmers, developers, etc.) we can start taking advantage of all the data that's available and growing in the cloud. If you want to see a glimpse of this type of what this might look like have a look at Paul Hagon's slides from his talk at the seminar. He gave a fascinating talk about how he's combining the data from the National Library with the services and APIs available from online services like del.icio.us and Flickr to create exciting new ways for users to discover the NLA collections.

User Privacy in Libraries

I think user privacy gets used a lot in libraries as an excuse to not do something. I hear users ask constantly whether we can tell them what they read last year and most of the time they can't believe it when I say that we don't keep records of what they read.

More often than not libraries suggest that it would infringe the user's privacy to keep those records. I don't buy it. If users must opt-in to keeping their borrowing history where is the problem? I would be swayed by the "we can't afford the server space" argument well before the privacy one.

Anyway, I wrote a short post about this idea on the RISG blog, which was based on another blog post I read called, What Libraries Can Learn from Facebook.

Mobile Phone Services in Libraries

The most recent Horizon Report (2009) identified mobile phones as a key emerging technology to watch over the coming year. I have been thinking a bit about how libraries might take advantage of the ubiquity of mobile phones and the convenience they provide their owners. It prompted a post titled 6 Technologies to Watch in the RISG New Techologies blog.

Information Online 2009 - Day 3

I gave my wrap up of Day 3 of Information Online 2009 (I only attended day 3) on the RISG blog. I wrote about Andy Hines' Keynote, Anticipating the Future, and a few of the other talks I saw.

Since then the audio/video and slides from the presenters have been posted to the conference site. I would particularly encourage anybody who's interested to have a listen to Andy Hines talk.