Re: [CODE4LIB] Formalizing Code4Lib?

[BWS Johnson]

Salvete!

Anyone thinking about this might want to plug in 0wn the Con + Shmoocon 
into the Google Machine.[TM] If anything, that's a larger Conference. They can 
be very granular with technology needs. Just don't copy their fanboy 
atmosphere, please.  


Cheers,
Brooke

[CODE4LIB] Stupid Subscription Database Tricks

[BWS Johnson]

My fellow nerds:

There is actually a question in here, I promise. Treat it like a treasure 
hunt or quest.


Anyone that knows me knows how much I despise low level maths. As such, 
this is largely anecdotal as usual.
 
I've been test driving a paid subscription recently. Let's say for the sake 
of argument it's 5 letters long and rhymes with "go". I seemed to only get 
access to full text articles that lived behind a paywall about 1 in 20 times. 


I chalked this up to the weird nature of both my searching style and the 
subject niche I find meself in. I mean NLM is really, really cool, right? So 
it's not necessarily fair to stack some aggregator up against them, or is it?  


So I said to myself "Right, self. Need more data. Join another smarty 
listserv."

So I did, and literally not 5 minutes go by when a message comes across 
about a lack of access to paid content from the same Massachusetts based 
lipstick on the pig provider. (Sorry, content providers provide content, 
amirite?) Granted, we *do* know what we're paying for since we get a really 
long list of what our subscriptions do and do not include. But how do we know 
which kids are playing the content and subscription shell game more often than 
others?


I find this curiouser and curiouser. I'm well aware of the commodification 
of information. I know that stuff is often there on Sunday and not on Monday. 
(Thanks WIPO and greedy people.) 


Can anyone please point my groggy butt to a good data visualisation or 
nerdy work on how often this game is played? Or perhaps a paper that compares 
full text content available in PubMed with the stuff some no good Yankees are 
reselling as if it were not just PubMed in a feathered cap a fur coat and a 
diamond tipped cane? 


Next year's budget will appreciate your input, and if you're ever in the DC 
area, a craft beer or other drink of your choice is definitely on me.

Yours,
Brooke

Re: [CODE4LIB] "Illegal Aliens" subject heading

[BWS Johnson]

Salvete!

 Please, Sir, may we have a fork? I can only imagine that the Gay 
Cataloguing Mafia is with us wee folk.


Cheers,
Brooke




- Original Message -
> From: Galen Charlton 
> To: CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU
> Sent: Monday, April 18, 2016 10:59 AM
> Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] "Illegal Aliens" subject heading
> 
> Hi,
> 
> On Mon, Apr 18, 2016 at 10:28 AM, Eric Hellman  wrote:
>>  I also think that Code4Lib is potentially more powerful than congress
>>  in this situation. LC says that "all of the revisions will appear on a
>>  Tentative List and be approved no earlier than May 2016; the
>>  revision of existing bibliographic records will commence shortly
>>  thereafter." It seems unlikely that Congress can act before this
>>  happens. We could then implement systems that effect this
>>  subject heading deprecation without regard to Rep. Diane Black
>>  and Congress. We can scrub the MARC records. We can alter the
>>  cataloguing interfaces. We could tweak the cataloguing standard.
> 
> Or to put it another way, "we" could make a (hopefully friendly) fork
> of LCSH if it gets compromised via an act of law.
> 
> Such a fork could provide benefits going far beyond protesting
> Congressional interference in LCSH:
> 
> * If appropriate tools for collaboration are built, it could allow
> updates to be made faster than what the current SACO process permits,
> while still benefiting from the careful work of LC subject experts.
> * It could provide infrastructure for easily creating additional forks
> of the vocabulary, for cases where LCSH is a decent starting point but
> needs refinement for a particular collection of things to be
> described.
> 
> However, I put "we" in quotes because such an undertaking could not
> succeed simply by throwing code at the problem. There are many
> Code4Lib folks who could munge authority records, build tools for
> collaborative thesaurus maintenance, stand up SPARQL endpoints and
> feeds of headings changes and so forth — but unless that fork provides
> infrastructure that catalogers and metadataists /want/ to use and has
> some guarantee of sticking around, the end result would be nothing
> more than fodder for a C4L Journal article or two.
> 
> 
>>  What else would we need?
> 
> Involvement of folks who might use and contribute to such a fork from
> the get-go, and early thought to how such a fork can be sustained. I
> think we already have the technology, for the most part; the question
> is whether we have the people.
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Galen
> -- 
> Galen Charlton
> Infrastructure and Added Services Manager
> Equinox Software, Inc. / Open Your Library
> email:  g...@esilibrary.com
> direct: +1 770-709-5581
> cell:   +1 404-984-4366
> skype:  gmcharlt
> web:http://www.esilibrary.com/
> Supporting Koha and Evergreen: http://koha-community.org &
> http://evergreen-ils.org
>

Re: [CODE4LIB] Experience with VR in libraries

[BWS Johnson]

Salvete!


> We too see VR as an 
> opportunity to pilot communities but we're not waiting to see if there is a 
> justifiable need, 


 Not waiting until one is a proven dinosaur ++

Cheers,
Brooke

Re: [CODE4LIB] Mahara was personalization of academic library websites

[BWS Johnson]

Salvete!

So here's a straw poll for ye: How many folks that are talking about 
personalisation are also running Mahara with Moodle?

#justaskin

Cheers,
Brooke




> The guides (LibGuides) are all tagged to match faculties and programs: the 
> Biology guide is tagged sc/biol, so we know it's relevant to all course in 
> the 
> SC(ience) faculty and BIOL(ogy) program.  Librarians are tagged similarly in 
> a 
> basic spreadsheet.
> 
> We inject this into the course management system and the student portal, but 
> don't make use of these things on our own site, even though students end up 
> logging in a lot to get to journals and databases.  We should!
> 
> Bill
> -- 
> William Denton ↔  Toronto, Canada ↔  https://www.miskatonic.org/
>

Re: [CODE4LIB] reearch project about feeling stupid in professional communication

[BWS Johnson]

Salvete!

*lights match, positions gin based cocktail, and preps for incoming hate mail*



 With all due respect Mr. Morgan, I wholeheartedly disagree.

 Most Public Libraries are Rural Public Libraries. [IMLS 2013] Most 
Academics are also small by FTE enrolment [ies of NCES 2012] So "we are the 
little folk we". We might not actually have different fancy pants departments. 
I will cede the gentleman his perception amongst those Academic Ivory Behemoths 
that possess battleship turning or are eligible for ASERL membership.

 I would also further venture that anecdotally, folks in settings similar 
to the ones I've chosen are less likely to have a Master's degree period, much 
less a Master's degree from a prestigious Institution. (Please, not in the 
face! I hate the paper standard, but it is there.) This lack of paper could 
well lead to someone being made to feel inferior. How many times have we heard 
in passing that so and so is not a "real" Librarian since they do not possess 
their $50k+ piece of paper?

Your most humble and obedient servant,
Brooke



- Original Message -
> From: Eric Lease Morgan 
> To: CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU
> Sent: Tuesday, March 22, 2016 6:54 AM
> Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] reearch project about feeling stupid in professional 
> communication
> 
> In my humble opinion, what we have here is a failure to communicate. [1]
> 
> Libraries, especially larger libraries, are increasingly made up of many 
> different departments, including but not limited to departments such as: 
> cataloging, public services, collections, preservation, archives, and 
> now-a-days 
> departments of computer staff. From my point of view, these various 
> departments 
> fail to see the similarities between themselves, and instead focus on their 
> differences. This focus on the differences is amplified by the use of 
> dissimilar 
> vocabularies and subdiscipline-specific jargon. This use of dissimilar 
> vocabularies causes a communications gap and left unresolved ultimately 
> creates 
> animosity between groups. I believe this is especially true between the more 
> traditional library departments and the computer staff. This communications 
> gap 
> is an impediment to when it comes to achieving the goals of librarianship, 
> and 
> any library — whether it be big or small — needs to address these issues lest 
> it 
> wastes both its time and money.
> 
> For example, the definitions of things like MARC, databases & indexes, 
> collections, and services are not shared across (especially larger) library 
> departments.
> 
> What is the solution to these problems? In my opinion, there are many 
> possibilities, but the solution ultimately rests with individuals willing to 
> take the time to learn from their co-workers. It rests in the ability to 
> respect 
> — not merely tolerate — another point of view. It requires time, listening, 
> discussion, reflection, and repetition. It requires getting to know other 
> people 
> on a personal level. It requires learning what others like and dislike. It 
> requires comparing & contrasting points of view. It demands “walking a mile 
> in the other person’s shoes”, and can be accomplished by things such as the 
> physical intermingling of departments, cross-training, and simply by going to 
> coffee on a regular basis.
> 
> Again, all of us working in libraries have more similarities than 
> differences. 
> Learn to appreciate the similarities, and the differences will become 
> insignificant. The consequence will be a more holistic set of library 
> collections and services.
> 
> [1] I have elaborated on these ideas in a blog posting - http://bit.ly/1LDpXkc
> 
> —
> Eric Lease Morgan
>

Re: [CODE4LIB] Chattanooga Bid for 2017

[BWS Johnson]

Salvete!

BBQ. That is all. +1


Cheers,
Brooke



> Chattown++
> 
> Sent from my iPhone
> 
> 
>>  On Mar 8, 2016, at 9:20 AM, Ross Singer  
> wrote:
>> 
>>  BEST PROPOSAL EVAR
>> 
>>  On Tue, Mar 8, 2016 at 10:07 AM, Mary Jinglewski 
> 
>>  wrote:
>> 
>>>  On behalf of our proposal committee, I am pleased to confirm that
>>>  Chattanooga has now submitted a bid to host Code4Lib 2017.
>>> 
>>>  Our proposal can be found at http://lab.lib.utc.edu/c4l-cha
>>> 
>>>  Mary Jinglewski, Wendy Hagenmaier, and Andrea Schurr are attending 
> Code4Lib
>>>  2016 in Philly and would be happy to talk about our proposal in person.
>>> 
>>> 
>>>  Thanks!
>>> 
>>>  Mary
>>> 
> 

Re: [CODE4LIB] Anyone Doing Interesting Things With Digital Collection Systems?

[BWS Johnson]

Salvete!


> We just designed our own responsive site at Multnomah County Library for
> digital collections that is also OAI-PMH compatible. We call it The
> Gallery. https://gallery.multcolib.org/
> 
> Erica

> 


I don't want to live in a world where "Pig War" doesn't return at least 74 
results. Now where's that OCLC bacon stamp?

Cheers,
Brooke

Re: [CODE4LIB] Listserv communication, was RE: Proposed Duty Officer

[BWS Johnson]

My fellow nerds,



I'm snipping *a lot* but in brief I definitely agree with Julie.


> Kyle’s main issue was really a question about what to do with 
> private and anonymous feedback – not that we should avoid it, but rather we 
> should discuss how that should be handled.  For example, could someone 
> summarize 
> it, remove identifying details, and report back to the group?  Not about the 
> Duty Officer candidacy, since those are personnel issues, but rather about 
> other 
> feedback about harassment, etc.  If we !
> have those channels, what do we do with the information that is received 
> through 
> them?

> 


How about treating this like a security bug, since essentially it is? The 
workflow I tend to see for that sort of starts with going to a closed group 
initially, a fix being worked out RIGHT MEOW, and ends its journey with a 
report of what the problem was l8trz. In the case of harassment, I don't think 
it will ever be appropriate to know the name of the person that felt harassed, 
but it would almost certainly be good for everyone to eventually know precisely 
what happened so it's not repeated in future.

For many reasons, I like the anonymous feedback mechanism that is built in 
currently.

Cheers,
Brooke

Re: [CODE4LIB] Library Juice - thoughts?

[BWS Johnson]

Salvete!

 I'm going to be exceedingly naughty in replying to this. I used to teach a 
course on Koha for Rory, so obviously I'm heavily biased.

 I taught twice, and as a fringe perq, he let instructors take certain 
courses gratis.

 I would say overall that you're in for a treat. When it first started it 
was a small experimental thing. A lot of the students' experiences varied 
widely by how much they participated and which instructor they selected. Rory 
has gone out of his way over the years to solidify the lineup so that you get a 
good instructor. Compared to my University, they are WAY cheaper. They weren't 
as comprehensive as my University, but hey, that would be a really high bar. 
Also, they're designed with someone that's working full time in mind.


 As far as I know, they're still using Moodle, so if you're familiar with 
that platform, you'll be right at home.

 The time commitment will vary by course, as well. I bet that Rory would 
give you your instructor's email in advance to feel things out and see how 
heavy the workload might be.

 So yeah, go for it!

Hope this helped,
Brooke

Re: [CODE4LIB] Library Hours

[BWS Johnson]

Salvete!

Google often draws data from OpenStreetMap. If one wanted to, one could 
simply edit the Library information there and watch it get picked up rather 
quickly.


http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:amenity%3Dlibrary


#justsayin
Brooke

Re: [CODE4LIB] SAVE THE DATES: Trinity College Dublin to Host the 2016 11th International Conference on Open Repositories

[BWS Johnson]

Salvete!

 The Open Repositories Steering Committee and Trinity College Dublin (The
 University of Dublin) are pleased to announce that the Eleventh
 International Conference on Open Repositories will be held at Trinity
 College Dublin, Ireland, the week of June 13th 2016.
 


*shameless plug* TCD in June is one of the most beautiful locations in da 
world. The conversations (and BEER) you'll have in Dublin are some of the best 
you'll have anywhere. If anyone is thinking of going, drop me a line, and I'll 
give you places to see while you're there. :)

Cheers,
Brooke

Re: [CODE4LIB] Protagonists

[BWS Johnson]

Salvete!





I declare this scriptable and doable, just not by me, since I can't 
programme me way out of a wet paper bag. (Well, I prolly can at gunpoint, but 
yeah, that's what it would take.)


 So I have this idea I'd like to do for a hobby project, but it requires

 finding a table that lists a classic novel, 



First I'm afraid you'll have to define how you're choosing to categorise 
Classics. As someone charged with that task, it sucks and it's not as 
straightforward as one might think. I'd encourage you to either lewt and 
pillage someone else's preextant classification or pick summat easier for a 
computer, like publication date or inclusion on one of those stuffy arse 
bibliographies of the 100 Greatest Books. (Please do mull over how white 
bespoke lists tend to be.)



 a Gutenberg.org link to an instance of that work (first listed, one with 
 most downloads, whichever),
 the lead female character, and the lead male character (can be null). E.g.
 Pride and Prejudice, http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/42671, Elizabeth
 Bennet, Mr. Darcy. Even leaving the Gutenberg part for another day, this
 has been really difficult to find.

 


Might I suggest having your scraper haphazardly search through 650 a fields 
for the phrase Fictitious Character?


 I've had no success with Dbpedia/Wikidata since there's no real
 standardized format for novels, characters often are associated more
 strongly with films or video games than original works (Cheshire Cat), and
 when characters are listed they are neither prioritized nor link to a

 record that clearly states gender.


 Thanks to the antiquated subject stuff that happens at dear olde LOC, also 
picking through the data for Women should get you some gender data.


 You might scoff, but I do like the lists of lists at Wikipedia in terms of 
this hypothetical. For instance:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_LGBT_characters_in_modern_written_fiction


 could be quite helpful. One could have one's bot check on that page for 
edits. Surely this is easier to sort than reinventing the wheel and being one 
person against a sea of publishers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Lists_of_literary_characters

 Were I you, I'd also be keen to hook in Open Library since closed 
datakeepers have a nasty tendency of waking up and deciding to charge or lock 
things away.



 And then there's how to select some sort of Western Canon list. ISBNs are 
 nowhere to be found, nor any other
 identifier that might help to corral a fair chunk of results.
 
 I looked at OCLC, but WorldCat Works is still an experiment and frankly
 looks like too much work to query for too little return even if it had good
 coverage. Amazon? Librarything? Goodreads? No luck yet.

 


 Did you try Novelist if you must try the proprietary DB route? I really 
think what you needs do is pick a good cataloguer's brain for a bit and come up 
with a brute force script that will harvest stuff for you and autoupdate on RSS 
or summat else since effort begins with eh. Your data set isn't infinite, it's 
just not small. I wouldn't even properly call it large given how unrich and 
less problematic text Library data is in comparison to say audio or video files.


Cheers,
Brooke

Re: [CODE4LIB] Protagonists

[BWS Johnson]

Salvete!



 Is the Freebase data good enough for your purposes? It appears that it lists 
 the 
 most important characters first, but that may just be the order in which they 
 were added. You may not be able to rely on that sequence.
 
 A Tale of Two Cities: http://www.freebase.com/m/09c55p
 Pride and Prejudice: http://www.freebase.com/m/060xy

 


Even if a single list or database is not compleat, one could cascade down 
to the next option: if 650a is blank in x, then gather from y, and so on down 
the line until *something* is in the field. Since this is for Classics one 
assumes that they are widely held, at least according to some genres and some 
data from da OCLC. [1] Indeed, if one were really trying to show off a 
visualisation, were I they, I'd hit those widely held lists since frequency 
would have those titles on most people's shelves.

The chore to me is rather finite and rather well defined. It's just a lot 
of yeoman's work, but the bulk of that can be done with a bot or army of them. 
It would be much easier if the list requested by the petitioner were well 
defined somehow. At that stage it would be a matter of grabbing ISBNs,cascading 
scripts, and deciding on outputs. It might even be a simple definition of 
Classics as predating a certain publication year.
The list's the thing!

Cheers,
Brooke




[1]
http://www.oclc.org/research/wtworldcat/toplovestories.html?urlm=168868(The 
murky depths of my memories say that at some point, Bleak House was top dawg. 
I've tested on that assumption since.)

Re: [CODE4LIB] Free ALA Webinar on Policy Issues for 3D Printing technologies in Libraries Thursday, March 5

[BWS Johnson]

Salvete!

 
 Join us for our next installment of CopyTalk, Thursday, March 5th at 11am
 Pacific/2pm Eastern Time. *We ask that you please watch as a group when
 possible as there are only 100 seats to the webinar (but an archived
 version will be available). *

 


   And if y'all are keen on this, you might want to hunt about the Washington 
College of Law of American University's SECLE site. I went to this in meatspace 
and it was awesome.

https://www.wcl.american.edu/secle/founders/2015/documents/02.25.15.3DPrinting.pdf

Cheers,
Brooke

Re: [CODE4LIB] Job: Contract Positions: System Administrator and Application Developer - Gates Archive

[BWS Johnson]

 Gates Archive has two open positions that may be of interest to the
 Code4lib community. We’re hiring a System Administrator and an Application
 Developer. Patrick Owens and I will be at Code4lib next week in Portland
 and would love to talk to you if you are interested in learning more about
 the positions. We’re a small but amazing group that needs a couple of new
 technical teammates. If you aren’t going to be in Portland, but are
 interested, feel free to email us off list for more information.
 
 
 Here’s a bit more about us – we take an innovative approach to archives
 development and management, integrating processes for born-digital and
 analog information. The archive focuses on the preservation of the Gates
 family’s personal and philanthropic endeavors including records of the Bill
  Melinda Gates Foundation. Here’s a link to an OCLC presentation where I
 share some insight into how we work,
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnQ5G1fH5-8



 No one put me up to this, I swear!

 I just wanted to say that if you can score a gig for the Gates Foundation, 
do so. I had some great Open Source discussions right in Seattle and the roof 
did not cave in on us. When I had the pleasure of being an awards panelist 
through one of their partners, it was such a great experience. Portland as a 
city is super coolsville. If you're into Art, you'll love it out there.

Cheers,
Brooke

Re: [CODE4LIB] lita

[BWS Johnson]

Salvete!

 I just wanted to add the point that there can very easily be a union 
betwixt LITA and Code4Lib (and prolly is a substantial one, though I am 
definitely guessing at the data). There is naught to make them mutually 
exclusive.

Cheers,
Brooke

Re: [CODE4LIB] Streaming Copyrighted material

[BWS Johnson]

Salvete!




 Given that lawyers get heaps of money to sort this stuff out, and that 
this is a technical mailing list, you are perhaps best served cross posting 
this to a legal IP listserv. Budding lawyers are told that an ounce of 
prevention in IP is worth a pound of cure. At very least, you ought to post to 
a plain olde law listserv. Even there, this is hardly a well settled area of 
law. I would just couch things in hypotheticals and state that you're *cough* 
definitely not looking for legal advice and will take replies off list so that 
folks that feel like giving you a nice straight answer do so.

 
http://aallnet.org

 Would be where I would start a search. I'm super lucky because down here 
in DC there are tonnes of IP events that are free to attend at the Washington 
College of Law at American University. As far as I'm concerned, they're ahead 
of Georgetown in terms of community service. (Oh yeah, I went there.)

Cheers,
Brooke




 What about websites that stream their content for free like Vevo? Would 
 making 
 that type of content accessible in a more organized manner be acceptable? Or 
 would that be considered circumvention? I don't plan on doing that, I only 
 plan on making Public domain content accessible but the questions of 
 organizing 
 material from abc.com or Fox news has come up. Since I'm certain that these 
 commercial websites would love to have subscription services for Libraries, 
 the 
 legal issues are very interesting. 

 

  Is streaming (viewing online) copyrighted material illegal for individuals. 
 According to the copyright.gov website this seems to be completely legal for 
 the 
 viewer when there isn't a copy of the work on the viewers computer. It only 
 mentions hosting streams as being a misdemeanor, even if there isn't any 
 profit.
 
  This is becoming a huge issue as more content consumers become cord 
 cutters. Has any librarians faced these questions?
 
  I am planning on implementing Kodi in my library, but will only make public 
 domain material accessible. Kodi provides an excellent user interface for 
 organizing and viewing public domain material.
 
  Thanks,
 
  Cornel Darden Jr.
  MSLIS
  Library Department Chair
  South Suburban College
  7087052945
 
  Our Mission is to Serve our Students and the Community through 
 lifelong learning.
 
  Sent from my iPhone
 

Re: [CODE4LIB] Hiring strategy for a library programmer with tight budget - thoughts?

[BWS Johnson]

Salvete!


 My first thought was a project-based contract, too. But there are few
 programmer projects that would require zero maintenance once finished. As
 someone who has had to pick up projects completed by others, there 
 are
 always bugs, gaps in documentation, and difficult upgrade paths.


    There could be follow up contracts for those problems, or they might be 
less of a hassle for in house staff to handle than trying to do absolutely 
errything from scratch.


 
 So I have no solutions to offer. Enticing people with telework is a good
 idea. It's disappointing to see libraries (and higher ed more generally)
 continuing to not invest in software development. We need developers. If we
 cannot find the money for them, perhaps we should re-evaluate our
 (budgetary?) priorities.
 


    Anytime I see things which I think more than one Library would like to have 
I think Caw, innit that what a Consortium is for? One member alone might not 
be able to afford a swank techie, but perhaps pooling resources across 
Libraries would let you hire someone at an attractive salary for the long haul 
while getting all of the members' projects knocked out. It would also mean that 
you don't have to do any of those nasty follow up contracts since the person 
that made it would still be about.

Cheers,
Brooke

Re: [CODE4LIB] net.fun

[BWS Johnson]

Salvete!


 
  I know I might be little youn but code4lib needs a bbs
 
 I can see it now ... someone re-writing TradeWars 2000 so you're an 
 intergalactic bookmobile.
 

    Pfft, NASA amateurs. Everyone knows that GalTrader is THE way to go.

http://www.gamingmuseum.com/gal-trader.html

Cheers,
Brooke

Re: [CODE4LIB] Web application for crowdsourcing song identification

[BWS Johnson]

Salve!

    Your golden search terms are

Music Information Retrieval

    and one of the dudes your after is

http://www.lis.illinois.edu/people/faculty/jdownie

    He should be able to answer your question, the question is but oh, will he? 
(I think he might. :) )

Cheers,
Brooke

Re: [CODE4LIB] job postings

[BWS Johnson]

Salvete!


  Seeing a big pile of postings in my code4lib email folder:
 
 
 http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0c2mpN1KIhI/TwYSqTCIPYI/C1Y/xnpv2cFoO5Q/s1600/IMG_3262.jpg
 
  Seeing it’s a long procedural conversation about code4lib doings:
  http://i.imgur.com/2QHDoDH.gif
 
  (No offense meant to any, just Friday silliness)
 


    I am deeply offended that they do not employ vector graphics. ;)

Cheers,
Brooke

Re: [CODE4LIB] Very frustrated with Drupal

[BWS Johnson]

Salvete!

    It sounds like you might want too much out of the box or at least a higher 
degree of simplicity or usability than most stuff will provide. Usability is a 
holy grail that most folks frankly don't feel like shelling out for so it 
remains all shiny and out of reach. Should it? No, of course not. I just don't 
think that the performance that you're demanding matches the complexity that 
you want. You'll have to eat fast, cheap, or good.

    Plugins are a thing now, for good or ill. Trying to avoid plugins will 
probably result in hair loss. (I personally think this is a happy thing most of 
the time. Who wants to brew widget after widget in house for no real gain?)

    I agree that a full version of WordPress sounds like the better solution in 
terms of bus accidents. That said I was rather horrified a little while ago 
when I got roped into tossing together a quicky site. They definitely seem to 
have taken 9 steps back in usability and installed all kinds of paywalls that 
never used to exist with the basic cheap jerk on a shoestring free hosted 
package. (Really? I have to pay to insert a table. No collapsible links without 
monay? Pt.) I can definitely vouch that elderly folks are completely 
mystified by the new dashboard and continue to pass the maintenance hot potatoe 
back to me. Themes are still ludicrously simple to find, swap, and install. 
This is great for folks that just want a new look every so often.

    I really liked the whole weighting concept to Drupal. Yes Drupal is overly 
complex, but it yields granularity that other stuff just doesn't have. More 
complexity was baked into Drupal than WordPress.

Cheers,
Brooke

Re: [CODE4LIB] Withdraw my post was: Re: [CODE4LIB] separate list for jobs

[BWS Johnson]

Salvete!

    Honestly, though, who all would even want to understand a Kiwi? They're 
practically escaped convicts, since everyone in the Northern Hemisphere knows 
that they're just tiny Aussies.* Also, I have to translate code for them, since 
they cannot do for themselves. [1] 


Ba dum cha,
Brooke


*warning contains humour and #notintendedtobeafactualstatement.
[1] http://translate.koha-community.org/en_NZ/



 On 05/09/2014 02:44 AM, Susan Kane wrote:
  Obviously, we must now task someone in CODE4LIB with writing a Python
  script to convert New Zealand English to International English.
 
 Yes, because tasking people with AI-complete programming tasks (see 
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AI-complete ) is only slightly worse than 
 systematically malfunctioning sarcasm filters.
 
 
  Or, I guess we could solve this on the user side with a sarcasm filter or a
  humor pipe, but you might lose some data that way.
 
 Or we could acknowledge code4lib's role as a safe place for people to 
 tune their sarcasm detectors.
 
 cheers
 stuart
 

Re: [CODE4LIB] 2nd meetup for code4lib LA - May 15th

[BWS Johnson]

Salvete!


 I am definitely interested in a Northern California regional Code4Lib
 group, but my ability to jet down to LA for a two-hour meeting is
 regrettably limited. Likewise my ability to jet up to Seattle or Portland,
 unfortunately. Perhaps a better strategy might be to focus on a local? For
 example, we have CDL in Oakland, several nearby UCs, CSUs, large publics,
 and community colleges to draw from. We should be able to put together a
 decent showing on our own, I would imagine.
 Roy
 

    The only clear solution is an OCLC Treehouse Jet. Either that or a Code4Lib 
teleporter.

Cheers,
Brooke

Re: [CODE4LIB] Southeast Regional Meetup Survey

[BWS Johnson]

Salvete!

    *sneeze* Lexington Barbecue Festival *sneeze* That's a terrible sneeze. I 
should really get it looked at.

Cheers,
Brooke


 It would be nice to do it though the Die-bold-a-tron, and do the planning on 
 the 
 wiki, that way we have a standard archive
 
 Riley Childs
 Student
 Asst. Head of IT Services
 Charlotte United Christian Academy
 (704) 497-2086
 RileyChilds.net
 Sent from my Windows Phone, please excuse mistakes
 
 From: Sarah Shealymailto:sarah.she...@outlook.com
 Sent: ‎3/‎28/‎2014 9:43 PM
 To: CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDUmailto:CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU
 Subject: [CODE4LIB] Southeast Regional Meetup Survey
 
 Here's the link. This has moved quite a bit faster than I thought it would 
 so it may get modified at some point. I'm going to send it out again next 
 week, and we can move planning onto Google and off of the listserv.
 
 https://docs.google.com/forms/d/17rgEf-tRKpm6F7AxkAJvv4VfNpVV13oZWY3XFrhlyLA/viewform
 
 Sent from my iPad
 

[CODE4LIB] Cowboys

[BWS Johnson]

Salvete!



 We don't have cowboys in NC. :P

    Pfft, y'all do. They've outhouses and eything.

http://www.highcountrycowboys.us/

Cheers,
Brooke

Re: [CODE4LIB] code4lib italy

[BWS Johnson]

Salve!


   How many nuclear physics geniuses have you met? ;) Giuseppe Angilella has 
been a Koha user for ages, and his early participation spurred a tonne of other 
folks to adopt before OSILSs were cool. He probably doesn't consider himself a 
coder, but there are many people that now participate who certainly are. 
    I bet you'd uncover quite a number of Code4Lib type folks at the University 
of Pisa. A long time ago when animals could talk, and I was an undergraduate, 
if I were on IRC in search of nerdy discussion at odd hours, the person at the 
other end usually had a unipi IP. There was a seminar for Koha in Pisa last 
April that drew about 100 folks.

http://www.bfs.it/index.php?it/22/modulo-eventi/61/koha-open-source-ils-integrated-library-system-seminario

    Since you're in Rome, why don't you check out 

http://catalogo.pusc.it



    And that's just Koha. Surely Gli Azzurri demand cool code for sport. ;)

Cheers,
Brooke

Re: [CODE4LIB] Code4Lib Conference Request...

[BWS Johnson]

Salvete!


  こんにちは皆さん。私の名前はマウラです。今年のCODE4LIBにいきます。日本のキットカットが大好きです！
 
  私に日本からキットカットを買ってくれません？抹茶と紅いもの味を探していますけど、何でも味はいいです〜！
  会議である返金させていただきます。本当にありがとう〜！
 

    Both varieties are in stock at Amazon, too. ^^ The beni imo is quite 
dear, and reportedly icky, though.

Cheers,
Brooke

Re: [CODE4LIB] Welcome to Roy4Lib

[BWS Johnson]

Salvete!



  Welcome to the Roy4Lib discussion list. This list is intended to
  facilitate discussion on Roy Tennant's new world library order, 
 the role
  of bacon (including kosher and vegetarian based varieties) in this
  context, and the long, long, long, long, long drawn out death of 
 MARC.
 
  If you believe you have subscribed to this list in error, please 
 email
  the
  admin at r...@roy4lib.org.

    *puts on tinfoil hat*

    Orlly? No discussion on Our Company Loves Cash is allowed? CENSORSHIP

Cheers,
Brooke

Re: [CODE4LIB] Southeastern Library Association

[BWS Johnson]

Salvete!


 [This also serves to illustrate why wikipedia has issues as an authority 
 control system.]
 

    I went ahead and strongarmed the templates away. Feel free to add your 
thoughts on the talk page. :) 

    Wikimedians are very cool in person, and there's acknowledgement inside of 
the community that there are several bad actors that end up making for lots of 
bad experiences. So any time you run into this, revert the changes, add more 
sources if possible, and add to the talk page so that editors that aren't in 
the know should be able to read the whys of things.

Cheers,
Brooke

Re: [CODE4LIB] Southeastern Library Association

[BWS Johnson]

Salvete!



 Sorry, if I misinterpreted the source type, I was doing 1500 things, that was 
 1501...my bad I learned from my mistake!
 

    It's about putting something up and having someone else come by and make it 
better. The aardvark article history example is choice. :)


  I'm the wikimedian who added the templates there in the first place to
  give the newbie author some guidance as to what needed to happen; when
  the newbie editor ran out of steam I appealed for input from here.
 

    That could have been done in the talk pages.


  Wikipedia is in many ways as structured as cataloguing, but you can get
  away with pretty much everything if you have secondary sources.
 

    When people turn Wikipedia into cataloguing, it's a huge turn off. I try 
and convince people who are authorities in their fields to contribute so that 
the project improves, and the wikibureaucracy comes up a lot. Sometimes self 
citation is going to happen. I'd rather have that in this case than stand to 
lose the entire page. The whole page is a resource.


  The fact that anyone on this list thinks that a single-column
  contemporary eye-witness account qualifies as a secondary source
  staggers me. Maybe that makes me a bad actor.
 
  [and yes, the article is still in need of secondary sources]
 

    I would point you to this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Identifying_and_using_primary_and_secondary_sources

Secondary is not another way to spell good

Cheers,
Brooke

Re: [CODE4LIB] EZProxy changes / alternatives ?

[BWS Johnson]

Salvete!

  Tisn't necessarily Socialist to hedge one's bets. Look at what Wall St. 
experts advise when one is unsure of whether to hold or sell. Monopoly is only 
ever in the interest of those that hold it.

   Short term the aquarium is enticing, but do you enjoy your collapsed 
dorsal fin?

Cheers,
Brooke

--
On Fri, Jan 31, 2014 6:10 PM EST Salazar, Christina wrote:

I think though that razor thin budgets aside, the EZProxy using community is 
vulnerable to what amounts to a monopoly. Don't get any ideas, OCLC peeps 
(just kiddin') but now we're so captive to EZProxy, what are our options if 
OCLC wants to gradually (or not so gradually) jack up the price?

Does being this captive to a single product justify community developer time?

I think so but I'm probably just a damn socialist.

On Jan 31, 2014, at 1:36 PM, Tim McGeary timmcge...@gmail.com wrote:

 Even with razor thin budgets, this is a no brainer.  May they need decide
 between buying 10 new books or license EZProxy?  Possibly, but if they have
 a need for EZProxy, that's still a no brainer - until a solid OSS
 replacement that includes as robust a developer /support community comes
 around.  But again, at $500/year, I don't see a lot of incentive to invest
 in such a project.
 
 
 On Fri, Jan 31, 2014 at 3:55 PM, Riley Childs 
 rchi...@cucawarriors.comwrote:
 
 But there are places on a razor thin budget, and things like this throw
 them off ball acne
 
 Sent from my iPhone
 
 On Jan 31, 2014, at 3:32 PM, Tim McGeary timmcge...@gmail.com wrote:
 
 So what's the price point that EZProxy needs to climb to make it more
 realistic to put resources into an alternative.  At $500/year, I don't
 even
 have to think about justifying it.  At 1% (or less) of the cost of
 position
 with little to no prior experience needed, it doesn't make a lot of sense
 to invest in an open source alternative, even on a campus that heavily
 uses
 Shibboleth.
 
 Tim
 
 
 On Fri, Jan 31, 2014 at 1:36 PM, Ross Singer rossfsin...@gmail.com
 wrote:
 
 Not only that, but it's also expressly designed for the purpose of
 reverse
 proxying subscription databases in a library environment.  There are
 tons
 of things vendors do that would be incredibly frustrating to get working
 properly in Squid, nginx, or Apache that have already been solved by
 EZProxy.  Which is self-fulfilling: vendors then cater to what EZProxy
 does
 (rather than improving access to their resources).
 
 Art Rhyno used to say that the major thing that was inhibiting the
 widespread adoption of Shibboleth was how simple and cheap EZProxy was.
 I
 think there is a lot of truth to that.
 
 -Ross.
 
 
 On Fri, Jan 31, 2014 at 1:23 PM, Kyle Banerjee kyle.baner...@gmail.com
 wrote:
 
 EZproxy is a self-installing statically compiled single binary
 download,
 with a built-in administrative interface that makes most common
 administrative tasks point-and-click, that works on Linux and Windows
 systems, and requires very little in the way of resources to run.  It
 also
 has a library of a few hundred vendor stanzas that can be copied and
 pasted
 and work the majority of the time.
 
 To successfully replace EZproxy in this setting, it would need to be
 packaged in such a way that it is equally easy to install and
 maintain,
 and
 the library of vendor stanzas would need to be developed as apache
 conf.d
 files.
 
 This. The real gain with EZProxy is that configuring it is crazy easy.
 You
 just drop it in and run it -- it's feasible for someone with no
 experience
 in proxying or systems administration to get it operational in a few
 minutes. That is why I think virtualizing a system that makes accessing
 the
 more powerful features of EZProxy easy is a good alternative.
 
 kyle
 
 
 
 --
 Tim McGeary
 timmcge...@gmail.com
 GTalk/Yahoo/Skype/Twitter: timmcgeary
 484-294-7660 (cell)
 
 
 
 -- 
 Tim McGeary
 timmcge...@gmail.com
 GTalk/Yahoo/Skype/Twitter: timmcgeary
 484-294-7660 (cell)

Re: [CODE4LIB] Job: Test Post at Anonymous

[BWS Johnson]

Salve!

    This is a welcoming community, and I won't have Michael objectified.

Cheers,
Brooke
    

 
 I mock that objection.
 
 
 
 On Wed, Jan 15, 2014 at 9:56 AM, Michael B. Klein mbkl...@gmail.com 
 wrote:
 
  I object to your mocking.
 
 
  On Wed, Jan 15, 2014 at 11:55 AM, Ross Singer rossfsin...@gmail.com
  wrote:
 
   No, it's cool. I've learned about mocking objects since then.
  
   -Ross.
  
  
   On Wed, Jan 15, 2014 at 12:36 PM, Michael B. Klein 
 mbkl...@gmail.com
   wrote:
  
I am interested in the post testing job. Please send details. Do 
 not be
fooled by Ross Singer; he is dangerous. The last post he tested 
 caused
   the
entire 2005 Atlantic hurricane season.
   
   
On Wed, Jan 15, 2014 at 11:07 AM, Ross Singer 
 rossfsin...@gmail.com
wrote:
   
 HELLO, IS THERE AN OPTION FOR TELECOMMUTING.

 ASKING FOR A FRIEND WITH LOTS OF EXPERIENCE AS A TEST 
 POSTER.
 -ROSS.


 On Wed, Jan 15, 2014 at 11:51 AM, j...@code4lib.org 
 wrote:

  Test Post
  Anonymous
  New London
 
  This is a test post.
 
 
 
  Brought to you by code4lib jobs:
  http://jobs.code4lib.org/job/11613/
 

   
  
 
 

Re: [CODE4LIB] Public transport from RDU to Sheraton Raleigh and how safe is it?

[BWS Johnson]

Salvete!

    Yo,yo,yo public transport is good enough for Sergey Brin and his google 
glass. #justsayin

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/jan/21/sergey-brin-google-glass-new-york-subway

Cheers,
Brooke




- Original Message -
 From: Chris Fitzpatrick chrisfitz...@gmail.com
 To: CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU
 Cc: 
 Sent: Tuesday, January 14, 2014 5:53 AM
 Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] Public transport from RDU to Sheraton Raleigh and how 
 safe is it?
 
 Also, last time few time I was in LA I took the Metro to/from the airport
 and it was great.
 I think the Green line goes to LAX and the Red Line goes to North Hollywood
 and Burbank.
 
 But you would run the danger of running into Ed Begley Jr., so there's
 that.
 
 
 
 
 On Tue, Jan 14, 2014 at 12:48 AM, Andreas Orphanides 
 akorp...@ncsu.eduwrote:
 
  There's a pretty reliable bus that will take you straight from the 
 airport
  to the center of downtown. Clean and safe, if a little infrequent. And $2.
 
 
 
 http://www.triangletransit.org/sites/default/files/maps-and-schedules/RoutesAndSchedules-100.pdf
 
 
  On Mon, Jan 13, 2014 at 6:31 PM, Salazar, Christina 
  christina.sala...@csuci.edu wrote:
 
   (Am I the only one who hears James Brown's Night Train in my head 
 when I
   type Raleigh, North Carolina?)
  
   I'm just wondering if there's any public transportation from 
 RDU to the
   conference hotel and if so, how safe is it? I have opted out of public
   transport at some places that I later found out were very safe (e.g.,
   Boston) because I'm from Los Angeles and we don't do public
  transportation,
   so I just thought I'd ask now and plan in advance.
  
   Christina Salazar
   Systems Librarian
   John Spoor Broome Library
   California State University, Channel Islands
   805/437-3198
   [Description: Description: CI Formal Logo_1B grad_em signature]
  
  
 
 

Re: [CODE4LIB] Academic Library Website Question

[BWS Johnson]

Salvete!

 While it's a really good idea to make sure your library's website is
 prominent on your institution's page (because I think that does send a
 strong signal, even to students, that your library is important to your
 campus), the really big question is how easily your students will be able
 to find your web page by googleing University X Library, or 
 University X
 JSTOR or University X Ebsco.
 

    ++ to this section of your argument. Kids today and their Google machine. 
My alma mater not only comes up first, the flavours of Library are all right 
there. UIUC++.


 When a student has an assignment and their professor tells them they have
 to use the library, they'll probably Google you - they won't 
 try to
 navigate links from the university web page.  I agree with Cary that your
 *current* students/users will probably not be going that route. So ensuring
 your page and its content is easily Google-able and search-engine optimized
 (and not hidden behind a portal!) is key.
 

    I do still think that time well spent in layout, organisation, and 
navigation is time well spent. This is true in especial when I find meself 
trapped in the jungle with only a touch to see me through. Having the user go 
back to Google every time they think up summat new does *not* save their time. 
I cannot count the number of times I have to perform some sort of arcane ritual 
to naturally find the hours and location of whatever thing I'm looking to find 
in meatspace. If I *know* that I'm visiting the right website to find certain 
information and I can't manage to find it within the page, I'm pretty sure that 
Karen Coyle can hear me sigh and see me facepalm. Looking at you irritating 
town website, looking at you.

Cheers,
Brooke

[CODE4LIB] Koha Trademark Update

[BWS Johnson]

Salvete!

  Well perhaps trademark and patent law can really help every now and 
again. :)

http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/230631/koha-trademark-case-won-by-nz

  
Cheers,
Brooke  

Re: [CODE4LIB] calibr: a simple opening hours calendar

[BWS Johnson]

Salvete!

  I second the policy suggestions about hours that were stated earlier. The 
simpler hours are kept, the better. 

  I found myself in the position of having a Library with crazy hours due 
to budgetary and scheduling constraints. My low tech solution to that was to 
add the hours right on the back of the cards so folks would have that data 
handy. :D

Cheers,
Brooke

Re: [CODE4LIB] Charlotte, NC Code4Lib Meeting

[BWS Johnson]

Salvete!



I'd be interested. I'm in Boone... not too far a drive. :)



    Amateurs! The real question to ask is who's bringing the 'shine OR(mebbe 
even AND) 'que? But seriously, I think a lot of people might be interested 
given ye olde wiki entries and Conference locale.

Cheers,
Brooke

Re: [CODE4LIB] Patents in Institutional Repositories.

[BWS Johnson]

Salvete!

    I've oft thought it'd be nice if there were more crossover betwixt CODE4LIB 
and the GOVDOCLers. You should easily be able to hit

http://patft.uspto.gov/netahtml/PTO/search-bool.html

    and get your details. :)

Cheers,
Brooke
    

Well, a faculty member approaches the repository with their CV and asks us
to investigate all their publications to see how much of their work we can
deposit. They list their patents as part of their scholarly output on their
CV. My understanding is that by virtue of having a patent, they hold the
copyright to that intellectual property, and since they produced it in an
educational institution, we are free to capture their work in an IR.
However, that would depend on what the details of the patent granted
include, which is there the communication with the faculty member has to
happen. Am I off the mark here? I found a couple of patents in arXiv and
wanted to see how others treat these types of documents.

Thank you!
L.

Re: [CODE4LIB] Library of Congress

[BWS Johnson]

Salvete!

As far as I can tell the LOC is up and the offices are closed. HORRAY!! 
Let's celebrate!


    Yeah, I guess the website folks haven't yet got the memo.

http://www.loc.gov/today/pr/2013/13-A06.html

    I suppose someone that's bored on this list might generate a who's up and 
who's down app for the GOVDOCs folks. :)

Cheers,
Brooke

Re: [CODE4LIB] Kohacon13 - You should come

[BWS Johnson]

Salvete!


G ood morning/afternoon!
 Does anyone know if KohaCon is going to have any of the sessions available
 via webcast?
 

  I would hope so. In 2010, we definitely recorded things and then made 
them available. I think folks hopped on IRC and put in questions in realish 
time. (Things line up funnily half a world away. :) ) The talks are still 
linked and accessible from

http://wiki.koha-community.org/wiki/KohaCon2010

  Now if you want live streaming, that may or may not happen. Basically, it 
depends upon the hosts. Nancy Keener should know for certain.

Cheers,
Brooke

Re: [CODE4LIB] Speaking in Code summit, UVa Library Scholars' Lab

[BWS Johnson]

Salvete!

    Aedunno, it seemed like a pretty high bar for THATCamp, too. I applied 
anyway and they let me sneak in. :) I had no regrets. I felt very welcome there 
and there were some truly fascinating conversations with that slightly 
different group. I would anticipate a few of the same faces at the Speaking in 
Code summit. It's a wonderful campus in terms of aesthetics, as well.

    #justsayin apply and see if you get to go rather than self limiting and 
definitely disappointing yerself.

Cheers,
Brooke



 On Fri, Aug 9, 2013 at 7:56 PM, Sam Kome sam_k...@cuc.claremont.edu 
 wrote:
 
  Thanks Wayne and kudos to UVa on the inclusivity statement.
 
  I would be interested to know who attends; that call* looks like a pretty
  fine filter.  If the list is ever made public I will immediately follow
  them all on [SocialMedia].
 
  *http://codespeak.scholarslab.org/#call-for-participants
 
  Sam Kome | Assistant Director, RD |The Claremont Colleges Library
  Claremont University Consortium |800 N. Dartmouth Ave |Claremont, CA  91711
  Phone (909) 621-8866 |Fax (909) 621-8517 |sam_k...@cuc.claremont.edu
 
  -Original Message-
  From: Code for Libraries [mailto:CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU] On Behalf Of
  Graham, Wayne (wsg4w)
  Sent: Thursday, August 08, 2013 1:41 PM
  To: CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU
  Subject: [CODE4LIB] Speaking in Code summit, UVa Library 
 Scholars' Lab
 
  (Please excuse cross-posting, and help us get the word out about this
  opportunity for digital humanities software developers!)
 
  We're pleased to announce that applications are open for Speaking 
 in
  Code, a 2-day, NEH-funded symposium and summit to be held at the UVa
  Library Scholars' Lab in Charlottesville, Virginia this November 4th 
 and
  5th.
 
  http://codespeak.scholarslab.org/
 
  Speaking in Code will bring together a small cohort of 
 intermediate to
  advanced digital humanities software developers for two days of
  conversation and agenda-setting. Our goal will be to give voice to what is
  almost always tacitly expressed in DH development work: expert knowledge
  about the intellectual and interpretive dimensions of code-craft, and
  unspoken understandings about the relation of our labor and its products to
  ethics, scholarly method, and humanities theory.
 
  Over the course of two days, participants will:
 
  * reflect on and express, from developers' own points of view, what is
  particular to the humanities and of scholarly significance in DH software
  development products and practices;
 
  * and collaboratively devise an action-oriented agenda to bridge the gaps
  in critical vocabulary and discourse norms that can frequently distance
  creators of humanities platforms or tools from the scholars who use and
  critique them.
 
  In addition to Scholars' Lab staff (Jeremy Boggs, Wayne Graham, Eric
  Rochester, and Bethany Nowviskie), facilitators include Stephen Ramsay,
  William J. Turkel, Stéfan Sinclair, Hugh Cayless, and Tim Sherratt. A
  limited number of need-based travel bursaries are available to
  participants. The SLab particularly encourages and will prioritize
  participation of developers who are women, people of color, LGBTQ, or from
  other under-represented groups. See You Are Welcome Here for 
 more info:
  http://codespeak.scholarslab.org/#inclusivity
 
  This will be the first focused meeting to address the implications of
  tacit knowledge exchange in digital humanities software development. Visit
  the Speaking in Code website to register your interest! Apply by September
  12th for best consideration.
 
 

Re: [CODE4LIB] Python and Ruby

[BWS Johnson]

Salvete!

    More importantly, am I the only one that sees a classic Highlander inspired 
Code4Lib T Shirt in this? From the makers of the beating a dead horse graphic 
and the OCLC seal of approval... Make it so!

Cheers,
Brooke   

Re: [CODE4LIB] Libraries and IT Innovation

[BWS Johnson]

Salvete!



 Agreed. It's much easier to face a preservation project of many terabytes of 
 archival tif images that will never be used for presentation but must be 
 maintained when you have an endless supply (wink wink) of storage 
 out in the cloud rather than face everything that is associated with bringing 
 a 
 large storage appliance online. Not to mention growth planning for said 
 appliance, backup planning and execution, etc...

    It's also an idea that works harmoniously with the framework of a Library 
consortium. It would be nice to have IFLA or another extremely large body 
*looks at Lyrasis* formally take this up not just for member institutions but 
for all. The reason I say not just members is that is a decision that would 
lead to silofication. Perhaps a donate button :D

Cheers,
Brooke

Re: [CODE4LIB] Libraries and IT Innovation

[BWS Johnson]

Salvete!

    Glad you started this thread. I 3 innovation. I also will note that you 
avoided the innovation pitfall of thinking that things disperse because they 
are higher quality.


 He provided an example of making content active through the area of big
 data.  For those not familiar with big data Wikipedia describes it as “a
 collection of data sets so large and complex that it becomes difficult to
 process using on-hand database management tools or traditional data
 processing applications”.  An example he mentioned of how this was useful


    Crowdsourcing in and of itself is interesting since it is built on natural 
inquisitiveness, the desire of folks to help, a little going a long way when 
multiplied out, and trust. Quite harmonious to library values.

    In terms of active data, I pitched a digital tree of sorts at one point. I 
could see user information being anonymised and sent to a central location that 
showed what was being checked out. I also saw panels for each end of range with 
recent check outs, NYT reviews, book covers of what was in that aisle, et 
cetera.


 Over the course of this conversation I was thinking on how some of this
 could be applied to the library realm.  Mobile computing is an area we as a
 profession are getting better at, but by no means are we there yet.  I have
 seen some really good mobile sites for libraries, but other tools we have
 like CONTENTdm or DSpace are not mobile friendly.  I am not trying to pick
 on them, they are very good toolsets, but if you have ever tried using
 either on a smartphone they are clunky and hard to work with.  Still on the
 whole libraries are making progress with mobile computing.
 

    Yeah. I hang out with telecom nerds and it's really weird to not see some 
of the same enthusiasm with Librarians. Pretty much the only Library folks I 
know that delve into this sort of stuff are the UVA folks and Koha folks. 
Certainly other folks are doing it, too, but it's not ubiquitous. I've long 
scratched my head about how we aren't using them for scanning duty at the 
barest of minimums. The stacks should just have gobs of qr coding and wee 
thumbnails and ra advisories and whatnot that people could leverage while they 
search but it's just not there. 


 I also see the social aspect of this shining through quite well too.  Many
 libraries have taken well to social media and have come up with some
 ingenious ways to utilize it to their advantage.  As well the push for
 collaborative space in the physical building plays well into this, though I
 wonder if there is anything else that can be done to open up this
 collaborative space in the digital realm. 

    
    We need to live outside of meatspace more. I use gaming this way. One of my 
favourite things to hear is Gee, I wouldn't think Librarians would know or do 
that...
    

 I know many of the toolsets are
 providing some good social options.  I was aware of some of the
 collaborative abilities of institutional repository software, and I just
 recently was introduced to Primo and really liked their shelf options and
 the potential for collaboration it gives.  Obviously it depends on the
 institution, but I do wonder if there anymore things that can be done in
 the digital social realm to provide for the patrons.
 

    *nod* I think in general we just have to be better about getting opt in 
features in our ILSs for Patrons. While some people might want their privacy, 
others won't give a fig if their reading lists are public, or if they can make 
suggestions to other patrons. Perhaps Library Yelp! :) There's stuff like 
Goodreads and what not out there for reviews, but I feel like we're always just 
putting more lipstick on our ILS pigs instead of drawing up summat seamless to 
integrate erything.


 As for business intelligence and analytics I figured those do not
 necessarily apply in quite the same way as business IT, but there is still
 some cross over.  Libraries and archives both take a bucket loads of


    Man did I leverage reference to build a bridge with the business community. 
Internally, you're absolutely right. Externally, I think we should be helping 
small business do analytics and other things. While business intelligence tends 
to be distasteful to me, I'd rather have a busy reference desk than a dead as a 
doorknob post. There's a lot of stuff that businesses pay beau coups bucks for 
when they can just be using a good reference librarian.


 statistics so there might be some interesting ways to look at those
 statistics that have yet to be considered?  This is not an area I have much


    One of the reasons I like this list is that it seems like folks are always 
coming up with new ways to harvest and visualise data. It's cool. 


 experience with but I am sure others have some interesting ideas about it.
 I do see ways that the big data analytics I mentioned before potentially
 can be useful in making the library catalog and discovery more 

[CODE4LIB] Open Source LMS / ILS

[BWS Johnson]

Salvete!

    Hi there Code4Libbers. I've taught a wee distance course on choosing an 
Open Source Integrated Library System twice in the last year. I like to update 
my course materials, cause hey, I could be lazy, but I'm not. This is where you 
all come in. :D

    I initially selected 4 different systems to explore: Koha, Evergreen, 
OPALS, and Kuali OLE. I'm seriously considering dumping the last two, but I'm 
struggling to try and suss out replacements. I liked OPALS as a school library 
option. I also kind of like it as an antithesis: If you have to beg for the 
code, is it really open source? Kuali just seems to be taking ages, even though 
it has strong academic support.

    So what are folks keen on these days for their open source catalogues and 
stuff? Feel free to send me random rants or reviews, and in especial academic 
junk.

Thanks,
Brooke  

Re: [CODE4LIB] Code4Lib 2014: Save the dates!

[BWS Johnson]

Salvete!



 But please don't expect the conference itself to select the venue and
 complete conference package based on the sole requirement to keep room
 rates down.

    I never suggested any such thing. I kindly suggested that someone might 
wish to see if the hotel would come down on its price. I stated the fact that 
for that market during those dates, its cost is above its competitors. One of 
my colleagues noted that government rates for that locality are substantially 
lower, too.
    As someone that has organised, or had a role in putting together many 
conferences, I well realise that room rates are not the only factor. I 
understand the dynamics in play in terms of meeting room space, proximity to 
attractions, et cetera.
    However, I felt that it would be a good idea to act when I perceived that 
we were getting a raw deal. There's enough warning here that it would allow for 
a change for everyone's benefit. Many times I've been able to secure a better 
rate for my organisation simply by bringing in data and asking for a better 
deal than the boilerplate.

 
 There were many ALA conferences when I did not stay in any conference
 hotel. And when you look at the hotel prices for the conference I'm at
 right now (ALA Annual in Chicago[1]) you might well have a heart
 attack, as they are almost all higher -- and often WAY higher -- than
 the Code4Lib 2014 price. This doesn't necessarily make it right, but


    Chicago is not Raleigh. I would expect to pay more in a major metropolis 
than in the Southeast University market. Further, ALA's continued to mystify me 
in the conference department, too. We are terrible negotiators.

Cheers,
Brooke

Re: [CODE4LIB] Code4Lib 2014: Save the dates!

[BWS Johnson]

Salvete!


 I am happy to announce that we have secured the venue and dates for
 Code4Lib 2014!  The conference will be held at the Sheraton Raleigh Hotel
 in downtown Raleigh, NC on March 24 - 27, 2014.  Preconferences will be
 held Monday March 24, and the main conference on Tuesday March 25 - 27.
 

 Hooray, that's sort of close. Maybe I'll be able to pit fight my own place 
next year.


 Finally, the hotel has the capacity to host all of the attendees, and we've
 negotiated a rate of $159/night that includes wireless access in the hotel
 rooms.  Hotel reservations will be able to made after you register using
 the information provided in your registration confirmation.  We will be
 publishing more details as become available.


     Ruh oh. This was rather shocking. Perhaps you might wish to show them a 
hotels.com search, which puts your $159 just over the Hilton and about double 
other places in the vicinity. I'm sure it's nice and all that, but uh, perhaps 
they would be willing to come down seeing as how we're sending a boatload of 
traffic their way.

Cheers,
Brooke

Re: [CODE4LIB] Policies for 3D Printers

[BWS Johnson]

Salvete!


 Libraries charge to lend books. 

    Some, by no means all. It's also generally limited to newer materials. It's 
universally stupid to do this, in my opinion. The folks that can pay are 
already buying copies, and we're hurting the patrons that can't pay.

 Late fines are almost universal, and lost
 items will result in a charge for replacement costs.

    What are we getting for our charges? Is this go away mentality worth it? Is 
this helping or hurting us in the relevancy arena? It's definitely hurting in 
the fundraising department, which is precisely where it's meant to help. Every 
budget I've seen has not netted enough in charging for extras to offset the 
actual costs they're seeking to cover. So with that in mind, why are we doing 
this? Our patrons rightfully see these as nuisance fees. If we're doing it to 
avoid abuse, which is why I assume a lot of these are implemented, there are 
usually better ways to go about that.

Cheers,
Brooke

Re: [CODE4LIB] Policies for 3D Printers

[BWS Johnson]

Salvete!


 We've got $800 worth of filament which we expect will last us a long, long
 time.
 Rather than charge for prints, we are trying to create a different type of
 social contract in the space... we are encouraging heavy users to
 contribute back and donate time, expertise, and materials.
 If it sounds idealistic, that is because it is.  But it is working.  We are
 trying to create a different culture in this space than is typical of
 libraries, and so far so good...
 
 Fingers crossed, I hope it can last!

    
    I disagree that this culture is different than the typical culture of 
libraries. We don't, for the most part, charge to lend monographs. So why is it 
that most do charge for photocopying, et cetera? If it's any comfort, my tiny 
rural library more than made up for in donations what we let go for free where 
others feed their patrons to death. Would you rather a .10 per page surcharge 3 
or 4 times a year or a $100 from the same person that remembered you letting 
them use the copier those same 3-4 times for free? (I did have a 10 page 
threshold, but almost no one topped that.)

    So yes, the freer the better. :D

Cheers,
Brooke

Re: [CODE4LIB] An interesting practical problem that might be a good hackfest project

[BWS Johnson]

Salvete!

Whoo eee, that was the way I used ta do things back when there were Y2K 
problems, fella. Back en, I e#x27;en took it further and hand compared vendor 
prices after thumbing through ye olde listservs and booksales fer offers. Seems 
ta me like Olde Man edsu mighta cooked up some sorta fancy script ta replace 
me. Now y#x27;all run along. Got some chaw ta chew.

Cheers,
Brooke

Re: [CODE4LIB] Image de-duping and file identification

[BWS Johnson]

I just want to say that even if this isn#x27;t what you had in mind, Wikimedia 
is very serious and very respectful about Indigenous cultural persistence and 
language preservation. I can only imagine that sharing your data would be most 
welcome.

Cheers,
Brooke

Re: [CODE4LIB] back to minorities question, seeking guidance

[BWS Johnson]

Salve!

 I'm forced to agree that arithmetic isn't math. In fact, I'd go 
 further and
 say that arithmetic isn't even arithmetic. At best it's accounting.
 (Accounting, on the other hand, is way more than accounting, so please
 don't take offense if you're an accountant.)

    http://xkcd.com/899/

    That is all.

Cheers,
Brooke

Re: [CODE4LIB] Lib or Libe

[BWS Johnson]

Salvete!

  People, people.

 
  Can we agree that lib is simply easier to say than 
 libe due to the
  shorter vowel sound?
 
  Can we also agree than the best coders are, by nature, lazy?
 
  Therefore, lib wins. All you. libe mohubs can go 
 call the
  wah-wah-wahmbulance.
 

    Not to mention libe sounds a bit affected. Jersey lib in the house, 
represent!

Brooke
Who was not picked on in the factory by any of the multiple felons, yo

Re: [CODE4LIB] Group Decision Making (was Zoia)

[BWS Johnson]

Salve!


 I am uneasy about coming up with a policy for banning people (from
 what?) and voting on it, before it's demonstrated that it's even
 needed. Can't we just tackle these issues as they come up, in context,
 rather than in the abstract?
 
 Or has a specific issue come up, and I'm just being daft?

    It's needed. It was requested. Specifically creepy things happening is why 
this came up. The policy is necessary to help people deal with things as they 
come up in context.

    I'm uneasy about voting on minority rights. That usually doesn't go well, 
and it almost always misses the point.

Cheers,
Brooke

Re: [CODE4LIB] Zoia

[BWS Johnson]

Salvete!

    Code4Lib's female bot Zoia beats Koha's male bot Wahanui any day of the 
week.

    I have to say, when I first saw this thread rev up, I thought Heavens! 
What are those ruffians teaching my darling girl?! I think I've witnessed 
irreverent quips from time to time, but I don't think I caught anything sexist 
from her. (Not that I'm always in Code4Lib or even there a lot.)


    My metric for coding and usability has ever been is task X easy enough for 
me to do it? In this case that would read: is teaching the bot a new trick, or 
unlearning an olde bad one, easy enough for me to do it? The answer in this 
case is a very easy yes. So that gives you an idea of comfort zone. :) I 
*think* (I'm being horrible and not checking) that she's a supybot, or in any 
case at least mostly observes that set of commands, so if you're curious, check 
this out:

http://supybook.fealdia.org/devel/


    Cause this is anarchy where we can just change the bot back to being civil, 
yes?

Cheers,
Brooke  

Re: [CODE4LIB] Question abt the code4libwomen idea

[BWS Johnson]

Salvete!


 because they can't find an SO are outliers. C4l is a tech event. Do women
 really get treated that shabbily there?
 

    I'm guessing this is a yes, since several brave folks have indicated it. It 
doesn't mean that *you* are an offender, but it's clearly happening, or at 
least known to have happened in past.

Cheers,
Brooke

Re: [CODE4LIB] FOSS Outreach Program for Women internships

[BWS Johnson]

Salvete!


 Outreach Program for Women internships are available with a number of Free
 and Open Source Software organizations from January 2 through April 2, 2013:
 https://live.gnome.org/OutreachProgramForWomen


    The deadline for that is like NAO so don't delay.

Cheers,
Brooke

[CODE4LIB]

[BWS Johnson]

Salvete!


James++
Chad++

    After a few extremely icky incredibly stoopid conversations I've had within 
our otherwise lovely field populated by mostly smart people, it is with great 
trepidation that I enter publicly into this fray. I'm mainly doing so since I 
like you folks. People that don't like what I have to say can bite my shiny 
metal arse. [0]

    How do we know that our presenters are white? Did we ask folks to self 
identify after giving their talks? Before? Or, perish the thought, are we using 
the Scott Brown test? I really dunno, since I haven't presented at your 
Conference. (Or even attended.) I was fortunate enough to have a clerk that 
self identified black but looked like Barbie. Folks tended to treat her as if 
she were very confused until they met her father. So if we're not actually 
asking, perhaps we are wrong in our aessessments.

    I think it's a happy thing that this conversation started up, but please 
tread with care.

    Statistics are great, but if we just look at the numbers, we might just be 
perpetuating the self perpetuating problem. If you want to improve your 
climate, then shoot for a reflection of society in general. Discussing issues 
important to minorities is still the best way to get folks interested and 
involved. 

    There was a question posed at the very beginning of the Wikimania 
conference in DC that caused me to approach the person that had asked it. That 
person then held my hand, sometimes in a truly awkward and embarrassing 
fashion, for the entirety of the conference and beyond. I couldn't help but 
feel completely welcomed for most of Conference despite being a n00b. The 
oddest part of that group was that the folks I ought to have felt most welcome 
around I felt alienated me the most. 
    
[0]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRnq-PFboMI


Cheers,
Brooke

Re: [CODE4LIB] Google Indoor Mapping

[BWS Johnson]

Salve!


 One, it takes a good while for the maps to be approved. I actually uploaded 
 ours 
 at the end of last year before they approached us about being a pilot library 
 but I re-uploaded them once we started that process. The re-upload was in 
 August 
 and they're still pending. The site used to upload the maps to takes some 
 getting used to but once you do one or two it's pretty easy.
 
 Second, it only works on Android. I'm personally all Android but this is a 
 huge downside for the program. Our contact tells me there is an iOS version 
 in 
 the works but with Google Maps being replaced by Apple in iOS6 it won't be 
 out for a while. 


    Well then, uh, why not

http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Indoor_Mapping

    :)

Cheers,
Brooke

Re: [CODE4LIB] Job: Web Developer at Smithsonian Institution Libraries

[BWS Johnson]

Salvete!



 https://www.usajobs.gov/GetJob/ViewDetails/329305400|USAJOBS.gov

    That was naughty for me until I abbreviated it to

https://www.usajobs.gov/GetJob/ViewDetails/329305400


    Just sayin'. Y'all are prolly smart enough to have grokked that.

Cheers,
Brooke

Re: [CODE4LIB] Seeking examples of outstanding discovery layers

[BWS Johnson]

Salvete!


 My current fav is Digital NZ
 http://www.digitalnz.org/
 

    Can't. Resist. Plug. Batman.

    Y'all are nerds, so undoubtedly, y'all prolly know this stuff already, 
bttt
    
    That started in part with Kete.

http://kete.net.nz/site/topics/show/329-kete-open-source-software-for-community-digital-libraries

 Te Horowhenua Trust, 

http://library.org.nz

 then The Horowhenua Library Trust basically bit the bullet for everyone a 
second time (Koha was the first) in making that bit of Open Source Software 
happen. If your current favourite is a strong enough thing to get ye to dig 
into the moth eaten oft empty folding jobbie you keep in your pants or purse, 
they could REALLY bloody use it. They've a new building to pay for (among a 
zillion other things) so if you're really that keen on cool stuff happening, 
show em some 3. Big olde blinky button on the upper right labeled Donate Now.

http://www.tetakere.org.nz/ 

Royt made me plug this against my free will,
Brooke

Re: [CODE4LIB] Seeking examples of outstanding discovery layers

[BWS Johnson]

Salvete!

Jonathan, I, too, like the use of facets. I wish we could do something a bit 
more zing with them, like present them as word clouds or something a bit 
more appealing than term (number) but I think the basic data is there.

Facets, as we use them, though, function as set *narrowing* tools. That's very 
useful when you have a large set, but I'd like to see another function that 
leads users to nearby areas -- this obviously invokes the idea of topic maps. 
although I have to admit that topic maps don't always seem very provocative. 
There's probably some way that we could do them better.

I do think that both facets and topic maps may work better using FAST-type 
headings rather than full LCSH pre-coordinated subject headings. That FAST is 
derived from LCSH (rather than being developed specifically as a faceted 
classification) probably makes it something of an under-performer, but the 
related subjects that appear on the Open Library subject pages give a clue as 
to how something like this might work. I'd love to see more experimentation in 
this direction.



    Mebbe summat like

http://liveplasma.com/

    ? I have ever thought that it was quite sexy, and shamlessly used it for 
music collection development and listener's advisory. Now it's bigger than just 
music, which is sweet as, bro.

Cheers,
Brooke

Re: [CODE4LIB] Maker Spaces and Academic Libraries

[BWS Johnson]

Salvete!

    Can't. Resist. Bait. Batman.


 Can anyone on the list help clarify for me why, in an academic setting,
 this kind of equipment and facility isn't part of a laboratory in an
 academic department?
 

    I'd say that I hate to play devil's advocate, but that would be a patent 
misrepresentation of material fact.

    Conversely, could you please tell us why you think it *shouldn't* be at the 
Library?

    I can think of several reasons why it *ought* to be:

1) Having this space exist at the Library and not in a given department might 
well extend the hours of use beyond what a given faculty could afford on its 
own better serving students and faculty.

2) Having this space exist at the Library promotes interdisciplinary 
interaction which could serve as a catalyst for research. This might not happen 
as readily within the bubble of one's academic department. Both students and 
staff would benefit from keeping an eye on one's neighbour as Steven Johnson 
outlines in Emergence. (No relationship)

3) Having the equipment at the Library would save the University money since 
each department wouldn't have to buy their own $1400 makerbot replicator, et 
cetera.

4) Given an academic setting that is also in itself a laboratory, such as an 
engineering or technical school, wouldn't this be the natural spot for it?

5) Given that some academic libraries are often cited on poor customer service, 
defaulting to yes is preferable to defaulting to no.

 Don't get me wrong I am *way* into access to tools, but I remember when I
 went to art school that the building had a shop in it.  The shop had a
 woodshop, welders, metal lathes, etc.  And it belonged there, not in the
 library- because it supported what that department was all about.
 

    Are we to drop our duties as soon as hands enter the picture? I don't like 
the idea that work with one's mind is valued more highly than work with one's 
hands.

    I can see how this is easier to frame in a public setting: Anyone can learn 
anything at anytime. However I fail to see how it _wouldn't_ further learning 
in an academic setting. While mission statements vary, it's not unusual as a 
consultant for me to spot summat like fosters collaboration or performs 
outreach or assists in learning for an academic library. Your mileage may 
vary, since all mission statements are equal, but some are more equal than 
others.


 Are makerspaces in academic libraries examples of libraries picking up
 slack that academic departments should be dealing with?
 

    Again, I tend to think of this as cost savings for the University on the 
whole. It also seems like a great idea in terms of fundraising and long term 
gain. For folks that aren't keen on accepting the costs, perhaps they can sit 
down with department chairs and divide things up. Extra points for 
collaboration with vocational schools in the area.


 I ask this with zero snark, I genuinely want to hear some thoughts on
 this...
 

    Respect was intended in my reply.

Cheers,
Brooke

Re: [CODE4LIB] LoC job opening ???

[BWS Johnson]

Salvete!

    Not to mention the advert is from 14 June. Surely even Edsu isn't so late.

    The over / under on that originating from Thomas Edsall? 
(https://twitter.com/Edsall) It could well be a Washington Post prank, but who 
would be the perpetrator? Chris Cillizza, mayhaps?

Cheers,
Brooke

Re: [CODE4LIB] LoC job opening ???

[BWS Johnson]

Salvete!


 Despite the lawful and prudent endorsement of this thread by our
 official designee to the OCLC Off-Topic Cat Discussion Moderation
 Divisiion, I feel it necessary to point out that @mjgiarlo's post was
 in error. The K Street lobbyist does not handle kitty litter. The
 Congressperson the K Street lobbyist controls, does.
 Roy
 

    Psha! The K Street lobbyist's Congressperson's aide does, amateur! You're 
so naive when it comes to the inner workings of the Capitol.

Cheers,
Brooke

Re: [CODE4LIB] Reminder: Code4lib Regional MD/DC/VA - National Capitol Area meeting JUNE 27th

[BWS Johnson]

Salvete!


 What: code4lib MD/DC/VA
 Who: code4lib fans in the DC/MD/VA Greater Washington, DC/National Capitol 
 area
 When: Wednesday, June 27th  4:30-5:30p meet, 5:30p-? Tasty beverages
 Where: Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of Natural History, 10th and 
 Constitution Ave. NW, Washington DC

    ^ There are dinosaurs and archaeologists in a fishbowl in that building. It 
is *that* cool.

Cheers,
Brooke

Re: [CODE4LIB] Job: Django Developer

[BWS Johnson]

Salvete!


  Is it just me. or is there a problem the jobs.code4lib.org Web site?  I
  try
  going there using different browsers - and even different operating systems
  - and all I see is gibberish - as if the character encoding is Zapf
  Dingbats.
 
 
 Is your ISP OCLC approved?
 
 Simon


    Fine on me Mac running Firefox. Clearly you have gremlins from not 
supplying Royt's treehouse. This can be rectified with an immediate 

CIN  Bourbon

Cheers,
Brooke

Re: [CODE4LIB] Studying the email list (Charcuterie Spectrum)

[BWS Johnson]

Salvete!



 Without asking permission of the list, I hereby assign this new category of 
 things requiring OCLC oversight as salami on the charcuterie 
 spectrum.
 
   Bacon   == Seal of Approval
   Bologna == Seal of Disapproval
   Salami  == Seal of No Approval Needed


    This has some serious flaws. I'm concerned about the relationships between 
the desirability of the bespoke seals as they relate to the appeal of the meats 
themselves. While yea, bacon is nearly universal in its appeal, that one seems 
on the mark. Alas, bologna as the seal of disapproval might fall a bit short. 
While one might jump to proffer spam in its place, Hawai'ians quite like spam, 
leaving us all in a bit of a quandry. Olive loaf, perhaps? And while salame is 
a most excellent meat, perhaps fois gras more aptly conveys the aboutness of 
not giving a damn about one's approval or lack thereof.

 What say you cataloguing mafia? Surely we must honour the aboutness of 
meat and approval lest we needs OCLC to intervene more often than is strictly 
necessary in our mortal affairs. 

Ox tongue in cheek,
Brooke

Re: [CODE4LIB] How do you get plain language, plain English out of the .sgstn stenograph stenonote record of the public meeting?... [see other message]

[BWS Johnson]

Salvete!


  Since we already control the Bacon Stamp of Approval, baloney seems
  like the next logical step.
 
 We should be thinking ahead to future use cases.  I say go for a broader 
 Cured Meats Stamp of Approval.  Or perhaps Charcuterie 
 to lend it some class.  To do otherwise could lead to a proliferation of 
 stamps.


    Clearly this calls for an Index Meaticus.

*ducks*
Brooke

Re: [CODE4LIB] Library site design patterns

[BWS Johnson]

Salvete!

 That's all I'm saying - that on the aggregate, there are probably 
 patterns, although I would not say they are necessarily coherent or even 
 well-thought out, I think patterns would emerge.

    I concur, and would risk the rotten tomatoes sure to emerge by adding that 
I think the contact information is so often so poorly thought out that a user 
almost never knows where the Library is and when it's open from the Welcome or 
Home Page of the Library's site.

    I would think positively though that there are very good reasons to compile 
a generic. This could be of great use to say, the membership of a large Library 
consortium, particularly one that serves a mess of tiny rural Libraries that 
might not have the means to really tool about too much on their own. (Not that 
there isn't fantastic talent in rural Libraries, but there is certainly a crowd 
of Well, I'll just use wordpress as the Library website and call it a day 
crowd. I just think we can do better than wordpress as a field.)  

Just sayin',
Brooke

Re: [CODE4LIB] whimsical homepage idea

[BWS Johnson]

Salvete!


 Hm.  And if you collected and recorded the data for some period of time, you 
 might be able to use it to convince Building Services (or whoever) to try to 
 fix 
 the problem.


    I couldn't help but think that meteorologists and archivists should already 
be doing this. Perhaps tweak summat pre existing ftw?

http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/research/dtg/weather/

    Overkill for you, but clearly a webthingamajigger through RSS attached to a 
temperature whosamawhatsit on the roof.

Cheers,
Brooke

Re: [CODE4LIB] crowdsourced book scanning

[BWS Johnson]

Salvete!


 This makes a lot of sense for archives and out of copyright stuff


    I agree. I also think it was stated that folks are just scanning a single 
page. If that's out of a prose book, it's prolly okay.

    I'm not one of your big city lawyers, and I haven't asked Roy's permission, 
but this here shiny PDF seems to say that stuff is mostly the same for print as 
it was when I was a whippersnapper.

http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ21.pdf

    So keep it to less than 10 percent of a boring non fiction book and the 
copyright goons won't come for you. Experiment with poetry, articles, and music 
at your own risk. ;)

Cheers,
Brooke

[CODE4LIB] MDC Meeting

[BWS Johnson]

Salvete!

    The Great Commonwealth of Virginia, and those other people in the District 
and Maryland will be meeting 

Tuesday 10 April 4-5 at The George Washington University Gelman Library.

    We plan to hit a pub after the meeting. Folks that drink soda over suds are 
certainly welcome, it's the camaraderie that counts. :)

    Please RSVP to jngo...@gwu.edu so you can get on their super sekrit list of 
folks allowed in their treehouse.

Cheers,
Brooke

Re: [CODE4LIB] Job: Senior Application Developer at New York Public Library

[BWS Johnson]

Salvete!

    Let this serve as a cautionary tale to those that would dare to post 
vacancies without prior approval from OCLC.

Cheers,
Brooke


 It seems nobody can be qualified for this job (besides possibly the original 
 Basecamp developer but I kinda suspect he's not going to apply).
 
 
 On Apr 3, 2012, at 4:25 PM, 
 j...@code4lib.orgmailto:j...@code4lib.org
 j...@code4lib.orgmailto:j...@code4lib.org wrote:
 
 8+ years application development using Ruby on Rails
 

Re: [CODE4LIB] New Newcomer Dinner option

[BWS Johnson]

Salvete!

    Quick, pass em a TLSv1 Beast cookie!


Cheers,
Brooke

Looks like some MARC records I've seen.  

On Feb 4, 2012, at 16:19, Cary Gordon listu...@chillco.com wrote:

 Probably their cat… They need this: http://www.bitboost.com/pawsense/
 
 On Sat, Feb 4, 2012 at 12:49 PM, Eric Lease Morgan emor...@nd.edu wrote:
 LlkjyYYYYyetyeyppf
 Prpfc
 EXpdpppePeppp
 Pp
 P$
 $p
 
 Pp$epepp
 $ppeppPP
 PRpp
 PepplpereprpeprrprPRPeeopwprprPprppertrretrtrrterrtwrtrtww
 TrWtwteteetrteeetetttetrteyertEtrrtEgrerrtetteyeyeeytwtyeyeyeeyeeeyeey
 eryeeyeyyyeryyyeyeyeyeyeyyyeyyyeeyreyytrtrttrrtrregtrgghgg
 gdhfgdhfrtgrhdrghdghdhdggdffdfffvbXVcyvvfvfvffvffvvvfvffvvffffffvf
 ffxBbbCnvNVqfddZuytuyrutyguhUOyy
 
 
 ROTFL!!!
 
 I'm not sure, but I think somebody's b^tt has sent a message to the maIling 
 list. Does anybody here speak b^tt?
 
 --
 ELM
 
 
 
 -- 
 Cary Gordon
 The Cherry Hill Company
 http://chillco.com

Re: [CODE4LIB] Why are we afraid to criticize library software in public?

[BWS Johnson]

Salvete!

    *Warning Ranty. Brooke's Ideas shouldn't actually be consumed by anyone, 
ever.*




 Why are we so eager to 'protect the guilty' in discussions like this?
 
 Our reluctance to share info on problems with software we use (because of 
 fear 
 of offending the vendor?) means that it's very difficult for a library to 
 find out about the plusses and minuses of any given product when evaluating 
 solutions.
 

    I think the root of evil here is that criticism often runs counter to the 
Prime Directive of Library Science which is Thou Shalt Be Nice. On the surface, 
that's a wonderful directive. It makes a lot of sense. We give people stuff, 
they have no real incentive to give it back, but it works. Because at the end 
of the day, most people are Nice. Most of the time, there's absolutely no harm 
in being Nice. It's great for fundraising. It's wonderful for reference and 
reader's advisory. Nice works probably about the same rate that Dewey avoids 
scattering. 
    However, you've hit on a rocky patch. Nice does us no good with most 
vendors. Nice also does not tend to do us any good in advocacy. Nice really 
sucks in salary negotiations. Nice becomes unhitched and somehow twists into 
passive aggressiveness when it comes to vendors.  


 Don't even bother googling -- nobody will publically call this stuff out on 
 a blog, or even in a public listserv!  It's on private customer-only 
 listservs and bug trackers, or even more likely nowhere at all.  When you 
 want 


    In the before time, when I was at a medium urbanish Library that was 
swapping systems, I did bother to do a shotgun google. I simply put in the name 
of the products + bugs and tripped on a lot of not Nice statements. It was very 
simple and probably very sloppy. I was not a degreed Librarian at the time, but 
hey, the ratio of hits bore out. The bad products that we bumped into at the 
time all had way more documented bugs. Not that more bugs is necessarily a bad 
thing if folks address them, but a lot of the hits related to lonng 
wait times for fixes.

    So I disagree here. Google away. You might turn up naught, in which case, 
I'd worry, because you're right about stuff being shuttled behind the vendor 
curtain.

    Also, it might be an imperfect beast, but the Library Automation Survey 
does vaguely sketch out who's jumping ship for what and how crap customer 
service might be. It does evolve every year, but I totally understand if you 
think a year is too damn long to wait for ILS data.


 to find out the real deal, you have to start from scratch, contact personal 
 contacts at other institutions that have experience with each software you 
 are 
 curious about, and ask them one-on-one in private.  Wasting time, cause 
 everybody has to do that each time they want to find out the current issues, 
 so 
 many offline one and one conversations (or so many people that just give up 
 and 
 don't even do the 'due dilligence'), only finding out about things 
 your personal contact happened to have encountered.
 

    *nod* This is part of good footwork though. If someone doesn't bother with 
a Google shotgun search, doesn't bother with Library gossip, does a really 
sketchy review of a product and then signs on the dotted line, they get what 
they've got coming. 

    One of the real evils here, all sarc aside, is that Librarians sign 
contracts with non disclosure agreements. That promotes the way things are 
currently done, since we're masochistic enough to stick the hello kitty ball 
gag in our own mouths. 

    You are absolutely correct that it's unnecessarily time intensive and 
inefficient this way. It's kind of a feudal throwback, yes?

 Why can't we just share this stuff in public and tell it like it is, so the 
 information is available for people who need it?
 

    We should. If we avoid non disclosure we _can_, which means it's possible 
in future to move this to we *will*. :)


 If you want to find out about problems and issues with _succesful_ software 
 that 
 isn't library-specific, it's not hard to. You can often find public 
 issue trackers from the developers, but if not you can find public listservs 
 and 
 many blog posts where people aren't afraid to describe the problem(s) they 
 encountered, there's no 'protecting of the guilty.' Hint, this is 
 part of what _makes_ such software succesful.


    Mmm hmm. This also allows for folks to collaborate and fix stuff.

Cheers,
Brooke

Re: [CODE4LIB] Calling all Maryland, DC, and Virginia folk Save the Date

[BWS Johnson]

Salvete!

 Happy New Year all!

 I am interesting in attending this meeting. It will be my first!
 Do I need to RSVP?
 Just wondering if you need to know who is coming. We are in DC after all. ;-}
 Thanks,
 Loren


     Just an alert that the next non OCLC sanctioned, deeply underground, 
 seedy 
 meeting of the MDC Chapter of Code4Lib will be gathering
 
 
 Tuesday, 10 January, 2012 10:00AM to Noon at The George Washington 
 University 
Gelman Library in Foggy Bottom, DC 2130 H Street NW Washington DC 20052.
 


    Nope, just show up and join the fun :D I look forward to seeing you all 
next week.

Cheers,
Brooke

Re: [CODE4LIB] Obvious answer to registration limitations

[BWS Johnson]

Salvete!


 I disagree about the random registration concept. As long as the time
 is announced in advance (which was done this year) people should plan
 accordingly. You didn't need to register the first minute this year. I
 registered an hour after registration opened and while I was initially
 on the waiting list, I eventually got a slot. If I ended up getting
 locked out it would've been my own fault. I could have done what

    One predetermined registration window of epicly tiny proportion is simply 
Amerocentric. 3AM where you are? OCLC says TDB!

Cheers,
Brooke

Re: [CODE4LIB] Obvious answer to registration limitations

[BWS Johnson]

Salvete!


    Not sure the bigger is worse dictum holds. Do Code4Libbers suddenly get 
trolly when you have more of them about? Sure, a larger conference is a 
different experience, but I wonder if what the organisational toll is for not 
honouring folks' frustration in being left out in the cold.

    Are people willing to give it a go once, or will the nerds just take their 
USB drives and their lappies and go home? ;)

Cheers,
Brooke

[CODE4LIB] Calling all Maryland, DC, and Virginia folk Save the Date

[BWS Johnson]

Salvete!

    Just an alert that the next non OCLC sanctioned, deeply underground, seedy 
meeting of the MDC Chapter of Code4Lib will be gathering 


Tuesday, 10 January, 2012 10:00AM to Noon at The George Washington University 
Gelman Library in Foggy Bottom, DC 2130 H Street NW Washington DC 20052. 


    The last ad hoc meeting was a bunch of fun, but if you have an idea for a 
presentation or don't want to forget to share summat, feel free to mess with 
the agenda on the wiki.

http://wiki.code4lib.org/index.php/MDC

Cheers,
Brooke

Re: [CODE4LIB] Horowhenua Donation Page

[BWS Johnson]

Salvete!

 I haven't followed this at all, so can anyone fill me in on what this
 actually means in New Zealand?  That Liblime can sue the library to force
 them to change Koha's name?
 
 I now notice that Archivists' Toolkit, Archon, and Islandora are
 trademarked.


    Before I say anything at all, I want
to be clear that these are personal opinions that I'm giving for
informational purposes. You asked, and as a Librarian, I'd like to
answer you properly. Also, I'm going to do the I'm Not a Lawyer
Dance. I know a wee bit about IP in the States, but once you port
that over to eNZed, it's mostly meaningless since their laws are
different. I'm not speaking for the Community; I'm not the Kaitiaki.

    The very simple, non qualified, non
John Kerry response to your second question is yes. Und nao for ze
qualifications. They don't quite hold the trademark just yet. Their
application has been accepted. Also, the they in question is PTFS US,
not Liblime and not PTFS Europe. LibLime is a subsidiary of PTFS. My
favourite description of PTFS comes from a colleague that said that
they're a company that bought a company (Metavore, dba LibLime [think
engulf  devour]) who bought a company (Katipo). Another thing to
keep in mind is that since they hold a not quite set in concrete mark
in the US, they could theoretically get all sue happy on any number
of US Libraries and businesses that are using Koha. I personally
suspect that they haven't yet since they're on rather shifty earth.
Who knows? It could just be that Roy Tennant hasn't approved of this
sort of behaviour. (tongue in cheek, as with nearly all Roy Tennant
references) [1]

    Timing is pretty important here. PTFS
like to whing and moan that they're misunderstood and not actually
evil. Okay, okay, fine. The whinging is mostly that they contribute
to the community and they bought things fair and square, et cetera.
[2] It should be noted that PTFS Europe do actually help out, and
they're a different beast entirely from PTFS US. If the Community
participation theme were true of PTFS US, when they bought LibLime,
they would have either dropped the trademark pursuits that were in
the hopper, or once the applications went through, turned the
property over to Horowhenua Library Trust (Now Te Horowhenua) for
safekeeping as was decided by the Community. Pardon me if I'm
skeptical of a corporation that penned a promise that they'd support
the Koha OS Community and then took radically different actions from
their words. [3] Perhaps they mean commits, so I suppose they ought
be applauded for one commit of 8 lines for 3.6.  [4] 

    Learning about what Koha means is
equally important to understanding the situation. [5] Having giving
and reciprocity feature so strongly in the product is one of many
reasons I'm reluctant to just give in and let the defence contractors
run rough shod over tradition. I personally chafe at how close to
manifest destiny this stuff comes. The attitude seems very much to be
“Well, we bought it first, so it's ours now.” There are scores of
businesses in New Zealand that already use Koha as part of their
names. I just can't visualise the mental contortion needed to get
this word out of the public domain as a generic Te Reo term. This
sets a terrible precedent: a Library selects a meaningful name,
utilises it for over a decade, and then is routinely harassed and
possibly sued over the use of what they started. There's a lot of
potential harm here. It's not just Horowhenua, it's every Koha user
and every Koha developer that stands to lose. If we don't fight,
every one loses.

Cheers,
Brooke


[1] 
http://blog.libraryjournal.com/tennantdigitallibraries/2009/09/15/liblime-to-the-koha-community-fork-you/
[2] http://twitter.com/#!/obelos (who has 3 commits.)
[3] 
http://koha.1045719.n5.nabble.com/PTFS-Koha-Community-Support-and-the-Koha-org-Website-td3056839.html
[4]http://blog.bigballofwax.co.nz/2011/10/23/statistics-for-3-6-0/) 
[5] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koha_%28custom%29

Re: [CODE4LIB] Horowhenua Donation Page

[BWS Johnson]

Salvete!

T hat Paypal link gives an error. (fatal error in fact) - kc 


    Mmm, despite me testing it first, the tinyurl busted after a few minutes. 
(Hopefully from lots of donations. :) ) Try accessing it from this site:

http://library-matters.blogspot.com/

Cheers,
Brooke

Re: [CODE4LIB] New thread: Why are you doing what you're doing?

[BWS Johnson]

Salvete!

 On 9/28/11 2:12 PM, Karen Coyle li...@kcoyle.net wrote:
 
  I think a great question would be: what would you REALLY like to be
  doing? And I'm meaning that professionally, not I'd rather be
  sailing/sleeping/drinking a beer. Pretend that the daily niggling
  bits of the job are gone and money is no object -- what would you do?
 

    This is fun in a what did you do over the summer sort of way. :)

    I used to say that one of the things I'd do if I won the lottery would be 
to run an experimental Library. As it turned out, I didn't need to win the 
lottery. My Board was pretty cool and let me implement a lot of the stuff that 
I wanted to. So I feel like that's out of my system now. (At least the part of 
the experiment that involved running a Library on a shoestring budget. I'd 
still like to try and run a Library at some point on an adequate or dare I say 
plush budget.) 

    I worked a lot of different jobs before finding Library and Information 
Science. I can safely say that you haven't lived until you've tossed cones out 
on the Jersey Turnpike and watched a chronic offender's undercarriage be 
mercilessly ripped out from under him by a metal stool. (Not my initiative, no 
one was hurt, but I bet he never ran the booth again.) Gordon Ramsay is a 
kitten compared to a lot of Chefs. When you knock on a total stranger's door 
and ask after their political support, you have a lot better idea of why things 
take forever politically. I'm still not sure if Children's Reference beats 
literally smelling the roses all day. 

    I love learning, I love writing, and yes, get thy tomatoes ready, I really 
like books. I wanted to do research, but my experience was in public. 
Thankfully my Patrons egged me into writing stuff anyway.

    I live in a bubble. I have an incredibly modest standard of living. When a 
colleague suggested to me that I become a technology consultant for small 
Libraries, my immediate response was Oh I can't, they can't afford to pay a 
consultant. In the back of my head, I was thinking Why just technology? I 
write a hell of an annual plan and I know plenty of people that dread that. I 
index, too...hmmm. The solution was to have a hell of a sliding scale. Inner 
city school, you don't get to pay me. Very rich foundation looking for an 
awards panelist, show me the money, please.

    I do what comes to my doorstep and it is usually awesome. If nothing shows 
up, I research or write documentation. The field is diverse. Go play. :) I 
can't think of anything better to do. Our field basically assists people that 
need help. So that's what I do, that's what I like to do, and I can't think of 
much else to do.

Cheers,
Brooke

Re: [CODE4LIB] Can a library automate without a computer yet?

[BWS Johnson]

Salvete!


 I wrote about an idea for an online service for small libraries when I got 
 back 
 from Kosovo. [1] It had the added (?) capability of social networking, where 
 the 
 social beings are libraries. It seemed to me that in many cases small 
 libraries 
 are more dependent on each other than large libraries are, and that in some 
 communities (and some countries) it makes sense to allow the libraries to 
 have a 
 combined presence as well as separate catalogs. I didn't include 
 circulation, in part because the libraries I had been viewing did not 
 circulate 
 books. But I still like the idea of a society of small libraries organized 
 perhaps geographically as well as by collections.


    I certainly agree that small Libraries tend to share more than large ones. 
A combined presence to me is the whole point of having a strong consortium. I 
applaud organisations like MassCat not only for banding together to save scant 
resources, but also because they have the courage to innovate. This is no small 
feat given the diversity of their membership. The historical pendulum swing 
between independence and heavy interaction fascinates me no end. There are 
certainly regional differences.

Cheers,
Brooke

Re: [CODE4LIB] Libraries Thriving Learning Community--Applications Due Tomorrow!

[BWS Johnson]

Salvete!

What's with the virtual fence? What are the benefits of limiting participation?

http://www.librariesthriving.org/learning-community-community-topics/application-for-the-fall-learning-community


Cheers,
BWS Johnson

[CODE4LIB] MDC Chapter Meeting Reminder

[BWS Johnson]

Salvete!

Come out, come out, where ever you are for the code4lib Maryland, District of 
Columbia, and great Commonwealth of Virginia meeting. It's

        Tuesday, 13 September, 2011 10:00AM to Noon at the Arlington Public 
Library, Central Branch


Feel free to mess with the wiki or consult it for directions.

http://wiki.code4lib.org/index.php/MDC



Hope to see you there :D

Cheers,
Brooke

Re: [CODE4LIB] Seeking feedback on database design for an open source software registry

[BWS Johnson]

Salvete!
 

 This is insightful, Eric.  The thrust of our justification to the Mellon 
 Foundation was to help take open source from early adopt to early majority 
 (on 
 Everett Roger's Diffusion of Innovations scale).  So while early adopters 
 will want to scratch an itch I don't think the same can be said for the 
 early majority.  There are certainly consultants and self starters among 
 library 
 staff that will move the pace of adoption along, but what we also heard in 
 surveying LYRASIS members was that they needed a location to find information 
 about open source software and tools that they could use to evaluate it along 
 side corporate offerings.  That is the gap that this work is trying to fill.  


I am fascinated by this assertion. Perhaps I'm just misreading. The technology 
adaptation curve I remember from Rogers and Crossing the Chasm would break down 
to about a third of folks finding themselves in the early majority. Much 
fizzles between the Innovators and Early Adopters, and the same occurs again 
between the early adopters and the early majority.

Are you really viewing all open source at the same point in the curve, namely 
still in early adoption? Even if one were to squint and apply the lens of 
Librarians being more conservative than average in terms of adopting new things 
(which I'm not sure is true profession wide) open source and Library Science at 
this point have a history. 

Koha is in its eleventh year.
        Dspace is 9ish.  
        This listserv is cruising about its 8th.
        Evergreen is at least 5 years on, now.
        VuFind is 4ish years.

        There are certainly many more that belong on this list that slip my 
mind at present. 

When one considers Johnson's arguments on innovation contained in Where Good 
Ideas Come From (Less scholarly than Diffusion of Innovations, but every bit as 
valuable in my eyes) the diversity contained here parallels the explosion in 
the pace of innovation elsewhere.

        Marshall Breeding stated that This year SirsiDynix and Innovative 
Interfaces were especially hard struck by open source competitors. in this 
year's Automation Marketplace. I'd argue that if the development were pre 
chasm, it wouldn't eat the established competition's lunches like that.         

         With all due respect, I would think that it would be fair to peg a 
large consortial entity or National Library at the right hand side of the 
curve. I think this ends up happening more often than not since there is a 
perception that if the wrong decisions were taken too early on, it would 
reflect poorly on a prestigious institution. 

Cheers,
Brooke

[CODE4LIB] MDC Chapter Interest Meeting - Save the Date

[BWS Johnson]

Salvete!

I popped into IRC the other day to gauge interest in breathing some life into 
the Maryland/DC Chapter. A couple of people expressed immediate interest, which 
encouraged me to secure a venue. I'd be more than pleased to meetup with fellow 
Library geeks to discuss the future of this Chapter and anything else that 
might be on folks' minds. Please do join me at

The Arlington Public Library, Central Branch
Second Floor Meeting Room
1015 N Quincy Street
Arlington, VA
Tuesday 13/9/11 for 10 - Noon.

The Library is very easily accessible by the Orange Line of the metro from the 
Virginia Square - GMU stop. The Ballston stop isn't far away, either. The ART 
53 bus will drop you right at the door. Parking is theoretically available on a 
first come, first served basis as well. 


There are a bunch of lunch spots in the neighbourhood if folks felt like 
grabbing a bite to eat afterwards. 

Hope to see some of y'all soon!

Cheers,
BWS Johnson