[CODE4LIB] Code4Lib Logo?
I agree on the need for branding, and on offering the community several professionally-developed choices. I worded that carefully. I'd like to see a professionally-designed logo for the same reason I like to watch good software developers at work: the quality of effort doth pleaseth the citizens. I'd like to see Code4Lib to have a logo that reflects the quality of the people associated with its loose sovereignty. Branding means a lot, and it tells many stories. Without waxing prolix about those stories (though I'll be happy to do that if anyone's interested in further justification for my argument), I'll move on to say a little room for bubble-up efforts would also be apropos. You never know who's out there or what they are possible of. (Oh Brad, you guys can't write an *ILS.*) My take would be that if we have the resources, to offer the community several choices from an entity whose business it is to design logos, yet encourage write-ins. -- | Karen G. Schneider | Community Librarian | Equinox Software Inc. The Evergreen Experts | Toll-free: 1.877.Open.ILS (1.877.673.6457) x712 | E-Mail/AIM: [EMAIL PROTECTED] | Web: http://www.esilibrary.com On Sat, Sep 20, 2008 at 12:04 AM, Edward M. Corrado [EMAIL PROTECTED]wrote: I am all for a logo, but I also agree with Kevin it needs to be a community based decision. I'm also not sold that we need a professional designed logo, but I'm not against it either. I can understand why a business would not want to leave it to amateurs (although I have seen some great logos created by design school students) but I'm not sure what a professional logo would give us that a community derived one wouldn't. Roy, what do you think that would be that would gain by using a professional logo company? Edward - actually wearing a code4lib conference t-shirt right now On Fri, Sep 19, 2008 at 11:48 PM, Carol Bean [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Well, looking at Software Freedom Day, which has somehow managed to get itself a logo with virtually no organizational infrastructure, I don't see why Code4Lib shouldn't. I suspect their logo design wasn't done by amateurs, however, even if they were volunteers. Of course they have a much larger, global base of volunteers... I think it's a cool idea. Carol On Sep 19, 2008, at 11:39 PM, Kevin S. Clarke wrote: I like the idea. A real logo would be nice. My one caveat is I'd still like everyone who'd like to have a voice to have one (I like voting). I'd be less in favor of a committee of volunteers to make the decision. I don't know how that would work with a professional graphic designer though. Could they give us several options and open it up to a vote? Kevin On Fri, Sep 19, 2008 at 11:29 PM, Roy Tennant [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I was in the middle of writing a blog post about Code4Lib going regional when it hit me -- here we have this incredibly successful brand and yet we lack a t-shirt. But I guess we lack a t-shirt because we lack a logo to put on it. The closest we get are the items that decorate our web site. Are we at the point where we're ready to establish an official graphic identity, that can grace our web site, journal, conference, etc.? I think so. So here's my proposal: we take some of the money that has been passed down from conference to conference and we hire a graphic designer to do a professional job of it. Branding is best not left to amateurs. We put together a committee of volunteers to handle it. I know of at least one design firm that I think would do a good job, since they just designed a t-shirt for OCLC that we really liked, and they were delighted to work with library coders. See http://www.sanchezcircuit.com/catalog/. There are no doubt others as well. One of the nice things about a logo is that although it establishes a solid graphic identity, it doesn't really take any organizational infrastructure to do it, which seems to fit right in with the c4l vibe. So am I crazy? Stupid? Or right? You decide. Roy -- There are two kinds of people in the world: those who believe there are two kinds of people and those who know better. Carol Bean [EMAIL PROTECTED] --
Re: [CODE4LIB] creating call number browse
To build on Nate's suggestion... Sorting a list of call numbers is pretty easy; doing it efficiently for large datasets is rather more tricky. I'm not totally sure, but the best course of action may be to transform the call numbers into something indexable (say, a string) that follows the same ordering rules as your call numbers. If you're retrieving the data from your ILS and the ILS already has a normalized call number field, you would want to retrieve that in addition to your display call number. That would allow for sorting by call number rather than by a database ID and would allow for easier updates of the data (i.e. you wouldn't have to re-generate the entire database ID index). If your ILS doesn't have normalized call numbers, you might want to normalize them yourself as part of the data load process. -- Michael # Michael Doran, Systems Librarian # University of Texas at Arlington # 817-272-5326 office # 817-688-1926 mobile # [EMAIL PROTECTED] # http://rocky.uta.edu/doran/ -Original Message- From: Code for Libraries [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Nate Vack Sent: Wednesday, September 17, 2008 11:36 AM To: CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] creating call number browse On Wed, Sep 17, 2008 at 11:17 AM, Stephens, Owen [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: To start, get a report from your ILS with this info in it, sorted by Call Number. To populate the table, import your data (sorted in Call Number order). The Database ID will be created on import, automatically in call number order (there are other, almost certainly better, ways of handling this, but this is simple I think) The trick here comes, of course, when you want to add a book to the middle of your database without re-generating the entire index -- that operation may be expensive. Sorting a list of call numbers is pretty easy; doing it efficiently for large datasets is rather more tricky. I'm not totally sure, but the best course of action may be to transform the call numbers into something indexable (say, a string) that follows the same ordering rules as your call numbers. Then, compute the transformation of all your call numbers and drop an ordinary index on the field. -Nate
Re: [CODE4LIB] creating call number browse
Emily, Are you using LC or Dewey? A while back, I wanted to generate browsable lists of new books, organized by topic. I ended up using the LC call number to group the titles into manageable groups. Here's an example: http://supportingcast.mannlib.cornell.edu/newbooks/?loc=mann Titles are sorted by call number, and also grouped by the initial letters of the LC classification, such as Q or QL. For monthly lists of new books, most groupings usually have less than 20 titles, which makes for easy browsing of titles within someone's general subject of interest. The Table of Contents at the top of the page only lists those classifications that are present in the set of titles currently being viewed. (In an earlier version, Q would only be split into QA, QB, etc. if there were more than 20 items with Q call numbers.) Things do tend to get a bit out of control in some of the classifications for literature... no one wants to scan through a list of 452 titles: http://supportingcast.mannlib.cornell.edu/newbooks/?class=PL So for entire collections, a lot more work would be needed to create finer subgroups, since each classification is uniquely complex. For example: PL1-8844 : Languages of Eastern Asia, Africa, Oceania PL1-481 : Ural-Altaic languages PL21-396 : Turkic languages PL400-431 : Mongolian languages PL450-481 : Tungus Manchu languages (An idea... maybe it would work to simply forget about pre-determined, named call number ranges and look for natural breaks in the call numbers, rather than trying to model the intricate details of each individual classification schedule.) The site runs on a set of MARC records extracted from the catalog. Users can also subscribe to RSS feeds for any combination of location, language, or classification group. I did some early experimentation to include cover images, but never seemed to get enough matches to make that worthwhile. Keith Keith Jenkins GIS/Geospatial Applications Librarian Mann Library, Cornell University Ithaca, New York 14853 On Wed, Sep 17, 2008 at 11:46 AM, Emily Lynema [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hey all, I would love to tackle the issue of creating a really cool call number browse tool that utilizes book covers, etc. However, I'd like to do this outside of my ILS/OPAC. What I don't know is whether there are any indexing / SQL / query techniques that could be used to browse forward and backword in an index like this. Has anyone else worked on developing a tool like this outside of the OPAC? I guess I would be perfectly happy even if it was something I could build directly on top of the ILS database and its indexes (we use SirsiDynix Unicorn). I wanted to throw a feeler out there before trying to dream up some wild scheme on my own. -emily P.S. The version of BiblioCommons released at Oakville Public Library has a sweet call number browse function accessible from the full record page. I would love to know know how that was accomplished. http://opl.bibliocommons.com/item/show/1413841_mars -- Emily Lynema Systems Librarian for Digital Projects Information Technology, NCSU Libraries 919-513-8031 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [CODE4LIB] creating call number browse
Well, we're using LC and SUDOC here. What I really want is something that is both searchable and browsable, so that users can type in a call number and then browse backward and forward as much as they want in call number order. We have Endeca here, so my patrons can browse into the LC scheme and then sort the results in call number order, but I don't have a way to browse forward and backward starting with a specific call number (like you would if you were browsing the shelves physically). -emily Keith Jenkins wrote: Emily, Are you using LC or Dewey? A while back, I wanted to generate browsable lists of new books, organized by topic. I ended up using the LC call number to group the titles into manageable groups. Here's an example: http://supportingcast.mannlib.cornell.edu/newbooks/?loc=mann Titles are sorted by call number, and also grouped by the initial letters of the LC classification, such as Q or QL. For monthly lists of new books, most groupings usually have less than 20 titles, which makes for easy browsing of titles within someone's general subject of interest. The Table of Contents at the top of the page only lists those classifications that are present in the set of titles currently being viewed. (In an earlier version, Q would only be split into QA, QB, etc. if there were more than 20 items with Q call numbers.) Things do tend to get a bit out of control in some of the classifications for literature... no one wants to scan through a list of 452 titles: http://supportingcast.mannlib.cornell.edu/newbooks/?class=PL So for entire collections, a lot more work would be needed to create finer subgroups, since each classification is uniquely complex. For example: PL1-8844 : Languages of Eastern Asia, Africa, Oceania PL1-481 : Ural-Altaic languages PL21-396 : Turkic languages PL400-431 : Mongolian languages PL450-481 : Tungus Manchu languages (An idea... maybe it would work to simply forget about pre-determined, named call number ranges and look for natural breaks in the call numbers, rather than trying to model the intricate details of each individual classification schedule.) The site runs on a set of MARC records extracted from the catalog. Users can also subscribe to RSS feeds for any combination of location, language, or classification group. I did some early experimentation to include cover images, but never seemed to get enough matches to make that worthwhile. Keith Keith Jenkins GIS/Geospatial Applications Librarian Mann Library, Cornell University Ithaca, New York 14853 On Wed, Sep 17, 2008 at 11:46 AM, Emily Lynema [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hey all, I would love to tackle the issue of creating a really cool call number browse tool that utilizes book covers, etc. However, I'd like to do this outside of my ILS/OPAC. What I don't know is whether there are any indexing / SQL / query techniques that could be used to browse forward and backword in an index like this. Has anyone else worked on developing a tool like this outside of the OPAC? I guess I would be perfectly happy even if it was something I could build directly on top of the ILS database and its indexes (we use SirsiDynix Unicorn). I wanted to throw a feeler out there before trying to dream up some wild scheme on my own. -emily P.S. The version of BiblioCommons released at Oakville Public Library has a sweet call number browse function accessible from the full record page. I would love to know know how that was accomplished. http://opl.bibliocommons.com/item/show/1413841_mars -- Emily Lynema Systems Librarian for Digital Projects Information Technology, NCSU Libraries 919-513-8031 [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- Emily Lynema Systems Librarian for Digital Projects Information Technology, NCSU Libraries 919-513-8031 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [CODE4LIB] creating call number browse
Why not just build a decent cover flow UI over the existing call number browse in the catalog with Javascript? Just grab the cover images and display them using something like http://www.deensoft.com/lab/protoflow/ That way you could recreate the 'browsing' experience, not have to have the user learn a new tool and not have to worry about how you're going to implement browsing the call numbers (similar to what the Oakville Public Library is doing on that page). In the past I put together a quick demo of this (not for call numbers, just for regular search listings) in an evening: http://lib-bling.com/unr/unrdemo/unrcoverflowdemo.htm That's a very rough demo but implementing something similar using default call number browse in the catalog would probably be not much more difficult and would provide roughly the experience it seems you're looking for without having to worry about overly complex solutions. --Will Will Kurt Applications Development Librarian University of Nevada, Reno Mathewson-IGT Knowledge Center phone: 775 682-5679 email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] -Original Message- From: Code for Libraries [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Emily Lynema Sent: Wednesday, September 17, 2008 8:46 AM To: CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU Subject: [CODE4LIB] creating call number browse Hey all, I would love to tackle the issue of creating a really cool call number browse tool that utilizes book covers, etc. However, I'd like to do this outside of my ILS/OPAC. What I don't know is whether there are any indexing / SQL / query techniques that could be used to browse forward and backword in an index like this. Has anyone else worked on developing a tool like this outside of the OPAC? I guess I would be perfectly happy even if it was something I could build directly on top of the ILS database and its indexes (we use SirsiDynix Unicorn). I wanted to throw a feeler out there before trying to dream up some wild scheme on my own. -emily P.S. The version of BiblioCommons released at Oakville Public Library has a sweet call number browse function accessible from the full record page. I would love to know know how that was accomplished. http://opl.bibliocommons.com/item/show/1413841_mars -- Emily Lynema Systems Librarian for Digital Projects Information Technology, NCSU Libraries 919-513-8031 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [CODE4LIB] creating call number browse
Hi, One approach to the UI might be to use Cooliris (was piclens) and generate a media rss file in call number order. It's limited (to people who have installed cooliris) but it's essentially a coverflow. You can do other things within the browser, but few are going to feel as immediate and tranparent to the user. Again, maybe not for all users, but maybe a cool enhanced version for a subset. Generating that media rss file may get tricky (you need uris to thumbs and fulls) depending on the API from, and agreements with syndetics. -t On Wed, 17 Sep 2008, Charles Antoine Julien, Mr wrote: I've done some work this. What I don't know is whether there are any indexing / SQL / query techniques that could be used to browse forward and backword in an index like this. Depending on what you want to do exactly, yes. Look at Querying Ontologies in Relational Database Systems - ►hu-berlin.de [PDF] S Trissl, U Leser - LECTURE NOTES IN COMPUTER SCIENCE, 2005 - Springer If you need more you're looking at CS literature concerning treatment of graphs, directed graphs, cyclical, transitive closure, etc. This can all be done without to much difficulty but as Nate pointed out updating the data is a problem...I've not tackled that part but there is much literature on dynamic graphs and I'm assuming this could also be adequately solved. a decent UI is probably going to be a bigger job Yes, that's the real issue. Could call numbers be placed within a hierarchy? Then display this in an outline view (Windows Explorer) that is also item searchable? Seems to me there is structure in the call numbers that is hidden in current UIs. I also think the actual Call number should disappear and replaced by a textual label describing what the numbers mean. Fun stuff to think about... Charles-Antoine -Original Message- From: Code for Libraries [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Emily Lynema Sent: September 17, 2008 11:46 AM To: CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU Subject: [CODE4LIB] creating call number browse Hey all, I would love to tackle the issue of creating a really cool call number browse tool that utilizes book covers, etc. However, I'd like to do this outside of my ILS/OPAC. What I don't know is whether there are any indexing / SQL / query techniques that could be used to browse forward and backword in an index like this. Has anyone else worked on developing a tool like this outside of the OPAC? I guess I would be perfectly happy even if it was something I could build directly on top of the ILS database and its indexes (we use SirsiDynix Unicorn). I wanted to throw a feeler out there before trying to dream up some wild scheme on my own. -emily P.S. The version of BiblioCommons released at Oakville Public Library has a sweet call number browse function accessible from the full record page. I would love to know know how that was accomplished. http://opl.bibliocommons.com/item/show/1413841_mars -- Emily Lynema Systems Librarian for Digital Projects Information Technology, NCSU Libraries 919-513-8031 [EMAIL PROTECTED] No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG - http://www.avg.com Version: 8.0.169 / Virus Database: 270.6.21/1674 - Release Date: 17/09/2008 9:33 AM
Re: [CODE4LIB] creating call number browse
We have something like this running in a prototype form at http://www.lib.umich.edu/virtual/ Rather than being a pure browse tool, it lets users view our collection by category so that related items across 20 physical locations can be viewed as if on one shelf. Books that have been digitized and are searchable the Google Book project (HathiTrust) include a search field. It's built on an API into our Aleph OPAC. This site is a proof of concept so still has some bugs. The categories are sort of interesting in themselves -- each is manually managed, pulling together LC call numbers that fit into that subject. The mapping of call numbers and searches is available at http://www.lib.umich.edu/browse/categories/ Ken -- Ken Varnum Web Systems Manager University Library E: [EMAIL PROTECTED] University of Michigan T: 734-615-3287 309 Harlan Hatcher Graduate Library F: 734-647-6897 Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1205 http://www.lib.umich.edu/ From: Emily Lynema [EMAIL PROTECTED] Organization: NCSU Libraries Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Wed, 17 Sep 2008 11:46:19 -0400 To: CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU Subject: [CODE4LIB] creating call number browse Hey all, I would love to tackle the issue of creating a really cool call number browse tool that utilizes book covers, etc. However, I'd like to do this outside of my ILS/OPAC. What I don't know is whether there are any indexing / SQL / query techniques that could be used to browse forward and backword in an index like this. Has anyone else worked on developing a tool like this outside of the OPAC? I guess I would be perfectly happy even if it was something I could build directly on top of the ILS database and its indexes (we use SirsiDynix Unicorn). I wanted to throw a feeler out there before trying to dream up some wild scheme on my own. -emily P.S. The version of BiblioCommons released at Oakville Public Library has a sweet call number browse function accessible from the full record page. I would love to know know how that was accomplished. http://opl.bibliocommons.com/item/show/1413841_mars -- Emily Lynema Systems Librarian for Digital Projects Information Technology, NCSU Libraries 919-513-8031 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [CODE4LIB] Code4Lib Logo?
On Sat, Sep 20, 2008 at 12:04 AM, Edward M. Corrado [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I am all for a logo, but I also agree with Kevin it needs to be a community based decision. I'm also not sold that we need a professional designed logo, but I'm not against it either. If folks are in favor of someone in the community -- the list now has over 1,000 subscribers -- rather than a professional designing the logo, perhaps this could be a contest of sorts, much like our conference t-shirt contest. What's the prize? Why, free admission to code4lib 2009! Just a crazy idea. Otherwise, I like the idea of having a professional handle it with community approval. -Mike
Re: [CODE4LIB] Code4Lib Logo?
In the case of logo, as in many other cases, a professional hand is most appropriate. Experience indicates that the result does not only depend on good wishes, common sense and aesthetics. Who would have imagined that Googles´s colored balls would be the right thing for that brand?. As said before: it takes more than just good common sense. Best wishes Luis Herrera Quoting Edward M. Corrado [EMAIL PROTECTED]: I am all for a logo, but I also agree with Kevin it needs to be a community based decision. I'm also not sold that we need a professional designed logo, but I'm not against it either. I can understand why a business would not want to leave it to amateurs (although I have seen some great logos created by design school students) but I'm not sure what a professional logo would give us that a community derived one wouldn't. Roy, what do you think that would be that would gain by using a professional logo company? Edward - actually wearing a code4lib conference t-shirt right now On Fri, Sep 19, 2008 at 11:48 PM, Carol Bean [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Well, looking at Software Freedom Day, which has somehow managed to get itself a logo with virtually no organizational infrastructure, I don't see why Code4Lib shouldn't. I suspect their logo design wasn't done by amateurs, however, even if they were volunteers. Of course they have a much larger, global base of volunteers... I think it's a cool idea. Carol On Sep 19, 2008, at 11:39 PM, Kevin S. Clarke wrote: I like the idea. A real logo would be nice. My one caveat is I'd still like everyone who'd like to have a voice to have one (I like voting). I'd be less in favor of a committee of volunteers to make the decision. I don't know how that would work with a professional graphic designer though. Could they give us several options and open it up to a vote? Kevin On Fri, Sep 19, 2008 at 11:29 PM, Roy Tennant [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I was in the middle of writing a blog post about Code4Lib going regional when it hit me -- here we have this incredibly successful brand and yet we lack a t-shirt. But I guess we lack a t-shirt because we lack a logo to put on it. The closest we get are the items that decorate our web site. Are we at the point where we're ready to establish an official graphic identity, that can grace our web site, journal, conference, etc.? I think so. So here's my proposal: we take some of the money that has been passed down from conference to conference and we hire a graphic designer to do a professional job of it. Branding is best not left to amateurs. We put together a committee of volunteers to handle it. I know of at least one design firm that I think would do a good job, since they just designed a t-shirt for OCLC that we really liked, and they were delighted to work with library coders. See http://www.sanchezcircuit.com/catalog/. There are no doubt others as well. One of the nice things about a logo is that although it establishes a solid graphic identity, it doesn't really take any organizational infrastructure to do it, which seems to fit right in with the c4l vibe. So am I crazy? Stupid? Or right? You decide. Roy -- There are two kinds of people in the world: those who believe there are two kinds of people and those who know better. Carol Bean [EMAIL PROTECTED] - This mail sent through IMP: http://horde.org/imp/
Re: [CODE4LIB] Code4Lib Logo?
How about we allow anyone to submit ideas, and use some of the $$ like Roy suggested to get a professional one from someone--and then we vote on all of them? I nominate Roy for coordinating the pro-design, and the vote :-) //Ed
Re: [CODE4LIB] Code4Lib Logo?
+1 I like Rob's idea. It seems in the same vein as code4lib as an (un)organization. Kevin On Sat, Sep 20, 2008 at 12:06 AM, Rob Casson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: think it's a swell ideasolr is looking at a new logo, and this site came up on-list: http://99designs.com/ not endorsing, or painting a bikeshedjust a heads-up. rc -- There are two kinds of people in the world: those who believe there are two kinds of people and those who know better.
