[CODE4LIB] REPOSTED: Position Announcement: Head of Library Systems, University of Richmond
The University of Richmond has an exciting career opportunity for a Head of Library Systems within the Boatwright Library. This is an exempt level position that includes faculty status. The Head of Library Systems reports directly to the Director of Bibliographic Digital Services and provides innovative leadership in the planning, development, and management of the Library's technological infrastructure. JOB DUTIES/RESPONSIBILITIES: Enterprise System Planning Management § Provide leadership and vision that ensures easy, reliable online access to a wide array of collections, information, and services in support of research, teaching and learning § Provide technical leadership for ongoing development projects. Provide technical guidance to developers and systems administrators as needed § Manage the daily operations environment for the Library's access and delivery applications; propose and implement technical enhancements to the Library's information access infrastructure to meet current and future needs § Collaborate with and provide technical guidance to partners within the Library and among groups that require access to library content § Engage in professional activities related to librarianship and digital scholarship § Maintains awareness of current trends in library automation and information technology § Provides leadership in planning for and exploring emerging technologies in the area of ILS and discovery layer technology Digital Library Infrastructure Development Management § Collaborates with Head of Digital Library Services in the development and maintenance of an OAIS compliant infrastructure that supports the ingestion, storage/preservation, and distribution of digital assets § Assists in the development and maintenance of the core technical infrastructure for a comprehensive digital library/repository service § Collaborates with Head of Digital Library Services in the design, development, testing and deployment of new technologies, tools and resources to extend and enhance digital content and services, develop application programming interfaces (APIs) to facilitate multiple submission and access pathways; and collaborate with IS colleagues to implement appropriate identity management and authentication policies Minimum Education Experience: · A master's degree in library or information science from a program accredited by the American Library Association; or Masters Degree or PhD in computer science or related area required · Two or more years of recent experience with computer information systems in an academic library required · Two or more years of recent technical experience with an integrated library system required; experience with VOYAGER preferred · Two or more years project management experience required · Minimum of 1 year of experience using UNIX or LINUX required; system administrator level experience preferred. · Experience with IT in a higher education setting desirable Please visit http://www.urjobs.org to view the full job description and apply. The position is open until filled. Please apply by June 3rd for earliest consideration. The University of Richmond is an Equal Opportunity Employer committed to diversity. _ Kevin Butterfield Director, Bibliographic and Digital Services University of Richmond Libraries Richmond, VA 23173 kbutt...@richmond.edumailto:kbutt...@richmond.edu 804-289-8942
[CODE4LIB] Call for Participation: LITA Mobile Computing IG meeting
*Apologies for cross-posting* *Call for Participation: LITA Mobile Computing IG meeting June 23, Sunday, 10:30 am – 12pm.* The LITA Mobile Computing IG seeks 4-5 short presentations (15 minutes) on mobile computing for the upcoming ALA Annual Conference at New Orleans. Some of the possible topics include but not limited to: QR code promotion,What mobile services students want the library to provide, mobile frameworks, etc. The LITA MCIG is also seeking the suggestions for discussion topics, things you have been working on, plan to work, or want to work on in terms of mobile computing. All suggestions and presentation topics are welcome and will be given consideration for presentation and discussion. Feel free to email me off-the-list (k...@fiu.edu) and/or post your topic at ALA Connect : http://connect.ala.org/node/139935 Thank you! -- Bohyun Kim, MA, MSLIS. LITA MCIG chair Digital Access Librarian | 305.348.1471 Florida International University Medical Library http://medlib.fiu.edu | http://medlib.fiu.edu/m (Mobile)
[CODE4LIB] Job posting: GIS Software Developer at Stanford Libraries
Dear Code4Lib, Stanford Libraries is hiring a GIS Software Developer. This position will be part of my group in Meyer Library, and it's a fun and exciting position for the right person. Please feel free to ask me any questions, and please forward this to anyone you think might be interested. Thanks! Bess GIS Software Developer Job ID 42835 Job Location University Libraries Job Category Information Technology Services Salary 4P3 Date Posted May 26, 2011 Stanford University Libraries and Academic Information Resources (SULAIR) is building an increasingly rich and complex set of geospatial information services and resources to support research, teaching and learning. The GIS Software Developer will lead the technical effort to develop and support the GIS applications and infrastructure for SULAIR’s GIS programs, resources and patrons. The GIS developer will sit within and report to Digital Library Systems and Services unit within SULAIR, and work intimately with and directly support the programmatic activities of the Branner Earth Sciences Library, as well as closely related units within SULAIR and beyond. RESPONSIBILITIES Web Application Development (60%) - Adopt, adapt, develop and maintain software to provide a Web-based geospatial discovery and access portal, using open source technologies in an inter-institutional, community-based, development effort. - Help develop, enhance and maintain Map Gallery, a specialized discovery interface tailored to SULAIR’s public service and collection development program around maps; integrate this environment with the GIS discovery portal and/or SearchWorks, SULAIR’s overarching discovery layer. - Integrate (either directly or by supporting integration efforts of others on campus) additional services into SULAIR’s GIS environment, supporting mapping and georeferencing applications, novel spatial visualization tools, mashups, and integration of gazetteers and third party GIS-based API’s. GIS Infrastructure Management and Administration (30%) - Help implement and manage SULAIR’s GIS infrastructure; this includes administration of specialized GIS applications (currently a mix of open source and proprietary systems), as well as account management and data administration. It also entails working with SULAIR’s server, database and network administrators to provision the necessary computing systems to support GIS services. GIS database administration will be a significant component of this work. Community Participation, Leadership and Consulting (10%) - Play an active role in higher education and GIS researcher community; represent Stanford in this community and the development of open source and consortial service efforts. Consult with technologists on campus about the best method to realize their projects’ GIS technical goals, and adapt SULAIR’s GIS services and infrastructure accordingly. Demonstrated Expertise Required In: GIS applications, tools and resources through at least three years of hands-on management and development in a GIS environment. Familiarity includes direct experience with both raster and vector resources, as well as ESRI software (ArcGIS and ArcSDE), geodatabase configuration and management, and common API’s and tools (Geoserver, OpenLayers, WMS, WFS, KML, etc.). Software engineering in Web-, solr-lucene and database-backed application environments, and experience in contributing to and/or defining the technical architecture of complex systems. Ruby, and Ruby on Rails, both for application development and in engineering an enhanced framework, including plug-ins, engines and gems, for developing and deploying applications. • Scripting technologies such as Perl, PHP, Python, etc., or a demonstrated ability to learn them quickly. In-depth knowledge of HTML and related website development technologies and software (especially CSS and AJAX). Familiarity with Java and object-oriented programming and concepts is desired. • Relational database design and management. Experience both in the administration of and implementing database applications for SQL Server, Oracle, Postgres, PostGIS and/or MySQL. • Networking and systems integration in a heterogeneous hardware (Linux, Windows) and software environment. • XML and related tools and technologies (e.g., XML schema, schema management and databases, XSLT, X-forms). Writing solid, simple, elegant code both independently and in a team-programming environment and within schedule limitations. Working collaboratively on a project from specification to launch and production operation; and working with multiple levels of staff, and colleagues at peer institutions and open source communities. • Agile software development practices and test driven development principles and methods, as well as best practices for software development
Re: [CODE4LIB] wikipedia/author disambiguation
I'm not sure about other dialects of English, but in New Zealand English, a negation there has no impact on the semantics or subtleties of that sentence. cheers stuart On 01/06/11 07:18, Ed Summers wrote: a bit of a fruedian slip there I suppose :-) s/could/couldn't/ //Ed On Tue, May 31, 2011 at 3:17 PM, Ed Summerse...@pobox.com wrote: On Tue, May 31, 2011 at 12:48 PM, Thomas Bergert...@gymel.com wrote: Currently about 150.000 articles on wikipedia.de carry the associated PND number, many of them also LoC-NA and VIAF numbers: Makes me wonder if we could use inter-wiki links to automatically update some of the en.wikipedia articles based on the viaf links in de.wikipedia. Could hurt to see how many there are I suppose. //Ed -- Stuart Yeates Library Technology Services http://www.victoria.ac.nz/library/
Re: [CODE4LIB] Seth Godin on The future of the library
Karen, The others who have responded while I was off, you know, doing stuff, have done a much better job of answering your question than I would have. I would have said something glib like almost all ways, with respect to open-access digital materials. There's a shift in library mindset that has to occur along with the transition from print to digital. The clearest example that I've seen is the typical presentation of pretend-its-print out-of-copyright material. A library will have purchased PIP access to an annotated edition of a Shakespeare play, or a new translation of Crime and Punishment. But the public domain versions of these works (which are perfectly good) don't exist in the catalog. A patron looking for ebook versions of these works will then frequently be denied access because another patron has already checked out the licensed version. That can't be justified by any vision for libraries that I can think of. It can't be justified because it's hard or time consuming, or because there are a flood of PD Crime and Punishments clamoring for attention. It's just a result of unthinking and we-haven't-done-that-before. It's my hope that there are a number of not-so-hard problems around this situation that people on this list have the tools to solve. Eric On May 19, 2011, at 1:30 AM, Karen Coyle wrote: Quoting Eric Hellman e...@hellman.net: Exactly. I apologize if my comment was perceived as coy, but I've chosen to invest in the possibility that Creative Commons licensing is a viable way forward for libraries, authors, readers, etc. Here's a link the last of a 5 part series on open-access ebooks. I hope it inspires work in the code4lib community to make libraries more friendly to free stuff. Eric, In what ways do you think that libraries today are not friendly to free stuff? kc http://go-to-hellman.blogspot.com/2011/05/open-access-ebooks-part-5-changing.html On May 18, 2011, at 7:20 PM, David Friggens wrote: Some ebooks, in fact some of the greatest ever written, already cost less than razor blades. Do you mean ones not under copyright? Those, plus Creative Commons etc. -- Karen Coyle kco...@kcoyle.net http://kcoyle.net ph: 1-510-540-7596 m: 1-510-435-8234 skype: kcoylenet
Re: [CODE4LIB] Seth Godin on The future of the library
So, selecting which public domain free on the internet works should be included in the catalog (presumably considering both quality of digital copy and quality/usefulness of the work itself), keeping track of them all of them in their various locations, adding links to them all to our (generally pretty damn crappy) collection tracking software, fixing or removing links when they disappear or change or go down temporarily--- are you suggesting that all of this is trivial non-expensive work, and the only reason libraries aren't doing it are because they are idiotic? I think that's silly. If someone provided a platform that aggregated many of these in a single repository, provided downloadable metadata of some kind, ideally provided some support (even for a reasonable charge) then I bet libraries would bite. For instance, Project Guttenberg does some of those things -- and there indeed are libraries that load all of Project Gutenberg in their catalog, it's not unheard of. (Although it's still not 'free' to librararies to do so, it takes resources to make that work well). But I think the idea that users can't find something if it doesn't exist in the catalog is a false one anyway, the catalog is hardly the only place our patrons look for things anymore. There are some unanswered questions about what the purpose of the catalog is or should be in our users research workflow, and it's not obvious to me whether that purpose will involve putting any possible book or article that exists for free on the internet in the catalog. One reason that libraries may not prioritize putting free ebooks in the catalog is because there are other places users can search for free ebooks on the internet -- but there aren't other places users can search for non-free ebooks that they know will be licensed to them as library patrons, or for that matter to search for physical things on the shelves that they know are available from their library. From: Code for Libraries [CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU] on behalf of Eric Hellman [e...@hellman.net] Sent: Wednesday, June 01, 2011 4:46 PM To: CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] Seth Godin on The future of the library Karen, The others who have responded while I was off, you know, doing stuff, have done a much better job of answering your question than I would have. I would have said something glib like almost all ways, with respect to open-access digital materials. There's a shift in library mindset that has to occur along with the transition from print to digital. The clearest example that I've seen is the typical presentation of pretend-its-print out-of-copyright material. A library will have purchased PIP access to an annotated edition of a Shakespeare play, or a new translation of Crime and Punishment. But the public domain versions of these works (which are perfectly good) don't exist in the catalog. A patron looking for ebook versions of these works will then frequently be denied access because another patron has already checked out the licensed version. That can't be justified by any vision for libraries that I can think of. It can't be justified because it's hard or time consuming, or because there are a flood of PD Crime and Punishments clamoring for attention. It's just a result of unthinking and we-haven't-done-that-before. It's my hope that there are a number of not-so-hard problems around this situation that people on this list have the tools to solve. Eric On May 19, 2011, at 1:30 AM, Karen Coyle wrote: Quoting Eric Hellman e...@hellman.net: Exactly. I apologize if my comment was perceived as coy, but I've chosen to invest in the possibility that Creative Commons licensing is a viable way forward for libraries, authors, readers, etc. Here's a link the last of a 5 part series on open-access ebooks. I hope it inspires work in the code4lib community to make libraries more friendly to free stuff. Eric, In what ways do you think that libraries today are not friendly to free stuff? kc http://go-to-hellman.blogspot.com/2011/05/open-access-ebooks-part-5-changing.html On May 18, 2011, at 7:20 PM, David Friggens wrote: Some ebooks, in fact some of the greatest ever written, already cost less than razor blades. Do you mean ones not under copyright? Those, plus Creative Commons etc. -- Karen Coyle kco...@kcoyle.net http://kcoyle.net ph: 1-510-540-7596 m: 1-510-435-8234 skype: kcoylenet
Re: [CODE4LIB] Seth Godin on The future of the library
Eric, The problem with linking open access materials into catalogs isn't entirely simple, and I don't agree that librarians haven't thought about how to do this. I was trying to get a file of MARC records for all of the Internet Archive's open access materials so that those could be available via a cataloging service, but with current cataloging practices it's very hard to do without artificially swelling the size of many small catalogs. This is because adding a link for a different manifestation from a bibliographic record is not only a violation of the cataloging rules but could lead to confusion. Thus a different version of the Work would add another record to the catalog. (This issue was discussed ad nauseum throughout the 1990's under the rubric of multiple versions cataloging, an issue that in part led to the development of RDA.) When (and I hope it is when) bibliographic data is created with the concept of a Work, then associating different versions of the work (some hard copy, some digital) should be much easier. Even with that, I'm not confident that we can accurately identify same Work using the metadata we have today. I ran into this issue when talking to public library librarians who would like to have the ability to bring in open access full text for works that they hold but there wasn't a neat way to do it. I believe it will be possible to export MARC records for open access texts, but getting those into library catalogs appears to be labor intensive for the libraries themselves. Another thing: none of them were interested in taking in ALL available full texts, meaning that there was still going to be the effort of matching or selection. What they wanted was open versions of non-open Works that they hold. So that's what we need to figure out how to do. kc Quoting Eric Hellman e...@hellman.net: Karen, The others who have responded while I was off, you know, doing stuff, have done a much better job of answering your question than I would have. I would have said something glib like almost all ways, with respect to open-access digital materials. There's a shift in library mindset that has to occur along with the transition from print to digital. The clearest example that I've seen is the typical presentation of pretend-its-print out-of-copyright material. A library will have purchased PIP access to an annotated edition of a Shakespeare play, or a new translation of Crime and Punishment. But the public domain versions of these works (which are perfectly good) don't exist in the catalog. A patron looking for ebook versions of these works will then frequently be denied access because another patron has already checked out the licensed version. That can't be justified by any vision for libraries that I can think of. It can't be justified because it's hard or time consuming, or because there are a flood of PD Crime and Punishments clamoring for attention. It's just a result of unthinking and we-haven't-done-that-before. It's my hope that there are a number of not-so-hard problems around this situation that people on this list have the tools to solve. Eric On May 19, 2011, at 1:30 AM, Karen Coyle wrote: Quoting Eric Hellman e...@hellman.net: Exactly. I apologize if my comment was perceived as coy, but I've chosen to invest in the possibility that Creative Commons licensing is a viable way forward for libraries, authors, readers, etc. Here's a link the last of a 5 part series on open-access ebooks. I hope it inspires work in the code4lib community to make libraries more friendly to free stuff. Eric, In what ways do you think that libraries today are not friendly to free stuff? kc http://go-to-hellman.blogspot.com/2011/05/open-access-ebooks-part-5-changing.html On May 18, 2011, at 7:20 PM, David Friggens wrote: Some ebooks, in fact some of the greatest ever written, already cost less than razor blades. Do you mean ones not under copyright? Those, plus Creative Commons etc. -- Karen Coyle kco...@kcoyle.net http://kcoyle.net ph: 1-510-540-7596 m: 1-510-435-8234 skype: kcoylenet -- Karen Coyle kco...@kcoyle.net http://kcoyle.net ph: 1-510-540-7596 m: 1-510-435-8234 skype: kcoylenet
Re: [CODE4LIB] Seth Godin on The future of the library
Hi, On Thu, Jun 2, 2011 at 9:11 AM, Jonathan Rochkind rochk...@jhu.edu wrote: There are some unanswered questions about what the purpose of the catalog is or should be in our users research workflow, and it's not obvious to me whether that purpose will involve putting any possible book or article that exists for free on the internet in the catalog. I personally think that libraries in general still have some fundamental issues of just getting their head around the two-headed problem of free web resources. Not only are these free, but they don't physically exists. This has certain implications for libraries ; Free: as has been pointed out, sometimes this means not being peer reviewed, or doesn't have the quality seal of a publisher, and as such there is no process for libraries to really understand how that knowledge fits into the rest of their collection. (I don't think it's a price issue; it's more a fundamental model issue) It's sometimes hard to wrap your head around the concept of anything free being of much *worth* where in the past worth and often quality was measured in the name of publishers and the amount of peer-review or the reputation of the author. The Internet has *changed* this to the core; it's all gone or going, and new models are coming through the haze of confusion which I think the library world is both unprepared for and seriously underfunded to deal with. Links: The whole concept of web resources, of what a link (or a link to a mirror or cache) is all about confuses libraries who are deeply rooted in all things being physical. I know this is a dozy, but I still find this an issue when talking to librarians even today. The concept of virtual things in the library world really only exists with the notion of meta data, and I don't think the transition to the resource itself *also* being virtual has worked out well. Libraries *likes* physical objects, they *like* shelves, they *like* their buildings, and I don't blame them; we are physical beings who love the smell of paper, however books are not actually important, buildings are not actually important, that smell is definitely not important : Ideas, knowledge and concepts are, and that's what we all try to pry from the books. (As an aside, if ideas and concepts were valued more, why couldn't LCSH morph into something far, far more important and useful? The mind boggles at the lost opportunities!) You cannot pry anything from a link except the possible resource at the other end, but it is a few traceroutes away in a virtual place, and in need of technological interpretation on arrival, and then comes the next level of trouble; These are just the conceptual problem. The next real problem of technology and the library world is - despite the hard and excellent work put in by people like us on this very list! - that they are still a slow-poke in the realm of using and developing technology. Most ILS are charmingly quaint in dealing with these things. OPAC's are mostly dreadful. Backend infra-structure never powerful or big enough for the growing digital stuff coming in. Systems running always a bunch of features away from being what we need, only getting by on a barely useful set of features (that far too often the vendors dictates) to do the minimum we have to do. Yes, yes, exceptions here and there, I would never deny that, but look at library land as a whole; you're lagging behind and you cannot really compete in a world that needs you to not only run, but win. And frankly, you *cannot* win, not on technology. There's just no way. Winning this one requires not technology as such, but paradigm shifts in thinking, both from inside and especially from the outside, coupled with proper resourcing by people who understands the value libraries truly bring to the world. And this latter thing is becoming a real problem, I think. One reason that libraries may not prioritize putting free ebooks in the catalog is because there are other places users can search for free ebooks on the internet -- but there aren't other places users can search for non-free ebooks that they know will be licensed to them as library patrons, or for that matter to search for physical things on the shelves that they know are available from their library. Seems like an odd argument to me. Why are we talking about the price and the format of the information rather than the *quality* of it? I thought a curated collection was the bee's knees, regardless of what formats used. Hmm. Maybe I'm thinking too much like a knowledge customer than a librarian these days, and I've lost my touch or my way. :) Regards, Alex -- Project Wrangler, SOA, Information Alchemist, UX, RESTafarian, Topic Maps --- http://shelter.nu/blog/ -- -- http://www.google.com/profiles/alexander.johannesen ---
Re: [CODE4LIB] Seth Godin on The future of the library
So, this is quite a good thread, and it is quite interesting to read the different viewpoints about what information resources libraries provide. I'm wondering if we might look at this from a slightly different angle - most of the discussion has been about what libraries include in their collections. I wonder, though, if thinking about this through a collection lens colors the arguments the wrong way. As I see it, more and more it seems that users are less aware of the boundaries of a library's collections; many of the discovery tools employed by libraries, or available outside of libraries, do not limit themselves to a particular collection (Worldcat local being a prime example of a library discovery tool that provides discovery that is not bounded by a library's collection). The role of the library as a provisioner, or broker, of information, regardless of where that information is located, is seemingly increasing in importance - in part, I think, explicitly because our discovery technologies can now be unbounded from finite collections, and because of this, the friction that users run into in discovering information beyond their library's collections has been greatly reduced, if not removed entirely. Users likely expect that if they can discover that something is available, they should have access to it - a use pattern best exemplified by google, but that I believe has transcended to the library sphere as well. So, if we stop thinking about libraries as collection building institutions, and more as provisioning organizations, then the issue of whether libraries incorporate free resources into their catalogs becomes somewhat moot. The question more becomes, I think, if a user discovers an information resource, what is the library's role in brokering access to that content for the user? If we are indeed trying to meet our users' needs, perhaps we need not to continue to build just-in-case collections, but provide just-in-time access to information resources, regardless of their location, and perhaps even without needing a local collection at all. -- jaf On 6/1/11 7:04 PM, Alexander Johannesen alexander.johanne...@gmail.com wrote: Hi, On Thu, Jun 2, 2011 at 9:11 AM, Jonathan Rochkind rochk...@jhu.edu wrote: There are some unanswered questions about what the purpose of the catalog is or should be in our users research workflow, and it's not obvious to me whether that purpose will involve putting any possible book or article that exists for free on the internet in the catalog. I personally think that libraries in general still have some fundamental issues of just getting their head around the two-headed problem of free web resources. Not only are these free, but they don't physically exists. This has certain implications for libraries ; Free: as has been pointed out, sometimes this means not being peer reviewed, or doesn't have the quality seal of a publisher, and as such there is no process for libraries to really understand how that knowledge fits into the rest of their collection. (I don't think it's a price issue; it's more a fundamental model issue) It's sometimes hard to wrap your head around the concept of anything free being of much *worth* where in the past worth and often quality was measured in the name of publishers and the amount of peer-review or the reputation of the author. The Internet has *changed* this to the core; it's all gone or going, and new models are coming through the haze of confusion which I think the library world is both unprepared for and seriously underfunded to deal with. Links: The whole concept of web resources, of what a link (or a link to a mirror or cache) is all about confuses libraries who are deeply rooted in all things being physical. I know this is a dozy, but I still find this an issue when talking to librarians even today. The concept of virtual things in the library world really only exists with the notion of meta data, and I don't think the transition to the resource itself *also* being virtual has worked out well. Libraries *likes* physical objects, they *like* shelves, they *like* their buildings, and I don't blame them; we are physical beings who love the smell of paper, however books are not actually important, buildings are not actually important, that smell is definitely not important : Ideas, knowledge and concepts are, and that's what we all try to pry from the books. (As an aside, if ideas and concepts were valued more, why couldn't LCSH morph into something far, far more important and useful? The mind boggles at the lost opportunities!) You cannot pry anything from a link except the possible resource at the other end, but it is a few traceroutes away in a virtual place, and in need of technological interpretation on arrival, and then comes the next level of trouble; These are just the conceptual problem. The next real problem of technology and the library world is - despite the hard and excellent work put in by people like us on this
