Re: [CODE4LIB] code4lib 2009
On Wed, Jun 25, 2008 at 07:09:25PM -0400, Ed Summers wrote: > Carl Malamud: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Malamud > > Long time advocate for Internet technologies for the public good. Most > recently involved with making public domain data sets available to the > public w/ public.resource.org. I second Malamud. I also nominate: Joseph Lucia http://library.villanova.edu/services/director/index.html University Librarian at Villanova University who has been active around the call for developers in libraries [0]. Adrian Holovaty http://www.holovaty.com/ Co-creator of Django, the Python web framework. Currently working on EveryBlock, an ambitious mash-up of data into an attractive interface. [0] http://acrlog.org/2007/11/27/how-libraries-might-once-again-become-technology-leaders/
Re: [CODE4LIB] usability testing
On Fri, Jun 20, 2008 at 08:51:16AM -0400, Antonio Barrera wrote: > I haven't actually used this, but I know Arizona State did for SFX > Usability testing. > > http://www.techsmith.com/morae/ We picked up a copy of Morae for our usability testing. It records video in sync with whatever the person's doing on the screen, but it doesn't do eye tracking. Most of the eye tracking stuff I've seen requires expensive hardware and software, but I did find a potentially promising list of projects at http://www.cogain.org/eyetrackers/low-cost-eye-trackers
Re: [CODE4LIB] Expression Engine in Libraries?
On Sun, May 18, 2008 at 01:20:28PM -0700, Cecily Walker wrote: > This is my first post here, and I hope this is the proper place to ask > it. I work for the Vancouver Public Library in Vancouver, BC. Earlier > this year, the library unveiled it's new website which is driven by > the Expression Engine CMS. I'm wondering if anyone knows of any other > libraries that use EE for their back end? I know there are active > Drupal and Joomla communities for libraries and librarians - are there > any similar communities for EE users? Thanks for posting, and welcome to the code4lib list. I haven't heard of any libraries using Expression Engine, but you may get more feedback in that direction on the Expression Engine forums at http://expressionengine.com/forums/. Good luck!
Re: [CODE4LIB] free movie cover images?
On Mon, May 19, 2008 at 11:39:06AM -0400, Ken Irwin wrote: > With some limitations, the Google Books API allows folks to access book > covers for free. (How's that working out? Anyone having luck with it?) > -- what about movie/DVD/VHS covers? Are there any free sources for those > images? > > I'd like to work up a virtual-browsing interface for our library's > pretty small collection of feature films, and I'd love to include > covers. Any ideas on how I might get them? Anyone else doing this? I've had some success with UPCs and worldcat.org for the Drexel Libraries Video Search[1]. A lot of our records lack an 024, though, so I fall back to ISBNs on Amazon, but the hit rate isn't as good there. For a collection the size of our video collection, we've considered just scanning them ourselves. Neither IMDB nor Netflix have public APIs yet. Gabriel [1] http://www.library.drexel.edu/video/
Re: [CODE4LIB] marc records sample set
On Fri, May 09, 2008 at 11:58:03AM -0700, Casey Durfee wrote: > On Fri, May 9, 2008 at 11:14 AM, Bess Sadler <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > > Casey, you say you're getting indexing times of 1000 records / > > second? That's amazing! I really have to take a closer look at > > MarcThing. Could pymarc really be that much faster than marc4j? Or > > are we comparing apples to oranges since we haven't normalized for > > the kinds of mapping we're doing and the hardware it's running on? > > > > Well, you can't take a closer look at it yet, since I haven't gotten off my > lazy butt and released it. We're still using an older version of the > project in production on LT. I'm going to cut us over to the latest version > this weekend. At this point, being able to say we eat our own dogfood is > the only barrier to release. Looking forward to the release. I'd be interested to see how it compares to the pymarc-indexer branch in FBO/Helios [1]. > The last indexer I wrote (the one used by fac-back-opac) used marc4j and was > around 100-150 a second. Some of the boost was due to better designed code > on my end, but I can't take too much credit. Pymarc is much, much faster. > I never bothered to figure out why. (That wasn't why I switched, though -- > there are some problems with parsing ANSEL with marc4j (*) which I decided > I'd rather be mauled by bears than try and fix -- the performance boost was > just a pleasant surprise). Of course one could use pymarc from java with > Jython. On the small set of documents I'm now indexing (3327) I get 141 rec/sec. This is on my test server, an AMD64 whose processor speed I can't recall. That rate includes pymarc processing (~65%) and the loading of the CSV file into SOLR (~35%). Surely there's some room there for optimization, but it's fast enough for my current purposes. Also, I'm in the camp that would be happy with a ~10,000 record test set. There will always be some edge cases that we'll only solve as they're encountered. I need rapid iteration! Gabriel [1] http://fruct.us/trac/fbo/browser/branches/pymarc-indexer/indexer
Re: [CODE4LIB] presentation files
On Tue, Mar 04, 2008 at 09:44:26AM -0500, Dan Scott wrote: > In IRC a few of us kicked around the idea of uploading the video to the > Internet Archive and letting them handle backup / streaming bandwidth / file > format conversion (they accept high quality input and make a variety of > formats, including the original, available) / etc - the likely destination > would be a collection under > http://www.archive.org/details/computersandtechvideos - and FAQs about videos > are answered at http://www.archive.org/about/faqs.php#Movies > > So in that scenario, we would just link from the talk page to the location of > each video on archive.org +1
Re: [CODE4LIB] Usability evaluation of library online catalogues
On Mon, Feb 04, 2008 at 02:36:55PM -0500, David Fiander wrote:
> Markus,
>
> Thanks. It's also available in the ACM digital library, which is where
> I found it.
Speaking of "usability", why is it I can search for the exact title
("usability evaluation of library online catalogues") at the ACM digital
library and the article is the 15th hit in the results?
Gabriel
Re: [CODE4LIB] low-cost software for prison libraries?
On Wed, Jan 30, 2008 at 11:54:32PM -0500, Jonathan Rochkind wrote: > Begin forwarded message: > >> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] >> Date: January 30, 2008 9:12:19 PM EST >> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] >> Subject: [prison-l] Library automation software >> >> Greetings: >> >> Last month there was some discussion here about cheap/free/ >> reasonably priced automation software for correctional libraries. >> I am on a statewide committee which has just been formed to >> research and recommend a software package to replace Athena >> (formerly by Sagebrush, now Follett) in most of the correctional >> libraries in Virginia. After years in public libraries I am very >> familiar with some of the big vendors, but they are simply >> financially out of the question for our agency, not to mention web- >> based. I might be misunderstanding here. Is their a limitation that precludes web-based systems? If so, that would cut down your options quite a bit. >> I have looked at the websites for LibraryThing, Auto Librarian, and >> ResourceMate, which were recommended here in the previous >> discussion. If you know of or have a circ/cat system that is >> reasonably priced (or dirt cheap) and works well for you, please >> share the information with me, with pros and cons if you like. All >> replies greatly appreciated, and thanks in advance. I've recommended LibraryThing for similarly small libraries before. It handles the cataloging and browsing aspects quite well, but lacks any kind of circ. If you're looking for a full system I'd recommend Koha. It would serve your needs very well, especially if you have any funds at all to put toward a techie or two. If you'd rather, you can pay Liblime to host the system for a lot less than the big vendors charge for similar services. (See http://liblime.com/products/koha/koha-zoom/koha-zoom-hosted) Gabriel
[CODE4LIB] Correction to the "Vote on code4lib2008 talk proposals" message
Hi all, The following was sent out to the code4libcon list earlier today: - Forwarded message from Ross Singer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> - Correction: The actual URL is: http://dilettantes.code4lib.org:8080/election/index/2 and the polls open at midnight tonight (although if there's overwhelming outcry, they can open earlier). The previous URL is to actually see if the voting booth works (which is why I was holding off on the real ballot). Sorry about the confusion, -Ross.
