From Monterey to Toronto

I had to leave Monterey last night (Tuesday October 30) and was at the airport when that earthquake hit. We thought nothing of it since it seemed minor. We were called to board the plane and when we got to the stairs to board, they turned us back. All flights were grounded due to the earthquake.

We only had 1hour in San Francisco to change planes, but that should have been enough. The plane finally left Monterey Airport and we arrived in San Francisco at 10:05 pm. The Toronto flight was scheduled to leave at 10:15 pm.

Don't know if you have been in the San Francisco airport, but from the ground we could see our Air Canada flight a short distance across the tarmac. Inside the terminal, however, it was a 10 mile run :) And run we did.
We get to the gate and are the last ones in line. The friendly staff greeted us with "Hurry up, Hurry up". Very annoying. Like the delay was our fault. Like we caused the earthquake.

Got to Toronto and because of the short time in San Francisco the luggage did not get on our plane. We filled out the claim forms and left. On the way out the custom agent with the strangest glasses i have ever seen (halloween??) wanted to know what we had purchased that was in our lost bags. I could not think i was so tired and started to slowly rhyme off.. t shirts... sweat shirts... a bowl... She interrupts me and asks me to hurry up because i am holding up the line. I look behind us and there is no one.. ZERO.. nada.. behind us. I was tired, but she was just coming on... What's up with that??

Finally made it home. At about 4 pm this afternoon Air Canada phoned to tell us they found 2 of the 3 bags. One of which is the one with all my conference notes, gifts, power cord for laptop, VPN card, shoes, etc. The missing one has much less value things -- socks, underwear, old t shirts, pyjamas, etc.

So, Happy Halloween and Good Night.


IL2007

IL2007 - Session C204 — Librarians as knowledge Managers

Session C204 — Librarians as knowledge Managers
3:15 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.
Susan Braun, Manager, Research Services, Library & Information Center, The Aerospace Corporation

Corporate memory needed to be saved and retained
Graying of technical staff was a catalyst
Had to get information and knowledge from the people before it was too late
Library was ideally positioned to do this as htye already did archives, reports, author files, etc.
Funded by knowledge management group
Training is a big part
"RSS" type feed from the document management system
Blogging also part of tool
CoP leadership role
4 embedded librarians in CoP
7 reference librarians total

Have a Knowledge Steward Community of Practice
Responsible for institutionalization of proper management of information
Leads training and fostering of tools
Consultants to other groups
Manage folder structure of document management system
Conduct knowledge audits
Recommend best practices
Set permissions on folders
Audit system of accuracy
All knowledge stewards trained by librarians
Lunch and learn sessions
Various levels of classes
Structure based on organizational structure

Next steps:
Corporate taxonomy
Expanded use of Wikis, RSS, blogs
Revising of training materials
More training
More imbedded tutorials
Federated search
New library software integrated

Value of effort
Recognized as key contributors
Recognized as experts in document management
Faster collaboration and knowledge sharing
Contributed to enhancement of corp. role

IL2007 - Session B201 — Deploying Enterprise Social Software

Session B201 — Deploying Enterprise Social Software
10:30 a.m. – 11:15 a.m.
Christian Gray, Safari Books Online, cgray@safarijv.com

Rob Cross www.robcross.org/sna.htm

Valdis Krebs www.orgnet.com

Karen Hoffman national geographic society
Managing the intranet improving relationships, wiki, blogs, rss, global users, improve communications, productivity
She is now in charge of web

MPK20 – Second Life For The Enterprise
Team meetings
Personal space
Sharing applications

An aerospace company
Stealth sandbox, skunkworks
internal iGoogle page, aiaa, get abstract, IEEE, APQC, library spotlight, iii: output RSS feed nightly – new books feed and monographs and serials
10 active wiki (four are internal to library only)

William hayes biogenldec
2 librarians, 5000 employees
implementing many technologies

Getting started
Reading, research, talk to others, personal use, experience, sandbox, proof of concept, pilot

Why does it matter
content ms, hr ms, information ms, integrated library software, enterprise resource programs, km, collaborative software
Sanofi Aventis www.tacit.com – pilot programme

Business reasons for network analysis
he showed many many www.tomoye.com

Companies:; awareness; select minds; visible path (for employees inside the enterprise); connectbeam;

Conferences; enterprise 2.0 and others

Social networks research report -- www.wildbit.com designing for consumers; attracting new members

Gartner report G00150106

Things to read
the virtual handshake / Teten and Allen
net work / Patti Anklam
the starfish and the spider / Brafman and Beckstrom
we are smarter than me /

Resources
SLA KM division
Rick Hoag Honeywell eng div – econtent.typepad.com

Summary
Users add value and you are we
if you don't use it how can you ever deploy it
you have a very important role to play
get on the bus or get run over

OCLC study released last week

IL2007

IL2007 - KEYNOTE & AIIP TECHNOLOGY AWARDS

KEYNOTE & AIIP TECHNOLOGY AWARDS
Reference 2.0: Ain't What It Used to Be . . . And It Never Will Again
8:45 a.m. – 9:45 a.m. - San Carlos Ballroom
Joe Janes, Associate Dean, iSchool, University of Washington
This guy was hilarious. Self deprecating humour. Good, upbeat talk on reference librarianship today. He writes the “Internet Librarian” column for American Libraries but has never been to an Internet Librarian conference before!!
I did not take notes, I just listened and enjoyed.
He talked about how younger people are browsing instead of really reading, channel surfing instead of watching. He talked about how we are good at deep diving for information. That we need to find the people who want the information and provide it and not to worry about the ones who don't want it. To answer quick IM questions by just getting them to the next step, not trying to do an indepth reference interview. To be in the places that they are.

I will have to read all the other blog posts to find out what I missed J


IL2007

IL2007 - Session B202 — Next-Gen Corporate Library Web Site

Session B202 — Next-Gen Corporate Library Web Site
11:30 a.m. – 12:15 p.m.
Cindy Sullivan, VP, & Megan Kelley, Library, Fidelity Investments

How I wish I had their management commitment and funding. They have created a great site and service for all staff. Federated searching across internal and external systems.

Goals

• Assist research efforts
• Deliver gateway to authoritive sources
• Provide high value content
• Enabler for research
• Connect communities of practice through collaboration initiatives
• Centre of learning

Redesign of Website

• EBooks
• Federated search
• Bring resource to forefront
• Single sign on
• More dynamically generated content

Hot topics

• This is a tag cloud of terms people are searching
• Top 15 terms over a rolling 30 day period
• Keeps others up on what is current
• Library staff us for collection development

Lessons learned

• Standardize on authentication method for databases
• Do a pilot with federated search – sign nda
• Leverage enterprise agreements with publishers
• Ensure support from senior management
• Appropriate resources assigned to project – people – money
• User interface most important

Future plans

• Integrate library sources with training and development
• More multi media
• Internal applications – employee directory – part of federated search

IL2007

IL2007 - Sessions D203 — The Second Life Smorgasbord: Opportunities for All Types of Libraries in a Virtual Environment

Sessions D203 — The Second Life Smorgasbord: Opportunities for All Types of Libraries in a Virtual Environment
1:30 p.m. – 2:30 p.m.
MODERATORS:
Kitty Pope, Executive Director, Allliance Library System &
Barbara Galick, Executive Director, Bradley Unviersity
PANELISTS:
Rosemary Arneson, Director of Carmichael Library, University of Montevallo
Kate Fitz, Public Services Librarian, Sacramento County Public Law Library
Michael Sauers, Technology Innovation Librarian, Nebraska Library Commission
Elisabeth Marrapodi Jacobsen, Library Director, Trinitas Hospital Library
Micki McIntyre, UMDNJ HealthyNJ Librarian, University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey

Disaster management in Second life
- what if you delete your building?
- zombie attack?
You have to think of many different types of disasters in a virtual world

??why have walls anyway if everyone can fly??
Who are you keeping out?

Why?

• Networking
• Learning new tools
• Learning new ideas
• Emerging technologies

Lawsport

• In Bell Library Towers 5th floor
• They have signs on floor so people know where they are
• They have no walls
• Note cards iwht information
• Notecards are also on website
• Banned book display
• She has created a SL law directory
• Has anyone created a SL library directory??
• Some places let you create your own world - -meta place; multiverse;…

Resource: The entrepreneur's guide to SL / Terdiman

IL2007

IL2007 - Other sessions I attended and will post notes later

Session C104 — Inspiration for Your Library Redesign
2:15 p.m. – 3:00 p.m.
Bennett Ponsford, Digital Services Librarian, & Christina Hoffman Gola, Undergraduate Specialist Librarian, Texas A&M University Libraries
Erica Reynolds, Web Content Manager, Johnson County Library




Session C105 — Cool Tools for Library Webmasters
3:15 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.
Darlene Fichter, University of Saskatchewan Library
Frank Cervone, Assistant University Librarian for Information Technology, Northwestern University



Session C106 — Web Design on a Dime: Quick Web Tips for Small Libraries
4:15 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.
Sarah Houghton-Jan, Web Services Manager, San Mateo County Library


Exhibit Hall Grand Opening Reception
5:00 p.m. – 6:30 p.m.

Too crowded. Left. Will go back tomorrow. Maybe 


IL2007

IL2007 - Session C103 — New Rules of Web Design

Session C103 — New Rules of Web Design

1:15 p.m. – 2:00 p.m.

Jeff Wisniewski, Web Services Librarian, University of Pittsburgh



This I think was my favourite session all day. Fast moving. Full of information. Good speaker who knew his stuff.

Old	New
Keep it simple	Very complex sites needed to provide information expected these days. Interactive rich sites
Content is king	Design matters a lot users decide very quickly if your site is any good based on design that negative view stays if people like design they may ignore some usability issues
All content is created equal	Some content is more important. This should be emphasized. Make clear starting point based on mission and evidence of use
Rule of seven	# of top level categories. Not really a rule. 5-9 categories are ideal. Unless it is necessary and well organized
3 click rule	User swill click many times as long as they feel they are on the right track
800x600	1024x768 but think of other platforms, phones, etc. flexible design. Use CSS correctly
Web safe colour pallets	Most people can use 24-bit colour. use what you want. keep small images to download faster.

How often to redesign – constantly – iterative – major changes are disruptive

Do follow these basics – home link in upper left – clickable banner – contact us top left

More high speed users

Impatient users

Some using slower networks

Support all browsers, however there are other higher value content – graded support – progressive support – browser dependent content – main stuff is compliant – extras may not be

Old	New
Provide text only version	Not if properly designed in xhtml and CSS
Avoid CSS	Do use it properly – for layout
Popups never	Often blocked so don't put in anything critical – can sometimes be useful for supporting info
Flash is evil	Flash intros ARE evil – flash can be used for tutorials and animation if used properly
Mouseover menus	Usability issues – slower – not always readable
Never open links in new window	Ok if you tell them – ok for external content – ok for help files – less of an issue now that browsers have tabs
Scrolling is bad	People will scroll a long way if they know that there is something to scroll to
Keep it above the fold	Maybe – most important stuff should be—people will scroll

Add images of people to increase trust in site, draw attention, people (labeled) are best. If people are too good looking then they don't increase trust.

IL2007

IL2007 - Session C102 — Putting Evidence-Based Practice to Work

Session C102 — Putting Evidence-Based Practice to Work
11:15 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.
Frank Cervone, Assistant University Librarian for Information Technology, Northwestern University

• Design based on fact not feelings
• Analyzed search logs in voyager (we have voyager, perhaps we can do this as well??)
• Make no assumptions
• Note to self – find out what his team's "extensive reading list" consists of
• Data available to guide decisions and discussions
• Less pushback on changes as they are improvements not simply change for change sake
• Terminology still a problem
• Problem still to get people to use the library catalogue
• Presentation will be posted in IL2007 site later
• He will post link to reading list

Amanda Hollister, Web Services Librarian, Memorial Library, SUNY Cortland

• Breadcrumbs on web pages tracking where you are
• Used htat data to track people's tracks through site to particular pages
• Homegrown code
• Looked very complicated


IL2007

IL2007 - Session C101 — Planning & Implementing Library 2.0

Session C101 — Planning & Implementing Library 2.0
10:15 a.m. – 11:00 a.m.
David King, Digital Branch & Services Manager, Topeka & Shawnee County Public Library

This session mostly I sat in on because there was nothing else I wanted to see and it was in the room that the next session I did want to hear. That said it was interesting. He went over the basic things you need to think of before implementing Library 2.0 items. Most were obvious but it was nice to have them all organized in one place. Being from a public library much was not immediately implementable for a corporate environment. He is a good speaker. Easy to listen to.


IL2007

IL2007 - Keynote - Lee Rainie, Director, Pew Internet & American Life Project

2.0 and the Internet World
Lee Rainie, Director, Pew Internet & American Life Project
Monday, 9:00 a.m. – 9:45 a.m.
KEYNOTE

He is a great speaker, very personable, very interesting. What he had to say – percentages of user types; demographics of internet users; etc. – did not come as news. Perhaps I read too much on this topic, but it was not new.



IL2007

Monterey IL2007

IL2007

Day one in Monterey - IL2007

Preconference Workshop
Introduction to Cascading Style Sheets
Presented by Ran Hock, Online Strategies

This was an introductory course and intended for those of us just starting to get into converting our pages to CSS.
It did what it was advertised to and that is what I was looking for. No great detail or complex coding, just an overview of what is possible.

Very good.




IL2007

In Fort Bragg

After a long day of driving we made it to Fort Bragg. Those redwoods are magnificent!!

Highway 1 from highway101 to Fort Bragg is unbelievable. Twisty, turny, steep, and scary. We did it in the dark.....

Oakville to Portland to Monterey

On my way to Internet Librarian 2007 in Monterey CA I stopped into Portland (Wilsonville actually) to visit the Xerox staff there. I did a little library marketing, taught a little RSS, met with many interesting people, and drummed up more business for the library.

Then to Powell's book. WOW. Multiple locations all with thousands and thousands of books. WOW

Then on the road. We are driving to Monterey from Portland. The end of day one finds us in Coos Bay. The views, the vistas and the scenery are spectacular. And it is sunny.

IL2007

Blog Action Day

Today is the day all bloggers are asked to write about, think about, and do something about the environment.

I'll tell you a secret. I have worms.

No, not that kind, the vermicomposting kind. I have had worms for years and years now. Going on ten I think. I have a green bucket tucked under a desk in the kitchen. This is what the bucket looks like:
It is full of Red Wigglers (the cadillac of worms) that look like this: