Liz Lawley – Tagging and Folksonomies

posted by Carol Cooke @ 10:33 PM

While I was hoping to learn more on ambient presence (as advertised in the conference program) I was more than happy to attend Liz Lawley’s presentation on Tagging and Folksonomies.

Like a good librarian she immediately started off the session referring us to a good book on the subject! Everything Is Miscellaneous : The Power of the New Digital Disorder by David Weinberger.

Liz then proceeded to clearly define tagging and folksonomies in a way that I completely understood.

Tagging – is the process of associating terms with an item, without the constraint of a controlled vocabulary.

Folksonomy – is the non-heierarchical aggregation of those tags or another order of magnitude than tags. These are usually collaboratively generated but occasionally may refer to one user tagging multiple items.

Using Del.icio.us (social bookmarking site) and Flickr (photo sharing site) she clearly illustrated why tags and folksonomies are things that librarians should be interested in. For one thing tags tell you a huge amount about the community using them. I especially liked the graphic representation of frequently used tags in tag clouds.

She mentioned that there are a wide variety of social bookmarking tools and that the decision to use one or the other could easily be made from looking at the tags used by the community.

As a librarian I love controlled vocabularies and these are critical in my reference work but I have come across a record or two in our library catalogue that could benefit from some tagging. Some materials just don’t suit some controlled vocabularies.

That being said Liz did point out that tags don’t always work. Users are very good a tagging their own things but not so good at tagging others. (e.g. look at the tags assigned to “The DaVinci Code” in Amazon.com).

While we can’t tag all the records in our library catalogues there are some algorithms which are beginning to automatically assign tags. (e.g. Flickr’s tag clusters – search for jaguar).

This turns out to be another presentation I can’t wait to see posted. I have a lot of thinking to do!

What I came away with from the presentation was a clearer understanding of what tagging and folksonomies are and how they might be used in libraries.

Tagging and folksonomies are an addition to traditional labelling. It’s important for libraries to make use of the technology to enhance existing systems. Engage the patron and make them a part of the experience.

Linda White and Kenlyn Collins - Technology on a Shoe String

posted by Carol Cooke @ 3:08 PM

This was an interesting presentation on the practical application of technology in the WAG library and archives.

As I listened to Kenlyn and Linda discuss the problems they had with setting up a corporate intranet for their libraries I realized how luck I am in my library to have the financial support for the infrastructure I need to do my job. I forget that other libraries don’t have the technology budget or the technical expertise that a major academic institution does to support online initiatives.

Kenlyn and Linda showed how a small library with little resources can leverage people and resources to create a tidy intranet and begin providing online access to their collections. One of the most important things they mentioned was to simple incorporate the best practices from other institutions to make decision making and planning easier.

Kenlyn and Linda were able to get a volunteer web developer to start creating web pages for their institution but it was important to them to keep the process simple. This was critical as they needed to avoid a learning curve for staff to maintain the site once it was up! They reminded me that libraries can use WORD to create web pages. This is not as flexible as a web editor but certainly a low cost way to create a web page. There are lots of online tutorials on how to create web pages with WORD 2003. There is also a native web page wizard in WORD 2007.

They used the Library World Online Library Service which required a small online fee that they could afford. You can upload your catalogue to the web site and make it available online even with a circulation module.

I look forward to seeing the future projects they discussed come to fruition and I hope to have the opportunity to learn more.

Keynote: Elizabeth Lane Lawley (Forecasting the Future)

posted by Carol Cooke @ 10:27 AM

Liz Lawley gave a riveting presentation on trying to identify those technologies that are going to be important to libraries. She took us back over the last 10 years and brought us forward with the top trends to today.

She gave me a lot to think about in terms of the library as place and how technology fits into our work as librarians. I think I'm coming to see a common thread in the talks I have been to! :)

What's happened in technology that has made us have to rethink what we do in libraries?

Gopher – allowed immediacy in the dissemination of information
Web – whole different way of working; more information with graphics and more flexible than Gopher
ICQ – The first Instant Messaging (IM) system - you could now see when other people are online. This is now a daily communication tool for a large number of people.
Blogs – more interactive communicative space

[I especially liked Liz's story about how she was sitting in a conference and watchin g people blog posts about the presentation she was in. She said it gave her a richer learning experience. I can believe it!]

Social networking sites – (Friendster) - visualizing your network for the first time.
One thing that Liz mentioned that I think is true for all social software is that "successful sites are tied to real life community".

social bookmarks (Del.icio.us) – being able to sift through the web and find the good stuff
social photos (Flikr) – Allowed people to share their stuff (photos etc.) Now it allows people access to a huge amount of royalty free materials for use in web sites, presentations, teaching.

What should we be paying attention to now?

continuous partial attention – continuous scanning of multiple inputs trying to find out which needs your attention. All of the above [with the exception of Gopher].


IRC and backchannels - when people are in a class/presentation etc where they are chatting to other attendees in the background. The chatting can be an escape from what you are listening to or people are interested in what you are talking about and they are talking about it on a chat. Liz called it "colour commentating". She said that we need to realize that we can enrich the learning experience by including the community of learners in the discourse.

Continuous complete attention - the idea that we have so many distractions now that we need software to help us block them out! Liz recommended the book “Getting things done”. She also recommended the following software:
hogbaysoftware.com/product/writeroom (mac)
they.misled.us/dark-room (pc)

Massively Multiplayer Online Games – blurring boundaries between play and professional work. I love the quote that she shared with the audience: “You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation.
Plato” In gaming hierarchies break down; it is immersive; real connections get made.

Ambient displays – images on your computer that give you information to us without having to focus on a particular thing. I'm going to have to do a little more web surfing to find out about this (Berkley).

ambient presence – a usb doll that animates when a friend comes online. These are tangible representations of our digital world.

tangible artifacts – as a response to a digital world there is now a craving for tangible handmade materials


Online news from “real life” (Twitter and Facebook) - Twitter is a daily pulse of people you care about but think of what might happen if libraries get a twitter account and post the newest mystery.... reader's advisory sent via text messaging to your cellphone. Libraries can use this software to create narrowly casted feeds of information. Facebook was originally intended for students and is used to create a community. Facebook is interesting because of the newsfeeds, these tell you what the people in your friends list are doing. You get to decide what to share.


mobile social bookmarks: PULP (personal ubiquitous library project) - Most library web sites are unusable on cellphone browsers (don’t use java script). There is a need to have a mobile site that works!
Wouldn't it be interesting to take a picture of the book barcode and then have the bibliographic information on the screen (software is available now). Take this one step further and then check your local library for a copy or an electronic copy. Information is in your hand when you want it

Augmented Reality Games - games which take advantage of public spaces (libraries) that have fallen into disuse because people don't have fun in them.

Yes, this is pretty much Liz's presentation in a nut shell but it can't compare to the dynamicly delivered presentation. I have to admit that this got me excited again about blogging and other social software. I'm going to look forward to her presentation slides so that I can relive the experience again!

Jocelyn Phillips – E-books: if you provide the link, will they read them?

posted by Carol Cooke @ 2:49 PM

Jocelyn’s presentation was a wide ranging discussion of the e-book in libraries. She included a history of the e-book and it’s reception in libraries. She documented the change in reception of the e-book from the early 2000’s to present. She also talked about the technology for the original e-books (remember the dedicated readers?) and how this has changed so that today what is important is portability, hyperlinking, multimedia, remote access and being able to accommodate multiple users.

Those surviving in the e-book industry from its inception are large publishers, those with specialty collections and those with very targeted markets. Also popping up are self-publication services and free e-books. These days most access to e-books is in HTML format, PDF format or through NetLibrary.

Libraries discovering e-books? Free e-books are out there but difficult to discover. Vendors are attempting to include them in publishing lists of e-books but are not always successful. She discussed in detail the University of Guelph experience with NetLibrary and the publisher International Development Centre.

How do patrons discover e-books? Jocelyn outlined a variety of ways in which patrons discover a library “has” an e-book:

- placement in home page
- inclusion in subject guides
- inclusion in opac
- news announcements
- search engines
- classes
- lists of e-books not helpful

Libraries are challenged to provide access to e-books in a simple, clear way. Jocelyn discussed ways academice libraries are providing access to e-books (University of Guelph and University of Manitoba). She also discussed a disconnect between electronic and physical access to materials for students. In other words there is some confusion by patrons on how to access e-books.

E-book readers these are more popular for public libraries. Technology is still expensive but has improved in functionality. She reviewed a number of different e-book readers and their features.

Jocelyn touched on the World Public Library and Project Gutenberg which provide cheap subscription access or free access to e-books.

Standards have been created for e-book publishing (“International Digital Publishing forum (IDPF)”) and a number of vendors and publishers have signed on with the standard. Eventually this will have an impact on libraries. E-book readers will eventually be able to share material regardless of the different platforms. This will eventually mean lower costs for publishers and libraries.

Jocelyn helped me to understand the state of the e-book industry. I think that for me I'd like to take a closer look at purchasing e-books for my library but I still have a lot of questions.

Mark Leggott: Weaving a Social Tapestry for Your Library

posted by Carol Cooke @ 12:25 PM

Mark engaged the audience in a thoughtful discussion on using social networking software in interesting, novel ways to create a community, provide access to information and engage in the creation of new knowledge. He made a very useful comparison between the process of creating a tapestry and using web 2.0 social networking software.

Social networking software to the uninitiated is a very confusing and intimidating mass of technology. Mark was able to use his tapestry analogy to make the subject more accessible and left the audience planning to go look into a Del.icio.us account, blogging software, considering Facebook and the value of open source software to say the least.

He emphasized the need to bring staff up to speed with social networking software so that this software can be used to encourage patrons to engage in the library community and contribute to the knowledge available in the online environment.

According to Mark libraries and librarians have a much more important role to play in the digital landscape than we had originally thought. Libraries are not just repositories of knowledge but they are creators of content and providers of access. Our role as librarians is changing to be more of a contributor and consumer to the world of knowledge.

At the last MLC conference two years ago in a number of sessions people where asked which social networking software they used and very few raised their hands. What is interesting is that when Mark asked who used each different tool discussed more hands were raised. While this software is still far from common in Manitoba libraries it is obvious that more and more librarians and staff are using it.

Mark used a variety of projects at University of Prince Edward Island (Campus Commons and Virtual Research Environment) and from his personal experiences to illustrate how social networking software can be used by libraries.

Mark emphasized that it’s not about the technology it’s about the people. You need to have an understanding of the technology but it’s the “message not the medium” (or knowledge) that is important. Give patrons the tools (social networking software) to contribute to our library community, engage them. Everyone has the potential to be a patron in your library and you need to find a way to bring them in.

Build the tools to share and new knowledge will come naturally.