WML Tech Updates

If you haven’t heard the news, is now being intergrated in a library’s catalog!

“We’re happy to announce that the Danbury Library in Danbury, Connecticut has become the first library in the world to put LibraryThing for Libraries on its live catalog. The Danbury Library—already breaking ground with an active blog and a MySpace page—continues to innovate and experiment. And we finally have something to show people!”

For more information on this amazing project (and for some nifty screen shots), view the whole article on Thingology, LibraryThing’s Ideas Blog.

I also want to encourage you to go straight to their catalog and play with it yourself! It’s very cool!

Congrats to Tim Spalding and his LibraryThing Team and to Kate Sheehan, Danbury’s Coordinator of Library Automation, for making this happen and being a role model for all the libraries who know their OPAC sucks and are positive that things can only improve.

A new survey from Langdon Morris and InnovationLabs LLC shows that the biggest thing that innovators need to be successful is not software, training or case studies, but more time to work on their ideas.

This new study from earlier this year also covers other interesting issues, like the factors that contribute to the effectiveness of corporate innovation programs and the value of informal innovation networks. You can download the full report. For the full article, see: Innovators need more time, says new study

I really think that taking some time to innovate is exceedingly beneficial. It can only help the institution. Look at the extra time Google employees get to innovate and “play.” Some of their best products came out of taking some time to sit back and think about how you can improve, mashup, create, and innovate. Being in academia is a natural place where innovation traditionally thrives and continuous learning abounds. We teach information literacy to help users become lifelong learners. Yet we aren’t encouraged in many of our library workplaces to become lifelong learners ourselves. We simply meet status quo or are so busy just trying to keep up with all the putting out of fires. Sure, in an institution where there is rank and promotion or something where extra efforts are recognized and rewarded, people are encouraged, if not required, to be innovative and investigate developing new or improved services and tools. But at MPOW, innovation is sadly a rare sight, and the committee heirarchy discourages if not occasionally prevents the rush of new ideas from surfacing and blooming. I hope to change that. I’m not ready to go into full details at the moment, but know that I am going to be making a difference in the lives of those I interact with, whether physically or virtually.

Now if I only had more time…

Have you heard the great news? The U.S. News & World Report rankings of graduate and professional schools was released on Friday, and the Owen Graduate School of Management jumped 15 places to No. 34. In addition, the Peabody College of Education and Human Development rose to No. 3, and their special education program was ranked No. 1 the nation.

The Owen Graduate School of Management rose to tie Pennsylvania State University at No. 34, up from Owen’s No. 49 last year. Jim Bradford, dean of the Owen School and Ralph Owen Professor for the Practice of Management, attributed the improvement to an investment in retaining and attracting faculty and innovative market-driven initiatives such as Owen’s health care MBA program.

Now there is no mention of just how cool the Walker Management Library is, and how it’s staff and services enriched the students’ experiences at Owen, but I am sure it was just overlooked. ;-)

For more information, please see this press release.  Also, for even MORE information, see this Bloomberg press release.

Librarians and the whole Learning 2.0 concept have made it into WIRED online. Also, Helene Blowers, Michael Stephens, and Michael Casey, some of my Library 2.0 heroes, are highlighted in the article. Below are some excerpts. Read the whole article here:   Public Library Geeks Take Web 2.0 to the Stacks

When the IT director at North Carolina’s Charlotte & Mecklenburg County public library began training staff in the latest web technologies, she lured reluctant participants with bribes — a free MP3 player and the chance to win a laptop.

Six months later, the program they developed is the real prize. Learning 2.0, developed by public services technology director Helene Blowers, has become a surprise grassroots hit, available for free on the web and adopted by dozens of other libraries around the globe.

Although her original goals for Learning 2.0 were touchy-feely “E’s” — exposing staff to new tools, encouraging play, empowering individuals, expanding the knowledge toolbox, eliminating fear — the effects were both practical and financial.

“We don’t have to wait for some training company to come along and say, ‘For $20,000 we’ll show you how this stuff works,’” said Michael Stephens, who wrote Web 2.0 and Libraries: Best Practices for Social Software. “Helene put it on the web so anyone can use that program.”

Other Business Schools are getting into Second Life. Management consultancy Bain & Co. has opened a recruiting center in the Second Life virtual environment. Earlier this month the firm held an open house in Second Life, at which students attended from Harvard Business School, MIT’s Sloan School of Business, the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business, and the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.

To read the complete article, please go to
http://www.campustechnology.com/articles/46394/

It will be interesting to see if other companies start recruiting through this route.

Last week, Library Journal announced the 2007 Movers & Shakers. If you are unfamiliar with this, individuals in libraries are nominated to help Library Journal identify the emerging leaders in the library world. Their Movers & Shakers supplement always profiles 50-plus up-and-coming individuals from across the United States and Canada who are innovative, creative, making a difference, and helping move libraries ahead.  I recognize many names on the list because of the various blogs I follow and Facebook interactions I have had.  They certainly deserve the honor!

“Many of the 50 librarians and other individuals profiled in the 2007 Movers & Shakers represent a new breed. They are young enough to have grown up with computers and the Internet. They’re not just embracing new technology, they own it. They create it. And they use it to develop and deliver myriad services to library users and nonusers, to meet their customers online, and to bring up to snuff even those who aren’t yet comfortable with our high-speed world. The same can be said of all the M&Sers here, whatever their generation or specialty.”

To nominate someone who you think is making a difference here in the Heard Library system at Vanderbilt  (I can think of a few people) or is making a difference in the overall library field, you have till November 2007 to nominate that person. (You can’t nominate yourself.) The online form isn’t available yet, but if you have any questions about LJM&S, contact Ann Kim, Library Journal, 360 Park Avenue South, New York, NY 10010.

A lot, apparently! SirsiDynix just announced a new, versatile technology platform called Rome that blends SirsiDynix Unicorn, Horizon/Corinthian, and other solutions to meet libraries needs. Here is a blurb from their press release:

Code-named “Rome,” this platform integrates solutions for library/consortia management, the user experience, and content management. It offers integrated technology building blocks for today’s libraries – public, academic, K-12, special, or consortia – beyond the traditional ILS, These include cost-saving software-as-a-service (SaaS) hosted options, state-of-the-art portal and search solutions, new and easy-to-manage Web-based library staff software, electronic content management and presentation solutions, the broadest suite of library management and productivity solutions… and more!

Thanks to David Lee King for also sharing more information on his blog about ths announcement.

From the description, this new “technology platform” sounds like to me like it’s a competitor to Primo, the search and discovery tool that ExLibris is developing.  But as you know, we, Vanderbilt, are already a development partner with ExLibris in developing Primo.  I wonder what Marshall Breeding’s thoughts are on this…

“Just as the internet allows users to create and share their own media, it is also enabling them to organize digital material their own way, rather than relying on pre-existing formats for classifying information.

A December 2006 survey by the Pew Internet & American Life Project found that 28% of internet users - and 7% on any typical day - have tagged or categorized online content such as photos, news stories or blog posts.”

Tagging is something I have talked to a few WML staff about and how it’s really changing the way we organize and find information online.  I don’t see major library databases departing from their internal thesari or subject headings, but I think I remember hearing that Primo has the potential for tagging to be used at some point.  I think non-librarian users would enjoy tagging a book or journal in Primo.  But when we get to the time when Primo is ready for it, we may not take advantage of it.

Anyway, for the complete article, go here: Pew Research Center: Tagging Play