WML Tech Updates

The Technology & Training Support Coordinators met again today. We had a full room - 20 people! And there was a full agenda! So this post is rather long, but bear with me!

1) Update on AlphaSearch plan for year 2 (Primo) -It’s now being reviewed by the library. Please let them know just how rapidly evolving the product is. It’s constantly being updated and problems are being addressed and resolved as quickly as possible. The Digital Library Steering Committee is doing formal acceptance testing for the licensing in the Spring. There will be a “soft launch” (and possibly a version 2) for the public and other libraries to play with, also in Spring. Anticipated full roll-out of the production version is Fall 2008.

2) Discussion of replacement for VUcal and Mulberry - VUcal is going away, and a replacement for shared private calendaring, etc. A direction has been recommended from ITS - move to the Exchange Servers (which means Microsoft Outlook). There are other clients that work with exchange servers, but ITS recommends the Outlook platform. LITS will be figuring out how and when to do the migration. It may happen by December.

People’s folders will be copied over, and people will be able to still send mail from Mulberry, but once the switchover happens, people will be strongly encouraged to use Outlook. Jody talked for a bit about distribution lists and the difficulty they are having recreating and moving certain structures over to

Jody is eliciting volunteers to help with training (people who are familiar with or currently use Outlook), and the Staff Development Committee will manage the training.

LITS’s goal: Be VUcal-free by January 1, 2008, and to have Outlook going and training underway, and still have Mulberry available (to have access to group mailboxes and distribution lists that will still work).

3) Discussion of plan to upgrade Unicorn to Oracle - There are many other ILS’s that use Oracle, and it’s just a good thing if we move to that platform. We’ll be able to better integrate services with Unicorn if we are using Oracle. There was a discussion about downtime, and the timing of doing the migration. There will be no percieved downtime except those regularly scheduled downtimes.

GL3.2 = Symphony, formerly Rome. (It’s basically just the fancy name for the next version of Unicorn.) Any questions about the Oracle migration or about the next version of Unicorn can be directed to Dale Poulter.

4) Walker library desktop support changes - Over the course of the year, LITS will be supporting us more with desktop support.

5) RSS for the Divinity Library Lectionary - Jody has been working with Anne Womack and Bill Hook to create an RSS feed for the lectionaries. They created the XML themselves for the RSS feed. They are also using SiteMason to help with the ease of use and maintenance of the feed. This will be going live soon.

6) Workstation replacement plans - They are targeting to remove the Dell 270’s and get new Dell 745’s. There are approximately 100 computers to replace over the course of the year.

7) Patch Tuesday - 49 patches were released today from Microsoft. They will be released to Heard networked staff the next day.

8) Update on search for systems librarian (Jason Battles’ former position) - They have several applicants so far, and the deadline for the position is tomorrow.

9) MS Vista and Office 2007 - Jody would like to come up with a mini boot camp for Vista and MS Office 2007 to help those who work with the public who are already dealing with Vista and Office 2007.

10) They are trying to consolidate idendidty management on the campus - it’s a huge project. They are also trying to work with those who aren’t current Vanderbilt entities, such as alumni, community users, etc. Basically, it will be a huge improvement.

11) ContactVU - a new system that will contain all our personal information used by the Vanderbilt Operators. The Sun Identity Manager and this new ContactVU system will be linked together and be much more secure than it currently is now. Multi-factor authentication will also be used eventually (a thumb as well as a password, for example).

This month’s Spiders Meeting was standing room only.  Michael Martin from ITS (and formerlly of WML)  talked about the new Web architecture project ITS is doing.  They are moving from Solaris to Linux machines.  Helios, which is very old and slowly dying, is a file respoistory and what most folks on campus use, and the new servers are web servers. I don’t think that this will affect us here in Owen at all. Owen maintains their own servers.  Mike said that their estimated timeline is to have this project completed by March 1st, although he admits that is very unlikely since they are trying to let EVERYONE on campus who might maintain a website or user Helios  know that they have to migrate their stuff.

Vanderbilt ITS now has a blog server.  People can create their own blog on the new VUblog website.  I asked Mike if he was familair with the University of Minnesota’s UThink Project, and sent him information about it after the meeting.  I wanted them to be aware of the potential and possible escalating problems that could happen from creating a blogging service for campus use.

Jim Parker, VU’s webmaster, talked about the upcoming VU homepage redesign.  He said it is going to be a radical change from they cuurrently have, there will be more images, more stories, more events pushed towards the first and secondary level pages.  They are also paying close attention to serach engine logs to determine if that can help with usability.  If you have suggestions, feel free to forward them to Jim.  They also have a redesign blog set up (almost).  Creative Services will be doing the redesign and hope to have a reasonable working version by April.  Over the summer they will work out the bugs and by August when school starts have a totally new site.  Jim said that they are struggling with the 2nd level pages, so again, email him if you have ideas.

The Spiders group has a new blog!  Jim and others will be posting things to it.

There is a new University Calendar that launched last week.  It’s done using Sitemason.  You can add photos to events, subscribe to various RSS feeds from the Calendar (like academic, sports, etc.).  There are lots of ways to pull the data from it.  It should be much more helpful for users.  Questions about it?  Send them to Tim.

John B. also talked briefly about Camptasia and how it can be used. He also demonstrated using a nifty little Logitech ultravision camera that has a built in microphone ($114).  He talkaed about the new pricing for bulk orders.

Many of you have heard about blogs, wikis, rss feeds, Facebook, Flickr, MySpace, etc. If you interact with me, you probably hear me throw these terms around quite often. And I bet most of you have been to Amazon.com before. All of these things are considered to be or influenced by “Web 2.0” technologies and are what younger generations (and some older generations too) are using on the web these days. Web 2.0 was coined by O’Reilly Media in 2004, and refers to a supposed second-generation of Internet-based services.

So what is Web 2.0 really?

“A core concept of Web 2.0 is that people are the content of sites. That is, a site is not populated with information for users to consume. Instead, services are provided to individual users for them to build networks of friends and other groups (professional,
recreational, etc.). The content of a site then, comprises user-provided information that attracts new members of an ever-expanding network.”

- Tim O’Reilly, “What is Web 2.0″

Karen Schneider, a well-respected colleague in the library field, and founder of the Librarian’s Index to the Internet, has compiled a list of common terms associated with the 2.0 thing. I have added a few terms too.

Ajax: Asynchronous JavaScript and XML - and in English, it means that a few technologies are working together to help develop interactive web applications. Most Web 2.0 technologies use Ajax

Biblioblogosphere (jocular): The world of library blogging

Blog: from web + log: an easily-updated web diary/journal

Blogosphere: the larger world of blogging

Chat: IM (instant messaging): interactive, real-time, text-based conversation

Comment: A user contribution to an entity

Folksonomy: ad-hoc taxonomies generated for online content (it’s sort of like metadata!)

Podcast (from iPod + cast): an RSS-distributed audio file, usually MP3

Post: an entry on a blog

Mashup: two or more services combined into a third

Radical trust: allowing users to drive/define services and content

Rating: an assessment, usually online, such as four stars for a book

Remix: mixing two or more pots of content to get a third

RSS: Really Simple Syndication - enables rapid republication, or syndication, of web content (text, video, audio, etc.)

Screencast: a digital recording/video of what’s happening on your screen, typically with audio - useful for providing visual directions on how to do something. These can be podcasted, which are called videocasts.

Splogging: spamming within a blog

Tag: a keyword or phrase used in a folksonomy

Tag cloud: a visual representation of part of a folksonomy

Vlog: video blog

Karen also has a WONDERFUL presentation online that discusses this Web 2.0 further, like why you need to know about this, how it is affecting libraries, and what libraries should be doing about it. Her presentation is basically a cookbook - something you can digest fairly easily and can work toward developing an end product, whether that’s a staff that is more knowledgeable, or is the building of new tools. It’s called the Library 2.0 Cookbook: A commonsense guide to those perplexing but intriguing new technologies you keep hearing about.

I suggest that you take a look at it in your free time. It’s not a boring PowerPoint presentation, but rather a visually appealing document full of data and interesting information, and it will certainly help demystify what Web 2.0 really is. And it will definitely get you thinking!

1. Recent Technology Trends - This is a list of trends, new technologies, and innovations that are affecting libraries internationally and on the minds of many librarians and technologists. Things are changing fast, and these are the hottest topics being discussed. This is merely an FYI.
   • Storage Blogs (It’s short for weblog, and is a public website where users post informal journals of their thoughts, comments, and philosophies. It’s updated frequently and normally reflects the views of the blog’s creator.)
   • RSS (This is short for Rich Site Summary or Real Simple Syndication. It’s XML-based and is a commonly used protocol for the syndication and sharing of content, originally developed to facilitate the syndication of news articles, now widely used to share the contents of blogs.)
   • Citizen Journalists (Blogs and RSS Feeds are creating these “citizen journalists,” and this is a concern for authenticity for many people.)
   • Wikis (These are webpages that are editable by visitors to the website, as opposed to conventional websites which can only be changed by the webmaster. They are usually used for community or technical sites to allow for joint authoring and ownership.)
   • E-Books
   • OPACs
   • FRBR (That’s short for Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records. It uses an entity-relationship model of metadata for information objects, instead of the single flat record concept underlying current cataloging standards. People typically pronounce it “ferber.”)
   • Interface Design
   • WiFi
   • Broadband and VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol, which is basically telephone over the Internet)
   • Google Print, Google Scholar, and MetaSearching (like MetaLib)
   • Folksonomies
   • Digital Rights Management
2. Proxy Migration - All of the proxy migrations are done! Owen students and alumni will no longer have to authenticate with their VUnet ID/password, but only with their Owen ID/password. Jason Reusch, Jason Battles, and Rachel collaborated to make this work.
3. Electronic Resource Usage Statement splash page - The next step to improving the electronic resources in Rachel’s eyes is to work with the Information Services team to create a standard electronic resource usage statement that would be a page that users have to click through before entering a database about ethical usage of that database, and who has access privileges to that database. Rachel hasn’t talked to LITS about this possibility yet, nor has she really discussed it in detail with the IS team yet. But she believes that there is interest among librarians to have something like this!
4. Databases Update - Thomson ONE Banker is up and running. If you experience any problems with a popup window asking you about cookies, please disregard it at the moment. Dale Poulter is fixing it. Also, Multexnet will soon be Reuter’s Research on Demand. Dale ran across several problems and is still working with Reuter’s IT people to configure it correctly. It should be up by early next week at the latest.
5. New Computers - As you are probably aware, the new computers are in, and one is in Rachel’s office being configured. Danny will be taking the image Rachel helped set up and putting that image on all the public workstations. Danny and Rachel will hopefully be setting them up next week when he returns to work. Laura, Sylvia, Marie, and the scanning station at circulation all have new computers. These computers are awesome because they are easy to open to get to the guts of the computer, they each have a CD/DVD burner, USB plugs are on the front of the computer making it easy for people with portable flash drives to plug in, and microphone and headphone plugs are also on the front of the computer. They are also lightening speed! To give you an idea of how fast these things are changing:

   Computer Speed Memory
   Old desktops 1.29 GHz 256 MB of RAM
   Current laptops 1.6 GHz 512 MB of RAM
   New desktops 3.4 GHz 1.0 GB of RAM

6. Pay-for-Print - At this time, it is undetermined if Owen students will be paying for their printing or not. No matter what decision is made, public workstations will still have pay-for-print software on them to charge non-Owen patrons who enter the library. Deb or Rachel will let you know as soon as they hear something from Dean Bradford.
7. CDROM server databases and public workstation databases - This is referring to public workstation #9 (which has FARS, Proquest ABI Inform/Periodicals Ondisc, and Simmons Choices 3 accessible on it) and to the three databases all installed on the public workstations that aren’t accessible remotely (SDC Platinum 3.2, Datastream Advance 4.0, and the Lexis-Nexis Research Software 7.2). So, what about them? Well, recently, Deb, Rachel, and Jason Reusch met to discuss the possibility of putting these on an Owen server so as to make them more accessible. After some examination of the high cost involved in doing so, it was decided that it would be better to wait and see which of the databases are going to be coming out in Web form, and to investigate how other business libraries are dealing with these more complicated databases.
   In summary, Public Workstation #9 will remain, and the three databases will be on the new public workstations when they are deployed.
8. Java Client - LITS is STILL doing some beta testing on a new Java Client for our current and upcoming Sirsi products. It is coming soon, though!
9. Webcasts - On June 15, Rachel attended the webcast: Google’s Library Digitization Project: Reports from Michigan and Oxford. On July 21, Sylvia and Rachel attended the webcast: Narrowcasting 101: Using Blogs, Podcasts, and Videoblogs in Higher Education.
10. GIS Task Force - On Wednesday, June 22, Rachel and Rahn and the rest of the GIS Task Force presented Paul Gherman and other LMC members with a final report. It summarized the current use of GIS on VU’s campus, included an overview of what is being done with GIS at comparable institutions, and gave recommendations for the future of GIS at VU and within the library system. It was decided that the task force will continue on (possibly with additional new members) and further investigate what the Heard Library can do with the various GIS resources in existence, and proceed on to the next level.
11. Presentation - On July 14, 2005, Rachel was one of the presenters at the following Brown Bag Session. Her focus was on the importance and impact of RSS in libraries.

Wikis, Blogs, RSS, Etc.: New Tools for the New Library?
With the recent implementation of the Heard Library’s new strategic plan, we are all investigating ways to be more innovative. Fortunately, there are many new open source technologies that will help us improve communication, expand cross-library collaboration, and enable us to reach many of our goals. Come and learn more about these technologies, how they are currently being used in libraries, and how they could and are being implemented here at Vanderbilt. Join Rick Stringer-Hye, Suellen Stringer-Hye, Dale Poulter, and Rachel Vacek, who are leading this brown bag discussion based on what they discovered at the LITA National Forum earlier this year and other conferences that they have recently attended.

Have a good weekend, everyone! Thanks for your attention and time!