Knowledge Sharing

Knowledge Sharing: Past to Meet Present Part 4

2011-09-30T09:42:00.000-04:00

Knowledge Sharing: Past to Meet Present Part 5

Knowledge Sharing: Past to Meet Present Part 3

2011-09-30T09:40:00.000-04:00

Knowledge Sharing: Past to Meet Present Part 5

Knowledge Sharing: Past to Meet Present Part 2

2011-09-30T09:39:00.001-04:00

Knowledge Sharing: Past to Meet Present Part 5

Knowledge Sharing: Past to Meet Present

2011-09-30T09:39:00.000-04:00

Knowledge Sharing: Past to Meet Present Part 5

Past to Meet Present Part 5

2011-09-30T09:38:00.000-04:00

The story of 1,300 antique medical instruments donated to the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine continues and Thursday, September 29, 2011 is a day to remember!

Dr. John "Jack" Monroe and his family, who donated the collection, were honored at an "opening" reception of the collection on display on the second floor of the Richard Dean Biomedical Research building where WFIRM is located. There is not enough room to display the entire collection so part of it is in storage but that didn't dampen the mood at yesterday's reception.

Speakers at the event were Dianne Johnson, archivist; John Gillon, senior director of gift planning in the Office of Development and Alumni Affairs; George Christ, education coordinator and professor for WFIRM; Karen Richardson, senior communications officer for WFIRM and Dr. Tony Atala, director of WFIRM.

And while John, Dianne and Karen agreed that this gift has been the hardest one to organize, facilitate and make available - the satisfaction of the Monroe family made it all worthwhile and Thursday's event was the culmination of nearly a year of work.

Guests, mostly employees from WFIRM, also had the honor of listening to Dr. Monroe talk about his favorite pieces. He agreed to talk for only a few minutes but I recorded 17 minutes worth of video on my iPhone which was quickly transferred to a DVD since my phone was nearly dead :).

Since Dr. Monroe practiced obstetrics and gynecology, one of his favorites is the "Lydia's Bottle." Some of his other favorite pieces have to do with bloodletting, a technique used to relieve all kinds of pain up until the 1900s. The least painful way to relieve the patient's pain was with leeches and Dr. Monroe said that many doctors used to carry leech boxes in their pockets to store the leeches as they used them over and over.

Another instrument used for bloodletting was lancets - small knives:

And of course the doctor had to contain/collect the blood in the "bleeding bowl," this one being Dr. Monroe's favorite:

Dr. Monroe said he was one of the top collectors in the world of bleeding bowls. During his years of collecting - spanning close to 60 - his favorite example of historical medicine was Dr. Samuel Vierling, one of the early doctors in Old Salem.

The afternoon ended with food and more stories from Dr. Monroe, his wife Boo - known as the great bargainer - and their daughter, Cloud. Mrs. Monroe would bargain for the pieces, many of which were found at flea markets such as Metrolina Trade Show near Lake Norman and even a flea market in Liberty, NC.

While Dr. Monroe and his family left happy, there still is some tweaking to the display of the collection, according to Karen. So stay tuned!

Historical Road Trip

2011-07-08T11:02:00.000-04:00

The angels in heaven were bowling strikes as Evan and I hit the road for home on Thursday, July 7, 2011.

The strong lightening, loud thunder and hard downpour didn't last long though but our historical road trip to UNC Chapel Hill was a full and exciting day.

It started out getting lost - no, I mean - a drive through campus including the mega-hospital complex. But the nice receptionist at UNC's administration building got us to Louis R. Wilson Library - a place I could live amongst all that history!

Once again were up and down, up and down steps, i.e. lost, until we found Nicholas Graham with the Digital NC project - where Wake Forest School of Medicine and NC Baptist Hospital School of Nursing yearbooks will be digitized. After unloading them and taking care of business, Nick showed us around including the equipment used to digitize the yearbooks. Through grants and UNC's budget, they are using equipment and staff from the Internet Archive. There are three scanners - books are laid on a V-shaped stand, like they would be displayed, and a camera from each side shoots the pages. Then they magically appear legible and with little editing on the screen, ready for the world to see! Nick quickly walked us through the Digital Production Center with all types of equipment.

Then we were left on our own, still in Wilson Library, where we explored the exhibit gallery about the formation of Text and Images and Paper; the NC Collection gallery where Evan was scared to glance at the life-size statue of Sir Walter Raleigh but he enjoyed the etchings of Louis Orr (Evan is an aspiring architect) and then our research began.

Evan decided he wanted to look up his aunt, my sister, in the UNC yearbook which meant registering on paper, getting my driver's license copied, locking up our valuables and finding the 1995 Yackety Yak in the Rare Books room. Much to our dismay, we didn't find her - ugh!! She probably didn't show up for the picture - ugh again!! But here's proof that he actually tried:

Next we made our way to the Southern Historical collection on Level 4 where I wanted to check out two folders in the Human Betterment League collection. And here we go again with registering (just re-read the above paragraph). This time I was handed the box through a window and told to go to a private research room, probably because I had a very curious nine-year-old checking out, i.e. touching, everything! I attempted photographs of some papers but that didn't work out well. Same-day photocopying wasn't available and it is expensive to get an entire folder copied so I decided to just remember what UNC has and refer patrons there, i.e. collaboration.

Working in a medical library, I couldn't leave UNC without checking out its Health Sciences Library. Yet another drive around campus with nice views of Keenan Stadium, under the UNC Hospitals pedestrian bridge, passing Wilson Library twice :) until I decided to park in an alcove down the street from the Health Sciences library. Our hot trek up the hill included this view:

I saw brown, smelled coffee and touched the elevator button to Level 5. Still seeing shades of brown but no one around to help us find that rare book reading room. I can't leave when I'm this close so I peak in the preservation office where Rachel Hoff gladly shows off the tiny Wilcox Reading Room. While talking, Evan checks out the leather reading chair, floor lamp and tried on Dr. Wilcox's antique surgery glasses. His curiosity continues in the "stacks" area with movable shelving and his touching of the very old book. I did let him touch the blue velvet brick holding up the books but we quickly departed before we would really have to move in to pay for the damages :).

We then enjoyed a quick trip to the student stores and lunch in the "quad," suggested by a passing employee. Evan shoots photos while I finish up my lunch, now being attacked by various insects under the tree.

Then down - not getting lost - Highway 54 to our meeting location to drop off three boxes of personal materials to the daughter of a doctor whose collection is in the Archives here.

We leave with the angels bowling and our faces smiling!

Talking Archivists

2011-05-20T09:02:00.001-04:00

Seven Triad (Winston-Salem, High Point, Greensboro, Burlington) archivists and one friend of archivists gathered for the first Society of NC Archivists Triad Social on Thursday, May 19.

Wake Forest was well represented with Z. Smith Reynolds folks Rebecca Peterson, Audra Eagle-Yun, Craig Fansler (the friend) and me, Dianne Johnson. Then there was Gwen Gosney-Erickson and Liz Cook from Guilford College and Bennett College's first dedicated archivist Marcellaus Joiner.

We enjoyed homemade macaroni and cheese, sweet potato hush puppies, salmon salad, collard greens with peanuts and more at Lucky 32 in Greensboro. The early evening atmosphere was pleasant and allowed for all kinds of conversation.

For example, Marcellus learned that he wasn't the only who had to process materials before digitizing them. And some of us even got to know Greensboro better whether it was a description of Super G from Audra or some behind the scenes details about the Civil Rights Museum from Gwen. Some personal stories were shared so it was a great time to leave our collections to get to know our fellow colleagues.

Next up is probably a tour of Etherington Conversation Services, followed by social time at another eating place!

Here's the group, post-dinner:

From left: Craig, Audra, Liz and Marcellus

Gwen (first) and Rebecca

MLA Musings

2011-05-19T07:52:00.009-04:00

Marketing As If Your Library Depended on it.
Presenter: Pat Wagner, Pattern Research

At MLA, I attended this CE class on Saturday, the 14th. I have always avoided marketing-type courses because I thought the information would be too obvious. It turns out that this class was very useful and focused more on understanding who your customers and how to speak to them.

The most important things I learned:

Avoid being smug. We need to learn what our patrons really want and stop trying to convince them that our way is the better way.

For each event/publication/class we should identify the target audience and play to that.

Develop partnerships with users.

Understand the difference between a feature and a benefit. A feature is what we can offer people, a benefit is what the user gets from the feature. This should be the focus of marketing.

Be willing to change and/or eliminate what doesn't work.

There is a difference between Marketing Public Relations and Advertising.

Marketing is being aware of what people want and adapting to the change.

Advertising is about giving people a compelling reason to "buy" your product.

Public Relations is more passive, less specific and ongoing. It says "Remember me fondly and often".

Finally, the presenter suggested that we look at the activites we focus on and figure out how much time, money and effort we spend on each.

The Past - this is driven by what we are known for and what people love about us (books, journals, quiet space, etc.)

The Present - this should be driven by customer demands (mobile computing, e-materials, coffee bar, etc.)

The Future - this is about vision and what we might do that we have never done before (embedded librarians, 24/7 access, etc.)

Past to Meet Present Part 4

2011-05-18T16:42:00.001-04:00

A quick review since it has been exactly three months since the last post on this subject.

And the subject is Dr. John Monore's collection of antique medical instruments that are eventually going to be displayed downtown in the Dean Research Building, specifically Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine.

In March and April, Karen Richardson (public relations officer for WFIRM) and I:
1. Cleaned out the six display cabinets donated by Dr. Monroe
2. Figured out how to install the glass shelves into those cabinets
3. Worked on new locks for those cabinets
4. And finally, actually made many trips with a cart from an office where the instruments are stored to the cabinets!

Since we are not the most "visual" people, we re-organized several times but finally got the instruments grouped according to our themes: bloodletting, feeding, general diagnostic, pharmaceutical, etc. After that, we started researching museum cards to describe the different instruments. Karen has done most of the legwork on this which was finding the slips of paper in which Dr. Monroe described each piece and then finding the "matching" piece - great puzzle solver! She then started typing up some descriptions for each piece. We learned along the way that there really isn't enough room in the cases to place physical description cards for each piece so we were leaning toward framed descriptions to hang on the wall.

Meanwhile, while going through some collections in the Archives, specifically Dr. Lawrence C. McHenry who did research on the history of medicine, I have found awesome and relevant materials for antique stethoscopes and brain/neurological-type instruments.

So, Karen is doing her thing (creating first draft of descriptions) and I'm doing mine (collecting and learning all about old medical instruments) when...

Dr. Tony Atala, director of WFIRM, who seems to have a great insterest in the history of medicine, decided that he wants more pieces displayed. We barely touched the surface, really, out of 1,300 items.

When she sent me an email update just this week, she said:

Just wanted to give you an update on the mini-museum ....

Dr. Atala has decided to purchase additional cases since only a small portion of the collection was displayed.

So, can guess the 1.5 words that have made my entire week?

Ahhhh ... "mini-museum"

And of course, I replied with:

Dr. Atala needs to think bigger J I am ready to display all the things here too!

Okay, slight tangent there. Needless to say, Karen hopes to have the display completed by early Fall 2011.
Stay tuned!

Saving Social Media

2011-04-07T11:38:00.000-04:00

One of the Friday morning, April 1 sessions at the Society of NC Archivists/SC Archives Association conference was "Collaboration and (in) Records Management." My riding partner/roommate and I agreed to attend different sessions to compare notes on the way home.

This session doesn't directly apply to me but it still deserves a post because of the cool stuff the State of NC Archives is doing. Kelly Eubank, head of electronic records at the Archives, talked about social media use and archiving those records - can you even imagine?

What might be obvious to some people already, she stated that when an institution creates a Facebook page, Twitter account, etc., it is the institution's page meaning no privacy and follow the rules if you use the accounts.

But what got me to log out of my personal social media page :) was the next part. Kelly said that the State Archives is collecting and archiving posts from Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, etc. It is called geospatial data archiving.

There are many issues with archiving electronic data but the main one is that printing it out does not preserve all the data. For example, in Microsoft Word, there is a properties tab which shows when it was created, changed and who created it. That is lost or not available if it is printed. The same goes with e-mail messages - you can't see which servers it went through which could be helpful, especially in state government.

Before information services was less enthusiastic about working with the Archives, she said to at least create a PDF of the information - don't leave it in Word or as an e-mail message. After years of building (and it is a daily struggle) a relationship with information services and other departments, Archives does get most electronic information in a good format to archive. Like this institution there are many privacy issues and that could potentially be another post entirely.

Lastly and I have saved the best for the last. When Governor Hunt was serving as the head of the state, the Archives received 6 GB of electronic material. After Governor Easley left office, Archives received 290 GB of electronic files.

So this archiving of electronic data is only going to get bigger and archivists continue to learn and persevere.

Statewide Digitization

2011-04-06T09:25:00.000-04:00

One of the obvious themes of the Society of NC Archivists and SC Archives Association joint conference March 31 is digitization while the not so obvious is flexibility! Representatives from SC and NC shared statewide digital projects.

So far, there are 80,000 items scanned in the South Carolina Digital Library and those materials encompass 90 collections. The Library is funded by the SC Department of Archives and History, a partnership among academic institutions and the SC State Library. Four institutions have a scan center and a CONTENT dM server - University of SC, College of Charleston, Coastal Carolina University and Clemson University.

Some of the site is interactive, such as an old map against a current map to compare. The site also has lesson plans and topics for K-12 teachers. Institutions who want to contribute have to provide the material and the only requirement is a title of the collection, making it easy for institutions who not have the expertise, staff or equipment to digitize materials - flexibility!

North Carolina is flexible too!

The NC Digital Heritage Center was born in 2009 - after the laborious but fruitful NC Exploring Cultural Heritages Online project. NC ECHO was a grant funded project in which representatives surveyed all cultural and historical institutions in the state of North Carolina (they came in early 2001 to DCMA). NC ECHO also manages digitization grants for all types of institutions (such as Digital Forsyth). The part that really helped birth the NC Digital Heritage Center was the final "directory" of the institutions. The digital library uses CONTENT dM, like SC, but unlike SC, there is one server housed at UNC Chapel Hill in the Wilson Special Collections Library.

Again like SC, NC has many small and "hidden" institutions which need help to scan and digitize materials; hence, flexibility. The only metadata required is a title. Institutions may add additional information if they want to in both statewide libraries.

Both states hope these Libraries last a long time - they are prepared to promote, maintain and continue building relationships with their respective cultural institutions.

Digitize times three

2011-04-05T14:22:00.000-04:00

Society of NC Archivists/South Carolina Archives Association conference continued on Thursday afternoon, March 31 with three institutions sharing their experiences with "Digital Initiatives."

Avery Research Center for African American History and Culture of the College of Charleston, SC basically turned a physical museum into an virtual museum when they digitized 500 linear feet of manuscripts (paper-based), 80 linear feet of artifacts and 80 oral histories. One of the staff members taught herself by actually reading the manual of how to shoot photographs of paintings, slave badges and other artifacts. She also sought the advice from a faculty member specializing in photography. The lesson is here is that a digital exhibit can be created with limited funds; some creativity and tons of time!

UNC Charlotte has transitioned from just online digital exhibits to a full-blown digital program by hiring a digital projects coordinator. Like many institutions, the new coordinator is trying to collaborate and train technical and circulation services staffs as well as being creative and dynamic to interest the entire Library staff. For example, the circulation staff is fully describing, i.e. creating metadata, of 10,000 images previously scanned and just waiting for access. Most of the circulation staff has been in the Charlotte area for a long time so they know the photos!

Moving way east, East Carolina University is advocating EAC-CPF (love those library acronyms) or Encoded Archival Context - Corporate Bodies Families. And some background, there is no "one" way to describe archival collections, like the MARC record. And since all archival collections are unique, the archives community has come up with Encoded Archival Context, which basically can be an extended/detailed/descriptive inventory of each collection or something as basic as a title and location. East Carolina's approach (EAC-CPF), which they have just started doing in the last couple of weeks, will help better locate collections AND give them context, i.e. pull them all into one location.

Now, all that makes sense but here is where I became confused (or really tired since it was late afternoon).
ECU is somehow using the social networking site of SNAP to describe and organize the collections. The pre-cursor to this idea was developed in the Google Refine open source software as the North Carolina Biographical Historical Information Online, funded by a grant in the early 2000s. (I think the website was taken down).

So basically lots of neat digital initiatives news in both Carolinas.

SNCA Plenary

2011-04-04T15:33:00.000-04:00

I attended the Society of NC Archivists conference in Morehead City, NC on Thursday, March 31 through Friday, April 1, 2011. It was very nice to pick up company and fellow archivist, Gwen Gosney Erickson from Guilford College, for the long drive there. Excellent mileage though, about 38.1 miles per gallon!

The opening plenary was "Recovering History in the Atlantic: Queen Anne's Revenge and the H.L. Hunley." Nautical Archaeology Curator of the North Carolina Maritime Museum David Moore gave a brief history of pirates, specifically Blackbeard. The most reliable source for pirate historians is the General History of Pyrates 1724 by Captain Charles Johnson. While the book has been reprinted several times, experts still turn to that source for the daily life and activities of pirates from Blackbeard's generation.

Moore explained the many challenges of recovering items from the sunken Queen Anne's Revenge, found not too far from where we were sitting at the Crystal Coast Civic Center in Morehead City, NC. One of the challenges is lack of visibility - the waters are too murky - so it is a lot of touch and feel or "blind archaeology" as he called it.

Although difficult, approximately 50 percent of the site has been recovered including a uterine syringe made of pewter, nested weights, and part of the toilet that Blackbeard probably used. A lot of these items will go on display at the NC Maritime Museum this June, which we learned about at the Thursday evening private reception at the museum.

Meanwhile, not too far south, and since this was the first joint meeting with archivists from South Carolina, Ralph Wilbanks shared the history of the Civil War Submarine H.L. Hunley.

Wilbanks is an underwater advisor for the National Underwater and Marine Agency. The Hunley was built in Mobile, Alabama and shipped to Charleston, SC. It was the first submarine to sink a warship, the Housatonic in February 1864.

Self-made millionaire and adventurer Clive Cussler was convinced the Hunley was beneath the waters off the coast of South Carolina. After looking in the 1980s, he found nothing but he didn't give up and found the tip of it on May 3, 1995. Five years later after many political battles and the construction of a custom conservation facility, recovery of the submarine began in May 2000. Recovery of the entire submarine and its contents was completed on August 5, 2000. A celebration off the coast of Charleston took place with 300 boats in the water and media everywhere.

The Hunley, still pretty intact, was taken back to the facility where the hard work began. Everything that went in the Hunley was still there, including a shoe with 26 bones in it. In fact, all 18 shoes (for the nine men in the boat) each had 26 bones in them. Other items found were a canteen, wallet and Union dog tag (Civil War was the first time they were used and this one was probably a souvenir).

Wilbanks estimates that approximately $20 million was spent on the recovery of the Hunley, a lot donated by wealthy individuals, including mystery writer Patricia Cornwell.

And since this is all about ships, here I am at the Sanitary Fish Market in Morehead City (too full of seafood to actually steer a ship):

Computers in Libraries, Day Three

2011-03-23T18:25:00.000-04:00

Keynote: Lee Rainie, Pew Internet Project

Not a Think Tank, a Fact Tank

Attention Zones:

Most of us now have continuous partial attention, in the shallow end of most information

But there are some really deep divers, especially those recently diagnosed or their loved ones, and they want to be an instant expert on the condition.

Vs info snacking

Media Zones:

· social streams

· Immersive space ... as in gaming

· Creative/participatory

· study/work

Can be nodes in social networks

People turn to their networks for three things

1 reporters/sentries, word of mouth matters more than mass media

2 As information evaluators, they vouch for or discredit a business's credibility and authenticity...can be scale tippers

3 as forums for action, everybody' a broadcaster or publisher

Cosmic big value-add by libraries

1 teachers of new literacies

2 navigation literacy

3 connections and content literacy

Skepticism

Instruct in ethical behavior in a new world

Thinking Critically and Strategically: Seeing Possibilities / Rebecca Jones, Dysart & Jones

Critical Optimism (thinking critically is NOT criticism)

Peripheral vision

Don’t focus on the twenty percent that are whining

Leadership is about pissing somebody off. (Colin Powell)

Effective Workflows for Multi Generational and Tech Change: Colleen Harris, Univ of TN at Chattanooga

4 major factors of workflow change

· Technology

· Skill sets

· Infrastructure

· Planning

Examples: ereserves, illiad workflows, oclc web svcs

Morale issues may actually be skills issues

Peer to peer training v effective

Ability and interest are two very different factors

Stagnant ILL

The z39.50 and amazon connections are great

Custom holdings info essential, top five lender string

Porting old practices into new systems

Oclc webscale management systems

Dump old ils?!?

Worldcat local much different than old catalog

QR Codes – the ZSR folks phoned it in http://laurenpressley.com/library/2011/03/qr-codes-for-cil/

Mobile Usability with Jeff Wiesniewski

Mobile website emulator, firefox has a user agent switcher

Transliteracies: Libraries as the Critical "Classroom" /Gretchen Casserotti and Brian Hulsey

To be an active participant in today's society, you have to be literate across all media.

Concept of story has evolved in sooo many formats

Now that we experience the world through so many forms and formats, kids aren’t beholden to the container...they care about the content, so flexibility is key

Types of literacy: print, information, spacial, digital, scientific, visual, cultural, media

We cannot rely on standard forms of instruction for today’s generations

Don’t contribute to the growing disconnect between learning and life

Not just a digital divide, but a multilevel caste system (argh)

http://librariesandtransliteracy.wordpress.com/

Computers in Libraries, Day two

2011-03-22T21:47:00.000-04:00

Keynote:

Three Keys to Engaging Digital Natives: Michelle Manafy, Free Pint Limited

In my day . . .

· Digital Natives are those who grew up with nearly ubiquitious internet access and speak the language, vs us digital immigrants

· By 2018, they will have tranformed the workplace and changed expectation

· They have hidden advantages that allow them to learn and work in ways that we cannot, so we should leverage their worldview and engage them

· Communal generation, readily share all aspects of their lives

· TakingITGlobal social network for civic engagement

· Users can and will become your greatest advocates through their usual channels

· This generation is interested in knowledge sharing, not knowledge hoarding

· Quirky.com: submit your killer idea...social product hub. The influencers also earn money from products brought to market. Realtime market feedback..buzz created long before comes to market

· Localmotors new american car company, crowdsourced open community process. Actually produces cars via open plans

· ProPublica reporting network, collaborative journalism Systemetizes crowdsourcing

· Digitalkoot from Finland...access to cultural heritage, play games to improve searchability and usability of the site; post scores to facebook and autopublicize the content and recruit new users

· Kids have a totally different view of currency, would easily take their allowance n paypal or online music credits

· Pbs digital nation project, user stories and feedback incorporated into the documentary as it is being made. Six word story about how living digitally has changed their lives

· State Library of Victoria has lots of examples of interaction

· Library of Birmingham reenvisioning the library, building a new one, and engaging with their users along the way

1. public opinion not private lives

2. knowledge sharing not knowledge hoarding

3. interactions not transactions

Forthcoming book: Dancing With Digital Natives

Learning from Inspirational Libraries: Marshall Breeding

All photos of libraries, mostly in other countries, he has a database of 26,000 library photos but I can’t find any evidence that he displays on the web publicly, alas.

Organizational Intelligence: Scott Brown and Sabrina Pacifici

· Proactively stalking people in your organization, searching for clues: where are the champions, who owns what web properties.

· Email forwarding gives you clues, who forwarded and what they said.

· If you use URL shorteners, it will track hits by it

· Finding the pulse... Where and what are the conversations? Finding the pain as well.

· Who is passionate about the topic. Who's contributing content.

· If you are nonthreatening and aligned neutrally you'll get more questions and can act as a bridge in the organization.

· Beyond the org chart... Who needs content? Easy allies.

· Linkedin sharing can reveal a lot

· Visibility and openness....who else should know about us?

Adapting Best Practices for Strategic Alignment in the New Hybrid Library: Janel White & Hannah Somers, NPR Manage the image of your projects... Be aware of other projects going on and embed yourselves. Adopt the same accountability models.

Center for Homeland Defense and Security Naval Postgraduate School Jodi Stiles and Greta Marlette

Mobile Programs for the Enterprise

NASA Goddard space flight center library

Moving beyond the walls of the library, a huge campus

Mobile librarian service...three month pilot program

Met w building managers to find candidates for the program, with high foot traffic and wifi...visibility is key

Danielle Pollock, Sandia National Laboratories

· Got every ereader available, primarily for PDfs

· Ipad ranked highest overall, kindle dx did well

· Security review of all devices

· Defined process for evaluation and approval

· Support users reading on smartphones

· Recommendstion numbet five, do not implement a device lending program, the staff time is significant No one device works for all users They're really single user devices

Getting to the Eureka! Moment

Julian Aiken Yale Law Library

More of a comedy routine than a learning session, but he is the guy who lends out his dog at Yale.

Tuesday Evening Program was hilarious, as usual. Two points from Stephen Abrams:

· More library cards than drivers licenses in the United States

· More library branches than Starbucks and McDonald’s combined

Apparently I’m going to have to fact-check that one for Dave K.

Computers in Libraries, Day 1

2011-03-21T18:51:00.001-04:00

Keynote. Google guy's plane was three hours late, so a panel filled in and talked about him behind his back, and they ended up being more interesting than the speaker himself, who spoke during the lunch hour. Panel discussion partly here http://www.libconf.com/2011/03/21/cil-opening-keynote-panel/

Secrets of Super Searchers: Mary Ellen Bates

She was also at the Entrepreneurial Conference at ZSR recently, but there she was talking about her business and here she shared tricks from the ever-evolving search engine market.

· Google now has AROUND proximity search (use caps) Not earth shattering, but makes a difference if you try comparing phrase searching with AROUND

· Ngrams.googlelabs.com – see the use of a word (in books) over time. For example, I searched consumption, tuberculosis to see where the rise and fall of each term was used.

· Block content farms from your search results “Personal blocklist” block {domain} chrome works best, of course you have to sign in to Google

· Yahoo correlator: limited to wikipedia related concepts Clues.yahoo.com. Aggregated queries, zeitgeist

· Bing now has a NEAR operator. Autism near:5 vaccination

· Duckduckgo.com...good for disambiguation

· Blekko... Blocks spam and content farms automatically Specialized slash tags. / sort by relevance or rank or date

· Waybackmachine.org now has a timeline Less clicking, more browsing

Search Engine Update: Greg Notess

· A battle against content farms; beware of permanently blocking something, changes in an instant...ehow may be useful again someday

· Google recipes only use content that is marked up according to the google markup language

· Notice the Google left side options constantly changing, even some features from the advanced search screen have moved left

· Phonebook features are gone from google

· Look at your google ad preferences, pretty interesting www.google.com/ads/preferences (wow, it thinks I’m in the 25-34 age range!!)

· Blekko /liberal or /conservative Qwiki, different approach

Google books keynote rescheduled from the morning
James Crawford, engineering director

· Why, how, and what can be done with fifteen million scanned books

· Part of larger mission to organize the worlds information

· Six years later, the project is over fifteen million books

· Thirty thousand plus publishing partners

· Back to 1473

· Ranking books is harder than web pages, not as many references, esp in fiction

· 478 languages

· Hard to do OCR in Klingon

In Pursuit of Library Elegance: Erica Reynolds and John Blyberg

· See the book by Matthew May

· Rules are outta control

· Signs are bandaids

· Limited resources help spark creativity and innovation

SharePoint Tips and Tricks: Jeff Wiesniewski, pitt.edu

We need sharepoint 2010!!!

· Content Organizer features bulk file imports

· Rules-based file migration

· Automatic routing to the appropriate library

· Tags and managed metadata, tag clouds

· Enable user ratings will float useful content up

· 2010 will automatically import some picture metadata

· Federated search in win 7, you can connect w desktop search

· Search engine filters out broken links

· Managed term sets

· Semantically link items

· Dropbox with global rules if it has metadata

· “Document sets” group related docs together as a set, for example ppt and handouts and spreadsheet, packaged together as a set Semantics trump security

· Mobile! Add ?mobile=1 to end of the url to see how it will render for mobile

· Drive adoption by making sharepoint-only content, don’t continue to email the documents, that enables the resistors

Model Mystery

2011-03-18T11:18:00.000-04:00

While taking inventory and cleaning out Dorothy Carpenter Medical Archives materials at Piedmont on Friday, March 11, one of our discoveries was this:

It took me, Lesa and Mark to unwrap it and find all the little parts:

We started wondering where it came from and why we would have it in the Archives section (provenance). Mark posed with "her," as we dubbed it, and thanks to smart technology, an email was sent to Molly and David. David asked if it was damaged and yes, it is while Molly said keep it and research it.

While driving back to Gray building, we had time to think about it and thanks to smart technology, we also had clues, i.e. photos, so others could help us solve the mystery - the fun part of this job, playing detective!

Anyway...
Cowabunga! Mystery solved, thanks to documentation from my predecessor!

It was donated by Sherry Foster from the Physicians Assistant Program and arrived to its new home at Piedmont on August 25, 1998. According to the PA Program, it is a 1950s anatomy mannequin. When a medical museum comes our way, "she" will live in her dream home. Meanwhile, "she" remains packed at Piedmont.

A tangent: I appreciate Joanna arranging the trash and recycle bins as well as the boxes collected. She also spent her day in the dust with us including sitting on the floor processing slides. Thank you to her, Lesa and Mark!

From Vision to Implementation: The Conference for Entrepreneurial Librarians

2011-03-14T14:51:00.001-04:00

Hosted by Z Smith Reynolds Library, March 10 & 11, 2011

Now international! w attendees from China, S Africa, and Nigeria

Keynote: Mary Ellen Bates

Entrepreneurial skills make you a better employee, enhancing your skill sets even if you don’t become an entrepreneur

Thisisindexed.com

http://www.batesinfo.com/extras/assets/entrepreneurial.pdf

Concurrent session 1

The Library as Partner: Sustaining Relevance in a Collaborative, Student-Focused Technology Center. Heather Lambert and Christy Groves, Middle Tennessee State University
Created a new Digital Media Studio, Information Commons and study rooms

http://library.mtsu.edu/digitalmediastudio/
Did NOT partner w IT – political issues

Writing Ctr included

Faculty info tech center not as successful

Repurposed and trained existing personnel, the emerging tech libn is the only new person

Digital media studio mission statement provides accountability
Color printer is Academic use only
Tech coach appointments
Half open source, try out new and let students vote on it
Subscription to lynda.com for tutorials
Software of the month, will try anything

Stall wall news in the loo

Desktop Wallpaper their marketing space

60-second survey

“Find it all here”

Amazing race with hidden QR codes

Fun for all, even the security guard

Faculty are ‘special’... Sent paper mail, they don’t read email

Must speak about copyright every time they give a tour

Provide copyright-friendly resources, talk about licensing their product with creative commons

Feedback, qualitative and qualitative.

Seven types of feedback... Satisfaction, wish list, staff satisfaction

**They keep a NO log, anytime you have to tell someone no, jot it down with why

BRIEF focus group with student assistants, bribe w/ coffee coupons

Shift team where they balance each other out

Users don't like the open source as much as they thought they would

Need a night manager

Concurrent Session 2:
User-Driven Service Development: The GroupFinder Project

Joseph Ryan, Digital Projects Librarian, NCSU & Josh Boyer, Associate Head, Distance Learning & Research and Information Services, NCSU

This session described the development of GroupFinder, a first-of-its-kind system designed to help students coordinate group study at the library. Beginning its life as a Facebook application and ending up as a system available on library kiosks, touchscreens, the Web, and mobile devices, GroupFinder has changed substantially during development because of the project’s focus on end user needs. Flexibility and the willingness to abandon preconceived notions about student group study have been key to the success of GroupFinder, and the team described how user research can be used to create new services to benefit library patrons.

Driven by bad cell reception in the DH Hill Library
42in display w QR codes - Cannot miss them

Nine group study rooms.

Online reserves 2hrs

Checkbox - post to group finder?

Amenities in the rooms listed

Started on facebook, real app. See Everyone or just your friends
Allow others to join me checkbox

2008 Feedback from students: Facebook is not really where they want to interact with an institution

2009 activity board - Cork board model doesn't mean anything to them ->Whiteboard model

LOTS of rounds of talking to students, bribe with free coffee

Stats are great

Kiosks helpful but not highly used

QR codes not really used like they expected

Not just room booking, but other places in the library

Locations that are heavily trafficked and visible

Open source on google code!!!

Reception

DAY TWO

Evolution of the Charleston Conference, now in 30th year
Partly for tenure
W Beth Bernhardt, co director of confirm committee
Www.katina.info/conference/archives

Both CC and Against the Grain are LLCs w part-timers and volunteers Relatively huge now, 157 presentations in 2010...rely heavily on dropbox.com to transfer files and collaborate

Creating an Open Access Journal

Unc-g

Rerun of the LAUNCH confirm presentation Journal of Learning Spaces OJS open source software NOt intending to make a profit

DOAJ startup guide

Twice a year..not published yet.

Free Pkp open journals systems .. Incredibly easy to use

Not even published yet, but they're already looking at a journal of learning spaces conference next year!!

The canadians are really good at this

Libraryh3lp

Just 2 employees Pam (who works fulltime at UNC) and Eric

Can staff chat svc from your phone!

Chat or SMS on the patron end

Started in 2003 as a night chat collaboration btwn duke, ncsu, and unc Not scalable

2006 meebo, intended for individual and didn't work for multiple libns

2007 Eric hacked pidgin4lib

Peer to peer

Needed web based architecture to grow

Now based at Amazon s3, cloudfront

NCknows paid for a lot of development – will likely migrate to this platform when contract is up

2008 cost depended on institution size

Generating profit by 2009

Rearchitecting constantly

300+ libraries, min 250/ yr (we are included on ZSR license, but will take our money if we insist)

Major upgrade this summer

Over a million chat sessions

Localization in other languages

25% conversion rate (testers who pay)

Academic libs 10-20k fte is 300$

Default trial is 90 days

Payment on honor system, does not stop working

Refchatter is same svc w training and support by third party

Paid users get pager and phone access 24/7 .

Lunch - Tim Spaulding from LibraryThing – an incredible story!

Slides are forthcoming

Sat with Nancy Stine, AHEC

Lightning rounds

Lynda personal embedded librarian

Living learning communities, dorms w classroom spaces

Library first responder student advocate

Tim Rogers, NCLIVE

Ebooks collaborative, matching etc,

Ingrid Ruffin

So what if i don't want to work in a library? Other avenues to pursue

Gals from Eli Lilly, outcomes based job objectives Entre and intrapreneur knowledge based services
The entrepreneur next door, quiz

Closing remarks

Plenary session, carol strohecker, center for design innovation Downtown Winston-Salem!!

Collaboration, interdisciplinary

Free software foundation

Physics of acrobatic circus performers

innovative tools and environments for learning

Past to Meet Present Part 3

2011-02-18T10:21:00.001-05:00

It wasn't better than chocolate but what a treat on Valentine's Day, 2011 to choose and learn all about antique medical instruments!

Karen Richardson, Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine's (WFIRM) public relations officer, and I sat in a second floor office at the Institute surrounded by boxes and totes filled with history while we discovered the most interesting instruments to display in the lobby of the Richard Dean Biomedical Sciences building at the downtown research park.

We decided that since the display cabinets aren't quite ready we would look at pictures (taken for appraisal) first and then start pulling items out of the 30+ boxes to display when the cabinets are ready. The cabinets and instruments are all from Dr. John Monroe, a retired ob/gyn physician, who accumulated his collection over 40 to 50 years.

Karen started writing down the number of each item and a brief description and as we progressed, we developed several themes for displaying. I began to write down unfamiliar terms to research upon returning to the Archives.

Besides bloodletting (or instruments used for bleeding, a common practice in antique medicine), we came up with the theme of general diagnostic -which is where two of our favorite pieces come in:
1.

And this is a tooth key, used to pull decaying teeth (not to actually count them). One person helping with the collection said: I think the tooth key is my favorite for pure brutality. Intrigued? In pain? Then read here.

2. Next up is:

a doctor's lady, a figurine for a female or husband to show the doctor where it hurts. According to Dr. Monroe, the Chinese husband left his wife at home and used something like the above to show the doctor what kind of problems his wife was having. He often arrived home with medicine or treatment instructions. Want to see an R-rated version? Need help? Check this out.

So next up in this interesting experience is physically removing the items from the boxes and placing them in the clean and lit cabinets. Stay tuned!

Past to meet Present Part 2

2010-11-19T15:25:00.004-05:00

Well, it was like an early Christmas the week of November 1, 2010, thanks to Dr. John Monroe.

A trip to the Development and Alumni Affairs office to help John Gillon, senior director of charitable planning, sort through 30-some boxes of antique medical instruments yielded many interesting items. From bleeding bowls to apothecary scales to ob/gyn forceps to a baby scale to even some "scary" powders made for a couple of interesting mornings on the seventh floor of Piedmont Plaza I.

After three days of sorting and matching numbers to a paper list, John G. was ready to compile the listed pieces into a format for the appraiser who spent two days on Nov. 4 and 5 doing her thing. John G., Dr. Monroe and others involved were pleased with the final appraisal.

The collection is now waiting for the Wake Forest Institute Regenerative Medicine area to be finished before the cabinets can be moved and then more fun in choosing which pieces to display and where to store the rest of the collection.

Past to meet Present

2010-10-29T10:18:00.006-04:00

In preparation for over 1,300 antique medical instruments, I met with representatives of Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine (WFIRM) to see where the items will be displayed at the Richard H. Dean Research Building downtown. Dr. Tony Atala, WFIRM director, acquired the instruments from Dr. John Monroe, a retired ob/gyn, who has accumulated the massive collection over the last 50 to 60 years.

Karen Richardson, senior communications manager for WFIRM, picked me up in her two-seater car on a warm Thursday afternoon in October and took us to the building where Major General (ret) Dr. George Weightman, WFIRM chief operating officer, toured us around the second floor where new laboratory space, offices and a common area is being created. WFIRM currently occupies the fourth floor of the Dean Research Building, about 25,000 square feet of research space. The second floor will give the institute 10,000 more square feet of lab space. The physiology, chemistry and half of the biomaterials sections will move to the second floor. Also on the second floor is a huge commons area for scientists to collaborate, relax and hold conferences with multiple flat-screen TVs, two separate audio systems, a coffee bar, mailroom and small kitchen.

With the instruments will come five display cases that will be placed in the hallway area of the second floor, near the elevators. We discussed rotating pieces and a possible video of Dr. Monroe talking about the collection. Dr. Monroe will be invited to the grand opening of the new space in early Feburary 2011.

Next up is a trip to the Development and Alumni Affairs office to help John Gillon, senior director of charitable planning, sort through the pieces for appraisal.

MLA Day Three

2010-05-28T17:28:00.000-04:00

Attended Sunrise Seminar sponsored by Wiley on Essential Evidence Plus, which replaces Daily POEMS (Patient Oriented Evidence that Matters) Presentation given by Mark Ebell, physician from Univ of Georgia, who has written over 900 of these
He compared DOE (disease oriented evidence) to POE (patient oriented evidence) and discussed the product in detail
website www.esentialevidence.com
talked about other guidelines sites, including British NICE guidelines; later this summer these products will be available for Iphone and blackberry

NLM UPDATE - This is given each year towards end of MLA meeting - Don Lindberg, head of NLM presented overview; 2011 NLM will be 175 years old;
CRISP has been replaced with REPORTER (this is a grants database).

New: two big efforts - Disaster Information Management Research and Toxicology and Environmental Health
In common are gross failure of communication

MeSH turns 50 this year - has gone from 4000 terms to 26,0000.

Deborah Zarin presented info on clinical trials.gov and spoke about FADAAA - her presentation is up on the web
Sheldon Kotzin - six travelling exhibits from NLM
Medline Plus being redesigned
MedlinePlus CONNECT button being built into EHR (this was presented at the all day workshop that I attended and can be linked to the ICD codes so that it automatically takes a patient and their practitioner to MedlinePlus from their diagnosis
NCBI Molecular biology training is being reinstated
Historical images are being added to FLICKR (this one is for Dianne!)

ENDNOTE X4 ----- OMG ---- ENDNOTE X4 OK so Rochelle is the only one that cares about EndNote. But seriously, if anyone remembers meeting Randy Wright when he came here to talk about Refman in his leisure suit, he actually gave an excellent presentation to about 200 people in a packed room about Endnote X4 and Researcher ID!!!! The newest version (coming out in late June) will magically take a PDF or a whole folder full of PDF's and convert them into an EndNote database.......... Whoa.......

At the POSTERS, there was also a librarian from Indiana who figured out a way through her I.T. dept to fix Internet Explorer so that you can direct import citations from PubMed to EndNote or RefMan (which everyone says cannot be done). Again, she had a crowd at her poster, and has published it in the latest issue of Med Ref Services Quarterly. (on my desk).

RANDOM STUFF:

BUZZ WORD: disambiguate (as in authors)

web site: http://pubget.com

That's all!

MLA Day Two

2010-05-28T17:26:00.001-04:00

SUNDAY

attended Sunday Sunrise Seminar with ISI about their quantitative measurement products - analytical info
Keynote speaker Daniel H. Pink, author of A Whole New Mind was entertaining and thought provoking
Evening cruise sponsored by Ebsco; had chance to talk to Brian Alpert, founder of Dynamed
Sunday exhibits were open as well as multiple programs and workshops - NEJM technology showcase featured new platform for ejournal with coverage back to 1990 (from 1993) plus availability of archives. Journal will still not make powerpoint slides available to institutions as part of subscription (only to individual subscribers)

MONDAY

Attended Sunrise Seminar with Cochrane, sponsored by Wiley,led by Carol Lefevre (British), Senior Information Specialist who gave excellent update. Presentation will be available to participants.
For information on their new editorial policy, go to www.editorial-unit.cochrane.org
For Cochrane podcasts, go to www.cochranejournalclub.com
For the newest information for Cochrane for Librarians, they have revised the original chapter on searching Cochrane and it can be found at http://www.cochrane-handbook.org.
There is also a Cochrane Library users group listserv at http://lists.cochrane.org/mailman/listinfo/

Carol Lefevre has recent articles on searching Cochrane in Evidence Based Library Info Practice and in Journal of Clinical Epidemiology.

PLENARY SESSION; The Janet Doe Lecture, presented by Ana Cleveland, Regents Professor and Director of Health Informatics and Houston Programs, Dept of Library and Information Sciences, College of Information, University of North Texas, Denton, was excellent, inspirational, and sometimes depressing, too. She sees future "librarians" coming from disciplines other than library science degrees. She began the talk with a discussion of how we should not use the term "professional librarians" (there are NOT professional lawyers or professional doctors) but should live up to health educational standards and comform more to AMA than ALA.

She talked a lot about collaborative research initiatives and centers of specialization such as bioinformatics and biomedical sciences and referred to a recent paper in Academic Medicine. Her quote was "Health is essential and crucial in the lives of people; quality information is needed for quality health care; and health sciences librarianship/informatics has the resources to contribute to the well being of the people."

Her personal philosophy of the profession was that we need to develop partnerships, more joint appointments, academic units, health care integration, research/resources; critical thinking and managing change.

LUNCH AND LEARN SPRINGER SESSION:

(full presentation available on a flash drive or can get a copy from Springer)

I attended a session sponored by Springer about their latest products, including pieces of their web sites that are free to all, whether or not you buy their packages. These include www.springerimages.com (out of 2 million images, 50,000 + are free) www.authormapper.com is free and pulls metadata from Springer publications and from Biomedcentral; beta.Springerlink.com has a "look inside" the Ebook reader; and we also have the opportunity to offer any of our students or faculty something called "MY COPY" which is a print on demand service for any Ebooks that we subscribe to via Springer. For the price of $24.95 including shipping and handling, they can purchase a gray scale copy of any of these books (or download free pdfs of any individual chapters) and we can brand them with the library.

AFTERNOON: Translational Science sessions; Exhibits: Quertle - free search engine (www.quertle.info demo)

(I have code and program for videos and web sites for entire meeting and will try to look over topics that might be of interest to specific people when I get extra time - it will probably be JULY :) )

MLA Day One: Report from our Nation's Capitol by Rochelle Kramer

2010-05-28T17:25:00.002-04:00

DAY ONE - Travel Day -
Friday, May 21 -

Toured NPR Library with Kee Malesky - She (and other NPR librarians) keep an internal Wiki to provide journalists and broadcasters with up-to-date info on topics of interest, arranged in a very logical and very useful web site. It is highly used and much appreciated by the NPR staff. To listen to Kee, you would think that Librarians run NPR! She was amazing. We also viewed the music library and its archives. They have hired three new librarians just for digital archiving and are in the process of converting all their transcripts (as well as all their reels and tapes and cds dating back to the beginning of NPR in 1971) eventually to digital media on servers.

My AHA moment was when we we standing around Kee Malesky's office and she had an incoming call from Scott Simon (on her caller id) that she ignored to continue talking to us!

DAY TWO
Saturday, May 22 -

Attended all day symposium on "E-patients: the technocultural revolution of health consumers". Have handouts and web links to sites and info from the day. Speakers included "Librarians in the trenches" - people who have developed electronic systems to interface with medical records such as My Health E Vet and CPRS electronic system as well as Vanderbilt's system (article to be published in July JMLA); then a very emotional session called "consumers in the trenches" that focused on two people "epatient Dave, who survived kidney cancer by doing research on his own disease and advocating for his own care and a famous medical rights advocate named Regina Holliday who is an artist who has painted murals and has also done the cover art for BMJ and other international journals after her husband died of cancer after a horrible experience with medical records and the medical system in DC.

The afternoon session included Q & A and vendor demos of different future integrated systems, including the connection between Medline Plus and some medical records systems where the ICD codes will be used to link to Medline Plus terms.

• avoiding pitfalls - better health literary skills needed - how to search; how to communicate with physician
• better training of health care professionals
• better health website design; testing on real users with mixed literacy skills
• Vanderbilt EMR - evidence provision within; My Health at Vanderbilt - 110,000 users; mostly female
Epatient Dave - www.participatoryMedicine.org Society for participatory medicine; Caringbridge.org

Regina Holliday - BMJ Sept 12, 2009 cover. 73 cents - mural on wall on Connecticut AVE

CIL2010 Postconference: Digital Library Learning Spaces

2010-04-15T13:43:00.003-04:00

Alex Cohen, Library Planner, Aaron Cohen Associates
A multigenerational family business for library space planning. Now focusing on transition from print-based space to Learning Commons.

Way to create cultural significance in the physical environment of the library, using endcaps and other space considerations in re equipment and whatnot. In relation to what the library does/collects/serves.

National Library of Greece

Social Fabric - Multifunction space

Cafes don't matter as much as the social gathering space.

Library is a "Place" AND a "Set of Services"

Appreciative Inquiry - turn negatives into positives. What might be. Envisioning impact. what are the best parts of the library. Metaphor - develop a story.
Design - what should be; collaborative work

Basic Assumption that an organization is a problem to be solved, rather than a mystery to be embraced.

Planning:
- Seating
- Staff - the easy part, most architects can do in their sleep
- Collections

Needs Assessment, including a visual scan storyboarding of existing space; basic and expanded library services.

Core collections and deposit collections

RFID Reference Collection - know where a certain book is at any time, even if the students squirrel them away. Prototype for heavy-use ones.

1 Seat = 300 volumes space-wise

Often space planning can trigger a larger change in the institution. Should be proactive and not just reactive.

150# per cubic foot, even if you're not using top and bottom shelves. You will.

Do a linear foot count of collection, and allow 1 sq ft per linear foot (to allow for aisle, etc) = Net Assignable Square Footage. Xx 1.3 to equal gross square footage.

NOW
User seats=50%
Collection=35%
Staff=15%

Flexibility is crucial

Where is the med school gonna be in 2030?

Stanford uses these mobile smartboard carts that can go to whatever room.

The Living Edge - breathing space, personal space, a view PLUS electrical, network, etc.

~ 20 people per space, creates a more intimate environment, where people will self-police. More than that, and it's a horde.

Media wall - a lovely photo of a rat's brain at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology see examples http://vis.ucsd.edu/mediawiki/index.php/News

Quantitative side vs Qualitative side

No desk?!! Stanford has none in their undergrad space, staff walk around w/ tablets and phones. Students were texting the librarians at the desk anyhow!

Bubble diagram w/ service elements

Self Check-in
Self Check-out
Copier room
Media commons
Collaborative Seating
Reference/Learning Commons
Collaborative Learning Area
Media Commons
Periodicals
24 hr seating
Cafe
Scholars workstations (reserved carrels)

Use corners for collaborative learning spaces

NATURAL Lighting wherever possible

Stanford - books on the wall are for show, really - in the main reading room, some of the least-used books. Not for browsing as much as an aesthetic environment.

If you must have a service point/node - make it flexible, moveable, adaptable.

Look at the Apple Store Genius Bar - it's really a reference desk!

Most new Academic Libraries are now including a Faculty Resource Center - particularly for older faculty members who need special help with ppt, blackboard, teaching/training in small group or individual. And they can save face.

He learned a lot in Las Vegas - on comfort zones, focal points, perspective and blur, destinations.

Have handout on paper :(

CIL2010: Developing and Designing for Mobile

2010-04-14T11:23:00.002-04:00

Jeff Wisniewski, Web Services Librarian, University of Pittsburgh

50% of all new internet connections are coming from phones, and in 2014 mobile web usage will surpass desktop web usage (source: Morgan Stanley research)

We're talking about the mobile web, NOT mobile apps. The difference is a single platform, all online, with a lower barrier to entry, and continuous updates. An app is installed, requires multiple platforms, and a programmer to develop it.

Mobile web doesn't require a programmer, because it's HTML and CSS. Can continuously evolve. Context is really important - usually an immediate need for information. So they don't care so much about lending policies. They're generally doing it in a distracted environment.

Mobile usability is an oxymoron (Jakob Nielsen). Minimize the need to input. Nobody really does heavy-duty typing on a mobile device. Think speed and latency - even the fastest connections are relatively slow compared to a laptop.

Remember "Don't Make Me Think!" - now it's "don't make me type"

What sort of content might be useful? Ask your users!

Now:

directions
hours
ask a librarian, text a librarian
contact info

Later

catalog search and actions (like text it to yourself)
article search and actions

Many, many sources already have mobile-optimized sites, including PubMed and Ebsco. Many vendors have an "accessible" version of the catalog that will be more mobile-friendly. Often you have to turn it on, though.

Design considerations:

single column
single line
flatten hierarchy
short titles

CSS Media type=handlheld? Lies!
most new mobile browsers ignore the handheld style statement, so you get the "full web" on their device.

There's a media query that works more reliably
click to call and/or text

CSS display: none
property to turn off headers, sidebars, etc. to strip out extraneous content
(and you don't have to maintain a separate page)

HTML accesskey
and number them appropriately
- then those links become actionable automatically

-webkit-border-radius:8px; to round corners

you can auto-resize images, but do you really NEED the image??

optimizing for mobile:

Not the size of the page, but more imporatntly the number of calls to the server. Combine dependent files to render page faster
Minify your javascript and css cssdrive- csscompressor or dean.edwards.name/packer
register with Google small business center for LBS awareness
validate your code

Most major CMSs have templates to render content for mobile

Usability testing is tough with a tiny screen, you may have to test on paper prototypes

Google analytics does mobile tracking
"Clicky" mobile hardware tracking
Standard analytics can filter by user agents.

resources

mobile OK checker validator.w3.org/mobile
Google webmaster: developing mobile sites
Mobile speed test mobilespeedtest.com
iPhone interface mockup tool iphonemockup.lkmc.ch
mobile site generator www.hiddenpeanuts.com/msg

see good examples at NCSU, Oregon State

HTML5 is gonna help a LOT - developers can accss some functions even if their data connection is dropped.

presentation and links here later http://www.slideshare.net/jeffwisniewski

CIL2010: Content Containers: Transforming Publishing & Purchasing

2010-04-14T10:13:00.002-04:00

Stephen Abram, Vice President, Gale Cengage Learning

Do content containers matter anymore? Paper and cardboard does not a book make. From books
to learning experiences and images to streaming media, the movement in content containers is changing. We are all about transactions - checking out a book, clicking on a page, etc. Is the container the software, the computer, or the PERSON?

What does your experience look like? Bricks, clicks, AND the Librarian's tricks?
Reimagine your physical space by your experience's point of view.

Textbooks are transmogrifying outside of the physical book. The old containers aren't going away, but they are always physical. CONTENT isn't going away but the experience is changing rapidly. It's about discovery and learning space. How does distance ed affect higher ed? How do we change the dynamic of the library and adapt to the new experience? Track WHEN your users are on library resources and WHERE they are coming from.

How do we build Knowledge Portals, Experience Portals, Learning Portals?
Transformations not Transactions
The 21st Century book experience is quite different.
We need to assemble them FOR people. Containers no longer matter.

He'll post full slides later today at http://stephenslighthouse.com/

CIL2010: Making It Happen: Getting Things Done

2010-04-14T09:00:00.004-04:00

Ken Haycock, Director, School of Library & Information Science, San Jose State University (totally online MLS program)

If you don't PROMOTE yourself, you are doomed to DEFEND yourself.
Two parts: time management and influence.

Evidence-based librarianship - applying what we know.

The curse of low expectations. People don't complain about us, so everything is peachy, right? Death by opportunity - we have so many options, so many directions we can go in, that we need to be more strategic in what we do.

Leadership is a process of social influence through which one person is able to enlist the aid and support of others in accomplishment of a certain task.

Power is possession of control, authority or influence over others.

Influence is the act of producting an effect without apparent influence of force or direct exercise of command.

TRUST is the most critical component of relationships! Most people are filled with self-doubt, and leadership is based in self-confidence. Trust = character, competence, confidence, credibility, and congruence

Advocacy: based on respect, connecting agendas, recognize that people do things for THEIR reasons, not ours. Figure out what their reasons are. Advocacy isn't talk - talk is not influence.

The trust that libraries use is “spray and pray.” We send stuff out in as many directions as possible and hope something sticks. Public relations is all about us. Marketing is not public relations and publicity. It’s finding out who your users are, what the need, and how we can meet those needs. Advocacy instead is getting the message out. We need to stop talking about libraries and start talking about the actual issues in our communities–all the places that we have evidence to show that we make a difference in our communities.
The single biggest influencer in advocacy efforts is connecting to the values of your customers.

Universal Principles of Advocacy

Reciprocation (feel obliged to return favors)
Authority (look to experts)
Commitment/Consistency (with commitments & values)
Scarcity (less available more we want it)
Liking (more we like more we want to say yes)
Social Proof (what others are doing)

updated CIL2010: Info Pros & SharePoint: Good Fit

2010-04-13T11:33:00.003-04:00

Lorette Weldon, Research Director, Weldon Researchers

It wasn't all bad, one of the audience mentioned Microsoft BDC, which can be used as an online catalog for a small library. Perhaps useful for Mark's Targacept project?

The Speaker posted this article afterward

The Odd Couple: SharePoint and Librarians
By Lorette S.J. Weldon, Published on April 14, 2010

Overview

The session held at Computers in Libraries 2010 on April 13, 2010 that I presented was called "SharePoint and Info Pros: A Good Fit". I examined how SharePoint was used within the library environment. I discussed the coordination of collaboration, capturing and organizing "corporate" knowledge, and organizing digital content. I reviewed the results from my survey, "SharePoint Usage in the Library" which demonstrated how librarians could program their department's SharePoint site without code.

Before you begin trying to create a SharePoint site, you should be acquainted with the following terms when dealing with SharePoint:

•Portal: A webpage with information that you want to alert your staff to; Dashboard is embedded to show schedules, reference statistics, etc.

•Website: Portal with linking workspaces.

•Workspace: A webpage with links to widgets

•Widgets: Small programs designed for one task, for example, a calendar, wiki, web parts to display external websites.

•Templates: Specific layout for your portal and/or workspaces. Your customizations to your website could be saved as a template for your department or organization to follow.

•Tacit Knowledge: Skills from experience; "know-how"; Not written down

•Explicit Knowledge: Written in your collection, for example, a document on how to write a Conflict of interest Policy
Information Management Challenge

How many of us go to work with stories to tell our co-workers? You wanted to talk about a recent decision you had to make. A co-worker could want to complain about the poor management of a project. Usually, co-workers gather around the "water cooler" during breaks to "cool-off" and share recent experiences with fellow employees. It could be productive thoughts on assignments and projects that the organization is working on. SharePoint can help "capture" these ideas by becoming a vehicle to allow staff to share what they think about certain projects or actions that the organization or staff has participated in. The Web 2.0 features of Windows Shared Services 3.0 (WSS) and SharePoint 2007 (MOSS) allow your co-workers to feel comfortable with tools that they would use while on the Internet. Wikis, Surveys, Discussion Boards and Dashboards can bring your organization together in discussions that would help each staff member learn from successes, mistakes and challenges which would transfer information and knowledge to and from internal and external stakeholders.

SharePoint was originally created back in 1997 as four platforms: web content management; collaboration; document management; nuggets that display external websites. Through MOSS or WSS, Microsoft has tried to harness what we know of social media sites and mixed it together with our library management practices.

In the beginning, SharePoint was an IT- only application but now it requires input from two groups: the installers and the users. They have to work together to figure out what they want their SharePoint site to do for their organization. I mentioned organization because SharePoint is an enterprise management platform meant to be used by the whole organization. The departments of the organization would gain access to whatever the whole organization agreed on for the functions of SharePoint. SharePoint helps with the accountability of the knowledge collected.

What is SharePoint?

Microsoft SharePoint is being used in Government, private, public and association offices throughout the United States. SharePoint was meant to increase accountability for projects within a team environment. How could SharePoint help increase accountability in information management?

Microsoft SharePoint allows information professionals in an organization to easily create and manage their own Web 2.0 environment. SharePoint is not a specific product but several aspects of Web 2.0 solutions. Two versions you may encounter in the office: Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) 3.0 and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2007. WSS is the basic compilation of applications. Special features to add on to your SharePoint would be called MOSS.

SharePoint can help the individual manage their assignments. It can help a team share thoughts and work on documents. It would also work for several teams in a division and spread out to the whole ENTERPRISE, your organization through your Intranet at headquarters to your Extranet to all offices within the organization nation or world-wide. You can define a website or portal that your patrons, customers or members see through the Internet.

SharePoint helps you to manage the prime real estate on your organization's server or organization's hosted space. Look at SharePoint as a home improver and your organization's server as a house. SharePoint could help you organize the storage space so that you could collect corporate knowledge and manage your library collection. Out of the box SharePoint will help you format your server into various modules or rooms. These rooms would be recognizable Web 2.0 tools, such as, Blogs, Wikis, Document Libraries, and Discussion Boards. SharePoint would also provide you with amenities for your house, for example, Announcements, RSS feed, E-Alerts and Web Parts (similar to widgets or gadgets). SharePoint also houses a database (SQL Server 2005 Express) to help it remember how you want everything to function and to store any documents from your library collection (Microsoft 2010).

Cataloging

On Nova's Season 37, Episode 11 - "Riddles of the Sphinx," a group of archaeologists were gathered together in order to find out who built the Sphinx. Archaeologists figured out that there could be three resource types to use to answer this question: Project Team Profiles, Written Reports and Tool Usage ("know-how" experience).

Resource types would be carefully defined SharePoint content types. A content type would specify its own template, so that all Project Team Profiles would share a common format. A content type is a group of reusable settings that describe the shared traits for a specific type of content. Content types allow organizations to manage this type of information in a consistent way across a site collection. You can view them by describing what types of items that you have in your library/special collection.

In conclusion to the episode, Sphinx project reports from the Project Team Profiles could not be obtained because the project team was long dead. Written Reports (Hieroglyphics) had spoken of a restoration effort of the Sphinx but not the actual building of it. Tool Usage was also lost when the project team died in Ancient Egypt. It was never collected. Perhaps, SharePoint could have captured this missing knowledge of how tools were used to build the Sphinx. This information would still not answer the question of "Who built the Sphinx?"

Through Properties feature within Word and Excel, you can provide keywords and categories (subject areas) that would define the individual items in your collection. The Properties feature would open the record for that particular document that you were cataloging. Microsoft Office 2007 allows more fields to be defined within your document's record.

The taxonomy structure can have levels defined through a specified folder structure. The levels could also be represented through the Category and Sub-category sections within the Properties feature.

SharePoint Usage in the Library Survey

Using SharePoint would be managing the "know-how" and explicit knowledge of the organization. From a survey, based on anecdotal information from open-ended questions, that I administered from 3/8/2010 to 4/7/2010, I found that the usage of SharePoint, was underutilized within library-type environments in Government Agencies (State and Federal government), Educational Institutions (University Libraries), Associations (Non-profit/Profit), Private Organizations (Hospitals, Law Firms, Financial Services, Museums). This report summarizes the data and examines trends for SharePoint usage within these environments.

The response rate was 34% based on the states that had returned the survey, which was sent to all of the United States. Three countries had also participated. Surveys were sent to members of the Special Libraries Association of Maryland and District of Columbia, Society of American Archivists, Association of Independent Information Professionals and American Libraries Association.

This table analyzes the results of the survey under five categories: Type of Organization; Location; Who Set It Up; Usage; Version of SharePoint; Customization; Mandated in organization; Widget Usage

SharePoint was found to be used by the library or special collection in order to:

•Support the generation and maintenance of library artifacts

•Facilitate communication and feedback

•Monitor library activities

•Control collection changes

•Analyze and forecast collection's needs, staff performance and patrons' needs
Association Survey Participants manually entered in links to sources like Nexis, Factiva and the association's online catalog. Associations manually scanned periodicals for related subject areas of the library/special collection. RSS Feeds were not used. SharePoint's search engine was used to find news stories, pictures or documents on assorted topics. The majority of the participants did not have Extended Search Services enabled which led to a lot of impatient staff not being able to find documents that they knew were on the server.

Private Institution Survey Participants emphasized a strong need to have a Chief Information Officer onsite who understood what skills librarians possessed. With this knowledge, the Chief Information Officer would be able to translate librarian needs in IT department project management methods and principles. Widgets were created for Grant progress tracking and copyright permission management.

Education Institution Survey Participants were found to need centralized content on procedures and policies for staff to have access to in an intranet-type environment. Through SharePoint, different library departments had created multiple SharePoint Workspaces without any relationship to each of them. Different silos of information multiplied like rabbits on the university server. SharePoint was chosen for the different library departments because it was already used by the university and hosted on the university's server. It also provided accessibility for staff to see the latest announcements, reference statistics, and tasks that needed to be completed.

The survey found that Government Agencies had a struggle between the IT department and the library/special collections in converting project management principles/methods, which SharePoint is teeming with, into information management principles/methods. Survey participants all agreed that the government agencies provide basic SharePoint training but not specific enough to meet the information professionals' needs. Through a dashboard, everyone could see the library's acquisition and cataloging schedules, budgets and overall performance of subject areas covered by reference requests.

Conclusion

Through the survey, the requirements for information professionals to work with and use SharePoint would be technical skills, communication needs of the library and accountability to maintain the library's SharePoint Workspace.

The Technical skill requirement consists of knowledge about: database management and structure; Microsoft Windows; Microsoft Office; Web browsing. In order to communicate needs of the library, the library staff would need to map out the library's needs and correlate them to the features of SharePoint. The result would be a Feature Mapping document that would help you and the IT Department, create a SharePoint workspace that would meet your needs. Once the IT Department assigns user permissions, then you would be able to update content on your site, define account privileges and maintain a document repository.

SharePoint Training for Information Professionals without Coding

If you have more questions on how SharePoint can be used in the library, please come to my online seminar, "Introduction to MS SharePoint without Coding". This online seminar will be presented through WebEx. Registration is now open for the following dates:

•Saturday, June 19, 2010 8:00 PM - 9:00 PM (Eastern Time)

•Saturday, June 26, 2010 8:00 PM - 9:00 PM (Eastern Time)
Read more about it

Dahl, D. J., interview by Lorette S.J. Weldon. Albert S. Cook Library's Reference Dept. at Towson University's Reference Portal (October 5, 2009).

Joining Dots Ltd. SharePoint History. August 28, 2006. http://www.joiningdots.net/blog/2006/08/sharepoint-history.html (accessed March 12, 2010).

Microsoft. "Determine Hardware and Software Requirements." Technet. 2009. http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc288751.aspx (accessed March 12, 2010).

--. Introduction to document management. 2010. http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepointserver/HA102413991033.aspx (accessed March 12, 2012).

Reinhart, M. Plague: Folders in SharePoint Document Libraries? . April 13, 2005. http://blogs.officezealot.com/reinhart/archive/2005/04/13/4533.aspx (accessed March 12, 2010).

Sy, D.R. SharePoint for Project Management. Cambridge: O'Reilly, 2009.

VSPUG - Virtual SharePoint User Group. The Importance of MetaData in SharePoint. November 1, 2007. http://vspug.com/fortheuser/2007/11/01/the-importance-of-metadata/ (accessed March 12, 2012).

Weldon, L.S.J. "5 Question Survey on Social Media Usage for Professional Learning Communities within Businesses." Survey Analysis, 2009.

--. How are you using SharePoint in your library survey. March 2010. http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/PJ7NHQR (accessed March 14, 2010).

Weldon, L.S.J. "My Virtual Assistant Saves the Day." Computers in the Libraries (Information Today), November 2007: 18-23.

CIL2010: Crafting Online Personas

2010-04-13T10:14:00.002-04:00

Craig Anderson, Kean University
& JP Porcaro, Virtual Services Librarian, New Jersey City University

Most librarians don't want to reveal themselves on Facebook, but it actually humanizes them and let's the students know their not robots. He has a slightly different Craig for different audiences: family & work have different filters, but they both have filters. You don't have to create a pseudonym, just show a facet of yourself. Brought up The Annoyed Librarian (if you don't know, it's very controversial and lots of theories on who it is).

Privacy settings can help a lot, but consider keeping some of your more "eccentric" interests to yourself. You are playing a role in the community, but you are not necessarily representing your institution. There's a balance there. Many people are putting their Fb and Twitter handles in their signature file, and it is becoming the norm - the way you put your phone number there.

This all rolls up into the concept of Digital Citizenship, and for the most part librarians are the head of the curve, at least compared to other academics.

Stephen Abram mentioned that he's worked for three of the largest employers of librarians (vendors like OCLC and Sirsi) and they build a profile of possible job candidates from their online personas, and if there is NO online persona, they think twice about that person's online savviness.

Stephen recommends setting up a google search of your own name/institution and have it send you alerts when you're mentioned.

see also Murphy and Moulaison’s paper “Social Networking Literacy Competencies for Librarians,” the fundamental necessary social networking skills for librarians are addressed along with strategies for helping library staff feel comfortable presenting a digital face to their patrons, employers, and colleagues online.

CIL2010: LibGuides

2010-04-13T09:58:00.004-04:00

I really want to try out the user interface for LibGuides - apparently we have access through ZSR? It would be particularly beneficial for first-years. Anatomy, to start?

http://libguides.ashland.edu/CIL2010 for the powerpoint
http://libguides.ashland.edu/ to browse their actual guides the Nursing one is a good example for us.

CIL2010: Organization 2.0

2010-04-12T11:30:00.002-04:00

Meredith Farkas, Head, Instructional Initiatives, Norwich University

Most libraries are not currently structured to successfully embrace Web 2.0, which requires rapid user-centered change, experimentation, and radical trust.

Techno-lust is an issue, our colleagues get sick of us :)
A lot of us are going where our users are, without actually being USEFUL - stop trying to be cool, we are not cool, accept your nerdiness.

Why do so many 2.0 initiatives fail? It's not like free beer, but more like free kittens. Requires WORK. And yes, you have to do this on top of all the rest of your duties. This situation is normal these days. Once the excitement dies down, it can seem like drudgery. Sooo many library blogs and twitter feeds die a slow death, and reflects badly on the library.

Can't be one person's pet project, must strategize to motivate other staff and make time for it. Abandon the culture of perfect. Look outside the library world for applications, opportunities, and inspiration.

Professional development is NOT just for the MLSs. All staff need time and support to learn.
Use your new people - fresh eyes - ask them what seems wrong.
Integrate 2.0 into your technology plan to further the mission and goals of the library.
RSS feeds of new books by subject are particularly useful.
Link your digital collections in Wikipedia
Flickr, etc with comments OPEN
Improve internal knowledge sharing (haha like this blog). Much better than post-it notes.

Develop a risk-tolerant culture. Failure is OK. Everything these days is in perpetual beta, and constantly under improvement. Be AGILE - don't get attached to outdated services. You have to get rid of old tech to make room for new. Google gives their staff 20% of their time to play - spend the equivalent of one day a week working on things outside of their job description, and this is where MOST of their new ideas come from.

Create new partnerships, the perfect way to stay alive.

See McMaster Univ. wiki for first year students http://libwiki.mcmaster.ca/fye/
Very relevant to first-year med students too!

CIL2010: Digital Commons: Building Digital Communities Using Digital Collections

2010-04-12T10:18:00.003-04:00

Jim DelRosso, Web & Digital Projects Manager, Cornell University
http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/
Librarians can build online communities around their digital collections in the same way they build physical communities around their physical collections. Makes the Library SUSTAINABLE!

Interest leads to a sense of ownership - it's theirs on some psychological level, helps people have to have an investment in the Library.

Interest: what users want AND what they need. What do we do when these two things differ?

Larger scale reference interview = Assessment. Turn outcome-based assessment into successful marketing.

Use Google Analytics to dig deeper into how user audience interact with collections.
Allow for user-created content - really creates a sense of ownership. Also user-sponsored content, and user-organized content. More than a traditional repository. Faculty pubs is user-created content!

River Campus Libraries - browse new titles (http://www.library.rochester.edu/ scroll down)

Develop a sense of investment - creates superusers that interact directly with the collection. Will also interact more directly with librarians, and with each other. Investment starts to look a lot like community.

CIL2010: Keynote

2010-04-12T09:58:00.003-04:00

Keynote Speaker: Lee Rainie, Director of Pew Internet & American Life Project http://www.pewinternet.org/
Produce reports on Americans' online activities. He has a new book coming out: Networked, the New Information Operating System

Pew is not a think tank, but a Fact Tank. They don't advocate a particular agenda, but generate a lot of information. Lee considers himself an Internet Archeologist - he examines the remains, but does not pass judgment. (I have used their data to support many grant proposals and technology project plans.)

NEW WORD: Tweckle: to abuse (heckle) a speaker via Twitter while he is speaking

Internet is the change agent, then and now. Dawn of the project in 2000 compared to today:
In 2000, less than half of adults used internet
5% had broadband at home
50% owned cellphone

Today 75% of adults
62% have broadband at home
80% have cellphones

Life Logging - ~30% share photos, personal creations, ratings and rankings of about purchases, services, etc.
15% have a personal website
15% are content remixers

There's a fine line between blogging and social networks. It's hard to measure how many people READ blogs, now that so many orgs are using blog platforms as their website platform (like ZSR).

Networked Creators democratize the voices in media, has challenged traditional gatekeepers. Inserted themselves in "expert" affairs. Once you start blogging about something, you become a stakeholder and are more involved in the process. About a FIFTH have contributed health content!! They are reshaping the relationship between providers (doctors) and the consumers (patients). Online patient communities are helping people navigate the system in a new way.

MacArthur Foundation has a new site: macfound.org - digital literacy program
13 elements of new literacy enumerated
New Community-Building activities

Crowdsourcing wisdom, especially among "strangers" who share a common purpose.
Particularly being seen in healthcare - example of Karen Parles librarian with lung cancer who founded lungcanceronline.org. An online support group gave her SO much support that she created a space and it's still going strong after her death. It's still having an impact on others being diagnosed. Just-in-time information provided by someone in their same situation, ad hoc and on-the-fly. Communities of "rare species".

Libraries can be nodes in their social networks, as people seek information to help them solve their problems and meet their needs. They need friends like us!!

We can teach new literacies: screen (graphics and symbols), navigation, connections, context, skepticism, creating content, ethical behavior.

Hearts

2009-10-23T13:20:00.007-04:00

Employees of Carpenter Library found themselves exercising during the Thursday, Oct. 22, 2009 tour of the Heart Center at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center.

Starting in the Cardiac Catheterization Lab on the fourth floor of Ardmore (Brenner's) Tower, tourists learned that these are the "plumbers" for heart patients. Heart Center physicians and staff are assessing the heart by inserting catheters into the heart and injecting dye to acquire images of the coronary arteries as well as the chambers of the heart. Depending upon the findings, the physicians may then insert a stent to open up the coronary artery blockage. Many of these stents are coated with special medications designed to help keep the blockage open.

Rich Lundy, Director of the Heart Center, said since they started using medicated stents, the percentage of patients coming back to WFUBMC for revision of their stent within the first year has decreased from nearly 25% to less than 5%. A stent is a mesh-like scaffolding mounted over a tiny balloon that expands once inserted into the coronary artery. The stent is expanded into place, the balloon is withdrawn allowing for improved blood flow to the heart and better pump function. There are four adult catheterization labs and one pediatric catheterization lab. The pediatric lab is a bi-plane lab which means the equipment has two cameras on it, allowing for more angles/photos of the heart and less radiation exposure for the patient. WFUBMC was the first in the country to purchase this particular bi-plane equipment from Siemens, a German company.

Still walking but now from Ardmore to the Ground floor of Reynolds Tower where the Cardiac Ultrasound/Stress Testing lab is located. This lab houses the echocardiogram equipment which uses sound waves to produce images of the heart, including 3-D images. Clinical staff and physicians look for heart abnormalities and determine the effectiveness of the beating heart. Some patients are put under cardiac stress via exercising on a treadmill, stationary bicycle, or with drugs. Images of the heart are acquired at rest and at peak exercise and analyzed for abnormalities.

The next stop is at the Electrophysiology (EP) Lab and Heart Station. EP physicians are often referred to as the “electricians” focusing on diagnosis and correction of abnormal heart rhythms. The Implantable pacemakers, defibrillators, and cardiac rhythm devices of all sizes are located here as well as portable EKG machines. Patients of this area return often during the long-term treatment to have EKG or pacemakers checked or for therapy, including advice about their different medicines. Mr. Lundy helped partner with Pharmacy and Cardiology to set up an anticoagulation clinic for patients who need frequent monitoring and adjustment of their anticoagulation medications. Pharmacists provide point of care lab testing and can give patients immediate feedback and adjust medications as needed.

Making way through various hallways and up to the first floor of Reynolds Tower to the Cardiovascular Imaging Center where MRI's are taken of the heart. Of the several areas of the entire Heart Center, this is probably the least busiest with six to eight patients per day, compared to the 110 patients per day in the Cardiac Ultrasound/ECHO lab. Physicians though are able to read multiple types of tests (ECHO, Cardiac MRI, Cardiac CT) in two separate areas, one in each lab. There is also a live-feed into the stress echo testing rooms allowing quick physician consultation with the echo staff during procedures. Like in the ECHO lab, patients are put under stress via a treadmill or drugs and then the MRI is performed.

The final trek is to the Sticht Center where Mr. Lundy showed the tourists the Cardiac/Pulmonary Rehabilitation department. Once again, treadmills and stationary bicycles lined the long, rectangular room with oxygen tanks and accessories along the walls. The rehabilitation of hearts was started over 30 years ago as a joint project between the Bowman Gray campus and Reynolda campus. It was the first in the country. Cardiac and pulmonary rehabilitation patients participate in a 12-week program that teaches them about lifestyle changes after experiencing heart or lung problems.

Not seen by the tourists were the several nursing units for heart patients, the outpatient clinics and the cardiothoracic surgery area. As administrative/business director for the Heart Center, Mr. Lundy works closely with all the nursing units, clinics and surgical departments. He serves on the Heart Transplant evaluation team which meets every Tuesday to determine if someone meets the criteria for a heart transplant. WFUBMC does about 10 heart transplants per year and there are 16 people waiting for a transplant.

While the Heart Center is physically scattered, the employees of all the areas are definitely the opposite - always working as a team, which was a heart-warming sight to fellow coworkers here at WFUBMC.

Laundry and Linens

2009-10-02T10:21:00.006-04:00

Five Carpenter Library employees were seeing blue, green, yellow, white and hearing lots of numbers on 2SB (sub-basement) of Reynolds Tower during their tour of the Laundry and Linen Distribution departments on Wednesday, September 30, 2009.

Associate Director Dennis Robinson shared his vast knowledge and time during the hour-long tour. He rattled off lots of numbers, like:

1,200 flat white bed sheets are ironed in one hour
9,000 barrier gowns are used per day
400 carts of linens and laundry is picked up/delivered per day
6,000 washcloths are used per day
1,800 - 1,900 thermal blankets are used per day
4,000 underpads are used per day
165 pounds of towels can be held in one sling hanging from the ceiling
205 pounds of flat sheets can be held in one sling
35-40,000 pounds of soiled linen are handled per day

There are 60 people who work in the Laundry section and 20 people who distribute linens to more than 185 departments/patient areas on the WFUBMC campus. The Department also handles the laundry for Stokes-Reynolds Memorial Hospital, Stokes Family Health and J.R. Jones Medical Center. Amazingly, all this work is done with a schedule of seven days a week for first shift and five days a week for second shift.

Laundry and Linen started in a space of 9,000 square feet in 1923 when the hospital opened. Employees handled five million pounds per year. Now, still in its 9,000 square feet, employees have handled up to 14 million pounds of laundry per year.

The department is responsible for 13 scrub dispensers and 11 scrub receivers. The 4,000 users of the scrub machines have encoded cards for acquiring a set of scrubs and for returning a set of scrubs. Before the machines were installed in 1996, laundry employees were taking 1,900 sets of scrubs per day just to the operating rooms.

Between the many numbers, colors and different odors, Library employees left 2SB feeling appreciative for the work of their coworkers here at WFUBMC.

TRP - Totally Responsible Person

2009-09-21T14:14:00.007-04:00

All-day workshop given by Organizational Development at Piedmont Plaza. Presenters were Susan Hathcock, who is a Nurse Educator, and Jennifer Evans, who works for Org Dev. My expectations were fairly low, but I left the day feeling energized and empowered.

The gist of TRP is to stay positive, productive, and effective - no matter what the circumstances! Many, many elements of our day are not under our control, but our reactions are. Taking personal responsibility for our emotions and attitudes can make a huge difference.

#1 is eliminating the victim mentality - they gave us 200+ statements like

That's not fair
I'm sick and tired of . . .
He/she/they should . . .
If you can't do your part, I'm not going to do mine
It's the system
That makes me so mad
I'm overwhelmed

that contribute to a victim mentality. The Totally Responsible Person accepts everything that is happening as providing opportunities for learning and growth (OFLAG) - and no one else can be blamed for emotions that arise in you.

Instead of Stimulus -> Reaction
try
Stimulus -> Choice -> Response

With practice, we can become aware of those times and situations when we enter into the victim mentality. Awareness empowers us to turn a reaction into a response.

Victim mentality thinks the other person is the problem - and the solution. Any thought, statement, or action that indicates an abdication of responsibility for one's emotional state and behavior reveals "victim".

Elements of TRP:

Everything that happens to me provides me with opportunities for learning and growth.
No one else can be blamed for any negativity my emotional nature experiences.
I shall seek no exceptions to this belief, even when I'm not at fault.

This is true for home AND work, and we charted our tendencies in regard to partner, child, friends, in-laws, parents, boss, co-worker, customer, health, weight, traffic, etc.

One aspect that surprised me was associating a "victim mentality" to actions like gathering around the water cooler to complain, criticize, and commiserate. Spreading negativity and discontent incites others to feel victimized! Criticism and gossip are separative, lower morale, wastes time, and usually comes back to you. How to handle another's criticism of an absent third person? Perhaps say, "How can we help that person?"

They recommended conducting a nightly review, noting critical conversations and thoughts. Note whether our approach to people is generally kindly or critical. Do we attempt to see the good in others, or do we focus on their weaknesses and failings? Also note how we criticize ourselves - that internal dialogue can infect our relationships with others as well.

This is boiling down seven hours of workshop to a few key points, but they're especially helpful with the new medctr administration.

"Create an 'organizational culture' in our workplace and home where victim mentality is simply an inappropriate way of behaving - the kind of environment where it is simply seen as unproductive or even old-fashioned. This environment will be supportive of those people who are in the process of becoming more responsible. This environment first has to 'start with me'. We need to set the example for others."

We also talked about "Group Victims", like School vs Hospital, admin vs worker bees, clinical vs non-clinical, techie vs non-techie, men vs women, Christians vs non-, white vs. non-, rural vs city, smoker vs non-, professional vs blue-collar.

The "Ten Commitments for Effective Group Work" can relate to dept, section, workgroup, team, and even family. They are posted outside my cube if you're interested.

The family aspect is especially interesting to me; because often family members (as well as co-workers) will unintentionally encourage victim behaviors by Rescuing and Enabling.

Rescuing: Taking care of others so that they do not have to be responsible for their behavior or emotional state.

Enabling: Encouraging the victim mentality by letting others know their victim behavior and negative emotional state are justified and acceptable.

"It may seem harsh, inflexible, or unloving to be TRP, especially with loved ones. But we must ask ourselves, 'Will my actions further the growth and development of the other person? Will they help build character?' . . . Not rescuing or enabling may be the best, and most compassionate gift we can ever give another person."

Quite a few parents in the group had trouble with this part. Jen and Susan both have kids, and were able to speak from many years of experience!

We started running out of time toward the end, but I particularly learned from the part called
The Gift of Feedback
Feedback is information that we use to make corrections in our thoughts and behavior to become more responsible, effective, productive, creative, and successful - at work, at home, and in life generally. Feedback is essential for learning and growing, and teaches us how we affect the world around us.

When we are being a victim, feedback appears to be criticism. When we are TRP, the same feedback is seen as useful, welcome information. Thus our rejection of - or openness to - feedback reveals our state of mind. Even if the other person has a personal agenda, or is unskilled in giving feedback, we can always search for the "kernel of truth" that exists in the feedback.

Be aware of LANGUAGE - it is a powerful indicator of our emotional state. Particularly the phrase, "makes me" - as in,

that makes me angry
s/he makes me happy
naughty jokes make me feel embarrassed
icy roads make me nervous
sunshine makes me happy

Ever time you use that phrase ("makes me"), you are saying that you are not responsible for your reactions to the people and events in your life. This diminishes your sense of personal power. No one can make you feel anything. Your emotions are in your power to control.

In working with OTHER people who exhibit the victim mentality, we can help them move toward a "higher" and more reasoned way of thinking. Once we start noticing these behaviors, don't feed them! For example, some people are so accustomed to complaining that it seems like the natural thing to do, but it reinforces the victimhood. When we are in these situations, we can be silent, change the subject, or propose solutions rather than jump into the wallowing.

Know the difference between sympathy and empathy - saying something like, "you poor thing" does not help the person. Don't take on their pain as your pain, that just continues their suffering. Misery loves company. Don't provide it. Changing the subject does wonders. Optimism is contagious! Move to the future, and focus on solutions. Use the word "think" rather than the word "feel" - that can help them move from an emotional state (feeling) to a problem-solving state.

Adversity, or feeling like a victim, is a test of our character - and a way to develop key character traits. Our success in every area of life is directly related to our ability to handle adversity. We cannot always control our circumstances, but we can choose our response. Everything is an opportunity for learning and growth.

Maya Angelou Center for Health Equity

2009-09-02T14:23:00.016-04:00

Six Carpenter Library employees enjoyed learning about the Maya Angelou Center for Health Equity on Tuesday, August 25, 2009.

Dr. Ronny Bell serves as the director of the seven-year-old Center. The Center, one of 11 at WFUSM, promotes research, faculty and student development and outreach. A dream of Dr. Richard Dean, the Center was awarded start-up grants from The Winston-Salem Foundation and Duke Endowment in late 2001-2002 to begin operation.

The Center moved to Watlington Hall in September 2008 where it shares space and some employees with the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.

While the Center has 14 employees, Dr. Bell explained the relationship that the Center has with WFUBMC committees and departments. The 36 faculty affiliates that participate in Center activities have a main appointment in another department. For example, Dr. Bell was hired to work for the Division of Public Health Sciences/Epidemiology & Prevention. He splits his time between there and the Center. Other faculty of the Center, such as Dr. David Mount who serves as director of community outreach, has an appointment in General Internal Medicine. There is also a Diversity Council at the Medical Center which works closely with the Maya Angelou Center.

The Maya Angelou Center isn't the only type of Center in the state - there are five more. Dr. Bell hopes to eventually create a health equity consortium for these centers to work together. Meanwhile, WFUBMC employees continue to work together to provide health care for all types of populations and cultures.

WFU Eye Center

2009-07-07T14:50:00.006-04:00

Several Coy C. Carpenter Library employees were mock patients late in the afternoon on Thursday, July 2, 2009 when Kirk Huske of the WFU Eye Center walked the tourists through the Department of Ophthalmology. While waiting, patients can view antique eyeglasses, an old eye exam machine, other antique objects and a historical poster in the lobby area.

The Eye Center moved to the sixth floor of the Richard Janeway Clinical Sciences Tower in September 1990. It has five main patient areas for its seven sub-specialities of: retina (including tumors of), cornea, glaucoma, uveitis (infection), neuro-ophthalmology, ocu-plastics and pediatrics. Other features of the Center include an optical shop and the NC Lions Clinical Research Center that includes two examination rooms for the current 14 clinical trials in session. Academic offices, including space for residents, and a small library/conference room are located within the department.

There is also a separate pediatric patient area where Dr. R. Grey Weaver would speak to the parents in the small waiting area, all the while observing the patient. He then would take the patient to the examination room where special lights and sounds would attract the child's attention so Dr. Weaver could examine the eyes.

Ms. Huske shared several of her experiences as an employee of the Eye Center for 39 years. She started as a technician in glaucoma. Her current and official title is Residency Coordinator but she does many other things, including tours. She also shared knowledge about ophthalmology in general, such as the inside back part of an eye is called the fundus. And that ophthalmology is the only speciality in which a doctor can look inside (via the eye) and see the pathology of the body.

While the CCCL employees did not see inside the body, they did see what some Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center coworkers do every day.

Center for Biomolecular Imaging

2009-06-12T14:08:00.004-04:00

On Thursday, June 11, 2009, five Carpenter Library staff members experienced via computers the Center for Biomolecular Imaging. Computer Programmer Josh Tan shared movies, fly-throughs and his knowledge about imaging computers and scanners for research and patient care.

First, tourists learned about the differences between a CT scan, MRI scan and a PET scan. A CT scan can see the anatomy of a body and the actual scan is fast. A MRI sees soft tissue and takes longer to scan while a PET scan uses radioactivity to see tumors.

Since the Center for Biomolecular Imaging is for research purposes, it has seven scanners for different animals. For example, there is a Micro MRI and PET scanner. The newest technology now allows researchers and clinicians to see 3-D and 4-D images, almost in real time. Picture a loaf of bread as a whole body with each slice of bread representing a cross-sectional/scanned image of the body part/area. The thinner the slice of bread, the easier it is to see a 3-D image.

The neat part of all this is that surgeons can log in to the network and with special computers located in the real operating room, the surgeon can pull up and manipulate the images of the patient on the table to make sure everything is correct. There is no popcorn involved with these movies but there is the ability to see a heart, for example, beating outside of the body on a computer screen. There are many different ways to manipulate the images, as Mr. Tan shared. He electronically flew the tourists through a colon, also known as a virtual colonoscopy which was invented here at WFUBMC.

Mr. Tan also shared how to convert a virtual model into a 3-D real model, known as 3-D printing. Basically the images from a CT scan move through several programs to an elaborate ink jet printer that uses potato starch to print a 3-D model. He said it took six hours for a skull to print because it is "built" on the printer, layer after layer being printed until it is done. When done, the model is dipped in super glue to seal it and then anyone can touch it, feel it, hold it.

Next up is Holographic Medical Imaging which is still being mastered. This involves surgeons pulling up a holographic image within the real operating room and being able to rotate the image with a laser finger pointer.

And if that wasn't too interesting, the CBI has its own version of those famous crash test dummies through a grant from the Department of Transportation for Finite Element Modeling. The CBI staff studies a lot of car crashes with its imaging computers. Virtual car crashes and models, created by scanning humans, are less expensive to create and study than the crash test dummies with sensors and real cars.

And last up, besides seeing a real CT scanner, is a rat movie. Mr. Tan showed how a movie or 3-D model can be used in a PDF including rotating it and changing it from a skin view to bones-only view. Being able to place movies and 3D images into a PDF is helpful to researchers as well as medical students.

And while Wake Forest medical students still practice dissections, they were the first ones in the country starting about four years ago to receive images on a CD of the cadavers they were going to dissect. Mr. Tan said CBI staff scans the cadavers and creates a movie of the images for the students to study and learn the anatomy before going into the anatomy lab.

Wake Forest medical students should feel blessed to have custom-made movies just as some WFUBMC employees were honored to be able to experience the fascinating tasks and equipment used by fellow coworkers.

Center for Applied Learning Tour

2009-05-05T14:15:00.007-04:00

Eleven Carpenter Library staff members had the privilege of touring the Center for Applied Learning on Thursday, April 30, 2009. Tour guide and coordinator of the Center Serene Mirkis shared interesting information about the Virtual Hospital, Surgical Services Academy and Skills Development Center as well as the Operating Room Simulation Laboratory.

The purpose of all these areas is for different kinds of students and practicing medical personnel to learn and hone their skills, whether it is nursing, therapy or surgical skills.

The Virtual Hospital, located in the Progressive Care building, was developed by Winston-Salem State University and WFUBMC for nursing, occupational and recreational therapy students. There are three life-like, computer-controlled models or simulation “patients” for students to practice basic skills. The male model has interchangeable parts so he can be a female too. He also bleeds and cries. There is a pregnant female model as well as a baby model for students to use. Students are given mock scenarios in a hospital clinic setting as well as a home health setting.

The Surgical Services Academy and Skills Development Center was started about 10 years ago by the Department of Anesthesiology. Currently, medical students, residents, nurses, operating room technicians and practicing physicians use the center to learn or hone their skills. Center organizers hope to expand it to become a National Center for Applied Learning for use by affiliate and regional medical personnel as well as WFUBMC employees.

The Center has a mock emergency department and intensive care area where medical students, nurses and emergency personnel practice on the computer-controlled models which are sensitive to light and touch. The models do not have names that stay with them but they are given names and symptoms during the scenarios. During a crisis scenario, participants give the models names of famous surgeons.

Besides the emergency care area, the Center contains an area for scrubbing skills (process of becoming sterile for surgery) and a mock operating room equipped for the scenario to be recorded or a live feed sent out for people to watch. After the scenario, participants go to a control room to discuss the scenario. Since good communication is the key and often saves a life in the operating room, the mock OR is a safe place to practice and retain skills as well as learn what to do in uncommon situations.

And remembering this tour is what a lot of us will do especially since we got to use the machines made by Karl Storz Inc. to practice depth perception for laparoscopic surgery. We also played around with a sewing board for suturing skin as well as some other “table-top” items, all for honing surgery skills.

As stated above, the goal is to expand this Center into a national one. The Center will also be a part of a vision of a central education building that will house all the education areas of WFUBMC, such as Carpenter Library. And that is why it is not only interesting but important for communication and patient care to know what our fellow coworkers do on a daily basis.

Rehabilitation Units at Sticht Center

2009-03-20T15:09:00.005-04:00

On Thursday, March 19, 2009, Clinical Nurse Specialist Beth Hubbartt shared her knowledge with Carpenter Library staff about the Comprehensive Inpatient Rehabilition Unit and the Acquired Brain Injury Unit on the third floor of the J. Paul Sticht Center of Aging and Rehabilitation.

We explored the recreation therapy room where Recreational Therapist Peg Cromer explained the different classes and activities for rehabilitation patients, such as playing a board game to exercising in the pool. The group was then off to the gym where there were machines to strengthen muscles, steps to practice walking up and down and even a car for patients to learn to get in and out of with or without assistance.

The group also got a peak at an "apartment" where patients are sent for one night to see if they are ready to go home. Apartment includes a bed, bathroom and kitchen. Patients are given goals to accomplish during their stay. There is also another area that occupational therapy patients utilize to learn daily living activities, such as how to bake cookies and make a bed.

Ms. Hubbartt explained the difference between several types of therapists - recreational therapists work with patients to develop an active lifestyle and learn leisure activities; occupational therapists help with the fine motor skills like eating and reading; physical therapists handle the gross motor skills like walking. Patients, ages 13 and older, must be able to do three hours of therapy per day to be admitted to these units.

The Acquired Brain Injury Unit has six beds and the Neurorehabilitation Unit has 19 beds. A team of therapists, nurses, social workers and rehab physicians consult one another about each patient and the patient's goals.

There are other "people" that help too including Molly the dog that visits weekly and chaplains that offer Sunday services. Patients are also taken on outings, like the Festival of Lights at Tanglewood, on the units' bus. And patients and employees do try to have fun especially at the annual reunion - a 27-year tradition.

As WFUBMC employees, the collaboration of various personnel is impressive especially when the goal is to make the patient as independent as possible as well as improving the quality of life for rehabilitation patients.

WF Regenerative Medicine Institute

2009-02-23T11:29:00.005-05:00

Some CCCL staff had the privilege of a 30-minute tour and a few minutes with Dr. Anthony Atala at the Wake Forest Regenerative Medicine Institute on Friday, February 20, 2009.

Dr. Tamer AbouShwareb gave the tour of the "core" research laboratories and then Dr. Atala presented an overview of the Institute's work.

Two of the Institute's greatest accomplishments are the implantation of laboratory grown organs, specifically bladders, into humans and the discovery of a new type of non-controversial stem cell in amniotic fluid and the placenta.

Dr. Atala and his team of five people successfully implanted a laboratory-grown bladder into a human in the mid 1990s and it's amazing to think that the team of five has grown to a team of 160 people.

And it's that team, Dr. Atala said, who performs methodical and careful research on animal cells. The question the team always asks before putting a new therapy into a human is: would you put this in a loved one? If the answer is yes, then the team proceeds and has extended years of follow up with the small number of patients before the new therapy is approved and released to the entire world.

As WFUBMC employees, it is good to know that our "coworkers" downtown are performing life-saving research every day.

WFUBMC Burn Center Tour

2009-01-27T16:06:00.005-05:00

Seven people from Coy C. Carpenter Library had the pleasure of touring Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center's Burn Center on Tuesday, January 27, 2009. We have all worked here for awhile but did not know much about the eight-bed Burn Unit and the sixteen-bed/step-down Burn and Plastics Unit.

According to our tour guide, Jim Johnson, PA, WFUBMC's Burn Unit was the first one in the state of North Carolina. It was founded in 1979. We "experienced first-hand," the hydrotherapy room, complete with the ambient heat lights. The hydrotherapy room is the first stop on the floor for the burn patient. The patient is cleaned with regular soap and water and the room is kept very warm, hence the heat lights, to keep the patient as comfortable as possible.

While we learned a lot about burn and skin disease care, we also learned how the Burn Center does business. For example, in the three years that Burn Center Director Dr. James Holmes has been here, he has developed a relationship with hospitals in the western part of NC as well as other states. Now, the Burn Unit accepts patients from Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia and Georgia. Another example is as of February 1, 2009, the Burn Center here will treat all worker's compensation patients from South Carolina. South Carolina does not have a Burn Center so people who get burned on their jobs will be coming to North Carolina for care.

Dr. Holmes and two physician assistants have reached out to the community at large to educate people about how to handle burn patients in the field, i.e. before they are transported to WFUBMC's Emergency Department. There is a local Burn Survivors Support Group that reaches out to the community as well but members spend a lot of their time counseling recent burn patients.

As WFUBMC employees, it is good to know what our "coworkers" do on a daily basis.

ScienceOnline'09: Social Networks for Scientists

2009-01-21T17:28:00.006-05:00

The final session of the day I attended was on social networks for scientists. As someone who has not embraced most social networks (exceptions being LibraryThing and LinkedIn), and recalling David's intro of BiomedExperts during a reference meeting last year, I was interested to see if the general audience felt that networks specifically for scientists were beneficial or redundant, and how/if they might be useful to our faculty, students and librarians. Cameron Neylon and Deepak Singh did a great job framing the discussion.

Facebook helps people find people
scientists need to find people therefore it obviously follows that scientists need Facebook
so...people want to build a "Facebook for scientists"
quick room survey exposes that some people use science-specific social networks but almost entirely Nature Network
two issues in usefulness for any social network: critical mass and features
Facebook was built around a pre-existing community (Harvard undergrads) but people tend to forget
Twitter is standout network that launched on the world without a pre-existing community
myExperiment paid people to put stuff on site
FriendFeed is relevant for filtering; if people like/comment that item keeps coming to top
also useful for finding people with expertise
FriendFeed pulls in *everything* friends do online, so recipe for disaster: blog, Flickr, YouTube, Digg, Twitter, etc.
Nature Network more like a group of scientists socializing than a social network for scientists
fatal flaws I: social networks rely on network effects; no members means no network; if I arrive and no one else is there why come back?; must provide up front value - solve a problem I know I have
only a few of the current offerings do this
social networks have histories going back to usenet days
serendipitous discovery on Google extremely useful
do we need social networks for scientists or just use existing such as LinkedIn?
CiteULike, Connotea do something better for scientists than Delicious
several people use FriendFeed to find others' CiteULike
branding as MySpace-like or Facebook-like for scientists backfired
may not need to know you have a problem but still needs to solve; barrier for most people is need to do something
fatal flaws II: scientists not very social; looking for solutions, not people; data finds data, people find people
five guidelines for online services:
1. tool must solve problem and solution must fit what you're doing
2. tool must outperform existing tools
3. must be near 100% reliability
4. provide at least one killer feature
5. prepopulate
need to be able to take data out when you want to leave or network shuts down
site also can't claim copyright on your data/input/contributions
BiomedExperts did a good job of prepopulating using existing connections via literature citations
Ravelry for knitters, crocheters
very much like science in that people connect via materials (yarns) and how they are used
not necessarily connecting around people, but yarns, patterns, etc.
large number of people, small number of items and agreed upon way of talking about - but this is not true for science/scientists

ScienceOnline'09: Anonymity, Pseudonymity

2009-01-21T15:14:00.003-05:00

Abel Pharmboy and PalMD moderated this session, which touched upon the pros and cons of anonymous or pseudonymous blogging, including the added challenges faced by female bloggers. Great group discussion on various angles of anonymous/pseudonymous blogging, including the ability to remain anonymous/pseudonymous, the reasons various people choose to blog openly or not, and how to balance visible and less visible online selves.

Abel Pharmboy started blogging when working for a non-profit research organization and would've jumped through too many hoops to blog under real name
pseudonym acknowledges his field (pharmacology) and one of his field's pioneers (John J. Abel)
when going back to academe Abel was able to "come out" as himself
after his name was revealed, Abel asked readers if they'd trust him more if he wrote under his real name; majority said no, they didn't care
PalMD's pseudonym consists of his initials and his career
it's an illusion that writing anonymously/pseudonymously allows more freedom
anonymity will often get blown, or at the least people with figure out who they *think* you are
if using anonymity as a level of protection in medical blogging to protect patients, think through implications of cover being blown because it hits patient privacy too
female bloggers have an added issue of being cyberstalked
protection of anonymity/pseudonymity also extends to family
avoiding Google is desire for some to blog anonymously/pseudonymously
desire to be evaluated on merit of CV and person, not blogging
need for support for personal life [or personal aspect of professional life]
people get more "press" when writing letter to editor than on blog, but concept of owning one's opinions in these mediums different
what about bloggers' First Amendment rights? First Amendment doesn't protect what others say on your blog
is masking of identity intrinsically antithetical to society?
times when pseudonymity can come back to bite you: when story hits wider audience, given less credence/legitimacy/credibility
when part of an inward-looking network, sense of peer-review forms and will get blasted, regardless of persona so no protection there
when blogging under real name people feel they know you even though you only share one side of yourself
if trying to put genie back in the bottle (either after outing or adopting pseudonym after blogging under real name), go over to a different blog and try to write in a different voice; use UK spellings/grammar if in US and vice versa; readers are smart and will put 2+2 together to continue following you
would think if Nature supports blogging then researchers would embrace but they don't
if you want to maintain a pseudonymous blog alongside real name blog best if subjects don't overlap
blogging pseudonymously allows for greater integration of different parts of life for some
can blog pseudonymously but not anonymously to allow some to have different persona than in real life
shouldn't blog pseudonymously to attack people
threat and fear of outings can put damper on community and willingness to share even more than actual outing incidents

ScienceOnline'09: Web and the History of Science

2009-01-21T12:34:00.005-05:00

My one fun-just-for-me-with-little-direct-applicability-to-my-job session of the day was the history of science on the web session that immediately followed a yummy lunch from Saladelia Cafe. (Wait, I should clarify: all the sessions were fun, but most I chose because there was a strong professional correlation; this one was just for the fun!) Moderated by GG, Brian Switek and Scicurious, this session appealed to me, someone who loves history and is fascinated by science (even when she doesn't always understand it), and got me thinking that this might be an angle to plug with grad students who express interest in blogging but don't know where to start...hey, look at that, potential job applicability!

The Giant's Shoulders: monthly blog carnival about classic science papers
so...why is the history of science important?
interesting to dig up "lost" bits of science history
one of the earliest researchers on cocaine was Freud; first to propose drug replacement therapy (although is plans wouldn't have worked...); many researchers in this field don't know this
as some fields get older/more involved, forget people who started it all because core facts become gospel so well known it is no longer necessary to cite
people cite review rather than citing original article
good way to show how science actually works and doesn't work
fun way of showing "humanity" of scientists
great way for scientists to develop research/writing skills
rewriting of history to mythologize history and bring into current aspect of field to frame paper occurs
scientists in 1700s and 1800s had day jobs and did science in their basements because it was cool; granted, they were often independently wealthy...
doing/explaining/highlighting history of science helps people understand modern science; however there is a risk of showing science as something that is constantly marching forward to the truth
get mistaken impression that science publications have to be complete packages
JSTOR is a good source for historical papers
public really involved in science when it was changing a lot (1870s-1930s) [need to reclaim!]
lots of pop sci books coming out are focused on history of science
by telling people how science is weird can also explain how it works
reporters are reading blogs and blog stories do get picked up by traditional media
if beginning blogger, will help build your reputation if you blog about the history of your niche
older papers are going into PubMed, PMC because being republished
scientists ideally writing for clarity which helps when translating

ScienceOnline'09: Semantic Web

2009-01-21T10:28:00.003-05:00

The last session before lunch happened to be the one where I felt the most overwhelmed by the breadth of information that I simply cannot seem to grasp in any cogent fashion: John Wilbanks's session on the semantic web in science. I've heard and read about the semantic web, but have yet to be able to fully understand what it might look like. Although I still have lots of questions, this session thankfully illuminated some of the goals/aims of the semantic web. You can view the slides here. As with all my posts, but especially this one, any incoherency is my fault alone...

open innovation (as understood under traditional collaboration model) aimed to expand the capacity of the external market, and inflows and outflows of knowledge, to aid internal knowledge/advantage
Joy's law: the smartest people work elsewhere
user innovation: only people who have problems can solve problems
new innovation/collaboration enables people to design their own shoes, t-shirts, etc., but doesn't exist for science
why not?: intellectual property rights - scientists don't share well; funding models; inertia; incentive structures; no web for data
Google search won't give you genes but papers about genes
the "semantic web" isn't great but all we can come up with
computers need to understand relationship between websites
coffee ontology explains relationship between aspects of coffee needs/uses/properties
semantic web is lots of specifications: RDF at heart, GRDDL, RDFa, OWL, SPARQL
need domain name system for concepts; lack has been reason for failure
use web to integrate
RDF: Resource Description Framework
every arc has direction
"literals": facts, instances about things
"reification": categories
RDF simply and ugly; meant for machines not humans
GRDDL gleans resource dialects out of existing
RDFa: RDF in HTML
OWL: Web Ontology Language; structured relationships
essentially wants to query 1000 web pages as 1 same way 1000 papers are queried as 1
SPARQL is SQL for semantic web
RDF allows data [to be] remixable that is contextually accurate
is it legal? have to reconstruct public domain for licensing angle
CC Zero license (CC0) allows contractual reconstruction on public domain in database licenses
does conflict with protection instinct; if you don't want your data remixed don't put under RDF
just because you put genome data online and claim copyright doesn't mean you have it because facts cannot be copyrighted (at least in US)
database law has been killed in US several times
doesn't scale across science: some (e.g., earth science) cool with sharing, but others (e.g., biology) would rather share toothbrush than data
web isn't going to do this for us
get practice answers out of existing databases and resources
queries are interface to this [semantic web] world
lot of this isn't baked yet
got to have problem worth solving to use this; wouldn't use this for your calendar
trademark is the only way to protect; if you don't like, fork but don't infringe trademark by using name
Swoogle is a semantic web search tool
Open Biomedical Ontologies is a compilation of ontologies used for semantic web
has always been about machine interoperability on data

ScienceOnline'09: Video in Scientific Research

2009-01-21T09:42:00.004-05:00

In the second session I attended Saturday, Moshe Pritsker of JoVE (Journal of Visualized Experiments) and Apryl Bailey of SciVee talked about two options for publishing research videos: journal-like and YouTube-like.

why publish research videos? to demonstrate techniques that aren't easily explained
essentially pits a scientific article description against a demonstration
text does NOT provide adequate description of biological experiments; solution is to visualize description of experimental methods
similar to cooking: helps if someone shows you either in real-life or TV show
JoVE is a video journal; indexed in PubMed/MEDLINE
focuses on three key issues: incentives, tools, format
grants and publications are two things scientists care about, so JoVE is a video journal not a video database
has an editorial board
operates a distributed network of video production to help those who lack the necessary tools [none in NC, closest in GA]
videos are divided by chapters
although not immediately available on site, embedded code for flash videos available upon request for including in papers
brings video and text together
are scientists taught not to speak in jargon? as publication intended for other experts in field, jargon may not be a problem, as the video visualizes the jargon; also pointed out that verbal description of experiment methodology often different than written description
video production network is competitive advantage for JoVE
70,000 visitors/month; 200,000 downloads; 80% scientific/academic visitors
SciVee is a science media repository: a science video website that can be synchronized with other media
pubcast = peer-reviewed paper + video
people more quickly grasp paper topic
offers profiles and communities so people can connect on SciVee; lots of room for growth in this area
people wanted to upload videos not connected to papers, so SciVee began accepting
postercasts document transient poster session information; gets research to a larger audience
from postercasts people developed slidecasts
papercasts is a new format about to be rolled out: videos and papers not published in peer-reviewed journals
JoVE charges a $1000 production fee if they do the video through network, but if a researcher creates a video there is no charge to publish in JoVE
SciVee's poster presentation feature very helpful
biology and medicine are the most sensitive fields to visual description but could be expanded to chemistry, applied physics, ecology, etc.
SciVee uses share revenue model with conferences by agreeing to host posters
in addition to charging for video production, JoVE also sells advertising, had European investments
JoVe is for-profit; SciVee is moving from non-profit to for-profit
SciVee tries to negotiate OA when working with others not amenable to OA
SciVee's software is proprietary, but might eventually move toward open source
viewers have to be cognizant of commercial vs. educational video
SciVee can be embedded but not duplicated on own website or blog
can't say that much in script; bulk of info in written part; layperson wouldn't understand because need to have basic knowledge; benefit to simplifying so mass scientific audience can understand, but not necessarily mass general audience
talking through methods while demonstrating uses different language than writing methods
might be best to have different language in video than accompanying text so people can view/assess from two different angles
just as likely to find appeal among older scientists who have tenure because more willing to experiment than among younger scientists who are more techno hip
institutions would be nervous about videos with animals being posted despite videos being peer-reviewed for proper handling; issues include safety for researchers when face is shown; regular publishing at least only gives name

ScienceOnline'09: Open Access Publishing

2009-01-20T14:49:00.007-05:00

After a fantastic Friday afternoon behind-the-scenes tour of the NC Museum of Natural Sciences in downtown Raleigh, ScienceOnline'09 kicked off to a great start Saturday morning with a session on the present and future state of Open Access (OA) publishing, led by Bill Hooker and Bjoern Brembs. Although I (obviously) didn't live blog this year's conference, I took copious notes and will share them as is (well, with erroneous spellings corrected...).

Peter Suber gave up tenure to promote OA full-time; defines OA literature as "digital, online, free of charge, and free of most copyright and licensing restrictions"
online makes OA possible
fewer than half of OA journals charge fees but because of BMC and PLoS, that is the model most people know
OA archives can be searched as one virtual archive using OAIster
ROAR (Registry of Open Access Repositories) is a list of the green road to OA; place to go to find repository to put your work in
benefits [of repositories? OA? notes unclear - sorry]: maximizes research efficiency; assessment, monitoring & management; scalability; return on (public) investment
OA citation advantage is a little controversial, but evidence is mounting
part of the overlooked argument is scalability: untapped potential of text mining
iHOP (Information Hyperlinked Over Proteins): pulls sentences out of literature and builds long paragraph of disconnected statements to reorder into brief summary of field; only has PubMed abstracts to mine, not full text
we have an overwhelming amount of information available
you can't read 35,000+ papers or even 3800+ reviews but your computer can; it is possible for it to pull out info and aggregate
GenBank is a great example of what public, open data can do; there now exists a community-wide expectation of openness around gene sequencing
librarian salaries are keeping pace with CPI but not journal prices
median annual serials expenditures in 2006: $3m-$12m
earliest name for OA was Free Online Scholarship
Bjoern couldn't get access to his own article because his institution's library didn't subscribe to the journal
food for thought: if overnight the journal publishing industry collapsed, how would you restructure? if you were king for the day, how would you redo the system?
if the system is faulty, why are so many TA journals (traditional, subscription-based) being created by existing publishers? PROFIT
societies are also proliferating TA journals; want to serve members, but TA journals rob members of work and money; must acknowledge that while some membership dues include journal subscription, libraries are still required to purchase
journal quality (i.e., impact factor) proxy for article quality simply does not work [I was amazed at how many people in the room did not seem to realize this; quite worrisome]
two problems researchers face: 1) how to get research out and used?, and 2) how to assess quality of research?
right now we are trying to do this together, but ideally in the future needs to be separate
everybody wants to publish and everybody has to find a place to publish even when it's bad because it is necessary to placate university/institutional demands
PLoS Biology was never designed to make money but to promote OA and prove that OA journals can be competitive; PLoS One is beginning to make money and subsidizes the other PLoS titles; standard publishing also relies on making money on some "work horse" journals to subsidize the costs of others
if Einstein can be wrong about quantum physics, we can certainly be wrong in our assessment of individual papers
people want to read their fields' top-level publications not others
scholarly enterprise of science doesn't make profit; someone else - often publishers - make profit
could pay peer-reviewers and archive publications in own libraries' archives/repositories, which makes them accessible to all
majority of Nobel-winning work rejected from top-tier journals (anecdotal)
when cost comparisons are made, which is the most efficient way to subsidize publishing: libraries paying subscriptions, or scientists paying OA costs...?
if a researcher has an annual grant of $250,000, likely not going to balk at paying $1600 to publish in BMC because his/her research would then be open and accessible
if there is a wash between subscription costs vs. OA charges, then why not shift to OA?
would shift to OA only force more grant-subsidized research and marginalize non-grant funded researchers? not necessarily because fees may be waived
what happens if OA publications go under; how is content accessed?; issue of OA publication going under no different than any other e-journal going under, as libraries don't own electronic content anyway; libraries have plans in place to prevent complete loss of access: LOCKSS, CLOCKSS, Portico; many OA journals/articles also archived in PubMed Central and other repositories

Charleston Conference: Open Access

2008-11-17T13:02:00.007-05:00

OA Exposed!
Arend Kuester (PCG Europe), Ralf Schimmer (Max Planck Digital Library; submitted comments, unable to attend), Richard Luce (Emory University), Wim van der Stelt (Springer), David Hoole (NPG), gentleman from UC Berkeley (unfortunately didn't catch his name, late addition to panel so not in program)
Friday, November 7, 2008 - Plenary Session, 5:30-6:15pm

Ralf Schimmer (shared by Arend Kuester):

OA can't rely on IRs alone
requires comprehensive approach between researchers & communities, institutions, libraries
libraries no longer an end to themselves, but also no longer alone
OA debate will not be over money but ownership

David Hoole:

for publishers, OA question still much about business models
green OA has been around a long time when you consider author archiving/posting on website
most commercial publishers offer a hybrid model
ultimately comes down to what authors decide to do since we've got lots of options (green, gold, hybrid)
can we get benefits of text mining without self-archiving? depends on format of OA version
NPG thinks gold OA incompatible with top journals that have high rejection rates

Richard Luce:

OA question of requirements in place, or that need to be in place, for escience and eresearch
SCOAP3: fund via fair share model; came out of CERN
only works if every country on-board; US share approx. 24%; in US, can't make national pledge to SCOAP3
once critical mass of pledges reached, journals in HEP (high energy physics) would be unbundled and subscriptions lowered
approx. 53% of funds have been pledged; in US, little over 50% pledged but need more
great opportunity to equalize playing field and experiment, even if physics isn't a big part of the universities' focus

Wim van der Stelt:

Springer is taking a very serious stand on OA, as it doesn't think it is going away, at least for some fields
lots of reasons authors don't opt for hybrid (too burdensome)
libraries and publishers should work together to help authors understand and achieve
not necessarily in favor [of OA] but wants to see if there is a role to be played
exploring OA for faculty as part of library subscription costs; working with libraries in Europe, soon the US
acquisition of BMC doesn't mean anything other than Springer bought another company that it believes is a viable business; also gives Springer a stronger position in the life sciences

Berkeley representative:

provides public access on site to Berkeley research
promotion of Berkeley research big initiative of Office of Research
Office of Research and library created the OA fund: Berkeley Research Impact Initiative (BRII)
BRII also established to get sense among faculty of how much they are taking advantage of OA options
recent Ithaka report identified the top two issues of importance for faculty when publishing: 1) widely read, and 2) no cost to faculty; openness was at the bottom of scale of importance
BRII will fund up to $3000 for gold OA, up to $1500 for green OA
library's role must be highlighted

Q&A:

Q: are we really able to control authors?
A: don't really want to; as authors' methods change our question should be how do our methods change to support them
Q: assuming all literature will eventually be freely available, and money will be made by additional services provided on top of access, who will do this: libraries, publishers, Google?
A: is this possible? where will money to come from to cover costs come of making articles available, even as additional top-level services are offered?
Q: why should libraries/librarians administer campus OA funds? what skills do they have? why not another department?
A: libraries/librarians have no vested interest in any subject/domain; doesn't scrutinize publication for quality just qualification of publishing place; no unique skills are claimed - may not be part of future fund administration; if Nature or Science were to go OA and charge $30,000/article then funds would become politicized; librarians teach author rights and understand economic landscape of scholarship costs so knowledge is there to be tapped into with funds and OA publishing support; departmental involvement might lead to conflicts of interest with fund distribution

Charleston Conference: Digital Preservation

2008-11-17T12:36:00.004-05:00

Here Today, Gone Tomorrow? New Models for Preserving Electronic Scholarship
Eileen Fenton, Daviess Menefee, Els van Eijck van Heslinga, Elizabeth Dulabahn
Friday, November 7, 2008 - Concurrent Session 3, 4:30-5:15pm

Here are the highlights as they struck me:

digital preservation is NOT: reformatting print to digital; byte storage without regard to ongoing usability
it IS: long-term discoverable; authenticity; useful; accessible
issues: who should be involved; how to organize/distribute; trust; challenges
digital preservation is an expression of intent more than a promise or plan
during Q&A, audience member referenced current challenge of needing to print out digital objects to scan paper copy for later preservation instead of migrating current e-file (if accurate then quite frustrating/wasteful/time-consuming...)

Scholarly Communications Workshop Podcasts

2008-05-15T17:01:00.004-04:00

After a longer than anticipated delay, the podcasts from the March 13, 2008, WFU Libraries Scholarly Communications Workshop are now available. Audio from the three presentations, as well as the opening remarks by Lynn Sutton, Director, Z. Smith Reynolds Library, can be accessed from ZSR's workshop webpage. Please note that the presentation for Framing the Issues begins around 4 minutes into the podcast.

UPDATE: The audio for Framing the Issues has been edited to remove the extended introductory remarks, and now covers only the presentation.

WFU Libraries Scholarly Communications Workshop

2008-03-20T10:50:00.003-04:00

For those who were unable to join us for last week's Scholarly Communications Workshop, visit ZSR's workshop webpage to view the archived PowerPoint presentations, see the SPARC Open Access brochure distributed to participants, and find links to resources mentioned throughout the workshop. Be sure to check back next week for presentation podcasts. For notes on the presentations, check out Lauren Pressley's blog.

As always, feel free to contact me, or any of the Scholarly Communications Committee members, with questions!

Adventures in Science Blogging

2008-01-19T16:57:00.000-05:00

Adventures in Science Blogging: Where Do We Go From Here?
Jennifer Ouellette

-“A blog can be anything we want it to be!”
-science bloggers are a diverse group: by scientists for scientists, by scientists for general public, by writers and journalists, by professional societies, by educators, by media
-tries to tie science in at large level to topics of interest to general populace
-one of the most powerful things about blogs is the community it builds, often engaging with people whom you otherwise wouldn’t have met
-the flexibility of blogs is both a blessing and curse
-how do we take diversity into mainstream?
-personal voice of blogs is a very big plus because it’s more opinionated and subjective than mainstream media; readers will be more engaged
-blogs naturally feed into multimedia
-however, concerns are raised: lack of accountability; lack of editorial oversight; “comment trolls—discussions aren’t always intelligent, polite or productive” (but they are lively and do generate traffic); high-degreed individuals can still spout off nonsense
-people select blogs that fit with their own views, beliefs (act of human nature)
-blogs are a good way of creating cognitive dissonance; eventually you will post something that gets a comment from a “comment troll”
-there are good signs for science blogging…
-bloggers are at threshold where they no longer have to prove themselves
-mainstream media are incorporating blogs
-more scientists are following and authoring blogs
-publishers are actually encouraging blogging
-“bloggers are no longer solely amateurs”
-for science blogging to really take off, people need to be able to do it and make a living; cannot continue as side work
-is oversight needed? Risks “immediacy, freshness, spontaneity” to have vetted, edited blogs
-“user-friendly science” – nice way for blogs to be used
-science journalism doesn’t need to be saved so much as it needs to be advanced
-need to create new financial business models to fund blogging, OA publishing
-use blogs to weigh in on broader issues: policy, politics, religion, annoying TV shows

General discussion
-if bloggers receive monetary compensation risk people getting into it for the wrong reason
-people come to blogs for snarkiness, “air of irreverence” that is so refreshing
-how much longer will distinction between science writers and science bloggers last? Will be continually blurred, as they should be because they are rather arbitrary labels
-strength of science blogs/bloggers is accuracy and expertise; often the mainstream media assign reporters to science stories who don’t have background to accurately assess and synthesize scientific information for story
-blogging is a toy, but must get over idea that we can’t be serious and fun at same time

Framing Science

2008-01-19T16:55:00.000-05:00

Changing Minds Through Science Conversation: A Panel on Framing Science
Jennifer Jacquet, Chris Mooney, Sheril Kirshenbaum

JJ
-“Scientists must learn to actively ‘frame’ information to make it relative to different audiences” – new editorial rules in Science (Nov.)
-journalists aren’t making an effort to engage intellectually with science in the lab, so why should scientists have to frame their own work for non-scientists?
-public is caught in the middle
-number of US adults believing in evolution has declined in last 20 years from 45% to 40%
-who’s to blame for science crisis: scientists or journalists?
-actually it’s Britney Spears
-Al Gore’s story got “scooped” by Spears losing her children to Kevin Federline
-evidence shows that celebrities are replacing science; more of the American public interested in entertainment and personalities than science news
-where do you go for the best news (non-celebrity) sources? BBC, NPR, NYT, Guardian Unlimited; common thread is that these sources are not corporately controlled
-“Internet: savior of science?” – BBC online, scienceblogs.com, researchblogging.org
-TV is still number one way Americans get news, and still corporately controlled
-in Dec. FCC overturned a ban blocking companies from owning both newspaper and cable channels in same market

SK
-need to change how we approach and write about intersection of science and society
-2008 election is great opportunity to shape where science is going in US
-Sciencedebate2008 is grassroots effort for sharing presidential candidates’ science policy stance; launched through blogger coalition
-science and scientists are approached as being separate from society at large; this needs to change

CM
-why didn’t big science institutions use resources to make sciencedebate2008 happen earlier?
-“intersection endeavor”: people who care about science but aren’t scientists helping find ways to get society to care about science, to connect the public to the science community
-science needs to smash into the arts, humanities, media – need several "big 18-car pile-ups"
-third culture authors were scientists whose writings were popular in general public
-science bloggers are intersection types – working at intersection between science and boundless opportunities offered by new media

General discussion
-no campaign has officially expressed interest in sciencedebate2008; waiting until after Super Tuesday to contact
-simply not true that this hasn’t happened in previous 3 or 4 debates; Science and Nature have had editorials/articles evaluating candidates’ science policies
-must acknowledge that Science and Nature set tone of science journalism in US; if they cover it, general media will pick it up
-for science blogging to work effectively, have to have science institutions framing discussion
-need people to make connection between our world, our lives, and what science could be to excite people
-world of science has failed to appreciate why the importance of science to society has declined
-Sputnik put science on the front burner in a very particular way – is there something today that can do the same thing?
-public forgets if big networks get the science story wrong because it isn’t the next day’s news
-Britney is more interesting because she’s visual
-scientists are scared of giving take home message because there isn’t a pat answer; got to figure out how to make people interested
-having scientists bitch and moan and periodically point fingers doesn’t help their cause
-would love to see scientists have videos of lab bloopers; put tape of lab on YouTube (or SciVee)
-if sciencedebate2008 happens, who should ask questions: scientists or general public? More mileage might be gained by town hall-style debate
-how does the science issue echo out to affect me? Must frame the issue with a talking point that is personally related
-don’t focus too much on national, start locally because it can get the ball rolling and get picked up nationally
-most people get information locally so scientists need to learn to talk to local news outlets

Closing thoughts
-Jennifer: she is young but she hasn’t lost hope
-Sheril: any 6 year old loves science even if they don’t know its science; don’t lose but find new ways to explore, even outside traditional education
-Chris: must look at media problems with clear eyes but don’t not do anything because the grassroots movement will be picked up by media

Blogging in health and medicine

2008-01-19T14:33:00.000-05:00

Blogging medicine and public health
Tara Smith and Becky Oskin

-health/medical blogosphere very diverse: policy to research to administration to education to advocacy, etc.
-common experience of health/med bloggers is that people write to them for medical advice; how do you handle this? What are the ethics of health/med blogging?
-Kevin M.D. site includes disclaimer
-M.D.s feel culpable giving specific med advice, despite the fact that some of the questions are broad enough to be asked by many
-when trying to get out accurate information, can be flooded by comments from people
-people are diagnosis shopping OR
-people become the expert on own disease
-are we running risk of losing concept of authority by participating in really open environment, as blogosphere is full of the non-expert?
-blog interface can be great medium for feedback
-if you have a connection with someone, more likely to trust them and trust his/her information
-health bloggers need to connect info/research to actual people, people’s stories
-is there data about people using sci blogs vs. people using Internet in general? Are ed levels of sci blog followers higher than general users?
-mostly male, upper 30s, college degree, lots of IT industry
-education and prevention very important for public health; blogs can be a good medium for getting info to public
-can be multiple layers of release and patient privacy that must be factored into sharing of patient stories
-what is role of med blogs? To carry message to masses that aren’t public health professionals?
-not all blogs have to talk to the public ("not all blogs have to be all things")
-fictionalized medical narratives, while trying to convey information to public but at the same time protecting patients, have less authority because people know that they are fictional
-what if patients guest blogged about their own experience? What are the ethics? Great idea but concern is that because doctor is in position of power over the patient might seem that they are being put in awkward position
-what are reporters interested in writing about with public health?
-Rose Hoban: what is new, today (editors asking)? Personally favors public health over bench science, “people over critters”
-got to watch for saturation point
-always going to be news driven, but helps to have both high personal or “wow” factor
-sex, obesity always gets news coverage
-if topics are controversial, you’re guaranteed to get good readership; must be careful not to do these too often
-weird, gory stories get shopped around quite a bit
-passwords don’t keep people from misusing information; can’t control information on web; need to trust audience
-when citing health info sources in med blogs, make sure sources are ADA accessible:
1. use straight HTML
2. tag images
3. structure documents using headings
4. don’t put up proprietary documents (i.e., PDFs) without confirming accessibility
-when use images in blogs, decrease readability significantly
-www.webaim.org has checker called the Wave that visually displays “bad stuff” on page
-for coders, Cynthia Says will identify code that should be cleaned up

Gender and race in science

2008-01-19T13:26:00.000-05:00

Gender and race in science: online and off
Suzanne Franks – moderator
Karen Ventii, Pat Campbell, Sciencewoman – panelists

Pat Campbell, Fairer Science blog
-Started from small NSF grant
-used blog to get people to the website
-great community of women in science that young girls don’t necessarily know about
-how can we use blogs to get girls interested in science?
-working with advocates to use blogs to get kids excited in science

Sciencewoman
-maintains anonymity because not in position of power
-blogs about juggling tenure, motherhood
-gives approx. an hour to reading and writing blogs; important for social, community aspect and feedback
-think about style and focus of blog, and be true to that focus

Karen Ventii, grad student at Emory
-got into blogging to get experience in sci writing
-interested in how science affects people’s everyday lives (this is her focus)
-grad school is her career
-has gotten job offers because of her blog

General discussion
-in absence of gender cues, default is to male in science, but not so in other fields (education, librarianship)
-even if you blog pseudonymously you have to censor what you say; feels constrained by online persona same as when blogging under your own name
-unless we want to be “fulltime asshole” must censor what we say
-Suzanne doesn’t feel constrained on her blog because she isn’t worried about ramifications at work; she’s bolder, more straightforward on her blog than in real life
-does have concerns about future employers’ reaction to her blog
-difficult for people to say I’m not only interested in science, but how gender and race affect and are effected by science; perception of innate objectivity when approaching any subject (as a scientist) creates challenges
-easy to have different levels of interaction in blogosphere that you cannot have with a colleague; flexibility more useful for those who are more isolated in work environment (e.g., only scientist in lab juggling having baby because only woman in lab)
-acknowledging scientific data and study on gender and race is important to making advances in getting more women and minorities into science, science blogging
-important for men to acknowledge that juggling a career and family is also their issue
-don’t underestimate costs of being willing to speak up; still taboo to talk about these issues openly
-when you talk about race and gender issues, risk being tagged with that for the remainder of your career

Open Science

2008-01-19T11:04:00.000-05:00

Open Science: How the web is changing the way science is done, written and published
Dr.Hemai Parthasarathy (former editor at Nature and PLoS)

-Began work when publishing was totally paper based; coworker using fax to send acceptance letters was novel
-PLoS founded on model that value added services should be funded upfront
-Web has transformed all business models of communication
-No one knew how to sell subscriptions for online models
-OA to science lit can be argued by ROI, taxpayer, cross-disciplinary access, smaller institutions have access
-True OA is not just access but ability to reuse, repackage, translate – do everything you want with lit, subject to proper attribution
-Opens thinking for submission, review, acceptance process to change
-There’s much waste in peer-review process; going from jrnl 1 to 2 to 3… without major change to the paper
-All this evaluation put into peer-review that is lost when papers are bounced
-If one can deemphasize where paper is published as well as perceived quality
-Yes, there are risks
-Where is balance of top-down and bottom-up filter of science
-How can web 2.0 change how science is published?
-Let’s separate process of evaluating rigor and evaluating substance
-What is the value to overworked scientists to interact with lit to make more valuable? (concern)
-Is there a critical mass of expertise that can provide review? (concern)
-Can process be incentivized?
-Hope and promise is info that is now lost in peer-review process can be captured
-Can change concept of what sci paper is from static, done doc – not the end all, be all, but just the start of the discussion
-Are you trying to improve sci publishing or improve sci? Not the same thing
-Trying to improve sci – how would you improve publishing without improving science?
-PLoS contacted journals where previous papers had been rejected to ask for previous reviews; some said yes, some said no
-Nature once looked at paying reviewers and it would’ve been bank-breaking, even to offer paltry sum
-Politics of editors does come into play when editors don’t pick good reviewers; lots of trust comes into play, as well as knowing expertise
-Has anyone contemplated model where both paper and reviews are published in wiki form where rest of sci community can comment?
-PLoS One is sort of this model
-Anonymity is another risk – does anyone want to read an anonymous review of paper? Is there value without authentication?
-Is Nature with 200 articles still Nature? Still have cache value?
-“No longer doomed to obscurity” if you can’t get published via peer-review in big journal
-“Put info out there, make it available, I’ll find it if it’s of use to me”
-Same issue whether you’re publishing data direct from lab or publishing paper – is it a democratic process? Should you read Nature because you trust them
-Sophisticated reuse of OA article would blow it open
-In small fields where topic is of interest to small group of people, will there ever be a critical mass of people looking at paper and commenting on it if open?
-Peer review does provide positive criticism that is worthwhile
-Is web democratizing anything or creating new kind of oligarchy?
-In field such as evolution with “crackpots and pseudoscientists” should we risk open papers that risk great implications from policy being built on poor papers?
-If everyone publishes online, what role should Nature take?
-Faculty of 1000 has tried to do this to an extent
-All papers should be in PLoS One, then PLoS Biology “republish” best papers from top-down assessment/review
-Foundation organized to accelerate drug research; cooperative of labs across country; design experiments as a team and share info in real time; they perceive rate of discovery is much faster; publishing more papers, and publishing more jointly; began in 2004, originally thought it would be 2019 before identifying viable targets, but process has accelerated and they have already identified 14(?) targets in 2008; take these and patent with promise to share revenue with universities (Carol Menake, Myelin Repair Foundation)
-“What’s the deal with embargos in this day and age?” [came back to this question below]
-Patent issue is big concern with open science
-Will drug be usable if doesn’t go through patent process?
-Are tools to search sophisticated enough to get high ratio of what you want to see in info that is put out there?
-This is where journal brands are going to come into their own – they will be aggregators of great information; filtering role
-When all info in your field is delivered to you, when do you browse? If you no longer flip through Nature, how to you learn about other science?
-Rational for embargo for PLoS actually makes sense: if USA Today says cabbage cures cancer, if article is in PLoS, then readers can do directly to source
-In practice, use of publicity to block publication is a rare issue; authors not penalized
-Sci journalism uses embargos to be less investigative, don’t go after the story
-“Better grasp of probability of trueness” is essential for sci publishing to change
-Serendipity is changing, people finding own methods of serendipity
-Peer-review process is becoming difficult as science is being popularized for general public
-Never find enough reviewers to read all the science that’s out there, which will doom the system
-Real peer-review is taking data and reusing/building on it
-Peer-review harder on multidisciplinary papers because hard to get people who have time and expertise to give quality review, whereas in small niche field easier to find three reviewers who are willing to review because they want to read the paper anyway
-Peer-review gets oversold; should be a smell test: “this doesn’t stink, let’s let the community have at it”; “if there’s something good in there, let the community sniff it out”
-Always try to get raw data; make it the standard
-Need a new kind of citation analysis – not only give citation, but WHY
-Very difficult for peer-review to catch fraud without raw data
-Science tends to have dominant lang – was German, now English – which helps globalize science publishing; if scientists in other countries want to be heard, they will find way to publish in dominant lang
-Incentives are answer for getting OA to grow; understanding needed too

Revised NIH Public Access Policy

2008-01-18T12:04:00.001-05:00

Last Friday, the NIH released its revised Public Access Policy in response to the Congressional mandate to upgrade public archiving compliance to a funding requirement. Over the weekend, the NIH subsequently redesigned the Policy website, including the FAQs. I encourage you to visit the site and read through the FAQs, but in the meantime, here are the highlights:

April 7, 2008 - date the Policy goes into effect; applies to grants and cooperative agreements active in Fiscal Year 2008 (Oct. 1, 2007-Sept. 30, 2008) and beyond, as well as to any contracts signed on or after the effective date
May 25, 2008 - all applications, proposals and progress reports must include the PubMed Central ID number (PMCID) when citing articles that are affected by the policy; this includes articles not only authored/co-authored by the investigator, but any papers stemming from his or her award
As of Jan. 14, 313 journals deposit articles into PMC on behalf of authors, so if papers are published in these journals, no further action is needed
Non-compliance is "not a factor in the evaluation of grant applications," but "may delay or prevent awarding of funds"
Articles submitted to PMC that stem from research funded by multiple awards only need to be archived once, as more than one award funding number can be attached to the record
NIH revised the estimated number of articles published annually stemming from NIH-funded research to 80,000 articles

If you have any questions, please contact Molly Keener at 716-4203 or mkeener [at] wfubmc.edu

NIH mandate date: April 7

2008-01-11T18:29:00.000-05:00

The NIH announced today that the revised public access policy mandating archiving in PMC goes into effect April 7, 2008, *MUCH* sooner than I (and likely many others) had hoped for. The official release can be found here, and Peter Suber’s blog announcement – how I learned of it – can be found here.

More information will be coming, but for now I’m heading home to enjoy a feast of crow with a big grin on my face!

Mandate victory for NIH

2008-01-04T16:37:00.000-05:00

On December 26, 2007, President Bush signed into law the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2008 (H.R. 2764), which includes a provision (Division G, Title II, General Provisions, Section 218) directing the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to strengthen its previously voluntary Public Access Policy from a request to a requirement. Here is what the law stipulates:

The Director of the National Institutes of Health shall require that all investigators funded by the NIH submit or have submitted for them to the National Library of Medicine's PubMed Central an electronic version of their final, peer-reviewed manuscripts upon acceptance for publication to be made publicly available no later than 12 months after the official date of publication: Provided, That the NIH shall implement the public access policy in a manner consistent with copyright law.

This means that all articles accepted for publication in scholarly journals that stem from research funded in whole or in part by awards from the NIH must be archived in PubMed Central (PMC)—approximately 65,000 peer-reviewed articles annually. Although there are several hundred journals automatically archived in PMC by publishers, the responsibility for ensuring deposit falls on the authors themselves. Fortunately, Carpenter Library links to several tools to help authors – or those persons designed to make PMC submissions on their behalf – navigate the publishing and depositing process.

Although this is the first instance of the U.S. Government mandating free public accessibility to research funded by a major agency, this is not the first mandate on the scene. The NIH mandate joins company with another 20 funder, 11 institutional and 3 departmental mandates, including those from the Wellcome Trust, 6 of 7 UK Research Councils, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

For further analysis of the NIH mandate victory, see the January issue of the SPARC Open Access Newsletter, and Gavin Baker’s response and predictions.

It will likely be some time before the NIH issues the new policy; in the meantime you can familiarize yourself with the deposit process by complying with the voluntary Public Access Policy. If you have questions or concerns, or would like to request a group presentation on the current Public Access Policy and PubMed Central, contact Molly Keener at 716-4203 or mkeener [at] wfubmc.edu.

Update: NIH Public Access Mandate

2007-11-02T11:43:00.000-04:00

Although I realize this blog is a platform for bringing fellow staff up-to-speed on information gleaned from various meetings and conferences we attend, I wanted to take this opportunity to update everyone on recent Congressional action that, if signed into law, will have significant impact for our campus.

Last week, the Senate passed an appropriations bill that includes language that would strengthen the current NIH Public Access Policy from a request to a mandate, making manuscript archiving in PubMed Central a condition of receiving NIH funding. In July, the House passed a similar bill also stipulating a mandate. Both bills are now in conference to be reconciled before being sent to the President. Unfortunately, due to disagreements over funding, the President has threatened to veto this bill. Although the veto threat is not over the proposed NIH Public Access Mandate, lobbyists are working hard to see that the mandate language is removed altogether. In fact, although they were withdrawn before the final Senate vote, publisher lobbyists were successful in persuading Senator James Inhofe (R-OK) to attach two amendments to the bill that would have rendered the mandate language null.

If this bill becomes law with the mandate provision intact, here is what you need to know:

The NIH Public Access Mandate would apply to any research article accepted for publication in a peer-reviewed journal (both traditional and open access journals) that stems from research funded in whole or in part by NIH awards
Authors would be responsible for ensuring that a copy of their final peer-reviewed manuscript (commonly known as a postprint) is archived in PubMed Central within 12 months of publication
The mandate would be fully compliant with existing U.S. copyright law, and although it would be wise for our faculty authors to retain their copyrights when publishing, they may still transfer their copyrights to publishers AND archive their postprints in PMC; approx. 70% of publisher policies already enable authors to archive postprints in either institutional or subject repositories; publisher archiving policies may be searched using the SHERPA-RoMEO database
Approx. 68% of all external research funding at WFUHS in the past five fiscal years came from NIH (this excludes any subcontract awards)
Currently, voluntary compliance to the NIH Public Access Policy by WFUHS faculty authors is consistent with the national average – around 5%; however, because publishers can also contribute publications to PMC, closer to 10% of WFUHS faculty-authored journal articles are freely accessible in PMC
In anticipation of a mandate, and to highlight papers already in PMC, a field for the PMCID (the unique identifier assigned to archived articles) has been added to the Faculty Publications input screen in PeopleSoft; by including the PMCID, users who search Fac Pubs will be able to link directly to those articles

Please see the November issue of the SPARC Open Access Newsletter for Peter Suber's recap of the NIH Public Access Policy/Mandate progress to date and explanation of what to expect in the future.

There has been interesting discussion about the NIH Public Access Mandate and its implications on the Liblicense listserv in recent days. You can read the archived discussion that took place in October here, and the ongoing discussion here. As you can imagine, confusion over this mandate and its effects on scholarly publishing is rampant, and debates over the necessity of open/public access mandates are rife with misinformation and misunderstanding. If you have any questions, feel free to ask me.

MAC - Part 4 "Cleaning Up"

2007-10-26T14:52:00.000-04:00

There a couple of little things still left to share. The Association of North Carolina Health and Science Librarians' (http://www.rtpnet.org/~anchasl/) reception on Wednesday evening, October 10 was lots of fun. I was the only person out of the group of 20 or so that has ever ridden a camel! Everyone eventually won a prize and then came announcements, like the group's annual meeting on Friday, November 30 in Chapel Hill. Being a history person, it sounds exciting since the group will celebrate its 25th anniversary including a presentation on the history of the medical library as well as honoring past presidents. Margaret Cobb, librarian at Forsyth Medical Center, will wrap up the day.

On Thursday, I was eating again at the Marketing Your Services roundtable discussion hosted by Shannon Jones of Virginia Commonwealth University. The group of 10 shared the different ways that they market their services either in an academic medical or hospital library. I shared our service, if we're still doing it, of delivering public interest magazines to various patient floor lobbies with a simple label on the front that says: Compliments of Coy C. Carpenter Library and Dorothy Carpenter Medical Archives. The hospital librarians especially like this idea as a way to recycle donated magazines. Some ideas I heard about were:
*sending announcements of classes/lectures to departmental listserves (VCU's departments have their own listserves)
*bringing in federal health officials like Center For Disease Control employees for free, targeted classes
*using www.publichealthgrandrounds.unc.edu for continuing education credit courses
*grabbing all the freebies at conferences to share with patrons
*partnering/collaborating with other departments on campus for programs

To wipe it up, I would say I enjoyed the conference. While I don't consider myself a "true" academic medical center librarian, I still felt like I had several things in common with the MAC group and it was nice to network and meet some hospital librarians, including Ms. Cobb. I am glad I had the opportunity to represent Carpenter Library at the conference.

MAC - Part 3 "Awesome Desserts"

2007-10-26T14:19:00.000-04:00

My favorite part (desserts are the best part of any meal) of MAC or at least the part where I learned the most was actually on two different days.

On Wednesday, October 10, 2007, Bart Ragon and colleagues from the University of Virginia presented a paper entitled: When a Blog is Not a Blog. Basically, it involved using blog software for other uses. I immediately thought of the Digital Forsyth (www.digitalforsyth.org) website in Wordpress software. Mr. Ragon gave examples of using blog software as an information aggregator, for a room/equipment self-booking system as well as a place for medical students to comment.

Thursday morning, October 11 found me again listening to Mr. Ragon as part of the panel discussion on Web 2.0 technologies. In this panel, Mr. Ragon discussed collaborative tools, such as blogs, wikis and specifically Google Presentation, Zoho online and Sakai - a free, open source product. He also talked about Social Networking like the use of Facebook and Ning by the American Library Association. Perhaps the most interesting names were Moodle and Sloodle which are course management software programs.

The other panelists were Michelle Kraft, newly appointed senior health librarain at the Cleveland Clinic and author of the blog: http://kraftylibrarian.com/, who discussed mash-ups and sharing photographs; and Max Anderson with SOLINET who talked about changing the of colleagues and patrons attitude toward technology as well as obtaining information services support in a larger institution.

I was intrigued the most by Mr. Ragon's comments so I e-mailed him for his PowerPoint presentations which I have placed in the Shared Documents section of Carpetner Library's Sharepoint. I'm sure you could contact Ms. Kraft and Mr. Anderson about their presentations. Meanwhile, enjoy your desserts compliments of Mr. Ragon!

MAC - Part 2 "Lots of Eating"

2007-10-19T11:02:00.000-04:00

Wednesday (Oct. 10, 2007) morning breakfast with the exhibitors was only the beginning of what felt like two days of non-stop food in more ways than one. We did manage to actually speak to some of them, like Meredith being shown Diagnosis Consult from MD Consult respresentative.

But after breakfast, Meredith and I meandered through Poster Session I. The list of abstracts as well as some mini-handouts is circulating around the CCCL staff now. Perhaps the one that stuck out for me was East Carolina University because they had several, all of which had a basic design that was eye-catching. Of course, the theme had to do with FOOD. You can read about each poster in the list of abstracts.

The morning also consisted of a National Library of Medicine update from David Gillikin, chief of bibliographic services. I honestly don't remember much of it because it is was mostly information on NLM's For Librarians' webpage, such as the new site search engine and adding Citing Medicine to NCBI Bookshelf. It didn't have a whole lot to do with food either, although I did enjoy my Starbucks Frappucino in the already freezing room.

After a crab cake sandwich for lunch at a local restaurant, we walked briskly back to the hotel to hear some paper presentations. Again, the list of abstracts is circulating with the staff. I was captured by UNC Chapel Hill's "Fast Food for Clinicians: Recipe for Improving Subject Access to Electronic Resources." Since the room was tiny and we arrived late, we were in the hall. I did hear that the health science librarians have created electronic resource pages specific to departments by partnering with the department. It is more of a focused outreach for library liaisons and the difference is the partnering with a member of the department. I had to dig on UNC Health Sciences Library's homepage, but here is the example shown at the presentation:

http://www.hsl.unc.edu/Services/Guides/Anesthesiology.cfm. I liked the RSS feed listing the Current Table of Contents from the Anesthesiology journal. I found this webpage under Special Collections, then More Collections, then More Collections, A to Z.

I'll save the other interesting paper for another post. Now that I'm hungry, I will enjoy my lunch!

MAC - Part 1 - "Nearly a Disaster"

2007-10-17T16:17:00.000-04:00

The purpose of me attending the Mid-Atlantic Chapter of the Medical Library Association conference in Baltimore, Md. Oct 9-12, 2007 was to present a poster: The D-Word: Deciding What to Digitize. The actual poster presentation was on Thursday, Oct. 11 during the Technology Symposium.

But, since I'm a linear person, I need to post the events in the order in which they happened! So first up is Dr. Georges C. Benjamin, MD, FACP, FACEP and director of the American Public Health Association. He spoke about the need for disaster preparedness from a public health view. His speech was decent and appropriate for our time but I felt like he had given it many times before and worked in a couple of slides in his PowerPoint to make it appropriate to medical librarians.

The one interesting fact I gathered from it was that medical and hospital libraries can serve as a gathering place/triage location in a disaster because they have space, technology access if equipment is still available and in particular medical and hospital libraries are close if not already in hospitals. Another interesting part of the speech is the American Public Health Association (http://www.apha.org/) is developing a movement for national disaster preparedness, perhaps somewhat late after Hurricane Katrina, but at least the group is exploring it. This association is focusing on preparing for pandemic flu.

To veer off the linear path a bit, the conference also included an update from the National Network of Libraries of Medicine (NN/LM) Southeastern/Atlantic Region and Janice Kelly gave that update on Thursday, Oct. 11. The Regional Libraries of NN/LM (University of Maryland-Baltimore is where the Southeastern library is located) are becoming buddies with another medical library in preparation for a national and/or regional disaster. An example is the Southeastern/Atlantic Region Library's buddy is the University of Washington-Seattle. Ms. Kelly suggested that MAC members start thinking about a buddy library for their libraries.

And finally as a side and very related note, while Ms. Kelly was giving the update of NN/LM and happened to be discussing disaster preparedness, the hotel's alarm system went off and we immediately evacuated the hotel to across the street to the University of Maryland-Baltimore research section of the library. Now can it get any more exciting than that experience? See below for an "evacuation" shot.

No, we did not find out why we had to evacuate but returned out of the chilly weather back to the hotel within 10 minutes and I heard no sirens even though there is a fire department across the street from the Marriott Inner Harbor hotel.

Digital Forsyth Year 2

2007-07-27T15:18:00.000-04:00

Dianne, Monica and Mark with some help from Julie continue to plug away in the Digital Forsyth Grant. Year two of the potential three-year grant started July 1 and CCCL is expected to choose, label, scan and catalog 375 images that will help depict the history of Forsyth County.

Year one entailed a lot of learning, setting up equipment, hiring temporary staff and establishing workflows along with completing 189 images, 39 images over the expected number.

Year two will be a year of production. The staff will have help again this year to produce - one person for scanning and entering the information into an Access database and one person for cataloging in EnCompass. While Monica chooses most of the photographs, Dianne is going to be working on various "stories," brief written snapshots of our institution, to be included on the webpage. Mark continues his work with the User Services Committee who hopes to have the initial user web interface launched by the end of August.

Look for Digital Forsyth at the Bookmarks Festival on September 8 and at the NCLA Conference in Hickory on October 18, 2007.

Basic Archives

2007-07-26T14:45:00.000-04:00

During the month of June, Monica and I enjoyed learning about basic archives work without leaving our desks!

The American Association for State and Local History offered an online workshop that allowed you to work at your own pace until the deadline on July 6. It also offered two live chat sessions during the course from an experienced archivist and one of the authors of the workshop. After each course, you reviewed it and took a short test or quiz.

The workshop information was not new for me but definitely verified that what I have been doing for seven years is good. Monica, on the other hand, learned tons of new information and she is excited to have a real certificate for completing it.

The workshop was divided into five courses covering the following topics:
Introduction to Archives and Archivists; What Do You Collect and How Do You Collect It; Processing; Housing Your Collections and Access and Outreach.

To summarize, we learned that you need a collection development policy, processing policy/manual, disaster plan, lots of supplies, lots of space for storing and processing and a sense of humor and attention to detail.

For the very-curious-minded colleagues, we have the entire workshop on CD that we would be happy to share.

Copyright Utopia, Day 3 - Technological Alternatives Panel

2007-05-24T17:32:00.000-04:00

Transforming Copyright: Technological Alternatives
Kimberly Kelley (moderator), Karen Coyle, Laurence Roth, David Sohn

DRM (digital rights management) has been market failure because consumers not happy with digital controls
not all technical protection is bad; some protection is important, useful, needed
files today will outlive software needed to open them
technology does fail: not if, but when
when technology fails in regard to DRM, there is nothing that can be done
users need to explicitly know what they can and cannot do under DRM of each individual file; shouldn't have to discover limitations when they are stopped trying to do something not permissible
we should be informing people every time they access something of the copyright that applies: holder, date enacted, uses permitted
possibly include copyright in metadata of MARC records
DRM likely to remain part of copyright landscape
if public understands DRM, they will exert pressure on DRM developers for more choice and flexibility
DRM developers need to contribute by making infringement unattractive not technologically impossible
DRM has collateral impact: privacy - data collection questions; computer security - are necessary downloads/installations safe
DRM must have transparency/disclosure, both initial and ongoing
not all DRM systems raise problems in all areas
if more files are available DRM-free (iTunes songs), will public have enough information to make informed decisions?
similar to DRM are digital watermarks
almost all TV broadcasts have digital watermarks
Photoshop has digital watermarking capability
watermarks provide persistent digital identity with embedded metadata defining origin, use permissions
watermarks can be made resistant to standard content processing techniques
watermarks used for copyright communication, copy protection, monitoring, filtering/classification, authentication/identity, media serialization & tracking, asset/content management, rights management, remote triggering, linking/ecommerce
digital watermarks similar to automobile VIN
work as compliments to DRM
could possibly help identify data leaks
would help in identification of future born-digital orphan works
ancillary copyright violations could (and should) be accounted for by digital watermarking (accidentally filming Disney movie in background of home video of child's birthday party)

Evidence-Based Library/Info Practice Meeting

2007-05-24T13:10:00.000-04:00

This was a different kind of meeting for me, used to MAC and MLA. It was a small meeting (230 participants) and very international in flavor. It also included lots of different kinds of librarians, not just medical librarians. It was co-sponsored by the EBLIP guru Andrew Booth and the Library School at UNC and held in Research Triangle Park. I wondered what the foreign librarians found to do in the RTP when the meeting wasn't taking them out in buses. Since the airport is across I-40 and RTP is composed of businesses, there was only a Gold's Gym and a walking trail as destinations in RTP without a rental car. Rochelle and I joined the meeting halfway through and stayed for CE classes. The meeting focused on library research, how to make it better, how to fit it in, how to get it published, how to evaluate it. I attended the debate on whether EBLibrarianship was useful/necessary by Scott Pluchak and Andrew Booth. This talk and the following discussion was fairly contentious. I went to sessions where librarians presented their research on teaching, including Connie Schardt who studied a course taught locally and as a distance ed class. The final luncheon had several library heads discussing the importance of EB research in running libraries. These included a small special library, Duke Med library, NCSU library, a school library professor, and a state library. The CE class I took, on critically appraising library research/articles, was one of the best CEs I ever taken, probably due to the knowledge and personality of the instructor who was from Newfoundland.

Copyright Utopia, Day 3 - Licensing Panel

2007-05-24T11:25:00.000-04:00

Licensing and the Commons as Copyright Alternatives
Kimberly Bonner (moderator), Mike Carroll, Solveig Singleton, Elizabeth Winston

Cautionary/negative view (Elizabeth Winston):

copyright does not fit all takers - some want tighter controls, others want fewer
legislation restricts copyright holders' rights after the first sale, but licensing enables holders to retain control
using licenses to transfer copyrights (retaining titles) risks monopolization [*I personally believe such risks are minimal*]
one legitimate justification for use of license does not automatically justify licensing rather than transferring, as other user rights may be unnecessarily corroded

Supportive view (Mike Carroll):

goal of Creative Commons is to get out of normal copyright allowances by licensing legal sharing of creative, scientific & educational materials
one size does not fit all but standards are nonetheless necessary
CC provides standardization in licensing
CC inspired by Open Source movement; idea born in 2001, licenses released 2002
each of the 6 possible licenses have three versions: metadata, human readable, legal
CC licenses do not apply only to digital works; try to be medium-neutral
have been used on blogs, photos, research articles, teaching materials, music, film, books
CC licenses have role to play in domain where researchers just want credit/prestige for their work, not monetary compensation
growth in use of CC licenses impressive (measured by link backs): Dec. 2003=1 million; Dec. 2004=5 million; June 2005=12 million; June 2006=145 million [*when these numbers where shared the person sitting beside me - a top administrator with the Copyright Clearance Center - softly exclaimed "Wow"*]

Cautionary/positive view (Solveig Singleton):

licensing may not solve copyright problems
trade creates wealth, voluntary licenses are trade, so both parties are better off, both benefit
compulsory licensing, however, cuts into benefits; top-down, non-negotiable, one side raw deal
voluntary licensing is form of Utopia but requires active participation
nevertheless, there are problems with voluntary licensing: fragmentation (think of all the issues with music: composer, performer, producer, etc.); getting around public legislation (DRM); public legislation itself (criminalization of violations)
the need to get around public legislation and the extent of public legislation are themselves symptoms of a collapse of copyright enforcement in the digital landscape, an issue which none of the licensing options address
it is worth thinking hard, creatively about Congressional-level addressing of license fragmentation and non-enforceability issues in technological world
think "hatless": when thinking about how to solve copyright problems, we need to take off the multiple hats we wear (those of consumer, producer)
private licensing agreements are worthwhile experiments that need to go forward

Copyright Utopia, Day 3 - Legislative Panel

2007-05-24T11:04:00.000-04:00

Tweaking Copyright: Legislative Alternatives
Kimberly Bonner (moderator), Miriam Nisbet, Robert Samors, Gigi Sohn

110th Congress (current term) is unusually quiet on copyright, although 3 of the 4 copyright reform bills/initiatives are positive
big copyright issues are currently in the courts, hence affecting the actions of Congress
also slower due to shift from Republican majority to Democrats, as well as focus on judicial system issues (fired lawyers), FBI examination, & patent reform bill
Democrats have tended to be more friendly to Hollywood (the land of big donors) by protecting copyrights
notion of only one type of copyright holder no longer holds with rising among of user-generated content
the current big danger is not potential Congressional action but action from the copyright office: some believe the office is over-reaching its role to make policy pronouncements, believing duty is to push back changing tide of copyright control in defense of traditional copyright holders; as an office, the mission is to serve the people, which includes copyright holders of participatory media
reforms are needed in areas covering orphan works, DMCA, DRM notices, licensing that permits YouTube posting without fear of notice-and-takedown, limiting statutory damages
although such reforms are not possible in the short term, they might be in long term
H.R. 1201: introduced in late February; would amend DMCA to add relief to DRM breaking prohibition in legitimate circumstances such as fair use, educational uses, and library/archives preservation (all currently illegal)
hoping to see orphan works (works whose copyright holder cannot be identified/located) bills in both House and Senate; would allow for use of orphan works without risk of statutory damages if good faith search does not locate copyright owner
study group examining possible changes to Section 108 (library/archive specific section); section is out-of-sync with digital age in terms of copying guidelines (both preservation and personal use), ILL
librarians have an important role to play in copyright reform, either by individually contacting Congressional representatives or by identifying our institution's government relations/Congressional liaison person
imperative that faculty and students understand copyright, so hold copyright education campaigns on campus; doesn't necessarily have to be clever but needs to be sustained
work to have copyright added to Faculty Senate and institutional agendas
think about copyright reform less as an economic issue and more as an educational mission
clearly stipulate self-interest for universities, faculty, students

Copyright Utopia, Day 2 - International Panel

2007-05-23T00:45:00.000-04:00

International Approaches
Kimberly Bonner (moderator), Susan Anthony, Olufunmilayo Arewa, Matthew Skelton

This panel session basically provided a peak at other countries' approaches to copyright and fair use, and served primarily to emphasize how different US copyright law is from other Berne Convention member countries, especially with regard to fair use. Several European countries, including Germany and France, use private copying levies as an exception to copyright holders' exclusive reproduction rights. These levies are charged to manufactures of machines and data storage devices used to make copies of copyright-protected materials. Copyright holders then use an intermediary organization for remuneration with governments to recover levies. Although the US fair use doctrine does allow for some private copying, it is not as permissive as private copying levies.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) recently released a paper/statement on participatory media. Participatory media or UCC (user created content) does not apply/cover consumptive entertainment. UCC - blogs, wikis, mashups, social networking sites - currently dominated by young, male creators. Making an entire copy of anything is virtually never fair; good rule of thumb? Maybe...

Culture by definition is shared. US fair use law is atypical in context of other international copyright laws. The Berne Convention's education exemption is neither transparent or apparent, so lots of countries don't use it. The debate between producers and users of copyrighted materials plays out in different ways internationally, but still plays out.

Copyright Utopia, Day 2 - Open Access Panel Discussion

2007-05-23T00:31:00.000-04:00

Closed is Not Necessarily the Opposite of Open: Open Access Initiatives
Paul Jaeger (moderator), Ann Bartow, Brian Crawford, Heather Joseph, Denise Troll Covey

This session was remarkably hostile, and unfortunately, given the complexity of the topic, did little to clarify the issue at hand: Open Access and its potential for radical (and in my opinion, greatly needed) change in the scholarly communications arena. While I don't claim to be an OA expert, I do feel that I have a solid understanding of the principles and issues, and this session made me anxious and frustrated as I realized that people without my background were undoubtedly more confused afterward than before we even began. Despite Heather Joseph's "modern interpretive copyright dance," the session was truly characterized by the following phrases (supplied by panelists, not audience): "pit bull", "fired up", "drank a bottle of Tabasco." Nevertheless, there were good points made, which I share below.

faculty are more concerned with what their peers are doing with OA journals, not about the dysfunction in scholarly communications or serials pricing
if everyone waits to see what their peers do (chicken & egg issue), then nothing will change!
to get faculty to go green, must understand current culture in order to change it
advancement & stature in field are key issues for faculty, not public access; faculty don't understand that there is an access issue...until you cancel journals
if ILL changes to strict document delivery (current section 108 review) then faculty will likely become interested in publicly accessible materials
lobby for OA resolution to be adopted by Faculty Senate
publishing agreements are contracts, and contracts are negotiable
what is in it for individual researchers? what are the carrots?
only through use of research findings by others is research impact maximized

Knowledge Sharing

Knowledge Sharing: Past to Meet Present Part 4

Knowledge Sharing: Past to Meet Present Part 3

Knowledge Sharing: Past to Meet Present Part 2

Knowledge Sharing: Past to Meet Present

Past to Meet Present Part 5

Historical Road Trip

Talking Archivists

MLA Musings

Past to Meet Present Part 4

Saving Social Media

Statewide Digitization

Digitize times three

SNCA Plenary

Computers in Libraries, Day Three

Computers in Libraries, Day two

Computers in Libraries, Day 1

Model Mystery

From Vision to Implementation: The Conference for Entrepreneurial Librarians

Past to Meet Present Part 3

Past to meet Present Part 2

Past to meet Present

MLA Day Three

MLA Day Two

MLA Day One: Report from our Nation's Capitol by Rochelle Kramer

CIL2010 Postconference: Digital Library Learning Spaces

CIL2010: Developing and Designing for Mobile

CIL2010: Content Containers: Transforming Publishing & Purchasing

CIL2010: Making It Happen: Getting Things Done

*updated * CIL2010: Info Pros & SharePoint: Good Fit

CIL2010: Crafting Online Personas

CIL2010: LibGuides

CIL2010: Organization 2.0

CIL2010: Digital Commons: Building Digital Communities Using Digital Collections

CIL2010: Keynote

Hearts

Laundry and Linens

TRP - Totally Responsible Person

Maya Angelou Center for Health Equity

WFU Eye Center

Center for Biomolecular Imaging

Center for Applied Learning Tour

Rehabilitation Units at Sticht Center

WF Regenerative Medicine Institute

WFUBMC Burn Center Tour

ScienceOnline'09: Social Networks for Scientists

ScienceOnline'09: Anonymity, Pseudonymity

ScienceOnline'09: Web and the History of Science

ScienceOnline'09: Semantic Web

ScienceOnline'09: Video in Scientific Research

ScienceOnline'09: Open Access Publishing

Charleston Conference: Open Access

Charleston Conference: Digital Preservation

Scholarly Communications Workshop Podcasts

WFU Libraries Scholarly Communications Workshop

Adventures in Science Blogging

Framing Science

Blogging in health and medicine

Gender and race in science

Open Science

Revised NIH Public Access Policy

NIH mandate date: April 7

Mandate victory for NIH

Update: NIH Public Access Mandate

MAC - Part 4 "Cleaning Up"

MAC - Part 3 "Awesome Desserts"

MAC - Part 2 "Lots of Eating"

MAC - Part 1 - "Nearly a Disaster"

Digital Forsyth Year 2

Basic Archives

Copyright Utopia, Day 3 - Technological Alternatives Panel

Evidence-Based Library/Info Practice Meeting

Copyright Utopia, Day 3 - Licensing Panel

Copyright Utopia, Day 3 - Legislative Panel

Copyright Utopia, Day 2 - International Panel

Copyright Utopia, Day 2 - Open Access Panel Discussion

updated CIL2010: Info Pros & SharePoint: Good Fit