Monday, October 17, 2016

Understanding people comes in a lot of flavors. An uncommon flavor is understanding people deeper than explanations and opinions. It’s getting inside people’s minds to see how they achieve their larger human intentions and purposes without reference to your organization. The goal is to allow for later inspiration that represents the complicated inner world of people’s approaches, rather than being constrained by existing systems and conventions. You re-frame the way you think about the problem as if your organization does not exist. When you come back to reality after this little exploration, your deeper understanding influences the way you think about solutions. Our UX expert and speaker defines this deeper understanding, outlines how to collect the data, and illustrates how to curate the knowledge in a depiction of the reasoning- patterns (mental model diagrams) and the thinking-styles (behavioral audience segments).

Google and other search engines continue to innovate and adapt to the ever-changing online public. Power searching tools and techniques often are buried beneath the big search headlines about new ways to find celebrity or sports information. Take a fast paced trip through several new and unusual research tips for power searchers.

Our eagle-eyed industry watcher talks about how to find good apps and shares a number of apps that library customers, info pros, and newbies will want to check out. He also shares the top sites and tools that info pros and searchers will want to use. Take advantage of his vast knowledge and gather tips and tools to share with others.

Hear about three different approaches to discovery! Washoe County Library System partnered with Koios to launch a novel service: a browser plug-in that adds results from the library to search engines and ecommerce sites. If a patron using Koios (even on a PAC) views an item on Amazon, for example, Koios links to the same item in the library holdings. Speakers discuss their experiences, including the rollout process, marketing and promotion strategies, and user adoption data over the course of the project from both the library and vendor perspective. Sanchez discusses Wild Colorado, a unique state-wide wildlife discovery application developed by Mesa County Public Libraries. It had the highest successful library kickstarter to date and positions libraries to expand their services and patronage in ways never before possible. Learn about the rationale and process behind this revolutionary library endeavor as well as community engagement. With more and more students coming equipped with mobile devices, Rawlins talks about working in collaboration with teaching faculty from three different departments (English, World Languages, and Graduate Education) to develop a research tool so students have access to a mobile app, Research Genius, with the tap of an icon. It provides students with an introduction to what it means to do academic research, what is involved in the research process, and how to properly cite sources and avoid plagiarism. Hear about the different frameworks used to develop this app as well as our plans for the app moving forward.

Libraries face a complex set of choices as they consider the best technologies to assist them in managing and providing access to their collections and services. Breeding provides an overview and analysis of the current environment of discovery tools for libraries.

For any organization with significant digital content, the ability to search across this content has become an operational necessity. Regardless of the specific search system utilized by an organization, effective enterprise search requires some manual review and editing in order to produce the most relevant results. Mathieu looks at the current trends and issues surrounding enterprise search by presenting a case study of the library’s efforts to manually “curate” search at JPL, a world leader in robotic deep-space planetary missions, advanced observatories for exoplanets and astrophysics, Earth monitoring systems, and associated science and technology. She discusses an open-source search tool, Elasticsearch, recently initiated to improve internal search, which is used to index intranet web content as well as content from a disparate range of internal document, image, and data repositories. Get an overview of search curation efforts, tools and metrics used, some best practices and lessons learned. CSU speakers discuss how discovery layers have changed the ways in which students are able to search academic library resources by providing a simplified, customizable user interface. They studied student participants who executed searches in two discovery layer configurations and an indexing and abstracting database. While students reported a preference for discovery layers, the articles selected from the indexing and abstracting database were more authoritative. These results illuminate the relative strengths of these tools, informing decisions about resource allocation and discovery configuration.

Information Today, Inc. invites all conference registrants and exhibitors to a special Networking Reception in the Sponsor Showcase. This is a great time to gather with fellow Internet Librarians and suppliers, renew acquaintances, meet new colleagues, sample tasty goodies, and check out the latest products and services in a relaxed atmosphere.

Redesigning your library website? Get tips to streamline your redesign process as our informative speaker takes you through more than a dozen lessons learned during the redesign and launch of her library’s website. Lessons cover interviewing web developers, outlining expectations, conducting an environmental scan, getting staff buy-in, training staff, editing content, conducting usability testing, launching the new site, responding to user comments, using iterative design principles, and discovering why you need to keep an eye on your website like it’s a toddler.

Great sites have great content that takes into account mobile and web users’ scanning, reading and scrolling behaviors. In today’s world that means writing responsively—creating and designing content that will work on mobile, tablets and desktop. If your library simply transfers your desktop content into a responsive template without a major rethink, your library’s presence will be mediocre at best or a complete train wreck at worst. Get proven techniques for writing for multiple platforms and some do’s and dont’s for creating great user experiences.

As trusted information resources, libraries have an obligation to provide a safe and secure computing environment for their community. This, however, isn’t just the responsibility of the IT department; it is a shared responsibility across all staff. Cervone provides an overview of the critical issues in security, an outline of what training is required, and what resources are available free from which a library can develop a security training program. Peterson doesn’t think any library is too small for bad guys to worry about, even those using WordPress. He demonstrates the Wordfence security plug-in on his own library’s website—live! He shows how this one plug-in blocks malicious attackers’ attempts to log in to the library’s website via common logins, as well as various other tools and reports this plug-in provides.

Not getting people to your library’s website? Not sure how to “sell” your library to the younger generation? This presentation provides some easy ways to tweak your online marketing and promotion efforts for maximum impact. King shows how his library uses digital branch tools to reach out to the community and to draw people into the library—both physical and digital.

Explore how to adapt NPR’s Create Once Publish Everywhere (COPE) model to a library’s website(s) and resources. This presentation covers coping strategies to alleviate the frustration of editing or correcting out-of-date and conflicting content across a variety of online resources. Example approaches include syncing navigation menus, repurposing content, and abstracted URLs across the library’s websites, resources, LibGuides, and discovery platform. Get lots of tips and tricks to use in your environment!

Information Today, Inc. invites all conference registrants and exhibitors to a special Networking Reception in the Sponsor Showcase. This is a great time to gather with fellow Internet Librarians and suppliers, renew acquaintances, meet new colleagues, sample tasty goodies, and check out the latest products and services in a relaxed atmosphere.

Each panelist has 7 minutes to pitch their strategy and then participate in an open forum. Yale Law Library’s print course reserves continue to be big business, representing roughly 10% of all checkouts for the past 2 years. The problem was engaging faculty. The strategy? Poetic emails. The Idaho Commission for Libraries (ICfL) Special Projects Library Action Team (SPLAT) has peer mentor volunteers from Idaho’s library community. The problem was to strengthen libraries across a vast state rippled by remoteness and technology issues. The strategy? Team travels to secure one conversation at a time. Shiffman Medical Library, a designated Outreach Library for the National Library of Medicine, National Network of Libraries of Medicine, needed to vastly increase attendance at community health programs. The strategy? Leverage social media for outreach events that have enhanced the library’s reputation as a key provider of community programs and forge new partnerships with academic, health, and community institutions.

How do you and your library empower the humanities at your institution? Enter THATCamp (The Humanities and Technology Camp)— collaborative, brainstorming, problem-solving events bringing together a diverse and engaging set of individuals, not just academics. Come harness the precepts of the THATCamp ethos by learning how to organize your own grassroots humanities event; avoid the pitfalls and challenges of organizing a THATCamp in your campus; and expand your role from reactive information professional to a proactive champion for your library and the humanities.

This is a session about two libraries that became liked, known, and visible—with incredible results! With funding from a number of organizations and foundations, the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville has digitized, preserved, and made accessible moving images, audio, print, etc. It has implemented digitization workstations, storage, switches, and digital asset management system infrastructure, as well as using online analytics to track user data. Hear how museum staff built momentum for digital collections and created new partnerships with Google and Getty Images online interfaces to reach new audiences. Hear about Longview Public Library’s partnership with Buckner Family Services for its Summer Reading Club. The partnership led to a fulfilling and promising sponsorship of more than $10,000 each year for many years to come.

Imagine having a Google Analytics-style dashboard for your library building: number of visits, what patrons browsed, what parts of the library were busy during which parts of the day, and more. Measure the Future, a project supported by the Knight Foundation, is going to make that happen by using simple and inexpensive sensors that can collect data about building usage that is now invisible. The project is building open tools using open hardware and open source software, and will then provide open tutorials so that libraries everywhere can build the tools for themselves. Hear how the project is progressing, how you can get your library involved, and how it could be useful for your needs.

The Santa Clara City Library hosted a STEM Innovation Bowl 1 week before the city hosted the 2016 Super Bowl. Hosting more than 10,000 people, the library showcased new, cutting-edge technology and STEM stations to excite young minds. Hear how they prepared, marketed, set up, staffed, and created each station to produce the most successful library event ever. Library departments collaborated and worked with city IT and brought in eight companies from Silicon Valley. All the Innovation stations are reusable, supporting programming again and again.

Information Today, Inc. invites all conference registrants and exhibitors to a special Networking Reception in the Sponsor Showcase. This is a great time to gather with fellow Internet Librarians and suppliers, renew acquaintances, meet new colleagues, sample tasty goodies, and check out the latest products and services in a relaxed atmosphere.

This double session, followed by group discussion, begins with a look at the “open” landscape and then focuses on some activities in the public library and European research library arena. Cervone discusses the open landscape from the library and faculty perspectives. He looks at a number of open initiatives, challenges, and prospects for the future with respect to open access and open education. While the goals are laudable, the practical implementation for both is far from straightforward. The open access movement has been around for years, but is it starting to gain some momentum? Questions related to sustainability and the assurance of quality are just a few of the issues that threaten to slow the adoption of the open education model. Get a good picture of where things are in the “open” landscape. Our two public library practitioners discuss open access to open knowledge. The Town of Chapel Hill had an interest in joining the open data movement and looked to the library to make it happen. Worldwide, libraries are often the community’s most trusted government organization; they have the expertise in providing access to information and, frankly, to get things done. Hear about the Chapel Hill Open Data website as Green shares stories, lessons learned, and expert advice on publishing an open data web portal and providing open data from your local public library. Therriault talks turning open data into open knowledge by turning Boston’s open data collection into an accessible resource by working with Boston Public Library to catalog it and introduce it to the public. Danowski looks at reaching an open access world. In the first half of 2016 the Netherlands took over the EU presidency and open science became a focus topic. The Amsterdam call for action followed the Max Planck Society Berlin Declaration, which started a new international initiative for a transition of the scholarly journals from subscription to open access publishing. In Austria many institutions joined forces and founded Open Access Network Austria; the Austrian Library Consortium (KEMÖ) negotiated the first offsetting deal in the world with the Institute of Physics to avoid double-dipping. Deals with other publishers followed to support open access. The goal is to achieve a full transition to open access by 2025. Danowski discusses how to follow Europe’s call for action on open action and uses the example of Austria, their experiences and plans. With the window of opportunity opening, he encourages an international approach to act and disrupt the traditional system and make open access a reality.

Molyneux discusses the creation of Meta (formerly ScienceScape) which uses machine intelligence to structure the information within scientific papers, and make it discoverable for free. Griffey discusses the Blockchain, a permanent record of transactions that’s transparent to all its users, and how it might apply to library issues like copyright and intellectual property.

There are many important and interesting publications, resources, and other materials on the web which are currently not discoverable. From the co-author of the first Invisible Web book published 15 years ago, hear how we could achieve a more open web!

Open education resources (OER) are increasingly in the news as an option for K–12 schools to “save money on textbooks” and recognize teacher innovation and professionalism. Explore the creation of personalized digital textbooks incorporating free OER and review the impact before launching a large-scale OER project. Erikson provides examples of OER textbooks, copyright, platform and content considerations, and resources to incorporate into your own textbook. Get the info and resources you need to have discussions with your stake-holders before launching your own project. Marymount U speakers introduce CORA (Community of Online Research Assignments), a pilot open access educational resource developed for faculty and librarians in higher education. It created a collection of research assignments designed to be extended and enriched by its users—eventually building a community of faculty and librarians sharing their knowledge of pedagogy, information literacy, research, and writing within the landscape of higher education. Hear about Loyola Marymount’s use of Drupal, an open source content management platform; get a live demo of CORA; and hear how the community is using this resource and the lessons learned in developing it.

Information Today, Inc. invites all conference registrants and exhibitors to a special Networking Reception in the Sponsor Showcase. This is a great time to gather with fellow Internet Librarians and suppliers, renew acquaintances, meet new colleagues, sample tasty goodies, and check out the latest products and services in a relaxed atmosphere.

As the intellectual heart of a school, how the library supports student learning is simply mission-critical. With this as a grounding construct, we explore the changing nature of what a library is, what it means for learning, and how this translates into the effective design of library spaces. We consider the library as a spatial ecology, giving attendees the opportunity to consider how a physical and digital library can work together to provide an always-on, connective experience that will resonate with today’s students. Finally, our exploration of “library” presents the design process as a methodology that librarians can use to continually align and evolve the programs and spaces of the library to create meaningful capacities for student learners. Join in for an enriching conversation about the intersection of library, space, and design!

Ebooks bring a whole new world of opportunities to children and those who help them. The affordances of today’s ebooks can offer environments and tools to students who may have a variety of needs, strengths, interests, and challenges at a wide range of reading levels. This session provides examples of a wide selection of ebooks and discussion of how these can support children at various stages of reading development. We cover what to look for, what to look out for, and how to make good decisions in the selection and use of digital, tablet-based books to encourage and grow young readers.

Our first presenter in this session notes that sometimes techniques for teaching databases can become more “tired and boring” than “tried and true!” If so, it’s time to flip instruction into a Search App Smackdown! This fun, challenging, and competitive gaming approach meets AASL goals, integrates technology, and puts kids in the driver’s seat for their learning. Learn to “flip instruction” to transform boring database lessons into a fun and competitive fast-paced game. Then, learn from our next presenters how you can provide your students with a more “Google-like” search for your library’s databases and book catalog. They discuss the process of implementing EBSCO Discovery Service in a large high school library using a personalized authentication for remote access.

School, public, and in fact all stripes of librarians are “programmed” to serve the public, whether it be their students and faculty, their patrons, or their clients—and to make a difference in their communities. That’s just who they are. Stephen recounts how librarians in his hometown community are reaching out to serve some brand-new patrons: refugees! Come hear his inspiring story!

As the librarian, you are at the forefront of change in your school community. Step up by using solutions to make your library better that are hidden in the stacks! This workshop covers a wide variety of topics, including assessment, data collection, and instructional design, building up your online presence through the library webpage, social media and Google analytics. Learn how to create screencasts, build ads, and create infographics! Work with other librarians to build knowledge, ideas, and tips!

Information Today, Inc. invites all conference registrants and exhibitors to a special Networking Reception in the Sponsor Showcase. This is a great time to gather with fellow Internet Librarians and suppliers, renew acquaintances, meet new colleagues, sample tasty goodies, and check out the latest products and services in a relaxed atmosphere.