28 augustus 2007
A well packed day at Ticer
Somehow somewhere I would have expected a kind of Library 2.0 day at the Ticer course today. But in the end it did not really materialize as such.
The first presentation was a sales pitch from OCLC. Well in the Netherlands we are always glad to receive some information from OCLC (Ohio) since we don’t receive that much information from OCLC Pica on their moves, strategies or plans. Should we therefore attend an expensive course to happily receive this sales pitch?
Robin Murray started to sell himself first, followed by outlining what OCLC actually is and does. His sales pitch was “synthesize, specialize, mobilize”. It is actually a well founded pitch, his whole story can be read in Ariadne.
To be honest he had some interesting observations and plans. But as was remarked later in the discussions, OCLC excels in plans, reports, and visions, but the actual products were lacking. Perhaps that is a little too harsh, since I really do like what they have achieved with open worldcat. But at the local or group level (considering the Dutch libraries as a group) there is a lot of misunderstanding as to how does open worldcat relate to the (expensive) service of NCC or Picarta. But I might be too stupid to see through all these things. The lecture was more of a sales pitch, some good ideas though. But the sales pitch was my lasting impression, rather than a round up of what direction the library world, is or should be moving too.
The second talk of today was a really nice summing up of the developments around the catalog since NCSU launched their Endeca powered catalog. Peter Binkley did his overview future enhancements of the library catalogue around the themes of clustering, ranking, exploiting, contributing and deploying. His presentation was very up to date. Peter’s preferred choice of new open source library systems was VUFind. Reminds me of Koha which he didn’t cover.
In the afternoon we had a really interesting presentation on the use of chatbots in German libraries. Anne Christensen covered 4 different chatbots in operation at German libraries. The idea is appealing. There are some serious costs involved, but they actually got used. It brings the fun on a library website, and that should be worth some money.
The last presentation was a tough one. A boring, albeit important subject, as identity management, and that spun out over an hour, at the end of the day. That was really testing us. And then going into some detailed technical level, it was a bit over the too much for me personally. It would be wonderful if people from our university IT service could have been present at this lecture as well. A scheme like this should be endorsed by the library and the IT department, and I am under the impression that there is a little disagreement on some points at my home university on this area. Interesting to hear about the developments in this field, but really and totally beyond my interest.
The first presentation was a sales pitch from OCLC. Well in the Netherlands we are always glad to receive some information from OCLC (Ohio) since we don’t receive that much information from OCLC Pica on their moves, strategies or plans. Should we therefore attend an expensive course to happily receive this sales pitch?
Robin Murray started to sell himself first, followed by outlining what OCLC actually is and does. His sales pitch was “synthesize, specialize, mobilize”. It is actually a well founded pitch, his whole story can be read in Ariadne.
To be honest he had some interesting observations and plans. But as was remarked later in the discussions, OCLC excels in plans, reports, and visions, but the actual products were lacking. Perhaps that is a little too harsh, since I really do like what they have achieved with open worldcat. But at the local or group level (considering the Dutch libraries as a group) there is a lot of misunderstanding as to how does open worldcat relate to the (expensive) service of NCC or Picarta. But I might be too stupid to see through all these things. The lecture was more of a sales pitch, some good ideas though. But the sales pitch was my lasting impression, rather than a round up of what direction the library world, is or should be moving too.
The second talk of today was a really nice summing up of the developments around the catalog since NCSU launched their Endeca powered catalog. Peter Binkley did his overview future enhancements of the library catalogue around the themes of clustering, ranking, exploiting, contributing and deploying. His presentation was very up to date. Peter’s preferred choice of new open source library systems was VUFind. Reminds me of Koha which he didn’t cover.
In the afternoon we had a really interesting presentation on the use of chatbots in German libraries. Anne Christensen covered 4 different chatbots in operation at German libraries. The idea is appealing. There are some serious costs involved, but they actually got used. It brings the fun on a library website, and that should be worth some money.
The last presentation was a tough one. A boring, albeit important subject, as identity management, and that spun out over an hour, at the end of the day. That was really testing us. And then going into some detailed technical level, it was a bit over the too much for me personally. It would be wonderful if people from our university IT service could have been present at this lecture as well. A scheme like this should be endorsed by the library and the IT department, and I am under the impression that there is a little disagreement on some points at my home university on this area. Interesting to hear about the developments in this field, but really and totally beyond my interest.
Labels: English, Ticer, Ticer07
27 augustus 2007
The Science Commons and the Library: Opportunities and Business Models
A provocative talk by John Wilbanks, the Executive Director of Science Commons. The interesting thing was that the first time I really noticed Willbanks work, or that of the Science Commons was in the last issue of CRWatch Quarterly. On which I blogged in Dutch just the other week. My problem then, was that in that issue a lot of noise was generated on the changing face of scientific communication, but none of the articles listed there actually mentioned libraries, or anybody from the library sketched their perspective on the changing face of the scientific discourse.
Today’s talk was different though. John Wilbanks pleaded strongly for an major library role in the changing face of scientific communication. That is encouraging. However, as to the exact role that libraries should take, there isn’t a single blue print yet. The Science Commons have some interesting examples of text mining initiatives on medically oriented databases, Bibliographic databases in combination with protein databases en genetic databases. I think it is an illustrative example of technologies and expertise most academic libraries have not easily, or readily available.
I think I can foresee technologies like this in the mid term future, but most libraries are not ready for the roles outlined by Wilbanks.
Should we just sit and wait for the blue prints for these future applications to arrive. No of course not. Wilbanks is also an OA advocate and presses the librarians to go out into the faculties and educate the researchers about Open Access and Copyright issues. Because at this moment copyright laws are hampering the kind of big science that e-science really stands for. In addition to his recommended reading I would like to add his paper in CRWatch Quarterly.
Willbanks, J. (2007). Cyberinfrastructure for Knowledge Sharing CTWatch Quarterly 3(3): 58-66. http://www.ctwatch.org/quarterly/articles/2007/08/cyberinfrastructure-for-knowledge-sharing/
Today’s talk was different though. John Wilbanks pleaded strongly for an major library role in the changing face of scientific communication. That is encouraging. However, as to the exact role that libraries should take, there isn’t a single blue print yet. The Science Commons have some interesting examples of text mining initiatives on medically oriented databases, Bibliographic databases in combination with protein databases en genetic databases. I think it is an illustrative example of technologies and expertise most academic libraries have not easily, or readily available.
I think I can foresee technologies like this in the mid term future, but most libraries are not ready for the roles outlined by Wilbanks.
Should we just sit and wait for the blue prints for these future applications to arrive. No of course not. Wilbanks is also an OA advocate and presses the librarians to go out into the faculties and educate the researchers about Open Access and Copyright issues. Because at this moment copyright laws are hampering the kind of big science that e-science really stands for. In addition to his recommended reading I would like to add his paper in CRWatch Quarterly.
Willbanks, J. (2007). Cyberinfrastructure for Knowledge Sharing CTWatch Quarterly 3(3): 58-66. http://www.ctwatch.org/quarterly/articles/2007/08/cyberinfrastructure-for-knowledge-sharing/
Labels: English, Open Access, ScienceCommons, Ticer, Ticer07
Ticer, first impressions
Today was the first day of the Ticer course 'Digital libraries a la Carte'. The 2007 version of the course, that is. A course, or a summer school? Or perhaps just another conference. Whatever wording you use to describe the course. It is well done. A lecture of an hour. Half an hour interesting discussions or Q&A followed by half an hour coffee break where you can mingle with the people. You don't fit many sessions in a day this way, but the sessions there are get the time and attention they deserve. So there were only 4 presentations today. Three really good presentations and discussions, and one definitely a lot less. But overall a very good day at Tilburg. Worth rising early, and commuting down.
Tomorrow lots more.
A tip to fellow bloggers: Use the Ticer or Ticer07 tag on your posts. I am collecting them on del.icio.us so everybody can have their read. Admitting at once there are a large number of dutch posts. Ecobibl has been most active up untill now (In Dutch).
Tomorrow lots more.
A tip to fellow bloggers: Use the Ticer or Ticer07 tag on your posts. I am collecting them on del.icio.us so everybody can have their read. Admitting at once there are a large number of dutch posts. Ecobibl has been most active up untill now (In Dutch).
Labels: English, Ticer, Ticer07
