about techMETRO

  • techMETRO covers digitization and emerging technologies in academic, public, and special libraries in New York City and around the world. It is written by Jason Kucsma, the Emerging Technologies Manager at the Metropolitan New York Library Council. Contact Jason at jkucsma_at_metro.org.
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July 07, 2009

OCLC and NISO Release White Paper on Book Metadata Workflow

From the abstract:

The white paper was commissioned by NISO and OCLC as a follow-up to the Symposium for Publishers and Librarians held by OCLC on March 18-19, 2009 to discuss book metadata. This paper analyzes the current state of metadata creation, exchange, and use throughout the book supply chain. With the number of book formats multiplying and the amount of digital content growing rapidly, the metadata required to support the discovery, sale, and use of content by a global audience is increasing exponentially. At the same time economic pressures on all stakeholders in the supply chain from publishers, wholesalers, booksellers, metadata vendors, and librarians present greater challenges to providing quality and comprehensive metadata at every point in the cycle. Through interviews with over 30 industry representatives, Luther has created a book metadata exchange map illustrating the process and has identified opportunities for eliminating redundancies and making the entire process more efficient.


From the press release:

"The white paper illustrates how effectively both publishers and libraries have implemented their respective standards of ONIX for Books and MARC, but also shows how silos have grown up around the two standards," stated Todd Carpenter, NISO Managing Director. "There are definite opportunities for breaking down these silos and both communities are eager to find better methods for interoperability and streamlining their operations."


Read/Download here.

[via LITA-L]

June 30, 2009

Digitech Newsletter :: July 2009

Staying Connected with the METRO Universe

3676177034_e4a852c2dd Regular readers of this newsletter know that METRO offers a number of ways to stay informed about what NYC libraries and librarians are thinking, doing, or thinking about doing. Whether it's through Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, or ALA Connect, we're working hard to share as much useful information with our members as possible, but sometimes it's hard to keep up with it all, right?

Enter the METRO Netvibes Universe. This new portal features feeds from libraries, librarians, professional associations, library schools, and relevant blogs -- all easily accessed via one online portal. Have a look for yourself at http://netvibes.com/mnylc and let us know of additional resources we should include in the portal.

Webinar to Focus on Digital Collection Management Systems

METRO is pleased to offer the first webinar collaboration with Lyrasis, the new organization formed from the merger between Palinet and Solinet. "Introduction to Digital Collection Management Systems" is a two-hour webinar that will:

  • List several key features included in most digital collection management systems
  • Detail the digitization tasks usually included and not included in digital collection management systems
  • Name 4 commercial and 3 Open Source digital collection management systems
  • Identify some questions to ask in the evaluation process

For more information and to register, visit http://bit.ly/106gBM


Digital Collection Spotlight:
Audio Digitization Pilot Project at The Center for Jewish History

Each month we take a moment to share digital collections created by METRO member libraries. If you'd like to recommend a collection, please email information to Jason Kucsma (jkucsma_at_metro_dot_org).

A recipient of a 2008 METRO digitization grant, The Center for Jewish History has assembled a collection of digitized oral histories from The Leo Baeck Institute, Yeshiva University Museum, and American Sephardi Federation. The Austrian Heritage Collection (Leo Baeck Institute) features recordings from a 1995 program to document the oral history of Austrian-Jewish émigrés who fled to the USA during the Nazi years. The German Jews of Washington Heights Collection (Yeshiva University Museum) features interviews from 1987 with over 70 people who participated in a unique project to record oral history testimony from German Jews who had fled Europe during WWII and settled in Washington Heights, an uptown neighborhood in New York City. The Henry V. Besso Collection (American Sephardi Federation) features recordings of Henry Victor Besso, a scholar in the field of Sephardic Studies, writer, teacher, lecturer, and bibliographer, who was born in Thessalonike, Greece in 1905.

Listen to the recordings here:
Austrian Heritage: http://bit.ly/18byVy
German Jews of Washington Heights: http://bit.ly/EcDDU
Henry V. Besso: http://bit.ly/17Fe6U


EmeraldView Adds Functionality to Greenstone Digital Collection Management System

Yitszchak Schaffer, Systems Manager at Touro College Libraries, has recently created Emeraldview, a PHP-based front-end for Greenstone, the open source digital collection management software solution. Schaffer said, "The main motivation behind EmeraldView was the potential for more user- and search-engine-friendly URLs, and greater ease of customization for the presentation layer [of Greenstone]." For more information about EmeraldView, visit: http://emeraldview.tourolib.org/


Repeat Performance: Introduction to Zotero Webinar

Due to popular demand, METRO will host another free Introduction to Zotero webinar on July 24th from 10:00-10:30. Zotero is a free, easy-to-use Firefox browser extension for collecting, managing, citing, and sharing research resources. As a research management tool that allows users to take control of their data (and take it with them wherever they go), it’s easy to see why Zotero is currently recommended by hundreds of institutions around the world including MIT, Stanford, and Yale.

The 30-minute webinar will provide some basic information about the popular research management tool and is recommended for any librarian or administrator considering METRO's more extensive 90-minute on-site workshop.

To sign up for the webinar, visit METRO's online registration system here: http://bit.ly/s7Wjp

For more information about the full 90-minute on-site workshop, click here: http://bit.ly/UFLQN


Summer Digitization and Emerging Tech Workshops and Events

July:

  • 28 - Webinar: Information Use and Reuse in the Library: The Creative Commons Solutions. Details: http://bit.ly/1WVQw

August:

  • 07 - Using Omeka to Build Digital Collections in Libraries and Archives. Details:http://bit.ly/WYNPA
  • 09 - Webinar: Simple Strategies and Tools for Keeping Up With Tech Trends.
    Details: http://bit.ly/zsCPr

  • 13 - Essential Wiki Master: How to Use, Install, Customize, Extend and Manage Wiki. Details: http://bit.ly/2Izsp

Add these and other related events around NY and the world to your Google Calendar by subscribing to the METRO Calendar: http://bit.ly/metrocalendar.


Newsfeed 

The best of June's Tweets from the tweetMETRO feed
(http://twitter.com/tweetMETRO):

  • IMLS "Libraries to the Rescue" podcast series http://bit.ly/2AqU2W (via @nsls)

  • The METRO Portal: A Netvibes Universe-In-Progress http://bit.ly/Hik2C

  • Libraries Tap Into Twitter in the UK. Welcome to the party! http://bit.ly/nGx5s

  • RT @griffey: ALA conf. sched. done right - in the palm of yr hand! Point your mobile browser to http://ala.boopsie.com. (via @pbromberg)

  • New York African Free School Archives is the featured digital collection this week on digitalMETRO's Facebook page. http://bit.ly/AoXuJ

  • Brief comments from Lorcan Dempsey on sharing usability results http://bit.ly/VvCWL

  • Google's digital book future hangs in the balance (via CNET News) http://bit.ly/15yWoG

  • Brooklyn Public Library breathes a sigh of relief http://bit.ly/NDFmE

  • RT @epistemographer: HUGE news out of city council: restoration of funds for NYC libraries! http://bit.ly/11EuYK (via @amandafrench)

  • "Working the Social: Twitter and Friendfeed" article in Library Journal http://bit.ly/12sZhn

  • New issue of Metropolitan Archivist provides great recaps of projects in NYC http://bit.ly/11Krbh

  • Queens Library named "Library of the Year" by Library Journal http://bit.ly/IBtPl

  • Sunday Times Mag article is a useful piece for answering the "What is Cloud Computing?" question (if you get those) http://bit.ly/lnQp9

  • digitalMETRO has a Facebook page. Become a fan to hear about digital collections in NYC libraries and archives http://bit.ly/Hlw2c

  • Free white paper on how special libraries and information pros are coping with budget and staff changes http://bit.ly/WUjlW

  • Libraries lend a hand in recession (on NBC's Today Show) http://bit.ly/8XZKY

  • The Cooper-Hewitt Museum Library recently added 30 more binders to Caldwell Lighting collection http://bit.ly/13HZc9

  • Tim Gunn for NYPL http://bit.ly/z59bf

  • June issue of First Monday: http://tinyurl.com/nmndrx Research on: digital storytelling, SL, wikidentities, BlackBoard (via @joycevalenza)

Have other news you think we should be sharing with subscribers to this list? Tweet us at http://twitter.com/tweetmetro

June 25, 2009

The METRO Portal: A Netvibes Universe-In-Progress

3676177034_e4a852c2dd I'm in a fortunate position here at METRO in that I get the chance to talk with a lot of librarians working in very different institutions. We serve libraries and librarians in academic, public, and special libraries in New York City -- about 250 members representing over 1000 branches. And even though each library has its own challenges, there are common issues that might be well-served by a tool that helps librarians keep tabs on what other libraries are working on.

Until the technology ramps up to make it possible to dump our collective experiences and areas of expertise into a searchable database, we're left rely on conversations with each other and reading published news and information about the work we do. 

Enter the METRO portal. Using the popular RSS feed reader, Netvibes, I created a universe as an at-a-glance resource for keeping track of what libraries and librarians in New York City are thinking about, doing, and thinking about doing. The universe aggregates feeds from various new sources, blogs, and websites to provide a convenient way to keep track of hundreds of conversational threads. The portal features tabs with feeds from libraries, librarians, library organizations and groups, and related blogs.

As a universe-in-progress, the METRO portal will continue to evolve as we get feedback from users and add more content. Please comment here or email me to have additional sources added. 

June 12, 2009

Summer Webinars on Emerging Tech at METRO

One of the hats I wear here at METRO is programming continuing education in digitization and emerging technologies opportunities for librarians in New York City. I'm really excited about the following webinars we're offering this summerBitnami-logo:

Creating Open Source Sandboxes with BitNami

When:  Tuesday, June 23, 2009, 1:00 pm to 2:15pm
Presenter: Mark Beatty
Register here: http://bit.ly/XPhfE

Are you interested in experimenting with an open source system like Drupal or WordPress, but don't know where to start? BitNami Stacks can give you the opportunity to "test-drive" open source software solutions without the need for IT support (and approval in many cases). BitNami makes installing wikis, blogs, or Client Relationship Management systems a simple and enjoyable process. Popular stacks include: Drupal, Joomla, MediaWiki, WordPress, Coppermine, and Moodle as well as many others.  This webinar will teach you to create software "sandboxes" with little or no previous knowledge about Linux, PHP, or MySQL.

Information Use and Reuse in the Library: Cc.logo.large
The Creative Commons Solution

When:  Tuesday, July 28, 2009, 1:00 pm to 2:15 pm
Presenter: Michael Sauers
Register here: http://bit.ly/3kDpQ

With the debate over copyright raging, some are calling for the end of the “all rights reserved” regime, and libraries feeling like they’re caught in the middle. What are the alternatives? Creative Commons (CC) is the most respected alternative available today with its idea of “some rights reserved” as set by the content creators themselves. This presentation will talk about the principles of Creative Commons, show how you can easily apply it to your intellectual property today, and how you and your patrons can use CC to find material that can be legally reused in the creation of new content.  

Simple Strategies and Tools for Keeping Up with Tech Trends

When:  Tuesday, August 4, 2009, 1:00 pm to 2:15 pm
Presenter:  Jason Kucsma, Emerging Technologies Manager, METRO
Register here: http://bit.ly/1bteV9

As the World Wide Web matures, the amount of information we have access to is increasingly overwhelming. And the rapid speed at which technologies change make it even harder to keep up with what’s new, what’s important, and what’s not worth your time and attention. Still, it’s important for librarians to be familiar with changes in technology, because they will inevitably influence our users’ expectations and may have implications on how we adapt to meet those expectations. This webinar will provide you a few simple strategies for keeping up with shifts in technology without having to devote valuable work time that could be used effectively. This webinar will also detail some of the freely available tools to help you implement these strategies. 

Other Webinars Include:

For questions or assistance with registration, please call 212-228-2320 x10 or write to training@metro.org


June 01, 2009

Digitech Newsletter :: June 2009

June 2009

METRO's Summer catalog is now available online: http://bit.ly/el1Iq

LibCampNYC 2009 Just Around the Corner

In just a few days, METRO and Brooklyn College Library will host over 130 librarians for LibCampNYC -- the follow-up unconference to the 2007 Library Camp at Baruch College. The event is sold out, but you can follow the conversations on Twitter by tracking the #libcampnyc hashtag. We will also be aggregating notes, pictures, and additional resources in the LibCampNYC wiki at http://libcampnyc.pbworks.com.

Curious about what will be on the table for discussion at LibCampNYC? You're welcome to view the topic poll results at http://bit.ly/pCs3w.


METRO & Archivists' Roundtable of Metropolitan New York Team Up to Offer Archivists' Toolkit Workshop

METRO is collaborating with The Archivists Roundtable of Metropolitan New York (ART) to host this full-day workshop on the Archivists’ Toolkit™ (AT), an open source application developed for tracking and describing special collections. Learn the many advantages and added functionalities of using AT in your work. The AT incorporates integrated modules for accessioning, description, name and subject authority control, and location management and also provides customizable reports and standardized description exports such as EAD, MARCXML, and METS. Topics include: creating accession records, creating multi-level description records, linking descriptions to authority records and locations, and generating EAD finding aids.

Due to high demand for training with AT, we anticipate this workshop will reach capacity. Please register now to ensure your place: http://bit.ly/P2pe8


Digital Collection Spotlight:
Childhood in the Bronx at Lehman College

Each month we take a moment to share digital collections created by METRO member libraries. If you'd like to recommend a collection, please email information to Jason Kucsma (jkucsma_at_metro_dot_org).

This collection is based on the "Childhood in the Bronx" exhibit originally featured in the Lehman College Art Gallery from October 23 - December 14, 1986. The exhibit took four years to research and create. By using both vintage and contemporary images, along with oral history text excerpts, the exhibit focused on the experience of childhood in the Bronx from the early decades of the 20th century into the mid-1980s.

Photographer Georgeen Comerford reproduced eighteen (18) vintage children's images that spanned the period 1895-1943. These images came largely from family photograph albums loaned by interviewees participating in the Institute's oral history project. Additionally, Ms. Comerford created forty (40) of her own contemporary photographs of children from 1971-1985. Working with some three dozen Bronx organizations, she secured permission to photograph children. She also worked directly with local parents she met in public places around the Bronx. The parents gave her permission to photograph their child for inclusion in this project. We see children from infancy through their teenage years in these photographs. They are with family or friends, at play, on streets, in parks, schools, shelters, hospitals and at other locales. View the collection here: http://bit.ly/KJtf2

The Leonard Lief Library "Childhood in the Bronx" digitization project was supported in part by funds from METRO through the New York State Regional Bibliographic Databases Program.


Library 2.0 Special Interest Group to Discuss Twitter in the Library

Due to popular request, Library 2.0 SIG conveners have scheduled this informal, off-site Lib 2.0 SIG meeting to share ideas about using Twitter in libraries. Valerie Forrestal, Reference and Research Librarian at the Stevens Institute of Technology, will give a short presentation, followed by a discussion among the SIG members. Tweeters and not-yet-Tweeters are welcome!

This meeting will take place on Wednesday June 10, 2009: 10:00 AM to 12:00 PM at the Mina Rees Library of the CUNY Graduate Center at 365 5th Ave., NYC between 34th & 35th Streets

RSVP to Kathryn Shaughnessy at shaughnk@stjohns.edu or to Caroline Fuchs at fuchsc@stjohns.edu. You must bring a current photo ID to gain access to the Mina Rees Library. Please RSVP by June 9 so that a guest list can be provided to the Graduate Center security folk.


Summer Digitization and Emerging Tech Workshops and Events

June:

July:

  • 28 - Webinar: Information Use and Reuse in the Library: The Creative Commons Solutions. Details: http://bit.ly/1WVQw

August:

  • 07 - Using Omeka to Build Digital Collections in Libraries and Archives. Details:http://bit.ly/WYNPA
  • 09 - Webinar: Simple Strategies and Tools for Keeping Up With Tech Trends.
    Details: http://bit.ly/zsCPr

  • 13 - Essential Wiki Master: How to Use, Install, Customize, Extend and Manage Wiki. Details: http://bit.ly/2Izsp

Add these and other related events around NY and the world to your Google Calendar by subscribing to the METRO Calendar: http://bit.ly/metrocalendar.


Newsfeed 

The best of May's Tweets from the tweetMETRO feed
(http://twitter.com/tweetMETRO):

  • Tracking poll results from libcampnyc attendees http://bit.ly/pCs3w

  • "What programming should a library science student learn?" http://bit.ly/KCDgU

  • RT: @LibraryJournal: Transparent Library: Reasons for Optimism http://bit.ly/35L71o advice to new graduates, and glimmers of hope

  • More background and analysis of the Google Book Search agreement http://bit.ly/k22TK

  • LibCampNYC 2009 Scout Books arrived today! http://twitpic.com/5pc6s

  • RT: @CeeBee: new visual search engine: collect results in different media formats, drag around as infinite collage: http://beta.spezify.com

  • Savvy Advocacy: Keep Your Library Open http://bit.ly/5BQSA

  • RT: @msauers: Lessig: The Solipsist and the Internet (a review of Helprin's Digital Barbarism) http://is.gd/BOsl

  • Brewster Kahle in the Washington Post on the "Google Book Grab" http://bit.ly/Ysz6D

  • UC Berkeley Collaborative Tools Strategy Development Report http://bit.ly/15YRfE

  • RT: @code4lib: Videos from code4lib '09 are online! Presentations: http://is.gd/A7lF Lightning Talks: http://is.gd/A7m0

  • "Is Google Waging a PR Campaign on Libraries?" http://bit.ly/16RplL

  • RT @dancohen: Zotero 2.0 is here! Groups, sharing, backup, sync, personal profiles, find/follow people, and much more! http://zotero.org

  • Protest at OSU over "gutting the library" sounds like teachable moment waiting to happen http://bit.ly/10Ukds

  • Materials from the Coalition for Networked Information Spring Task Force Meeting are now available online http://bit.ly/OYKQr

  • RT: @dancohen: Big news in digital repositories today: Fedora Commons and DSpace join to become DuraSpace: http://is.gd/zeha

  • Digitize the old school newspaper -- but only the good parts, please. http://bit.ly/v4HY4

  • RT: @s_francoeur: Curate a Local Calendar for Your Community http://bit.ly/WgZhL

  • Greenhill's "Why learning about emerging technologies is part of every librarians job" (via @shyviolet520) http://bit.ly/aPDQY

  • DigiMan v. Team Chaos - Our hero warns of the preservation threats to digital information in this clever animated short. http://bit.ly/ZBPEE

  • RT: @lbraun2000: WSJ on how digitizing txts led 2 finding previously undiscovered content http://bit.ly/tAPgU

  • Libraries seek stimulus money for hi-speed internet http://bit.ly/YEVlW

  • Libraries Ask Judge to Monitor Google Books Settlement http://bit.ly/dDkA2

  • Audio from the Google Books Settlement Forum at NYPL on April 27th (via Urban Libraries Council) http://bit.ly/dsxA6

  • RT: @dancohen: "Facebook and Academic Performance: Reconciling a Media Sensation with Data" deflates myth of bad grades: http://is.gd/vSyN

Have other news you think we should be sharing with subscribers to this list? Tweet us at http://twitter.com/tweetmetro



May 21, 2009

Savvy Advocacy: Keep Your Library Open

NyplsplashIt's no secret that libraries sometimes have a hard time figuring out how to market themselves to their communities. And advocacy can be even harder -- whether we're trying to advocate for the library to administrators in a university setting or to the public and elected officials.

I was pleased to see the initiatives at a couple of our public libraries right now. New York Public Library and Brooklyn Public Library have both implemented splash screens on their websites to alert people to the economic problems facing the libraries. Both are part of a "Keep Your Library Open" campaign that could and should be done by libraries across the country facing similar issues. 

The brilliance here isn't just the use of the website, but rather the lucid and compelling copy writing and the opportunity for visitors to take direct action. Right then. Right there. Visitors are encouraged to either "Contact Your Elected Official" or "Donate" -- both of which can be done in seconds right there on the site. The splash screens also make it clear to people what's at stake if cuts are made to the budgets. For NYPL, they list "Six- and seven-day service; Job search resources; Thousands of programs for children; and much, much more."

Bplsplash Brooklyn Public Library notes that a potential cut of $17.5 million would:

  • Eliminate as many as 272 positions -- that's one out of every four full-time employees
  • Reduce service to five days a week at most neighborhood libraries -- with limited weekend hours
  • Buy 185k FEWER books, DVDs and CDs.

Brooklyn Public Library has also created a Facebook event for today called "Call-In Thursday" to encourage people to "Let your local city council member and Mayor Bloomberg know how important Brooklyn Public Library is to you and your community!"

Queens Public Library also has a a prominently placed message in the middle of their home page to encourage users to help "Save Queens Library." 

I'd love to add more examples of savvy online library advocacy here. Please share links in the comments!

May 18, 2009

METRO Symposium Searches the Future of Digital Practice

The following guest post from Tom Clareson, Senior Consultant for New Initiatives at Lyrasis, is a more detailed summary of the Digital Dilemmas Symposium held last month here in New York City.

3462763349_65e9b675aaDigital Dilemmas, a symposium hosted by the Metropolitan New York Library Council (METRO) on April 16, 2009 at the Baruch College Manhattan Campus, promised attendees to explore the challenges, opportunities, and solutions available in the digital world. With a stellar cast of speakers assembled by Emerging Technologies Manager Jason Kucsma, the session went much further, exploring the best and newest practices in the digital world.

One of the leading figures in the digital world, Clifford Lynch, Director of the Coalition for Networked Information, led off the day’s presentations with a talk focusing on “Scholarship in the Digital Environment and the Implications for Library Strategies.” In this introductory keynote, Lynch “took the blinders off” the audience, making us realize the broader context of digital practice – the communities being served, and the importance of people in building the cyberinfrastructure for digital delivery. He spoke about “marquee” digital infrastructure projects, but said that these sweeping technological changes were being seen in smaller settings as well.

While many of the most-heralded digital projects are in the sciences, Lynch noted that “the Humanities are producing arresting, creative and spectacular digital projects” as well, noting the visualization work that is bringing ancient buildings and cities to life through 3-D approaches.

The cultural heritage community must know a good deal about many subjects in order to develop coherent, cohesive digital projects, Lynch said, but he noted that “the global audience often knows more than we do,” being able to fill in missing information in our databases, metadata, and presentations.

(l to r) Jason Kucsma, METRO; Roger Schonfeld, Ithaka; Evan Owens, Portico; Pat Aufderheide, American University; Cliff Lynch, Coalition for Networked Information; Dan Cohen, George Mason University; Tom Clareson, LyrasisLynch and all of the speakers noted that researchers and investigators need assistance from cultural  heritage curators to think of the digital lifecycle from creation to presentation to maintenance and finally preservation. If librarians and museum professionals can “be there at the start of data creation and maintenance,” it will help us -- and our audiences -- develop better digital projects and programs with longer lifespans. Lynch noted that, in staffing for digital activity, we should even “consider transitioning more resources to digital practices, even over some traditional activities.” He closed his comments with the suggestion that, just as academic libraries do for faculty and researchers, public libraries can play a leading role in developing digital projects which serve genealogists, the general public, and others.

Evan Owens, Chief Technology Officer for Portico, continued widening the audience’s view of the library’s role in digitization. We are not just working in the technical realm, he noted, but “ensuring the long-term viability of digital projects includes working with the physical, logical, and conceptual layers.” While we are working with all of these elements in our digital collections, we must become more nimble, because “digital content has lifecycles, and they are getting faster,” in terms of the need to create, present, and preserve them. This is particularly a challenge in dealing with continuously-updated content, where we must be vigilant in our version control and long-term maintenance.

Owens asked the group, even if they were just beginning digital projects, to document their current practices so that they can know what standards and methods they were using when certain items were created. He closed his comments by noting that digital practice is going through “maturity and growing pains” because it is such a relatively new area of library practice. In comparing digital preservation to traditional preservation, he said the state of today’s digital materials is as “brittle and fragile” as some of the decaying paper documents we are trying to preserve.

All of the presentations throughout the day engaged the audience to a great degree. In some cases, the questions from and discussion with the audience took the lion’s share of the presenter’s time. Roger Schonfeld, Research Manager at Ithaka, gave a presentation from some survey results on “The Strategic Implications of Faculty Attitudes on the Shift to an Electronic Environment.” He noted trends in a series of surveys which have been held in 2000, 2003, 2006, and will be done in 2009, which show perceptions of faculty and researchers on the need for the brick and mortar library versus the need for its services. While areas such as the sciences and economics show a drop in some types of library usage, Schonfeld suggested that we can provide “intellectual value adds” to become part of the solution to these researchers’ need for new methods of information access and sharing.

Patricia Aufderheide, Director of the Center for Social Media at American University, entertained the audience after lunch with her opening video on “remix culture." But she was serious in her suggestion that we can learn good practices for fair use and intellectual rights of materials through looking at other communities of practice including documentary film makers, film and video studies departments, and media literacy programs. In the creation of new digital works which may utilize ideas from or portions of prior works, the questions are those of how much transformation was done from the original, and appropriateness of use of the original material. Noting that the audience felt concerns about copyright issues in their digital practices, Aufderheide suggested that we should address these intellectual property rights issues at the association or community levels such as the American Library Association.

The closing speaker, Dan Cohen, Director of the Center for History and New Media at George Mason University, utilized new media throughout his presentation to make a point about “the Everywhere Library.” Starting off by challenging the audience and a virtual audience on Twitter to determine the origin of an artifact which he showed in his presentation, Cohen spoke of new media experiments with Twitter “reference work,” “crowdsourcing” to research information, and spoke of the variety of digital research tools becoming larger, as is the researcher community. In this environment, libraries cannot be islands, we must combine with other libraries and content providers to offer a wider variety of services, and a wider spectrum of methods to access those services.

In addition to the research tools and researcher community becoming larger, Cohen feels that the “abundance” of digital information resources is starting to make some type of scholarship difficult. He introduced Zotero software as a way to help scholars organize and share personal collections. At the end of Cohen’s presentation, the audience’s heads were spinning from the variety of tools and approaches for working with digital collections!

The audience left this excellent symposium with a number of “springboard ideas” to utilize back at their own institutions:

  • Know your primary audience, but new or enthusiastic audiences may also be interested in and able to help you with your digital projects by supplying information and metadata from their realm of knowledge. We also must think of new ways to aid all of these burgeoning researchers.
  • Surveys, focus groups, and outreach efforts are an excellent way to learn more about our audiences and their needs.
  • An important role for cultural heritage professionals is to assist researchers and investigators in handling data sharing and lifecycle issues.
  • We must “look up and look out,” as Evans noted, to see the best practices of other communities – whether these are activities in digital creation, digital preservation, or copyright.
  • While the technology of digitization is important, we need to also pay attention to the social aspects and possibilities of working with worldwide partners in the digital environments.
  • Finally, to echo one of the audience members during a discussion period, we need to “be a part of the solution” to digital dilemmas by working with our constituents and communities in the digital world.

May 01, 2009

Digitech Newsletter :: May 2009

May 2009

Introducing: digitalMETRO

METRO is pleased to announce digitalMETRO, a directory of digital collections created and maintained by METRO member libraries.

digitalMETRO provides an added layer of discoverability for METRO members’ digital collections. Features include:

  • detailed records of over 100 digital library collections (and growing steadily!)
  • browsing collections by institution or searching across the directory
  • RSS feeds to track new additions
  • a contribution form for submitting your library’s collections
  • exhibits drawing connections between library collections

As an evolving project, digitalMETRO requests your help in adding more collections to the directory. Please visit http://nycdigital.org to view the directory and see how you can get involved.

Digital Dilemmas Symposium Recap

METRO would like to extend a warm thanks to all of you who participated in last week’s Digital Dilemmas Symposium. A number of post-symposium resources are now available on the METRO website, including: a summary article, slides from the presentations, links to related blog posts, the Twitter feed from the day, and photos. All of these may be accessed at: http://bit.ly/digitaldilemmas.


Digital Collection Spotlight:
Frederick Winslow Taylor at Stevens Institute of Technology

Each month we take a moment to share digital collections created by METRO member libraries. If you'd like to recommend a collection, please email information to Jason Kucsma (jkucsma_at_metro_dot_org).

Frederick Winslow Taylor (1856-1915), pioneered the application of engineering principles to shop management in the movement that came to be known as scientific management. The collection consists largely of Taylor's personal and work-related correspondence, including his communications with companies interested in implementing scientific management.

Also included are rough drafts of his major publications, translations of his works on scientific management and the cutting of metal, examples of forms developed to improve shop efficiency, glass slides of factories and offices using scientific management, articles written by Taylor on his system, and responses from readers.

Correspondents include Louis Brandeis, Morris Llewellyn Cooke, Ida Tarbell, Harvey Gantt, and the administrative officers of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. Also included is a collection of memorial letters written by Taylor's associates after his death. Besides letters, the collection includes Taylor's work journal from Midvale Steel. View the collection here: http://bit.ly/14K9NV


Digitization Training in May includes NEW CONTENTdm and Outsourcing Digitization

On May 8, Joyce Rambo (NYLINK) will lead a full-day workshop on "How to Create Digital Collections Using CONTENTdm." This session will be conducted with CONTENTdm 5, the newest version of the collection management software. On May 13, Laurie Gemmill (Lyrasis) will lead a half-day workshop on "Outsourcing Digitization" (details: http://bit.ly/l6wY3). Gemmil is currently heading up the Lyrasis Mass Collaborative Digitization Project working to digitize collections in partnership with Internet Archive and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.


METRO to Offer Individual Zotero Workshops
for Libraries this Summer

Zotero is a free, easy-to-use Firefox browser extension for collecting, managing, citing, and sharing research resources. As a research management tool that allows users to take control of their data (and take it with them wherever they go), it’s easy to see why Zotero is currently recommended by hundreds of institutions around the world including MIT, Stanford, and Yale.

If you are interested in adding your library to the growing list of institutions offering Zotero to your community, METRO is offering exclusive workshops to train your librarians and staff to not only learn how to use Zotero, but to also teach library users how to take advantage of all Zotero has to offer. These 90-minute workshops will walk librarians and staff members through process of downloading, installing, and working with Zotero in your Firefox web browser to collect, organize, and cite information resources. The session will also feature case studies illustrating how Zotero can be used in your library to simplify and improve research for faculty, students, and general users.

Individual workshops with up to 25 people may be held at your library in a computer lab, or you may arrange for a private workshop at METRO’s Training Center. Please contact METRO’s Emerging Technologies Manager, Jason Kucsma, to schedule your on-site workshop: jkucsma@metro.org or 212.228.2320 ext 23


May/June Digitization and Emerging Tech Workshops and Events

May:

  • 01 - Digital Imaging Practicum: Best Practices for Digitization, Workflow, and Image Collection Management. Details: http://bit.ly/4BPMiP

  • 08 - How to Create Digital Collections Using CONTENTdm. Details: http://bit.ly/KeSa

  • 13 - Outsourcing Digitization Workshop. Details: http://bit.ly/l6wY3

  • 19 - Using Wink Freware to Create Tutorials/Demos for Libraries. Details: http://bit.ly/1qzqZq

June:

More June workshops will be announced in Mid-May!

Add these and other related events around NY and the world to your Google Calendar by subscribing to the techMETRO Calendar: http://tinyurl.com/techmetrocalendar. This is a partial list of events focusing on digitization and emerging technologies. For a complete list of METRO workshops and events, visit http://www.metro.org


Newsfeed 

The best of April's Tweets from the METRO's the tweetMETRO feed
(http://twitter.com/tweetMETRO):

  • @s_francoeur on his "Effective Chat Reference" workshop held yesterday at METRO http://bit.ly/B8jO0

  • Justice Dept. Opens Antitrust Inquiry Into Google Books Deal (NYTimes) http://bit.ly/i33mz

  • Congrats to Brooklyn Museum for winning "Best Overall" in Museums and the Web 2009 Best of the Web Awards! http://bit.ly/LSIGq

  • OCLC Announces "Quick Start" Version of OCLC WorldCat Local Service http://bit.ly/hyLjt

  • RT: @dancohen: "Digital Harlem: Everyday Life, 1915-1930," from U.of Sydney, launches. Google Maps + NYC Muni Archives: http://is.gd/tVH

  • UN's World Digital Library has 1200 resources -- roughly 683,800 items less than NYPL's Digital Gallery. Just sayin' http://bit.ly/cPT3l

  • UN's World Digital Library goes live: http://www.wdl.org/en/

  • NYPL's Barbara Taranto on the Digital Dilemmas Symposium http://bit.ly/h5qCi

  • some thoughts from @SPB about #didil09 http://bit.ly/1axpd2

  • LC Digital Preservation Newsletter for April http://bit.ly/fx5CC

  • "Exploring Digital Library Collections" during LibWeek with Finding Dulcinea http://bit.ly/16uRRi

  • RT @pewinternet 2/3 of yng adlts w/ SNS profile took part in some political actvty on sites 2008 http://tinyurl.com/d2kr4j (via @lbraun2000)

  • RT: @rww: "If web 2.0 was abt democratizing publishing, the next stage of the web may be democratizing data mining. " http://bit.ly/1PEqT

  • RT: @lbraun2000: Future of bibliographies from nypl http://bit.ly/12gyH

  • NYHeritage.org (a collaborative digital collection project) features thousands of resources from around the state http://bit.ly/mGgW

  • RT: @timoreilly: Some fascinating ideas & links about social media, storytelling, and activism, from @kanter: http://bit.ly/19fE1p

  • METRO releases 1st phase of digitalMETRO (built on @omeka). Invites libraries to add their collections! http://nycdigital.org

  • RT: @jakrose: Easily search the Smithsonian Institute's photography collection for Public Domain works (1830-1923): http://bit.ly/20laRZ

  • METRO is hosting a visit from Library Science prof today for a short meeting to talk about libraries and technology. Say hello to Dr. Chen!

  • Chat reference and more from @mprimeaux as a follow-up to yesterday's webinar by @msauers http://marketingadlibrarian...

  • Slides from @sauers "Are You a 2.0 Library" session http://tinyurl.com/dnmgn4

  • Entertainment Weekly celebrates their favorite libraries and librarians during the Nat'l Library Week http://bit.ly/RILml

  • RT: @nytimes: Finding Utility in the Jumble of Twittered Thoughts http://bit.ly/uThw

  • New digital library at U. VA "American Founding Era Collection" provides new access to Founding Fathers' papers http://bit.ly/7xDR2

  • Thank you, Amazon, for reminding us why you are not a substitute for the library. Very kind of you. #amazonfail

  • RT: @dancohen: Free download of the 221 pp. proceedings of the Digital Curation 2009 meeting at UNC: http://is.gd/rOXN [PDF]

Have other news you think we should be sharing with subscribers to this list? Tweet us at http://twitter.com/tweetmetro



April 03, 2009

Digital Dilemmas Symposium to Tackle New Challenges, Opportunities, and Solutions for Libraries

Times are certainly tough for libraries in this economic climate.  It has never been more important for us to think about how we can strategically position our institutions to emerge from this crisis as continued cornerstones of the communities we serve. More than simply a discussion about digital information resources, the Digital Dilemmas Symposium will give librarians and administrators an opportunity to join leading scholars in thinking strategically about changing community expectations and how our libraries might adapt and flourish under these conditions.

When: April 16, 2009
 
9:30 a.m. to 4:30p.m. (Check-in and light breakfast begin at 8:30 a.m.) 

Where: William and Anita Newman Conference Center at Baruch College. (directions

Registration Information: Early registration is strongly recommended. Register online here

Cost: $125 (lunch will be provided)

Hotel Recommendations:
Online services like SideStep or Travelocity may be useful. Additionally, METRO uses the following hotels for visiting instructors and guests, and we recommend starting your search for lodging with one of these options:
Inn On 23rd
414 Hotel
Hotel Beacon
Washington Square Hotel

Sessions:

Scholarship in the Digital Environment and the Implications for Library Strategies
Clifford Lynch
Director
Coalition for Networked Information

This introductory keynote will survey changes in the practices of scholarship across the disciplines, ranging from developments in digital humanities to the growing national and international investments in e-science and cyberinfrastructure. After exploring some of the implications of these changes for scholarly communication, Lynch will conclude with a discussion of the potential implications for library strategic planning.

Creation, Management, and Preservation of Digital Content:
New Challenges, Opportunities, and Solutions

Evan Owens
Chief Technology Officer
Portico

The move from print-based to electronic modes of scholarly communication has led libraries and publishers to redefine their traditional roles and take on new responsibilities in the creation, management, and preservation of digital content. These tasks present not insignificant technical, operational, and financial burdens. This talk will look at some fundamental issues in digital content creation, management, and preservation.  Out of these new challenges has come a need for clear organizational priorities and careful - often difficult - budget choices as well as new opportunities for collaboration and cooperation to secure maximum benefit from severely limited resources

The Strategic Implications of Faculty Attitudes on the Shift to an Electronic Environment
Roger Schonfeld
Research Manager
Ithaka

As scientists and certain social scientists find themselves accessing information resources without the intermediation of the library, how does this affect their perceptions of the library and future prospects for the library’s campus role? Ithaka’s 2006 surveys of US faculty members and librarians indicate that faculty members’ views of the library, and the value they place in library services, has changed significantly in recent years. This talk will examine the strategic implications to libraries and universities more broadly that emerge from faculty attitudes and perspectives on libraries and their value, including specific library functions, and how these perceptions are changing.

Copyright and Fair Use Policies for a Remix Culture:
Learning from the Best Practices Model

Patricia Aufderheide
Director
Center for Social Media, American University

Fair use is a rapidly-expanding feature of copyright law, but still murkily understood. Essential to prevent copyright from devolving into private censorship, it has also been denigrated as "just a defense" and "too vague to be reliable." In some practice communities, though, fair use has become routinely used, because of the adoption of best practices codes. Features of these codes--particularly those developed by documentary filmmakers and by media literacy educators--have direct application to library work. Their example also provides a powerful model as librarians grapple with ever more common problems such as archiving of electronic dissertations, posting of digital records, open courseware and distance education.

Scholars and the Everywhere Library
Dan Cohen
Director
Center for History and New Media, George Mason University

How can libraries best help researchers when the very conception of the "library" for most scholars has changed from a physical location to a wide variety of online resources? And does this transition to the digital realm open up new avenues of research and new services that libraries can provide to meet those research needs? This talk will discuss new possibilities for search, discovery, recommendations, and analysis that a modern library might be able to provide to the next generation of scholars.

April 01, 2009

Digitech Newsletter :: April 2009

April 2009

Thinking Strategically at the Digital Dilemmas Symposium

Times are certainly tough for libraries in this economic climate. It has never been more important for us to think about how we can strategically position our institutions to emerge from this crisis as continued cornerstones of the communities we serve.

Please join METRO on April 16 for engaging discussions at the Digital Dilemmas Symposium. More than simply a discussion about digital information resources, Digital Dilemmas will provide participants with an opportunity to join leading scholars in thinking strategically about changing community expectations and how our libraries might adapt and flourish under these conditions.

Closing keynote speaker, Dan Cohen (Director, Center for History and New Media, George Mason U.) will present "Scholars and the Everywhere Library," discussing new possibilities for search, discovery, recommendations, and analysis that a modern library might provide for the next generation of scholars. The symposium will feature an opening keynote from Cliff Lynch (Director, CNI), and presentations by Pat Aufderheide (Director, Center for Social Media, American U.), Evan Owen (Chief Technology Officer, Portico), and Roger Schonfeld (Research Manager, Ithaka).

Where: William And Anita Newman Library Conference Ctr. at Baruch College (pictured here)
When: April 16, 2009 (9:30am-4:30pm)
Fee: $125 (lunch provided)
Complete Agenda and Registration: http://bit.ly/4F91m

Digital Dilemmas is sponsored in part by OCLC, with additional support from Luna Imaging.

Collection Spotlight: E. F. Caldwell & Co. Lighting Collection at Cooper-Hewitt Museum Library

As part of a new monthly feature, we'd like to take a moment to share new digital collections created by METRO member libraries. If you'd like to recommend a collection, please email information to Jason Kucsma (jkucsma_at_metro_dot_org).

The E. F. Caldwell & Co. Collection at the Cooper-Hewitt Museum Library, Smithsonian Institution Libraries, contains more than 50,000 images consisting of approximately 37,000 black & white photographs and 13,000 original design drawings of lighting fixtures and other fine metal objects that they produced from the late 19th to the mid-20th centuries.

Grant funding from METRO made it possible to scan all 142 large binders, containing 25,000 photographs, and 10,000 drawings. This online collection will provide access to over 35,000 images once all scans have been processed. A little over 30% of the Caldwell collection remains un-scanned, including 13,000 photographs and 3,000 drawings. View the collection online here: http://bit.ly/CMSAP. (Right: Caldwell chandeliers in the East room of the White House in Washington, D.C., c. 1902)

 

Digitization Essentials on the Agenda in April and May at METRO

In addition to the Digital Dilemmas Symposium, three workshops geared toward helping libraries begin -- or begin thinking about -- digitization projects are on the schedule this Spring at METRO. In April, Professor Marcia Zeng (Kent State University) will lead a two-day intensive "Introduction to Metadata for Digital Collections" workshop (details: http://bit.ly/42kC7e). Elisa Lanzi (Smith College) and James Gehrt (Mount Holyoke College) will lead a one-day "Digital Imaging Practicum" workshop detailing workflows, best practices, and collection management for digital resources (details: http://bit.ly/4BPMiP). Laurie Gemmill (PALINET) will lead a half-day workshop on "Outsourcing Digitization" (details: http://bit.ly/l6wY3). Each of these workshops is part of METRO's year-long digitization curriculum, and is open to all members (with discounts) and other interested librarians, archivists, and museum professionals.

 

METRO Announces 2009 Digitization Awards

METRO provides funding to its member libraries to support digitization projects that preserve and expand access to important collections of historical and rare materials in New York City and Westchester. The eight projects funded for 2009 are as follows:

  • The Jewish Theological Seminary: Funding to digitize the diary of a prominent Jewish theologian.

  • The American Jewish Historical Society: Support for the digitization of the papers and documents of Judah Lyons, a founder of Mount Sinai Hospital.

  • The Center for Jewish History: Funding to digitize collections from the Leo Baeck Institute and the American Jewish Historical Society, including the digitization of three-dimensional objects from the collection.

  • The Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum Library, Smithsonian: Funding to digitize a monthly fashion/design magazine published from 1809-1828.

  • The CUNY Graduate Center: Support for the digitization of 250 photographs, newspaper engravings, lithographs, and postcards.

  • Manhattanville College: Funding to digitize source materials from the first Catholic women’s college to accept African American students.

  • The YIVO Institute for Jewish Research: Support for the digitization of eight volumes of a Yiddish scholarly journal published by the YIVO Institute.

  • Wagner College: Funding to digitize 165 letters relating to the Christian Socialist movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

The applications were evaluated by a review team of representatives from METRO’s Digitization Advisory Council, Information Systems and Services Advisory Council, and nationally known digitization consultants. These grants are funded through state funds from the New York State Regional Bibliographic Databases Program and METRO’s operating funds.

Applications for 2010 Grants will be made available in September. Interested libraries may review last year's application on the METRO site here: http://bit.ly/v9rtl

 

April/May METRO Digitization and Emerging Tech Events

April:

May:

  • 01 - Digital Imaging Practicum: Best Practices for Digitization, Workflow, and Image Collection Management. Details: http://bit.ly/4BPMiP

  • 08 - How to Create Digital Collections Using CONTENTdm. Details: http://bit.ly/KeSa

  • 13 - Outsourcing Digitization Workshop. Details: http://bit.ly/l6wY3

  • 19 - Using Wink Freware to Create Tutorials/Demos for Libraries. Details: http://bit.ly/1qzqZq

Add these and other related events around NY and the world to your Google Calendar by subscribing to the techMETRO Calendar: http://tinyurl.com/techmetrocalendar

This is a partial list of events focusing on digitization and emerging technologies.
For a complete list of METRO workshops and events, visit http://www.metro.org

 

Newsfeed 

from METRO's tweetMETRO feed (http://twitter.com/tweetMETRO):

Have other news you think we should be sharing with subscribers to this list? Tweet us at http://twitter.com/tweetmetro.




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