What is up with me? Some talks and notes.

Posted on by jessamyn

I just got back from Albany, New York where I was a presenter at Albany Public’s fifth annual Reader’s Advisory Conference. It was a fun day. I’m a night owl so I missed Nora Rawlinson’s talk in the morning. She runs the website EarlyWord which is a nifty blog+more about publishing and libraries. My talk was about Library 2.0 and what tools and tips there are in there for Reader’s Advisory.

I’ve been talking about 2.0 stuff for a while but I put together a whole new talk from the ground up just so I could get current links, examples and maybe some snappier slides. I’ve been using Keynote for more of my talks lately which allows me to have versions available for people in Keynote, PDF and PowerPoint formats. Anyone who wants to grab a copy of the talk, please feel free. I also uploaded a hyperlinked version of my Colorado Association of Libraries talk along with the slides so people can follow along and see what I was talking about.

Now that that’s all taken care of, I can say that my public speaking for 2008 is officially over except for some lingering receipts and invoicing. I really tried to push myself this year to say “Yes.” to as many people as possible and meet as many librarians as I could. It was at times totally exhausting, incredibly rewarding and, as always a huge learning experience. Next year I’ll be doing probably slightly less of the same as I help a local library here with their automation project and spend more time with my boyfriend and many good books. I will be at the Superconference and Computers in Libraries, among other places, so I’m sure you’ll be seeing me around.

Thanks to everyone who has ever been an audience member, a conference coordinator or an agreeable boss or co-worker as I’ve been doing all this stuff. It’s been a really rewarding year on the road and I hope I’ve been able to direct some of that positive energy outwards as well.

What is up with the Google Books settlement?

Posted on by jessamyn

I’m as confused as you are about the Google Books settlement. I’ve found a few analyses helpful.

It’s a more “okay now walk the talk” look at what the settlement says explicitly, what it allows for, and how it should be handled.

What is up with OCLC?

Posted on by jessamyn

This all started with a little wink-wink posting about OCLC from Tim over at LibraryThing which was the first I’d heard about OCLC’s policy changes. As someone who doesn’t interact with OCLC or their data too much, I didn’t really understand this and had to wait for some clarification posts to understand both what was going on and how it affected people and projects like LibraryThing and Open Library. The upshot as I understand it is that OCLC is basically saying “Sure you can share your records, but not with people or organizations who materially compete with us” That’s my summary anyhow. Here’s the non-legalese policy on the OCLC site. Here’s the more legalese version. Here’s a wiki version of the changes between the “old” new policy and the new policy. Isn’t technology grand? Karen Calhoun a VP over at OCLC has written a defense of the new policy on her own blog; there is some lively discussion happening in the comments. There is also this podcast of Roy Tennant and Karen Calhoun talking with Richard Wallis from Talis (whose business model is also potentially affected by this policy change) about the ramifications of this change.

So, the policy OCLC has put up has been revised somewhat, doesn’t go into effect until February, and gives people a lot of time to think about what if anything they want to do about this. Tim Spalding has a business model that is compromised by OCLCs refusal to let their members share these records. The Open Library project is also possible compromised and Aaron Swartz has written two posts about the policy change: Stealing Your Library: The OCLC Powergrab and OCLC On The Run. He also directs people to the Stop OCLC Petition if you’d like to sign on to ask OCLC to repeal these changes. More community discussion taking place at MetaFilter, Inside Higher Ed, and Slashdot and code4lib is maintaining a wiki with links to more commentary. I’m still catching up on the back and forth and may write more later, but it’s interesting to watch this unfold.

world usability day is tomorrow

Posted on by jessamyn

If you’re into the whole usability idea — and more and more our interfaces to technology are all we have when interacting wiht the goods, services and government in our lives — then you might like to know that World Usability Day is tomorrow. I’ll noodle around a bit looking at my own websites and I suggest that you and your libraries do the same.

Technology should enhance our lives, not add to our stress or cause danger through poor design or poor quality. It is our duty to ensure that this technology is effective, efficient, satisfying and reliable, and that it is usable by all people. This is particularly important for people with disabilities, because technology can enhance their lives, letting them fully participate in work, social and civic experiences. Human error is a misnomer. Technology should be developed knowing that human beings have certain limitations. Human error will occur if technology is not both easy-to-use and easy-to-understand. We need to reduce human error that results from bad design.

America’s Most Dangerous Librarians

Posted on by jessamyn

Mother Jones had a good article (print version) about the Connecticut librarians [“radical bookworms” in MJ’s terms, oy!] who fought the USA PATRIOT Act. It’s a little overblown, in my opinion, but has a good sequence of events. Worth understanding that though the National Security Letter of USAPA was deemed unconstitutional, many other parts of the USA PATRIOT Act are still with us and will be into this next administration. More Daily Kos discussion on this topic yesterday.

National security letters are a little-known fbi tool originally used in foreign intelligence surveillance to obtain phone, financial, and electronic records without court approval. Rarely employed until 2001, they exploded in number after the Patriot Act drastically eased restrictions on their use, allowing nsls to be served by fbi agents on anyone—whether or not they were the subject of a criminal investigation. In 2000, 8,500 nsls were issued; by contrast, between 2003 and 2005 the fbi issued more than 143,000 nsls, only one of which led to a conviction in a terrorism case.