Awesome Somerville Public Library

Harvard Library and the Somerville Public Library:

Innovation and Collaboration

Best of Publib received the following press release from the Somerville Public Library in Somerville, Massachusetts:

Matt Phillips and Annie Cain – Creators of the Awesome Box

The Somerville Public Library, in a partnership with the Harvard Library Innovation Lab, launched the “Awesome Box” project at all three SPL branches in early February. This endeavor will allow patrons to give fellow users suggestions on what book/CD/DVD they found to be “awesome.”

“Somerville is the first public library to get on board with the ‘Awesome Box’ project,” says Maria Carpenter, Somerville’s library director. “We are always looking for dynamic, innovative and creative approaches to library service, and this was certainly one of those.”

Awesome Box

Here’s how it will work: When a patron particularly enjoys an item, he or she will return the book into the “Awesome Box,” which will be clearly labeled with appropriate signage. Then, a library staff member will scan the book twice – once, checking the book in as usual, then another time to list that item on the “awesome” page, which can be found here:
http://somerville.awesomebox.io/
.

Patrons can then visit the page and see what others have found notably enlightening, mind-blowing or helpful recently. There is also a “most awesome” section, which shows the items that were most thought to be awesome. Users can also search for items that are listed as awesome. When patrons click on the media’s icon, it takes them to the item’s listing on the Minuteman Library Network catalog, so that they can read more about the item and its availability or place it on hold.

For more information about this project, call Maria Carpenter at 617.623.5000 or email her at  mcarpenter@somervillema.gov.

Awesome Somerville

Somerville’s commitment to innovation and collaboration can be emulated by any other public library.  The Harvard Innovation Lab provides excellent documentation along with step-by-step instruction.   The Awesome Box project is just one direction they are exploring.

The great thing about this sort of project is that it capitalizes on patron momentum.  Whenever a patron returns a book or media, they either put it in the regular book drop or express their approval by putting it in the Awesome Box. Either way, the same energy is expended with an added value to the library as a book or media review.

There is an added value to the patron with their likes and preferences registered and noted. There is also an added value to all of the other patrons who might not otherwise know what gems the library contains. The only extra step is checking it in – scanning a second time  to register in the Awesome database.

• Here is the link to the Harvard Innovation lab:
  • 
    http://librarylab.law.harvard.edu/projects.html
    
• Harvard Innovation Lab utilizes Github for distribution:
  • 
    https://github.com/harvard-lil
    
• This explains the use of the Awesome Box:
  • 
    https://github.com/harvard-lil/awesome
    
• The Awesome Project was developed by:
  • Matt Phillips and Annie Cain.

Awesome Box - a simple, elegant idea.

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Best of Publib – January 2013 in Review

Best of PubLib – January 2013 in Review

Best of Publib Word Cloud
January 2013

This edition of Best of Publib covers the month of January 2013.  Hot topics for the month of January included:

• Cataloging Local Textbooks ~
  • Debra Bashaw of the McMullen Memorial Library in Huntington, TX asked:
  • How do you catalog cookbooks from local organizations?
• Lending E-reader devices ~
  • Lucien Kress of the Multnomah County Library asked regarding the DOJ settlements over e-reader accessibility queried:
  • Are you loaning only accessible e-readers, which readers do you loan and other pertinent questions.
• List Problems ~
  • Amy Mullin of the Austin Public Library wanted to know:
  • Are there technical problems with the list?
• Playaways ~
  • John Richmond of the Alpha Park Public Libray District in Bartonville, IL pondered and ruminated:
  • “I’m wondering if anyone Out There has changed policies re: what they/you provide with Playaways. And if you took something away, did people holler? (Which, of course, they shouldn’t do, because they’re in a *library*.)”
• Surveys for the Public ~
  • Elizabeth Thorson of the Laramie County Library System in Cheyenne, WY asked:
  • “Has anyone surveyed the public when facing budget cuts?”
• Requests by Parents for in loco parentis services ~
  • Beth Hudson of the Walla Walla Public Library in Walla Walla, Washington wondered :
  • “Does anyone have a written statement which they provide when a parents asks that you not check out certain items to their child?”.
• Worst Marketing Idea(s) Ever ~
  • Dierdre Conkling of the Lincoln County Library District reported on ALA OIF’s plan for a sweater vest day to support intellectual freedom:
  • “I think this sounds like fun but I don’t own a sweater vest. Just shows once again that I am not cool. “

On January 10th The ALA Office of Intellectual Freedom announced their ‘Wear a sweater vest on Sunday, Jan. 27, in support of intellectual freedom!‘ campaign.  If librarians attending Mid-Winter ALA would wear a sweater vest on that day, it would demonstrate their commitment and support of intellectual freedom.

In jaw-dropping, dumbfounded awe I asked:

I am trying to imagine how Judith Krug would have reacted to perhaps the worst marketing idea I have ever seen and the dynamics of a meeting where this idea was proposed and validated. Did no one dare to speak truth to power?

What does a ‘sweater vest’ represent? How the heck does a sweater vest  correlate to *any* form of ‘intellectual freedom’? Perhaps what is most appalling is the obvious lack of intellectual effort it takes to say you *support* intellectual freedom by wearing a sweater vest.

Maybe this will take off along the same lines as ‘Geek the Library’, which seriously detracts from the library mission. Bad ideas, once they are validated, tend to gain their own momentum.

Emperor’s New Clothes

This touched off two discussions on the list – one about the efficacy of sweater vests as statements of intellectual freedom and the other about the importance or impotence of the Geek the Library campaign administered by OCLC.  And, there were the anticipated reactions from some readers who were simply aghast that I would question poorly made decisions by established bureaucracies.

Emily Weak who had been promoting a librarian employment site/ blog on Publib asked:

Somewhat off your topic, but I am curious as to how “Geek the Library” detracts  from the library’s mission? Isn’t it about the diversity of resources one can find at the library (i.e. whatever you have a crazy passion for, you can find  materials about it at the library)? Is it that you feel geek has negative connotations?

The Side Show
Honoré Daumier

The Geek the Library campaign has evolved into its own bureaucracy supported by grants by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and administered by OCLC.  I have found no empirical evidence that Geek the Library is more effective than any other course of advertising or promotion. In fact, there may be many, much more effective methods.  Anna Cangialosi with the Chelsea District Library did provide a link to an anecdotal case study on Publib.  However, there appears to be no clear data regarding effectiveness. The press release branded by OCLC seems to be yet another self-serving validation for people who self-identify as being a ‘geek’.

Professional librarians have spent years trying to separate themselves from the stereotype of anti-social professional clerks.  The movement to create a new stereotype by branding librarians as Geeks may result in many more years of trying to live down that stereotype.  Why not continue what we were working towards => a stereotype representing professionalism along with informational and intellectual excellence?

Saving Our Public Lbraries

Rather than blindly accepting that a terrible marketing campaign is in your interest and the interest of your library – why not read a book about how you can promote your library? Why not do a critical assessment of what works and what doesn’t? Why not re-engage in library science as a fundamental set of skills?

Janet Jai has written an excellent book that investigates success stories, expert advice and innovative ideas that support library marketing. If you haven’t ordered it yet,  you should order it for your library today: Saving Our Public Libraries  Why We Should. How We Can.

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Virtualization of the Patron Experience

This very interesting article in USAToday about the future of retail and virtualization of the customer experience demonstrates how big data can affect and effect virtualized experiences for their patrons:

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/story/2012-08-05/future-retail-tech/56880626/1

Libraries compete with online information resources in much the same way the traditional retailers compete with online sellers.

Question ~ How will libraries adapt over the next ten years?

Robert Balliot for
http://bestofpublib.wordpress.com

Discussion ~ My work in managing/developing online catalogs – with 20,000+ medical equipment / supply products and 7,000+ multi-website display products exceeded what library catalogs do and from an SEO standpoint would beat out Amazon for Google placement.  Traditional retail could not compete because of delivery and cost.  BestBuy is a great place to put your hands on tech, but the prices are much higher.  As e-commerce websites become more and more user-friendly – where you have good photos of products and good descriptions, the whole process ends up making all products into commodities with the lowest cost determining purchase.

With libraries, the focus has generally been on maintaining the status quo and keeping current bureaucracies in place until they can retire. This is not any different for any other bureaucracy – it is a natural inclination - not library specific to simply maintain.  With the focus on cost of maintaining services though, without innovation the perception of value diminishes.  One of the best things I have seen recently in libraries is the introduction of Makerbots as a library resource.  It is those sorts of high-priced shared resources that extend the value and bring people inside the library systems.

But, the issue does become lowest cost.  As we see transportation cost rise, the casual trip to the library could cost $10 in gas. What would $10 purchase virtually?  The associated costs of operating libraries – broken down between the people who continue to use them and the disproportionate number of people who don’t would add additional cost to each real visit.  As information becomes a commodity the lowest cost will determine where we purchase.  That does not mean that the value of libraries as a sense of place and source of inspiration does not add a real value to information consumption.

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Hacking Gmail, Amazon, and Apple

Hacking Gmail, Amazon, and Apple – Problems with Humans and Cloud Security

Re-posted from SEC4Lib:

On Tue, Aug 7, 2012 at 8:41 AM, Blake Carver <btcarver@lisnews.com> wrote:

Here’s a follow up on that story from yesterday. It’s a good, short, read and has some really good lessons. I know I need to make some changes now.

“How Apple and Amazon Security Flaws Led to My Epic Hacking”
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/08/apple-amazon-mat-honan-hacking/all/

“I should have been regularly backing up my MacBook. I shouldn’t have daisy-chained two such vital accounts I shouldn’t have used the same e-mail prefix across multiple accounts I should have had a recovery address that’s only used for recovery without being tied to core services. I shouldn’t have used Find My Mac.” –

To me, this is the result of short-term profit maximization at the corporate level mixed with the path of least resistance at the user level.  Companies can operate cheaper, more efficiently up to the point of the hack in the cloud and maximize profits.  Users don’t have to do too much to enjoy the convenience of the cloud up to the point of the hack.  Yet, with each successful hack, the knowledge of how to hack becomes known globally – greatly increasing risk to all users and all companies using the cloud.

When I did a quick security review of Ocean State LIbraries, Sacramento Public Library, and The Library Connection last year, even fundamental security measures were not being taken: 
http://bestofpublib.wordpress.com/2011/05/15/pubic-library-security-insecurity/

Library Fight Club

Fortunately, OSL did step up their security a bit with pins, but it created inconvenience to the administrators and the users.  One of the librarians who witnessed the events leading to the change told me that the battle for security over short-term convenience was ugly but she did not want to speak about it publicly. I can understand that - given the justifiable paranoia over having the circulation records used for identity theft and no one wanting to take responsibility.   But, all it takes is just a bit of laziness at the top levels and bad policy to put everyone at risk. And, unfortunately, the first rule of Library Fight Club is not to talk about Library Fight Club so everyone does not know of the risk. Knowledge of risk is limited to insiders who may not know how to manage risk and insure accountability.

I think the real point of the Mat Honan article  is that the writer was not dumb – he is most likely in the top 2% of people who understand technology.  So, every ‘error’ he made – which would not be considered errors by the other 98% of us - is a risk.

The people working in libraries most likely represent the upper 30 or 40% of people who understand technology simply by being surrounded by books and publicly paid for technology.  But, as gatekeepers to those resources they create the impression of expertise.  Some are experts, but really most are not.  Standing next to a pile of books does not mean you read them.  Being able to turn on a computer does not mean you know how it works.  Being responsible for information security does not mean that the information is secure.

What we can take from the Mat Honan article is the humility of the author in showing that he failed himself and should have known better.  There are many, many people in administrative positions including libraries that are responsible for information security who would never admit that they know not what they do.  There are many, many people in corporations that will never admit or may not even know that their systems have been or are compromised.  All we can hope for is strong laws that mandate reporting and at least a few people such as the author of the Wired article to own up to what they do not know as an example for the other 98% of us.

It used to be that you would need to be able to configure Satan and really have a strong grasp of command line interfaces and operating systems to be a hacker.  You really would need advanced knowledge and some fairly sophisticated resources to hack. Not any more.

Backtrack :
http://www.backtrack-linux.org/
  can be installed very easily and used by novice hackers with ill intent utilizing easy to follow step-by-step instructions on Youtube.  Just using one of my high gain antennas with a little laptop, I can war drive or sit in my house and see many, many exploitable WIFI services locally with little or no protection. I could crack a WEP in about 2 minutes, but so many people now rarely even bother to protect their WIFI. They are just happy that it works out of the box.  As an ethical hacker, I will never exploit those vulnerabilities.  But, the time when exploitation was limited to those with wilful intent, advanced knowledge of computer systems along with strong social engineering skills has passed. We are now in an era where a hack can be easily accomplished with a bit of simple social engineering (SPOKEO anyone?), the intent and common access to a computer. In fact, with very little knowledge about computer systems it would be very easy to inadvertently exploit a system using Backtrack without intent.

I think one of the upsides of less need for advanced knowledge is that we are now seeing powerful cases being built against companies from the digital forensic side where they are doing some pretty sleazy things at the highest level: 
http://www.sfgate.com/business/bloomberg/article/Standard-Chartered-Falls-Most-in-24-Years-on-N-Y-3769142.php
  In the paper age, the information about these sorts of activities was much easier to control and compartmentalize.  Automated computer forensic tools can greatly simplify investigation without requiring advanced degrees in computer science to operate.

*******************

Robert L. Balliot

http://linkedin.com/in/robertballiot

http://bestofpublib.wordpress.com

http://www.facebook.com/robert.balliot

http://oceanstatelibrarian.com/contact.htm

*************************************************

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Free Gutenberg!

Actually, it is a free Gutenberg the Geek -

Update:  Gutenberg the Geek is no longer available for free – it is back up to 99 cents.

Gutenberg Press

Stop the presses! BuzzMachine.com  blogger Jeff Jarvis - author of What Would Google Do? – is offering his Kindle Single – Gutenberg the Geek today (4/27/12) for free through Amazon.

Gutenberg

It was well worth the 99 cents I spent for it and gives a nice synopsis and comparison between Gutenberg as an entrepreneur and our high-tech entrepreneurs of today.

 Free Gutenberg! :

Gutenberg the Geek (Kindle Single): Jeff Jarvis: Amazon.com: Kindle Store

The Broken Publib Listserve or Control through Incorporation

I have come here not to bury Publib, but to praise it.

Ghost of Publib

Last year, OCLC announced that they would graciously host the popular Publib listserve.  With 10 thousand + subscribers representing libraries throughout the world, it certainly represented a win/win situation.  OCLC – which sells its products to libraries would host and subscribers – who buy products from OCLC could continue to subscribe.  OCLC would benefit from the feel-good PR and the ability to data-mine and Publib subscribers could continue to enjoy the communication resource they have contributed to since the early 1990s.

While being hosted by UC Berkeley and Webjunction, Google and Yahoo! and all of the other major search engines readily indexed the discussions by Publib contributors. Even now, a quick engine search of almost any topic regarding public libraries renders a link to a Publib posting from previous years.  

But, all of those links are now broken and the provenance of indexing has been destroyed.  Although you may still view cached files, the only way to get live files is to go behind the wall set up by OCLC.  Access to the root directory is by subscription only, so the search engines would no longer index the content:  
http://listserv.oclc.org/
   So, everyone who searches any topic ever posted on Publib must now go through OCLC and search the files that they exclusively control. 

What a great benefit this must represent to corporate interests of OCLC! Thousands and thousands of postings on every topic regarding public libraries, created by uncompensated authors, and they now control all of the content and its indexing for almost no associated cost and can monitor and data-mine all usage by the library community.     OCLC established and litigated ownership and control of Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC) in OCLC v The Library Hotel  and was recently accused of antitrust by SkyRiver and Innovative Interfaces.  Does OCLC now effectively have intellectual property rights to all of the work by Publib contributors?

Hosting a listserv is really not a big deal.  It is fairly low level technology and relatively easy to manage.  With a bit of server space, Open Source programs such as Mailman can be set up that can manage a huge number of subscribers:

http://wiki.list.org/display/COM/Organizations+that+use+Mailman

Hosting by a non-corporate entity such as a library school or a large library system would have made much more sense.  The original iteration with UC Berkeley hosting nested the conversation in a bastion of free speech.  Is removing and blocking indexing censorship? Is vetting all new subscribers appropriate?  Does the ability to restrict access represent ownership? Does hosting a listserve  and controlling access to everything previously written grant intellectual property rights and equate to ownership? Is Publib just another example of intellectual outsourcing?

Time will tell. But, at this time Publib is a ghost of what it once represented. 

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Publib Favorite Books 2011

By David Faulkner -

As a member of PubLib, an electronic discussion list for public libraries, I asked fellow members to name the book they most enjoyed reading that year. Here is the list for 2011 :

 

Title	Author	Votes
22 Britannia Road	Hodgkinson, Amanda	1
Albion: The Origins of the English Imagination	Ackroyd, Peter	1
Alchemist, The	Coelho, Paulo	1
All Clear	Willis, Connie	1
All the Way to America: The Story of a Big Italian Family and a Little Shovel	Yaccarino, Dan	1
American on Purpose: The Improbable Adventures of an Unlikely Patriot	Ferguson, Craig	1
Angel Town	Saintcrow, Lilith	1
Art of Fielding, The	Harbach, Chad	1
Art of Racing in the Rain, The	Stein, Garth	2
Ashes	Bick, Ilsa J.	1
Autobiography of Mrs. Tom Thumb, The	Benjamin, Melanie	1
Barbarian Nurseries, The	Tobar, Hector	1
Becoming Marie-Antoinette	Grey, Juliet	1
Before I Go To Sleep	Watson, S. J.	1
Black Lamb & Grey Falcon	West, Rebecca	1
Blackout	Willis, Connie	1
Book of Days (Book 5 of the JP Kinkaid Chronicles)	Grabien, Deborah	1
Bossypants	Fey, Tina	2
Boy in the Suitcase, The	Kaaberbol, Lene and Agnete Friis	1
Buddha in the Attic, The	Otsuka, Julie	1
Clara and Mr. Tiffany	Vreeland, Susan	1
Commencement	Sullivan, J. Courtney	1
Dark Tower, The series	King, Stephen	1
Detective Kubu Mystery series	Stanley, Michael	1
Devotion of Suspect X, The	Higashino, Keigo	1
Discovery of Witches, A	Harkness, Deborah	2
Distant Hours, The	Morton, Kate	1
Elizabeth I	George, Margaret	1
Elizabeth I trilogy	Irwin, Margaret	1
Everybody Sees the Ants	King, A.S.	1
Fabulous New Orleans	Saxon, Lyle	1
Fahrenheit 451	Bradbury, Ray	1
Following Atticus: Forty-Eight High Peaks, One Little Dog, and an Extraordinary Friendship	Ryan, Tom	1
Forgotten Garden, The	Morton, Kate	1
Girl Who Fell From the Sky, The	Durrow, Heidi W	1
Graveyard Book, The	Gaiman, Neil	1
Her Fearful Symmetry	Niffenegger, Audrey	1
Hold Me Closer, Necromancer	McBride, Lish	1
How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization	Woods, Jr., Thomas E.	1
Hunger Games, The	Collins, Suzanne	1
In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto	Pollan, Michael	1
Information, The: A History, a Theory, a Flood	Gleick, James	1
Island, The	Hilderbrand, Elin	1
Joy for Beginners	Bauermeister, Erica	1
Just Kids	Smith, Patti	1
King’s Daughter, The	Dickason, Christie	1
Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded: August 27, 1883	Winchester, Simon	1
Language of Flowers, The	Diffenbaugh, Vanessa	1
Left Neglected	Genova, Lisa	1
Leftovers, The	Perrotta, Tom	1
Makers	Doctorow, Cory	1
Middlemarch	Eliot, George	1
Miss Silver Mystery series	Wentworth, Patricia	1
Monster Calls, A	Ness, Patrick	1
Night Circus, The	Morgenstern, Erin	4
Passionate Mistakes and Intricate Corruption of One Girl in America, The	Tea, Michelle	1
Pirate King: A Novel of Suspense Featuring Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes (Russell and Holmes, Book 11)	King, Laurie R.	1
Please Look After Mom	Shin, Kyung-Sook	1
Ready Player One	Cline, Ernest	2
Reamde	Stephenson, Neal	1
Redwall	Jacques, Brian	1
Reveille in Washington: 1860-1865	Leech, Margaret	1
Richard the Lionheart	Gillingham, John	1
Rin Tin Tin: The Life and the Legend	Orlean, Susan	1
Rules of Civility	Towles, Amor	1
Secret Kept, A	Rosnay, Tatiana de	1
Song of Ice and Fire, A series	Martin, George R.R.	1
Sound of a Wild Snail Eating, The	Bailey, Elisabeth Tova	1
Steve Jobs	Isaacson, Walter	1
Tess of the D’Urbervilles	Hardy, Thomas	1
Tigerlily’s Orchids	Rendell, Ruth	1
Unfamiliar Fishes	Vowell, Sarah	1
Untold Story	Ali, Monica	1
Weird Sisters, The	Brown, Eleanor	1
What is Left the Daughter	Norman, Howard	1
When She Woke	Jordan, Hillary	1
Zero Day	Baldacci, David	1
Zero History	Gibson, William	1

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The Publib Archives

The Publib archives from the Webjunction listserve are available here: Archives

Archives compiled after Dec. 7, 2011 are available here: Archives

Subscribe to the Publib Listserve- Part Deux

How to Subscribe to the Publib Listserve – Part Deux

The recent migration of Publib to OCLC resulted in a non-intuitive subscription process. As of the time of this posting, the module is still incorrectly configured and Publib archives are in a private area. The following process provided by OCLC will allow new subscribers to register without using the steps for the GUI described in Subscribe to Publib Listserve – Part One. 

However,  you may still want to access those instructions to see how to access archives and structure your subscriptions.

• From the email address you wish to use for your interaction with the list, send an email to:  listserv@webjunction.org and put subscribe publib in the body.  You can put this in the subject line as well, but it is not required. (Note from editor: leave subject line blank OR put subscribe publib in it)

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The Publib Archives

The Publib archives from the Webjunction listserve are available here: Archives

Archives compiled after Dec. 7, 2011 are available here: Archives

Subscribe to Publib Listserve

How to Subscribe to the Publib Listserve

The recent migration of Publib to OCLC resulted in a non-intuitive subscription process.  As of the time of this posting, the module is incorrectly configured and Publib archives are in a private area.  The following steps are a work-around that will allow new subscribers to register.  These steps should also make it apparent how to access the archives.

Update – Jan 15, 2012:   The following process provided by OCLC will allow new subscribers to register without using the steps below for the GUI: 

• From the email address you wish to use for your interaction with the list, send an email to:  listserv@webjunction.org and put subscribe publib in the body.  You can put this in the subject line as well, but it is not required. (Note from editor: leave subject line blank OR put subscribe publib in it)

 

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Archives compiled after Dec. 7, 2011 are available here: Archives

Publib Topics – A Graphic Retrospective – December 2011

 Beware Graphic Content Ahead!

 

This graphic image  or word cloud was created using Wordle. It is derived from the subjects and authors of postings in PubLib for December 2011. The size of the graphics is directly related to the number of un-weighted unique occurrences each month of the individual words represented. Most automated graphic processes that generate these types of word clouds use additional weight for H1 – H6 tags through feeds. These graphics are not processed with H1 – H6 tags. The titles and authors were copied to Notepad and stripped of all HTML before being run through the Wordle Java platform. The process is case-sensitive so Library is not the same thing as library.

 

The most prominent word without employing filters would have been Publib.  Publib and Fwd were deleted from the plaintext files before processing. In addition, the Wordle program automatically disregards articles, conjunctions, and prepositions.

 

Extracting the data from the archives became problematic in December.  The Publib listserve moved from Webjunction to OCLC and OCLC put the archives in an obscure space viewable only by listserve subscribers.  None of the archives are searcheable through the open web and must be viewed through a multi-step process.  Even subscribing to Publib has become convoluted – although members who had subscribed before were apparently migrated successfully to the new server.

 

Once you do reach the archives, they can be sorted by Date, Topic, and Author.  Big topics for December included: Favorite Reads of 2011 ,  reference stumpers ,  and Tax Season.

 

 

Publib Topics - December 2011

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Archives compiled after Dec. 7, 2011 are available here: Archives