New article: ‘The Sun was Obscured by the Smoke of Books’: Libraries and Memory Institutions in Conflict Since the End of the Cold War”

Issue three of the Faculty of Information Quarterly is online. Now you can read my article, “‘The Sun was Obscured by the Smoke of Books’: Libraries and Memory Institutions in Conflict Since the End of the Cold War” (HTML version or PDF version). This paper was originally created as a conference paper, then submitted in a course and then it became this article. The thesis, in brief, is that war and other conflicts reveal much about the role of libraries and other cultural institutions (and how society is badly weakened and damaged when libraries are damaged).

A Friday Five

I’m taking a breather between projects and decided to write another Friday Five.

1. Zoho (Tagline: “Work. Online”)

I had heard of Zoho in several places but I’ve never worked with it until today. Essentially, Zoho offers “cloud computing” applications focused on office productivity. Why is this appealing? Well, cloud computing generally means no longer needing to worry about leaving that USB stick at home. All files are constantly available for use online. Many readers will no doubt be familiar with Google Docs (a basic word processor application offered by Google; there are also a presentation and spreadsheet applications), but Zoho offers more. What exactly? It offers (for free): a wiki, a word processor, a web conferencing tool (would like to test this!), an invoice creator, and a project management tool. I tested the word processor and it does appear to be compatible with Microsoft Word.

2. Book Camp (Toronto, June 6 2009)

This one-day event is all about books and their future, with an emphasis on publishing. The event will be using an “unconference” fashion (still a new idea to me; here’s the Wikipedia entry
– in brief, “there is no agenda until .. the attendees made one up.”). Some interesting topics to be explored include: online book communities, digital marketing, books and podcasts etc). I am planning to attend and hope to write an entry about it.

3. Custom Search Engine: Indeed

Indeed is a search engine that specializes in searching job listings. It has a simple interface wherein one supplies some key words and a location (i.e. a city or province). A search for “librarian” generated 33 results today across Canada while a search for “accoutant” generated 2,225 results and a search for “lawyer” generated 768 results. While it is far from comprehensive, it is a useful tool to play around with. One great feature is the ability to set up email alerts so you can be informed about new positions of interest. If you’re employed (or in management), this tool is still useful since you can use it to see what skills are being mentioned.

4. How To Do An Annual Reports that People Remember: The British Library Annual Report for 2007-2008 and the Columbus Metropolitan Library Report

Annual reports have the reputation of being boring documents, but that is changing. The British Library report referenced above is an engaging work of art that is a pleasure to use. The “front page” of the report offers three videos: a statement by a fiction author who used the BL, a conservator and a businesswoman who used the BL. In each case, you have a reference to the BL staff who assisted these people and you can watch a video of the staff member explain who they are and what they do. In fact, video is used heavily through the website to good effect. However, video does not work for everyone so the British Library has also offered a text only version of its report. The Report itself has four themes: Shaping (public debate on major issues), Understanding (other cultures and eras through our exhibitions and events), Advancing (access to our collections through new and exciting technology), and Developing (our people to provide the best service for our users). The Library has even presented its hard data in novel and engaging ways. I learned that the British Library had about 24.5 million searches performed on its catalogue in 2007-2008 and created about 9.6 million digital images in the same period. Well done! This is a model for libraries around the world to study.

On this side of the Atlantic (thanks to Tame The Web for pointing this out), we have the Annual Report of the Columbus Metropolitan Library (Columbus, Ohio – home of the OCLC and Ohio State University). The report puts an emphasis on the recession, the innovation nature of the report (an interesting emphasis on stories) and the green nature of the report. The last point is worth thinking about further; if we shift funds from printing expensive glossy reports to sophisticated websites, maybe that would be a better use of funds…

5. The Creating Future Libraries Notebook

Sometimes it helps to think on paper and this notebook explores that idea. Thanks to the Librarian in Black for mentioning it. One possible use for these would to buy a few (they’re only $3 US each) and distribute them at a staff meeting. Get people thinking using a new tool and make meetings more interesting. I would also imagine that these notebooks could be a good idea to get a new project off the ground, when it is still in the defining stage.

SLA Gala Centennial Dinner

I enjoyed tonight’s SLA Toronto Gala dinner celebrating 1oo years of the Special Libraries Association (SLA). There was an also an exhibit showing the history of the Toronto Chapter of SLA dating back to its founding in the 1940s – the exhibit included photos, a list of past Presidents and plenty of vintage newsletters. In addition, about 20 former Presidents of SLA Toronto attended and I met some of them. The keynote address of the event was given by SLA President Gloria Zamora who spoke about the value of professional associations generally and some specific projects like the SLA Alignment Project. The event was a pleasant combination of reflection on the Association’s past achievements and future prospects.

The Espresso Book Machine

Recently, a new book machine came in the market that has many people talking. I don’t know if it will be all that revolutionary, but it is interesting to think about. Described as the Espresso Book Machine, this device prints and binds a book in five minutes when a user chooses a title from a database of more than 500,000 titles. Thus far, it appears to be only available in London’s bookstores (yet another reason to agree that the British capital is a Mecca for readers!). Essentially, they are trying to eliminate the problem whereby books go out of stock. As far as that goes, it strikes me as a good idea. I’ve been wondering if something like this could have some application to Inter-Library Loan situations. With a few exceptions (e.g. rare books scholarship or bibliographical study), it strikes me as a good solution. After all, the fourth law of library science as expounded by S. R. Ranganathan is, “Save the time of the User.” If we can make material available in five minutes instead of five weeks, then we should explore doing that.

If you’re curious to see what it looks like, then you are in luck. My girlfriend, Carolyn, is presently in London conducting research for her PhD in History and she took a break from the archives to take a few photos for me – thanks! There are four in total here. The panel proclaiming “A New Chapter in Print” is bit grand, but I like the idea of it.

There are three images below here, which are all fairly high resolution.
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Note for any readers in Ottawa

Tomorrow, the documentary Paris 1919 will be screened (for free!) at Library and Archives Canada at 395 Wellington Street. For other events there, have a look at the What’s On website at LAC.

This is the announcement that I came across:

May 13
Paris 1919
7 p.m.
Auditorium
Free

This documentary film by Paul Cowan recounts the events of the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, when world leaders tried to negotiate an enduring peace treaty.

An Ottawa premiere, this award-winning film is shown in partnership with the National Film Board of Canada.

In English

Paris 1919 Official Website

Paris 1919

Earlier today, I saw “Paris 1919″ as my final film at the Hot Docs documentary film festival in Toronto. I’ve been attending Hot Docs for several years now and always find it to be an interesting experience. This year, I saw films on everything from the real estate market of St. Petersburg, Russia (pereSTROIKA – reCONSTRUCTION of a flat – great music!) to South Korea’s struggle over free trade and farming (Farmer’s Song) to a biography of a charismatic UN leader (Sergio). In total, I saw nine films and one short. The films were a bit more spaced out this year, so I felt less culturally exhausted than previously.

I wanted to write about “Paris 1919″ for several reason here. First, it was a well executed film inspired by a book that I rather enjoyed reading a few years ago (Paris 1919 by Margaret MacMillan). Of the minor characters, my favourite was John Maynard Keynes, the noted British economist. I can’t comment on the Prime Minister of Italy – Vittorio Orlando – as I don’t know much about him, but the other major leaders – Lloyd George, Woodrow Wilson and Georges Clemenceau – struck me as very well cast.

It is also of interest to me on a professional level. The film’s researchers have made very capable use of a wide variety of archival sources from around the world. That’s something I would like to see more of. It is very common to see documentaries credit commercial archives (especially for news reporting), but this film had credits from large public archives such as the US National Archives (“National Archives and Records Administration”). MacMillan, who attended the screening and took questions following the film, remarked that she was impressed with the combination of photos and film that were used in the film. Archivists (and librarians! and museum staff too) should think more about this interesting segment of users. Fees from supporting this kind of work could help support the costly preservation of film and related media. Beyond that, I think it would be stimulating work to assist in the research that goes into making a documentary.

If you’d like to see the trailer for the documentary, click on the image at the top of this entry and you’ll go straight to YouTube. Thanks are due to director Paul Cowan and everyone else who worked on this project.

Notes on the TRY Conference

Yesterday, I attended the TRY Conference (the fifth annual conference for library staff at Toronto’s three universities: Ryerson, York and U of Toronto) and presented a poster session with some fellow students. Based on notes in my Moleskine, I’ll offer some of my impressions on it in this entry. I didn’t have the opportunity to attend every session, so this entry makes no attempt to be comprehensive – rather, these are simply some of my notes.

The morning keynote address was given by Dean Seamus Ross, the new Dean of the Faculty of Information at the University of Toronto. This address combined some observations on his own research (mainly involving digital preservation and efforts to communicate this such as this animation on YouTube) as well as the future direction of the Faculty. This emphasized the need to be creative and innovative, of seeking opportunities beyond the traditional Library environment. He also mentioned plans to launch an “information entrepreneurship” (and related ideas such as having an incubator to foster new companies with the Faculty’s students, professors, etc) course. That would be quite a departure from the public sectory focus that is customary to the field, but  I think it is worth exploring further.

The first presentation I attended was given by a science librarian on efforts to include information literacy skills in a third year psychology course. Not only is this a good idea on its own merits but I liked the idea of the assessment strategy that was used. Assessment is something I think the profession needs to embrace more – not only for reasons of financial accountability, but also to determine what works and how we can become better at what we do. While the assessment was based on the SAILS methodology, questions were raised as to whether adaptation of this intrument might be in order. In the Q&A section, I asked if clickers had been considered – they are a common tool in science classes and good for obtaining fast, simple feedback – and I gathered that they may be used in future.

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Ready for the TRY Conference

All the displays, handouts and technology is ready to go for tomorrow’s TRY conference where I will be presenting a poster session with three fellow students: Ania Dymarz, Meghan Ecclestone and Monica Rettig. We have a poster printed, handouts ready and technology ready for demonstration. I only heard about the TRY Conference this year – it is an annual event for library staff at Toronto’s three universities: University of Toronto, Ryerson University and York University. There are plenty of interesting sessions to attend (e.g. mentoring new librarians, using mobile technology, visual literay and embedded librarianship) and I hope to report on some of this tomorrow or the day after.

I’m really looking forward to this as it is the first time I get to present my own projects at a professional conference.

The Web2.You Conference at McGill University

Over the past few days, I’ve been exploring Canadian blogs and learning about more conferences, past and future. Today, I’m going to review and comment on  the Web2.You Conference held at McGill University in February 2009. Even though I could not attend, there is a good archive of video and blog posts that have been valuable to explore. For blog posts, I would point you to John Dupuis’ recap (Science Librarian at York University), Graham Lavender’s blog (a student at McGill and one of the organizers of the conference), presentation files from Stephen Abram and I’m sure there is more out there. Thanks are very much in order to Graham Lavendar for curating the conference’s wiki – you can find presentation slides and videos from several of the presenters in one convenient location.

I was particularly interested to watch videos of Michael Stephen’s on the Hyperlinked Library. The presentation is 10 parts on YouTube (here is Part One). I’ve read his blog – Tame The Web – with interest for over a year but I’ve never seen him present. I was very much impressed with this presentation. There was a great deal of good ideas and examples there (including examples of signage gone wrong). One point I took away in particular was the notion of thinking more deeply about privacy and participation. These are complex questions but I think Professor Stephens is right to point out that sometimes concerns about privacy shut down debate and exploration. Near the end of the presentation, new trends in employment were discussed: job titles like “user experience librarian” or “emerging technology librarian” (both of those interest me!) came up. Also, he suggested homework for those attending : create a Wikipedia entry for the McGill library/information school (there is a basic one now) and recommended reading Seth Godin’s book Tribes (which I did a few weeks ago).

The World Digital Library

Unveiled last month, the World Digital Library is a project with much interesting potential. The actual content available is rather thin on the ground at the moment, but I presume that will change with time. What I like best about it is the option to browse for collections using a map of the world and/or using a timeline that covers thousands of years. At this writing, there are 1170 digital items from collections around the world (e.g. National Library of France, Library of Congress, Yale University Library, National Library of Sweden etc).

Even though there are no Canadian institutions participating in this UNESCO project, there are 13 items about or from Canada, mainly from the Library of Congress. I had a look at one item – changing of the guard at Parliament in 1984 – and I was quite impressed by the meta-data provided (not as complete as a Library catalogue record, but certainly good for a photo). I get the sense that the Library of Congress is the main contributor of content at this stage, but that may change.