Elias Tzoc blog!

Those five words were quite popular in my to-do lists in November … first, they make up more than a third of the requirements for a new and exciting job description we’re working on; second, I spent some good time working on a couple of fixes for the DSpace mobile theme; third, I recently added a few jQuery lines to embed videos in DSpace; and finally, this week I sat down with a faculty for 1.5 hours prototyping a new website for one of her projects –in this session, we created three wireframes and today I actually worked on the first one, which obviously required some HTML & CSS editing –and some image tweaks in Photoshop as well.  Speaking of prototypes, wireframes, and web customization … two great video tutorials I recently saw in Lynda.com are: Creating an Effective Content Strategy for Your Website, where the author talks about how to think strategically about content in many formats (text, images, videos, animations, and infographics); and Interactive Data Visualization with Processing, where the author presents techniques on how to start communicating ideas and diagramming data in a more interactive way.

As for DSpace tweaks, we continue to add video content to our Scholarly Commons site; the current OhioLINK approach is to upload an mp4 file and a special flash theme streams the content in DSpace, this method works great on computers … however, on devices with no flash support (e.g. iPad) users simply cannot get to see the video.  In theory, a possible solution would be to use HTML5 video standards; in fact, I ran a couple of test using http://videojs.com but there seems to be a limitation -at least during my tests- with large videos (30+ minutes), sometimes it’ll take for ever to start playing … and because many of the videos on our site are over 30 minutes, I decided to go back to a video theme I created a year ago.  This video theme relies on videos hosted on Vimeo; the trick is to upload a copy of the video in Vimeo and add the vimeo URL in the metadata (e.g. dc.relation.isversionof: http://vimeo.com/17095108) … and with the following jQuery lines, “all” users will get the see/play the video; if the device/browser supports flash, it’ll play the regular mp4; if not, it’ll embed the vimeo file.  Examples include the videos in the Open Access Week collection.  BTW: the audio in one of the videos was “low/noisy” … so the workaround was: a) export an mp3 file from iMovie; b) use Audacity features (amplify and noise filters) to enhance the audio and export a new mp3 file; c) import the new mp3 in iMovie; and d) create an mp4 file using MPEG Streamclip.

  // detect non-flash support
  if (typeof navigator.plugins['Shockwave Flash'] !== 'undefined') {
  // if supported, then do nothing
  // alert('support');
     } else {
  // hide mp4 and embed vimeo file -if exists-
  // alert('no support');
  // check for number of links
  if (($("div#ds-body
     div#aspect_artifactbrowser_ItemViewer_div_item-view
     table.ds-includeSet-table a").length) > 2 ) {
  $("object").hide();
  // select vimeo file URL
  var htmlStr = $("div#ds-body
      div#aspect_artifactbrowser_ItemViewer_div_item-view
      table.ds-includeSet-table a:eq(1)").html();
  var htmlStr = htmlStr.replace('http://vimeo.com/', '');
  // replace mp4 code with vimeo iframe
  var htmlStr = $("object:first").replaceWith
      ("<iframe src='http://player.vimeo.com/video/" +
      htmlStr + "' width='500' height='375' </iframe>");
  } else {
  // no vimeo file for this record
  $("object").hide();
  }
  }

As for the VIDEOJS, we’re most likely going to use it for another project where the average run-time is 2-5 minutes … cannot wait to test something with the caption option!  Last but not least, two recent news: my article in Spanish on Open Access & Latin America is now officially online; and a late email exchange this afternoon confirmed that DSpace 3.0 has been officially released … I have to say that it’s absolutely great to see the “mobile theme” in this new release … saaaaalu’

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October was -again- a busy month … from meetings, reach-out activities, article reviews, digital humanities, open access, coding to ALAO.

As we continue to work towards the “goal” of the CDS to support faculty and students’ digital projects, this month I was part of a couple of new and interesting potential collaborations.  In mid October we met with a professor who is interested in implementing a digital and interactive component to a Freedom Summer project, we’re now looking at the ARIS platform and hopefully we can either re-use it or find something similar to it … one key feature of ARIS is its support for developing mobile games.  We also met with a group of students who are currently working on a “journal” project; our potential contribution would be with the technical infrastructure and for that, we’re most likely to use OJS, which continues to be the most popular system for peer-review and open-access journals.  A third meeting took place thanks to a contact made by one of our library liaisons; in this case, a history grad student is interested in adding a “map” layer to create some data visualization for a collection from the 16th century … an example in mind is the Mapping the Republic of Letters.

Also, there is no doubt that the Sixth Annual Open Access Week was a big highlight for this month.  For us, the first of two MUL events during OA week was the Digital Humanities Symposium; the event was an opportunity for faculty, grad students and librarians to listen to two outside and five local speakers … as well as to talk about what DH could mean for them/us.  The second event was a talk How Open Scholarship is Changing Research, which was organized by the Library’s Scholarly Communication working group.  Moreover and for the second year, online visitors found a pop-up image on the library’s homepage with a message “What if you had no access to the library?” … will this help create an awareness about the ongoing problem of journal cost? mmm who knows, although for many, the Harvard’s statement about “not being able” to keep up with all the subscription costs may also help others understand the problem.

As for my tech/learning activities, this month was a good time to start learning a bit more about Git.  Because of my mobile theme contribution to DSpace 3.0, I finally understand (better) the benefits of a version control software; although at first, Git can be quite overwhelming or confusing.  A good tutorial I found is Git Essential Training by Kevin Skoglund. There is definitely more to learn, but so far, my list of 10+ GIT commands are keeping me busy!

Last, on Friday Oct. 26 I was again at the 38th ALAO Annual Conference.  Our CW team had a poster session -which was about the work we did for the CW Symposium and the ALA/NEH book-discussion series.

I was also part of talk Skate to Where the Puck is Going to Be, where we presented an overview of the CDS … the outline included: Setting the stage, Designing the space, Reaching our clients, Tech tools, and Services.

Ok, that’s it for now … now back to some GIT experiments as well as finish up with a draft for D-Lib Magazine

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The second Joint Conference of Librarians of Color (JCLC) was held on September 19-23 in Kansas City, MO.  For four days, more than 800 participants -from diverse groups of librarians, library staff, library supporters, and library administrators- explored issues, shared successful ideas, and discussed challenges of diversity in libraries.  It was great to be there for part of the conference.  As with any multi-track conference, at times it was hard to choose which session to attend … a copy of the full program is available on the JCLC website.  The following is a short report of selected sessions I attended:

• Perspectives on Academic Library Change, Culture and Future Leadership, by Jon Cawthorne, Theresa Byrd, and Tyrone Cannon. Central questions that the speakers asked were: if everything is electronic, why do we need the library? and how should a library look like in 2040?  To make it more interactive, they formed groups and gave us three possible scenarios and we had to choose the one we thought most likely to happen; however, three out of five groups (including mine) reported that the proposed scenarios are obsolete or with services that are already being implemented.  Many agreed that one characteristic of any type of future scenario will include a metric for assessing and demonstrating the value of services.
• All Things Digital, a panel with Charles J. Henry & Jon Patrick Gant and moderated by Anthony D. Smith from IMLS. The panelists talked about projects like the Digital Public Library of America, Building Digital Communities: A Framework for Action, and Connect to Compete.  Although many of these project goals may not seem to have a direct impact on academic libraries right now; in the mid-long term, these types of projects can definitely help to better prepare future college students -particularly those students from underrepresented communities, which can subsequently support universities’ diversity/inclusion programs.
• Diversity in the Special Collections Field: From Defining the Need to Providing Solutions, by Athena Jackson, Chella Vaidyanathan, and Tamar Evangelestia-Dougherty. The speakers talked about the need for more diverse representation in a field where determining selection and providing access to rare, unique, and original materials are important.  They reported on their efforts to recruit librarians from underrepresented groups to consider joining this area of librarianship.  There were some interesting thoughts from this talk that we could have included in our manuscript -currently in review- on Digital Diversity.
• The Need for Diversity Research in the Profession: A Collaborative Opportunity, by Karen Downing, Merve Fejzula, and Mark Winston. The presenters emphasized on the need for more diversity research in the profession -maybe something like what we see in Diversity Inc.  They also talked about the next steps for this type of work; I would agree that future research should include documentation of successful stories and demonstration of the positive effects of diversity in organizations.
• Re-Branding Librarianship: Diversity Recruitment Practices from the Field, by Deena Smith, Emily Chan, Hannah Lee, Michelle McKinney, and Eura Szuwalski. They shared their experiences encouraging registration and use of the Knowledge Alliance website, which “re-brands” librarianship as a field of diverse individuals, and their work recruiting a diverse group of high school and college students to consider librarianship as a career option.  As part of this group, it’s always good to hear what has worked for others when talking to students about librarianship -for me, the goal is always about some students with a great set of technical/programming skills.

I was also part of two poster sessions:
Digital Diversity: Examples from Miami University Libraries, in this poster we provided an overview of selected examples of diversity-related online collections digitized by Miami University Libraries.  We also talked about the “research value and uniqueness” as two essential factors that help collection managers in selecting digitization projects that can support institutional goals such as expanding diversity.

Minnesota Institute Reflections: Three Personal Stories, in this poster session we presented an overview of the MN Institute, discussed three personal experiences about the program’s impact in our professional activities, and provided a list of future leadership programs available for mid-career librarians.

Overall, JCLC was a great opportunity to see friends from the MN Institute & the iSchool as well as to meet and talk to new people.  Last but not least, hoping that there will be a 3rd JCLC in six years, I probably should start brainstorming some new/interesting projects for the next five years

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In early 2012, as I was finishing up with my annual report -and in consultation with my supervisor- I decided to add a “mobile theme for DSpace” to my summer to-do list …  why a mobile interface for DSpace? well, I kind of had three reasons/justifications for this: a) I wanted to learn a bit more of the jQuery Mobile framework; b) we wanted to have a mobile interface for our Scholarly Commons project; and c) there was no mobile theme for DSpace -at least not back then.

The real “adventure” started in late May when I sent a message to the DSpace-tech listserv, the replies confirmed that a JIRA ticket for this topic was created back in September 2011 … I also got some good ideas about the actual implementation of a mobile theme.  The next step included some “basic” planning which included two key activities: a) creating a wireframe for the mobile interface; and b) researching for some mobile “best practices” out there.   For the wireframe design, I tried to stick to some basic rules such as “data entry on mobile devices should be minimized” or “keep it simple and clean” … so because of those rules, I took the liberty to make some decisions/assumptions.  For instance, the DSpace mobile interface will be for regular DSpace users; therefore, it was ok to remove the entire ds-options sidebar, which usually contains all of the “administrative” functions.  For the research activity, it was absolutely useful to spend part of a Friday afternoon watching the Mobile Web Design & Development Fundamentals tutorial by Joe Marini.

In mid July, I had a mobile theme running on a second copy of the XMLUI webapp in a DSpace 1.6 installation -now, I know that this is probably NOT the best way to do this- but back then this was the only way I got it to work and it allowed me to continue to test/tweak some CSS, XML, XSL, and JS files.  One of the most special -but also trouble and confusing- days was when I installed a couple of device emulators.  The Opera Mobile Emulator & the Android SDK were very useful in testing and adjusting the site to small screen sizes (even 320×240); the iOS Simulator worked just fine; but the real headache was with the Windows Phone Emulator because it simply didn’t work … after a good time researching about the “not loading” error, I learned that it was an HTML element without a closing tag

In early August, a colleague and I run some last tests and we believed it was time to share the link with others and start collecting some feedback … at the same time, we wanted to test the new theme on an OhioLINK test machine.  I soon learned that duplicating the XMLUI webapp was neither effective nor sustainable -especially in a shared infrastructure.  This is where two developers at OhioLINK came up with a solution -using a second domain name- that works great and looks robust.

And today, we’re pleased to actually see it up and running on a production machine.  So if you’re curious about it, please visit http://sc.lib.muohio.edu/ and if your device isn’t detected as mobile, try this URL http://mobile.sc.lib.muohio.edu/.  As with anything “new” … there is definitely room for improvement and we’ll welcome comments and feedback

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Two summer activities are keeping me well entertained … so whether it’s learning and testing out a new trick for the DSpace mobile theme or discovering the excellent transcription work being done for our own Música Colonial digital archive … the last few weeks have been quite interesting

The mobile DSpace theme is already in progress -almost there, the image on the right is an example of a quite complex page now with a clean and fluid look and feel.  The real test is available at our own DSpace test instance.   jQuery Mobile provided a key start for this work and the magic of its ThemeRoller generator is an excellent reason to stick to this option as much as possible.  Anyone who’s done some theme customization in DSpace knows how hard it’s to find and control the appearance of certain elements –e.g. div.pagination or form.ds-interactive-div.  A major challenge I’ve found so far is adding HTML5 attributes to elements that are dynamically generated and that are context sensitive (e.g. collection list or view).  For a couple of days, I thought using the .html() property to modify the HTML on the fly was the perfect fix; however, this type of tweaks in jQM requires a manual page refresh … so apparently a good plan B will be to go back and rely on some old CSS tweaks, so far, popular and key examples include:

display: none; //hide some extra DSpace elements
-moz-border-radius: 5px; //simulate jQM corners
border-radius: 5px;
min-width: 390px; //control width for some sub-header DIVs
max-height: 90px;

… and speaking of jQuery tweaks, last week we found a bug in our code for controlling the display of videos and images in Scholarly Commons, the lines below were part of the magic.  An examples is here.

// if more than 1 video is found, only embed the 1st one,
// except for objects within the "imageviewer-wrapper" DIV
if(v>=2) {
$("object").hide();
$("object:first").show();
$("object", "#imageviewer-wrapper").show();
}
else {
$("object").show();
}

As for the Música Colonial project, in June I “discovered” an entry about this project on the Choral Public Domain Library (CPDL) … and perhaps the most interesting discovery was the 20+ pieces of work already transcribed with PDFs and MIDIs by Jonathan Goodliffe –an excellent and recent example is “A la reina del socorro”; We’ll definitely include links to the corresponding items in our upcoming website for this project.  In the meantime, thanks Jonathan for all the work you’re doing and YES “the online collaboration was at the very heart of the original idea of this project” and with this type of help, someday we may be able to transcribe the entire 800+ items in the collection.

… hasta la próxima!

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