Elias Tzoc blog!

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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Last week was quite a busy week for me -not to mention a night with only 3 hours of sleep, but that’s a different story.  Anyway, on Thursday, November 3rd, I started my day with an early (6:30 AM) online presentation on “Technical Skills in Digital Library Programs” which was kind of a report on a recent publication I co-authored with John Millard.  My talk was part of the 300+ presentations at the Library 2.011 WorldWide Virtual Conference.  I think the conference was a huge success, according to the website, they had more than 5,000 people registered from more than 150 countries … and it was FREE.  So thanks to the co-founding sponsors: The School of Library and Information Science (SLIS) at San José State University, Classroom 2.0, and the Global Education Conference.  If anyone is interested in watching some of the sessions, links to all the recordings are available at: http://www.library20.com/

On Friday, November 4th, I attended the 2011 ALAO Annual Conference in Toledo, OH.  There, I had to wear a couple of different hats … at first, I setup an information table for the Technical, Electronic, and Digital Services Interest Group (TEDSIG), just as last year, we asked visitors to suggest possible topics for the upcoming 2012 spring workshop.  Also, at lunch I presented the TEDDY Award, which recognizes an individual’s significant contributions to TEDSIG & ALAO.  This year, the winner was Anne Gilliland, Head, Copyright Management Office, at the Ohio State University Libraries.  Among Anne’s contribution to ALAO include: served a term as the Technical Services Interest Group Co-Chair, served on the ALAO Executive Board, presented at a number of TEDSIG workshops and at several ALAO annual conferences.

In the second session, I was also part of a panel “Planning your Digital Resource Commons and Institutional Repository: What do you need to know?”  In this group of six speakers, I talked about the possibilities and technical requirements needed for customizing the front-end of DSpace.  I also provided a quick overview of the DSpace registry and the number of institutions worldwide using the software for both IR and digital library (digitized) content.  In the afternoon, John Millard and I hosted a poster session:

This poster demonstrated methods of loading and displaying diverse type of cultural heritage objects using the DSpace.

In the last session, I attended a talk on “Diversity Program: Incorporating Cultural Awareness into your Library,” by Heather Maloney & Michelle McKinney from the University of Cincinnati, Blue Ash College.  The talk was about the development of a greater understanding of each other and the diverse population that a library serves.  In the Q&A section, it was great to share something about the Chinese videos created at Miami.  Ok, that was then, now back to some more coding and proposal writing!

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Last week, I was back in Austin for about two days.  I know that doesn’t sound enough for a place where I actually lived for more than two years …anyway, on Wednesday, June 8, I attended the first day of the Sixth Annual International Conference on Open Repositories.  It was great to join a group of 300+ technologists/advocates/developers of digital repositories from 20 countries and 30 states.

The first full session I attended was on Cloud Solutions.  The first speaker was Peter Nuernberg from the Texas Digital Library and he talked about the work they have done in storing data on cloud machines.  I think it was interesting to hear that regardless of some of the recent issues with Amazon, he commented on how the cloud option has changed from a backup to a primary alternative for some of their projects.  For DSpace test-instances at OhioLINK, I know Amazon EC2 was a successful experiment!  The second half was a panel on the DuraCloud Pilot Program led by Michele Kimpton; two cases were presented (MIT Libraries & Northwestern) and the speakers shared their experiences in using the service for preservation and access services.  It was good to learn about features like Image Transforming, Video/Audio Streaming, and Image Serving.  These features are definitely similar to what some of us are “prototyping” and wanting to have as a default option in DSpace … so maybe we’re not alone in our journey/confusion in using a software for something that it wasn’t designed for

In the afternoon, I attended one of the new 24X7 sessions, where each presenter had a maximum of 24 slides and 7 minutes to present.  My favorites were: a) Linked Data: The Future for Open Repositories?, Adrian talked about the importance of putting archival and bibliographic data in a Linked Data format for the benefit of education and research –he also talked a bit about the LOCAH project and how it supports goals such as exposing (semantic) data and enabling new visualization of data; b) Value and Impact Metrics for Open Repositories, the presenter talked about OpenSky and its ability to generate custom (annual) reports as well as staff help for populating online CVs or departmental/personal web pages –such services are definitely appreciated by IR users; and c) Don’t Bold the Field Name!, Simeon talked about the need for presenting “relevant” data in a meaningful way for end-users (consumers) … it seems like regular usability tests can be part of this custom data presentation work, but how often?

In the last session, I was part of a group of 30+ poster presenters,

…each had a one-minute for a quick elevator speech -too bad I couldn’t sing, but I think I said what I needed to say in 55 seconds … anyway, I really enjoyed talking to about 11poster visitors, I understand I’m biased to my topic “file viewers for DSpace” but I was glad to learn that at least three other institutions are working on similar work for their DSpace repositories.  Will we see an out-of-the-box viewer in DSpace for non-born-digital objects?, I definitely hope so.

Finally, for social and non-conference chats, it was absolutely great to talk to Kent, Yolanda, and Jee … next time, WE will definitely plan for more time to spend in Austin.

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A couple of weeks ago -thanks to a scholarship- I was in Bloomington, IN attending the 2011 Code4Lib Conference. I think the conference organization was great and it was well attended too -even with some international attendees. Two main characteristics of the conference were: the single-track method allowed new comers to avoid the problems of choosing between breakout sessions; and many participants were not only taking notes, commenting or twitting about the sessions, but also coding. It was also great to hear that some of the projects presented were actually “ideas gathered” at the previous conference; in short, Code4Lib seems to be a great place for brainstorming and initiating new projects that can produce deliverables for real-life projects in matter of months.

Some of my favorite presentations were:

• Drupal 7 as Rapid Application Development Tool, the overview was very informative; it has re-inspired a work in progress where we plan to create a front-end for digital collections by re-indexing metadata files using the Content Construction Kit module and a timeline widget developed by the SIMILE project.
• Enhancing the Mobile Experience: Mobile Library Services at Illinois, it was great to hear about the ongoing need for designing/evaluating/combining sites for both small and normal (big) size screens -particularly when dealing with special type of content such as manuscripts or large images.
• One Week, One Tool: Ultra-Rapid Open Source Development Among Strangers, this presentation was an excellent example of a one-week work that can automate the transformation of regular text files (blog entries) into new multiple formats such as PDF, ePUB or TEI. A possible adaptation of Anthologize for digital collections with transcripts may be an option for creating new format for end-users.
• A Community-Based Approach to Developing a Digital Exhibit at Notre Dame Using the Hydra Framework, the combination of Fedora, Solr, and the Hydra Framework seems to be a suitable option for large and diverse type of collections; now I just hope to have the time/patience to learn more about Solr and Hydra.
• Let’s Get Small: A Microservices Approach to Library Websites, the use and combination of JSON, Compass, jQuery, PHP, and other technologies seem to be a great alternative to the ongoing work in updating small (critical) sections of institutional websites; a recent DSpace plug-in idea/project seems to be a good candidate for testing this work.
• Mendeley’s API and University Libraries: Three Examples to Create Value, the examples presented seem to be of great benefits for both IR’s administrators and scholars; moreover, the announcement of a plug-in based on SWORD that will work with major repository systems was also good news.

The Lightning Talks seems to be an excellent method for learning about a variety of topics in a short period of time, some of my favorites included: AjaxyDialog jquery-ui widget, Blacklight and Hydra at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Open data and the Biodiversity Heritage Library experience, Mobile Web Apps for Library Exhibits, Digital Humanities and Libraries, and A Guide for the Perplexed.

The Ask Anything session was also an interesting one, questions and answers ranged from basic to advanced, from on-site to online, from short to long; as a new comer, the question of the day was “What should we teach new librarians about coding/programming/hacking?” The answers included: learn and try something simple and quickly, install LINUX, find an interesting and short-term project, use the command line … and I think we could also add one more: join Code4Lib -which could be as simple as joining the listserv, attending a conference, checking the Journal or maybe just making time to watch the archived videos from the 2011 Conference.

Once again, thanks Code4Lib organizers!

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Last week, I attended three orientation sessions at the ALA Midwinter conference in San Diego, CA.  The sessions were part of the official start of the ALA Discovering Librarianship program, which aims to build a network of early career librarians who can work with the ALA-Diversity Office to identify and help college students pursue careers in librarianship.

We had three sessions; the first one started with messages from three ALA leaders: Roberta Stevens, Camila Alire, and Molly Raphael.  They spoke about the commitment of ALA to support this type of diversity initiative; they also emphasized on the ongoing need to support similar programs with a focus on people who are already in the profession.  It was definitely great to hear what they think about ALA’s goal towards diversity in the profession, especially in tough economic times.  Next, we talked in groups about the decisions that led us to pursuing a degree in librarianship.  I was particularly happy to meet another librarian with an interest in the changing roles of technology in librarianship and information access.

The second session was focused on the need and opportunities for new professionals from underrepresented groups.  At my table, we talked about some of the regional, national, and ALA programs and conferences that support early career librarians from diverse groups.  I shared with my group two recent personal examples: the Minnesota Institute and the Code4Lib Diversity Scholarships.  Then, Lorelle Swader from the ALA Office of Human Resources and Development talked about career paths; which reminded me of a possible addition to a working manuscript about Technical Skills for New Digital Librarians.

The third and last session started with a presentation about Benefits and Rewards; I think some of the topics that came up in this discussion could be incorporated into materials for advocacy, outreach, and recruiting activities.  We also worked on a template for writing personal stories and on a pre-draft of an Elevator Speech.  In the next few months, we will continue to work on the promotion and marketing materials; we will also start looking for possible career fairs to attend in late 2011 or early 2012.

Last but not least, despite the great winter weather in San Diego, I also managed to attend two LITA sessions: Technology Trends in Academic Libraries and Drupal for Digital Library Programs.  It was interesting to learn about projects where developers are using Drupal on top of DSpace or Fedora.  But for now, I just need to get done with a couple of XSLT files for a workshop later this week!

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