Metadata Monday: Linked Open Data

Did you know that people will be talking about Linked Open Data in San Francisco this week at the International Linked Open Data in Libraries, Archives, and Museums Summit (“LOD-LAM”)?

This looks like a fascinating event with leaders in multidisciplinary metadata hashing out policies and pondering answers to questions like whether 25-50% adoption of OAI-MPH by member agencies is really enough to warrant the time and effort required for interoperability and sharing. Can this protocol be simplified to promote consistent use?

The article Beyond OAI-MPH by Richard J. Urban raises some thought provoking points and is the source of some fabulous related resources.

Want to learn more about W3's Linking Open Data task forces and resources too? Try this site full of information.

 

Object Stories: Portland Art Museum

Museums and libraries continue to explore new methods of engaging patrons. The Portland Art Museum's Object Stories project is a fine example.

"The Portland Art Museum offers a unique opportunity to share your story about an object that is meaningful to you. Do you have something you would never give up? Like a favorite childhood toy, a military medal, or a memento? Something that lives on your wall, your mantle, or buried in a corner of your dresser? Something that evokes a time or person in your life, a place you miss, or something you hope for?"

The museum has set up an easy to use interactive booth for recording the stories. Simply bring your object of choice, be prepared to talk about it, and sign a form granting the museum the rights to use your story online, in the museum exhibit and to archive it.

Check out this fascinating collection here. I bet you can't watch just one. Evocative of StoryCorps, this project is sheer genius.

 

 

The Popular Library

Like many librarians, I like to visit exotic libraries when I am travelling to different cities. I am in Portland, Oregon for Memorial Day weekend and happy to report that the Central location of the Multnomah County Library is right around the corner from my hotel.

This library is a stately old structure, well kept, and fittingly restored. The layout incorporates modern elements like the ubiquitous computer terminals in an unobtrusive fashion.

The flow of the library is brilliant. My favorite part was the room to the left of the entrance lobby called the Popular Library. This room housed the reference desk, fiction, myteries, large print, sci fi, DVD's and holds. Everything a patron would want is all in one lovely and intuitively named spot.

The best part was that the library was hopping on a sunny Saturday afternoon. Interestingly enough, so was Powell's Books. I guess books and libraries are not dead yet...

 

5 Things Thursday: Happy Memorial Day Weekend!

Here is a list of five things, four of which have nothing to do with Seth Godin's ideas on the future of libraries:

1. Want to read a fantastic article on institutional repositories and digital preservation?
2. Should robots be lending library books at BART stations in the Bay Area?
3. Do you need a mentor in book form? Read this.
4. Would a wheelbarrow full of cash stop non-librarians from commenting on libraries?
5. Does it seem odd that the Internet Archive is launching a physical archive?

Metadata Monday: Simple Library = Custom Metadata

I just researched and implemented a new circulation system for fifteen cruise ship libraries. The collections consist of approximately 2500-3K books and a couple hundred board games on each ship.

After vetting many programs and finding that most were too complex for our minimalist cataloging needs, I found one that offered great ease in importing Excel files to populate library records and more importantly borrower information. In addition, I was limited by the lack of internet access onboard and needed a dedicated solution on each ship.

Simple Library Organizer by PrimaSoft fit the bill and even better, when I started to ask questions about using custom metadata fields for borrower information like Stateroom Number and Departure Date, PrimaSoft simple added the fields and offered me a fully customized solution. This is one of the only library software products specifically for use on a cruise ship.

The lesson here? Why not ask for what you need? It was a similar experience to using an open source solution and custom coding. Now, I have a product that will work even better than the out of the box solution.

Veer Wins: Clarity on Controlled Vocabulary

I just ran across one of the most succinct and helpful explanations of keywords for stock photography ever written on the Veer site. These guidelines or FAQ's designed for contributing artists, explain in plain English why keywords are important, how a controlled vocabulary is utilized to map terms, and how ambiguity is the enemy (entering the term chick on an image of a hot babe will map to the term for baby chickens).

Vocabulary and visual resources are two of my main areas of interest and I have done a lot of research on the information available for the users and contributors to stock image sites. The Veer site exceeds any of the other materials I have vetted.

Veer is a division of Corbis and certainly has evolved as a brand that lives up to the promise of an uncomplicated user experience. From the site design and organization to the pricing structure, the content is easy to locate and easy to buy with terms that are easy to understand.

5 Things Thursday: Easier, Cooler, Better

Here are 5 things to inspire your inner LIS enthusiast:

1. Have you heard of the company littleBits?
2. Would you like simpler file upload in Google docs?
3. What happens in a world transcending 26 checkouts?
4. Would your ears like to hear the LOC National Jukebox?
5. What are employers looking for these days? SLA has some insight.

Metadata Monday: Two for One Special

I read a really insightful post about the "minimum viable record" recently on The Open Library Blog. In it, George Oates discusses amongst other things the rational order of library metadata and how much description is enough to enable optimal retrieval.

George posts an amazing presentation he gave in February as well as the exciting results of a survey conducted during that presentation. The data collected is not surprising by any means, but reveals the most popular viable fields selected by the audience.

Here are my minimum viable fields:

- Identifier

- Title

- Creator

- Date

- Subject (repeatable)

My bonus field would be Format.

In case you want to marvel about more metadata than you can shake a stick at, check out this super cool metadata visualization. My head spins when I think about how many metadata standards abound.

 

 

Proven Versatility and Spell Check

Lately I have been reviewing some resumes of library professionals and conducting some phone interviews as part of my job. I have been pondering several things about librarian job search techniques as well as job hunting in general. Here are some observations followed by two really relevant blog posts on the subject.

• When you customize a resume, make sure you attach the right one when applying to a position online. I ran across several cover letters and resumes that were obviously created for other positions.
• Spell check. Proofread. Pay attention to grammar.
• Do some research on the company, university or library.
• Don't include information that is not required (transcripts, for instance).
• If you have a wide range of experience, address the skills that most apply to the position at hand in the cover letter.

These may seem obvious, but careful attention to detail is paramount when applying for a position that demands attention to detail.

Here are two great resources on library job searching:

• From Hack Lib School ALCTS Job Search Resources
• From SLA Future Ready Applying for a Library Position

On a similar subject, I have been thinking a lot about librarians that end up in positions drastically different from their concentrations in graduate school - metadata geeks and taxonomy nerds selecting book group titles or aspiring reference librarians behind the scenes in technical services. If nothing else, it seems that librarians lucky enough to find library related work in these challenging times should be able to demonstrate versatility and adaptability in spades when it is finally time to refocus.

5 Things Thursday: Variety Show

Here are five amazing topics for discourse:

1. Would you like to track social media referrals in Google Analytics? Here's how.
2. Is cursive writing dead?
3. Are you ready to explore any library's digital collection reality?
4. Are you an MLIS student in need of a great future ready toolkit?
5. Ready to ponder this statistic-filled Infographic: Anatomy of a Librarian?

 

Bonus: 16 drinks named for authors and their books...

Metadata Monday: Smithsonian Crowdsourcing

Crowdsourcing may seem like a divergence from metadata, however, I recently read an interesting article about the mobile efforts of the Smithsonian and it made me think about how to organize information aggregated from various contributors.

The article contrasts the Smithsonian's historical information collection methods from telegraph to mobile device. "Today, the Smithsonian has even more powerful social media and mobile platforms that enable it to “recruit the world” to help with its important work."

Take the Smithsonian Flickr Commons as an example. The list of tags alone conveys the complexity of digitally displaying and organizing even a small subset of Smithsonian collection holdings. Metadata control is one of the only surefire methods of ensuring findability.

 

Happy Mother's Day from the Duke Digital Collections

The clever curators at the Duke Digital Collections have compiled a humorous look at mothers. Culling from the archives filled with advertising images, Rich Murray fills his blog post with commentary on the somewhat unusual nature of mom imagery used in ads. My favorite is an ad for Postum, a coffee-free beverage designed to prevent anxious ladies from being nervous and irritable.

Perhaps I should drink that by the gallon. Anyway, happy mother's day, moms!

5 Things Thursday: Cinco de Mayo Fiesta

Grab some guacamole and check out cinco LIS things to nibble.

1. Did you know that designers like books? Here is a site that tells you which books designers covet.
2. Would you like to see some awesomely bad school portraits?
3. Want to read some interesting thoughts on the concept of a universal library?
4. Are you interested in deploying a preservation-compliant media asset system?
5. Do you like DOI's in your metadata mix?

 

Bonus: some pretty wallpaper for your iPhone.

 

Metadata Monday: Decibel is Like Magic for Music

Remember liner notes? I really did like reading all about the songs I was listening to and finding out about all the cool musicians on every David Bowie album inspiring me to buy an Adrian Belew album and ultimately learning more about King Crimson.

Nowadays, music is so cold and digital. Then, along comes Decibel who claims to be the answer to music metadata lending context and depth to your modern music experience.

Check out this blog post and video. If this works for music, couldn't it work for everything? It makes my head spin like a record player.