text:
CrossRef: CrossRef Indicators
Updated March 16, 2015
Total no. participating publishers & societies 5945
Total no. voting members 3232
% of non-profit publishers 57%
Total no. participating libraries 1933
No. journals covered 38,288
No. DOIs registered to date 72,733,198
No. DOIs deposited in previous month 469,198
No. DOIs retrieved (matched references) in previous month 39,460,869
DOI resolutions (end-user clicks) in previous month 117,830,222
HangingTogether: Round of 32: Blow-outs, buzzer-beaters, and upsets!
Our opening round of competition featured blow-outs, buzzer-beaters, and upsets! Thirty-two conferences battled in the first round, and only 16 will continue on to the second round.In first round action, the conferences competed on the total number of basketball-related publications* in their collective collections. The Big Ten, Big West, and Northeast conferences cruised to blow-out victories over their opponents, with the Big Ten enjoying the largest margin of victory in the first round. We also had some squeakers! American Athletic and Summit League "beat the buzzer" and scraped into the second round on razor-thin margins of victory – American by 45 publications, and Summit by a mere 20 publications!
We had some bracket-busting upsets in the first round, too! Sure, larger collective collections tend to have more basketball-related publications than smaller collections. But Big South, American Athletic, Conference USA, Summit League, and Ohio Valley all proved that smaller collections can't be overlooked in this tournament – these tenacious collections all scored upset victories over larger collections. We anoint Big South as the official "Cinderella" of the tournament! Big South engineered the biggest first-round upset, claiming victory with a collective collection less than half the size of its opponent's.
WorldCat contains more than 20,000 basketball-related publications – books, movies, periodicals, and more. How many does your favorite conference have in its collective collection? Check the table below for individual conference scores.
By the way, in case you were wondering …… so the tournament mega-collective-collection – the collective collection covering all the tourney participants – includes about 40 percent of the basketball-related publications in WorldCat. These conference collective collections definitely "got game" when it comes to basketball!
Bracket competition participants: if your conference took an early exit from the tournament, all is not lost! Remember, if no one picked the tournament Champion, all entrants will enter a random drawing for the big prize!
The tournament is just heating up! Stay tuned for second round action – results will be posted March 27.
*Number of basketball-related publications determined by identifying all publications in WorldCat with the string "basketball" present in a FAST topical subject heading. Conference totals reflect the number of these publications held by at least one conference member. Data is current as of January 2015.About Brian Lavoie
Brian Lavoie is a Research Scientist in OCLC Research. Brian's research interests include collective collections, the system-wide organization of library resources, and digital preservation.Mail | Web | LinkedIn | More Posts (9)
Access Conference: Technology is great! Except when it isn't…
…which happens to be right now.
We thought we were being smart (read: making our lives easier) by having an automated form for submissions. As some of you know, this wonder form has been rather…temperamental (to say the least). We've also come to realize it's been stealthy stealing submitted proposals from us. And that's just not right.
So we've decided to do away with the form and accept submissions old-school style: via email to firstname.lastname@example.com. Those of you that submitted a proposal that wasn't stolen by a technological foe should have gotten a confirmation email from us that all is well. You can put your feet up and relax, knowing that the form submission gods are smiling down upon you. If you didn't get this confirmation email, please let us know. You may have to re-submit your proposal.
We're sorry. We promise to give you lots of good food in September to atone for our screw up.
Bohyun Kim: Libraries Meet the Second Machine Age
Below is my closing keynote, "Libraries Meet the Second Machine Age" given for the 2015 Library Technology Conference on March 19, 2015 at St. Paul, MN. I want to send big thanks to the conference steering committee who invited me and those who watched and shared my keynote either on-site or online and their thoughts and ideas with me. The topic was a bit unusual for a library conference. So I am particularly grateful for the opportunity I had to talk about this kind of topic with many others. (And imagine the surprise when it was actually well received.) For those interested, the video recording of the keynote is at http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/60105499. The slides are available at http://www.slideshare.net/bohyunkim/libraries-meet-the-second-machine-age.
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Hi everyone, thank you for having me today. I am very excited to be here at LTC with all of you, library technologists. We are passionate about applying technology, so that our library patrons can succeed in their education, their jobs, and their lives.1. What is Technology to Us?
If you would indulge me for a minute, I would like to play this short video. This video shows Tomatan, a wearable robot that sits on your shoulder and feeds you nutritious tomatoes while you are running so that you can defeat fatigue. As you can see from this Japanese invention, technology is evolving in a way that we have not fully anticipated before. What is technology to us today? This article in Harvard Business Review talks about a study of how self-service kiosks at chain restaurants such as Taco Bell or McDonald's change customer behavior. This study found that when people are ordering their food with these self-service kiosks or in-house apps, they tend to spend about 30% more on food than when they order with a human server.2. Today's Libraries as Technology Hubs
Libraries are really shaking off the traditional image as a quiet reading room with stacks of books. More and more media coverage of libraries today focuses on the innovative technology being introduced at libraries for library patrons to utilize and try it out.
Take Google Glass for example. I know it has been phased out by Google for a while now for various reasons. But when it was a coveted cutting-edge technology item, it was libraries that acquired these items and started lending them to library patrons, so that the public can try it out, feel what it is like to wear a pair of Google Glasses, and experience what is like to live in the future. MacPhaidin Library at Stonehill College is one of those libraries that lends Google Glass. Similarly, University of Michigan Library's 3D Lab offers equipment and services for 3d printing, advanced visualization, rapid prototyping, 3d scanning, and motion capture. Chicago public library has the Maker Lab, where library patrons can learn how to design a 3D model and 3D-print the digital models they made at the library. Stacie Library at York University held a Hackfest.
People no longer come to libraries just to borrow books. They come to libraries to rent tools, try and learn new technologies, participate in a hackathon, practice and record a video presentation, hold online conference meetings, and group study in libraries' many technology-enabled spaces such as these equipped with a large LCD screen that can mirror the small computer screen.
And we have taken up all of these new things while continuing the traditional library services, such as bibliographic instruction, reference, cataloging, circulation, serials management, and systems. Many of us also revamped our library websites, OPACs, and other patron-facing online systems, so that our patrons can have excellent user experience. Many of us try to provide uniform and consistent user experience between the library's online and physical space. Due to our strong interests in improving library patrons' user experience, UX has become a common term widely used among librarians nowadays. Considering these, it seems that libraries emerged as a sure winner of the digital revolution. We offer what the public wants the way they want as much as we can.
The mass media sure seem to have noticed it. This article in the Huffington Post, for example, calls libraries 'hubs of technology.' But is there something we are missing in this picture or something we can do better? Libraries advocate technology and innovation. But so do many other institutions. How are libraries different?
Today, I would like to talk about information and libraries in the second machine age. Two things may strike you odd. First, what is the second machine age? Second, why does it matter to information and libraries? I will explain what the second machine age is in a moment. But I want to also tell you that I bring up this concept of the second machine age because I think it provides an important context for the role that information and technology play in our library patrons' daily lives.3. The Second Machine Age and Innovation
What made the second machine age possible was the digital revolution. The digital revolution refers to the shift from analog, mechanical, and electronic technology to digital technology. This began in the late 1950s with the adoption of digital computers and digital records. The World Wide Web started in 1991 and it has been thriving with the exponential growth of computing power as you can see from this graph.
This graph shows how drastically one dollar's worth of computer power grew from 1980 to 2010. In 1980, with one dollar you could get the computing power for doing a billion computations 7-8 times per second. Only after 30 years in 2010, we reached the point where one dollar's worth of computing gets us a billion computations over 100 million times over, during one second. From 7-8 times to one hundred million times, that is indeed an exponential growth.
One of the defining characteristics of the second machine age is smart machines and innovation. So let's take a look at how innovation have changed our lives.
Some innovations are awesome. As many of you would recognize, this is the book bot at NCSU Libraries. No longer do patrons need to browse the stacks to locate the book they want. All they need is to put a request on a computer, and this book bot will retrieve the title for you.
Some innovations are liberating. In 2013, Michael Ebeling set up the first 3D printing lab in South Sudan to manufacture 3d printed prosthetic arms for local children who lost their arms and cannot afford commercial prosthetics. This area had a lot of people who lost their limbs due to the war and the mines left from the war. A 3D printed prosthetic arm costs only about $100 to make. But the cost of a commercial one ranges from $3000 to $30000. The locals learned how to 3d print the parts and assemble them into a prosthetic arm. So this will continue to benefit the people in that area.
Some innovations can change the research practice at an academic field. Since its founding in 2005, Mechanical Turk, a crowd-sourcing task system from Amazon, has become an increasingly popular way for university researchers to recruit subjects for online experiments and surveys. It's cheap, easy to use, has about 500,000 workers. But as these Turkers complete and participate in a dozen or more surveys and experiments everyday for years, they have become professional surveyees and experimentees. Consequently, the responses to research surveys and experiments conducted at the Mechanical Turk have begun to show skewed results.
Some innovations can be simply harmful. As most of you know, Lenovo, the world's largest PC maker was caught having the spyware that is a a huge security risk for users installed on its OS to increase a little bit of their revenue from selling out users' web-browsing patterns.
Some innovations can harbinger a huge change from what we currently consider natural. An example of this is self-driving cars to be programmed and manufactured by technology companies such as Apple and Google, probably in the near future. What would happen to the taxi-industry or the car insurance industry if these self-driving cars become reality?
Some innovations can make us uncomfortable. More and more stores now have self-checkout machines. You have to ring up your own purchases, pay, and bag them yourself. These businesses cut their costs and maximize their profit by transferring the service labor that they used to provide, now to customers. The same has been happening with banks. There are far fewer bank branches now than several years ago and even those that stay open have a drastically smaller number of tellers because banks replaced them with ATMs.
Needless to say, this kind of technology innovation that results in the mass-scale automation has a huge impact on the economy. And we have been living with that impact for quite a while now.4. What Is the Second Machine Age?
Economists Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee at MIT observed the seemingly contradictory phenomenon in the current economy that productivity increases while employment stagnates or decreases. Traditionally, the growing productivity have meant more jobs. For that reason, we often equate economic growth with more employment opportunities. For example, in the first machine age, productivity, employment, and median income all rose in tandem. But in the second machine age, the growth in productivity has been decoupled from jobs and income. As this graph shows, productivity continues to go up as machines replace the human labor, bringing in more efficiency. But this now happens with less employment and wage stagnation instead of more employment opportunities and higher wages.
This is what economists call "the second machine age". And what is driving this new unwelcome trend is the rise of smart machines and their substitution for human labor.
Another economist Tyler Cowen at George Mason University also observed this phenomenon. He predicts that in the future, we will be living in the world where there are only two groups exist, highly-skilled and well-paid elites and the rest. He sees employment and wage polarization in the future due to the displacement effect of computerization. His book title "Average is over" summarizes this view. In this view, store clerks and bank tellers who lost their jobs due to the automated self-check out machines and ATMs were the first signs of this displacement effect of computerization.
So the simple and repetitive manual labor that can be easily automated by machines and even perform better than humans are going away. But the jobs that complement or improve the performance of machines are in high demand. Data scientist is one of such jobs. The digital revolution has enabled us to amass an astronomical amount of data. But in order to make sense of it and find usable patterns there, humans are still needed. Forbes called data scientist 'the hottest jobs in IT.' Harvard Business Review calls data scientist 'the sexiest job of the 21st century.'
If you are familiar with chess, you will know that today's world champions of chess are not chess geniuses but teams of computers and individuals who are good at utilizing these computers to determine the best move at a given point in a chess match. These are called Centaur teams and they are better chess players than humans alone or or machines alone.
The optimal interplay between humans and machines has become the new drive of today's economic growth. Business and industry call for more highly skilled workforce who can work well with smart machines, while eliminating jobs that can be fully automated by machines. This thins out the middle class, diminishes the upward mobility, and increases the overall economic inequality.
A French economist, Thomas Piketty's recent book, Capital, showed, the return on capital is higher than the return on labor. This trend will continue as technology advances. Income from capital, not earnings, predominates now at the top of the income distribution. So if you don't have extra money to invest and can't afford to live on the return of that investment, you have to work and your wage will be less than what you can make out of financial investment.
This is why Paul Krugman says we are entering a new gilded age.
So ok, this is what is happening in our world right now economically. What does that mean to libraries? We can see: (1) There will be a greater room for libraries to grow and contribute towards job-related continuing education and lifelong learning. (2) Libraries will have to play even a greater role in bridging the gap between the haves and the have-nots in terms of making information and technology resources available as widely and evenly as possible.5. Education: Preparing the Future Workforce
It is entirely possible that the current trend of decreasing job opportunities and wages paired with increasing economic growth and productivity may reverse rather than continue. Some think that advances in artificial intelligence and broad technological development may create employment possibilities that we cannot yet begin to imagine.
But whichever way the future goes, one thing is clear. Education will be a key to the growth of employment opportunities and economic growth in the age of smart machines. Humans need to be able to work more efficiently operating or working alongside with machines. And this requires more education.
As we can see from this graph, the years of schooling at age 30 has been increasing steadily since 1875 until now, although the rate of increase slowed quite a bit since the 1950s.
One of the mundane but undeniable goal of education is preparing the future workforce. Higher education in particular is being more and more closely aligned with the needs of today's businesses and industry than ever before.Even just a few decades ago, higher education used to be deemed as a rare opportunity and time to pursue learning for the sake of learning, explore the truth in knowledge. I doubt many college students of today hold this view, however.
Some even goes as far as placing the value of higher education solely in meeting the needs of the labor market. Just about a month ago, the Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker called for a change in the university of Wisconsin's mission statement in his state budget proposal with a $300 million cut . He suggested removing century-old language in the university mission statement such as "search for truth," and "improve the human condition." Instead, he suggested replacing them with "meet the state's workforce needs."
Today's businesses and industry prefer employees who come with the necessary skills that can be immediately put to use at work to those who need to be trained on the job. This is clearly seen in the practice of internships and an increasing number of certificate programs.
This has pushed higher education in the direction of vocationalism, and led some universities to experiment further with competency-based education. The basic idea of competency-based education is to graduate students equipped with proven skills that can be immediately applied at workplaces. This contrasts with the traditional credit-based education where students complete a certain number of credit hours before they graduate. Competency-based education is still new, but three big-ten universities – Michigan, Purdue and the Wisconsin— are already experimenting with this model.
Mitch Daniels, the president of Purdue University said: With its transdisciplinary, competency-based bachelor's degree, "Businesses will not have to guess whether these students really are ready for the market, ready for their business, ready for the world" because the degree will be given for only those with proven competencies.
University of Michigan offers a new master's of health professions education, which is both competency-based and distance-education. The Univ. of Wisconsin System's "Flexible Option" offers five competency-based online credentials, which range from a certificate to bachelor's degrees.
These competency-based education meets the changing needs of today's businesses and industry and can potentially reduce the time and the cost of educational programs by utilizing learning analytics and other educational technology tools to track and measure students' progress and skills obtained. Without these technology tools, competency-based education is not possible. In this new climate of the labor market, learning never really ends because workers are expected to constantly renew their skills. They have no choice but to become self-directed lifelong learners to stay employed.
The closer alignment between education and the labor market even influences the K-12 education. The influence of digital revolution and the idealization of the start-up culture is an important background of the ongoing discussion about whether children should learn how to code (meaning computer program) at school. STEM is being highlighted more than any other subjects these days. Makerspaces and 3d printing are being introduced as early as at the level of elementary schools.6. The Maker Movement as a Game Changer for Creativity and Innovation
We have seen how the changing economic conditions are influencing today's education. As librarians, we all are in the business of education. And the direction of today's education deserves some serious reflection. (A) Where does a library stand when the greatest value of education is primarily found in obtaining successful employment? (B) What is the role of a library when education is reduced to merely equipping students with the skills that will make them hirable?
Of course, I fully expect that many of you would argue that this may be an exaggeration. After all, don't we champion more creativity, innovation, and entrepreneurship than ever before in education and libraries? Don't the maker movement and makerspaces, for example, demonstrate such things as creativity and innovation a great deal?
How about university-industry partnership and even libraries as start-up incubators? After all, many of us read articles and opinion pieces like this that argue for more industry-university partnership in higher ed and libraries as start-up incubators for budding entrepreneurs. Wouldn't it be amazing if every library has a lively makerspace, where all library patrons make things, form a learning community, tap on their imagination and creativity, and plan and start their businesses, which further generate more jobs and bring us out of the economic stagnation?
Probably, it was this idea that the maker movement can revive economy and create more jobs that led the White House to host the first-ever Maker Faire last year. There, President Obama called the US 'the nation of makers.'
I do not deny that there are great benefits in the industry-university partnership. There is also an undeniable positive value in the maker movement and 3d printing. 3D printing democratized manufacturing by allowing individuals without access to huge machines and a factory to design and make things that they want, often at a much lower costs than commercial products.
3D printing can make an ingenious idea into reality such as this 3d printed book for the blind. As we all know, makerspaces and 3d printers can be useful tools in hands-on learning, which can drastically improve students' learning process and outcome.
It is also driving cutting-edge innovation in life sciences. Surgeons can now improve the success rate of a complicated surgery drastically by having a 3d printed parts of a patient's body in advance and plan for individual differences. 3D printing can also be utilized to produce personalized medications for individuals without incurring huge costs as a result. We are also looking at tissue and organ 3d-printing, which will result in revolutionary advances in regenerative medicine.
This is Dr. Hack at University of Maryland, Baltimore, School of Dentistry. He teaches dental students digital dentistry. Digital dentistry means dentistry that uses new digital tools to improve the traditional dental treatment process. As you can see here, digital dentistry makes it possible to scan a patient's tooth, create a digital scan of a crown, and then make the crown on the spot with a milling machine – similar to a 3d printer. Patients don't have to hold the clay-like material in their mouth to create a mold and have a temporary filling done while waiting for the permanent crown is made. Digital dentistry drastically cuts down the time that a patient has to wait until the artificial tooth is made. In the past, this took 2-3 weeks. Digital dentistry enables dentists to complete the same process in only an hour or two.7. What We Often Fail to See in the Mainstream Maker Movement
But there is another aspect to the maker movement and 3D printing that are rarely discussed and talked about. The maker movement was able to go mainstream in such a short time because it promises to deliver exactly what today's businesses and industry need, the adaptable workforce. As a matter of fact, I think that the current maker culture represents the combination of neo-liberalism, techno-utopianism, the demand of the labor market for the adaptable workforce as the main background. Let me explain.
Thank about it. The kind of people who can spend hours and hours of their free time learning and doing 3d modeling and printing have certain advantages that a lot of people don't. First, they have access to such technology. Second, they can afford investing their free time and money in learning such stuff. Third, they are already knowledgeable and tech-savvy enough to navigate this new technology scene and use it to their advantage.
But the current maker culture conveniently ignores all these differences that pre-exist between those makers and the rest. Instead, it simply depicts makers as the heroes of the ultimate freedom. Makers make things with their own hands, unlike the majority of those who simply consume things that are made by others. Makers are tech-savvy. And with their creativity and technical knowledge, they will not only innovate businesses, create more jobs, but also usher in more open and transparent society and culture for all of us to benefit. This is the promise of the idealized maker movement.
How wonderful would that be? Now we can all 3D-print our way to prosperity freedom. Only if it were so simple.
What is often overlooked, however, is that the current idealization of the maker culture unduly emphasizes individuals over systems & misplaces freedom where regulations are needed. It unfairly treats work as a hobby without pay, and spreads the unsustainable and unfair expectation that people should develop their skills constantly at their leisure outside of work.
This is neo-liberalism that ignores the issues of systematic inequality and reduces it to the matter of individual effort. The belief that technology can build a culture that is more transparent and open is techno-utopianism that tries to solve sociopolitical problems with technology alone. Instead, all we hear about the maker culture is how productive and innovative makers are. They are the future of the new "infinitely adaptable and flexible" workforce that the labor market is looking for.8. Productivity Culture & Freedom to Self-Exploit
The most defining characteristics of our era are productivity and efficiency. These two have become a mantra in every realm of our life – corporate, public, labor, administrative, and education.And what accompanies productivity and efficiency is positivity and affirmation. We not only work harder to produce more and to be more efficient. We also do so with the can-do attitude, constantly 'choosing' to put more efforts towards work 'with our own will.' The current maker culture embodies all of these. We are all familiar with the statement that we are the managers of ourselves. Here, if we fail, all the faults lie with us, us alone.
Even those who write books are now expected to be more like entrepreneurs than writers. This Economist article describes how authors must be more businesslike than ever to succeed these days. Just writing well is not good enough any more.
But in the midst of all these frenzied pursuits for productivity and efficiency in new capitalism and its hyper-competition environment, people experience burnout and depression. Even though we long for the work-life balance, many of us take work to home and tie ourselves to our smartphones. We end up answering work e-mails around the clock no matter what our salaried work hours are. We and our society together even made business and exhaustion a kind of status symbol, an evidence of self-importance. Take a look at this presentation title in this year's Code4Lib Conference "How to Hack it as a Working Parent: or, Should Your Face be Bathed in the Blue Glow of a Phone at 2 AM?." This testifies to this struggle that all of us experiences.
What is interesting about our society is that we have such a strong belief that we are all 'free' agents in all aspects of our lives, that in order to make a better life, we exploit ourselves to an unprecedented degree. The harder it is to find traditional employment, the more tech-savvy, the more creative, the more productive, and the more innovative we have to become. And while doing so, we forget that we are also shaped and limited by something much bigger than us and that we do not always have control over.
Short of income? Why don't we share our rides in Uber and share our guest bedroom through Airbnb while starting a new business at a garage? Here is our opportunity to participate in the global community of sharers and to contribute to the budding alternative sharing economy.
But the truth is that these new start-up businesses like Uber and Airbnb are operating in the realm where appropriate regulations and taxes are absent while unfairly competing with the existing taxi and hotel businesses. This is how a 26-year-old got the Uber bill of $362.57 for a 20 min. ride on the Halloween night after celebrating her birthday with friends. She couldn't pay her rent after this bill. In Barcelona, Airbnb and Uber are in the middle of a controversy.
As German Philosopher Byyngchul Han wrote in his essay published in Süddeutsche Zeitung, "Anyone without money doesn't have access to sharing. Even in the age of access, people without money remain shut out. Airbnb, the community marketplace that turns homes into hotels, even saves on hospitality. The ideology of community or collaborative commons leads to total capitalization of the community. Aimless friendship is no longer possible. In a society of reciprocal evaluation, friendliness is also commercialized. One is friendly to get a better ranking online. The harsh logic of capitalism prevails in the so-called sharing economy, where, paradoxically, nobody is actually giving anything away voluntarily." (English translation from German)
And on the other hand, if you are a Uber driver, you don't have any protection and labor rights that drivers from usual taxi companies may have. Because you are now an entrepreneur responsible for everything except paying the premium for using the Uber service to get your customers. You are free to boost your productivity and your efficiency. But you are all alone when the social safety net is needed.9. The Limits of Personal Donations
I do not deny that technology achieves wonderful things. I sound like a cynic but I am not.
When the news of a Detroit man who walks 21 miles everyday to work was reported, donations poured in reaching at almost $350,000. The Humans of New York photographer who posts people's photographs with their stories on Facebook raised over $1 million dollars for inner-city students.These would not have been possible without technological advances such as crowd-sourcing online platforms such as GoFundMe.
But these are non-systematic solutions to systematic and structural problems. What bothers me most is that there are more than one person who needs the mass transportation to get to work because they cannot afford a car, maintenance, and required insurance. There are more than one school that needs funding to provide better opportunities for children to experience the world outside of their small neighborhood. It's not possible for us to organize fund-raising for each and every one of them. We need to build a system in which everyone can live a better life instead of rescuing a few selected individuals in a desperate need appealing to individuals' good will and personal donations.
While crowd-sourced fund-raising such as these were well-meant by all means, it is an unsustainable solution to a systematic problem whose solutions should not be found in individual donations. Such solution can lead to avoiding more fundamental questions, such as why the established political, economic and legal systems resulted in the lack of mass transportation that people need to get to their workplaces in the first place, and how we can address those issues systematically.10. The Role of Libraries is Never Apolitical.
Just like those crowd-sourced fundraising campaigns, as an educational institution, the role of libraries is never apolitical. The more prevalent and powerful an ideology is, the harder it is to discern and critique its influence on us. Whether we like it or not, schools, colleges, and libraries will continue to operate as an an agency to make students and patrons more hirable by improving their skills and providing more information, more resources, and more exposure to technology. The relationship of economic exchange in education – that is, students as clients and knowledge/skills as commodities – will continue and accelerate.
Cathy Eisenhower and Dolce Smith wrote in their book chapter "The Library as Stuck Place: Critical Pedagogy in the Corporate University," the following: "In the current climate of accountability and austerity, libraries have become veritably "obsess[ed] with quantitative assessment, student satisfaction, outcomes, and consumerist attitudes towards learning.""
We can understand how we got there. But that does not mean that we need to stay there. We do not want knowledge to be treated as mere commodities. We do not want learning to be reduced to mere transactions that will build up to just enough competencies to make our patrons hirable. For that, we need to first and foremost understand that the role of libraries is never apolitical.11. Libraries as a Socially Meaningful and Responsible Public Institution
Libraries need to find ways to establish their stance as a socially meaningful and responsible public institution and reflect that in the ways they operate. We should be able to serve library patrons with the full understanding of the current socioeconomic and political conditions that shape libraries and their fiscal realities. After all, ideologies are human constructs. They can be changed, but only when we understand them. This is why libraries value knowledge and understanding.
One of the founding theorists of critical pedagogy, Henri Giroux said "… one of the fundamental tasks of educators is to make sure that the future points the way to a more socially just world, a world in which critique and possibility —in conjunction with the values of reason, freedom, and equality— function to alter the grounds upon which life is lived."
We celebrate and advocate creativity and innovation not just for more productivity and economic growth. The goal of productivity and growth cannot be more productivity and growth. Productivity and growth do not have an inherent value. The fact that we find this hard to accept testifies how steeped we are in the productivity culture.
As library technologists, we should ensure that our application of technology works towards altering the grounds upon which life is lived 'for the better,' not worse. As library technologists, we need to pay particularly close attention to the way technologies are meshed with ideology and what effect it has on the library's mission and our patron's lives. Technology is a powerful tool for boosting productivity and enabling innovation. But it loses its value when such productivity and innovation is pursued blindly.12. Challenges for Libraries
There are challenges in re-establishing libraries as a more socially responsible and meaningful institution, however. In her blog post in Inside Higher Ed, Barbara Fister wrote "Surveys that Ithaka conducts periodically of faculty and of library directors show a growing gap in our beliefs about what libraries are for. Increasingly, library directors (with the exception of those at research libraries) assign more importance to the learning that happens in libraries and less to maintaining collections. (On the other hand) Faculty surveyed think the most important role of the library is the provision of the information they want for their research and teaching."
Fister perceptibly notes that the new ACRL Framework for Information Literacy articulates how ambitious librarians are about the kind of learning that academic librarians want to promote. This framework indeed intends to teach students how to think about information and help them understand that information and knowledge are socially constructed. Here what librarians set out to achieve in educating our library patrons, so that they can effectively and consciously navigate today's complex information landscape, goes beyond the traditional expectation of our library stakeholders.
(As a side note, it would be worthwhile to think about how this ACRL framework for information literacy translates to the realm of technology. Just as with information, understanding the social context and effects of the technology adoption and use becomes more and more critical as technology pervades our daily lives.)
I believe that the changing focus of libraries from collections to learning, particularly 'critical learning,' is the right one. I also believe that librarians have been successfully developing more innovative ways to make that learning happen in a more relevant and exciting manner to patrons.
Here, for example, librarians at Mount Holyoke College Library in MA and Whittier College Library in CA organized Exciting Food workshop. This workshop was designed to familiarize students with various citation styles. Librarians showcased the citations of the recipes for each snack and the recipes came from a range of sources from books, websites, magazines to archival materials.
The Toronto Public Library now let library patrons to check out other humans at its "Human Library" event. The idea of the Human Library first emerged about a decade ago. It was designed to promote dialogue, reduce prejudices and encourage understanding by informally talking to "people on loan" who come from various backgrounds. The Toronto Public Library held its first Human Library event at five branches on Nov. 6, attracting more than 200 users who checked out the likes of a police officer, a comedian, a sex-worker-turned-club-owner, a model and a survivor of cancer, homelessness, and poverty.
The Human Library project suggests a way in which libraries that primarily deal with knowledge and information can at the same time operate as a more socially responsible and meaningful institution in the community, not just providing the best value for money for borrowed books, other resources, and library services. In this climate of the commodification of education and the constant demand on libraries to prove its ROI value, it will be a long way to hash out the details of the library operation that will achieve such a goal – going beyond equipping patrons with desired job skills and providing just necessary information resources.
But here are some pointers that libraries can take from other fields.13. Ideas from Fields Outside of Libraries
Design and Violence is a project by the Museum of Modern Art in NYC. It curates and presents selected design objects and invite experts from fields as diverse as science, philosophy, literature, music, film, journalism, and politics to respond to those design objects and spark a conversation with all readers.
Here is an example post by Steve Pinker, Harvard College professor and a well known psychologist. He writes about a million dollar block. A million dollar block refers to a single city block, residents from which are incarcerated and states are spending in excess of a million dollars a year to keep them in jail. 1 million dollars just for the residents of a single city block because the concentration of the incarcerated in those blocks are that high. These maps of those "million dollar blocks" show the city-prison-city-prison migration flow in five of the nation's cities.
In a different post, Alex Vitale, a Brooklyn College professor, discusses a civil disobedience suit designed to be worn by street protesters equipped with a wireless camera on the head and a speaker on the chest to protect them from police batons. Not necessarily practical but quite symbolic.
Here, the National Aquarium and Climate Central in Baltimore invite Maryland middle and high school students to participate in a contest that examines the impacts of climate change.
Biohackers are developing low-cost and non-toxic ink from bacteria as an alternative to toxic and costly commercial ink. Boihackers are known for seeking solutions to significant problems, which are not addressed by big pharmaceutical or biotechnology companies because they are not sufficiently profitable.
"Be My Eyes" App invites sighted people to sign up to help the blind to be their eyes in the time of need. You can help the blind through this mobile app with things such as if a blind person turned off the bathroom light indeed or if she or he is safe to cross the busy intersection when the traffic lights are broken.
When libraries consider in which direction they will pursue their next exciting project, remembering that libraries can act as a more socially responsible and meaningful institution than now as well as an information & knowledge sharing institution – while pursuing that project- can make a big difference.
We live in an increasingly racially segregated residential communities. This article in VOX shows that residential segregation rose dramatically throughout the US over the first half of the 20th century. This graph demonstrates this dramatic rise of county-level segregation in 1880 and 1940 for the Eastern US. All areas of the US experienced rising residential segregation levels, both North and South as well as urban and rural.
We also increasingly live a filter bubble which makes us blind to the perspectives and opinions different from ours. This is the result of personalized relevance rankings by search engine companies like Google and Yahoo. This is shown when we search for BP, for example, one of us gets the news results about BP's oil spills while the other only gets the BP's stock prices and the company information.
We also live in the times in which more and more micro-power structures are being openly questioned. Many of you would have seen this Rumblr titled "Men taking up too much space on the train" and thought "wow finally people are speaking up." Similarly "mansplanation" has become a legitimate word that refers to the phenomenon in which men assume they know more when they are talking to women when they actually don't. These are not new phenomena. These have been happening for decades. But we have been silent about them for many many years. Same-sex marriage is legal now in 37 states. Sexists remarks are no longer tolerated in professional conferences. A racist tweet can literally cost someone a job just in a flight's time. As shown in the Ferguson story, current news reach us days earlier through the social media than through the mass media. As you can see here, the Ferguson story started appearing in Twitter on Saturday Aug 9, 2014 while the cable news networks didn't get the first report out until Monday Aug 11,2014.
Libraries can play a pivotal role in educating people in areas that are neglected by other institutions such as filter bubble, residential segregation, assistive technologies, the awareness of environmental issues, and socioeconomic/ political problems in communities.
I believe that libraries can be a little bit like the Left Shark that did its own thing and was widely appreciated and adored.
In the beginning of this keynote I asked "many institutions advocate technology and innovation; how are libraries different?" This is our time to answer that question.14. Librarianship Is All about Money and Power.
Lastly, I want to read you this anecdote from a wonderful article I recently read. This anecdote is about a librarian.
"One of my colleges is a quiet, diminutive lady, who might call up the notion of Marion the Librarian. When she meets people at parties and identifies herself, they sometimes say condescendingly, "A librarian, how nice. Tell me, what is it like to be a librarian?" She replies, "Essentially it is all about money and power."
Where else other than at libraries, shall we find the critical distance for reflecting on today's constant push for productivity and efficiency?
(This was written to be more as my notes, and so it is not the exact script of my talk. But hopefully, it would be still useful to some folks. All the references in my slides were given as URLs in each slide, and you can grab them all easily in the "Transcripts" section on my slides in Slideshare.net.)
Video Recording
Access Conference: CFP Deadline is Extended
Well, we didn't want to ruin your Friday by making you sweat about putting together your last-minute Access proposal. So we've decided to extend the deadline by one week! That way we can make you sweat next Friday instead (when you're still putting things together last minute style)!
Anyway, make sure you submit your proposals by 11:59 pm on Friday, March 27th, 2015 by submitting your brilliance to email@example.com. We had a fancy form, but it broke. In your email, please let us know:
- Your name
- Your email address
- The format of your proposed session
- The content of your proposed session (1-2 paragraphs)
- If you've presented at Access before
- And if your proposal is not accepted in its proposed format, if you would be willing to present in an alternate format
Also, we will have diversity scholarships available to assist those from traditionally underrepresented and/or marginalized communities with registration and travel costs. We want to help you attend, so please submit!
Open Knowledge Foundation: Presenting public finance just got easier
This blog post is cross-posted from the CKAN blog.
CKAN 2.3 is out! The world-famous data handling software suite which powers data.gov, data.gov.uk and numerous other open data portals across the world has been significantly upgraded. How can this version open up new opportunities for existing and coming deployments? Read on.
One of the new features of this release is the ability to create extensions that get called before and after a new file is uploaded, updated, or deleted on a CKAN instance.
This may not sound like a major improvement but it creates a lot of new opportunities. Now it's possible to analyse the files (which are called resources in CKAN) and take them to new uses based on that analysis. To showcase how this works, Open Knowledge in collaboration with the Mexican government, the World Bank (via Partnership for Open Data), and the OpenSpending project have created a new CKAN extension which uses this new feature.
It's actually two extensions. One, called ckanext-budgets listens for creation and updates of resources (i.e. files) in CKAN and when that happens the extension analyses the resource to see if it conforms to the data file part of the Budget Data Package specification. The budget data package specification is a relatively new specification for budget publications, designed for comparability, flexibility, and simplicity. It's similar to data packages in that it provides metadata around simple tabular files, like a csv file. If the csv file (a resource in CKAN) conforms to the specification (i.e. the columns have the correct titles), then the extension automatically creates the Budget Data Package metadata based on the CKAN resource data and makes the complete Budget Data Package available.
It might sound very technical, but it really is very simple. You add or update a csv file resource in CKAN and it automatically checks if it contains budget data in order to publish it on a standardised form. In other words, CKAN can now automatically produce standardised budget resources which make integration with other systems a lot easier.
The second extension, called ckanext-openspending, shows how easy such an integration around standardised data is. The extension takes the published Budget Data Packages and automatically sends it to OpenSpending. From there OpenSpending does its own thing, analyses the data, aggregates it and makes it very easy to use for those who use OpenSpending's visualisation library.
So thanks to a perhaps seemingly insignificant extension feature in CKAN 2.3, getting beautiful and understandable visualisations of budget spreadsheets is now only an upload to a CKAN instance away (and can only get easier as the two extensions improve).
To learn even more, see this report about the CKAN and OpenSpending integration efforts.
Open Knowledge Foundation: Open Data Day report #3: Data Fiesta in Latin America and the Caribbean
(This post was co-written by Open Knowledge and Fabrizio Scrollini from ILDA)
In our follow-up series about Open Data Day 2015, which took place on February 21 across the world, we will now highlight some of the great events that took place across the Latin America and the Caribbean. See our previous post about Asia-Pacific and Europe.
The Americas saw a lot of activity during this Open Data Day. Events, hackathons, formal and informal discussions were some of the activities in which the continent engaged through the day. There is an emerging movement with different levels of experience, maturity and resources but with lots of enthusiasm and great perspectives for the future.Argentina
The Argentine Open Data Community came together to participate in a full day of activities in Buenos Aires, organized by Open Knowledge embassador, Yamila Garcia. Different members of the community presented their experience in lighting talks that took place throughout the day. Presenters shared experiences about their work in the federal government, Buenos Aires municipality, media, hacking space and advocacy. In a different room, round tables were set up in order to deliberate and plan on the future of open data in Argentina. Subjects like Innovation and the upcoming elections. Hopefully, Ideas will be taken forward and will help to shape the eco-system of Open Data in Argentina. Read more about the event here.Brazil
Brazil held 6 events in 6 different cities this Open Data Day. In the small Sao Carlos, there was a roundtable discussion about open data policies. The group tried to convince local authorities about the importance of having open data policies that can help build a more transparent and open political process. In Teresina, the local group took a more hands on approach. The local hacker club organised hackathon and all the outcomes were shared under open knowledge licence. San Paulo was also in a coding mood and orginized a hackathon with the LabHacker, PoliGNU, Thacker and Comptroller General of São Paulo (SP-CGM) to promote the use of dataset and the creation of new apps in the fields of Water, Health and transport (See summary of the event here).
Read more about ODD 2015 in Brazil on the Open Knowledge Brasil blog.Chile
In Chile, Fundación Ciudadano Inteligente took a different approach and moved open data from the virtual space to the streets. As Felipe Alvarez mentions in his blog post, members of Ciudadano Inteligente got out of the office in Santiago and went to meet the citizens in Valparaíso, the second biggest city in Chile. Their objective was simple – to engage with citizens and to know what data they would like to see open. Some interesting topics came up such as expenditure on conservation efforts and local festivals as well as civil rights issues. In addition, the guys invited participants to join AbreLATAM, the regional un-conference that will take place this year in Santiago, Chile.Uruguay
The Uruguayan community was busy around a cup of fresh coffee plotting on how to use local government data to visualize women's right issues. For four hours engineers, designers, communication people and policy wonks tried some ideas and look for available open data on this topic. With geographical data available and wikipedia, the team took on the task to visualize streets that are named after notable women in Montevideo. The results were a bit discouraging but expected: only 100 out of 5000 streets in Montevideo are named after women. This result catalysed a small community that worked for two weeks on developing this interactive website that acknowledges and explain the role that these women played in Uruguayan history. No doubt, this was a very productive open data day for this country!Paraguay
Paraguayans did not have enough with one day so they had a whole week for open data activities! Groups like TEDIC took the streets hand in hand with government officials to paint murals with data. Also the government launched the national open data portal among other initiatives that are fostering the nascent open data scene in ParaguayCosta Rica
In central America "Ticos" are building their open data community. Abriendo Datos Costa Rica is a nascent initiative which co-organised the Costa Rica open data day reaching out to other civil society stakeholders. The event had a wide variety of participants and topics focusing mostly on what data relevant to society should the government open next. Hopefully, open data day is just the beginning for more activities in the country. You can see some of their pics here.El Salvador
In El Salvador a group of civil society organised a roundtable to discuss uses of open data in journalism. Taking a deep look into journalistics practices in El Salvador and Costa Rica the group discussed how to use open data in their day to day assignments. El Salvador has one of the few open data portals that is run by civil society in the region.Peru
Peru saw an epic event organised by the Community Open Data Peru in Lima, where local specialists share knowledge and developed projects together during the whole day. The event galvanised the local open data community which is now spreading through other communities in Peru. Peruvians are very keen to work in several projects and this event may be big stepping stone for a more sustainable and diverse open data community in Peru.
In Guatemala Accion Ciudadana organised a day based on exploring the community need and their understanding of open data. Participants identified how open data could help their community in daily and strategic issues. The event showed the different levels of understanding participants had about open data. Social Tic Executive Director Juan Manuel Casanueva delivered a training based on community's perceptions of Open Data. This was one of the first activities in Guatemala about open data and probably one of the many to come!Mexico
As usual, the Mexican community know how to party with data. In Mexico city, hundred people came to celebrate open data accompanied by Parilla and beer. Participants could choose to go to one of the four workshops that were offered, participate in a hackathon for sustainability or to discover new findings in a data expedition. In addition, a conversation around the state of openness in Mexico developed after the presentation of the the Mexican local and global index results and participant raised ideas for how to grow the local community.Panama
In Panama IPANDETEC, organized an awesome day which involved a hackathon, documentary screenings, conferences and workshops. The event was set up in collaboration by the chapters in Panama Floss, Wikimedia, Mozilla, Fedora and Creative Commons, as well as IPANDETEC.
In Medellin Fundación Gobierno Abierto invited school of data fellows to deliver trainings about scraping data. Furthermore the community also spent time to reflect on the regional and local science of open data, as well as get into developing ideas for further action, advocating for open data all across Colombia, both nationally and locally.Jamaica In the Caribbean a great event took place at the Mona School of Business and Management (MSBM) and organized by the Open Caribbean Institute. The day kicked off by Dr. Maurice McNaughton, who delivered a 1 hour workshop data visualization based on online resources from School of Data. Then, fuelled by Coffee and Pizza, the students divided into three team where they started to develop data visualizations in three fields – the 2015-2016 Budget, High school track and field data and Development Alert!, an online tool for increasing transparency and public engagement on projects that impact the environment and public health. One on the visualizations, a dashboard for field and track data is now available online here. Over all, it seems like a great start to many more Open Data Day in the Caribbeans! Summary
All in all the region is showing a vibrant community evolving, showing different degrees of resources and levels of understanding of open data. This is then complex but also presents an opportunity to engage and support more groups here. We could not support as many as we wanted to but this ODDay shows that open data in the Americas is here to stay. Check out some more detailed reports in Spanish on the open data day activities on the Yo Gobierno website (see also here), in this blog post from DAL and this one from BID.
13 mini Grants were given to organisers in the region, as part of the Open Data Day microgrant partnership thanks to ILDA, the Caribbean Open Institute and The Partnership of Open Data. See you next year with even more exciting events and news!
District Dispatch: Time is running out for LSTA and IAL – act now!
Millions in federal funding for libraries is currently hanging in the balance. In order to saving library funding from the chopping block – particularly the Library Services Technology Act (LSTA) and Innovative Approaches to Literacy (IAL) programs —library supporters need to contact offices of their Representative and Senator and ask them to show support for continued library funding by signing "Dear Appropriator" letters about LSTA and IAL that three Members of Congress who are huge library champions have drafted to the Appropriations Committees in the House and Senate. The more Members of Congress that we can get to sign these "Dear Appropriator" letters, the better the chance of preserving and securing real money for libraries so that libraries can continue to do all the great work they do in their communities. The only way we can achieve this is through grassroots efforts. Members of Congress need to hear from as many voters as we can rally to action.
Please email or phone your members of Congress and ask them to sign the Dear Appropriator letter supporting LSTA and IAL, then ask all other library supporters you know to do the same by no later than March 20th. Contact info is available on our action center (just put in your zip code in the box on the lower right side).
To see whether your Members of Congress signed the letters last year, view the FY 2015 Funding Letter Signees document (pdf). If so, please be sure to thank and remind them of that when you email or call! More information can be found on this earlier post.
Please take a few minutes and contact your Members of Congress. You can find their contact information and talking points at our action center.
- LSTA Letter – The Library Services and Technology Act is the primary source of federal funding for libraries in the federal budget. The bulk of the program is a population-based grant funded to each state through the Institute of Museum and Library Services.
- House LSTA Letter Contact: Rep. Raul Grijalva – Norma Salazar-Ibarra (firstname.lastname@example.com; 202-225-2435)
- Senate LSTA Letter Contact: Sen. Jack Reed – Elyse Wasch (firstname.lastname@example.com; 202-224-4642), or Sen. Susan Collins – Cameron O'Brien (firstname.lastname@example.com)
- IAL Letter – The Innovative Approaches to Literacy ensures children and schools in underserved communities have access to books and other reading material and services. Through IAL programs, children are better prepared to succeed in high school, college, and in 21st century jobs.
- House IAL Letter Contact: Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson – Don Andres (email@example.com; 202-225-8885)
- Senate IAL Letter Contacts: Sen. Jack Reed – Moira Lenehan-Razzuri (firstname.lastname@example.com; 202-224-4642), or Sen. Charles Grassley – James Rice (firstname.lastname@example.com)
The post Time is running out for LSTA and IAL – act now! appeared first on District Dispatch.
DuraSpace News: DSpaceDirect Information Sessions in 2015
The DSpaceDirect Information Session series will kick-off in 2015 on Wednesday, March 25th! Registration is free and is open to the public.
Open Knowledge Foundation: We're Hiring at Open Knowledge: Project Managers, Developers and Data Wranglers
Open Knowledge are delighted to advertise several new open positions:
- Project Manager – Open Data
- Python Developer
- Frontend Developer
- Data Wrangler
A brief summary on each post can be found below. Full details and application forms can be found on http://okfn.org/about/jobs/.Project Manager – Open Data
We are looking for a professional and dynamic hands-on project manager to manage a portfolio of projects at Open Knowledge – an international, world-leading non-profit working on open data. The project management style will need to fit within our creative and innovative atmosphere, and should help us retain organisational flexibility and agility.
The projects requiring management will vary, but in general will range from £25k/several months/1-2 team members, to £500k+/several years/4-6 team members. Some projects will involve substantial software design and delivery and require good technical understanding and the ability to manage a technology delivery project. In general the project teams are made up of specialists who have a good sense of the area of work and may be able to be the public face of the project; the key role of the project manager is to ensure planning, delivery, tracking and reporting occurs reliably and to a good standard.
Open Knowledge's partners and clients include national government bodies, NGOs, and organisations such as the World Bank. Projects funded by grants are delivered for philanthropic foundations, the European Commission (eg. through the FP7/H2020 programme) and others.
Working in the fast-growing area of open data, we build open source tools to drive transparency, accountability and data-driven insight. Our flagship product CKAN runs official national data portals from the UK to Brazil, US to Australia and hundreds more around the world. We also build a variety of other open source software to help people access information and turn data into insight.
We're looking for a python developer to join our team who is smart, quick-to-learn and interested in contributing to a fast-growing and exciting area. You can be based anywhere – we operate as a virtual, online team – and can offer a flexible working structure – we care about delivery, not being 9-5 at your desk!
Work on cutting edge data-driven, high impact open knowledge projects with a world-leading non-profit in areas ranging from government finances to health-care.
We are looking for someone with good experience in "small-to-medium" data wrangling (e.g. you've been scraping in python for a while, have a deep love for CSV … ). You must be a self-starter, capable of working remotely and taking initiative as well as working effectively in a team with others.
We are looking for talented front-end developers to work with us on an ongoing, freelance basis on a variety of open-source data-driven projects ranging from healthcare to illegal logging.
Nicole Engard: Bookmarks for March 19, 2015
Today I found the following resources and bookmarked them on Delicious.
- Calaos Open Source Home Automation
Digest powered by RSS Digest
The post Bookmarks for March 19, 2015 appeared first on What I Learned Today....
Related posts:
SearchHub: Lucidworks Fusion 1.3 Now Available
- Salesforce.com: Any Salesforce.com object, including Accounts, Cases and Case Notes, Activities and Activity History, Opportunities, Leads, and Contacts
- Drupal: Site and site content
- GitHub: repositories and commits
- Natural language processing stages, including:
- Sentence detection and splitting
- Part-of-speech tagging
- Structured document parsing stages, including:
- JSON Change to the Tika stage for CSV and JSON parsing
- Pre-built Index-time and query-time stages for aggregating Events and Signals
- A query stage for applying processed and aggregated Signals to improve results
- Short-Term Support (STS) releases are for teams willing to update more frequently to receive the newest features as they become available. STS releases receive support and maintenance updates until the next release is available. Fusion 1.3 is an STS release.
- Long-Term Support (LTS) releases are intended for teams that need more time to plan updates across their infrastructure and don't need immediate access to new features as they become available. LTS releases receive support and critical maintenance updates for at least 18 months after the release date. Our previous release, Fusion 1.2, is an LTS release.
The post Lucidworks Fusion 1.3 Now Available appeared first on Lucidworks.
OCLC Dev Network: Web Services Maintenance March 22
All OCLC Web services that use WSKey authentication will be unavailable for systems maintenance to the WSKey infrastructure for an estimated 45 minutes beginning at 2:00 AM Eastern Daylight Time (EDT) USA, Sunday March 22nd.
District Dispatch: What to expect: photos of National Library Legislative Day 2014
In a few weeks, library advocates from all over the country will travel to Washington, D.C. to meet with their members of Congress to champion library issues. Registration for the event, National Library Legislative Day (NLLD), is currently open. To help first-time attendees prepare for the annual advocacy day, we created a photo essay using photos from past NLLD events (photos via flickr).
Participants in National Library Legislative Day spend their first day in the District receiving training and briefings in preparation for their meetings with their members of Congress the following day.
Awards, like the White House Conference on Library and Information Services Taskforce Award (WHCLIST), are presented. The WHCLIST award is presented to a first-time, non-librarian advocate.
After the briefing, attendees are invited to a reception at the Capitol Building.
On day two, advocates are sent to the congressional buildings with their delegations. They are given one pagers and materials they can leave behind with the Members of Congress and their staff after their meetings conclude.
This year, National Library Legislative Day will be held May 4-5, 2015. Additional questions regarding the event can be directed to Lisa Lindle.
The post What to expect: photos of National Library Legislative Day 2014 appeared first on District Dispatch.
DPLA: Announcing the 2015 DPLA + DLF Cross-Pollinators
We are pleased to announce the recipients of the 2015 DPLA + DLF Cross-Pollinator Travel Grants. The DPLA + DLF Cross-Pollinator Travel Grants is the first of a series of collaborations between CLIR/DLF and the Digital Public Library of America. It is our belief that the key to sustainability of large-scale national efforts require robust community support. Connecting DPLA's work to the energetic and talented DLF community is a positive way to increase serendipitous collaboration around this shared digital platform.
The goal of the DPLA + DLF Travel Grants is to bring cross-pollinators—active DLF community contributors who can provide unique perspectives and share the vision of DPLA from their perspective—to the conference. The travel grants include DPLAfest 2015 conference registration, travel costs, meals, and lodging in Indianapolis.
Meet the 2015 DPLA + DLF Cross-Pollinators
Benjamin Armintor
Programmer/Analyst, Columbia University Libraries
I have a tendency to get mixed up in a lot of projects, which makes a multilayered, open-source effort like DPLA a natural area of interest. I'm excited to hear about what people are doing with open data GLAM platforms like DPLA. I hope to find some like-minded folks in Indianapolis who would be willing to hack on a DPLA/Blacklight project.
Sabra Statham, Ph.D.
Project Coordinator: The People's Contest
Office of Scholarly Communications, Penn State University
I am a scholar of American Music and have been involved in digitization outreach activities in small local archives in Pennsylvania for the past five years. I am looking forward to hearing more about New Service Hub Initiative.
Laura Wrubel
E-Resources Content Manager, The George Washington University
As a librarian managing e-resources, I'm involved in the interesting and challenging work of improving discovery, search, and access to a wide range of web resources and data. Recently, I've been experimenting with the DPLA API as part of a research leave project to build up my coding skills and understand how DPLA's resources might be explored alongside other digital collections. I'm looking forward to participating in DPLAfest and joining others to find new ways to connect researchers and students with DPLA's growing database and platform.
Scott W. H. Young
Digital Initiatives Librarian, Montana State University Library
I design and develop the web from a user experience perspective. At Montana State University Library, I am a member of the Informatics & Computing Department and lead UX research and web analytics reporting. My work focuses on front-end web design, digital library development, information architecture, search engine optimization, and social media community building.
LITA: Jobs in Information Technology: March 19
Collection Access & Support Services Librarian, Pennsylvania State University Libraries, Hershey Campus, Hershey, PA
Collection Assessment Librarian, Rice University, Fondren Library, Houston, TX
Digital Studio Technology Specialist, New York University, New York, NY
Online Learning Librarian, Northeastern University Libraries, Boston, MA
Technology Director, Oregon Health & Science University Library, Portland ,OR
Web Services Senior Developer, New York University, Division of Libraries, New York, NY
Special Collections and Digital Curation Librarian, California State University, Pomona (Cal Poly Pomona), Pomona, CA
Visit the LITA Job Site for more available jobs and for information on submitting a job posting.
LITA: Further Thoughts On Tech Roles + Librarianship
Given the overwhelming response to Bryan's post, "What is a Librarian?" and Michael's follow up post, "Librarians: We Open Access," a few more of the LITA bloggers thought we'd weigh in on our roles and how they fit within the profession. We hope you'll share your story in the comments!Lindsay C.
I remember when accepted my job, working at LYRASIS, feeling fearful that I wasn't being a traditional librarian. Yes, I, Lindsay Cronk, unapologetic weirdo and loud lady, worried about traditional professional roles. I was concerned that my peers wouldn't accept my work as librarianship. I got all kinds of high school lunch table self-conscious about it. I was being narrow-minded.
Most of us understand that the MLIS grad who works for a retail website providing taxonomy support and the MLIS grad who works in the academic library cataloging scholarly monographs are both librarians, and indeed peers (albeit with different job titles) who could probably give one another tips on running macros. Let's get real. I have never worked in a library. I work for a library services organization. That said, all I ever do is troubleshoot access issues, provide outreach and education, promote services and use. My work is dedicated to advocacy for and of libraries. I'm a librarian's librarian.Grace T.
Currently in my first year of the MLS/MIS program, a ten hour drive away from my closest family and friends, and running from class to job to research to job, I've asked myself this same question. Where does this lead? Easy, librarianship. But what does that mean?
At both the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and Indiana University, I've noticed the traditional, stuffy academic library transitioning. These libraries are moving stacks to auxiliary facilities, making room for "space." Study space, makerspace, cafe space, meeting space. The library is, has always been, and will always be, a third space. It isn't work and it isn't home. It is the place you go to think, research, write, build, and further your knowledge.
Librarians are the keepers of this third space. They are there to support and guide the thinker/researcher/writer/builder. They are there to say, "Have you considered looking at this?" upon which a thesis is born. They build digital infrastructure so that patrons have even more to access and learn. They are fluid and adaptable, changing as the third space and its people continue to evolve.Brittney F.
Before I began graduate studies in Library and Information Science a few years ago, I read a list on Forbes.com about the worst Master's degrees for job placement. Surprisingly, Library and Information Science was ranked as the worst. At the time I couldn't believe it. Because I had done my research into the degree program, I knew it was interdisciplinary. The image on Forbes.com is of a woman helping children. The mid-career average is $58k a year with an 8.5% turnover average by 2020. I thought that this interpretation of the degree and librarianship was inaccurate. It was an attempt to associate the name of the degree with a specific job description and to quantify the worth of our contribution to the field.
The MLIS degree prepares both practitioners and scholars for a range of information-provision environments. In 2011, then a Syracuse University iSchool graduate student, Mia Breitkopf wrote an article called 61 Non-Librarian Jobs for LIS Grads. It is a non-exhaustive list of job titles that do not fit into the traditional image of the librarian profession. Some of the titles include research coordinator, web analytics manager and business information specialist. Whoever compiled that list for Forbes.com did not take into account the breadth of skills an MLIS student is exposed to in the graduate environment. They certainly didn't recognize the necessity for information scientists in all organization types. Name any work environment and I will point out an information manager. We wear many hats.
I find solace in the fact that I love technology and history, I could parlay those interests into the archives field working with digital medium, and that Forbes.com has been somewhat enlightened. The Masters of Library and Information Science is now the third worst master's degree according to their 2014 list.Brianna M.
I am a recent graduate with a Master of Library Science and a Master of Information Science. I remember hearing from people who graduated before me that they felt odd about applying for non-librarian jobs in the first place, then a little bittersweet if they got them. They had an emotional tie to the idea of librarianship. Of course, you haven't won if you get a librarian job; you haven't sold out if you take a non-traditional role. It's unlikely that anyone would ever vocalize anything like this but I do think that a lot of people come to library school with very specific, idealized visions of what they will do when they leave.
Hearing these things made me realize that I needed to think long and hard about what I wanted. I recognized that it was time for me to battle my own assumptions. I wanted to actively choose libraries, not flock to them as a knee-jerk reaction simply because I had made the decision to go to library school when I was 18. I've found that adopting this state of reevaluation actually keeps me more engaged within the field. I am more critical, less patient – and honestly, I think libraries need a lot more of both qualities.
So where did I end up? Technically, I am not a librarian, I'm a coordinator – an IT role within a library where I do librarian-ish things. I'm not sure where my career will take me and I'm unconcerned about what my future job titles may be. The more interesting question, unpacked much more eloquently than I could by the Library Loon, is how institutions can support these messy new roles. I would love to hear more discussion between administrators and those of us with these odd, hard to classify roles about how we can increase our chances of success in uncharted territory.Michael R.
Following up on my February 27 post, "Librarians: We Open Access," I'd like to reprint below, in edited and expanded form, some of my responses to comments on the original post.
First, opening access is not gatekeeping. I'd rather dismantle the gate than be its keeper. Rather, the goal is grow the people's information commons–note that I use the term "grow" rather than "build," a premeditated word choice whose reasoning reflects Debbie Chachra's Atlantic article "Why I Am Not a Maker." Opening access might, for example, entail liberating libraries and users from our current dependence on price-gouging, privacy-breaching vendors and publishers.
Knowledge creation, one of the new buzzwords of librarianship, nicely complements open access. Knowledge creation presumably requires access to existing knowledge, and targeting that access to our local and global communities and their needs is essential. Once knowledge is created, librarians ought to be providing gratis access to that new knowledge and guidance on its uses, which will hopefully engender more knowledge making, a more open society, and a growing information commons that acknowledges the "think globally, act locally" approach. This is a cycle, and access is the first spoke of the wheel, though by no means the wheel itself.
In her comment on my original post, Brianna mentioned big tent librarianship. I like it. Inclusivity doesn't diffuse our energies. We need unabashed militancy in pursuit of core values to which information specialists can rally. Intellectual freedom has long been one of these core ideologies. To continue my post's running metaphors of imprisoning walls and growth versus construction, surely opening access can become one of those metaphorical fetters hammered into plowshares.
Do you consider yourself a librarian? A technologist? Both? Tell us about your role in the comments!
Open Library Data Additions: Amazon Crawl: part bw
Part bw of Amazon crawl..
This item belongs to: data/ol_data.
This item has files of the following types: Data, Data, Metadata, Text
DuraSpace News: Hydra in the House
Winchester, MA DuraSpace and The Hydra Project are pleased to announce that DuraSpace will serve as a fiscal sponsor for the Hydra Project in 2015 in order to facilitate banking, legal and administrative functions. The Hydra Project is strategically aligned with DuraSpace in meeting community needs by providing a flexible front end for Fedora, and potentially a platform that may serve the needs of community members looking to migrate content from other repository platforms.
DuraSpace News: Registration Available for DuraSpace / ORCID Webinar Series
Registration is available for our upcoming Hot Topics: The DuraSpace Community Webinar Series:
"Integrating ORCID Persistent Identifiers with DuraSpace DSpace, Fedora and VIVO"
Curated by: Josh Brown, Regional Director Europe, ORCID


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DOUG in CA
It's a really nice size, but that's about all that was good. We looked for a long time, and never found a place for the bladder hose to exit, as was advertised. The waist strap also did not work, as one side did not have the right type of buckle, so it would never tighten. very disappointing TECH NOTE: BLADDER HOSE EXIT IS ON THE RIGHT SHOULDER STRAP.Read All Reviews
Andrew in AZ
These are great shorts and amazing durability.Read All Reviews
Kelly in WA
Worked OK not great, but better than without.Read All Reviews
CASEY in UT
works like it is supposed to and is holding up fineRead All Reviews
Bryan in AB
These save my bum big time. Small is tight, maybe ill go for the medium next time. I love the bum paddingRead All Reviews
Tom in Washington
Just finished a 3000 mile adventure ride thru all types of weather. The materials and weather tight zippers are excellent. Cuffs are big, could seal a little tighter. Good weather proof vented shell, in colder weather, another layer would be advised. I'd give it a 4 1/2 star rating.Read All Reviews

subset: commoncrawl


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Scholars A-Z
Died on 895
Abu Hanifa al-Dinawari (d.895 A.D) lived in Andalusia, Muslim Spain. His work has been made known by the German scholar: Silberberg in a thesis in Breslau in 1908, which contains the descriptions of about 400 plants.
Born on 923 Died on 1023
Abu Hayyan al-Tawhidi was a professional scribe, secretary, and courtier. Click here for more information.
Born on 1178 Died on 1244
Abu Ishaq Ibrahim ibn Abd Allah, Al-Hamdani Al-Hamawi, Shihab Al-Din was born in Hama in 1187-8, where he flourished and where he died in 1244-5. He is a Shafiite Qadi (judge) historian who wrote Tarikh (History) of the Prophet and of the caliphs down to 1231. He dedicated to the Ayyubid prince Al-M...
Born on 900 Died on 971
Abu Jafar al-Khazin may have worked on both astronomy and number theory. Please click here for more information.


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this wiki
Welcome to the Warface Wiki
Warface is a first-person shooter developed by Crytek Kiev. The game is free-to-play and is powered by CryENGINE 3. Since October 21st, 2013, Warface has been in Open Beta, and is now open to the public. Warface is powered by CryENGINE®3, bringing you award-winning next-gen visuals that have been lauded as the best of their kind on any format. In the free-to-play arena, it is without equal. We give you breathtaking locations, and bring you to the deadliest places on the planet to fight off Blackwood. Innovative game design brings intuitive controls and thrilling moment-to-moment gameplay which elevates you to a whole new level of immersion. Read More
Choose the class that suits you!
Test your skills with various weapons!
Earn amazing Marks, Ribbons and Stripes!
Unlock weapons, Outfits and Attachments!
|Featured Article: Crown Climbing Gloves
|Featured Content: New Crown Gear
|News and Updates
New weapons, those weapons were released on only a few versions of the game.
- Assault Rifles and Machine Guns:
- Sturmgewehr 44
- Shotguns:
- Win 1897 Trench Gun
- Hawk Pump Navy Blue
- Pistols:
- Melee:
- S&W Survival Tanto Blade
|Important Articles
|Warface Wikia Contents
|Create an Article
|External Links
Register for an Account
Download the Client
More about XBOX 360 Version
Warface Forum
Warface News and Updates
Customer Support
|Warface Polls


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January 22, 2014
Psalm 57
…in the shadow of thy wings I will take refuge,
till the storms of destruction pass by.
I cry to God Most High, to God who fulfils his purpose for me. ...
Home / Work of the Church / Reflections in Christ
…in the shadow of thy wings I will take refuge,
till the storms of destruction pass by.
I cry to God Most High, to God who fulfils his purpose for me. ...
For the director of music. To the tune of "A Dove on Distant Oaks." Of David. A miktam. When the Philistines had seized him in Gath.
Thou hast kept count of my tossings; put thou my tears in thy bottle!
Are they not in thy book?...
I am distraught by the noise of the enemy, because of the oppression of the wicked.
(Psalm 55:2-3)
For the end: among the hymns of instruction by David, when the Ziphites came and told Saul, "Is not David hiding among us?"
Save me, O God, by Thy name, and vindicate [judge] me by Thy…
The fool thinks in his heart: "God is not present."
Psalm 53:1a (Anchor Bible)
None is righteous, no, not one; ...
For the choirmaster, a poem of David, when Doeg the Edomite went and warned Saul, 'David has gone to Ahimelech's house'
But God will break you down for ever; he will snatch…
For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me…
Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean;
wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
Fill me with joy and gladness; ...
Hear, O my people, and I will speak, O Israel, I will testify against you.
…you thought that I was one like yourself.
(Psalm 50:7, 21)
My mouth shall speak wisdom; the meditation of my heart shall be understanding.
(Psalm 49:3)
We ponder your steadfast love [Hesed], O God, in the midst of your temple.
(Psalm 48:9 RSV)
Hesed is one of the key words of the Hebrew Bible. In Greek eleos, mercy. In Latin misericordia. It has a range of nuances…


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To import a pet into the United Arab Emirates, you need an import permit issued by the Ministry of Environment and Water. To obtain an importation permit, complete the online electronic import application form (see Resources for a link). After completing the online application, fax the required documentation to: +971-04-265-5822. Allow a minimum of seven business days before the importation permit is issued. The ministry is closed on Saturdays, Sundays and holidays. The permit is valid for 30 days from the date of issue.
Pet Travel to Dubai
Dubai is one of the seven emirates of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) located south of the Persian Gulf on the Arabian Peninsula. UAE allows you to import domestic cats and dogs as pets. Traveling with a pet to Dubai requires an importation permit. Once you arrive in Dubai, you must clear customs with your pet by presenting the importation permit and required paperwork and paying a fee.
Importation Permit
Documents Required
To process the importation permit, the ministry requires a copy of your pet's vaccination records. Your pet must have received the rabies vaccination more than 30 days prior to the application for the permit. UAE only recognizes the one- year rabies vaccination. The ministry also requires proof of an ISO-standardized microchip number, and full details of the pet including date of birth, sex, color and breed. A copy of your passport, address and phone number in the UAE and your country of origin are also required.
To clear customs with your pet, present the original valid importation permit, a health certificate from a licensed USDA-approved veterinarian and the original rabies vaccination record. You must also pay an importation fee to the custom's inspector. As of May 2010, the cost is approximately $55 USD or 200 AED. Payment is only accepted with an e-dirham card, a virtual debit card that is available for purchase at the airport prior to clearing customs.
Breed Restrictions
United Arab Emirates prohibits the importation of certain dog breeds. All types of pit bulls, American Staffordshire terriers, Japanese tosas, Argentinian fighting dogs, Brazilian fighting dogs and wolf dog hybrids are prohibited from importation into the UEA. In addition, any dog that is a cross breed with any of these breeds is prohibited.
American Veterinary Clinic
The American Veterinary Clinic is a full-service veterinary clinic located in Abu Dhabi. The clinic provides the only pet relocation service in the United Arab Emirates that is certified by the Independent Pet and Animal Transportation Association International (IPATA). For a fee, the clinic will assist you with all aspects of importing your pet into Dubai. This service is recommended by the Embassy of the United Arab Emirates in Washington, D.C. Although it is not necessary to use this service, it is a reputable, hassle-free option to consider if you want to bring your pet to Dubai.
- Photo Credit dog image by Michal Tudek from Fotolia.com
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No intro necessary; Sergio and I have both seen and reviewed Django Unchained - he loved it (read his review HERE); I didn't love it as much (read my review HERE).Read More »
Perhaps the only thing that's been more divisive than 48fps this December is the reaction to Quentin Tarantino's highly anticipated spaghetti western slavery flick, "Django Unchained." It certainly divided the staff here enough that we ran three reviews taking on the movie, from pr...Read More »
It's going to be bumpy ride. When "Django Unchained" star Jamie Foxx hosted SNL last weekend, gleefully describing how he gets to kill white people in the movie, inevitably, Drudge posted negative reaction. Still to come: Oprah's supportive interview with Foxx airs in two parts on December 16 and 23...Read More »
Warning: This is long. As you can see at the bottom, it's broken up into 4 pages, so just click to go to the next page to continue reading.Read More »
So far the critics are being kind to Quentin Tarantino's bloody Western-down-South, singing the praises of the film's stellar cast and its fierce yet disturbingly funny confrontation with the most shameful chapter of American history. Division comes concerning the film's length, with som...Read More »
Films by Quentin Tarantino aren't exactly Halley's Comet, but for a while there, they didn't come as often as some filmgoers would have liked. And while the filmmaker seems to be back at his pace of delivering a film every two or three years, the arrival of a new Tarantino picture generally makes th...Read More »
Oh boy here we go…Read More »
Quentin Tarantino's characters are often astonished to find themselves in his intricate universe of references. That's certainly true of Django (Jamie Foxx), a black slave in the antebellum South freed from bondage by German dentist-turned-bounty hunter Dr. King Schulz (Christoph Waltz) in the openi...Read More »
This is just a random query... we didn't mention it, but Jamie Foxx officially confirmed that he will be Electro in the needless Amazing Spiderman sequel (we announced the initial news that he was in talks to play the part).Read More »
Just in case you missed it, last night on Saturday Night Live, Jamie Foxx spoofed Tyler Perry's disastrous turn in that recent Alex Cross movie, which disappeared as soon as it appeared.Read More »


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18 hp B&S starting problems
My 18 hp twin B&S garden tractor starts easily when cold and runs great, but will not start after it has reached operating temp. If I remove the plugs and give them a quick clean with a bass brush it will start and run smooth. The plugs do not appear to be fouled when I clean them. If I leave it running it works fine with no loss of power until it runs out of fuel, and when it cools it fires right up. Any light shed on this problem is appreciated.
It could be an ignition switch. The contacts inside the ignition switch can fall apart or break.
I've included a link to another thread about B&S starting problems.
Here is a link that might be useful: 18hp briggs & stratton starting problems
I had a similar problem with a B&S 42A707 engine. It was the ignition coil. It would start immediately when cold and not stop unless I turned it off but once stopped it would not start again unless it cooled. Oh yeah, it would start (only the first time) if I put in "new" plugs; the second try would have the same problem.
Interesting, I just quickly browsed the site recommended above. Thing I noticed right off was the statement that a sheared or partially sheared flywheel key will "Kill" the spark which of course is not true. It will have absolutely no affect on the quality or quantity of spark, only the TIME of the spark. I am not a member so couldn't post a reply.
Hope there is better info than this.
I suggest turning off the gas 15 seconds before shutting engine off and see what happens.
Walt Conner
Roper,I have a B&S twin doing the same thing. I posted it about 6 months ago and got a lot of responses.(might want to look it up). Next time it wont start when hot,check to see if it has spark. Mine does not have spark,when hot and trying to start it. After it cools down,it starts and will run(good) till out of gas.(acts like yours) I have rep;aced the coil and it made no difference,although it sounds like a bad coil. Now I know this sounds crazy,but if while trying to start it hot,if I ground one of the plugs,it will start every-time(remove ground after it starts). I found this by accident while checking to see if the cylinder had gas in it. I had removed one of the plugs and grounded it while turning the motor over,as I suspected it might be flooded .(had learned from past experience to ground the plug,as if wire is not grounded,it will ignite the gas coming out of cylinder) and it started up on just the one plug connected. I replaced the plug and the wire and it wouldn't start.(remember the engine was still hot as all this happened in about 2 minutes) I dont remember why,but I grounded the plug while trying to start it and it started. So now anytime I want to start it when its hot,I ground one of the plugs and it starts everytime. Since its works everytime,I quit worrying about why,and wondering if I am in the twilight zone of motors. Try it on yours and see if it helps.


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Modular organizers share the same footprint and can be stacked and latched together for storage and transport.
How brushless motors work and what they can add to your favorite cordless tools
Toolmakers strut their stuff at STAFDA
High-efficiency brushless motors and increased energy-density batteries push the capacity of these full-size tools further than ever
The best models have good runtime and cut dense material without slowing down
Here are nine of the best products for transporting and organizing your gear
These specialized tools boost productivity and quality.
Look for a powerful model that offers quick blade changes and is easy to grip in any position
Innovation, invention, and refinements that improve the way we work
Today's cordless drills are significantly better than the ones I used four or five years ago — they have more power and greater runtime, and take less time to charge. Many of them are lighter, too. The most obvious change has been the move from nicad to lithium-ion batteries, with lithium-ion...
Copyright ©
2015 Hanley Wood Media, Inc. All rights reserved.


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hotel reservation network
Dorsett Mongkok
Hong Kong, China
The boutique 4-star Cosmo Kowloon is set in a cultural area minutes away from Canton Road, Nathan Road and Youmadi Tianhou Temple.
For its guests Cosmo Kowloon offers conference facilities, internet access as well as a lift, currency exchange.
Steps away from such Hong Kong attractions as Fa Yuen Street, Sham Shui Po and Mongkok.
A 5-minute walk will take you to Olympic subway station.
Dorsett Mongkok
88 Tai Kok Tsui Road, Kowloon, Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China


text:
Comment: Re:Hit by space junk. (Score 1) 253
by deodiaus2 (#49162213) Attached to: 20-Year-Old Military Weather Satellite Explodes In Orbit
Space debris cascade.
We've improved Slashdot's video section; now you can view our video interviews, product close-ups and site visits with all the usual Slashdot options to comment, share, etc. No more walled garden! It's a work in progress -- we hope you'll check it out (Learn more about the recent updates).
If you think the system is working, ask someone who's waiting for a prompt.


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Convenient and there is a free airport pick up. Great pool and large rooms - Anonymous
The hotel is located very close to Jakarta airport, taxi costed 80 rupiah and 50 rupiah the return. The beds are comfortable and the price is very affordable! The wifi works perfectly. Therefore if you are going to stay more than 6 hours waiting at the airport for a connection flight, I really recommend coming to this hotel and relaxing! you can sleep, watch the tv, get a shower, enjoy wifi...There is also a supermarket downstairs so that you can buy cookies or whatever you want. - Anonymous
The staff was very friendly, close to the airport and free shuttle to the airport, the room was also clean and big enough. I just stayed here for one night to catch my flight the next day and for one night this is good enough - Anonymous
We were not pleased at all with the way they did their accounting. We paid a deposit for extra hours to stay the next day. Then after lunch with we askedto put on the account rhey chased us twice for money while asleep at the door also by phone. After it was settled with another deposit they came calling AGAIN at the door while we were resting. We had a 23 hours flight ahead. I had broken my heel and was in a wheelchair I was NOT going anywhere. TOO much harrasement - Anonymous
everything positive . - abdul Aziz