Librarian's Rant

Cutting Edge Tech Leaders - Tim Spalding, LibraryThing
April 17, 2007
Computers In Libraries 2007

Tim Spalding Introduced by Steven Cohen.
Founder and President, LibraryThing
Previously worked for Houghton-Mifflin, search engine guru, etc.

Site for book lovers. 180,000 members
members catalog collection
2.something million books so far.

Show LibraryThing
What LibraryThing means

LT is a business, not a non-profit. He is not a librarian. (He morphed the OCLC logo into the Death Star)

Quotes Steven Cohen. "future of lib catalogs"

About LT
Easy sign-up - about privacy. LT "does everything it can to NOT know anything about you"
Shows his page - 838 titles so far.
Enter books into LT much the way you'd put in library catalog, but you get matched up with other people who are entering books. List by tag/title. You can join group, add to watch list, etc. You can follow all reviews on books in your collection.

"fun statistics" area - linkages. "Explore who you are through the books that you have."

Shows entry for Harry Potter #1 - 10,947 ppl have it listed. Tag cloud w/numbers of uses. Book recommendations come from this. Show all the different editions people have.

LT has 3-400,000 book covers, including non-US.

Treats authors as every bit as important as titles. Unusual. Author pages.

Tags give LT a very rich understanding of how ppl see their books. Example: "chick lit" - "Library of Congress just can't get this"

"Romance" tag, but also all the sub-genres, like "paranormal romance". Only tags used 10 times by 5 people are shown.

Zeitgeist page - rich data. "Compared to playing where's waldo with a straw, there's so much info".

"25 books people can't agree on"

Book recommendations - also have "UnSuggester" option - if you like this, you WON'T like that.

What does this mean for social networking?
-books are NOT a niche market - they are an essential identity for many of us
-books are identity
-books are conversations

"Amazon is tracking what you bought last week, LT tracks what you keep in your home!"

Coming feature on LT = books I've read, chronologically ordered.

LibraryThing For Libraries (forthcoming!)
-interesting and powerful data
-15 years ago, if someone had given you an outline of the Web, what would you have imagined the hits for a book to be - publisher, title, author? - but that's not what's happening. LoC comes toward the end of Google results!
-Ppl want good quality data, LT has found - and this is not Amazon's data (in print almost exclusively). They want the data libraries provide - all editions, etc.
-most of LT's competitors now use Amazon data - not good enough for a book enthusiast.
-we have fears about user-created data, but we already use this for Reader's Advisory, e.g. people who read this book also like this book. We have done these social interactions for millennia. When we strip that user data off, we lose a lot of richness.

The USG - user-generated content - that he cares about really IS cataloging data, in essence. Example: their Helper's Log where people create combinations and connections. This is a form of both Reader's Advisory and authority control!

Feature: ThingISBN - send an ISBN, it returns all related editions. OCLC does this, but you have to use their API rules, LT offers freely (cannot re-sell, but otherwise can use).

Remarkable Thing: "Regular people, in their off hours, are creating data that rivals that created by OCLC!"

One LT user has added 2000+ permissioned author and other book photos! This is an enormous body of work, done for free by a user.

LoC website demo - searching Neuromancer by Wm. Gibson. NO mention of 'cyberpunk'. On LT, it's the biggest tag.

Similar - Darwin's Black Box. On LoC, subject term "evolution", but this is biggest book on Intelligent Design. Only LT has ID has major tag. Also "creationism". More real context.

New Development: LibraryThing for Libraries

Should launch in 2-3 weeks (!). He is looking for beta testers.
Adds tags and suggestions data within your existing ILS. Only gives tags for things in the catalog. "purposefully at arms length from OPAC" - java script you add to display. Does not interfere with ILS at all, but adds richness and context.
He acknowledges this is NOT the ultimate solution, which would be (as we all know) having the ILS vendors finally give us everything we want in the way of context. But this is not happening soon, so...this LT option is very cool. (I just have no idea if our db admin will even consider the idea)

Questions:
Q: How will it evolve for non-book media?
A: currently discourge non-book entries on LT. "LT grew from passionate readers. There are already tols out there for DVDs, etc." If get into music, want to do classical, Jazz, etc. where metadata is important and rich. Also, he doesnt want to dilute LT, and they dont have enough non-book data yet to mine.

Q: (my question) How will ILS vendors respond?
A: ultimately, it doesnt matter. either theyll see the benefit, or see that it doesnt hurt their product. hopefully libraries will get behind the concept (if not the actual product, ultimately)

Q: Something like ILL on LT? Interlibrarything Loan?
A: They already offer links to book swap sites, where this is offered.

Q: Have they thought about integrating w/open source opac?
A: possibly - at the beginning, the were clear about not wanting to become an opac. Oddly enough, they are used by some small libraries (church libs) as opac. They are possibly looking at integrating with WPOpac (?).

Other things to note:
Within the 2.0 world, LT is distinguished by having a majority of users over 25. 7% is international use. They have other language versions, like Welsh.

They have had ZERO instances of bad language being reported. Self-policing and self-regulating.

Comments in the Catalog: Community Interaction
Glenn Peterson, Hennepin Cty Lib
April 17, 2007

Glenn: "defrocked reference librarian"
Works on Hennepin's "Bookspace"

Daughter asked what he was doing this weekend - talk about comments in library catalog - "you're going to talk about that for 40 minutes?!"

Comments in the Catalog

Discussions yesterday about social interaction on web. This will "fly closer to the ground" - particular library's experience. More of a case study.

Comments are...
mini-reviews - tend to be brief
on any title in the catalog
a "blog for every book" - books, videos, DVD's, cassettes, everything in catalog.

History of project - four threads:
-summer book reviews by kids and teens
-book reviews by adults - didn't go over well, they abandoned
-catalog customization - their cataloging people were trying to come up with things that SirsiDynix couldn't provide for them.
-conversations about books

Demo of their site - catalog.hclib.org/ipac20/ipac.jsp - BookSpace - www.hclib.org/pub/bookspace

Uses cookies on browser to remember who they are - otherwise they login when adding comment. Patrons can comment from the library catalog - from full bib screen or items out. Or from booklists (librarian-produced, suggested reading, best books, etc.). (I'm trying to get OUR staff to do stuff like this!)

More detail on the Comments page:
It's a mash-up (see my previous post) of 5 different data sources.
-Bibliographic info
-Enriched content (Syndetics or Amazon) - jacket, summary, toc, etc.
-Patron comments
-Audio reviews (podcasts) - staff does RA sessions for themselves, just a few minutes, record them and attach to comments and booklists pages (again, trying to get our staff to do!)
-Amazon reviews - using their API - somewhat controversial as part of agreement is to link back to Amazon.
-Related lists - other titles you might like (RA).

(He's showing Fairest by Gail Carson Levine - I love her work!)

"more titles about" - subject tracings - kinda useless for most books, esp. fiction. Needs some work (tagging??).

How's it going?
-most heavily used feature on their site!
-esp. popular with teens (duh!)
-5700 comments/3000 users over the first 11 months

Lots of people looking through comments as well as leaving them.

They serve 750,000 users, many branches, etc. So good proportion.

Long Tail concept (graph) - way ppl are leaving comments on site follows long tail basics. More popular titles (Harry Potter, including the book that's not out yet!) get more comments and so on.

How support long tail titles - let the patrons do some of that! If they read and comment, less work for staff to get word out about it.

Maintenance
-pre-screened for language "naughty word filter" - concerns - his argument: there's lots of places where ppl can leave comments - why would they come to a library to leave bad language? (he uses example of "title" flagging for "tit")
-batched every 4 hours and sent as an email message
-reviewed by Web Servics staff on rotating basis
-click a link to hide a comment. Questionables are sent to Glenn.

They put ** where vowels in bad words are - put sign that "edited for publication" - use Ann Arbor model. Really doesn't happen that often.

Most recent comment comes up at top, like blog.

Things they would like to have:
-ratings - people love to rate books - they put this in the comment already - "8/10" or "7", but want to integrate
He's been surprised at the number of critical comments they've had, rather than just glowing reviews. "Not this author's best work...not as good as..."
-avatars - would be able to use their existing (?) avatars
-user profiles - you can now click and see other comments made by user, but no profile at this time. They've now begun allowing people to create booklists - would like to link profile.
-tag clouds - for browsing comments.

Related Developments:
-WPopac (Plymouth St U.)
-SOPAC (Ann Arbor District Lib) - Social OPAC - remarkable initiative
-Millennium (Innovative)
-LibraryThing for Libraries - allow you to "fulfill your dream of becoming a library cataloger" (Glenn P.) - create own personal catalog online. Now moving out to actual libraries. Apply some of that social info he's gathering on LibraryThing to library catalogs.

www.hclib.org/extranet

Questions: How deal with spam? Answer: they use Cold Fusion for website, there are things they can do in CF to deal with spam. Also, users log in. (Cold Fusion is from Adobe - they like it - "efficient, fairly easy to learn for those w/background in HTML")

Question: How many people working on customization of catalog and how transfer to Horizon? A: Two full time people working on catalog - they take time to customize - they happened to have particular skills to do this. Haven't had to make major transfers as Horizon has updated. Soon they will have to do major change as Horizon changes. Hope to move to more flexible system overall to do some of the things they want to do (see above).

Q: When things removed from bib db, how remove comments? A: they don't - they are orphaned, but can't be found. May eventually have storage problem, but not yet. Book may come back at some point (reprint, etc.) so don't want to lose it.

Q: Using this in collection devt to see what titles they want to add? A: not really, though ppl can make requests online. Glenn thinks this is something they should watch.

What’s a Mashup, and Why Would I Want One?
Darlene Fichter
April 17, 2007

CIL 2007

Shows video of “The 10 Principles of Economics” (very funny!). One type of media to add to mashup. From www.standupeconomist.com Mankiw’s Ten Principles of Economics, Translated.

Intro by Richard Geiger – moderator for Track A, Content Mgt.

Theme song – Monster Mash (she showed “I bought it on eBay”)

“If you can click a mouse, you can make a mashup.”
Also code available if want more complexity.

Mashup = web app that uses content from more than one source to create a new service
Content typically sourced via an API or an RSS feed.
Term comes from pop music.
Cool new app.

www.frappr.com/mashups – frappr = people + Google Maps
people adding pushpins and icons and photos and comments on a map.

Some notions of mashups – recipe for strawberry daquiris on back of jelly belly packs

“Stupidest term ever” – resistance.

IBM looking to mashups to drive new business tech. “puts more capability into an individuals hands and gives them more freedom to innovate” – integrate into open business model.

Today’s playground – eventually will become “cities of tomorrow”. Don’t be fooled into thinking they have no application.

Look at some mashups:
Can call on things from Web as you would call on things from your computer (programming model). Do things on the fly. (Image of cloud w/Yahoo, Amazon, Google Maps, Technorati, EVDB) EVDB = database of events. (bands, politics, etc.)

Mashup Ecosystem:
Open data – raw materials (Amazon and Google Maps opening up their data)
Open set of services – tools where you can do things with data
Small pieces loosely joined
You – creativity
Fastest growing ecosystems
Don’t have to get anyone’s approval to provide new API to the Net operating systems

DIY Programming:
5 minute customization of apps
No longer the purview of the techno elite

Think Legos. Building blocks. Assembling in new ways.

Ex: http://maps.huge.info/zip.htm
Enter zip code and it will identify where it is on the US map – uses zip code data and Google Maps API

Lewis and Clark library – library route data with google maps – show library routes.

Daily Mashup – that day’s popular photos, links, news. Flickr, del.icio.us, furl

Newsmap – map by topic, display it. http://www.marumushi.com/apps/newsmap/newsmap.cfm
News country vs. country. – she showed US vs. Canada newsmap. Reveals underlying patterns in news reporting across cultures. Using Google News.

Earthquake – API = Yahoo Maps, w/USGS data

Book Carousel at library – book covers – feed of new books Syndetics covers.

Chicagocrime.org – freely browseable db of crimes in Chicagoland
API = Google Maps, Data = Citizen ICAM Site that queries the CPD db of reported crime.

Frivolous Flickr Fun
Shadydentist.com/captioner – Captioner
Krazydad.com/colrpickr
Bighugelabs.com/flickr – list of flickr fun things.

www.housingmaps.com – guy who was going from newspaper or Craig’s list to Google Maps and back and forth. Tied together. Can choose price ranges now. Links to photos of properties.

PlaceOPedia – connecting Wikipedia articles with their locations. Using Google Maps.

www.frappr.com/blogginglibrarians – map of blogging librarians ***I need to add myself to that!***

Live Plasma – movie info, roles, connections. Amazon API, shows relationships between movies, actors, directors. LivePlasma and CNet articles – show relationships, including over time between articles.

LivePlasma idea from movies – translate to libraries – Reader’s Advisory?? Interesting idea.

Bonk – weather – includes webcam feeds.

McMaster Library – 5000 aerial photos – Google mashup of aerial photo collection, replaces print indexes, browse on 2 dimensions, time and space.
Library.mcmaster.ca/maps/airphotos/Home.htm

Pittsburgh Univ Library – Yahoo Pipes (new app), Scopus and Web of Sciences – publications by their faculty, output one RSS feed. Click and point. You can include or exclude data, sort in different ways. In Wysiwig environment. Probably intermediate level mashup tool, not for beginners.

Facts and Figures
1799 mashups
3 new mashups/day
www.programmableweb.com/mashups – has mashup matrix. Shows connections, combinations.
This is just major mashups, not all the flickr mashups, etc.

Typology of the Mashup
Presentation
Client-side data
Client-side software
Server-side software
Server-side data

Where to start
Point and click and publish
“cloning”

Google Maps probably easiest – go to MyMaps – use pushpins
Tinyurl.com/3e5xd9 – Route 66 oral histories!
We could do this with our collections. W/Google Maps have to link to instead of actually publishing on our website – other apps allow you to publish directly.

Step 1 – get idea
2 – sign up for a developer token
Aws.amazon.com
www.google.com/apis/maps
api.search.yahoo.com/webservices/register_application
3 – Read the fine print and use.

Community Walk – www.communitywalk.com – could use for local history, tourism, etc.

Maps.google.com – easy to use
www.yourgmap.com – easy to use
www.mapbuilder.net
www.platial.com

Western Springs History – www.westernspringshistory.org/map
At top of source – API key
Script at bottom, where to find data. XML data.

More tools: Teqlo, betapipes, QEDWiki, DataMashups, dapper

Lib-web-cats
Directory by Marshall Breeding.
He mapped Libraries.
Step 1 find lat/long for each library (service to look up online) – geocoder.us
Step 2 create the map
Link to it with button.

www.talis.com/tdn/competition – mashup contest for libraries – ongoing.
Go-Go Google Gadget! Was winner. My holds, my checkouts. Simple Add It Now button add.

Technical Issues
In its infancy
Need a better registry for APIs
Scale and dependency issues – will they be around in a few years?
How much to invest?

If something went away, you could probably apply the code to some other app, so worth doing.

Social Issues
Intellectual property – “right to remix” – esp. w/video and audio content
Provenance – origin or source, authority

When you look at something, do you know it’s a mashup? Usually not. Who is under the hood? Provenance issues may make things more complicated.

Unintended consequences – good and bad.
Bad – client side scripts that modify pages (all instances of Microsoft on any site are rewritten to say ‘the d*?!? Microsoft’)

Raises interesting issues in libraries – do you take the adscraper because you can. What if someone wanted to see the ads?

Google Maps Mania – googlemapsmania.blogspot.com

Mashup Dashboard – www.programmableweb.org/mashups (???)

Darlene.fichter@usask.ca

Slides on blog. Search for her name. Also linked from CIL presentation site.

Keynote for Today at CIL 2007 - my notes

Andy Carvin
National Public Radio
www.pbs.org/learningnow (blog)
www.andycarvin.com
andycarvin.com/complibraries.ppt

Has blog for PBS. Multimedia in schools tech talks. Wrote for Multimedia Schools magazine (Info Today).

Ran Digital Divide Network. Still affiliated. Now at NPR, in charge of Web 2.0 strategies.

Different model in recent past for creating media. Had to be part of mainstream media structure, or take extreme measures. Dependent on someone else's media to get published.

After time, Web allowed for more multimedia content, but still for a while being produced by standard outlets. Required certain amount of expertise.

Web 2.0 - new classes of tools and software that make it possible for anyone to create content. Building blocks are there and freely available.

Tim Berners-Lee calls it the "Read-Write Web".

Time Magazine was a little off - person of the year not You, but We. But that would have sounded arrogant

Social Software and the Democratization of Content - flickr, blip.tv, youtube, classblogmeister.com, epnweb.org (latter two are educational tools) - common thread: Online communities where people are actively encouraged to use and share each other's original content.

Example of "Makaka" incident w/Sen. Allen - how much impact did YouTube have? Not sure. But it provided a venue for sharing the information.

Quoting Pew stats on who is creating content and how many:
48mil Americans have posted content online
1 in 12 Net users publish a blog.
1 in 4 have shared original content
Young ppl more likely to post content
race, income, education less of a factor
Latinos, African Americans slightly MORE likely to post online content than whites (this defies the stereotype!)

Close to reaching parity across classes and income in online sharing of content. (This is encouraging.)

Tag cloud of tools for Web 2.0. Mentioned Twitter as new hot thing.

Most famous example of web 2.0 is blogs. Andy shows his website from the mid-90's - looks like early blog. In late 90's, ppl started developing online journaling tools. Compare to his current site (Andy Carvin's Waste of Bandwidth).

Incident at VA Tech yesterday example of need for emergency SMS tools, so schools can send text msgs to students in real time to respond to such an incident. Deal with panic.

Millions of ppl in China - currently more blogs in China than all the blogs in English.

Perceptions: Bloggers Hate the Media, Media Hates the Bloggers.

Andy argues that the war is over. Jay Rosen quote - finding ways for the media to work with "the people formerly known as the audience". Getting along in grudging ways. Some sincere efforts to collaborate with each other.

Greater emphasis on "networked journalism" - we are no longer passive consumers of mainstream content, but instead can influence the discussion.

Media Outlets Embracing Web 2.0 - improving journalistic transparency, creating a public dialogue, tapping into public knowledge, collaborating -- profitable?

Interesting because people "aren't always comfortable with how they make their own sausages" and sharing process. "Lifting the kimono."

NPR: concept of Open Piloting - invite public to help create new programming, sharing rough drafts of shows before they're ready for prime time, use focus groups, but also general public. Ex: Rough Cuts, Bryant Park. Thought public might be interested in process, but also thought they might have good ideas to add! On Rough Cuts - Tell Me More (new show). Post different versions of show, and take comments. Other example: Bryant Park Project (bad name) - morning news for GenXers.

They didn't invent this idea - Radio Open Source did it first. www.radioopensource.org
Embody idea of open source - allowing collaboration on new ideas (not just for software - they're using concept in media). Radically new way of doing (radio) business. "a blog with a radio show."

BBC doing something similar - taking it a step further, opening editorial meetings to web (broadcast). BBC World Have Your Say (WHYS). Also have area on BBC website called Have Your Say - commenting on news stories. Have comments running at the top. They pick the most worthy.

CNN iReport - www.cnn.com/exchange/ - getting clips from citizen journalists. Yesterday they got video clip from Jordanian student in VA who got footage (mostly audio of gunshots). Via blip.tv They learned from BBC's efforts at London bombing incident.

USA Today - "grandaddy of all this social networking stuff" in media - they relaunched their site recently - nearly every page has soc networking features built in now. Syndicating blogs from around Net. Fans of old site gave them a lot of flak, but they were complaining using the socnet tools!

OhmyNews - english.ohmynews.com - Korean online news service in Korean, English, Japaniese, 20% of space is citizen journalists, consistent submitters get paid. This was budget decision, but also revolutionary - win-win situation for all.

Global Voices - www.globalvoicesonline.org - Andy was early contributor - from Harvard. Wanted global network of bloggers who were thinking about issues in their area. "Bridge blogging" concept - create bridge to that local area, language area, and reporting what is important there. Reuters has now forged a partnership with them to mine that info and get story out in way they couldn't before.

These outlets were so successful that mainstream media had to sit up and take notice. And jump on board.

VoteGuide - Center for Citizen Media (Dan Gillmor) - journalism students followed around candidates and recorded everything they said. So everything they said about policy would be on the record. Test case for larger project during next cycle. Can this be done nationwide?

Minnesota e-Debate - e-democracy.org - they have long history of e-debates, but this was over two week period. Candidates could respond via YouTube or email or podcast. Citizens could also post their own responses.

NewAssignment.net - created by Jay Rosen, launching April 2007, pro and amateur journalists collaborating on issues of interest.

Quote found on South African bathroom wall from Dan Gillmor: "My readers know more than I do. And if we can all take advantage of that, in the best sense of the expression, we will all be better informed."

Media and politics are struggling with these changes, just as libraries are.

Gadgets, Gadgets, Gadgets
Barbara Fullerton, Sabrina Pacifici, Aaron Schmidt
CIL 2007

The Word for Today's Gadgets: Simplify!
US often last to get gadgets - Japan, Asia get first.

What's coming:
improved blackberries
march of the treos - Palm hired one of the iPhone guys!
smartphones with 2 keyboards
Google cell phone
text messaging!
gaming on all levels
monitoring energy uses - rewards for low usage
storing info in a totally new format (!)

Shredder scissors - 5 pairs of scissors in one! Retro gadget, low-tech, protect privacy. About $15. Strong enough to shred credit cards, etc. (I can so use this!)

TI's Projector Phone - DVD quality on the wall from your phone - not stuck w/small screen.

iPod (5th Generation) - 20K songs/7500 songs, 25000 photos, 100hrs/40hrs of video, 20 hours of battery life for songs, 6.5 for videos, easy to use/search/shuffle. 80GB/30GB. Comes with earphones.

iCharge for iPod - inexpensive ($15), small, efficient way to keep iPod charged. 9V battery only, keep on keychain.

Nanobattery - flexible, see-through battery, 1 min to charge, lasts 1000 cycles, 20 nanometers thick. Not available yet.

iPhone - Widescreen, easy menu, touch controls, high tech, $499(ick!), multi-tasking (read webpage while downloading e-mail), Net access. RElease June 2007.

Cube World Digital Stick People (we just got these for one of my nephews last year!) - each has own personality, $29.99/pair.

ID Pilot - $6 - keeps cords organized

Aliph Jawbone Bluetooth Headset - noise-cancel tech, matches outline of face, hands-free. Bit expensive right now.

Collapsible Chopsticks - environmentally correct, practical, stainless steel uppers, white ash tips, brass hardware. $19.99

Jott.com - web-based voice text service - dial their phone number, go to text, phone to email or SMS. Free!

Golan i.Tech Virtual keyboard - uses bluetooth tech to connect wirelessly to the user's handheld, infrared tech to project a Qwerty keyboard onto any surface.

Illuminated Waterproof Flexible Keyboard (great idea for libraries?!) - $27. Roll it up and bring it with you.

REar View Computer Mirror - $13 - (Don't worry about NSFW anymore!)

Sony's DVD Walkman - multi-formats, swivels and flips, weighs 2 lbs., 8" screen, 5.5 hrs battery. Picture not great, but fine. $199 (good)

Did you know: charging your cell phone in your car drains your cell phone battery?! (I did NOT know this!)

Palmsize Micro Copter - intended for indoor use. remote control copter, only works in zero wind conditions, foam body.

Note: Old TV's being phased out. Only have 3-4 models of CRT models left.

Plantronics CS55 Wireless convertible headset - 300 ft. range, 2.4 GHz, 10 hours battery, home cordless version available. $279.99

Targus Wireless Presenter - about 80 bucks. 2.4 GHz, can wander around.

IBM Optical Transceiver - 160 GB/second (!), Full HD movie/second! Need better Internet routers and switches first.

USB Missile Launcher - desk toy!! Want. One. $39.95 Holds three foam missiles, missile command is on desktop.

USB Vision and Posture Reminder - an electronic nag about your computer posture. $27.

QR Code - Japanese phones have this - allows physical world to interact w/digital world. Codes interact with phones, nutirition info, real estate details, etc. Walk up to house for sale, point phone at coder, get info downloaded.

Google's Dodgeball - text messaging social tool. In major cities, SMS-enabled carriers.

Next Gen Robotic Vacuum - from Dyson - they say it will be more efficient than Roomba or Trilobite. (I can't wait! Will it do my stairs?!)

www.lrx.com - this presentation

Cordinator - manage up to 10 cords, surge protector, 60 bucks.

Trillian - messaging client.

Belkin Compact Surge Protector - use with all elec stuff, designed to be flush w/wall, so no tripping over, sliding covers to keep clean. $39.99

Smallest MP3 player ever - 2GB storage and FM radio, weighs less than headphones, $100

Meebo - web-based.

Pelican 760 LED Flashlight - police station flashlight, designed for LAPD, half the weight of current police issue lights, brighter than previous, 90min of battery. June 2007.

Feb 8th, 2007 - completely stopping and restarting light. Possibility: transmission of data vs. light! The next great thing.

Sony HDR-UX7 - consumer HD camera.

International AC Travel Adaptor - (I've so been waiting for this!)

Fireplace iPod Dock - $3650!

Clocky the Alarm Clock - runs away from you until you wake up!

Retro Phone Handset - yes, it looks like the old handset, like from a rotary dial.

Picknik Photo Editor - web-based, no download!, most of what you need, Flickr integration, FREE!

Chocolate Gadgets - Box of 100. (But really, who needs a choc cell phone? And why don't they have dark chocolate?)

List of resources/ideas.

http://www.llrx.com
coming soon: gadgetarian.info

CIL 2007 Session: Games, Gaming and Libraries
Jenny Levine and Aaron Schmidt

Jenny Levine - ALA

These two did the preconference I did yesterday afternoon, which was informative and great fun. We ended up spending a couple of hours after the session playing DDR, Guitar Hero and various games on the Nintendo Wii (I love the bowling!).

My Notes from Yesterday and Today (mixed):

Games, Gaming and Libraries
April 15, 2007

Average age of gamers: 33!

Pew study – no margin of error – every kid had played a video game at some time.
90 million gamers up to age 35

Impact of gamers similar to Boomer impact.

Retirement home – bowling tourneys using Wii!

Physically challenged using Wii.

Aspects of gamers:
Hero on quest
Experiment, try
Seek expertise – help ‘noobs’ (newbies)
Prioritizing
Take risks
Inherent distrust of ‘bosses’ – villain = boss
Typing of the dead – from the 90’s. used “boss”
Don’t say “cuz I’m the boss” – challenge to beat them.
Problem solvers
Expect interaction

Book: “Got Game” – John Beck
Good understanding of generational differences.

Nintendo DS – wireless, so can play each other – DS – dual screen

Only 15% of games sold were marked M for Mature.

FPS = First Person Shooter is not necessarily people violent

LAN Parties.

MMORPG – like WoW, etc.

PS2/PS3/PSP = Sony products (can also be a Blu-Ray disc player?)

Xbox 360 = Microsoft
Both of above are expensive.

Justify Gaming

Read Everything Bad is Good for You – Steven Johnson
Includes great analogy – what if video games had been invented before books?

Other things you’d have trouble justifying if starting today:
Romance novels, movies, etc.

Eli Neiburger – has book coming out in 2007 about gaming in libraries.
Storytime – communal experience. Games can be the same.

We choose not to judge what people read, why judge games?

Creates connections with patrons – teens.

Photo from Thomas Ford Library first gaming night. (aaron)
“when was the last time your book discussion group was this excited about the library?”

Create safe community. Aadl.org teen blog – discuss gaming ON library website. Ann arbor kids created their own forums elsewhere and invited Eli to moderate.

Chicago problem – “gaming” = gambling.

Learning game – Revolution – from MIT education arcade. Sim of colonial Williamsburg. (ran out of grant money)

Federation of American Scientists just had summit on educational games. – called gaming the savior of our educational system.

WoW – collaborative skill-building. Classless, ageless, raceless. Teamwork is expected and required.

Q: If you saw WoW guild leader on resume, would you understand what this means for skills?

Media Literacy – beyond Info Literacy

MacArthur Found – 50 mil in research on media in education.
Website has video cast until May 19th on this (slide has URL).

Gaming Services in Library

Circ vid games
Support services and materials
Stanford Univ – huge collection of games – archive

Bloomington PL – tallest vs. shortest photo – two people who would not otherwise associate, will game together.

Web Junction – Carvers Bay – tied literacy to gaming. Got $ for new library by being innovative – games. Lib card, get more hours, book report, get more hours, etc. Tied it to good behavior, as well.

Gaming ethos – help newbies.

Photo from Wake Forest – didn’t have games, just had screens and projectors. Kids set it up. Cost very little.

UIUC – gaming nights, gaming blog – good blog to follow.
Had guitar hero tourney

Doesn’t have to be video games – Georgia Tech – rearranged cubicles – ninja tag (like capture the flag) – kids ran around a library at night. Put events in Facebook.

BI – UNC-Greensboro created RA game. Anyone can use.

Fletcher Lib – AZ State U. – created info literacy game online. Started with board game – Information Pursuit. Used Flash – “Quarantined”.

Wilmette PL showing kids how to create games, suing software from MIT and _.

Participation Gap (MacArthur Found) – list of new skills. Media literacy standards.

Gaming is the new golf – networking. If your future job is visualizing data, if you haven’t gamed, will you be ready?

Article: “you play WoW, you’re hired” – shows mgt skills, etc.

Bloomington PL – part of Project Next Generation from IL DoEd – kids can come in and create podcasts, etc. Machinima – videos created inside games.

Future

NintendoDS – Big Brain and Brain Age – actually helps stimulate brain. Gives you your "brain age" - improve over time. Lower brain age. Based on research by Japanese scientist - help you stave off Alzheimer's. www.brainage.com
Hotel Dusk – mystery book. Like choose your own adventure, nextgen.

Henry Jenkins study – last paragraph – mentions libraries (only place). Foremost media scholar. He’s not seeing us as part of solution – we need to change this.

Gamer Ethos
Play, try, experiment, “good enough” is okay (though some gamers become ‘completists’ and go for every item), team-based approaches that utilize your skills. Teams built from what you can do, not who you are in hierarchy.

(ALA Game) – example of how to engage and teach at same time.

Gaming in Libs symposium in Chicago in July

Many potential audiences:
middle-age women
older men (WWII games, Wii bowling being used in retirement homes)
families - multi-generational

Aaron Schmidt

Costs
Gaming events can be cheap – need projector. Ask TAB for gaming consoles.
DDR – good pads, $40 each, not so good $20 each. Can go up to $300 each.
Reusable, so cost effective.
DDR – PS2 platform is familiar (used for console game)
Get it big – use projector. Attach to stereo system if you can to make more social.
Make it more than what they can do at home.
Open source version of DDR for PC called Step Mania.

Have some things for kids to do other than gaming, including board games. Kids will be creative with it. (Jenga photo)

Find a person who will be the champion for gaming in your library (you?).

Aaron – used kids to harvest other content – “DDR at the library is fun, because…” and had kids type in answers. (Word doc)

Can get them involved in other activities at the library.

Open Play vs. Tournament

Q: trouble limiting to age group?
AS: hard to limit numbers, ended up having the next one be sign up only.

AADL – they set up for whole weekend, then have diff age groups at different times.

Tourney – more added value, as ppl can’t do this at home. Makes it special. Adds to PR.

Mario Kart (Game Cube) is what Eli started with – very popular.
Madden games – from EA.
Halo games – tend to be violent. Get permission slips?
Games tend to be finish-able in evening. “party games” (DDR, etc.) – multiplayer.

GameCubes can be networked together – up to 4 at a time can play.

Playstation needs 3rd party device (ilink) to connect.

Once you go online, you’re under e-rate. Better to network in building.

Consoles slide – older on left, newer on right.

Nintendo has been successful by being accessible to whole family.
Playstation tends to be expensive.
Wii is $250, games more expensive at $50.
Wii and Xbox 360 are digital.
Playstation 3 processor so powerful that can do computer work when not playing.

Wii Virtual Console interesting – can download old Nintendo games to Wii.
PS3 Home will be second life type world – under devt. Avatar, etc.

PS3 is also blu-ray compatible (high-def)

Nintendo – good designs, not as powerful.

What didn’t work at first gaming event.
Gave kids free roam of library. Went to IM friends to come.

Podcasts by teens – fordlibrary.org/yareviews – used downtime in gaming events to record their podcasts (reader’s advisory).

Q: Runescape question. – JL: designated Runescape times. A KS library does Runescape tourneys.

PPT: walkingpaper.org/gaming.pdf

Includes links to web-based educational games.

Different Types of Services
Coll Devt
Gaming for Reader’s Advisory – what game do they like, direct them to reading (Beth Gallaway)
Booklist March 1, 2007 – article
Support materials
Non-video games – board games (ex: school library w/board games – most popular = hungry, hungry hippos!)

www.geocaching.com – some libraries are putting geocache objects in library – gets ppl in the door.
Open play – do prototype where kids bring in equipment, just provide tv’s, etc.

Can create blog about gaming inside library site.


Conclusions: Gaming can be used to build community in the library, to increase goodwill with younger generations, etc.

Blogging from Computers in Libraries 2007 in DC.

Session: Millenials in the Library - Marshall Breeding

http://staffweb.library.vanderbilt.edu/breeding

Millennial Characteristics
Innate ability for tech
frenetic multitasking

Don't overgeneralize differences - GenX, Baby Boomers, Millennials, etc. New librarians entering the profession are part of the Millennial Generation.

From Forrester - "The Millennials are Coming"
arrogant, skeptical, impatient, also creative, organized, independent.
contrasts between generations. The usual lists.

Visually oriented - look at the pics, then decide if there's anything worth reading. Our text-hevy pages might not be useful.

Stuff from LA Times on how they study. (Mis-spellings on PPT are kinda annoying...)

"To satisfy millennial gen users does not conflict w/needs of library users from previous generations, in fact they may be what we should have been doing all along! More immediacy of access, high quality service, more interactive. "

Doing nothing is not an option. Millennials will move on to non-library provided info sources and services if we don't keep up.

Mill Genn comforatable with working w/content in multimedia forms. Prefer graphics over text, etc. They love to remix - how can libraries provide opportunities for this?

He's suggesting e-journals and e-books. But everyone hates e-books, including Mill Gens! Podcasts of lectures (good idea), video libraries of stock footage (for remixing and projects). I like that latter idea - if they're going to mash, let's give them good resources to mash and remix!

Heightened expectations from many users, very tech savvy, etc.
But I keep thinking of the huge range of users we get at public libraries - 30yr olds who won't touch a keyboard! We can't just leave them behind, but at the same time, they're already being left behind by the world - we need to help them get back on track with the world, since they still have a lot of life to live in the 2.0 world.

Good points about the multiple types of searching we require them to do (books in one place, periodicals in another, digital content in another). They expect a single, seamless interface.

He shows Finding Time Magazine video. Excellent example of difficulties we place in front of patrons to find information they need.

Need to provide library search tools that are more like what you'd find on an Amazon or YouTube (tagged, ranked, intuitive).

Metasearch = "fundamentally bankrupt"?
Not giving good, deep relevancy to users.

Next to me are my buddy Michael, blogging to his TravelinLibrarian blog and David Free, blogging to his David's Random Stuff blog. I feel so geeky. In a community of geeks...

Now Marshall is going after Elsevier and their ilk and the cooperation issue. "Not enough to do metadata. The world is way beyond metadata these days. If Amazon can 'search within the book'" what else is possible?

Social, more collaborative approach is great, 2.0 initiatives good for these sorts of users, but need to get to the 'meat of the matter' in terms of service provision and cooperation. "The more that we can work with info the way the rest of the world works with information, the more relevant we will be."

"front end" of what we do today - rethink. OPAC that comes with our ILS systems is just not cutting it.

Elements:
decoupled interface
mass export of catalog data
alternative search engine
alternative interface.

In development: Ex Libris Primo, Encore from Innovative Interfaces

Library-developed solutions: eXtensible Catalog, URochester - River Campus Libs, Mellon foundation help

"Digital resources can't be an afterthought."

Can't continue to force users to different interfaces for different content. Need consolidated search environments "that give equal footing to digital and print resources".

Millennials and others are used to relevancy ranking - "good stuff" at the top.

Idea of complex boolean search created at front end by user is antiquated.

Rapid response, visual info (book jackets), let users drill down through results to narrow field, ratings and rankings.

He's right - Mill Gens rate and rank everything! The most mundane things.

Stats on where they begin search - 89% at search engine (Google), 2% at library website. We need to change our sites to change this stat.

"Library community lags years behind other IT industries in adoption of SOA and Web services."

Increase interralationships w/global info sources - Google, yahoo, oclc worldcat.org, etc.

global arena excels at discovery, local arena focuses on content delivery - global tools point to locally owned content. Need to connect these.

The old Google vs. libraries chestnut. He doesn't agree.

Keynote for April 16, 2007 (Monday)

Lee Rainie, Pew Internet project

85% of young broadband users have watched online video
62p have watched YouTube videos
19p have posted videos

Not necessarily wedded to high production value stuff like TDS and Colbert, but like the amateur video (askaninja)

Pew – journalism – basic cultural knowledge
We’re not getting smarter. Fewer people know the name of the VP than 20 years ago.
Interesting: best correlation – those who watch TDS and Colbert are more likely to be informed/knowledgeable. Not counting on that for info, but instead are voracious gatherers of info.

Broadband and experience make people’s net use more social
67 of teen splay games online w/others
51p of ya’s and 67p of older teens share photos on the net
39p of ya’s share files from their puters w/others online

Hallmark #2: Tens of millions of Amer’s, esp the young, are creating and sharing content online.

55p of online teens have created their own profile on a social network site like myspace or facebook.
20p of online adults have such profiles.
Some new risks, but in most cases, kids are being pretty shrewd. Managing their personal information in relatively robust way. Limiting access to their profiles, etc. Kids are getting the message about safety.

SNS Profiels: Switchboards for social life.
Girls more likely than boys to put social stuff on sites.
They do understand difference of IRL friends and virtual, diff levels of intimacy and sharing.

51p of ya net uses have uploaded photos to net
37p of all users have done this
All want comments.
39p of online teens share their own creations online, like artwork, photos, sotries, videos
13p of online adults do this
Many of the teens work as tech support for social groups, churches, families, etc.
28p have created their own online journal or blog (33p of college students)
12p of online adults have a blog
Vast majority of bloggers are doing personal journals – they feel that employers or parents looking at these is violation of norms!

27p of online teens have own website, 14p of online adults
(kill hello kitty now)

26 say they remix content they find online into their own artistic creations, 9p of adults
(danger mouse – Grey Album)

19p of online young adults hav created an avatar that interacts w/others online, 9p of adults. These things are much easier to create in second life type worlds than in mud’s, etc. of 90’s

Content creation by age goes down significantly by age.

Hallmark 3: Even more net users are accessing the content created by others

It now has an audience. Long tail audience, but it’s there.

46p of young net users read blogs

44p of ya net users seek info at wikipedia sites.

Heaviest users of wikipedia have the highest levels of educ. Don’t think it’s the be all, end all of info. Will ping their social network (friends, family) to verify info. Turning to human beings to help assess credibility of info they get.

14p of young net users download podcasts

Hallmark 4: Many are sharing what they know and what they feel online and that is building conversations and communities.

33p of ya net users have rated a person, product or service online. Ratemyprofessors.com
Amazon book reviews, AmIHotOrNot, etc.
32p of online ya have tagged online content. Ex: geotagged photos on flickr.
People can create and share folksonomies online. Powerful.
25p of younger net user shave comented on videos. They also post comments on blogs and photos. It’s a conversation.

Hallmark 5: Tens of thousands of people are contributing their knowhow and processing power to online community.

40p+ of net user participate in peer to peer exchanges
10-30,000 active developers in the global open source movement
Millions participating in grid computing
Climate change, testing drug molecules, genome project, etc.

Hallmark 6: Online Amer’s are customizing their online experiences

40p of younger net users customize news and othe info pages ~half are on specialty listservs. Share passions, interests, things they care about.
Asked about rss feeds – becoming very seamless, so ppl don’t notice they’re using it.

5 issues libraries and all online participants must struggle to address – library blogger Pam Berger (www.infosearcher.com)
1 – navigation – transitiong from linear to nonlinear informat
Getting information back to you is challenge. Links are the currency of the Internet.
2 – Context – learning to see connections
Web 2.0 disaggregates information – hard to put in larger picture. Users are highly contextual users – if important to their life. More likely to use their social network, etc. Trust itself is variable.
3 – focus – practicing reflection and deep thinking. “Continual partial attention” is part of today’s life. (his friend Linda)
Most likely to have creative thought is during relaxation – important.
4 – skepticism – learning to evaluate information. Desperate need for info literacy in our culture (rainie). Libns vital in this.
5 – ethical behavior – understanding the rules of cyberspace.
When is it okay to have cell phone conversation in public place. When is it okay to turn off cell phone? Privacy and disclosure. Excitement about sharing content, but ppl forget that content is out there for good. Google-able. Will be there in 10-15 years, potentially. (supreme court nominee). Haven’t figured out how to talk to ppl about that issue. Haven’t figured out how our social environment will change as result.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mP4nk0EoE ???
digital text is different – form and content became inseparable in HTML. With form now separated from content, more users can create content. Who will organize the data? Tagging, etc. Digital ethnography. The web is no longer just linking info, it’s linking people. Michael Wesch, dept of anthro, _.

I'm here at Computers in Libraries 2007 in DC. I'll be blogging as many of my sessions as possible.

I'll begin with one of my preconferences:

Social Tools for Your Library – “Socializing Your Library”
April 15, 2007
Aaron Schmidt

Not about technology.

Graphic of Web 2.0 sites.

Rates of change – ex: human genome project.
Exponential curveof progress – in many areas
Chess – grains of rice
Only going to get faster

New search engine – Spock – person finder
Human-mediated search engine. “identity resolution”

Google = web ad co. – realize their motivations
We (libs) concentrate on learning, community, service

Agenda:
Lib attitude
Key concepts ofsocial software
2.0 sites and tools
What libs doing w/them

We’ve been expecting patrons to come to us. We need to reduce effort, turn direction around.
Ex: FirstSearch or EBSCO database vs. Google interface

Signage
Cell phone question
Zoning
“courtesy please” – more positive
“gamers welcome”
Wright St. Univ – “cell phone zone”

M. Stephens pic – public comps

Desktop on demand – websites – runs on Java.

IM – real time interaction. Just need computer w/Net connection.
Library screen name – free! Sign up for all services (AIM, Yahoo, MSN, Jabber)

Meebo.com – widget – place small box on a webpage
Chat interface – ex: fordlibrary.org/chat
Most of value of virtual ref software right here, for free!
Meebo stores a chat log – keep in mind. Can use for stats, but will want to delete.

Trillian – similar (more buggy) – download not web-based.
Virus issue is overblown – non-issue with meebo (web-based)

Aaron made cards w/IM and gave them out to students in area.
Use your ‘away’ messages for good cust svc. Gone to do ref, lib closed, leave message (meebo). Students will IM from 10 feet away – may think their ? is stupid.

Q you may get “Are you real or are you a robot?” – AI exists, like moviefone buddy.
Be aware of IM lingo – speed over perfection, but don’t’ let that reduce quality of ref work.

Staff training w/IM – setup names and time for staff to play.

(Break)

South Huntington, NY Lib – bought music from iTunes and some iPod shuffles
iPod can only be associated w/one computer at a time
Aaron started doing same thing at his library – even changed patron iPod’s with permission.
U of West Fl – had Apple come down and do education.

100 milliion iPods in 5 years
Overdrive, NetLibrary, etc. won’t work with iPods – forcing people to use platform NOT available on most popular player of all time!
Audible (AAC-compatible) is 4-6 mos out for library deal ***

Fordlibrary.org/ipods – Aaron’s old library

Social Web, aka “read write web”
User in control of process
Ex: Nike ID
Threadless.com – user generated t-shirts

(Game)
Apples in colander – keywords
LCSH for Apple (slide)
Tags – user-generated subjects – important part of social software
People doing library-like things online for fun!
Let patrons have part in cataloging/searching

Slide - reasons for social web
Interconnectedness

Benefits – free (or cheap)

Reading: Social Machines (MIT Technology Review)
Articles different on their website vs. in databases
Article itself developed w/user interaction. Richness.
“Wisdom of the crowd” question – authority? (Wikipedia)

Aaron teaching unit on wikis for elementary students.

Wikipedia, the great argument creator – article/site?

Aspects of social software
Going where the users are
Enhance your web presence
Increases transparency
Can be useful for librarians too, not just for offering to patrons

Books are for use – also web.

RSS – dynamic content.

API’s – allows programs to talk with each other – can mash programs together

Tag cloud = keywords = metadata
No hierarchy – LCSH is all hierarchical
Folksonomies vs. taxonomies

(Live tour)

Flickr.com
Started by Canadian co. – started w/game – game neverending – had no goal.
Found most popular thing was to share items among users. Make things, share.
“lootcorp”??
Aaron: aaron Schmidt

Q; Flickr vs. blog w/photos
Technical expertise required
Tools available
Can put on flickr, then post to website – “blog this” link (pre-entered blogs)
Tagging ability, so people can find you.
AS: Mr. Bento lunchbox sets. Example. Share passions for object/subject.
Search by full text or tags only on Flickr.
Tags – word (user only), click on world icon next to it (see all w/that tag).
Notes inside the photo itself (Triangular Dexi photo as example). Aaron also did for some of his Bento pics.
Flickr-created clusters – like Ref Int – recurring tags clustered together.
Can print photos, via mail or Target pickup.
FD’s Flickr Toys – website
Things you can do w/Flickr.

Flickr and Libraries
Lackman Virtual Tour
North Plains – nplibrary.org/tour-the-library/
He created slide show using PictoBrowser (freeware), creates code to paste in web page. ***Mention to city mgr’s office for Wire, etc.! – Learnapalooza, OctoberWest.
LaGrange Park Lib – Harry Potter Lib
Explorers page from Lewis Elem in Portland (lewisflickr)
New items – Westmont Public Library
Can choose who can add note (user only or everyone) – demo.
Mapping function on Flickr – can show where photo taken, if have GPS capable phone, can do automatically.
Flickr.com/map/ - general geocoding section.
Flickr.com/photos/tags – tag cloud
Picnik.com
If tagging photos for lib, use your zip code – good search term.
MetaFilter – one of most popular online communities
“best of the web”
“Ask MetaFilter” – reference library for metafilter community – use each other – wisdom of the crowd.
Has tagging capability.
AS: libs should be in this space

MySpace.com
Crappy looking site, not easy to use, but hugely popular.
UIUC library has myspace page. – 487 friends, plus comments.
Recent EFF report on MySpace shows that much of fear is overblown.

Myowncafe.org
Project of libs in SE Mass.
Users can have profile/avatar
Download music from local bands, talk about books.
Automatically authenticates into library databases once sign in to myowncafe

Hennepin County Library – BookSpace
Can comment on others books and book choices
Keep track of books you want to read
Use this for my class!! ***
Image of you reading in your favorite bookspace, they add to their flickr account.
Not just HCL card holders!
Integrated into main web site.
They also have tagging in their OPAC, plus Amazon reviews.

LastFM.com
Create profile, friend people, etc.
Keeps track of all songs you play on computer, rate, etc.
Social aspect – does listening advisory based on choices.
Walkingpaper.org/about – code embedded showing what he’s done.
See also: Pandora.com – online music (radio station)
LastFM plug in – works w/iTunes

YouTube.com
Library Dominoes video – add!
UCLA library taser incident – citizen journalism aspect
ACPL CHI Grand Opening – library using for PR
User: LibVlog – Romance Videos
Tell AS about 5x5
Ontario Library System – ad
Not stuck in YouTube – can embed in webpage or blog – it creates the code.
Google video has better software, but no social aspects. They bought YouTube.

Note: search on YouTube for “MySpace” – kids doing videos about MySpace, shows their understanding of it.

Blogs

Blogger.com
Fast, cheap (free), easy.
Having blog is like emailing info to the web.
Can be housed there, or can FTP or SFTP to your website.

Wordpress is download – more sophisticated.

Shows backsite of Wordpress – just like creating and email (compose/type/subject/send).

He worked on WesternSpringsHistory.org – got grant. Cheap project overall. Joint project w/historical soc and library (library did work of inputting).

Moveable Type
Type Pad

RSS

Bloglines.com
GoogleReader.com – one participant likes better than bloglines.
Flickr has full RSS support – subscribe to tags or users.
(blog – worried man blues, library garden)


More Social Sites


Google Documents – via Gmail – share documents online, work on, etc.

Wikis
Pbwiki.com – easy site to get started.
We are smarter than me – wearesmarter.org – business book being written by group! Eventually will be published.

MediaWiki – install on server – what Wikipedia uses.

Don’t need HTML skills to edit.

Fordlibrary.org/staffpages (staff side wiki – secured)
They also have a staff-only blog. Up to date info. Wiki for knowledge storing.

SJCPL subject guides – wiki.

Opinion piece from the LA Times on noise in the library. (That boat has sailed, folks!) But it does reiterate the need for intelligent space planning. A quiet 'area' is not enough, you need actual separated rooms, to block out the cell and computer noise.

You also need a rational cell phone policy. Our library takes a pretty balanced approach, I think. We don't worry about a quick call home to check on a title or whatever. We give more, um, verbose patrons the option of going into one of our study rooms for the duration of their more lengthy call. Convincing them that their call has already been at some length, however, is the hard part...

Thanks to Shannon for posting on the Iowalib list!

Spencer (Iowa) Library's famous cat, Dewey Readmore, is getting his own biography.

Dewey passed away last November, but other library cats live on.

A perfect example at YouTube: Finding Time Magazine at Library Website

(Sorry for the recent silence, folks, but the blog admin went down for a bit.)