#libcampuk11 session 4: using wikimedia to improve access

(Library Camp UK 2011 home | my other posts about it)

In this session Andy Mabbett introduced us to ways of using wikimedia (the parent organisation (owned by the Wikimedia Foundation) to Wikipedia, Wiktionary, Wikimedia commons, etc.).  Andy is a real evangelist for making the most of wiki* to benefit your own organisations or products.

GLAM (Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums)
Wikimedia is actively seeking to encourage collaboration from heritage organisations, as you can see from the GLAM outreach wiki. Andy described a 'backstage pass event' he'd been to at Derby Museum and Art Gallery. Wikipedia editors had been invited along to a day's event, to have talks and tours about and around the museum, and a cup of tea and a biscuit, all with the aim in getting more coverage of the museum and its holdings.  Andy pointed out that by doing a little to make people special, they will do lots in return: 1,200 new articles (and translations) were created as a result of this one-day event (including this one about a racing pigeon).

There are all sorts of potential events that you can run to engage the local community, or the community of wikipedia editors, that will benefit your organisation in terms of improved visibility.

Putting stuff on wiki*
There are two criteria for including an article on Wikipedia:

1. it must be about a notable thing - i.e. something that's written about elsewhere
2. you have to cite what you say - you can't include original research or unsupported statements.

This leaves a lot of scope for GLAMs to include articles about themselves, their collections and their notable holdings.  You can't have an article (or links to) every single hand axe in the country, but if you're is significant, or you have a copy of book that exists in very low numbers, than that's worthy of inclusion.

You can also release images, video, audio and animations on Wikimedia Commons.  It's good to release material with a licence allowing reuse with attribution - and then your pictures can be used anywhere, and will link back to your organisation. 

If you have a large volume of images, Wikimedia can help with batch imports, and they maintain their servers so that the images are preserved.  In addition, the pictures are now available to all sorts of people who'll be able to help identify them and items in them.

QRpedia (intro | intro on GLAM wiki | actual site)
QRpedia is a doohickey that makes QR codes to link to Wikipedia pages. When someone scans the code, QRpedia return the wikipedia page in the phone's language where possible (interesting discussion of 'difficult' languages here).  Why is this cool? It means that visitors can get information about things in your exhibition in their own language without you having to make three hundred different signs.  Obviously, if you link to a very specific page there will be fewer language options that a very general one, but translations are increasing all the time...

Homework
We were encouraged to sign up for an account and to start editing Wikipedia pages, for example by correcting punctuation or by translating an article (e.g. into Simple English) (Andy suggested hitting the 'random article' button until you found something that needed tidying up).  I've set up my account, and have done my first editing (a very undramatic addition of a link at the end of an article).

Thoughts
I found this session really useful.  Wikipedia is out there, and the very thing that means that some people view it as shady and disreputable is the thing that makes it powerful for us: we can edit it.  I think it's a great idea that organisations use Wikipedia to improve their online presence: people will be looking us up there, so why not give them good information, and decent links to our own sites?

However, I can imagine that selling the use of wikipedia (e.g. via qrpedia as a help to visitors) might be difficult to sell to the organisation... or it might be seen as lazy.  Do other people think it's something they could get agreement to do?

And finally...
For those interested in that sort of thing, there's also a linked-data-y DBpedia: "a community effort to extract structured information from Wikipedia and to make this information available on the Web"

#libcampuk11 session 3: Enabling reuse of library/catalogue data

(Library Camp UK 2011 home | my other posts about it)

This session was facilitated by Owen Stephens, who does lots of digital library stuff, is involved in mashedlib events, and is lovely. (He could probably write a better bio than that, though.)  I'm really keen to learn more about the techy side of librarianing, so I was really pleased to see him offer this session.  It was very interesting - and I've come away with an idea for something that would made catalogues more useful for some rare books users, and lots of places to start finding out more.  My notes are a bit sketchy - a lot of links and a few ideas. Sorry about that.

The issues Owen said he hope to discuss in the session were "How do places with data interact with people who want to use it?" and "How do we make data available?".

Why do organisations publish data?

• Accountability: by releasing data people can see what's been done and for how much money. Etc.
• To increase the available services. 
• People 'out there' will be able to do things that you don't have the resources to do yourself.
• They'll also think of better things to do with your data, and by combining your data with data from other places.
• An example that covers both of these is the public toilet map.
• NB, the government is currently consulting on what data Local Government should release: Making Open Data Real

What does this have to do with libraries?
Library catalogues have imposed on them librarian- or supplier-made decisions about what can/can't be searched and in what way.  Some of these decisions are limited by current cataloguing rules, but not all; often the data is recorded, but not in a usable way, or is there but isn't tapped by the intereface.  For example, in most catalogues you can limit by publication type to newspapers, but you can't limit by frequency of the issues.  Releasing data means that people can start to use it in the way they want to.

Releasing data: issues
Different uses will require different kinds of data release.  To work on the newspapers query above, a dump of all the MARC (i.e. cataloguing) information would be OK.  But for an app using circulation data you'd need to use a live API.
Data protection is obviously a big issue for some kinds of data.  But it's not a deal-breaker.  You can base locations on postcode zone, not individual postcodes for example, or for course-based datasets (in a uni context), just not include data from very small courses.

Useful links 

• Where to get data:
• data.gov.uk
• the London Datastore
• the Data Hub (CKAN)
• getthedata.org
• Other info:
• The Cambridge University Library api (also of interest: Cambridge Open MetaData (COMET) project)
• 5-stars of open linked data (basic principle: start by getting your data out there in whatever format you have it, then work towards putting it in the most usable form)
• JISC Open Bibliographic Data Guide 
• Tools
• VuFind (open source next-gen OPAC type thing)
• Project Blacklight ("Blacklight is a free and open source Ruby on Rails based discovery interface (a.k.a. “next-generation catalog”) especially optimized for heterogeneous collections. You can use it as a library catalog, as a front end for a digital repository, or as a single-search interface to aggregate digital content that would otherwise be siloed.")
• An example of something, presumably crowd-sourced useful things:
• http://errata.wikidot.com/

#libcampuk session 2: special collections

(Library Camp UK 2011 home | my other posts about it)

In my best spirit of 'things will just work themselves out', I pitched a session for special collections librarians and anyone else interested at which we would (and I quote) "talk about stuff". Aim low, I say, and you can't fail!  We had a session. We talked. I got some ideas. I hope other people did to - thanks to those who came for making it good.  In retrospect (and based on experience in later sessions in the day) I reckon I could have probably been more of a proactive 'session leader', maybe by asking a starter question to get discussion going, or by starting off my describing my experience and ideas. I really didn't want to come across as hogging the limelight, or as though I was just telling people what I thought - I'm no expert, and I wanted to hear from everyone else.

Anyway, here's my write-up...  This is a combination of my notes from the day and my later reflections. 

The session attendees fell roughly into three types:

1. People with responsibility for special collections, but not as their main work, who are trying to work out what to do with them.
2. People whose job is special collections who're looking for ways to make the most of what they've got.
3. People who want to know more about special collections/special collections work.

We started off with a quick, impromptu, round-up of Laura's MA dissertation research into exhibitions in libraries (the full dissertation will be online in due course).  Laura looked at the ways in which different institutions create exhibitions, and the feelings of those responsible for them about what training and support they needed in their roles.

Outreach: some issues
Special collections have been for too long treated as 'private libraries' and that's just not right. Very very few collections are of purely local interest - they are all relevant to wider research, history, stories, culture, etc. Special collections might even be one way of helping libraries in this time of peril - they are by their definition unique.  They're a way of demonstrating the value of libraries, or a unique selling point for individual institutions. (Whilst this is true to some extent, I'm wary of using special collections as a rallying point, as it might be seen to imply that all the other work that libraries do is obsolete, which I don't believe for one second.)

But getting started with widening access can be hard: time, money, co-operation from the organisation, hidden-ness of some libraries or special collections departments (it's hard to increase access if visitors have to be individually signed in and given a badge!) are all problems.

Which is better: physical exhibition or online?
If you have limited resources, which should you do? Is it better to draw out the stories behind objects, or to allow people access to the magic of the real thing? Both are good. Either are good. Any kind of improvement to access is good.  Andy Mabbett plugged his afternoon session about using Wikipedia (and Creative Commons licences allowing re-use) to increase access.  Other image/digitisation projects mentioned were Culture Grid, People's Collection Wales, and Europeana.

What if we become popular?
In small institutions it's easy to get scared that if you start to promote your collections, perhaps online via digital reproductions/blogs/etc., you'll suddenly be inundated with real-life visitors wanting to see the originals.  It's true that if you have information about your collections available online then the number of people enquiring about them will increase.  But this really shouldn't stop you showing off a bit: there are various ways to cope with the threat of popularity:

• you can state outright that you have an online exhibition for the reason that you don't (currently) have facilities for physical exhibitions, and have no visitor facilities.
• you can formulate a policy about what sort of visitors/readers can be admitted (e.g. 'academic research' only), and either publicise it or use it in response to queries.
• if you do receive increased in-person interest in your collection(s) its a good way to demonstrate your collection's value to senior management, and possibly to gain extra resources. 
• Anne from Ulster cited the example of The Ireland Collection, developed by JSTOR in association with Queen's University Belfast, which has raised the profile of the university across the world, but has also raised the profile of special collections within the university.

What are 'special collections'?
A good question! And one that it's important to keep answering.  Those 'in the know' might realise the breadth of the field, but those with small collections of 'special' things might not realise that they fall under the umbrella - they might think that 'special collections' might just mean the 'jewel in the crown' items like medieval manuscripts.  Some ideas as to what counts:

• old, rare, fragile, valuable
• coherent - items from a person/place/institution/time/purpose
• significant - local, has a story, belonged to a person...
• archival material (I'm editing out the long discussion of the overlap and interplay between spec colls and archives. I can't face trying to construct the necessary Venn diagram...)

Special collections aren't just 'piles of books'. It was interesting to hear tales of items being rescued from skips (things that others didn't value but that libraries do) vs donations that we wish we could put in skips - even a donation of books previously weeded from the same library!

Hidden special collections - some possibilities
The part of the session that I found most interesting was a discussion spurred on by a librarian who works in a private company library - not your traditional special collections hunting ground. But it turned out that they have a small-ish collection of company archival material, including auction records, house plans, and other lovely things.  They get about one reader for it a year - which to my mind isn't bad for something so hidden away (there's a brief listing on their main library catalogue, which is a good start, cataloguing wise).  But it sounded like a collection that has huge potential - for research, for public engagement, and to enhance the prestige of a long-established company.

Some of the problems I saw for institutions holding collections of this type were:

• people don't know what their stuff counts as - special collections? archives? local history? none of the above?
• they don't know what the audience for it is
• they don't know how best to store it
• they don't know how to promote it
• they don't know who can help them with it

And so it languishes in a store room, costing money in storage costs...

What to do?  The one sentence answer (to my mind) is: find a partner institution, to help with storage/care/cataloguing but also access/promotion/development. Many libraries and archives will accept donations or deposits (the terms of deposits vary individually, but there are ways of entrusting a collection and the care of said collection to an institution whilst retaining ownership by the origination company) from outside bodies, according to their existing specialist areas, collection strengths, and collection development policies.  The same, or other, institutions might be able to help with getting the collection used - with research projects, with community projects, with all sorts of things. If I were a better librarian I'd add links here.  Comment if you have good examples!

And finally...
Not mentioned in the session but probably useful:

• The forthcoming special collections handbook, written by Alison Cullingford, brains behind 100 Objects Bradford (great example of online outreach) and now also working on the RLUK Unique and Distinctive Collections Project.
• Heritage Open Days: if you have a historic or otherwise interesting building, a great way to do one-day-a-year outreach (tours or open house).
• Rarely Sited: a blog by a friend of mine who wrote her MA dissertation about library outreach in Cambridge college libraries.
• A paper Naomi Herbert and I gave about widening access at St John's College Cambridge: text and slides.

#libcampuk11 session 1: cataloguing and classification (#hvcats)

(Library Camp UK 2011 home | my other posts about it)

I suggested this session in advance on the wiki. Adrienne stood up to pitch for it on the day - thank you!  The session pretty much ran itself - after intros (some 'expert' cataloguers, some who 'only catalogue to in house rules', some who 'will have to start cataloguing soon and haven't much experience yet', some systems folk and some just interested) various ideas and problems were discussed by the group.  Here are my notes (I've removed identities to protect the innocent...):

We started with a comment inspired by the introductions: "Lots of people say that they 'don't follow a proper standard'. So what is the point of major international standards? Maybe it's only the national libraries that need/want to follow such standards.  Perhaps RDA moves some way, with the idea of 'cataloguer's choice', towards allowing greater freedom for individual organisations to creat their own scheme."

"Maybe the most important thing is to get the data in in some form or other - 'mark it and park it'.  We need to ask what the motivation is for creating 'beautiful' records using loads of different obscure fields and all the right punctuation."

"Some places aren't doing that now. [E.g. libraries in private companies] But there is value in big institutions 'doing it properly'."

"But what is 'doing it properly'? Different users have different needs [example given of a researcher wanting to look at e.g. female authors of poetry in a given century, but we don't currently record genders of authors.] MARC is difficult to use - it's hard to meet the users' needs with it."

"It's hard to meet user needs because cataloguers don't get much feedback about how their cataloguing is used.  [Example: not having it explained that the date in the leader is what's used for date-limited searches, so it's really important that it's there... There are lots more examples like this]"

"Do we have feedback buttons on OPACs so that users can report mistakes in records? Are we keeping our user data and actually examining it meaningfully?"

"So how to standards fit into this? Do we want standards or not?"

"We want good standards. Web-friendly standards, e.g. URLs  for authors (i.e. linked data).  That's a different issue to on-the-ground cataloguing issues which are about how to identify which author a given work has, for e.g. (matching to authorities)."

"How good/useful is Dublin Core in this context?"

"There are lots of things available (Dublin Core, SXML, JSON...?) - stuff that helps cataloguers.  But some people (e.g. rare books) nee more fields/more granularity than available in DC."

"Dublin Core, or whatever, won't be the solution if we just use it in the old way - with a reliance on punctuation, not separating components of an author's name, etc."

"What about classfication? [Insert institution name here] has a frightful mess."

"[Company library] has a bad classification system because it's not fine-grained enough.  There are lots anf lots of not very similar books all at one number."

"What the point of classification? Why not just label the shelves?"

"If it's done well, classification marked in the catalogue can be used to subject retrieval."

"Does anyone actually do that?"

"Perhaps it could be done retrospectively for closed access material - classify, and then extract textual subject information from the class no. and display that on catalogue.  Then shelve by running nos, etc. as is more efficient."

"[A library] use complicated UDC but isn't browsed much - a mis-match of effort vs use."

"OCLC are using DDC for book recommendations.   But what is the point of DDC?"

"A legacy of the physical library. Class at the shelf is useful in a physical library for browsing.  The OPAC/online world hasn't yet replicated this yet, and that's a big issue."

"Also an issue for e-books."

"[A question from a systems librarian:] Do we enjoy cataloguing?"

"Yes!"

"We need to see more of the systems people so that we can collaborate and explain our side of the story."

"Cataloguers make good systems people - if you can write an all-singing, all-dancing MARC record, you can probably code just fine!"

"So how do we get a systems job?"

"Go to a mashlib event!"

"Learn and practice in your own time. Try building something! Fashionable programming languages are: python, php, perl [and one that I wrote so poorly I really can't decipher it... sorry.] [ETA Adrienne has identified it as ruby]"

END.

Conclusions: we need to re-evaluate what we're doing and how in collaboration with the people who have the data about what people are doing and trying to do with our catalogues, and can build the systems we want.

Resources (plugged at the end of the session):

• High visibility cataloguing blog
• On Twitter: #hvcats, HVCats

#libcampuk11: an unconference to remember

I'm just back from the UK's first Library Camp: an unconference for librarians held in Birmingham and organised by a team of wonderful, hard-working people.  People were *really* looking forward to it - it seemed like all of Twitter was going to be there - so I was a little concerned in advance that it might not live up to the hype.  I needn't have worried: it was superb.  Even getting up at 4.15am (and not getting home again until 11pm) and two visits to New St station didn't put a damper on it.

I took part in the following sessions, and will write about those separately soon:

• Cataloguing & Classification
• Special Collections
• Enabling the re-use of library data
• Wikipedia and Wikicommons

My opinions and thoughts on the event as a whole:

• Everyone was very friendly.  At the intros at the start lots of people said they were there to meet people, so that shouldn't have been a surprise, but it was really very, very nice.
• I think there was a good balance between organisation and chaos.  
• Having people pitch their session ideas ended up with a wide range of different sessions, which seemed to fall into a few vague 'streams' of  related topics.
• The timings were pretty good, everyone seemed to respect the balance between enjoying the current activity and getting on to the next. Unlike a 'proper' conference there was no slow by steady creep of everything getting later and later as people keep on talking to their slides past their allotted time...
• Not only was there cake, there was plenty of tea and coffee and a nice coffee area to sit and talk/eat/rest.
• I was a bit dubious about giving everyone there a chance to introduce themselves (with name, where they're from and why they've come), but think it was a good idea.  It did take a while to do, and there's no way you can remember everyone there, but it's a nice way to identify a few people you'd like to speak to later, and to break the ice.
• I only went to 4 of 5 possible sessions - decided to bunk off the last (nothing in particular attracted my attention, and I was pretty tired) and sat around with other crafters having #knitcamp instead.  All lovely people, and no feeling of guilt that I wasn't 'getting the most' from the event.
• Sorry to people I didn't say hello to, or whom I only said hello and nothing more to. Would have loved to have time to talk to more of you!

Give your (#libcampuk11) cake a QR code

I break my blogging drought with a quick post fleshing out an idea I had yesterday evening.

You may have heard of Library Camp - an 'un-conference'-style event happening a week Saturday in Birmingham.  The good people organising it have invited attendees to bring along a cake (we all know that librarians like cake).

Some people have been talking about making their own name badges, and including QR codes on them so that people with smartphones can find out more about the person in front of them.  Well, that's all well and good, but what about those of us who are more interested in new cake recipes than other people?

And lo! The idea of QR codes for cake was born.  Thus far in life, I've been a bit QR-code ambivalent. But being able to get to the recipe for a cake you're currently eating - sounds perfect to me.  Carrying on reading if you want a step-by-step guide...