Revealing Codes: QR Codes in Your Libraries

This session was presented by Krista Godfrey, MUN. QR codes are two-dimensional barcodes which can carry more information than traditional barcodes. The presenter called them “the new hyperlinks” which link the physical world with the virtual, linking to present the user with contact information, websites, audio/visual information, and so on. Users most often read QR codes with smart phones, but other devices such as iPod Touches and tablets with a camera and downloaded QR reader app can be used.

Quick Mark and Bee Tags are just two of the many QR readers available; for smart phone users, the presenter suggested googling “QR reader” and the name of the phone to find the most compatible reader for that device.

There are many possible uses for QR codes in libraries. Some of these include:

·         In bound serials stacks, to link to online holdings

·         On posters promote events and services

·         In stacks, to link to relevant LibGuides

·         To link to audio/video library tours

·         On equipment such as photocopiers or scanners, to link to instructions or video tutorials

·         On business cards, to link to blogs, LibGuides, etc.

·         In individual records in the library catalogue

There are a number of programs to create QR codes, including Kaywa, Delivr, goo.gl and bit.ly. The latter two examples are URL shorteners, which shorten a long URL to produce a more easily readable code. The codes produced by these programs, however, may expire, whereas codes produced by non-shortening programs apparently do not.

Some issues involved with using QR codes involve:

·         Inaccessibility to patrons with visual and/or mobility problems (watch for placement of codes)

·         Digital divide: not everyone has access to a suitable device

·         Connectivity: wifi access, data plans, the need for authentification (to enter a wifi network, to access online journal holdings, etc.)

·         Security: it is possible for people to cover QR codes with other codes on stickers, which may lead to malicious sites

Guiding principles for using QR codes:

·         Put promotional material outside of the library as well as in

·         Add information (links, etc.) for those who don’t have devices

·         If you like to a library site, link to a mobile version

·         Size matters (make sure that codes are not too big or too small to be useful)

·         Test before putting codes out

·         Watch for physical location and ease of scanning

·         Add value to information

·         Make it easy, not more difficult, for patrons

While people are becoming more familiar with QR codes, they do not seem to be using them on a regular basis yet (one study quoted showed that only 2 out of 10 college students successfully scanned a particular code); your take-up rate might not be very high. On the other hand, it does not take much staff time or expense to produce QR codes, so it could be worth experimenting to see if they prove useful to you.

University Commons: a Case Study One Year After Opening

I attended this session, presented by Karen Keiller, UNB-SJ. The presenter talked about her experiences with the university’s new Hans W. Klohn Commons. The building opened in September 2011 after one year of construction and several years of planning, with a cost of $25 million. The Commons includes study space (tables, carrels, and study rooms), a collaborative classroom, writing centre and math/science help centre, technical support, computers, stacks, open stack compact shelving in the basement, a glassed-in reading room and a café. She reported that the space is very open, with lots of windows and glass walls allowing for natural light, and very well-used by students. They recently changed their hours to accommodate the students from the MBA program who never used the old library, but who now frequent the Commons.

The building has more seating than the old library, but fewer stacks; she advised participants thinking about establishing a similar commons to think seriously about the amount of stack space which will be needed. She has found that they could have used less than they planned for; in fact, due to a last minute error with the shelving provided for the reference section, she had to cut the section down by a third. Those materials were left in storage and have not been needed since. She emphasized that the commons is “about bodies, not about books.”

She also spoke about the need for quiet. The building’s open design and the number of students using it lead to occasional problems with noise. There is a glassed-in reading room, but seating is limited. She advised that planners take into account the need for space for quiet work, as well as for group work.

She also spoke about the need to plan ahead for power requirements; changes in building plans led to a lack of plugs, or plugs located too far from desks/carrels. She mentioned, as well, a lack of control regarding construction and infrastructure elements: problems in having furniture moved from the old building to the new, delays in getting equipment into the collaborative classroom, even such mundane tasks as having bulletin boards installed. She also added that, before making a change, planners should get baseline measurements of factors such as noise levels, gate counts, etc., to compare new and old spaces.

She discussed the idea of the differences between the traditional library and the learning commons, and said that, as yet, the change in the building has not had a great effect on the services they provide, aside from doing more retrieval of materials in storage. Writing Centre and Math/Science Centre staff are included in various discussions and meetings. She said that one goal of the learning commons is to transform learning on the campus. As they have not yet been open for a year, and all of the equipment is not yet in place, they have not been able to gauge fully the effects of the Commons on learning, but that the students have responded to the openness and inspiring spaces in the new building.

Digital Preservation in the Canadian Landscape

I attended this Association of Canadian Archivists Pre-conference on the current state of digital preservation in Canada. The range of 12 thirty minute presentations was broad [see link to the program].

At the end of the day, the moderator asked all the presenters to come to the front of the room and indicate in 2 minutes their message to the group. The overwhelming message was to join with others, to collaborate. No one organization can do it all, work with others and in particular work with community groups, don't reinvent the wheel. Put your content up and make it findable, in the best way you can. This was the same message from the Library of Congress, which is now archiving tweets (not all of them!), to the folks at COPPUL using LOCKSS for e-journals.

If you note any presentation that you are interested in learning more about what was said, let me know. I took comprehensive notes, too many to post here.

From Doubtful to Doable: The Problem of Formulating Good Research Problems

Dr. Alvin Schrader, Director of Research at the University of Alberta Libraries; and Professor Emeritus & former Director of SLIS, University of Alberta, described research as a structured problem solving process. Research begins with a doubt, an uncertainty, a question regarding what to believe or what to do. From there it is a process with three distinct phases:

1. Problem formulation
2. Problem investigation
3. Problem reporting
   

Each of these phases involves particular thinking/reasoning skills and all have research literature informing them.

The session focused on the problem formulation stage which Schrader described as having three stages:

1. General Problem Area
2. Specific Research Problem - the what? question
3. Key Terms - concepts, definitions, semantic triangles, relationships involving digraphing antecedent-consequent, showing direction of influence

Schrader used suggestions for research provided by the session participants as examples for working through stages #2 and #3 above.

Schrader provided a list of research problems which may arise from:

• a theory or model or policy
  
• a gap or void in understanding
  
• contradictory claims
  
• contradictory evidence
• inconclusive or weak evidence
• faulty assumptions
• overgeneralizing conclusions from limited data
• unexplained relationships
• a new relationship
• a provocative exception
• unrepresentative sample
• response bias
• a theory-action conflict or gap
• a professional practice conflict or gap
• a methodological alternative
• an alternative setting, time, population, population sub-group, or social context
• literature reviews for meta-analysis
• recommendations for further research in publications
• research agendas developed by associations

Finally, Schrader suggested that research proposals and ethics review submissions should answer two questions:

1. Are you the right person for this study?
2. Is it worth doing?

From this presentation, I would recommend the Scholarly Librarian blog as a potential source of information about doing research as a librarian. I also have a 2-page handout from Dr. Schrader with additional detail on the above. Let me know if you'd like a copy.

Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.
Dr. Carl Sagan

Zounds! Biff! Kablam! Or How I Started a Graphic Novel Collection at My Academic Library

Crystal Rose, a Public Services Library at Memorial University in Corner Brook, began with a brief history of comics and graphic novels. Her presentation was particularly interesting because she used graphics to show the history of this genre. She gave evidence that graphic novels are being used for courses in many disciplines, and in scholarly journals as the focus of academic research. She included a list of criteria being used at MUN to make selection decisions and a sense of cost and circulation statistics for this collection. Crystal provided tips for choosing titles, ways to promote the collection, as well as cataloguing challenges.

Licensing Digital Content

This "workshop" session was designed to teach us how to read licenses for digital content, and to understand the subtleties therein. We were given copies (or parts thereof) of a few different licenses, including an Access Copyright Repographic License, an Access Copyright Transactional License, and a few licenses for access to specific vendors' digital collections. Here are a few key points from this session:

• Prior to signing a license, individuals have statutory rights allowing them reprographic rights in certain situations. We should be careful not to sign away such rights for our users when signing onto a license.
• The AC Reprographic License allows for digital copies, but only if they are destroyed following the transfer.
• The OCUL license with Emerald allows for a local load of the content (this is unusual).
• Before signing a license with a U.S. vendor, make sure that they are authorized to sell those rights in Canada.
  

Developing Your Assessment Toolkit

I was curious to learn that Kathy Ball (McMaster) and Margaret Martin Gardiner (U. of Western Ontario) have the title of Assessment Librarian at their respective universities, so I decided to attend this session and see what kind of assessment they take have initiated at their institutions.

Not surprisingly, there was some discussion about LibQual, which they feel is a worthwhile tool which can give hints at what aspects of the library needs work -- especially when it is followed up with targeted efforts (focus groups, interviews) to assess the improvements needed in those areas.

Some of the assessment tools they discussed were: surveys and questionnaires, focus groups, interviews, and observational techniques. They suggested that in this day and age a library administrator cannot ask for funding without proper support for their endeavours.

Although not surprising, they repeated at least three times to "be aware of your bias." Whether at the question-writing stage, during an interview or focus group, or at the data analysis stage -- bias can creep up and skew one's results. In more basic terms, they told us to "be prepared to hear both what you want to hear and what you don't want to hear."

Note for Rita: A programmer at one of their institutions devised a way to send their LibQual comments to a PostgreSQL database, attach categories to the entries, and render them searchable and sortable. Perhaps we should contact them and see if they would share some notes about this?

Video Killed the Radio Star, But Made My Library Awesome!

I attended this session by Shawn McCann, Catherine Baird and Krista Godfrey of McMaster University because a few months ago I put in a request for funding to hire two summer "student videographers" at the Angus L., and I was curious to hear about their experiences. (They made their videos themselves, but did recruit students to participate.)

Much of what they covered amounts to "video 101" fare -- storyboarding, shooting out of sequence, basic lighting continuity and the importance of good sound quality. Although I knew this stuff already, it was good to hear in a pared-down way. A few points that are worth noting:

• The librarians and staff they chose to "star" were those that students might run into at the library.
• They mostly shot at times when the library was closed to avoid sound interference.
• They made an intro sequence that could be appended to all the videos.
• All their videos are under one minute in length.
• They chose to use memes that are known to anyone who uses social media (pirates, ninjas, zombies).
• They ended up purchasing a Canon Vixia HD camera, and were happy with the results (it records to SD card, which makes it easy to transfer footage).
• They used the lights from their digi-lab.
• They used the SoundSoap application for cleaning up sound, Audacity for audio mixing.
• They recommend starting to think about promotion at the very beginning (they only tackled this later on). Make sure to have a target audience selected (e.g. first-year students).
• Using local music is a good way to promote local bands!
  

Complying with Copyright in the Digital Age

This session was delivered by Erin Finlay, Legal Counsel, Access Copyright). Considering that a) she is a lawyer and b) she works for Access Copyright, I was not very surprised at Ms. Finlay's interpretation of the current copyright law as it applies to libraries. She began the session by giving an overview of some of the main concepts around copyright in Canada:

• the Berne Convention protects copyright laws internationally, so that each signatory country agrees to honour the copyright law in the country in which the use of the work happens


• copyright only applies to a fixed original work (although she did remind us that courts have ruled that a phone book has enough original content to be called an original work…)


• rights apply when there is use of “a substantial part of a work” (her legal interpretation is that any part that is significant enough for someone to want to use it can thus be called “substantial”)


• unlike copyright, moral rights are never transferred to the publisher or any other copyright owner – these remain with the author, and allow for protection of the integrity of the work (an author can only challenge his or her moral right if the use in question prejudices the author’s honour or reputation)

She then engaged the participants in a discussion of “What is a copy?” (her interpretation, not surprisingly, was quite broad)

• BMG Music vs. John Doe – in this Canadian court case, BMG Music wanted an Internet service provider to give up the names of users who were downloading music illegally. According to her, the federal court judgment’s decision has given many the impression that peer-to-peer is not illegal in Canada [the exact passage from this decision is: “Under Act, subsection 80(1), the downloading of a song for a person's private use does not constitute infringement.”]. As a result, Canada now hosts the five largest peer-to-peer websites in the world.


• There are a number of defenses available to users, but according to her these need to be used independently (institutions cannot mix and match) between Fair Use and the Educational Exemption

A representative from the CLA Copyright Committee spoke up during the Q&A -- she announced that the committee will soon post to the CLA website all-new signage that libraries can post next to photocopiers and scanners instead of the current Access Copyright signage. From what I heard through the grapevine, these will apparently be significantly different from the signage distributed by Access Copyright.

Our Job in 10 Years: The Future of Academic Libraries

This was an informal session by John Dupuis (York U.) and Janice Mutz (Lakehead U.). They presented provocative statements/questions on the screen and asked participants to respond and interact. Here are some of the questions put forward by the presenters, as well as comments made by the participants:

• the core of the library’s offerings has to be the educational mission of the institution; our first loyalty must be to the patron


• What is our relationship to stuff?


• What value does our physical space have?


• What is our expertise on a campus full of experts?


• Everyone thinks they know what a library is...


• We should be thinking of ourselves as being in the reputation and attention business


• We have to get better at finding free stuff, not just what’s in our collection


• We’re living in an on-demand world; librarians have to be much more available than ever before (there was some discussion about Meebo widgets, answering reference questions in the evening from home, creating personal relationships with students and researchers, etc.)


• RefWorks is on its way out


• What happens when GoogleBooks starts charging? Do we pay? Will it affect our ability to buy other material? Do we not pay and risk being completely circumvented? (there was discussion about how librarians should become even more active in the GoogleBooks settlement debate)


• Discussed with Sonny Banerjee, librarian at Ryerson, about the fact that some faculty members are showing audiovisual material without even consulting the library about rights – that all the work we do with public performance rights might be for naught

Somewhat unrelated: In this session I also learned that a disproportionate number of librarians are Buffy fans.

Who's your father? IslandLives: Creating a community digital history project

Donald Moses from UPEI spoke about their project to digitize Prince Edward Island local histories and create a website where people can browse by surname, the name of the place, a subject or an organization. This is similar to what we are doing in our digitization lab. Just as we've concentrated on the Coady and StFX Extension Department material for the last year because of a grant, UPEI obtained a grant to do local histories and have scanned more than 170. It was very interesting to see how they set up their digitization compared to us.

The UPEI project differs from how we do digitization in several ways. We use ContentDM (from Memorial) to store our documents and provide searching and access. UPEI uses open source software called Fedora (to store the documents); Drupal (to create webpages to access the documents and djatoka (to edit their images). They have developed their own software called Islandora to help Fedora and Druple work together.

UPEI is doing optical character recognition (OCR) on every document and text based files TEI(text encoding initiative) files which means that they can mark every personal or place names in thebooks and use this information to create an index of names. We let ContentDM do most of the OCR on our documents and only do OCR here if we think there will be problems, such as when the text is very faint or there are many pictures.

Brad developed a program for us to track our processes so we know which items need to be scanned, which are ready for OCR and which are ready to be uploaded and to track the quality control of the documents. UPEI developed a spreadsheet in Google Docs to do this tracking.

We both plan to use Google Maps to visually show communities mentioned in the books or documents.

All in all, we took very different routes for our digitization units but we have very similar challenges and goals. I think UPEI will be launching their Island Lives project this fall. You can see a copy of Donald's presentation here http://www.apla2009.ca/images/presentations/moses.pdf

Greening the Library

Bill Mitchell from York Library Region, Fredericton, NB presented this session on how to make libraries more environmentally friendly. He noted that public libraries are leading the way in green construction. As well as features such as wind and solar energy some of the green features used include using recycled steel & gypsum board, flooring made from recycled tires, carpet made from corn or rice, countertops from recycled aluminum. One green innovation which doesn't always work as planned is re-using greywater - ie. the water that drains down the sinks - to flush the toilets. It turns out that even when there are numerous signs warning people that the toilet water is not supposed to be perfectly clear, patrons flush the three times as much.

He mentioned that one of the most used features on new buildings is green (sedum) roofs, such as that of the Cardiff Central Library in Wales, which is a very sustainable building. Langara College Library and North Vancouver Public Library are other examples of recent green buildings.

What can we do? Bill had a number of tips, such as rearranging photocopiers so the ozone from the copiers doesn’t affect the entire library; choosing reusables such as rejuvenated toner cartridges, mechanical pencils, refillable pens and tape dispensers; shred unrecyclable paper for packaging material; try to repair broken items before discarding; turning off computers and printers; setting monitors at most energy efficient setting, taking advantage of sunlight as much as possible; using non-toxic highlighters; using refillable ink cartridges; plus many more.

He expanded the 3 r’s of reduce, reuse and recycle to 6, adding rethink (form a discussion group to reevaluate library practices), repurpose/recover (purchase new or used) and rejoice (your successes). He mentioned the Calgary Public Library has a comprehensive Eco-Action plan worth reading

Two quotes worth repeating:

“Many library buildings can benefit from quick low-cost/no-cost energy-saving solutions, such as turning things off, turning things down and keeping up with cleaning and maintenance”

And remember, “something as simple as using a library helps the planet”.

His presentation is available at Greening our libraries with a list of Internet sites of interest at Greening Libraries links

Impact of Social Cataloguing Sites on the Public Library Catalogue: Patrons, Social Tagging and the New Face of the Catalogue

Sites like LibraryThing, Junklog, and Bibliophil provide important examples of how comprehensive bibliographic records and library catalogues can be created to not only describe items in the library, but to also provide an important avenue for people to share their reading interests and to create interactive and dynamic communities of interest. [program description].

Despite the title of this session indicating it's relevance for public library catalogues, I found it was quite interesting in relation to any library catalogue.

While many of us are familiar with social networking sites, like Facebook and Flickr, we may be less familiar with social cataloguing sites. Many people like to organize their books and share their interests with others. These social cataloguing (at least 16 popular cataloguing website are currently available) sites can alert us to how people like to interact with books and other readers and may help us explore ways to enhance our library catalogues or discovery tools to make the library catalogue experience more meaningful for our users. In addition, we were reminded of the research which indicates that for most people, discovery is less important than delivery - where is it and how soon can I have it?

I myself have used Library Thing as a catalogue to provide lists of new books to faculty in my subject areas. After listing these books and returning to the site, you can see which books are added frequently to other's catalogues. Following the catalogues of others who added particular books can be a way to explore other books on a particular subject, rather than using subject headings/related terms. Also mentioned in the session was the use of a chat widget inside a library catalogue and how this is another way to enhance interaction with the catalogue - yea LiveHelp! Slides for both presentations (L. Spiteri and L. Tarulli) are available on the conference website.

What the Heck Does Collaborative Management Really Mean?

Several years ago a large library system suddenly found it necessary to hire six senior managers, all at once. Ken participated in their interview process. Nineteen times in a row candidates described their management styles as “collaborative.” Collaborative styles of management are desired and expected both by employers and by staff, but what does it truly mean to be collaborative? Why is it desirable? Ken (who would also describe his own style as collaborative) will speak about the characteristics of a truly collaborative workplace as well as the positive outcomes from using such a management style – both in terms of focused work performance, pride, and job enjoyment.

Roberts, K. (2009). What the heck does collaborative management really mean? Retrieved on June 19, 2009 from http://apla2009.ca/index.php/program/details/16-Ken%20Roberts

Ken Roberts, former CLA President and CEO of Hamilton Public Library, opens this session with the following quote: "Leadership is ultimately about creating a way for people to contribute to making something extraordinary happen". Mr. Roberts explores the evolution of management from its traditional hierarchical beginnings to today's more collaborative team-centered environment. He argues that organizations must be dynamic (willing/able to change) in order to be successful and that collaborative management allows organizations to move forward.

Mr. Roberts highlights the following points as traits of a positive collaborative organizational culture:

• Internal communication processes that work
• Values that are truly understood by everyone
• Decision making processes that are transparent
• Positive staff perceptions of the organization: " A great place to work"
• Supportive work environment where staff are encouraged to take risks and failure is not considered something to be punished.
• Staff who are encouraged to "think outside the box"
• A work environment that incorporates both fun and enjoyment.

In closing, Mr. Roberts asserts that a collaborative approach to management facilitates the following positive outcomes:

• Leadership that encourages staff to make decisions
• Staff who know what authority they possess
• Staff who are willing to take risks and try new things
• A workplace that is characterized by curiousity, and
• Staff interest in the success of the entire organization - rather than personal silos

Library Professionals at Their Core: What Values and Ethos Guide Today's Library Workers?

Session description: From Program

With increasing automation of selection, increased use of client self-service, fewer reference inquiries, lower circulation, and the centralization of policy and procedures - what is the role of the library professional today? Some are characterizing these developments as the deskilling of library work, while others are talking about the reskilling of the library profession. In this interactive session, new roles will be explored against the context of what makes a professional. The session will also examine changes in library client behaviour and needs that are the drivers behind these new roles.


This session was presented by two Librarians, Janine Schmidt, Trenholme Director of Libraries, McGill University and Amber Lannon, Head Librarian, Howard Ross Library of Management, McGill University. Ms. Schmidt brought the perspective of many years in the library field in various libraries, while Ms. Lannon, a newer graduate of the profession, and much younger in years presented her perspective. It seemed to be a deliberate pairing to emphasize the perception that there are may be some subtle and maybe not so subtle differences in outlooks based on judging the librarian by age alone. The two presenters took turns, both doing a few screens at a time and the powerpoint was dynamic as well. One of the fun bits of the session was that it used clickers for audience participation. The audience seemed to really enjoy this aspect and for many of us it was the first time being exposed to using this technology. The questions were multiple choice and the audience would select the answer and then a graph showing the responses would be produced. Ms. Schmidth used something called http://www.wordle.net/ which was fun.

The questions were of a general nature and the responses showed in my opinion that the core values of librarians really have not changed substantially over time. In fact Ranganathan's Five laws of Library Science,

Books are for use.
Every reader his [or her] book.
Every book its reader.
Save the time of the User.
The library is a growing organism.

were presented with slight alterations.

There were no definitive answers out of this session, but a lively presentation which highlighted the issues we deal with in terms of changing technology, how that affects user expectations and behaviour. It covered the whole gamut from Faculty - Librarian collaboration to building renovations as an answer to changing delivery of services. There was also a lot of promotion of McGill and it's library and library school. All in all while this was an entertaining session, I don't think the questions posed above were answered to any extent.