… meanwhile, the Code4Lib Journal has published its second issue and boy is it packed with articles; Eric Lease Morgan, Coordinating Editor of the issue, does a bang-up job on the introduction (though the title has effectively Bostonroll‘d me).

Each article in this issue has a little bit of something for all who call themselves a librarian or work in a library. Each identifies some sort of library problem to be addressed, and offers one or more solutions. Many are complete with code snippets. After all, this is Code4Lib.

For example, people in public service may be interested in Edward M. Corrado and Kathryn A. Frederick’s review of database-driven subject guide applications. Kenneth Furuta and Michele Potter describe a simple help system that brings librarians running to the reference desk. Margaret Mellinger and Kim Griggs explain how library resources can be organized into course pages without the need of HTML knowledge and yet sport Web 2.0 features. Nancy Fried Foster, Nora Dimmock, and Alison Bersani shed light on participatory design.

For those of us who enjoy cataloging and metadata issues, Jonathan Gorman outlines how he modified VUFind to exploit Wikipedia and cataloging authority records to enhance information about authors in a library catalog. Chris Freeland, Martin Kalfatovic, Jay Paige, and Marc Crozier illustrate a different use of Library of Congress Subject Headings by integrating place names with Google Maps. Carol Jean Godby, Devon Smith and Eric Childress describe a technique for crosswalking just about any metadata format into just about any other metadata format.

For the systems librarian in you, Dan Scott and Kevin Beswick share how they used Linux live CDs customized as kiosk browsers to provide laptops as ‘quick lookup’ stations at their library. Andrew Darby takes advantage of the Google Calendar API to easily manage the display of library hours. Jody DeRidder exploits Google sitemap technology and static HTML pages to make content in the “deep Web” more accessible. We hope you find these articles useful, stimulating, and relevant to your daily working lives.

I am ashamed to admit that I have not yet finished the first issue, so I now have pages upon pages to read. Ordinarily when I am behind on my reading I wind up letting bits fall by the wayside but the material largely looks too good to ignore.

Congratulations to Editorial Committees past and present and to the community on the whole!

Dorothea left a comment on a post announcing the publication of a little conference review some colleagues and I splurted out. In the announcement I lamented a bit about impact and she wisely suggested I consider depositing the review in a subject repository such as E-LIS.

We looked into our agreement with the publisher and it was actually quite permissive. (Way to go, Emerald.) And here’s the review in all its open access glory.

Thanks, Dorothea!

Antonio reports that our review of the 2007 Code4Lib conference has been published in volume 27, issue 6 of Library Hi Tech News.

Though these articles have very low impact, the more press code4lib gets, the better.

1. Ruby

I gave a little talk on Ruby at today’s VALE-NJ Technology Awareness Group meeting, and so I’m using my slides to finally kick off this vaporseries.

[Slides are embedded as Flash here if you're reading in an aggregator.]

It seemed to be taken pretty well, though it could easily have been dismissed as the fanboyish ravings of a neophyte Rubyist. The folks from Rutgers were interested in having me come talk to their software architecture group, so it couldn’t have gone too badly, I suppose.

I need to stop cramming so much into presentations. Rambling about reflection and OO at a speed the Micro-Machines Guy would envy isn’t the best way to share enthusiasm about Ruby.

The rest of the meeting was interesting: Ron Jantz, the Digital Library Architect at Rutgers, posed a number of challenging questions about trust, authenticity, and reliability in the digital realm; Terry Catapano, Special Collections Analyst at Columbia, exposed the lack of data model inherent in many current metadata schemas and suggested ontologies as a potential direction; and Jeffery Triggs, Applications Programmer at Rutgers, demonstrated the Java DjVu Viewer Applet for displaying DjVu-based images outside the DjVu browser plug-in. Many good questions were asked, and new faces were in the crowd, so the future of TAG seems to be bright.

I’m hoping to follow up my Ruby talk with another on Rails. That was my initial goal for today, but there was far too much to cover, knowing the audience was relatively new to both technologies.

Maybe I’m late to the party — nods to John Blyberg and Rob Styles — but damn(!), does Microsoft have some exciting visualization projects or what?

John and Rob wrote about Microsoft Surface, a hardware/software combination that allows for tactile manipulation of data. In Microsoft’s own words:

Microsoft Surface represents a fundamental change in the way we interact with digital content.

With Surface, we can actually grab data with our hands, and move information between objects with natural gestures and touch.

Surface features a 30-inch tabletop display whose unique abilities allow for several people to work independently or simultaneously. All with out using a mouse or a keyboard.

Don’t take my word for it; go watch a demonstration video and be amazed.

But wait, open the video in another window, and keep reading before you lose interest in my uninteresting prose.

I noticed among the recently released TED talks a brilliant short presentation by Microsoft’s Blaise Aguera y Arcas on their Photosynth project. My first impression was just the visual joy of the photo browse / pan / zoom interface. It’s impressive in its own right. But what really tickles me about Photosynth is that it “takes a large collection of photos of a place or an object, analyzes them for similarities, and displays them in a reconstructed three-dimensional space.”

For example, throw it at http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/seattlepubliclibrary/ and it will construct a collage-like view of the Seattle Public Library. Zoom in and you’ll see images at that level of zoom. Pan in three dimensions and (assuming there are enough photos to support the various views) you can virtually be in front of SPL. See for yourself:

Imagine browsing the stacks with this thing. Imagine finding a book on the stacks and being able to hook directly into its full-text. Super cool!

Microsoft Surface is tentatively planned for a November release, which will be targeted for “retail and entertainment settings”. It could be available to the public in a few years’ time though it will likely cost a few times more than an average PC. [Gleaned from a Seattle PI article.] Photosynth is also not available yet, but you can track its progress on the Photosynth team blog. (Yes, there’s a feed.)

[Disclosure: I lived in the shadow of Redmond not long ago, though I was not employed by Microsoft. I probably invest in Microsoft indirectly, but I haven't scoured my portfolio distributions in a while.]

I usually travel by ground-based transportation — train when I can, bus when I must — because I hate flying. There is something about this sort of travel that makes folks more sociable in my experience. Frequently a question that I have come to dread is asked: “So, what do you do?”

Mumbling about libraries and technology is typically enough to bring about the initial stages of Ophthalmus Vitriatus: yes, the dreaded eye glaze (in faux Latin for pretentiousness points). The best reaction I can hope for is “oh, yeah, seems like a really useful job nowadays what with all that information going online.” Not a bad reaction, all in all. True for sure. But I wish I could succinctly express what I do without sounding overly general (”I’m a programmer and librarian”), or grandiose (”I am attempting to organize, disseminate, and preserve all the information in the world”).

I’m sure this is a problem with my own attempts at expression rather than a problem with our vocation. So I’m putting this question out there:

Assume you’re talking to someone who knows almost nothing of libraries and technology, how do you explain, in a quick-and-appropriate-on-a-bus-or-train sort of way, what you do for a living?

I’m guessing that snappy Rails app I’ve been working on for management of persistent identifiers is not very interesting to these folks.

What brought this about was my recent trek down to the Code4Lib conference in Athens, GA, which I must say is beautiful this time of year. Now if I can only convince myself that there won’t be snow to shovel at home, maybe I’ll work up the courage to step back on the train. By any road, I’m really looking forward to the next three days. The conference program looks awesome, and last year’s really set the bar high.

Oh yes, Anjanette Young (Systems Librarian at the University of Washington) and I found a cafe/pub in the College Ave. / Broad St. area that has happy hour from 4pm-9pm. This may very well be the death of me.

The title of this post has been brought to you by the Society for Meatwad Quotations™. Those of you who get the reference may be mildly amused. Those who don’t, clearly lead sad and empty lives.

I just noticed Ed Summers posted a link to DemoCampDC1, a local BarCamp being organized in the Washington D.C. area, “to build an active community for people in the DC area to show up and informally share geeky stuff.” I’ve heard of these BarCamps before, but I never really took the time to look into it. Incidentally, I’ve been looking for good models for hosting and organizing such a group for a while now, inspired by the work Brian Hancock has done over the years with the Technology Awareness Group (TAG). The way the D.C. group is going about it looks like a promising one: start out building a community with very informal meetings outside of work hours, to test the waters, so to speak, and build a rapport with interested parties. And if there’s sufficient interest, hold a full BarCamp event (perhaps a one-day hands-on symposium / workshop).

I like this model quite a bit, and I’d be interested in trying to get something similar started up in New Jersey. We have tons of talented library geeks in our many academic, public, and special libraries, not to mention general geeks whose interests and skill sets intersect with ours.

Why BarCamp? Don’t we have enough meetings and symposiums? Sure, we’re all spread thin. Our niche would be to bring together the TAG-style dog & pony shows with code sprints and other collaborative development a la the Access Hackfest. We’re looking for a group that will be innovative, collegial, social, practical, and - not to be corny, but - fun-loving.

Here’s what I envision:

• A number of very informal get-togethers spread throughout the state in order to foster inclusivity, with a “point person” in each area to report back about the level of interest
• Rotating event venues, possibly one per “point person” above who would ideally receive institutional support in one form or another
• Partnerships with other in-state groups to take advantage of cross-pollination without crossing purposes, such as TAG, NJLA’s IT section, NJ-ASIS&T, and some student groups from Rutgers SCILS

Any of you New Jerseyans interested? Think it’s a waste of time? Drop a comment or trackback here, or send me e-mail. I’m very interested in your feedback.

I noticed this response to the Fedora users survey on Peter Murray’s blog, and figured I’d post a response. Since my previous employer did not use Fedora, and I haven’t begun my new job yet, I’ll be posting about our use of Fedora at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey.

How did you hear about Fedora?
I heard about Fedora through Ron Jantz, Rutgers’ Digital Library Architect, in the summer of 2002. I was working at Rutgers then, actively seeking and tinkering with digital repository software. I installed the 0.9 version of Fedora in December of 2002, if memory serves.

Why did you choose Fedora?
I’d already installed DSpace, Greenstone, and DLXS, and none of them seemed to suit our needs very well. Fedora was an easy choice to make for us since it seemed to be the only repository system that supported any metadata schemas we threw at it, which was a hard requirement, and also its ability to support behavior preservation via disseminators set it apart from the others. Additional advantages were that it exposed its methods through well-documented APIs, which other major repository systems still do not seem to do. In short, it was a clear decision.

The only drawback was the lack of an out-of-the-box interface, but we saw that as more of an opportunity to keep our back-end system separated from its interfaces, and our development team was eager for the chance to develop a customized set of interfaces.

Also, it’s free.

Were there economic advantages to your project/org. in selecting Fedora?
I mentioned that Fedora is free, right? I know of no other economic advantages though perhaps one could argue that its inclusion in certain grants was beneficial.

What is Fedora’s unique role in your production system?
Fedora serves as the back-end of RUcore: the digital institutional repository of Rutgers University, statewide digital initiatives such as the New Jersey Digital Highway, and electronic journals such as Pragmatic Case Studies in Psychotherapy. It is being used to preserve and provide access to metadata and data objects.

Is there one specific Fedora attribute that enables your project/organization to accomplish your overall goals.
Flexibility with regard to metadata; extensibility of Fedora via its service framework; support for custom disseminators and behavior preservation; usage of the filesystem rather than complete dependence upon RDBMS; separation of repository methods and interfaces; and exposure of methods via web services APIs.

Do you see yourself as an active member of the Fedora community? And why?
I see myself as an active consumer in the Fedora community. I haven’t worked with Fedora in over a year due to a job change, so I haven’t contributed anything in a while. I hope to remedy this in my new position, though I’m not yet convinced that Fedora is the right solution for them.

What would inspire you to become more involved?
An employer that has committed to Fedora.

What should be the mission of an ongoing Fedora organization?
Continuing support and upgrades, outreach to Fedora users, and advocacy to ensure that folks know what the benefits of Fedora are.

What is unAPI? Why should you care about it?

Read Introducing unAPI, in Ariadne issue 48, for answers to those questions… and more! Here’s the obligatory snippet:

Common Web tools and techniques cannot easily manipulate library resources. While photo sharing, link logging, and Web logging sites make it easy to use and reuse content, barriers still exist that limit the reuse of library resources within new Web services. To support the reuse of library information in Web 2.0-style services, we need to allow many types of applications to connect with our information resources more easily. One such connection is a universal method to copy any resource of interest. Because the copy-and-paste paradigm resonates with both users and Web developers, it makes sense that users should be able to copy items they see online and paste them into desktop applications or other Web applications. Recent developments proposed in weblogs and discussed at technical conferences suggest exactly this: extending the ‘clipboard’ copy-and-paste paradigm onto the Web. To fit this new, extended paradigm, we need to provide a uniform, simple method for copying rich digital objects out of any Web application.

(Full disclosure: I helped a bit with this article. Thanks to Dan et al. for giving me the chance to sully their otherwise well-thought out article.)

Though I will miss Seattle and my colleagues at the University of Washington, I am leaving to work at Princeton University Libraries as a digital library developer.  I’m looking very forward to helping design their repository infrastructure and building repository tools.  This is a fabulous opportunity to continue my work on digital libraries, and for my wife and I to return home to the Garden State.

Still, it will be difficult to leave an area we’ve grown so fond of, and especially to leave the family and friends we have up here.  There’s a certain bittersweetness I experience with every move, and this is perhaps both the most bitter and the sweetest I’ve felt about a move yet; I can think of no other cities I’d rather live than Seattle.  But that ol’ Dorothy was right: there is no place like home.  And home, in this case, happens to be the place where our closest family members and most of our friends reside, and also an area with perhaps the greatest number of career opportunities for a digital librarian-up-and-comer like me.

I’d also like to express appreciation for the code4lib community, and especially the #code4lib IRC channel.  Without them, I likely would never have learned of this position.  I’ve been meaning to post about how code4lib has changed my thinking about the profession of librarianship; but suffice it to say that I feel indebted to this wonderfully resourceful and visionary community for broadening, to a great extent, my perspective on library technology.  I’ve benefitted greatly from their knowledge and diverse points of view, and have felt welcome in the community from the outset. 

code4lib++