looking for Library 2.0!

I’m giving a presentation about Web 2.0 and Library 2.0 later on this week at the DUG/HUG (UK) Conference 2006 and I’m wanting to demo some of the great things libraries have done with Library 2.0 and Web 2.0.  In particular, I’ve got one slide that has two spare bullet points of space left and I can’t decide what to put there…
Here’s what I’ve got already:

  • Westmont Public Library – publicises new books using Flickr
  • University of Connecticut – staff documentation & info stored in a wiki
  • Ball State University – recruiting students via weblogs
  • Dowling College Library – podcasts of library and local information
  • Birkbeck College Library – RSS feed of library news
  • Plymouth State University – Casey Bisson’s Weblog OPAC
  • ?
  • ?

I’ve no idea if anyone will read this blog post in time, but if you can come up with one or two more great examples of libraries doin’ it for themselves, please post a reply! You’ve got exactly 12 hours before I need to finalise the presentation and get the handouts printed — the clock is ticking!
I reserve the right to cherry pick two of the best responses (that’s assuming I get any!) and in return you’ll get to have your name in lights …well, projected on a screen during the presentation πŸ˜€
Cheers in advance πŸ™‚

OPAC keyword email alerts

One of the medical conditions I suffer from is the common “not-enough-hours-in-the-day-itus” — bits of software and new stuff gets prototyped or developed to the proof-of-concept stage, and then put to one side when something more important comes up.
This is something I originally coded in January 2006, briefly blogged about in mid February, then got slightly miffed when Hennepin County Library went live with something similar, and finally almost managed to forget all about it!
Anyway, I’ve dusted off the code and plugged it into ye olde OPACeth.  All I can do now is sit back and see if anyone will actually use it!
Continue reading “OPAC keyword email alerts”

The Two Towers and Faceted Browsing in the OPAC

…well, the first is definitely a tower but I’m not so sure about the other one. Not only that, but I should really have posted this entry over a month ago.
Anyway, to get to the point — on my birthday (at the start of June), Bryony and I went for a walk over to Hinchcliffe’s Farm Shop. En route, we got some great views of Victoria Tower, atop Castle Hill:


Here you can see the shadow cast by the tower on Google Maps:

The second tower we found (if that’s what it is) sticks out like a sore thumb — it’s in the middle of some nearby woods and we have no idea what it is or what it was used for. Here’s how it appears on Google Maps:

You can see from the shadow that it rises high above the tree tops. Here’s what it looks like from the base, looking up:

I suppose it could be a chimney, but there were no signs of holes or doors in the base of the structure — it just rises straight up from the ground. Maybe it’s a secret missile silo?
If you look at the Google Map, you’ll find there’s a former wool mill complex to the north. This is now home to the Yorkshire Technology & Office Park, which happens to be where View-Based Systems Ltd (VBS) is located.
VBS was set up by the late Dr Steven Pollitt — if you’ve never heard of Stephen, then you might want to track down the two Endeca patents on the USPTO site, as they both cite his pioneering research into faceted browsing which was carried out at the University of Huddersfield. You can see some of the history on the VBS web site.
One of my colleagues, Dr Amanda Tinker, worked closely with Steven and they both gave a presentation at the CILIP Umbrella 2003 event on this very day 3 years ago. In fact, had things gone to plan, then Huddersfield could have launched an OPAC with facetted browsing (based on Dewey) 3 or 4 years ago.
Sadly things didn’t go to plan, and facetted browsing wasn’t quite as cool back then as it is now. Whenever I look at North Carolina’s OPAC, I feel a mixture of envy tinged with dischuffedness† that Huddersfield didn’t get to launch a faceted OPAC several years ago and snatch all the fame, kudos, brownie points, and glory πŸ˜‰
Anyway, facetted searching is a hot topic again in 2006 and I’m looking forward to a meeting on the 17th with Howard Lockwood of VBS to discuss a possible collaboration project. All I can say at the moment is “watch this space” πŸ™‚
Still, none of this explains what the second tower is for. If you have any ideas, please feel free to post a comment!


dischuffedness: noun

the state of not being chuffed about something

It’s July already?!?

I can’t believe how quickly this summer if flying by!
The UK is currently broiling itself under the first decent spell of sunny weather we’ve had this year, and the annual DUG/HUG (Dynix User Group/Horizon User Group) conference is just 9 days away — let’s hope the weather holds until then πŸ™‚
This years conference is being held at the University of Lincoln:
https://library.hud.ac.uk/dughug2006/
I’m down to do a couple of sessions (HIP Tweaks & Introduction to Web 2.0 and Library 2.0), as well as chipping in with some of the other sessions (Access Control, Email Notices, and Free Software).
Wireless network permitting, I will hopefully be blogging the event again this year. If anyone else is planning to blog, then I’m going to use “dughug2006” as the Technorati tag. Please feel free to use the same tag on your blog posts or Flickr uploads.
Once I get the Powerpoints polished, I’ll also be adding them to the blog.
Hope to see some of you in Lincoln next week!
p.s. if you’re going, but you’re not on the attendees map yet, please get in touch!

USTLG Summer 2006 Meeting – Liverpool

I’m just putting the finishing touches to a presentation about Library 2.0 I’m giving tomorrow at the University Science and Technology Librarians Group Summer 2006 meeting.
I’m even beginning to have second thoughts — trying to sum up the last 2 or 3 years worth of Web 2.0 and Library 2.0 “stuff” in under 45 minutes (when I could happily talk about any single aspect of it for an hour) is proving a real challenge!
Anyway, once I get back from the event, I’ll update this post with a copy of the presentation.
Continue reading “USTLG Summer 2006 Meeting – Liverpool”

Getting HIP updates & add-ons via a HTTP proxy

A couple of years ago we wanted to try out the optional ADA Profile for HIP 3 but, try as I might, I could not get the add-on to download using the HIP admin pages.
After much pondering, I realised that it’s because our external firewall was blocking HIP from being able to connect to the SirsiDynix server to fetch the download. Even the servers in our DMZ need to be configured to use the university’s Squid HTTP proxy servers before they can get external web access.
Google soon came up with the answer on one of the JBoss discussion sites and here’s what you need to do for a Windows HIP 3 server (it should be a similar process for a Unix/Linux HIP 3 server):
1) locate the batch file that starts JBoss — firstly, find the directory you installed the Application Server into, then open the “jboss” folder, then the “bin” folder, and you should find a Windows Batch File named “run.bat”
2) make a safe backup of the “run.bat” file before you make any changes
3) right-click on the “run.bat” file and select the “edit” option — this should open the file for editing in Notepad
4) if you search through the file, you’ll find several lines that start with set JAVA_OPTS=
5) find the very last occurance, and insert the following two new line of text after it:

set JAVA_OPTS=%JAVA_OPTS% -Dhttp.proxyHost=12.34.56.78
set JAVA_OPTS=%JAVA_OPTS% -Dhttp.proxyPort=3128

…where “12.34.56.78” is the IP address of your HTTP proxy and “3128” is the port number.
For example, on our HIP 3.04 UK server that section of the file now looks like this:

rem Standard options
set JAVA_OPTS=-server -Xms384m -Xmx512m -DISO_8859_1=UTF-8 %JAVA_OPTS%
set JAVA_OPTS=%JAVA_OPTS% -Dhttp.proxyHost=161.112.231.22
set JAVA_OPTS=%JAVA_OPTS% -Dhttp.proxyPort=3128

Once you’ve added the settings for the proxy server, save the file and restart JBoss.
If all has gone well, then you should be able to fetch updates and add-ons using the HIP admin interface!
Or, if all has gone pear-shaped, then simply restore that safe backup of the file you made earlier!
It should be a similar process for Linux/Unix users — locate the script that starts JBoss, open it in Vi, and add the extra two lines to the script.

HIP XML Parser (v0.01) – search parser

Okay folks – here’s the companion piece of code to the bib parser I posted a few weeks ago!
http://www.daveyp.com/files/stuff/xmlparser/search.pl
As with the previous code, this is alpha at best and should be treated as such.  However, if you have any suggestions then please feed them back to me.
As well as specifying your own $url, you can also tweak the $maxResults value to determine just how many results you’ll actually get back.  This will override the npp value in the URL — this means you should be able to lift a keyword search URL from HIP (which might just return sets of 10 or 20 at a time) and get the script to actually bring back as many results as you want (e.g. 100 or 1,000).
Continue reading “HIP XML Parser (v0.01) – search parser”

“Where do you see yourself in 5 years from now?”

Just picture it:
…you’re shortlisted for a data support job at the BBC
…you turn up for the interview and they ask you to wait in reception, so you sit down and try to relax as best you can
…someone walks up to you and asks if you are “Guy …” something — you’re nervous and you didn’t quite catch the surname, so you say “yes” (because your first name is Guy) and they say “follow me”
…you follow the person and they lead you into a television studio and ask you to sit down in that chair over there
…you decide that this must be some type of role-playing situation and you wait to see what happens next
…someone who looks suspiciously like a TV news presenter turns to you and the job interview begins!

Unfortunately for Guy Goma, this would turn out to be no ordinary job interview!
Continue reading ““Where do you see yourself in 5 years from now?””