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As part of the preparation for the upcoming LJ Virtual Tech Summit on December 8, The Digital Shift is featuring interviews with some of the panelists. LJ talked to Gretchen Caserotti, assistant director for public services at Darien Library, CT, and a 2010 LJ Mover & Shaker, about self-service at Darien Library.
As part of the preparation for the upcoming LJ Virtual Tech Summit on December 8, The Digital Shift is featuring interviews with some of the panelists. First up is Michael Whitchurch, chair of the Learning Commons Department in the Harold B. Lee Library at Brigham Young University, Provo, UT, who will take part in a panel on “Mobile Apps: What Do Users Need?” LJ asked Whitchurch a few questions about QR codes and other mobile trends in libraries.
The Library Copyright Alliance (LCA)—whose members include the American Library Association, the Association of Research Libraries (ARL), and the Association of College & Research Libraries—yesterday released a letter [PDF] written to the ranking members of the House Judiciary Committee to voice “serious concerns” about two provisions in H.R. 3261, the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) […]
This year at the Charleston Conference—the annual meeting of academic acquisitions librarians and library vendors held in Charleston, SC, from November 2 to 5—many of the plenary presentations shared a common theme: as libraries face new challenges, new ideas are needed. And as the main speakers and presenters touched on a wide range of issues, it became clear that there was no shortage of new ideas, and opinions, in the library world.
Darien Library, CT, launched a new Espresso Book Machine (EBM), which can print and create a bound book in a matter of minutes, during its annual meeting on October 30. The Sacramento Public Library, CA, will soon launch its own EBM. They’re two of only three public libraries in the country currently providing the fee-based print-on-demand service to patrons—but if the service catches on, it could be the first step in establishing public libraries as a center for on-demand book printing and self-publishing.
The Georgia Public Library Service, known as the initial developers of the open-source integrated library system Evergreen, will use a recently received Institute of Museum and Library Services grant to help plan the development of Loblolly, an open source software project to ease library accessibility for physically impaired patrons.
At the Digital Public Library of America plenary meeting on October 21, Europeana program director Jill Cousins announced that Europeana and DPLA have reached a mutual agreement to work toward interoperability, and thus potentially expand content access for users of both projects. In her announcement, she stressed the importance of openness—specifically, open data and open licensing—in digital libraries.
“It’s a real pleasure welcoming you into my house this morning,” said David Ferriero, the Archivist of the United States, to the more than 300 attendees of the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) plenary meeting at the National Archives in Washington, DC, October 21. The all-day meeting served as a forum for the major thinkers behind the digital library project, and was the site of several major announcements—including $5 million in funding, and a collaboration with Europe’s key digital library project.
Library automation company Polaris Library Systems officially launched its Polaris Developer Network this week, a website with documentation, downloads, and forums aimed primarily at providing outside library software developers with testing tools and the information needed to build their own web or mobile applications using the Polaris integrated library system’s (ILS) open application programming interface (API).
Rice Majors, assistant professor and director of libraries information technology at the University of Colorado at Boulder (UCB), gave a rapid-fire “lightning talk” at the LITA National Forum earlier this month. In it, he spoke about a project that has, in a small way, improved relations between the university’s centralized information technology department, the Office of Information Technology (OIT), and the libraries’ separate IT unit.
