Library Technology Guides ‘Key resources in the field of Library Automation‘, created and edited by Marshall Breeding, has been doing an excellent job "providing comprehensive and objective information related to the field of library automation".    Along side the mass of information about library system companies, library catalogues throughout the world, next-generation catalogs, and an archive of press releases, Marshall’s GuidePosts blog is always a source of informative information about the library sector.

I am therefore very pleased to announce that the The Library 2.0 Gang series of podcast discussions has now joined the the array of resources available from the Library Technology Guides site.

My goal of fostering open conversations between vendors, their customers, and opinion formers in the library market, is closely aligned with Marshall’s objective delivery of information for the benefit of all.  The Library 2.0 Gang, and Library Technology Guides complement each other well.

This move will bring the lively conversations, that Marshall describes in his post announcing it, to a much wider audience.

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Second Life after DOPA - Wishful thinking? - No, but it was the order of topics for this week’s Library 2.0 Gang podcast from Talking with Talis.

As a Brit, watching the results of the inner workings, machinations, and political motivations of the US political system can only be a spectator sport. Some of the idiotsyncratic decisions made by the UK Parliament seem to have been outdone in recent weeks by their American cousins with this DOPA (Deleting Online Predators Act) thingy.

From what I understand about this appropriately named bill, which is much more after the discussion, it is a monumentally mistargeted piece of legislation. Having written that, I can visualize hordes of irate comments heading my way accusing me of being complacent in the face of rampant Internet pedophilia. So let me hasten to clarify that I’m totally in tune with the concerns for the young, the innocent, and the vulnerable that motivates those who have started this bill on its way. What I am disappointed about is how these concerns have been enacted in to a proposed law with very little apparent understanding about the medium that it is trying to control.

So why should a guy from Talis in the UK be concerned by a potential US law? - Well much of the promise the emerging change on the Internet, loosely labeled Web 2.0, and the technological aspects of the Library 2.0 changes appearing in the Library world, are being fueled by social software which to a large extent is coming from US based organisations. [As a Talis employee I must point out that Library 2.0 technology developments are not exclusively the domain of US based organisations!] If DOPA blights the growth of such systems the impact will be felt world wide.

After a fascinating insight of the way the US Library community is reacting to DOPA, the gang moved on to one of the social software phenomena that could be effected by it, Second Life. Second Life, and it’s younger partner Teen Second Life, is a virtual world in which you navigate a virtual person around, visit virtual places, do virtual things, meet with other virtual people, build virtual places, start virtual businesses, and even run a virtual library. I’m not the only one who thinks there is something powerful that is being demonstrated by Second Life and the people that you find in it. I’m not sure what it really is yet but there is a germ of something that a few years down the road may well have changed the way we interact with technology.

All is not peace and light though, a Library 2.0 Gang participant was shot at outside the Second Life Library. So in true Library fashion there has now been erected a virtual sign, near the site of the virtual shooting, proclaiming the banning of virtual weapons from the virtual area.

Technorati Tags: Web 2.0, Library 2.0, DOPA, Library 2.0 Gang, Talking with Talis, Second Life

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I’ve just uploaded last night’s Library 2.0 Gang conversation to the Talking with Talis podcast site.

We talk about mashups and libraries, both in the context of the ongoing Mashing up the Library competition, but also reaching beyond that to consider some of the longer term possibilities around providing meaningful access to library resources.

Have a listen, and share your thoughts on the forum.

Technorati Tags: Library 2.0, Library 2.0 Gang, mashup, MUTL06, Podcasting, Talking with Talis, Web 2.0

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Travelling home last night, I listened to a podcast from Mashing up the Library judge and InfoWorld columnist, Jon Udell.

In the recording, Jon talks with Dan Thomas and Suzanne Peck from the Washington DC city government about their DCStat programme. DCStat provides live data feeds for an increasing proportion of the city’s service delivery, and creates opportunities for the City - and others - to interpret and reinterpret those data in potentially fascinating ways, a la backstage.bbc.co.uk.

The conversation suggests many opportunities from which we could learn in this country, should the Guardian eventually succeed with their Free our Data campaign.

I was left wondering, though, if DC’s libraries could get involved in DCStat at all. If they could, it would make for a great competition entry…

Also last night, we recorded the latest Library 2.0 Gang podcast; a great discussion around mashups, LibraryThing, and more. It’ll be up on talk.talis.com later today, and is well worth a listen.

Technorati Tags: Backstage, Government, Library 2.0 Gang, LibraryThing, mashup, MUTL06, Participation, Platforms, Podcasting, Jon Udell, RSS, Syndication, Talis, Talis Platform, Talking with Talis, Web 2.0

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We just released the latest episode of the Library 2.0 Gang over on the Talking with Talis podcast site. As with earlier episodes, there is also a forum on the TDN for anyone to discuss the issues raised.

During the conversation, some of those at the forefront of thinking about or demonstrating innovative ways to better utilise the data locked inside our library systems talk about their work, and about what it might mean as we move forward.

Examples discussed include changes made by those inside individual libraries, as well as those made by library users on the outside, who make use of data exposed to them by the library.

The work of those contributing to this conversation continues to do much to point us toward better and more useful systems, but we at Talis are convinced that the most significant changes will only come about as it becomes increasingly possible for these innovators to work together, to learn from one another, to cross the divides between different products, and to engage with the development work also underway within many library vendors.

Library Camp, in Ann Arbor later this week, is one aspect of enabling that communication. The TDN, with its emphasis upon ’shared innovation’ and the building of a sustainable virtual community, is another, where anyone can come to discuss issues, ask questions, share code, and expose services.

Technorati Tags: Library 2.0, Library 2.0 Gang, OPAC, Participation, Podcasting, librarycamp, Talis, Talking with Talis, TDN

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Library 2.0 Gang regulars discuss issues arising from last month’s Computers in Libraries and Public Library Association conferences in their latest podcast, recorded last week. Have a listen, and then share your thoughts on the issues aired over on the TDN.

Technorati Tags: CIL2006, Libraries, Library 2.0, PLA, Podcasting, Talking with Talis, TDN

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HigherEd BlogCon, an interesting experiment in online participation, kicked off today with a week of sessions tackling ‘the Impact of New Tools on Teaching‘.

The event runs over the next four weeks, and I’ll be contributing something in week 2.

Take their RSS feed or follow along in Technorati, and help make this event as good as or better than the more expensive face to face ones we were talking about in Friday’s outing for the Library 2.0 Gang.

Technorati Tags: Blogging, Libraries, Library 2.0, Library 2.0 Gang, Participation, Podcasting, higheredblogcon, Talis, TDN

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I hate to scratch the well discussed itch of what do we mean by the term OPAC again, but part of the discussion in the latest Talking with Talis episode of theLibrary 2.0 Gang got me thinking about it.

As Dave Errington said in the podcast, OPAC means little as a term to library users even if we deconstruct the words of OPAC. [With the aid of Podzinger listen to that snippet, half way through the session, here]

What users are interested in is just *search*, search that includes the library. To someone who doesn’t speak library the term OPAC doesn’t mean anything, yet how many libraries still insist on putting up helpful This way to the OPAC signs. Definitions of the term are really helpful either, like this one from Dictionary.com:

(OPAC) A computerised system to catalogue and organise materials in a library (the kind that contains books). OPACs have replaced card-based catalogues in many libraries. An OPAC is available to library users (public access).

Can we stop worrying about what the term OPAC means, and kill it off. Then we can get on with the real job in hand of defining which bits of Library Search, and associated functionality are relevant to the ultimate consumers of our systems, and how we get it to them, wherever they are - in Amazon, in Google, in a student portal or virtual learning environment, on a PDA/cell phone, in the Library building, or at home - wherever they need it, whenever they need it.

(Image from www.lib.purdue.edu)

Technorati Tags: Library 2.0

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Our particular corner of the Talis Birmingham Office will be a little quiet this week as Paul Miller and myself are off on various trips.

Paul and Talis CEO Dave Errington are going to be in Washington, DC. at Computers in Libraries 2006, where Paul will be speaking on Friday afternoon about Web 2.0/Library 2.0. As Paul says in his cil2006 Conference Bloggers Wiki page entry “Might be good to get some Talking with Talis Podcast content around the event, if anyone’s interested?” So seek him out, and its up to you if you let him turn his microphone on.

As for myself I’m off to Northern Ireland to speak at the Irish Universities Information Services Colloqulum. IUISC this year is being held in Derry City, a place I have never visited so I’m looking forward to the trip.

I’m speaking on the morning of the 22nd, the first day, on Library 2.0 and why Libraies do matter in a Web 2.0 world. I am flying in the evening before and staying for the whole of the first day to catch some of the other interesting looking sessions. I might be even persuaded to pop in to the Quiz Night scheduled for that evening.

Unlike Paul, I don’t travel ready to Podcast, but if you are at IUISC on the evening of the 21st or during the 22nd, come find me out for an unrecorded chat.

Technorati Tags: Web 2.0, Library 2.0, IUISC, Libraries

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In our very first Talking with Talis podcast, I spoke with Dick Hardt of Canadian company, sxip Identity.

We spoke about ‘Identity 2.0′, the importance of reliable identification - and defensible privacy - in the online world, and about one tool that sxip were developing to demonstrate some of their ideas, and to combat comment spam on blogs in the process.

This tool, sxore, has just been released as a beta plugin for WordPress.

We don’t use WordPress at Talis, but all the tech journalists I know seem to, so maybe Charles Arthur, David Tebbutt, or one of the others could give it a whirl, let me know if it works and, if it’s as good as my conversation with Dick suggested it could be, write nice things about it?

Technorati Tags: Identity 2.0, Podcasting, sxip, Talking with Talis

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