The 2011 Personal Digital Archiving Conference at the Internet Archive in San Francisco concluded on Friday.
You can find the complete conference schedule here.
+ Tweets from the conference are using the hashtag #pda2011.
+ Session Notes by Diana Wakimoto (via The Waki Librarian)
Thanks Diana! Awesome job!
Hat Tips & Thanks: Bill Lefurgy and Scott Rosenberg
More reports, live blogs, pictures, etc. via Twitter.
Presenters/Presentations From Day Two
+ Keynote: Rudy Rucker, Sr. (science fiction author) Lifebox
+ Rich Gibson (Gigapan Project)
+ Mark Matienzo (Yale University Library) & Amelia Abreu (Information School, University of Washington)
+ Daniel Reetz (DIY Book Scanner) (Video via YouTube)
Presentations/Materials Were on the Lookout For
+ Keynote: Clifford Lynch (CNI)
+ Dwight Swanson (Center for Home Movies)
+ Devin Becker (University of Idaho) & Collier Nogues (University of California, Irvine)
+ Hong Zhang (University of Illinois):
+ Jason Zalinger (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute)
+ Aiden Doherty (Dublin City University)
+ Ed Feigenbaum, Stanford University
+ Christina Engelbart
+ Ted Nelson, (Xanadu): “How We Laughed: History, Keepage, Remembrance and Cram”
+ Cal Lee (University of North Carolina)
+ Richard Cox (University of Pittsburgh)
+ Dave Marvit (Vice President, Fujitsu Laboratories of America)
+ Gordon Bell (Microsoft Research)
+ Linda Branagan, PhD (Director, Telemedicine Products, Medweb)
+ Khaled Hassounah (MedHelp)
+ Kam Woods (University of North Carolina)
+ Sam Meister (University of Maryland)
+ Elizabeth Churchill (Yahoo! Research)
Updates to This Post as We Learn of Slides and Other Materials Made Available Online
Please let us know if you learn where to access the materials from the presentations listed below.
Email: infodocket AT gmail.com
+ Materials from Day One
+ Video Archive and Tweets from the 2010 Conference at the bottom of this INFOdocket post.
Slides, Notes, and Tweets From Day Two of the 2011 Personal Digital Archiving Conference
BBC Publishes Sport Ontology (For Publication of Data About Competitive Sports Events)
From a Semanticweb.com Blog Post
The BBC has published a new ontology which they are calling, simply, the Sport Ontology: “The Sport Ontology is a simple lightweight ontology for publishing data about competitive sports events.” The ontology should allow data to be published about the structure of sports tournaments, competition, disciplines that an event involves, awards associated with competitions, and much more.
According to the release, “Whilst it originates in a specific BBC use case, the Sport Ontology should be applicable to a wide range of competitive sporting events data publishing use cases. Care has been taken to try and ensure interoperability with more general ontologies in use. In particular it draws heavily upon the events ontology.”
Direct to the BBC Sport Ontology
Wikimedia Releases Its Five-Year strategic Plan (Goals 50 Million Articles, 1 Billion People Served, 25% Female Editors) by 2015
From the Wikimedia Foundation Web Site:
The strategic plan is the culmination of a collaborative process undertaken by the Wikimedia Foundation and the global community of Wikimedia project volunteers through 2009 and 2010. The process aimed to understand and address the critical challenges and opportunities facing the Wikimedia movement through 2015. It has culminated in a series of priorities and goals, as well as specific operational initiatives for the Wikimedia Foundation, that will define the movement’s continued success.
Direct to the Full Text Summary (Two versions; PDF)
Wiki Version of Plan
From the Report:
Strategic Priorities
+ Indented line
+ Stabilize infrastructure
+ Increase participation
+ Improve quality
+ Increase reach
+ Encourage innovation
Wikimedia Foundation targets for 2015
+ Increase the total number of people served to 1 billion
+ Increase the number of Wikipedia articles we offer to 50 million
+ [Our Emphasis] Ensure information is high quality by increasing the percentage of material reviewed to be of high or very high quality by 25 percent
+ Encourage readers to become contributors by increasing the number of total editors per month who made >5 edits to 200,000
+ Support healthy diversity in the editing community by doubling the percentage of female editors to 25 percent and increase the
percentage of Global South editors to 37 percent
"'Embedded Librarian' on Twitter Served as Information Concierge for Class"
From a Wired Campus (Chronicle of Higher Ed.) Article By Jeff Young:
What if a reference librarian was assigned to a college course, to be on hand to suggest books, online links, or other resources based on class discussion? A media-studies course at Baylor University tried the idea last semester, with an “embedded librarian” following the class discussion via Twitter.
At the start of each class session, the professor, Gardner Campbell, asked the 11 students to open their laptops, fire up Twitter, and say hello to their librarian, who was following the discussion from her office. During the hourlong class, the librarian, Ellen Hampton Filgo, would do what she refers to as “library jazz,” looking at the questions and comments posed on Twitter by the students, responding with suggestions of links or books, and anticipating what else might be helpful that students might not have known to ask.
[Clip]
Ms. Filgo said she would try it again, but she worries that it would be difficult to expand the effort to a wider number of classes. “It took out three hours of my workweek,” she says. “The question is how can you scale this up?”
Read the Complete Article (via Wired Campus)
It's Always Something: "Publishing Industry Forces OverDrive and Other Library eBook Vendors to Take a Giant Step Back" (via Librarian by Day)
From a Librarian by Day Blog Post:
Yesterday I received an email from OverDrive with an attachment titles OverDrive Partner Library Update from Steve Potash [CEO over OverDrive], I glanced at it and filed it away in my to-read pile for a later date (which honestly means I may never have gotten to it). This morning Heather Braum brought it to my attention via this post by Joe Atzberger.
The contents of this document are spun in a positive way and there are some great things coming from OverDrive, but in between the good news is some bad news, some really bad news.
Here are a few points from the letter Steve Potash sent yesterday. The full text (PDF) is available on the Librarian By Day Web Site.
1. Publishers are concerned about e-book licensing agreements where what you purchase is yours forever. Keep reading.
2. Next week OverDrive will announce that one publisher, Harper Collins] will implement a plan that places new e-books (it’s not retroactive) checkout limits on each licensed title. The one-copy/one-user model continues but now after 26 checkouts the book will no longer be available without relicensing the book. This is the case for other ebook providers not only OverDrive.
3. But that’s not all!
From the Potash Letter:
Our publishing partners have expressed concerns regarding the card issuance policies and qualification of patrons who have access to OverDrive supplied digital content. Addressing these concerns will require OverDrive and our library partners to cooperate to honor geographic and territorial rights for digital book lending, as well as to review and audit policies regarding an eBook borrower’s relationship to the library (i.e. customer lives, works, attends school in service area, etc.).
4. What about members of consortia and shared collection?
Here’s something for them:
Another area of publisher concern that OverDrive is responding to is the size and makeup of large consortia and shared collections. Publishers seek to ensure that sufficient copies of their content are being licensed to service demand of the library’s service area, while at the same time balance the interests of publisher’s retail partners who are focused on unit sales.
Again, the full text (PDF) is available here.
All of this comes after a massive amount of media attention and an large influx of new e-book borrowers who are at least willing to try the service even if they often have to jump through hoops to access the material.
Another problem, the inability to find an e-book to borrow without waiting several weeks has been the case for the INFOdocket team in Maryland and Florida.
Both of these concerns are mentioned in a superb commentary by Eric Hellman on his Go to Hellman blog.
So, the library world is providing a service that the media likes to report on and users appear to appreciate even with its many problems. In other words, library-based e-books have become a popular service at many libraries and what happens, some publishers (we don’t know how many) want to change the rules about licensing material. It’s not that they can’t change licensing agreements but what about working with the library community (aka their customers) to try and find a solution that works for all parties prior to making an “here’s what we’re doing” announcement.
What’s the point of marketing/promoting a service and then have to make significant changes in an area as important as cost because the service is being used?
See Also: Comments by Peter Brantley (via Reading 2.0)
See Also: “HarperCollins Puts 26 Loan Cap on Ebook Circulations” (via Library Journal)
Start-up Room 77 lets you see your hotel-room view before you arrive
Start-up Room 77 lets you see your hotel-room view before you arrive
Travelers: Ever walk into your hotel room and let out a sigh of extreme sadness when you saw the view of an ugly concrete parking garage?
If you answered yes, then you’ll definitely want to know about Room 77, which publicly launches its searchable website and iPhone app (above) today. Hotel Check-In already spoke with founder and board chairman Brad Gerstner to give you the scoop immediately.
USA TODAY Travel also assembled a photo gallery that illustrates just how widely views can vary in a single hotel and among a single room type, such as a “deluxe king.”
The database – already being lauded by tech savvy Starwood – is expected to be useful for both business travelers who like to get the most for their money (including VIP views), and vacationers who may may have saved up for two years to go on their dream Hawaii vacation.
Source: USA Today