Computers in Libraries, March 2009

I, too, attended two days of Computers in Libraries in Crystal City at the end of March. It’s always an educational experience, a place both to pick up practical tips and to begin to understand our digital future.

For inspiration, I recommend you hear Paul Holdengraber, the public program director for NYPL, anywhere and everywhere you can. He's urbane and funny, and he'll remind you of why you're working in a library. Here's a tiny bit of Tuesday morning's keynote.

Another heartening thing about our profession is the degree to which librarians and associated tech folks create tools and share them. Firefox is a better browser than IE because programmers everywhere can contribute to its development and its usefulness. Similarly, the library community is creating software that can be extended, expanded, and customized. I see open-source in our future. If not immediately, eventually; if not locally, statewide. See examples of one open-source product.

I have already had an opportunity to use some of what I've learned on MCPL's web presence. In moving Teensite to its LibGuides platform, we had to find another way to have people fill out online forms and get the content to the staff member who needed them. I learned about Uni-Form and Zoho Creator, both of which would probably do this, and implemented a solution in Google Docs. See Teensite's Recommend a Book, for example.

Because I work with chat reference, I was more than thrilled to hear about Texter, free software that allows you to create shortcut strings for phrases that you type frequently. If I were really a programmer, it would be useful for that too!

Having heard a web redesign committee described as 9 colorblind people who can't agree on anything, I figure that Color Wizard will come in handy down the line. (You might want to try it to find split-complimentary colors if you're doing some interior or exterior painting.) I also liked the tool that showed you what colorblind people see when looking at your webpages.

I learned that Facebook users absolutely HATE Facebook Apps. (Maybe you Facebook folks out there can tell me why?) I also learned that the new DCPL Digital Initiatives Librarian, Aaron Schmidt, created an iPhone App we can adapt. I was eager to ask him to come talk with us at MCPL until I found out that he lives in Portland, OR. Now that's telecommuting!

On the exhibits floor, Serials Solutions was talking up Summon. Also, having purchased WebFeat, the company will likely be discontinuing that product in favor of 360 Search, probably sometime this year. I recommend that everybody take a look at these catalog front-end products, called discovery layers, and note the features that should be indispensable as MCPL tries to make its catalog more usable for patrons.

Please, share your ideas for improving our digital presence with #LIB.virtualservices. We learn from one another as well as from attending conferences!