More than 40 Australians attended the annual IFLA Congress which wrapped up in Quebec City, Canada, on Thursday. I was thrilled to be able to attend for the first time and see what happens when more than 3300 librarians from around 150 countries get together. As a member of IFLA’s staff, I worked behind the scenes away from the sessions, but was able to attend a couple of sessions other than the 6 meetings I spoke at, so I’ll add a few links to what others were seeing and doing.

Like many other groups attending, the Australians got together at a dinner organised by ALIA to catch up with colleagues and to hear how preparations for Brisbane in 2010 are progressing. It was wonderful to see so many other Australians in one room after living away from home this year!

American Libraries Direct reported on the first few days, including the opening ceremony and some of the major award winners this year.

Bob McKee, a member of IFLA’s Executive Committee, reported daily on his experience at the Congress. He gives a great insight to the responsibilities that IFLA’s governing groups have throughout the year.

Ivan Chew from Singapore is a member of the Children and Young Adults Section standing committtee. He also provided a daily report on meetings, sessions, and the Congress in general at his blog, Rambling Librarian. I’ve been following Ivan’s IFLA reports for a couple of years, so it was great to finally meet him there!

Other bloggers on the scene include Epist, Information Access Avenger, The Cataloguing Librarian, and ALIA Executive Director, Sue Hutley at the ALIA Board Blog.

From the sessions

In addition to the sessions, meetings, committee meetings and other events, there were well over 100 posters at this year’s Congress. The posters are a great way to see at a glance some of the hot topics in libraries around the world. Some of them took at look at blogging, community, and professional development, such as “A Librarians’ community in search of self on the web” [PDF] which took a look at use of technology in Romania.

One of the sessions I was able to attend (though briefly) was the Web 2.0 Discussion Group’s session on freeing data, and bibliographic data exchange moderated by the group’s chair, Patrick Danowski of Germany. The group assembled an excellent panel to discuss some of the issues including cost, ownership, formats, and interoperability. Although a little too North America-focused at times, this was actually one of the best ‘2.0′ discussions I’ve attended at any conference - it didn’t shy away from asking the difficult questions about how to make data portability happen. The input from Patrick Pfeiffer from Creative Commons Luxembourg was excellent - he challenged us to have more of these discussions and make them more sophisticated. Karen Calhoun was one of the panelists and reported on the session with a link to her slides from the presentation.

Another session I went to briefly was the New Professionals Discussion Group’s session on how to benefit from being involved with associations. Jesus Lau, Mexico Library Association president and member of IFLA’s Governing Board, discussed how some of the structures in associations can limit participation by new professionals and described how they seek to change that. Robyn Ellard described the many things ALIA is doing to help new graduates develop their career, such as the New Librarians Symposia and the New Graduates Group.

Milan 2009 and Brisbane 2010

After the Congress I left enthused and honoured to have had the opportunity to talk to so many librarians from around the world. Some are dealing with problems that may seem simple to us, others are developing very forward-thinking services, but all are willing to spend time to talk about it. Attending the Congress is a wonderful experience and I urge you to think about attending Milan next year or closer to home, IFLA will be in Brisbane in 2010.

Look for ways you can get involved with organising Brisbane soon! Quebec had some 270 volunteers and no doubt Brisbane would love to hear from you when the call for volunteers goes out.

Our website has become very popular lately and our server has occasionally had some difficulty in keeping up. You may have seen an error recently when trying to login to the site for example.

In an effort to smooth things out I will be undertaking some early spring cleaning. In particular looking at our database server and deleting things that are not needed.

At Libraries Interact we like to be as inclusive as possible and therefore encourage any librarians who are interested to contribute. More details of how to contribute are available on our Contributing page.

A side effect of this open contribution policy is that we have a large number user accounts stored in our database that have never been used. As part of the spring cleaning I’m deleting any user account that does not have a post, or comment, associated with it. Sadly many of them are created by what appears to be “bots”.

If you try to login and find your account has been deleted, I sincerely apologise and invite you to create an account again. However, please remember that accounts are only needed to contribute, they are not necessary if you’d just like to comment.

If you do notice anything odd happening with our website, please let us know. Taking a screen capture of your browser at the time of the error is always very welcome.

Zotero users wanting to collaborate on reference collections, or access their
collections from multiple computers might be interested in this post from Michael Rees describing how he uses Windows Live Mesh with Zotero. If you can’t wait for Zotero 1.5, this might be an option for you. Only for Windows devices so far, Live Mesh promises Macs and mobile phones will be supported in the future.

Sharing the Zotero Database with Live Mesh « Impressions Scholarcast

Australian Newspapers beta, was recently released and after a short visit to the Courier Mail classifieds of Tuesday 12th April 1864, I can say that the user interface looks great. Users can correct errors in the OCR (optical character recognition) process of scanning the newspapers, add tags, navigate easily between daily editions and pages, and save to pdf.

Over 1 million pages have been digitised so far.

“We are creating a free online service that will enable full-text searching of newspaper articles. This will include newspapers published in each state and territory from the 1800s to the mid-1950s, when copyright applies. The first Australian newspaper, published in Sydney in 1803, is included in the Program.” — Project Site

Go take a look, find out what happened in your locale in the ‘olden days’ and correct some OCR to do your bit for the greater good. The National Library is seeking users’ feedback on content, features and usability.

We don’t often reproduce entire posts from other blogs here, but this one justifies it. Let’s add some Aussie content to the Porter / Lee King song!

From Micheal Porter at LibraryMan blog: YOUR Chance to Star in a Libraryland Music Video!!!

From the last post you can see that David and I recorded a snappy little library song last week. We are really proud of the work we’ve produced and now YOU get a chance to be in the video!! It is jumpy little ditty about library futures, technology and how we will succeed as libraries.

Please listen to this short snippet and then…..shoot a brief video of you singing along! Thats all it takes! You can use a web cam, or any other camera you like and send it to the email below. It should really only take a few minutes on your end, and after we get the videos, we’ll take the best and put them in the video we are hard at work on! Of course, please also feel free to send other video that might go along with the title/theme of the song “hi-fi sci-fi library” (costumes are very welcome by the way!:)
So join in the fun and star in a video with us! This is your official invite! We are looking forward to seeing YOU in our upcoming video!

Here is a link to the very short snippet to sing along with (you can download it even if you want). The “hi-fi sci-fi library” part is what we really need to see you singing.

If you have you have a webcam, you really should be emailing your video to: michael.libraryman *At Sign**gmail.com

Please send your clips in to the above address no later than August 24th, 2008.

We are really looking forward to seeing you in the video with us!!!!!!!!!

-Michael Porter and David Lee King

A few months ago, I wrote about taking off for a fantastic adventure and moving overseas to take up a short-term role in the Netherlands. My time in Europe is nearly over and I will be returning to librarianship in Australia in a few weeks. Whether you are returning from time in another sector, country, or a break to travel or care for family, there’s many things you can do to get back into the swing of things.

You’ve been keeping up all this time, right?

Perhaps you’ve been in touch with colleagues or other librarians in Australia while you’ve been away, or you’ve been reading blogs and InCite to keep up with local news. Great! Do be prepared to hear about big news you somehow missed that will affect your work practice, or a major change to resources you rely on, but try not to be preoccupied by change.

If you haven’t been able to keep in touch or read, it may take a little longer to catch up but take it as a good opportunity to read conference papers that were published in 2008, like those from the VALA conference and Beyond the Hype. Check back through the archives here on LINT and other blogs. Take part in a 23 Things program if you want to brush up your web skills.

Get out and about

Take the time to attend social events to network with your colleagues when you return. Many cities now have semi-regular social events organised by mentoring and new graduate groups within ALIA. For example, Mentoring NSW runs a monthly gathering in a Sydney pub. Check ALIA’s events listing to find out what’s happening around the country. Nothing near you? Join an email list or a Facebook group and organise something!

Move right

If you’re moving home, after all the hassles with moving in the first place, it’s daunting to have to do it all again to come back. But it is important to do it right to save yourself stress and cost. In addition to moving your belongings, make sure you get all the documents you need for tax, superannuation and service in both countries.

Spread the word!

Be prepared for two things: some people will want to know every detail of your time away, others won’t ever ask. It’s a great position to be in to be able to encourage others to take the leap and consider moving overseas, taking off time to travel or other types of breaks, but if others aren’t that interested that’s perfectly fine, too.

Librarianship is a portable profession, make the most of it! Living in Europe has been a wonderful opportunity to travel, and compare differences and similarities in the profession across the world. If you’re interested to know more about some of the cultural issues take a look at the presentation I put together for ALA Annual in Anaheim, international opportunities for new librarians: with (or without) leaving home.

eBoy

Asking how big the internet is, is a bit like asking how long is a piece of string. The answer is we really don’t know because it is unorganised, uncatalogued and continues to grow at a phenomenal rate.

However, two recent sources are having a guestimate on where the internet is in terms of a global resource.

The first came from Internet World Stats which is “an International website featuring up to date world Internet Usage, Population Statistics and Internet Market Research Data, for over 233 individual countries and world regions.”

Their statistics put the number of worldwide internet users at 1.407 billion, up from 16 million in 1995.  How things have changed.  This is now 21.1% or more than 1 in every 5 people in the world who use the internet. They have an interesting table and graph, showing the growth over the last 13 years, which are well worth checking out.

These statistitcs are of course skewed by western nations’ use.  Australia/Oceania, for example has only 0.5% of the world’s population, but 1.4% of the world’s internet users.  Of the total population in this corner of the world, 57% are internet users.  If we broke that further down to Australia alone, that would be higher.

The other stat come from the Google blog (thanks to Phil Bradley for the link).  According to the Google post - We knew the web was big…., their “systems that process new links on the web to find new content hit a milestone: 1 trillion .. unique URLs on the web at once!”  Wow, that’s 1,000,000,000,000 URLs.   This does not include duplicated cotent or auto-generated copies, so its not as inflated as it may seem.

Very interesting too is that the first Google index in 1998 (yes, they are 10 years old this year), only had 26 million unique URLS. The post won’t guess at how many unique pages are on the web, although they suggest it could be infinite.

Big numbers, big things happening, just all the more reason for libraries to be there too.

You better hurry, as nominations close 1st August.

Why should you care?  I’ve been thinking about how, as a profession, we don’t do enough to applaud librarians’ achievements.  There are librarians doing great things in all departments, across all sectors of libraries and we should do more to applaud them and recognise these achievements.

One way to do this is through the ALIA Awards.  There are 5 open for nomination at present, closing on 1st August 2008.

Premier Awards:

HCL Anderson Award (peer-nominated) - Honouring outstanding achievement within the library and information services sector by an associate member.

Redmond Barry

Redmond Barry Award (peer-nominated) - Honouring outstanding contribution to the library and information services sector by an individual who is not eligible for associate membership.

Ellinor Archer Pioneer Award (peer-nominated) - Recognising pioneering in new areas of library and information science by an individual or institutional member.

Excellence Awards:

Excellence Award (self or peer-nominated) - Recognising excellence in any area, field or aspect of practice in the library and information services sector by an individual member, groups of members or institutional member.

Metcalfe Award (peer-nominated) - Recognising high achievement by a personal financial member in their first five years of practice in libraries and information services.

Unfortunately, but understandably, these awards are for ALIA members - but we should be take advantage of every opportunity to acknowledge and reward the great work being done in the library profession.  Who can you think of to nominate for one of these awards?

Several of the Thali are Asus EeePC users. We thought we’d compare our impressions of the eee pc , especially from the perspective of using it in the library environment. But first, what are we talking about?

Asus eee pcs are tiny, ultra-portable, cheap computers. There are now three sizes (7″, 9″ and  10″ or close to, and why don’t they advertise these in centimetres in Australia?) available and a choice of operating systems, Windows XP or Linux. The Linux ones come with a simple user interface especially designed for the eee pc.

What is your eee pc setup?

[Peta] 7″ using standard issue Linux operating system. I purchased a small Techworks wireless mouse and Phillips earphones/microphone set. I also use a wireless presenter’s device with it. It did not require any special set up or drivers.

[Fiona] We have the 8.9″ model, or rather my spouse purchased it for us to share so he got the Windows model. I would have preferred Linux. We don’t have any special accessories for this particular laptop.

[Morgan] I bought the green 7” eee. I didn’t really like the OS which it came with out of the box, so I used the tweak described here to enable the “full desktop” mode of the Xandros Linus OS.

[snail] I bought a black 7″ 4G eee a day or two after they came out locally. Like Morgan I’ve enabled full linux desktop mode (Xandros with KDE). I’ve added a 2G SD card for extra storage (32G SD cards are due out this month) and 2G of RAM (required a kernel modification to recognise the extra RAM).

[Kathryn] Mine was a “surprise” 40th birthday present, purchased in March after much hinting from me.  It is a black 7” with standard Xandros linux. I’ve added an 8G storage card. I’ve bought a 3 wireless modem with the $15 per month plan that I use to extend the eee when I’m not at home or work.

Is it actually useful or just a toy?

[Michelle] Its very useful although I don’t use it a lot. I use it sometimes at home when I want to work on something whilst watching TV or supervising the kids doing something. I use it mostly to take with me to training, seminars, conferences etc, for note-taking, live-blogging etcv

[Peta] Although one of my colleagues likes to joke about my ‘calculator’, he also wondered if it might be used with a barcode reader for doing asset management work - but we didn’t test it. I use mine more often at home for personal use, but it has been put to use for work purposes on numerous occasions. I have used it for taking minutes, connected to projector for presentations, note taking and blogging at conferences and other events, transferring images from SD card via email to a shared drive (not ideal, but it’s an alternative to finding a card reader to plug in). And I’ve also used Skype for an international conversation with a consultant.

[Fiona] For a long time we’ve wanted a computer that was ‘disposable’ enough and portable enough to take away when we travel without really worrying all the time “where’s the laptop?” We travel regularly, but always to budget hotels and places where wifi in the hotel is rare. The EEE works for us because it’s easy to put in a backpack for the day and not have to worry about weight or security as much as we would with a regular laptop. If I lost my MacBook which I have relied on while living overseas, that would be awful. If we lost the EEE which we deliberately save nothing crucial on, it wouldn’t be so bad. We also use it for Skype on the road and watching videos that we convert and put on a USB stick.

I do not see the EEE replacing a full sized laptop at conferences just yet. If I’m presenting I need to have access to more apps than I can run on the EEE (eg I use Keynote now).

[Morgan] I wish it was more of a toy! I must look into downloading some better games for it. I use it for one main thing really, word processing. I have a long train commute and so I can use the eee for journaling, drafting blog posts and things like that. It works well, writing in OpenOffice and then saving it as Word and then using a USB drive to transfer it to my desktop computer. I’ve also used it for reading blog posts, using the Google Reader’s offline function. That’s been ok, although it’s frustrating not being able to follow the links in blog posts I’m reading.

[snail] I’ve used mine for taking notes at conferences, ended up typing several thousand words at a conference earlier in the year. Also use it to jot down ideas on papers I’d like to write. As mine weighs about 900g, it’s light enough to take anywhere. It’s always in my man bag and travels with me everywhere. Also handy for checking email and web browsing while in cafes with wifi. I’ve used it to demonstrate database access for my company at a conference. Plugs into a big screen and displays fine. I’m hoping to supplant my work laptop altogether when I travel but at the moment I still need both.

[Kathryn] It goes where my laptop never went. I use the eee first thing in the morning to read my email, twitter, Friendfeed, RSS and all the links pushed out by those services overnight. I’ve taken it shopping with me so I could use the wireless modem to check product reviews and alternative prices. It sits in the kitchen with last.fm tuned in as a radio while I cook.  I’ve loaded Audacity on it, so I’ve used it to unobtrusively record audio with other people. I’ve used the webcam and Skype to give my family a “guided tour” of my hotel room when I’ve been away travelling.

What is the best and worst thing about using an eee pc?

[Michelle] Best thing is its portability - its small and light and easy to carry. Worst thing is the keyboard is small (I have the 700) and it takes a bit of time to get used to using it.

[Peta] I have to agree with Michelle about portability. It is so conveniently sized it can fit in a satchel with other items, rather than needing its own bag like a regular laptop. Worst thing is the size of the screen is too small for some sites, especially interactive sites - where sometimes a button or other control is just not viewable. The keyboard size was a challenge at first, but experience has resolved that, and I’m a touch typist. The touchpad I find a bit too sensitive and sometimes find the cursor jumping about unexpectedly.

[Fiona] The form factor is the only reason we bought it. We got the 900 which has a better screen than the earlier model. They keyboard does not suit me at all, I’m a touch typist and I cannot switch between the EEE and my MacBook or a standard keyboard. It suits my husband perfectly though - he’s a two finger typist so the size doesn’t bother him!

[Morgan] The worst thing is that its sleep mode is quite battery hungry, at least when compared with other laptops I’ve used. It’s a pain to have to go through the full power down cycle every time I need to take a break from it. The best thing is that it’s small and light and cute and generally hassle-free.

[snail] A weight of 900g says it all, though it’s not quite as light as the 300g of my old Psion 5mx. The keyboard took a bit of getting used to but I’m fine with now (I’m somewhere between 2 fingers and touch typing). I do take the eee just about everywhere. The downsides are the screen and the battery life (my 701 lasts about 3 hours). Plus I need to look at installing XP so I can run my work’s VPN on the road. I am considering upgrading to the eee 901 which has an 8.9″ screen and is based on Intel’s new Atom chip which translates to over double the battery life. Unfortunately it will weigh about 1.1kg.

[Kathryn] Best - portability, lightening fast startup and the fact that it doesn’t dominate the social space when I use it around other people - I can put it on a table where others are reading the paper without it dominating like my laptop would. The webcam is a way cool toy on such a little machine. Worst - Small keyboard takes some getting used to. The sceen isn’t *quite* large enough for google reader, so I need to use F11 to maximise the screen before I can scroll through my RSS feeds. I like to write, edit, preview and add a lot of media to my blog posts..so I find the small screen frustrating if i want to write a long blog post.

Does it meet expectations?

[Michelle] Met and exceeded.

[Peta] I had fairly low expectations, so yes they have been exceeded, but there are still some aspects of its use that are a bit of nuisance. Like the unexpected impact of Asus supplied updates. eg. link to Google Mail disappearing, and sound levels diminishing to almost nothing. Both were fixed by going back to factory settings.

[Fiona] It works just fine for what we use it for, but I wouldn’t do much more than that on it.

[Morgan] The computer itself does. The only thing I’ve been disappointed with is that in my commute, free wifi is almost non-existent so I haven’t been able to fully use the eee’s internet functions.

[snail] It’s cute as, ’nuff said At the conference I used it demo work’s databases, I got way more questions about the eee than the databases. I had strong expectations regarding its versatility and those expectations have been met and exceeded. It is a full computer in a pint size packet that I can carry anywhere without breaking my back.

[Kathryn] ‘fraid that “cute” was an attraction for me too. I was surprised how quickly I got used to the keyboard and how much I actually do use it.

How well is it suited to your workplace?

[Michelle] It has worked fine with any wi-fi I have accessed, including my home network. No problems accessing databases, email etc.

[Peta] Works great with wifi. I’ve connected to wifi at work, at home, at a hotel in New Zealand and at Qld State Library and it has been a painless experience. I have installed a Citrix client to access MPOW’s network and it seems to work quite well. I haven’t encountered any difficulties using library resources, or webmail (exchange server) although Exchange only provides a basic interface when using Firefox. Since I am running Linux I don’t have Internet Explorer. MPOW is a Microsoft Office shop, but the supplied Open Office has proved highly reliable in working with MS office files. But it does require a little practice to get used to the slightly different interface.

[Fiona] I don’t intend to use it for work use. I find the wifi range not as good as a standard laptop.

[Morgan] It’s not something I could use at work.

[snail] My job is 100% web based and there are times where the reduced screen size is a bit of a pain. The 7″ screen is a bit too small but the 9-10″ looks about right. It’s been fine for demonstrating products as well as doing my regular work.

[Kathryn] My work uses a Virtual Private Network to access wireless, so after a lot of faffing around my husband installed the client for me. It’s not particuarly straightforward and my knowledge of the underbelly of Linux is low. Once installed, though I can access my work’s wireless network easily.  It is fantastic to take into meetings for notetaking without feeling like I am putting a wall between myself and other participants. I will often use it to check a fact or a site mentioned during the meeting. I’d *like* to say that I’ve never snuck a peek at my email or twitter with it during a meeting.

How does it compare with other similar products?

[Michelle] Haven’t tried anything similar.

[Peta] I haven’t tried any that can really be compared, but in contrast to a tablet pc I once took to a conference, the eee pc is much, much lighter and much, much cooler and its battery lasts longer.

[Morgan] I’ve just bought an iPhone and I’ve learned that although the eee’s keyboard is not ideal, it is a lot easier to use than the iPhone’s touch screen keyboard. The iPhone is ok for writing short emails or texts or twitters, and that’s about it. So the eee will remain my choice for writing when on the go.

[snail] I’m currently interested in trying out the Acer Aspire One as it has a 9″ screen but still manages a weight of around 900g. It’s also based on Intel’s Atom chip so the battery life looks promising. When the eee came out last year there was nothing else to compete with, now there seems to be a bunch of contenders so I’m keeping an eye out.

[Kathryn] I received my XO laptop last week, which I bought in December with hope to use it like I do the eee. I find the eee superior in everything except rugged unbreakability. There is a comparison of the two here: OLPC vs EeePc.

Would you recommend others to purchase?

[Michelle] Depending on their needs - yes!

[Peta] Yes, but despite Asus claims that these are incredibly easy to use, I think potential users need to consider their tolerance level for quirks, their willingness to adapt to a different operating system if they want to customise the set up, and they need to be aware of the limited storage on the device.

[Fiona] Sure, if you are really serious about only having a limited amount of expectations. Don’t buy it for web browsing for instance, and then expect to write a thesis on it.

[Morgan] I’ve already recommended it to a friend of mine who’s a student and needs a computer and is on a very tight budget. If all you need to do is draft essays, the eee would suffice. Although this would work better with the larger screen version and a separate keyboard.

[snail] My model, the 701, is now selling for under $350. For a fully functioning computer that can be taken anywhere, that’s a staggering price. At $500, it remains a good buy. I’d probably suggest going for a 9″ screen and preferably one based on Intel’s Atom. This is a machine you’ll want to take anywhere which means decent battery life is crucial. The main machines I’m considering at the moment are Acer’s Aspire One and the ASUS Eee 901 though I’m remaining watchful for new entries in this market.

[Kathryn] Absolutely. Word of warning - don’t expect to store anything on it or get too attached to any configuation or tweaks if you don’t know much about Linux. I needed to reinstall the factory presets a couple of weeks ago when I innocently chose to upgrade to the most recent version of the BIOS. Fortunately, apart from VPN, then was very little customisation that I had done or needed to do. This is a stark comparison to my laptop, where I would need to spend a couple of days customising and reloading software and browser extensions to get it how I like it.

Thali member Con also has an eeePC (New toy for Christmas). She didn’t add her two cents worth as she is currently jaunting around Europe, accomplishing the amazing feat of only taking carry-on luggage - so no eeePC.

If you have an eeePC, please leave a comment about your experience. Does anyone have a Windows version?

The School Library Journal in the US is running a “Learning 2.0 / 23 Things” program for …well…school librarians all over the world… All Together Now: A Learning 2.0 Experience . It is being led by Dr Michael Stephens , who has a knack for simplifying the complex in a way that inspires you to want to go out and try it.

The aim is to introduce people to a series of “Web2.0″ technologies using a series of self paced exercises, with reflexive learning by blogging about it. The advantage of doing the SLJ program is that librarians all over the world will be doing it at the same time, and that a community of learners will be created.

There are just 12 topics, starting on 21st July:

Blogs
Podcasts
RSS
Wikis
Flickr
Web Toys
Web 2.0 & Library 2.0
Social Networking Sites
Video Sites
Twitter
Tagging
Google Apps

It’s usually terrific fun and worth having a look at. If you are unsure about whether you can fit it in, check out these tips for 10 Ways to Find Time for 23 Things - including thinking about the implications if you don’t understand these tools and committing to the program just a week at a time .