As we speak, MPOW is hosting a symposium on Biomedical Informatics and Computational Biology.  Our partners in this venture include some august institutions: Mayo Clinic, IBM, the University of Minnesota - Twin Cities, and the Hormel Institute.

I just sat through the keynote presentation on the MI3C, a collaboration between IBM and Mayo.  The MI3C is the Medical Imaging Informatics Innovation Center, and it’s incredible.  (Maybe it should be MI4C.)  From the news release on its inception in January:

Today, Mayo Clinic and IBM (NYSE: IBM) announced the creation of a collaborative research facility aimed at advancing medical imaging technologies to improve the quality of patient care. The Medical Imaging Informatics Innovation Center (MI3C) is an extension of a Mayo-IBM collaboration announced in 2007, the results of which have given physicians the ability to register medical images up to 50 times quicker and provide critical diagnosis, such as the growth or shrinkage of tumors, in seconds instead of hours.

The afternoon will feature breakout sessions on topics such as “Bioinformatics: Proteomics” and “Biomedical Data Mining.”  There will be team meetings on “Normalization in Global Mass Spectrometry Studies” and “Mining Genetic Determinants of Human Disease” along with three other projects.

I sat there this morning, after chatting with the guys who run the IBM Supercomputer, with the realization starting to dawn on me that this group of people was in a very real sense changing the world.  And in a chat with the Big Boss afterward, he wondered how anyone could possibly find math or science boring after listening to what these guys are talking about.

It’s a whole new world out there.  How cool that I can peek in the windows and see what’s going on.

I like it.

The folks at the Orange County Library System have done it again. I love these guys; they’re always finding ways to draw people into their web page. You may remember a while back when they created a program that allowed the kids in Florida to build their own snowman.

Now, enter Citricon, Library Defender. It’s not available until May 15th, but I can’t wait to see what they’re developed now!

H/T The Shifted Librarian.

There is a wonderful opinion piece in the London Times that talks about the treasures of the Oxford Bodleian Library.  The author starts with a bit of historical context, and then goes on to describe how things have changed:

King Charles I once asked the chief librarian of the Bodleian Library in Oxford if he could borrow a book. He was told, politely, to get lost. A few years later, as the wheel of history turned, Oliver Cromwell also wondered if he might take a book away from the great collection, to read it at his leisure. He received exactly the same answer.

Roundhead or cavalier, king or commoner, no one could take a book out of the library. Its books were not for lending, but for consulting. The library was a temple of learning, where scholars might come to read and learn. The books stayed put.

But no longer. Today I can select any one of hundreds of thousands of digitised books from the Bodleian, including some of its rarest treasures, and read them on a computer screen. I can do this when the library is closed. I can do it without authorisation. I can do it from Antarctica, so long as I have an internet link.

The Bodleian is one of the libraries being digitized by Google, and the author couldn’t be happier.  His opinion is that the availability of these resources online will create a resurgence of interest in libraries.  Most of the opinions I’ve read up until now tend to lean the opposite direction - that the online resources will make libraries obsolete.  I rather like this version better.

Through the internet, the library doors are suddenly thrown open to the widest possible readership, genuinely fulfilling Thomas Bodley’s aim to make collected books “available to the whole republic of the learned”.

So far from driving readers from libraries and on to the internet, digital collections are likely to have the reverse effect. Just as televised football matches revitalised live football, so the chance to see and sample great literature on the web will encourage more people to go in search of the real thing.

Interesting.  He goes on:

Libraries die when people forget what is in them: they thrive when we are reminded of their riches, and so far from eroding our physical contact with ancient books, the great online library currently amassing its collection will surely revive that relationship.

There is still no tactile pleasure to compare with opening an old book: the gust of vellum and parchment, the knowledge of countless eyes tracing the page before you, the marginalia, the chance to hold some knowledge in your hand.

The internet will never replicate that experience (just as no technology has been able to supplant the paper book, of which we are reading more than ever), but it can help, immeasurably, to lead us to it.

From his mouth to God’s ears, as my grandmother would say.  What a refreshing take on the digitization of library materials!  Perhaps, instead of fearing this new technology, we should embrace it as a chance to show off the wonders available at libraries.

I’ve been hearing for a while now about the One Laptop Per Child program, wherein you purchase a laptop for a child in a developing country for a very low price. They now have the Give One Get One program, where you can get one for yourself and one for the aforementioned child.

Sounds good on the surface, but I have a few questions.

If these countries are so underdeveloped, how is it that they have internet access? Or electricity, for that matter? I mean, there are parts of Minnesota where internet access is a bit sketchy, much less parts of sub-Saharan Africa. I’ve been at two conferences recently where the number of people accessing the internet has crashed their servers. These folks in these underdeveloped countries are going to have a better time of it? (If so, let’s get their internet providers over here, pronto.)

If they don’t have internet access…..then why a laptop? There’s the cool factor, of course. But how about good teachers and a boatload of notebooks and pencils?

I’m seeing the same trends in the public schools in this country, where one bond question after another is being voted upon by communities who are being told that their children aren’t learning because their buildings are shabby. Uhmmm…..it’s really nice to have new, spiffy stuff but it really has little to do with learning. As the product of less-than-pristine old Catholic schools, my education was just fine, thanks. Better than fine, in fact.

This is not too far from the current hoo-ha in the library world over all things 2.0. Granted, a lot of the technological toys associated with 2.0 are cool and may give your library an edge with your patrons. But the reality is that good old-fashioned library customer service and a terrific collection go a lot farther to endear your patrons than IM reference.

Let’s all take a deep breath and focus on why we’re here and what we’re doing….and try not to get so sidetracked by the shiny things.

Here’s a wonderful and thought-provoking piece on information and how it’s changing from Professor Michael Wesch of Kansas State University..

Hat tip: Librarian Woes

Trainer, part two.

In order to provide technology training, you do not need to know everything there is about technology! Everyone has pockets of what they know.

If you don’t have a computer lab, how to do technology training? Can offer classes before the library opens for the day. Technology training doesn’t always need to be hands-on. Sometimes people need the awareness of what’s there. Can do a ten-minute presentation and then turn them loose on the computers to try it themselves. Letting people loose to learn and explore by themselves is much messier, but tends to be the most effective. People don’t learn by doing exactly what you do - let them try on their own.

Innovative library technology training programs:
For patrons: Reading Public Library, Reading, Massachusetts. “Geek out, don’t freak out! - Digital Cameras” Patrons bring their own digital cameras to the class and they figure it out together. There tended to be a lot of interaction within the class, with students helping each other.

Also have a program called Netguides, where patrons can sign up for a one-on-one training session. The netguides are students trained at the library to provide patrons with one-on-one techology answers and personalized instruction.

For staff: Public Library of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County. Learning 2.0 and the 23 Things. 23 things that you can do on the web to expand your knowledge of the Internet. Every staff member who completed the program will recieve an MP3 player, and were entered into a drawing for a laptop.

Discussions of different problematic training scenarios and possible solutions.

The session wrapped up with a tour of five online sites for library technology trainers: Webjunction, Library Instruction Wiki,
Infopeople, CLENE, and Librarians with Class.

Originally posted on SELCO Librarian.

Training the public, staff, and volunteer on technology.

Brenda Hough of the Northeast Kansas Library System was here at MPOW talking about training. Brenda also facilitates an online series with WebJunction called “InFocus,” which features monthly one-hour presentations on topics of interest to people working in rural libraries. Her previous professional experience includes working as a trainer and staff development coordinator in the US Library Program of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and as a reference librarian for Lake Agassiz Regional Library in Detroit Lakes, MN. Brenda is currently in the doctoral program at Emporia State University´s School of Library Information Management, and her dissertation topic is Wikipedia usage. In her spare time she enjoys biking, reading, kayaking, and travel.

Brenda introduced the session by talking about the wiki she designed for the workshop.  She explained that a wiki is a website that is set up to allow multiple people to contribute the the site.  The Rochester Public Library has a wiki as an intranet for staff.

Brenda advocates for PBWiki as an easy interface to create a wiki.   The hard thing is determining the content and then encouraging people to use it.  Libraries have tended to use the wiki for staff.  Many are using them as their file sharing site
instead of a separate server.

The St. Paul Public Library has a collection on the history of St. Paul.  An attendee from St. Paul is promoting the idea of a wiki for St. Paul, so anyone can contribute to the history of St. Paul.

Discussion of the possibility of vandalism on the wiki, with anonymous people wreaking havoc.  Comment from one attendee that he had written on desks as a kid - and that we will always deal with these kinds of messes to clean up.  At this point, it tends to be technological cleanup.

Set up technology training wiki for public training?  Tutorials on how to use a mouse, etc.

Why do you want to provide technology training?  Seniors who don’t have basic computer skills. Patron wants to use the computer but isn’t computer savvy - the time it takes to train a patron individually can be a problem so classes would be more efficient.  Staff have a hard time moving out of basic skills - would like to train staff to do better searching and expand their skills and use other tools.

Need for proper searching techniques.  Question about whether Wikipedia is considered a “reliable source.”  Need to teach patrons to be good information consumers, and teach how to evaluate a website.  Need to teach computer safety, so that patrons can protect themselves from internet predators.  Teach the use of computer language to use - toolbar, etc.  Searches are all about langualge, too - need to teach the proper language to do an effective search.  Clubs and groups have online sites.  Job applications are online, as well as government information and applications.

Need to resist the temptation to take over the mouse and “drive.”  Need to let the patron do the work, so they will learn. Provide opportunities for them to have some success.  Use consistent language throughout.  Use techie terms if appropriate.  Start  small.

Online databases are underutilized, and so this is a training area.  Target the classes to specific patron interests, like genealogy.

Libraries tend to try to be everything to all people.  We’re more effective if we target audiences.  Example - Wyoming State Library’s mudflap girl, which was sent out to all auto repair shops to advertise the availability to auto repair databases through the libraries.

A good trainer isn’t the sage on the stage, but the guide on the side.  Provide the opportunity for people to interact with the technology, and be there to assist.  Many libraries will have an open lab, instead of a formal class, which allows people to address specific issues or questions that they might have.

Just In Time training very important, and tends to be the way most patrons learn about technology and databases and the ways to use the internet.  Discussion of “teachable moments” where we miss the opportunity to teach patrons because we’re standoffish, or impatient, or incredulous.  This training tends to be the most popular kind of training in libraries.  Give instructions slowly, allowing the user time to orient themselves to the screen.  Ask questions and watch for clues to help assess the user’s level of computer knowledge and lever of interest in learning and alter your approach accordingly.  Take advantage of teachable moments!

People see libraries as a place to go to, not a place online.  Barrier - need the library card number to access the databases.  Some systems are using GPS for authentication of databases, rather than needing a library card number.

Essential qualities of a trainer - the most technological person on the staff is not necessarily the best trainer.   Should be patient and a good listener, with empathy for the students.

More after the break!

Co-worker and buddy Aurora and I have attended Internet Librarian two years in a row.  The first was very shortly after both of us were hired, and so it was an educational experience both from the conference standpoint and from the standpoint of getting to know someone you’ve just met.  Luckily, we get along just fine and had a great time.

It was that first conference that motivated both of us to come home and start a blog.

My how times have changed!

We just got word late last week that our speaking proposal for IL2007 has been accepted:

3:15 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.

D105  Advocacy 2.0
Aurora Jacobsen, Information Services Librarian, & Mary Beth Sancomb-Moran, Advocacy Coordinator,Southeastern Libraries Cooperating (SELCO)
Librarians are continuing to work on increasing visibility within our communities and with our political leaders. To increase our politicians’ knowledge of libraries, we must become advocates. As politicians are increasingly using Web 2.0 tools, are we ready to meet them in this new arena? This session discusses the ways to use Web 2.0 technology to reach our legislators, find demographic information, and provide an overview of the ways government is reaching out to our community.

How cool is that?!  Monterey, here we come again…..

DH passed along a terrific article in ComputerWorld magazine about “Why E-books are Bound to Fail.”  I’m in agreement with the author, never having understood the appeal of the things, myself.

He has some very cogent arguments and the article is worth a read.  My favorites:

They’re expensive.

There are many subtle, minor disadvantages to e-books. For example, they’re expensive. The hardware costs hundreds of dollars. Worse, books tend not to be hugely discounted in electronic form. The paperback version of “The Google Story: Inside the Hottest Business, Media, and Technology Success of Our Time,” by David A. Vise and Mark Malseed, costs $11.20 on Amazon.com. The same book in electronic format on eBooks.com costs $9.95. You save $1.25. The reason is that the value of a book lies mostly in the intellectual property, not the wood pulp that constitutes the physical book. So e-books aren’t cheaper.

People love paper books.

In other words, e-books are not, and cannot be, superior to what they are designed to replace.

People who care enough about books to spend $25 billion on them each year tend to love books and everything about them. They love the look and feel of books. They like touching the paper, and looking at words and illustrations at a resolution no e-book will ever match. They view “curling up with a good book” as an escape from the electronic screens they look at all day. They love to carry them, annotate them, and give them as gifts. Book collecting is one of the biggest hobbies in the world.

Boy, that’s me in a nutshell, as DH will attest.  We have books in almost every room of the house.  (I refuse to put them in the bathrooms, but they’re pretty much everywhere else.)  I buy books like some women buy shoes.

The author goes on with a very good point:

So many predictions about the future have failed because futurists tend to overemphasize the possible over the desirable. They give too much weight to technology and not enough to human nature.

Yes, yes, yes.  I would posit that the codicil to that is “Just because you can doesn’t mean you should.”

He concludes,

[...]do people want to “curl up” with a battery-operated plastic screen?The obvious answer is no.

And that’s the simple reason why e-books will never even come close to replacing paper books.

Amen, brother.