Hectic Pace tag:community.oclc.org,2007-12-21:/hecticpace//1 2013-05-03T14:51:13Z Movable Type 4.23-en We're having a ball! tag:community.oclc.org,2013:/hecticpace//1.80 2013-05-03T14:29:34Z 2013-05-03T14:51:13Z Andrew K. Pace A couple of months ago, we asked the WorldShare Management Services community to contribute videos to help us celebrate the fact that we reached the milestone of having 100 libraries "live" on WMS. 

We had a terrific response from the WMS community. We had nearly 40 submissions from WMS libraries in Australia, Canada and across the United States--truly illustrating the growing worldwide community.   Here's the compiled video, edited slightly to get all 40 segments just over 4 minutes.  Enjoy!


 

There are definitely a lot of fun and creative people among the WMS community.  But we already new libraries were like that in general! You can also see each individually submitted video in its entirety.

We're hugely thankful for how much response and feedback this group of creative library workers has provided as WMS went from concept to pilot and, now, more than 100 libraries live and using the service every day.

]]> WorldShare Management Services turns One Hundred tag:community.oclc.org,2013:/hecticpace//1.79 2013-03-06T21:04:59Z 2013-03-06T21:36:44Z Andrew K. Pace WorldShare Management Services just saw its 100th library go live with the service.  We have dozens more in the queue, of course, but this 100th is quite a milestone. Kudos to the University of Nebraska Omaha!

The WorldShare Management Services team has continued to exceed my expectations.  Not that long ago, we had a vision and hundreds of libraries ready for change, ready to do things differently so that they could do different things.  Today we've got this huge milestone and a growing and actively engaged WorldShare community.  It's just terrific.

Also this week, 40 librarians and staff will meet in North Carolina for a Southeastern WMS Community meeting!  We've been actively involved, but I'm proud to say that the users themselves are really leading this event with the help of OCLC's great new hire, Helene Blowers.  I won't belabor all these self-congratulations.  The quotes in the press release speak for themselves.  The excitement of the community speaks for itself.  These are good times.
]]> I'm Dreaming of a Real Print Book tag:community.oclc.org,2012:/hecticpace//1.78 2012-12-23T22:00:44Z 2012-12-23T22:06:54Z (to the tune of "I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas")I'm dreaming of a real print book,Just like the ones you know yourself.With real book covers,For book club loversTo place with others on the shelf.I'm dreaming of some print fiction,With every... Andrew K. Pace
I'm dreaming of a real print book,
Just like the ones you know yourself.
With real book covers,
For book club lovers
To place with others on the shelf.

I'm dreaming of some print fiction,
With every library I see,
May you turn each page with anxious glee,
And may all books once have been a tree.

I'm dreaming of a real novel,
The kind you hold with both your hands.
With check out and check in,
The books don't glisten
The kind your mother understands.

I'm dreaming of a card catalog,
With every pixel, link, and byte,
May your books be heavy, not bright,
And may all your text be black on white.



for previous Hectic Pace Christmas parodies, see:

]]> Helene Blowers to Join OCLC WorldShare Team tag:community.oclc.org,2012:/hecticpace//1.77 2012-10-05T19:26:10Z 2012-10-05T19:54:15Z Andrew K. Pace
Now I'm very pleased to announce that we have a new team member from the Columbus area...another great hire.  Helene Blowers will be joining us in a new roll created to support the rapidly growing WorldShare Management Services community.  Helene is well known in both the library IT and public library communities.  In fact, she and I both left North Carolina around the same time 5 years ago to come to Ohio.  She will be leaving her current role at Columbus Metropolitan Library where she has been Director of IT & Digital Strategy for 5 years.

In many respects, this new position is Helene's to invent, but the main role will include proactive interaction with the WMS community. We know that there are staff at libraries who think about the systems that support their staff and patrons day in and day out.  It only makes sense to have someone who thinks on those wavelengths embedded with the product team at OCLC.  Helene brings a great set of experiences to the job.  I'm very excited to have the new position, and over the moon that Helene is the one who will be in the role!

Please join me in welcoming Helene to the OCLC community.  Her blog post on the move can be found on her site.

To the WMS community--you should be very pleased!
]]> Fewer Shades of Grey tag:community.oclc.org,2012:/hecticpace//1.76 2012-09-14T15:30:23Z 2012-09-14T16:08:51Z Andrew K. Pace When I was in library school in the mid-nineties, I was told there was a "greying  of the profession" in process.  As I cocky, young, soon-to-be librarian, I read this threat as a promise.  So many librarians would be retiring in the next 20 years that we literally could not fill their seats with the new generations of librarians "coming online." 

I was intrigued by the challenge but utterly stunned by the professional response.  Somehow this looming threat was turning into a library school recruitment effort.  I had a different reaction.  If we were a factory, I thought, and we could literally not replace the workers on the line, we would only have two choices--slow down our production or increase our levels of automation.  In this sense, I don't consider myself an accidental systems librarian, like so many of my contemporaries.  The desire to automate processes to replace redundant, inefficient, and commoditized workflows conducted by hand was apparently in my DNA.  So, I traded in what I'm sure would have been a lucrative and fulfilling future as a rare book cataloger in order to be a systems librarian.  My humble goal: to replace those empty seats with better automation.

I've used this blog to crow about WorldShare Management Services quite a bit, especially the features, efficiencies, and network effects made available in acquisitions, discovery, and circulation.  But my product team also has responsibility for new product features that can stand alone from these initiatives.  So, I'm very proud to point at a new development in WorldShare Metadata.

Using the WorldCat knowledge base, we have developed a method to set holdings for licensed content and then deliver MARC records for those holdings.  We're calling this WorldShare Metadata collection management--the ability to manage resources at the collection level, as opposed to the traditional record-by-record workflows.  Moreover, this means that libraries can have records delivered for local system use in one step, rather than provider-by-provider.

"Using the [WorldCat] knowledge base and this new MARC record delivery service for some e-book collections is really a more efficient workflow overall. It provides more thorough and accurate access to e-books in our catalog and discovery tools."   
--Holly Tomren, Head, Metadata Services, Drexel University Libraries

This means no more tracking and managing multiple workflows, varying frequencies of updates, and dealing with a breadth of quality in metadata records.  This WorldShare service not only streamlines technical services workflows, it means better and more consistent access for patrons.  Even a slight URL change will trigger delivery of a new record.  Since the knowledge base is updated and managed by OCLC and the entire cooperative, this means more accurate linking and no more need for URL-checking in your local catalog.  We all know how quickly URLs can grey.

WorldShare Metadata collection management functionality allows you to define and configure your e-book and other electronic collections in one place, and automatically receive initial and updated customized WorldCat MARC records for all e-titles from one source, providing your users access to the titles and content from within the local library catalog or other discovery interface.  And output is determined by the library...don't want MARC?  Then choose MARC XML, multiple variations of Dublin Core, or MODS. 

In the future, WorldShare Metadata collection management will not only deliver records for local use regardless of provider and in multiple outputs, but also regardless of material format.   This means libraries can create record delivery criteria across print, licensed, and digital materials--true collection management, a vast improvement over record, format, and supplier management. This is pretty exciting stuff.  Speed up the production lines!

I had a birthday a few weeks ago and I've noticed a lot more grey hair in the mirror.  I've become what I once beheld, but it only encourages me to double the effort to increase efficiencies for libraries and patrons. 

]]> Granted, Cloud Computing has a Future in Libraries tag:community.oclc.org,2012:/hecticpace//1.75 2012-07-05T17:50:22Z 2012-07-05T18:53:05Z Andrew K. Pace I'm hoping that many people have read the excellent post on libraries and cloud computing from Carl Grant.  My first reaction was one of paranoia--was someone slipping Carl our product roadmaps, advisory group feedback, and OCLC Board reports?!  But then I remembered that Carl is a smart guy with the power to synthesize complex topics and new library memes for easy consumption by the library world.

This post resonated with me and made me think, not just selfishly because I've been working on cloud computing for libraries before it was popularly called that, but also because I don't always have as much time as I would like to stop and think about the future of our profession.  What started as a few comments on Carl's blog turned into a full-fledged post of my own.  I'd like to take some time to comment on and react to Carl's three main points in his post, repeated in the numbered headings below.

1.  The mission and values of librarianship have to be embedded in the software you're using.

It may seem silly, but it's no accident that OCLC's general strategy, the platform infrastructure and app gallery, and the management system applications themselves all include the word WorldShare.  I often remind my product team that part of our unique positioning in the library space is the professional ethos that we are charged with serving.  Share, share, share.  

I won't editorialize on Carl's elucidation on equity investment into the library space, but I will tout one of OCLC's distinguishing characteristics--its public purpose.

OCLC is a worldwide library cooperative, owned, governed and sustained by members since 1967. Our public purpose is a statement of commitment to each other--that we will work together to improve access to the information held in libraries around the globe, and find ways to reduce costs for libraries through collaboration.

I don't know of too many organizations that would freeze pricing for three straight years in the wake of a financial crisis that had a huge impact on libraries, as OCLC did in the U.S. from Fiscal Years 2010-2012. Nor do I know of too many organizations for whom a small annual loss (3-4%) is easily considered because it means investing in the next 45 years of the cooperative, or for whom small marginal gains (3-4%) are considered "a good year" because our first goal as an organization is total cost recovery (a fancy way to say "breaking even"). 

Carl makes another point about where libraries are choosing to invest their dollars.  This reminded me of the University of Delaware Library's Gregg Silvis in his discussion of their selection of WorldShare Management Services:

We are, of course, reinvesting our maintenance dollars into the cooperative, rather than our maintenance dollars going outside the library system to private individuals, to equity firms, to stockholders--they are being reinvested in the library cooperative. And it's not just financial, but also our staff resources.

The University of Delaware Library should be praised for their commitment to the public purpose set out above.

2.  Defining our future is a task of participation, NOT representation.

While it might seem like sport to make fun of marketing (remember, without them, many of us would be having great ideas and writing the most awesome software code from our parents' basements), again I will highlight one of the taglines of the WorldShare strategy: "Building Webscale with Libraries." (emphasis mine)

OCLC is a member-governed organization, and there's no reason not to leverage that membership into the partnerships necessary to make cloud computing solutions successful.  Using WorldShare Management Services as an example, we've gone from a small group of pilot libraries, to a larger group of early adopters, to an actively engaged and member-run WMS Community.  In those first two years, we had regular consultation with an advisory group that was made up of non-users of WMS--guiding strategy, marketing, terms and conditions, pricing, and the tactical approach to library markets for this new solution.  Not only that, I'm proud to say that in the first two years of development, roughly 30-40% of new features were delivered as a direct result of early adopter feedback.  I'm confident that our team would still be wondering what to do next if it weren't for this invaluable feedback.

I'm glad that Carl has added Cloud Computing to Jim Neal's list of "Radical Collaboration."  Indeed, the aggregation of data, the capabilities of APIs extended for library and partner use, plans to release more and more data as Linked Data, and the resulting analytics--what OCLC has been calling "Cooperative Intelligence"--will allow libraries to cooperate and run their individual libraries even more efficiently and effectively.  So much of this is green pasture.  No one is completely sure where the tipping point of "network effects" will occur for libraries, but Carl does a nice job of listing many early successes--recommendations, reviews, etc.  Libraries collectively add value to humanity that is so much greater than any individual company or single organization.  

The network effects of aggregated data have been known for some time, and I'm equally excited by the potential of OCLC's Linked Data strategy, as I think it will expand the network itself dramatically.  Expanding the network expands the network effects.  Our collective value is much higher than any IPO, stock valuation, or equity investment.  So it's time for us to start creating more products and services that leverage our cooperative spirit and professional ethos in order to increase the value of what we offer society.  Cloud computing and Linked Data are certainly the most promising avenues to deliver on this desire.

And OCLC will continue to endeavor to avoid the "worrisome trend" that Carl highlights:

At the same time, a worrisome trend to watch for as we see these new cloud computing platforms develop, is the desire of the organizations providing them to cast a net around us, to lock us into silos that will make it far more difficult for us to: 1) quickly move or migrate in adopting new solutions as they come forward, 2) integrate the best solutions together, 3) avoid being locked into content silos where choices are made for us, but not by us.  

Cloud computing is a means to an end for OCLC, but that end involves a more extensible and addressable view of WorldCat and library data, as well as technical platform on which libraries can help scale innovation.  The last thing libraries need is more silos.

This is also why OCLC is touting the WorldShare Platform as a provider-neutral approach to library and 3rd party development.  In fact, 3rd party partners are jumping on the strategy, as evidenced by partnerships with Ex Libris, SCS, and EBSCO, just to name a few.  These types of partnerships are nothing new for OCLC and extend what many libraries are already used to in programs such as WorldCat Cataloging Partners and products like WorldCat Selection.  OCLC will continue its partnerships with those who are already partners with libraries in order to improve the flow of work that libraries perform day in and day out.  And these partnerships enhance the development that hundreds of libraries are already undertaking.  A quick look at the OCLC Developer Network shows what libraries have been able to create with just a few exposed Web Services, and we're releasing more Web Services and more data all the time. Cloud computing and associated Web Services will make these activities even easier and more fruitful.  The OCLC WorldShare Platform is designed to make them more sharable and scalable.  OCLC, Libraries, and 3rd party partners--a rising tide lifts all boats.

3.  For our services to have value they must offer differentiation.

I won't belabor the differentiation that I've attempted to outline above.  Instead, I will simply direct you to read closely Carl's ideas for extending differentiation.  I think they are superb.  Knowledge Creation Platforms makes me think of watching my kids do their schoolwork--the bridge between knowledge discovery, consumption, and creation is shrinking every day.  I recently watched my 10 year old son go from book selection and reading to flip-video book report in under a week.  Which part of that exercise do you think he liked the most?  Hint: it wasn't finding the book or reading it.

Moreover, Contextual Support is a good phrase for something I've been proposing for several years now. I think it is time for our profession--dominated by humanities graduates with lots of training in research, critical thinking, and writing!--to aid in the creation of content.  It's time to abandon our journalistic approach to research ("here's your stuff, please don't ask my opinion or tell me what you're going to do with it!"), roll up our sleeves, and be more involved with creating the quality content instead of just providing quality assistance in discovering it.  

And lest we forget the end user.  I don't want to be labeled as a librarian who doesn't care about patron privacy because I do care.  And OCLC takes this quite seriously, too, even recently achieving ISO 27001 certification for system security (not an easy thing to do).  But personally, I worry about our profession's arms-length treatment of patrons. It's far too easy to have a knee-jerk reaction to privacy protection or simply wax ethical about the firm grip we keep (or don't keep) on patron data.  Simply stating that we're doing something for their own good (a) doesn't always serve them well, and (b) will be countered (is being countered!) by dozens of private organizations more interested in solidifying social networks than in severing the ties that bind those networks together.  Certainly, we can leverage the trust that people place in libraries to serve their consumer needs while still adequately protecting their privacy and our own professional code of ethics. There has to be some middle ground. It can be quite a far fall from such a high horse.

Thank you, Carl, for the thoughtful post, thank you for the validation it brought me in being a part of pursuing OCLC's strategy with its member libraries, and thanks mostly for making me stop and think for a minute!
]]> An Internet without Lies tag:community.oclc.org,2012:/hecticpace//1.74 2012-04-01T19:44:25Z 2012-04-01T19:48:56Z Andrew K. Pace It's been a real struggle for me to keep up with my blog and Internet trends have not been helping me.  Every time I turn around, there seems to be another link (ironically posted on some techno-blog) declaring that the blog is dead.  Others report that  blogs have become indistinguishable from online newspapers and magazines.  No longer an actual weblog conveying opinion and flow of thought, the real blog has been replaced by 140 character tweets, tumbles, and social network postings.

I was not ready to give up the fight, but now I have to wonder if it's worth the trouble to continue blogging in light of new state laws that seem destined to spread like wildfire, a wildfire starting right here in the heartland. 

The state of Ohio and several other Midwestern states seem determined to wipe out misinformation on the Internet.  A small idea that started in the Consumer Protection Section of the State Attorney General's office has joined with proponents for full online legal disclosure at OPIF (Online Public Inspection File).  Details are difficult to piece together, but the bottom line is that authorities are prepared to prosecute online posters of "false, misleading, or unverified material on the Internet."  The initiative, labeled NO LIES (No more Online Libel, Inaccuracy, Evasion, and Slander) wants to cleanse the internet of "the exponential growth of falsehoods and inaccuracies that permeate the World Wide Web."   Attorneys General, Consumer Protection Advocates, and citizens weary of political polarization on the Web are giving this new initiative close scrutiny.

At first, I thought perhaps there could be a new role for libraries in policing the Internet for inaccuracies, false claims, and under-resourced scholarly works.  But selfishly, I began to realize that I lacked the resources necessary to validate my own posts.  With the burden of fact-checking every claim and walking the fine line of reporting and editorializing, I'm starting to wonder whether it's worth it to even try.

]]> Don't Mess with ALA tag:community.oclc.org,2012:/hecticpace//1.73 2012-01-19T02:41:54Z 2012-01-19T03:54:10Z This is that time of year when I try to perfect that look on my face that says "If the first sentence out of your mouth doesn't include the words 'at ALA' or "gushing blood' I don't really have time... Andrew K. Pace
OCLC (I'll be at or near the podium at the following information sessions)
  • OCLC Americas Regional Council Annual Member Meeting and Symposium, Friday 12-5pm, Omni Dallas Hotel, Dallas Ballroom EFG
Great agenda.  Check it out.

  • The Power of Cooperation at Webscale: OCLC's Strategy for Academic Libraries, Saturday 8:30-10am, Dallas Convention Center, Room C155
  • The Power of Cooperation at Webscale: OCLC's Strategy for Public Libraries, Saturday 10:30am-12pm,   Dallas Convention Center, Room C155
Whether or not you've heard about WorldShare, Webscale, and the power of cooperation in libraries, I would encourage you to jon Cathy De Rosa and her OCLC colleagues at these great events.

  • Workflows Transformed: Librarians Share Experiences with OCLC WorldShare Management Services, Saturday 1:30-3:00 pm, Dallas Convention Center, Room C141
Excited about this one, as I will only speak for 5 minutes before turning things over to Lynne Jacobsen (Pepperdine) and Stefanie WIttenbach (Texas A&M San Antonio) from two libraries that have been live with WorldShare Management Services the longest.

  • E-resources at Webscale: Simple Solutions for Management, Discovery and Delivery, Saturday 4-5:30pm, Dallas Convention Center, Room C156
I'll be at the podium for this one with lots of audience support from my colleagues.  Isn't it time that we started talking about new solutions for managing our most valuable resources?  Wouldn't it be even cooler if you could do something about it now?  Well, you can...come and find out.

  • OCLC Update Breakfast, Sunday, 7-8:00am, Omni Dallas Hotel, Dallas Ballroom EFG
Admit it, you're awake anyway...why not come get a great full breakfast and get a great overview of everything the world's largest library cooperative is up to?

  • for a full list of OCLC events and registration, go here.

LITA
  • Happy Hour, Top Technology Trends, LITA Town Hall....LITA Rocks.  I suggest you check out the full list of events here.  But I also want to add a selfish shout-out for a couple of interest group events happening this time:
  • The first meeting of the "Technology and Industry Interest Group."  I had a hand in putting this IG together and am thrilled that Marshall Breeding and my colleague Matt Goldner have agreed to serve as co-chairs of this cool new IG. Marshall posted about it on  GuidePosts.  Saturday, 10:30 - 12 noon, Dallas Convention Center A303
  • My boss, Robin Murray, will be at the Next Generation Catalog Interest Group on Sunday 10:30 am - 12:00 noon, Dallas Convention Center C156, to talk about next-generation systems and services
And every other time gap is filled with Council meetings!  It's going to be another great ALA.
]]> Away at the Ref Desk tag:community.oclc.org,2011:/hecticpace//1.72 2011-12-20T13:00:00Z 2011-12-20T13:20:03Z Andrew K. Pace (to the tune of Away in a Manger)


Away at the Ref desk,

His last chat complete,

The quick reference shelver

Had a desk shift so sweet.

 

Exams were all over,

The staff were downstairs,

The few that were left were

Asleep in their chairs.

 

His status was current,

His Scrabble move made,

The birds were not angry,

His iPhone mislaid.

 

He loves the library,

He will sometimes sigh,

One more "Where's the bathroom?"

Just might make him cry.

 

He's cool and efficient,

And finds all the facts,

He could have been April

In Men of the Stacks.

 

Bless all the libraries,

Librarians too,

He loves his true calling,

And does it for you.


for previous Hectic Pace Christmas parodies, see:
The Grump Who Stole Libraries (2006)
Twas the Night Before Migration (2007)
Dewey the Decimal Maker (2008)
Jingle Books (2009)
My Server Got Run Over by a Cloud App (2010)

]]> Can we be more with what we have? tag:community.oclc.org,2011:/hecticpace//1.71 2011-12-08T17:46:50Z 2011-12-08T17:49:04Z Andrew K. Pace
Many thanks to my colleague, Katie Birch, for pointing out a relatively random Wikipedia page about "Doing more with less."  
"David Simon has professed that despite being an oft-repeated command to dying institutions, the ability to do more with less is an inherent impossibility."

Please don't infer that I am calling libraries "dying institutions."  My more radical point is that a library who says they are attempting to do more with less is pigeon-holing itself in the 'dying institution' category with that mindset.  

As a systems librarian, my professional goal has always been to implement efficiency into library workflows (with, admittedly, the occasional whiz-bang, cool tool for coolness' sake).  So efficiency, to me, means an opportunity to do more with the same amount of resources, something that could be possible.  

There's been a lot of buzz this week about OCLC WorldShare, one of the first implementations of which is WMS (WorldShare Management Service), which libraries are using to create efficiency at the local level.  WorldCat has allowed them to be more.  But I don't want to use that as my example today.  OCLC WorldShare is also the moniker for the newly released platform.  

The announcement of the OCLC WorldShare App Gallery, part of the OCLC WorldShare Platform, was made on Monday.  The App Gallery was launched with a handful for new apps that use a handful of new services that OCLC is now exposing. Over the past two days, there was a Mashathon in Frankfurt.  Today, there are eight new Apps!!  This means there will be more Apps in the OCLC WorldShare App Gallery.   The Gallery is more with what we already had.  Libraries can be more with what they already have.  Very cool.
]]> A New Brand Day tag:community.oclc.org,2011:/hecticpace//1.70 2011-12-05T16:13:39Z 2011-12-05T17:02:36Z Andrew K. Pace So at some point, blogging became like exercise to me.  It used to come easily because I did it regularly, and if I didn't do it regularly, I missed it terribly.  I hear that runners get like this...I wouldn't know.  Despite my hectic pace, it's more webscale than cardiovascular.  So, I'm trying once again to turn over a new leaf, looking for an equivalent to new year's day to start blogging again.  I figured that OCLC's introduction of a new brand is as good way to start as any.

logo_worldshare.png

OCLC WorldShare

I won't bore any of you with what goes into a new name, a new brand.  Let's just say it's a lot more work than you might imagine.  And OCLC WorldShare is so much more than just a new cloud-based, cooperative library management service.  I've talked a lot about building webscale with libraries over the last few years.  OCLC WorldShare introduces three critical components of our strategy for truly cooperating at Webscale: WorldShare, our commitment to radical collaboration in library service delivery; OCLC WorldShare Platform, where libraries can collectively innovate library services; and the opening of new worldwide data centers that will support OCLC services globally.

Of vital importance to all of us at OCLC--and I think made clear in the introduction of WorldShare--is  the hand-in-hand nature in which it co-exists with WorldCat.  I still view WorldCat as the most compelling and distinguishing feature of the management services that our global team at OCLC has been building over the last four years.  It was nice to see that we are not alone in the assertion of WorldCat's place in the world of important databases.  It is truly an amazing database and a rich source of discovery.

Management Applications and The Platform

OCLC WorldShare Management Services replaces Web-scale Management Services, while giving comfort to the growing community that already affectionately refers to it as WMS. New services--from metadata management to resource sharing and consortial borrowing--will come together under this name.

WMS has served as an example of one of the most exciting developments at OCLC, the platform on which these applications are built and their associated Web Services are exposed and shared.   Libraries, developers, and 3rd parties will be able to innovate collectively on a provider-neutral platform--the OCLC WorldShare Platform.

We're taking our commitment to cooperative innovation very seriously.  The OCLC WorldShare platform is intended for the entire library ecosystem--from tech-savvy librarians to developers, from part-time coders to software engineers, from library automation start-ups to established vendors--and all for the benefit of libraries, especially those without the resources to create new services on their own.  In my opinion, this is webscale for systems librarianship.

A Pace even more hectic

By no stretch of the imagination can I claim product leadership for all things webscale at OCLC...I have six peers who lead product portfolios with equally lofty and ambitious goals and plans.  We work very collaboratively together and with the OCLC membership to ensure that our product paths have meaning to and impact on the library community.  But I will admit that building webscale with libraries and helping create a new brand have kept me busier than I expected, and too busy for this blog or even the occasional tweet. 

That said, I'm using the occasion of a new brand for OCLC to once again recommit to making Hectic Pace a place for discussion and announcements of import to technology in libraries.  I've used it selfishly over the last couple of years to talk about the work that I'm intimately involved with on a day-to-day basis.  I'm optimistic that the introduction of the OCLC WorldShare Platform, the growth of the WMS community, and other equally ambitious endeavors will provide even more opportunity to share and discuss what goes on in the world of library automation.  Let's keep learning.

]]> ALAready? tag:community.oclc.org,2011:/hecticpace//1.69 2011-06-21T17:38:35Z 2011-06-21T20:12:41Z Andrew K. Pace

I don't know why I feel so surprised every time ALA creeps up on me.  It's not like we hold it at the same times every year or anything.  This one is proving to be another hectic one, as usual.  I'm not really sure what I would do with myself if ALA weren't hectic.  

 

Here's where you're likely to find me at OCLC events, either at the podium or lurking in the back of the room.

 

On Friday, I'm finally headed back to the LITA/ALCTS Electronic Resource Management Interest Group.  I've spent almost 2 dog years talking about and building ERM, and I'm finally glad to be presenting some of the stuff we have been working on at OCLC.  I'm pretty hopeful that License Manager will bring real utility to a market full of functionality

 

Saturday

End-to-End E-Resource Management: How OCLC Makes it Easier

8:00 am - 10:00 am, Morial Convention Center, Room 244

 

Join the Revolution: Library Management at Web Scale
Includes panelists from Harrison College, Davidson College, and Norwich University
10:30 am - 12:00 pm, Morial Convention Center, Room 269

Jazzing Up Your Library Systems with the OCLC Platform
4:00 - 5:30 pm, Morial Convention Center, Room 284

 

On Sunday, we'll be having our first face-to-face WMS Community meeting! Pretty exciting, given that a year ago we were just getting out of the gate with our very first early adopters.

 

Here's  a complete list of OCLC events in New Orleans.

 

Of course, I'll be hanging with LITA folks wherever possible.  I un-humbly state that LITA programming is among the best at ALA.  Check out their happenings.

 

If Identity Management is your game, I encourage you to catch my OCLC colleague Don Hamparian and others at the LITA sponsored event on Monday, 10:30 am - 12:00 pm in Room 288 of the Convention Center.  It's a common problem without a whole lot of shared solutions in our world of libraries, but I'm encouraged when I see the number of good folks trying to tackle this problem.

 

I am looking forward to everything but the heat.  It's been unusually cool (and wet) here in central Ohio, but I'm afraid my southern climate blood has thinned considerably in the last three years.  Try as I might, though, I have no plans to slow down.

 

]]> Everything's Coming Up Roses (and at web scale!) tag:community.oclc.org,2011:/hecticpace//1.68 2011-06-09T15:39:29Z 2011-06-09T22:35:08Z I readily admit that no one ever called me "Pollyanna" until I came to OCLC. But I can be annoyingly optimistic about the future of library automation and OCLC's role in that future, so throw a little success our way... Andrew K. Pace I readily admit that no one ever called me "Pollyanna" until I came to OCLC. But I can be annoyingly optimistic about the future of library automation and OCLC's role in that future, so throw a little success our way and look out!  

A long time ago, my work nickname was "Mr. Crabby" (I still own the mrcrabby@hotmail account that I created as my dummy email address in 1995...don't expect replies, your messages will be buried amongst various political mailings, retail store sign-ups, and mountains of spam).  Later, I dubbed myself "the cynical optimist," a moniker that stuck for a while.  My default mode is usually that things are never so bad that they can't get worse.  

Then one of my colleagues started calling me "Smiley." I suspected this was a joke about the giddy-looking mugshot that accompanies this blog and many other website postings, but she pointed out to me that I was usually smiling even when the chips were down or the news bad.  Credit goes to Leonard Kniffel at ALA for picking that photo out a pile to use as my old column pic...he said the smile matched my enthusiasm for the profession. It's true that a smile (even a forced one) can get one through the tougher times.  

But every once in a while you have one of those weeks, fortnights, months, quarters, or years where you look back and say, "man, did all those great things really happen?"  I can't pinpoint when it started, but I think I'll start with the first (virtual) Web-scale Management Services community meeting.  As we ended our phase of early adoption in the U.S. and transitioned to a member-led community group, the excitement among the teams and the libraries was palpable.  The software was real.  The community was fully engaged and excited.  

Then every time I turned around, one of the early adopters was saying something nice about their transition to the cloud, to web scale, or to WMS.  For some libraries, WMS was a re-introduction to OCLC in general.  As much as I love a good product pitch, nothing warms my heart more than hearing actual users talk about WMS.  You can see a bunch of them on the OCLC Youtube channel.

Next, a (seemingly never-ending!) stream of presentations and talks went really well.  I really like talking to libraries about new ideas and solutions.  I used to call this "practical advocacy" and the raison d'être of systems librarianship. I never had much stomach for professorial sounding sophistry, long meetings designed to "admire the problem," and waterfall development strategies that resulted in a long slog toward a product that had lost its focus on the problem it was designed to solve.  I'm a "solutions now" kind of guy.  Anyway, meeting after meeting with libraries, partners, and third parties was affirming our strategic direction.  Affirmation of a good strategy is nice.

But no one simply wants their strategy admired, either.  Show me the true believers.  Then, wow, we reached a milestone in our early adopter phase for WMS with over 30 signed libraries in the U.S.  Fifteen of those libraries are already using the service in production!  Are we ready for general release on July 1?  You bet we are.  What could top that?  Well how about a first sale in Canada at The University of New Brunswick and our first sale in the Netherlands at Tilburg University! [Dutch news release].

Throw in the over 100 libraries in Norway who have committed to WMS and we're pushing 150 libraries in the rapidly growing community.  I tried to recall the last time that 150 libraries had committed to a brand new library management system in the first 10 months of its existence.  Somebody pinch me.

Of course, none of this would be possible without the best research, project management, product, development, implementation, training, customer support, systems, marketing, sales, communications, and corporate support teams on the planet.  Combine that team with an awesome group of libraries and you get happiness.  Seriously, these efforts are backed by a true underpinning of "fidelity to a worthy purpose"--fidelity in the sense of faithfulness to the project, but also in the stereophonic sense, a team that brings true balance to the sound we are creating.

Oh.  Did I mention my wife just got a new job, my daughter completed her first year of middle school on the honor roll, and my son's baseball team has an awesomely winning record?  Things are never so good that they can't just keep getting better.  Just call me "Smiley."

]]> Plan for Success tag:community.oclc.org,2011:/hecticpace//1.67 2011-04-25T15:51:54Z 2011-04-25T16:52:23Z Andrew K. Pace I had a great opportunity to travel to the northwest this month to attend the Oregon Library Association meeting (briefly) and the Montana (combined with Mountain Plains) Library Association meeting (slightly less briefly).  I've been wanting to highlight one presentation I saw from that trip ever since I got back and this is the first free moment I've had to put it all together.

In Oregon, I was participating with colleagues Carl Grant from Ex Libris and Neil Block from Innovative Interfaces in a pre-conference on library-vendor relationships.  That sounds like enough fun in and of itself, but it's actually not what I want to highlight.  Before we spoke, Steve Shadle from the University of Washington and Steve Casburn from Multnomah County Library gave presentations on "Partnerships with vendors : case studies and lessons learned."  Each was talking about the early adoption of solutions by their libraries and gave advice to other libraries considering the same.

Initially I sat up and took notice because I have been a seeker of such early adopters for the last three years.  This has been a successful endeavor.  Nevertheless, our team has been struck by the amount of change management required even for libraries who don't fear (and those who actually embrace) early adoption.  Steve Shadle presented a step-by-step approach to increasing the likelihood of a successful implementation.  It was only icing on the cake that he happened to be talking about UW's WorldCat Local implementation.

But the other thing that struck me was not the comparison to activities at OCLC, but the similarities I saw in UW's plan to the one that was implemented at NCSU when we were implementing the Endeca catalog.  It probably seems like a truism at this point that the philosophical and political battles are much larger than the technical ones.  A successful implementation only has a little bit to do with the solution being implemented and a whole lot to do with how the organization goes about it.

I probably won't do Steve Shadle's slides justice, but I was jotting down his steps to success.  A smarter man would have asked Steve to co-author this post, but as his slides are not available on the OLA site yet and I was anxious to tell his story, here are the steps he outlined:

  1. Describe the Problem
  2. Get administrative support
  3. Brainstorm with the solution provider
  4. Develop use cases / scenarios
  5. Understand your development partner
  6. Articulate a vision
  7. Be the first on your block--use early adoption to your advantage to set development priorities
  8. Be ready to exit if necessary
  9. Know your data and your systems
  10. Understand the development culture of your partner
  11. Understand your own culture
  12. Plan for success

This is a good list (even though I joked with Steve that he had created a twelve step program).  I take full responsibility for the numbering, as he did not number the steps; in fact, since these are often not sequential, it's probably best not to think of them as steps at all, but a list of ingredients for a successful recipe.  If I had to pick my two favorite ingredients, they would be the administrative support and the planning for success.  The latter isn't just motivational.  In UW's case, it meant, planning for 59% and 101% increases in consortial borrowing and ILL traffic, respectively.  The former is a must that we all know about.  If your bosses don't support you, you have a tall hill to climb.  If I were to add one thing to the list, it would be "get staff support for administrative decisions."  Many projects have grass roots and require administrative buy-in and resource support.  An equal number, I think, start at the top and require the support of grass roots staff to be successful.

The only regret of this meeting was that there were not many, many more people in attendance.  As so much of library innovation is happening in partnerships between libraries and service providers, libraries and libraries, or libraries and the open source community, I think it would be great to have even more opportunities for presentations like the one I participated in at OLA.  But I'm cooking up an idea on that front as well.  More on that later.
]]> Web-scale Management Services Introduces Gesture-based Library Management tag:community.oclc.org,2011:/hecticpace//1.66 2011-04-01T15:19:46Z 2011-04-01T15:38:30Z Andrew K. Pace Put down that mouse and keyboard!  Twenty-first century, Web-based libray management services now means finding a whole new way to interact with library data and customers.  As the team at OCLC working on Web-scale Management Services has been hammering out new functional requirements, we've had a lot of leeway in breaking new ground.  But we've really been looking for a way to take the service beyond the obvious trends of electronic content management and mobile interfaces.  That's when one of our developers hooked up his XBox Kinect sensor to our development environment and the ideas started flying faster than we could implement them.

Web-scale Gesture-based Circulation.


I recently asked one of the developers how they got started.  "The easiest thing for us to do was introduce 'gesture-based' searching in the staff interface," said Kannan Seshadri, Release Manager for the product.  Usability testers had a blast finding titles on peace, prayer, and The Fonz.  Rock, paper, and scissors also became popular search terms, but nothing surpassed the number of searches for "birds" in WorldCat that day.

birds.JPG
Gesture search results for "birds."

"No one wants to stop at just searching," comments Product Manager, Jeff Schilling.  "Early adopters of the software have been flooding us with development ideas with gestures for 'angry patrons', circulation staff body movements for 'claims returned', and some of the most hilarious hand and body gestures for managing subject-based fund codes."


Directors and system administrators are loving this too.  We're looking to see if we can extend the functionality to not only recognize faces for the purpose of identity management, but also a way to accurately read facial expressions of the system administrators themselves so that they can rate library personnel as they are authorized to use the system.

wms_kinnect3.jpg
A clever library director stretches her budget with Web-scale Management Services.

We've identified a lot of green pasture in the development of these new web-based services, but nothing has been as exciting as defining a whole new way to interact with library data.  Be sure to send your ideas and gestures to pacea@oclc.org.

]]> Happy New Year (or how I learned to stop worrying and love that ALA is so early this year) tag:community.oclc.org,2010:/hecticpace//1.65 2010-12-30T16:15:45Z 2010-12-30T18:25:44Z Andrew K. Pace
This year will be my first ALA in six years without a LITA Board meeting.  While liberating at first, I'm sure it will feel weird not to spend so much time with my LITA colleagues.  Be sure to check out the LITA event schedule.

Of course I will have a little more time to attend some OCLC events and meet with libraries who have signed up for the new Web-scale Management Services.  I'm happy to say that in the few short weeks since my year-end update, the number of libraries signed up for WMS has increased to 18 and there are 5 libraries using the services in production.  A few of them will be joining me on Sunday to talk about their experience.

Sunday, January 9, 4:00 - 5:30 pm
Hilton San Diego Bayfront, Sapphire Ballroom P 
Library Management Services in the Cloud: More Reality than Dream 
Join Andrew Pace and early members of the Web-scale Management Services user community as they share their progress to-date and the realized and potential impact to library staff and users.

To my chagrin, I realize that I am up against Ted Danson, but in my defense, I still have a little bit more hair, I am a librarian, and sometimes you just want to go where everyone knows your acronym.

I also recommend that you catch my colleagues Robin Murray and Kathryn Harnish as they present the larger fruits of some of the underlying work on WMS.

Saturday, January 8, 10:30 am - 12:00 pm
Hilton San Diego Bayfront Hotel, Aqua Room 314 
The Power of Data, Technology and Community: the OCLC Platform Strategy 
Speakers will discuss how the platform enables OCLC, libraries and other technology and industry partners to work together to meet local and global needs for streamlined workflows, improved decision-making, and ultimately exposing information about collections in new contexts.

Robin has a great post that just went up on the OCLC Cooperative blog that talks about some of this from a data perspective.

Of course, these are just two of a long list of OCLC-sponsored events at ALA. There are many more from which to choose!

Happy New Year, everyone.  I hope to see a lot of you in San Diego!

]]> My Server Got Run Over by a Cloud App tag:community.oclc.org,2010:/hecticpace//1.64 2010-12-22T12:55:53Z 2010-12-22T13:23:14Z (to the tune of "Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer, click here if you dare and need a refresher)My server got run over by a cloud appQuicken, Word, and CRMs all grieveI'm lovin' Google, Mint-dot-com, and SalesforceLike Zuckerberg... Andrew K. Pace (to the tune of "Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer, click here if you dare and need a refresher)


My server got run over by a cloud app
Quicken, Word, and CRMs all grieve
I'm lovin' Google, Mint-dot-com, and Salesforce
Like Zuckerberg and cnet, I believe

It's like software as a service
It's second nature to the kids
Any metaphor will work here
Clouds, architecture, rent, or power grids

I read ebooks on my handheld
And I can bank while in the loo
All my data's on the network
At home, at work, in church, or Timbuktu

My server got run over by a cloud app
My OS runs from southern Tel Aviv
You can say that SLA is bogus
But as for me and Balmer, we believe

Now we're all so proud of IT
They've been taking it so well
See them in there smashing servers
Damning all those years of upgrades straight to hell

Can it be email without Outlook?
There's so much space on box-dot-net
Can I be home without an H:\ drive?
Or should I trade my browser in for a diskette?

My server got run over by a cloud app
Upgrading to Gmail I perceive
that you may say there's no such thing as web scale
But as for me and Larry, we believe

I don't install any software
My CD-ROM drive's filled with dust
I have 86 more logins
And an internet provider that I trust

I don't need me no more hardware
In the cloud I'm cavalier
If all the power's in the network
Why do I buy a new device each year?

My server got run over by a cloud app
Emoticons I wear upon my sleeve
The power of the network is our future
Just uninstall, log on, and then believe!

Happy Holidays everyone!

for previous Hectic Pace Christmas parodies, see:
The Grump Who Stole Libraries (2006)
Twas the Night Before Migration (2007)
Dewey the Decimal Maker (2008)
Jingle Books (2009)

]]> Year in Review tag:community.oclc.org,2010:/hecticpace//1.63 2010-12-17T02:20:24Z 2010-12-23T14:31:17Z Andrew K. Pace I'm a deadline kind of guy.  I think it comes from writing for magazines.  I do much better (even at the last minute) if I know I have a deadline.  Frankly, it's one of the reasons I haven't been blogging as much as I used to.  When Hectic Pace was at American Libraries, they were smart enough to contractually obligate me to four posts per month.  I should have told OCLC that if they really wanted me to blog, they should have put it in my contract.

So my deadline for a year end review of activities is, naturally, the end of the year.  It's been a good one for the Networked Library Services product portfolio at OCLC.  And the excitement does not begin and end with WMS.  Well, maybe it does begin there.

After several months of testing with a half dozen pilot libraries, WMS launched to Early Adopters after ALA in June.  I'm happy to say that in that short time, seventeen libraries have already committed to be early adopters.  Four of them are already live and using the services in production.

Platform Services
With the new WMS technology stack comes the opportunity for the real fruits of a Service Oriented Architecture.  OCLC will be expanding the existing Developer Network by working with a few key WMS libraries in developing services on the new platform.  There is some very exciting work going on here.  Stay tuned.

The Developer Network site got a nice facelift this year.  The new Drupal site brings new content and functionality to the dedicated group of developers working with OCLC APIs.  The new deisgn was so popular that it became the basis for the Web-scale Management Services User Support Center.

WCA continues to provide libraries with valuable information about their own collections while also comparing holdings to WorldCat, peer libraries, and several authoratative lists.  Some new analysis tools are currently under investigation and should provide some promising opportunities for even better analytics, including new technologies, integration with library workflows, and clean new displays.  Again, stay tuned!

In the Summer of 2009, OCLC began working with a small handful of libraries to turn the most popular remote access tool for libraries into a hosted solution.  On December 2, OCLC announced the general release of the Hosted EZproxy service.  Several libraries are already signing up.  I don't like to quibble over superlatives like first, best, and biggest....oh who am I kidding...EZproxy is all three.


That's just a quick overview of a year that had a lot of activity.  I didn't even hit some of the enterprise level activities that go into supporting not only the products within my own product portfolio but several others as well--things like OCLC's new Identity Management (IDM) services, Service Configuration (for products like WorldCat Local and the OCLC knowledge base, and other products), and, of course, stats.oclc.org.  

Our team continues to grow, as does our commitment to the libary cooperative.  Membership involvement in the strategic direction, the development process, and product creation has been tremendously helpful and rewarding--from the pilots and early implementers to the focus groups, commentators, and everyone in between.  The validation we have received from libraries is the best reward.  Here's to even more fruitful and productive year in 2011.
]]> Libraries talk Web-scale at LITA Forum tag:community.oclc.org,2010:/hecticpace//1.61 2010-10-22T19:51:31Z 2010-10-22T20:57:37Z It can be informing, affirming and on occasion surprising when members of the OCLC community take to the public stage. In the case of the recent LITA Forum, these converged in a very positive way as four panelists presented their... Andrew K. Pace It can be informing, affirming and on occasion surprising when members of the OCLC community take to the public stage. In the case of the recent LITA Forum, these converged in a very positive way as four panelists presented their early experiences with Web-scale Management Services. After a brief product overview from my OCLC colleague, Rob Ross (thank you, Rob, for so adroitly stepping in to take part in this presentation) , the crowd heard from Jason Griffey (Univ of Tennessee, Chattanooga), Kyle Banerjee (Orbis Cascade Alliance), Michael Dula (Pepperdine Univ) and Gina Persichini (Idaho Commission for Libraries).

The slides and video of the event are available online here.  Watch them in any order.  They are all great!  "It's early days," as some of my friends and colleagues in the UK would say, but they are exciting days.  These pilots and early implementors are to be congratulated for taking a bold step into the future of cloud-based library management services.  I can say without doubt that we could not have done it without them.  These four are already in the company of several others who are in various stages of early adoption, and excitement and interest is growing quickly amongst many, many libraries across the country and around the globe.
]]> Building Community tag:community.oclc.org,2010:/hecticpace//1.60 2010-08-20T14:38:03Z 2010-08-20T15:04:42Z Andrew K. Pace OCLC Web scale site. (The third most-asked question is, of course, "Why Ohio?" but that is bit off-topic and a whole 'nother story).

Back to OCLC and Web Scale--every story has deeper roots than can be articulated in a 3 1/2 minute video.  Since I was a kid, I always liked taking things apart.  But I'm not much of a mechanic or an engineer, so putting things back together again was never my strong suit.  Software product management afforded better opportunities for putting things back together in new ways.  

As I've said before, library online catalogs were an easy place to start--with the bar so low, how could a library or service provider fail to improve the state of the art?  Library management  systems, though, present a tougher challenge.  Replicating existing workflows and functionality in a new technology stack would not suffice--libraries need (deserve!) a more meaningful sea change.  So anyone can dismantle a library resource management system, but few could put one back together in a way that introduces efficiencies, reduces total cost of technology ownership, and opens up the doors to a robust developer community.

I came to OCLC because it had three things no one else did in combination--WorldCat, a proven track-record of scalable and cloud-based services (before "the cloud" we just called it "the network"), and the biggest community of libraries in the world.  Data, technology, and community--the perfect combination for defining a new future in library automation.

But it's the community I love the most and it's the part in which I see the most value.  And I'm thrilled by three fantastic community activities in which OCLC is involved coming to fruition all in one month.

First, the launch of a new website for the OCLC Developer Network.  Karen Coombs and many, many others have been working feverishly to put up this new Drupal site for support of the Developer Network.  I encourage folks to register at the site.

Second, it's always good for the left hand and the right hand to be in synch...getting four hands in synch is a remarkable success.  I was very excited this week to see the coordination of an effort between the DLF ILS-DI task force, the eXtenisble Catalog (XC) developer group, the OCLC Developer Network, and the product developers of the Web-scale Management Services software.  OCLC will contribute an implementation of version 2.0 of the NCIP standard, derived from the OCLC Web-scale Management Services codebase, to the eXtensible Catalog's open-source NCIP Toolkit. I for one hope that this will give interop developers a leg-up on implementation of the new version of the standard.

Finally, every community starts with a first member.  The WMS project that is a large part of my work here at OCLC has been blessed by the contributions of its advisors, pilot testers, and dozens of people at OCLC who have been part of this important development effort. Nevertheless, someone from that community will stand out.  Forgive the undeserved and arguably blasphemous ecclesiastical spin on software development, but I still love the quote: "Everyone wants to go to heaven, but no one wants to go first."  So huge thanks to the University of Tennessee Chattanooga for going live with WMS. As their semester starts, they are very, very close to one of the fastest migrations that I have ever witnessed for a library of their size and scope.

I see the beginnings of a wonderful pioneer community that will grow larger and larger, harnessing the collective innovation of that much larger library, service provider, and user community of which OCLC is a part.  I will resist the urge to go crazy with this metaphor.  Suffice it to say that I am very excited to see the beginning of something new.
]]> We Are Go for Launch tag:community.oclc.org,2010:/hecticpace//1.59 2010-07-15T21:20:52Z 2010-07-22T02:04:47Z Andrew K. Pace Well, it's been an absolute whirlwind since I got back from ALA.  It was, as I hoped, one of the best ever.  

I can't think of a word the launch of Web-scale Management Services other than "awesome!"  I never heard a negative comment, librarians were excited, not just for something new, but for something clearly different. Sean Fitzpatrick at American Libraries provided a nice summary of activities at ALA, writing that the new Web-scale service "provides a front-end interface into library management tools that rivals (hands down) any dedicated ILS software environment I've ever seen."

I can't say enough good things about my OCLC colleagues, especially Jeff Schilling and Jon Blackburn, who spent countless hours in the booth talking about and demonstrating the circulation, acquisitions, and WorldCat Local discovery for Web-scale Management Services; and Jill Fluvog, marketing and sales guru extraordinaire, who was always there when we needed her!  

While they were busy talking to all-comers, some of the pilot library participants, Advisory council members, and I were presenting to a nice crowd down the street.  As I mentioned in my last post, we're going to repeat this presentation in an online event next Wednesday, July 21 at 2pm EDT.  You can register here. This time I will be joined by three pilot participants--Kyle Banerjee (Orbis Cascade Alliance), and Jackie Beach (CPC Regional Libraries), and Michael Dula (Pepperdine University).  This "online launch" will include a demo of the latest functionality available now to early adopters.

So now the gates are open to those early adopters, a handful of libraries who will join the pilot libraries who have been testing the software and giving OCLC the feedback it needs, not only to take those libraries live with the solution, but also to build in new functionality for consortial support, cooperative intelligence tools, and the long-awaited (and much needed) libary workflow component.

Libraries across the U.S. are already queuing up for what will ultimately represent a global roll-out of a new generation of library management tools.  I'm incredibly excited to point to one of the first early adopters to join the endeavor--the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga has just launched its implementation project on an ambitous timeline.  I only wish I could have bottled the excitement felt by the folks there.  We're all looking forward to working with their team to make their early adoption a success.  Jason Griffey has posted the news of their participation on his blog.

This development effort has been one of the most exciting times of my professional career.  Two and a half years ago, I arrived at OCLC, a product portfolio of me, myself, and I, given a once-in-a-career opportunity, the blessing of the OCLC Board of Trustees and OCLC senior leadership, and the fantastic support and encouragement of the OCLC membership to work with a small group of developers, product analysts, and metadata experts to build a proof of concept into a practical and much-needed solution of libraries.  The team was built with some of the brightest and most highly motivated individuals I have ever had the pleasure to work with.  Now a team of dozens spanning three continents, five coutnries, and eleven cities are working together with libraries to create a new future for library automation.  Believe me when I tell you that more very exciting aspects of this future are just around the corner.

I'm looking forward to the year ahead!
]]> Hoping for the Best ALA Ever tag:community.oclc.org,2010:/hecticpace//1.58 2010-06-21T01:07:25Z 2010-06-21T01:55:52Z Andrew K. Pace
First, it's "back home"....I was born in D.C. and grew up in the suburbs of our nation's capital.  Descended from a long line of civil servants, I still sometimes miss our little Disney on the Potomac.  Second, this will be my last ALA as a LITA officer.  After three years on LITA Board and then three more as an officer, I'll be attending my last Board and Financial meetings for a while.  No relief sighs yet, LITA, you're not rid of me!

But most importantly at this ALA, I'm pleased to say that the fruits of a couple years labor will be released.  The Circulation and Acquisitions components of OCLC's Web-scale management services will be demonstrated at ALA and soon made available to early adopters, some of whom are already queuing up to subscribe to the new services.

I'll be presenting an update on the services and the strategy on Saturday.

Web-scale or Bust: 
Harnessing Cooperative Innovation for Management Services
Saturday, June 26, 1:30-3:30 p.m.
Four Points by Sheraton, Franklin Rooms A-C

I'm pleased to be joined by both Advisory Council and Pilot participants in a question and answer panel immediately following the update.  Join me, along with John Helmer and Kyle Banarjee (Orbis Cascade Alliance), Jan Ison (Lincoln Trails), and John Tesky (University of New Brunswick).  Or come by the OCLC booth to see the web-based software in action.

But if you're not ALA, please be sure to sign up for our special online launch event that will mirror the one at ALA.  It will take place on July 21 at 2pm EDT.  Travel budgets are tight, so we'll be coming at you again online, again including some of the Advisory Council and Pilot participants.

See you in D.C.  or see you online!
]]> Seeking Stability tag:community.oclc.org,2010:/hecticpace//1.57 2010-05-14T00:41:24Z 2010-05-14T11:08:25Z Andrew K. Pace 'Stability' is one of those words that really depends on the context in which it is used.

The Circulation and Acquisitions components of Web-scale Management Services are getting very close to launch this summer.  "Stable" is one of those words you long to hear when dealing with software, especially new software.  I'm happy to say that things are going well.

On the other hand, stability can tend to encourage evolutionary, rather than revolutionary changes.  I was pleased to see OCLC's endeavors in the management services space described as a revolutionary approach by Marshall Breeding.  Marshall just spoke at the SCELC Colloquium in California. His presentation can be found here (about 8 minutes into the video).

"What would it look like if we built an automation system with all new assumptions?"
-Marshall Breeding, SCELC Colloquium, 11 May 2010

Michael Dula from Pepperdine University also had a chance to speak about their experience as a pilot site and planned early adopter of the new solution.  His presentation was also streamed and can be found online here (unfortunately for the posterity of Michale's online presence, the audio is a little rough on this one, but it gets better as it goes along, and his presentation is followed by a lively presentation on Koha and a Q&A session for both speakers).

Speaking of Koha, folks in that arena may be hoping for more stability, or at least peace among its purveyors.  If you have not been keeping up with some of the drama, a concise summary of the history and current state of things can be found over at LWN.net

The last bit of news in the evolutionary ILS space belongs to SirsiDynix, which has decided to close its St. Louis and Huntsville offices in favor of centralizing operations in Provo, Utah.  While some have seen this move coming for months, it still seems like the end of an era to me.  As a DRA, then Sirsi, then SirsiDynx customer in my former life, I recall fondly visiting both of those offices and working with so many people in both places, most of whom are either long or recently gone from the SirsiDynix fold.  It's one thing when the applications once struggled with belong to the ages, but when the physical places and faces disappear from view, it seems an entirely different thing.

The last two snippets of library vendor news are very inward-looking activities.  The team I'm working with at OCLC have made a pretty big deal about involving the membership in our development and strategic direction.  In fact, two team members just returned from library visits in NC and two others are currently in Idaho visiting pilots, and our Advisory Council continues to meet regularly both face to face and virtually.  The goal is longevity, as well as stability, on a platform that invites innovation and participation.  The evolutionary approach, on the other hand, tends to invite drama and changes that create more heat than light or more cost cutting than innovation-creating, as the case may be.

"....companies distinguish themselves through defining different futures for their library customers."
-Marshall Breeding, SCELC Colloquium, 11 May 2010

Stability and creativity do not need to be mutually exclusive options.  Many libraries (just the right number, I hope) will be embracing OCLC's new management services as early adopters in the next several months.  They will trade in evolutionary stagnation for a more revolutionary approach to library management.  With them, we will define a different future for libraries.
]]> Life Imitates Comedy tag:community.oclc.org,2010:/hecticpace//1.56 2010-04-16T01:05:43Z 2010-04-21T01:08:00Z Andrew K. Pace Christmas and April Fool's Day.  Both traditions started in 2007 and both peaked early.  Bob Murphy (OCLC's Senior Public Relations Specialist) and I still chuckle at the flurry of phone calls caused by my [pre-OCLC tenure] maiden April 1 joke that Google had acquired OCLC.  I didn't think I was going to be able to ever top that one, which  was well coordinated with the talented bloggers at ALA Techsource.  

Leave it to the Federal Government to step in and make this year's attempt at humor either pathetically ironic or ironically pathetic, depending on your point of view.

I happened to be on vacation at the time that I wrote the post and was not feeling especially creative.  One of my colleagues had suggested several good ideas that would have required more energy than I could muster to really pull them off, so I settled on something simple--wouldn't it be funny if libraries got involved in trying to preserve Twitter posts, especially if they tried to do it with MARC records.

Then two weeks after the day for fooln' comes this bomb-shell from the Library of Congress:
LC-twitter.jpg

I wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry.  Library Journal has a nice report on the mixed reactions--ranging from a "thanks, LC" to "a waste of tax-payer dollars."  My favorite is Andy Borowitz's tweet:  "Library of Congress to Acquire Entire Twitter Archive; Will Rename Itself 'Museum of Crap.'"  I can't wait to look for that one in the LC Archive.

I first learned of LC's plans on Gretchen Kolderup's blog when she linked the real story to my April 1st post.  I like to think that perhaps I have preemptively distorted the historical record, now that my joke is being linked to the real story behind LC's plans.  

Good luck LC.  If I've somehow started a trend, I think next year's April 1 blog post will be something about a $1B grant award to yours truly.
]]> Librarians Give Permanence to Twitter tag:community.oclc.org,2010:/hecticpace//1.55 2010-04-01T13:00:00Z 2010-03-31T04:50:04Z Andrew K. Pace

As is often the case, librarians rush in where the less organized fear to tread.  At a recent LITA Camp event, a bright librarian pointed out a method for preserving event-based Twitter posts.  Apparently this inspired a small handful of clever librarians with a cataloging bent.  What is happening to the historical record as created by millions of tweets?

No need to fear, the librarians are here.  In an effort supported by the Mellon Foundation, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and the American Library Association, generous funding will ensure that catalog records are created for historically, culturally, and particularly poignant Twitter posts.

But not everyone is excited about the idea.  With the new RDA standard nearly complete and ready for release, some are wondering if changes to the standard will accomadate something like a Tweet.  Others have more practical concerns.  How will various cataloging clients accomodate this effort?  Or is the MARC record even appropriate, i.e., using an average of 400 characters to describe content of less than 140 characters.

twitter.JPG
000 -- 00668nam 22002057a 4500
001 -- 0197384222
005 -- 20100308083502.0
008 -- 100308s2010 xxu f000 0 eng d
040 -- $aMvI$cMvI
049 -- $aNRC
074 -- $a0830-I
086 0- $aNAS 1.21:2009-3405
245 00 $aToday's space shuttle mission status briefing will air live on NASA TV at 12:30pm ET.
260 -- $a[S.l :$bs.n.,$c2010]
500 -- $aRetweet by spacejunky124
710 1- $aUnited States.$bNational Aeronautics and Space Administration.
856 4- $uhttp://twitter.com/nasa

Several systems librarians consulted said it would be trivial to convert a Tweet to the metadata meant to represent it, desptite the irony that the resulting record might be 3-4 times the size of the original Twitter update.  "I'm not sure this is going to be the move to put systems librarians on the map," commented OCLC's Roy Tennant.  "But whatever," Tennant added, "I'll have a conversion script up and open sourced by the end of the day."

Without a doubt, the most difficult part of this entire effort will be separating the wheat from the chaff.  The temporal and social network connectivity required to maintain the proper context (Twitext) will require Twitter Catalogers to maintain a vast network, literally following every Twitter user out there.  Moreover, discerning historical or cultural significance in less than 140 characters will require more judgment than determining proper punctuation placement or parenthetical qualifiers in subject headings.

One thing's for sure.  No one else would ever attempt such an endeavor.  

]]> I Love Public Libraries tag:community.oclc.org,2010:/hecticpace//1.54 2010-03-22T13:05:10Z 2010-03-22T13:04:20Z Andrew K. Pace PLA Conference in Portland.  

I also decided to join PLA this year.  Having been on the LITA Board for 6 years (3 as an officer), I have heard many times about the expense of professional affiliations.  I've always paid my own way for ALA and Divisional memberships, which I find to be a bargain compared to other professions.  In previous years, I could not think of a good reason to join PLA. 

But then my job changed at the same time I started receiving complimentary copies of Public Libraries.  I was inspired to join the division that represents the segment of libraries that I love so much.

Unfortunately, I won't be in Portland very long this week, but you can find me presenting on (you guessed it) Web-scale management services.  I'm looking forward to lots of conversation about the opportunities for public libraries in moving management systems to the network level.

2:00 - 3:15 pm, Doubletree Hotel Portland, Oregon Room
Web-scale Management Services: What, When, How, Why?
Learn how adoption of OCLC's Web-scale Management Services can help your library. Explore the potential to save money and create capacity to work on high-priority projects.

You can sign up for OCLC events and presentations here.

And my first loved Division, LITA, will be there too, taking LITA's Top Technology Trends on the road to PLA.  I hope to see my PLA friends in Portland and I look forward to making some new friends, too!
]]> Global Web Scale tag:community.oclc.org,2010:/hecticpace//1.53 2010-03-01T15:45:59Z 2010-03-01T16:33:05Z Andrew K. Pace EMEA Regional Council meeting in The Netherlands.  Much has been written and discussed regarding OCLC's governance changes, but that is not really what I wanted to address.  This meeting was the best I have ever seen for non-US participants and members for OCLC.  And I'm not just saying that because OCLC's Web-scale strategy was a central part of the discussion.  OK, that is why I'm saying it.

"EMEA"--Europe, Middle East, and Africa--is completely an American invention, used to simplify business dealings across an entire region.  OCLC certainly didn't invent it, but I think one must get past the over-simplification and conflation quickly in order to take a productive approach to such a large and diverse region.  The same could be said for that other conflation--Asia-Pacific (APAC).  

Even I am guilty of trying to simplify the diversity of the area, thinking primarily of the three places in the OCLC family I have visited--the UK, Germany, and The Netherlands.  But the meeting I just returned from had representatives from 24 countries.  Talk about scale!  This whole meeting was adroitly managed my EMEA's Regional Council Chair, Berndt Dugall.  He deserves a great deal of credit for cajoling, inspiring, and amusing the diverse attendees of the meeting.

I had the good fortune to present a workshop before the general meeting started, focusing on Web-scale Management Services and our plans to make it a global management solution for libraries.  My good friend and colleague, Norbert Weinberger, co-presented with me, helping to put the strategy into an EMEA context, primarily focusing on the fact that so many European libraries are already consumers of OCLC management system application, such as OLIB, LBS, Sunrise, and CBS.  It was a fun presentation and created a lot of interesting discussion amongst a group of about 70 participants.

Later that evening, I got to see my good friends from the Shanachie Tour give an entertaining presentation to the crowd.  This was satisfactorily punctuated by an impromptu on-camera interview of my boss, Robin Murray and several others in the audience.

The following day, we got to see a keyote from Jan Alerman, CEO of Servoy, a cloud computing company.  Alerman talked about the benefits and risks of cloud computing solutions.  OCLC's Matt Goldner gave a presentation on the general OCLC Web-scale strategy, and Jay Jordan addressed the crowd before I had one last chance to address the gathered EMEA members.

My colleagues George Needham and Karen Calhoun joined me and had much more interesting things to address regarding the OCLC Social Contract and Record Use Policy (I was happy to cede the balance of my time to their weighty topics).  But I had one last chance to summarize the impact of the previous few days.  Here is a rehash of what I called my EMEA Regional Council take-aways:

Cloud Computing is here to stay.  We can refine it's definitions, place it in historical context, and argue of libraries' place in the Cloud, but there is no stopping it.

Web Scale is vital in order for libraries to sustain their relevance and to create value for their staff and users.

We are technically, politically, legally, and emotionally ready to move management and end-user services to Web Scale.

The paradoxical challenge of Web-scale Management is how to effectively establish a platform on which libraries can do everything they're used to doing, while simultaneously building that platform so that libraries can change the way they do things, continually innovating to address the changing nature of their collections and the shifting expectations of their users.

This last part brings me to my biggest take-away, which we heard loud and clear from Erik and Jaap, the Shanachies.  In the end, our greatest strength is people.

I am sincere in my belief that OCLC is uniquely positioned to provide Web-scale services to its members and their end users, but more than that, we are obliged to do so.  But as Berndt pointed out so poignantly, OCLC needs libraries as much as libraries need OCLC.  It's through this symbiotic relationship that we can harness the collective innovation necessary to make library management and end-user platforms more than the sum of their parts.

Well, there you have it.  A great meeting, a great step forward for OCLC's members outside of the Americas, and a meeting which increased my convictions ten-fold.  Not a bad way to spend the week.

]]> Time Flying and Fun Having tag:community.oclc.org,2010:/hecticpace//1.52 2010-01-08T16:18:48Z 2010-01-08T20:25:18Z Andrew K. Pace number one story at Library Journal.

But the year was more than a news releases, we've actually got working software and it's being tested by the initial pilot libraries.  We've got great engagement from our Advisory Council as well.  I was going to start holding forth on what the future will hold, but my good friend Roy Tennant just warned me about doing that. I'll get back to trying to make the future.

If you want to catch me at ALA, I'll be pontificating and/or presenting in a couple of venues:

RMG 2010 ALA/Midwinter Annual President's Seminar
Friday, January 15, 2010
2:00 - 5:00 p.m., Boston Convention & Exhibition Center, Room 162 A/B
No, I was not promoted to President, but I am honored to sit amongst the peers whom I used watch on this yearly panel.

Web Scale for Libraries: A Sea Change for the 21st Century 
Saturday, January 16, 2010
4:00 - 5:30 p.m., Boston Convention & Exhibition Center, Room 162 A/B
Come learn about OCLC's effort to move library management system functionality to Web scale. New network-level functionality will include cooperative services for circulation and delivery, print and licensed acquisitions, and license management.

You can sign up for that second one and other OCLC events here.  You can also find me at the OCLC Breakfast on Sunday morning, Top Technology Trends (10:30-12 on Sunday in 162 A/B...man, I should just sleep in that room!), and the LITA Town Meeting on Monday morning.

Another busy ALA, but I'm looking forward to it.

]]> Jingle Books tag:community.oclc.org,2009:/hecticpace//1.51 2009-12-23T03:45:02Z 2009-12-23T14:54:17Z Andrew K. Pace Dashing through the stacks 
with a Kindle in my arms 
Dodgin' folks dirty looks 
They're immune to e-book charms 
Hand-held ring tones sing 
Mine plays Three Dog Night
What fun it is to mobilize
My library tonight. 

Oh, blog and chat, LOL 
Facebook all the way 
Oh, what fun it is to Tweet 
my deep thoughts every day 
Blog and chat, LOL 
Facebook all the way 
My status says "I'm almost home." 
More WordTwist I will play.

I used to go offline
But now it makes me Jones 
How can you dodge the grid 
with Netbooks and iPhones? 
I need something more real
I'll go and play the Wii 
And do my printing with e-ink
It's green to save a tree. 

Oh, blog and chat, LOL 
Facebook all the way 
Oh, what fun it is to Tweet 
my deep thoughts every day 
Blog and chat, LOL 
Facebook all the way
My status is an inside joke
Is that clever or cliché?

A dozen years ago 
There was no Google search 
No fickr, eBay, or YouTube 
The world was in the lurch 
One-forty keystrokes more 
What did we do before? 
We read whole books and saw our friends 
It really was a bore.

Oh, blog and chat, LOL 
Facebook all the way 
Oh, what fun it is to Tweet 
my deep thoughts every day 
Blog and chat, LOL 
Facebook all the way 
I'll see you all in Twenty-Ten 
Enjoy the holiday!

-----------------------------------------------

Happy Holidays everyone. 
For previous Hectic Pace Christmas parodies, see:
The Grump Who Stole Libraries (2006)
Twas the Night Before Migration (2007)
Dewey the Decimal Maker (2008)
]]> Hectic Shame tag:community.oclc.org,2009:/hecticpace//1.50 2009-12-22T04:59:44Z 2009-12-22T05:06:44Z Andrew K. Pace
So shame is my motivator, not only to get the blog going again, but to prove to my digitally born child that the medium is still worthwhile.  

It's almost time for my annual holiday post, so look for that in a couple of days...and my New Year''s resolution will be to use this forum to update folks on the initiatives that have kept me too busy to write about them.
]]> Getting it right tag:community.oclc.org,2009:/hecticpace//1.49 2009-09-25T19:16:30Z 2009-09-25T21:13:13Z Andrew K. Pace
At first, some users diluted the meaning that Lorcan Dempsey had labored to establish in the library space.  And I will continue to argue that web-scale in the context of library automation--especially management systems--is a major sea-change.  5000 transactions per second may be no great shakes for Google, Amazon, and Twitter, but in library automation, we've never seen anything like this before.

Then web-scale began to catch on a bit, and I thought the library technology lexicon was beginning to change, but the more I saw and heard it used, the more I feared that we might be getting away from it's original meaning.  

Then I see that Mark Dahl has articulated so clearly what my colleagues and I have been discussing...what the library community in general has been discussing in many forums.   While experimenting with metaphors, trying to explain a major initiative in one sentence, and living in powerpoint (all while simultaneously keeping up with a massive product development effort), I was struck by one simple turn of phase:

 "it gets better the more people use it"

What a great way to sum things up.  While I've been grappling with analogies, cloud computing, the web-scale landscape, and library sea-changes (that's four metaphors in one sentence for those of you keeping track), Mark, I think, gets it right.  The only extension that I would add to Mark's distinctions about Web-scale is that they apply equally to library management systems and not just discovery-to-delivery.

We've begun testing of the web-scale circulation component.  Print and licensed acquisitions and license management are soon to follow.  I can't wait for more people to start using these services because I know they will only get better. 
]]> What is our ROI? tag:community.oclc.org,2009:/hecticpace//1.48 2009-09-11T00:49:53Z 2009-09-11T00:52:35Z Andrew K. Pace
goldner_matt.jpg

ROI (Return on Investment) is not commonly used among librarians while it is a key issue for commercial business. This is somewhat natural given our different missions, libraries typically serve the public and businesses serve their shareholders. I have been wondering about a possible application of this same measure to libraries and where it might be applied.

Commercial businesses have over the last half a decade moved more and more of their business processes up to the cloud, e.g. as Web delivered applications. Areas that might have been unthinkable to have stored and maintained offsite are now routinely placed on external platforms. Examples are a business's customer relationship management system, HR systems, payroll systems. Why are they doing this, because it allows them to reduce their costs for these systems and re-allocate time and effort to moving their business forward thus enhancing the opportunity for a better ROI.

Why should this matter to libraries? On what would a library ROI be based? To answer the second question I would say it is how well we have served our constituency. Are they delighted and amazed with our service? Or are we the last ditch resort when they can't find what they need elsewhere.

As to why it should matter if we are spending too much of our financial resources on maintaining infrastructure we are reducing our opportunity to increase the value of our services to our constituency. So perhaps we have something to learn here from commercial businesses who have found value in reducing local infrastructure and moving it to the cloud. It could give libraries the opportunity to increase a good measure of return on investment, delighting and amazing our constituencies.

]]> Meet you at the Forum tag:community.oclc.org,2009:/hecticpace//1.47 2009-08-27T13:09:15Z 2009-08-27T13:53:38Z Andrew K. Pace LITA Forum will be in Salt Lake City this year and the theme is "Open & Mobile."  Save the dates--October 2-4, 2009.  There are some great concurrent sessions planned--mobile technologies, open data, open source software, lightening talks, and some really great looking poster sessions.  Lest I forget three fantastic keynoters:
If you're in the mood for an extra day in Salt Lake, two LITA members are sure to dazzle with their pre-conference offerings.  Jason Griffey will be talking about the future of Mobile, a great pre-conference that extends the excellent article Jason wrote for netConnect last year.  And Nina McHale will help libraries navigate the tricky issues surrounding Accessibility with updates, a live tour of several assistive technologies, and industry updates.

I love the programming at the Forum, because it is literally the only conference I go to where I am torn between which session to attend.  This headache for conference organizers (just too much good stuff!) should be joy for conference attendees with shrinking professional development budgets or concerns about getting the most for their money.  I should mention that I have never witnessed such a hard-working and dedicated group of volunteers as the ones who put this Forum together.  They are to be congratulated.

But I have thus far neglected the best part about LITA Forum--the people.  If you want to socialize, network, chat with vendors and sponsors in a relaxed atmosphere, or make that connection that will spark an idea or solidify a fleeting thought, then LITA Forum is the place to be.  LITA is fun and inclusive.  LITA is valuable.  These are tough financial times for travel and professional development.  Librarians, IT professionals, and support staff need to choose wisely from an array of conference offerings.  If I had to narrow my choices down to one conference per year or pay for extra professional development out of my own pocket, you'd find me at the Forum.

Did that sound too much like a commercial?  If not, then let me add that you should ACT NOW! and save $50 off of registration.  I'm already registered, are you?  

Seriously, this year's Forum is shaping up to be fantastic.  I'll be in Salt Lake City the first weekend in October and I hope to see lots of people there.
]]> Web-scale: Portfolio Director's Cut tag:community.oclc.org,2009:/hecticpace//1.46 2009-08-18T20:21:05Z 2009-08-18T21:18:07Z Andrew K. Pace
Lots of people have been asking for copies of the presentation that I gave at ALA.  I used to always have problems sharing slides.  For one thing, the joke slides never work out of context; for another, I try very hard to avoid bulleted lists of things, also making context-less Powerpoint viewing difficult.  Now I can gladly say, "Let's go to the video tape!"

webscale-presentation.jpg


Powerpoint, slides, and video all in one.  Unlike movie directors, however, I find video of myself a bit hard to watch, so I hope the rest of you will enjoy it.  There's a good Q&A session at the end that was actually my favorite part of the presentation.  The presentation covers not only the general web-scale strategy and cloud computing platform, but also more specifics about the Web-scale management services Library Advisory Council, pilot participants, component functionality, and development timelines.

There are a lot of other great conference presenatations and updates available on the OCLC Presentations site--a little something for everyone.
]]> Why do we continue to silo our supply chains? tag:community.oclc.org,2009:/hecticpace//1.45 2009-08-13T18:27:51Z 2009-08-13T18:53:05Z Andrew K. Pace

So today, guest columnist, Matt Goldner, Product and Technology Advocate, contributes his thoughts on sharing systems and workflows to deliver a more effective experience to patrons.  In his new role, Matt will be on the road visiting libraries to see what new things are happening in the community.  I'm hoping he will be a frequent poster to Hectic Pace (Hectic Goldner?) and make up for my periodic slacking.

Take it away, Matt....


goldner_matt.jpg

While attending the 2009 Information Delivery Services (IDS) Conference in Oswego, I saw a challenging presentation on a new service the project is building for the members. The Getting It System Toolkit (GIST) was discussed and demonstrated. The service offering itself was interesting and well thought out but it is the concept behind it that really challenged me.

For the last 12 years most of my focus has been on breaking down the silos users experience in trying to discover and access
library collections. The focus of GIST is instead to break down the silos that library staff experience in their supply chains for information selection, acquisition, accessioning and description. The truly radical part is the premise that libraries are simply another supply chain to each other and that the workflow between inter-library loan departments and acquisition departments should be broken down.

The end goal of GIST is for ILL and acquisition departments to use the same service to manage their selection and ordering process with the ability to also get the descriptive record into the systems it needs to reside in. I view this type of thinking as critical to the future of libraries. We often continue to maintain workflows and look for new systems that will support these old methods. Instead projects like GIST challenge some basic concepts and assumptions and give us the opportunity to change workflows to match the real needs of today's library.

For more information on GIST: http://idsproject.org/Tools/GIST.aspx

-Matt

]]> My Kind of Conference, My Kind of Town tag:community.oclc.org,2009:/hecticpace//1.44 2009-07-06T21:27:45Z 2009-07-06T21:54:22Z Andrew K. Pace American Libraries columnist.  Nevertheless, the other two hats--OCLC and LITA--seem to have gotten much bigger (please no snide comments about the size of my head).  This Annual Conference in July is gearing up to be one of my busiest ever.

Rather than bore you with the details of that busy-ness, I thought I would share what I hope will be the two highlights for me--one for each hat.

LITA President's Program: Make Stories, Tell Stories, Keep Stories
Intercontinental, Grand Ballroom
4:00 pm - 5:30 pm
In 2007, Erik Boekesteijn, Jaap van de Geer, and Geert van den Boogaard took off from DOK Delft Public Library to embark on a North American tour of libraries en route to the Internet Librarian Conference.  Their popular video tour captured the passion and enthusiasm of the people working on library innovation in the States, a theme that they have recently repeated in Australia.  Now it's time to tell their story.  Come learn about innovations from our library colleagues in the Netherlands and join Erik Boekesteijn (DOK Delft Public Library), Jenny Levine (The Shifted Librarian), and Michael Stephens (Tame the Web) as they discuss the current state and future of library innovation and the opportunities to learn from the vast network of international stories about library innovation.
Speakers: Erik Boekesteijn, Jaap van de Geer, Geert van den Boogaard, Jenny Levine, and Michael Stephens

This is just part of the "Afternoon with LITA" that starts with Top Technology Trends and has LITA Awards sandwiched in the middle.  I hope to see many people there all afternoon.  I'm especially pleased that my President's Program speakers will be able to sign their book at the program and then will be following me as I sprint with them to the OCLC Blog Salon.

My second plug is for a presentation on the work I have been doing at OCLC.  There's still plenty of room for folks to attend the presentation on Web-scale Management Services.  I will be sharing general information about OCLC's strategic direction, as well as details on the components under development, timelines for availability, and information about the Library Advisory Council and pilot sites.

Register here for the event on Monday, July 13, 10:30-12:00 in the Northwest I room at the Chicago Hilton.

I think Chicago is one of the best places to have ALA and I'm looking forward to holding onto whichever hat I'm wearing.
]]> Renaissance Geek tag:community.oclc.org,2009:/hecticpace//1.43 2009-06-24T01:04:26Z 2009-06-24T01:45:48Z Andrew K. Pace
As I am always inclined, I tried to mix the topics all together.  A few folks asked me to reproduce my brief remarks, so I will attempt that here.

Technology applications makes for a boring topic in comparison to state funding, the indispensible nature of libraries, and a pending or impossible library renaissance.  But my interest in this space--the very reason I became a systems librarian, for spending the last decade as a "practical advocate" for next-generation library automation--is the opportunity to do the right thing, at the right time, for the right reason. 

If "scale" is the theme, then the challenge is to use technology and technological platforms not only to consolidate services and make them more efficient, but also to create the capacity for libraries to concentrate their efforts on first principles and their collaboartive ethic.  Put simply, and without implying mutual exclusivity:
  • Disciplinary support and collection-building in academic libraries
  • Physical space, local touch, education, and reader services in public libraries
  • From planting the seeds of reading to the first taste of the fruits of research in school libraries
Could there be more proof that libraries are indispensible?  If you're willing to believe Wikipedia (gasp!), then renaissance can mean a rebellion against teaching and learning based on classical sources.  Consider thinking less of the output of the time period and what was required to create those outputs.  So, yes, I would say we are entering a renaissance.

I hope it does not seem like a non-sequitur to encourage everyone to "get your geek on" to help libraries into their renaissance.  The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is supporting this effort to raise community-based awareness and support for libraries.  

I think due to the altruistic nature of our profession, we're sometimes a little too good at telling our sob stories and not as good as telling our success stories.  Getting our geek on from community-to-community will give libraries a great advocacy opportunity, in a way that, frankly, rebels against classical teaching and learning.  I didn't realize it at first, but I geek a good renaissance.
]]> Working Furiously and Happily tag:community.oclc.org,2009:/hecticpace//1.42 2009-06-05T00:29:52Z 2009-06-05T20:44:50Z Six weeks goes by fast.  Yes, it's been six weeks since OCLC announced WorldCat Local "quick start" as the first step toward a web-scale, cooperative library management service.  Not only does that six weeks represent two full iterations of agile... Andrew K. Pace OCLC announced WorldCat Local "quick start" as the first step toward a web-scale, cooperative library management service.  Not only does that six weeks represent two full iterations of agile development for the three main web-scale components--circulation, print and licensed acquisitions, and license management--it's also been several interviews, speaking engagements, and lots of pressing product management work.

One of the things I'm asked repeatedly is to explain the distinctions of OCLC's effort in this space.  Here they are, taken directly from my powerpoints, listed as succinctly as possible, but with some attempt at further explanation:

  • A Web-based platform for all basic library management functionality
That is, it's completely web-accessible.  Not browser-based; no massive plugin or extension downloads.  It's not "web-technology based." It's web-based.

  • Reduced Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) and increased efficiency through a unified management platform for all types of materials, regardless of format or method of acquisition
If we had it to do over again, would print and licensed acquisitions be so completely separate?  Would vendors and licensors be separate lists?  Would it be so hard to cross-train on library management systems?  

  • A flexible and customizable workflow platform
I've complained before about all the "twiddly bits" that libraries like to tweak on local systems.  I feel strongly that much of this customization replaces what libraries really want--a service that allows libraries to define and/or select the processes (made up of tasks and activities) that define their workflows.

  • Network effects by sharing applications and data between libraries
Cloud computing is essentially about sharing applications in a web-based scalable way. This is hardly new for libraries that subscribe to databases and ejournals.  It is fairly new when it comes to running applications.  But libraries also have another tool at their disposal--cooperation.  Copy cataloging, resource sharing, and a strong ethos of cooperation position libraries to take advantage of cloud computing in ways that few other industries or organizations would embrace. The potential for building "cooperative intelligence" tools for libraries out of the shared data and shared ethos is nearly staggering.  WorldCat Collection Analysis is a fantastic tool, but it is also just he tip of the iceberg.

  • Concentrated data registries and repositories
Web-scale is not only about high transaction rates.  It's about what Tim O'Reilly refers to as one of the major (missed) themes of Web 2.0--providing access to best-of-class data.  Chris Anderson goes even further, writing, "The Web is all about scale, finding ways to attract the most users for centralized resources, spreading those costs over larger and larger audiences as the technology gets more and more capable."
 
  • A Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) for interoperability with local environments and 3rd party business process systems (e.g., financial management, HR systems, and course management)
The services are being developed with full cognizance that libraries and organizations must interact with business process systems other than library management systems.  That is, not only does library software require interoperability with other library software (e.g., self-check, receipt printers, EDIFACT), it also requires interaction with other enterprise solutions like financial management and HR.  A service-oriented approach to the development, in combination with the OCLC Developers' Network empowers libraries to build, share, and maintain the interoperability they need.

Have no illusions that even a fantastic team (which I am happy to say is what I have) cannot do this alone.  It will take a group of professionals that share and understand the vision and even more folks in the trenches guiding and facilitating the development of a next-generation of library management services.  And these are the next steps--the assembly of a Library Advisory Council to help with the overall strategy, and the selection of test / pilot sites to ensure the proper functionality is developed. 

Stay tuned.
]]> Web-scale Blogging tag:community.oclc.org,2009:/hecticpace//1.41 2009-05-08T17:00:00Z 2009-05-08T11:57:53Z This week I had the good fortune to participate in a Talk with Talis with Richard Wallis.  I can't quite tolerate listening to the sound of my own voice, but I hope others will give it a listen.One of the... Andrew K. Pace Talk with Talis with Richard Wallis.  I can't quite tolerate listening to the sound of my own voice, but I hope others will give it a listen.

One of the questions he asked me was about OCLC's use of the term 'web-scale' (often hyphenated as a compound adjective, and not hyphenated otherwise, but I am now erring toward hyphen consistency).  Some have referred to it as synonymous with 'the web', however, I think there is a distinction that those more familiar with the history and state of library automation can better appreciate.  

The sad truth is that most locally deployed inventory management systems are not built for massive scalability.  This is partly the nature of the the age of the pre-web technology on which these systems were built, and partly the fact that a solution built to scale to hundreds or thousands of libraries was simply never within the defined scope of library management systems.

So, from the perspective of library automation, "web-scale management services" is an important distinction--as important as the cooperative nature for which the web-scale solution is built.

So, okay, that was not a very technical explanation.  Never send a product manager to do an engineer's job.  Thankfully, we can turn to the inaugural post of "OCLC Engineering" to help clarify Web-scale.  Thank you, Mike Teets!

In case you didn't realize it, OCLC Engineering is not just one of a dozen OCLC blogs, covering everything from products, research, and various musings of OCLC bloggers!
]]> A Week at Web-Scale tag:community.oclc.org,2009:/hecticpace//1.40 2009-05-01T21:10:07Z 2009-05-01T21:15:17Z I've had a great time this week, talking to media and bloggers, tweeting, talking to colleagues in libraries, and engaging the community towards OCLC's new Web-scale effort.  The amount of energy and curiosity around this new effort is amazing.  The... Andrew K. Pace I've had a great time this week, talking to media and bloggers, tweeting, talking to colleagues in libraries, and engaging the community towards OCLC's new Web-scale effort.  The amount of energy and curiosity around this new effort is amazing.  The cooperative nature of this profession makes this effort worthwhile.  I'm looking forward to the opportunities in the months ahead to share more details and gather more reaction to the web-scale management services strategy.  More specific details on my project are forthcoming, on this blog, and on the OCLC Product Works page.  I'm convinced that it will be some time before the fun stops.

]]> And now for something completely different tag:community.oclc.org,2009:/hecticpace//1.39 2009-04-23T17:45:40Z 2009-04-23T18:14:01Z Five years ago, I wrote an article for Library Journal about "Dismantling the System." At the end of that article, I suggested that it would be necessary for us to dismantle systems so that we could rebuild them.  Of course,... Andrew K. Pace Five years ago, I wrote an article for Library Journal about "Dismantling the System." At the end of that article, I suggested that it would be necessary for us to dismantle systems so that we could rebuild them.  Of course, I left out how exactly we should do that.

Now it's time to be more explicit about what I have been up to for the last 15 months. I've been pretty busy listening to the library community, trying to put their views into a strategy, and creating something new that I hope will represent a real sea-change for libraries and the OCLC cooperative.

If you haven't seen it already, I would encourage you to take a look at OCLC's latest press release.  It announces an exciting strategic direction for OCLC and its members and I'm thrilled to be a part of it.  OCLC is extending the WorldCat Local platform to include circulation and delivery, print and electronic acquisitions, and license management components.  A quick start version of WorldCat Local--available at no additional charge to  FirstSearch WorldCat subscribers--is a first step to WorldCat Local and to a truly next-generation cooperative library management service.

Library testing of the circulation component of the web-scale management service will begin this summer, with other components to follow in phases.  Initial pilot libraries will be named soon.  An advisory council is in the works to help guide the development and rollout of this new solution.  You're invited to follow details of the project and I encourage everyone out there to use the comments section of this post to submit their thoughts, questions, ideas, and opinions.

Five years after I advocated dismantling library management systems, I am confident that using web-scale architectures and a cooperative service model are the right way to put things back together again.  The OCLC cooperative is not only uniquely positioned to provide this solution, it is part of our obligation to libraries. ]]> HIbernation's Over tag:community.oclc.org,2009:/hecticpace//1.38 2009-04-17T20:15:23Z 2009-04-17T20:55:52Z Okay, I'll admit it.  I miss the occasional 70 degree days in January in Raleigh, NC.  It's fair to say that Ohio doesn't really have any of those.  I do, however, prefer snow storms to ice storms, Canada Geese to mosquitoes,... Andrew K. Pace Graeter's ice cream to just about anything.

But one of he most exciting events that happens in a central Ohio Spring is the end to the Winter's hibernation.  Dormant neighborhood streets are suddenly filled with kids on bikes, excited pets, and families squinting at the sun like bears emerging from caves.  People start eating outside, running errands at lunch, and the extra daylight makes non-work time all the more glorious.

I think today is that day.  Everyone I work with is great, but today the smiles were bigger, the jocularity was funnier, and the "spring" in people's steps seemed a little bouncier  I think the water even tasted better.

Next comes the energy and excitement that I always have an easier time equating with Springtime.  I can't wait to see what happens next.
]]> Overdue Stimulation tag:community.oclc.org,2009:/hecticpace//1.37 2009-04-01T10:30:00Z 2009-04-01T14:41:20Z In a move that is still resonating throughout the library community, the Obama Administration announced that it would be granting nation-wide amnesty to library patrons with overdue books and fines. What this means for the financial bottom line in libraries... Andrew K. Pace In a move that is still resonating throughout the library community, the Obama Administration announced that it would be granting nation-wide amnesty to library patrons with overdue books and fines. What this means for the financial bottom line in libraries remains uncertain.  One thing's for sure--libraries won't hear the cha-ching of the circulation desk cash drawer for some time to come.

 "Libraries already have a tough time collecting these fines," commented an Administration official who added, "Getting Americans to spend that money in stores will certainly do more to stimulate the economy."

Neither the American Library Association nor any of its divisions had a prepared statement in reaction to this bold move by Obama's team. One insider commented that the impact of millions of dollars stimulating book stores and coffee shops would have an equally detrimental impact on story times, book clubs, and the millions of job-seekers around the country. 

While aggregate totals are difficult to come by, some large county and municipal ibrary systems can be expected to collect over seven figures in library fines.  It's estimated that as much as 9% of public library budgets come from fines (from a 2006 IMLS Survey).  Academic libraries, on the other hand, report major declines in fine revenues due to the fact that college students don't really read paper-based books anymore.

Finally, some opposition talk show hosts are already postulating that this mass forgiveness of fines might have a dark underbelly, raising questions about the library fines of certain donors to the Obama-Biden presidential campaign. Rep. Lew Rosnec (R-VA) is already calling for a Congressional probe into the library records of thousands of Obama supporters, a move that is sure to be challenged by the ALA and library patrons across the country.

It's still not clear when libraries will be allowed to start charging fines again.  One silver lining to the plan could actually bring millions of people (and milliions of books) back to libraries after years of fearing the punitive nature of the dreaded overdue fine.
]]> I Gave Up Blogging for Lent tag:community.oclc.org,2009:/hecticpace//1.36 2009-03-13T11:37:52Z 2009-03-13T11:48:18Z No, not really.  A recent comment to an old post made me realize (as I have for weeks) that I have nothing but old posts on which people can comment.  Sigh.As it often is, travel is my latest excuse.  This... Andrew K. Pace
As it often is, travel is my latest excuse.  This quarter I have been to Denver, the UK, Seattle, Lawrence (KS), and as I write this I am sitting in the airport on my way to Chicago.  Next up: Munich, Indiana, and Boston.  Fine trips all of them, and I have a list of blog topics as long as my arm, but exhaustion never sets in as heavily as it does after a long trip and a glance over at the closed up laptop.

So I will try to revel in the time that I have had to actually do some hard work and connect with OCLC colleagues around the world and library colleagues around the States.  I must revel in the briefer moments I have had with my family in the last couple of months.

So maybe I could have gotten away with a secular Lenten excuse...giving up something I like and (used to) do frequently for more thoughtful reflection.  That long list of topics just has to wait for the rebirth that comes with Spring.

I hope that you good readers will forgive another metablog (blogging about blogging).  I will get back to business soon.
]]> Unique is a Strong Word tag:community.oclc.org,2009:/hecticpace//1.35 2009-01-27T17:24:44Z 2009-01-27T18:21:33Z I promised a follow-up on the RMG session at ALA, but rather than give a blow-by-blow account (done nicely by Leonard Kniffel already), I thought I would single out one part of the conversation. I am a lover of language,... Andrew K. Pace

I promised a follow-up on the RMG session at ALA, but rather than give a blow-by-blow account (done nicely by Leonard Kniffel already), I thought I would single out one part of the conversation.

I am a lover of language, though I am often careless myself.  I bite my tongue at grammatical errors or poor language usage.  But I am bothered more by the use of words that violates the spirit but not the law of vocabulary and grammar.  Repeated superlatives annoy me.  More than one exclamation point per page should never survive editing.  Given the word's roots in crucifixion, I cringe at the loose usage of "excruciating" to describe the most trivial personal trial.

So that is why I was dismayed to hear one of the library automation CEOs on Rob McGee's RMG panel describe each of his customers as "unique."  It is this kind of thinking, I believe, that could be detrimental to true innovation in libraries. 

I'm not suggesting that libraries are not unique--a mixture of staff, skills, collections, geography, and patrons makes for a distinctive offering.  But remember, the panel was talking about re-inventing the integrated library system.  Is a circulation transaction unique?  Is the act of buying a book unique?  Is each catalog record unique (or more likely, does it need to be)?

This is, of course, a shared problem.  Locally installed systems with infinite configurability tempt libraries to strive for uniqueness where they shouldn't and cause vendors to create more and more incremental (and expensive) changes to commodity systems that support the least distinctive workflows in library management. 

eBay or Amazon do what they can to create unique experiences for customers, but once we click that "purchase" button, we are all a credit card number and address.  Imagine the custom offerings libraries could be making if the focus shifted from configuring and explaining what should be industrialized processes to the things that make them truly unique.

]]> From the Field: RMG tag:community.oclc.org,2009:/hecticpace//1.34 2009-01-23T21:20:10Z 2009-01-23T21:50:26Z It's Friday afternoon at ALA, so of course I am at annual RMG session hosted by library consultants Rob McGee and Pat McClintock.  I'd be lying if I denied that a big part of me would rather be at the... Andrew K. Pace RMG session hosted by library consultants Rob McGee and Pat McClintock.  I'd be lying if I denied that a big part of me would rather be at the OCLC Symposium where David Weinberger and Nova Spivak are speaking.

This has to be an all-time record for number of people on the RMG panel (or any panel for that matter).  Ten library automation representatives (including my boss, Robin Murray, Vice President of Global Product Management) and a panel of 5 library innovaters.  Forty minutes in and the introductions are over.

A few years ago at this session, I accused the panel of CEOs of not innovating enough. A charge that none of them was ready to answer at the time.  This was before next-gen catalogs, the uptake of open source management systems, and better business intelligence tools.  4 years later, I'm pleased to see a few major changes in the makeup of the session, which now includes some open source vendors and a group of library practitioners.  I'm not sure 15 people and 3 hours is the best way to go, but traditions change slowly.

I will do my best to synthesize what I hear here in a follow-up post.
]]> So what? tag:community.oclc.org,2009:/hecticpace//1.33 2009-01-13T21:30:14Z 2009-01-13T21:44:31Z Whether or not I had young children, I think my favorite movie line would still be from Mary Poppins, where the father, George Banks says to his wife, "Winnifred, please!  Kindly do not cloud the issue with facts."I've been thinking... Andrew K. Pace Mr Banks.jpgWhether or not I had young children, I think my favorite movie line would still be from Mary Poppins, where the father, George Banks says to his wife, "Winnifred, please!  Kindly do not cloud the issue with facts."

I've been thinking lately about "business intelligence"--the other "BI" that isn't Bibliographic Instruction (if I start blogging about Bibliographic Instruction, please shoot me).  My simplistic version of this is how do libraries turn simple reports in actual business intelligence?  From a technical standpoint, I have one answer--include more network effect into the data, e.g. how many libraries have this book? or how much budget does this other peer library have in their physical sciences budget?  But from a philosophical standpoint, this is much harder.  I call it the "so what" question. 

Vendor:  So, you're ERM will tell you which titles you can transmit via ILL and what your pay per use is based on those integrated COUNTER statistics.
Librarian (to vendor): cool.
Librarian (to library): so what?

Maybe I won't cancel that serial title ever.  Maybe that publisher will never change its mind about resource sharing.  Are we clouding the issue with facts?

A report is just a report.  Doing something with it makes it business intelligence.  When you gather all the information, so what?  Or, to drop another movie quote I love, I will use Sean Connery from The Untouchables.  Delivered with a dying breath, "What are you prepared to do?"

]]> Dewey the Decimal Maker tag:community.oclc.org,2008:/hecticpace//1.32 2008-12-18T22:00:42Z 2008-12-18T22:14:28Z (sung to the tune of Rudolf the Red-nosed Reindeer)You know Dana and Dempsey and Avram and Nutter.S.R. and Putnamand Berman and Cutter.But do you recallThe most famous librarian of all?Dewey the Decimal Makerhad a healthy love of tens.He saw the scattered... Andrew K. Pace (sung to the tune of Rudolf the Red-nosed Reindeer)

You know Dana and Dempsey 
and Avram and Nutter.
S.R. and Putnam
and Berman and Cutter.

But do you recall
The most famous librarian of all?

Dewey the Decimal Maker
had a healthy love of tens.
He saw the scattered book shelves
through his metric decimal lens.

All of the other book worms
still liked keeping books on chains.
They knew a book's location--
kept it locked up in their brains.

Then one fateful shelving day
a cataloger caught the bug
Dewey with your decimal scheme
1-3-5-point-3 is "why I dream."

Now all librarians love him
for sorting a book, film, or kit.
Dewey the Decimal Maker
He can make the whole world fit.

------------------------------------------------

Happy Holidays everyone. 
For previous Hectic Pace Christmas parodies, see:

]]> The Happiest Place on Earth tag:community.oclc.org,2008:/hecticpace//1.31 2008-12-05T16:50:17Z 2008-12-05T16:55:28Z Nope, I'm not talking about the blogosphere. I actually just got back from my first famliy trip to Disney World since I was 12 years old. It was a great place to spend Thanksgiving, actually. Since my return, and given... Andrew K. Pace Nope, I'm not talking about the blogosphere. I actually just got back from my first famliy trip to Disney World since I was 12 years old. It was a great place to spend Thanksgiving, actually. Since my return, and given the dearth of blogs posts on Hectic Pace lately, I have been seeking some sort of meaningful metaphor for libraries out of the experience.

I know that at some point there were libraries out there signing up for the Disney cutomer service training. But I somehow can't really picture all librarians shaving their facial hair, smiling all the time, and ending every transaction with "Have a magical day."

No, what struck me at Disney was how amazingly efficient everything was. There is rarely any confusion about what direction to go; rather than wait, I can FastPass my rides to schedule my return; one card granted me access to all the parks, my hotel room, my dining plan, and would even charge purchases to my room. And when I used that card for dining, I didn't get an uninterested swipe and a smile...almost every time, I got a new piece of advice on how to maximize the value of the service.

Spending 5 days at Disney might just be like a circle of Hell to some people, and I thought it might be for me. What made it less so, I suspect, was the hassle-free efficiency of the experience.

Maybe the hassle-free part didn't remind me of libraries (or most certainly, library systems), but one thing did remind me of libraries. There was a lot of new stuff at Disney, including 2 parks that didn't even exist the last time I was there. But I had happy flshbacks to all the things that had not changed at all--the teacups, haunted mansion, and Peter Pan's flight. It was as if they had not changed at all in nearly 30 years. It was comforting--the way the things that have not changed about libraries is comforting.

I've been spening a lot of work time on business models that reduce cost and the technolgies needed to propel libraries out of the 20th century. Maybe efficiency and comfort should be the new gold standard.

]]> Bring Out Your Dead tag:community.oclc.org,2008:/hecticpace//1.30 2008-11-04T03:37:39Z 2008-11-04T04:00:45Z Yes, I am still here.  I have plenty of good excuses for not blogging lately, but not many good reasons.3 trips in 2 weeks, including one to GermanyNear obsessive-compulsive You-tube and election coverage watching in what was left of my... Andrew K. Pace
  • 3 trips in 2 weeks, including one to Germany
  • Near obsessive-compulsive You-tube and election coverage watching in what was left of my spare time
  • Actual time spent reading what others are writing
bring-out-your-dead.jpg
Monty Python's "Bring out your dead" scene from The Holy Grail.

In that last category of what others are writing, I could not help but notice the gem that appeared in Wired Magazine declaring that blogs are now dead.  

Thinking about launching your own blog?  Here's some friendly advice: Don't.  And if you've already got one, pull the plug.
Writing a weblog today isn't the bright idea it was four years ago. The blogosphere, once a freshwater oasis of folksy self-expression and clever thought, has been flooded by a tsunami of paid bilge. 

It made me think of Monty Python...."I'm not dead yet."  There's a lot to agree with in this essay, and with some of the commentary out there.  As a lover of compromise, I like to think that perhaps this simply raises the bar on bloggers, myself included.

]]> Library Bailout tag:community.oclc.org,2008:/hecticpace//1.29 2008-10-07T13:41:37Z 2008-10-07T13:58:08Z It's always fun to hear a story about libraries on NPR, and the latest one is no exception.  But I was a bit puzzled by the title: "Libraries Shine in Tough Economic Times."  First of all, libraries shine all the... Andrew K. Pace the latest one is no exception.  But I was a bit puzzled by the title: "Libraries Shine in Tough Economic Times."  First of all, libraries shine all the time.  It's just that some people don't notice it until $40 seems like too much to pay for a book club meeting where you barely discuss the book.  Secondly, the bustling business that libraries do in harder economic times is usually followed by harder economic times for libraries themselves.  This boom of library demand is likely to be followed (sometimes quickly followed) by a shortage of resources in the library.  By the time the public is asked to vote on that bond referendum, it could be too late.

So, I am a library technologist.  A product developer.  An obsessive-compulsive efficiency guy who is starting to believe that if the Web cannot give it to me better, faster, and cheaper, I don't want it.  I want Facebook and LinkedIn, not a rolodex and a pile of business cards.  I want online banking and a key fob, not paper statements and an ATM.  I want software on demand and authoritative data stores.  And I want it better, faster, and cheaper.

I'm going to assume that very little of the financial bailout will trickle down to libraries.  Where will we get our bailout when there's a run on libraries?  How can we reduce our total cost of ownership of technology, materials, and library workflows?  How do we get better, faster, and cheaper?
]]> What have you done for me lately? tag:community.oclc.org,2008:/hecticpace//1.28 2008-09-22T14:10:18Z 2008-09-22T14:11:23Z About 3 or 4 years ago, I stood before a panel of library automation CEOs at the annual RMG session hosted by Rob McGee.  The discussion had taken a typical turn--why do we pay so much for these systems?  I've... Andrew K. Pace
Of course, this was before all the next-gen online catalog arms race (it was those crickets chirping that really convinced me back then that it might take looking outside the typical library automation market to raise the bar).  We are improving the lot for patrons with great rapidity, faithful investment, and thoughtfulness.  But what are we doing for library staff?

I've said it before and I will say it again.  Choosing a library system is a lot like choosing a rental car off the lot.  We can quibble over features, keystrokes, and usability heuristics, but library inventory management is largely state of the art across the board.  So what should we do next for back office operations?  Surely open sourcing state-of-the-art software can't be all we can do!  Surely API access to data is only a first step in a longer journey to improving back-office systems.

This is in no way meant as a slight to my brethren in the open source arena.  First, the newest of ventures have re-built old things with new technology.  Like the legacy OPAC and the ERM system that just won't fit in the ILS, new technologies were required to improve our plight.  One must be wary, however, because just as 'open' does not equal 'free', nor does it mean 'new' or 'better'.  Secondly, the philosophy of open source has now permeated the library space--it's champions have done a nice job of aligning the OSS (aka FLOSS) philosophy with the ethos of librarianship.  For the most part, I think library administrations and technologists are doing a good job of answering the question: am I doing this for technological reasons, or philosophical ones, or both?

"Just because yours is better than everyone else's does not mean it is any good."

But whether it's an open code base, an API, or a change in corporate ownership, we must continually ask, "so what?"  Am I reducing my total cost of ownership of the systems I run?  Am I making my staff more efficient?  Am I innovating the state of library automation?  Am I getting what I paid for?

As we enter what I think could be a real renaissance for library systems and services, I would argue for a new set of criteria that determines whether libraries stay with the system they have or make a change to something truly new, not just something different.  It may be years before we can kill off the traditional tender and RFP, but we can certainly write a new appendix to one.  If someone were to ask me, "what have you done for me lately?"  Rather than scramble for an answer while crickets chirp, I would quickly ask back, "what are you expecting?"

]]> Data for the Young and Old tag:community.oclc.org,2008:/hecticpace//1.27 2008-09-15T15:09:50Z 2008-09-15T17:56:37Z I've been doing a great deal of thinking about "network-level" applications for the last several months.  Some people call it "cloud computing," others "grid computing"...whatever.  Suffice it to say that it is more than software as a service (SaaS), which... Andrew K. Pace
Now the Gen-X in me wants to be an ageist about this and say that older people just don't get the power of cloud computing or SaaS.  The former head-banger in me (yes, you heard me) recalls the words of Rob Halford, the Beast of Judas Priest, who said "you don't have to be old to be wise."  The placater in search of middle ground in me says this all boils down to trust and control.  As Microsoft, who is light on the former and criticized for its love of the latter, put it:

Trust, or the lack thereof, is the number one factor blocking the adoption of software as a service (SaaS). A case could be made that data is the most important asset of any business--data about products, customers, employees, suppliers, and more. And data, of course, is at the heart of SaaS. SaaS applications provide customers with centralized, network-based access to data with less overhead than is possible when using a locally-installed application. But in order to take advantage of the benefits of SaaS, an organization must surrender a level of control over its own data, trusting the SaaS vendor to keep it safe and away from prying eyes.

But now some new information has come to my attention...maybe I was right to be an ageist. According to Pew, younger Internet users are more inclined to store data online and use web-based applications and services that require storage of personal data.

pew.jpg
Trusting the network and relinquishing control.  Are libraries ready for that?  Relinquishing control seems an anathema to most people because it usually means forfeiting functionality.  But think about GoogleDocs for a moment.  How much functionality is really lost when converting from Excel?  Not to mention what is gained--the ability to easily share data and editing responsibility across established groups and domains.

How old will librarians be when the benefits outweigh the fears?
]]> Sacred Cow #4: Notes, notes, notes tag:community.oclc.org,2008:/hecticpace//1.26 2008-09-05T11:44:59Z 2008-09-05T13:00:10Z Andrew K. Pace
Some of last week's work had me thinking about notes fields in bibliographic and item records.  Boy, do we love notes.  We didn't quite have the guts to call them what they really are--miscellaneous fodder that doesn't really fit in a real MARC field.  No, we went one further, and created 48 different kinds of notes and put them in the 5XX fields.  Was that enough?  Of course not.  Let's throw in ten more (590-599) for local notes.  Anyone else think we could have just scanned the whole book in the time that it took to write all those notes?

If social tagging in library catalogs is library 2.0, then notes were our 1.0 effort.  We fret over their protection, their proper migration, where they display, their impact on keyword indexes, and the new relevance algorithms required to make sure they get just enough weight as we migrate MARC records to new bolt-on catalogs.  Notes run the gamut from arcane impossible to interpret codes and numbers to the invaluable characteristic that distinguish one book from another.

Putting my OCLC hat on, I can't help but argue that at least the local notes belong with the item record, not the bibliographic one.  The MARC Holdings record (MFHL, MFHD, LHR...whatever you want to call it) makes a place for both local and staff notes, and if it's truly local in nature, shouldn't it go there?  This is mostly a rhetorical question...believe me when I say that I have no intention of getting into an argument with catalogers on this one--a fight that would leave me beaten and bloodied.

What if all those notes--like social tags--were put in a great big pile, used semantically, indexed accordingly?  What if all the little localized changes to OCLC bibliographic records were put in a pile and "localized" for local purposes.  We might end up with 80% chaff in the pile, but the results could be interesting.  Our notes are somehow sacred, but are they as useful as they could be?
]]> Sacred Cow #3: Migration tag:community.oclc.org,2008:/hecticpace//1.25 2008-08-24T18:19:03Z 2008-08-24T19:48:14Z Andrew K. Pace
In the first two posts in this series, I have attacked services and policies, both of which are strongly supported by the traditionalism of system migration.  I find it insanely ironic that after long RFP and shopping processes to improve our lot, the first step in migrating from one system to another is to ensure that the new system works just like the old one did (the other irony is that the first post-migration step is to beatify the old system that was once so hated).

More often than not, a libary system vendor will send a consultant onsite with a big spreadsheet and a large group (mostly librarians, of course) will sit around and cram old policies into that new spreadsheet.  Rarely would the vendor propose a standard list of item types, languages, or circulation policies.  No, each library is unique, just as each libraries patrons are unique.  Right then.

Next, the catalogers and IT professionals debate indexing rules.  We don't want to have to re-index this database any time in the next 5-10 years, so let's make these decisions stick (thankfully, a new generation of online catalogs is already tipping this cow).  Once we've determined all the stuff that will hold us for the next decade and replicated all of the traditional policies, it's time for the 'data fretting' to start.

"What do you mean I can't migrate Acquisitions Code #1 from my old system to the new one?  If code #1 equals 'a' then I know that it was purchased from that special fund created by Professor Styckndamud in 1962!  Someone might ask for a report on that fund!"  Granted, we do indeed use some of these data (some more often than MARC data, which flows to and fro between systems like it was designed for data transfer instead of public display...oh, wait...).

So we load the data, and we load it again, and again, and again.  Rarely do we ask ourselves how much we need those data.  Take it from someone who has done two coast-to-coast moves, and just completed my 6th house move in a dozen years...asking "do I really need this" is a useful exercise.  We like to think that because it is data, it's intangible nature makes it's movement and storage simple, but even data has a cost that often far exceeds its value.

I'm not suggesting that changing systems should be as easy as flipping a switch.  I am suggesting, however, that it should be more akin to profiling online services than building a system from scratch.  We're in the mood for change these days, it seems.  New systems are the at the beginning of change.  New interfaces are at the other end of the change.  Let's play both sides against the middle and see what we can do about changing the way we change.
]]> Sacred Cow #2 tag:community.oclc.org,2008:/hecticpace//1.24 2008-08-07T11:50:18Z 2008-08-24T19:49:22Z Andrew K. Pace
I've been thinking about one of the most bloated sacred cows in library management systems.  No, not the MARC record--I'll leave that one to others.  I'm talking about Circulation Rules.  It's become almost cliche to compare what we do in libraries (and this accusation is pointed primarily at academic libraries) to a typical commercial customer service.

Picture me at the Blockbuster checkout desk.

Me: Hi, I'm visiting here for the next six months and was wondering if I could check out your movies.
BB: Um.  Can you verify your residency to prove that I should trust you?
Me: Yes.  Here is a signed affidavit from the CEO of my company who moved me here.  He can vouch for my credibility.
BB: Yeah, okay.  I can make you a "visiting resident with special privileges."  You'll get movies for 3 days fewer than other "regular" customers.  Oh, and you can't check out new releases or games.  I'll need your Social Security number and a permanent billing address just in case we need to bill you.
Me: Is there any way I can get regular privileges?
BB: Um, well....no.
Me: How many other users have this kind of borrowing privilege.
BB: You're the only one.  We add profiles for people like you one at a time.

Who are we helping by ensuring that the professor emeritus in veterinary medicine gets bound periodicals for 3 days more than a full professor?  I'm starting to find Amazon's delivery options confusing and there are only 3 or 4 of them?  Why must we complicate something that could be so simple?  Without disparaging the gargantuan effort that was the Evergreen ILS development in Georgia, the real victory, I think, was the creation universal borrowing rules.

Take a hard look at those systems, folks.  Are all those item types really helping?  Are all those patron categories useful beyond reporting usage statistics that rarely lead to any business intelligence decisions?  Is it time to simplify?
]]> Sacred Cow #1 tag:community.oclc.org,2008:/hecticpace//1.23 2008-07-16T19:40:02Z 2008-08-24T19:50:20Z Andrew K. Pace new report on library advocacy.  But today, I'm wishing that the previous one had gotten more attention from the library community. Sharing, Privacy and Trust in Our Networked World got some serious attention from the social networking cliques, but I was really hoping that it would open the dialog about privacy expectations some more.

I attended a lecture on privacy at NCSU once where the speaker mentioned that we are living in a climate where most undergraduates would trade a DNA sample for an Extra Value Meal.  A nice throw-away line, but one that sets up a value proposition for libraries.  We could certainly ask for less than DNA and offer more than a Big Mac and fries.

I started wondering why library software applications and services don't work more like the privacy settings in a web browser.  By default, even Microsoft wants to be diligent in protecting my privacy, but the software gives my organization the ability to adjust the level to its liking.  In turn, my organization can decide to extend that benefit to me as much as it sees fit, making determinations about how much it needs to protect itself and how much I can be trusted to protect myself.

Picture options like this:

privacy-1.jpg
privacy-2.jpg
I remain baffled as to why most libraries will only let patrons share their library data outside of libraries.  I'm equally baffled as to why patrons don't demand that they be allowed to do so.



]]> Starting from Scratch tag:community.oclc.org,2008:/hecticpace//1.22 2008-07-08T19:11:37Z 2008-07-08T19:48:48Z Carl Sagan once said: "If you wish to make an apple pie truly from scratch, you must first invent the universe."I've been taken lately with all the efforts in library land to build things from scratch, as if there is... Andrew K. Pace truly from scratch, you must first invent the universe."

I've been taken lately with all the efforts in library land to build things from scratch, as if there is no starting point, no viability--either technically or philosophically--from which to begin.  Ironically, the "2.0" true believers seem to be talking as if they are reinventing the universe more than moving libraries from version 1.0 to version 2.0.  It's pretty hard (though not impossible) to move to v.2 when the first step is to throw away everything from v.1.

Where do I stand?  I think one must make a really, really good case for starting over. 

  • When I am done building this thing, how will it distinguish itself from the thing that I replaced?
  • How do those distinctions shift the market, shift perceptions, shift total cost of ownership, or make life better for users of the thing?
  • Has starting from scratch created benefit for those who don't or will it require others to start from scratch as well?
  • Assuming that starting over will take longer and cost more (this can be a big assumption that one should question), what won't get done because I am recreating functionality or services that already exist?
I have never (really...never) met a software developer who didn't want to start from scratch, so I have some experience here.  I fear starting from scratch because I think that if you rebuild things from the ground up, you wind up with something that looks exactly the same.  I think Karen Schneider applied this theory to organizations, namely the ALA, and  I believe it.  It's probably true of other large organizations.  And how many times have we seen outsiders approach the library industry only to reverse-engineer the things that we have been doing for decades (the problem, of course, is sitting on the sidelines saying "we've been doing that for decades!").

So are  you starting from scratch on anything?  In the end, I think most folks are simply making apple pies from different recipes--open source ILS, classification schemes, faceted catalogs, RDA.  Who's going to invent the universe?
]]> OOOOOOCLC tag:community.oclc.org,2008:/hecticpace//1.21 2008-06-24T18:45:00Z 2008-06-24T18:47:35Z Andrew K. Pace I made a joke on April 1 about Google buying OCLC.  This was actually a well coordinated April Fool's Day attack between myself and the folks at ALA Techource (none of our bosses from back then want to know how much time actually went into this coordination).  I guess one true test of a joke is its staying power, and this one has it, oddly enough (I suggest using Google to see the folks who took it seriously, and that way I can avoid embarrassing anyone).  From time to time, I even find current links to the announcement treating it as real news.

So, either this joke was really funny, or the juxtaposition of two "big switch" players is intriguing to librarians.  My money is on the latter. I'm pretty pleased that OCLC has embarked on record-sharing deals with Google because I have always thought that search companies with great algorithms generally undervalue the power of metadata.  I'm convinced that they only way to prove the point is to show them, as libraries are starting to do with faceted browse catalogs.

I'm also insatiably curious as to what the first page of search results in Google Book search will look like when there are 100 million books in the database.  What will Scholar look like with 100 million books and 100 million articles?  The best answer I am able to get from Google is "highly relevant."  Relevance ranking is hard, as we have learned in enhancing WorldCat with non-monograph metadata.  Done well, however, it greatly enhances the discovery experience for patrons.

Other people are beginning to wonder out loud about the prowess of Google and WorldCat data.  Another recent post had me wondering about the future of Google Books.  CrossRef has created a new plagiarism screening service called CrossCheck (clever!). Another indicator of my love of data and what it empowers us to do and discover.  It got me thinking (un-originally, apparently) about what Google could cook up in searching for plagiarism once it has millions and millions of books scanned.  I understand that Google is doing duplicate checking in its scans to keep from scanning books twice, so I imagine that "plagiarism checking" would be rather simple for them too.  Literary crime detection using Google could be a fun pastime.

]]> I heart ALA Conference tag:community.oclc.org,2008:/hecticpace//1.20 2008-06-17T12:26:07Z 2008-06-17T14:53:38Z Andrew K. Pace really like ALA conferences.  Until I started writing for American Libraries and getting uber involved in LITA, I was an occasional attender, but my love for the conference goes back to the fact that I got my first job at an ALA, over a 7am breakfast with an Innovative Interfaces VP.  When I started attending regularly, I would fill literally every minute of the day with activity, usually for the magazine, but mostly out of a desire to get as much as possible out of being there.  You'd have to check with Leonard Kniffel, but I'm pretty sure this is where the idea for "Hectic Pace" actually came from.

I mistakenly thought that "retiring" from the column would amazingly free up half of my time at the next ALA, but I was wrong.  Between LITA, OCLC events, and programming, I find myself completely booked again, and perhaps it's just as well.  I will feel normal.

I have the great pleasure this year of kicking off my ALA by moderating the OCLC Symposium--"The Mashed -Up Library."  I've been in on the planning for this and would encourage folks to register for this great event.  Yesterday I got to speak to the keynoter,  Michael Schrage, who has some wonderful writings and spot-on observations about innovation.  I would say that any  library that has worried about relevance, funding, and establishing persistence in the information space would be interested in hearing him speak.  I'd be interested to meet the librarian who wasn't worried about any of those things!

Schrage will be joined by three fabulous librarians--Susan  Gibbons, David Lee King, and  Mary Beth Sancomb-Moran--on a panel  that will share creative library mash-ups that are not the kind you've heard about over and over again.  Insert an ice cream break in the middle of the event and I can't think of a better way to start ALA in Anaheim.  I am certainly looking forward to it. ]]> Artificial Unintelligence tag:community.oclc.org,2008:/hecticpace//1.18 2008-06-03T19:00:20Z 2008-06-03T19:41:13Z Andrew K. Pace The Ultimate Digital Library: Where the New Information Players Meet.  Some of the better parts of that book seemed so radical then and look entirely passe now.  It's hard to believe it's been five years since it came out, but where was I supposed to go from "Ultimate?"  The More Ultimate Digital Library?

I was actually looking to see if I could pick up some used copies since I have given all but one of mine away, when I was pleased to see that I had joined the ranks of Wikipedia, albeit in an unusual way.  My Wikipedia entry mentions my book, but apparently has me confused with a professor of artificial intelligence at U. Penn.  The cite for Dr. Pace's book came from Google Book Search.  I could not help but note the irony that I have been mashed up in cyberspace by a combination of Wikipedia and Google.

Some of the more famous entries in WorldCat Identities have links out to Wikipedia.  It occurs to me now that Wikipedia could use some links in the other direction for us much less famous.
]]> No, It's the Network, Stupid tag:community.oclc.org,2008:/hecticpace//1.19 2008-05-29T13:25:43Z 2008-05-29T13:26:12Z Andrew K. Pace Chrystie Hill reminded me the other day that I was wrong about something.  This was no revelation, this happens quite frequently.  In a conversation about OCLC's various assets, I was going on again about leveraging the vast amounts of data in the WorldCat bibliographic database and all the potential of the WorldCat Registry. 

Chrystie reminded me, as anyone working in the WebJunction group should, that it is the network of people that matters.  They create the data in WorldCat.  They are the institutions in the Registry.

This truism was made all the more poignant by a really great Members' Council meeting in Dublin last week.  This was my second one, and this time, there was a lot about "the network."  Having been heavily involved in several professional and personal groups where I have interacted with boards and members' groups, I can say that this board and members' group is among the best I've seen.  And I'm not just saying that because the truth of it is seen in their determination to make difficult yet important decisions, like the one they made last week about OCLC Governance.  Decisions like these are the teeth behind catch phrases like "Local, Group, Global."  The network of members provides the focus for a vision statement like "The world's libraries.  Connected."

Some people have teased me about my new title, Executive Director of Networked Library Services.  And I'm the first to admit now that I was mistakenly approaching the "network" as piles of hardware and software--sitting there at my disposal to build something great, increase efficiency, and reduce costs for libraries.  I'm still gonna try to do all that, but in the meantime, my colleagues and the membership reminded me to stay focused on the real network.
]]> On Being Networked tag:community.oclc.org,2008:/hecticpace//1.17 2008-05-20T18:58:47Z 2008-05-20T19:25:01Z Andrew K. Pace
Knowing others well has always served me better than being well known.

But how much is enough?  I find myself needing a social networking strategy.  What seems to have started as an implicit popularity contest--how many friends, how many followers, how many degrees of separation--has turned into an overwhelming array of networking opportunities.

So I do have a bit of a strategy that is likely similar to others':

Facebook: Come one, come all.  "Friend" no longer means what it use to and any friend of a friend is a friend of mine.  But frankly, I don't care too much if you would spend a million dollars the same way I would, and should I care which Indiana Jones character you would be?  I use Facebook for communication and for (surprise, surprise) seeing what people's faces look like.  When I'm ready to thin out my garage of friends, I will likely start with those who don't want me to know what they look like. Facebook, people...come on!

LinkedIn: Here, I am selective.  If I don't know  who you are, haven't shook your hand, talked to you, IMed extensively with you, eaten or drunk with you, then I'm not likely to link to you.  Add to that some assurance that I won't be embarrassed by a connection anytime soon--harder to guarantee, even for the people who add me to their network.

Twitter: Sorry.  I don't get it.  I don't like it.  Don't look for me there much longer. It's hard enough for me to keep track of what I am doing.  I simply don't have the time or inclination to tell everyone else. 

Add to this : LibraryThing, StumbleUpon, Twine, Plaxo Plus, Iminta, etc., etc.  How many more of these must I really sign up for? For now, I will stick to Facebook and LinkedIn and continue to employ my current strategy.  Everyone else I want to keep up with has my email, IM, or phone number.  Someone nudge me when there is a clear winner in the aggregation of social networks.
]]> It's the data, stupid. tag:community.oclc.org,2008:/hecticpace//1.7 2008-05-14T17:00:00Z 2008-05-14T16:53:44Z Andrew K. Pace NCSU (somewhat over-hyped as a "2.0 catalog"...as though anything new in libraries must now carry the 2.0 moniker), resulted in several speaking invitations where the invitors assumed I could speak knowledgeably about Library 2.0.

So like a good librarian, I did some research.  I read a lot of Tim O'Reilly.  I read a lot of Lorcan writing about 2.0 and O-Reilly.  I tried to put something together that juxtaposed basic 2.0 principles against the entire workflow of the library.  I will admit that what came out was a tiny bit mocking of the 2.0 meme, but I nevertheless kept coming back to O'Reilly.

In April 2007, he gave an interview where he accused much of the 2.0 crowd of missing the point.  I've been calling this the "It's the data, stupid" quote:

"[There is] a major theme of web 2.0 that people haven't yet tweaked to. It's really about data and who owns and controls, or gives the best access to, a class of data." (full context)

I think libraries should appreciate this sentiment.  I know my colleagues at OCLC do.  The conversations that I'm in are invigorating--look at what we can do with all these data!  Things like WorldCat.org  and Identities.  Now the next logical step, and echoing O'Reilly, how do we give the best access to it?  The Developers Network is taking shape, and intense internal discussions regarding use and transfer of OCLC-derived records is in full swing.  Stay tuned.

I love that the access discussion is happening; and I'm somewhat dismayed about the confusion over 2.0 leading to new discussions of 3.0 and 4.0.  Sheesh.  Before 3.0 takes hold, I'll be focusing on the use of the data for more and better purposes.
]]> Home Again tag:community.oclc.org,2008:/hecticpace//1.16 2008-05-04T15:56:16Z 2008-05-04T16:20:07Z Andrew K. Pace 18th Annual Elizabeth Stone lecture at The Catholic University of America.  It was an opportunity to talk about myself (which is always easy) and to talk about the future of libraries (which is always hard).  I was a bit embarrassed to admit that it was my first time back to CUA, but I was suitably punished by the fact that they recorded the talk.

I was quite graciously received by the CUA faculty (which now only includes one member from my time there from 1994-1996), students, and fellow alumni.  It was difficult to see firsthand that the Library and Information Science Library where I worked for two years had been dismantled in preparation for a new information commons space.  A plant had taken the spot where my desk once stood...a desk that held the IBM 286 on which I created my very first website in early 1995.

I regret having taken so long to return, but the occasion of the lecture was a great way to come back.  Elizabeth Stone was still hanging around as Dean Emerita in old Marist Hall when I was there.  She seemed omnipresent, in fact, and she was one of the few faculty to actually use the library (which is probably why it got absorbed into the main library).  I'll admit to not ever speaking very highly of my library education, but as I reflected on my time there and the faculty who taught me, I suddenly had a new perspective. 

Each of them, including ones I never even had classes with, had some impact on my career and the way I think about librarianship.  Dr. Hsieh Yee taught me to love cataloging (something I will blog about another time); J.W. Coffman (my advisor, who I learned passed away recently) taught me that the separation of theory and practice was not as wide as many perceive it; Barry Wheeler taught me to question all technological assumptions; Paul Koda taught me never to take myself or the profession too seriously. 

I received kudos for the lecture, which included a lot of stuff I have said in other venues.  But frankly, I am grateful to CUA for inviting me back because it made me reflect on the last decade plus in a way that I would not have otherwise.
]]> MetaBlog tag:community.oclc.org,2008:/hecticpace//1.15 2008-04-16T19:00:26Z 2008-04-16T19:40:13Z MetaBlog calls itself the blog of blogs, but since I am a librarian, I will refer to metablog as a blog about blogs. I've come across two new ones from colleagues whom I respect and admire and since they might... Andrew K. Pace MetaBlog calls itself the blog of blogs, but since I am a librarian, I will refer to metablog as a blog about blogs. I've come across two new ones from colleagues whom I respect and admire and since they might not be known to the library world, I thought they were worth pointing out.

Abe Lederman, founder of Deep Web Technologies, has launched Federated Search Blog.  Sol Lederman (Abe's brother, who has held various positions at DWT) will be doing most of the posting.  This is the kind of blog that I wished had existed a couple of years ago when I was working on the NISO Metasearch Inititive.  The blog also includes information on various vendors in the federated search space.

Daniel Tunkelang is chief scientist and co-founder of Endeca, a company with which I have obvious familiarity.  Daniel has launched The Noisy Channel to "explore the implications of asserting that the main goal of information access is to optimize communication across the noisy channel of human-computer interaction."  That is a noisy channel, isn't it?

Good luck, Abe, Sol, and Daniel, I look forward to reading and hope others do as well.

]]> Cold Goose tag:community.oclc.org,2008:/hecticpace//1.14 2008-04-08T03:05:39Z 2008-04-10T03:12:32Z Andrew K. Pace CNI.  Though I proudly wear the "OCLC" label  now, I'm actually here representing LITA as part of my vice presidential stint.  OCLC is ably represented by my  friends and colleagues--Marilee Proffitt, Mindy  Pozenel, Constance Malpas, and Jim Michalko.

After a (finally) warm weekend in  Columbus, I arrived to a snowy  morning in Minneapolis. Someone told  me that you can tell it's spring in  Minnesota when the smaller lakes  begin to thaw. It reminded me of an image that I encountered when I first got to  OCLC. Outside my window is one of the large ponds that dot the OCLC campus in Dublin. Slightly frozen,  I saw several members of Dublin's rather robust goose population crossing the thin ice covering the pond.  Mind you, it wasn't quite comical--it was actually done with as much grace as a  goose can muster in such an  exercise.  (I've actually encountered  a scared goose--a long story involving  college, alcohol, and the near  imprisonment of my college roommate--I was but an  innocent bystander).

icegeese.jpg        Image care of eniko at wunderground.com


It dawned  on me that these geese were not afraid because if the ice breaks, they can swim; and if the water is too cold, they can  fly.  Well, the metaphor for librarianship  is almost too easy here. I would  argue that sometimes fear of the cold water makes people forget  they can fly.

Back to CNI...in the opening plenary, Daniel Atkins, recipient of the  Paul Evan Peters Award, noted that  he viewed tenure as an obligation to take chances--an interesting, if not somewhat rare belief.   But he  also noticed (comically) that it took  20 years for the overhead projector to make it from the bowling alley  to the classroom.

What chances are libraries going  to take in the next five years?  Will it be migrating away from a telnet-based ILS module to a ten-year-old windows or web client?  Will it be using open source applications?  Is that  the thinnest ice on which we  are willing to venture?

I say take some chances. Don't worry if the ice breaks--you can always  swim. Don't worry if the  water's cold--maybe you can fly.

]]> At Last tag:community.oclc.org,2008:/hecticpace//1.8 2008-04-01T10:00:00Z 2008-04-09T14:35:29Z Andrew K. Pace
I have proposed that OCLC begin mass production of card-catalog cards, along with due-date cards and pockets.  The first ten libraries to adopt this new old solution will get refinished custom made cabinets for the cards, formerly known as "card catalogs." 

catalog.jpg
I'm no Nicholson Baker, but I think it's time we got back to our roots.  When you think about it, the old system wasn't really broken--computerizing the library was just a quarter-century long plot toward raking in the bucks to fix the Y2K problem.  With 2000 nearly a decade behind us, I think it's time we forgot about that costly and foolish investment and re-invested in some technology that patrons and librarians both understand.  Picture if you will drawers labeled alphabetically, for the alphabet is a classification system that the reading populace understands.  Drawer pulls that fit fingers large and small, and an easy-to-use "flip-through" system that allows you to browse the the entire collection in a way that 90% of the electronic catalogs out there don't even allow.

Economic Benefits.
Not only will this change remove the costly and ineffective integrated library system from a library's bottom line, but ALA's upcoming "National Shelf-reading Month" would be a great time for libraries to replace flimsy and needlessly anonymizing date stamp slips with sturdy checkout cards that give readers a handy list of other patrons who have enjoyed the book they are enjoying.  Face it, those cards and scribbles in the margins were the real first social network for books.

I'm really pretty confident that this idea will spread like wildfire  There are hundreds of card catalogs available at consignment stores and on eBay.  And once all the books themselves have been shipped off to remote storage, just think of the square footage that could be devoted to a truly workable finding aid for libraries.

I'm taking orders now.
]]> First Principles tag:community.oclc.org,2008:/hecticpace//1.6 2008-03-25T01:50:18Z 2008-03-25T01:51:11Z Andrew K. Pace
I told her I had an idea for a new column and that I was calling it "First Principles," the notion being that there is nothing new under the sun, and that approaching technology from the starting point of the library science's first principles would create better services. I have a vivid memory of standing on my back porch trying to explain this idea on the phone to a more than patient Kathy.  The polite silence and occasion hem-and-haw on the other end of the phone made me think I had blown my chances of ever seeing my name in print--I was sure I had lost the job before I had typed my first word.  Thankfully, my somewhat obtuse notion for a column, with Kathy's help, turned into a pretty nice run as "Coming Full Circle."

So here I am, glutton for punishment, returning to first principles again. The last thing I want to do in my new job with OCLC is to give the impression that I have too much time on my hands, but I will admit to having spent some time a couple of weeks ago with the papers of Fred Kilgour.  Wow. Here's what his report, co-authored with Ralph Parker, in 1965 said about the purpose of what would become OCLC two years later:

  1. Fast, complete bibliographic information retrieval
  2. On-line acquisition of machine-readable catalogue records from the Library of Congress
  3. Machine searching of machine-readable indexes such as those produced by MEDLARS and Chemical Abstracts
  4. Supplying bibliographic information for acquisition procedures
  5. Provision of central, real-time computer services for processing serials and circulation records
By 1983, the list had been modified and simplified:

  1. Shared cataloging and online union catalog
  2. Interlibrary lending
  3. Acquisitions
  4. Serials Control
  5. Public service including online local catalogs
  6. Circulation control
So here I am thinking that maybe I can bring some new contribution to the OCLC network, only to realize that I am trying to help deliver on Fred Kilgour's vision from over 40 years ago.

First Principles indeed.

]]> Reporting from Sheffield tag:community.oclc.org,2008:/hecticpace//1.5 2008-03-20T16:22:20Z 2008-03-20T16:41:08Z Andrew K. Pace Sheffield, UK, where OCLC has an office, and it's been fantastic.  Though the scenery and terrain is different (read more interesting), the weather has been a lot like Columbus in March...cold and cloudy, cold and sunny, cold and rainy, cold and snowy, in somewhat quick succession.

I've also had a fair number of cultural lessons.  I know now that one should not suggest "tabling" a topic in a meeting because over here that means you want to talk about it.  I figure out the money, that was pretty easy, except the dollar is in a declined position at the moment.

I've also had a fantastic time getting to know some of my European colleagues better.  I've been busy enough not to meet as many people as I might have liked, but it's been a productive week despite the long travel back and forth.  It's been a great week but I am also anxious to get home.
]]> I'm Back tag:community.oclc.org,2008:/hecticpace//1.4 2008-03-11T02:25:41Z 2008-04-01T16:14:07Z Andrew K. Pace Actually, I never really left, but like the kids say about library content, if it ain't online it doesn't exist.  Or as Peter Wojtowicz put it:

iblog.jpg
So what will I blog about?  Some of the same old stuff I used to, some new things, and ultimately much, much more about what I am doing here at OCLC.  While I will continue to editorialize, I cannot escape the fact that my opinions will now be taken with a much larger grain of salt than they used to be.  Sometimes salt makes things taste better, sometimes not.  I will endeavor to be careful with my saline spices.

]]>