Adventures of a Midwestern Girl (and Her Hillbilly Hermit Tennessean) in Sunny, Sunny California

Tuesday night was the IT division dance party, co-sponsored with the Leadership and Management Division and the Physics - Astronomy - Mathematics Division. I only just realized what I was missing in 2006 when I discovered the party near the end of the night in Baltimore. This is the dance party of the conference, especially this year since Thomson was not. These folks put on a great party with lots of good music. I got a pedometer for my birthday because I was curious just how much I walked on an average work day. The answer, by the way, is that I am pretty inactive, sitting in front of my computer all day.

Conferences, of course, are different, and I was easily reaching the recommended daily step count of 10,000 (this is quite a bit, more than you would think – for me, it is about 3 miles). I showed up to the dance party hovering around the 10,000 mark, but when I left, I was close to 18,000. I definitely had my boogie shoes on! I actually spent quite a bit of time dancing with my Westlaw Librarian Relations rep. He’s got some fast and fancy footwork!

I also met a librarian from the EPA who had been at the Public Policy Update earlier in the day (this will be re-capped in a separate post). She complimented me on the questions I had asked, and seemed to truly think they were good questions that needed asking. She was very nice and likes to dance, too, so we spent quite a bit of time dancing together. Glad to say I’ve already added her to my LinkedIn account.

I left the dance party just before it ended at midnight. When I got to my hotel, I walked past a woman I had met on Sunday. She is very nice and a lot of fun (she did karaoke, too), but, unlike me, she likes the beer. She appears to be quite the partier, although it might just come out once a year at the conference (one woman on the dance floor exclaimed that she was a mom and never got out, so she was spending the whole night on the dance floor).

Anyway, she had obviously had A LOT to drink and was sitting outside of the hotel with some guy I didn’t know. I walked passed into the hotel, had a second thought, and doubled-back. I was a little uncertain because I didn’t want to offend anyone, but I said “I’m sorry, but I just have to ask. [Woman’s name], do you know this guy?” And she slurred, yes, this is so-and-so, and then proceeded to tell me a long unfunny drunken joke. During the telling, she called the guy by his last name, like if someone from work just called me Barker in a familiar way, so I was pretty sure he wasn’t just some random guy who was trying to take advantage. I really didn’t want to come across as a prude or anything – I could care less if they hooked up for the night. I just wanted to be sure she was going to get back to her hotel okay and the guy wasn’t a creep. I would have wanted someone to do the same for me in that situation because sometimes you end up with a creepy guy tagging along that you have a hard time ditching.

That’s about it for the parties of which I partook at the conference. There was an all conference reception after the closing session, but so many people leave on Wednesday that there were probably only 200 or so people there, and I didn’t know many of them. And again with the beer and wine only.

So, there you have it. 4 nights and 6 parties, and I made a good contact at each one. I actually ran out of business cards this year, which was a shame and a little embarrassing. Usually, I bring a ton and have most of them left at the end of the conference. This year I didn’t bring as many and ran out. I think the more of these you go to, the more comfortable you are with the whole process and the more cards you need. All in all, I had a great time!

Posted by Anne at 07:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hmmmm. This is the given description of this program:

“As organizations expand globally, the challenge for researchers is to ensure the information they are gathering is internationally based and current. This session will provide an overview of best practices for developing a strategy for globalization and an effective program of research to help organizations ensure they are making strategic, fact-based decisions when expanding operations to new countries.”

I interpreted this to mean that I was going to hear about ways to access global information, so that my American-centric research skills could find information from the EU and Asia. Instead, the program was more about how you can position your organization to be a player in global information, creating interconnectivity from your organization to the rest of the world.

I think either interpretation of the description is valid, so it isn’t like the description was misleading. I just chose the wrong interpretation and didn’t get quite what I wanted from the session. On the bright side, there was a woman from the European Union office in New York in the audience who offered her assistance to people if they ever have a question about obtaining EU information. The line to get her card after the session was quite long and I'm pretty sure she ran out, but I got one.

My notes follow.

Globalization = interconnectivity

Dissemination of information around the world relies on: Space, regularity, speed, and depth; it can’t be a casual thing and still be globalization

World is not flat when it comes to information, the world is spiky – these were some neat graphs, showing spikes related to emitted light, broadband access, education levels, etc. North America, Europe, and Asia are like excessively-gelled Mohawks rising to the sky. The rest of the world, not so much.

Countervailing forces: integration and universalism versus particularism and fragmentation

There isn’t systematic collection of information globally – there are commissions and suggestions, but not global laws or rules on info collection, so there are different levels of access everywhere. I recently had to try and find information about some Chinese companies. What a project!

Even with idea of globalization and living online and using social networking, people still cluster geographically (MySpace is US-centric, Bebo is Australia-centric)

People do want a unique identity, not to be a truly global citizen, they like their language, culture, and food, and they make decisions in ways informed by those things

There are profound differences in how people deal with the same problem and view the same information – you must understand the culture someone comes from if you want to understand how they will interpret information

The more integrated we become, the easier it is to forget how different people are when they solve problems

Transparency – we do not live in a transparent world – this is often the greatest barrier to finding international information; even in a transparent society, there can be elements that are cloudy (a new culture was created surrounding subprime mortgage world – even though still in the U.S. it was a culture that only the investment bankers and real estate firms were a part of)

Foundations of Global Markets
General
• Drivers
• Technologies
• Global Culture
• Global norms
• Stability
Specific
• Markets
• Infrastructure
• Competencies
• Norms

Obstacles
General
• Cultural Particularism
• Social Expectations
Specific
• Data Standards
• Data reliability

Models of Corporate Alignment
• Centralized – domestic home office
• Duplicated – copies of system used
• Decentralized – everyone does what they do in their office
• Networked – multiple offices working together

How do we start to understand how people solve problems when we are building resources – like client info systems and intranets

This is where they started really veering off into how we need to create our information to speak to a global audience. Important, I’m sure, but not much note taking was done by me.

sla2008

Posted by Anne at 07:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Tuesday morning, I roused myself out of bed to get to the early Emerging Technologies Breakfast.

This was a bit of an odd program. First of all, I understood that the presenter who had a death in the family and couldn’t make it would show a pre-recorded web cast for his portion of the program. But I was confused as to why one of the presenters who was there would choose to do so. I mean, I know what he was trying to do. He was trying to demonstrate what a web cast was at the same time he was explaining why to use them. He was multi-tasking in a way, and I get that. But it was strange nonetheless and I would have preferred him speaking in person – he could have shown a short web cast if he really needed to.

Which brings me to my second point. Web casting? At an emerging technologies breakfast? I suppose it is a newish technology, maybe not the standard fare everywhere. But is it really emerging? I watch 3-4 webcasts a month for work. Twitter is emerging. Hyper-local search is emerging. But web casts? Web casts are just. . . here. It’s technology that is already reaching the tipping point of wide-spread adoption. Am I really that early of an adopter, or does this seem odd to you, too?

The other topic of the presentation was wikis. Although most people probably know what Wikipedia is, I suppose you could argue that wikis in the work place are still an emerging technology. If we ever have time to get around to writing out best research practices in our library, I will push to use a wiki, but we don’t have one yet. Collaborative document management systems are pretty mainstream, but collaborative wiki documents maybe aren’t so. But, again, this seemed like kind of a stretch for an emerging technologies presentation.

Finally, there were sections on online social networking and the legal commons (like public.resource.org). I guess these are emerging, but there didn’t seem to be all that much content in this portion of the session. My enhanced notes from the session are below.

Mary Talley & Ellen Callinan, Axelroth & Associates
Wikis
• Intuitive
• Simple Hosting Options
• Content Management System
• Online Discussion
• Knowledge Base

Librarians can create guidelines and the folksonomy for a wiki rather than relying on web developers for access decisions – This is a pretty good point. In the past, librarians often had to rely on web designers to create our web pages and include the hyperlinks that create access to the content we want to share. With wikis, there is much more freedom for the content creator to make access points on the fly for the created documents.

Attorneys can post research strategies for new/other associates to view – This is an interesting idea. I wonder if we could get buy-in from our attorneys for them to create a document describing their strategies. Although for some of the senior attorneys, that research strategy is “contact the library” or “have a junior associate do it”. I have had some senior attorneys tell me that they haven’t used XX research tool in years because they assign the task to other people. At least the library is in there as one of the sources to do their work. . .

Creating buy-in
• Must solve a recognized problem/need – if people don’t know that there is a need for it, they will not make the effort required to adopt the new tool
• Easy – it must be easy. If there is too much training needed to get started, people won’t make the effort
• Fun – you should make the project fun. How to do this? I love this idea: Have the staff create their own wikis for whatever they want to do. Give them “wiki hours” to work on their wiki during the work day (1 hour/week). Later do a show and tell for them to demo their wiki to the rest of the company. What a great idea to get people interested. Don’t make them start with a wiki of corporate procedures (yawn) – let them use a couple of work hours to create a wiki of their favorite restaurants or sports team or video games.
• There must be a leader to take charge. You can’t just introduce a wiki and hope other people will start using it. A leader has to use it, too, and has to encourage others to use it. In our case, a partner would likely need to be the champion of the project.

WikiMatrix – website to help you decide which wiki product works best for you

John J. DiGilio, Reed Smith
Just in Time learning

Voice thread – podcast with voice comments from viewers

Podcasting, vidcasting, etc.

What is Just in Time learning?
Training and instruction designed to get to end-users when and where they need it most; what they need to know when and where they need to know it.

Uses familiar technology: web, audio, video, presentation software

Goal and task driven, and portable

Pros
• Learn on user’s terms
• Cheaper than travel for the teacher
• Less out of office time for learners, too
• Optimal for mobile and distance learning

Cons
• Learning at its “minimum” – giving just what they need in the moment
• Can’t account for different levels among learners
• No teacher-student exchange
• Technological limitations

Assess training needs of institution – are needs suitable for 10-15 minute presentation or is something more needed

Investigate the available tools

Human capital – do you have people to help make, maintain, and update the lessons

Formats/Tools
Software: Camtasia and Profcast – Mac-based
Web-based: VoiceThread.com

This is something Steve and I have talked about doing for WildCare – creating short videos on how to complete tasks at WildCare. Like the proper way to clean a duckling brooder or to clean a raccoon run or to set up a cage for a water bird. But we need to get buy-in from someone in the organization to get volunteers to watch them so it is worth our while. Otherwise, it’s just pissing in the wind.

Nathan Rosen

Speech to text programs still need a lot of work

Online social networking – LegalOnRamp.com and LawLink – just for lawyers

Law Libraries and Librarians have own network, too

Thomas B. Fleming, Jeffer, Mangels, Butler & Marmaro
Effect of Free Information on Professionals and the Public: Case Research and Web 3.0

The Legal Commons

Scanning error rate on Malamud’s site is 2% = 40 errors/page

Other sites: casemaker.us, chesslaw.com, precydent.com, Silicon Flatiron

Legal Commons – Future

Massive amounts of data available – people can build their own databases

Citations move to URL rather than traditional citations

Will force government to make more information freely available because of larger user base – I hope so. This goes back to the Sunshine Week program I organized with speakers Carl Malamud, Brewster Kahle, and Marcia Hofmann. (You can read a write-up of the program here on page 6 - caution - this is a big PDF file). Their big point was that the data should be freely available so that people can create new databases and that is where market competition comes from. Instead the current procedure is for the government to contract with an established database provider to give them the data so they can create the database. I’m not sure when the tipping point will come that the government understands that giving the data to everyone equally (bug guys and little guys) is what will create competition, but I do hope it happens sooner rather than later.

sla2008

Posted by Anne at 08:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I posted about the Monday night parties before posting about another session I attended on Monday. Whoops! I can't imagine why my mind strayed like that. . .

Anyway, Monday afternoon I went to a session called Information Professional: The New Private Investigator. This session focused on public records information and was presented by Howard E. Trivers, Sr. Ref Librarian at Baker Daniels. He pointed out that all of the online tools are pretty much only good for information from the mid-1990s on. Fortunately while I often need to find old prior art references, I am not called upon to find old public records. Typically, I just need to find a person’s most current contact information so we can serve them or contact them to be a witness. For this, these tools work just fine. My enhanced notes from the session follow:

How do commercial databases work – buy credit header and combine with public records and compile into one report based on common address and info. People let credit card companies know when they move. This is good to know. I don’t think I’d ever really thought about this. If people suddenly stopped applying for credit in this country, this information would quickly dry up.

Problems with databases – run a credit report on yourself to find common mistakes

Have realistic expectations – cannot find everyone, cell phone only and unlisted households are difficult

Today’s companies: Accurint, ChoicePoint, LexisNexis, Westlaw, Loislaw, Intelius, Merlin, Locateplus, etc.

People Finder Databases

Free people finder databases: Infospace (links to foreign phone books), Switchboard, ReferenceUSA, Argali, Google, Superpages

Finding people before the Web: Polk’s City Directory, phone books, directory assistance, call contacts

Accurint: Owned by Lexis, very current, more accurate than competition, higher cost since bought by Lexis, has People at Work (from credit applications – I always wondered how they got the employer information especially because it is not often current. People tell credit card companies when they move so they can keep getting their bills, but they only tell them who their employer is when they fill out the application. I’ve found People at Work is still a great tool, though, because it at least helps you determine if the person you are looking at is in the right general industry.), has some cell phones gotten from insurance applications, etc.

Other Lexis Products: SmartLinx (too expensive – although I will say I used it once to great effect. In my case, I was trying to find a guy who had moved to the US from the UK in 2005. I couldn’t find his address anywhere else, or any public record of his existence really since all of these databases only include US information. But SmartLinx picked up his address in the U.S. It is not the first place to go, but if you are striking out other places, it may be worth a try.), ALLFIND, P-Trak (okay, but competition is fine)

ChoicePoint Products: Lexis is purchasing, AutoTrakXP, KnowX (can use credit card) - Accurate and current, batch file – can upload excel file full of names to see if they are in there and alive or dead (Accurint has batch upload as well)

LoisLaw Public Records: New product for B&D, flat fee, saves money, not purchased by Lexis (yet), has People Finder database, has rating for probability of paying bills (only place to get this info, but it is only okay –rating based partially on how long at address, not only on past history)

Westlaw: Cumbersome and confusing, improved but still weak people finder products, getting info from ReferenceUSA

LocatePlus: find SSN, some cell phone info

Merlin

Intelius

Public Records

Depends on state or jurisdiction, use free sources for locals, spend money for jurisdictions outside your state

Begin research with Accurint or ChoicePoint, use public records to verify current address (i.e. own property)

Searchsytems.net Public Records Directory – portal to public records sites by state

BRB Publication Company – portal links not as extensive as Searchsytems.net, but lists people who will retrieve local docs for you

PublicRecords.com

Craig Ball (www.craigball.com/hotlinks)

Check state tax assessor info for property value info

Some states keep access to records on state web sites and don’t sell access to commercial companies – won’t be in commercial databases, so you have to look on these state web sites

Can sometimes search DMV registration records using SSN for a fee to get address

Current employment info – bankruptcy records - Accurint (sometimes), LinkedIn – I use this all the time - or tail him/her to see where they go

Asset searches – cars and homes is what you can find, not bank or investment accounts

Criminal Records

Individual state web sites – try free sites before spending money
For example, Indiana Department of Correction
Federal Bureau of Prison, state prison department, local county dockets, local city records
Federal Inmate Locator, state offender sites

Westlaw and Lexis Criminal Dockets – catches plea bargains, non-convictions that won’t be on prison sites. Both have state and local criminal dockets, but go local for free sources first

DMV driving records

Other tools and methods

News outlets – go local, search local papers

Google Maps – look at what type of building the address is – house, apartment, suburb, etc. – I’ve done this before. You can use either Google maps of Live maps. The whole photos of your house deal may be a little creepy, but it works great to see if you are finding a residential or commercial location. Trivers suggested using this to see if the house was nice and in a good neighborhood or if it was a dump.

Search engines – notice the plural

Alltheweb - picks up foreign sites – not sure about this comment, don’t they all?

Genealogy – locate relatives of people who have died

Do not pay for commercial databases for death records – http://ssdi.rootsweb.ancestry.com – go first, but only has listing of people who have received Social Security benefits

Phone

Get out of the office – if it’s a local address, drive over there yourself and see what you can see

LinkedIn, MySpace, FaceBook

5 Points to Remember
• Use alternative sources
• Check database coverage
• Create value added research
• Control passwords – don’t hand out passwords to public records databases to everyone. They are powerful tools and can be bad in the wrong hands. Plus, job security.
• Go local – look for local/state databases and resources before paying the big bucks

sla2008

Posted by Anne at 08:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Monday night was Party Night. There were more parties than I could go to or was invited to, but my dance card was full. I started out at the Thomson Reuters party that was held at the Pacific Science Center. Great food, got to chat with lots of people, and I went through the butterfly exhibit. BUT, in the past, the Thomson party was THE dance party. My first time attending in 2002, they had Paul Revere and the Raiders playing. The last 2 times it was a great DJ. This year, they had a steel drum band playing, and they were good, but it was not a dance party. I do need to remember the Pacific Science Center, though. I think Steve and I went here with A and V on one visit, but we only went into a small portion of it, not the whole thing. It seems very hands on and we should go back and pay the fee to get in.

After the Thomson party, I headed over to the Lexis Dessert Reception back at the Experience Music Project, where karaoke was the night before. Most of the desserts were only so-so, but I have 2 words for you: chocolate fountain. Oh, how I love me the chocolate fountain. I dipped mainly marshmallows and pieces of pineapple. I started to get full and didn’t want the vehicle anymore - I was trying to figure out a good way to just get the chocolate, but sticking my head under the fountain didn’t seem like the right choice given the state of my reputation from the night prior. I thought about sticking a coffee cup under, but was afraid one side of cup would be a huge mess and it would get everywhere. I’m not sure I forgive myself for passing up the chance. . .

I also met a very cool librarian from the California Academy of Science in San Francisco at this party. She is pretty new to the local SLA chapter so I hadn’t met her before, but I do hope we can keep in touch.

Finally, I headed to the Elsevier reception. I only stayed there for 45 minutes or so – it was getting to be close to midnight and they were only serving beer and wine. Actually, other than the wonderful open bar at the Wiley party, none of the parties were able to provide my rum intake. I had a vodka drink at the Lexis party, but the rest of the parties were dry for me. I guess I need to develop a taste for beer or wine. I didn’t stay too long, but I met a nice gentleman who works at the USPTO, and given that I work at an IP firm, that is a good contact to have.

sla2008

Posted by Anne at 08:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Monday morning was spent in the two-part session: 60 Gadgets in 60 Minutes and Web Tools for Legal Researchers. I know the 60 Gadgets session is a popular one, but it was my first time at this session and I have to say I don’t think I’ll go again. There was nothing really wrong with it, but it was not useful to me. I expected it to be 60 gadgets that would actually be useful in a library/information setting. Lord knows those types of gadgets are plentiful these days and it’s hard to keep up. I thought this session would help me do that.

Instead, it was a session devoted to (mostly) useless crap. I do not need a catapult watch, complete with BB ammunition. The flip-flops with the built in flask could come in handy now and again, but it is certainly not why my employer paid for me to come to this conference.

This is the type of session that makes sense on Wednesday afternoon, when your brain is squishy from a long week and you need something a little more light-hearted. But Monday morning? It’s just not my bag, baby, and in the future, I’ll pass.

Here are the things from this session that I thought were interesting, and a least mildly useful:
• APC USB Battery Pack - $55
• Turbocell Charger - <$20, runs on 1 AA battery
• Solio Universal Charger – solar charging - $200
• Eye-Fi Wireless SD Card – detects Wi-Fi spots and wirelessly transmits pics to home PC - $80 - $130
• Radioshift - $32 – Tivo for radio. Mac OS only – record from database of 50,000 stations

UPDATE: The slides from the 60 Gadgets presentation are online at LLRX, just in case you want to see what you missed.

Next came the ever-popular Gary Price with Web Tools for Legal Researchers. This was a bit of a misnomer as he did not focus on legal tools one bit. And he was called on it by someone in the audience who was wondering where the legal tools were. Gary replied that these were tools everyone should know about and he would not be showing legal information per se. Whether or not these are tools everyone needs is debatable, and I think the real meat of his presentation was too far in to his ubiquitous list of URLs. Fortunately, his entire list is available at http://digbig.com/4xbhr.

Here are the tools he got to before the end of his session. Actually I had to leave about 10 minutes before he finished because of an unfortunate time overlap, but at the rate he was going he probably only got to 2-3 more tools before time was called.

• Hakia.com – Israeli-based semantic web search engine
• Powerset.com – searches Wikipedia entries
• Jux2.com – compare results to Google, Yahoo!, and MSN – This one is cool. It has a tab showing the search results you would get on each of these search engines as well as a listing of the results that were unique to each engine and the results you would miss if you only searched one engine and not the others.
• 1800flights.com – flight status online and on phone
• Summize.com – search Twitter postings based on topic – This was kind of neat in its use to monitor daily trends and hot topics. Of course your trendspotting is limited to Twitter users, but that group is growing daily.
• i-Metro – public transit directions worldwide
• Hopstop – US transit directions
• Earthcomber.com – local stores, restaurants, etc for major cities
• Whatsonwhen.com – database of world events
• Wheretraveler.com
• Science Info: Scirus, WorldWideScience, Science.gov, CiteseerX Alpha, BotSeer
• feedM8.com – transcoding – shows you how a web site will look on a mobile device
• Archives: Archive-It, CyberCemetary

It was too bad that this session (Price’s only session) was in direct conflict with Mary Ellen Bates’ only non-CE session. It was a tough choice and, given the 60 Gadgets program, I’m not sure I chose the right one. Oh well, ever onward.

sla2008

Posted by Anne at 01:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I would certainly never say that the parties are the best part of going to an SLA conference (after all, I want to keep being allowed to go by my employer), but they are a good time.

I started out the party part of the conference with the Wiley karaoke party on Sunday night at the Experience Music Project. What fun! I sang 2 songs: Girls Just Wanna Have Fun and Heard it Through the Grapevine. There were some good singers, some entertaining ones, and some REALLY bad karaoke, but the crowd was always friendly and it was so cool how many people got up on stage. The party ended before everyone who put their name in to sing got called. If you think you want to sing a song, but don’t want to go first, just wait until the first set of name slips are given to the DJ and then turn yours in. They go in order and if you wait too long, by the time you see what fun it is/drink enough courage, you’ll be shut out.

I didn’t think there were all that many people at the party – it seemed like just a couple hundred people at a conference that registered over 5,000 – but for the rest of the conference 2-3 strangers a day made a “nice singing” type of comment. Oh, how fragile reputations are. But then, some of these folks aren’t strangers anymore, so connections were made, and I like being known as someone who knows how to have a good time and who will take a risk.

sla2008

Posted by Anne at 08:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Earlier this week I was at the SLA conference in Seattle. I took lots of notes, but didn't have a lot of time to make them into semi-coherent blog posts, what with all the evening activities (see next post). So, these entires are being posted a smidge after the fact, but will hopefully still be interesting and useful. In the past, I've written narratives of the sessions I've attended. In the interest of time, I am mainly going to be posting my notes from the different sessions, but I have cleaned them up and added my own observations to the key points, and I have written a few summary introductory paragraphs for each. I hope these post still have some flow because I personally don't like reading other people's posts that are just a serious of bullet-points with no context. If you are interested in this kind of thing, let me know if this format works so I know if I can use it in the future.

Okay, enough with all of that. After a wonderful weekend visiting our friends in the area (more about that once I have time to upload a few pictures), I arrived at the Seattle Convention Center Sunday afternoon just in time for a reception in the exhibit hall. That was followed by our Opening Keynote Speaker, Vint Cerf, considered one the fathers of the Internet, being interviewed by Charlie Rose. Cerf is currently working at Google as "Chief Internet Evangelist". Not sure I like the made up title, but whatever. The opening business meeting seemed to take up a lot of time and only left about 45 minutes for the Vint Cerf interview, but it was still an interesting session.

Cerf stated (not too revolutionarily) that the power of the Internet is in its openness and accessibility, that it gives ordinary people the freedom to invent new content. The Internet grants access to everyone's knowledge as long as they are willing to share it.

He said that he is concerned that we are so reliant on software to interpret digital documents - what if the software it no longer supported and we can no longer interpret the bits of data. Yadda yadda yadda, this is not a new concern. Personally, in addition to being reliant on software that may become obsolete, I'm really concerned about all of the Internet companies that are being bought up by one or two big players (I'm looking at you Google - you qualify as a reason for concern now, too).

What happens if one of these tools doesn't make the kind of money that the buying company hopes it will? Will they stop developing it and let it fade away? What if a buying company eventually goes under? What happens to all of those little companies it bought up along the way? Yahoo! owns del.icio.us now. What if their ongoing corporate battle, or the growing dominance of Google, results in a long slow death (or even a quick one) of Yahoo!?

Sure, in theory someone else could create a similar tool, but what if there are patents involved? Would the big company sue a little guy for a product they aren't developing anymore? Of course they would! It happens all the time, and especially now when the economy is struggling and more companies are trying to monetize their intellectual property more and more to make up the gap.

Regarding access to the Internet in foreign countries, Cert believes that oppressive governments will ultimately have to accept open access to the Internet whether they like it or not - they won't be able to escape the positive influence the Internet will have on their economies and things will have to open up for this economic growth to continue.

With relation to artificial intelligence, Cerf believes that a defining characteristic of human intelligence if personal experience. Until computers can have an experience (like seeing the sky or feeling the wind or whatever), they will not be able to achieve human intelligence. His example was that of Helen Keller feeling the sign language symbol for water on her hand and then feeling the water itself. The experience of the water is what created her knowledge.

Of course, this could just mean that our robotic overlords have their own experiences unrelated to ours and we remain unable to connect on a fundamental level thus encouraging them to see us as little more than the animals we are. (Can you tell we watched Terminator 3 with our friends Saturday night?)

Cerf has an optimistic view of the future of the Internet as long as it stays open. It is a place that has no boundaries. As long as you can program the software, it can do anything. It is endless. He just worries about the future if attempts to restrict access are successful.

That was about it for this presentation. No real a-ha! moments for me like I would have in the Closing Keynote (I see you shiver with anticipation). But it was interesting nonetheless. Now, off to the parties!

sla2008

Posted by Anne at 03:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I wasn't able to go to the SLA Conference this year (I'm going to AALL this time instead), but I've been following the happenings on the blogs I read. I LOVE this comment overheard by Tricia. I think it sums up very well myself and the librarians I hang with.

One hotel worker commenting to another: "I like having the librarians here. They drink like fish, but don't trash the rooms."

Posted by Anne at 07:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

As I've previously mentioned, I hesitate to write a nasty e-mail about anyone, particularly on a listserv, and I do not engage in flame wars. But, I swear there are some people who test my resolve.

This may not make much difference to many of you, but it really irritated me, so please forgive me as I rant for a minute.

[begin rant]

If you have been following my other blog, you are probably aware of the Bush Administration's efforts to close Federal agency libraries, particularly the ongoing saga that is the EPA library system. (Short version: Bush submits budget calling for $2 million EPA budget reduction resulting in closure of their libraries, EPA starts closing libraries before Congress has approved said budget, Congress Critters write fornal letters telling EPA to cease and desist until they can review the situation and actually approve the budget, EPA continues closing libraries and sells furniture for pennies on the dollar).

Raise your hand if you are a librarian and you have NOT heard about this issue? If you are a library professional, you would not only have to be under a rock to have missed this one, you would have to be in a bunker 20 feet under the rock. But, okay, I suppose it is possible that someone might not have heard about this yet, especially if government information is not his/her area of interest.

I am on several listservs, one of which I've debated unsubscribing from because there is seldom anything discussed that is in my area of interest, and it seems very focused on academic libraries and lives mainly in the theoretical, not the practical.

A week and a half ago, someone posted a story to this listserv about the dire situation facing Federal agency libraries. The article focuses on the EPA libraries, but also mentions closures of NASA and Department of Energy libraries.

This week, someone posts this:

Thanks for bringing this to our attention. Haven't these "special" federal librarians heard of assessing their value through calculations such as cost-benefit ratios and return-on-investment calculations, then communicating this value to their senior administrators? My special libraries/information centers course at the University of *** is organized around value-calculation projects of this very nature.

I'll be moderating the "Special Information Centers" discussion at the upcoming ALISE conference's "Birds of a Feather" session, and would be happy to use this practical example as a starting point for further dialogue with other interested ALISE colleagues.

I can forgive many things about this post, but there is one thing that really pisses me off. It is the snarky sentence, complete with quotation marks, "Haven't these "special" federal librarians heard of assessing their value through calculations such as cost-benefit ratios and return-on-investment calculations, then communicating this value to their senior administrators?"

If this person had said, "gee, thanks for letting us know about this, maybe the librarians could do something to demonstrate to the PTB that they are a valuable asset" I would have no problem. Okay, maybe s/he'd be living under a rock, as discussed above, but that just means we need to be getting this story out there more.

But the seemingly demeaning use of those quotes, and the "I'm a professor and I know better than thou, and I will demonstrate these "special" librarians ineptitude by making them a case study" attitude that comes across in the posting is just too much!

All of this is, of course, intensified by just how completely clueless this person actually is. In point of fact, these "special" federal librarians HAVE conducted just such a Return on Investment (ROI) study! The project lead was the Manager of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency National Library Network and is the current Chair of the SLA Government Information Division. This study (“Business Case for Information Services: EPA’s Regional Libraries and Centers,” EPA-260-R-04-001, January 2004) found:

Between answering reference questions and conducting database searches, EPA librarians are estimated to have saved over 214,566 hours of EPA staff time, resulting in a cost-savings to the Agency of slightly over $7.5 million. The benefit to cost ratio for provision of library reference services within EPA is conservatively estimated to be over 4.4:1. Adding in the value of Public Access, the ratio exceeds 6:1.

The EPA libraries are closing in spite of this analysis, a fact which I sent to this person in a politely-worded reply to the list. As I said in this reply, it does not appear that the efforts these librarians have, in fact, made to bring their value to the attention of "senior administrators" means much to the most senior administrator.

[end rant]

Okay. Now that I've finished, excuse me while I try to extricate this bug from my butt.

Posted by Anne at 07:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

A U.K. marketing dude is saying that Librarians 'should be sexier'.

While I understand that this suggestion might infuriate some members of the profession, it luckily doesn't affect me. I'm already one sexy bitch, and don't you forget it!

Posted by Anne at 02:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Some of these libraries are just magnificent; they are beautiful and, I admit, I'm tempted to get the book. But I wonder if it includes the Downtown Reno Library which has what I think is probably the coolest mixed-media integration I've ever seen.

Be sure to look at the enlarged image.

Say it with me now: NERD!

Posted by Anne at 07:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Chronicle of Higher Education has posted an interesting article about the nature of academic library job searches.

I don't know what I find most interesting about the article: the "oh, snap" quality of it or the idea that it's an applicant's market in the academic world. That's not what I've heard, although I am, admittedly, not personally familiar with it.

Posted by Anne at 01:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Coming into the home stretch now and it’s getting harder and harder to get to the sessions and to make any meaningful sense of them. Perhaps I should reserve my postings until I have a chance to recover, but then I’d probably never get to them. Best to get to them when they are fresh.

This session started off with Linda Fennell, DC Environmental Justice Organizer, Sierra Club. Her presentation consisted of 3 case studies of the ways in which her organization has used government information to fight for environmental justice within communities. She noted that 60% of low-income people and people of color live in polluted areas. She said that technology has really helped these communities to exercise their FOIA rights, but still noted the ongoing problems of the digital divide and a general problem with access due to a lack of neighborhood libraries and cyber cafes, and the location of central government records. Moreover, she noted that one real challenge was the lack of knowledge of how to access information. Many people simply don’t know that certain information even exists, let alone where to go to access it.

Next up was Sean Moulton, OMB Watch, Director of Federal Information Policy. Generally, he noted that government loves to have and create information, but they hate pubic access to information. The government has a natural tendency toward secrecy. Why is this? Because increased public access to information = increased accountability, criticism, pressure, questions, and participation. Meanwhile, government secrecy = time, flexibility, and control (controlling the spin, controlling people's actions and reactions).

He discussed FOIA as a passive, slow, legalistic, adversarial, and government-focused system. Moulton advocates for a Right-to-Know system which is proactive, faster, co-operative, user-friendly, and user-focused; government should be pushing the info out, we shouldn't be having to pull it out. He also descibed current government information policy as follows:
• They disclose positive information, but are not so willing to disclose negative news
• They are more likely to disclose information after pressure - laws, court cases, congressional inquiries, public outcry. For example, Hurricane Katrina emphasized many problems in the information infrastructure and now people are demanding action in their right to know.
• The disclosure is limited, often influenced by corporate lobbying to disclose less
• They rollback information disclosure when the pressure and attention passes

Corporations like secrecy as much as government does, more probably. Less government info = less corporate info and less accountability.

Moulton emphasized the need for more public participation in the information policy process and that it must be user-focused. And in a statement that was very reminiscent of Susanne Barker's worst case scenario planning, one of his strategies for improving public access is to be prepared to leap forward when a crisis arises that highlights the information crisis and the need for access, to have a solution ready waiting for the problem.

The final speaker was Tom Moritz, Associate Director / Chief Knowledge Management, Getty Research Institute. Moritz's topic was An Introduction to Conservation Commons. In all honesty, leaving the session I still had no idea what the Conservation Commons was. I don't know if he was more used to a different crowd or had simply over-prepared, but most of Moritz's slides were lengthy quotes and charts and bar graphs about the scientific process that he just glossed over in the interest of time. It was one of those "And this slide shows this graph, and this slide has this quote by so-and-so" kinds of presentations in which there was little if any explanation about why those items were included. It would have been much more interesting to actually hear about the Conservation Commons and how it is being used than to see slide after slide of numbers detailing Olde Timey computer specs and technological saturation levels.

sla2006

Posted by Anne at 05:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

There were a great many social distractions to choose from last night. I started the evening out at the SLA Awards Reception on the USS Constellation. The ship is very cool to walk around, particularly seeing just how small the officers’ quarters really were. They did have their own little rooms while the rest of the crew slept dormitory-style in hammocks, but the quarters were very small and cell-like.

The open bar was also a nice aspect of the evening. Throughout the night I found that if you cheerily ask the bartender to make you a fruity rum drink, they are more than happy to oblige. Thanks to getAbstract, Inc. for their generous sponsorship of this event. They are a brand new sponsor and have been very good to us this year.

Following the Awards Reception, I headed back over to the National Aquarium for the LexisNexis party. There was only another hour or so left by the time I got there, so I grabbed another fruity rum drink and made my way quickly through the exhibits. There wasn’t a DJ or dance floor, which, while a bit disappointing, did give me a chance to see a bit of the aquarium.

Leaving there just before 11, I decided to head back to the Hyatt. I was supposed to meet a few people at the IT Division’s Pirate Dance Party. What a sight that was!!! I had no idea, but a total of 3 different people informed me when I got there that the SLA conference is known to have 2 great dance parties: the Dialog Party and the IT Division. I got there so late that they only played 3 more songs before ending the party, but it looked like an absolute RAGER!!! Who knew? A whole lot of people but me apparently. But I will definitely remember this for next time.

I’m also quite happy to report that “You Shook Me All Night Long” is the song that makes Libby Trudell get her groove on. She wasn’t dancing when I first saw her and she commented that she was waiting for them to play something good. A few minutes later I saw her out there working it to AC/DC. She maintains that it was “Shout” that got her out there in the first place, but all I saw was the Flashdance-like enthusiasm with which she shook it until 11:00.

sla2006

Posted by Anne at 02:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Eli Edwards has posted on the SLA conference blog about an epiphany she had for first timers on the Expo Hall. I also had an epiphany that I would like to share. Like Eli, in the past I have always funded my own way to the SLA conferences and was never in a position to buy any of the vendor's wares. Moreover, the last company I worked at was in such dire financial straits that my paychecks were often late. It wasn't just that I couldn't buy the vendor products. It was that there was no circumstance in which I could see being able to use any of those products in my then-job. Since I was also still in school and had never worked in a true "library" setting before, everything about everything in the Expo Hall was theoretical. I had no specific questions to ask the vendors and I had no way of knowing what may or may not be useful to me. In theory, the Expo Hall was supposed to be interesting. In practice, I didn't get it.

In theory, I was a future librarian and therefore a potential customer ripe for indoctrination. In practice, I could almost sense the disappointment when the vendor realized I was a student with no real experience or questions.

Having graduated a year ago in May, I have been working as a law librarian since last July. Suddenly, the Expo Hall is interesting!!! Now I have specific vendors I want to speak with about specific products. I have real life questions and can say "how can your product help me do this better?" I find myself wondering how I will find the time to hit all of the vendor booths that I want to.

So, while it is nice to wander the Expo Hall as a student sans experience and get some of the freebies, don't feel bad if you just don't get the appeal. You're better off going to the sessions and the happy hours, and meeting people to hang around with and share the conference experience, even if only for the length of your stay. There are some things for which real life experience has no substitute.

And vendors, don't be too disappointed when a student wanders by your booth. We really do grow up and become baby librarians. The fact that we, as students without a clue, are even at the conference and in the Expo Hall means that we are interested and engaged and in a few years we'll be back with real questions about your products. Be kind in the interim.

sla2006

Posted by Anne at 04:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

In spite of the title, the speakers for this session spoke very little on the concept of Open Access initiatives and instead focused on various public access initiatives of the government. The first speaker was David Gillikin, Head, MEDLARS Management Section NLM; mainly he spoke about efforts like Medline and MedlinePlus. He also gave a short background on various legislative efforts to increase public access to federally-funded research. Specifically, he commented regarding Federal Research Public Access Act of 2006 that "publisher reaction has generally been very negative". And for tat, he gets the "understatement of the year" award.

The next speaker was Selene Delecky, representing the Government Printing Office and speaking about the Future Digital System (FDsys). She commented the GPO started and has existed as a print-based agency. In fact, most of stuff on GPO Access is still a product of the printing system, and was not born digital. However, Federal agencies are not necessarily going to GPO for printing anymore. They are going to independent publishers.

This vision of the Future Digital System (FDsys) is to be a stable digital repository for all Federal docs that are within the scope of Depository program, to ensure public access, to expand the collected documents beyond text-based, and to exist as official master copies. FDsys is intended to shift GPO to a content-centric model (not print-centric). The vision for FDsys is to verify and track versions, assure authenticity, preserve content, and provide permanent public access. The system will be rule-based, policy neutral, modular and adaptable. In response to a question about what it meant to be "policy neutral", Celine (sp?) clarified that policy development would be reserved for business units; FDsys will not make policy on fees, revisions, etc. It does NOT mean that they will not reflect or defend the changing policies of administrations.

She also commented that the FDsys focuses on what needs to be done, not necessarily on how it will be done. I noticed throughout the session how very carefully she chose her words to reflect the "vision" of FDsys, the "intent" of FDsys, but never said anything really definitive about the program. At the same time, there are definite dates set out for getting things done, with the first version of the FDsys due out in 2007. I asked her afterward about this incongruence and whether or not there was or would be a plan for how they would proceed available to the public. She did note that was no current plan and that they had to wait for the input from their vendor before being able to proceed with a plan. However, she did confirm that, once they have a plan, it will be available for public comment.

With regard to the difficulties of capturing digital-born, Web-based agency documents that are not submitted to GPO, they are currently conducting a Harvesting Pilot using 2 separate harvesting vendors that are simultaneously harvesting publications from EPA Web site (Blue Angel and Information Associates). She noted that on the first pass, they one of the vendors had a 92% (I think) document harvest rate, but a greater than 50% error rate. However, she emphasized that there are 2 more passes planned and they will get better with each pass.

The final speaker was Thomas Lahr, USGS, co-chair of Science.gov. Science.gov is voluntary large scale collaboration among U.S. government agencies (FirstGov for science). Agency involvement is exclusively volunteer and each agency kicks in money as they see fit for the project. It is a Web portal to provide unified access to government science databases and Web sites. Lahr largely spoke about the history of Science.gov. He noted that one of the ongoing projects that they are working on is to try and get science agencies from other countries to collaborate and add their sites to the Science.gov Web portal. One question from the audience was whether or not they had ever considered involving the science departments of the states. Indeed, they had not thought about it, but I swear I saw a light bulb appear over Lahr's head. I think this may well be a direction we will see in the future.

sla2006

Posted by Anne at 03:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Dialog Party was held tonight and I had a great time, as usual. It was held at the National Aquarium and had plenty of food, drink, and an okay DJ. I had wanted to see more of the aquarium itself, but was too drawn to the food and the dance floor for much of that. I was feeling very ill before the party because I was so hungry. I never eat enough at conferences since I go to sessions right through the lunch hour. I headed first to the Young Professionals Happy Hour and was happily drinking my Appletini when I just got very light-headed and nauseous. I just had to eat! So, off to the party I went with a few people I had met at the happy hour. The DJ started off playing some great dance music, but I was still shoveling food in my face. By the time I got out to the dance floor, he started to place non-danceable white boy music like AC/DC and whoever did "Oh what a night". I should probably give the DJ a little more credit. I think that once he started playing that music more people got out on the floor. I don't know if it was just because everyone had finished eating, too, or if the older librarians just clung to that familiar music. Either way, he stuck with his success and the rest of the night had music that did not inspire me to bust a move. I stayed out there, but was not too groovy.

I must say thanks to Dialog for a wonderful party, great food, and a fun time had by all. I really think some of the best networking happens at these parties. Maybe it's just me, but I am much more able to speak with new people at bars or on dance floors than I can at a champagne reception. I always have a great deal of fun at these parties and walk away knowing more people than I meet at any of the other more official receptions.

sla2006

Posted by Anne at 08:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Now this was an interesting session. I will admit that my favorite speaker was Susanne Barker, Ministry Librarian, British Columbia Ministry of Forests and Range. She spoke on government library survival strategies and was funny, charming, and really had the best insights and ideas I have heard yet. Her main strategies for keeping her library relevant and well-placed in her government agency are:
• Of course, to have a good relationship with the agency executives, to suck up, and to let them know if you do something particularly good or if you save the agency money. Basically to toot your own horn. Okay, this one isn't necessarily original or ground-breaking, although I have heard FAR TOO MANY other librarians talk about how they feel disparaged by other librarians as basically being uppity and egotistical when they take credit for the things they've done. I think it's silly and downright stupid not to get some praise for the good things we do and to congratulate our colleagues who get recognition. It is entirely possible, nay, even probable, that I am the jackass here. But I just don't get this whole "we serve people and should never deign to rise to a level where we can be treated like professionals and look them in the eye" mentality. For all the bitching and moaning I read about how librarians aren't respected and treated like professionals, it seems counter-intuitive to not publicize the very things that the rest of the world views with respect and as professionalism. I've never been a woman to sit back and be reserved, so maybe this is just yet another manifestation of my big mouth. But I believe stepping from the crowd and DOING something without apologizing for it brings recognition to the library and the library staff. And apparently the other Ms. Barker agrees!
• Several years ago, she and her colleagues created worst case scenario plans. She has these in a file cabinet and can pull them out at a moment's notice as the need arises. So, when she found out that a sister agency library was slated for closure, she was immediately able to go to the executive with the plan that said what the problems would be and what they had to do to mitigate the effects. She was not able to keep the other library from closing, but she was able to save the collection by getting permission to integrate it into her libary and was able to hire staff from the doomed library. The amount of forward thinking of this project boggles my mind.
• She creates quarterly lists of the things she could do if she had more money, encouraging the executive to fund these projects.
• What she calls "pick-up sticks". She makes sure that the library is so integrated into the agency as a whole that it is almost impossible to pull the library out of the organization without harming the rest of the agency.
• Finally, makes sure she and her staff hold positions on agency committees, developing a presence throughout the agency.

While Susanne was speaking of her efforts in a government library, always at risk from budget cuts, all of these suggestions can be used in any library that serves and gets funding from a larger agency. She was just grand.

In terms of how she proves her value, she noted the following:
• sucking up to executive and providing good service
• Client outreach, mentor students and get them to do outreach
• Target all levels from admin to executive

The next speaker was Mary Boone, State Librarian of North Carolina and she spoke on North Carolina's efforts with digital documents, called the Access to State Government Information Inititiave. This project began in 2002 with a research phase (literature searched, best practices in other states, investigate what was happening in the state agencies). She found that there was a greater than 50% decrease in paper-published government documents in the last several years (I don't remember the exact time range she specified). This is not to say that government was producing less information. just that it was no longer on paper. She also found that no one who was creating this e-government material was considering how to maintain these digital documents, especially those that change frequently on the Web. People just kind of assumed someone was taking care of it. In March of this year, they held the Digital Preservation Best Practices Exchange which found that digital preservation programs require a STRONG foundation. The 4 elements needed to build this foundation:
• support and buy-in from stakeholders (legislative or regulatory mandate helpful);
• educate those above you who fund, around you who create pubs, IT so they don't dump the server, and the CIO as s/he determines enterprise architecture;
• establish policies and standards of the organization's commitments over time; and
• collaborations and partnerships (libraries and archives).

Finally, she noted very importantly that there are no best practices developed yet for maintaining digital documents. For now, you have to go with good enough practices. We are at the point where, if we continue to wait, we will lose a generation of documents, so get started and clean it up later.

On the issue of lilbrary advocacy, Mary pointed out that:
• Advocacy is a long-term program, you have to put in before you withdraw
• Building the foundation for her program and getting buy-in is what institutionalized the program

The final speaker was James King, Chief Librarian of Ruth H. Hooker Library, Naval Research Laboratory in DC and he spoke on the transformation of scholarly communication in the digital world. Mainly he spoke on his efforts at the Naval Research Laboratory to gather as much scholarly material as possible and provide it to researchers at their desktops; they are almost exlusively digital now.

James' views on advocacy include:
• being sure you know what the customer wants
• Developing ROI stats
• figure out what your boss needs to see in order to make him look good
• anticipate needs of the scientists and make them look good, too
• get the information to the users where they need it - the "at your desktop" campaign (instead of "at your library")

Finally, James asked this question of the audience: what is role of library as a PLACE in digital future. I think a lot of people forgot the "as a PLACE" portion of the question and answered about ways in which the library is still relevant. However, a few of the ways audience members keep their libraries relevant is through educational programming, by being responsible for collecting institutional knowledge, and by connecting users who have similar information needs. I would say that the only reason to keep an institutional library in an all digital environment as a PLACE is to have that face-to-face contact, especially for new employees/users. The new summer associates at my firm do not e-mail or call me; they come to my desk. Now, whether or not the "library" as a place will exist in the digital future, or if it will just be a librarian in an office, has never been all that important to me. I know some librarians get VERY upset at the thought of the Library-as-place ceasing to exist, but to me, the librarian and access to information are the important aspects that need to be maintained.

sla2006

Posted by Anne at 08:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Lolly Gasaway's presentation on the implications of copyright in the for-profit sector was very interesting and very well-received. She began with a brief overview of the issues of the relevant important cases of the last 20 years.

• The Texaco decision (60 F.3d 913)
• Tasini (533 US 483)
• Legg-Mason (271 F.Supp 737)

It was a very good overview, introducing the attendees to the major implications of these cases. The most interesting aspects of the session to me were the issues that have never been clarified by the courts with relation to the use of materials by the for-profit community. Kudos to the Business and Finance division for presenting a session that focused specifically on the copyright concerns of this community. Some of the unanswered questions include:
• Can for-profit organizations photocopy articles if they do not archive them?
• To what extent can for-profit organizations claim fair use?
• Does a publisher lose the right to claim there is an adverse market effect if they are not registered with the Copyright Clearance Center?
• What is the impact on other for-profit entities? We're not just talking about big corporations here. Every private practice doctor and sole practice attorney is a for-profit. Can they be sued for photocopying an article?
• What is the impact on non-profit libraries if they received funding from a for-profit entity?
• Subsections b, c, and h of the section 108 library exceptions of the Copyright Act are specified in the Digital Millenium Copyright Act as applying to digital copies. What about the exceptions listed in the rest of subsections?

Many questions were answered, but there are also a lot that can not be answered without further litigation and input from the courts. Who wants to take that on?

sla2006

Posted by Anne at 08:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I guess the next big developments in search are in visualization tools, ways to view results in graphs and cluster maps and bar charts, oh my, rather than in lists of text results. I will say that the tools introduced in this session may well be very helpful to some of the attorneys at my firm. Both Thomson Data Analyzer and STN/AnaVist have similar functions although they seem to have minor differences. Of course, the big difference is in the information sources that can be searched within the applications. STN/AnaVist can conduct searches in CAplus, USPATFULL, and PCTFULL or you can import results from STN Express. In Thomson Data Analyzer, data is exported from Thomson databases and imported into the application. More importantly, you can import your own data from other systems and from your own computer system. It is my understanding after speaking with an STN rep that we can not upload external data into AnaVist. When I asked if I could include additional found patents in the AnaVist tool, I was told that I would have to include these specific patents in my STN search that can then be imported into AnaVist. To me, this gives Thomson Data Analyzer a distinct advantage. However, even with the Thomson product, the information you upload must be whole and complete. In other words, the Thomson Data Analyzer application will not go out and search for further information on your patents. If you do not load it into the system, the information (like classification codes) will not be in the analysis. Pre-built filters in Thomson Data Analyzer include Delphion, STN, Dialog, PatentWeb, Questel Orbit, Aureka, Web of Knowledge, Web of Science, Inspec, DWPI and PCI, and Original Patents.

Both tools provide the ability to share your visualization reports, at no additional charge, with co-workers who do not have passwords to the systems. Also, once the data is imported into either system, there is no additional charge to view and play with the results in the applications. Of course, there are charges if you use the application to download any of the documents linked from the tool.

I have not looked at either of these applications in depth enough, or know their pricing schemes at all, to determine if my firm will be able to subscribe to either of these tools. However, they do look somewhat promising for the attorney who has to review and categorize 2,500 patents. While it may not do all of the work for him, it seems like a good tool to at least start the categorization and analysis. Now if only someone would come up with an assignee search tool that takes the vagaries of reassignment data into account. . .

sla2006

Posted by Anne at 08:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Another meeting that I kind of poked myself into was the Public Policy Advisory Council meeting. I was the only non-council member present, but they all welcomed me anyway. We spoke briefly about the EPA library situation and Doug Newcomb gave us an update. He said that the meeting they had had with EPA officials back in April was very disheartening in that the EPA officials seem to no concept of the upfront cost needed to digitize their collection. However, he said that the budget cuts are not a done deal. The SLA, ALA, and AALL have caused some problems for the EPA plan, providing talking points for senators and really getting the public aware of the situation. And the public is not particularly pleased by the prospect of these libraries shutting down. He also noted that the problems created by potentially losing the EPA materials is not just a U.S. issue; these materials could be used internationally for environmental impact research. When you really look at the numbers, it brings it home just how absurd and sad this situation is. The EPA, a multi-billion dollar agency, is talking about a $2.5 million budget cut and closing 24 libraries. We are talking about just over $100,000 per year to fund each of these libraries. In EPA/government funding terms, that is simply not "real" money. For now, at least, the fight continues. Remember to contact your Congress critters to express your displeasure with the budget cuts and especially to provide personal stories of how access to the information has helped you.

The other big news from the Council is the adoption of the Public Policy Platform. Approved by HQ, the Platform gives Doug the ability to act immediately and without permission from HQ on any issue that falls within the perview of the public policy. This means that the Council can be much more nimble and responsive to threats that pop up; Doug can respond and write letters without first having to go through multiple layers of an approval process. However, the question which was raised and for which Doug is looking for input is this: are there specific issues that would fall within the areas technically covered by the Platform that actually go against what most of the membership believes? For example, how do members really feel about Google's refusal to provide information for the Pennsylvania Justice Department's child pornography sweep? Obviously, we don't support child pornography, but we also support individual intellectual freedom and search confidentiality for innocent Americans. So, where should the Public Policy Advisory Council come down on this type of issue? Or should they not take a stand at all? Thoughts and ideas on this topic are welcome.

sla2006

Posted by Anne at 08:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The newly-formed Government Information Division had its Board meeting today. Since I won't make it to the division meeting tomorrow, I decided to stick my head in and see what was up. The general business was pretty standard stuff, including ideas to increase membership. In fact, the division is the fastest growing division in SLA. However, most of the members are new SLA members as well. The thought is that we need to hit people when they renew their membership as this is when they are most likely to review to which divisions they are members and what other divisions are out there.

Other than that, the big news was in the planning for the Denver conference next year. Since government information touches on so many other fields (Business, Legal, Bio, IT), a lot of other divisions are interested in partnering with us. Some of the potential programs being worked on include:

• A presentation on government digital archiving efforts by Judy Russell of the GPO and a NARA representative, possibly Lou Bellardo.
• A presentation on Sci Tech information with Bonnie Carroll. (partnered with the IT division)
• Tracking animal-borne diseases with GIS (partnered with Bio)
• Mash-ups using census data, and other government information, possible focusing on the policy aspects (partnered with IT)

They are also