Library Matters

Kete needs a bit of lovin'

2011-12-05T16:37:00.007+13:00

NDF was terrific last week but I have come back with a mission around Kete.

Kete is a very cool open source product that encourages the collection of informal local content. It was developed by us back in 2007 with Digital Strategy funding and is available to anyone who wants it - for free.

A number of public libraries are now using it around the world and in New Zealand, including APNK ones. Now here's my beef: Kete needs some love.

Many of us got given Kete for free but that doesn't mean it is for free. There is a cost to keeping Kete useful and relevant going forward into the future and if you got it for free in the first place maybe its time you started contributing to its upkeep and development. Libraries could start by asking themselves a few questions:

Do we believe in the importance of developing collections of local digital content?
Do we believe in the value of informal or community created local content?
How much do we spend each year supporting our library management systems?
How much have we contributed this year to help develop Kete?
How much effort have we made to contribute in other ways to the Kete project? ie ideas for development, identifying new technologies and considering how they can be incorporated? building a Kete community of users etc?
How much value do we attach to Kete as a means to gather informal community content?
Can we afford to buy another product?
What would that product be?

The reality is that none of us have done much at all to support Kete in a practical sense. It was designed in 2007; it is 4 years old and I know there are many advances in the digital arena that have passed us by. For instance, I want to be able to easily upload images, video and sound captured on my cellphone, I want to be able to share it easily on twitter, flickr, facebook etc, I want a 'new' user interface that is really modern and user-friendly and inviting, I want streaming video, I want a tool to easily create 'things' using Kete content.

All software needs continual refreshing and updating in order to keep pace with the expectations of our users and Kete is no different. with the collective talents of those of us using Kete it should absolutely rock!

Now is the time to step up and start showing a bit of love to this really useful tool. Many of us are preparing budgets for next year. How about making a commitment by budgeting to contribute to a development fund (we'll work out the mechanics of spending it later), then identify a person or 2 who can contribute ideas on how to improve Kete. From there we delegate a working group to get those changes made - and paid for - and lets make Kete 2.0 an objective for 2012.

Imagine : reinventing library services

2011-12-02T16:45:00.004+13:00

Those who know me will know that Horowhenua Library Trust and Horowhenua District Council are about to commence construction of Te Takere, a culture and community centre. Te Takere will include the public library service but also a whole bunch of other activities and partners including the Muaupoko Tribal Authority, the Horowhenua Historical Society and Levin Family History Group. No doubt there will be others too. More>>

I have been pondering the operational aspect of Te Takere (because we have to prepare a budget for 2012/13 soon) and to do that we really need to get a handle on the service that will be delivered from Te Takere. I am a great one for models or frameworks and last night I spent half the night pondering this issue ... with some excitement I might add!

Tonight I must sleep and the best way to ensure that is do a brain dump, create a thought piece and invite all those clever people out there in the world to help me hammer something out. I'm aiming for crowd-sourced brilliance :)

Imagine : reinventing library services.

View more presentations from Joann Ransom

Update on NZ Koha trademark

2011-11-25T16:16:00.004+13:00

Who would have thought that one little blog post on a Tuesday morning would have generated so much interest and debate and support.

Horowhenua Library Trust have been bowled over by the generosity of a global community who are as concerned as we are at the PTFS New Zealand trade application to register the mark Koha in relation to software.

We have received hundreds of emails offering support for fighting the ‘good fight’. I haven’t quite replied to them all yet – but I am trying . The press have provided balanced coverage with Radio NZ, TV1 and TV3 all reporting the story pretty accurately here, generating much discussion in Maori and mainstream media forums.

We have accumulated donations of about $12k, mostly through $20 and $50 donations from individuals around the globe (including many Americans) and the generosity of the legal profession offering free representation is amazing.

We have accepted the services of Sacha Judd, Andrew Matangi & John Glengarry from Buddle Findlay, assisted by Rochelle Furneaux, who have agreed to work pro-bono for us (bless them all I say). They have been guiding us for the last few days and are busy preparing a objection to the PTFS / Liblime application should one be necessary.

We believe we are well placed now to mount a strong legal challenge and we think we have enough in donations to cover filing fees, document costs and other disbursements. While It goes completely against my nature to turn down donations to Horowhenua Library Trust, in all conscience we should stop the fundraising drive at this stage. Rest assured if is necessary to challenge the PTFS application all the way to the High Court then we may well be coming back cap in hand!

PTFS have issued a press release saying they are willing to hand the NZ Koha trademark over to a non-profit representing the Koha community. That organisation is the Horowhenua Library Trust, elected by the Koha global community, and we would be delighted to accept that offer and add the NZ Koha trademark to the store of other Koha community property we currently hold in trust ie domain names and trademarks. It would be a very simple matter for PTFS to assign the existing application to Horowhenua Library Trust and we invite PTFS to do so. The Library Trust has never stopped any Koha user or developer or vendor from carrying out their business. Our track record over the last 12 years of releasing the Koha code and supporting the Koha community to go about its business unimpeded is exemplary and we have no intention of ever changing that approach.

Plea for help from Horowhenua Library Trust

2011-11-22T10:32:00.011+13:00

Horowhenua Library Trust is the birth place of Koha and the longest serving member of the Koha community. Back in 1999 when we were working on Koha, the idea that 12 years later we would be having to write an email like this never crossed our minds. It is with tremendous sadness that we must write this plea for help to you, the other members of the Koha community.

The situation we find ourselves in, is that after over a year of battling against it, PTFS/Liblime have managed to have their application for a Trademark on Koha in New Zealand accepted. We now have 3 months to object, but to do so involves lawyers and money. We are a small semi rural Library in New Zealand and have no cash spare in our operational budget to afford this, but we do feel it is something we must fight.

For the library that invented Koha to now have to have a legal battle to prevent a US company trademarking the word in NZ seems bizarre, but it is at this point that we find ourselves.

So, we ask you, the users and developers of Koha, from the birth place of Koha, please if you can help in anyway, let us know.

jransom at library.org.nz

Background reading:

Code4Lib article: How hard can it be : developing in Open Source [history of the development of Koha] by Joann Ransom and Chris Cormack.
Timeline of Koha :development
Koha history visualization

Help us
If you would to donate towards the cost of mounting a legal challenge creditcards can be used on paypal below:
Cheques made out to Te Horowhenua Trust can be posted to Levin Library, 10 Bath Street, Levin, 5510. Bank deposits can be made to Te Horowhenua Trust, Westpac Levin, 030667 0299274 00 ref: Trademark.

Otherwise, any discussion, public support and ideas on how to proceed would be gratefully received.

My keynote from KohaCon11

2011-11-01T00:20:00.002+13:00

It Takes a Village

View more presentations from Joann Ransom

Notes from day 1 of KohaCon11 in Thane, India.

2011-10-31T19:01:00.015+13:00

I am in India !
India has long been on my bucket list of places to see before I die - and here I am! The Koha community has gathered in Thane, Mumbai as guests of VPN Thane. There are around 120-150 of us and from a number of different countries.

Opening session: Dr VJ Bedekar
What an amazing man! Clearly has a deep understanding and commitment to open source. Dr Bedekar has extended every hospitality to us; even making his personal car available to collect us each day from the hotel. Really, there is nothing more that could have been done to make us feel welcome and our stay here successful.

I delivered the keynote address next, slides and text of my presentation here. It went quite well I think. I wanted to stress the importance of vendors and libraries and end users and developers all working together to make good software and the simple rules to keep the community working together well: trust, share, grow (and don't be a dick).

The Principal, Dr (Mrs) Shakuntala Singh is so warm and gracious and intelligent and talented. We have been told that she was a champion badminton player, an accomplished musician and has a PhD in Philosophy. She has spoken with conference attendees several times and is clearly held in high regard by her staff.

Paul Poulain (the only person to have attended every KohaCon) reminded us all of the history of the Koha project. What I have noticed is that the Koha Community has stopped pretending to care about LibLime: "They are on their island and we are on ours". This is a healthy step and allows us to continue developing great software without the distraction of a LibLime circus on the sidelines.

Vijay Rahene presented a paper which reminded me of the important role librarians have in teaching new technologies so that our library members can access information - which now increasingly resides online and not on paper.

I love good orators and Awoyemi Akinade is such a man. Terrific message delivered in a passionate and engaging manner. Talked about how African scientists need open access in order to join the global scientific community. Copyright and access is part of problem: "the big business of copyright." Costs money to access this stuff - too much money but you also have to pay and its impossible to pay if can't access creditcards.

Access was one strand of his talk, but also publishing. We need to redress the imbalance of Nigerian / third world publishing particularly scientific research and findings. Indexing was the 3rd aspect he covered. Lots of stuff is published in Nigeria, paper and pixels, but is not indexed and findable via online methods. The internet is overwhelmingly US, English-speaking and western-focused. My takeaway from Akinade: Africa's scientists have much to offer, but the problem is access to western data and places to publish their work. We need an open source, open access repository for scientfic publication.

Next up was Brooke Johnson, looking stunning in a heavily embroidered sari. She talked about introducing lots of gaming tricks and devices into Koha to make it more 'friendly' and rewarding ... much like a computer game. Very stimulating session and lots of great ideas. Slides here.

Sadhir Badhe delivered a paper on Koha in Indian Public Libraries and talked off the challanges to automation: people are actually your biggest problem and their aversion to change. This relates directly to commenst made by 2 very concerned librarians at the end of 2 days of solid education. They asked 'but how do we print out the book cards". They couldn't quite understand that you don't run a manual system when you have an automated one. Marijana from Croatia had the same experience there, and Koustubha gave up saying no and just printed out cards for his library... so interesting.

Robin Sheat gave a very good talk on the importance of 'keeping up' as in on the main development trunk of Koha. His graphical illustration of the forks and trunks etc made it so clear. We really must get up to 3.6 asap. His slides are here.

Dr Bedekar rounded off the day with good summary. Full Unicode support is ABSOLUTELY CRITICAL in an international context. Sometimes, in the US, we forget that. I couldn't agree more.

One final thing: KohaCon11 was written up in the local newspaper.

Warm fuzzies

2011-09-12T19:54:00.002+12:00

It doesn't take much to keep me motivated in my work and today I was floating on Cloud 9.

One of our regulars is a lovely IHC client who calls me Flossy. She is about 55 and has a mental age of about 8. She loves Fairy books and we keep an eye out for new titles to give her when she comes in.

Today she was waiting outside the library at opening time, and entered beside me as part of the official party for the opening of our Pasifika Festival. After the formalities and the Kava Ceremony and an hour spent making a Samoan flower garland for her hair (with a hot glue gun!) she came and gave me a huge hug and said "Thanks for making our library so lovely".

That why I am a public librarian :)

Thing 7 : Face to Face Networks and Professional Organisations

2011-09-01T09:06:00.010+12:00

This weeks topic is professional organisations and I need to consider my experiences with them. What involvement have I had? How has it affected my career? What have I learned? Why are/aren’t I a member?

I first joined LIANZA when I was a student back in 1989 or so. I loved reading Library Life, the professional magazine, but once I had to renew as a full priced member I dropped it because I felt it was just too expensive. I did not resurrect my LIANZA membership again until I had to as part of the professional registration system which was introduced 3 or 4 years ago.

I gained my old-school library qualification from Wellington Teachers College back in the late 80s. It was an extremely practical qualification and graduates were really useful employees because they could actually 'do' the work rather than talk about it. I had experience with 2 university-qualified librarians and neither of them were much chop tending to get lost in intricacies and irrelevancies but couldn't even catalogue a book or cope with snotty-nosed, poor white-trash kids climbing on their knee for a cuddle at storytime. For a small town public library they were hopelessly out of their depth. Anyway, I digress ... as I do ....

I had been consciously building a strong CV for at least 5 years before the LIANZA Professional Registration Scheme came out; very deliberately upskilling myself knowing that my then boss would be retiring in the near future. I have been in this same job since I was 21. I came as an untrained, silly girl and worked my way up the ranks, first as a junior library assistant, then cataloguer, Deputy Head of Libraries and now Boss Lady. I gained my library qualification, then a degree with handpicked papers for this job, including modern English, feminist and post colonial lit, NZ and Pacific history and politics, management and journalism. Then I did a 1 year part time course on Linux, and then a 3 year part time course in Network Administration. I knew that when Rosalie retired I would have to face change. That could include applying for her job; knowing I would have to be much, much better than any other applicant to get the job because I had been here so long. The other option would be to apply for a job somewhere else and for that I would also need a brillliant CV to overcome what appears to be a sluggish, unambitious attitude to my career (by staying with one organisation my entire adult life).

All that by way of explaining that I needed Professional Registration to acknowledge my value as a librarian because my library qualification was practically worthless and so that is the only reason I rejoined LIANZA.

I occasionally attend local LIANZA gatherings: AGMS, Mid Winter dos etc. I always enjoy these gatherings immensely; the librarians are bright, bubbly, inspirational, clever, generous .... I do like Librarians as a general rule.

I have never become an office holder and at some point I probably should but at this point I'm not totally confident that LIANZA has a clear idea of its role in relation to APLM, the Association of Public Library Managers, which formed 3 or 4 years ago. I think APLM has siphoned off a lot of 'energy' and expertise.

I used to consider the annual LIANZA Conference a 'must' to attend each year but I am more committed to attending the NDF conference now. The reason for this is that I find NDF stimulating and inspirational whereas LIANZA is often more 'look what we did'. NDF is all about digital collaborations between the GLAM sector: galleries, libraries, archives and museums and I do believe that is the way we need to be moving. Both conferences are excellent networking opporunities and many librarians attend both but the inspirational, thought provoking, 'jaw dropping' nature of NDF suits me better.

I am thinking lately that I might like to join SOLGM because I am becoming convinced that we librarians need to find better ways to sell our stories to the Councils who fund us. We have to learn how to place our stories in the right framework and tell them with the right words.

Thing 6: online networks

2011-08-20T22:04:00.005+12:00

Linked In

I have had a Linked In profile for a while now. The recommended reading by Sharlyn Lauby was very good. I went back and reviewed my profile. It is basically pretty good: professional photo, fairly explicit introduction to my work experience and interests, I have 3 referee statements and around 100 connections, none of whom I am embarrassed of :) I have never bothered with groups before but after looking at the examples I see they do add weight to a profile. Reminds me of Mum saying: "you are judged by who you associate with". I have my Slideshare account linked to my Linkedin which means that several of my slides from presentations can be viewed. I am careful what presentations I have saved online as I am aware they show on both sites. I never update my profile which I will have to address. I don't feed my Twitter comments here because I am pretty lighthearted and irreverent on Twitter sometimes ... and I like that tweets can't be found after 3 weeks or so - not so with LinkedIn.

Facebook

I have had a facebook account in the past; I was a reasonably early adopter well ahead of my kids who were still using bebo. However I cancelled it about a year ago for a number of reasons:

I got sick to death of the way facebook kept changing their approach to privacy,
I used facebook for my family only - and I explicitly stated that on my profile but still received dozens of requests from colleagues and vague associates wanting to be my friend (I hated saying no),
I allowed myself to get bullied into friending my kids and their mates and accepting their invitations to Mafia Wars, Farmtown etc and then ...
I got hooked into stupid online games (farming)
sick of stupid updates from friends about game, quizzes etc.

I actually find Twitter my best professional networking tool - and I chat daily with colleagues all around the world.

I don't regret closing facebook at all except for relinquishing my account means I can never get jransom back again if I ever regret not having an account.

Thing 5 : Reflective Practice

2011-08-20T21:49:00.002+12:00

The post on the cpd23 website for this Thing is very, very good. I need to do reflective writing more often for two reasons:

I know it is a useful way to 'unpack' recent events that have not gone so well and figure out what happened and how to avoid repeating mistakes,
I need to write my professional development journal for reregistration.

I am not going to reflect on this project yet. I have been away for weeks and weeks doing a big piece of writing for work and I need to catch up to Thing 11! BUt I know I have to start work on my journal in the next month.

Thing 4: Current awareness

2011-08-20T20:59:00.007+12:00

Twitter

I am a Twitter addict ... just love it. Here are some of the reasons why:

It is not time consuming - I can pop in and catch up very quickly through a quick scan back to where I last read, or I can just search on @me and reply to any I need to,
or It can be a great time waster: I can 'chat' with people, join conversations, follow links and check out trending hashtags,
some TV programmes are great fun with a twitter hashtag open - the commentary can be as amusing as the tv show (eg My big fat gypsy wedding is hilarious with commentary),
Extremely useful and informative during natural disasters: Christchurch earthquakes #eqnz, snow storms last week #snowmageddon etc,
professional development: I get so many fabulous links from Twitter; its like having my personal reading list 'weeding' who filter out the best links for me.

RSS Feeds

Before Twitter there was Bloglines and I absolutely loved it. Every evening I would park up the couch with a kid each side watching tv and catch up on a bunch of posts from my favourite websites. Then Twitter came along and I fell out of the habit of reading Bloglines so religiously ... and then the announcement that Bloglines was closing. I sulkily transferred all my feeds to Google Reader and sadly it is just not the same. I have found it hard to get used to but I think I have just fallen into a new groove with Twitter.

http://lonewolflibrarian.wordpress.com

http://beattiesbookblog.blogspot.com/

http://envirohistorynz.wordpress.com/

http://www.greatleadershipbydan.com/

I have grouped my feeds into lists and while I read my 'favourites' every day some lists back up for a week or two. My favourite blogs at the moment are:

Pushnote

This is a completely new tool for me. It doesn't like me to be honest though I have signed up and rated 1 or 2 sites to see how it works. I didn't post it to my twitter account because i hate it when people flood my stream with updates like this ie runkeeper, foursquare etc. I can't envisage a way that I can use this to add value to my life. If I find a good site I mark it in delicious,

Mark Osborne : the Open Source School

2011-07-12T16:44:00.001+12:00

Mark is Deputy Principal of Albany Senior High School. Open source software and cloud computing have been essential in the establishment of this school, and in this presentation from the 2010 EDtalks Symposium Mark outlines his beliefs about the advantages and opportunities that open source and cloud computing bring to the students, teachers and school community.

Thing 3 : Consider Your Personal Brand

2011-07-01T15:49:00.005+12:00

So who else has done a spot of vanity searching this week?

Google Search
A Google search on my name gave 3 pretty solid pages about me, but by the 4th page it was about half me and half other Joann Ransoms (there are lots in the USA you know).

The first page of listings showed I am pretty active on this interweb thingee:

a blog post I wrote about CPD23 on this blog,
my linkedin professional profile,
my slideshare site with a bunch of professional presentations,
my 'local' professional biography on our library website,
a blogpost congratulating me being named an ALJ Mover and Shaker,
a Youtube interview with Kathryn Greenhill on 'hacking the library',
a blog post by The Shifted Librarian (Jenny Levine) talking about my Kete presentation at Bridging Worlds in Singapore,
photo of me in Cindi Trainor's Flickr stream (from Bridging World's),
my Good Reads profile (what?!),
Movers and Shakers article in American Library Journal.

Pages 2 and 3 are far less 'professional' and the Digital NZ search result is fascinating - so much personal stuff! This includes photos of the kids and I walking along Manawatu Gorge train tracks in very unflattering garb - but delightfully holding my son's hand (he would NEVER allow me to do that now), a photo of my Mum and her bloke, me with a skinful of booze (you'd never know) and dressed in a very fetching floral frock and a Serbian (or Croatian?) Army hat, plus lots and lots of links to content I loaded up into Kete Horowhenua.

A fair bit of my writing is starting to appear on these pages too: my most read blogposts for instance. The top 4 are about Koha and bullying ... which is interesting (not the Koha - thats no surprise - but the teenage bullying). I have only ever written 2 posts about bullying (out of 162) and they both make this list of search results ... not sure how I feel about that...

Google images shows almost a whole page of the lovely photo of me in Singapore taken by the very talented Cindi Trainor (you can't see the Singapore Sling I was nursing or even recognize that we were sitting in Raffles). I wrote and asked Cindi if I could use it as my 'official' photo on twitter, blog profiles etc. which was a very smart thing to do. It is a photo I am very happy with and it is the photo that Google finds over and over again. Sadly, however, I am now quite grey (ok - white) and my lovely bright hair in that photo could only be regained through spending vast amounts at the hairdresser, so it may be time to update my photo ... false advertising and all that.

I remember in Singapore Jenny Levine commented over a meal or a drink or something how important it was to 'author' your own online profile and I have deliberately done that over the last few years. Her reasoning was something to do with identity theft ie 'THIS is me' but this whole Google vanity search thing has been an eye opener.

Name used
I always use jransom wherever I can - not some nickname - mostly because I couldn't think of anything clever. As time has worn on I am actualy quite happy that my name has become my brand.

Professional vs Personal Identity
I have merged the two because I believe that people connect with personalities rather than organisations. I want to be an authentic and 'real' online person that people can relate to and engage with. I do try very hard to keep my family and truly personal stuff offline. I used to have facebook for family only but got sick of turning down friend requests from professional colleagues and people I didn't know at all. I might have viewed facebook as 'strictly personal' but clearly the rest of the world didn't / doesn't.

Visual Brand
My professional blog Library Matters is very clean and plain and modern but my recipe blog Lest they be Lost is branded entirely differently. This is very deliberate to show that my recipes are a completely different side of my 'personna'.

Thing 2 : look at other blogs

2011-06-27T13:12:00.003+12:00

Looking at other blogs in just asking for trouble because I follow so many already! I love my Google reader and have a bunch of blogs which I read every day - or whenever they publish. I follow a bunch of library blogs, but consciously follow some from other, related fields.

I heard or read somewhere that you should occasionally go to a 'left field' conference because it's amazing what concepts can be filched and applied to libraries. For example, supply chain management. I helped a friend with a course of study once (proof reading) and then applied those principles to the work flow in the workplace.... I digress though: back to blogs :)

I have been through and looked at all the NZ blogs (us Kiwi's have to stick together) and then I dived in to some of the new blogs written by cpd23 participants. The delicious listing is very clever - being sorted by countries. I do hope we get to learn how to do that! Bit surprised to find one of the cpd23ers has created a blog with the same title as mine ... will send little mind daggers at them and hope they choose a unique name instead.

Thing 1: Why I'm doing the cpd 23 things course

2011-06-22T17:20:00.004+12:00

I have long considered working through a 23 Things programme and never quite got around to it... until today.

Joining a global 'team project' like this will help me commit to going the distance. I much prefer doing things alongside others rather than beavering away on my own.

I decided a couple of years ago that my old 'library' skills gained in the late 80s were almost totally irrelevant and that I needed to upskill - and fast. I started playing around with Twitter (love it), started a blog (to save interesting internet stuff to share with my colleagues), use Linkedin (professional contacts) and dabbled briefly in FaceBook (I've moved on).

However there are lots of things I havn't played with so this will be a way to work through a bunch of stuff in an orderly manner. Oh and I'd like my work colleagues to come along for the ride to!

7 Top TED Talks

2011-05-12T13:25:00.000+12:00

I am still amazed when I discover people who don't know about TED which is a web site of riverting talks by remarkable people.

In the spirit of the Agnostic Maybe blogpost here are my top TED talks (in no particUlar order)

1. William Kamkwamba: On building a windmill and How I harnessed the wind
2. Elizabeth Gilbert on Nurturing Creativity
3. Hans Rosling showing the best stats you've ever seen
4. Sir Ken Robinson: do schools kill creativity?
5. Aimee Mullins: Accessible design in prosthetics
6. Temple Grandin: The world needs all kinds of minds.

10 Things you should know about librarianship

2011-04-05T16:23:00.003+12:00

If you want to work in libraries

View more presentations from Ned Potter

The Future of Libraries by R. David lankes

2011-04-05T15:42:00.004+12:00

This is a splendid presentation which I have watched several times now - and which I will certainly watch again:

Future of Libraries from R. David Lankes on Vimeo.

I need a Telecomms 'broker'

2011-03-20T19:35:00.007+13:00

Wasted another half hour of my life yesterday in a Telecom shop waiting for someone to help me; not the first time I've done that either. I gave up in the end because there were 4 other people also queueing - and I needed someone to spend time helping me.

You see it occurs to me that my family spends a significant whack every month on telecommunications and it needs reviewing. It is so hard to do and takes so much time and energy. I just want someone to say this is the best option for you and it will cost $x.

We have 7 cell phones on 3 different networks in my immediate family. Vodafone doesn't get good reception at our home; meaning only from the eastern end of the south-facing couch if you hold you arm up high at a 45 degree angle, the upper bunk in the boys bedroom or standing on the bbq table in the backyard with your left leg tucked up behind your right ear ... not ideal really. Telecom mobile coverage is great.

But Telecom broadband is shite at the beach - terribly slow. I could hand deliver messages to London quicker than Telecom 'max/max' service. Which makes no sense because I switched to Actrix and its bloody fast. I switched because Atrix reset data quotas daily which saves masses of stress because I am no longer have to scream at the children from day 16 in the month until the counter is reset. How can Actrix be so fast over Telecom lines when Telecom's was so bad? It uses the same bloody lines!!

So now we 3 cell phones that need replacing (2 on the old network) and 1 which is out of its contract and simply hideous to use; I can't see the screen outside and fonts are too small for a woman of a certain age.

Oh and no one rings us on the landline now (except the ex-bloke and the bank and I'll happily avoid both of them) so I can't see the point of keeping it - except I need it for Sky. We have Sky digital because its the only way to get TV reception (yes even the free ordinary channels) . If we go with Vodafone we can get cheap Sky .... but no cell reception.

I hate it all ...

So this is what I want:

The 4 kids and I to have 1 phone each, we can all text anyone no matter network they are on, with a generous text allowance, and we can all phone each other too. At least 2 of the phones need data plans for checking emails, facebook, twitter etc I want to have fast broadband at home and either a massive data allowance so we never run out, or 1GB data reset daily (my preference). I want to keep Sky (kids would like MySky). 3 of us need new phones - I'd like a smart phone. And I don't want to spend a month sorting it out or a fortune every month.

Making models from text

2011-03-18T11:42:00.026+13:00

The purpose of this post is show the steps I went through from text to diagram. Turns out this a useful skill to have!)

Step 1: What data 'fields' do you want to communicate?

The text I was working with was:

Council Strategic plans,
Library Trust aims,
Key activities,
Operational plans and activities
Key performance indicators.

First step is work out what are the relevant or crucial data 'fields' that will illustrate the point you want to make. Make sure you know what the point you want to make is and remember that less is more so strip it back as far as possible.

I wanted to map Trust activity directly to Council strategy. Council are interested in governance not operations so I eliminated all operational data. This left me with a list of Council Strategic documents and a list of Library Trust aims.

Step 2: Mapping A to B

I 'tweaked' my list of library aims so that I ended up with a clear 1:1 mapping between the two lists. I dropped some Council Strategies which were not supported by Trust aims.

Step 3: Layout
Next play around with the sort of shape that would work for your data. One time I made a model like a lego construction with cyclinders resting on platforms. This was to illustrate distinct 'pillars' (focus areas of activity) that together formed a 'platform' of admin.

In this one I was playing with interweaving, perhaps using Council Strategies as the warp and Trust aims as the weft. Then I thought about library activity reaching out (into the community) from a strong (Council strategic framework) centre. I settled on Trust activities as the focus because it is OUR document. Council strategy is the background or framing.

Step 4: Mock Up
I liked this shape because the circle 'corners' bulge or flex out from a fairly 'prescribed' or focussed set of library aims (straight lines). The useful 'space' in the middle was formed from using square text boxes in triangles.

I use Microsoft Publisher for almost all of my diagrams, but sometimes Google Sketchup. (Actually to be totally honest, I take my pencil drawing and ask my 13 year old son to do it for me.)

Publisher as a format is a bit tricky but its a great creation tool. Think about negative space as well as positive space. Colours and fonts are really important too: some colours will make things pop off the page while other colours will help shapes 'recede'. When you have it all done select all and then save as a jpeg. This means you can insert it as an image in to any document.

Step 5: Finish
Also, jot down the colour 'formula' so you can match it with a colour scheme in your finished report.

Mapping Library Aims to Council Strategies.

2011-03-18T09:18:00.006+13:00

Its that time again and the Library Trust is putting together our Statement of Intent for 2011/2012.

The Statement of Intent is a formal document which the Trust, as a Council Controlled Organisation, is required to submit to Council each year. In a nutshell its purpose is to assure Council that public funds are being applied in an appropriate way and being managed responsibly.

I think it is important to map the Library's key activities to Council's strategic direction to make an unequivocal point that Libraries are a key service delivery of arm for Council, helping them to achieve what they set out to do.

I will post the entire SOI here once it has been accepted by Council but I am quite pleased with a model I created this week mapping our key aims to Council strategies.

Fig 1. Te Horowhenua Trust aims mapped to Horowhenua District Council
planning and strategy documents (green).

The time for libraries is now

2011-03-18T09:14:00.002+13:00

The time for Libraries is NOW

View more presentations from Ned Potter

A day in the life of a library - Wednesday

2011-01-26T10:44:00.008+13:00

Hoping for a more productive day than yesterday - and quite enjoying this 'reflection' aspect of A Day in the Life of a Library.

8.30 - 8.45: Trouble shooting wireless keyboard and mouse - still no go. New batteries fail too .... I'll keep pondering and banging away on my notebook.

8.45 - 9.20: Clearing emails, posted to list about non fiction lending patterns and how to map them to buying patterns,

9.20 - 9.45: Received call from hospital: they can operate on my daughter tomorrow! Frantically clearing my diary, postponing our family holiday next week, changing bookings etc.

9.45 - 10: Learnt a new game with staff and volunteers at morning tea: Bananagrams. Awful game - exhausting and I can't cope with the adrenaline overload so early in the morning. It fits the brief though: can accommodate 2 - 7+ players, uses word skills and is fast (we got 3 games out in 15 minutes.)

10 - 11: Talked to Chair of the Library Trust about this weeks Trustee meeting that I will now miss, arranging for the library consultant who is helping with Te Takere (our new library / community centre) to speak to the GreyPower meeting about about the library, services to elderly and what Te Takere will offer to seniors in the District. Briefing student who is working through a bunch of IT issues for me: updating antivirus programme, reformatting harddrives and disposing of old equipment.

11 - 5 .45: Researching Annual Plans from other public libraries for content and layout inspiration. Started drafting our Statement of Intent 2011-2012. Thinking about key activities and projects for the next financial year and what resources we will need.

A Day in the Life of a Library : Tuesday

2011-01-23T19:06:00.018+13:00

Monday
Public holiday in Wellington Region - Anniversary Day.

Tuesday
8.30 - 9.45: Stowing away tables, chairs and display boards from the Library booth at the API show on Saturday and Sunday, carrying carpet roll back to the children's library to cover up the lino area used for the children's holiday programme that ran over the last few weeks, helped shelve gazillions of books returned over the long weekend.

9.45 - 10am: Morning tea (yay - coffee).

10.00 - 10.20: Plugged my computer back into my office but CAN NOT get the wretched wireless keyboard to talk to the PC. We took my PC down to the API show to run the slideshow promoting our new library building. Gave up in disgust and got my netbook out while I ponder what the problem is...

10.20 - 10.25: Reviewed bank account balances and transferred most of the building fund into a new term investment.

10.25 - 10.30: Fielded a phonecall from a mother of 4 children who just loved our Summer reading programme and couldn't sing the priases of our Children's Librarian highly enough. I rang said Librarian, who is taking a few well earned days off, and told her how much she had been appreciated and how obvious it was that she loved her work.

10.30 - 10.40: Read the agenda I prepared last week for the Trustees meeting being held on Thursday this week to see that it still makes sense (I wrote it in a bit of a flurry) and to see what additional information / preparation I need to do before the meeting. Nothing - which is good, because I would really like to go and help the technical services team out for a few hours. We have a team challenge on this month to reduce the time it takes for new items to transition from acquisitions to shelf ready. Target: 3 weeks including cataloguing and processing. It is a big morale booster when managers work in the trenches when team challenges are on.

10.40 - 10.50: Reviewed and accepted quotes for Koha enhancements and a few bug fixes.

10.50 - 11.00: Checked Twitter posts - followed up 3 links.

11.00 - 11.15: Cleared emails and read a few. Turns out I only ready about 10% of my emails so it really does pay to put an eye catching and relevant subject in if you want me to read your emails.

11.15 - 11.20: Wrote this blog post for A Day in the Life Project.

11.20 - 1 1.30: Answering an email from a Koha newbie about relative merits of Item Types vs Collection Codes in planning for data migration to Koha 3.2. I struggled with this too and recalled some blog posts I'd written nearly a year ago where I worked this issue through with the help of the Koha Community. Sometimes the sheer flexibility of Koha can be a hard thing; it really does force the librarian to 'know' their collection and how they want Koha to work for 'them'. Its a learning curve for librarians used to a traditional or proprietary LMS, involving intellectual engagement but also engagement with the Koha community of developers and other librarians.

11.30 - 12.00: Reviewed the GST return to spot obvious mistakes - getting a refund this time - yee hah!

12.00 - 1.00: lunch. Taught some of the staff a new card game: Five Crowns. We have been playing upwords for years - a heavily modified version which means we can get a game out in 10 minutes - and it was time for a new game.

1.15 - 3pm: Mummy duty. Had to race home and pick up daughter and take her to the Dr (she has tonsilitis - again) then back home again. Such are the joys of being a working single parent.

3pm - 3.10: Checking emails. 2 requests for more info about Koha item type vs collection codes decision making. Screen dumped our circulation rules matrix and sent it out. Also a Google Alert mail about a blog post mentioning Kete Horowhenua; forwarded this on to Walter at Katipo who did the development work.

3.10pm - 3.15: Updating this post, checked Twitter and followed up on 3 more links.

3.15 - 4pm: Digging out spreadsheets and data conversion notes from a year ago which I referred to in a blog post to share with another Koha library.... wish I could remember which ones I was referring to :( Writing a long email explanation as well on what I've learnt since.

4pm - 5.15pm: Processing new books (at last!) working alongside volunteers. Our volunteer processors and staff cataloguers are very competitive - which can definitely be used to advantage when we are trying to clear backlogs. Volunteers are essential to our organisation and the only 'payment' they receive is comaraderie and appreciation. I am very aware of this and it really is a treat to laugh and work on the processing table for an hour or 2 enjoying their company and winding up the cataloguers (who can see the processing pile whittling away before their eyes).

10.30 - 11.00 : checking emails, twitter and flicking through my 'favourite' blogs - don't have time to check them all tonight. Will try again tomorrow night. I feel guilty checking my blogs at work - which is crazy - so I usually work through my blog aggregator in the evenings, starring ones to read later and forwarding selected posts to staff mailing list and library Trustees.

Things I learnt over Summer

2011-01-10T09:14:00.006+13:00

Back to work today after 3 weeks off. I always take a long time to soak into my holoidays so its timely to reflect on what I've learnt:

Have the right tools and ingredients for the job: you can not make a good guacamole without fresh limes, it is impossible to demolish and rebuild a fence without a claw hammer and it is worth paying $2 more for 'good' sausages,
Some things do take time: the slow and steady approach to toasting marshmellows over glowing coals is ultimately far more productive than a quick fly-through a roaring flame which inevitably ends in tears,
Look at the big picture: I adore my children and they are growing into gorgeous adults - even the naughty ones (actually they are all naughty sometimes),
Just enough can be enough: gin is better in moderation, as is sunbathing and late nights.
Adversity is the steel for sharpening your game: a good beating in rough surf leaves you feeling invigorated and refreshed,
Everyday heroes: we each have the power to change and save lives,
Trust in the power of collaboration: sumptuous bbq banquets can be assembled quickly, quietly and without fuss at very short notice by a group of friends all looking out for each other,
Surround yourself with 'good' people and ignore the 'bad': mean or nasty people add nothing of value to my life and I can choose to ignore them. They only have power if I give them attention.

Why I support Life Saving NZ

2011-01-04T14:25:00.003+13:00

I live at Waitarere Beach, a lovely spot on the western seaboard of the lower half of the North Island, New Zealand. This beach is not considered a dangerous beach by any means, has no big surf waves or Bondi Rescue type activities, but twice now a very good family friend who is a life guard at the Waitarere Surf Club has saved lives. This is the report from the Club Captain about yesterday's rescue:

"Big rescue 3pm approx, swell 1m, strong North Westerly, choppy seas. 5 people total, 2 adults 3 teenagers, caught in a hole (trench) out the back and could not get in due to rip.

This was an awkward moment as only two Lifeguards were on the beach and one was at the Clubhouse/equipment shed. So with calm heads, one Lifeguard swam out with rescue tube and kept patients afloat (4 hanging on tube and one on him). They were panicking, screaming and in distress. While second Lifeguard radioed for third to return to beach and also getting IRB into water with help from public.

Third lifeguard arrived to help man IRB and sped to aid of patients and their fellow Lifeguard who had his hands full keeping 5 heads afloat.They put 4 weakest in IRB (as IRB was maxed out) and one was towed to shore by First Lifeguard. First Aid treatment was given for mild shock and monitoring for signs of secondary drowning.

Our Lifeguards acted cooly and calmly to this dangerous situation, their training has shown them all to be first rate Lifeguards. The club is very proud of them. On occasions like this it shows the true value of the service. As the moto says Surf Lifeguards are "In It For Life". Lifeguards were Nathan Berry, Levi Tate and Mathew Duff."

The club is funded through club memberships, active or support, grants and fundraising. So if you ever have the chance to donate to a surf life saving club please do because they save lives.

Te Takere Plans get Green Light

2010-12-09T16:56:00.003+13:00

At the Horowhenua District Council meeting on 8 December 2010 Council gave the green light for revised Levin Community Centre plans to go out for public consultation.

The plans show a multi-functional $7 million facility which will be located in the old Countdown building as well as utilising the existing library adjacent. It’s hoped the facility will become a ‘heart and hub’ for the Horowhenua community. The building, designed by Architect Brian Elliott of Designgroup Stapleton Elliott, takes its inspiration from a waka and a ‘fly through’ of the building was presented at the meeting.

Five submitters spoke in support of the proposal – although some with caveats around the cost.

Cr Peter Keenan also announced the donation of a collection of rare bird prints by artists Bill Howard, Elaine Power and Russell Jackson on behalf of the Keenan family to the project. It is anticipated that the prints may be displayed within the new facility.

What is the proposed name and what does it mean?

Te Takeretanga o Kura-Hau-Po (or Te Takere as it will be known for for short) is the proposed name for the new facility and offers many different layers of meaning. Te Takeretanga means ‘dispersion of knowledge’ while the word ‘Te Takere’ means ‘hull’ – the place in the waka where taonga (treasures) are kept for safety. The bottom of Lake Punahou (Horowhenua) is also said to be the shape of a hull. Kurahaupo is the name of the Muaupoko waka.

What's included in Te Takere

Te Takere’s design, services and resources will appeal to all age groups. It will be free to visit, have good parking and be conveniently located to shops and other recreational facilities. Te Takere will be an ideal venue for performances, events, markets and fairs. Inside, it will be well equipped with services such as the café, toilets and baby changing facilities – all of which will encourage people to stay longer and enjoy their visit.

The plans show an exciting array of different spaces within the floor space of 4,080 square metres. These include:

§ The Takere –a large 500m² public exhibition, performance, function and social gathering space located in the heart of the facility and effectively connected to the outdoor civic space

§ Well equipped meeting rooms (of differing sizes and with several accessible outside of normal opening hours) which will offer meeting space and storage for local clubs and organisations, privacy for business meetings, and quiet areas for seminars and study

§ A Youth Area of approximately 250m² which includes spaces for social and recreational activity, group and individual study, mentoring and support

§ A safe, exciting and well resourced Children’s Area (of approximately 320m²) adjacent to an enclosed outdoor area

§ A comfortable and accessible 200m² Seniors Area (for relaxing, socialising, reading, meeting and participating in community activities and forums) which will include comfortable furniture, a TV lounge, news area and computers located near the Takere and the sheltered enclosed garden

§ A Te Ao Maori space (of approximately 150m²) which will located close to the entrance to Te Takere will reflect the heritage and history of all local iwi in Horowhenua and provide performance and exhibition space to showcase Maori arts and culture

§ A local history area (of approximately 100m²) which will provide information about the history of the district and promote local activities and achievements

§ Heritage and genealogy storage and research facilities (approximately 300m²)

§ A designated practice, content creation and recording facility (approximately 50m²) - designed and resourced to encourage people of all ages to record, preserve, share and showcase local stories, music and talent

§ A formal learning area of 200m² which will be used for local and at-distance education programmes (accessible outside of normal opening hours)

§ Exhibition and performance spaces located in the Takere (and including a small stage and associated equipment) as well as throughout the wider facility and the adjoin outdoor areas

§ A café (located within the Takere)

§ The main library collection (approximately 750m² to allow for improved access and effective display)

§ Reception, service and transition areas (which may also include areas for clubs and organisations to provide services and advice)

§ Public toilets

§ Work and storage areas

Who is behind the project?

The project is being developed by the Horowhenua District Council and the Horowhenua Library Trust in consultation with Muaupoko Tribal Authority.

Why does Horowhenua need this facility?

There are many reasons that a facility like this is needed in the Horowhenua District. These include:

§ The development of literacy skills – through the provision of accessible resources, mentoring and support for learning.

§ The Deprivation Index shows that Horowhenua District is more socio-economically deprived than New Zealand as a whole.

§ There is a higher proportion of teen parents; children and young people account for a greater percentage of crime in the District and a higher than average proportion of young people leave school without any formal qualifications.

§ Access to telecommunications is inconsistent and in many cases, unaffordable.

§ There is a desire to improve involvement and engagement between Council, Iwi and Hapu.

§ There is a need for an improved understanding of the Maori world view and a greater awareness of local history.

§ Publicly accessible space for cultural exhibitions and activities is needed.

§ Many community groups require support and improved networking between groups and volunteers are valued by the community.

§ The District would like to increase tourist numbers and encourage new business and industry.

This building is being developed in the context of a wider town plan for Levin and it’s hoped that the new facility will become a catalyst for revitalising the town’s centre.

Te Takere supports the strategic goals identified in many of the District’s key planning documents including Horowhenua District Council’s Long Term Council Community Plan, Muaupoko 2020 strategy, Council strategies on positive ageing, youth, education, arts, heritage & culture, disability and development and the Horowhenua Library Trust strategy.

How much will it cost and where will the money come from?

§ Building Te Takere is expected to cost $7 million. This is made up of the $1.8 million spent on purchasing the Countdown building in 2006, plus building costs of an estimated $5.2 million. The building costs are lower than they would be for a complete new build of this size, as it utilises existing buildings.

§ Because the project incorporates a significant Community Centre, it has been able to attract external funding. Over $600,000 in funding has so far been secured from various community grants and additional funding applications are planned.

§ Horowhenua District Council will contribute $2.4 million in total towards Te Takere – (this figure includes the $1.8 million spent on purchasing the Countdown building in 2006).

§ At Horowhenua District Council’s November meeting, the project received a massive boost with the announcement of a $500,000 contribution from a deceased estate, taking the total funding secured so far to an impressive $1.1 million. (made up of $600,000 in community grants plus $500,000 donation)

§ The shortfall in funding needs to be found through additional community grants, business sponsorship and community fundraising efforts. A public fundraising campaign will be launched early in 2011, following the public consultation process.

Project Timeline

2006 – The Levin Library expansion is first mooted and put into the Long Term Council Community Plan (LTCCP)

2006 – Council purchases the old Countdown building with the intention of extending the current library and creating a community centre. Another company agrees to purchase the other half of the building, but negotiations stall.

2007 – Levin Community Centre Development Issues and Options Report is prepared by Opus International Consultants for Horowhenua District Council

2010 – An independent advisor, Nicki Moen is contracted to advise Council and the Horowhenua Library Trust on the design of the new facility.

August 2010 –Council agrees to utilise entire space of the Countdown building rather than half of the space as originally planned.

November 2010 – An anonymous $500,000 donation towards the project is received on behalf of a deceased estate.

December 2010 – Building designs and costings go to Council and are approved to go out for public consultation. Cr Peter Keenan announces the donation on behalf of the Keenan family of a number of rare bird prints by renowned artists

December 2010 – mid February 2011 – Council to undertake public consultation on the plans

For comment about the project, please contact:

§ Horowhenua District Council Mayor Brendan Duffy – Mob 0274 433 516

§ Muaupoko Tribal Authority Chief Executive Steve Hirini – Mob 021 651 958

§ Horowhenua Library Trust Chair Sharon Crosbie – ph 06 362 6551

For further background information about the project please contact:

Horowhenua District Council Strategic & Corporate Services Manager David Clapperton, Ph (06) 366 0980

Robin Hood-ing our way to $500k

2010-11-23T12:01:00.009+13:00

Several years ago Horowhenua Library Trust launched a bequest programme encouraging people to remember us in their wills. Now don't go all funny on me and throw your hands up in horror: this is not ghoulish.

We need to raise 15% of our revenue from sources other than rates - thats about $180,000 a year. The more we can raise in sponsorship and donations from those who can afford to 'give' the less we have to charge in rental fees and user charges. Unlike Robin's victims ours seem quite happy with this approach.

A fair few people have significant wealth tied up in assets and while they may not have the ready cash to donate generously to the library during their lifetime they are very pleased to 'give' on their demise. In the scale of an entire estate a $20k donation to the library is often seen as peanuts and I have witnessed the pride exhibited by family members when they discovered that their Dad had left money to the library. It was only $3,000 but it felt really good to them when they delivered it - in person - and it gave us a warm feeling to know that he appreciated us in his lifetime.

Of course some do have the wherewithal to donate in their lifetime and we have 1 lovely person who brings us in a $15,000 or $20,000 cheques every July - just to help us out a bit. The old adage 'don't give until it hurts - give until it feels good' springs to mind whenever I see the monthly automatic payments showing up on our bank statement from a woman wanting to say thank you because we are so kind to her housebound Mum. This 'thank you' sentiment strikes a cord with a good many of our Seniors because every year we manage to raise about $3,000 in $20 donations - in fact people start asking when the promotion will be running because they don't want to miss out!

We receive donations of $1,000 - $5,000 reasonably often, but we have had two $20,000 donations this year and last week we were given a staggering $500,000 towards our new library building. The donor had no children and wanted her money to benefit the kids of the town ... we can do that :)

This approach works for us so don't be shy to try it.

PS If you would to donate to our building project we'd love your support :)

The power of a good Annual Report 09/10

2010-10-11T10:32:00.009+13:00

I am delighted to present the 2009 - 2010 Annual Report for Horowhenua Library Trust.

Open publication - Free publishing - More trust

This year, I wanted use the Annual Report to paint a picture in order to have a useful tool for the coming year. We are about to embark on fundraising the remaining $2m required for our new libraries. We are a Council controlled organisation and elected councillors have to choose how much of the rate-take will come to us in operational funding and also how much capital to invest in our new facilities. I have tried to make a number of points to help make that decision making easier:

we are a professional organisation not some 'bake sale committee',
we are a team of many - not a one pony show,
we think strategically about what we do and why,
we provide an extremely good return on investment,
we are truly a 'community' organisation
the 'book' loss in the financial accounts doesn't tell the whole story.

We have printed a small number of hard copies but have also produced an online version for the first time. The printer was able to supply us with a high grade pdf file which was easily and quickly loaded to issuu, an award-winning free online publishing platform. This means that we can spread our story far wider than our cheque book would have allowed through traditional print media.

School yard bullying is alive and well

2010-10-06T14:29:00.009+13:00

Remember the schoolyard bullies of childhood?

Two groups of kids playing similar games on adjacent courts. One group, slightly nerdy maybe and certainly not the 'in' jocks of the other group, seem to be having heaps fun. Laughing, loads of kids on each side, all playing together, really friendly, with rules tweaked as the game progressed to even things up a bit so everyone can play.

The other court has a small team of uber-jocks playing hard and fast 'properly', right number of players on each side, referee, complicated rules, lots of people standing on the sidelines just watching. Slowly, one by one, the onlookers start drifting away from the jocks to the nerds; just watching at first then joining in to play as well.

The jocks look around and realise that they aren't the centre of attention anymore because of this 'mad' inclusive game on the other court which anyone can play because it doesn't need expensive gear, or insider knowledge or years of training.

So the jocks barge onto the court and take the ball, claim they own the court and the rules of the game are xyz. The nerds cry foul but the teacher just nods and says oh thats ok - they don't mean any harm.

The game carries on for a bit but the bullies don't get the nerd game, keep trying to bring in the old rules - not remembering that the nerds had already walked away from the old rules to play their own game.

The nerds try to play nicely but dont get a lookin with the bullies, they eventually wander off, find another place to play, a grassy paddock, another ball and carry on. The grassy paddock is pretty good actually, heaps softer to fall on, makes the game even better. Heaps more people join in. People still come to the courts to find a game, but its not the one they heard about. Their ears pick up the happy noises over in the paddock where the 'real' game is being played and they wander over and start playing too.

The jocks don't get it ... they took the ball, got the court - why havn't the nerds just given up?

Koha bullying
Well this is not dissimilar to the situation the Koha community finds itself in with LibLime / PTFS.

The game was library management systems. Some of us couldn't play - couldn't afford the gear and didn't really like the game that much anyway. So we started a new game, Koha, and pretty soon heaps of people were playing it to. Soon the 'real' library management systems started noticing that people were moving over to Koha. Funding issues just made Koha seem even more attractive, and of course the game was one anyone could play and it evolved really fast because everyone has influence.

So LibLime PTFS grabbed a piece of Koha. They took the ball, the code, and played with it a while cutting out the orginal players by not pasing it back in the way of bug-fixes and enhancements. They got the court too, koha.org.

After a while, the koha community realised that it just wasn't getting a look in and decided to go get its own court to play on, koha-community.org and they have another ball, the code. Everyone is welcome to join in and the community is strong.

PTFS just dont get it.

They keep calling their forks Koha - but they are not. Its a different game. LEK and Harley are Koha forks because they were both built on the Koha open source code at some point in the past. They are not Koha now. PTFS have just released a new LibLime website where they still call their forks Koha and have invented a new logo for Koha. This is provocative, aggressive and just not on.

I was told off in Twitter today for swearing - and yes, sometimes I feel so angry and so helpless against such bullying that I do resort to swearing. I am so annoyed that our philosophically beautiful Koha is getting sullied through association with such ratbags as LibLime and PTFS who think nothing of lying in order to 'win' the game.

What is the game we are playing folks? What will a win look like to PTFS? Total domination of Koha by a single vendor? That will not be a win for anyone.

Powhiri at Kawiu Marae

2010-09-04T22:15:00.004+12:00

Koha Conference attendees are invited to Levin on the 28th October for a very special event.

The Library Trust is honoured that Muaupoko, the tangata whenua or people of the land, are hosting us at Kawiu Marae following the Mayoral reception in Council chambers. This is a first for the Library Trust and the purpose of this post is to encourage Conference attendees to join us for what will be a very special evening.

We will be welcomed onto the Marae in a traditional manner. This will include the karanga where we are called on the Marae, a wero or taiaha challenge (to see if we come in peace), the laying down of koha, speeches, waiata (songs) a hakari or meal and kapa haka entertainment (singing, poi, haka). Information about the various components of the powhiri and what to expect can be found here.

There are also a few basic rules or tikanga which visitors will need to beaware of:

Do not sit on the tables ANYWHERE,
Do not smoke or drink alcohol,
Do not throw food AT ALL,
Do not pass food over anyones head.

The cost of the trip is $75 per person which includes return travel between Wellington and Levin, plus koha for our hosts and the entertainers. Partners and children are very welcome to join us (no charge for kids). Prepayment and bookings are essential so we can confirm arrangements with our hosts. To book and pay online click here.

KohaCon10 : the World comes down under

2010-08-03T11:31:00.007+12:00

Our baby is grown up and out there doing its thing in the world, so it is with real pleasure that HLT welcome the 3rd International Koha Conference to NZ this October.

Koha is now used by hundreds of libraries around the world and supported by many international vendors. This year, to mark the 10th anniversary of its release, the conference is will be held in Wellington from Monday 25th October - Wednesday 27th October. Previous conferences have been in Marseilles and Texas.

The conference speakers are a veritable United Nations: UK, France, Nigeria, Taiwan, Pakistan, Malaysia, USA, Australia and NZ - and conference attendees hail from more countries than I care to list. The full programme can be found here.

This is an amazing opportunity for NZ librarians to see what all the fuss around Koha is about and mix with a truly international bunch of people who love Koha and have made it so successful overseas. It is somewhat odd that NZ, its country of origin, has been so reluctant to support this home grown product. A prophet is indeed a stranger in is own land.

The conference is free so there really is no excuse not to come and find out more. Registrations are open now on the conference website.

Personal highlights for me are:

George Oates - Integration with Open Library
A big success at NDF where she talked about her work with Flickr, George now works with Open Library team. She was responsible for creating the Flickr Commons (flickr.com/commons) and was the award-winning lead designer of Flickr itself.

Nicole Engard - How you can help
Nicole is a human dynamo and I have no idea how she squeezes so much into her life. She is the Director of Open Source Education at ByWater Solutions in the States, she is a prolific writer being published in several library journals and keeps the library community up to date on web technologies via her website "What I Learned Today...". In 2007, Nicole was named one of Library Journal's Movers & Shakers and in 2009 she was the editor of “Library Mashups,” a book published by Information Today, Inc. and in 2010 she will publish “Practical Open Source Software for Libraries” with Chandos Inc.

Mark Osborne - Koha in schools
Albany Senior High School is New Zealand's first open source high school, and Koha is one their key online environments. This session will be about how Albany is using Koha to promote literacy, community and high achievement.

Lee Phillips - Ask a librarian : Why I love Koha
Lee is the director of the Butte Silver Bow Public Library (BSB) in Montana, the first open source public library in Montana. The library runs Ubuntu OS on the public PCs and Open Office suite on both the public and staff client servers.

As an alumna of the University of Washington's Information School, Lee's MLIS focus was on human and computer interface, consortia culture and open source applications in public libraries. Her collection development plan was featured in the Spring 2010 OCLC newsletter.

Currently Lee is serving as a Montana State Library Commissioner by appointment of the governor of Montana. In the past year she has secured 150,000 dollars in grant funding for her library to develop programming that puts technology in the hands of library patrons.

Francois Marier - Freedom in the library: Convincing your boss that sharing is good
I hear "We can't use Koha because Council IT dept won't let us" far too often and this presentation is just for those people. Francois will show how the concepts of sharing, freedom and public domain are embodied by the FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) community. After describing what is meant by FOSS, we will look at how fairness is promoted through the choice of copyright licenses. Then we will examine the benefits of this freedom and of the related communities (for example, Creative Commons) it has inspired.

Mark Piper - Risk, considerations and realities of running a public access network
Mark is an independent hacker and will talk at the bigger picture of providing network & end-user systems for library membership to access Koha & the internet. He will explore the risks & mitigations of real world attacks.

Be careful what you wish for : teenagers in the library

2010-07-22T20:13:00.009+12:00

We have been trying for as long as I can remember to attract teenagers into the library. Well we have done it. The library is the coolest gig in town and come 3pm the kids rush down from school. And its all for the internet, and the warmth, and its dry and, its seems just lately, its also a great place to punch hell out of other kids.

Take today for instance. 3 skinny white boys known to staff were quietly playing Risk, the board game, when 2 bros walked past. They abused our boys, shoved each other onto the board game and then each of the bros punched - yes punched - one of our boys in his face. At which point I was frantically summoned by 1 of the other boys.

When I challenged the bros, asking for their names, asking them to wait please while I ring the police because they have assaulted a library patron (yes I labelled it) I was turned on by 4 big girls, their sisters or friends or whatever. 15 or 16 years or so, full of attitude and lip: "oh leave them alone", "they didn't do anything", "they are only little" blah blah blah. At which point I pulled a camera out and took their photograph before heading back to my office to call the Police. I was followed back inside and up the stairs to my office by a very confident young lady, hurling abuse, mouthing off at the boys who had been bullied, getting right in my face until I said loudly and clearly "this is intimidation - you need to leave now".

Now I would like to say this is an unheard off incident, but sadly no. Yesterday 3 very naughty annoying girls bullied a couple of boys, the same girls who had spat on a staff member the previous weekend when asked to leave at closing time.

Actually that incident had capped off a scary scene an hour or so earlier when a staff member had been abused in extremely colourful language by a big fella who had taken offence at her rescuing his 18 month old toddler who was about to hit the bottom of the stairs after hurtling around the library screaming at the top of their lungs. Our staffer had already rescued the toddler once from running out of the library onto the street and had tried without success to find an adult to claim the toddler. Fortunately other members of the public came forward to defend her, someone called the police, several people made statements and the 'Gentleman' left the premises with obscene expletives still streaming from his mouth. He has since been trespassed for 2 years from the public library.

But what do we do with these kids? I don't want to trespass them for 2 years, the length a trespass order applies for. I want to welcome them in from the cold and rain, to use the computers, read the glossy music magazines, slouch in the velour couches and flick through the graphic novels. I just don't understand the psychology of their appalling behaviour. What motivates these kids to act they way they do and stuff it up for themselves? They want what we have - desperately - and queue every day for their free internet time. But I just cannot let this behaviour continue. All kids, the hip cool dudes and the geeky boardgamers alike, are equally entitled to a safe library experience.

Now my own kids will tell you that I'm pretty staunch and not scared of much, but in 25 years of public library service I have never felt as vulnerable as I did today when this young woman was in my face going off. I didn't know what was going to happen next - couldn't believe it was happening at all really.

So where to now? I'm dammed if I'm going to let my library be taken over by thugs. I am just not prepared to have public and staff feeling unsafe in the library. I'm going to have to find precious funds to roster more staff on the floor, probably hire a security guard, and start handing out trespass orders to the ringleaders.

And I just don't want to.

Just for the record

2010-07-09T19:56:00.005+12:00

It has been reported to me that a senior male PTFS employee told people at ALA that Horowhenua Library Trust (HLT) sold the Koha name and domain to Liblime and that we are now asking for it back for free.

This is a lie.

In 2007 three Katipo staff went to work at Liblime. The code that had been written by Katipo employees, the koha.org domain and Katipo clients went with them, including HLT. At that time Liblime had a good reputation in the community and it was believed that the domain would be held in trust for the community, exactly as Katipo had done.

HLT had nothing to do with the sale apart from being one of the clients transferred to Liblime. A number of NZ and Pacific Koha clients were treated very badly by Liblime with support contracts not honoured, commissioned enhancements not delivered and significant amounts of money lost. None of the libraries involved have ever talked publicly about this, choosing instead to act with discretion and integrity.

The trust in Liblime was misplaced and after 2 years of shameful behaviour the global Koha community asked HLT, as a trustworthy charitable trust, to seek the return of koha.org to community hands. We asked Liblime, and then PTFS, what would be required for the return of the domain.

HLT have never asked for it to be given back for free.

In asking PTFS what would be required to bring koha.org back into community hands we were acting under directions of the wider community. PTFS have a total misunderstanding how FLOSS works, and seem to think they have bought Koha, or that Koha was something Liblime could sell to them, or that Katipo could sell to Liblime. HLT has been asked by PTFS to move the community back to koha.org. This is not something HLT can do even if we were prepared to be blackmailed - which we are not.

Please judge HLT on our actions not on malicious and untrue rumours designed to cause dissent in our community.

Koha 3.2 : reflections on going live

2010-06-13T17:20:00.018+12:00

Its been a long long time since I wrote for this blog, way to long, and I'm taking this cold wet Sunday afternoon to look back over the last few months.

Koha 2.2.9 > 3.2
Back in September 2008 we made the decision to upgrade from Koha 2.2.9 to Koha 3.0. We realised very quickly that this was not going to be a mere upgrade, but effectively an entirely new system. The biggest change was the shift from our RDA-like biblio-group-item arrangement to a biblio-item arrangement. This change was essential to make the MARC work nicely and MARC is the key to all the groovy stuff that made 3.0 so attractive.

Delay
After investing a couple of months getting to grips with what the change to 3.0 would mean the decision was made to wait for 3.2 since the upgrade was going to be so huge it was better to wait a few months more and go the whole 9 yards. Looking back, this was a very good decision and meant we went through 1 delayed upgrade n0t 2 in 12 months.

Our Goal
We decided early on that our Koha had to be developed from the patron's view not the staff's and the OPAC would double as our website homepage too. We also wanted our Kete Horowhenua digital content to sit alongside Koha search results. We asked Katipo to write the html required to customize our Koha using the built in system preferences in Koha , and also help us to create the 'inside' pages which included setting up a Trust Kete.

Preparation
I also needed to delve deeply into the system preferences and tools and make informed decisions about the myriad of system settings. This was a significant and important step. When a library chooses open source software its different to choosing a proprietary system. The responsibility lies with the library to make the software do what you want it to do, and of course if it doesn't then you can make changes or develop enhancements so it will do what you need it to do.

Lets do it!
So the Koha upgrade was shifted to a back burner and a year passed, and then at the end of March 2010 the decision was made that we would go live in 8 weeks - ready or not. That right there is the reason I havn't posted for a while :) We couldn't wait for the official 3.2 release as our funding was good for 2009/2010 only. If we didn't spent the upgrade budget by the end of June 2010 we'd lose it.

That decision to go live in 8 weeks was another good decision looking back. It forced us to get on with job, make decisions, assign priorities and just do it. We focussed all our efforts for a very concentrated, intense period of time. We had to decide what had to work on day 1, and what could be left for day 2, day 3 etc. 3.2 is still in development and the code was being enhanced constantly throughout the 8 weeks leading up to Go Live, and in fact continues still.

This takes a bit of getting used to if you aren't used to the rapid pace of development that happens with Koha where things can be fixed from hour to hour. Our ex Head of Libraries Rosalie Blake was dragged out of retirement and asked to 'learn' 3.2, prepare tutorials and then train all 25 staff .... identifying, reporting and fixing bugs throughout.

Go Live
We had a soft launch 2 days before we officially announced it. We had signs up in the library and all staff wore badges saying we were in training in the hope that people to be kind with us - and they were - which is good because we really were making it up as we went. One problem which tripped us up was the slowness of 3.2 compared to 2.2.9 but changing browsers from Firefox to Chrome saw an immediate improvement.

I have no regrets for our seat of our pants approach. There is nothing like the first day of a Go Live to test software. Very little didn't work well enough because we had tested all circulation and accounting aspects pretty thoroughly. But some stuff wasn't perfect on day 1. This meant that all staff were involved in identifying bugs; not just saying 'this is broken' but "this is what happened and here is how you can replicate it". Some of the stuff we would never have found in a testing environment and I completely endorse the advice of going live when its close enough not when its perfect -- coz it never will be. Just make sure you have your staff are on board and stay calm, and that your Tech-Guru is on hand to fix things as they crop up.

OPAC
Our OPAC is the jewel in the Koha crown and staff are so proud of it and get such a buzz out of the public's response to it. We have added so much value to the patron's experience and when things settle down we will hold sessions showcasing the new features. We spent a bit of dosh buying in supplementary content so we could launch with a stunning OPAC. Library Thing for Libraries, Syndetics and Amazon all add value to our catalogue, plus a 3.4 enhancement which draws on our 10 year store of issues history to provide a 'people who read this also read these" service.

Reregistration
To maximise the value of our OPAC we really needed to issue passwords to all our library borrowers - and of course showcase the new functions that were now available. So 3 days after Go Live we started reregistering all our borrowers. That was 2 weeks ago. And what a fortnight. But also what a fantastic opportunity it has turned out to be. We have had 4 staff working flat out issuing new library cards to patrons and in the process we get to point a few things that they might find useful, based on clues picked up in the 2 or 3 minutes it takes to check the Patron's data and assign user logins and passwords. The power of conversation: don't underestimate it as a marketing tool.

What next
2 weeks post launch and we are pretty much there. A few wrinkles in acquisitions to iron out and a few enhancements but thats about it really. Overall this has been a remarkably stress free upgrade. I'm glad it was hard and fast, 8 weeks of concentrated effort really, and the next task is to maximise the PR value of the new system and use it get out and connect to as many different pockets of our community as possible.

Final Words

Identify what your priorities with Koha are. Our primary goal was a fantastic OPAC because that's that makes Koha 3.2 a great LMS compared to the others. We also needed a solid acquisitions module with a clear audit trail,
Think about how to 'present' your collection to library patrons in the OPAC,
Get totally familiar with all the system preferences and how different combinations can be used because Koha is very powerful and flexible and highly customisable,
Just do it: go live when its good enough and tie the loose ends up as they appear,
market, market market because 3.2 is fantastic.

The Unimaginable

2010-03-26T22:59:00.006+13:00

Let's just for a minute imagine that your teenage daughter and her friend went to the well populated park at 4pm one afternoon in full daylight.

Imagine how your daughter might feel if her friend was then attacked by a girl called, oh I dunno - lets say 'Jax', and lets imagine that 'Jax' thumped your daughter's friend to the ground but the friend, who was fighting for her life, managed to hold her own against 'Jax'. And lets imagine that at that point anther girl, lets say her name was 'Desiree', then leapt in and dragged your daughter's friend a metre along the ground by her hair and then started kicking and punching the friend as well.

And imagine if dozens of other kids were standing around watching. Stay with me: try and imagine it: 2 girls beating 1 girl surrounded by abut 50 kids, all just watching. Oh and recording it on their cellphones too, and then imagine that one of those girls, lets say her name was 'Eden', posted that video clip up to YouTube. Imagine then that dozens of kids in the town are emailed the video and then it is bluetoothed around school classrooms.

You can't really imagine that bit though really. No one would be so stupid as to use their personal Youtube account to upload a video which showed their friends beating up another girl, a girl whom the video shows did nothing to provoke or encourage the attack.

You would probably have no trouble imagining that the Police would take action against 'Jax' and 'Desiree' and 'Eden' so that these 'young ladies' learned that it was not okay to beat the crap out of another child. Maybe charges of 'grievous bodily harm' or 'common asault' or something like that would be laid. Maybe the school would even do something that would give the message:"This is not ok".

You would never in a million years imagine that 'Jax', 'Eden' and 'Desiree' would get away scot free because they are protected from prosecution by NZs youth laws.

The Koha Community rocks!

2010-02-03T17:07:00.008+13:00

Absolutely flippin brilliant day ....

Early this morning a Koha Community meeting was held to discuss, yet again, the community assets problem. The whole LibLime thing is still dragging everything to a near-standstill .....

But today, well the community just said enough - in the nicest, most polite way possible - we took back control of our community to make sure we had the tools we need to keep Koha rockin' along. Its just a temporary measure mind, just until the whole LibLime - PTFS thing is settled and PTFS have had time to work out what their customers want and what they want to do etc etc. And while we understand and are happy to give them the time they need to get their stuff sorted out, we need to still be able to function as a community.

The biggest problem over the last 18 months has been the lack of access to the koha.org site and having no way to expose the up-to-date Koha information, news, demos, documentation, pay for support options etc.

www.koha-community.org
Anyway, the big thing to come out of the meeting was the decision to make a new temporary website for the Koha community, to carry us through until the LibLime/PTFS thing is sorted. We brainstormed names, voted, grabbed a domain and within a very short time - like a few hours - we have a community website again!

irc has been an amazing place to be today. Developers and users and vendors all working together, volunteering support, hosting, mirror sites, content, testing - whatever they could and whatever was needed to get a Koha Community place up and running again. Liz Rea has done an incredible job on the website - and so fast!

The news just got better as the day progressed:

Galen tagged v3.02.00-alpha in Git, thereby kicking off the alpha period for 3.2, with a tarball to be available tomorrow,
Chris showed us the git stats which highlighted how many people have been making commits; the work on Koha over the last year has truly been the work of many many hands.

Today I saw in action all that is good in an open source community; and the Koha Community rocks!

Woo hoo: Koha Con 2010 bus trip

2010-01-26T15:58:00.002+13:00

So I am thinking it would be really nice to meet people coming into Auckland for Koha Conference and drive them down to Wellington. We could take a few days for a quick detour through Rotorua and heartland NZ, driving down through the North Island via Levin.

Current thinking is:

Day 1: arrive in Auckland, dinner at the harbour area.
Day 2: travel to Rotorua (3 hours ish) afternoon at Te Puia thermal area, Maori cultural night in the evening, spend night in Rotorua.
Day 3: drive down the island, afternoon tea / civic reception at Levin (4 hours drive), travel to Wellington for evening meal and the night.
Day 4: either a spare day in Wellington or day 1 of Koha Conference.

So what do you reckon? If there is enough interest I'll grab some indicative pricing together.

Users vs developers : not in my universe!

2010-01-20T20:50:00.009+13:00

Today I went to Wellington to have lunch with Bob Birchall, CEO of Calyx, and Chris Cormack from Catalyst IT. Through a serendipitous crossing of paths we were joined by Simon Blake from Citylink; Rachel Hamilton-Williams, CEO of Katipo Communications; Mason James, CEO of KohaAloha and Brenda Chawner from Victoria University.

Thats 1 user, 1 Academic / FOSS commentator, a network engineer and 4 Koha vendors. Driving back home again I got to thinking about this group in relation to the discussion on the Koha list about users vs developers.

Owen Leonard has written very eloquently about this and I have used below big chunks of his email to the Koha list made in response to a comment made that Koha "users" and "developers" are at opposite ends of a pole.

Owen:

"I'm a Koha user. And in using Koha I saw that I could make Koha better, and in time became a Koha developer. There is no Koha developer out there who is developing Koha features just because they think it would be cool to do. Koha developers are doing their work because they *see* a need, in an actual user or an actual library. Or developers are getting paid by libraries to develop the features the libraries need."

He goes on to list the occasions when users and developers are in opposition:

"When a company decides to develop a feature that they think will help sell a product, even though the feature doesn't meet any actual need,
When a company throttles or cripples a feature in a product because they want to charge extra for a particular feature."

Now I have been around Koha for a decade now and I agree with Owen that no self-respecting Koha developer or Koha support company is doing that kind of stuff.

The LibLime experience has hurt the Koha community in the States. I get the distinct feeling from reading various blogs and help requests on the Koha list that LibLime clients have been having a hard time of it, hence their very valid wish to gain more of a 'users' voice than they have had in the past. I suspect this applies more specifically to Liblime clients than Koha users in general though. It is also a real risk when Libraries abdicate responsibilty for their own systems by handing it over to a vendor: a traditional client-vendor relationship.

Brenda mentioned today that her research is indicating that contributing to FOSS projects has a direct correlation to satisfaction levels. This is a critical point and one which I raised in the presentation Chris and I made at LIANZA 2009.

As librarians we are comfortable with a traditional client-vendor relationship. But the times are a changin folks and as librarians we have to change to. We need to be taking back control of our industry tools; Dewey and Ranganathan were both librarians and the originators of Evergreen and Koha were librarians too.

We have to learn new ways of working if we are going to maximise the value of Koha to our organisations:

think about what you WANT not what we are given,
learn basic system admin skills and take responsibility for your own Koha 'settings' to customize it for how YOU want it to operate,
become comfortable with irc as a networking and community meeting tool,
become skilled at identifying, describing and reporting bugs, and then testing the fixes,
think 'what if' and log enhancement suggestions,
and then join the discussion to ensure the developers understand what you want and how you want it to work, and work out how to make it fit into the main development trunk,
fund a developer to 'do' if if you aren't a programmer yourself,
learn to ask for help and give help to others,
share your thinking and decision making processes, tips and tricks and inhouse resources like staff training tutorials or videos,
become adept at collaborative working on wikis,
fund work for the 'greater good' not holding it selfishly to yourself,
and co-fund significant developments with other organisations to share the cost so we all benefit.

I'll leave the last word to Owen:

"Let's get together as users and/or developers and figure out how we can get some stuff done. Let's put together a structure by which Koha users can spec out new features and get them funded, collectively. Let's put together a structure by which Koha users can communicate with their vendors without fear of exclusion or reprisal. Let's not talk about a users group breaking down some barrier that isn't really there; let's talk about strengthening and leveraging the connection that we already have!"

Personal MBA reading list

2010-01-19T20:54:00.004+13:00

I came across Josh Kaufman's Personal MBA site on Lifehacker a few months back and I'm thinking it would probably be a very good personal goal to read my way through his recommended book list one title at a time .... or at least 1 book from each section :)

Marketing your library - 1 restroom enquiry at a time

2009-12-29T18:34:00.003+13:00

Loving being on holiday; I'm almost caught up with my blog reading now!

Just read this geat article by Diane Zabel and Lorraine J. Oellack, guest columnists on rusq.org

Its about the importance of customer service and recognizing that every single interaction - even if its just showing the way to the restroom - is an opportunity to market your library:

"If you are tired of hearing “where’s the restroom?” then maybe it’s time to rethink your choice of jobs or how you perform it. Simply put, either stop working at a public help desk or take the challenge to rejuvenate your patron interactions and become a positive face for your library."

Thinking about The Bookends report.

2009-12-23T19:07:00.013+13:00

The thing about being on holiday is that inbetween bouts of reading historical fiction, swimming at the beach and general carousing I actually get time to catch up on professional reading. More importantly, I get time to think about what I've read.

I have spent 2 days - on and off - reading, digesting and discussing "The Bookends Scenarios : alternative futures for the public library in NSW 2030". This a really interesting and challenging piece of work which is very, very timely. I heartily recommend it as a good read - and excellent after dinner discussion!

My response to the Bookends Scenarios follow.

1. ROI on investment in Libraries.
The library profession must define what the social needs of our society are and how we can add value thus demonstrating the social return on investment in libraries. This needs to be done nationally and the provision of free public libraries by local authorities must become a legislated social necessity like potable drinking water, sewerage disposal and roads.

2. Collaboration.
I am more convinced than ever that open standards and open source is the way of the future. The LSynCNZ work on a nationwide library management system for NZ is hugely timely and important work. I urge District Librarians not to rush off forming adhoc local consortia of 3 or 4 territorial authories which greatly weakens the viability of LSynCNZ and just delays the inevitable. Lets not be afraid to think of the big picture. Huge open source consortias operate all over the world and NZ really is small fry in terms of geographic spread, population, items and loans.

3. Staffing of Libraries.
As librarians we must reskill - constantly - in order to stay relevant to the society we serve. Professional registration is a great initiative. An aging population will compound the current problem of finding suitably skilled library professionals - which we must do if we are to remain relevant to the society we serve. We need to 'audit' the skill-set of our staff, identifying gaps and move immediately to an ongoing training development plan to move staff to where we need them to be.

4. Service Models.
We need to completely redesign our service model for the future. Issuing books has not been our primary purpose for many years, and will become proportionately less significant over the years to come. We need to define the roles and programmes and services we will offer, and redefine these every few years to ensure we keep relevant in changing times.

5. Spaces.
We have 2 new buildings in the pipeline in Horowhenua and this is an excellent opportunity to ensure we design community spaces as "The Third Place", as hearts of the communities we serve.

6. Leadership.
Libraries must embrace the changes demanded in changing times - this is non negotiable. 'Servant leadership' of an exemplary standard will be required to lead Councils, communities and staffr forward. Library managers will need to skillfully push, pull and drag 'old school' librarians into the 21st century librarianship and bravely know when to call it quits and let go those unable to change.

The cost effectiveness of Open Source for HLT

2009-12-04T12:47:00.007+13:00

Horowhenua Library Trust recently underwent a review and one of the recommendations raised in the final report was to assess the cost effectiveness of Koha and Kete for Horowhenua Library Trust. The tables above tells the story really.

But you can view the whole slideshow below.

Introduction
coz it makes no sense without painting a picture first :)

In 1983 I was quoted $3,000 to have a wedding dress made by a bridal shop in Wellington – no way my Mum could afford that dress. We would have to make it
ourselves.

So we went into Fitzroy’s, an old fashioned draper's shop in Levin, and within minutes of hearing that I was marrying a local lad, “Nancy’s boy”, we were surrounded by a clutch of woman: comparing fabrics, discussing how to adapt the paper pattern, which lace, what size seed pearls etc … I’m sure you get the picture. That dress turned out heaps better than anything I was thinking of – and saved us a fortune too!
That was my first grownup experience of crowd-sourcing, group think, community consultation, collaborative design – call it what you will. What I learnt that day was the power of community ownership, adaptation and the sheer power of collaboration.These are key concepts in the open source world.

Cost effectiveness of Open Source development for Horowhenua Library Trust.

View more presentations from jransom.

"The Library is no place for children"

2009-11-20T08:55:00.014+13:00

Followers of my Twitter stream yesterday will have seen my verbatim quote from an irate library patron:

"The library is no place for children - they should be out roaming the hills. If you keep encouraging them I'll stop coming".

How do you argue with that ... its like arguing whether the sky is blue or not. But as librarians we have to argue because the sad reality is that their truly are people out there who actually believe this.

The complaint was sparked by a change in layout made at her local library. The clients who use the library borrow insignificant amounts of library material, so low that we are seriously having to justify keeping the branch open, situated as it is in its prime Main Street position. Yet visitor counts are up - way up - we are busy, busy, busy. But we aren't converting visitor usage to issues. And maybe thats okay, maybe this community doesn't want to borrow library materials, maybe books just aren't important, maybe homelife is so muddled that library items just aren't safe taken home, maybe people are laughed at if they pull a book out at home. This community is statistically poorer, browner, younger, older and less educated than other communities in our District.

But we are not giving up this without a fight. We have completely turned the collection profile on its head, adjusted the focus on what resources and services are available and have sought help from a successful retailer in terms of marketing and presentation.

We think it is really important to encourage kids into the library and we will be shameless in employing whatever method we think will work.

And if we lose an old biddy in the process then so be it.

Kete : a job well done.

2009-11-05T09:09:00.009+13:00

The Kete Vision
A couple of years ago a bunch of us dreamed of Kete, a digital archive of local arts, cultural and heritage material in a variety of media formats coupled with social media techniques to make it 'zing'.

Our ultimate goal was to get to a point where a user entering a search in Kete Horowhenua would be shown results from other neighbouring Kete who might hold Horowhenua material due to historical boundary changes, plus other databases including Koha the Horowhenua Library catalogue. We also dreamed of being able to draw search results from big national repositories of digital content like Te Papa, National Archives, National Library etc. regardless of what content management system they were using.

Digital NZ
Digital NZ is the National Library site which currently 'harvests' records from 67 contributing organisations throughout NZ. Here is a diagram showing how it works and here is a list of who the current contributors. Incidentally, Digital NZ also have a Kete for collecting content from organisations who don't have their own digital content management systems :)

Federated Searching
Late yesterday the final enhancements were turned on and all of this is now operational. An added bonus is that the new Koha will also pull results from Kete Horowhenua.

A few links to have a look:

A search in Kete showing results from Digital NZ,
a search in Kete drawing results from another Kete, our Library Trust as an organisation Kete which is distinct from the Horowhenua community one,
and a search in our test Koha 3.0 site drawing results from Kete Horowhenua.

The HLT Kete is proving quite useful as a collaboration tool in the Library 2030 work we are working through.

Where to now
This is all very exciting looking ahead. Manawatu Horizons member Councils are working through a project to build a shared digital archive using Kete. This will then be searchable from other Kete thus opening access to the vast wealth of local authority archival material currently held by a bunch of neighbouring Councils.

Kapiti Coast are in the process of starting a Kete collecting the digital resources from all arts, cultural and heritage organisations from within its area, setting up a separate basket with its own theming for each main organisation thus enabling individual identity within a shared database.

Providing that the new Council cemetery records, At Home Care and Youth databases have all been built on open standards then these to will also be searchable through Kete.

I think we can call this a job well done!

Twitter Data Analysis: An Investor’s Perspective

2009-10-06T18:06:00.005+13:00

This post is merely pointing you to the remarkable analysis of Twitter usage carried by Robert J Moore, CEO and co-founder of RJMetrics.

Just go read it ...

Boring is the new black.

2009-10-01T10:26:00.015+13:00

The reading I have done recently on future forecasting and trends is boiling down to a few simple truths which can be summarised as: "Boring is the new black" (not mine I'm afraid - flicked past me on twitter this morning.)

1. As life becomes even more fast paced and frantic we are valuing the slow paced and calming.
2. We like to 'savour': lifestyle choices, quality social and recreational experiences.
3. Baby boomers will be slamming into retirement - and they won't be ready to put down their rucksacks and travel guides and recline into their lazyboys and largeprints. They are active and discerning and are looking for quality (and that doesn't mean excess) in the next ten years of their lives.

This post is a summary of the about the main themes from the Horowhenua Development Plan published in June 2008. It is actually really good reading!

Population
The population of Horowhenua has remained static for virtually 20 years, and is likely to remain so. It may even decline. The numbers of young people leaving the District is almost equally offset by the numbers of older people retiring to the area. We have about double the NZ average of retirees at 30%. This is set to rise to 34% by 2026 and around 50% by 2051. Council are committed to attracting a younger demographic to the District, people looking for an improved quality of life.

So what?
All retirees are not equal! Horowhenua is a destination for retiring baby boomers: 'young' retirees, active, highly mobile, relatively well off, discerning in their lifestyle choices and recreation choices. Over time they become 'old' retirees with a different set of characteristics: more dependent, less mobile, less 'able'. There will be an increasing workforce of caregivers who tend to be of a lower socio-economic demographic, and are often immigrants.

Development
Subdivision and building consents reveal that new development is up and trending towards rural-residential, lifestyle and coastal villages. There is noticeable trend for holiday or second homes in the District. We have a high proportion of single occupier dwellings. The lack of public transport is an issue for the District, especially but not exclusively for older people who are more restricted in their movements for reasons which include: financial, age related and philosophical reasons ie 'green' movement.

So what?
We will have the same number or less people spread over a larger areas in pockets of community. The goal is to develop 'liveable communities', neighbourhoods with 'hearts', focal point with all basic services to support lifestyle choices and an enhanced quality of life. New focal point for Levin is around the Mall carpark area, and "lack of social services restrict growth in coastal villages: schools, shops, libraries."

Concluding thoughts
So thinking now about this relation to the design of library services in Horowhenua over the next 20 years:

we will have lots of young and old retirees,
lots of service support workers and their families,
we need to support Council in attracting a younger demographic to the District through providing a quality service; libraries are a key part of decision matrix in relocating and say a lot about the town,
we be serving a disparate, dispersed community, clustered into 'village' service centres,
our clients will be looking to savour 'quality' and libraries as 'experience' and being central to the heart of their communities. This is not the 'drive through' service model but a 'living room'.

Public Library Service in Horowhenua : now and in 2030

2009-09-24T12:25:00.013+12:00

I have a small task to do .. nothing too challenging for a wet Thursday... I need to prepare 'something' to communicate to Council Officers what the library service delivered by Horowhenua Library Trust in 2030 might look like. Yes - I can hear you laughing - and now that I have stopped weeping, I am actually starting to feel excited by this.

The Background.
Very briefly: we have a new library building planned for Levin, we have been messed around for about 5 years, change of staff at Council, new chap thinks we have no vision, no plan, no idea what we want to achieve (obviously case studies, building briefs etc etc have been "lost" in the bowels of Council) . Moving along ...

The Good News
And this really is good news:

Council are not disputing that we need a new building - they just want to know what we want to 'put' in it,
Fundraising is going splendidly well - we have almost $2m already.

Refresh our Vision
We now have this golden opportunity:

take back control of the project and drive it ourselves,
think about changing societal trends in general and Levin in particular in 2030,
refresh and define the role of HLT library service in the community both now and in 2030,
consult with our community about what they want,
recommunicate our vision.

I put out a wee cry for help on Twitter yesterday and the lovely Brenda Chawner and Alison Wallbutton sent me through some really useful links that I am including here for future reference.

Current Library Thinking

Public Libraries of NZ : Strategic Framework (NZ, 2006).
The Unison Report : taking stock of public libraries (UK, 2008)
The Darien Summit : The Future of Libraries (2008) and The Darien Statements.
The Future of Public Libraries.

The last link above is a visioning project currently being undertaken in Australia. While the report isn't out yet, but due any day, what I have found on the net so far is quite inspiring. The exercise is based around a scenario matrix, from which 4 possible scenarios are derived.

The good folk doing the work have shared their slides as well (I love librarians:)

Scenarios To Strategy

View more presentations from PublicLibraryServices.

Societal Trends

Local Context

Horowhenua Development Plan: Executive summary and Levin
Statistics NZ : Levin

What next
So the plan from here is to read through the future trends stuff about society in general, take a look at the Statistics NZ stuff for Levin demographics, then the Horowhenua Development Plan to see how Council see our local community developing over the next 20 years. We need then to think about that all in relation to the Future of Libraries scenarios, and from there come up with a vision of the role of the public library in Levin,now and moving forward, and the services we will be offering and the functions we will fulfil.

Easy!

Liblime forks Koha

2009-09-14T10:25:00.015+12:00

Horowhenua Library Trust developed Koha, the world’s first open source library management system back in 2000. We gave it to the world in the spirit of community. We are very happy, delighted in fact, for any organisation or individual to take it, improve it and then give their improvements back.

Recipricocity is the keystone which gives strength to the Koha Community.

We do not begrudge vendors taking our gift and building a commercial enterprise out of it, as Liblime, Biblibre and any number of others have done, but the deal is that you give back. This has worked well for a decade and Liblime has been a strong, valued and much appreciated member of the Koha international community over that time.

So it is incredibly sad and disappointing that Liblime has decided to breach the spirit of the Koha project and offer a ‘Liblime clients only’ version of Koha. Let's call it what it is: vendor lockin and a fork.

Technically, because Liblime offers hosted Koha what it is doing does not breach the GNU GPL licence conditions of Koha. Liblime has said it will continue to push new developments – but its actions show it is not contributing code or participating in the community anymore. Other developers are sharing their public Git repositories but there is no sign of Liblime's yet. An important principle of FOSS is that you release early and often allowing the community to share in the development and benefit.

Long serving, reputable staff with a proven track record of commitment to open source have, I assume, chosen to not work in the new Liblime culture. They have moved to other vendors committed to the FOSS ethos - people like Nicole Engard who late last week accepted an employment offer from Bywater Solutions and Biblibre.

The other thing that us Kiwis don’t understand is how Liblime could have trademarked the word ‘Koha’. It’s a simple and common word in New Zealand; it would be like trademarking the word ‘thanks’ or ‘gift’ or ‘hello’ in America. Liblime has also registered a Koha Foundation which strikes at the very soul of the Koha community. Liblime has taken the name, the domain and the foundation away from us all. The company has said publicly that it is just holding them in safe keeping for the community and will hand them back to the Koha community.

The real loser in all this is the WALDO consortium who seem to be bearing much of the fallout for Liblime's divisive decision to fork the code. Much of the new development work that Liblime is going to be withholding from the community is being funded by WALDO - $USD600k worth:

* Acquisitions: Purchase Orders, Budget Hierarchies
* Serials: Serials Binding, Improved Prediction Patterns
* Cataloging: Holdings Structure (3-tiered), Authorities Control
* Circulation: Offline Circulation, Proxy Patrons
* System Administration: Granular Permissions, Enhanced Reporting

This could be a great contribution by WALDO to the Koha open source project, and a splendid reciprocal payment for being given Koha in the first place… except that Liblime is taking it, keeping it and robbing WALDO of the kudos and goodwill that they should be earning by sponsoring this development. Why WALDO are letting this happen is anyone’s guess but I sincerely hope that other Liblime clients don’t let this happen to them too.

Jo's Chicken Soup

2009-08-27T09:01:00.004+12:00

I was going through my old emails this morning looking for something (must learn how to manage my inbox sometime...) and came across this addition to my inner list of motivational writings:

"How do I stay optimistic? I realize first the issues I face are miniscule to the good I can do. How do I get inspired to face intransigence, or laziness, or ineptitude? I look right past them at the real goal, and those who really need me:

Block me, and I will go around you. Build a wall, and I will build a door. Lock the door and I will break a window. And if I don’t have have a leader to inspire me, I will lead. If I don’t have a team that will support me, I will recruit a team from beyond the organizational boundaries - every policy has a loophole, every system has a hidden reward.”

The last bit is from Shakespeare - Henry V’s St. Crispen’s Day Speech - and it must have really struck a cord with me at some point in recent months when we were defending the Library funding in the LTCCP process. I don't know who I'm quoting in the top bit - it wafted through my blog aggregator, but it links back to a terrific site I'd forgotten about: The Participatory Librarianship Starter Kit (which on reflection, may have been the real reason I saved the quote ..) anyway, great site worth looking at.

Back to me ... The Desiderata is an oldie but a goodie:

"Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence. As far as possible without surrender be on good terms with all persons. Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even the dull and the ignorant, they too have their story. Avoid loud and aggressive persons, they are vexatious to the spirit".

And yes I know its corny but its not bad. I picked up a new one on Twitter a few weeks ago:

"If you are right you don't need a defence, if you are wrong their is no defence".

And they all kind of hearken back to George Eliot's concept of a "Creed of Humanity" explored so beautifully in Silas Marner (must reread that too).

And to finish, a motivational warning from Olive Shrieiner's The Story of an African farm:

"He mounted the grey mare and rode off. The dog watched his retreat with cynical satisfaction; but his master lay on the ground with his head on his arms in the sand, and the little wheels and chips of wood lay on the ground around him. The dog jumped on to his back and snapped at the black curls, till, finding that no notice was taken, he walked off to play with a black beetle. The beetle was hard at work trying to roll home a great ball of dung it had been collecting all the morning: but Doss broke the ball, and ate the beetle's hind legs, and then bit off its head. And it was all play, and no one could tell what it had lived and worked for. A striving, and a striving, and an ending in nothing."

I have never forgotten the 'striving, striving and an ending in nothing bit' and think its about recognizing when you are pushing shit uphill, or as our guest speaker in the INFO560 class on Saturday more eloquently phrased it: Is it worth doing?

Marketing Libraries

2009-08-20T09:13:00.003+12:00

Alison Wallbutton writes a great blog called Market Intelligence : news and views about marketing, consumers and trends relevant to libraries and librarians.

Her most recent post features the research project by Melissa Clarkson about special libraries and marketing, but is of relevance to public libraries to.

I'm not going to write anything here - coz I have nothing perceptive to add - but do check out Alison's blog. She writes about an aspect of librarianship that we are increasingly involved in and there aint much around!

Making a difference: try smiling :)

2009-08-06T12:01:00.001+12:00

This is a lovely video clip - with a great message.

The September Project

2009-08-02T12:59:00.007+12:00

I came across this project some months ago and while I quite like the idea of 'connecting the world 1 library at a time' I have never felt inspired enough to see if we wanted to do anything. Until now that is, when I found this video on the project site.

Since 2004, libraries across the world have organized events about freedom and issues that matter to their communities during the month of September. This grassroots project favors free over fee, public over private, and voices over silence.

Looking at the map of past and planned events, the project is definitely Americentric, and the September 11 date is not subtle. I thought at first it really wasn't for us... until I saw the video and I've been thinking that maybe it is.

September Project events explore and exercise freedom, justice, democracy, and community and include book displays, community book readings, childrens’ art projects, film screenings, theatrical performances, civic deliberations, voter registrations, gardens, murals, panel discussions, and puppet shows. September Project events are free and open to the public.

A couple of possibilities of themes which we could promote here in Horowhenua are:

celebrate individuals and groups who foster and support community spirit and wellbeing,
celebrate Kete, our community built library of local digital content,
Celebrate Kete and Koha, as tangible results of our believe and commitment to open source and open standards.
promote the role of libraries in an open society in terms of equity of access to information.

Planned September projects can be found on the project website and are incredibly diverse, including:

Customer appreciation day where library staff bake cookies and brownies for library users,
a live review and discussion of the book Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, one of the first novels relating to the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks,
a storyteller will present tales of peace, justice, and humor from the Islamic World,
celebrating local or ordinary heroes,
"What I'd like the world to read" where patrons submit a short video, audio or Power Point presentation on any book they choose,
defend anti-censorship in libraries principles by promoting previously banned books.

This post considers what makes an interesting September Project event. While there are no set templates, some of the most interesting past projects capture the surrounding culture and history of the region.

Kete Meetup : Auckland 17 July, 2.30pm.

2009-07-13T14:26:00.002+12:00

An informal Kete get together in Auckland, Friday July 17th, 2009 at 2:30pm at Esquires Cafe in Auckland Central City Library.

Walter will be in Auckland for the launch of the latest Kete site (that we know about) during the Rising Dragons, Soaring Bananas Conference starting Friday July 17th. He figured why not throw a Kete Meetup while in Auckland. If you have any burning Kete questions or just want to see what other Kete users are up to, this is a great way to see and hear about the latest goings on with Kete.

He'll take along his laptop and will demo upcoming features, and answer any questions you may have about how to make the most of your site's configuration.

Venue: Esquires café on the ground floor of the Auckland Central City Library branch on Lorne street at 2:30pm on Friday. There is wireless access with your coffee or tea.

Walter will be in Auckland for the rest of the weekend, so if you can't make the Kete Meetup, but would like to meet up with him, drop him a line at walter - at- katipo dot co dot nz.

Mobile Devices, Libraries and Policy panel : ALA 2009

2009-07-13T10:21:00.002+12:00

Hasty post today because I am busy but want to come back and read this when I have time...

Jenny Levine, The Shifted Librarian, has blogged about a panel discussion on mobile phones and libraries held at ALA conference 2009.

Koha in the latest Code4Lib Journal #7

2009-06-27T12:34:00.002+12:00

How hard can it be? : developing in open source

Over recent years, Horowhenua Library Trust (HLT) has been receiving a steady trickle of enquiries and surveys from Library students the world over wanting to know about the development of Koha. What were the conditions and mindset that allowed a little public library in Levin, NZ to not only imagine they could, but actually develop the world's first open source library management system?

So, with help from Chris Cormack, the main brain behind Koha, and Rosalie Blake, the guts and courage, I have written our journey up and it was published today in issue 7 of the Code4Lib journal.

From the introduction:

"We were a very ordinary public library in New Zealand, we had hardly any money and a library management system that was going to stop working on 1st January 2000 …. What else could we have done? And how hard could it be anyway? The librarians would tell the programmers how a library works and they would make it so. And we weren’t going to make a big deal of this ok; 3 months is loads of time."

I do want to thank Andrew Darby from the Code4Lib editorial board for his wise and patient guidance and advice which meant getting our story published wasn't that hard at all!

Nose in a book

2009-06-26T16:41:00.003+12:00

Another photo for the "aww aint that cute " category of library photos..

We don't have many 2 story buildings so I guess stairs are a bit of a novelty to sit on, and lie on and read on ....

The Coromandel Community Digital Storytelling Project

2009-06-25T21:14:00.001+12:00

One of the coolest digitization projects I have come across is the Coromandel Community Digital Storytelling Project. This is an initiative to record, preserve, and share the history and stories of the Coromandel community using Digital Storytelling.

The programme is based on the work and practice developed by the Centre for Digital Storytelling, an international not-for-profit community arts organization rooted in the craft of personal storytelling. They assist youth and adults around the world in using media tools to share, record, and value stories from their lives, in ways that promote artistic expression, health and well being, and justice.

"While the term "digital storytelling" has been used to describe a wide variety of new media practices, what best describes the approach is its emphasis on first-person narrative, meaningful workshop processes, and participatory production methods."

What happens is a crack team of IT professionals led by Vanesa James, parks up in a village hall for 3 days. They unload their equipment: a bunch of shuttle PCs, a scanner, sound recording equipment etc and then they help locals craft a short digital story persoanl to them. The product is the end goal, so the process is not the be all and end all and the storyteller doesn't need to learn how to use all the software used.

The project started in January 2008 and so far 70 stories have been produced covering a variety of topics, including history, immigration, travel, and family. The stories are wonderful. I particularly liked Snow of the Tokotea and A Floundering Experience but there are dozens of stories online at the site. And do take a look at the programme of community screenings - pretty jolly impressive!

What I am really pleased to see on offer, is that will hold Train the Trainer courses and are available for advice and support.

And here is the opportunity: for very little expense this project could be mirrored all round the country. We could have dozens of these projects operating all over the country, coordinated by local libraries, especially the Aotearoa Peoples Network ones. The APN libraries already have a foothold in the communities of NZ, can be supplied with all the necessary equipment and get a free hosted Kete in which to store and share the lovely stories which will be created.

We should do it aye...

Tara Robertson on FOSS in Wellington, NZ.

2009-06-23T11:47:00.006+12:00

Tara is a freelance librarian from Vancouver, Canada who has just moved to Wellington, New Zealand for a year. She has been a breath of fresh air, in person and online. Apart from the appeal of her vivacious personality she is really passionate about open source software, with particular experience in Evergreen and digitization projects like the Queer History Project.com access to information, intellectual freedom and travel (and Japanese cookery with dog .... weird but true).

So she has slotted very easily into Wellington, arguably the coolest city in NZ :) She has been writing a series of blog posts about Wellington's thriving Open Source community - and I was suprised to learn how much is going on.

Her first post in the 'Get Your FOSS On' series outlines the regular geeky events held in the city and the second one focus's on Wellington Library geeks including our very own Chris Cormack, Walter McGinnis and Horowhenua Library Trust.

Can't wait for the 3rd one - good on yah Tara!

Thank goodness for Rodney's Mum!

2009-06-09T13:59:00.003+12:00

Thanks to his Mum, Rodney Hyde considers Libraries core Council business ... great news considering the shake up we are likely to see in local government in NZ in the near future.

The Cabinet paper can be viewed here and the Radio interview on Morning Report here.

NZ Koha Users Group Meeting

2009-06-05T10:55:00.005+12:00

Horowhenua Library Trust invite existing and potential Koha users and vendors to a meeting to be held on Friday the 17th July at Horowhenua District Council building, Oxford Street, Levin, from 9.30am - 4.30pm.

An agenda will be finalized on the day, but come prepared to share:

what version of Koha you are running,
any plans to upgrade to 3.0,
anything you are proud of or want to show off,
any enhancement or bug fix work underway,
any bug fixes or development work you'd like to see done,
any problems or areas you'd like help with,
future plans and ambitions,
anything else you can think of!

The room will have a wireless broadband conenction, projector and whiteboard.

There is no charge for this meeting. Lunch can be arranged for $15 a head (anyone care to sponsor this or shall we charge per person?)

Please feel to extend this invitation to anyone you think may like to attend.

For catering purposes I would like to know numbers attending by 10th July so RSVP jransom@library.org.nz.

Cheers Jo.

Photograph by Trevor Heath : http://horowhenua.kete.net.nz/trevor_heath_photography

User experience design for the 21st century library

2009-05-30T08:40:00.002+12:00

Beautiful slideshow from Darien Library's John Blyberg:

Library Skunk Works: User Experience Design for the 21st Century Library

View more Microsoft Word documents from John Blyberg.

Defending a free public library service

2009-05-25T11:09:00.001+12:00

Universal access to information is a premise dating from the Victorian era, and a founding principle for New Zealand society. Access to information and education is not just for the wealthy classes, but for all.

Public Libraries evolved during this era, and were quickly established in every small, medium and large community throughout the land. Levin's first real public library was funded by Andrew Carnegie on condition that it was free for all.

A free public library is a long established, ethical, socially responsible and much loved service throughout New Zealand. Horowhenua is a socially and economically ‘deprived’ community in terms of the Deprivation Index. The libraries in Horowhenua have never, ever, experienced higher numbers of visitors and usage than in the last year. As this recession bites, that trend will only continue, stretching a system struggling to cope on existing budgets, staffing and space.

Horowhenua District Council is one of very few Councils in New Zealand to insist that library users raise 15% of their operating expenditure. That has been achieved historically, but only through the goodwill and donated labour of library staff and Friends of the Library who have fundraised the difference between the 8% raised through user charges and the 15% currently raised.

The proposed change whereby the library will have to raise up to 25% of operating expenditure is an outrage against the principles of universal access to information for all. Additionally, and what makes it even worse, is that according to the wording of the LTCCP, the entire amount must be raised through user charges alone. While fundraising for new services and special projects is possible, fundraising for core operating expenses like power and phone is not.

Two new, much needed, community centres are being planned for Levin and Foxton. No other community in New Zealand has been charged with fundraising to such an extent, in order to build public library buildings. Public libraries are core council business, and it is no wonder that charities and grant boards are finding it hard to fund the new libraries. Income previously raised locally through fundraising and grant applications to prop up library operating costs will need to be diverted towards funding the new community centres.

This year, a new targeted library rate has been established, and I applaud that move. The cost of providing a library service, around $1.70 a week per SUIP, is now transparent and can be recognized as the value that it is.

Mid winter at Levin Library.

2009-05-22T09:07:00.005+12:00

I love this scene. As a public librarian it makes my heart sing, and heres why:

A lovely young teenager, not a library-geek,
curled up in the adult library reading,
surrounded by books, a wide variety of biographies,
and magazines,
slightly cluttered, homey feel (no , we didn't put the blue chair there),
small, cosy, human-scale 'room',
a comfy leather couch with squishy arms, big enough to curl up on,
and its warm enough to take her winter coat off.

Riding the waves : Meyer on Management

2009-05-18T11:30:00.009+12:00

Most of the management books I read generally provide good generic management tips and tricks that may be useful one day, but I have just read one which really struck a cord:

Setting the Table : The transforming power of hospitality in business by Danny Meyer. 2006. isbn: 9780060742751

While it is unashamedly about the restaurant trade, it has some great stuff for public librarians. More for me (so I won't forget) rather than any other audience, I have listed below the key points I took from the book - but it is well worth reading in its entirety!

On Hospitality
Hospitality is present when something happens for you - is absent when something happens to you. Libraries are about hospitality too.

Service is the technical delivery of a product or service, hospitality is how the delivery of that product makes a recipient feel. Service is about monologues, hospitality is about dialogue.

We need to be agents for the customer not gatekeepers for the organisation.

51%ers
Task = quality = 49% and feeling = warmth = 51%.

Values of 51%ers:

Have an optimistic warmth.
Intelligent in a curiosity to learn way.
Excellence reflex: a natural tendency to do something as well as can be
Empathy: caring about how others feel
Integrity: natural inclination to be held accountable and to do the right thing with honesty and judgement.

The other 49% task / process / skill can be taught - the 51% can't. Hire 51%ers

Looking under rocks
Find out whats happening in the place by joining bits of information together, found by looking under rocks to see whats lying underneath.

Defining your core
The importance of identifying, defining and defending your core values through constant, gentle pressure.

Managing People
Treat your staff as if they were volunteers; they could have chosen someone else to work for but they chose you! Really relevant given our high dependency on volunteers in Horowhenua.

Talk. People will hop over ripples if they know they are coming and are prepared, its the unexpectness that knocks frogs of lily pads not the ripples themselves.

5 stakeholders in enlightened hospitality: employees (yes first), guests, community, suppliers then investors. Clients can tell if staff are happy, and that sense of goodwill prermeates the place giving soul (another Meyer-ism).

Surround yourself with ambassadors: you can't do everything yourself so grow the team, identify the talent, surround yourself with people who you trust to make good judgement calls in line with your core values.

On mistakes
Surfers not servers (I love this analogy!) Surfers love taking on the big waves and they know they may well crash and burn, but they get up and on. Mistakes are like waves: the skill is in how you ride it.

As for correcting mistakes: write the last chapter in the whole sorry saga - and make it good!

Writing the last chapter

2009-05-14T08:50:00.005+12:00

I've just been on the receiving end of superb customer service - and it felt great!

I have spent several weeks selecting wallpaper for my bedroom. After getting down to a shortlist of 3 I went to the local Resene shop who offered - yes offered - to obtain large samples so I could pin them up and see how they work with the light and furnishings etc. Great idea - and a service - which I gladly accepted.

This week I saw that Resene have a 40% sale off wallpaper, so I placed my order. Within 4 hours I was telephoned and told that my chosen paper was not being made any more. I was a bit disappointed, but mostly annoyed that I was going to have to start choosing all over again.

"No no" the man said, "Leave it with me and I'll see what I can do". So I called in this morning expecting to lumber home with another 6 sample books. Nope.

That lovely man had a bunch of samples he'd sorted out for me which were very close to what I had tried to order. I picked one, which I think is actually nicer than the one I had originally picked, he rang through to confirm supply, then placed the order. It won't get here this week but he would still honour the 40% discount.

That is great customer service.

That is the sort of customer service I expect our librarians to deliver. I shudder when I hear a customer told that a book is not available sorry, and then they watch the customer leave empty handed. What I want to see is that opportunity used to open the door to a conversation about what we do have that the client may be interested in.

I am reading restaurateur Danny Meyer's book on management (which I heard about on Twitter) and he talks about writing the 'last chapter'. He argues that when something goes wrong in terms of cutomer service there is a golden opportunity to write a great last chapter to the story; people always tell others when things go wrong and you can author a great ending to the story which reflects well on you! Make it right, but do more than that, make the situation better.

In the Resene scenario this morning I have got a better wallpaper, at a great discount, and the shop saved me time - and I am telling the story.

In the library example a client could leave having discovered a bunch of other great authors or a new section in the library, all in super quick time, and you can bet they'll tell their story too!

Local councils band together to help communities keep working

2009-04-23T20:17:00.007+12:00

Fantastic initiative in the UK which I would love to see adopted here in NZ...

'Keep West Sussex Working' has been launched by the County Council and is backed by the seven District and Borough Councils.

It involves a £15,000 boost for West Sussex Libraries to provide IT training and hundreds of new books advising people on employment and business, to help guide them through the downturn.

IT training sessions will be held in a number of libraries under the scheme to give people the essential skills to help prepare themselves and get into the market place for new jobs. Sessions will include IT starter lessons, CV writing and how to make online job applications."

Read the full story in the West Sussex County Times here and view the full plan here.

Fancy Florence for August?

2009-04-22T20:27:00.011+12:00

I have huge pleasure in announcing that registrations are now open for the

IFLA satellite Preconference
Emerging Trends in Technology:
Libraries between Web 2.0, semantic web and search technology.

So if you are floating around Italy in August '09, you might like to consider spending the 19th and 20th in Florence.

The satellite preconference is sponsored by the IFLA Information Technology Section and supported by the Libraries and Web 2.0 Discussion Group. The local supporter is the Fondazione Rinascimento Digitale based in Florence www.rinascimento-digitale.it and is available for any additional info or support.

The complete programme is available at http://www.ifla2009satelliteflorence.it/meeting3/program/program.html where you can also download the flyer of the conference.

I was invited to serve on the Steering Committee for this satellite conference and having read all the abstracts I am really pleased with the final programme.

And you could do worse than Florence ...

"Establish a culture of courage to make mistakes, learn and move on".

2009-04-22T14:52:00.003+12:00

Great line aye ... not mine though, I copied it from "Government Projects the Agile Way : Can it be Done" which was posted on the In Development blog which is a NZ Govt blog decicated to delivering world class state services.

Katipo and Horowhenua Library Trust utilized agile development methodologies in the development of both Koha and Kete, and I now know (thanks to the blog) that the Digital NZ team used Agile too.

This post is a really interesting intro into Agile, and the panel discussions are worth listening too as well.

Who will fight for Gerald?

2009-04-19T21:35:00.001+12:00

I need a champion.

Who is going to fight for Gerald? or Janine? or Rachel? Or the lady with knitted stockings and the cloche hats or the 'giggle' of girls who flock in when the school bell rings?

Levin Library has 9 computers available for public internet use. They are in constant demand and we have to ration access in order to extend the service to as many people as possible. Everyone is entitled to 30 minutes free internet each day, but additional time may be purchased for $2 a half hour, although most people who can afford to buy internet time have a computer at home anyway. This means that anyone who wants to use the internet can.

Our internet computers are in constant use from open to close, and there is usually a queue.
The computers are used by a wide range of people in our community: applying for money through studylink, typing up CVs, downloading job applications or forms from IRD and WINZ, researching family history, buying and selling on TradeMe, emailing grandkids, booking flights, paying bills with internet banking, playing games or keeping in touch through Bebo or Facebook.

Gerald, Janine and Rachel are all intellectually handicapped. Gerald can't read, but he loves steam trains, and he has borrowed every train book we have - many times - so one day we showed him Youtube. Now, every couple of days Gerald comes to the library, we set him up on Youtube with a search for steam trains and leave him to it. He has learnt how to click on the files, now, and it doesn't matter that the PCs have no sound cards because he is really good at providing the sound effects himself.

Rachel chats to her friends on MSN, and I'm not sure what Janine does yet, but she loves coming up the desk and asking for an access code which she proudly clutches as she wanders off.

Horowhenua District Council have decided that from July the Library will have to start charging for the internet, and thats just the start. We currently have to raise 15% of our operating expenditure from user charges, $150,000, but last month Council decided that we need to raise between 20% and 25%, $200,000 - $250,000.

The Council's LTCCP is being released this week for public consultation. That means we have 1 month to let Council know whether we think this is acceptable to ratepayers or not.
The school girls won't write a submission to the LTCCP, or the students applying to Studylink, or the young boys playing Runescape, or the old lady searching the Pipe Rolls. And nor will Gerald, Janine and Rachel.

So who will fight for them? Who will fight for their right to access technology that we all take for granted?

Will you be that champion?

[Names have been changed for privacy].

The Effing Librarian Manifesto

2009-04-09T09:18:00.002+12:00

Wow, The Darien Statements have certainly created a storm of discussion amount the profession - Great!

Couple of good places to follow the discussion include the John Blyberg's original post, but this great post this morning had me laughing out loud:

".... The Effing Librarian Statement: Libraries and Librarians help you do all kinds of shit that might somehow involve books, but not always."
And if you want the bumper sticker version: "Librarians help you do shit." more>>

Only in Europe ...

2009-04-06T19:53:00.000+12:00

Cool - but nothing to do with libraries at all :)

The Lipstick index : 5 ways the recession is changing our life.

2009-04-06T14:06:00.004+12:00

How could I not blog about an article which had that for a title!

I regularly skim through feeds from The Trendsetting Blog and this one got me thinking today. The article argues that coping with the global recession has become more than lifestyle adjustment, it is really changing lives:

5 trends noted:

Potty training - to cut back on disposable nappies.
Apearance expenses: do-it-yourself hair dying, persona grooming.
Cell phone and internet use : 39% of cellphone subscribers in the States are looking at cutting back on internet, and 1 in 5 cellphone users have cut back in the last 6 months or are planning to. More research shows there has been a 20% growth in VOIP - go Skype!
Cookbook sales are up (like double digit growth for Amazon), in fact the whole DIY section. Backing this up was a story I heard last week about the phenomenal growth in sales of vege seeds and seedlings.
Bartering is in.

Must pass these trends onto our acquisition team .... and look at our public internet service offerings!

PS The quirky economic theory "The Lipstick Indicator" is based on the question : Does lipstick sell well when the economic depression deepens? Google Trends answers “Yes” More>>

The twouble with Twitters

2009-04-06T13:36:00.000+12:00

The Darien Statements on the Library and Librarians

2009-04-04T23:18:00.004+13:00

On March 26th 2009, Darien Library in the States, hosted an event called “In the Foothills: A Not-Quite-Summit on the Future of Libraries” at which participants were instructed to “come prepared to help sketch out the role librarians should play in defining the future of libraries”. The two speakers, John Berry and Kathryn Greenhill, provoked a conversation among John Blyberg, Kathryn and Cindi Trainor that began in John's office the next day and spilled out across the ensuing week.

The conversation resulted in "The Darien Statements on the Library and Librarians". Click here to view the resulting document (CC Licence). It’s meant to be grand, optimistic, obvious, and thankful to and for our users, communities, and the tireless librarians who work the front lines every day, upholding the purpose of the Library. Heres a sample:

"The Purpose of the Library

The purpose of the Library is to preserve the integrity of civilization.

The Library has a moral obligation to adhere to its purpose despite social, economic, environmental, or political influences. The purpose of the Library will never change.

The Library is infinite in its capacity to contain, connect and disseminate knowledge; librarians are human and ephemeral, therefore we must work together to ensure the Library’s permanence.

Individual libraries serve the mission of their parent institution or governing body, but the purpose of the Library overrides that mission when the two come into conflict.

Why we do things will not change, but how we do them will.

A clear understanding of the Library’s purpose, its role, and the role of librarians is essential to the preservation of the Library.

The Role of the Library

The Library:

Provides the opportunity for personal enlightenment.
Encourages the love of learning.
Empowers people to fulfill their civic duty.
Facilitates human connections.
Preserves and provides materials.
Expands capacity for creative expression.
Inspires and perpetuates hope. More>>

I believe this document will become core to discussions on the role of libraries for years to come. Congratulations and thank you to John Blyberg, Kathryn Greenhill and Cindi Trainor for articulating so eloquently why we do what we do.

NB. The photograph above of the three whizz kids is by Michael Porter, and about 90% of the text above is taken directly from John Blyberg's blog.

The role of public libraries during the recession

2009-04-03T10:55:00.006+13:00

Quick one today: 3 links to thought provoking articles in online newspapers gleaned from the NZ-Libs and ALA this morning:

"Our Libraries are at risk - just when we need them most" from The Guardian .

"Downturn puts more stress on libraries" from The New York Times

"How Libraries can benefit from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act" from American Libraries.

The first article looks at how local authorities are closing down libraries and reducing opening hours in Britiain. The second article examines the social problems that librarians are increasingly having to address, and the third one reports on the multi-million dollar investment in American Libraries being made in recognition of the vital role that libraries are and will continue to play in our society, especially during this recession.

Ironic, that as librarys are coming under increased demand for their services, local authorities in the UK, and NZ, are seeing them as an easy target for slashing operating budgets.

The problem is how will we manage with increased demands and pressures while our budgets are being slashed or even just remaining static. How do we fund the extra staff and resources to meet the extra demand? Our statistics show that while issues are increasing, and foot traffic too, and the range of tasks we are asked to help with, this does not translate into increases in rental or donation income.

Don't be afraid of using lots of Item Types in Koha !

2009-03-31T11:50:00.003+13:00

Well, I have done it ... got my collection organised into Item Types and Collection Codes and it looks like it will work really well for the OPAC display!

Setttled on 73 Item Types, but clustered them into 12 collection codes which makes advanced search really useful. Surprisingly, once I changed my thinking about creating the circulation rules, I only needed to create 21 lending rules (I used defaults heavily).

Live Blog of Future of Libraries non-summit at Darien.

2009-03-27T14:07:00.002+13:00

Kathryn Greenhill is such an inspirational librarian ... really, really on to it!

This link is directly to her blog Librarians Matter showing how she is sharing what she does... great content - but also great technique and use of tools!

Mobile Library services for iPhone and iPod Touch

2009-03-27T13:06:00.002+13:00

Take a look at this brand new service developed by Orange County Libraries in the States, a breathrough way to explore the Library using your iPhone or iPod Touch:

PS. OCLC is a Koha library!

Usage patterns

2009-03-26T16:20:00.008+13:00

Well I have just spent the entire day crunching issue stats and its been quite interesting.... odd, but interesting.

Our average daily issues over all items has been rising consistently, 20% over the last 2 years.

The average daily issue count of all rental items (fiction, magazines, DVDs) has remained essentially static, despite issues rising so significantly. Income from rental items has flatlined, virtually unchanged despite halving the rental charge of pay DVDs 18 months ago. We have long suspected there is $x of disposable income to spend at the library, and if people borrow more rental DVDs they spend less on rental fiction etc. This became very obvious once we got the stats on a graph.

Total DVDs make up around 11% of our total issues, up from 4% just 2 years ago; the daily average count of free DVDs has risen by 288% !

Actually looking at our issues in relation to what % of the budget we spent is interesting too:

AV: 6% of our budget generating 15% of our issues.
LP: 14% of the budget for 15% of our issues.
Junior: 18% for 15% of our issues.
ANF: 23% for 15% of our issues.
Fiction: 19% of the budget generating 30% of the issues.

The DVD collection, which gets about 4% of the total budget, generates 11% of the issues which is a pretty good return on investment.

Generating Revenue through Rental Collections
The starting point for all this was that Council would like us to raise more money. Now that our issues are rising so steadily, not to mention our visitor numbers (both real and virtual), surely we should be able to generate a bigger chunk of our operating expenses ... well, no, sorry.

Those who choose or can afford to rent items rent them, and those who can't don't. And those who are coming to the library because of economic hardship are not coming to spend money. If the motivation to save money gets them to the library, it is also going to get them to bypass rental items for free ones - of which we have plenty.

What the web stretegist should know about Twitter

2009-03-23T10:22:00.002+13:00

Great link on the Web4lib digest this morning, linking to this post on on Jeremiah Owyang's blog Social Media, Web Marketing.

Provides a really good introduction to Twitter, plus loads of related links to other posts about using Twitter to market your business or service. Heres an excerpt:

"The savvy Twitter user realizes that the effective communications aren’t just ‘pushing’ content to readers, but they will also dialogue and converse with others by replying to them. I use this tool as a global chat room, responding to others, building relationships, and listening in. Like blogging, the rule of anti-marketing marketing is required for success, engage your community. Unlike traditional forms of advertising and marketing, Twitter is “opt-in” meaning that users will ‘follow’ a twitter account, abuse will result in a user unsubscribing. "

Lego Darth Vader Canteen Incident

2009-03-20T14:43:00.001+13:00

Almost Monthy-Pythonesque ...

The way we read now as out world totters

2009-03-16T11:52:00.003+13:00

Nothing original from me, but a link to a great item on Times Online.

A wee quote:

"Publishing may be facing the same problems as other businesses, but some books are booming. Escapist romantic fiction is in the pink. Mills & Boon is selling three books a second, and Cheryl Cole, of Girls Aloud, has signed a £5million deal to write romantic novels.
Sales of misery memoirs, by contrast, are dwindling: the pleasure of wallowing in someone else's unhappiness, it seems, is less poignant in hard times." More >>

Summary of discussion about Item Types

2009-03-16T11:23:00.003+13:00

Wow ... don't I know how to generate discussion!

I have been bowled over by the really helpful discussion about this issue over the last week or so; on the Koha list, via email and also on this blog.

I started getting confused (again) about this isse and so went through and assigned a piece of paper per issue raised, then listed all the comments below each topic. By the end of the exercise there was a wide spread consensus on how to use Item Types and CCodes, which I share for you below.

Biblio Level Info
Search results display Biblio level info; which can include:

Format (book, DVD, video cassette)
Audience (children, young adult, adult)
Content (bibliography)
Material Type (using XLST search will display wee icons.)

Item Level Info
The holdings table displays Item level info, which can include:

Item Types
CCodes
Shelving Location
Call Number

Advanced Search
The Advanced Search interface displays either

Item Types (with their associated icons)

Collection Codes (with their associated icons).

You cannot set both as Advanced Search options, although this would be a cool enhancement.

Notes on Item Types

set circulation policy
you must have item types
you don’t have to have CCodes
can be used to define collections
can be OPAC advanced search points

Notes on CCodes

have no relationship to circulation policy
any number of CCodes can have the same the Item Type
are optional
are used to define collections
can be OPAC advanced search points

Notes on Call Number
How the item is shelved ie its shelf position, can include alpha and numeric characters.

Notes on Shelving Location
A physical location ie a floor or building

General Rule:
Nice quote from Joshua:

"If you don’t have to have CCodes to distinguish between Item Types and Collection Codes, then don’t – just use Item Types".

When CCodes would be needed:
And a great example of when you would need CCodes (Thanks Owen):

You have a policy which says borrowers may have no more than 10 AV items on loan at a time. So Item Type is set as AV and a bunch of CCodes are created:
DVD, JDVD, Video, JVideo, CDROM, Audio Book on Tape, Teen Audio Book on CD, etc. A patron may borowe a total of 10 AV materials from any of the CCodes related to Item Type=AV.

MARC Fields
For anyone still interested in playing this game, I would love some help identifying the marc fields where we enter the data that will display for these fields:

Biblio info

Format
Audience
Content
Material Type

Item info

Item Types
CCodes
Shelving Location
Call Number (including dewey and / or genre, and filing letters)

Thanks for everyones help with this ... hopefullt we will save many hours of planning for others to grapple with this issue!

And another option for arranging our collection in Koha 3.0

2009-03-12T17:13:00.004+13:00

After corresponding with a handful of really clever, and questioning librarians I think there may be another, better way to organise our collection in Koha 3.0 which will meet all of my needs with regards to making a really helpful OPAC!

Item Types
9 Item Types only, based on loan lengths and rental charges, making for easy creation of the circulation rules table. The codes do make sense for us, but double dutch for everyone else, so I showed what they represent too:

REF : not for issue
CIRC : 3 week issue, no rental
TB : 3 week issue, $5 rental
P : 2 week issue, no rental
BPF : 2 week issue, $2 rental
CDPP : 1 week issue, no rental
BPN : 1 week issue, $3 rental
DVD : 1 week issue, $2.50 rental
PP : 1 week issue, $1 rental

CCodes
We could then have 13 Collection Codes based on main shelving areas or collections. For us these will be:

Adult Nonfiction
Large Print
Adult Fiction
Children's Nonfiction
Children's Fiction
Children's Picturebook
Teen books
CDs
DVDs
File Packets
Magazines
Audio Books
Videos

Shelved at
Then we will use the 'Shelved at' field to denote sub-collection. For us, examples are:

General Nonfiction
The Natural World,
Health
Local History
Local History Reference,
Paperback Romances,
First Chapter Books,
Rental Teen DVD,
Free Audio Book on CD,
Rental Audio Book on Tape,
Children's Video
etc

Call Number
The call number field would display the filing position on the shelf. Sometimes the dewey number and filing letters, othertimes the genre (where we shelf by genre), othertimes just a filing letter. Examples for our collection are:

636.8 BONE
GABA
Romance COOK

I think this looks very do-able - in fact I am really excited at how useful this could be for the library patron who finds an item in the catalogue and wants to know exactly whereabouts to find it.

So, still a few issues to clarify;

Can we assign icons to CCodes?
Can we get decent sized icons displaying in the OPAC to reflect or denote format at a glance, not just the ugly wee 16pt ones at present?
Can the CCodes 'description', 'shelved at' and 'call number' fields all be made to display in the OPAC search results? and
Can we set the advanced search options to CCodes?

But if all those can be done, I think its looking really positive!

Thanks you so much everyone who helped discuss the options through; I feel that a number of us have developed a better understanding of the issues involved, in working through this process. I am looking forward to hearing your thoughts on this latest version!

Thinking about Item Types in Koha

2009-03-06T11:48:00.009+13:00

I am writing this post to record the process I have been through to review our existing use of Item Types in Koha 2.x, in preparation for a move to Koha 3.x.

OPAC centric
I focussed this exercise from the library users point of view. What would our patrons like to ‘see’ as a search result in OPAC interface?

Search Result:

Title, author etc
What format is it?
Is it on loan or available ?
If on loan when is it due back?
If available, which library is it currently at?
Which area of the library or which collection do I go to get it? Which collection or ‘Living Room’?
What is its shelving position ie dewey or filing letters?

Advanced Search:

Only items not on loan OR all
Only items at a specific library Or all * Particular formats ie Book only or DVD OR all
Particular audiences ie children’s, teen or adult OR all
Particular genre: romance or mystery etc
Particular collections: easy reader fiction, picturebooks, local history etc

Item Types OR CCodes

There are two very different ways to organize a collection in Koha 3.0. Either heavy use of the Item Types OR heavy use of CCodes. My understanding is that you have to choose 1 or the other for advanced search, but not both.

Item types – These are used to set circulation policies. These are not format descriptors (GMDs). They can be set as advanced search options, and display as icons on the search results screen. The codes are never seen by the public, but informative descriptions add real value as a finding tool for patrons.

CCodes – Collection Codes can be set as advanced search options too, and can be set to display as text on search results.

Having minimal Item Types can greatly simplify the creation of circulation rules. So you could have just 3 or 4 Item types, and then use collection codes to shape your collection into ‘clusters’.

eg. Item Types:

G General collection 3 week loan period, no rental
GR General rental collection 3 week loan, $3 rental
S Short term loan 1 week loan, no rental
SR Short term rental collection 1 week loan, $1 rental

with a bunch of CCodes:

ANF Adult nonfiction
CNF Children’s nonfiction
TNF Teens nonfiction
AF Adult Fiction
JF Junior fiction

Or even by genre or Living Room:

FM Fiction mystery
FW Fiction Western
FR Fiction Romance
BNP People and Places

Alternatively, we could create as many Item Types as we like to reflect a finely granulated collection at Item Type level, with or without the use of Collection Codes.

If we go with many item types then I will need to craft the circulation rules carefully, loading the default position first and only creating rules for the exceptions. My old way of creating a rule for every single combination of patron and item types will be a nightmare!

If we go with Item Types I will assign icons which reflects the format or GMD (ie all book item types have a book icon). The full text description of the item type will display in the OPAC search result enabling the patron to see what format the item is at a glance.

Test Scenarios.
I created a bunch of test scenarios in order to see how applying each of the various options and combinations could best meet my objective of delivering the most useful information for the patron.

In placing a heavy emphasis on Item Types I could end up with about 100 different item types, if I fully utilized this method to reflect genres within fiction, rental fiction and large print, and also ‘living rooms’ or subject based sub-collections within the non-fiction.

I also wanted to test an option where heavy emphasis is placed on Collection Codes. This would streamline setting up circulation rules drastically as only 8 Item Types would be required, but I would still have to create a whole heap of Collection Codes. I could group a bunch of Item Types into 1 collection, or a bunch of collections into 1 Item Type.

Several scenarios were tested:

Total granulation as far as possible, for all genres and living rooms, within all collections (about 100 item types).
Granulate for all major collections, but not for genres. Rely on the subject headings – which are hotlinks to find related material. (about 60 item types).
As above, but enter the Genre in the Call Number field as well.
Minimum number of Item Types created, 1 for each class of circulation eg 3 weeks & no rental, 1 week & $2 etc.

I have a document showing the detail of the tests but I'm not clever enough to create tables in this blog... so contact me directly if you want the whole document!

Conclusion

All 4 test scenarios struggled with displaying the Fiction genres in a useful way for the Patron. This is because we do not shelf them by Genre.

Our Fiction Collection Manager suggested we just stop adding them in to the catalogue, and use the subject headings instead, which would actually be more useful because different aspects of the book could be catalogued. We would not be forcing a book into 1 genre. We can still add Genre stickers to the spines if we wish, which is where they really come into their own for shelf browsers, but the catalogue will not reflect that.

This made live easier.

The reason against making loads of Item Types is the pain of creating the circulation rules table – and its not a bad enough reason to out weigh the benefits of many, finely tuned and well descibed, Item Types which would add real value to the OPAC search results.

We will create Item Types for each collection and Living Room, but not by Genre for each of the 3 Fiction collections: free, rental and large print.

Thanks to Owen, Brooke, Nicole, Caitlin, Larissa and Rosalie for helping me work through the issues.

Local Authorities and Public Libraries

2009-03-05T09:34:00.004+13:00

I just love the internet! Here I am in sitting in quiet old Levin, and I get to 'attend' a conference held in Britain recently - via video.

The Local Authorities Transforming Public Libraries conference has some very relevant and timely presentations. 2 in particular caught my eye: Libraries in a Recesssion and Public Libraries in a Democracy.

The Twittering Class Moves On

2009-03-04T11:48:00.005+13:00

Just popped over to the new-look Stuff.co.nz - its pretty cool - and I found something interesting too, which is always a bonus!

This story about 12seconds.tv which is a site where you post 12 seconds of video from your cellphone... its like Twitter with video not words - although it does post to your Twitter account too if you want it too....

... and the copyright wars continue

2009-03-04T10:16:00.002+13:00

Interesting item on Computerworld this morning about New Zealand's copyright laws being threatened:

"A local website has removed recordings of the Conan novels under the threat of legal action from the US, despite the material being in the public domain in New Zealand." More>>

Digital literacy education in public libraries.

2009-03-04T09:04:00.000+13:00

We used to have heaps of primary class visits to the public library - 5 or 6 every week - but now we don't.

The long term payoff for us having every school kid in this town visiting the library, at least 6 times a year, was that we got to see kids we would never normally see, kids whose families didn't include the public library as part of their usual, family routine. We got these kids through the door, and gave them the courage to come back out side of school hours, alone or with their mates. We miss that opportunity now, and I think we can't afford to let this ride.

Our schools are focussing their attention on the inernet as the primary source of information and even our towns, which have fairly low socio-economic profiles, have 2 or 3 computers in every classroom. What the teachers don't neccessarily have is the skills, knowledge or time to devise and deliver the lessons that will teach our children how to maximise the opportunities the internet provides.

We need to rethink our programmes and offer something that is irresistible to teachers, helps them deliver to their students - and saves them time too. Universities do this 'user education' or 'digital literacy' really well but I think public librarians could offer this to the schools of the town.

A series of high quality lessons focussing on fostering and developing skill in using the internet, delivered by the local public librarian needs to be re-established as a core part of the academic year if we are going to reclaim our relevance to a whole generation of kids whose families for what ever reason don't bring them to the library.

This clip was blogged about by Peter Godwin recently and talks about why Google is just not enough.

Exploring 'The Bandstand, Hyde Park' : a video experiment on Flickr

2009-03-03T10:42:00.004+13:00

Seb Chan and the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney do some ground breaking stuff and I follow his blog for the cool stuff he shares. This post came up a while ago but I kept it because it demonstrates the very cool stuff that can be done with digital collections - and on a shoe string too. Must keep an eye out for similarly composed photos in Kete and see what we can do!

How to present while people are twittering.

2009-02-25T15:43:00.004+13:00

Driving back last night from a meeting about Professional Registration for Librarians (and yes I'm sending mine off today) we were talking about social media. I mentioned how I learnt about Twitter at the Bridging World's conference in Singapore where members of the audience and some of the speakers were communicating on the 'back channel' : Twitter. I found it quite intriguing that discussions were taking place in real time while the paper was being presented - including questions which some hardy soul ocasionally asked the speaker at the end of the session. Not sure how I felt about it; it looked kinda rude with people not paying attention but I guess they must have been in order to sustain the conversation...

Anyway, this article by Olivia Mitchell, reported on Twitter by @cindi, discuses the issue of how to present while your audience twitters.

Bug reporting may never be the same again: Jing

2009-02-24T13:29:00.005+13:00

While down south last week showcasing Kete to the West Coast Aotearoa People's Network libraries, Jackie Gurden mentioned Jing as a great way to produce short videos which captured screen action accompanied by a talk over. This will be really useful for illustrating or explaining a bug, or for giving instructions. Might have a play at documenting the creation of Kete content ...

Why Facebook is for old fogies...

2009-02-19T10:17:00.002+13:00

Tongue in cheek article from Time magazine about why Facebook appeals to us 30 pluses ... very timely given my recent attempts to convince my 18 year old he was too old for Bebo and needed to shift to a 'grown up' site like Facebook now he's off to university.

Thanks to cindi for posting on Twitter.

The 'value' I get from Twitter

2009-02-18T10:39:00.006+13:00

I am starting to 'get' Twitter now and was thinking this morning about what the 'value' is that I get from investing time using it.

I may be a slightly odd Twit because I prefer to keep the clutch of people I follow quite small. I check Twitter maybe 6 times a day and I want to be able to quickly scan the tweets since my last post without having to troll through too many screens. I compare it to a dinner party where I can't 'hear' all the conversation in the room at once so I join a small group and then move to a different group of people when I'm ready. So no offence if I drop you from my list of followees for a bit; I'm just working the room!

The value I get from Twitter falls into 4 different categories:

Firstly, as a professional development tool in terms of libraries in its broadest sense. I tend to keep following people who share links to interesting stuff. Its like reading newspapers in companiable silence with a mate and you share snippets with each other. I follow briankelly, citegeist, mstephen7, gnat and littlehigh for this reason.
Secondly, its a way to keep informed about business because I currently have a horrified fascination with whats happening in the world economy; bernardchickey is fabulous for posting interesting links as he comes across them.
Thirdly, as a Koha-ian, I want to become familiar with members of the Koha global community. I want to 'personalize' or get to know who the people are who post to the Koha list. Its amazing how you start to add 'colour' to an image of someone you only ever 'see' as a name online - all from just 140 character posts each day.
And lastly there are people I know personally, or care about, but don't get to see or talk to very often so its nice to stay in touch. Its like waving at someone across the room

So thats me. I started writing this post to promote a couple of blog posts about Twitter and librarians:

Twitter basics for librarians by Leora Wenger (leoraw on Twitter) and 14 UK information professionals to follow on Twitter by Brian Kelly (briankelly on Twitter).

The Commons

2009-02-17T15:56:00.003+13:00

Heads up to Paul Reynolds for once again finding something very very cool to blog about:

In this great wee animation, filmmaker Laura Hanna, writer Gavin Browning and video artists/animators Dana Schechter and Molly Schwartz examine the concept of "The Commons" as a means to achieve a society of justice and equality.

Very, very cool - thanks Paul!

TV3 news item explaining the ramifications of the proposed s92 on public libraries.

2009-02-17T11:02:00.003+13:00

This news item appeared on TV3 last night and is a good explanation of some of the issues public libraries will have to face.

I think it is completely unreasonable, not to mention unfeasible, to make public libraries keep records for six months of every session of internet use, of every hour, of every day plus be able to track down the internet user no matter where they came from!

Join NZ in protesting this ridiculous new law. Popular Twitterer Stephen Fry (yes the comedian) is actively supporting Internet Blackout NZ week as are many other internet users around the world.

Visit http://creativefreedom.org.nz/ to find out more.

Why open source is good for Google

2009-02-17T09:24:00.001+13:00

Great news item today on Stuff about open source:

"OPEN WIDE: Google's open source-friendly strategy is paying off, Google's head of engineering for Australia and New Zealand says. More>>"

Internet Blackout NZ

2009-02-16T17:04:00.002+13:00

Launch of "The Prow" : a digital library of local history from NZ

2009-02-16T10:29:00.006+13:00

Another luscious digital project funded by the NZ Digital Strategy was launched today. Congratulations to the development team; it is beautiful!

"The Prow collects and makes accessible stories from the Top of the South - Te Tau Ihu o waka a Maui.  Each story stands alone as an illustrated snapshot of an event, person or activity, but is also a starting point for further research, with full lists of and links to sources and resources. Our stories been written by contracted writers, including Hilary and John Mitchell, who have contributed many Maori stories, and fully researched by Library staff.

A key feature of the site is that it is interactive, allowing people to comment on, or add to, our stories, or to add a story of their own.

The Prow is a collaborative venture between Nelson Public Libraries, the lead partner, Tasman and Marlborough District Libraries, the Nelson Provincial Museum and Nelson Marlborough Institute of Technology. It was funded by the Digital Strategy Community Partnership Fund.

For further information, please contact Nicola Harwood, the Project Manager."