Open Source Software and Tools for the Library and Archive

Nicole Engard portraitKeynote Speaker: Nicole Engard

Session Time: 9:00 - 9:45 a.m. CDT

Session Title: Open Your Mind: Open Source and Libraries

Session Description: Engard will begin her presentation with an introduction to open source and why it’s a great option for libraries and archives. Additionally, she will speak about her own experiences with open source and the importance of going into the community to increase awareness of open source offerings for libraries.

Speaker Bio: Nicole Engard is Vice President of Community Outreach at ByWater Solutions. Her primary role is to educate librarians about open source software, with a focus on the Koha Integrated Library System. She keeps the library community up to date on web technologies via her website, "What I Learned Today..."

Amye McCarther portraitSpeaker: Amye McCarther

Session Time: 10:00 - 10:45 a.m. CDT

Session Title: Oral Histories and Scalar

Session Description: Cultural institutions have increasingly taken up the practice of exhibiting digital collections online, extending access to collections materials beyond institutions’ physical sites and enhancing research capabilities. Oral history materials present special ethical and practical challenges to this already complex digital terrain. These materials constitute the recorded embodiment of an intersubjective process of authority sharing. As such, they require particular attention to the rhetorical implications of how their contents are structured and interpreted in digital space. In a more practical sense the durational properties of audio and video recordings can likewise prove challenging as they resist searchability and synchronization with textual surrogates and other visual materials.

The open source rich media platform Scalar, designed by the Alliance for Networking Visual Culture (ANVC) for digital scholarly publications, has many affordances that lend themselves to the structuring of multimodal digital/digitized oral histories. As a recent graduate student, McCarther explored how these affordances enact theoretical facets of oral history work and evaluated their practical strengths as navigational tools. Scalar is a sophisticated platform that can be customized with minimal coding experience, and its growing number of plug-ins can be used to further enhance users’ discovery of and experience with digital collections. Archivists and librarians who are considering whether to use Scalar for oral history collections will want to consider the strengths and limitations of the platform for handling these materials, as well as their attendant ethical implications.

McCarther will present on her experience with Scalar by 1) mapping its affordances to the practical and theoretical concerns of oral history materials generally, 2) describing how those concerns shaped the project design for a use case regarding a multimodal collection of interrelated oral history materials, and 3) evaluating the successes and limitations of implementing that design.

Speaker Bio: Amye McCarther is a graduate student at the University of Texas at Austin, earning an MSIS in Archives and Preservation with an emphasis on moving images and recorded sound. Her research interests include the preservation of algorithmic and interactive music composition, materiality and digital objects, and intellectual property issues regarding time-based media. She has received grant funding for audio preservation (Idea Fund, 2011) and participated in the Joan Mitchell Foundation's CALL Project to document artists' personal collections (2012-13). McCarther is currently based in New York City and works at the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, where she is establishing object files for Rauschenberg's ouvre and advising on preservation measures taken for the Foundation's audiovisual holdings.

Elizabeth Quigley portraitSpeaker: Elizabeth Quigley -

Session Time: 10:00 - 10:45 a.m. CDT

Session Title: Discovering and Publishing Data with Dataverse

Session Description: The Dataverse Project started in 2006 at Harvard's Institute for Quantitative Social Science as an open source software application to share, cite and archive data.

From its beginnings, Dataverse (then referred to as the Dataverse Network) has provided a robust infrastructure for data stewards to host and archive data while offering researchers an easy way to share and get credit for their data. Since then, Dataverse has grown to 10 repositories that now share metadata with each other, hosted in institutions around the world that together serve more than 55,000 datasets with 750,000 data files (dataverse.org). These Dataverse repositories are using the Dataverse software in a variety of ways, from supporting existing large data archives to building institutional or public repositories. One of these Dataverse repositories is the Harvard Dataverse, that alone hosts more than 800 dataverses (containers of datasets) owned and managed by either researchers, research groups, organizations, departments or journals. The Harvard Dataverse has so far served more than a million downloads of its datasets, allowing researchers around the world to reuse the data, discover new findings, and extend or verify previous work.

While the Dataverse project started from the social sciences for the social sciences, it has expanded to benefit a wide range of disciplines and scientific domains (astronomy, life sciences, etc), leveraging progress in the social science domain to define and enhance data publishing across all research communities. In particular, as part of the new Dataverse release (v4.0), staff has evaluated the features needed in data publishing so data can be properly shared, found, accessed and reused.

This presentation will provide some background information on the Dataverse's history, offer examples of how libraries and archives are using Dataverse to share data, and showcase the new features developed in version 4.0 for researchers.

Speaker Bio: Elizabeth Quigley, MLIS, (twitter: @dataverseorg) is the User Experience Lead for the Data Science team at Harvard's Institute for Quantitative Social Science. Her usability research mainly focuses on improving open source products for researchers, such as The Dataverse Project, an open source data repository.
Her research interests include discoverability of data, user experience of academic products, and best practices for integrating user experience processes into existing products.

Raymond Pun portraitSpeaker: Raymond Pun -

Session Time: 10:00 - 10:45 a.m. CDT

Session Title: Mapping out GIS Day Globally and Collaboratively: Lessons Learned

Session Description: In this presentation, Pun will address how he promoted open source mapping tools in an event called Geographic Information System (GIS) Day in a global network university: New York University-Shanghai, China, where he worked from 2013-2015. In November 2014, the speaker collaborated with two affiliated universities that form NYU's Global Network University: NYU in New York City and NYU in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, to promote GIS Day across three continents. The speaker will share his experiences on promoting mapping tools globally and collaboratively: the lessons learned and how to effectively outreach and engage with students across the global network through events such as GIS Day. Attendees may be inspired to organize their own GIS Day in November and to collaborate with other universities across the globe to promote open access mapping tools and learn about other open source tools in cartography.

Speaker Bio: Raymond Pun (twitter: @oboro85) is the first year student success librarian in California State University, Fresno. Previously, he was a reference and research services librarian in NYU Shanghai, where he provided reference, digital and outreach support. His professional and research interests include data management and digital scholarship services, GIS librarianship, first year experience and community engagement.

Morgan Jones-King portraitSpeakers: Morgan Jones-King -

Session Time: 11:00 - 11:45 a.m. CDT

Session Title: Software for the Special Snowflake: Using Open Source Software in Unique Situations

Session Description: Special Snowflake Syndrome: the feeling that you are a beautiful and unique snowflake unlike any other.

In the world of archives, libraries, and cultural resource management, there are many, many special snowflakes. Institutions may share goals and problems, but situations are often vastly different, which is why open source software is so appealing. Such is the case for the South Carolina State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO) and the staff's desire to create a unified online database of state historic properties. The database is, in essence, an item-level description finding aid. After the debut of two prototypes and a limited distribution, CollectiveAccess has proven its worth as the software for the job.

During this presentation, Jones-King will discuss the goals of the South Carolina SHPO and how and why she chose the open source software CollectiveAccess for the database project. She will also discuss the process of installing and using CollectiveAccess as an archivist with a small amount of coding experience. Finally, she will discuss takeaways from the project, why she would choose open-source software again, and how CollectiveAccess has been successful.

Speaker Bio: Morgan Jones-King (twitter: @msjonesking) graduated from UNC-Chapel Hill's School of Information and Library Science in May 2014 with an MSLS concentrating in archives and records management. Since June 2014, she's worked for the South Carolina State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO), which resides in the State Department of Archives and History. She was hired as the Historic Properties Information Coordinator to create a unified database for state historic properties collected by the statewide survey and make the database available to the public via the web.

Athena Christa Holbrook portraitSpeaker: Athena Christa Holbrook -

Session Time: 11:00 - 11:45 a.m. CDT

Session Title: Portrait of the Joan Logue Collection: Omeka as a Tool for the Management and Presentation of Personal Art Collections

Session Description: For the past two years, Athena Christa Holbrook has worked with video artist Joan Logue to organize, document, and contextualize a body of art work that spans over four decades. The initial phase of this project, which included the production of an inventory and catalog of her work, is now entering Phase Two, creating a centralized database for this catalog and providing access to this information through a public-facing collection website.

After comparing and testing various free and open source software appropriate for small collections, including Collective Access and Omeka, staff ultimately opted for Omeka as its chosen platform. They are currently halfway through the process of data import and site design, and would like to use their experience with open source software platforms within the context of small, personal art collections.

Speaker Bio: Athena Christa Holbrook (twitter: @wetted_ashes) is an audiovisual archivist focused on the history, presentation, and preservation of media and performance art. A graduate of New York University's Moving Image Archiving and Preservation program, she has previously worked as Associate Media Conservator for the Kramlich Collection & New Art Trust. In addition to managing the collection of video artist Joan Logue, she is also the Collection Specialist in the Department of Media & Performance Art at New York City’s Museum of Modern Art.

Speaker: Kathryn Frederick

Session Time: 11:00 - 11:45 a.m. CDT

Session Title: ArchivesSpace: A Love Story

Session Description: This session will discuss Skidmore College's implementation of the open source ArchivesSpace platform. The program was installed locally in 2014, and staff spent a year working with it before moving to Lyrasis' hosted version in May. Frederick will provide an overview of ArchivesSpace, including demonstrations of the public and staff interfaces, discuss training staff, and review the pros and cons of local versus hosted installations.

Speaker Bio: Kathryn Frederick is the head of Digital and Collection Services at Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, NY. She leads and supports digital projects in Archives and Special Collections, Systems, Technical Services, and Visual Resources.

Michael Schofield portraitSpeaker: Michael Schofield -

Session Time: 12:00 - 12:45 p.m. CDT

Session Title: WordPress for a Powerful #Libweb

Session Description: A quarter of all sites on the web sit on WordPress. Soon, when a new feature (WP-API) is bundled in all updates, WordPress will be responsible for scaling the entire internet. Yes, we can use it for easy, small library websites, but ambitious library systems can use WordPress to power multiple apps and supplant traditionally third-party services like your OPAC, event system, DAMs, institutional repositories, and so on.

This inspirational talk is focused on divorcing libraries from the notion that "WordPress is for blogs." Instead, it may be the most powerful open-source tool libraries can use. Schofield will show existing WP-powered library services and explain how they're working, and – without getting too nitty-gritty – introduce concepts like COPE (create once publish everywhere) using APIs, and how building future-friendly library services with WordPress can help libraries pivot when whatever next big game-changing technology comes around.

Speaker Bio: Michael Schofield (@schoeyfield) is a front-end developer interested in the creative application of user experience design for libraries and the higher-ed web. He's an award-winning web services librarian, a WordCamp Miami organizer, started #LibUX, feels strongly about sci-fi, the beach, and coffee.

Speakers: Hao Zeng and Daisy DeCoster

Session Time: 12:00 - 12:45 p.m. CDT

Session Title: Implementing Subjects Plus: An Open Source Subject Guide Experience

Session Description: Most academic libraries produce research or subject guides, online “bibliographies” used to direct students to information resources in specific subject areas or geared toward specific academic courses.
In 2011 Saint Peter’s University Libraries transitioned their Subject Guides from static HTML pages to an open source content management system called SubjectsPlus. (SubjectsPlus was refreshed to version 2.0 in early 2015). Staff also uses SubjectsPlus to manage the library’s A-Z Database List and library FAQs.

This presentation will discuss the technical requirements for installing SubjectsPlus and demonstrate both the user and librarian interfaces. Also discussed will be the challenges faced, including indexing SubjectsPlus guides in discovery search Tool and embedding them into BlackBoard course shells.

Speaker Bio: Daisy DeCoster is an academic librarian, specializing in reference, information literacy, and learning outcomes assessment. She has served at Saint Peter's University in Jersey City, NJ since 2008. Ms. DeCoster received her MLIS from the University of Arizona in 2007 and an MBA from Saint Peter's University in 2014. Her research interests include exploring the connections between web usability and information literacy. She also enjoys cycling, classical ballet, and a good book.

Speaker Bio: Hao Zeng has served as the Systems & Electronic Resources Librarian at Saint Peter's University since 2008. He holds an MLIS and MBA degree. He has implemented several open source projects for the library, such as Vufind, SubjectsPlus, Coral, DSpace,etc.

Joshua Ranger portraitSpeaker: Joshua Ranger -

Session Time: 12:00 - 12:45 p.m. CDT

Session Title: AVCC Audiovisual Collection Inventory Tool

Session Description: One of the biggest challenges in the preservation and access of audiovisual materials is obtaining sufficient intellectual control in order to prioritize, budget for reformatting, and make collections findable. This is as challenging for large collections with significant backlogs as it is for smaller institutions with limited resources or that lack expertise with AV. With support from the National Recording Preservation Board, AVPreserve has developed AVCC, a free, web-based tool for creating rapid inventories of AV collections. AVPreserve also provides a series of reports to help quantify and describe a collection, plan for various preservation activities such as reformatting and rehousing, and begin the building blocks of item-level records that can be further described as materials are made accessible and then imported into other cataloging systems. This session will present the process of creating a free AVCC account and using the tool to create inventory records so that attendees can begin overcoming their own backlogs with audiovisual collections.

Speaker Bio: Joshua Ranger (twitter: @joshatavps) has been a Senior Consultant with AVPreserve since 2007, where he heads inventory and collection assessment projects, working with clients such as the New York Public Library, Danish National Library, and Yale University on collections ranging from the thousands to the hundreds of thousands. He is a graduate of the NYU Moving Image Archiving and Preservation program and also holds an MA in American Studies from the University of Virginia.

Caroline Dechert portraitSpeaker: Caroline Dechert

Session Time: 1:00 - 1:45 p.m. CDT

Session Title: The Best of Both Worlds: Two Small Museum Libraries Move to Hosted Koha

Session Description: In July, 2014, the Bartlett Library and Archives of the Museum of International Folk Art and the Library of the Laboratory of Anthropology in Santa Fe, NM, converted from a non-MARC InMagic system to a hosted implementation of Koha. This session explores the issues these libraries faced in forming a strong collaboration; selecting a hosted open source solution; converting existing data; and planning for integration of archives records into a library catalog. Emphasis will be placed on building successful collaborative projects and on understanding the difference between hosted and in-house open source systems. Staff believe that for a small library with limited access to IT staff, hosted open source is the "best of both worlds."

Speaker Bio: Caroline Dechert is the Librarian and Archivist at the Bartlett Library of the Museum of International Folk Art in Santa Fe, NM. She previously served as a public library director and as New Mexico State Library Reference Services Manager.

Speaker: CANCELLED Tammy Wolf

Session Time: 1:00 - 1:45 p.m. CDT

Session Title: Drupal Since 2006. Yes, We Have Seen it All.

Shelly Gilliam portraitSpeakers: Shelly Gilliam, Barb Churchill, and James Rider

Session Time: 1:00 - 1:45 p.m. CDT

Session Title: CollectiveAccess: How We Went from Hoarders to Holy-Cow-We’re-Organized!

Session Description: Yavapai College Library has a small (1 room, 120 sq. ft.) archives consisting of materials from 45 years of college history. Staff needed an AMS that would let staff and the public search and view objects in the collections. A team of three staff ultimately chose CollectiveAccess, installed and configured the software, and have begun entering collections.

Barb Churchill portraitStarting Point

  • No defined collections
  • No DACS descriptions
  • No online access (public or internal)
  • Indexing: various Word documents; MS Access database loosely based on Dublin Core.

Goals

  • Index the collection so it's searchable by keyword
  • Self-service research by YC staff
  • Public search & display
  • Identify people in photos
  • Self-guided training for data-entry and staff searching.

Implementation Team
James Rider portrait

  • ITS: server space
  • Library IT (James): config/support/training
  • Archives Librarian (Shelly): volunteer training; collection-level data entry
  • Archives Assistant (Barb): collection-level data entry

How did staff decide to go open source?

  • Referred to our Goals
  • Research software (CollectiveAccess, AdLib, ArchivesSpace, Eloquent, CuadraSTAR, Minisis M2A, ReDiscovery Proficio)
  • Created evaluation matrix
  • We chose CollectiveAccess.

Accomplishments

  • Defined physical collections: put in boxes, label, title, codes.
  • Defined objects types.
  • Decided how they wanted to enter their records.
    1. Chose DACS to describe collections.
    2. CA goes beyond DACS and has many metadata fields to use; staff had to decide what was important to index. They decided to devote their energy to objects, people, and groups; but not places or events.
    3. CA, being a relational database, allows for qualified relationships between records, and we had to decide what and how many to use.
  • Decided how to use DACS fields in CA. (explanation paragraph above)
  • Configured software: relationships; object types; data entry forms; users/permissions;
  • CA allowed them to create a workflow for records to be reviewed before they are publicly available.

Where they are now

  • CA is running & configured.
  • Self-guided training for data entry has been created.
  • Internal-use only.
  • Entered their first collection of student final project films: ~250 objects (films) w/ ~700 entities (people)
  • Continue to add collections/objects

Speaker Bios: Shelly Gilliam serves as Archivist for Yavapai College, Prescott, AZ; Barb Churchill serves as Tech Services Librarian at Yavapai College; James Rider serves as Library Technology Specialist at Yavapai College.

Alexandra Dolan-Mescal portraitSpeaker: Alexandra Dolan-Mescal

Session Time: 2:00 - 2:45 p.m. CDT

Session Title: Beyond 'Browse Items, Browse Collections, Map': Customizing Omeka for Your Audience

Session Description: A presentation of three case studies discusses the challenges, solutions, and successes of customizing the Omeka CMS (a platform specifically created for digital archival content) for specific audiences. The projects to be reviewed are the Seamen's Church Institute's "American Merchant Marine Veterans Oral History Project," geared towards an audience with little computer or archive exposure; "Exploring Zines: Print Culture and Digital Humanities," geared towards DIY communities interested in how new technologies interact with print; and Queens College's "Print History Collections," built for rare book enthusiasts and archivists heavily versed in technical metadata. Issues related to using open source software and object-oriented modeling will also be discussed.

Speaker Bio: Alexandra Dolan-Mescal (twitter: @fromADMwithlove) works as a Web Developer/UX Designer at the University of California, Riverside, and was previously a Digital Archivist at City University of New York, Queens College. She is also the Lab Coordinator for the Experiential Learning Lab for Digital Humanities in Archives (dhalab.org.)

Kevin Comerford portraitSpeaker: Kevin Comerford

Session Time: 2:00 - 2:45 p.m. CDT

Session Title: Using Drupal as an Information Resource Platform

Session Description: Drupal is web-based, open source content management system that can be used by libraries for a wide variety of electronic publishing services. Drupal includes an impressive array of features for building sophisticated, customized websites without programming. Drupal can also be easily extended to provide specialized features through a vast library of plugin modules. This presentation will describe the features and capabilities of Drupal and survey some of the major Drupal projects implemented at the University of New Mexico Libraries, including the Tony Hillerman Portal (ehillerman.unm.edu), the Searchable Ornithological Research Archive (sora.unm.edu) and Celebrating New Mexico Statehood (nmstatehood.unm.edu).

Speaker Bio: Kevin Comerford is an Associate Professor and Director of Digital Initiatives and Scholarly Communication at the University of New Mexico Libraries, where he has developed a variety of open source web resources for the libraries.

Karla Irwin portraitSpeakers: Emily Lapworth and Karla Irwin

Session Time: 2:00 - 2:45 p.m. CDT

Session Title: Growing Pains: Implementing ArchivesSpace at UNLV Libraries Special Collections

Session Description: In early 2014 the Special Collections department at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, began implementation of ArchivesSpace, a new open source collection management application for archival collections. Irwin will discuss the implementation process including the justification for selecting ArchivesSpace, support received from the ArchivesSpace community and development team, their participation in the ongoing development of ArchivesSpace, how the libraries’ systems department provides technical assistance, and the migration of their legacy data into ArchivesSpace.

In January 2015, Lapworth began her role as project archivist for the Southern Nevada Jewish Heritage Project at UNLV Special Collections. She will discuss how ArchivesSpace fits into the project workflow that spans from acquisition to digitization and online access, how it improves collaboration with her colleagues on the project, and other benefits and challenges of using the application.

They will describe how ArchivesSpace has helped improve collection access overall, lessons learned, and share some plans for the future.

Speaker Bio: Emily Lapworth received her MLIS from Simmons College, Boston, MA, in 2014. She was hired as a Visiting Special Collections Librarian for the Southern Nevada Jewish Project at UNLV in January 2015, and is currently transitioning into her new role as Digital Special Collections Librarian at UNLV.

Speaker Bio: Karla Irwin received her MLIS from Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA, in 2012. She has been the Special Collections Technical Librarian at UNLV since April 2014.

Jess Waggoner portraitSpeaker: Jess Waggoner -

Session Time: 3:00 - 3:45 p.m. CDT

Session Title: Exhibits 2.0 3.0: Using Omeka and the Curator Dashboard Plugins to Build Dynamic Exhibits

Session Description: Long, long ago – okay, actually, not all that long ago – libraries built digital exhibits using JPEGs meticulously collected and saved on local desktops coupled with textual narrative assembled using a WYSIWYG editor (Dreamweaver, anyone?) and uploaded via FTP to be displayed on functional, yet often creatively stifling, HTML sites. Though exhilarating and groundbreaking at first, as the web evolved libraries wondered, “Isn’t there a better way?”

The UC Santa Cruz Library first used Omeka, the open source digital exhibit platform, to create the Grateful Dead Archive Online in 2010. We wanted to extend this great application to create exhibits for its other collections, but bringing together and managing the content from multiple sources has been a challenge.

To meet these needs, the UC Santa Cruz University Library has been developing a suite of 15 Omeka plugins. Known as the Omeka Curator Dashboard (or OCD), these plugins allow Omeka administrators to pull content from CONTENTdm, YouTube (and, soon, Vimeo!), Flickr, OHMS (the Oral History Metadata Synchronizer), and the UC Libraries Digital Collection (UCLDC) for use in their exhibits.

The library's Omeka-based Digital Exhibits site was just launched in March 2015, and staff quickly found its Omeka administrators to be highly enthusiastic exhibit creators. They already have three published exhibits on the site and two more currently in progress. Their administrators enjoy being able to pull in non-library content from external platforms, such as YouTube and Flickr, easily pull library content from local DAMS (CONTENTdm), and display complex oral history content using OHMS. Pulling content in multiple formats from a variety of sources allows exhibit creators to enrich their narrative and build more complex or interactive exhibits.

For this session, Waggoner will describe the Omeka Curator Dashboard plugins developed by the UC Santa Cruz University Library, and how staff have leveraged these plugins to create dynamic exhibits that are fun to build. Session attendees will learn where to access the OCD plugins, how to apply these plugins in their own Omeka exhibit platforms, and lessons learned during the creation and use of the library's own Omeka exhibit site.

Speaker Bio: Jess Waggoner (twitter: @JessWaggo) is a Digital Projects Librarian at the University of California, Santa Cruz University Library. Jess is the Project Manager for the library's IMLS grant-funded Omeka Curator Dashboard project.

ePADD development team portraitSpeakers: Glynn Edwards, and Josh Schneider

Session Time: 3:00 - 3:45 p.m. CDT

Session Title: ePADD: an Open Source Tool for Processing and Providing Access to Email Archives

Session Description: ePADD (twitter: @e_padd) is a software package developed by Stanford University's Special Collections & University Archives that supports archival processes around the appraisal, processing, discovery, and delivery of email archives. In this session, members of the ePADD development team will demo the latest version of the ePADD software and answer specific questions about the project.

Speaker Bio: Glynn Edwards, Head of the Manuscripts Unit and Manager of the Born-Digital Program in Special Collections at Stanford University Libraries, is the ePADD Project Director. She has built the current born-digital program at SUL in collaboration with the Digital Library Systems and Services department (DLSS). Glynn also served as lead archivist on the AIMS Born-Digital Project and was a co-author of the AIMS White Paper.

Speaker Bio: Josh Schneider, Assistant University Archivist at Stanford University Libraries, is the ePADD Community Manager. He has presented on ePADD from a policy and technical perspective. Josh previously served as Archivist for Institutional Collections and Faculty Papers in the University Archives at the University of California, Berkeley, where he was the functional lead on a campus-wide project exploring the development of an open source records management suite upholding best practices in digital preservation.

Peter Murray portraitSpeaker: Peter Murray -

Session Time: 3:00 - 3:45 p.m. CDT

Session Title: Bring Your Local, Unique Content to the Web Using Islandora

Session Description: Every library has content that is unique to itself and its community. Islandora is open source software that enables libraries to store, present, and preserve that unique content to their communities and to the world. Built atop the popular Drupal content management system and the Fedora digital object repository, Islandora powers many digital projects on the web today. The software is also backed by a vibrant and growing community of users, developers and service providers. In this session, learn how to get started using Islandora to bring your unique assets to the web.

Session participants will:

  • View a sample of projects that use Islandora to preserve, display, and promote their content
  • See demonstrations of the kind of content that Islandora can store and present
  • Understand how the resources of the Islandora community can help jumpstart their own project

Speaker Bio: Peter E. Murray (jester@dltj.org)/(twitter: @DataG) has worked in a variety of library environments, ranging from medium- and large-sized academic institutions to a professional graduate school and two regional library consortia. He received an MLIS from Simmons College, Boston, MA, and a Bachelor of Science degree in Systems Analysis from Miami University. He is active in the standards world, with participation on the W3C Library Linked Data incubator group as well as NISO committees (Discovery to Delivery Topic Committee, Publications Committee, and NISO/OAI ResourceSync Protocol Working Group). Murray blogs at the Disruptive Library Technology Jester (dltj.org).

Jim Craner portraitSpeaker: Jim Craner

Session Time: 4:00 - 4:45 p.m. CDT

Session Title: Easy Crowdsourcing With Drupal

Session Description: For over 115 years, the California Library Association has conducted an annual conference for the state's many librarians. To ensure that conference attendees find the presentations engaging and useful, CLA wanted to allow individual members to help select conference topics and tracks.

The Galecia Group rapidly built a Drupal-based crowdsourcing platform, allowing hundreds of librarians to submit presentation proposals, vote on and discuss their favorite sessions, and share ideas. The conference organizers were able to use this wealth of information to structure conference session tracks that appealed to as many attendees as possible.

In this session, Craner will review the built-in capabilities of Drupal that allow developers and non-developers alike to create powerful, flexible community-based applications with ease. Using the "OurConference" crowdsourcing platform as an example, he will demonstrate how an app like this can be created without having to write a single line of PHP code.

Speaker Bio: Jim Craner is a web technology consultant and developer for The Galecia Group, building websites and applications for libraries and library-related organizations throughout the United States.

Speakers: Christa Van Herreweghe and Bill Coleman

Session Time: 4:00 - 4:45 p.m. CDT

Session Title: Digital Signs on a Dime (budget)

Session Description: Implementing digital signage in your library is a great way to communicate with your patrons about your great services and programs. Herreweghe and Coleman have experimented with several open source software and hardware solutions that make adding digital signs simple and cost effective. They will share their work and the pros & cons of each solution they tested.

Speaker Bio: Christa Van Herreweghe has eight years of library experience and is the Assistant Director at University City (MO) Public Library. She is a graduate of the University of Missouri-Columbia, where she found the career she was meant to have after a couple of tries. Like all good librarians, she likes cats, cardigans and wears corrective lenses.

Speaker Bio: Bill Coleman has 20 years of experience in the IT field, coming to libraries after working in various corporate IT departments. He is thriving now and enjoys implementing cost-effective solutions and making systems play well together.

Christina Pryor portraitSpeakers: Christina Pryor and Tiffany Davis

Session Time: 4:00 - 4:45 p.m. CDT

Session Title: How the Moodle LMS Can Change Staff Training in the Library

Session Description: Christina and Tiffany will discuss how they launched a new approach to staff training called eCourses @ SLCL.

The Reference Department at the St. Louis County Library (SLCL) has developed online training courses using the open source Moodle learning management system (LMS). In this session, Chris and Tiffany will go over the eCourses that Reference developed and discuss their experiences using Moodle. They will also cover the challenges and lessons learned.

Tiffany Davis portraitSpeaker Bios: Christina and Tiffany are the Reference Management team for the St. Louis County Library District in St. Louis, Missouri.