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Library Resources

Registration is Open for NYTSL’s Spring Program

April 23, 2015 by Jon Frater Leave a Comment

And this one is going to be fascinating, so if you’re interested, go to the NYTSL website and register now!

 

Disaster Recovery for the Digital Library

Presented by the New York Technical Services LibrariansOur presenters will present two real-world library disaster recoveries in New York City and how to better prepare for the future.

Date:
Tuesday, May 5, 2015
5:00 – 7:30 PM
Refreshments: 5 – 6 PM
Program 6 – 7:30 PM

Location:
The New York Public Library
Stephen A. Schwarzman Building, South Court Auditorium
476 Fifth Avenue (at 42nd Street)
New York, NY 10018$15 for current members
$30 for event + new or renewed membership
$20 for event + new or renewed student membership
$40 for non-members

Register online at http://nytsl.org/nytsl/disaster-recovery-for-the-digital-library-spring-program/

Speakers:

Frank Monaco

Frank J. Monaco and Associates LLC
Following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, nearby Pace University faced emergency conditions in implementing a less than perfect IT Disaster Recovery plan.  This presentation will first review, from the point of view of the then current Chief Information Officer, what his organization (and the entire University) faced and how he and his team dealt with the situation.  After this brief review, a discussion of what digital disaster recovery technologies have emerged since that fateful day, and how Universities, to include their libraries, can take better advantage of these DR developments.
Neil H. Rambo
Director, NYU Health Sciences Libraries and Knowledge Informatics
When Superstorm Sandy made landfall in New York City on the evening of October 29, 2012, it produced an unprecedented storm surge along portions of the East River. The facilities and infrastructure of the NYU Langone Medical Center were overwhelmed by the violent flood. The NYU Health Sciences Library facility was destroyed. But library services and support across the Medical Center were only briefly disrupted. This review will focus on the recovery efforts made in the aftermath of the destruction, from immediate-term to the present. The focus of those efforts were and are on strengthening the digital library, increasing the presence of librarians with user groups, and redefining the nature and role of the library across the Medical Center. In parallel with these efforts and informed by them, the library facility has been reconceived and is now under construction, to be opened in late 2015.

Filed Under: Books, Cataloging, Library Resources, Meetings, Nerd Alert Tagged With: cataloging, disaster recovery, NYTSL

NYTSL 2015 Spring Reception and Program

March 10, 2015 by Jon Frater Leave a Comment

Just as a (not so) brief reminder, NYTSL’s programs are running their usual course. Here’s the latest announcement for the spring reception and spring program, which went out the other day:

NYTSL 2015 Spring Reception
Please join us for the Spring 2015 New York Technical Services Librarians Annual Reception for Librarians, Information Professionals and Library School Students.

When:
Friday, April 10, 2015
3:00 – 5:00 p.m.

Where:
Butler Library
Room 522-523
Columbia University Libraries
535 West 114th St.
New York, NY 10027

FREE

Wine & Cheese will be served.

Why:
This is an opportunity for librarians, archivists, and information professionals from the metropolitan area to meet informally. It is also a chance for library school students to learn about the various professional organizations in the metropolitan area and to meet future colleagues and employers.

Library students who attend will be entered in a raffle to win a myMETRO membership. You are welcome to bring announcements of professional opportunities to the reception.

Reception co-sponsors welcome. If your professional organization would like to co-sponsor the reception, please contact us to make arrangements.

Due to limited space, registration is required and we will not be able to accept walk-in registration for this event. Register online at http://nytsl.org/nytsl/nytsl-2015-spring-reception/

NYTSL 2015 Spring Program – Disaster Recovery for the Digital Library

Our presenters will present two real-world library disaster recoveries in New York City and how to better prepare for the future.
When:
Tuesday, May 5, 2015
5:00 – 7:30 p.m.

Where:
The New York Public Library
Stephen A. Schwarzman Building, South Court Auditorium
476 Fifth Avenue (at 42nd Street)
New York, NY 10018

$15 for current members
$30 for event + new or renewed membership
$20 for event + new or renewed student membership
$40 for non-members

Register online at http://nytsl.org/nytsl/disaster-recovery-for-the-digital-library-spring-program/
Speakers:
Frank Monaco, Frank J. Monaco and Associates LLC
Following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, nearby Pace University faced emergency conditions in implementing a less than perfect IT Disaster Recovery plan.  This presentation will first review, from the point of view of the then current Chief Information Officer, what his organization (and the entire University) faced and how he and his team dealt with the situation.  After this brief review, a discussion of what digital disaster recovery technologies have emerged since that fateful day, and how Universities, to include their libraries, can take better advantage of these DR developments.

Neil H. Rambo, Director, NYU Health Sciences Libraries and Knowledge Informatics

When Superstorm Sandy made landfall in New York City on the evening of October 29, 2012, it produced an unprecedented storm surge along portions of the East River. The facilities and infrastructure of the NYU Langone Medical Center were overwhelmed by the violent flood. The NYU Health Sciences Library facility was destroyed. But library services and support across the Medical Center were only briefly disrupted. This review will focus on the recovery efforts made in the aftermath of the destruction, from immediate-term to the present. The focus of those efforts were and are on strengthening the digital library, increasing the presence of librarians with user groups, and redefining the nature and role of the library across the Medical Center. In parallel with these efforts and informed by them, the library facility has been reconceived and is now under construction, to be opened in late 2015.

Filed Under: Library Hijinks, Library Resources, Meetings Tagged With: NTYSL, spring program, spring reception

METRO Digitization Docs Released to Commons

July 31, 2014 by Jon Frater Leave a Comment

 

From the Metropolitan Library Council (METRO):

Two library-related publications written and edited within the METRO community have been released under Creative Commons 3.0 Attribution licenses.

Digitization in the Real World (2010) and The Global Librarian (2013) are now freely available for download and Internet Archive and unglue.it.

digitizationintherealworld.pngBoth books highlight the innovative work our colleagues are doing to provide online access to digital materials, ensure communities remote and local receive equal access to information, and provide a global context for learning in our increasingly interconnected information environment.

“I’m thrilled that we’re able to reflect the excellent work being done in our community by opening these books to the commons,” says Jason Kucsma, METRO’s Executive Director. “It is our hope that releasing these titles under a Creative Commons license furthers the knowledge- and experience-sharing these publications were intended to foster.”

Considering that one of my own digital projects for the New York Academy of Medicine (The Resurrectionists) was made possible by a METRO digitization grant, I can only wish that we’d had these resources available to back then. We made do with what we had, but still . . . more information on best practices is always useful, as technology changes and application development bring new tools to the efforts of digital librarianship everywhere.

These items are free for the downloading, so read them and keep them around . . . something tells me we’ll be needing them for a long time.

My Books

[author_books amount=”3″ size=”150″ type=”random” name=”jonfrater”]

Filed Under: Library Resources

Digital Book Day

July 14, 2014 by Jon Frater Leave a Comment

 

Something that should absolutely, positively concern you–besides the fact that I am trying to do my job on only three hours’ sleep, and the fact that German sports fans will likely be insufferable for the next four years after their team’s crushing defeat of Argentina in the world Cup finals yesterday, and besides the incredible fact that the Griffon Pub in Niagra Falls, NY, has a multi-blend beer named Quadro Triticale which is amazing–is that today, July 14, is (besides being Bastille Day) Digital Book Day.

Unlike that ridiculous opening sentence, Digital Book Day is a surprisingly efficient way of saying that today, hundreds of worthwhile e-books are available free for the downloading in a variety of formats. Two of these books are from HDWP Books, namely Tiago and the Masterless, which I reviewed a few weeks back, and the first of their Theme-Thology Books, titled Invasion. I can vouch for both titles, not because I contributed in any way (beyond the review) but because I paid money for them and was not disappointed with my purchase. Click on the links and download the titles. For free!

But do it today, because at midnight tonight, all those links to free stuff expire.

Why should you be concerned about this? Well, besides receiving the gift of reading (for free!), there’s another consideration. Namely that this particular event is something that cannot be done with print books. Yes, I can give them away for free. I can declare an entire library of print volumes free for the taking, and make no mistake, those books will disappear. But it will take days or weeks to happen at the rate of a few books a day. I know this because we’ve done print book giveaways at the MCNY Library before. The pattern is consistent.  It’s understandable. People who are rushed (and who isn’t) will not really want to have to schlep to a library and pick up a book and maybe browse a cart that looks more and more like a smile with missing teeth as time goes by.

Well, you say, we could print lists of the available titles and salt a few social media accounts with them. Well . . . yes and no. Twitter doesn’t really lend itself to that, although you could use it to link to a web page that had the titles already listed and linked. Neither does Facebook or Linked In. E-mail does, but it presumes that only people whose e-mail address you already have would be interested in your effort, which is at best a limited concept of media outreach.

On the other hand, all it takes is a link posted on each of your social media platforms to send a crowd of people a chance to download free books. That is something that Twitter et al, can do very effectively. (And hey, I have Twitter, Facebook, and Google Plus buttons on this blog. Click and share, folks. I cannot make this any simpler.)

Or, you just click on the website of digital books, click on a category or two–or do a basic title and author search–and then click on numerous links to download titles. (For free!)

Fair warning: this is a big deal and a popular website, so you may have to try a few times to get suitable traction. Additionally, the free books are made free by the authors, not the DBD website per se. Some authors may have underestimated the demand for thier work, and some websites may be temporarily unavailable.

But it beats carrying free print books.

(You can haz free! Hurry!)

 

Update 7/15/14: From the DBD website:

Due to popular demand (which crashed the website several times yesterday) we’ll be leaving the site open an extra day.
Please check ALL prices since not all authors will be able to keep their books for free.

One more day, folks. I just nabbed a few promising bits for my own use. (For free!)

My Books

[author_books amount=”3″ size=”150″ type=”random” name=”jonfrater”]

Filed Under: Books, Library Resources, Web/Tech

Peak Oil & Libraries 3.0: Collapse-Proofing Ourselves

May 29, 2008 by Jon Frater Leave a Comment

I recently bought (pre-ordered) a copy of Reinventing Collapse : The Soviet Example and American Prospects by Dmitry Orlov.  Orlov is a Peak Oiler and his writing on the subject is easily distinguishable from his contemporaries because he spent a lot of time in the Soviet Union during its collapse from Socialist Superpower to Just Another Asian Country With Nukes and a Funny Alphabet.  In other words, he’s seen the mighty fall and it wasn’t pretty. His work can be seen at his Club Orlov blog and if you have time, I’d suggest giving it a good look.

[Read more…] about Peak Oil & Libraries 3.0: Collapse-Proofing Ourselves

Filed Under: Library Resources

Peak Oil & Libraries 2.0

May 29, 2008 by Jon Frater Leave a Comment

First, a great big thank you to Tom and Phil of EscapingNYC for pointing out that Library Journal has finally published an article about peak oil and what libraries should be thinking about in terms of dealing with it. (If you guys ever do manage to escape, please leave a forwarding address.)

It’s a good article overall, but I’ve got a few relatively tiny problems with it. The author has clearly read a fair amount of James Howard’s Kunstler’s work, which is great, he’s a terrific source for this subject. But then she writes:

If grand-scale fuel conservation and creation of alternative
liquid fuels had begun two decades ago, the results of the decline
would have gone largely unfelt. The demand for oil would have been
lower and the rate of decline in production slower.

Possible, but I think unlikely, if only because alternative-liquid fuels (biodiesel, ethanol and liquefied coal to name three)  are a scam and were just as big a scam then,  just less heavily subsidized scams than they are today.  Note that the term "scam" here means "requires greater energy input per unit of production than is contained within that unit of production."  Ethanol is a particularly cruel joke in this regard, as it’s made from corn, which can be, I dunno, eaten by hungry people. (Do you think it coincidental that food riots erupt in 37 countries just as our supply of ethanol explodes? I don’t.)

I think what we could very easily have done twenty years ago was refurbish, modernize and expand our rail and water-based transportation infrastructure. We also could have built better, more fuel-efficient cars and trucks, re-thought how electricity was generated and delivered, and not built more 3,000 sq. ft. houses than we could afford to buy.  Oh, and we could have not exported nearly all of our manufacturing jobs to the Far East. All of these points have been made by Kunstler in the recent past.

Oh, well. Pet peeve over. It is an excellent article, and you should read  it.

Stuff has happened since I first starting posting on this subject.  I’m told by friends who have relatives in the oil business that had you suggested even a decade ago, with oil at $12 per barrel that we’d see such a remarkably steep price curve, due to stagnant supply and climbing international demand more than anything else, you’d have been laughed out of the room. (For the record, some did, and they were.) And I don’t think that Peak Oil means the end of the world as we’ve known it, or even the end of libraries. But I do think it means that our current model of converting absolutely everything to digital media will be more expensive to maintain and more difficult to implement, if only because if the increased risk of losing access to those collections due to–of all things–lack of electricity.

Electricity is easy: take a pair of magnets, wrap them with copper wire and spin them around each other, and you get an electric current. Simple. What’s a good deal less simple is how to provide a particular type of electrical current–in the case of the U.S., 120 volts at 60Hz frequency–in quantities sufficient to power 150 million+ homes and their attendant gadgets, gizmos, and appliances in a consistent manner.

"Consistent" in this case means, "always cheap and always on," neither of which will be a given 10 years from now. (Heck, it’s not always a given now.) In 10 years, the word may come to mean "10 consecutive  hours a day, Monday through Friday." 20 years from now the concept of a reliable civilian power grid could well be ancient history.  So imagining how to revitalize our electricity-based ILS’s and OPACs using the assumption that we’ll always have all the PCs in the library  at our disposal may not be the best use of our time.  Granted, such things will help our patrons  in the short term (if 10 years is a short term to you), but the real question is one that the author touched on in her article: you’re maintaining a public library, and resources are short;  your computers are old, and getting older. They break more often and each time, it takes longer for someone to actually fix it.  Worse, the parts needed to maintain it are becoming more difficult to find at any price.  People will naturally move away from exclusive reliance on the PCs and  go back to the stacks where the "real" books are. Also the supply of brand new books will shrink as deliveries become less predictable (and the mass market paperback publishing industry goes belly up, one publisher at a time) such that donations become primary sources for our collection.

We may want to think about how we’ll track our stacks materials and update our card catalogs under those conditions.

Filed Under: Library Resources

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