Library Web Chic

Bruce Washburn from OCLC left a comment on my post about building an iPhone app for WorldCat.

We think an iPhone app for WorldCat is interesting too. We’ve been doing some thinking and experimenting with that idea on the API team, and would really like to hear more about the shape you think a WorldCat iPhone app would take. And you noted a question about how widely you could distribute your app, based on the API Terms. Could you tell us more about how you think your application might present a conflict?

My issues/questions about the Terms of Service stem from the area that discusses Service Levels.

If you are not able to determine the library affiliation of users of your API-based application, the WorldCat API will support indexes and data at the level currently offered to WorldCat.org visitors. For these users, we require that you provide a path to obtain library holdings information as appropriate in your user interface when WorldCat data is presented, with links to participating library OPACs. The WorldCat API provides the OPAC URLs to support these links. The display of library holdings works best when the end user’s location (IP address, ZIP code, or country) can be provided in the link.

The documentation on Service Levels basically says that if you can’t verify a user is one of yours that you may only use certain search indexes and you MUST link back to through WorldCat to local library holdings. Seems reasonable right? Except that the default service level, the one that you need to use if you can’t verify someone is one of your users, doesn’t allow you to limit searching to a particular library. This is not helpful. Particularly since I was thinking about using the WorldCat Registry to allow people to choose a particular library or libraries to default their search to. Let’s be real most users want to see search results from libraries that they can actually get items from. Geographic limits just don’t cut it because it doesn’t take into account the fact that geographic proximity does equal borrowing privileges. Just because I live in the Houston-area doesn’t mean I have borrowing privileges at Rice. Just because I don’t live in upstate NY doesn’t mean that I might have borrowing privileges at Syracuse University. For me this is a huge issue that I want to see OCLC solve not just in the WorldCat API but in WorldCat.org as well.

Some have suggested that OCLC doesn’t want to make these particular indexes available because they are afraid it will undercut the potential revenue of WorldCat Local. But I think that this is a false fear, WorldCat Local offers features and functionality that are not available in WorldCat.org or the WorldCat API. Additionally, for a library to develop their own version of WorldCat Local would be a substantial investment involving either extraction or programming to access real-time, status and holdings information. Most libraries have neither the time nor resources to do this. Also, there is no efficiency gained by individual libraries reinventing WorldCat Local. A better use of my development resources would be to have my staff work on other innovative uses of the WorldCat API.

Another issues I see is with the fact that any applications we build have to use our API key. In the case of the WorldCat Wordpress Widget there is no way to hide the API key from users. Why is this a problem, well what if we want to distribute the widget to our faculty so they can use it in their personal blogs that aren’t on the university blog server. Giving the widget with the key in it to our campus IT people so they could install it on the campus blog server would be reasonable. It seems some application can be build so that the key is hidden. This seems to be what OCLC done with the Facebook app they are distributing. I would guess/hope I would be able to do the same thing with an app for the iPhone/iTouch.

Both of these issues are hampering some of our development efforts at UH. This doesn’t mean that the WorldCat Search API is a bust, it just means that we are still trying to define the boundaries of how useful it can be and in what contexts.

Access Day Two talk

Drupal Content Management and Community for your Library

University of Alaska Fairbanks- Ilana Kingsley

• Library Website -
  • Ad Module
• Browse DVDs - IMDB, Rotten Tomatoes, Library Catalog

University of Mississippi Library - Debra Rily-Huff

• Subject Guides
• Government Documents

University of Rochester - Harish Nayak

• Still pre-lease, alpha design

London Public Library - Dave Mitchell

McMaster University - Nick Ruest

• Digital Collections portal
• http://pw20c.mcmaster.ca

Key Interesting Points

• Content Analysis to figure out Content Types
• Explaining what a Views is is difficult
• Taxonomy Module very helpful
  • Taxonomy for Theming
  • Taxonomy for Menus
• User Centered Design important
• Nice Menus Module
• CCK module critical
• ProDrupal Development book
• User Customization in Drupal
  • MySite module
    • User can add RSS/Atom feeds from external web sites to their MySite pages
    • Fully integrates with most Drupal content
    • Drag, drop and sort content on user custom personal layout
• Devel Module
• Taxonomy Theme
• OAI-PMH
  • OAI for Bibliographic Module
• Automatic Node Title Module
• Timeline Module

Theming

• Important to pay attention to when you upgrade versions (major version changes) or add modules
• Themes can be changed via CSS modifications, re-theme garland
• Zen is a good stripped down theme to start from
  • Well Documented php and css files
    • Layout
    • Print
    • Subthemes
  • Lots of easy access classes and ideas for CSS developers
  • Mindful CSS class names

I’ve been working with Drupal for the last month in order to migrate an existing public library website into Drupal as sort of a test of Drupal as a CMS. I migrated the same site into Wordpress and have been doing a comparison of the two. One issue I’ve encountered with Drupal is a lack of modules for Drupal 6.x which draw data from external sources. Modules that work like the Wordpress plugins that use shortcodes. For example John Miedema’s OpenBook Book Data plugin for Wordpress.

There is no similar module for Drupal and it is driving me mad. Basically the idea behind this type of module is to insert stuff into Page nodes. This is done by putting a tag into the page which then gets processed on the backend. I think of these as “filter modules” in Drupal. Some of these exist but not enough of them IMHO. Some interesting modules that do this kind of thing include:

• Flickr Module
• Amazon Module
• Video Filter

I want to convert John Miedema’s OpenBook Book Data plugin for Wordpress into this kind of module for Drupal but really don’t have a good enough understanding of Drupal to write the necessary code at this point. Doing something similar with OCLC numbers and WorldCat Search API would be cool too.

So I’ve been doing some work with Drupal in preparation for teaching a class. To really get the hang of how Drupal works as a content management system, I’m test rebuilding a public library website in Drupal. Just like I was test rebuilding the same site in Wordpress.

Some pieces of content are really easy to deal with while others aren’t. Since I’m not going to be putting News on the homepage I had to figure out how to make a page that contained all the stories. Views module to the rescue! I’ve been reading about Views for a while but hadn’t used this module much. This week I dove in and while it took me a while to build my first View, now that I’ve gotten the hang of it I’m astonished at home powerful this module is. It is very, very cool.

One of my favorite modules which is still in development status for Drupal 6 is Insert View. It allows you to use a simple syntax in your node to add a view. I used this module to insert a list of databases into a page that was mostly text and therefore a Page node. Views and CCK completely rock. I can pretty much make any content type I want and display it it different ways different places on the site. One thing I’m still trying to figure out is how to change the format of the Views output. Particularly when I am using fields, because the data doesn’t always come out in the format I want. Same thing can be said for CCK fields in nodes. There doesn’t seem to be a rhyme or reason for why the CCK fields come out the order they do; at least not one I’ve figure out yet.

Still learning but have made HUGE leaps forward the last week. Test site is almost done and my presentation and handout are coming together. If I could just deal with some of the pesky little issues I’m seeing with CCK Date fields…

After a recent post about using Wordpress as a CMS, Darren commented and asked EXACTLY how I was doing this. My test site isn’t publicly available. So the best I can do is give a screenshot play by play of what I’m doing.

1. Create Link Categories for the way you want to organize your databases. This can be pretty much anyway you want. In the case of my test site I have 7 categories.
2. Create your links in Wordpress using the Links functionality. Make sure you assign them to the categories that you want them to appear in.
3. Install the Blogroll links plugin
   
4. Create pages for each of your database lists. Insert the proper code into each page. Here I’m incorporating the list into a larger page which is about Reference resources.
   

   

How you link to these pages is up to you.

It is a pretty nifty trick that I’d highly reccomend for folks who want to maintain links of lists as part of their website.

Before leaving on vacation and having to deal with Ike, I’d been working on a project to test convert a website to Wordpress as a content management system. During this process a couple of folks really helped me out. So I’d like to acknowledge them and say a big THANKS. Without their help I would have spent quite a bit of time debugging of retracing my steps.

First, John Miedema who created the OpenBook Book Data plugin. I emailed John because I discovered that his plugin broke any other Wordpress plugin that used “shortcodes”. Having looked at the plugin a bit, I figured that John would want to know but wouldn’t be able to fix it very quickly. John was awesome. Not only was he able to replicate the error, but he realized that through talking to me that the solution to the problem was using shortcodes in his plugin. He emailed me corrected versions of the plugin to test. Which I did some of before having to leave and now a new and improved version of the plugin exists which works with other shortcode plugins and the gallery shortcode.

Second, Tom DeForest and his student Jared Havican at BYU. Tom posted to my blog about using Wordpress for events and I emailed back asking if he had template code I could use. His student Jared was able to send me template code which I modified and am using to drive the events portion of my test site. Jared’s code was good but for WPMU and pre-2.6 so there were some table changes I had to account for in the SQL. It was a great starting point though and helped me think through the problem.

I’m really getting psyched about teaching people to use Wordpress as a CMS and although there are some things that aren’t perfect in my test site. It looks pretty darn good. Have a couple more things I want to try out before the preconference but if I don’t get to them no big deal. I’m pretty good to go at this point.

Several people have emailed regarding the state of myself, family, and library after Ike. I’m hoping that by posting here I might alleviate people’s worries.

1. My husband and I are fine. We were on vacation when Ike hit.
2. Our house has minimal damage - 6-8 shingles missing, fence down on one side, and lots of tree debris to clean up
3. Power is sporadic so I’m typing fast.
4. My library - the main library is ok, but the Art and Architecture building suffered MAJOR damage. Consequently that branch library is serious messed up. The proper people at my work are handling it as best they can

I can’t really say too much about the state of affairs throughout the region. We are just trying to get by at our place. Our grocery store has canned goods but procuring gas seems to be an issue (once again the Prius is worth its weight in gold) Power is out many, many, many places but Centerpoint is working their tails off to restore it. Haven’t been to any of the harder hit places, people are supposed to mind their own business and I’m doing so.

I’ve learned several lessons for next time and may post them here at a later date. For now I’m hitting post before the power craps out again.

I’ve been working on putting together information about how to use Wordpress as a content management system. I first got interested in this topic while I was working on the blogging book. Partly because of libraries like Lamson Library at Plymouth State and Cook Memorial Library both who use Scriblio which is based on Wordpress.

Now I’m teaching a workshop on open source content management systems and also writing about them for another book. So I’ve gotten to know Wordpress REALLY, REALLY well.

The truth is that Wordpress with a few plugins and modifications of templates, makes a good CMS on its own. For small public libraries, Wordpress is a good way of managing a library website.

When I tell most people this they look at me like I’ve a little nuts and trying to jam a square peg in a round hole. To prove my point and learn the ins and outs of how to do this, I picked a small public library site and started to migrate their content into Wordpress. While I hit some snags with particular types of content, for the most part I was able to handle the content I wanted in Wordpress.

The key to doing this is using the Template function in Wordpress to give different pages or sets of pages different templates.

If your PHP skills are lacking, there is a set of plugins that can help you accomplish the same kind of thing. One important one is Widget Logic which basically allows you to apply conditional logic to your widgets without having to know PHP or Wordpress functions.

Another trick is to use the Links and Link Categories piece of Wordpress along with the Blogroll Links plugin to organize and display your links. This is how I handled links to library databases and it works surprisingly well.

Another really useful plugin is the OpenBook Book Data plugin. This plugin draws information from the Open Library project (title, author, book cover, etc) and adds it to a blog post. Great if your library creates book review or discussion posts.

Two areas where plugins are lacking or not what I’d like them to be are Events and Contact Information. While there are some event management plugins out there. I haven’t found one that I really like yet. The main problem is with how the plugin choose to display contact list information not how one enters it. If I had more time before my workshop, I could probably rewrite the plugin to do what I wanted. However, i just don’t have that time to commit right now.

Contact information is somewhat similar. The Address Book plugin provides somewhat similar functionality but I need it to have different fields, take parameters so I can only show a particular address or groups of addresses, and be widgetized. Yet again, some coding time could remedy this, but I just don’t have it right now.

Working to use Wordpress as a CMS has taught me so many new things. I’m still working on this project though so I expect to find even more stuff as I pull the reminder of my presentation together.

It is really nice when something you are working on or learning about dovetails with something someone else is doing. I’ve been gearing up for a mobile web / mobile devices project at UH. As part of this I’ve been doing testing and research on mobile devices, particularly iPhone/iPod Touch. It was so nice that ALA published a Library Technology Report by Elyssa Kroski entitled “On the Move with the Mobile Web: Libraries and Mobile Technologies” earlier this year. Although Elyssa’s LTR doesn’t focus on the devices I’m interested in, it does give a good overview of the mobile arena and how libraries have been using mobile devices thus far.

At the same time, today on lita-l a librarian from Abilene Christian University posted the following question

Our campus recently issued iPhone/iTouches to incoming freshmen.
There is a huge push to optimize as many educational tools as possible
for mobile devices.  One of the library’s biggest priorities is to
have a mobile version of our library catalog.

Does anyone know of a good catalog overlay that already exists in a
mobile version?  We like VuFind as a general product but were hoping
for something more mobile-ready.  We also don’t know how user-friendly
the implementation is.  I’d appreciate the benefit of this group’s
experience.

The irony of this is I’ve been considering just this issue. I’ve also been working on an article about the potential impact of iPhone/iTouch on library services. So it was gratifying to see someone else struggling with the same issue. For me it drove home the fact that “this is a piece of technology which is going to impact us”. So many people look at iPhone/iTouch as a technology flavor of the month but I feel differently for a couple of reasons.

First, I believe that the interface we see in the iPhone/iTouch is the shape of things to come. We need to get used to this idea. This means device specific applications and mobile optimized websites. Second, Apple is set themselves up to have HUGE market penetration with these products. They have been running a special where students, faculty and staff of universities can purchase a new computer and get a iPod Touch for free. Add to this the success of iTunes U as a method for distributing university course content. All of this should make libraries sit up and take NOTICE.

I’m not sure I have exact answers on how libraries should be dealing with this. However, I do know that we need to spend some time exploring possible avenues in this area. At UH that means developing a mobile version of our site and trying to build some iPhone/iTouch library applications. It also means investigating putting our content (library tutorials) into the university’s iTunes U. We’re moving forward with our pilot project and I will try to report back as often as I can about how it is going.

There really are so many things I like about my job. I work for an organization that I believe in and feel valuable by. I have super smart, savvy, dedicated staff. I get to collaborate with great people throughout the library on lots of different projects. But probably what I like BEST about my job is the fact that I get to experiment and try new things on a regular basis. This in turn gives me the opportunity to talk, teach and write about what I’m doing. For me it just doesn’t get any better than this.

To give you some idea what I’m talking about, I’ve been working on three projects over the summer. The first one was working with the WorldCat Search API to develop a WorldCat Wordpress Widget. The second project has been learning Drupal, in order to support the YourBIGWIG site and also our library’s intranet. The final project has been working on developing mobile applications and services using iPod Touch. Parts of each of these projects will continue for me in the fall along with some new projects involving APIs and digital library related stuff.

Truthfully, you can’t get three more diverse projects to work on at the same time. But that is what I like about my job. It is so varied that I can move from one project to another when I get stuck, burned out, bored or have just had my fill. It also gives me the chance to explore things that interest me and write about lots of different stuff. I told a colleague the other day that I was pretty sure that barring the preconferences I teach for Internet Librarian and Computers in Libraries I’ve never given the same talk (or even close to) twice.

It is nice because I don’t get put in a particular box as far as my work and I get to catch my colleagues off guard sometimes when I tell them what I’m working on.