The second and third sessions I attended at this year's LITA forum were both on patron privacy issues, so I'll combine them here into a single post.
The first of these sessions was made by Todd Carpenter of the National Information Standards Organization (NISO). He explained the process that NISO has been going through, with collaboration from libraries, publishers, and vendors to establish a set of standards for how much data from users is collected, what restrictions are put into place on the collection of data, and how that data can be used.
This topic has been a kind of Catch 22 for libraries for the past few years. Libraries, by ethical mandate and by law, do not retain information about patrons and the use of the materials they borrow past such point as materials have been returned and any fines are paid. At the same time patrons, not understanding the fact libraries have this policy or just not understanding the full ramifications of those policies, get frustrated by the fact we can't do something like Amazon does and recommend new titles based on reading history. This situation makes libraries look like they are backwards in their ability to provide this kind of service, when it's at least partly because our hands are tied when it comes to collecting data and using it in this way.
Given this history, any adjustment to library behavior is controversial within libraries but there is also a strong feeling, particularly at public libraries, that it is necessary to do something to address the fact that we haven't been able to offer a service that our heaviest users expect us to be able to offer.
The NISO initiative attempts to put forward solutions on how to resolve this problem. The initial process involved a series of meetings with different stakeholders to hammer out basic principles. These principles are collected into a draft document that is to be published soon and includes concepts such as that patrons need to opt-into such systems (no one is having information collected without their express consent), that data needs to be anonymized as much as possible, should be used only for providing service to the individuals, and that the information should be available to users.
This initial document will be a high-level overview of the problems and will be followed by other documents establishing best practices and other kinds of implementation details.
This session was followed by a session by Jim Jonas of the University of Wisconsin. His talk focused on privacy education, arguing that in the Internet age that "privacy literacy" should be as much of a part of library service as literacy has historically been. Jim described the overall state of the Internet and modern data collection that makes privacy literacy an important topic and why libraries are particularly well situated for providing this kind of information. He then went through an hour-long class that he has offered in which he introduces to users some privacy concepts, why privacy is important, and some approaches for maintaining one's privacy. He plans to also offer a follow-up class describing specific tools for managing privacy.
Jim also provided copies of the presentations he uses for his classes as well as a privacy resources page that he maintains for the University of Wisconsin.
I found both of these presentations informative and agree that we should offer programs on privacy. One concern that was expressed by someone attending the program that I felt was well-stated is that it is hard to get people to be excited about going to classes like this. Finding a good angle to make the class appealing is probably one of the biggest challenges in offering this kind of programming.
Saturday, November 21, 2015
Saturday, November 14, 2015
LITA Forum 2015 - Minecraft in Real Life Club
In this first session that I attended Mary Glendenning, Library Director at Middletown Free Library in Pennsylvania, discussed the programs that their library has been doing to engage kids who love Minecraft. For the most part they haven't been having programs that really use Minecraft as a piece of software though. Instead they've focused on derivative projects in which kids, using resources in the library's maker space, create physical objects that represent or are modeled from objects that can be found in the game.
Ms. Glendenning first described the game of Minecraft and then explained why they had chosen the game as something to build their programs around. The popularity of the game, particularly with pre-teen boys (a demographic that is difficult for libraries to attract) and its open-ended nature were a couple things that made the game attractive to them. Also of critical importance is the fact that the game can touch on four Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) identified skills of importance: learning and innovation skills; information, media and technology skills; 21st century themes; and social and cross cultural skills. It was also these skills that they wished to target with their programming.
The presentation then provided a number of examples of the kinds of projects that kids have worked on and how those projects either expanded on concepts introduced in Minecraft or used Minecraft as a starting point. For example, in the game it's possible to build a kind of circuit using a material called "redstone." To demonstrate how that concept was relevant to the real world they helped kids build real electronic circuits using some kid-friendly breadboards and electronic equipment. Another circuitry project was to create a Minecraft torch using soft circuits in fabric as sewing projects, which sounds like something we could do.
Another project used Minecraft and some extra software to create, export, and print 3D designs. I found this particularly interesting as we have Minecraft installed on public computers and kids frequently have difficulty creating designs in more conventional 3D CAD software.
Kids also created Minecraft stories using video production and audio editing software. Even making Minecraft food from rice crispy treats and making a Minecraft Christmas tree from discarded boxes were projects.
This presentation provided a lot of thoughts on the ways we might be able to integrate our Minecraft software and the interest in Minecraft that kids have with the resources available in our library and in our makerspace.
Ms. Glendenning first described the game of Minecraft and then explained why they had chosen the game as something to build their programs around. The popularity of the game, particularly with pre-teen boys (a demographic that is difficult for libraries to attract) and its open-ended nature were a couple things that made the game attractive to them. Also of critical importance is the fact that the game can touch on four Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) identified skills of importance: learning and innovation skills; information, media and technology skills; 21st century themes; and social and cross cultural skills. It was also these skills that they wished to target with their programming.
The presentation then provided a number of examples of the kinds of projects that kids have worked on and how those projects either expanded on concepts introduced in Minecraft or used Minecraft as a starting point. For example, in the game it's possible to build a kind of circuit using a material called "redstone." To demonstrate how that concept was relevant to the real world they helped kids build real electronic circuits using some kid-friendly breadboards and electronic equipment. Another circuitry project was to create a Minecraft torch using soft circuits in fabric as sewing projects, which sounds like something we could do.
Another project used Minecraft and some extra software to create, export, and print 3D designs. I found this particularly interesting as we have Minecraft installed on public computers and kids frequently have difficulty creating designs in more conventional 3D CAD software.
Kids also created Minecraft stories using video production and audio editing software. Even making Minecraft food from rice crispy treats and making a Minecraft Christmas tree from discarded boxes were projects.
This presentation provided a lot of thoughts on the ways we might be able to integrate our Minecraft software and the interest in Minecraft that kids have with the resources available in our library and in our makerspace.
Friday, November 13, 2015
LITA Forum 2015 - Opening Keynote
The 2015 LITA (Library Information Technology Association) National Forum was kicked off with a keynote made by Lisa Welchman, president of Digital Governance Solutions. The first part of the keynote was an entertaining and personal reflection on how Ms. Welchman arrived at the position she has today and how those experiences prepared her for the world we now find ourselves in and its peculiar problems.
Ms. Welchman originally had dreams of being an opera singer, and her parents had their concerns about the reliability of that profession choice and made her learn to type. At university she dated someone for a time (the late '80s) who was studying computer science and he requested that she learn to use the Unix command line and the console-based email program Pine for corresponding with him. She asked for a gift of a Macintosh Plus from her grandfather (largely because of how it looked) and learned to use Hypercard to create a database of arias she knew how to sing.
These experiences prepared her to be a well-paid temp who could work on Lotus Notes development. Her experience with that led to an opportunity to work with the new company Netscape, which moved her to California, and that in turn landed her a job at Cisco working on their website in the late 90's (which she accidentally switched over to Japanese one day).
Life at Cisco, a company that was founded on computer networking and the Internet, showed her how badly people have managed to organize that which they put on the Internet, which nowadays is pretty much everything. She founded the company she runs today on the knowledge that if Cisco can't figure out how to properly organize and structure information for the Internet, there are a lot of people that can't and those people are in need of a company that specializes in assisting with this problem.
With this background established, Ms. Welchman proceeded to explain that although the Internet is new and different, in many ways it has commonalities with developments that have come before. These developments follow a pattern, including those who are threatened by a technology, dismiss it failing to recognize its inevitability, and are swept away as it is adopted. There are also those who have vision about what the technology might lead to, although they have a bit of a tendency to overestimate certain parts and underestimate others. What eventually happens is that the chaos that develops at the beginning of widespread adoption turns to a need for standards and regulation.
Ms. Welchman argued that rather than being restrictions that limit something's full potential, standards and restrictions focus a technology, allowing it to reach its full potential. Governance is the process of providing a framework that determines a strategy and policy to achieve standardization through the efforts of a team. That team itself a collaboration with different individuals at different levels. There is a core team that works on writing up policies and standards. That core team works closely with the people that are responsible for actually making stuff, the different liaisons that connect an organizations "siloed" departments with the rest of the team, and those vendors outside of an organization that are assisting the rest of the team.
Ms. Welchman defined what comprises policy and standards in a digital environment. Policy consists of high-level statements of beliefs, goals and objectives which are made to comply with laws, manage risk, or drive competitive advantage. Digital standards are the formal specifications that guide what is to be done in regards to various aspects of digital publication and development which can be divided into network and infrastructure, design, editorial, and publishing or development concerns.
I found this talk to be quite interesting and I enjoyed seeing the emphasis on establishing standards for information management, organization and presentation provided here, particularly coming from someone outside of the library field.
Ms. Welchman originally had dreams of being an opera singer, and her parents had their concerns about the reliability of that profession choice and made her learn to type. At university she dated someone for a time (the late '80s) who was studying computer science and he requested that she learn to use the Unix command line and the console-based email program Pine for corresponding with him. She asked for a gift of a Macintosh Plus from her grandfather (largely because of how it looked) and learned to use Hypercard to create a database of arias she knew how to sing.
These experiences prepared her to be a well-paid temp who could work on Lotus Notes development. Her experience with that led to an opportunity to work with the new company Netscape, which moved her to California, and that in turn landed her a job at Cisco working on their website in the late 90's (which she accidentally switched over to Japanese one day).
Life at Cisco, a company that was founded on computer networking and the Internet, showed her how badly people have managed to organize that which they put on the Internet, which nowadays is pretty much everything. She founded the company she runs today on the knowledge that if Cisco can't figure out how to properly organize and structure information for the Internet, there are a lot of people that can't and those people are in need of a company that specializes in assisting with this problem.
With this background established, Ms. Welchman proceeded to explain that although the Internet is new and different, in many ways it has commonalities with developments that have come before. These developments follow a pattern, including those who are threatened by a technology, dismiss it failing to recognize its inevitability, and are swept away as it is adopted. There are also those who have vision about what the technology might lead to, although they have a bit of a tendency to overestimate certain parts and underestimate others. What eventually happens is that the chaos that develops at the beginning of widespread adoption turns to a need for standards and regulation.
Ms. Welchman argued that rather than being restrictions that limit something's full potential, standards and restrictions focus a technology, allowing it to reach its full potential. Governance is the process of providing a framework that determines a strategy and policy to achieve standardization through the efforts of a team. That team itself a collaboration with different individuals at different levels. There is a core team that works on writing up policies and standards. That core team works closely with the people that are responsible for actually making stuff, the different liaisons that connect an organizations "siloed" departments with the rest of the team, and those vendors outside of an organization that are assisting the rest of the team.
Ms. Welchman defined what comprises policy and standards in a digital environment. Policy consists of high-level statements of beliefs, goals and objectives which are made to comply with laws, manage risk, or drive competitive advantage. Digital standards are the formal specifications that guide what is to be done in regards to various aspects of digital publication and development which can be divided into network and infrastructure, design, editorial, and publishing or development concerns.
I found this talk to be quite interesting and I enjoyed seeing the emphasis on establishing standards for information management, organization and presentation provided here, particularly coming from someone outside of the library field.
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