NYLA Conference 2007

I spent October 18 and 19 in Buffalo attending the Annual New York State Library Asociation Conference. It was a quick two days of attending sessions, visiting with vendors and networking with peers.

On Thursday, the 18th, I ran into Chris Harris first thing. Chris is the up and coming (and arrived) young school library system administrator from Genesee Valley BOCES and it was a big day for both Chris and the school library system at Genesee Valley BOCES. He was planning to release Fish4info, an open-source library finding tool, at a 1:30 session Thursday and he was waiting for Andy Austin, a colleague and computer specialist, to arrive wih the Fish4info demo CDs.

I had worked with Chris and Andy for a year and spent some time helping them develop Fish4info.org. Fish4info is designed to search several sources of online content at a time, inluding the library's collection, the collections of other libraries in a library system, and paid as well as open content from the web. The vision of Fish4info is to provide libraries with a simple interface like Google's that can be used to find books, DVDs, audiobooks, digital content, or what resources may be recommend and free on the Internet.

Fish4info runs on open-source software, particularly Drupal, the content management system that we're using at the Geneva Public Library to develp our new site, GenevaPublicLlibrary.net. Pioneer Library System is turning to Drupal as well.

I waited and chatted with Chris until Andy arrived with the demos and I didn't waste much time installing the demo on my Mac. I was hoping to be able to use the social book marking tool developed for Fish4info on our new site. Unfortunately, I couldn't get the tool to work. There code somehwere that's not getting copied over and Andy, the programmer, promsed he'd help.

When we get the Fish4info book marking tool working on our site, we'll be able to begin developing a directory of links for recommended resources on the Internet. After logging in, a staff can browse out to the the Internet and add a link of any site to the library's directory. The Fish4info social book marking tool comes with a button for the browser, like the one that comes for Del.cio.us, the Web 2.0 social book marking site.

With a social book marking tool, the Geneva Public Library could enlist a group of loosely networked librarians to hep create a directory of recommended resources.

The release of Fish4info on Thursday afternoon was well attended.

I attended another Thursday session at which several speakers spoke about libraries and social services. Several urban libraries shared how they focus on a variety of social needs.

Ariel McNanny attended the session and expressed her concern about our responsibility as non-mandated reporters when we believe children may be at risk. She and I agreed that the library needs to work closely with other community agencies to address the social needs of the people we work with. And, for example, we've begun working with the high school to address truancy issues at the library.

On Friday morning, I attended a panel of speakers that was formed to discuss the issues and tasks libraries face after they re-charter as public entities, such as a school district public library. A range of facts, opinions and experiences were shared, including the dissolution of associations, public and private funds, charitable and 501(c) 3 status, New York State retirement, and civil service.

Later on Friday, the University of Rochester library presented a session on its eXtensible catalog. The eXtensible "catalog" is a Google-like finding tool that searches paid and open web content as well as a library's physical collections, such as books and DVDs. The U of Rochester's vision is to develop a Google-like interface that would run separately from a library's underlying integrated system, one that would wrap around a library's system to search the open web as well as a library's physical and digital collections.

Fish4info anyone?

The session on the eXtensible catalog was well attended with SRO.