Workshops and Seminars

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Workshop and Seminar details

Libraries as Open Access publishers.

Facilitated by Penny Andrews

Penny will facilitate a discussion of library roles in in-house publishing and dissemination, followed by a practical demonstration of Open Journal Systems, Open Monograph Press and Fidus Writer with time for questions.

Skills required: participants should have a basic understanding of Open Access, be comfortable with what a server is and how to install software, and have basic HTML skills.

Technical requirements: no special requirements.

So you want to be a systems librarian…?

Facilitated by Anna Brynolf

Not all librarians grow up knowing they’ll become systems librarians. A lot of us somehow ended up in the job once we’d already qualified and were working in libraries, without computer science or programming degrees. We learn most of what we need to know along the way.

This session will provide advice from an ‘accidental’ systems librarian – useful skills to have, where to find information, where to get help, and answers to any questions the participants may have.

Skills required: no special requirements beyond an interest in systems librarianship.

Technical requirements: no special requirements.

“Data, data, data! I can’t make bricks without clay.”: practical communications in systems librarianship.

Facilitated by Meghan Jones

Meghan will facilitate a session on practical communication. Or, 90% of a systems librarian’s job. This session will look at real life examples of queries, issues or third party information and how to break them down for better communication with colleagues or users.

Skills required: participants should have an interest in improving their communcation and a willingness to investigate code (coding experience is not necessary; the session will include the application of logic).

Technical requirements: no special requirements.

Meaningful metrics and visualisation tools

Facilitated by Kate Lomax

How do we truly engage with library users? Book request forms? Twitter? CIPFA? Suggestion boxes?

With more and more data becoming available to us and the role of libraries ever-changing, how do we make use of the data and user feedback available to define and renew our services? Kate will takes a practical and collaborative look at ways to improve our engagement with users and help identify what users are looking for from their library service using meaningful metrics, visualization tools and other feedback channels.

This includes a hands-on look at what tools are available to help us better communicate and engage with (past, present, and future) users via social networks, website analytics, library platform data and other data (re)sources.

Skills required: familiarity with Google Analytics, Piwik or other analytics tools would be useful but not required.

Technical requirements: no special requirements.

Automated Love

Facilitated by Owen Stephens

Ever found yourself doing a dull repetitive task, or re-keying data from one place to another, or looked at any computer based task and thought “there must be a better way”? There is!

This session will introduce tools and techniques to automate processes that you might need to carry out in your job. Practical examples will be used, and participants are encouraged to bring along their own examples to look at in the session.

Skills required: the session will use simple software to achieve automation and no previous knowledge of coding or task automation is required.

Technical requirements: participants require a laptop with the ability to install software.

Pocket Code

Facilitated by Gary Green

Create a mobile game with Pocket Code to help your users utilize the library service. Pocket Code is an app for Android devices that allows you to quickly create interactive programs by using a simple drag and drop environment. See: www.catrobat.org

Skills required: no special knowledge is required beyond some basic maths and imagination.

Technical requirements: participants require an Android smartphone or Android tablet capable of running the Pocket Code and Pocket Paint apps.

Linked Open Data and OntoWiki practical workshop

Facilitated by Andreas Nareike, with a presentation from Mike Mertens.

The management of bibliographic data and e-resources has become a distinctive, important task for libraries in recent years. The diversity of resources, changing licensing policies and new business models, individual or consortial acquisition and modern discovery interfaces have turned the marketplace of scientific information into a complex and multidimensional construct.

Leipzig University Library is developing a scalable, reusable application for the management of e-resources in academic libraries. This application is developed using the open source application framework OntoWiki. OntoWiki facilitates visual presentation of a knowledge base as an information map, with different views on instance data. It enables intuitive authoring of semantic content, with an inline editing mode for editing RDF content, similar to WYSIWYG for text documents.

Mike will briefly introduce the challenges in moving from linked data publishing to actively and systematically using linked data in libraries today, encouraging the community to view linked data as an opportunity for itself, not just as an obligation to the Semantic Web, with examples of which libraries are doing this already.

Andreas will demonstrate the basic principles of installing and using OntoWiki in order to work with library-related linked data. The audience will be provided with access to a running OntoWiki installation.

Skills required: the session focuses on use of OntoWiki rather than installation, so there are no special technical prerequisites. Participants would benefit from basic understanding of open access and RDF. For more advanced use, some experience with working on the command line would be helpful.

Technical requirements: no special technical requirements.

Usability Testing in the Library: Discover it!

Facilitated by Sarah Stewart.

Usability testing is vital to evaluating the efficiency, performance, and, well, usability of a library’s resource management and discovery layer system, helping libraries to deliver effective services to their patrons and making library resources more discoverable.

What methods can be utilised for rigorous usability testing and how can these methods be implemented? This session will explore several practical methods and offers a hands-on workshop in which participants will engage in a scenario testing the newly live library management and discovery layer system of the Natural History Museum Library as a case study.

Please note information obtained from this session will be utilised as research for a Library and Information Sciences Masters dissertation at City University #citylis.

Skills required: This session is suitable for novices. No skills required other than curiosity.
Technical requirements: Laptop or mobile device with the ability to connect to the Internet.

Establishing Integrated Library-Hack-Makerspaces

Facilitated by Annemarie Naylor.

Annemarie Naylor from the Common Libraries initiative will be at the event and is interested in establishing public libraries as platforms to facilitate the production, exchange and consumption of knowledge and know-how underpinned by a peer-to-peer ethos. Why do public libraries across the UK continue to focus overwhelmingly upon the provision of access to information bounded by traditional IP and copyright provisions, when technology has transformed our ability to publish and exchange knowledge and know-how across a range of media in accordance with a range of contemporary licensing structures?

Should libraries be replaced by community workshops as per Mark Miodownik’s line of argument and drive a STEAM skills revolution at the local level, or is there scope to evolve libraries so that they become open knowledge platforms in future? What needs to happen to encourage prototyping of integrated library-hack-makerspaces amongst public libraries over the coming period? We will introduce the Waiting Room project as an exemplar in this regard, then, look to participants to help us develop our forward strategy integral to this workshop.

For background information about integrated library-hack-makerspaces in the UK, visit: commonlibraries.cc

Skills required: No special skills required.
Technical requirements: No special requirements.

One thought on “Workshops and Seminars”

  1. Hi,

    It’s a great programme but now I have a dilemma because the 2 sessions that I particularly wanted to attend are both in the afternoon.

    Is it likely that workshops will swap around?

    Thanks,

    Jane

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