Mr. Chairman, we welcome the presentation by the distinguished delegates of Brazil on the treaty on limitation for Libraries and Archives as well as the modified proposals of IFLA and other like-minded organizations and for want of a better expression, Mr. Chairman, permit me to just refer to them as friends of knowledge.

Nigeria delegation, 21 November 2011 at SCCR23, Geneva

There’s been a lot of discussion over recent years in our profession about what we can do to change copyright. The good news is, libraries are working to do this right now at WIPO’s 23rd meeting of the Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR23), taking place in Geneva until December 2. If you have any interest in this topic, and if you’re a librarian, I’ll take that as a yes, you can follow the events and background issues online on IFLA’s website and even read the simultaneous text feed of the discussions (password: wipo4me).

The Nigerian delegation coined a wonderful new term today: friends of knowledge. Expect to see a lot more of it in the coming days.

Update: Text feed fixed

It has been a very long time since I last posted here, and during that time I’ve done a great deal of thinking about what to do with the blog. I’ve had offers from colleagues to take it over and keep running it as a purely SemWeb blog, but I have been reluctant to let go of it (not sure why, since I haven’t been posting).

I recently went on a very interesting trip across the US trying to work out nothing less than The Future of our Profession. Much of what we discussed comes back to fundamentals: access and description. As we begin to think about how to write up all that we learned on the trip, I envisage that this blog will come back to life again, so don’t unsubscribe just yet.

At this moment, I am sitting in the dark (during the middle of the day, mind, it’s that grey and dark here in London today) cold, with the power off. Not for the first time in the past few months I find myself without electricity, without warning (and not by choice), in my building. There’s some irony in that I was watching the trailer for No Impact Man just minutes before it spontaneously shut off.

I was able to get back online again fairly quickly after rustling up a mobile broadband dongle and my laptop. But there is a danger in the era of always-on computing or assuming that essential infrastructure will be there when you need it. I’m lucky to live in a highly developed country with a relatively stable electricity grid. But I’ve also worked at a university that fell prey to frequent power failures, a happenstance of location and an ageing building. At my first workplace I remember a full day without power where we embraced the dull cast of the generator’s emergency lighting glow and took to shelving to fill in the day. Basic connectivity is an issue I’m increasingly aware of when I travel and plan for work in all kinds of different places. We anticipate having to work around technical difficulties in developing nations, but we are less prepared for it when it happens in our home environment. When we design services and software, do we make plans for what might happen if suddenly you couldn’t connect to it anymore? Even if just for an hour? Or a week? What impact being thrown off the grid would have for being able to communicate?

Food for thought while I sit in the dark, waiting for my laptop battery to run out.

8/365

Originally uploaded by Fiona Bradley

Once again, I find myself in a new year doing new things and being not entirely sure what to do with the blogs and domains I’ve dragged along with me.

In 2009 I wrote several articles on next-generation catalogues thanks to my role in working on a new catalogue for the academic library I was working at. I then found myself not working in a library, but still writing about library catalogues. In 2010 I have one more article on the topic before I hang up my catalogue writing hat.

The Semantic Web in libraries has started to take off in leaps and bounds, with all kinds of interesting projects taking shape. This blog will likely change shape and focus to align with new interests and developments in 2010.

Happy new year, and here’s to all kinds of interesting in 2010.

Last month I participated in an online webinar for Webjunction co- hosted by REFORMA. In it, I gave a short presentation looking at strategy for the use of social media for advocacy and the need to consider all kinds of tools including photo, video, microblogging, and community sites along with email and mobile services depending on the audience you are targeting. The need to measure the impact and communicate the difference the use of such tools makes to your stakeholders is important.

The whole webinar has been archived with audio, slides and links from all the speakers available.

It was a new experience for me, and an interesting one. My VOIP line connection was not great during the webinar, and I needed to resort to traditional landline to dial back into the presentation (with a reshuffle of the lineup). It all stands to make the point though that whatever you do, you need to have backups but to not also forget the importance of alternative communication methods!

View the archive and learn how non-profits such as libraries can use social websites to put access to information and libraries on the agenda of community leaders, elected officials, and local and national agencies. The content of this WebJunction and REFORMA co-sponsored webinar includes a background on social websites, how to use social websites for advocacy, national and international advocacy efforts by representatives from American Library Association (ALA) and the International Federation of Libraries and Institutions (IFLA), and suggestions on how to advocate for services for Latinos and Spanish speakers presented by a panel of guest speakers

Thanks to WebJunction, and the other participating speakers – Loida Garcia-Febo from REFORMA, Meredith Farkas, Marci Merola, Max Macias, it was great to be involved.

I’m not going to comment on the video or the essays (from some great people which are really worth reading, though I would most definitely remove the fake Obama piece -it takes away the strength of what the other essayists have to say) other than to applaud Michael and David’s enthusiasm, but I did want to add and expand upon one small point in the project.

Michael Porter makes a very interesting comment about the inclusion of Hulu, a US-only video streaming service in the list of 101 “really important things to know” on the blog, Rebbetzin Man in Japan “Library 101 or is it?” and one that I would have liked to see made more strongly in the project -

I see Hulu as a demonstration of successful electronic content distribution. I clearly understand many of the reasons *why* this service isn’t offered though a library channel of some sort, but to me, it typifies how far from the mark we have becoming in providing some types of access to electronic content. It is a lengthy conversation that needs specific sources and documents to further the proof of concern that I have here specifically, but I hope this provides some explanation for why that particular resource was in the list.

From my pov it represents an entire front of threats that libraries are not prepared to address any time soon. And that causes me grave concern. It is more than just a fad that iTunes, Amazon, Hulu, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, let you access content electronically that you cannot access through your library. I realize this is a large issue for Public Libraries *at this point*, but that will change imo and we are dangerously lagging in the legal and technical expertise that is require to effective navigate in these waters.

I wholeheartedly agree that we need legal and technical skills not only to make such content available in libraries, as Michael says, but also the skill, will, and momentum to advocate successfully to challenge licensing and contractual agreements that currently prevent or curtail libraries from making electronic content available in the format and method to the public that is permitted by law and library exceptions.

Librarians need the confidence to not buy electronic books that have restrictive lending and printing conditions, or databases with article download limits, or even systems that don’t allow for the straightforward import and export of data. We need to work together, all of us, not just directors and managers, to point out flaws in licenses and products and make the case for change.

This is the kind of skill that really should be a “Library 101″.

With all the distractions of my move across the world, it wasn’t until now (thanks, Jenna!) that I saw “Discovering Linked Data” was published in Library Journal last month. I aimed to cover a few different areas that Linked Data may be useful in, especially research support and discovery layers for catalogues, areas that I was working in at the time of writing the article. I’m really happy with how it turned out.

Open catalogue data is an an issue that arose when I first started working in libraries. I worked in a multicultural music library. I catalogued in more than 60 languages, all original, because our systems didn’t interface with cooperative cataloguing systems (and we had a non-standard cataloguing record, to boot), and the uniqueness of our catalogue in Australia did not make it worthwhile. But surely, there would have been other libraries across the world that we could and should have shared our data with. And I would have liked to share my work, knowing that we were duplicating work with our sister library in another city. We would have been able to identify collection strengths across the world, share resources, and perhaps even find partners to share our collections instead of having to do extensive legwork in obtaining materials in the first place.

I think Linked Data will have a big impact on larger institutions, but smaller ones also have a lot to gain by sharing in ways that were not possible or practical before.

The blog may have been quiet of late, but there has been a great deal happening out there. From linked data developments (especially at the Library of Congress) to some great new mobile tools, it’s been a busy couple of months.

Regular blogging on these developments and others will resume in the next couple of weeks, as I’ve been otherwise occupied by a move to London. I will leave Australia (again, I moved back in August last year) next week. I’m thrilled that the timing means I will be able to attend Mash Oop North in early July and will report back on that event here.

Amusingly enough, what has occupied quite a bit of my attention in the move is working out what to do for broadband and mobile service. I have been debating the pros and cons of buying an iPhone, or a netbook, European data roaming and mobile broadband. I have decided to be sensible and stick with my current hardware, but a lazyweb question if I may. Does anyone know of a good provider for mobile broadband roaming across Europe? Something like Vodafone Passport for broadband?

Today is Ada Lovelace Day, a day to celebrate women in computing. Hooray! Read more about great women in computing at ACM-W.

One of the things I love about librarianship is that there are so many opportunities to do amazing things with computers, from social networking, to blogging, to sysadmin’ing, to programming. And I’ve been inspired by so many others, irrespective of gender. Some people who inspire me right now are on the list at Shovers and Makers doing wonderful things every day.

I’ve been the only girl in the university computer club, and I’ve built computers out of spare parts, and typed up programs from the back of magazines in the 80s, but ‘computing’ never seemed like an actual career option at the time. So I’m glad that librarianship has so many ways to explore your interest, no matter whether that’s putting on exhibitions, helping people at the refdesk, or writing about data. And a lot of that has to do with the inspirational people who have led the way in defining what this profession is about.

Welcome to Semantic Library – here we’ll be discussing what impact the Semantic Web will have on libraries, and whether it will lead to ‘library 3.0′

Later on, we hope to publish some how-to’s and technology summaries, and put together an online learning program for librarians who are interested in learning more.

Why consider the Semantic Library now when we have only just come to terms with the social/’2.0′ library? It’s important to keep an eye on the horizon to ensure that what we’re doing now helps us to prepare for what’s coming next.

First up, we’ll look at some of the definitions of the Semantic Web and what expertise librarians bring.