Computers in Libraries 2009 Conference

OKAY!! Information Overload......!!!

This session was amazing. It might just be because I'm a Firefox Fan and this was mainly about all the cool stuff you can do with Firefox and other web browsers that allow you to customize it for yourself and your users.

The speaker Jessamyn West, Community Technology Librarian, Randolph Technical Career Center in Vermont, Metafile Technical Support Director, is a Firefox fan as well. She gave us so much information. But it was like good food. I couldn't get enough. I went to talk to her after the session, she has a lot of good information.

Here are some of the notes from this session:

Open Source Browsers

Speaker: Jessamyn West, Community Technology Librarian, Randolph Technical Career Center, Vermont

Librarian.net/talks/cil2009

This session is for FIREFOX fans!

Open Source Browsers in general

Are there any other Open Source (free) browsers (some of these are TEXT only):
- Chrome- PC only
- Flock
- Amaya
- Camino
- Dillo
- Galeon
- NetSurf
- SeaMonkey
- Shiira
- Elinks

Some notes on other Open Source Browsers:
Amaya can read different mark-up language. Recommends trying only to know different things browsers can do.

SeaMonkey (compares to NetScape) still looks like NetScape, also has email and news reading…like Firefox (Thunderbird).

Example of Shiira, an open-source web browser.

From Computers in Libraries 2009 Conference

Tidbits about Internet Market share
FF market share
W3schools- 46%
Netapplications- 22%
Statcounter- 31%

Firefox has:
- Themes/Skins
Can make browser the school colors
Add neat buttons

- Smart Keywords
Create frequent searches

- Plug-ins esp. search
- Add-ons
Adblock & bugmenot- blocks ads from web pages
Better Gmail- ad block for mail
Customizegoogle- customize Google search
DownThemAll- download more than one file at a time
Firebug- inspects bugs on websites
History submenus- check your browser history by day
Link evaluator- OCLC owned- checks all links and says if your links are working

- Greasemonkey- post processes Web pages to fit your configuration before you see it.
Scripts to customize web use
- Yahoo mail welcome skipper
- ****Facebook ad nuker & autologin & auto-colorize
- Minimalist Wikipedia (simple Wikipedia)
- Configurable Flickr Home Page
- YouTube tool- shows biggest version of video
- Metafilter (MeFi)- scripts for Librarians (book icon that goes next to profile users who are Librarians)
- YouTube Comment Hider
- Invisibilty cloak- hides your IP address
- Play Music Now tool
- Add other search links to Google
- Book Burro
- Foxmarks
- Zotero
- LibX- contact LibX people (open source)

- Multiple profiles from Firefox
High visibility profiles (accessibility profile)
Page reader (audio)
Can run in same computer

SOMETHING TO TRY!!!!
About: config
Type in About:config in Firefox to be able to customize your Firefox browsers

Check out the presentation:
Librarian.net/talks/cil2009

Open Source Software

This session is extremely interesting. Eric Lease Morgan Head, Digital Access and Information Architecture Department University Libraries of Notre Dame says that Open Source Software is not "free". You still need the SKILLS to use the software, which could cost you more than a closed source software.

Opening Statements
If libraries are about data, research and knowledge and we use computers to control information then we need open source software to control the way WE want to distribute and maintain information.

Open Source Software does NOT mean “free” software. It’s liberating. You are FREE to use the software and modify it any way you want.

Still may have same expenses with open source software as regular software.

From Computers in Libraries 2009 Conference

Open source software is about:
- Free cost
- Community users

Examples of Open Source Software:
- Most of the Internet runs on Open Source Software
- SendMail- majority of software the emails your emails is open source
- Apache

“Library Land” Open Source Software (software for Libraries):
- Lucene
- Zebra
- WordPress
- VuFind
- Evergreen
- Blacklight
- Koha
- Scriblio
- SwishE

8 Skills Needed to Successfully Use Open Source Software
Library Skills
1. Collections
2. Organization
3. Preservation/Archiving
4. Public Service

Computing Skills
5. Relational Databases
6. XML
7. Indexing
8. Scripting Language

Advantages
Full control to use and modify software
No copyright infringement issues
Free of costs

Disadvantages
Takes different set of skills to use

Questions that were asked after session:
Q: How does a manager feel comfortable with certain softwares?
A: Consider these things:
- Is there documentation?
- Is there a community of users?
- Is the software singular or comes with “spyware”?
- What are the primary Google results?

Q: What does Open Source mean to libraries?
A: It’s a common good. These programs are basically given away (free) for anyone to use. If you notice, Librarians also “give away” information. It is good to have different alternatives of production and systems to keep costs down and continue to provide “outside the box” services. Everyone has Microsoft Office, but many people don’t know that Open Office has more features and is easier to use. It’s about having full control to modify and customize.

Very good session. We did the WAVE at the beginning to wake everybody up. Next sessions starts in 15 minutes.