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I attended three sessions on Saturday, June 28, 2008: Kids and Ever-Cool: Find Them Together at Your Library (1030-1200), Metadata Mashup: Creating and Publishing Application Profiles (1330-1430), and Science Fiction and Fantasy: Looking at Information Technology and the Information Rights of the Individual (1600-1730).

Kids and Ever-Cool: Find Them Together at Your Library

The main speaker in this program was Gene Del Vecchio, author of such nonfiction works as Creating Ever-Cool: A Marketer’s Guide to a Kid’s Heart (1997), The Blockbuster Toy: How to Invent the Next Big Thing (2003), and young adult fiction like The Pearl of Anton (2004), and The Sword of Anton (2006). He has been in the business for 25 years, and his clients include such brands as Disney, Mattel, and Nestle. (“How many of you played with Barbie? I sold that to you!”)

The purpose of his lecture was to encourage children’s libraries to create a logo or brand that is as strong as McDonald’s golden arches or Target’s bulls-eye while making it cool and successfully fulfilling a basic emotional need. A formula for success at the library, Del Vecchio claims, is to satisfy a timeless emotional need and dress it up in a current trend or fad (while updating periodically). Here are some examples of brands that fulfill a basic emotional need:

• cereal that makes a child feel like a winner: Wheaties
• fashion doll stands for beauty: Barbie
• fashion doll stands for rebellion: Bratz
• yogurt that gives children control: Sprinkl’ins
• stuffed animal that gives children a sense of empowerment: Build-A-Bear
• candy that makes children feel brave: Warheads
• cereal that is about sensory gratification: Rice Krispies

One particularly striking part of his presentation involved his presentation of user needs survey results, wherein children provided their opinions on what would make a library better or cool. Some of those results were in the form of pictures, like one that had an ice cream stand, bean bag chairs, and music playing, with a very small corner of the room for books; another child had drawn a separate room for listening to music. Most of the children came to a general consensus: they wanted their libraries to adapt to what they were used to and expected. They wanted Barnes & Noble in their libraries.

Metadata Mashup: Creating and Publishing Application Profiles

The speakers in this program discussed their application of metadata, as there are so many different competing metadata standards. One presenter, Melanie Feltner-Reichert, Director of the Digital Library Initiatives at the University of Tennessee, quoted:

Metadata is expected to follow existing and emerging standards in order to facilitate integrated access to multiple information providers over the Web. However, there are many new standards, and most of them are still under development. And it is rare that the requirements of a particular project or site can all be met by any one standard “straight from the box.” [1]

It is not likely that one metadata standard will accomplish everything a librarian intends to do with a project or site, so new metadata application profiles must be created to solve the problem. Metadata application profiles tailor complex schemas for project-specific usage. They allow the project stakeholders to cover all bases.

Another speaker, Arwen Hutt, Metadata Librarian at the University of California at San Diego, quoted:

Application profiles consist of data elements drawn from one or more namespace schemas combined together by implementors and optimised for a particular local application. Application profiles are useful as they allow the implementor to declare how they are using standard schemas. In the context of working applications where there is often a different between the schema in use and the “standard” namespace schema. [2]

Creating application profiles provides documentation for the changes made to the original schema. The document should include such fields as purpose, schemas used, specific elements used, etc.

Science Fiction and Fantasy: Looking at Information Technology and the Information Rights of the Individual

This program consisted of a panel of four science fiction and/or fantasy authors: Vernor Vinge, Brandon Sanderson, Eric Flint, and Cory Doctorow.

Vernor Vinge, author of True Names: And the Opening of the Cyberspace Frontier (1984), A Deepness in the Sky (2000), Rainbows End (2006), and A Fire Upon the Deep (1993), spoke about open document standards, among other things, during his portion of the discussion. Vinge explained that open document standards are really important if we want to continue usage without the risks of licensing agreements and other copyright issues. Open document standards are the only things that can protect us against proprietary formats. Having open document standards provides us a way to migrate data forward in time; it prevents lock-in.

Brandon Sanderson is the author of works of fantasy such as Mistborn: The Final Empire (2006), Elantris (2005), The Well of Ascension: Book Two of Mistborn (2007), and Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians (2007). He explained that fantasy novels tend to utilize euchronias. (Euchronias are idealized past time periods, like steampunk and “merry old England.”) The characters in these works tend to be people who think more like modern people in order for the characters to be relevant to the audience. Fantasy novels tend to reminisce of the days when the scientist was seen as the wizard, someone relatable who could solve all problems. The fantasy works of recent years present a pattern that strongly corresponds with the recent desires of Americans: as a culture, we are interested in unification. These patterns are presented much less often through battle, and more often through the decimation of information. The information scientist or software engineer then becomes the wizard. They are the ones who can solve our problems.

Eric Flint is an author of works in the science fiction and fantasy genres. His books include 1632 (2000), 1634: The Ram Rebellion (2006), The Grantville Gazette (2004), 1634: The Galileo Affair (2004), and 1635: The Cannon Law (2006). During his discussion, Flint presented his opinion of copyright:

• It should last 40 years.
• The “intellectual land-grab by giant corporations” through copyright “destroys writing.”
• Copyright should “protect the ability of writers to make a living,” and not do much more than that.

Flint explained that, in an effort to prove that providing access to his works does not negatively effect his sales, he posted one of his earliest works online, on his publisher’s website. The author found that this worked beyond his hypothesis, so he posted more.

It seems that people appreciate having both mediums available to them for different purposes. Those who read the work online tend to buy the work on paper anyway. (I feel the same about music; I like having both the MP3 and the physical album.)

Cory Doctorow is a co-author of a blog I’ve been subscribing to for over four years, BoingBoing, and several books, including: Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom (2003), Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town (2006), Eastern Standard Tribe (2004), A Place So Foreign and Eight More (2003), Overclocked: Stories of the Future Present (2007), and Little Brother (2008). During Doctorow’s presentation, he discussed how copying is not what the internet does best; it’s best for “collective action,” transmitting ideas, and creating “communities of practice.” Sharing ideas and information is essential. Science would not have been possible without it.

Reflection of My Second Day at ALA Annual 2008

I was very frustrated, as likely many others were, that there were so many appealing programs at the same time (during the whole conference, but especially on Saturday). It was difficult to decide, but since I went to so many fun YALSA programs last year, I decided that I should open my horizons.

The first program I went to on Saturday was very interesting. The presenter had obviously done it before, and I was able to get a seat up front so that the presentation was easy to see. The second presentation was interesting, too, but it was packed, the slides were very difficult to read, and the presenters tended to change slides fairly quickly. I found that impeded my ability to keep up and understand. As a novice MSLIS-not-quite-librarian, I like to take notes. It was nearly impossible to do so at the second program. The third program was great, with four very intriguing authors (and four free books for the first 150 attendees), but their discussions were a bit scattered. They each seemed as though they deserved an entire hour to themselves.

But back to the second program, Metadata Mashups: without knowing it, I had done a lot of what they talked about on my own during my internship at RIT Libraries. During my internship, I worked with the Head of Cataloging and the Web Server Administrator to adjust the metadata field registries on RIT‘s institutional repository, the RIT Digital Media Library. (Most of the metadata was Dublin Core standard, but we adjusted it to include other things to fit the various medias uploaded to the IR. It was awesome to learn about keeping those customizations documented and organized.

1. Baker, T., Dekkers, M., Heery, R., Patel, M., & Salokhe, G. (2001). What terms does your metadata use? Application profiles as machine-understandable narratives. Journal of Digital Information 2(2). Retrieved Jul. 1, 2008, from <http://jodi.tamu.edu/Articles/v02/i02/Baker/>
2. Heery, R., & Patel, M. (2000, Sep. 24). Application profiles: mixing and matching metadata schemas. Ariadne (25). Retrieved Jun. 29, 2008, from <http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue25/app-profiles/>

Tags: ALA, ALA Annual Conference 2008, Brandon Sanderson, children's services, copyright, Cory Doctorow, Eric Flint, intellectual property, marketing, metadata, Vernor Vinge

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