Code4Lib, Keynote, Day 1 2007 February 28
Here are my notes from Karen Schneider’s keynote. Sorry for the typos, etc… I’m just trying to get these up quickly…
Karen started off by telling us a little bit about herself and what she things is important in her life. One interesting thing, which I can somewhat relate to, is that some of what it is most important to us doesn’t get on lists of what is important because they are so integral to us they don’t get mentioned.
Karen went on to discus the “State of Emergency” in our profession. Four things she pointed out were: 1) We have given away our collections (in a very short period of time), 2) We don’t build or own the tools that manage the, 3) we provide complex, poorly-marketed systems, and 4) We function like a monopoly service when our competition is thriving tight under our nose.
Next, Karen went on to discuss some of the things we can fix in libraries. Three things she brought up that we can fix: digital preservation, standards adoption, the s sucky state of most library software, third-party issues, scholarly awareness of key issues in LibraryLand. Karen also said we need to seize control of the tools that we rely on! Luckily, some people are already doing some nifty happens in the library world such as scribilio, umalt, Evergreen, and SOLR.
Karen pointed out that we are on a renascence of library built software and that this is a good thing because it begins to restore the balance of power, reinstates the direction of profession, puts the emphasis back on the library as a memory org., and sends the message that we mean business. Karen also brought up the concept of the “resocialzation of librarian artisans” that is now taking place thanks to the internet and #code4lib.
Karen then went not to discuss the big OSS library project for today: Evergreen. According to Karen (and probably almost everyone else here), Evergreen is big …. really big. The timing for Evergreen is perfect, because wean era of worrisome ILS vendor consolidation, and paradoxaly.
the centrality of the ILS is weakening (there is less risk involved now, which allows us to take risks). Karen finished up with some of the “don’ts” when marketing an Open Source project with some useful over-generalizations (her words, not mine): 1) nobody cares about open source, 2)nobody cares about standards, 3) nobody cares about usability, and 4) nobody cares about Evergreen (they don’t care about software, period).
[...] Getting the word out Karen Schneider gave the opening address at the Code4lib conference (you can get a copy of the presentation or read about it here, here or here). Part of her talk discussed restoring the balance of power between libraries and vendors, urging libraries take back control of their content and tools. This sort of set the tone for the conference which was an expose on of exciting new developments in library/information software. Libraries are getting creative, those who can’t replace their “geezy” old ILS systems are creatively remixing the data, creating mashups, and adding new features to old data. [...]