2014 Prepared Talk Proposals

Proposals for Prepared Talks:

Prepared talks are 20 minutes (including setup and questions), and should focus on one or more of the following areas:

• Projects you've worked on which incorporate innovative implementation of existing technologies and/or development of new software
• Tools and technologies – How to get the most out of existing tools, standards and protocols (and ideas on how to make them better)
• Technical issues - Big issues in library technology that should be addressed or better understood
• Relevant non-technical issues – Concerns of interest to the Code4Lib community which are not strictly technical in nature, e.g. collaboration, diversity, organizational challenges, etc.

To Propose a Talk

• Log in to the wiki in order to submit a proposal. If you are not already registered, follow the instructions to do so.
• Provide a title and brief (500 words or fewer) description of your proposed talk.
• If you so choose, you may also indicate when, if ever, you have presented at a prior Code4Lib conference. This information is completely optional, but it may assist us in opening the conference to new presenters.

As in past years, the Code4Lib community will vote on proposals that they would like to see included in the program. This year, however, only the top 10 proposals will be guaranteed a slot at the conference. Additional presentations will be selected by the Program Committee in an effort to ensure diversity in program content. Community votes will, of course, still weigh heavily in these decisions.

Presenters whose proposals are selected for inclusion in the program will be guaranteed an opportunity to register for the conference. The standard conference registration fee will still apply.

Proposals can be submitted through Friday, November 8, 2013, at 5pm PST. Voting will commence on November 18, 2013 and continue through December 6, 2013. The final line-up of presentations will be announced in early January, 2014.

Talk Proposals

• Cary Gordon, The Cherry Hill Company, cgordon@chillco.com

Recently, we have been building systems that use angular.js, Rails, or other systems for presentation, while leveraging Drupal's sophisticated content management capabilities on the back end.

So far, these have been one-way systems, but as we move to Drupal 8 we are beginning to explore ways to further decouple the presentation and CMS functions.

• Mohammed Abu ouda, Bibliotheca Alexandrina (The new Library of Alexandria)

A lot of institutions around the world are engaged in multiple digitization projects aiming at preserving the human knowledge present in books and availing them through multiple channels to people around the whole globe. These efforts will sure help close the digital gap particularly with the arrival of affordable e-readers, mobile phones and network coverage. However, the digital reading experience has not yet arrived to its maximum potential. Many readers miss features they like in their good old books and wish to find them in their digital counterpart. In an attempt to create a unique digital reading experience, Bibliotheca Alexandria (BA) created a flexible book viewing framework that is currently used to access its current collection of more than 300,000 digital books in five different languages which includes the largest collection of digitized Arabic books.

Using open source tools, BA used the framework to develop a modular book viewer that can be deployed in different environments and is currently at the heart of various BA projects. The Book viewer provides several features creating a more natural reading experience. As with physical books, the reader can now personalize the books he reads by adding annotations like highlights, underlines and sticky notes to capture his thoughts and ideas in addition to being able to share the book with friends on social networks. The reader can perform a search across the content of the book receiving highlighted search results within the pages of the book. More features can be further added to the book viewer through its plugin architecture.

• Dan Scott, Laurentian University
  • Previous code4lib presentations: CouchDB is sacrilege... mmm, delicious sacrilege at Code4Lib 2008

The semantic web, linked data, and structured data are all fantastic ideas with a barrier imposed by implementation constraints. If their system does not allow customizations, or the institution lacks skilled human resources, it does not matter how enthused a given library might be about publishing structured data... it will not happen. However, if the software in use simply publishes structured data by default, then the web will be populated for free. Really! No extra resources necessary.

This presentation highlights Dan's work with systems such as Evergreen, Koha, and VuFind to enable the publication of schema.org structured data out-of-the-box. Along the way, we reflect the current state of the W3C Schema.org Bibliographic Extension community group efforts to shape the evolution of the schema.org vocabulary. Finally, hold on tight as we contemplate next steps and the possibilities of a world where structured data is the norm on the web.

• Bret Davidson, North Carolina State University Libraries, bret_davidson@ncsu.edu
  • Previous Code4Lib Presentations: Visualizing library data with D3.js at Code4Lib 2013

JavaScript MVC frameworks are ushering in a golden age of robust and responsive web applications that take advantage of evergreen browsers, performant JS engines, and the unprecedented reach provided by billions of personal computing devices. The web browser has emerged as the world’s most popular application runtime and the complexity[1] and scope of JavaScript applications has exploded accordingly. Server-side web frameworks like Rails and Django have helped developers adhere to best practices like modularity, dependency injection, and unit testing for years, practices that are now being applied to JavaScript development through projects like Backbone[2], Ember[3], and Angular[4].

This talk will discuss the issues JavaScript MVC frameworks are trying to solve, common features like data binding, implications for the future of web development[5], and the appropriateness of JavaScript MVC for library applications.

• [1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaghetti_code
• [2]http://backbonejs.org
• [3]http://emberjs.com
• [4]http://angularjs.org
• [5]http://tomdale.net/2013/09/progressive-enhancement-is-dead/

• Jason Ronallo, NCSU Libraries, jason_ronallo@ncsu.edu

Previous Code4Lib presentations:

• HTML5 Microdata and Schema.org 2012
• HTML5 Video Now! 2013

Watching the Google Analytics Real-Time dashboard for the first time was mesmerizing. As soon as someone visited a site, I could see what page they were on. For a digital collections site with a lot of images, it was fun to see what visitors were looking at. But getting from Google Analytics to the image or other content of what was currently being viewed was cumbersome. The real-time experience was something I wanted share with others. I'll show you how I used a WebSocket service to create a real-time interface to digital collections.

In the Hunt Library at NCSU we have some large video walls. I wanted to make HTML-based exhibits that featured viewer interactions. I'll show you how I converted Listen to Wikipedia [1] into an bring-your-own-device interactive exhibit. With WebSockets any HTML page can be remote controlled by any internet connected device.

I will attempt to include real-time audience participation.

[1] http://listen.hatnote.com/

• Terry Brady, Georgetown University Libraries, twb27@georgetown.edu

The Georgetown University Libraries have customized the File Analyzer and Metadata Harvester application (https://github.com/Georgetown-University-Libraries/File-Analyzer) to solve a number of library automation challenges:

• validating digitized and reformatted files
• validating vendor statistics for counter compliance
• preparing collections of digital files for archiving and ingest
• manipulating ILS import and export files

The File Analyzer application was used by the US National Archives to validate 3.5 million digitized images from the 1940 Census. After implementing a customized ingest workflow within the File Analyzer, the Georgetown University Libraries was able to process an ingest backlog of over a thousand files of digital resources into DigitalGeorgetown, the Libraries’ Digital Collections and Institutional Repository platform. Georgetown is currently developing customized workflows that integrate Apache Tika, BagIt, and Marc conversion utilities.

The File Analyzer is a desktop application with a powerful framework for implementing customized file validation and transformation rules. As new rules are deployed, they are presented to users within a user interface that is easy (and powerful) to use.

Learn about the functionality that is available for download, how you can use this tool to automate workflows from digital collections to ILS ingests to electronic resources statistics and also discuss the opportunities to collaborate on enhancements to this application!

• Darren Hardy, Stanford University, drh@stanford.edu

Geographically-rich data are exploding and putting fear in those trying to tackle integrating them into existing digital library infrastructures. Building a spatial data infrastructure that integrates with your digital library infrastructure need not be a daunting task. We have successfully deployed a geospatial digital library infrastructure using Fedora and open-source geospatial software [1]. We'll discuss the primary design decisions and technologies that led to a production deployment within a few months. Briefly, our architecture revolves around discovery, delivery, and metadata pipelines using open-source OpenGeoPortal [2], Solr [3], GeoServer [4], PostGIS [5], and GeoNetwork [6] technologies, plus the proprietary ESRI ArcMap [7] -- the GIS industry's workhorse. Finally, we'll discuss the key skillsets needed to build and maintain a spatial data infrastructure.

[1] http://foss4g.org [2] http://opengeoportal.org [3] http://solr.apache.org [4] http://geoserver.org [5] http://postgis.net [6] http://geonetwork-opensource.org [7] http://esri.com

Roy Tennant

• Previous Code4Lib presentations: 2006: "The Case for Code4Lib 501c(3)"

Apache Hadoop is widely used by Yahoo!, Google, and many others to process massive amounts of data quickly. OCLC Research uses a 40-node compute cluster with Hadoop and HBase to process the 300 million MARC records of WorldCat in various ways. This presentation will explain how Hadoop MapReduce works and illustrate it with specific examples and code. The role of the jobtracker in both monitoring and reporting on processes will be explained. String searching WorldCat will also be demonstrated live.

Bohyun Kim, Florida International University, bohyun.kim@fiu.edu

• 'No' previous Code4Lib presentations

Do most of the data that your library collects stay in spreadsheets or are published as a static table with a series of boring numbers? Do your library stakeholders spend more time collecting the data than using it as a decision-making tool because the data is presented in a way that makes it hard for them to quickly grasp its significance?

This talk will provide an overview of Google Visualization API [2] and Google Chart Libraries [3] to get you started on the way to quickly query and visualize your library data from remote data sources (e.g. a Google Spreadsheet or your own database) with (or without) cool-looking user-controls, animation effects, and even a dashboard.

Juan Denzer, Binghamton University, jdenzer@binghamton.edu

• 'No' previous Code4Lib presentations

As rare books become more delicate over time, making them available to the public becomes harder. We at Binghamton University Library have developed an application that makes it easier to view rare books without ever having to touch them. We have combined the Leap Motion hands-free device and 3D rendered models to create a new virtual experience for the viewer.

The application allows the user to rotate and zoom in on a 3D representation of a rare book. The user is also able to ‘open’ the virtual book and flip through it using a natural user interface. Such as swiping the hand left or right to turn the page.

The application is built on the .Net framework and is written in C#. 3D models are created using simple 3D software such as sketchup or Blender. Scans of the book cover and spine are created using simple flatbed scanners. The inside pages are scanned using overhead scanners.

This talk with discuss the technologies used in developing the application and virtually any library could implement the application with virtually no coding at all. This presentation will have a demonstration of the software and also a chance for audience members to experience the Rare Book Leap Motion App themselves.

• Bobbi Fox, Library Technology Services, Harvard University, bobbi_fox@harvard.edu
• Gloria Korsman, Andover-Harvard Theological Library
  • No previous Code4Lib presentations

Hey kids! Remember when SOAP was used for something other than washing? Our sophisticated (and highly functional) Course Reserves Request system does!

However, while the system is great for submitting and processing course reserve requests, the student-facing presentation through Havard’s home-grown -- and soon to be replaced -- LMS leaves a lot to be desired.

Follow along as we leverage Solr 4 as a No-SQL database, along with more progressive RESTful API techniques, to release Reserves data into the wild without interfering with reserves request processing -- and, in the process, open up the opportunity for other schools to feed their data in as well.

Cynthia Ng, Accessibility Librarian, CILS at Langara College

• No previous Code4Lib presentations (not counting lightning talks)

We’re building and improving tools and services all the time, but do you only develop for the “average” user or add things for “disabled” users? We all use “assistive” technology accessing information in a multitude of ways with different platforms, devices, etc. Let’s focus on providing web services that are accessible to everyone without it being onerous or ugly. The aim is to get you thinking about what you can do to make web-based services and content more accessible for all from the beginning or with small amounts of effort whether you're a developer or not.

The goal of the presentation is to provide both developers and content creators with information on simple, practical ways to make web content and web services more accessible. However, rather than thinking about putting in extra effort or making adjustment for those with disabilities, I want to help people think about how to make their websites more accessible for all users through universal web design.

Josh Wilson, Systems Integration Librarian, State Library of North Carolina - joshwilsonnc@gmail.com

At the State Library of North Carolina, we had more specific questions about the use of our digital collections than standard GA could provide. A few implementations of custom events and custom variables later, we have our answers.

I'll demonstrate how these analytics add-ons work, and why implementation can sometimes be more complicated than just adding a few lines of JavaScript to your ga.js. I'll discuss some specific examples in use at the SLNC:

• Capturing the content of specific metadata fields in CONTENTdm as Custom Events
• Recording Drupal taxonomy terms as Custom Variables

In both instances, this data deepened our understanding of how our sites and collections were being used, and in turn, we were able to report usage more accurately to content contributors and other stakeholders.

More on: GA Custom Events | GA Custom Variables

Esmé Cowles, UC San Diego Library. Previous talk: All Teh Metadatas Re-Revisited (2013)

• One repository contains untold numbers of digital objects and powers many Hydra and Islandora apps
• It speaks RDF, but contains no triplestore! (triplestores sold separately, SPARQL Update may be involved, some restrictions apply)
• Flexible enough to tie itself in knots implementing storage and access control policies
• Witness feats of strength and scalability, with dramatically increased performance and clustering
• Plumb the depths of bottomless hierarchies, and marvel at the metadata woven into the very fabric of the repository
• Ponder the paradox of ingesting large files by not ingesting them
• Be amazed as Fedora 4 swallows other systems whole (including Fedora 3 repositories)
• Watch novice developers setup Fedora 4 from scratch, with just a handful of incantations to Git and Maven

The Fedora Commons Repository is the foundation of many digital collections, e-research, digital library, archives, digital preservation, institutional repository and open access publishing systems. This talk will focus on how Fedora 4 improves core repository functionality, adds new features, maintains backwards compatibility, and addresses the shortcomings of Fedora 3.

Steve Meyer and Karen Coombs, OCLC

Building web services can have great benefits by providing reusability of data and functionality. Underpinning your applications with a web service will allow you to write code once and support multiple environments: your library's web app, mobile applications, the embedded widget in your campus portal. However, building a web service is its own kind of artful programming. Doing it well requires attention to many of the same techniques and requirements as building web applications, though with different outcomes.

So what are the usability principles for web services? How do you build a web service that you (and others) will actually want to use? In this talk, we’ll share some of the lessons learned - the good, the bad, and the ugly - through OCLC's work on the WorldCat Metadata API. This web service is a sophisticated API that provides external clients with read and write access to WorldCat data. It provides a model to help aspiring API creators navigate the potential complications of crafting a web service. We'll cover:

• Loose coupling of data assets and resource-oriented data modeling at the core
• Coding to standards vs. exposure of an internal data model
• Authentication and security for web services: API Keys, Digital Signing, OAuth Flows
• Building web services that behave as a suite so it looks like the left hand knows what the right hand is doing

So at the end of the day, your team will know your API is a very good egg after all.

If accepted, the presenters intend to produce and share a Quick Guide for building a web service that will reflect content presented in the talk.

Category:Code4Lib2014