2013 Code4Lib Midwest Conference

Registration

List your name, email address, and affiliation here to register for the meeting:

• Eric Lease Morgan ( emorgan at nd.edu) - University of Notre Dame
• Lauren Reno (renol at newberry.org ) - Newberry Library
• Rick Johnson (rick dot johnson at nd dot edu) - University of Notre Dame
• Peter Schlumpf (pschlumpf at gmail.com) - Avanti Library Systems
• Margaret Kipp (kipp at uwm.edu) - University of Wisconsin Milwaukee
• Ken Irwin - Wittenberg University (Ohio)
• Abigail Goben (agoben@uic.edu)--University of Illinois, Chicago
• Francis Kayiwa (kayiwa AT My Institution next ) - University of Illinois, Chicago
• Margaret Heller (mheller@dom.edu) - Dominican University, River Forest
• Bob Sandusky (sandusky at uic) - University of Illinois at Chicago
• Ranti Junus (ranti.junus at gmail.com) - Michigan State University
• Ling Wang (lwang@uic.edu) - University of Illinois at Chicago
• Valerie Harris (val66 at UIC email) - University of Illinois at Chicago Library
• Linda Ballinger (linda dot ballinger at gmail) - Newberry Library
• Michael North (m-north@northwestern.edu) - Northwestern University
• Rajesh Balekai (rbalekai@nd.edu) - University of Notre Dame
• Max Anderson (max@uic.edu) - University of Illinois at Chicago
• Jonathan Shank (j-shank@neiu.edu) - Northeastern Illinois University
• Matthew Reidsma (reidsmam@gvsu.edu) - Grand Valley State University (Michigan)

Basics

• July 28-29, 2011

Both days will be held at the University of Illinois-Chicago We will be at the Daley Library.

Call for Presenters

Share what you are working on! We are looking for 20 minute talks, lightning talks, hour long talks, and a lengthier (90 minute) workshop style talk.

Please list your proposed topic below:

• Name, Title, Topic

• Eric Lease Morgan (Digital Projects Librarian, University of Notre Dame) and "Text Mining in 'Discovery Systems'" - This short presentation will describe what text mining is, and then it will demonstrate how text mining can be integrated into library "discovery systems". The goal of the presentation is to increase the awareness of digital humanities computing techniques and to encourage the library profession to embrace them as a way of making collections more useful.

• Peter Schlumpf (Avanti Library Systems) and "Avanti Nova: A Semantic Mapping System" - This presentation will introduce and demonstrate the latest work on Avanti Nova, a semantic mapping software. Nova provides a new and useful way of doing some things. The basic concepts, principles and how it works will be explained, and there will be a demonstration of the software implementing a library catalogue.

• Margaret Kipp (Assistant Professor, University of Wisconsin Milwaukee) and "Teaching Linked Data and the Semantic Web to MLIS Students" - This short presentation will report on the scope, coverage and results of teaching a course on linked data in libraries to a group of MLIS students which encouraged them to explore aspects of information organisation through experimenting with library and non-library metadata, semantic web and web 2.0 tools for creating library mashups. One of the goals of the presentation is to start a conversation about what libraries are doing with linked data and the semantic web and how we can incorporate this knowledge into MLIS courses.

• Matthew Reidsma (Web Services Librarian, Grand Valley State University) - "Using jQuery to style hosted library services." Every library struggles to provide some sort of unified experience for its users, despite using hosted solutions for many of its resources. Getting these varied sites designed by countless different vendors to look like part of your library's site can be a challenge. I've found great success in combating the lackluster HTML and CSS of library vendors by using jQuery to make the page I want, rather than the page I have. I'll show some examples of projects I've completed as well as the Open Source projects they have spawned (360Link Reset, hasMedia?).

• Rich Wolf (UIC ACCC) - REST Easy: From Web Service to iOS App In this talk, we'll look at how a RESTful service can be turned into a native iOS app by creating a real live sample application, step by step. Along the way, we'll explore Xcode, Apple's IDE for developing iOS apps, Objective-C, and Interface Builder. We'll also look at open source tools, such as Two Toasters RESTKit, that make consuming REST services on an iOS device much simpler to implement.

Hackfest topics

Got a problem that coders can solve? We will set aside time for a hackfest -- post your issues now.

• Anyone interested in taking XTF apart

The Code4Lib "Midwest" Meeting will be held at the University of Illinois at Chicago:

• Who - Anybody and everybody is invited, especially if you are interested in aspects of computers and librarianship
• What - A Code4Lib "mini-conference"
• When - Thursday, July 28th starting at 0830 until Friday, July 29th around 1300
• Where - Room 1470 Richard J. Daley Library, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago (Illinois) (home page, parking maps)
• Why - Because community is a good thing, and communication is the key to our success

Suggested Hotel: Crown Plaza 733 W. Madison Chicago, IL

(http://www.parking.illinois.edu/visitorparkinginfo.htm Parking Information)

Public Transit Information: (http://www.transitchicago.com/ Transit Chicago)

Agenda

The agenda is be very simple and includes things such as but not limited to:

• introductions and agenda reformulation
• social event at (Villains)

Lightning Talks, Show & Tell, and Workshops

If you would like to give a lightning talk, do a show & tell, or even give a more formal workshop, then please add your topic and name below. This will help others learn more about what the Meeting will have to offer.

The Inaugural Code4Lib "Midwest" Meeting will be held at the University of Notre Dame:

• Who - Anybody and everybody is invited, especially if you are interested in aspects of computers and librarianship
• What - A Code4Lib "mini-conference"
• When - Friday, June 11 starting at 10 o'clock until Saturday, June 12 around noon
• Where - Room 248 Hesburgh Library, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame (Indiana) (home page, maps)
• Why - Because community is a good thing, and communication is the key to our success

Agenda

The agenda is be very simple and includes things such as but not limited to:

• introductions and agenda reformulation
• lightning talks
• show & tell
• lunch at the dinning hall
• tour of campus
• some sort of presentation to library faculty/staff where we will try to get a "Code4Lib Challenge" from the audience
• hack sessions
• social event at Eric Morgan's house
• more hacking

Lightning Talks, Show & Tell, and Workshops

If you would like to give a lightning talk, do a show & tell, or even give a more formal workshop, then please add your topic and name below. This will help others learn more about what the Meeting will have to offer.

• tei2epub - a lightning talk about converting TEI/XML into "ebook" files (Eric Morgan)
• XC - a description of what is happening with the XC (eXtensible Catalog) and maybe a demonstration of a local XC implementation (Eric Morgan)
• offline catalog for the Liberal Arts in Prison Program - how to use XAMPP, VuFind, and a portable hard drive to create an offline version of the library catalog that can be used for courses taught to prisoners who aren't allowed to have Internet access (Julia Bauder) (This will be a show-and-tell if I can borrow a Windows machine to show it on - it doesn't run on Linux, and I don't own a Windows laptop.)
• bilingual subject heading web service - LCSH in/Spanish version out. Currently under development for OCLC Connexion client. What would a more generalized standards based service look like? (Mike Kreyche)
• FRBR, facets, and moving images - an OLAC project to create an improved interface for searching for film and video in libraries. (1) Overview of the project and its goals; (2) Discussion of strategies for extracting and normalizing FRBR-based data from existing MARC bibliographic records. (Kelley McGrath)
• Why Notre Dame Should Join the Big Ten From a Library Perspective (Michael Witt)
• jQuery + OPACs (Ken Irwin)
  • the good folks at Packt publishing are offering a code4lib discount on their jQuery books:

Special 15% off on the cover price of any jQuery print book, please use promotion code jqur76pr

Special 40% off on the cover price of any jQuery eBook, please use promotion code jqur76ebk

Customers purchasing the print and the eBook together automatically get a 10% off on the print and 85% off on the eBook.

A complete listing of our jQuery titles can be found here: http://www.packtpub.com/books/jquery

Customers have to add the jQuery book of their choice to the shopping cart and add the respective promotion code. Next they need to click the "Add Promotion Code" button for the discount to be applied.

Please note that these promotion codes apply to all books under the jQuery category on PacktPub.com except Joomla! 1.5 JavaScript jQuery, as this book is in pre - order stage.

• Preparing Hathi Trust and Project Gutenberg records for loading into local catalogs (Mike Kreyche)
• Wanted: Tips for Unicode/MARC8 conversions (Mike Kreyche)
• Some of our Drupal/Solr Hacking (Rob Casson, who is still tentative, but trying to make it)
• Taverna Workflows for Digital Content - Go over thoughts on automating data transformations using Taverna to accelerate development time with less code and make work easily shareable, portable, and decoupled (Rick Johnson and Banu Lakshminarayanan)

Affinity Groups

• Mobile Devices
• FRBR + Media
• Repositories
• EPUBs
• jQuery intro

Accommodations

There are quite a number of hotels in the immediate area, but the following two are recommended in priority order:

1. Inn at St. Mary's - Close. Inexpensive. Gets very good recommendations. Probably serves a breakfast. Within walking distance, but also hosts a shuttle service
2. Morris Inn - On campus and therefore very close. A bit pricey. A nice hotel.

Registration

Registration will make it easier for us to plan as well as get you wireless access while you are here. To register, simply send Eric Morgan an email message, and he will keep track of things.

Fees

There are no fees with the exception of your hotel and travel costs. At least one lunch and one dinner will be provided.

Mailing list

For better or for worse, Code4Lib "Midwest" has low-traffic mailing list/Google group. Consider subscribing.

Summary

The Inaugural Code4Lib "Midwest" Regional Meeting (June 11 & 12, 2010 at the University of Notre Dame) was a qualified success.

About twenty-six people attended. (At least that was the number of people who went to lunch.) They came from Michigan, Ohio, Iowa, Indiana, and Illinois. Julia Bauder won the prize for coming the furthest distance away — Grinnell, Iowa.

We began with Lightning Talks:

• ePub files by Michael Kreyche
• FRBR and MARC data by Kelly McGrath
• Great Books by Eric Lease Morgan
• jQuery and the OPAC by Ken Irwin
• Notre Dame and the Big Ten by Michael Witt
• Solr & Drupal by Rob Casson
• Subject headings via a Web Service by Michael Kreyche
• Taverna by Rick Johnson and Banu Lakshminarayanan
• VUFind on a hard disk by Julia Bauder

We dined in the University's South Dining Hall, and toured a bit of the campus on the way back taking in the "giant marble", the Architecture Library, and the Dome.

In the afternoon we broke up into smaller groups and discussed things including institutional repositories, mobile devices & interfaces, ePub files, and FRBR. In the evening we enjoyed varieties of North Carolina barbecue, and then retreated to the campus bar (Legend's) for a few beers.

The Code4Lib Challenge was not successful. Us hackers were either to engrossed to notice whether or not anybody came to the event, or nobody showed up to challenge us. Maybe next time.

There were fewer participants on Day #2. We spent the time listening to Ken elaborate on the uses and benefits of jQuery. Eric hacked at something I'm calling "The Great Books Survey".

The event was successful in that it provided plenty of opportunity to discuss shared problems and solutions. A good time was had by all, and it is quite possible the next "Midwest" Regional Meeting will be hosted by the folks in Chicago.