Clueless in Seattle - Going home

On Monday we headed down to the conference center where I caught a LITA program in progress. I came in late, so I sat down along the edge of the room and tried to be invisible, but they were doing introductions and I got spotted. Then they had a very energetic session where people were asked to write ideas down on cards and compile them for similarities at each table. I submitted two ideas that pretty much had no peers - one got the biggest laugh - LIKI, a Lita wiki. Probably there already is one and I just didn't know about it. I must admit that I was impressed enough with the spirit of the group that I plan to rejoin LITA. I dropped out years ago because it seemed a bit clubby - any volunteering effort I made was ignored, but I'm ready to give them another try.

Afterwards, I made one more circuit of the exhibits hall. I found Indus, the people who sold us a very expensive scanner and mentioned that it often takes me two tries to make the thing start up. Better solve that while we're still clearly under warranty. Also I set up a session with Blackwell to give us another load of Table of Contents records. In the afternoon we rented a car, because Donna has had a long-time goal of seeing Snoqualmie falls.




I grumbled about it but had to admit that the falls were magnificent, and the lunch at the nearby lodge was cosmic. We visited with old friends on the way home and then got back to Seattle at about 9 - I took one wrong turn that cost me a few gray hairs and about 10 minutes.

The next morning, we rushed out at 6:45 to try and get to the airport before traffic. We got on I5 and soon saw a sign advertising a turnoff to "Airport Way." I don't want to tell other people how to live their lives, but Seattlites should think about this - people from out of town might just think that road leads to the airport, instead of Dante's Industrial Inferno. That cost us good, but we got back to the airport in plenty of time to catch our plane and have a nice hot breakfast.
I insisted that we sit on the right side of the plane, because I thought that we might get a decent view of Rainier. We did, and just as the flight attendant announced that we could turn on electronic devices:



With a tailwind, we got to Chicago much quicker, but once again had to circle the city for 20 minutes. Apparently it takes the traffic controllers by surprise every day that people want to land their planes there. Time for one more quick stop at Miller's Pub, and then a quick, relatively speaking, flight back to Islip and Reality.

Clueless in Seattle - Day 3: Blasts from the past and a visit to the future

We were in Seattle previously in 1984 with our then toddler who is now finishing his MLS. We stayed in a rambling hotel near the west shore of Lake Union. We had heard about a restaurant called Ivar's Salmon House, which was built to resemble a Native American Longhouse. We never found it. This time, we made reservations at Ivar's for Sunday brunch. Since we were up well before the 10 AM brunch we walked down to Pike Street Market one more time. Across the street at the end, we ran across the Origional Starbuck's. You have to know where to look because there aren't signs or a National Historic Buildings registry to help you out. To make sure, I asked the counter clerk while ordering my Grande Coffee of the Day.





After a morning of oysters on the half shell, bisquit and gravy, made-to-order blackberry crepe, mimosa, apple dumpling, and of course salmon (3 kinds), we were neither hungry nor thirsty. Also, this was a dining experience that was not overrun by other librarians. The restaurant called us a cab, and it was back to the belly of the beast at the Convention Center.

Donna went to a Random House program to evaluate new books, and I went back to the exhibits, and worked down the shopping list of people I'd meant to converse with. It's a small world, and one always runs across people from the past - in my case, an administrator who I worked for in Phoenix walked by, but I had taken my invisibility pill, so she did not acknowledge me. I had already run across our former Quinnipiac Associate Director, the wonderful Susan Miller.

After exhibits, we walked over to 3rd to visit friends of Donna's who hadn't reunited in about 20 years. After group shots and all, we walked over to the Seattle Public Library. I am at a loss for adjectives about this building, but I will say it is visually stunning and inviting. The design of the building is a pyramid in hyperspace. My only complaint is the bright yellowish green color scheme around the escalators, which are in sharp contrast to the soothing blues everywhere else in the building. Anyway, this proves that the right application of money and imagination can give you a library that makes you smile from the minute you walk in.



It was back to the hotel to change from sneakers and sweatpants to more librarian-like wear. We walked to the Convention Center to catch the shuttle to the Library Bistro, where a reception was being hosted by Tutor.com. After cold buffet and an excellent specialty drink called the Raving Fan - an orange and vodka based drink.



The founder of the company spoke briefly, followed by brief testimonials from various librarians including Connecticut library director Carl Antonucci, who praised tutor.com as a way of teaching students how to get their way through the ICONN databases provided by the state.




Afterwards, they gave away IPODS for door prizes - one of which was won by a lady at our table - Mary, formerly from New Jersey:



Then it was back to the hotel to meet old friend and colleague Gretchen for the Innovative Interfaces party and Elsevier. Innovative hit a high water mark with their parties when they rented the Rhode Island State House one year, but they have also done some very imaginative locations since, so it surprised nobody when they lined up the Space Needle. Being veteran IIIers, we arrived exactly on time because we knew what to expect. When we got to the 100 foot observation deck, all was well. Crowded but easy to get a table. After 45 minutes, it was Lost in Space as scores of librarians tried to make their way up to a party that was so crowded that the room was running out of oxygen. For some reason they only ran one of the two elevators, so it was quite a challenge to go anywhere. Typical story for Innovative - more success than they knew what to do with.




The final party for 2007 (for us at least) was the Elsevier reception at the Fairmont. By accident we met with Elliott from the Judaica Museum in Ann Arbor, who we seem to find at nearly every ALA. It was all very civilized with a swing band, a manageable crowd and waiters bring champagne around.

Clueless in Seattle - Day 2: Is Google the Starbucks of Information or is Starbucks the Google of coffee?

Woke up at our normal 6:30 and went to the hotel buffet when it opened at 7:31 and found it already bustling with hungry librarians. The program book had given us the mistaken impression that Ken Burns would be talking at 8:30 (they were talking about the Washington ALA it seems), so we went to the exhibits when they opened. As I suspected, some vendors were dishing out coffee. We continued our quest to find an audiobook vendor who could sell us something that was IPOD compatible. It turns out that this is not possible due to restrictions imposed by Apple. I guess they won't feel secure enough until they have 98% of the portable audio market.

I met Donna after an hour and we walked down for another shot at the Pike Street Market. This time we walked all the way to the end. I took whimsical close-ups of things like crabs and apples, and mostly people were okay with that except for one t-shirt vendor who gave me a dirty look. We walked out into a park that held totem poles half as high as the Space Needle. Afterwards, I walked back up to the conference to meet my director and some people at Serials Solutions who wanted to take us to lunch. We went to the nearby Palomino Grill, and I had a really great lamb dip sandwich.


I reconnected with Donna at the Fairmont for the Google presentation done by the extraordinary Ben Bunnell, Google's ambassador to libraries. His presentation had four parts - Google coop and customized engines, which I knew nothing about. Google Coop was fascinating because they are allowing users to add metadata to records to help build clusters in key areas. They also allow you to make a customized Google to search only things in a key area, like the one I'll do for French New Wave film directors (this has since been done at http://www.google.com/coop/cse?cx=006465602566811477636%3A8ikdasgrupk). There was also the Google books project that I knew a lot about, Google Scholar and Google Earth. Ben comes across as someone who just got the dream job of a lifetime and knows it. The legalities of Google prevent him from telling how many books they've digitized, but I know from experience that they've done a substantial number in the last few months.
His example for Google Earth was Versaille, and it looked spectacular from space. He showed how they can add layers to enhance the information showing in the image. If you're standing on the rim of Mt. St. Helens, you can add a layer and see where the nearest Starbucks is.



We rested for a few hours and then hit the road for a hard night of partying. First at the Sheraton, courtesy of Syndetic Solutions, then a ride on the Monorail to the Experience Music Project - this was for friends of the Wiley Publishing company and they know how to treat a friend. We tried to hold off on eating (if not drinking), because the last event of the night was at the Space Needle, hosted by Thompson Scientific, who threw the best party a year ago in San Antonio. As far as I'm concerned they still hold the crown. The view was magnificent and the food was absolutely first rate.

Clueless in Seattle - Day 1: Can you get a cup of coffee in this town?

I'd imagined that Seattle was roughly the same latitude as New York, but it seems to be further north, because morning here doesn't happen until 8 a.m. No wonder the place is famous for coffee. We're on the executive floor of the Crowne Plaza, so we only needed to walk out our door to the rather nice buffet breakfast. Afterwards, we went to the convention center to register. In actual life, we can always get some advantage by going to something early. This does not apply to library conventions, where the registration floor was swamped with the bibliographic and the needy. I finally got my stuff and we headed down Pike street to see the Market for the first time in 22 years. It hasn't changed one bit, although we didn't see anybody throwing fish, but we'll be back.



Afterwards, I'd estimated that we'd have enough time to catch the ferry to Bainbridge Island, eat an early lunch and get back in time for the Innovative Interfaces meeting at the Convention Center. It started off promisingly - we caught the ferry after a 20 minute wait and made the half-hour journey. We'd imagined that there would be seafood restaurants right next to the dock. There weren't. We had to walk for half a mile at least up a steep incline to get to Main Street, and then go past pizza, sub shops and Mexican food to finally get to Winslow's Way, which turned out to be worth the trouble. After a superb lunch, we walked back down to the ferry, only to learn that it was leaving - we have to wait 45 minutes for the next one, so I arrived at Innovative a bit late.

Corey Seaman was talking about how the Clearing House was soon to be replaced by a wiki. Next, we got a fascinating look at Innovative's big new product, which is in beta in a dozen libraries worldwide - Encore. This takes a keyword search and displays the results along with links based on the subject headings of the found items that show the most likely controlled-language subject terms in that set. It is very visual, and at first I wondered if this was just another attempt to "dumb down" the opac, but I came away a believer. What we often tell our students to do is to make a keyword search in "their" language, find the best record and click on the subject heading to get the "official" term. This cuts out a step, which is a good thing. Afterwards, we lined up at the back to get our official Encore t-shirts.



The next thing was the Grand Opening of the Exhibits Hall. A barber shop quartet gave a cheerful start to the proceedings and the speechifying was kept to a reasonable minimum. We joined the stampede to Greenwood Press for their annual giveaway of bobble head dolls, only to find out that they were giving out more of last year's model - Chaucer. I don't need two Chaucer bobble heads, so we moved on. The free things were remarkably light this year. Donna got a few books, knowing that she'd be stuck carrying them for the rest of the evening. After an hour, we found the bus to take us to a reception at the Serials Solutions headquarters in the Fremont section of the city.

The reception had unusually good food, and the headquarters looked a lot like I'd imagined - open with lots of cubicles, and industrial pipes in the ceiling. It was bigger than I'd thought, with nearly 100 people on board. Serials Solutions is a major success story and they deserve it. They are good listeners, and often improving their product without charging you extra for the enhancements. We had a nice chat with an electronic services librarian from Hawaii, and then decided to make room for others. Amazingly, just as we got our coats, the bus arrived to take us back, so we were done for the night by 9 PM.

Clueless in Seattle - Day 0: Getting there

Our flight from Islip Long Island was at 10:15 and we had nailed our boarding passes exactly 24 hours before, so we slept until a leisurely 6:30, left the dog in the capable hands of our son and made the 40 minute trek to the airport. This was the first time since 9/11 that I had travelled with a laptop, so I was concerned, but for naught. In past blogs I've had some things to say about Southwest Airlines that they wouldn't put in their ads, but this morning's flight illustrated why people generally like them. The flight attendants kept you laughing the whole 2 hours and things went as smoothly as possible considering that it was snowing in Chicago. Turns out that the weather only delayed us about 10 minutes, so we still had time to stop at the airport branch of my favorite Chicago eatery Miller's Pub before it was back on another plane for the endless flight to Seattle. On the first flight we saw a librarian we knew, and the Chicago to Seattle flight was so loaded with Midwinterites that the flight attendants were making librarian jokes before takeoff.

Before the afternoon was out we were really singing the praises of Southwest. My wife inadvertantly grabbed the wrong black rolling bag and we didn't notice the switch until we got to our downtown hotel. We called Southwest immediately, and the woman at Headquarters told me - "Tough luck. We'll have to go back to the airport and exchange the wrong bag for the right one." Meantime, we made the amazing discovery that the bag belonged to a Long Island librarian that we knew. We called the airport luggage department and they were much more sympathetic. We told them that we'd deliver the bag to our friend at his hotel. As soon as they ensured that the deliver had been made, they'd send somebody to our hotel with the right bag. By 8:30 in the evening, we were re-united with the bag containing all of our medicines.

We walked a few blocks from our hotel to have a very classy dinner at the Earth and Ocean restaurant at the W Hotel. Their parsnip soup was possibly the best soup I've ever tasted. By 9 PM, we were ready to watch Olbermann and check out for a busy day tomorrow.

The Google E-book project - The Revolution starts now

I will begin with a mea culpa as one of the people who looked at the press releases from Google a few years ago and doubted that they could possibly develop the technology to digitize millions of ebooks. The numbers from Oxford made it sound like they could digitize a book every 5 minutes, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. It seemed impossible without the help of Oompa Loompas. I don't know what the total is right now, but I just found out that the project is very real, and it has already helped our library in a tangible way.

Years ago we purchased a set of 4400 microfilm cards called "Library of American Civilization." These are renderings of 19th century books about American issues. As source documents, they sounded very exciting to users of our catalog - until they saw what the cards looked like - about the size of credit cards, each fiche contained what looked like 100 pages at least. We had to have a special machine for students to squint at these things, and most gave up before they even got to the printing stage.

In 1990, I set a student up to check these titles against the holdings of online books maintained by John Mark Ockerbloom at the University of Pennsylvania. It turned out that several hundred titles were in both, so I added links to the opac records of those that were available free online. Each summer after that, I gave printouts of the unlinked titles to students for further checking. On average, we added about 50 new titles each year, including those checked in the summer of 2006.

This intersession, I had an opportunity to supervise a student worker for auotmation projects, so I gave her the new list of unlinked LAC titles to check against Google books. We were stunned at the number of hits that came up. I set another student up to add the links. When he was done for the session, we had added 650 new links, and there are pages still left to do. Before now, one LAC title out of 10 had a link, and in just 4 months it has jumped to one in 4. Assuming the current rate of activity, we are projecting that the collection will be 90% digitally accessible by the end of the year. The special machine used to read the LAC cards can make a slow regal progression to the loading dock, and then to a well-earned retirement in the landfill.

In the meantime, we publish the list of matched titles on the web as a service to other libraries, and we get a lot of thanks for our work. The page can be found at:
http://www.quinnipiac.edu/x1849.xml
. Since the list has more than doubled overnight, we don't have the new entries integrated, but there is a dynamic link at the top of the page to see the Google matches. I can't wait to visit the Google booth at Midwinter and thank them in person.