Technology Committee

For discussions on library and information services cyberinfrastructure.

26 responses to “Technology Committee”

  1. Michael
    October 19, 2011 at 04:09

    Hi all – NYCGA has a new web site up, if you haven’t already please go there and create an account: http://www.nycga.net/

    I’ve contacted them about getting admin rights for the People’s Library group they created.

    Reply
  2. Betsy Fagin
    October 17, 2011 at 19:58

    oops. sorry. I didn’t know.
    it wasn’t the one with the pink tape, but it definitely said LIBRARY all over it and he’s got our contact info if he can’t get it working.

    Reply
    • Michael
      October 17, 2011 at 20:00

      oh no worries at all, it’s all good. I just want to make sure we give them one that works. once I get them all up and running, I wanted to give some to groups that needed them – we also have two more (at least) coming in, and I’m directing other tech donations we get to the internet team to see if they need them.

      Reply
  3. Betsy
    October 17, 2011 at 18:07

    re: WiFi–
    can someone who knows how please post details here or in the ground journal abt how to set up the hotspot & computers so we can do that. couldn’t find it or set it up this morning.

    also, per consensus of those who were around this morning, we donated one of the donated laptops to Info because they didn’t have one. Michael, not sure if you got them set up with what they needed, but I gave them our email address if they have any trouble.

    Reply
    • Michael
      October 17, 2011 at 18:10

      Which one? The Dells don’t have hard drives, and not all of them work – so hopefully not the one with the pink tape, as that was the one that I got working. Still working on the others. :)

      Reply
      • Michael
        October 17, 2011 at 18:12

        P.S. Regarding Wi-Fi – Eric and Steve set that up so one of them might be able to write something up. And the computers aren’t ready yet to be used. I have the USB drives here that they need to boot off of, and I’m also going to make boot CDs for them – to test some different Linux distros and see what works best. There’s work to be done there – should have them up and running on Saturday.

        Reply
  4. Claire
    October 10, 2011 at 23:02

    Hi People’s Library – are you on Goodreads?

    Reply
    • Michael
      October 10, 2011 at 23:09

      We’re on LibraryThing, I’m personally on Goodreads, but don’t use it much. You suggest it?

      Reply
      • Claire
        October 10, 2011 at 23:17

        I like Goodreads – I’m on it and I think it would be nice to set up an account. I have librarian status on Goodreads, which could help because I can fill in metadata for OWS publications.

        Reply
  5. Michael
    October 10, 2011 at 18:24

    Our twitter account is up: OWSLibrary
    http://twitter.com/#!/OWSLibrary

    Reply
  6. Michael
    October 10, 2011 at 16:39

    Passing this on to the group:

    “Hello, Everyone,

    As the movement grows and our numbers increase it is very important that we all stay connected and start uniting into ONE GLOBAL NETWORK.
    To achieve this goal, we have set up an OCCUPY GLOBAL VOICE CHAT SYSTEM (TeamSpeak Chat Server).

    Please, make sure you connect to it and inform everyone else to do so. We understand that sometimes, at some occupations people are experiencing problems with internet, but we just make sure that AT LEAST ONE REPRESENTATIVE from ALL Occupied CITIES stays in touch via this chat system then we will be able to expand and grow truly GLOBAL and, most importantly, UNITED!

    Connecting to CHAT is very easy, you just need to download a software here (www.teamspeak.com ) and log into OccupyGlobal server (voice.occupyglobal.net )

    All instructions are here: http://www.occupyglobal.net

    Please, SPREAD THIS MESSAGE in your Occupied city/country and hope to see/hear you in the chat ;) !!!

    In solidarity with ALL,
    ~Anna (occupyglobal server admin, #OWS MediaTeam)”

    Reply
  7. Michael
    October 10, 2011 at 15:38

    Heads up all: the folks from 2600 (http://www.2600.com/) will be coming by to drop off some books today. We’re talking to them about spreading the word on our need for more tech, including laptops. Over on the main working group page – Eric mentioned the 4G hotspot.

    Reply
  8. Michael
    October 9, 2011 at 11:02

    Hey everyone – Important note about the barcode scanning:

    Anyone who wants to help with barcode scanning must ensure that the app they use creates a list of ISBN numbers. One of the batches we got, for example, does not have the ISBN for lots of the listings, which means that they are lost – and we have no way of knowing which books they were.

    So, we want to make absolutely certain that we have the ISBN. We’re better off with a photo of the page that has the ISBN than a barcode scan that is incomplete.

    Reply
  9. Nicole
    October 8, 2011 at 15:56

    As far as pathfinders, I think topics like nonviolent resistance and social movements would be some great ones. If there are any other topics anyone would like to recommend — perhaps you are noticing a lot of questions/requests for particular subjects or items — then please feel free to share! I would be happy to do some research and create them.

    Reply
  10. Michael
    October 7, 2011 at 11:35

    Re: Library Thing – here’s a tutorial on how we could easily catalog and upload to the site if we decide to use it:
    http://www.librarything.com/topic/116189

    Reply
    • Briar
      October 7, 2011 at 21:24

      I notice in the emails you’ve started doing something with that. Can you brief us publicly on this blog? And do you want to get rid of the Catalog discussion page if things are happening here? *irked by redundancy and clutter*

      Reply
      • Michael
        October 8, 2011 at 01:16

        Great question – what we’re doing at the moment isn’t a catalog per se, but just a feed of everything incoming. For those who weren’t there today, I’ll post about it in my shift report on the working group page.

        Reply
  11. Nicole
    October 7, 2011 at 00:01

    I thought pathfinders were a great idea as well, as a lot of the information available on the movement is still scattered across the Web and fairly disorganized. Basically, I thought the delicious account for the People’s Library could function as a centralized location for all the various Web resources. I created the account and added a few links — have to head to bed now, but I’ll continue adding resources all day tomorrow. Then the “stacks” feature on delicious could be utilized to create pathfinders.

    I am also contemplating how open this should be — I created the account, but I think it could grow faster and be a more useful resource if others contributed resources and created their own pathfinders as well. Maybe I should open it to a small group? Not sure, but I would welcome any feedback — on this issue or any others.

    Thanks; I’m really excited to help out this movement in any way I can.

    Reply
    • Betsy Fagin
      October 7, 2011 at 18:46

      I think we’re perfectly poised to collect and distribute as much information as we can, so I’m all for it. The thing that I’m concerned about/wary of here is positioning ourselves as Information Headquarters. Part of what the whole #occupy thing is about is horizontalism and decentralization. Let’s do what we can do, but also encourage/empower everyone else to do what they can do where they are.

      Reply
      • Nicole
        October 8, 2011 at 01:41

        That’s definitely a good point. I wouldn’t want to give the impression that we are THE Source for information, but rather a place people could go to for information on various topics related to the movement. I thought the delicious account (username: owspeopleslibrary) would be a good place to provide access to Web resources. For example, one of the titles at the library is Tocqueville’s Democracy in America. The physical copies might be limited, so the delicious account links to the full-text online version of the work.

        I’ve been adding links to it all day and plan on creating some pathfinders (using the ‘stacks’ function) over the next few days.

        Do you think this is something that might be useful to add to the blog? Maybe with a sidebar widget or tag cloud, or even just a link? Any feedback (positive or negative) on this is appreciated.

        Thanks!

        Reply
        • Nicole
          October 10, 2011 at 17:23

          UPDATE: Since I haven’t really received too much response on this project, I’m going to refocus my efforts by creating an online resource library using delicious for my own local movement, Occupy Fort Myers. I truly think change must happen locally, although the Wall Street occupation has created a necessary spark. And I think it’s easier for me to understand and respond to the information needs of my own community. For example, the “Declaration of the Occupation of NYC” refers to the poisoning of our food supply and the injustices of factory farms. On a local level, I can provide ways for the people to fight corporate control of their food supply by providing information resources on local farms, co-ops, community gardens, etc.

          If at any point you decide you would like to use the delicious account – to build upon it, recreate it, or whatever – please let me know and I’ll provide the email address and password.

          Thank you so much for the inspiration you’ve provided and the work you continue to do!

          Reply
  12. Mandy Henk
    October 6, 2011 at 16:01

    I think we should make pathfinders– and have librarians at their own institutions help us by creating them. Then we can link to them from the blog. For example, a librarian could make a guide on labor history or nonviolent civil resistance using their libguides account (or whatever) and then we could link to it.

    I think people would be interested and willing to participate. If we asked people to focus on free resources and clearly mark subscription resources I think it would work. It would also help to create some really good educational materials for readers not at the protests– the librarians could mark the guides with the #ows tag so they could be easily findable too. What do you think?
    –someone at Temple already made one for her users: http://guides.temple.edu/content.php?pid=9033&sid=2169431&search_terms=occupywallstreet

    Reply
  13. Michael
    October 6, 2011 at 14:12

    Nicole has created the owspeopleslibrary delicious account. Some questions posed in an email exchange promted us to open this project for further conversations.

    One thing I would note right away is that the movement is committed to open source technology. As such, we will want to investigate each function that we hope to fill with technology to look for solutions that are free and open source. Obviously the movement is not strictly holding to this, as we are using facebook and twitter and flickr and youtube and many forms of new corporate media.

    Along the lines of the delicious-like link aggregation, I was thinking earlier that a great addition to our site would be a feed, truncated in the sidebar but available fully elsewhere of incoming new books. Using an application like barcode scanner (http://f-droid.org/repository/browse/?fdid=com.google.zxing.client.android) or something similar, and a link aggregator (or perhaps just an RSS feed sourced from a secondary blog) we could post new books to the feed as they come in. While this wouldn’t be a catalog, it would be a really interesting way to experience and see the library.

    Reply

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