“We at OCLC are honored to receive this prestigious recognition from the professional IT community,” said Jay Jordan, OCLC President and CEO. “OCLC and our members are proud to be leading innovation for libraries. This recognition underscores not only the technological achievements of OCLC staff, but speaks to WorldShare’s growing adoption by the international library community.”

OCLC WorldShare Management Services introduces a cloud-based library management system that helps to unify and simplify library workflows. WorldShare Management Services enable libraries to share infrastructure costs and resources, as well as collaborate in ways that free them from the restrictions of local hardware and software. And libraries using WorldShare Management Services find that they are able to reduce the time needed for traditional tasks and free staff time for higher-priority services.

OCLC WorldShare Management Services were released for general availability July 1, 2011. There are currently more than 35 libraries using OCLC WorldShare Management Services, and more than 180 libraries worldwide have committed to the new service.

“This recognition is a tribute to the libraries and library staff members who have worked closely with OCLC staff to develop and produce a service that is changing the way libraries work,” said Andrew Pace, OCLC Executive Director of Networked Library Services, who accepted the award on behalf of the OCLC cooperative. “This award is really for libraries.”

OCLC WorldShare Management Services were formerly known as Webscale Management Services. The name was changed in December 2011 following launch of the new OCLC WorldShare Platform, and a rebranding of the services.

Speakers at the TechColumbus Innovation Awards event included Columbus Mayor Michael B. Coleman, Ohio State University President E. Gordon Gee, and Les Wexner, Limited Brands Founder, Chairman and CEO.

The TechColumbus Innovation Awards celebrate the spirit of innovation by recognizing outstanding technology achievements in Central Ohio. This prestigious evening showcases the region’s advancements and promising future in technology. For more information, visit www.techcolumbusinnovationawards.org.

Creating a Seamless Cross-Platform Online Experience for Mobile Users
Katherine Lynch
In creating a mobile-optimized website for Drexel University Libraries, we have strived to preserve the seamless transition between platforms that our desktop users experience. We employ separate technology and coding solutions to make Drupal, WordPress, and HTML sections mobile optimized, while continuously improving the mobile user experience in terms of design, usability, and site performance. This paper details how, through extensive research, design, and development, we found the best solution for creating a steady mobile experience for our users.

HTML5 Microdata and Schema.org
Jason Ronallo
On June 2, 2011, Bing, Google, and Yahoo! announced the joint effort Schema.org. When the big search engines talk, Web site authors listen. This article is an introduction to Microdata and Schema.org. The first section describes what HTML5, Microdata and Schema.org are, and the problems they have been designed to solve. With this foundation in place section 2 provides a practical tutorial of how to use Microdata and Schema.org using a real life example from the cultural heritage sector. Along the way some tools for implementers will also be introduced. Issues with applying these technologies to cultural heritage materials will crop up along with opportunities to improve the situation.

Using VuFind, XAMPP, and Flash Drives to Build an Offline Library Catalog for Use in a Liberal Arts in Prison Program
Julia Bauder
When Grinnell College expanded its Liberal Arts in Prison Program to include the First Year of College Program in the Newton Correctional Facility, the Grinnell College Libraries needed to find a way to support the research needs of inmates who had no access to the Internet. The library used VuFind running on XAMPP installed on flash drives to provide access to the Libraries’ catalog. Once the student identified a book, it would be delivered from the Libraries to students on request. This article describes the process of getting VuFind operating in an environment with no Internet access and limited control of the computing environment.

Improving the presentation of library data using FRBR and Linked data
Anne-Lena Westrum, Asgeir Rekkavik, Kim Tallerås
When a library end-user searches the online catalogue for works by a particular author, he will typically get a long list that contains different translations and editions of all the books by that author, sorted by title or date of issue. As an attempt to make some order in this chaos, the Pode project has applied a method of automated FRBRizing based on the information contained in MARC records. The project has also experimented with RDF representation to demonstrate how an author’s complete production can be presented as a short and lucid list of unique works, which can easily be browsed by their different expressions and manifestations. Furthermore, by linking instances in the dataset to matching or corresponding instances in external sets, the presentation has been enriched with additional information about authors and works.

Presenting results as dynamically generated co-authorship subgraphs in semantic digital library collections
James Powell, Tamara M. McMahon, Ketan Mane, Laniece Miller, Linn Collins
Semantic web representations of data are by definition graphs, and these graphs can be explored using concepts from graph theory. This paper demonstrates how semantically mapped bibliographic metadata, combined with a lightweight software architecture and Web-based graph visualization tools, can be used to generate dynamic authorship graphs in response to typical user queries, as an alternative to more common text-based results presentations. It also shows how centrality measures and path analysis techniques from social network analysis can be used to enhance the visualization of query results. The resulting graphs require modestly more cognitive engagement from the user but offer insights not available from text.

On Dentographs, A New Method of Visualizing Library Collections
William Denton
A dentograph is a visualization of a library’s collection built on the idea that a classification scheme is a mathematical function mapping one set of things (books or the universe of knowledge) onto another (a set of numbers and letters). Dentographs can visualize aspects of just one collection or can be used to compare two or more collections. This article describes how to build them, with examples and code using Ruby and R, and discusses some problems and future directions.

Using XSLT’s SQL Extension with Encyclopedia Virginia
Matthew Gibson
This paper explores how to integrate data across a hybrid relational database and XML-based management system. It examines specifically how XSLT’s SQL extension can be used to communicate information between SQL tables and TEI-conformant XML documents to make data-centric content more manageable and flexible and thereby leverage the strengths of both systems. In what follows, one will learn about some of the methods, benefits, and shortcomings of XSLT’s SQL extension in the context of Encyclopedia Virginia, an open access publication of the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities that utilizes a suite of digital humanities and digital library XML vocabularies such as TEI and METS.

Ref2RIS: Importing Word-Processed Bibliographies into Bibliographic Management Software
Deborah Fitchett
Many who would benefit the most from timesaving bibliographic managers hesitate to adopt the technology due to the difficulties in importing legacy bibliographies developed over years. Existing shortcuts rely on manual reformatting or on re-searching online databases for the records – often almost as laborious as retyping the references. Ref2RIS was developed to automate the task of converting a bibliography in specific citation styles from common word processing document formats into the widely used RIS format. It uses the Unix stream editor sed and the conversion options of Apple’s textutil. It can be invoked as a series of simple shell commands on any Linux terminal, or more simply as a drag-and-drop Applescript application on MacOS 10.4 or higher.

Purposeful Development: Being Ready When Your Project Moves From ‘Hobby’ to Mission Critical
Terry Reese
Throughout the library community examples can be found of development projects evolving into mission critical components within an organization’s workflow. How these projects make that move is unique and varied, but little discussion has been had about how these projects impact their developers and the project community. What responsibilities does a developer have to ensure the long-term viability of their project? Does simply freeing the code meet those long-term responsibilities, or is there an implied commitment to provide long-term “care and feeding” to project communities built up over time? Code4Lib represents a group of developers consistently looking to build the next big thing, I’d like to step back and look at some of my own experiences related to the long-term impacts that come with developing successful projects and communities, and try to provide library developers food for thought as they consider their own ongoing responsibilities to their projects and user communities.

Six Libraries Partner to Bring DOM Biblio Indexing to Koha

ByWater Solutions, an open source community supporter and official Koha support company announced today that six of their library partners are joining forces to bring DOM Biblio Indexing to Koha.

The libraries collaborating on this effort include:

• Arcadia Public Library of Arcadia, CA
• Brooklyn Law School of Brooklyn, NY
• Goddard College of Plainfield, VT
• Marlboro College of Marlboro, VT
• Ripon College of Ripon, WI
• The Vermont Organization of Koha Automated Libraries (VOKAL) of VT

ByWater Solutions will be partnering with Equinox Software, of Duluth, GA on this development, making it a cross company, multi partner collaborative effort.



The DOM Biblio Indexing development will greatly improve authority searching in Koha by allowing for fully coordinated subject heading searches. The development will also provide the option to search for an exact title, including subtitle and title parts, as well as indexing the full title with and without initial stop words to allow for more accurate title sorting.

The DOM Biblio Indexing development also provides the framework for additional features in Koha that otherwise would not be possible to develop such as broader, narrower and related authorities searches and OCLC number record matching. It will also open the door for differentiating Subject heading thesauri, relator term indexing and enhanced item availability limiting.

Brendan Gallagher, CEO of ByWater stated:

“I’m very excited to see so many of our partners joining forces to make this development a reality.  One of the great things about open source software is that different libraries can work together and pool their resources to come up with a solution that will meet all of their needs, while at the same time adding to the functionality of Koha for all of its users.”

About Koha:

Koha is the first open-source Integrated Library System (ILS). In use worldwide, its development is steered by a growing community of libraries collaborating to achieve their technology goals. Koha’s impressive feature set continues to evolve and expand to meet the needs of its user base. It includes modules for circulation, cataloging, acquisitions, serials, reserves, patron management, branch relationships, and more.

Koha’s OPAC, circulation, management and self-checkout interfaces are all based on standards-compliant World Wide Web technologies–XHTML, CSS and Javascript–making Koha a truly platform-independent solution. Koha is distributed under the open-source General Public License (GPL). For more information about Koha, please visit www.koha-community.org

About ByWater Solutions:

With over 10 years of experience, ByWater Solutions offers customized hosting, data migration, configuration, installation, training, top ranked support options and development of enterprise class open-source library systems. Offering a 24/7 technical helpline, ByWater Solutions’ clients have the support system they need to make their software work for them. ByWater Solutions pledges to share 100% of all developed code to the Koha community for the strengthening and advancement of the Koha ILS. For more information about ByWater Solutions, please visit: www.bywatersolutions.com

Display any language from any period - Freely available for non-commercial use

Brill has taken the initiative of designing a typeface. Named “the Brill”, the new typeface presents complete coverage of the Latin, Greek and Cyrillic scripts with the full range of diacritics and linguistics characters used to display any language from any period correctly. There are over 5,100 characters in all. This indispensable tool for scholars has become freely available for non-commercial use. “The Brill” will be especially welcomed by humanities scholars quoting from texts in any language, ancient or modern. John Hudson of Tiro Typeworks, well-known for his multilingual fonts, is the Brill’s designer.

"Technically, the Brill fonts have to be able to legibly display any combination of the supported characters that might be encountered in text and to be able to do so in typographically sophisticated ways. The idea is that users will be able to throw pretty much any text at these fonts and get back a legible and aesthetically pleasing display."
- John Hudson, designer, Tiro Typeworks

If you would like to receive more information about this project, please contact Dominique de Roo, marketing manager, via roo@brill.nl

The Publishing Innovation Awards were established to honor outstanding digital products that enrich and delight readers. The British Library 19th Century Historical Collection App was named the 2012 Winner in the Reference/Academic category.
Accepting the award, Simon Bell, Head of Strategic Partnership and Licensing at the British Library said “The British Library is delighted to be working with the outstanding team of technologists at BiblioLabs to unlock the potential of devices like the iPad. We are thrilled to have been able to offer these exquisite, high-resolution, full-color facsimiles of 19th Century books in a manner that comes close to the experience of leafing through the original item. This is a great example of how the British Library is using digital technology to make the riches of our historical collections accessible and compelling to a wider audience than was ever previously possible.”

BiblioLabs, LLC (www.bibliolabs.com) is the fast growing software-media company that built the cloud-based technology platform to manage the selection, enhancement, and distribution of the featured British Library collection. BiblioLabs, LLC has become a global leader in the creation of interactive Apps featuring historical books and artifacts from the world’s leading libraries and cultural institutions.

The Company only recently moved into digital book distribution. It began in 2007 as a print-on-demand (POD) publisher offering historical reproductions. Prior to founding BiblioLabs, LLC the same group started BookSurge, LLC the world’s first truly global POD (one book at a time) retail infrastructure, which was sold to Amazon.com in 2005 and was integrated to become Amazon’s global print-on-demand solution as well as the Amazon self-publishing service CreateSpace.

“The exciting thing for us is that this is the first App we created and we did it with a very small team, in a very short time,” says BiblioLabs founder and Chief Business Officer Mitchell Davis. “It met with phenomenal success as a consumer product when it launched and it has continued to grow” (today it has over 350,000 users in over 150 countries and growing).

“To also have our innovative approach to content distribution recognized by the industry is really an honor and a signal to the great things you will see from us.” Davis added “The British Library is an ideal partner. They care deeply about their materials, and the public they serve. They are continuously looking for ways to innovate and increase the impact of their services. Working with them is a true partnership.”

Building on the things they learned this past year, BiblioLabs, LLC will roll out a larger App in April 2012 - BiblioBoard. “Tens of millions of historical artifacts are available and our mission is to curate the interesting, quirky, important, weird, or forgotten, then integrate creative modern context and make engaging thematic content products. BiblioBoard is the unified interface where curators will meet readers and this will happen across tens of thousands of books, articles and images within hundreds of curated niche Apps.” Curious bibliophiles can sign up for pre-release, preview access at BiblioBoard.com.
At launch BiblioBoard will contain more than forty niche Apps including a number of micro-collections from the British Library. “Our team is hugely excited that as we are winning this award we are already moving to the next generation product.” Davis says.