Category: Events

CODI 2006 – Salt Lake City (day 1, update 6:00am GMT)

It’s now midnight in Salt Lake City, so the first day of CODI has come to an end. However, I’m pretty sure that there’ll still be a hardcore of delegates hovering around the bar!
Let’s catch up with the activity in the last 12 hours…
Kevin “Fiddling Librarian 3.0” Smith has posted his summary of day one:
» Codi 2006 Day One
Ben Ostrowsky has posted another two articles:
» CODI 2006: SQL tips from John Craig at alpha-G
» A reflection on conferences
…and Ben’s also posted 82 photographs of the first day to his flickr account!


Garry Collum has also uploaded some more photos to his flickr account:

That brings the total number of photographs tagged with codi2006 at flickr to 121!
Phyllis (who is the Support Services Team Manager at Marathon County Public Library in Central Wisconsin) has also started blogging:
» Codi 2006 — Opening Comments by Patrick Sommers
And last, but no means by least, there’s a veritable plethora of pertinent posts over at the CODI 2006 / Salt Lake City Blogger blog!
» Robin’s Wednesday
» CODI 2006 / Salt Lake City
» Melissa’s Panel
» Amy’s Panel
» Melissa’s Disaster Recovery Program

CODI 2006 – Salt Lake City (day 1, update 1pm GMT)

It’s 7am in Utah, and I guess the delegates will be stirring from their Horizon filled dreams …or nightmares!
Weather wise, it looks like it’s going to be partly sunny with thunderstorms in Salt Lake City today, with a fair chance of rain.
Here’s an update on what’s hit the web in the last few hours…
Luke the Librarian has posted a request over at The Gordian Knot for any podcasts and audio feeds to be passed on to him.
Garry Collum (of Collum’s Column) has uploaded some photographs tagged with codi2006 to flickr, including these:

Garry is joined by redsquirrell57 who’s also posted some photos to flickr, including:

CODI 2006 – Salt Lake City

As the crow flies, I’m about 4,720 miles away from the CODI 2006 Conference, but I’m hoping that I’ll be able to keep up with all the gossip from the conferences bloggers and flickr snappers.
So, for the next few days I’m going to try and bring everything CODI 2006 related I can find together into one place. Please feel free to post comments if I’ve missed anything!
Wednesday is the first day of the main conference, but I guess all but the most serious party animals will be tucked up in bed at the moment. However, lets see what’s out there already…
Kevin Smith (aka “The Fiddling Librarian 3.0”) has already posted a couple of entries on his blog:
» CODI Conference 2006 (01/Oct/2006)
» A Grand Day Out (01/Oct/2006)
Kevin’s also posted 62 photographs tagged with “codi2006” on flickr:

“betdjibouti” has also started a flickr set:

I had the great pleasure of meeting Ben Ostrowsky (aka “sylvar”) at CODI 2005, and I know from his blog that he’s jetting his way towards Salt Lake City. Ben was a prolific snapper last year, so hopefully we’ll start seeing some photos soon! Just looking at this photo from last year gets me drooling all over the keyboard — seriously folks, you cannot buy white chocolate covered pretzel sticks in the UK for love nor money!

It looks like a bunch of librarians (Mary, Carol, Robin, Melissa, and Amy) have got together to contribute to the CODI 2006 / Salt Lake City Blogger weblog.
Maxine has also started blogging about her trip to CODI 2006 on Maxine’s Place:
» Salt Lake City, here I come!

Next up, an anonymous delegate is posting at thezbar.net:
» VISIONS OF CODI: arrival
Finally, keep an eye on The Gordian Knot blog, as there’s bound to be some action on there soon!
Tonight is also the ’70s Party event, so I can’t wait to see some of the photos!!!

DUG/HUG 2006 – Day Three

A little later than planned (due to a mislaid memory stick containing the final Powerpoint!), here’s a link to the “Free Software” presentation:
https://library.hud.ac.uk/mediawiki/dughug2006/UsingFreeSoftware.zip
…and here are the photos from the end of day two and from the award ceremony on day three:
http://www.daveyp.com/gallery/categories.php?cat_id=14
http://www.daveyp.com/gallery/categories.php?cat_id=15
Grace Bays also emailed her photos through to me, so I’ve added them to the conference wiki:
https://library.hud.ac.uk/dughug2006/DUG/HUG_2006_photographs
…if you have any photos you’d like adding to the wiki, please feel free to email them to me: d.c.pattern[at]hud.ac.uk
A big thank you to everyone who came along to the sessions I presented in — I’m sure you were all sick to death of the sight of me by Friday, but I thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to share some of the things we’ve been doing at Huddersfield!
Also, many thanks to David Bigwood, Michael J Giarlo, Luke the Librarian, and Susan Johns-Smith for their Library 2.0 examples.  I just managed to squeeze the Web/Library 2.0 presentation into 45 minutes but, given the chance, I could have happily gone on for another 45.  However, that would have meant missing Professor Bruce Royan’s excellent keynote speech “The Library, The Web, and the Warp Factor“.
Finally, another big thank you to everyone at Lincoln for making us feel so welcome, to the DUG/HUG team for all of the hard work they put into organising the event, and to the staff at SirsiDynix — I can’t wait for the conference next year!

DUG/HUG 2006 – Day Two

The only problem with offering to do presentations is that they don’t leave you any time to blog about the actual event itself!!!
For those who prefer an electronic version, here are the 3 presentations I gave today:

If you have any questions or comments, you can always use this blog or you can email me at:

  • d.c.pattern [at] hud.ac.uk

….right — got to dash off to get ready for the conference meal!!!

DUG/HUG 2006 – Day One

ARRRRGGGGGHHHHHH!
It’s 01:02am and I just spent the last 30 minutes writing up an in-depth blog entry for day one… by the time I submitted it, the University of Lincoln network has timed my web connection out and refused to reload the page containing the text I’d just typed.
I honestly don’t have the energy to type it all out again, so here’s the O’Reilly “DUG/HUG Day One In a Nutshell” edition:
AM: no training sessions, so went to castle.
PM: Welcome speeches, Peter Gethin’s speech, my presentation about HIP tweaks (big thank you to everyone who came along — hope you found it interesting/useful!), evening meal, and lots of good networking!
…so tired, Homer need sleep now!

DUG/HUG Day Minus One

Martin and myself travelled down to Lincoln yesterday (via Sheffield) on a train that seemed to stop at everywhere else in the UK — what is about a 1 hour drive from Huddersfield to Lincoln is a good 2½ to 3 hour train ride along bumpy winding country tracks.
No sooner had we checked in, we were back at “the shed” — one of two pubs within a stagger from the conference venue:


Yep, your eyes aren’t deceiving you – that’s David “Mr CODI” Schuster sampling the best that “the shed” has to offer!
After popping into another pub, we joined Jim Fraser (from Angus Council) and headed off for a curry at the Royal Tandoori (118 High Street). A fantastic curry, loads of chapatis, a cup of coffee, a complimentary glass of brandy, and all for less than a tenner each… life is good! 🙂
There’s a few more pictures here, including some shots of the “Glory Hole”.

looking for Library 2.0!

I’m giving a presentation about Web 2.0 and Library 2.0 later on this week at the DUG/HUG (UK) Conference 2006 and I’m wanting to demo some of the great things libraries have done with Library 2.0 and Web 2.0.  In particular, I’ve got one slide that has two spare bullet points of space left and I can’t decide what to put there…
Here’s what I’ve got already:

  • Westmont Public Library – publicises new books using Flickr
  • University of Connecticut – staff documentation & info stored in a wiki
  • Ball State University – recruiting students via weblogs
  • Dowling College Library – podcasts of library and local information
  • Birkbeck College Library – RSS feed of library news
  • Plymouth State University – Casey Bisson’s Weblog OPAC
  • ?
  • ?

I’ve no idea if anyone will read this blog post in time, but if you can come up with one or two more great examples of libraries doin’ it for themselves, please post a reply! You’ve got exactly 12 hours before I need to finalise the presentation and get the handouts printed — the clock is ticking!
I reserve the right to cherry pick two of the best responses (that’s assuming I get any!) and in return you’ll get to have your name in lights …well, projected on a screen during the presentation 😀
Cheers in advance 🙂

OPAC keyword email alerts

One of the medical conditions I suffer from is the common “not-enough-hours-in-the-day-itus” — bits of software and new stuff gets prototyped or developed to the proof-of-concept stage, and then put to one side when something more important comes up.
This is something I originally coded in January 2006, briefly blogged about in mid February, then got slightly miffed when Hennepin County Library went live with something similar, and finally almost managed to forget all about it!
Anyway, I’ve dusted off the code and plugged it into ye olde OPACeth.  All I can do now is sit back and see if anyone will actually use it!
Continue reading “OPAC keyword email alerts”