What I learned at that licensing and collections event I went to

I attended "Thinking OCUL-y: A Licensing and Collections Symposium", a full day conference organized by OCUL (Ontario Council of University Libraries) institution members.  It was held at the beautiful Robarts Library, University of Toronto's main library on campus, in the heart of Toronto, Ontario.

But what did I learn?

1. The first thing I learned was that I wish I knew more about contract law.  I'm reading and implementing the licenses my Library signs for electronic resources all the time as well as supporting the decisions made to sign them in the first place and, although I think of myself as a smart enough cookie, contracts are not straightforward, understandably so.  There were two great presentations on the "anatomy of a license", one from the perspective of contract law, and one from the perspective of librarians signing them and creating model ones.  Lots of good information, both new and now properly labeled in my mind, but it made clear that there's even more to learn.  I should learn it.
2. Specifically, we should be requiring some things in our licenses that are not always getting in there.  For example, every license should have "integration" which basically means that the contract itself makes it clear that this is the entire deal, and that other communications are not to be taken as binding unless they're in this one.  Lots of our big ones do but many don't.  We should also be making it clear which legal jurisdiction will apply in case of having to deal with contract problems in court, particularly since we Canadian libraries are working with so many American information vendors.  Jurisdiction is not necessarily clear unless it's written into the contract.  And while we're at it, we should be insisting on WRITTEN contracts instead of going by verbal agreements as we occasionally do for smaller products with smaller companies.
3. Part of the evaluation process needs to include more consideration of license details.  When asking for information about a potential acquisition, we should ask for a sample license, looking it over to ensure that what we might be paying for is actually in there.  We could also share our licensing requirements and ideals at that point as well, to ensure that the vendor knows what we want right out of the gate.  The more time each party has this information, the easier we can work together.
4. Local loading is increasingly important but the vendors don't always know what it is or why we want it.  To get it, we libraries need to "sell" the concept of local loading to them, and therefore negotiators needs to understand the issues, players and history of local loading.  Also, typically, the usual vendor sales rep isn't going to know much about the topic or the issues involved so negotiations may need to include the people who do.
5. Although it involves more work, it's valuable to invite other non-collections librarians and staff into doing collections related work, such as reading/coding license terms for easier access.  It lightens the load of course, but it also increases the amount of expertise to be called upon when doing similar work in the future and it really helps them in their primary responsibilities, regardless of where in the library they are.

This is just a sample of some of the things I gleaned from the various presentations.  But there are still some questions or thoughts that I had left over:

1. Given those clauses that state that this contract is the "entire agreement", how can addenda be added on to contracts?  This happens all the time with licenses, such as changing or updating the terms of a license at renewal, but I don't think that all these licenses have an "except for addenda" clause.
2. Is the text of contracts under copyright?  A joke was made that many model licenses copy liberally from each other which suggests that they're not, or that at least no one cares.
3. Patrons seem to have contradictory opinions on print versus electronic reading.  On the one hand, they typically say that prefer print to electronic for deep reading and that ebooks, for example, are just not easy to read for long periods of time.  This may be true but then they also tend to say that print books are better for quickly skimming or browsing to find key pieces of information.  This suggests to me that they're not really saying that one format is better than the other but rather that THEY have that preference which, taken together, suggests that there's just a preference for print that's probably based in familiarity.  We've all used print books longer that there have even been ebooks so of course we're going to be more comfortable with the former.  That doesn't mean we really think one is better than the other.
4. Is demand driven acquisition really professional collection development?  The Library's collection is valuable not just because of quantity but because the content has been selected for quality with the particular patron groups in mind.  If we directly link that selection to something outside of the professional work, can we really say that the collection has been professionally selected for quality?  This is more a question of the role of the Librarian in collection development and not a matter of creating the best collection.

CHLA 2008 ready for registration...

Registration is now open for the Canadian Health Libraries Association 2008 Conference!

Taking place in sunny Halifax, Nova Scotia, the theme is "Navigating the seas of change"... I've never been to the east coast of Canada before, although I've lived and visited the east coast of the US before. It would obviously be much different and it would be interesting to attend this conference, but I went to last year's CHLA conference in Ottawa, many of my colleagues are going, and, besides, there are other conferences I'm considering, MLA and WILU being the two big ones coming up. I've never been to either Chicago, where MLA is this year, or Vancouver, where WILU is being held (Geez... I haven't been anywhere, have I?) so it would be interesting to see both but I don't know if I have enough professional development funds to cover both, and I certainly can't pay for one completely out of my own pocket so I'll probably have to choose. MLA is more closely linked to my current job but WILU is more generally applicable any job I'll have in the future. Chicago is closer and therefore cheaper, but Vancouver is still in Canada and if I took my wife we could make a little vacation out of it. Both locations sound interesting (although Chicago tips the scales slightly in this category). I don't know. I'll have to ask around for suggestions. Of course, YOU could tell me what you would vote for in a comment below... Hmmm...

EOSET, babies, and a new job...

Presentations are over! I talked about library resources that can be used in the classroom last week at EOSET 2007. It was at RMC which was cool. Never been over there before. Nice old buildings. Probably older than some of the older buildings on the Queen's campus. Very impressive talk by Major Workman on teaching, technology, policy, and the future. Very inspiring and refreshing, and of course, candid. It is the military you know!

Also a great description of a new automated assignment/testing system for some professor of math... can't remember his name right now. (Check on the EOSET program, you'll find it.) Anyway, it was about this system that randomizes rather complex math problems so that students can take "quizzes" with as many questions as they'd like, as many times as they'd like. It actually turned out that students were doing like ten times as much work and loving it! Pretty cool.

And in other news, my coworker is having twins. Don't know whether they are boys or girls or what, or identical or not, but that's pretty cool. Actually, it's really old news but I haven't mentioned on here yet so it's news to you! And my sister-in-law is apparently pregnant. Babies everywhere!

Still looking for another job for when this temporary contract runs out. I spent a lot of time today working on my resume and cover letter for the one I'd like the most (gotta apply soon) (Update: Just noticed the page this links to is gone.  I believe it was related to supporting the continuing teacher education program at Queen's U.) and I've got to work on applying to a bunch of others as well. Wish me luck. Again. Oh boy.

Easter snow and change...

So, hello and goodbye to Easter. My family and I spent the weekend at my parents, which is ok (unlike many people I know, I like my parents) but I always prefer staying home. Yes, yes, what a bore I am. But I just like being with all my stuff: I like sleeping in my own bed, I like being able to do the things I need to do (whether I actually do them or not), and besides, my parents only have satellite TV and dial-up internet access! Gawd! LOL

The weather has been horrible lately. It's supposed to be spring now! I mean I like the cold more than anyone else around apparently but even I'm getting a little tired of it. It actually snowed for several days recently. It's all gone now but it's still cold. I've "put away" my winter coat but I might have to get it right back out again... Fortunately it's still hanging on the hook by the door so I won't have to go very far to get it. LOL

I was away (from work) sick back on the 3rd. I don't usually take sick days and I wasn't anywhere as near sick as I usually am when I convince myself to do it but I think it was the best thing I could have done. It usually takes be several days of dragging myself into work sick as a dog before I stay home and then I'm sick for many more days after that. This time I felt 100% better the very next day. I think I may make this "listening to my body" thing more of a habit!

I attended a web/teleconference on the changes in the catalog by K. Calhoun back on the 4th. She wasn't the most engaging speaker but with my growing interest in the perceptions people have about librarianship (see my new blog, Buns & Shushings) (Update 20110628:  New blog now defunct.) and therefore the usability of our resources, I was rather opinionated about it. I was furiously scribbling down notes throughout the presentation and at the end, when she asked for comments/questions, I let her have it! LOL Well, actually, I hung back, not wanting to be the first to talk (nobody else was saying anything, at my location or otherwise), but then I leapt. Of course, when I leapt, several other people leapt too and my "hand up" wasn't recognized until the very end and I had to cut my "tirade" short. I was pretty tame actually, trying to convince the audience of the seemingly obvious point that we need to give people what they want, listen to why they "hate" us so much, and just offer more possibilities. The catalog (and really all information tools) needs to change but it should be in the direction of offering more, rather than replacing what it already does well with different functions. For example, don't replace subject headings with social tagging, use both!

Coming to a head...

"Matthew 2.0" screenshot
Originally uploaded by mjthomas43.

And speaking of heads, isn't mine big??? LOL I read somewhere that in a personal blog/site you should have a picture of yourself to let your audience know who they are dealing with. So what better way to include a pic of me, than to have my big head sticking into the works from stage left?

So, this is my latest design. I'm not completely happy with it but it will pretty much have to do for now. I've got other things to do now. I will implement some minor changes here and there (I've received some valuable advice from JennTSG, and am open to advice from anyone else) but the general layout will remain the same... Unless I get struck with inspiration (which is sometimes as painful as being struck by lightning).

The other things I have to do are: create two other blogs I have ideas for (one on reference service and one on perceptions of librarianship, libraries, librarians, etc.), work on some presentations and posters and reports I have signed on to do, keep beating away at the dead horse I call looking for a permanent position nearby, and probably some other things that escape me for the moment.

I've been watching TVO's "The Agenda" which is totally awesome. Political and geeky and certainly NOT for the drowsy, it is primarily a interview/discussion show that focuses on Canadian (and sometimes world) politics and social issues. Put your thinking cap on, have a cup of coffee (ewwwww!) and give it a try.

Took my 2yo son to the photographers tonight to get a picture taken to include in his "Application for a Citizenship Certificate from Inside Canada (Proof of Citizenship) Under Section 3" (he was born in the States) which I really should have done a year ago but I'm doing it! Get off my back already!

And I was working on creating a "cheat sheet" for using the staff wiki at work today. I'm training the staff at Bracken on how to use a/the wiki and they've requested a handout. Of course, I can't just give them some notes and stuff on a piece of paper.... I have to create a work of art! Place the screenshots just so, choose colours, select fonts, perfect the layout... It has to be something I can be proud of, something people LIKE to look at, something they can hang on their wall... well maybe not that good, but still.

Work and not work...

This image from flickr is an excellent graphic to go along with today's post. (Update 20110628: Had to relink to the image since it disappeared. This one is by Paul Stamatiou.  The original was by Rsibaja. Backup is here.) I've spent several days over the past week or so rethinking and redesigning my blog. I'm still not perfectly happy with it (can you ever be) but I think I've got it to a point where I can let it be for a while. I've still got to create a forwarding page from the old url to here but that shouldn't take much time.

In other news... I've been going for family walks a little bit more recently. I was helping my 6yo daughter ride her bike and after a few trips up and down the sidewalk I felt like I was going to die... I think that's a hint from my body telling me that I should get a little more exercise. LOL

Work's good. It's getting closer and closer to the end of my temporary contract at Bracken so I'm getting a little anxious, looking and preparing for any job openings at Queen's U or in Kingston (or near enough anyway). Now that my colleague across the hall has officially announced that she's going on maternity leave in October, I feel a little less panicked, but I certainly don't want to just assume that that will be enough: I will still be looking and preparing in any case.

I've been using the "Remember the Milk" site to record my to do list and I've put several presentations I'd like to give at some upcoming conferences and events. Hopefully I'll be able to submit them, get accepted and complete them all... Speaking of which, I'd better get doing some of them and stop procrastinating. I've got to make dinner for the family first.

(Oh yeah, I've also taken some nice screenshots of some things in World of Warcraft. I'll put them in flickr and then maybe post one of two of them here. Along with a screenshot of my "completed" new design. For historical purposes.)