Virtual library cards from Library Camp East

Wow, the library camp was such and inspiration. How did John Blyberg create the cards and how can I copy (copy=steal) this idea? I did not want to recreate his entire application but I did love the idea and was wanting to get my feet wet. So where to start. I downloaded and installed the GD.pm for perl. I then took a look at his blog and copied the jpeg of the blank card. Since I was using Unix I then used GIMP and converted it to a .png. I then wrote a simple script to see if I could write text to this image and then output it to another .png file.

#!/usr/bin/perl
############################################################
# Program : test.pl
# Programmer : Sean Robinson
# Description : Proof of concept on using GD.pm to write to a lib card
# Date : 9.26.2006
############################################################
use GD;

# create image object
$myImage = newFromPng GD::Image(‘card.png’);
$black = $myImage->colorClosest(0,0,0);

$myImage->string(gdLargeFont,100,10,”Library Camp East”,$black);
$myImage->string(gdSmallFont,100,35,”A place where people and idea meet”,$black);

$png_data = $myImage->png;

binmode(STDOUT);
print $png_data;

### End of code
At the shell prompt

#./test.pl > hold.png

This runs the program and outputs to hold.png

# display hold.png

This uses the program display to show the .png file

Ok no problem. The next step is to use the sirsi api to get the top 10 circulating books and create 10 library cards on the fly. That will have to wait for tomorrow.

Library Camp East Topics

This is the agenda for the morning. John Blyberg is going to talk about Mash-ups and Patron-Oriented Development.This is going from 9:30-10:45 Cassey Bisson is going to talk about the OPAC discussion.

Video clip of Library Camp East

How to implement without coders. How to create buy-in. OPACs. DOPA. Podcasting.  Library 2.0 and virtual reference. Practical examples of library 2.0 are there any results. Make OPAC work as well as Amazon. Professional Development

Louise P. Berry and Alan Gray hosted this event

Discussion area Create an area to continue the discussion.

How to use library services outside the library. Wanting a better interaction with vendor.  What are best practices what are the standards for development. How small libraries can use open source.

John Blyberg starts the discussion about mash-ups. This would allow patrons to create their own collections or interact with catalog. PatRest is a API that allows patrons to develop against this new API. The virtual library would not be a destination but more of a present.

Another idea is using google gadgets on your personal google page. The idea is that you create a google email account and then you are able to customize your google page.

 The “LibraryThing“  has an api that you can use to get book covers and other information. There is a need to train staff and the public on these tools. One idea is to create a tutorial for patrons to create these tools.

Another idea is to us PatRest and a defacto standard. Why create these API’s. Interconnecting the library with the community.

Photos of library camp I II

OpenURL and Coins link  

Cassey Bisson is going to talk about the OPAC  WPOpac The idea is to reveal the catalog to the patron. How do we reveal this and what items should we reveal?

What are items that identify the virtual library how does that differ from the phyiscal library. When looking for information in the virtual world you have to employee tools that connect to physical world.

Afternoon session

Bridging the gap Techie to Non Techie.

If you are a Non Techie how do you communicate to the Techie? What do you do if you don’t know how to talk to a techie.  These are some of the questions that came up. Organizational resistance to technology is something that most people have to face. The outcome to implementing technology is often uncertain. How do we manage the risk. What type of environment are you in? Creative where you can make mistakes and these are accepted and encouraged or status quo where nothing changes.

Morning of Library Camp East

Last night we had a chance to go to dinner with a number of people that had arrived early. It was a wonderful time. There were common themes that came up. Organization resistance to change, internal conflicts between IT and management. One of the really interesting ideas that came up from Michael Habib was making people understand the difference between the virtual library and the services it might offer and the phyiscal library. The reason I believe there is a disconnect on this issue is the abstraction of the virtual library. My experience in training is that people tend to be divided. Those that can think abstractly and those that don’t. Michael explain that when he just talk about the virtual library his audience was not really responsive but when he started introducing diagram and visualized the topic the audience then were able to understand his ideas. John Blyberg talked a little about this. He was ask about how he got approval for some of ideas. He explained this it is sometime differcult to explain an idea but he has been more successful in building his ideas and then showing people.