Friday 21 June 2013

Visit to Beautiful Ballyroan (Library) 21/6/2013

We visited Ballyroan Public Library today to look at their flooring, and their beautiful new library...

Tuesday 18 June 2013

Trust and Digital Preservation - RIA 4th June, 2013.

I attended the first day of the Trust and Digital Preservation workshop at the RIA on the 4th of June 2013. It was a very busy day with a lot of very specific information at the start. Eventually we got to examples of digital preservation projects, and trust certification routes. These are my headline notes from the day, and are not necessarily in chronological order. #DPTrust was used on the day. 

I decided to only attend day one, as I am new to the whole area. The high level of content on day one reinforced this decision.

Trust is one area of concern in relation to Digital repositories  the others are Sustainability, Usability and continued Access. 

Trust: can be certified. A certification of trustworthiness path is laid out, depending on the level of commitment, local expertise and import of the digital collection preserved different levels may suit different repositories. 

Activities in this area re being led by APARSEN 
APARSEn is finded from the EU's 7th Framework from 2011-4 and aims to unify diverse organisations and practices within the field encouraging coherence, cohesion and continuity. The Virtual Centre for Digital Preservation Excellence (VCOE) will provide online training.  A formal qualification is being considered. 

Digital Repository of Ireland focuses on contemporary historical, social and cultural data in Ireland. It is interactive and trusted. HEA PRTLI5 funds it until 2019. They have created a report - Digital Archiving in Ireland. The OAIS model is used (ISO 14721). Advice; Don't preserve everything - the organisation needs to decide strategically what should be preserved. (Also discussed were, OA to Metadata, DOI minting, PID's, file formats, IP/Copyright Issues)

Authenticity and Provenance of digital data is important. As a concept Trust has been used and abused, so be careful how you approach this topic. It is not blind or and act of faith. Depositors and End Users need to be able to trust the custodian/curator. Reliability is key. Core elements to trust are reputation, performance, competence and confidence which should be built into workflows and procedures. The level of trust required varies with the relative sensitivity of the nature of the materials. Librarians have good concepts and standards for this. (Also discussed InterPARES, CASPAR, SCIDIP-ES, PREMIS, ISO 15489 and ISO 16363 )

Ethical concerns were discussed as a barrier to the submission of data to repositories. The issue becomes how to protect and share this data, especially as the permission needed from participants in a research sample become more complicated over time. ON the other hand, not all data is sensitive. Anonymization has it's place (Levels of this were also discussed). Another issue is ethical committee mismatches to the research proposed. Informed consent V. invasion of Privacy. IQDA webpage was discussed. It was noted that solely digital storage is not reliable and that researchers should be encouraged to have three sources including one off site, and a paper copy. 

To encourage trust it should be mentioned explicitly in mission statements, indicating dedication, then the repository should do what it promises in this statement, building a reputation for trustworthiness, and be transparent, looking for peer-review and certification. 
There are standards of trust. See UK digital archive. These include the Data Seal of Approval. as the entry point for certification of trust. (Also mentions DANS, DIN,  NESTOR)
ISO  16363  and din 31644. Test auditing is due in 2013. 
ISO 16363 uses 100 metrics, the OAIS model and includes a full external audit by peers. 
Audit specification are still being finalized and training has yet to be undertaken by auditors. 
Data Seal of Approval was suggested as being sufficient for small repositories  while ISO/DIN would be appropriate for larger ones. RDA Group on Certification was mentioned in this context.

It was argued that trustworthiness is not an illusion. 

An overview of activities in this area since 2002 was given. ISO 16919 re auditing is in draft format. Also mentioned PTAB , CCSTS, RAC. Trusted Digital Repository EU


Any errors are my own please inform me of any and I will correct them! 

Friday 7 June 2013

Facebook Page Tab for the Library Catalogue!!!

Forgive me for getting excited about this, but I had a abortive attempt at creating a Facebook app for the library catalogue (several years ago). I also couldn't figure out how to get the Libx one working, so when I saw a post to an e-mail list about how easy it was with Facebook Page Tabs to do it for the Library Catalogue I couldn't wait to get dug in. While figuring it out I was intrigued to learn that Facebook are retiring their FB mark up languages, in favour of iFrames. This seems to have made my dive into Page Tabs easier than expected.

While it wasn't quite as easy as implied I did successfully pull it off inside of one morning.

Preparation: 

  • Sign up for Facebook Developers (You need to validate your account using a mobile phone number or credit card).
  • Decide on a name for your App 
  • Have a Facebook page to put your page tab on
  • Create a html page hosted elsewhere with the content you want to display in Facebook pre-populated. This page should be 810 px or 520 px wide. (I used a page from our library catalogue search interface) 
    • Know what the URL and secure URL for this page are.
  • Create or reuse an icon 111 x 74px to represent and link to your app from your Facebook Page. For Example, here's what I used. Please contact me if you want to use it. 

Here's what I did... (I'm not saying it will work for anyone else) 

Sign in to Facebook Developers
Click create new app
On the left hand menu under Settings, click on Basic
Enter as many details as you can.
I entered:

Basic Info

Display Name
Contact e-mail
Enabled sandbox

Select how your app integrates with Facebook 

Page Tab
Page Tab Name
Page Tab URL
Secure Page Tab URL
Uploaded a Page Tab Image that reads Library Catalogue
Selected the desired width (810 or 520)
Clicked save changes

Advanced settings were also visited and similar information entered.

Activating your Page Tab


Once complete I went to http://addpagetab.com and entered the number of my app. It takes a few minutes to appear.

Then I went back to Facebook developers and selected my testers

Next I visited my page and positioned my page tab icon (loaded above, reads Search Library Catalogue) by clicking on the icon, then selecting the pencil, and using the swop with instruction to move it into the desired place.

Testing

You have the option to test your app, which I really appreciate. So at the moment it's in testing as I know that the look and feel of our website will change in the next few weeks, and will probably remain in testing for the interim. But hopefully it will be live and kicking for the repeat exams. 
Here's how it looks on our Facebook Page

Here's how it looks in Facebook