Categories
NISO

Director of Strategic Initiatives

TL;DR – Starting July 1, I will be joining the National Information Standards Organization (NISO) as their new Director of Strategic Initiatives. I am super excited about this.

I am very pleased to announce that starting July 1, I will be joining the National Information Standards Organization (NISO) as their Director of Strategic Initiatives. As anyone who follows me online knows, I’ve been looking around for the right next-step position for myself. I don’t regret my last 5 years running my own company, and it’s given me some of the most meaningful interactions and opportunities of my life. I have, however, realized that while I have loved the work I’ve done over the last 5 years….I hate just about every other aspect of being in business for myself. I’m a builder, a maker, a researcher, a writer, and more, but I’m not someone who enjoys business qua business. I didn’t like that most of my energy had to be devoted to selling myself, to searching for the next gig, or to advertising what I could do.

In my new position, I’ll be both managing a few existing projects for NISO and be in charge of finding, developing, and incubating projects in areas where it looks like NISO could be a force for positive action. I will still be focusing on libraries and library values, but will be taking those beliefs out into a broader stage to publishers and technology companies . I will also still have the opportunity to research, write, and speak about new technologies as they begin to impact the information ecosystem, just as I have for the last decade plus. This combination of project-based work, technology, and working on new initiatives is super exciting to me, and I’m really looking forward to digging in.

I’ll also be working primarily from home here in Tennessee. There will be travel, of course, both to NISO headquarters in Baltimore and to the various conferences and meetings that will need my attention. So don’t think y’all will be getting rid of me in ALA and the like…I will still be active and working to be a part of the community. I will still be writing and publishing and speaking about technology and libraries at every opportunity.

I’m so excited to get started on this next stage of my career. I spoke with a lot of different companies and non-profits in my job search, and the description I kept using was that I was looking for a bigger lever to move the world with. I can only do so much by myself, but with a good team and some effort, it’s possible to move much larger things. I’m very grateful to NISO and especially Todd Carpenter for being willing to give me that bigger lever.

Let’s see what we can move.

Categories
Library Issues Technology

Using TagTeam

When starting the design work on the Blockchain & Decentralization course, I knew that I would have many many more resources that students might find useful than I could possibly assign to them. I wanted to find a way to make those resources easily findable by the students that wanted to dive deeper on any particular piece of the admittedly very complex subject.

Enter TagTeam.

A tool designed originally for the Harvard Open Access Project, and written and supported by a superb group of developers, TagTeam is a librarian’s dream of a web resource collection tool. It allows for, as the documentation so pithily says “folksonomy in, ontology out.” With the ability to add a website to the Hub, allow folksonomy-style tagging when adding…but then, on the backend of the tool, to turn those arbitrary tags into a controlled vocabulary. You can even set up automatic replacements for unwanted tags.

One of my favorite built-in functions is the ability to craft URLs that will drill down to any level of the set of resources you might want: tagger, tag, both, set of tags, in any combination. You can subscribe to RSS feeds that will automatically feed your Hub, and TagTeam also provides the ability to extract resources via RSS or JSON, and to remix feeds while doing so.

There are a few things I’d love to see added to TagTeam. The biggest would be that it would be fantastic to be able to integrate the tagging of a resource with the ability to cache it in some way. The ability to combine TagTeam with a tool like Amber or ArchiveBox would be a fantastic way to ensure the continued availability of webpages, especially for educational use. It would also make TagTeam an amazing curricular tool for Academic Libraries to offer for their campuses (hint, hint).

Overall, I’ve been thrilled with using TagTeam in my course, and can see so many uses for academic libraries to provide an instance for their campuses. If you haven’t seen TagTeam, explore some of the public hubs, and see if it fits in your (or your library’s) toolchain. And if you want to see what sort of resource can be put together using it, take a look at the Hub for the Blockchain course.

Categories
Blockchain Library Issues Technology

Blockchain & Decentralization for the Information Industries

Announcing the launch of the first Massive Open Online Course on Blockchain & Decentralization specifically focused around libraries, museums, archives, publishers, and the rest of the information ecosystem! Registration is now open and the course itself begins March 11th and runs for 6 weeks. Did I mention that the course is free?

I am the course designer and instructor for this MOOC, which is my first time designing a learning experience like this. Myself along with 4 very talented San Jose State University i.School students who will be acting as TAs for the course, will be monitoring the course and participating in the discussion boards to make sure that everyone progresses through the following outcomes.

  • Describe and explain the early uses of distributed ledger technology and the design of current blockchain systems.
  • Recognize the differences and similarities among various decentralized systems, and determine the most appropriate blockchain applications.
  • Compare and evaluate the advantages/disadvantages of using blockchain or other types of technologies for different applications.
  • Identify the ways blockchain can be applied in the information industries.

This course is the penultimate outcome of an IMLS grant given to San Jose State for the Blockchain National Forum, which was held in 2018. The final outcome will be a book which will be published this year, with chapters written by attendees and experts, summarizing and expanding on the lessons from the Forum (full disclosure: I wrote one of the chapters for the book as well).

The course is designed without any expectation that participants know anything about blockchain or decentralized technologies before beginning the course. It will walk you through details and introductions to the technology, all the way through existing services and systems and finally to what a decentralized future might look like. The full course breakdown looks like this:

  • Week 1 – March 11-17
    • Overview and History of Blockchain
  • Week 2 – March 18-24
    • Issues, Considerations, Problems
  • Week 3 – March 25-31
    • Decentralization
  • Week 4 – April 1-7
    • Systems & Services
  • Week 5 – April 8-14
    • Use Cases – Public Libraries, Academic Libraries, Museums, Archives
  • Week 6 – April 15-21
    • Future Directions & Next Steps

The course is a combination of mini-lectures that set up each week’s content, a selection of content relating to the topic (including readings, video, and audio), and then a discussion board where people can ask questions and talk about each week’s topic. At the end of each week there is a short quiz, and successful complete of the quiz will earn badges for each week, as well as a cumulative course badge and certificate at the end.

Please share this announcement widely! I’d like everyone who is even remotely interested in learning about Blockchain and decentralized tech to sign up and work through the course.

I’ll see you March 11th in the course!

Categories
Release_Candidate Uncategorized

project_alias

This is _brilliant_. So many possibilities, esp since we know that voice assistants can be controlled via subsonics and other audio trickery. Middle-manning them in this way is an amazing technical feat, but will be easier and easier over time.

Alias is a teachable “parasite” that is designed to give users more control over their smart assistants, both when it comes to customisation and privacy. Through a simple app the user can train Alias to react on a custom wake-word/sound, and once trained, Alias can take control over your home assistant by activating it for you.

Source: Bjørn Karmann › project_alias

Categories
ALA Personal Technology

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning in Libraries

Cover image of Library Technology Report

Now available is a publication I’m particularly proud of, “Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning in Libraries” from ALA Techsource. I edited the volume, as well as authoring two of the chapters. The real stars are the three other librarians who contributed: Bohyun Kim, Andromeda Yelton, and Craig Boman. Bohyun wrote up her experience at the University of Rhode Island in setting up the first library-based multidisciplinary Artificial Intelligence lab, Andromeda talked about the development and possible future of AI-based library search as illustrated by her fantastic service HAMLET, and finally Craig talked about his experience in attempting AI-driven subject assignment to materials.

I wrote the Introduction, where I try to give a summary of the current state of AI and Machine Learning systems, and show some examples of how they work and are structured in practice. I also am particularly proud of drawing a line from Mary Shelley to the Google Assistant…you’ll have to read it to get the full effect, but here’s a different section to whet your appetite for more AI talk:

What changes in our world when these nonhuman intelligences are no longer unique, or special, or even particularly rare? …. AI and machine learning are becoming so much a part of modern technological experience that often people don’t realize what they are experiencing is a machine learning system. Everyone who owns a smartphone, which in 2018 is 77 percent of the US population, has an AI system in their pocket, because both Google and Apple use AI and machine learning extensively in their mobile devices. AI is used in everything from giving driving directions to identifying objects and scenery in photographs, not to mention the systems behind each company’s artificial agent systems (Google Assistant and Siri, respectively). While we are admittedly still far from strong AI, the ubiquity of weak AI, machine learning, and other new human-like decision-making systems is both deeply concerning and wonderful.

I also wrote the Conclusion and suggested some further reading if people are really interested in diving deeper into the world of AI and ML. In the conclusion, I try to talk about some of the likely near-future aspects of AI, and the impact it is likely to have on the information professions, from individualized AI assistants to intelligent search. From the conclusion:

As with much of the modern world, automating the interaction between humans is often the most difficult challenge, while the interactions between humans and systems are less difficult and are the first to be automated away. In areas where human judgment is needed, we will instead be moving into a world where machine learning systems will abstract human judgment from a training set of many such judgments and learn how to apply a generalized rubric across any new decision point. This change will not require new systems short term, but in the longer term a move to entirely new types of search and discovery that have yet to be invented is very likely.

I hope this work is useful for librarians, libraries, library students, and any other information professional who is trying to wrap their heads around the possibilities and potential for Artificial Intelligence and the world of information creation, consumption, organization, and use.

If your organization would like to talk to me about AI or Machine Learning and how it might make a difference to your business or operations, please get in touch. I’d love to work with you.

Categories
Internet of Things Release_Candidate

Hacking e-scooters

…with hundreds of these scooters abandoned and rotting in impound lots, likely never to be recovered, maybe now is a good time to invest in a $30 scooter “conversion kit”, which ships direct from China, and plugs-and-plays to convert one of these scooters to a “personal scooter,” with all recovery and payment components permanently disabled.

Source: $30 plug-and-play kit converts a Bird scooter into a “personal scooter” / Boing Boing

Categories
Personal

Future Direction

TL;DR – I am on the job market and actively looking for a full time remote position where I can make a broad difference in democratizing information access.

I am officially on the market for a more traditional job. I enjoy the work I have done for the last few years in consulting and elsewhere, and am incredibly appreciative of the learning and growth that have come with it. Over the last year, I have come to realize that teams are a force multiplier for effort, and I think the most effective place for me right now would be as a part of an organization where I can take advantage of that multiplier to make a difference in the world.

I have a rich background in technology and libraries, and could be successful in a number of roles: product management for technology work, managing a technology team, directing a research unit, acting as an evangelist for technology, and writing/reporting in a more journalistic way. I have managed technology teams both in organizations and independently, have international experience in both academic and public library operations, am regularly invited to consult on emerging technology strategy and planning around the world, and am a respected author and researcher. I created two different open source software/hardware projects, both of which have an active international audience and user base.  My CV is available online, and there are examples of my research, thinking, speaking, software projects, and writing available all over the web. If it involves understanding, communicating about, explaining, creating, or forecasting technology and/or libraries, I’m your person.

So what am I looking for? I would love to be library-focused or library-adjacent, mostly because it’s an area where I have extensive existing connections and knowledge, and can have the most impact to the world. I’m also super interested in socially-responsible technology work, where I can work towards providing increased access to information and have a net-positive effect on society.

I am geographically limited, and am looking for remote work that allows me to work primarily from middle Tennessee. I’m happy to travel occasionally (that’s my situation now), and traveling for work would be great.

If you have a position that you think might be a good fit, or if you just want to reach out to see if there’s anything that might work out to get me on your team, drop me an email or fill out the form below. I’d love to talk.

Contact Me

Categories
Release_Candidate Uncategorized

Magic Leap One: Creator Edition

After years of hype, the Magic Leap One is finally available for purchase…at least, for those developers lucky enough to live in certain parts of the US. They are limiting purchasing for now to certain geographic areas (you have to enter your ZIP to see if you are in a lucky area). The headsets start at $2295, so they aren’t cheap, but given the promise of AR and the hype behind Magic Leap, I think they are worth looking at for libraries that are getting into AR.

Check their “experiences” page to get a better idea of the sort of craziness that is coming with AR.

Source: Magic Leap One: Creator Edition | Magic Leap

Categories
Library Issues Maker Personal Technology

Joining MetaLAB

I am beyond thrilled to announce I’ll be working with the outstanding group of scholars and artists at Harvard’s MetaLab this upcoming academic year as an affiliate, working mainly on their Library Test Kitchen project. I’m joining a team with some of my favorite makers and doers, people like Matthew Battles, Sarah Newman, and Jessica Yurkofsky, and many more that I am looking forward to meeting. I’ll still be in TN, working with them remotely and joining the team in Cambridge whenever possible.

I’ve been inspired by their work for years now, especially projects like Electric Campfire, which are right in my sweet spot of making with a goal of increased social connectivity. If you’ve not taken a look at the stuff that LTK has done, browse through and see what might inspire you.

Personally, I’m super excited to stretch my own knowledge of design and making through working with MetaLab. I’ve been consciously paying more attention to the design and making side of my brain recently, and while my instincts are not always to the artistic (I tend toward the more functional) I do have some aesthetic opinions that I like to embed in the work I do. I’m looking forward to expanding this bit of my brain.

Thank you to the gang for inviting me onboard. I’m excited to see what we can do together!

And lastly: MetaLab and Library Test Kitchen will be making an appearance at the 2018 LITA Forum in Minneapolis in November, so watch for more information about that very soon!

Categories
AR/VR Release_Candidate

Lightform Projection Mapping

About three years ago I was talking with a Very Large Library about their desire to put in a video wall as an art piece, and given the shape and size of the space I tried very hard to talk them into projection mapping instead. They didn’t get it, but this might make it easy enough for libraries to use as a display option for some spaces….if i were running a library, I’d want one of these to play with as far as displays and signage.