I love when we all come together and solve a problem as a group – showing that all of the silly comments about the community being in turmoil are complete nonsense. We (the community) know who we are and where we want the software to go – and we know how to work together to get things done!

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• Who Owns Koha? (go-to-hellman.blogspot.com)
• The Koha Community Rocks! (library-matters.blogspot.com)

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If I have one complaint – it’s that it’s not easy to find my friends and colleagues who have shared their resources on Zotero.org. I’d like a find friends connection to Twitter or Facebook or something that allows me to find people with ease (like many other websites these days). I also find that many groups allow you to join and view resources – but not add resources – which seems silly for a group.

To learn more about Zotero, check out Jason’s guide. Also, if you want to join a group or two – check out the Koha Group and the Open Source for Libraries Group.

[update] If you manage a group you can allow members to add items by going to Manage Group > Library and then changing the permissions. [/update]

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So, as a gift for speaking today I got me my Poken – but as cool as this is – it’s only useful if more people start using Poken – so spread the word and maybe at the next library conference we can all ‘high 4′

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• Products and companies focusing on smaller libraries and narrower niches generally receive higher perception scores than those involved with larger, more complex organizations that and that serve multiple types of libraries.
• Apollo, a system adopted exclusively by small public libraries topped the charts in ILS, company, support perceived satisfaction and in company loyalty, following the formula for success mentioned above. Most libraries adopting Apollo have migrated from abandoned products such as Winnebago Spectrum and Athena.
• Libraries operating AGent Verso from Auto-Graphics and Polaris from Polaris Library Systems continue to receive extremely high scores, consistent with previous editions of this survey.
• Companies and products serving large and complex library organizations and diverse library types receive a broader range of responses, and fall into a middle tier of rankings. Yet where they fall within this middle ground represents important differences. Millennium from Innovative Interfaces, Library.Solution from The Library Corporation, and Evergreen as supported by Equinox Software came out as very strong performers at the top of this middle tier.
• Companies supporting proprietary ILS products receive generally higher satisfaction scores than companies involved with open source ILS. Evergreen, primarily supported by Equinox Software fell into the middle tier of satisfaction ratings. LibLime received especially poor marks in customer satisfaction; libraries implementing Koha independently gave themselves high ratings.
• Except for the libraries already using an open source ILS, the survey reflected low levels of interest, even when the company rates their satisfaction with their current proprietary ILS and its company as poor. Other than libraries already running an open source ILS, and for Winnebago Spectrum and Athena, the mode score from libraries using proprietary ILS products was 0. These results fail to confirm the trend of broad-based interest in open source ILS; rather we observe a minority of early adopters voicing strong support.

Check out the entire list of results.

Just got back from the library choosing a couple of “relaxing” books. As I browsed, I had these thoughts and then decided I’d send them to the family librarian .

Has anyone ever done a study about how people choose a book to check out? If one goes to the library with no particular book or author in mind, is she influenced by the appearance of the book—pictures on the spine, looks new/old, likes the pictures on the cover? And what about those books that have part of the title or the author’s name covered by the shelving sticker? (Don’t know what you really call that sticker, but you know the one–author, call number where applicable, etc.)

Do people pull the book off the shelf to see the rest of the words on the cover? Then there are the books on the top shelf above your head and on the bottom shelf down by the floor. Are they checked out as much as the ones on the middle shelves that can be viewed easily? Would you rather have a book that has something about the story on the back cover or one that doesn’t give you a hint?

I know I have a tendency to choose newer-looking books with pleasant covers. I’d only pull the book off the shelf if the words I could see on the spine sounded interesting. I’d rarely choose a book on the top shelf because I’d have to go hunt up a step stool. Sometimes I get one off the bottom shelf if I can see the title without having to get down on the floor. (At my age, I might have to just STAY on the floor!) And I like that info on the back–just in case it’s about something I don’t want to read about. I

know–I have too much time on my hands! I should use it to think about world problems or something. Ha! If I wrote a book, I’d want it to have a pretty cover and be on a middle shelf–preferably in the Large Print section so I could see the words!

I thought this was great. I didn’t go looking for any particular research on the topic because I was out of town and just got home, but I love starting with my fellow librarians anyway! What do you all think? What have you seen patrons doing? What do you do?

I personally will get on the floor (and sit down there for as long as it takes) if the shelve of books on the topic I want is down there. I don’t pay any attention to spine labels – except to find the location of a specific book. When it comes to fiction I too look for pretty or new covers – but if the book doesn’t have a summary – as so many new books seem to be missing – I won’t borrow or buy the book … I need to know what the darn thing is about – not what some other author thought of the book.

Today marks the first official release of this newsletter. You can read the entire newsletter here and keep up with future newsletter releases here.

This first issue has a great table of contents thanks to all of the amazing community members:

• Events:
  • Venue and Dates booked for Kohacon10
  • Code4Lib 2010 Koha Preconference
  • KUDOS Meeting at ALA Midwinter
• News from Koha Libraries
  • News from Crawford County
  • NYU Health Sciences Libraries migrate to Koha
  • Middletown Township Public Library Live on Koha
  • Saugeen Library Consortium goes Koha
• Tips & Tricks
  • BibLibre’s Community Branch of Koha 3.2
  • New Koha Manual Available in Git
  • Speed tips for Z39.50 catalogue searching

If you have ideas for a future Koha newsletter, send it along to me (instructions on the newsletter site).

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First I got an email from Kyle Hall announcing the release of his newly upgraded Koha Offline Circulation Tool. Next was the release by my two favorite Koha companies (yes I’m biased) – ByWater & BibLibre have entered into a contract to bring BibLibre development skills (some of the most experienced in the Koha community) to the US and to ByWater customers. Then there was the announcement of the PTFS acquisition of LibLime an announcement that has prompted responses from librarians all over. Mostly hopeful like those from ByWater and Chris Cormack and a few tweets:

• librareanne: PTFS to Acquire LibLime http://bit.ly/5TVuMz #koha (I hope this means better customer service for LibLime clients!!)
• jransom: @ranginui PTFS would win much kudos if they announced they were returning them to the community at their press conference on the 16th #koha
• oleonard: PTFS to Acquire LibLime http://bit.ly/5TVuMz I hope this means LEK will come back into the fold. #koha

Finally was the announcement that the release manager for Koha 3.4 has been voted in and it’s none other than the original Koha release manager – Chris Cormack!

In short a big (and finally good) news day for Koha!

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• Longshots #203: Exploring New Ways to Deliver Library Data

1) Your One Sentence Bio

I am a librarian, open source evangelist, blogger, writer, teacher, dog lover and overall technology enthusiast.

2) Do you blog? If yes, how did you come up with your blog name?

Yes! I’m terrible at coming up with titles, so I figured what I’d be writing about was what I was learning so the title simply had to be ‘What I Learned Today…’

3) What is your professional background?

I started as a web assistant at the Jenkins Law Library in Philadelphia right out of undergrad. My years there made me want to learn more about librarianship and so I went to get my masters while there and finished it while working as the metadata librarian at the Princeton Theological Seminary. It was my work in these two roles and my online ramblings that moved me from working in libraries to working toward getting libraries to learn more about open source!

4) What training do you do? staff? patrons? types of classes?

I train librarians in all walks of life. At work I train librarians how to use Koha after they finish their migration. In my spare time (ha ha) I train librarians around the world how to use various technologies to make their lives easier, their work more efficient and their budgets less scary. An archive of my training can be found on my Publications & Presentations page.

5) What training do you think is most important to libraries right now?

All of it!! Libraries are filled with people of such varying skill sets and backgrounds. No one can know everything about the library and so I find that the librarians who are constantly learning are the most valuable and I’m happy to help them keep learning.

6 ) Where do you get your training?

Mostly one on one. I find a problem I can’t solve and I ask my fellow trainers I also attend conferences and webinars when possible.

7 ) How do you keep up?

I have to admit – I have been falling behind lately. My key is to watch my colleagues’ blogs, microblogs, and Facebook pages for new links and tools.

8 ) What do you think are the biggest challenges libraries are facing right now?

Budget cuts!! In my state (PA) our budgets for public libraries were cut so much that we’re probably going to lose access to our state-wide database subscriptions I think that while libraries are facing the challenge of changing technologies – the budget crisis is so much more pressing at this moment.

9) What are biggest challenges for trainers?

Keeping the class interested. Topics that we find interesting aren’t always interesting to our trainees – I’ve had people dose off in class!! So, doing whatever you can to make every topic exciting – or at least worth staying awake for

10) What exciting things are you doing training wise?

I’ve just started teaching hands-on workshops on using WordPress for your entire library site – this has to be one of my new favorite classes.

11) What do you wish were you doing?

Sleeping.

12) What would you do with a badger?

Absolutely no clue … why do I have a badger??

13) What’s your favorite food?

Mac & Cheese!

14) If you were stranded on an island, what one thing would you want to have with you?

My laptop with a portable wifi network of some sort – can’t live without my Internet

15) Do you know what happens when a grasshopper kicks all the seeds out of a pickle?

It makes a mess.

16) Post it notes or the back of your hand?

Post it notes – Mom always said no writing on yourself.

17) Windows or Mac?

Mac

18) Talk about one training moment you’d like to forget?

In general I’d like to forget my whole first year of speaking/training – I was so nervous that I’m sure I looked totally clueless to those attending.

19) What’s your take on handshakes?

They’re okay for first meetings.

20) Global warming: yes or no

Feels more like global freezing right now …

21) How did you get into this line of work?

Fell into it. As I said my writing online got me noticed and all of the sudden people were asking me to teach them what I knew.

22) What is the best part of your job?

Getting to work with librarians all over without belonging to any one library!

23) Why should someone else follow in your shoes?

It’s a rewarding job. I love to have people contact me after hearing me speak or attending one of my classes to share a success story!

24) Sushi or hamburger?

Sushi – haven’t eaten a hamburger in over 10 years.

25) LSW or ALA?

LSW

26) What one person in the world do you want to have lunch with and why?

I’ll take any of the big open source names – so I can pick their brain and learn how they handle educating others about what open source is really all about.

27) What cell phone do you have and why?

Droid Eris baby!! Why? Because it’s open source! And it’s not the Blackberry Storm.

Responses from some of the rest of the group:

• The T is for Training Challenge – Polly
• T is for Training Meme – Bobbi
• A T is for Training Challenge – Alison
• Maurice Coleman’s Getting to Know All About Me Post
• I Like Sushi & Libraries – Betha
• “C is for Challenge” at “T is for Training” – Laura
• Me. Coffee. Morning. – Jill
• T is for Training Meme – Beth
• Pete Bromberg’s 23 things (minus 3): A getting to know ya post
• A Get to Know Me Meme from TIFT – Stephanie
• 27 Questions – Marianne