If you were wondering about the opinion of the newly installed President Obama on the topic of libraries, you needn’t speculate. Instead, you can refer to the record of his 2005 speech to the ALA Annual in Chicago.  How that praise will or will not translate to effective policy is a question for a more political blog…

Please mark your calendars for KohaCon 2009. From David Schuster’s announcement today:

KohaCon 2009 will be held in Plano, TX April 16 and 17.

This is a FREE conference. There is no registration fee, but we are
requesting that all attendees pre-register. Details (travel, hotels, agenda draft, etc) can
be found at:

Koha WIKI: http://wiki.koha.org/doku.php?id=kohacon2009

There is a “Tentative Schedule” - it will change as more people sign up
probably for programs. Travel information along with Hotel accomodation
information. Lunch and dinners will be on your own. Feel free to contact
any of the three people listed on the Wiki at the top or email me directly.

After the conference, there will be a three-day Koha developers meeting in Plano on April 18 through 20. All who develop for Koha, want to develop for Koha, or are interested in Koha development are welcome to attend.

As I mentioned before, LibLime will be at ALA Midwinter in book #722 and will be speaking at the following events. Come join us - or just stop by to say hi

FRIDAY, January 23rd

2:00 - 5:00 PM
OUTSIDE THE BOOTH… Panel Discussion
Starting Over: Re-Inventing the Integrated Library System (ILS) and the Library Automation Industry– RMG’s Nineteenth Annual Presidents’ Seminar: The View from the Top
on the panel… Joshua Ferraro, CEO LibLime

RMG’s Nineteenth Annual Presidents’ Seminar will include the traditional panel of library automation executives from industry companies plus featured speakers from libraries undertaking technology developments and initiatives.

Hosted by Rob McGee, RMG
Denver Convention Center, Korbel Ballroom 3B

6:00 PM - Stop buying your records back! Introducing ‡biblios.net
Presenter: Joshua Ferraro, CEO LibLime

‡biblios.net is a FREE browser-based cataloging service with a data store containing over thirty-million records. Records are licensed under the Open Data Commons, making the service the world’s largest repository of freely-licensed library records!

SATURDAY, January 24th

10:00 AM - Gee, I wish Koha did this… LibLime and the Development Process
Presenter: Becky Bell (WALDO)

WALDO has contracted with LibLime for over 35 software enhancements and now has a lot of experience in working with LibLime as the projects move from an idea to a specification and finally into software. You’ll hear a brief update of the status of these projects. Plus, we’ll follow one of the projects from the scoping study stage through the specification approval stage and end as the project moves into development and software testing.

10:30- 12:00 NOON
OUTSIDE THE BOOTH…
Serials Management in Koha’s open-source library software.
Presenter: Nicole C. Engard, Open Source Evangelist LibLime

The presentation will help you understand what open source is all about and show you how the Koha open-source automation system cannot only handle your serials in the library catalog, but provide better services to your patrons.

ALA Midwinter program sponsored by the ALA ALCTS Continuing Resources Section College and Research Libraries Interest Group. (E-Journals All Around: in the Catalog, the Knowledgebase, and the Web)

Sheraton Hotel, Gold

1:00 PM - Koha ZOOM OPAC Demo
Presenter: Joshua Ferraro, CEO LibLime

1:30 - 3:30 PM
OUTSIDE THE BOOTH…
KUDOS (KOHA Users and Developers of Open Source) Meeting

NOTE: This is for users of Koha only. Libraries who are interested in Koha, but have not yet signed a contract with a support provider or implemented Koha on their own, should attend the Koha Interest Group Meeting– see below.

Crowne Plaza Hotel
Room: Altitude

3:30 - 5:30 PM
OUTSIDE THE BOOTH…
Koha Interest Group Meeting
Crowne Plaza Hotel
Room: Altitude

SUNDAY, January 25th

10:00 AM - Stop buying your records back! Introducing ‡biblios.net
Presenter: Joshua Ferraro, CEO LibLime

‡biblios.net is a FREE browser-based cataloging service with a data store containing over thirty-million records. Records are licensed under the Open Data Commons, making the service the world’s largest repository of freely-licensed library records

1:00 PM - Koha ZOOM OPAC Demo
Presenter: Joshua Ferraro, CEO LibLime

3:00 PM - Open-Source Technical Services Tools
Presenter: Nicole C. Engard, Open Source Evangelist LibLime

MONDAY, January 26th

9:30 AM - Koha ZOOM Staff Client Demo
Presenter: Nicole C. Engard, Open Source Evangelist LibLime

10:40 - 11:10 AM
OUTSIDE THE BOOTH…
ALA Tech Showcase: ‡biblios: a new social cataloging (r)evolution from LibLime
Presenter: Joshua Ferraro, CEO LibLime
Pueblo Theater (1)

12:30 or 1:00 PM - Stop buying your records back! Introducing ‡biblios.net
Presenter: Joshua Ferraro, CEO LibLime

‡biblios.net is a FREE browser-based cataloging service with a data store containing over thirty-million records. Records are licensed under the Open Data Commons, making the service the world’s largest repository of freely-licensed library records!

Technorati Tags: liblime, alamw09, koha

Even though we are halfway through the first month of the new year, I thought it would still be a good time to bring up my programming-related New Year’s resolutions.  With the way the landscape in programming changes every few years it seems only appropriate to encourage personal growth.  I have found previously when I do this it also strengthens the languages that I already know.  Learning Rails re-inforced the idea not only of testing, which is stongly built-in to the framework, but also concepts like MVC (Model-View-Controller) architecture and DRY (Don’t Repeat Yourself) concepts.  Here’s what I have set as personal goals for 2009:

• Learn a new language.  I’ve previously worked in mostly Java and Perl, with a bit of Ruby on Rails thrown in.  So I could claim Ruby on Rails and still learn a lot (for that matter, Perl as well…) but I want to challenge myself and try to learn Python.  Initially, there seems to be a good deal of overlap between Python, Ruby and Perl, so I think that should help me.  I will start with Dive into Python as that has a complete textbook online.
• Learn 2 new frameworks.  I have not completely decided on what to do here.  Looking at our biblios project makes  me want to learn Google Gears.  If I learn Python, Django, a web framework similar to Rails, would blend nicely.  Catalyst might be a great fit that could directly impact Koha.
• Contribute to one other open-source project or consistently attend a code group.  These will probably go together.  Here in Atlanta, where I live, there are groups for all the languages and most of the frameworks that I’ve mentioned above.  They tend to meet once a month and often have side meetings to work through learning aspects or book clubs related to the topic at hand.  It’s a great way to meet people and learn what others are doing in the same field of interest. Meetup.com is where I found the Rails group I (very) infrequently attend and actually heard about the Perl Mongers group in the area that I’m hoping to attend this year. Often, you can find people in need of help for various projects, or who are looking to help if you have a project of your own that needs help.  Meetup is international and it’s very easy to start your own group if one isn’t already meeting. Maybe I’ll even start a Koha group??

So feel free to share your goals or resolutions in the coming year in the comments below, or even the methods you use to improve yourself.

A REPL is an interactive shell for programming languages that:

• Reads expressions,
• Evaluates them,
• Prints the result and
• Loops back to do it all over again

REPLs are simple tools that I’ve found tremendously useful for learning new languages and exploring unfamiliar code. (more…)