Progress report on wiki testing - part 2

Just as we were testing it, pbwiki decided to do a server maintenance, and changed its domain name to pbworks.

We are close to being ready to deploy the wiki to be use by the rest of our team mates and see how they feel about the product. We can't wait to see the end user reports.

1st May

• The wiki doesn’t do exact title search as desired when looking up ‘a title from Loose Leaf Titles’. You will have to break it down to two or three keywords maximum.
  
• If the procedure either ILL or CI contains unique words and it is short then yes, we were able to get a good result and narrow it down to the actual procedure we intended to seek. Otherwise same result as previous statement mentioned above.
  
• To look up an attachment file using the default search box on main page is not the best way, as it will ask you to download the file instead of listing it or displaying it. Better off clicking on ‘pages & files’ which will direct you to a directory and you have the choice to look at all files, unfiled items, or DSS attachment folder.
  
• When searching for a team mate’s name for test purposes we came back with positive results.
  

11^th May

• RC reports: it was easy to navigate to the copyright page and finding individual copyright sections. For example: S50, S183, etc.
  
• The BookEye pdf document was uploaded onto the wiki since last meeting. Both RC and MP tested it and were able to open it without hassle. Overall smooth viewing. 
  
• We all have tried to move pages from one folder and to another were done easily and simple to execute on the wiki.
  
• Our cheat sheet will consist of FINDING, ADDING, UPLOADING. We were weary of overloading new users with too much information at this stage. Perhaps we might warn them of slow loading at times, think outside of the square and use keywords and avoid sentences or titles.
  

22^nd May

• We decided that the basics of how to use the wiki will be found on the front page under the calendar. Listing ‘Find’, ‘Add’, and ‘Upload’.

Topics arise from Wednesday meeting with the rest of DSS team.

• Too many attachments in one area, can we make sub folders? PBworks is unable to have subfolders. For ease of navigation, as noted from discussion on Wednesday with the rest of DSS team members. We will devise folders for BookEye doc, Public comment, and Error messages as examples.

• Is there a naming convention for picture attachment? Naming attachment convention have date + keyword + staff initials with underscore separating the elements. For example, 20090522_Copyright_MN.jpg

• Can we have documents viewed in the browser? I have checked the Adobe reader program and the option ‘display in browser’ ticked. I believe this is a ‘Adobe plugin’ problem which needs further research

• Can the calendar display Today’s day [daily] instead of monthly without too much trouble? Further investigation required.

29 January 2009 Ex Libris Digital Preservation System session

A long overdue blog post indeed. ha ha. That is what you get when you have too many 'To do' lists. 

I have cut down by jumping from and to:

[a] Post-It notes (2006-07). However, i found myself doubling up and ignoring them when once the stickiness lackluster and fallen off to oblivion, preferably the floor and sucked up by the vacuum.

[b]  Created memo on mobile phone (2006-08). Yet I was unable to get it sort alphabetically or by priority on some hand sets. Also I tend to delete out of frustration.

[c] Emailed myself notes (2006-09) and ended up with lots of emails. Heaps of information which had no where to go and was shared at a delayed time frame. Now I move them to blogs and Twitter.

[d] I now sync everything that is a 'To do' thing onto my Google calendar. 

One of those 'To do' thing was clear out 'notes of thoughts' from events especially related to work.

29 January 2009 

Ex Libris' digital preservation system session @ SLV. 

Topic by Yaniv Levi, Ex Libris DSPS Product manager.

To store a digital file is more than saving onto an external hard drive in libraries.

To make it available online for eternity is a big challenge. There are heaps of criteria that ensues, such as mechanism used, embrace open language or classic choice coding that costs, how to link meta data so that it stays with the digital file. Before you get too cosy about how you want things stored, you need to consider retrieving methods and can the formatted data be transfered over to newer platforms in the near future.  The dilemma is can an ideal electronic architecture for archiving purpose be made workable in software programs. Ex Libris has attempted this with their product called 'digital preservation system' with the help of development partners, peer social interaction, based on international standards, and research & collaboration. 

In the session, they used National Library of New Zealand in regards to legal deposits and function specialisation to demonstrate 'digital preservation system' . There were points made about acquiring, authenticity, validating, storage, disseminate, manual assurance of digital born material against physical material scanned into the system. They mentioned use of SIP protocol to share access between devices and use of cloud computing for storage, especially small libraries with limited space capacity, and the risk in depending on cloud computing servers. 

The product looks well thought out and put together. Not that I have tested it or seen how a digital file was retrieved via DPS. It was an overall interesting session. I never thought about log files to go with my photographs I normally upload online. So I guess, a lot of meta data such as caption and tags that once went with the photograph is lost on cyberspace and not archived. So when people go to download my photograph they will not get the meta data that was added onto it. Curious. Maybe it ain't no big deal on an individual level but that is information libraries want to be able to retain for future and futures onward.

Progress report on wiki testing - Part 1

We choose pbwiki as our desire wiki to test out and add our contents to it. 

19th March

• 1st meeting
  
• Distributed login details to the wiki
  
• Ideas of what we want to test and have the wiki do

26th March

• Each person is to create a page and upload a file and report back.
  
• Distributed test to be on searching and sampling BookEye page (MP) and Copyright page (RC).
  
• Discussed about the use of ‘Heading 3’ before each paragraph and then use pbwiki magic table of contents plug to instant create one without extra typing.

9th April

• Creation of sub folder was not applicable.
  
• Power point file of 13MB is too big to upload (max is 2MB).
  
• Pbwiki cannot search SLV network drives for files, therefore we advise we copy pathways into address bar in IE and access the file that way.
  
• MP reported on BookEye page experiencing typo error other than that no problem in navigating to it or looking up information from it. The default font was legible.
  
• RC have not yet tested copyright page.
  
• Next goals for next few weeks is to search for a title from loose leaf titles, find a procedure, file an attachment, search by person name to see if they are in the procedure.