Credo Reference Blog

Are you attending the PLA National Conference in Portland, OR next week? We’ll be there and we’d love to see you. Stop by Booth 740 and get a sneak peak at our newest tools. We’re launching exciting new ways to help you help your patrons AND to help your patrons get the most out of their library.

The 2010 ALA Midwinter Meeting was in Credo’s hometown of Boston earlier this month, and we were thrilled to have this gathering of librarians, vendors and ideas in our own backyard. Having the conference here meant that many Credo staff could attend and we all took away some great ideas, interactions and memories.

Product Manager Nancy King attended LITA’s semi-annual Top Technology Trends discussion Sunday morning. The five forward-looking librarians on the panel started with a discussion of trends like mobile technologies, augmented reality, user experience and discovery systems. The second half of the session focused on the reinvention of the book. To get the discussion started, Gregg Silvis, the moderator, held up a Rocket eBook reader from 1998 and a Kindle. (The two devices look surprisingly similar – see a photo of the Rocket eBook here.) For more on the discussion, see Library Journal’s write-up at http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6715484.html?industryid=49157.

CEO Mike Sweet enjoyed the presentation by Carrie Page of EDUCAUSE. Her work centers on the Net Gen Learner, and she focused on what the library community needs to do to make sure we stay in touch with this demographic. EDUCAUSE is clearly thinking about the challenges we face in the right way and we would do well to pay close attention to the implications of their research.

President John Dove and others from Credo attended the Independent Reference Publishers Group Meeting, hosted by CHOICE, on Friday afternoon. The meeting brought together a panel of librarians who provided the group with detailed accounts of where they turn when evaluating or sourcing reference works. Among the questions the panel answered was which types of reference works still work better in print than they do in electronic form? Credo Reference handles a broad array of reference content types, but it is always helpful to know that there is still work ahead of us to continue our work of re-inventing reference online.

Many of us spent time in the Credo booth and enjoyed hearing from our enthusiastic subscribers as well as meeting and talking with potential customers.

Our exhibit allowed us the opportunity to introduce our newest initiatives – Topic Pages and Publisher Collections. Topic Pages are our new approach to organizing information resources and are designed to provide contextualized, orderly access to authoritative content from the library as well as the open web. Publisher Collections are available now – read about our Sage, IGI-Global and CABI collections — and Topic Pages and will be available later this spring.

A highlight of the weekend was our event Sunday night to celebrate the launch of Credo Topic Pages and Publisher Collections. Joining us were many customers, publishers, partners and friends. Mike Sweet took a few minutes to welcome everyone and introduce our newest initiatives . It was an evening of great conversation with friends new and old and an opportunity to enjoy the beautiful views from the SkyWalk at the Prudential Tower.

Credo’s final ALAMW event was our presentation at the Technology Showcase Monday afternoon. Al Stevens, Credo CTO, spoke about our approach to the presentation of related content, focusing on our use of semantic information in the development of our Topic Pages.

It was a full and rewarding weekend and we look forward to meeting and talking with you all again at ALA Annual in June in Washington D.C.

The Technology Showcase highlights the latest trends in library technology, and Credo is excited to be speaking again this year!

Join us for Solving Common Problems in Uncommon Ways: Clearing hurdles of vocabulary, context and selection in student research. Come see Al Stevens, Credo’s Chief Technology Officer, discuss our unique approach to the presentation of related content, focusing on our use of semantic information to select content that is meaningfully related to the content the user appears to be searching for, or is currently viewing.

Highlights of the presentation will include:

• The use of semantic information in ways to organize content in a meaningful way
• The depth and breadth of sources delivered to users in this new environment
• The use of semantic information derived from one domain to organize another

When: 12:40pm, Monday 18 January
Where: “One if by Land” theatre at the end of the 2000 aisle in the Boston Convention Center Exhibit hall.

Attend the session – or just stop by our booth # 2523 — for a chance to win a $100 Amazon gift certificate!

Will you be attending the ALA Midwinter 2010 Conference in Boston? Credo Reference will be! We are especially excited to have the conference located in our own city this year. Make sure to stop by Booth #2523 and say hello!

At this year’s Charleston Conference, John Dove, President of Credo Reference, participated in a panel titled, “It’s the Economy, Stupid! Dealing with High Acquisition Goals in Low Economic Times.” John’s brief presentation addressed the following question – Is an economic crisis the time to be considering trans-formative innovations? His answer to this question was a resounding yes. This very well may be the most appropriate time to innovate.

There are four main elements to innovation. First, there must exist some kind of constraint. The second element is what John called a “Wake Up Call.” The third element is the necessary action of stepping back, taking a look at fundamentals in order to rethink the situation. And lastly, there must be the courage to pull if off.

John used the rebuilding of the Barking and Dagenham Town Library to help the audience understand how trans-formative innovations are crucial in times of economic crisis. In this case, the constraint was clearly an economic one. In one of the economically challenged boroughs of East London were a dilapidated town center and a deteriorating town library. The “Wake Up Call” was that the physical building housing the town library had to be replaced but there was simply no additional money available from the town budget. Trevor Brown, Head of Library Services, stepped back and asked, “What are the overall information needs of town citizens?” He looked well beyond the specific needs of library patrons and thought about the overall needs of everyone in the town. In looking at the Town Hall he saw that much of what goes on in a Town Hall are the same kinds of activities of a reference room of a library: Citizens need access to documents and information, specifically people were seeking general information on permits, taxes, water bills, etc. Why couldn’t these Town Services be combined with the information and reference desk of the library? Trevor Brown was determined to find a solution that would surpass the one narrow goal of rebuilding a library.

Trevor Brown then had to figure out a way to rebuild the library without any more money from the Town. He worked with a developer to design and build an eight story building. The first story had the combined town information center and library learning center. The second floor housed the main part of the library. On the top six floors were upscale condominiums. This innovative solution added to the tax base of the town and the sale of the condominiums paid for the construction of the entire building. It was clearly the challenge of an economic crisis that led Trevor Brown to come up with a solution that far surpassed the single goal of rebuilding a town’s library—a trans-formative innovation.

Two of the best remedies for an ailing economy are education and people courageous enough to innovate despite financial hardships. The role that librarians play in aiding a floundering economy should not be underestimated. Trevor Brown proved this and his success is now improving the lives of the citizens of Barking and Dagenham.

Find more information about the project itself on ArchInnovations.

Four of us from Credo Reference have packed our bags and are traveling to Charleston, SC this morning for the 29th Charleston Conference. It should be an exciting few days packed with interesting sessions and presentations, conversations with old and new friends and, of course, fried chicken. Here are some of the places where you can spot Credo folks:

10th Annual Vendor Showcase
Wednesday, 4 November 12PM – 6PM, Carolina Ballroom, Francis Marion Hotel
Stop by table 29 to say hello and see what’s new with Credo

“It’s the Economy, Stupid!”
Thursday, 5 November, 4:30PM, Carolina Ballroom, Francis Marion Hotel
John G. Dove, Credo President is participating in this plenary session panel discussion on the challenges and questions we all face during difficult economic times.

“Collaboration, the Mother of Innovation”
Friday, 6 November, 2:00PM – 2:50PM, Gold Ballroom, Francis Marion Hotel
Heather Blaine, Credo Sales Marketing Manager, joins members of the Library Technology Collaborative for a panel discussion on how libraries and publishers are collaborating in the transition from print to electronic resources.

“What We Learned from Users”
Friday, 6 November, 4:30PM – 5:15PM, Pinckney Room, Francis Marion Hotel
This session with Nancy King, Credo Product Manager, and Kristina DeVoe of Temple University is all about reaching students. Nancy will be presenting findings from Credo’s usability testing and focus groups and sharing the lessons learned in the process. Kristina, who is also a member of the Credo Librarian Advisory board, will talk about Temple’s outreach to students through Blackboard.

Not attending Charleston this year? Many of the sessions and presentations will be available online after the conference, check back for more information and be sure to follow @credoreference for our tweets from the conference!

At ALA in Chicago, three of the Credo team (Mike Sweet, Jenny Walker and Anne Kail) jumped in a cab to get to a meeting. As the cab sped away they discovered a wallet dropped by the previous occupant. There was no contact number to be found, so Jenny handed it over to ALA as the owner was a member and they could perhaps contact her.

What are the chances? Of all the shuttle buses plowing back and forth every hour (have you been to ALA?!) two rows behind her on one of those buses the following day, Anne heard a woman on the phone telling her husband that the wallet had been found but maybe they should cancel the credit cards, just in case. Anne turned around, and explained why there was no need to cancel the cards.

Much laughter on the bus as the owner called back her husband with the good news. She told him that she’d been concerned about the cash, too, but friends had told her not to worry – this was ALA, and the wallet would be found by a ‘library-type person’ (with all that that implied).

“I just knew that it would get to the owner,” said Jenny, “the (ALA) staff were so concerned.”

Don’t lovely coincidences like this brighten up a day?

Credo Reference will be attending the ALA Annual 2009 Conference in Chicago, starting later this week! Make sure to stop by Booth #2824 and say hello! We will also be tweeting from the Conference, so make sure to follow @credoreference.

See you in Chicago!

May was quite the international month for Credo Reference as our geographically diverse employees traveled to various conferences around the world.

Anne Kail, our Oxford-based Sales Manager, recently attended the Scottish Libraries Conference.

Credo sponsored places for Sean and Rebecca, as well as the CILIPS competition winner, Annette Ramsden from University of Aberdeen, to attend the Scottish Libraries Annual Conference. When asked for his thoughts about Credo, Sean had this to say: “there is so much information coming from a variety of sources and too much of it is unreliable. In a society that strives to be Information literate a source like Credo stands out due to its quality and its variety of titles and publishers. The service is user friendly with excellent cross referencing and a concise format making it ideal for library users to use independently or for library staff to access on library user’s behalf. Superb value for money!”

Anne also attended the Wales Libraries Conference, in Llandrindod Wells. Patricia Perkins, from Swansea Libraries, was the winner of a £25 Marks & Spencers voucher and says “thank you for showing me around your brilliant site.”

Jenny Walker attended a “Speed Dating” event sponsored by SANLiC and held in Pretoria, South Africa. This event allowed librarians to visit with many different vendors, each for a short period of time. The format seemed to please both attendees and vendors allowing for many productive conversations to take place over the course of the day.

Lisa Hill and Heather Blaine attended the Canadian Library Association 2009 annual meeting in Montreal, Quebec. The conference presented a great opportunity to speak with current subscribers about new content and platform enhancements, meet librarians interested in learning more about Credo and to sample a local delicacy, Poutine.

Wondering where to find us next? See our list of forthcoming events here.

In mid May, I had the pleasure of representing Credo Reference at the Worldcat Mashathon, hosted by OCLC and the International Institute for Social History in Amsterdam. This was a 2-day conference attended by technologists interested in integrating applications with data services from OCLC Grid Services and provided in beta form from OCLC’s department of Programs and Research. The technologies included APIs to Worldcat, Worldcat Registry, xISBN, Identities (names) and other data sources.

What stood out for me were the interesting possibilities that emerge when quality information from reliable sources is mined for relationships and then presented in structured formats through simple web APIs. When web application developers pursue mashups—ideas to combine information from different sources in unique ways—you can easily run into complexities caused by unstructured information, or surprises caused by noisy sources. It’s a different story when information organized by the library profession becomes available in discrete self-described units.

Compare this to the “Hail Mary” approach—mashups that integrate results from popular web destinations by scraping the top keyword search results and displaying them in a integrated view. You can sometimes impress with a mashup like this, but I call this the Hail Mary approach because that keyword search is really a long toss that the programmer/quarterback hopes produces a touchdown. And the quarterback essentially has no control over the outcome—it will either result in a miraculous win or, more likely, game over.

Sites that provide structured information using standard identifiers change the game. The user experiences that are possible by mashing these resources start to look like tailored results. The popularity of Credo’s ‘Related Resources’ demonstrates that this type of integration is valued, and the structured resources we experimented with in Amsterdam start to show how to take that user experience to the next level of utility.

See a video of Pete presenting the Identities Mashup he worked on here.