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News Researchers in the newsrooom

Derek Willis is Research Database Editor with the Washington Post and author of The Scoop.  By far, Derek’s presentation intrigued me the most at SLA.

The notion that information professionals are becoming dependent on software they haven’t built themselves (hint: vendors) Derek calls "crutchware."   By using scripting, open-source software and a bit of old fashioned know-how, Derek has repackaged publicly available data in ways that we as information professionals should definitely emulate.  A few of Derek’s projects include:

• FEC Electronic Filings RSS Feed
• U.S Congress Votes Database

Willis’ Priciples to Follow

• Always move forward
• Never turn down data
• Steal from the best
• Automate and DRY (Don’t Repeat Yourself)
• Deploy first
• Be an evangelist

The tools:

• Apache
• Django
• Instiki
• MySQL
• Perl / PHP / Python
• Wget
• xPDF

What’s on the Info Horizon?
Mary Ellen Bates is Principal of Bates Information Services. Her presentation, What’s on the Info Horizon was an excellent look at where, in Mary Ellen’s opinion, the information profession is heading.  There is:

• The impact of Web 2.0
  • harnessing collective intelligence
  • rich user experiences (we will be judged against Google, flickr, etc.)
  • constant change rather than software upgrade cycles
  • web-based rather than platform-based
• Embracing change
• Interactivity
  • users tagging OPAC records
• Professional challenges
  • graying of the profession
  • library students choosing to work outside libraries
• The skills deficit in library schools.  Students should be learning:
  • value-added online searching
  • post-processing and analysis
  • marketing
  • leadership
  • communication and collaboration
  • teaching and speaking

According to Mary Ellen:

• Things will get weird
• Be ready to pivot
• Everything you know is wrong
• Become the New Librarian, or channel your inner Xena, the Info-Warrior
• Think, "If I were outsourcing this library, what would the RFP look like?"

Yet, another oustanding contribution by Mary Ellen. A PDF copy of her presentation is here.

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