The author, a digital access architect in the information systems department of the Orange County Library System in Florida, was given the challenge of creating a library mobile app around the 2009 holiday season. At that time, Sheri Chambers, digital content manager in the information systems department, and Debbie Moss, assistant director of the…

Backups are a modern fact of life. Every organization that has any kind of computing technology (and that is all of them these days) needs to back up its data in case of technological or user errors. Traditionally, large-scale backups have been done via an internal or external tape drive that takes magnetic tapes (minicassettes, essentially) and…

Technology has transformed libraries. There are digital libraries, electronic collections, online databases and catalogs, ebooks, downloadable books, and much more. With free technology such as social websites, newspaper collections, downloadable online calendars, clocks and sticky notes, online scheduling, online document sharing, and online…

Since launching its first website in 1997, the Arapahoe Library District (ALD) has constantly looked at ways to review and renew this vital tool for patrons. This article focuses on the process of redesigning the ALD website--the steps taken and decisions made in order to create a site that incorporates interactive elements and patron input and…

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Library, where the author serves as the digital services librarian, is increasingly challenged to make it easier for users to find information from many heterogeneous information sources. Information is scattered throughout different software applications (i.e., library catalog, federated search engine, link…

Oregon State University (OSU) libraries, where the author serves as lead programmer, have developed a tool to make it easier for librarians to build and maintain interactive course assignment pages (ICAPs) and subject research guides (SRGs). That tool, Library a la Carte, enables librarians with minimal technical expertise to create dynamic…

Jenkins Law Library is the oldest law library in America, and has a reputation for offering great content not only to local attorneys, but also to the entire legal research community. In this article, the author, who is Web manager at Jenkins, describes the development of an automated process by which research links can be added to the database so…

As news outlets create headlines such as "A Cloud & A Prayer," "The Cloud Is the Computer," and "Leveraging Clouds to Make You More Efficient," many readers have been left with cloud confusion. Many definitions exist for cloud computing, and a uniform definition is hard to find. In its most basic form, cloud…

This article analyzes server logs, providing helpful information in making decisions about Web-based services. The author indicates, as a result of analyzing server logs, several interesting things about the users' behavior were learned. The resulting findings are discussed in this article. Certain pages of the author's Web site, for instance, are…

Most people don't realize how easy it is to improve library services with open source databases. Despite the fact that they are distributed free of charge, open source databases are powerful and stable enough for critical applications. With a little knowledge of HTML and some basic technical skills, you can quickly create databases to register…

This is a compilation of 12 primers on important information standards and protocols. These primers are: (1) Atom; (2) COinS; (3) MADS; (4) MARC 21/MARCXML; (5) MIX; (6) MXG; (7) OpenSearch; (8) PREMIS; (9) RESTful HTTP; (10) unAPI; (11) XMPP (aka Jabber); and (12) ZeeRex. The Atom Syndication Format defines a new XML-based syndication format for…

In this month's column, the author discusses his work on the Library Technology Guides site, additions he has made to the lib-web-cats online directory of libraries, and applications he has created for managing home projects such as family photographs.

Outline Processor Markup Language (OPML) is an emerging format that allows for the creation of customized research packages to push to patrons. It is a way to gather collections of Web resources (links, RSS feeds, multimedia files), organize them as outlines, and publish them in a format that others can share and even subscribe to. In this…

This column describes ways to streamline and optimize how a Web site works in order to improve both its usability and its visibility. The author explains how to analyze logs and other system data to measure the effectiveness of the Web site design and search engine.

Integrating news services into an intranet can be tricky. Even within related organizations, slight differences in subscriptions and end-user needs can necessitate different integration approaches. This article examines how the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund took separate approaches to tackle the same integration challenge in…