The Technology Awareness Group (TAG) was formed in 1999 to promote discussion about the use of leading edge technologies at Rutgers University Libraries but moved in 2005 to the Sprague Library at Montclair State University. It is an informal group of about a dozen continuing members coming mostly from Libraries but we also have participants from Engineering and Computer Science. All meetings are open to any interested party but are particularly useful to those in academia. We meet during the Fall and Spring semesters at Montclair State University or Rutgers University.
Technology Awareness Group (TAG) Spring Semester Meeting.
Friday, May 9th, 2008 from 10am to 12:15pm in the Baker Trial Courtroom in the Law Library in the Center for Law and Justice at Rutgers Newark.
Directions and maps follow the agenda.
Please contact the Convener, Brian Hancock, Systems Librarian at MSU, if you have any questions:
973-655-2098
----------------------------------------------------------------------Agenda
Welcome from Carol Roehrenbeck, Associate Dean, and Director of the Rutgers Law Library
1. A.J. Kelton, Director of Teaching and Emerging Technology, Montclair State University
Title: Second Life at MSU
With the rapid change in technology and its impact on our culture comes the need to look at new and evolving ways to reach those we teach. Multi-User Virtual Environments (MUVEs), such as Second Life, can allow learning to occur in ways that were previously not possible. The session will examine this synchronous/multi-modal environment, its history, future, technical issues, uses in education, pedagogical strategies to engage critical thinking, the scaffolding of prior knowledge, and fostering collaboration within virtual environments. This session will examine the synchronous and multi-modal environment that is Second Life and its current and future uses in education.
2. Kevin Reiss, Systems Librarian, CUNY, Graduate School
Title: Wordpress, Digital Collections, and Web Services
The Graduate Center Library is creating a neighborhood history website for the Murray Hill neighborhood located in New York City. We are using the popular open source PHP/MYSQL publishing system Wordpress to build the various displays that will make up the website. We are using the core Wordpress functionalities for tagging and categorization and a number of other Wordpress plug-ins to create an interactive Web 2.0 experience for the site's users. We are working to create a site that will have an interactive neighborhood map and timeline functionality so users to see how sites in the neighborhood have changed over time. We are also creating a faceted browsing display that will enable users to view items based on things like architectural style and building function. We also are working on integrating relevant content from other digital collections into our display using web services. The presentation will discuss why Wordpress is a good match for this type of project and what plug-ins we are working with to create the display.
3. Wei Fang, Digital Services Librarian, Law Library, Rutgers Newark
Title: Using Adobe Flash Technology on Library Websites for Multimedia Enhancement
Windows Media Player and Real Player technologies have been used as the major platforms for rendering the multimedia content online. However, as most of web browsers have Adobe Flash plug-in installed by default, Adobe Flash is becoming an ideal technology for presenting multimedia content cross-platform. With the appearance and popularity of Adobe Flash, people are switching to this newest technology and taking advantage of it. Commercial sites such as YouTube and Google Video are using Adobe Flash as their backbone technology. People are also using this technology as an alternative solution for Podcasting. This program will provide an in-depth view on applying this technology in a library environment. The speaker will share his experiences and solutions on developing Flash-based players and content for the players.
4. Ron Jantz, Digital Architect, Scholarly Communication Center, Rutgers
Title: NJVid: A New Jersey Statewide Video Portal Based on Fedora
(Presented at the Open Repositories 2008 Conference in Southampton, UK, April 3, 2008)
NJVid is an Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) grant funded project that will provide a statewide digital video portal to meet the wide ranging needs of educators, students, and lifelong learners in New Jersey. NJVid is a collaboration among three institutions: William Paterson University, NJEdge.net and Rutgers University. NIVid's innovative management and sustainability design includes ongoing oversight and contributions from three consortia: New Jersey's Virtual Academic Environment (VALE), NJEDge, a non-profit corporation of the New Jersey President's Council to support K20 education, and New Jersey Digital Highway (NJDH) (www.njdigitalhighway.org), the statewide digital cultural heritage portal. A digital video portal for the state of New Jersey must support the complex educational needs of K20 schools as well as the diversity of information and cultural heritage institutions of which there are over 600 including public libraries, archives, historical societies, and museums.
NJVid is committed to full support of any organization, regardless of its level of technical readiness for participating in areas such as authentication and authorization, video streaming and download and multimedia tool use. Supporting these video based collections will require significant enhancements to RUcore in the areas of storage architecture, networking, authentication and authorization, and services. This presentation will describe the Fedora-based technical architecture that is underdevelopment jointly by Rutgers University Libraries (RUL) and NJEDge. We are building on Fedora and a substantial and robust set of middleware and applications that have already been put in place as part of NJDH and RUcore − the Rutgers University institutional repository (http://rucore.libraries.rutgers.edu). The architectural focus of this work is in five major areas:
RUL's open-source Workflow Management System will provide the service for metadata creation, ingest, and collection management.
Development of a robust digital video streaming and video object architecture for statewide authorization and access, a Shibboleth "community of trust" will be implemented.
A storage architecture that supports ingest and archiving of large video master files.
A portal architecture that can be customized for each partner.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------Getting There
Directions
http://www.newark.rutgers.edu/maps/index.php?sId=directions
Map
http://maps.rutgers.edu/building.aspx?550
Parking
Parking is available in lot 510 across Washington Street from the Center for Law and Justice (please refer to the map). If you would like to park there please send your name to Wei Fang at:
before April 23rd. Then when you arrive just give your name to the attendant.
NJ Transit
http://www.njtransit.com/sf/sf_servlet.srv?hdnPageAction=TrainTo
The Broad Street Station is about 4 blocks from the Library. You can also take the N.E. Corridor Train to Penn Newark and then take the Newark Light Rail to the Washington Street station.
Coffee and light snacks will be served courtesy of the Law Library.