Two Short Classes and Trip to Microsoft
Alas, poor Dr. Joyce Chen did have more material to teach yesterday than time, partly because we deluged her with questions, particularly about issues related to the challenges of displaying Chinese characters. The PowerPoint slide on that topic was quite dense, and I haven't made my way through it yet, but the number 54,711 appears on it repeatedly and appears to be key. She did have to skip her demonstration of their digital archive system due to lack of time, but we are apparently going to try to carve out another slot for her on our final morning in the classroom.
Jennifer Ward began the second of her two-part lecture with some observations on institutional repositories. I was relieved to learn that UW's has not caught on wildly with its faculty, because that has also been true at NYU, and in some ways it has been hard to understand why. Jennifer also demonstrated a number of practical uses of Web 2.0 apps, including how you can stream your del.ici.ous bookmarks into Facebook and also use an RSS widget to show new book lists there. I friended her so that I can take a good look at her profile and possibly adapt some of her nifty techniques.
After a very brief lunch break it was time to board the bus to Redmond. Despite everything that the so-called Evil Empire has said and done over the years, what longtime PC user wouldn't relish the chance to set foot on the campus? This one certainly did. We were welcomed graciously and given delicious snacks and a chance to catch our breath before the presentations began. What could be more interesting to a group of librarians than to learn about how Microsoft's small team of librarians (12 in number, although they also outsource a lot of routine tasks) meets the needs of its 91,000 regular staff and tens of thousands of contingent employees. Soon after the librarian lecturing us began showing us the library portal designed for their multitude of users and explained that they circulate materials worldwide, I couldn't help asking if perhaps MS had developed the perfect integrated library system. But no, like the rest of us, they use a third-party system. However, they do have developers at their disposal to soup it up as requested. They have naturally had to develop additional subject headings for subtopics under computer languages such as C++ and C#. Their book collection development program is based entirely on user requests, and their focus is on providing enough copies of the right books, in paper or e-form, to satisfy employee needs at all times. It was fun to see individual titles listed with notations indicating 19 copies held, 19 copies checked out, 10 patrons on waiting list. These are monitored weekly to determine whether additional purchasing is necessary. As is true for the rest of us, database selection is more complicated, and they struggle to adjust their subscriptions when it appears that there is significant overlap among resources.
An employee of Microsoft Research's Cambridge, UK, office who happened to be visiting presented to us about some of their ongoing projects. I was completely wow'ed by their Research Desktop (click the link to see the brief, stunning video demo). It protoypes many of the functionalities that we at NYU are hoping to incorporate into a research portal suite of applications for which we are just beginning to sketch out the technical requirements.
Lee Dirks of Microsoft's Scholarly Communication division explained the many ways in which the company is reaching out to academic institutions worldwide in the hopes of partnering with them to develop add-ons to Microsoft products already purchased but not being used to the fullest. All of the resulting add-ons will be free and open source. Lee has worked as a preservation librarian and maintains a deep interest in that field; in fact, he worked at OCLC's Preservation Resources division before joining Microsoft. It's great to know that voices like his are being heard in Redmond. Lee was excited that an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education about their new free research tools for scholars had been the Chronicle's most viewed item that very day.
I missed a bit of the most exciting part of the trip because I spent some time trapped inside a stairwell with our UW tour guide (don't ask). When we finally were able to rejoin our group, they were in one of a series of suites showing possibilities for the workplace of the future. In one, we were placed in front of huge screens representing various departments of a pharmaceutical company. The FDA notified Manufacturing of a product defect, and with just a few drag and drops of documents and communications to the responsible parties, we were able to rectify the situation far more quickly than is possible with today's technology. The very coolest demo was last. We entered a conference room designed for virtual collaborations. It had two round tables equipped with tablet PCs for all participants and huge screens subdivided into areas for display of materials and of photographs of the people at the meeting. Naturally the cameras could sense who was talking and automatically focus in on them. First we role-played as two groups, one in Seattle and another in Beijing, but by and by we needed to call in another colleague who was on a business trip in Chicago. The demo suite had a panel that pulls out into a pretend hotel bed, complete with stocked minibar to the side. One member of our group got into the bed, fired up a tablet PC, and beamed us the missing document. But now we needed to get the information to a doctor's office in yet another city. Yet another area of the suite was revealed to be a medical office stage set. A practical vision underlies all this techno-glitz, however: the idea of a fully networked world of medical information that gets the right treatment to the right person at the exact place and time of need.
Our group was given exclusive use of the Microsoft Visitor Center for a reception to conclude the visit. There, while enjoying drinks and appetizers we were invited to play with the Microsoft gadget of our choice. I do love those tablets! And many of us availed ourselves of the opportunity to send home an electronic postcard like this one.
Jennifer Ward began the second of her two-part lecture with some observations on institutional repositories. I was relieved to learn that UW's has not caught on wildly with its faculty, because that has also been true at NYU, and in some ways it has been hard to understand why. Jennifer also demonstrated a number of practical uses of Web 2.0 apps, including how you can stream your del.ici.ous bookmarks into Facebook and also use an RSS widget to show new book lists there. I friended her so that I can take a good look at her profile and possibly adapt some of her nifty techniques.
After a very brief lunch break it was time to board the bus to Redmond. Despite everything that the so-called Evil Empire has said and done over the years, what longtime PC user wouldn't relish the chance to set foot on the campus? This one certainly did. We were welcomed graciously and given delicious snacks and a chance to catch our breath before the presentations began. What could be more interesting to a group of librarians than to learn about how Microsoft's small team of librarians (12 in number, although they also outsource a lot of routine tasks) meets the needs of its 91,000 regular staff and tens of thousands of contingent employees. Soon after the librarian lecturing us began showing us the library portal designed for their multitude of users and explained that they circulate materials worldwide, I couldn't help asking if perhaps MS had developed the perfect integrated library system. But no, like the rest of us, they use a third-party system. However, they do have developers at their disposal to soup it up as requested. They have naturally had to develop additional subject headings for subtopics under computer languages such as C++ and C#. Their book collection development program is based entirely on user requests, and their focus is on providing enough copies of the right books, in paper or e-form, to satisfy employee needs at all times. It was fun to see individual titles listed with notations indicating 19 copies held, 19 copies checked out, 10 patrons on waiting list. These are monitored weekly to determine whether additional purchasing is necessary. As is true for the rest of us, database selection is more complicated, and they struggle to adjust their subscriptions when it appears that there is significant overlap among resources.
An employee of Microsoft Research's Cambridge, UK, office who happened to be visiting presented to us about some of their ongoing projects. I was completely wow'ed by their Research Desktop (click the link to see the brief, stunning video demo). It protoypes many of the functionalities that we at NYU are hoping to incorporate into a research portal suite of applications for which we are just beginning to sketch out the technical requirements.
Lee Dirks of Microsoft's Scholarly Communication division explained the many ways in which the company is reaching out to academic institutions worldwide in the hopes of partnering with them to develop add-ons to Microsoft products already purchased but not being used to the fullest. All of the resulting add-ons will be free and open source. Lee has worked as a preservation librarian and maintains a deep interest in that field; in fact, he worked at OCLC's Preservation Resources division before joining Microsoft. It's great to know that voices like his are being heard in Redmond. Lee was excited that an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education about their new free research tools for scholars had been the Chronicle's most viewed item that very day.
I missed a bit of the most exciting part of the trip because I spent some time trapped inside a stairwell with our UW tour guide (don't ask). When we finally were able to rejoin our group, they were in one of a series of suites showing possibilities for the workplace of the future. In one, we were placed in front of huge screens representing various departments of a pharmaceutical company. The FDA notified Manufacturing of a product defect, and with just a few drag and drops of documents and communications to the responsible parties, we were able to rectify the situation far more quickly than is possible with today's technology. The very coolest demo was last. We entered a conference room designed for virtual collaborations. It had two round tables equipped with tablet PCs for all participants and huge screens subdivided into areas for display of materials and of photographs of the people at the meeting. Naturally the cameras could sense who was talking and automatically focus in on them. First we role-played as two groups, one in Seattle and another in Beijing, but by and by we needed to call in another colleague who was on a business trip in Chicago. The demo suite had a panel that pulls out into a pretend hotel bed, complete with stocked minibar to the side. One member of our group got into the bed, fired up a tablet PC, and beamed us the missing document. But now we needed to get the information to a doctor's office in yet another city. Yet another area of the suite was revealed to be a medical office stage set. A practical vision underlies all this techno-glitz, however: the idea of a fully networked world of medical information that gets the right treatment to the right person at the exact place and time of need.
Our group was given exclusive use of the Microsoft Visitor Center for a reception to conclude the visit. There, while enjoying drinks and appetizers we were invited to play with the Microsoft gadget of our choice. I do love those tablets! And many of us availed ourselves of the opportunity to send home an electronic postcard like this one.
