You’ll get the sense that this week’s Thursday Threads is stacked towards cultural awareness. First is the view of a developer of the female gender in a room of peers at a meeting of the Digital Public Library of America. The second thread is a pointer to a story about Facebook’s software release process, and it leads into a story about the role of alcohol in technology conferences and reflections from the library technology community.

DLTJ Thursday Threads is a weekly summary of technology, library, and publishing topics (and anything else that crosses my path that is worth calling out). Feel free to send this to others you think might be interested in the topics. If you find these threads interesting and useful, you might want to add the Thursday Threads RSS Feed to your feed reader or subscribe to e-mail delivery using the form to the right. New this year is that Pinboard has replaced FriendFeed as my primary aggregation service. If you would like a more raw and immediate version of these types of stories, watch my Pinboard bookmarks (or subscribe to its feed in your feed reader). Items posted to are also sent out as tweets; you can follow me on Twitter. Comments and tips, as always, are welcome.

An Inclusive Table

But here I am, with a constant background obsession, now, of how to get more librarians involved (and involved more deeply) in tech, how to foster collaboration on library technology projects, which is inseparable from the problem of how to get more women involved more deeply and collaboratively in technology. So I can’t not look at that room and see how the status lines fracture, along code mastery but coincidentally also gender, written in the physical geography of the room, where I’m the only one sitting at the table. I can’t not wonder, how can I create spaces which redraw those lines.

- my first hackathon; or, gender, status, code, and sitting at the table, by Andromeda Yelton

Andromeda attended the DPLA hackathon last Thursday and posted this very pointed view of the perceptions of women in library technology.

A Behind-the-Scenes Look at Facebook Release Engineering

I recently had a unique opportunity to visit Facebook headquarters and see that story in action. Facebook gave me an exclusive behind-the-scenes look at the process it uses to deploy new functionality. I watched first-hand as the company’s release engineers rolled out the new “timeline” feature for brand pages.

That was where I met Chuck Rossi, the release engineering team’s leader. Rossi, whose workstation is conveniently located within arm’s reach of the hotfix bar’s plentiful supply of booze, is a software industry veteran who previously worked at Google and IBM. I spent a fascinating afternoon with Rossi and his team learning how they roll out Facebook updates—and why it’s important that they do so on a daily basis.

- Exclusive: a behind-the-scenes look at Facebook release engineering, by Ryan Paul, Ars Technica

I’m pointing to this story for two reasons. First, it is a fascinating look at how one of the top internet operations manages its processes for rolling out new software. Second, how the wheels of the release process are greased feeds into the third story below.

Our Culture of Exclusion

Lately there have been a lot of great articles being written and discussion happening around sexism in the tech industry. And the flames are being fanned by
several high profile incidents of people saying and doing just plain stupid things.

It reminded me of this draft post just sitting here, uncommitted. For quite a while I’ve been collecting links, tweets and other stuff to illustrate another problem that’s been affecting me (and other people, surely). I thought it was finally time to write the post and bring this up because, honestly, I feel excluded too.

- Our Culture of Exclusion, Ryan Funduk’s blog

The role of alcohol in technology events was a topic of discussion on Twitter and elsewhere at the end of last week. There is a term for this that I heard for the first time last week — brogrammer — and I don’t think it is a flattering persona for the technology profession. The way in which Facebook releases its code, described in the thread above, is one data point. Ryan’s message, quoted above, points to some high-profile conferences where alcohol seems to play a central part of the event. His article was the source of some introspection among the Code4Lib community as well.

Code4Lib Discussion of "Culture of Exclusion"

Storified by Peter Murray · Wed, Apr 11 2012 23:09:38

@yo_bj @mjgiarlo @anarchivist @lljohnston @sshreeves @jmarkockerbloom barrel aged munster? Dan

Talk of #code4lib and social reminds me I’m hoping to play some board games for #code4lib13. Lot easier to bring when driving Jon Gorman

@mjgiarlo that being said, I’m a huge fan of the craft beer parts. Tim Donohue

@mjgiarlo coolio I didn’t realize that.Tim Donohue

Thanks to everyone for participating in the first Code4Lib Virtual Lightning Talks on Friday. In particular, my gratitude goes out to Ed Corrado, Luciano Ramalho, Michael Appleby, and Jay Luker being the first presenters to try this scheme for connecting library technologists. My apologies also to those who couldn’t connect, in particular to Elias Tzoc Caniz who had signed up but found himself locked out by a simultaneous user count in the presentation system. Recordings of the presentation audio and screen capture video are now up in the Internet Archive.

Lessons Learned

Second, some comments I got were about cranky Java applets and applications. LYRASIS has two conference tools at its disposal — Java-based Centra and Flash-based Acrobat Connect — and I chose Centra because running Flash on LINUX is an issue. Maybe this will need to be revisited (or maybe there is another Java-based conference system that can do better).

Third, since we were not limited by space and other timing constraints, can the five-minutes-per-presenter limit be relaxed? I have mixed feelings about this; I think defined time limits promote better presentations, but the four presentations this first go-around went to the end of the five minute time limit and there was no opportunity for questions or audience interaction.

On the whole, it seemed like a positive experience from my perspective and from that of the feedback I’ve received so far. I’m going to start a conversation thread in Code4LibCon (where all of the Code4Lib meeting planning discussion takes place) to see if it is worthwhile to do again and to identify what should be done differently. If you are interested, please consider joining and contributing to the discussion. Or e-mail me privately and I’ll reflect your comments into the group discussion.

One of the highlights of the Code4Lib annual meeting is the “lightning talk” rounds. A lightning talk is a fast-paced 5 minute talk on a topic of the presenter’s choosing. They are usually scheduled on an ad-hoc, first-come-first-served basis on the day of the event. They are an opportunity to provide a platform for someone who is just getting started with public speaking, who wants to ask a question or invite people to help with a project, or for someone to boast about something he or she did or tell a short cautionary story. These things are all interesting and worth talking about, but there might not be enough to say about them to fill up a full session timeslot.

“Virtual Lightning Talks” replicates this conference activity online in a virtual meeting environment. Each one-hour block consists of 10 six-minute sessions (one minute for the presenter to take control of the virtual meeting environment and test audio followed by a five minute presentation). Presenters show their work by sharing their entire desktop; the presentation can consist of slides, web browser, command-line shell, or any other application that can be shown on the desktop.

The first round will be on April 4th at 1:30pm Eastern U.S. Daylight Time. The Virtual Lightning Talks page on the Code4Lib wiki has more information and space to sign up to be a presenter or attendee.

I’m pleased to be able to report a successful running of a BarCamp here earlier this week. Billed as BarCampOhio/LibraryCampOhio — a mixture of .com and library technologists — we had a good turnout and a lively discussion on a variety of topics. Thanks and gratitude go out to OCLC for offering the space free-of-charge and to T-Mobile for sponsoring the event lunch.

We had about 35 people for the event, including out-of-state’rs from Pennsylvania and Maryland. Being a BarCamp, some of the most valuable conversations were the ones that weren’t organized, but among the organized topics the participants talked about Drupal, social media / marketing / community building, hardware and software management, virtualization and cloud computing, and SOLR.

At the end of the day, we did a wrap-up and came out with a good set of suggestions for the next BarCampOhio attempt. I thought I’d put them to permanence here for the benefit of others who try in the future.

One group of suggestions were around the structure of the ideas to be talked about. Someone suggested the use of 5-minute “lightning talks” at the start of the event to get some creative juices flowing about potential topics for the rest of the day. Another participant suggested posting potential topics online prior to the event, conducting a survey, then find presenters to give an informed overview of the highest ranked topics prior to launching into the discussion. Someone else thought that the organizers could frame expectations for the day better by suggesting that participants bring notions of topics that interest them rather thinking about bringing prepared presentations. One person suggested using the Pecha Kucha (20 slides, 20 seconds each) format.

Related ideas dealt with the “take away” aspects of the meeting. Some desired more capture and recording of the discussions of the meeting. (There was a pretty good recording of some of the conversation under the #barcampohio Twitter hash-tag.) There was even mention of an “Action Item Camp” format — I’m going to have to go look that one up.

Other suggestions fell into the category of event logistics. More t-shirt size were desired, and for the next go-around I think adding a question for requested t-shirt size to the registration form would be a good idea. Someone suggested breaking popular topics into the morning and afternoon to handle the desire to be in more than one conversation at a time. Another suggested planning and describing what was going to happen after lunch before we went to lunch so as not to loose too much momentum in the post-lunch energy drift. Organizers need to test technology and make sure there is prevalent wifi in the venue. (I thought OCLC did fine in this respect — particularly with the addition of several hardwired ethernet hubs around the room — but we didn’t ask folks until the weekend before to bring ethernet cables so they could use the hubs.)

For other ideas on the day, see Dan Rockwell’s great summary of the event and how to make it better.

Some financial details. My part in the planning was setting up registration and handling the money parts. Very early in discussing our ideas for BarCampOhio, Bob and I debated whether or not to charge a registration fee. It doesn’t seem common for BarCamps to do this, but we thought it important to get a sense of who was coming so we could make plans for room sizes, food needed, and so forth. We figured if someone paid a token amount $25, they are most likely going to come. We also weren’t sure if sponsors would come forward to underwrite the costs of the event. (Sponsors did.) After a bit of research, I found Eventbrite — they had just enough of a service for just the right fee for what we needed. For a $25/ticket event, Eventbrite charges 99-cents. PayPal was the payment service (Google Checkout was also an option); on a $25 ticket, PayPal took about $1.03 in fees (less if a person paid for more than one ticket). We had 36 people register, grossing $900 and netting $857.84. The t-shirts cost $460, and I’m not sure how much the food will cost. We should break just about even, though.

Update 20080905T1600 : An update on the financial picture. The catering cost for morning and afternoon breaks at the conference center was $384.30. With all income and expenses now recorded, the event was a net loss of $18.11. The details are in a Google Spreadsheet, should you want to take a look.

I had a very good time, made some new connections, and learned a bit as well. It was great working with Bob and Brandon and Laura to put BarCampOhio/LibraryCampOhio together. Think the event should be done again? Have other comments or suggestions? Post ‘em here.

The text was modified to remove a link to http://www.floozyspeak.com/blog/archives/2008/08/barcampohio_tho.html on July 13th, 2011.

 Download iCal file

What is a BarCamp?¹

The procedural framework consists of sessions proposed and scheduled each day by attendees, mostly on-site, typically using white boards or paper taped to the wall. While loosely structured, there are rules at BarCamp. All attendees are encouraged to present or facilitate a session. Everyone is also asked to share information and experiences of the event, both live and after the fact, via public web channels including (but not limited to) blogging, photo sharing, social bookmarking, wiki-ing, and IRC. This open encouragement to share everything about the event is in deliberate contrast to the “off the record by default” and “no recordings” rules at many private invite-only participant driven conferences.

If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to contact anyone on the BarCampOhio/LibraryCampOhio team.

Footnotes

1. Description adapted from the BarCamp Wikipedia entry.

Download iCal file

What’s planned is a dual-track unconference of business technologists and library technologists. Why? We think there is synergy between these groups:

Library technologists have:

• Strong roots in all of our communities
• A couple decades of experience dealing with massive amounts of data
• Great sensitivity to privacy and identity management on a limited scale

Business technologists have:

• Around 8 or more years of experience dealing with Web-scale applications and problems
• Have a get-it-done-NOW need
• Typically have more marketing experience and/or resources

Registration fee will be about $25 per person. A registration service will be announced soon, but in the meantime you can add your name to the list of interested people towards the bottom of the BarCampOhio wiki page. (PBwiki.com accounts required; the wiki-password/invite-key is “c4mp”.)

Thanks, Noel, and everyone else who made the video editions of Code4Lib 2008 presentations possible. I just had a chance to notice that the video from my JPEG2000 to Zoomify Shim lightning talk was online:

Some updates since the post and the presentation were first done. The code that exists in the source code repository now was refactored to use JJ2000 as part of the Sun ImageIO package. We were seeing non-threadsafe problems with Kakadu and thought that using the multithreaded ImageIO package would help. Unfortunately, even with extensive caching, it did not. My next task is to bring Kakadu back into the picture using the threadsafe JNI implementation that is part of the ImageIO-ext project to see if that helps.

Unfortunately, time ran out before this needed to go into initial production with the OhioLINK DRC roll-out, so it isn’t in production. The scheme shows promise, though, so I’m going to keep working with it…

The text was modified to update a link from http://jj2000.epfl.ch/ to http://code.google.com/p/jj2000/ on January 28th, 2011.

The text was modified to remove a link to https://jai-imageio.dev.java.net/ on June 9th, 2011.

This is a textual representation of a lightning talk done on Feb 26th at Code4Lib 2008. When the video of the talk is up (thanks, Noel!) I’ll link it here, too. The video is now available, and that article includes an update on progress since the this article was posted.

OhioLINK has a collection of JPEG2000 images as an access format that were generated for use in our DLXS-based content system. We are in the process of migrating those collections to DSpace and were looking for a mechanism to leverage the existing JPEG2000 files and not have to generate new derivatives. We are also considering the use of JPEG2000 as a preservation format, and would find it attractive to use the same image format for both access copies and preservation copies. We looked at Zoomify, but to perform its scaling function it generates JPEG tiles at several resolutions and storing those tiles can triple or quadruple disk space requirements. Or, one could use the ‘enterprise’ version of Zoomify and its proprietary PFF format or the equally proprietary MrSID format. We didn’t want to be locked into either of these scenarios. Our solution is to create a web application that mimics the directory-of-JPEG-tiles solution, but to dynamically generate the tiles our of a JPEG2000 master.

The free version of Zoomify reads JPEG tiles out of a directory structure that looks like this:

The shim mimics that directory structure. It parses the URL of the request and dynamically creates the appropriate JPEG tile (or metadata file) out of the JPEG2000 image.

The Code

The source code is available from the OhioLINK DRC source code repository (Subversion access). We plan to integrate it into DSpace 1.5 as part of the Ohio Digital Resource Commons, and I may create a Fedora disseminator to serve up the tiles as well.

Thanks go out to Keith Gilbertson and John Davison on the OhioLINK staff for their help in making this work as well as Stu Hicks and François d’Erneville for being a sounding board for these ideas.

The text was modified to remove a link to https://drc-dev.ohiolink.edu/browser/j2kTileRenderer/trunk on January 13th, 2011.

The text was modified to update a link from http://code4lib/conference/2008 to http://code4lib.org/conference/2008 on January 28th, 2011.

The text was modified to update a link from http://www.kakadusoftware.com/Purchasing.html to http://www.kakadusoftware.com/index.php?option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=19&vmcchk=1&Itemid=19 on January 28th, 2011.

The Columbus Metropolitan Library, OCLC, and Ohio State University and OhioLINK have put in a bid as host site for the 2009 Code4Lib meeting. Code4Lib is an informal organization of self-selected librarians and technology professionals. It exists as a volunteer organization run by consensus of interested individuals. The meeting in 2009 will be the fifth fourth¹ face-to-face meeting of this group. Details of the central Ohio host location proposal are on the web at http://roytennant.com/code4lib2009.html

Information about becoming a member of the Code4Lib community and voting in the host site selection process are included below.

The meeting is conducted in an “unconference” or “barCamp” format. It is a highly democratic style consisting of prepared talks, “lightning talks” (described below) and breakouts; the meeting schedule is divided almost equally between these three components. Prepared talks are 20 minutes long and are proposed by speakers prior to the meeting. Proposals are voted on by the entire Code4Lib community, and the highest ranking ones are slotted into the schedule. “Lightning talks” are 5 minutes long and are assigned on a first-come, first-scheduled basis at the start of the meeting. Prepared talks and lightning talks are presented to the entire attendee body (e.g. a single-track meeting); they are also usually recorded and published to the web after the meeting. Time slots for breakouts are built into the schedule and rooms are provided by the conference organizers. Attendees create breakout sessions at the meeting on any topic on a first-come, first-scheduled basis.

If you have any questions about Code4Lib in general or the central Ohio site proposal in particular, please let me know.

Code4Lib Host Site Voting Process

We received four very good proposals for hosting the 2009 conference, and now it is time to vote on them! Voting is open until 3am Eastern Time on Thursday, February 28th. We expect to announce results at the conference later that day.

How to vote:

1. Go here: http://dilettantes.code4lib.org:6789/election/index/3
2. Log in using your code4lib.org credentials (register at code4lib.org if you haven’t done so already)
3. Click on a host’s name to read the proposal in full
4. Assign the proposal a rank from 0 to 3, 0 being least desirable and 3 being the most.
5. Once you are satisfied with your rankings, click “Cast your ballot”

Feel free to watch
http://dilettantes.code4lib.org:6789/election/results/3 for returns.

And as always, if you have questions or other feedback, let us know.

-Mike

P.S. Your vote counts! Please keep the conference requirements and desirables in mind as you make your selection: http://code4lib.org/conference/hosting

P.P.S. The election not powered by Diebold.

The text was modified to update a link from http://dilettantes.code4lib.org:6789/election/index/3 to http://vote.code4lib.org/election/index/3 on January 28th, 2011.

The text was modified to update a link from http://dilettantes.code4lib.org:6789/election/results/3 to http://vote.code4lib.org/election/results/3 on January 28th, 2011.

Footnotes

1. Thanks for the correction, Mike!

Earlier I mentioned creating a Google Custom Search for Planet Code4Lib. The Google-supplied markup puts a form on your web page that leads to Google’s server farm. (Alternatively, you can create a custom URL that points to an HTML page at Google which contains the form.) Well, that’s really neat, but not far enough. How about an OpenSearch plugin suitable for Firefox and MSIE7? Here is the plugin markup:

< ?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
 <opensearchdescription xmlns="http://a9.com/-/spec/opensearch/1.1/" xmlns:moz="http://www.mozilla.org/2006/browser/search/">
   <shortname>Planet Code4Lib</shortname>
   <description>Search the bloggers of Planet Code4Lib using Google Custom Search.</description>
   <inputencoding>UTF-8</inputencoding>
   <tags>code4lib library</tags>
   <contact>peter@OhioLINK.edu</contact>
   <url type="text/html" template="http://www.google.com/cse?q={searchTerms}&amp;cx=017716194421589436379:zdoxzpetaxk&amp;sa=Search&amp;cof=FORID:0">
      <image height="16" width="16" type="image/png">
data:image/png;base64,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</image>
      <adultcontent>false</adultcontent>
      <moz :searchform>http://dltj.org/2006/10/google-custom-search-for-planet-code4lib/
   </moz></url>
</opensearchdescription>

Pretty neat, eh? This link will install the search definition in Firefox and MSIE7.

Is this going too far?

For purposes of the Terms of Use, “Site” shall mean the Web site or sites on which You place JavaScript or similar programming (“Code”) which renders the Google search box (or other means used by users of the Site (“End Users”) to enter a search query (“Query”)) on the Site (“Search Box”). All Queries sent from the Site to Google shall comply with the technical specifications that Google may provide from time to time, and and must originate from the Site.

So I’m not really using JavaScript, but I am using XML markup. Can “Site” mean the user’s web browser interface? Further on in the ToS:

1.3 Your Obligations.
You shall receive a Query from the End User and shall forward that Query
to Google. You may not in any way frame or cache the Results produced
by Google, except as otherwise agreed to between You and Google. Google
will not be responsible for receiving Queries from End Users or for
transmission of data between You and Google’s network interface. You
shall be responsible for providing all hardware and software required
to perform Your obligations under the Terms of Use, including but not
limited to the following: (a) implementing and maintaining the Site,
(b) implementing and maintaining the interface between the Site and
the Service, and (c) receiving a Query from an End User and transmitting
the Query to Google.

So with the search plugin, I’m not receiving the query — rather I’m facilitating the process of forwarding the query from the user’s browser to Google. So far, so good, I think. The search plugin doesn’t frame or cache the results; I’m okay with that clause. With regard to my obligations, I’ll maintain DLTJ as the source of the OpenSearch XML configuration file (unless someone wants to put it directly on code4lib.org somewhere), but again DLTJ is not sitting between the end user and Google so I don’t think points (b) and (c) apply.

Too much legalese. In the spirit of mashups everywhere, I’ll put this out and ask for forgiveness if it violates Google’s sensibilities rather than asking for permission first.