So Steve Lawson posted about the idea of a practical conference around solving people’s coding problems. For people who are comfortable with the notion of coding, but may not have all the chops they need.

You can read his post for more details and some great comments.

Some questions that come to mind, some of which have already been raised

• Better name than code4you?
• Should it be online(and if so using what software, and synchronous, asynchronous or a mix of both)?
• When?
• Free? Fee?
• If offline, where?
• What topics?

Bonus points - check out Dorothea’s post, since she can actually write and has thought about (and done) this stuff before. And there’s a lively discussion on FriendFeed about what should be taught.

I just saw the news on BUSLIB-L (as reported by Gary Price on ResourceShelf, and if you’re not already following DocuTicker and ResourceShelf you’re missing out on some great information sources) that the SEC is transitioning from EDGAR to IDEA.

EDGAR is the current database for corporate filings - annual and quarterly financials, significant changes, filings from foreign issuers, prospectuses, etc. and is based on receiving filings from companies.

It sounds like the new approach is based on tagging elements of financial filings (I assume using XBRL) so that users and vendors can scoop up the data and add their own processing. Expect a lot of excitement about this in Semantic Web circles. What do you think?

I’m brooding about my larger professional involvement these days.

Since I joined SLA, I’ve:

• shamefully neglected my responsibilities for contributing to the SLA IT Division Blogging Section Blog
• let the chapter blog I’m editor for deteriorate into something that’s largely a repository for event listings already posted to the mailing list
• not gone to any events other than board meetings and one dine-around (which I was late to)

Admittedly, I have made efforts to drum up contributions to the blog, but obviously not hard enough. And the reason I haven’t attended events is because, without a car, I’m pretty much condemned to take multiple buses and/or trains to any given event starting several hours beforehand.

I also joined AIIP. And have since become one of those people they (rightfully) look down on, someone who dipped his toe in the water when he was unemployed and hasn’t taken the plunge and started his own business. I’m late with a book review I promised, the one solid obligation I had.

So while I’m learning at the new job, I feel I’m a failure in terms of the larger profession.

Hotel reservations are set up, I just have to bite the bullet now and register for Internet Librarian 2008. I’ll be there Saturday-Tuesday. I do encourage people staying on longer to check out danah boyd’s keynote, as I found her a passionate, engaging and intelligent speaker at the New School in 2007.

Sessions I’m contemplating:

• (Saturday) Either W5 – Integrating RSS Into Your Website or W7 – Practical Project Management
• (Sunday) Either W19 – Open Source CMS for Libraries or W20 – Project Management in Practice or W24 – Knowledge Structure, KM, & Traditional Library Skills
• (Monday) OPENING KEYNOTE — Communities & Communication in a Social & Mobile World and D104 – Practical Guide to a User-Focused Digital Library
• (Tuesday) A201 – Enterprise Trends: Beyond the Simple Intranet and A202 – Finding Corporate Knowledge

Would love to meet other corporate librarians who may or may not exist, maybe brainstorm about presentations for next year.

Corporate librarians who may or may not exist, especially in the mountain states or on the West Coast, should check out the Library Camp of the West. Last I saw, Frontier Airlines prices were looking pretty reasonable. I dither as to whether to go to this or Internet Librarian. If you’re curious how many library camps have happened, someone created a page on LISWiki. Over two years, so not just a passing fad.

My fellow Steve posts about how he, Laura Crossett and Joe Kraus got things off the ground and is looking for advice.

So here’s my Wordle for this blog:

Looking at it, an awful lot is focused on jobs. Sadly, other topics that would be of interest I don’t really have good advice on. How to deal with IT when you want to try new things? Wasn’t an issue at the last job, not an issue (for different reasons) at the current job. Marketing myself? Not much of a way to do that at the last job, no need at the current job (where there are four or five other people, all of whom know what I do).

I’m not sure how much I can blog about the current job, honestly.

I likely won’t be going to many conferences until my finances improve (though I might lobbycon Internet Librarian). For all my talk about wanting hands-on workshops, I haven’t gotten anywhere on planning an unconference.

So honestly, I’m not sure where the blog is going from here.

One note: Until I can figure out a better solution, I’m addressing my earlier bewailing of the lack of online meeting places for corporate librarians by creating a Room on FriendFeed. People can post their thoughts, or comment on other people’s posts or share links of various sorts.

Because I was worried I was misrepresenting her, I reached out to Susan Klopper about her comments at the SLA SAAAC panel. She graciously agreed to take the time to elaborate and to allow me to post her further comments.

I stand by my comment at the student career panel at SLA that corporate libraries don’t exist anymore, but let me add some clarification to my viewpoint. First, it is just my opinion, but one that comes from 18+ years working in a corporate library and personally experiencing the dramatic shift in that market space. That said, of course, many do still exist and will continue in the future to be supported by their organizations. But that number, relative to the market, is small and getting smaller every day. With the commoditization of information that has taken place over the past 8-10 years, I don’t see companies ever being willing (and one could well argue the errors in their thinking) to invest in corporate libraries as they once existed. But if you read the rest of my thought about this in the blog, my stating that corporate libraries are dead was not intended as a final statement, but rather as a challenge to the future librarians sitting in the room to think about what lessons might be learned about their demise and how they might position their skills, competencies and passion for working in a corporate environment in ways that will more successfully speak to the interests, strategies, focus of corporate organizations. When an upcoming librarian asks me about working in a corporate library, I ask them to describe to me how they envision that experience ,what they are doing each day, who they are working with. If that vision is defined by a library in any capacity, I can not in all truth endorse the career path. However, if that vision is focused on bringing the skill sets, knowledge, networking strengths we own into the organization and deploying and embedding them as needed within the organizational structure - then I say YES, that is how we demonstrate our value in terms that the organization can measure. And who knows, perhaps if we work our way through organizations on their terms, holding ourselves up to the business models they value, we may make some progress towards elevating librarians and libraries as a core organizational function.
Just my 2 cents - susan klopper

The blog I’m very, very behind in writing anything for, the SLA-IT Blogging Section blog, has notes by Nicole Engard on a career panel at the annual SLA Conference (which I sorely wish I was attending). One interesting quote from Susan Klopper, which mirrors what I’ve found out here:

If you want to work in a library in a corporation - i would strongly recommend you don’t do that because they don’t exist anymore.

Oh, there are still jobs, but they’re not library jobs for the most part. Read Nicole’s post to learn more.

May 16th I got an email from an acquaintance about a potential job. May 19th we talked on the phone, and a few days after that I sent on a resume, writing sample and references. June 2nd I flew up to meet with him and another person. June 9th I got emailed a more formalized job description, and June 12th I asked for a contract.

Which I received on Friday and mailed signed copies of yesterday.

Three month job, hopefully leading to something permanent. I’ll check exactly what I can and can’t say about it, but it involves both knowledge management and research.

For those of you still looking, College@Home offers over 100 job resources for prospective librarians. Granted, a number of them are oriented towards academic or public library jobs, but even so the list should be useful.

Hopefully I should have some good job news of my own to announce on the blog soon.