Core Competency H:  Demonstrate proficiency in identifying, using, and evaluating current and emerging information and communication technologies.

Section 1. Interpretation of competency

Librarians are experts in information and communication technologies. This means having a breadth of knowledge that includes understanding database architecture, discovery systems, institutional repository solutions, and more. The breadth of knowledge must include understanding the technology even if it’s just at a fairly high level; familiarity with the names of the major vendors; having a working vocabulary around key terminology and terms of art; and monitoring the field for changes in technology, policy, and players.

One’s understanding of how to identify, use, and evaluate the tools that librarians use should become fuller and more granular the closer it is to one’s core job responsibilities. For example, a cataloger should know a lot about developments in linked data systems, changes in LOC subject headings, and business developments that might influence the behavior of vendors like OCLC. However, they might have less detailed knowledge about things like the differences between user interfaces for popular databases and the systems that support circulation functions like interlibrary loan or course reserve materials.

While it is important to know about the technical underpinnings of communication and information technologies, whether in detail or just in passing depending on one’s role, understanding how and when to apply them is the sort of knowledge that distinguishes an information professional from other occupations. This entails the ability to synthesize different data points in order to visualize the connections between service and solution then apply those ideas to various LIS settings in a way that is sensible and stainable.

Section 2. Reference to supporting evidence

Evidence One. Academic Assignment.

Metadata Issues in Blockchain Technology. Paper written for Seminar in Contemporary Issues – Metadata (INFO 282) that examines the current state of blockchain technology and discusses several potential library applications particularly administrative metadata and peer review needs.

Depending on whom you ask, blockchain is either the greatest new innovation in recent years or a flash in the pan bubble. However as new applications for blockchain appear every day from lettuce to democracy, it becomes clearer that blockchain is here to stay.

This paper examined the role that blockchain can have in managing administrative metadata particularly in terms of access, rights management, licensing, and preservation. It also looked at how the transparent yet anonymous character of blockchain coupled with the ability to decentralize resources means that blockchain can be used by for scholarly communications, address issues of reproducibility in scientific research, and even safeguard free speech.

Evidence Two. Academic Assignment.

Technology topic report: Linked open data and institutional repositories . Paper written for the course Library Automation: Emerging Technology (INFO 241-12).

Institutional repositories such as DSpace and Digital Commons are designed around flat bibliographic standards. Meanwhile big data expectations have created the need for universities to quantify the fruits of their research and not just make them openly available. This paper looked at the rise of software platforms designed to collect and link metadata from different types of scholarly activities. Specifically, this means that funding can be linked to everything that is produced through the research lifecycle enabling grantees the ability to prove value.

I selected this to show competence in this area because I feel strongly that this type of linking will continue to be valuable in many LIS settings. In fact, I first heard about the research information management product (Symplectic Elements) that I now work with while writing this paper. I was working at my old job at UNH at the time and I heard that they were thinking about adopting Elements to replace an outgrown system. I expressed an interest in it both to my boss and to the people who were looking at the product and then several months later I was asked to help write up some of the requirements. Around that time I also started looking for a more professional position and found my current job working at BU where I run the publications module for out instance of Elements. This past summer I was asked to be part of a customer panel at the annual Symplectic User Conference held at Carnegie Mellon University. It’s typically not possible to put a dollar amount on an unpublished school paper, but researching this topic has clearly proved to be very valuable to me.

Section 3. Application of competency

I feel that it is important for an information professional to stay current with emerging technologies by reading the literature, attending conferences, and following listservs. I regularly read journals such as “Library Hi Tech” and “Idealis.” I follow the listserv scholcomm and I am on emails lists for ACRL, the Boston Library Consortium (BLC), and others. I also attend conferences and other meetups.

It was at a meetup of the group Boston-OA that I learned about a new project that I am now involved with, the Open Access Tracking Project (OATP). This is a resource that seeks to collect, classify, and disseminate information about open access. I am trying to start an OATP group at SJSU in order to sustain the OATP database as an ongoing resource. So far the group is still very much in its formative phase, I hope to be able to dedicate more time to this in the months to come.

Another project I am involved with will help me with my current job. The Public Access Submission System (PASS) is a web application that leverages the APIs and other programmatic hooks from various subject repositories to allow deposits into multiple repositories from just one interface. With PASS my involvement has been more that of facilitator than leader; I introduced one of the developers of PASS to the team at Symplectic in the hopes that they might be able to integrate PASS into Symplectic Elements.