OR 2010: day one, part two

day one, session two : comparative analysis of repository software

Rather a misnomer; the first presentation was a very brief discussion of a comparative analysis facilitated by three researchers, but the other presentations basically presented other repository solutions that were developed in European countries, and so not as familiar to those of us from the States (such as PubMan, from Germany). Of course, the initial presentation was United States-centric, although I'm sure they did not mean to be; we just don't share information well across the pond and/or across languages. So the other presentations were interesting in that they showed a different side of things.

In any case, it's apparent that any comparative analysis definitely requires more analysis of the information than just bare facts. Simply stating that DSpace has the most active support community because it has the most listserv messages is perhaps not a positive discovery that indicates good support; in fact, it could be taken to mean that the software is more problematic to use and requires more questions as a result. Or perhaps its status as the most widely-implemented repository only naturally leads to more listserv messages from more implementers. In any case, initial results of the analysis are available on a blog at blogs.lib.purdue.edu/rep. Take a look – what's your opinion?


day one, session three : interoperability policy

I'm afraid the organizers stretched a bit when they organized these presentations under "interoperability policy"; only one seemed to meet that criteria. That one, however, was quite an interesting presentation. I believe I heard about it before: DL.org and the interoperability challenge, an organized effort to establish guidelines among six different working groups that each concentrate on an aspect of digital libraries: content, user, functionality, policy, quality, and architecture.

Our presenter pointed out that initially, just using the word "digital library" was an interoperability question in itself, as there are also digital repositories, institutional repositories, and so on that are all included in this umbrella. Considering this, you can only imagine the complexities involved in the rest of the work.


poster madness

"Describe your poster in one minute or less. There will be a giant online stopwatch that the audience will see. They are instructed to start clapping, whether you are finished or not, when five seconds are left. Go."

I have to say, it was very entertaining. The stopwatch is available at http://www.online-stopwatch.com (they used the Large Stopwatch, counting down).


poster reception

And finally, more food. And beer, and wine. The hors d'oeurves were fascinating. Some were along the lines of something I might see on Top Chef. I have never before eaten some sort of whipped avocado cream topped with one teeny-tiny shrimp (or prawn, as you prefer) with a teeny-tiny spoon. And for those of us who might be a little weirded out by such things, there were also what appeared to be Lay's potato chips.

They certainly did feed us well.

p.s. the Spain vs. Germany World Cup semifinal is tomorrow night. At the same time as the conference dinner. Crisis! Crisis! But not to worry; they have arranged to show the World Cup while we eat.