TechBits

Robots, AI, VR, IoT, and more!

Earlier this week, SCLS along with 10 other library systems,co-sponsored our annual Tech Days workshops in Fitchburg, Appleton, and Franklin. Financial support was also provided by the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction Public Library Development Team with support from the Institute of Museum and Library Services.

Jason Griffey was the keynote speaker for this year's event and he spoke on Preparing for the Future: Technology to Watch. We learned about the Internet of Things (IoT) and how ubiquitous some of these products have become. For example, you can get "smart" light bulbs, thermostats, outlets, door locks, security cameras, and even stickers! Jason also talked about all of the "voice assistants" like Google Home, Amazon's Alexa, and others. You can now get Alexa for your car with Amazon's Echo Auto and also for your microwave - who knew? Jason talked about the application of these technologies for libraries and some of the problems they present.

Jason shared lots of ideas and information about Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR), Artificial Intelligence (AI), Blockchain, and robots. There are some really cool VR applications (and we have a VR kit that SCLS libraries can borrow). Jason explained the blockchain and talked about cryptocurrency. I understand it a little better but am still learning about the implications of this emerging technology.

The AI and machine learning part of the presentation was probably the most interesting and the most scary to contemplate.For example, you've all heard about the driver-less cars and trucks that are coming soon. There are also robots that are providing security services, helper robots in the hospitality industry, and even a robot barista in San Francisco.

There were afternoon breakout sessions at each workshop and you can find the handouts and slides for all the presentations here. Hope to see you at Tech Days next year!

Office Compatibility Mode

You might have noticed “[Compatibility Mode]” started appearing in the title bar of some of your Word and Excel files after the recent Office 2016 upgrade.  This means that the document that you have opened was created with an older version of Microsoft Office.  Compatibility Mode ensures that people using older versions of Office will still be able to edit the document and the document will also maintain its intended format.

Documents created with Office 2007 or Office 2010 will display “[Compatibility Mode]” in the title bar when opened with Office 2013 or 2016.  Documents created with Office 2013 and opened with the 2016 version will not open in Compatibility Mode.  This is because 2013 and 2016 are compatible. 

There really is no reason to convert your older documents to the 2016 format unless there is some new feature or formatting option you are dying to use.  Remember, if you do convert them, people using older versions of Office might not be able to edit some components and the formatting may not appear as intended. 

Follow these instructions to convert Word documents to the 2016 file format:

1. Open the Word document
2. Click File
3. Click the Info menu option at the left
4. Next to Compatibility Mode, click Convert
5. Click OK
6. Save the document

For Excel:

1. Open the Excel document
2. Click File
3. Click the Info menu option at the left
4. Next to Compatibility Mode, click Convert
5. Click OK
6. Click Yes to close and reopen the workbook

What are you talking about?

Being one of two millennials working in this office, I find myself in conversations frequently about differences between the generations.  Someone will make a reference about licking a postage stamp and I reply with "That's cray".  This has led a co-worker to show me The Mindset List.  Created at Beloit College in 1998 as a way for college professors to understand the "mindset" of incoming students, it has been eye-opening for myself. 

A list has been created each year since 2002 and features 50+ items that young adults entering college that year know or don't know.  The lists can be used with adults today to better understand the differences in generations.  I think they would especially be helpful for libraries to not only understand their patrons but also potential job candidates.  The authors have also written two
books (both of which are available in LINKcat) and frequently present the information as well.  

The most recent list has some new slang, and I'll be honest that even I don't know what most of it means.  Take a look at the lists and I think you will find them interesting as well.

Implementing a PC Replacement Plan

Over the last several months at SCLS we’ve generated reports on how many PCs in our system are currently on Windows 7 and the number was surprisingly high. The reason this came up is because Microsoft will be ending its extended support of Windows 7 on January 14th, 2020. I’d like to take this opportunity to remind staff about the importance of implementing and maintaining a PC rotation plan.

SCLS recommends replacing 20% of your PCs every year (you don’t have to replace monitors that frequently). Let’s say you have 15 PCs at your library, then you should be planning on replacing 3 systems every year. This ensures all of your PCs will have a modern operating system and software. This is noteworthy because as we upgrade the software of our systems on a weekly basis the chances of those upgrades running into an incompatibility issue with the older operating system increases. An added benefit of having modern operating systems is that we don’t have to maintain the older servers and software licenses used to keep the older PCs on our network, which helps reduce costs.

Since it’s budget time for a lot of libraries, I’d like you to think of a rotation plan as a budgetary tool that helps spread the cost of buying new PCs over a five year period. If you know you have to replace 3 computers a year and the average cost of a new PC is around $500.00, then budgeting $1,500.00 per year for new PCs makes filling out your budget a little simpler.

We maintain an inventory of all the systems on our network and release a monthly Status Report available so libraries can see what the status their PCs are. Please take a look to see where your library is in the PC rotation cycle. If you see that you need to order some computers this year you can request a quote from our order form.

Using the Places Tab Search in Instagram

The Places tab is an often underutilized part of Instagram’s Search and Explore page. When you search for places, Instagram will feature the nine highest ranking posts in that location, followed by the most recent posts in chronological order.  This is a great way to engage with what’s happening in your local area. I found this very useful when we had local flooding recently.  It helped us find out what resources were available in our community to help with cleanup and local volunteer opportunities.

How to search Places:

• Go to the magnifying glass icon at the bottom of your profile.
• Search for the Places Tab (to the right).
• Select your desired location from the list.

From a posting perspective, remember to use the Places tag feature on your posts.  You may find you engage your local audience more and potentially gain new followers.

 

OverDrive's new status page

Did you see the news? As of September 4th, OverDrive has a new status page to communicate service issues at https://status.overdrive.com/.

OverDrive’s new status page is available to all staff and end users. You can visit the page at any time to view the status of browsing and searching, signing in, downloading, and reading and/or listening to a book. If services on the OverDrive side are running smoothly, their status will be listed as Operational. If a service is degraded or experiencing an outage, the status will be updated accordingly.

To be notified when issues are posted, you can follow the @OverDriveStatus Twitter account which will be automatically updated, or sign up for alerts via subscription options in the lower right corner of the page.

Please take a few minutes to visit the status page and feel free to share this with your staff. WPLC project managers will continue to send service alerts to the WPLC Announcements list and to the Google WPLC Support Community.

Contact Lists in Office 365

Have you ever wanted to send the same email out to a specific group of people? If it's a small group of people you can just enter all of their email addresses in your email. But if it is a large group of people entering all those email addresses is a chore. If you have to email these people more than once then it is a really big chore. You're thinking there must be an easier way to do this with today's modern technology. Well I'm going to tell you a way to do it using Outlook in Office 365.

In Outlook in Office 365 there are two ways to do this. One is to use a Group, which is a "powerful and productive platform that brings together conversations and calendar from Outlook, files from SharePoint, tasks from Planner, and a shared OneNote notebook into a single collaboration space." If you just want to send an email then using a Group is a little overkill. Don't get me wrong, it can be used to just send out emails. The second way, and much simpler I think, is to use a Contact List, which is just "a collection of email addresses."

So let me take you through the steps to create your very own contact list:

A. Log into your Outlook account
B. Go to the People page by either
     1. Click on the Office 365 app launcher icon, sometimes called the 'waffle' icon, in the upper left corner of the page

                      

     2. Click the "All apps" link
     3. Click the People icon

                  
    or
     1. Click People button at the lower left corner of the page

                     

C. Click on the down arrow next to "New"

D. Click on "Contact List"
E. Enter a name for your list
F. Start adding the email addresses of the people you want in your list
G. When you are done adding email addresses, click the Save button at the upper left corner of the page

That's it, easy right? Now the next time you want to email these people all you have to do is type the name of your list in the To field.

Wikipedia and Libraries

I love Wikipedia and probably use it daily to find answers to questions like "How many seasons of the show the Librarians are there?" Yet, as a librarian I feel like I can't fully trust it. Well, guess what? OCLC developed a training program that helps librarians learn to use Wikipedia more effectively and, better yet, trains them to edit Wikipedia entries. The materials were originally developed for a nine-week WebJunction course, and now they are available for all libraries to use.

https://www.webjunction.org/explore-topics/wikipedia-libraries/training-curriculum.html

Wikipedia + Librarians, because librarians ROCK!