JohnMarkOckerbloom

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Your Library template and blog post

Hi John. My name is Pat, I go as The Interior on-wiki. I'm a library sciences student up north. I read your recent Everybody's Libraries blog post, and am very intrigued by the new template. The editor of our online newspaper has asked me if I can put together an op-ed piece. Would you be willing to do a short interview? Email, skype, phone, whichever you prefer. Look forward to hearing from you, The Interior (Talk) 03:11, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for getting in touch. I'm afraid I'm not feeling well today, and can't do much more on the phone or Skype other than croak. I might be available later in the week to talk, or might be able to answer some questions by email (address can be found on my blog under "John Mark Ockerbloom" link on sidebar) JohnMarkOckerbloom (talk) 12:37, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

Sorry to hear your poorly, John. I've sent some questions to your penn address. Hope you get feeling better! (Here's a link to our online paper if you're not familiar with it yet :WP:SIGNPOST) The Interior (Talk) 02:00, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the Forward to Libraries service

Hi John. First, I want to thank you for the Forward to Libraries service. Thanks very much. This is such a great idea I wonder why somebody didn't think of it before. I have left a comment at Template talk:Library resources box#How should library links be presented on Wikipedia?, but wanted to follow up with you here. The FTL service seems like a great resource for our readers, but the 'box" format is probably not appropriate for a link to an external service. The box format is pretty much reserved for things that are run by the Wikimedia Foundation. If you are willing, the service could probably be hosted at WMFLabs, which is the Wikimedia Foundation's servers for running software tools created by its users/volunteers. If it runs there, the box format would probably be just fine. You can find more information about WMFLabs at mw:Wikimedia Labs. If you need help, user MPelletier (WMF) (talk · contribs) is spearheading an effort ot help people set up their software tools on WMFLabs and can probably give you more specific information. I think this would be a great service to our readers and hope that we can find a way to use it on all our appropriate articles. Best regards. 64.40.54.61 (talk) 08:51, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

Setting your tool up on the labs

Hello,

So, yes, I'm more than happy to give you a hand setting up the FTL service on the WMF Labs. The process isn't very well documented at this time, but there is a brief outline here that outlines how things work on the Tool Labs. Your first step is to create an account on the Wikitech wiki, which is the portal to all things Labs.

The easiest way for me to help up is on IRC, if you are familiar with it; the Wikimedia project have a number of channels on [feenode.net Freenode], including #wikimedia-labs where I can almost always be found and where I'll be glad to help you in real-time. Otherwise, I'm reachable by email and on my talk page for any questions.

— MPelletier (WMF) ^(talk) 19:14, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

Thank you very much for offering to help! Following your link, I have created a Wikitech account, and confirmed my email address with the service. It sounds like Wikitech account creation automatically generates a shell access request, so I'm now awaiting a response to that. If that goes through, I'll start trying to port the forwarding service over to the Labs. I'll let you know if I run into any roadblocks or unexpected delays. JohnMarkOckerbloom (talk) 19:56, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

I've granted you shell access and given your account membership in the tools project. There is a (terse, but workable) overview here which should help get you started and I am (almost) always reachable on IRC as Coren as I mentioned above. Don't hesitate to look me up. — MPelletier (WMF) ^(talk) 02:23, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

In re. your latest email, I'll forward your requirements to Legal and we'll hash out how we can do this from there. In the meantime, if you wish, we can test your tool without the 'your library' functionality so we'll be ready once we figure out how to work the latter? — MPelletier (WMF) ^(talk) 03:17, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

Thanks! Actually, the 'your library' functionality already partially works; but on Wikimedia Labs it only works now for cookie-based library identification, not IP-based library identification. But I'm happy to have folks test out what's there now. (The data files are not as up to date as they are on the Penn installation, but I plan to work out a way to sync them up regularly, possibly via Github.) Let me know if you'd like me to do anything in particular to facilitate testing. (I already have a page on my site to exercise the WMF-based forwarder, for instance. I'll try signing on to chat late this afternoon if you want to talk more.)

Updating you article

Hello again, Dr. Ockerbloom. I have been updating your Wikipedia article and just realized I'm familiar with your Banned Books website from the old CDA kerfuffle days on usenet back in the 90's. I must say it's a real pleasure having you here helping on Wikipedia. Sorry you haven't received a more friendly welcome. The community here can be quite trying at times. Anyhoo, if you see anything wrong on your article, please leave a message on the article's talk page and I will correct it right away. Thanks. 64.40.54.93 (talk) 00:38, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

A cup of tea for you!

Hello, I'm just coming by to tell you that your initiative to close the gap between Wikipedia and libraries is very much appreciated! It's great and sooo important - asking any teacher or student about the use of Wikipedia leads to the conclusion that Wikipedia should be only a first step for research, but it often ends there... I really love your idea to make the next step to libraries easier! I'm very glad about the plans to move this to Wikimedialabs. Because of the cookies (should best not be 3rd party) and because this will hopefully allow to integrate this more and more with ISBN and special:bookresources. And i hope it will become more global (libraries in Germany, India, ...) Please, keep up the good work, you're doing something great! Atlasowa (talk) 10:23, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

Library resources box

Hello Mr. Ockerbloom, Thank you this great idea. I would like to use it, but it doesn't work with all words! For example, if was trying the template for "University of Ottawa‏", viaf=149530551, but when I click on any library catalogue, the result is always the home page of the library, not search results. Is there something wrong I'm doing? Thank you for your help. --Cephas (talk) 23:58, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

No, you're not doing anything wrong; it's just that FTL wasn't able to resolve the VIAF ID, and therefore it fell back to just putting you on your local library's home page so you could at least do a search yourself. The forwarder currently takes some shortcuts on resolving IDs, in this case relying on a pre-calculated table of VIAF ID correspondences to Wikipedia articles, and not trying to do live fetches from VIAF as a backup. In this case, there was no previously recorded match of UO's VIAF ID and Wikipedia article, so my forwarder didn't know what to do.

I'll try to make the program smarter about VIAF resolution in the future, but when you come across cases like this, one workaround is to fall back to using the template's lcheading parameter (set it to "University of Ottawa"), and omitting the viaf parameter. This tells the forwarder the specific heading it should use for library searches. Let me know if you have any questions. JohnMarkOckerbloom (talk) 17:01, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

Forward to Libraries service

Hi John, I don't know if you have already seen this, but this presentation by Max Klein for OCLC Research Webinars in July 2012 summarizes pretty much what your "Forward to Libraries" tool tries to accomplish:

Some brainstorming ideas on "Forward to Libraries":

• 1) The Special:BookSources page (ISBN) offers a map, "Select your region from the map above", I think this might be a nice addition for Forward to Libraries too? (Less scrolling)
• 2) You can find a collection of german library services on de:Spezial:ISBN-Suche/0446533629 (it's more local/extensive than Special:BookSources/0446533629#Germany.) I don't know if these ISBN-search-links are easy to adapt for your tool? If so, there are a lot of different languages, sv:Special:BookSources/0446533629, fr:Special:BookSources/0446533629, ... ;-)
• 3) Since you are using VIAF data, you probably know that they were first collected on german Wikipedia and then added to english Wikipedia by VIAFbot. This was only done for Wikipedia articles about persons, but the Gemeinsame Normdatei /VIAF is broader in scope, it also covers Corporate Bodies and Subject Headings. And this is also increasingly added on those german Wikipedia articles, see i.e. the box at the end of de:Sniffer (Packet analyzer software). At some point in the future, this might be interesting for library search too.

Just some thoughts. I hope you're well, all the best! --Atlasowa (talk) 15:43, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

Thanks! I've appreciated the useful ideas and data that OCLC's been publishing related to Wikipedia, and I'm thankful for the opportunity to further build on and extend some of this knowledge.

Right now, I've been concentrating on doing forwarding for subjects and authors, since as you note there are already a number of existing forwarding services for books and other specific works. I hope to incorporate some more of the useful features of the book forwarders (such as some of the quick geographic limits) into later versions. JohnMarkOckerbloom (talk) 15:59, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

Your templates are up for deletion

Hello again, Dr. Ockerbloom. It seems a user has nominated your templates for deleteion at Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2013 April 30#Template:Library resources box but has neglected to inform you about the discussion, so I thought it would be courteous to let you know myself. Please don't let the discussion discourage you as I think your FTL project can be a very valuable tool for our readers. You are certainly welcome to comment at the deletion discussion and give your opinion as to whether or not the templates should be deleted. Kind regards. 64.40.54.93 (talk) 01:52, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

RfC on your FTL tool

Hi Dr. Ockerbloom. I thought it might be helpful to give you a short overview of the RfC I was going start once you get the FTL service running on WMFLabs. Briefly, your software the FTL service is the "tool" and the templates Template:Library resources box, etc. are they way the tool is implemented on Wikipedia.

The RfC will notify the community that you have provided the tool for us to use and will ask how/where it should be implemented. Using it in templates is one possibility, but there are also other ways to use it such as Wikidata. From the comments I have seen, the community finds the tool very useful and will want to use it. But the specific way the tool is used may go through many changes/iterations when all is said and done. So the templates may be renamed, combined, changed radically or go away in favor of a different way to implement. I thought it would be courteous to let you know in advance how this RfC process works on Wikipedia. Best regards and thanks for providing such a useful tool to the community. 64.40.54.130 (talk) 01:35, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. The WMFLabs-based forwarding service is now up and running, and the templates are now forwarding through there, so the discussion can now start whenever appropriate. (I've also restored the "box" look of the box template, so people discussing can see what I've intended that to look like.) JohnMarkOckerbloom (talk) 21:57, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

The RfC is up at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Linking subjects to books at your local library (Forward to Libraries) and you are welcome to add comments and voice your opinion. The RfC will run for 30 days to allow a good cross-section of Wikipedians the time to comment. People may have questions and I will try to answer them, but as you are the expert, it might be helpful if you could also answer questions. I have also created an informational page about the FTL service at Wikipedia:Forward to Libraries. You may want to have a look and add to it or possibly correct any errors I have made. Thanks again for your support of the Wikipedia community. 64.40.54.57 (talk) 00:10, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

The RfC on FTL got a brief mention in this weeks Signpost (see Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2013-05-20/News and notes#In brief at the bottom). I thought you might be interested in that. I also wanted to thank you for your help with the RfC. It is much appreciated. Thanks. 64.40.54.250 (talk) 04:35, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

I have made a request at WP:ANRFC for an uninvolved person to close the RfC on FTL. We'll have to wait and see what the result is, but we can make a educated guess from our reading of the discussion. Best. 64.40.54.196 (talk) 02:28, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

Thank you!

Thank you for your participation in the Chemical Heritage Foundation Edit-A-Thon , June 20 2013! We hope to work with you at many more fun edit-a-thon events!

Mary Mark Ockerbloom (talk) 20:32, 21 June 2013 (UTC)

GLAM Cafe invitation

Wikipedians are invited to the GLAM Café at the Chemical Heritage Foundation to meet, talk, and edit. We provide the space, the coffee, and the snacks: you provide ideas and enthusiasm! On the second Tuesday of each month, starting November 12, 2013.

Forward to Libraries: statistics on usage?

Hi John, is it possible to get an idea of how many people have clicked on the link for a specific library in the Forward to Libraries tool? We added the library resources template to a few pages as part of some library training, and we'd like to get an idea of how many people have used it. We're investigating whether we can get some inbound hits counts from Primo, and I thought I'd see if we can get similar stats at this end. Thanks for developing the Forward to Libraries tool and library resources template, I think they have great potential. Andrew 564dude (talk) 11:19, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

Authority control

Hi,

I see from the article about you that you have VIAF and ORCID identifiers. Please add these to your user page, using {{Authority control|VIAF=78409626|ORCID=0000-0001-6568-3357}}. Incidentally, I'm now Wikipedian in Residence at ORCID, so please let me know if I can ever help you, in that capacity. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:58, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

Thanks from Ocean City

Dear John, thanks for helping with Wikipedia:Meetup/Ocean City, MD/Wiki Loves Small Museums Mary Mark Ockerbloom (talk) 00:52, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

NUPRL

OK, I'm back from Cuba now, thanks for the heads-up Jimfbleak - talk to me? 07:05, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

I mentioned you at User talk:Jimbo Wales. Any input appreciated. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 16:08, 10 August 2016 (UTC)

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Nomination for deletion of Template:Library resources box

Template:Library resources box has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. — Maile (talk) 15:19, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

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Your spoken voice

Hi again,

As there is a Wikipedia article about you. I'd like to invite you to participate in this project, and make a short recoding of your spoken voice, so that people can hear what you sound like, and how you pronounce your name. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 23:05, 25 June 2018 (UTC)

October 2018

Hello and welcome to Wikipedia. When you add content to talk pages and Wikipedia pages that have open discussion (but never when editing articles), such as at Wikipedia talk:Notability (academics), please be sure to sign your posts. There are two ways to do this. Either:

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Thank you. Chris Troutman (talk) 13:43, 3 October 2018 (UTC)

• Thank you for your note, which I'm assuming related to a recent proposal I made. I did attempt to add the four tildes, but for some reason it didn't take when I saved the edit, and then when I went back to edit the page to add them, I was warned about an"edit conflict". When I reloaded the page to see what was going on, I saw my name was on the page (even though it said "unsigned comment") so I figured the main purpose of attributing the comment had been satisfied. (Your thoughts on the merits of my proposal, by the way, are welcome, but your statements there about me and my motivations for it, however, are not helpful, and I consider them to be representative of some of the problems Wikipedia has in attracting quality content and a larger, more diverse group of volunteer editors.) JohnMarkOckerbloom (talk) 16:00, 3 October 2018 (UTC)

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Important lightning talk slides update

Howdy JohnMarkOckerbloom, just wanted to let you know that due to some venue tech limitations, we've added new requirements for slides. For convenience, they are: IF you have slides, please either upload them as PDFs to Wikimedia Commons and post a link here, bring them in on USB drives as PDFs, or, if you're using Google Slides or similar software, post a link to them here. Fortunately, the deadline is when you go on stage for your talk. Doing so will avoid tech surprises on the day of. Due to venue tech limitations, we cannot guarantee being able to show your visual aids otherwise. The lightning talk section, where the slides should be linked, is here; Wikipedia:Meetup/NYC/Wikipedia Day 2024#Lightning talks. Thank you, and see you Sunday! Enterprisey (talk!) 20:26, 13 January 2024 (UTC)

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