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Ken Varnum
Papers and Presentations

Please note that all these papers are protected by copyright.
No reproduction or redistribution without the express permission of the copyright owner is allowed.

Findability: Information, Not Location (PowerPoint, 3.3 MB)

Presented at Computers in Libraries 2008 with my colleague Mike Creech. Abstract: Learn how to foster user-friendly digital information flows by eliminating silos, highlighting context and improving findability to create a unified web presence. Hear how the University of Michigan Libraries' (MLibrary) are reinventing the libraries' web sites to emphasize information over the path users previously took to access it. By elevating information over its location, users are not forced to know which library is the "right" starting place. The talk includes tips for your library web redesign process and user-centric design process.

RSS Basics and Beyond: Tips and Tricks for Getting the Most out of Syndicated Content

A talk at The Ohio State University's Library 2.0 Seminar on June 13, 2007. Talk abstract: An introduction to RSS, feed aggregators, and easy ways libraries can take advantage of RSS to improve communication with their patrons, communities, and staffs. (Download the PowerPoint [4.5 MB] or watch now [streaming video].)

Using RSS to Promote Scholarly Publications (PowerPoint, 1 MB)

I gave this talk at the Dartmouth Biomedical Libraries' Cool Tools and New Technologies conference on October 27, 2006. The talk abstract: The Ginn Library has created several databases to track and promote scholarly research by our faculty and students. A faculty publications database provides RSS feeds by author- and user-supplied keywords along with a current awareness feed that includes everything published. A second database highlights student master’s theses. Feeds are used internally to populate web pages and externally to promote the school. Learn how we created these two databases.

Intelligent Agents (PowerPoint, 256KB)

Slides from a talk I gave on Intelligent Agents at the Intranets 2003 conference in Santa Clara, California, on October 14, 2003. Discusses a project to create individualized informaiton agents to fine-tune e-mail alert services. (Updated 10/18/2003)

Information Architecture at Ford Motor Company (PowerPoint, 264 KB)

This presentation to University of Michigan School of Information course, Information Architecture, October 30, 2001, provides an overview of information architecture practices and processes within the Ford research library.

Information at Your Fingertips: Porting Library Services to the PDA (Online, September/October 2000).

All about how to convert your Web-based content into a PDA-accessible, go-anywhere information service. Discusses some of the issues, problems, and successes in porting web sites onto Palm Pilots and other products using AvantGo, MobileLink, and good old-fashioned CGI programming.

Publicizing Electronic Publishing Opportunities in Your Corporation (Marketing Library Services, March 2000, pp. 4-5).

How to get people to write for your electronic journal.

Function over Form (Adobe Acrobat, 464KB)

Presentation at Intranets 2000, San Jose, CA, February 28, 2000.

A Corporate Library Making the Transition from Traditional to Web Publishing

by Tracy Primich and Ken Varnum, in Computers in Libraries, November/December 1999, pp. 58-61.

Metadata in Theory and Practice (Adobe Acrobat, 216kb)

Presentation at Intranets '99, San Francisco, CA, April 28, 1999.

Case Study: Intranet Redesign at Ford Motor Company (Adobe Acrobat, 168kb)

Presentation at Intranets '99, San Francisco, CA, April 27, 1999.

Interview in Information World Review (February 1999)

An interview about designing Intranet Web sites by Information World Review, a British information management publication.

Lessons Learned: Designing a Second-Generation Intranet (January 1999)

An article about the redesign process for the Ford Motor Company's largest library's Intranet site. (Online Magazine, January 1999).

OMRINet

A regular column appearing in Transition magazine highlighting Internet resources related to topics discussed in each issue.

Barriers to Information Access

This article originally appeared as a sidebar to an article by Esther Dyson in the 8 November 1996 edition of Transition (Vol. 2, No. 22).

Digital Archives

This was written for ILS 605: The Making of Digital Libraries,a course at the School of Information and Library Studies at the University of Michigan. It is also available in PDF format.

Multi-lingual Digital Archives

I presented this paper on the issues involved in creating a multi-language collection of digital materials at the International Librarians Conference on the theme of "Libraries in Europe's Post-Communist Countries: Their International Context" in Krakow-Przegorzaly, Poland, in August 1995. It is also available in PDF format.

Masters Thesis

I wrote this thesis as part of my Masters in Russian and East European Studies. The title is "The Development of Political Parties in the U.S.S.R. Supreme Soviet, 1988-1989. Note: This file is approximately 80K. It is also available in PDF format.