by Terry Reese

Happy New Year!  Issue 27 marks the first issue of 2015, a fresh start to a new year.  And an interesting year I think it will be, for both the Code4Lib community and the Journal; especially the Journal as we embark on our first special issue with a guest editorial committee and editors.  But I’d like to talk about the community, specifically something that has been so unique to the Code4Lib experience:  it’s Annual meeting.  This year marks the 10^th anniversary of the Code4Lib Annual conference, returning back to Oregon – a much bigger and more influential event than I think anyone could have imagined when it first started.

I remember the first Annual meeting in Corvallis, OR.  The conference was smaller then – with about 80 in attendance.  It started as an experiment of sorts, one in which nearly every attendee in the conference would also be a participant – presenting as part of the main program or in one of the many lightning talks that made up the day.  I can’t remember ever being at an event where so much code was being written live on stage by presenters as they demonstrated projects or took ideas presented earlier in the day and ran with them.  After all this time, I don’t remember the talks, but I remember the atmosphere, the people, and the excitement of that first event.  I also remember thinking how difficult it would be to replicate the magic from that first event and wondering if this type of grassroots experiment in conferencing could actually be sustainable.

And yet, here we are…10 years later, going back to Oregon, a much larger and stronger community.  Has it changed?  Oh yes – the conference has grown with the community and it’s become a bit more polished, and I’m sure this will finally be the year that the WiFi works throughout the conference week, knock on wood, but at its core, I still see the same magic that made this event so memorable for me back in 2006.  So whether this is your first or tenth Annual meeting, find the thing that interests you and just jump in.

Overview of Issue 27

I’m particularly pleased with the articles that made up this issue of the Journal, as it includes a little bit of something for everyone.

For the DIYer’s among us we have three articles:

• Digital forensics on a shoestring: a case study from the University of Victoria by John Durno and Jerry Trofimchuck
• Homegrown WorldCat Reclamation: Utilizing OCLC’s WorldCat Metadata API to Reconcile your Library Holdings by Sarah Johnston
• Using Google Tag Manager and Google Analytics to track DSpace metadata fields as custom dimensions by Suzanna Conrad.

For those interested in workflows and best practices, we have:

• Using SemanticScuttle for managing lists of recommended resources on a library website by Tomasz Neugebauer, Pamela Carson, and Stephen Krujelskis
• Training the Next Generation of Open Source Developers: A Case Study of the OSU Libraries & Press’ Technology Training Program by Evviva Weinraub Lajoie, Trey Terrell, and Mike Eaton.

And finally, for those interested in how things just work, we have two articles:

• Communication Between Devices in the Viola Document Delivery System by Theodor Tolstoy
• Query Translation in Europeana by Péter Király.