« December 2006 | Main | February 2007 »
So I gave blood today and noticed a new question on the List of Thirteen: "Have you, in your past or present job, taken care of or handled monkeys or their bodily fluids?" It's just a yes/no checkbox, but I SO wanted to write in a short answer. I decided against it though; while nurses have a much better sense of humour than the TSA, I just didn't want anything permanent going on my record with people who could hurt me :-)
Technorati Tags: Blood, Humor, Monkeys
This was going to be the year that I was going to go to Internet Librarian International. Alas, another opportunity came up and I'm being forced to save my money instead for a Caribbean cruise - poor me. If you're thinking of heading to London in October, you'll want to be aware of the call for speakers for Internet Librarian International, which reads as follows:
Call for SpeakersSpeaking not your thing? Thems of you who are newer to the profession might want to consider the Call for Papers for a special issue of Library Review, which is celebrating its 80th year in 2007. They're looking for papers for a special issue called "Voices of the new library professionals" (see
Internet Librarian International 2007
8-9 October 2007 • Copthorne Tara Hotel, London, UK New Realities, Roles and Resources
Information Today Inc. invites proposals for presentations at this conference. We are looking for a mix of papers for the sessions, workshops and short tutorials. Our emphasis is on the practical rather than theoretical. We are seeking case studies and proposals about initiatives in your organisation, not product pitches or overviews.
To be considered as a speaker, please submit your ideas at
http://www.internet-librarian.com/CallForSpeakers.shtml
Deadline 30 March 2007
This is the conclusion of a research study to be published in the next issue of Internet and Higher Education. I've emailed the authors to see if they're planning on depositing the paper in their Institutional Repository... It's only a pre-print right now so I can't give you a complete citation, but if you subscribe to Science Direct you may be able to access the article here.
The title of the paper is A preliminary assessment of Google Scholar as a source of EAP students' research materials, by Rena Helms-Park, Pavlina Radia, and Paul Stapleton, from the U of Toronto and Hokkaido University in Japan. They looked at the citations found in the research papers of 27 undergraduate ESL students using something called WATCH, an analytic website assessment scale, and found "no significant differences between sources obtained through Google Scholar and the university library's catalogue of electronic resources. On the other hand, there were significant differences between Google Scholar and Google, as well as between electronic sources obtained through the library and Google, in key areas such as academic rigor ad objectivity." Did I mention that none of the researchers are librarians?
I've got highlights all through the article but don't want to quote, like, 50% of it here, so I sure hope they make it more widely available, 'cause I think you're going to want to read this one. I was really pleased that they seem to be aware of the shortcomings we know about Google Scholar; Sullivan, Jasco and Notess are cited heavily throughout the paper.
Some implications for you and me: "Comprehensive instruction and discussion on critically evaluating research materials therefore seems to be more necessary than ever, preferably early in an undergraduate program through guided hands-on work." and "With such quickly advancing refinements in search technology, educators urgently need to keep abreast of how newer generations view the process of research-based writing... In other words, the ease of the search process needs to be complemented by the hard work of critically assessing the credibility and quality of sources."
I recently completed some research that made use of a questionnaire, and one of the questions we figured would be a throw-away really got me to thinking along these same lines. The question asked students if they agreed with the statement, "I usually can find all the material I need for my research through internet search engines" or something like that. We figured they'd know it was a librarian asking the question and everyone would disagree, but a few students agreed with that statement, and in discussing the results my colleagues and I were forced to admit that in fact search engines like Google Scholar and OAIster and possibly even Live Search Academic can, certainly for undergraduates, return enough quality information that in many cases students wouldn't have to use a library database to get enough citations to write a quality paper. Getting to the full text may be another issue, but as far as indexing...
Interesting stuff...
Technorati Tags: Google, Libraries, Schoogle, Google_Scholar, Quality
Well this afternoon I saw that Tod Maffin was looking for feedback on a piece on Google downloadable books he was putting together for a Thursday AM CBC Radio production. I figured you'd have 24 hours or so to chime in too, but I guess even in this digital age stuff has to be done well in advance, and he's already finished the piece. I find it really neat how transparent this particular production is - you can read his original script idea, see my comments below, along with some others, listen to the finished piece (5-minutes) (incorporating some of my suggestions - yay), and even read the Q&A script that the radio hosts will use to interview him after the piece airs. I find it fascinating to peek behind the scenes like this - hope I haven't wasted your time with it...
Technorati Tags: CBC, Radio, Transparency
Somehow it seems longer ago that I had three posts in quick succession about continuous partial attention, but maybe that's 'cause two minutes is too long to concentrate. BoingBoing notes a post about an article in the Washington Post in which a HS Librarian Media Specialist attempts to "sell" his students on the importance of books, and has the following exchange with a student:
I recently spoke with a junior who was stressed about her decreasing ability to focus on anything for longer than two minutes or so. I tried to inspire her by talking about the importance of reading as a way to train the brain. I told her that a good reader develops the same powers of concentration that an athlete or a Buddhist would employ in sport or meditation. "A lot out there is conspiring to distract you," I said.Sigh.
She rolled her eyes. "That's your opinion about books. It doesn't make it true." To her, the idea that reading might benefit the mind was, well, lame.
I haven't taken the time yet to read up on the reports of Google's proposed book download project, but CBC Technology Reporter Tod Maffin is asking for your help in fact-checking a piece he's putting together for a Thursday AM airing. For a really short piece aimed at the general public I think he's pretty much got it, but I did leave a couple of comments and suggestions - maybe you can help him tighten it up a bit too?
Technorati Tags: Google, Libraries, Books
The latest entry in the excellent EDUCAUSE series is the 2-page 7 Things You Should Know About E-Books. On a related note, I have had the Califa E-books, E-audio and other E-content website open in a Firefox tab for about three weeks now, but have not yet spent the time to go through it.
Technorati Tags: ebooks, e-books
A couple of self-referential links for you today.
1) The screencast of my SirsiDynix Institute presentation on Screencasting is now available online. Seems to work best with IE, as it's being shown with an embedded Windows Media player (not Flash, as I recommend in my presentation ;-) If you're using Firefox, may I recommend the excellent IE Tab extension?
2) Another project I've mentioned before, the WISPR project, has been selected as the ACRL PRIMO Site of the Month for December. Visit the link to read all about it. We're currently working on a grant application to seek funding to make it even more customizable, and to try and release the whole thing under a Creative Commons license. Sure hope the funding comes through this time...
Technorati Tags: Screencasting, SirsiDynix, Information_Literacy, PRIMO, WISPR
I've only listened to the first 15 minutes or so of this Talking with Talis recording, but was pleased that within the first 10 minutes they were talking extensively about distance education and how different the social requirements are for distance graduate students than they are for traditional undergraduates, who look to the library as a physical place for social gathering. Thomas Brevik from Norway mentioned how in some places there, distance students receive a key to the local public library so they can come and go as they please to support their studies, or just to have a place to study. Right after the DE discussion they get back to the concept of how important it is that librarians (not libraries) provide services that are important to patrons, wherever they are (not necessarily in the library). Looking forward to finishing this off on the commute home tonight. Brian, I highly recommend you listen to this one.
Technorati Tags: Distance_Education, Libraries, Buildings
Rachel at The Liminal Librarian posts about a craigslist Bangalore ad for a telecommuting "highly proficient and experienced researcher." A while back I thought about applying for a job exchange program in India, and wondered, if I wanted to, would I be able to support my U of C distance students from there? I figured if I could, then maybe they wouldn't need me, but could hire someone from there for less money. I thought maybe I should keep quiet about that idea. Time will tell if I shouldn't have hit "publish" on this post! :-)
Technorati Tags: outsourcing, distance, information
Wow, I've played with these types of tools for a couple of years now, but I tend to stick with what works for me, and thus haven't even heard of about half of these, but David Rothman put together a nice page showing default output for nine different tools that allow RSS to be output to another location. Do note that at least some of these could be tweaked to look prettier if they weren't all on the same page... In the comments section of David's original post introducing this page someone pointed out a very large ppt presentation Michael Sauers has on this same topic.
Technorati Tags: RSS
I guess I was a good boy last year, as my wife was able to score me a Wii for Xmas! The Wii includes an internet browser (based on Opera), and of course as a library geek I just had to see what it was capable of.
Viewing Screencasts? Check!
Accessing databases via EZProxy? Check! Searching databases? Check! Rumour has it that the Wii will run Flash 7, but not Flash 8... 
Though it won't do PDF...
Legibility on the TV is almost unusable, but hey, had to push the envelope...
Yeah, I play some games too ;-)
Nice article from the Globe and Mail about public libraries in Canada: Libraries turn page to thrive in digital age. Basically it talks about how libraries are changing to keep up with different demands; offering services to teens (including the obligatory DDR night), spending more of their budgets on electronic resources. Nothing we librarians don't already know, but it's nice to see it written for the public as well. Includes some interesting circulation numbers at the end of the article.
I feel sorry for Meredith and Adam, who seem to have a poor PL system in Vermont; the Public Library system here in Calgary is just great. New branches are being built on a fairly regular basis, and they're being built right! (though I sure would like to see a drive-up book drop for returns). And I can place requests for items held in any branch and have them waiting for me at my local branch. And CDs, and downloadable audio books, and good hours, and good children's sections... Sorry, I'll stop bragging now - it could all go to Hell if the price of oil drops someday (snort).
Technorati Tags: Libraries, Canada
Shelly Drumm (and colleagues) writes:
We are exploring the uses of blogs in academic libraries. If you have experience with blogs as a means of communicating with your patrons, we would welcome your input in a brief survey:The best part is that after completing the survey you can see how the other respondents answered, which gives a nice feel for whether you're going against the flow. Can even read the comments!
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.asp?u=773202839763
Not a whole lot there right now, but Sloan-C (a consortium of institutions and organizations committed to quality online education) has a site dedicated to Blended Learning called, appropriately enough, Blended Learning: Research Perspectives. "Sloan-C will be using this web site to collect and share resources for educators and administrators involved with blended and hybrid learning." So if you're doing the blended learning thing at your school, you might want to drop by for a visit...
Technorati Tags: Blended_Learning
A Library Writer's Blog points to a call for papers for a special issue of the Turkish Online Journal of Distance Education: Web 2.0 and Social Software in Distance Education. Submissions must be in English...
Technorati Tags: Distance_Education, Libraries
The Centered Librarian points to The Online Books Page at the University of Pennsylvania, a listing of over 25,000 free books on the Web. While the site does appear to be indexed in Google, it might still be worth a personal visit if you're searching for something. Probably because it only appeared on the site recently, one title I searched wasn't listed at the top by Google, which instead pointed to Amazon, where it was available for $135, or Storming Media for only $37.95 as a PDF, while The Online Books Page pointed to the free PDF version on the FEMA site.
John Mark Ockerbloom has put a lot of work into this site!
Technorati Tags: ebooks, upenn
Michael Stephens at Tame the Web points to an upcoming service called BookSwim that will launch the 1st quarter of 2007. Basically they're going to do the NetFlix thing for books - for a subscription fee (amount unknown), you can enter your name in a queue for one of their 80,000 titles and they'll ship you the book to read. Keep it as long as you like, then ship it back (no cost to you either way, other than your subscription fee).
I'm conflicted. I'm definitely not their target market, as I'm a heavy user of the local public library system, which has an excellent collection. Maybe for the rural folk? So maybe it's a good idea, but will it work as well as NetFlix? Aren't DVDs a lot cheaper to ship than books would be? And storing inventory will be a challenge with books - they're all different sizes, unlike DVDs. BookSwim has a brochure (PDF) that compares their model with that of traditional bookstores and libraries and has a few iffy claims (their books are always in excellent condition while libraries are at best "good" condition - not sure how they'll guarantee that one unless they're replacing worn books).
I don't think I'm knocking it just 'cause I'm a librarian; I don't feel threatened, and I think I think it's a good idea. Just not sure it's going to fly. Keep an eye on 'em.
Technorati Tags: Libraries, Netflix
