The Distant Librarian

Apparently people want scholarly articles

The Chronicle of Higher Education reports on a recently-published study that monitored a file-sharing site where almost 5,500 scholarly articles were traded over a 6-month period, "costing journals about $700,000 in that time, or about $1.4-million a year."  Interestingly, the study is freely available online from The Internet Journal of Medical Informatics.  I call BS on the monetary figure, but you can't dispute there's obviously a black market for scholarly material. 

And that's where DeepDyve comes in.  From their site:

Research - Search across 30 million articles from thousands of authoritative journals.
Rent - Rent premium articles for just $0.99. View open access articles for FREE.
Read - Read the entire article in DeepDyve's Viewer.

It's that rental part that's so interesting.  Your $0.99 will buy you 24-hour access to the article, though "Some of DeepDyve's articles are "Preview Only." DeepDyve does not currently have permission from the publisher to rent these articles."  They'll also link you directly to the publisher's website where you can actually download the article (and where people will be shocked at how much these things actually "cost" - Paul).

I signed up for the two-week free trial to see what the reader looked like, and how well the search engine worked.  As I suspected, you can do screen grabs of the articles (rendered in a Flash reader), so the rental part isn't really an issue.  They do chunk up the articles though, making that process and the subsequent re-reading a PITA.

The search engine is a basic single box, though Advanced Filters does offer more options.  Doesn't seem to respect phrase searching in quotes.  Hmmm, through my Account info I can see my viewing history, which while may prove convenient to researchers, certainly raises a big red flag around privacy and confidentiality.  I don't see an option to turn that off.  Wow, I got 87,333 results on a search for "supercalifragilisticexpialidocious"! Which is ten less than my search on "supertramp"...  Umm, I think that search engine needs a little more work. 

Overall though it was a pleasant experience, and I predict that as long as they've actually got agreements with the publishers, independent researchers are going to go for this product.

Internet Librarian days 2 and 3

Didn't take many notes on day three, so I'm combining two days in this post.  Even so, it shouldn't be as long as the day one post.  I took these notes for myself, not necessarily for the blog, so they're most definitely not session reports - hopefully some useful links to explore.

I started the day at the Summon-sponsored breakfast where we heard Peter Jacso speak mostly about how awful Google Scholar metadata is, and how whenever he points out a series of errors, Google immediately removes them from the database.  Some examples include a vast number of records with author:methods or author:password  He's just published an article under the title of "Google Scholar's Ghost Authors" in Library Journal.  Good speaker who reminded me very much of my late Grandpa Pival :-)

Day 2 Keynote was an interview OF Paul Holdengraber, who hosts / moderates / interviews people for the Live from NYPL program - I want to search for audio of these - they should be great. (update: This lecture series is available in audio and video with transcripts AND Conversation Portraits in iTunes)  Start at http://www.nypl.org/LIVE .  Paul feels very strongly that the library should surprise people, not necessarily deliver only what people expect.

First Session - Dreaming, Designing and using mobile platforms - mostly overview stuff in this double session - I left after the first half to go listen to the UMich session (below).  Tom Ipri's slides available at http://www.slideshare.net/Tombrarian/mobile-library-platforms. Also check http://lifeonterra.com/m and compare it to the traditional version at http://lifeonterra.com/.  This is a project of the University of Montana, introduced by Jason Clark. I think Jason mentioned this site makes use of something called meta viewport, which I want to further explore.

Toby Greenwalt mentioned using a combination of Yaz + Z39.50 + PHP = mobile catalogue?  He also talked about using Shoutbomb for SMS alerts.  Red Laser, costs $1.99 in the iPhone app store, but has an SDK so someone may be able to get it to scan our library barcodes...

Designing for content-rich websites - UMich Library
John Creech is the Website Content Manager, Ken Varnum is Web Systems Manager
Use the regular libguides XML data dump to search via Solr, to integrate search results with those from the rest of the Drupal site.
Similar to UT Mississauga, librarians are listed in the catalogue by subject headings (call number ranges) and if there's a high-enough number of matches the subject librarian will appear along with the search results.  In Drupal, taxonomies are assigned to librarians.

An excellent tip picked up from Ken Varnum, Hathi is pronounced "Hot-ty" (that's 98% correct, but a lot better than the way I had been pronouncing it!  :-)

Marshall Breeding on SEO, then Andrew White from SUNY Stony Brook  Scholarly Stats, a service which is supposed to help with COUNTER and SUSHI stats.

Check out Splunk.com - appears to be a real memory and processor hog, but could provide some interesting slice and dice on ezproxy stats.

Kara Reuter, Extreme Makeover - user-centered design of http://worthingtonlibraries.org - they borrowed heavily from the museum world using a "visit" link to contain information about hours, parking, info, etc.   Their navigation choices are Visit / Borrow / Research / Interact / Calendar / About

Char Booth suggests replicating the OCLC User Perception reports at the local level - the survey instruments should be available.  "The more you like libraries, the more likely you are to like library technology" NOT "younger people like library tech"  The report Char was speaking to is Informing Innovation: Tracking student interest in emerging library technologies at Ohio University (147-pg PDF).  Really interesting results, but Char pointed out several times that this is a case study, and that results could be pretty different at your library.

Keynote - Day 3 - Growing up and Grown-up Digital - Net-Gen Speaks
Stephen Abrahms and a panel of teens - see note above about "case study".  Really interesting to hear these three young adults talk about their use of technology and thoughts about libraries, but I wouldn't bet any money that this was a representative sample of America's youth.

Nicole Engard - Library Mashups
http://mashups.web2learning.net (homepage for her recent book, Library Mashups)
http://www.programmableweb.com -- tracks mashups and tools
Mashup Tools - Yahoo Pipes (http://pipes.yahoo.com) Jody Fagan wrote an article in Computers in Libraries (2007) that explained it very well for Nicole - also chapter 7 of Nicole's book
http://readingradar.com - NYT bestseller list and merges with data from Amazon.com
http://www.thisweknow.org - interesting local / govt info for locations in the US
Check out "machine tags" on the flickr API
http://mashups.plsinfo.craftyspace.com - Library Mashup Demo site
http://openlibrary.org/dev/docs/api - Open Library APIs
http://worldcat.org/devnet/wiki/SearchAPIDetails - WorldCat APIs

I could really use an entire session or workshop on Yahoo Pipes! - plenty of reading to do there.

And that's where my notes end.  Overall I really enjoyed the conference this year; especially nice to meet so many twitter friends in person :-)  Might be heading to CIL2010 next April - that'd be my first time there since 1994!

Internet Librarian day one recap

I thought I'd try something new this year by not bringing my laptop to the sessions.  I figured maybe I'd pay more attention, and I think it's working for me.  I've still got the Wi-fiPhone for checking email from time to time, but for the most part I'm listening and writing down what ideas I can catch.  With that in mind, here are my thoughts and observations from day one of Internet Librarian 2009.

Surprised to go through the program and not find any sessions specifically on ebooks.  I predict that will not be the case next year!

The opening keynote was an interview with Vint Cerf, who does not like to be called the Father of the Internet.  Very bright guy (no surprise there); I didn't know he was a VP at Google.  Paul Holdengraber, Director of Public Programs at NYPL conducted the interview, and did a fantastic job.  A random quote  from Vint I jotted down, "Our culture is trending towards abstraction and brevity." (Books I have to read: Born Digital by by John Palfrey and Urs Gasser and Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man by Marshall McLuhan (I know, I know).

The first session I attended was Roy Tennant's Digital Library Landscape.  He delivered a real wake-up call to libraries.  "We're in serious trouble if we do nothing, and serious trouble if we keep doing what we've traditionally done."  "Libraries are in imminent danger" because surveys (OCLC) have shown that people think only of BOOKS when they're asked to think of libraries, but "Google and Amazon are eating our lunch" when it comes to books.  Most of our OPACS are no more advanced than a card catalogue on wheels. He described a process where he went from a blog post, through Worldcat, then to his local public library to learn that a recommended book was on the shelf.  But he wants to go that last step and have the library deliver to his door - that would make libraries more relevant to their users.  (note to self, this might be pretty darn easy for the majority of our university users - profs for sure to their office, and students in residence).  He talked a little about ONIX, which he described as MARC for the rest of the world (publishers and booksellers use it to trade metadata about books).  OCLC is working with publishers on enriched ONIX records, and Roy wonders if next-gen catalogues won't have this same enriched metadata (it looks a lot more useful to me!).

Roy then told us that libraries need to focus on where we add value.  Continuing to do what we've traditionally done is NOT going to cut it.  He talked about how http://escholarship.org is turning the idea of an institutional repository around by focusing on the research and publication process at the University.  Make the fact that papers are deposited in the repository an incidental action, but help the faculty with the problem they have by providing them with tools to help them get published.  (DSpace doesn't solve a problem THEY have).  "Take away their pain and you will be valued."

Another role for libraries is to make sure local parts of the Web are preserved (Internet Archive can't do it all).  He talked about the Web Archiving Service from the California Digital Library.  Syndicate content to where people are found (Flickr, YouTube) - showed an Alexa graph showing the difference in traffic between Flickr and the Library of Congress website - why not be where all the people are?

Next session was Super Search Tips with Mary Ellen Bates.  Random tips and tools I jotted down:

• Google Squared results can be exported to Excel, and further modified.
• OneRiot indexes pages linked to by people on social networks, and thus is very current.
• Search Cloudlet is a Firefox addon that generates tag clouds of works retrieved by a search (Google Yahoo or Twitter)
• A twitter search filter: use filter:links in your search query to return results that include hyperlinks.
• http://uc.princeton.edu - University Channel for educational videos
• http://bing.com/visualsearch (I remember being unable to access this URL from Canada the last time I tried it...)
• Great a twitter alert through Google Alerts by including this in your query (Tara Calishain): site:twitter.com inurl:favorites YOUR-KEYWORD -- this will let you know anytime someone favorites a tweet that includes the word(s) you're interested in.
• http://newstimeline.googlelabs.com - alternative interface to Google News
• http://google.com/finance/domestic_trends - only works in US (or only useful in the US?)
• reQall.com - leave a voicemail, or send IM, email or text to this company and receive a transcribed message in any medium, possibly at the time you request as a reminder.
• Create tabs in MS Office applications http://bit.ly/2saSe (Windows only)

Next up was Will Kurt from UN Reno talking about the MS Surface touch table (we may be getting one or more of these for the Taylor Family Digital Library).  Programming language is C#, but in a later conversation I had with Will he thinks that any solid web programmer will be able to pick this up.  He really stressed that new technologies need to be perceived as valuable, not novel, especially with something this pricey.  He hasn't programmed any library-specific applications for the Surface - the biggest hit he's built is a virtual anatomy application.  I can't remember if this was his idea or mine, but I jotted down a note wondering about the ability of the Surface to scan the barcode of a library book placed upon the table to automatically provide additional information about that title (links to reviews, multimedia, Amazon, etc).  According to Will and the other speaker from Darian PL, these are very solidly-built tables.

Next up was John Law from Serials Solutions talking about attracting the next-gen researcher (of course a commercial for Summon, but one based in interesting research). He used a great analogy in that library websites are currently analogous to trying to search the web before there were any search engines.  You'd have to know about the content on a given site, navigate to that site, then search the content of that site FROM that site.  Rinse and repeat.  See "Academic Libraries and the struggle to remain relevant: Why research is conducted elsewhere" (9-pg PDF) for more info.

Last session I took notes on was Susan Senese from UT Mississauga talking on "From Library Website to the Learning Commons".  Most innovative thing I noted was that librarians are in the catalogue with barcodes so that they can swipe their library (ID?) card when they go on the desk, and that information (John Doe is now on the Reference Desk) is automatically updated on the homepage - provides a good point of contact with the students, especially those who have favourite librarians.  See also http://www.slx.com

CFP: Handheld Librarian 2

Alliance Library System and LearningTimes Offer Handheld Librarian 2!

More people than 2000 people attended the first ever Handheld Librarian Conference in July 2009 which featured a wide array of collaboration, learning and networking activities focused on Mobile Library Services!  The Handheld Librarian 2 will continue the dialog with a 2-day online conference scheduled for February 17-18, 2010 and is now accepting registrations at http://www.handheldlibrarian.org. The program -- sponsored by Alliance Library System, and LearningTimes -- will include a series of  wonderful keynote and featured speakers collection of available resources, discussions boards, and access to the recording of all live events for one year after the conference.  More people than ever are using mobile devices for a wide variety of purposes including communication, internet access, text messaging, and entertainment. It is important that libraries provide mobile services as handheld use increases.

The conference will feature three exciting keynote talks:

• Joan K. Lippincott from the Coalition for Networked Information speaking about “Mobilizing Libraries for Today’s Students”
• Joe Murphy from Yale University speaking about “This is Now: The Mobile Library”
• Tom Peters of TAP Information Services, addressing “Morphing with Mobile”

Registration for the conference is $69 per individual or $119 for a group.  LIS students can register for $29.  LIS students need to contact Lori Bell, Alliance Library System, at lbell@alliancelibrarysystem.com for a coupon code to register for the $29.

“With the avalanche of new mobile devices and applications, the Handheld Librarian 2 online conference will be a golden opportunity for library land to cost effectively learn how to reach a whole new audience,” said Kitty
Pope, ALS Executive Director.

The Handheld Librarian II will also include the real-life experiences of libraries and information professionals. We are now soliciting presentation proposals highlighting current, evolving and future issues in mobile library services.  To submit a proposal for the conference, go to http://www.handheldlibrarian.org/call-for-proposals/.  Proposals are due November 15 and you will be notified by January 1, 2010 if your proposal has been accepted.

For more information on the conference, go to the conference site at http://www.handheldlibrarian.org.  If you have questions, please contact John Walber at LearningTimes at john@learningtimes.net or Lori Bell at
Alliance Library System at lbell@alliancelibrarysystem.com.

LOEX of the West 2010 Call for Proposals

Hey all, come visit us in Calgary!  LOEX of the West is being held down the road at Mount Royal University next year, June 10-12, 2010.  The Call for Proposals has just been announced.  Deadline for submitting proposals is December 14, 2009.

Webcast: Returning the Researcher to the Library: The Summon™ Service in Real Life

Library Journal and Serials Solutions are presenting the fourth and final session in the "Returning the Researcher to the Library" series: The Summon™ Service in Real Life.  I'm one of three panelists, joining librarians from Grand Valley State University and Western Michigan University in discussing why we're exploring the idea of Web-Scale Discovery (that appears to be what Serials Solutions has settled upon calling this type of product).  Personally, I'll be talking about our fairly-rare (can't say for certain that it's unique) organizational structure at the U of Calgary and why it begs for such a product, as well as touching upon some of the challenges we've experienced as we're exploring bringing up Summon.

You can find archives of the first three "Returning the Researcher to the Library" webcasts at http://www.libraryjournal.com/webcastsDetail.

Webinar: Defining Web-Scale Discovery: The Promise of a Unified Search Index for Libraries

Received the following email:

Date: August 18, 2009 • Time: 9:00-10:00 AM PDT (12:00 - 1:00 PM EDT)

Please Join Us for Part 3 of Library Journal's "Returning the Researcher to the Library" Webcast Series

“Why can’t I search the library the way Google searches the Web?”

Librarians have been fielding that question for more than a decade as popular general search engines have set new expectations for service, searching and responsiveness. The complexity of multiple formats and the sheer scale of library collections have proven formidable barriers to simple, speedy, single search box interfaces. However, a new technology called a unified search index—the core of the groundbreaker Summon™ web-scale discovery service—offers the promise of answering that question with “You can.”

Join us for an insightful panel discussion that explores the emerging framework of web-scale discovery and what distinguishes the unified search index from existing library technologies. Expert panelists Marshall Breeding and Eric Lease Morgan will define the unified search index, as well as web-scale discovery – both their mechanics and their impact on library users. This intriguing discussion will examine the library’s new ally in taking back its role as the starting point for research and exposing the expanse of its content riches.

PANELISTS
Marshall Breeding, Director for Innovative Technologies and Research for the Jean and Alexander Heard Library at Vanderbilt University
Eric Lease Morgan, Head of the Digital Access and Information Architecture Department, University Libraries of Notre Dame
MODERATOR
Andrew Nagy, Senior Discovery Services Engineer, Serials Solutions

To view on demand Part 1 and Part 2 of Returning the Researcher to the Library Series, register here:

    * PART 1: Understanding the Next Gen User http://www.libraryjournal.com/webcastsDetail/2140374033.html
    * PART 2: Building ROI through Discovery http://www.libraryjournal.com/webcastsDetail/2140391674.html

SPARC calls on campuses to coordinate open-access policy efforts

For immediate release
August 5, 2009

For more information, contact
Jennifer McLennan
(202) 296-2296 ext 121
jennifer [at] arl [dot] org

SPARC CALLS ON CAMPUSES TO COORDINATE OPEN-ACCESS POLICY EFFORTS
Introduces centralized resource and group of experts to advise policy development

Washington, DC – Last month, the University of Kansas became the first public university in the U.S. to adopt a policy to ensure free and open access to the results of the institution’s research outputs. [Paul notes the U of Calgary was the first in Canada] As a growing number of colleges and universities embark on the path toward an institutional open-access policy, SPARC (the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition) invites libraries to take advantage of a new Web resource built to leverage experience gained in establishing such policies to date.

Those familiar with Open Access understand the benefits that flow from providing enhanced access to scholarly journal articles. They also understand that a well-designed institutional research access policy can bring scholarly outputs to the attention of new audiences around the world without disrupting any of the foundations of scholarly communication – such as peer review, academic freedom, or the sustainability of scholarly societies and their publications.

However, many faculty members and administrators are still unfamiliar with the specifics of Open Access. Timely, accurate information about the motivations and mechanics of an open-access policy and how it would operate in connection with faculty publishing practices is of crucial importance to anyone about to embark on this path.

SPARC has introduced a new suite of Web-based tools to facilitate fact-based campus policy discussions on Open Access, including hot-button topics such as copyright, journal sustainability, disciplinary differences, and author rights. Readers are invited to:

1.    Learn about campus open-access policies implemented to date, including that of the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences, through videos and white papers publicly available online.
2.    Request copies of offline documents, including a list of “Responses to Common Misconceptions” related to open-access policies and “Choice Points” to be addressed in policy development.
3.    Request support from a group of expert advisers who helped to develop these resources, have experience with gaining faculty acceptance for an institutional open-access policy, and who stand by to answer questions that remain after examining available tools.

The SPARC campus open-access policy advisory group includes:

•    Hal Abelson, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
•    Michael W. Carroll, American University
•    Ray English, Oberlin College
•    John Palfrey, Harvard University
•    Stuart Shieber, Harvard University
•    Peter Suber, Earlham College
•    John Willinsky, Stanford University
•    Heather Joseph, SPARC Executive Director

“It has become increasingly clear to me that the many efforts on university campuses to draft, promote, and implement open-access policies can benefit from the experiences of others who have been through the process,” said Stuart Shieber, Director of Harvard’s Office of Scholarly Communication. “SPARC’s effort to codify this experience and to provide further consultation with those who have gone before is thus a valuable resource.”

“The growing voice of faculty members who recognize that Open Access can benefit their institution, their discipline and themselves as individual scholars is heartening,” said Heather Joseph, SPARC Executive Director. “SPARC is pleased to offer these resources to help support the important work that faculty members, librarians, and administrators are doing to raise the profile of Open Access on college and university campuses.”

For more information, visit the new SPARC resource center online at http://www.arl.org/sparc/advocacy/campus.

###

SPARC

SPARC (Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition), with SPARC Europe and SPARC Japan, is an international alliance of more than 800 academic and research libraries working to create a more open system of scholarly communication. SPARC’s advocacy, educational, and publisher partnership programs encourage expanded dissemination of research. SPARC is on the Web at http://www.arl.org/sparc.

Preliminary Netspeed 2009 program available

The preliminary program for Netspeed 2009 is now available.  This year it's in Calgary, from October 21-23, 2009 at the Carriage House Inn.  Looks like I'm presenting back-to-back on Thursday, first on using Twitter (and a little Facebook) for library promotion, and then with Kenton Good from the U of Alberta on how we made our websites mobile-ready.  Kinda still got to do that second one :-)

LJ Webcast Archives

I haven't had a chance to listen to/watch them myself, and am bookmarking them here as much for my use as yours, but two recent webcasts in the Returning the Researcher to the Library series are now archived at the LJ website:

• Webcast: Returning the Researcher to the Library: Building ROI through Discovery
• Webcast: Returning the Researcher to the Library: Understanding the Next Gen user

Looks like this is scheduled to be a 4-part series.

American Chemical Society (ACS) heading towards online-only

The Chronicle of Higher Education reports, "the American Chemical Society, which publishes several dozen academic journals, is moving to end print editions and produce journals only online."  You can read more at Ars Technica.

Handheld Librarian Online

From the conference website:

More people than ever are using mobile devices for a wide variety of purposes including communication, internet access, text messaging, and entertainment. It is important that libraries provide services on these devices as use increases.

The first ever Handheld Librarian Online on July 30, 2009 is the place to learn about these and other topics related to using wireless and hand held devices in your library.  The program, sponsored by Alliance Library System, LearningTimes and Infoquest, will include a variety of ways to collaborate, network and learn from a great group of experts in the field.  In addition to live interactive webcasts, we will have a collection of available resources, discussions boards, and access to the recording  of all live events for one year after the conference.

Registration is $49 USD for an individual or $89 USD for two or more people logged in from 1 computer.

IM widgets on academic library subject guides

From Danielle Dennie at Concordia University:

I will be repeating a study I did last year. The aim of the study is to learn about and compare usage of IM widgets on online subject/research guides from different North American academic libraries. I would like to see the types of users that use IM widgets on a librarians subject guide and the type of questions that are asked. The survey is short (it should take no longer than 5 minutes to complete).

Here is the link to the survey:http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=Lk5nkzDRP_2bUOh2NEdgU2YQ_3d_3d

If you (or someone you know) have an IM widget on your subject guide, I would appreciate it if you could take the time to fill out the short survey.

Registration and program for Internet Librarian 2009

The program for Internet Librarian 2009 is now available, as is registration.  The opening keynote is to be given by Vint Cerf!

After taking a year (or two?) off, I'll be back this year, presenting a screencasting workshop on Sunday morning.  Dates of the conference (held in Monterey, CA) are October 26-28, with two days of workshops available on the 24th and 25th.  Following my prediction about this being the year of the mobile library, there's a whole track on Tuesday dedicated to Mobile Trends and Practices.

Understanding the Next-Gen User - Free Webcast

Library Journal is hosting a series of free webcasts on Returning the Researcher to the Library.  The first runs this Thursday from Noon - 1PM EDT - you can register online.

Title: Returning the Researcher to the Library: A Series in Four Parts

Part 1 – Understanding the Next-Gen User

Sponsored by Serials Solutions

Live event: Thursday, June 4, 2009 – 12:00 pm (noon) Eastern Daylight Time – 60 minutes

Users' expectations of information search changed dramatically in the wake of Google and continue to evolve. Some studies point to a slow, but steady disintermediation of the library from the research process. Yet, libraries have a powerful competitive advantage in the quality, breadth and authority of their content – an advantage recognized and valued by users, especially in the academic library. This four-part series explores how libraries are taking back their role as the starting point for research by focusing on the user experience and supporting it with innovative technology. The opening learning session in the series – Understanding the Next-Gen User – brings together Joan Lippincott and Alison Head, leaders in research on next-gen research habits, for an insightful exploration into the needs and expectations of students and how libraries can respond in ways they respect and understand.

Panelists:

Joan Lippincott, Associate Executive Director of the Coalition for Networked Information (CNI) and an authority on learning, engagement and technology

Alison Head, acclaimed researcher on user experience, currently leading Project Information Literacy

Moderator: John Law, Vice President, Discovery Services, Serials Solutions

Register now for the inaugural Understanding the Next-Gen Webcast, sponsored by Serials Solutions, Thursday, June 4, 12:00 PM (noon) Eastern Daylight Time. If you can't join us on June 4, register now and we'll send you an email when the archive is ready to be viewed, at your convenience.