The Distant Librarian

Change to Google Scholar Advanced Search

Thanks to a thread on the Web4Lib list I just learned that Google Scholar has changed the way you get to the Advanced Search options.

Instead of looking for a link, you'll now hit the down arrow at the right side of the search box:

At that point you'll see the advanced search options:

Game Changers - new ebook from Educause

Educause has just released a new ebook called Game Changers: Education and Information Technologies, which you can download for free. I just ran a quick search through the 388-page PDF version and see that libraries are mentioned in a significant way about a half-dozen times, so you might find it worth your while to take a peek at least. Follow the link above to get to the table of contents as well; it's far too long to repost here! Here's the blurb from the site:

How can we reach more learners, more effectively, and with greater impact?

Education changes lives and societies, but can we sustain the current model? New models and new technologies allow us to rethink many of the premises of education—location and time, credits and credentials, knowledge creation and sharing.

Game Changers: Education and Information Technologies is a collection of chapters and case studies contributed by college and university presidents, provosts, faculty, and other stakeholders. Institutions are finding new ways of achieving higher education’s mission without being crippled by constraints or overpowered by greater expectations.

Find out who is changing the game and what we can learn from their different approaches in Game Changers.

GoneReading: buy book stuff for a cause

I get about 2-3 "cold call" emails per month asking me to consider posting something "of interest to my readers" on this blog. They're pretty much never of interest to me, and thus I don't feel compelled to pass them along to you. Here's an exception.

GoneReading is a small website that sells stuff related to the reading lifestyle, such as t-shirts, bookmarks, reading lights, etc. What's great though is that GoneReading has a philanthropic mission, which donates 100% of after-tax profits to provide new funding for libraries.

Because they're new and still trying to spread the word, they've provided a discount code that's good for 25% off any purchase except the bookends, good through April 4, 2012. The code is DISTLIB25, and you can enter it on the order page towards the top, just above your billing address. There's free shipping in the US for orders over $25 too.

I don't get anything at all when you use the code; I'm just trying to help spread the word on a good cause. Do take a moment to check them out, won't you?

First Annual Open Education Week - March 5-10, 2012

The OpenCourseWare Consortium announces the first annual Open Education Week from March 5-10, 2012.  Open Education Week is a global event that seeks to raise awareness about the benefits of free and open sharing in education, especially Open Educational Resources (OER). OER are high-quality, free and open educational materials that offer opportunities for people anywhere in the world to share, use and reuse. 

“The vision of the open education movement is to create a world in which the desire to learn is fully met by the opportunity to do so, where everyone, everywhere, is able to access affordable, educationally and culturally appropriate opportunities to gain whatever knowledge or training they desire. The movement encompasses producing, sharing, using and modifying content, as well as innovative models of educational delivery,” said Mary Lou Forward, executive director of the OpenCourseWare Consortium. “Open Education Week will showcase projects, resources, people and ideas so that people around the world can see the breadth of what has been accomplished already, and participate in discussions about the future of the movement.”

Open Education Week is being coordinated by the OpenCourseWare Consortium.  The event will take place online and in different locations around the world, with opportunities to participate in webinars, discussions and live events. Projects and events will be featured from institutions and organizations from around the world, including: University of Cape Town, University of Michigan, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, University of California, Irvine, Delft University of Technology, and Creative Commons. Participation is free and open to all. Visit www.openeducationweek.org for more information.

About The OpencCourseWare Consortium: The OpenCourseWare Consortium (OCWC) is a community of more than 250 universities and associated organizations worldwide. The mission of the OCWC and its member institutions is to advance formal and informal learning for educators and self-learners around the world through the sharing and use of free, open, high-quality education materials packaged as courses readily accessible on a digital platform.  The Consortium showcases its members to a global audience and provides information and training through webinars, newsletters, and free and open materials.  For more information, visit http://www.ocwconsortium.org.

How Users Search the Library from a Single Search Box

A preprint from College & Research Libraries is well worth your read, even if you're not a webmaster: How Users Search the Library from a Single Search Box (from NCSU, Cory Lown, Tito Sierra, and Josh Boyer)

Abstract

Academic libraries are turning increasingly to unified search solutions to simplify search and discovery of library resources. Unfortunately, very little research has been published on library user search behavior in single search box environments. This study examines how users search a large public university library using a prominent, single search box on the library website. The article examines two semesters of real-world data, totaling nearly 1.4 million transactions. Findings include that unified library search is about more than the catalog and articles, though these predominate. Additionally, a small number of the most popular search queries accounts for a disproportionate amount of the overall queries. Also discussed are the merits of ongoing evaluation of library user search behavior.

(it's not nearly as long as you'd think upon initial download; the last half of the PDF are the images and a couple of pages of references)

Call for nominations - Springhare Innovation in Academic Libraries Award

The Academic Division of SLA is very proud to present for the second year an award for academic libraries, sponsored by Springshare, Inc., creator of LibGuides!

This annual award recognizes a new program or service that demonstrates an innovative approach to academic librarianship. Please feel free to distribute to all innovative academic libraries you may know.

Award
A certificate and a $500 US award, donated by Springshare, are presented during the Academic Library Division Business Meeting at the Special Libraries Association (SLA) Annual Conference. The winning library is also recognized through the Academic Division’s various public relations outlets.

Criteria
Projects nominated for the award should demonstrate recognized innovation, creativity and quality. Nominated programs or services can have been developed in any facet of the library’s activities, including but not limited to:

• reference and research assistance;
• information literacy and library instruction;
• collection development;
• cataloging and/or technical services;
• space planning; or
• marketing and public relations

Eligibility
Academic or research libraries in a higher education institution are eligible to receive the award. Recipients must have implemented their program or service in an academic or research library no more than two years prior to the nomination submission deadline. Nominated libraries do not have to have a SLA or an SLA-Academic Division member on staff.

Submissions
Nominations must include a 500-1000 words description of the innovative program or service and must demonstrate usage and/or success of implementation using accepted assessment methods. Include any other supporting print or electronic documentation that would assist the committee in evaluating the purpose, content, impact, and innovative aspects of the program or service.

Send nominations to the Academic Division Awards Committee Chair, Catherine Lavallée-Welch, Director, University of South Florida Polytechnic Library, clw@poly.usf.edu.

Note: Electronic submissions are required.

Submission Deadline: April 1st, 2012

Thanks for nothing, big guys (UofT and UWO cave to Access Copyright)

This made a big splash up here in Canada last week, but then seemed to quickly quiet down, and I'm not sure why. Maybe I'm just looking in the wrong spots. Read many of the details on the Excess Copyright blog, but as Howard Knopf points out, "In an astonishing development that has caught all but a handful by surprise, U. of T. and Western have signed copyright deals with Access Copyright that appear to be an early and complete capitulation to an important battle over the costs and parameters of access to knowledge in Canadian post-secondary institutions."

Down in the comments someone writes, "I actually sit on the Access Copyright Working Group for Western. No one that I know on that committee knew anything about this agreement. It also comes hot on the heels of the entire student body (undergraduate and graduate students alike) voting to opt out of the Access Copyright Tariff. There are many, many questions about the deal and the entire process that need to be made public."

See also Sam Trosow's post on the subject.

Does anyone have words from the institutions about why they've caved like this? 

CFP: Fourth International M-Libraries Conference

Found onthe m-libraries blog, information about the call for papers for the 4th M-Libraries Conference, to be held at The Open University on 24th-26th September, 2012. The Open University is headquartered in Milton Keynes, UK.

Please submit your abstracts (up to 300 words) by 15^th of March 2012 to m-libraries-conference@open.ac.uk

The importance of sweater vests and screencasting

Over at Library Voice, Chad Boeninger pops out of hibernation with an excellent post titled How I make instructional library web videos and screencasts and how you can too. In this post Chad distills his six years of experience with screencasting by answering the following questions:

1. Why Web Video?
   
2. What type of content?
3. How much time does it take?
4. How much time is saved?
5. How long should my videos be?
6. Script or no script?
7. Which software for screencasting?
8. How do I record my voice?
9. Where do you record your videos?
10. Which resolution?
11. Why and How do you add the video of yourself in the videos?
12. To edit or not?
13. How do I know when my video is done?
14. Where should I upload?
15. But you don’t use just use YouTube, do you?
16. How do I promote my videos?
17. What else should I know?

Yes, it's a long post :-)

Mentoring a New Distance Education Librarian

A newish book popped up for me on an ego alert, and I learned that Mentoring in Librarianship: Essays on Working with Adults and Students to Further the Profession contains a chapter specifically on Mentoring a New Distance Education Librarian (it's chapter 27, written by Annie Knight). It's also available on Amazon, where you can search inside the book to decide if it's right for you.

CFP - 6th Canadian Learning Commons Conference

Deadline for Submissions extended to Friday, January 13, 2012

Call for Proposals – 6^th Canadian Learning Commons Conference

New Media, New Fluencies and Life Skills Development:  Preparing Learners for the 21^st Century

We invite submissions for the 6^th Canadian Learning Commons Conference, May 7 - 9, 2012 to be held at the University of Calgary in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.

In his 2009 book, “Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture:  Media Education for the 21^st Century.” (MIT Press), Henry Jenkins talks about the skills students need to succeed:  “The new literacies almost all involve social skills developed through collaboration and networking.  These skills build on the foundation of traditional literacy, research skills, technical skills, and critical-analysis skills taught in the classroom.” (p. 29)  

Learning Commons have established themselves as a place where students come to engage in collaborative learning by providing the spaces, technologies, information resources, and expert assistance to support that learning.  We invite our colleagues to come together in Calgary to discuss recent developments in Learning Commons services.

• As institutions of higher learning strive to meet the expectations of 21^st century learners, how has Learning Commons evolved?
• What is the role of the Learning Commons in enhancing student engagement, retention and success?
  • What are new developments in the physical, social and technical environment of the Commons?
  • What services are being offered in Learning Commons to cultivate the development of collaboration, networking and other life skills?
  • What new programs are we offering to ensure the development of fluencies for the creation of knowledge using new media?
  • How are we integrating data resources into Learning Commons Services?
  • How are we expanding upon the traditional collaborations between learning support units, libraries and IT to include teaching support units, instructors and students in the development and delivery of Learning Commons services?
  • What recent innovations in the use of technologies to support learning have we incorporated into the Learning Commons?
  • What have we done to create a culture of respect for diverse learning styles within the Learning Commons?

We welcome submissions that take a theoretical or applied approach to these and related questions.  Proposals will be accepted for presentations (30 minute sessions providing 20 minutes for presentations and 10 minutes for questions) and posters.   The deadline for submissions has been extended to Friday, January 13, 2012.  Please include a title, abstract (no more than 250 words for presentations or 100 words for posters), biographical information of presenter(s) and send to clcc6@ucalgary.ca.  Successful proposals will be identified by Friday, January 20, 2012. 

Presenters are expected to attend the 6^th Canadian Learning Commons Conference and all fees (including registration, travel, accommodation, etc.) are their responsibility.  For additional information, please contact Darlene Warren (dcwarren@ucalgary.ca), Associate Vice-Provost Libraries and Cultural Resources, Learning Services.

Located in the foothills of Canada’s Rocky Mountains, Calgary is a safe, clean and vibrant city of over 1 million people that offers easy access to breathtaking outdoor adventure in a pristine wilderness.  For more information about the city, visit the Calgary Tourism website at www.visitcalgary.com

Conference Website: http://www.ucalgary.ca/clcc2012/

Sarah calls out OverDrive

If you currently subscribe or are considering subscribing to OverDrive's ebook service, you owe it to yourself to go read Sarah's (LiB) post about how OverDrive is offering different catalogues to libraries based on how those libraries define their service areas. Apparently it is in OverDrive's TOS, but it's not very clear, and OverDrive hasn't taken the opportunity to clarify their position despite numerous attempts on Sarah's part to get them to comment.

Movember - is it a Commonwealth thing?

At the end of October this year a friend of mine posted that his doctor had found a tumor during a checkup of his manly parts. This timing was such that I decided I'd get involved in the Movember movement this year.

Over the past few days I noticed something really odd. Canada is leading the amount raised by a large margin. Know where the US is, with it's 10-times the population? 4th. Behind Canada, the UK, and Australia.

It's not as though the US has a lower incidence of prostate cancer or other men's health issues than any of those other three countries. I know the economy's in the pits, but it's can't be that bad, can it?

According to Wikipedia, while the Movember movement did begin in Australia, it expanded to Canada and the US at the same time, in 2007. So what's going on down there? You guys don't have enough testosterone to grow your own 'staches? You donated all your spare money to breast cancer last month because the NFL did such a good job wearing pink?

I'm genuinely curious about why the US is such a laggard with this particular movement. How often do you guys have a good excuse not to shave your lip? You know winter's on the way - doesn't your lip need a sweater?

And yes, this is also a thinly-veiled attempt to generate some more donations to the cause. If you'd like to sponser me, you can do so at http://mobro.co/ppival

If you'd like to donate to support men's health in general, you can do so at http://us.movember.com/donate/

If you don't care about men's health issues, do consider finding a cause you do care about, and get involved.

Oh, and of course you don't have to donate through me, but if I don't get at least one donation as a result of this post, I'm going to have to give you details of the prostate exam I'll be getting at the end of this month... Your call, and thanks in advance :-)

ScreenConnect - another remote-assistance tool

A year ago I blogged about an article I had read that looked at different tools that could be used to either create screencasts, or allow screen sharing, in support of virtual reference transactions.

Six months ago a representative from ScreenConnect sent me an email suggesting that tool would be a good addition to the list from that post. I finally got around to taking a look (can you say "swamped"), and have to agree. A full cross-platform remote-control product, ScreenConnect is a self-hosted solution, which may be a turn off for some libraries, as so many services appear to be cloud-hosted, but I guess that's how they keep the price down. 

Lots of good documentation on the site, including this page describing how ScreenConnect fits in amongst its competitors. I also like the "Charlie Brown Teacher" component of their screencast. I must admit I didn't actually use the product, but you can download a fully-functioning 30-day free trial if it looks like something you want to explore. Oh, and there's an app for that too.

Lifehacker's Five Best Screencasting or Screen Recording Tools

No surprises in here really, as Lifehacker rounds up the five best screencasting tools as submitted by its readers. My fav, Camtasia Studio, comes out on top all around, offering both a Windows and Mac version. There seem to be a lot of folks who like the free CamStudio though, if the after-poll is to be trusted:

And in related screencasting news, Techsmith, makers of Camtasia Studio, is running a contest to crown the first ScreenChamp, with a first prize of a MacBook Pro. Details here. I thought I'd use this contest as an excuse to update my screencasts on creating persistent URLs, but am concerned about the rule that says the screencast can't contain any 3rd party trademarks, logos, insignia, location signage, photographs, artwork or sculptures without the appropriate permissions... Guess I could seek permission from the database vendors... We'll see. It'd be great if a librarian won the education category, wouldn't it? :-)