up2date

Free webinar : "Keeping Up: Social Networking and Higher Ed"

From Friends: Social Networking Sites for Engaged Library Services :

March 23, 2011 at 2:00 pm ET - free to all.

Guests: Our "Keeping Up" panel - Charles Ansorge, Steven Bell, Ilene Frank, Lisa Star, Jane Harris, Beth Dailey, Jane Marcus, and Steve Gilbert

...

Source and Registration Links Available At

[ http://bit.ly/xMFU7u]

"British University Students Still Crave Print Over eBooks & US: Tablet Ownership, eReading, and Students"

From INFOdocket :

"From a BML Bowker Announcement:

While the majority of the U.K.’s undergraduate students are now using e-books, none are yet relying on them as a primary source of information. Print continues its hold as a key resource for at least two-thirds of students.... The study was conducted in December 2011 and shows significant change since 2003 when BML conducted similar research.

[Clip]

Indeed, the study plots a variety of changes and pace at which they’re occurring. For example, 88 percent of undergraduates still use printed books and lecturer handouts, a decline from 95 percent in 2003. Further, online journals are growing in popularity, with nearly 80 percent of students embracing them, up from 66 percent in 2003.

The study also explores how students are accessing materials. For example, 48 percent of students using printed books obtain them mainly from the library – more than double the amount buying them new or second-hand. Nearly half of those using e-books download them for free, with 38 percent borrowing from the library. Just 9 percent buy ebooks.

...

See Also: New Survey Finds Dramatic Increase in Tablet Ownership Among College Students and High School Seniors in the U.S.  (via Pearson Foundation)

... a new study from the Pearson Foundation reveals that students believe tablets and other mobile devices will transform learning. The Pearson Foundation’s Second Annual Survey on Students and Tablets also finds that tablet ownership among college students and high school seniors has risen dramatically in the last year—ownership has tripled among college students (25% vs. 7% in 2011) and quadrupled among high school seniors (17% vs. 4% in 2011).

[Clip]

Digital readership has continued to grow since last year’s survey. Seventy percent of college students have read a digital text, compared to 62% in 2011, and the majority of students now prefer digital to print. Almost six in 10 college students prefer digital over print when reading books for fun (57%) or textbooks for class (58%). This is a reversal from last year, when more college students preferred print over digital; this trend also holds true among high school seniors.

The survey reveals that more students are reading digital books, and that a majority of college students (63%) and high school seniors (69%) believe that tablets will effectively replace textbooks within the next five years.

Direct to News Release, Summary, and Full Report"

 

"History Project Interim Report: Support Challenges" [including libraries]

3d(? I'm loosing count) part of the Ithaka report. The section that really caught my eye was the part about libraries and librarians :

"Expertise and skill building
“[We are] willing to contemplate a variety of futures for the library.”

Interviews with research support professionals from libraries often discussed the challenges of transforming a staff of professionals who have filled traditional library roles, and preparing staff to take on new roles within their organizations. ... In some cases, exposure and a degree of “literacy” in digital humanities is the end goal, and service models will rely on librarians to act as referrers within the organization – connecting faculty to the research support professionals on campus who can best meet their needs. In some cases, librarians are redefining their roles and assuming positions in library-initiated centers. In these cases a good deal of professional development is typically invested, or, opportunities for new hires are pursued. Organizations with any of these staffing structures are facing the challenges of managing an evolving staff with widely varied skill sets, and new service models that may be unique within the library.

Outreach

Some library-based research support professionals feel a disconnect from faculty research and publication work flows. Many continue to struggle to maintain an understanding of evolving faculty research practices. ...

Research support professionals expressed a clear need for more information and a deeper understanding of faculty research and scholarship practices in order to increase outreach effectively and expand services to meet new needs. ...

For those centers based in libraries, it was widely acknowledged that collaboration with faculty is key to success of a new service model. One interviewee indicated that this was more important than the facility – there is no guarantee that “if you build it they will come."

The codex is dead, long live the codex

Wayne Bivens-Tatum, over at Academic Librarian, writes a cogent explanation/defense of why humanists prefer print to e-books:

http://blogs.princeton.edu/librarian/2011/11/the-codex-is-dead-long-live-the-codex/

Essentially, he argues that working with multiple print texts is currently more efficient than working with multiple e-books, and that this kind of work is central to research in the humanities:

I think this is an exam­ple where breath­less ebook prophets are push­ing a for­mat that for now remains an inad­e­quate tool for human­is­tic schol­arly research, and I sus­pect they’re doing so because they never do any of that type of research, so they either don’t know or don’t care about the inad­e­quate tools. Tech­nol­ogy that doesn’t make work eas­ier is bad tech­nol­ogy, no mat­ter how much some peo­ple might like it for their casual read­ing. When the tools improve, no one will be protest­ing the demise of the codex.

Nothing perhaps that we don't already know, but a useful reminder of the pragmatics of the research process, particularly his description of the mechanics of his own research.

"Archive of the 2012 ALA Midwinter Tech Wrapup"

From the ALA TechSource blog (which also includes the slides from the panelists) :

The 2012 ALA TechSource Midwinter Tech Wrap-up was a huge success. We had great presentations from our panel, and great participation from our audience.

If you missed the event, or want to experience it again, you can view the video archive of the event here.

Again, the URL for the archive is: https://alapublishing.webex.com/alapublishing/lsr.php?AT=pb&SP=EC&rID=4742212&rKey=1b36dc291d7a1f59 

The slides from all panelists are below.

"What's In Store for the Library Automation Industry in 2012?"

From ALA TechSource :

"This article appears in the January 2012 issue of Smart Libraries Newsletter. To read more from Marshall Breeding on mobile library technology and other facets of the library automation industry, you can purchase this issue or subscribe to Smart Libraries Newsletter at our metapress site.

As we enter a new year, I’d like to pause and consider some of the trends and events that I anticipate playing out in 2012.  The predictions I made for 2011 largely held (see Smart Libraries Newsletter, February 2011).  Given the momentum of developments and the issues currently in play, 2012 may turn out to be a very interesting year in the realm of library technologies.

The year will mark the beginning of a new cycle of transitions in automation platforms that will run to completion over the next decade.   2012 will be a watershed year in the roll out of a new generation of library automation platforms, especially in the academic library arena.  Several major new automation systems will see their debut, including Ex Libris’ Alma, Sierra from Innovative Interfaces, and Serials Solutions’ Web-scale Management Solution.

..."

TOC services

I've been using and recommending ticTOCs, but I think I've found an equally good and quite different Tables of Contents aggregator, again brought to us by the UK. Another recommendation from INFOdocket, written up by Gary Price in Search Engine Land, JournalTOCs covers "17,000 journals published by more than 900 publishers and organizations."

It's very easy to get an RSS feed to the publications you want (an important different to me from ticTOCs). However, the subject classification is even less granular, which makes it much harder to narrow down to a particular area of interest.

Harvard's Library Lab projects

From INFOdocket (I'm picking out the ones that intrigue me most -- see the full list on INFOdocket) :

Awesome Box
Interact with an amazing or useful item from the library and return it to the Awesome Box instead of the normal drop box. ... 

Connecting the Dots: Using EAC-CPF to Reunite Samuel Johnson and His Circle
A project between Harvard and Yale universities to demonstrate the benefits of using Encoded Archival Context ... to describe creators of manuscript collections and encode meaningful semantic links between those creators themselves and the primary sources that document their lives and work.

...

Enhance Catalog Searching with Geospatial Technology
A project to explore the opportunities that geo-referencing catalog data can provide to enhancing catalog searching.

...

 

http://infodocket.com/2011/12/08/cool-harvards-library-lab-adds-13-new-projects-to-roster/

"Redefining the Academic Library: Managing the Migration to Digital Information Services"

From INFOdocket :

Title: Redefining the Academic Library: Managing the Migration to Digital Information Services (51 pages/slides; PDF)

Source: Educational Advisory Board

Don Hawkins shares a summary of the report in this post on The Conference Circuit from Information Today.

Roy Tennant writes:

This is one of the single best sources for this kind of guidance I’ve seen in a long time, and I don’t say that merely because it draws upon the work of some of my colleagues at OCLC. If you work in an academic library, you need to read this, take it to heart, and act.

Proceedings of the ARL Membership Meeting

From INFOdocket (it appears that audio for most of the sessions will be available later) :

“Expanding Capacity and Partnerships in the Digital World.”

The 159th ARL Membership Meeting took place in Washington DC on October 12–13, 2011
Twitter Hashtag: #ARL11fall

Welcoming Remarks

Carol A. Mandel, New York University, and ARL President

Constructing Digital Research Collections

Convener: Deanna Marcum, New York University

Speakers:
Charles J. Henry, Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR)
Ed Van Gemert, University of Wisconsin–Madison
Brewster Kahle, Internet Archive

Van Gemert slides [PDF]
Kahle slides [PDF]

Opening Up Orphan Works

Convener: Lizabeth (Betsy) Wilson, University of Washington

Speakers:
Paul N. Courant, University of Michigan
Sharon E. Farb, University of California, Los Angeles
Jonathan Band, PLLC, Technology Law and Policy

Farb slides [PDF]

Luncheon with Program

Convener: Mary Case, University of Illinois at Chicago
Speaker: R. Michael Tanner, Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU)

Briefing from the Task Force on Licensing E-Book Packages

Speaker: Brinley Franklin, University of Connecticut and Chair of ARL Task Force on Licensing E-Book Packages

Franklin slides [PDF]

Concurrent Topical Briefing Sessions

Update of Key Policy Issues Pending Before the Research Library Community

Convener: James F. Williams II, University of Colorado at Boulder and Chair of ARL Influencing Public Policies Steering Committee

Speakers:
Prudence S. Adler, Association of Research Libraries
Jonathan Band, PLLC, Technology Law and Policy
Brandon Butler, Association of Research Libraries

Using Licenses and Contracts as Effective Tools for Scholarship

Convener: Ann J. Wolpert, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Speaker: Jaren D. Wilcoxson, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Expanding Capacity and Partnerships Through Authenticity and Trust: The Case of the MetaArchive Cooperative
Convener: H. Carton Rogers, University of Pennsylvania
Speaker: Tyler Walters, Virginia Tech

Walters slides [PDF]

National Study of Undergraduate Students and Information Technology, 2011 Report

From EDUCAUSE :

The ECAR study of undergraduate students and information technology sheds lights on how information technology affects the college experience. ECAR has conducted this annual study since 2004, and though students' ownership and utilization of technology changes from year to year, students consistently rely upon their instructors and institutions to meet their technology expectations and needs. The 2011 study differs from past studies in that the questionnaire was reengineered and responses were gathered from a nationally representative sample of 3,000 students in 1,179 colleges and universities.

• Facebook generation students juggle personal and academic interactions
• Students prefer, and say they learn more in, classes with online components
• Students are drawn to hot technologies, but they rely on more traditional devices
• Students report technology delivers major academic benefits
• Students report uneven perceptions of institutions' and instructors' use of technology

Pew Internet report “A Third of Text Message Users Prefer Them to Voice Calls”

From the ResourceShelf :

Pew Report: Adults Prefer Text Messages to Voice Calls

        From the report:

Some 83% of American adults own cell phones and three-quarters of them (73%) send and receive text messages. The Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project asked those texters in a survey how they prefer to be contacted on their cell phone and 31% said they preferred texts to talking on the phone, while 53% said they preferred a voice call to a text message. Another 14% said the contact method they prefer depends on the situation.

Full story >>

Europeana 4D

New from the Europeana project :

"...Our europeana 4D interface – e4D – enables comparative visualisation of multiple queries and supports data annotated with time span data. We implemented our design in a prototype application in the context of the European project EuropeanaConnect.

...

To enhance understanding of data from historical contexts, our tool also supports multiple historical maps. On this website, we feature several real-world datasets:

• Europeana
• Library catalogue data of the University and State Library of Goettingen
• Wikipedia/DBPedia
• Flickr
• The International Movie Database (IMDB)

You may also use your own dataset with our interface – just follow these simple instructions. We would encourage you to take a look at the features list and then give some of the sample datasets a try."

mobile apps & the workplace

From the FastFoward blog a post that makes me think on multiple levels, including mobile apps for patrons & mobile apps for librarians (I really want a YBP Gobi app!) :

Forrester on Designing Mobile Apps

by Bill Ives 

Mobile collaboration is an increasingly important topic... It is a matter of when, not whether that mobile devices exceed desktops. The new Forrester Wave™: Mobile Collaboration, Q3 2011 by Ted Schadler for Content & Collaboration Professionals offers some useful advice on how mobile collaboration requires a new app approach.

We are now living in a work everywhere world. ... Forrester notes that your most productive employees m now use four devices to get work done. This means that “client/server solutions with on-premises servers are inadequate, simply not responsive or agile enough for escalating user requirements and expectations.” [emphasis mine]

They note that mobile apps need to be designed to run well on any mobile device...With so many different mobile platforms and form factors to target, app developers will have to organize differently, code differently, and execute differently. In this new environment design skills grow ever-more important (and scarce). There will be new abstraction layers that separate presentation from interaction from back-end services. Teams now must design for mobile first. [emphasis mine]

Mobile apps must be delivered as a cloud service. Forrester notes that latency is already a problem for distributed organizations and even waiting for email to upload or download to a remote site can be painful. ...

Here is another perspective on mobile app creation from the recent Enterprise 2.0 conference. This session discussed three components that any mobile strategy should have, which includes deciding what goes mobile, understanding how to mobilize applications and services, and designing a framework for managing mobility. On a related note here are some thoughts from the 2011 mLearn Mobile Learning Conference.

WorldCat identities app

I learned about this from my one of my favorite sources, INFODocket, although I've been unable to locate the actual app. However, it's worth looking at the OCLC description and hoping it appears. Perhaps I'm missing the obvious -- if you have a location for it (the links on the INFODocket are currently redirecting to the OCLC description site), let me know!

"Mobile: The Web All Over Again?"

From blog Book Business, this is an editorial by Noelle Skodzinski :

"... John Morse  makes a really interesting point: He suggests, "Be as bold with mobile apps today as we were with the Web 10 years ago." The Web was a new frontier, where questions abounded and risk lurked around every corner. It is, in its premise, very similar to mobile.

...

Arguments abounded in the industry about whether to put print content (mainly newspapers and magazines) online for free, and doing so was, in fact, all that some publications did. We know where that landed the publishing industry.

...

John Morse's comparison between the Web and mobile is an eye opener. It also screams "caution!" to me. So many publishers messed up on the Web, ignoring it or doing very little with it, while the rest of the information world went Web-wild. Other publishers jumped in head first, though sometimes blindly, but got a head start on their competition and built a strong online foundation for growth over the past 10 years."

ebooks in Libraries affecting academic pbrs

From the InfoViews blog :

"The following post is the fourth in a series from Leslie Lees, VP of Content Development from ebrary.  Academic E-books – The Shifting Landscape discusses changes that are occurring with ebooks and implications for libraries and their users.  –Mike

... We discussed the irony that his book, which is about the futility of attempts by publishers to artificially recreate the restrictions from printed books in the new digital world, has not yet been made available as a library e-book due to an embargo to allow for individual purchases.

That scholarly publishers are, in fact, very aware of this irony, and of the challenges posed by this new digital culture, is made clear in the AAUP-sponsored report, Sustaining Scholarly Publishing: New Business Models for University Presses.  The report is an attempt to find ways out of the impasse in which publishers find themselves, wherein the shift from the scarcity of access in the print world which dictated the way that books were written, published, and sold, to a situation of hyper-abundance that seriously challenges their traditional business models.

..."

Annual Tech Wrapup = Free ALA Webinar

From the ALA Techsource blog :

"...our panel of experts will discuss what they learned and what stood out at Annual Conference. From ebooks to tablets to RFID and library systems, you'll get insightful perspective on the technology buzz in New Orleans!

You can register for this event, which takes place on Friday, July 8th, 2011 at 3:00pm Eastern/2:00 Central/1:00 Mountain/Noon Pacific and lasts 90 minutes, here: https://alapublishing.webex.com/alapublishing/onstage/g.php?p=23&t=m.

Our panelists for this event are:

• Jason Griffey, Head of Library Information Technology, University of Tennessee, Chattanooga, and ALA TechSource and American Libraries blogger
• Kate Sheehan, Open Source Implementation Coordinator, Bibliomation Inc., and ALA TechSource blogger
• Sue Polanka, Head of Reference/Instruction, Wright State University Libraries, blogger and Author of No Shelf Required
• Marshall Breeding, Director for Innovative Technologies and Research for the Vanderbilt University Libraries

There will be a Q and A with panelists following the presentation.

Resister today!"

 

eBooks and eReaders in libraries

From INFODocket :

From a Summary:

In early June of 2011, a joint Poudre River Public, Front Range Community College, and Colorado State University libraries committee released a report on the state of eBooks and eReaders. The purpose of the study was to gain a better understanding of this rapidly-developing topic, and to make recommendations aimed at serving the customers of each library.

Direct to Extended Report (55 Pages; PDF)

“How People Use Twitter in Different Languages”

From INFODocket :

Title: How People use Twitter in Different Languages (2 pages; PDF)

Authors: Wouter Weerkamp,  Simon Carter, and Manos Tsagkias

In: Proceedings of the ACM WebSci’11, June 14-17 2011, Koblenz, Germany (via Web Science Repository)

Abstract:

In this paper we describe how Twitter is used in various languages. We observe notable differences between languages regarding the use of hashtags, links, mentions, and conversations. We propose two dimensions that can be used to classify languages, each of which is likely to require different ways of analysis.