up2date

Google Scholar has a 'new look'

From the Google Scholar blog :

"We've made several adjustments based on feedback from the legal search user survey...You can limit your search to specific jurisdictions by clicking in the sidebar of the search results page instead of navigating through advanced search. You can print legal cases in a cleaner, more streamlined format using the "Print" option in your browser.

We've also clarified the ... settings page by organizing it into sections, performed a minor facelift on pages that deal with configuration of email alerts, and next we'll be working on updating the author profile pages and help pages.

As announced last summer, we're unable to continue supporting older and infrequently used versions of Firefox (<3.6) and Internet Explorer (<7)....

If you don't like our new modern look, or simply prefer to wait a little longer before switching, you can temporarily revert to the old venerable look. ...

If you're wondering why you're still seeing the old look, that's probably because we're gradually rolling out the new look to all users. But you don't have to wait. You can beat the crowds and upgrade right away."

"An Annual Bird's Eye View of Libraries' ILS Migration"

From ALA's TechSource :

"If you're in any phase of evaluating your current systems or alternatives, check out [Marshall Breeding's] nifty chart Integrated Library System turnover in 2011 on the Library Technology Guides site. Drawing from data contributed by libraries registered in lib-web-cats, Marshall has presented an aggregate view. Turnover  from previous years and 2012 to date is also available."

Italian library records to be added to WorldCat

From the OCLC press release :

CIPE Italian University Consortium to add 11 million records to WorldCat DUBLIN, Ohio, USA, 20 March 2012—OCLC and the CIPE consortium, which comprises 11 university libraries in northern and central Italy, have signed an agreement to load CIPE library records into WorldCat to increase visibility of these Italian collections, and enrich the world's largest resource for discovery of library materials.

 

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."

"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.

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.

Apps for libraries winners

From the press release :

"CONGRATULATIONS TO THE WINNERS AND ALL WHO PARTICIPATED!

• Grand Prize (€750) - Judges' Choice: Journals/Conferences @ Your Fingertips
• Grand Prize (€750) - Community Choice: JTOCs 2 Go

...

It now gets more interesting as we move to build the two winning app ideas. Stay tuned..."

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."

Infographic illustrating 5 major social network features

Thanks to the INFOdocket, this interesting infographic, although it's heavier on the 'info' than the 'graphic' :

"Most people don’t have the social steam to power a presence on Google+, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Tumblr. Sure, there are handy apps like Twitterfeed and Hootsuite that can help spread one post to all of your networks, but that ignores the individual strengths and weaknesses of each platform.

When it comes time to pick and choose where you post, this chart can help you decide what’s appropriate for you"

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.

Wikipedia losing contributors

As reported both by INFODocket & Actualitté, Wikipedia is concerned by the dropping numbers of contributors to the site.

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!

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)

Top 10 IT Trends per EDUCAUSE

From the EDUCAUSE site (there's an elucidatory article, but I'm just going to list the designated top 10 & leave the reading up to you). (HT to INFODocket) :

Top-Ten IT Issues, 2011

1.   Funding IT
2.   Administrative/ERP/Information Systems
3.   Teaching and Learning with Technology
4.   Security
5.   Mobile Technologies
6.   Agility/Adaptability/Responsiveness
7.   Governance, Portfolio/Project Management
8.   Infrastructure/Cyberinfrastructure
9.   Disaster Recovery / Business Continuity
10.  Strategic Planning

"Grid, Distributed and Cloud Computing Resources Primer"

If cloud computing stopped being a subject of discussion, I promise I'd stop posting about it. Somehow with the iCloud Apple announcement and the rise of tablet computing, I don't think the topic will go away, though. This is a good overview of the current state of play, which is constantly changing. Europe is trying to work out laws and policies now.

From INFODocket :

Grid, Distributed and Cloud Computing Resources Primer (PDF)

This primer is 30 pages and a .pdf document (245KB) and freely available from the above URL. The primer gives an excellent overview of Cloud Computing along with a comprehensive listing of cloud, grid and distributed computing resources…”

Source: Marcus P. Zillman, M.S., A.M.H.A.

Technology Forecasting Literature Review

From INFODocket :

"...All of the sources used to prepare the forecast as well as a few other documents are available.

From JISC:

This report is a summary of technology themes extracted from the major technology forecasting publications from business and other sectors that could conceivably be relevant to the UK higher education system. Around thirty “horizon scanning” publications describing emerging technologies were reviewed and the technology forecasts were then grouped into themes for discussion in this report. The themes are presented in no particular order.

We hope you find this is an easily-digested summary (35 Pages; Word Doc)

This report is a summary of technology themes extracted from the major technology forecasting publications from business and other sectors that could conceivably be relevant to the UK higher education system. We do not attempt to make evaluative comments concerning these trends, and specifically we do not attempt to speculate on the importance of the technologies identified for education.

The work leading to publication comprised three stages: selection of sources, scanning these sources to extract specific emerging technologies and grouping these technologies into themes.

...

For each theme, we provide a brief introductory definition, a short snapshot of relevant technologies and applications in business and the wider world, and its implications to an organisation’s IT and business strategies. We have used ‘Google Insights for Search’ to visualise the trend of interest on each theme or relevant technologies over time (2004 – present); this is for illustrative purposes only. The themes are presented in no particular order.

Access the Literature Review Summary (35 Pages; Word)"