Libraries as bee-hives? Google as a partner? Librarians as network administrators as much as information specialists? Librarians “entrepreneurial, engaged and outward looking”? Investing thousands of pounds in change management programs?

WOLFRAM|ALPHA

http://wolframalpha.com

This is an “answer engine” that was launched on 15 May 2009. It mines factual databases to provide comprehensive data of the type in an almanac or ready reference collection.

It is especially suited to mathematical calculations, especially complicated equations. Once you work out the best way to ask it questions – and it can take a bit of experimentation –  it is useful for all sorts of queries. You can check the source information by clicking a link at the bottom.

Searches to try: population of australia , time in new zealand, when was Murdoch University established?

Screencast introducing Wolfram|Alpha: http://www16.wolframalpha.com/screencast/introducingwolframalpha.html

GOOGLE WONDER WHEEL AND FACETS

Google is experimenting with faceted results and graphic display. To see what they are doing:

1.    Go to google.com

2.    Cut and paste this into your browser address bar. It tells google that you want to be part of the trial.

javascript:void(document.cookie=”PREF=ID=4a609673baf685b5:TB=2:LD=en:CR=2:TM=1227543998:LM=1233568652:DV=AA:GM=1:IG=3:S=yFGqYec2D7L0wgxW;path=/; domain=.google.com”);

3.    Look for “show options” when you do your search:

4.    Click on “show options” and check out the facets and wonderwheel.

Screencast introducing the wonderwheel and other experiments: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDnmQ9Mmj1Q

The fact that Zotero was previously limited to just Firefox on one PC was what was stopping me from using it as my major tool to organise and store research citations.

Zotero still automatically extracts bibliographic detail from any page online. It still allows me to save the entire page, article or pdf. It still indexes it for easy retrievability and allows me to tag it and make notes. It still spits out citations in many different formats, and inserts them appropriately in my writing.

I don’t *think* it will write my paper for me yet…

This screencast explains some of the new features: Zotero 1.5 Screencast . This page lists and explains many of the new features: Zotero 1.5 Beta Released: Join Us In The Clouds

I like the (new?) slogan: The web now has a wrangler .

Library Journal has a really easy to read article, Web Design Matters: Ten features that should be on every library site .

The features are:

1 Promotion

2 Segmentation

3 Visual Cues

4 Inspiring Photos

5 Search Boxes

6 Mobile-Friendly Pages – see their example: http://www.lions-online.org/mobile/

7 Feedback

8 Redundancy

9 Analytics

10 An Easy Way To Ask for Help

I’ll be posting to my @libsmatter Twitter account as I go.

The very, very generous VALA, who are sponsoring my travel scholarship to look at Alternative Discovery Layers and Open Source Software, have asked me to prepare an original paper for the VALA Conference 2010 – Connections.Content.Conversations. I’ll be looking at what the systems studied do technically and whether organisations that implement them have anything in common that makes them early adopters – “how come you did this, but the library down the road didn’t?”. Some original material that needs to be in the conference paper won’t be tweeted or posted here.

I’ll also be researching material for a Masters of Information Management at Curtin University. My thesis is tentatively titled: Taking matters into our own hands: Influencing factors and concerning factors for libraries that developed Open Source Library Application Software between 1999 and 2009.

I’ll be presenting a plenary session at Library Camp East on 26 March and be part of a panel session about Unconferences at Computers in Libraries on 31 March. I’m really excited to finish my trip by speaking at the U Game U Learn symposium at Delft in the Netherlands on 23 April. I’ll be asking “What kind of better than free is your library?”.

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Here’s a map of where I’m going – it will probably not show up in my RSS feed –

View Larger Map

Results and screens look very clean to me after an initial play. The prompts that appear as you type in the search term would be a bit distracting, but very useful I think.

They are the first to do this in Australia, and what is particularly interesting is that this is a commercial product is not designed specifically for libraries, but for all sorts of datasets.

They also had some interesting findings on the students’ use of libraries pp11-12.

Abstract: A report of preliminary findings and analysis from student discussion groups held

on 7 U.S. campuses in Fall 2008, as part of Project Information Literacy. Qualitative data from

discussions with higher education students across the country suggest that conducting research is

particularly challenging. Students’ greatest challenges are related to their perceived inability to find

desired materials. Students seek “contexts” as part of the research process. A preliminary typology

of the research contexts is developed and introduced. Finding contexts for “backgrounding”

topics and for figuring out how to traverse complex information landscapes may be the most difficult

part of the research process. Our findings also suggest that students create effective methods

for conducting research by using traditional methods, such as libraries, and self-taught, creative

workarounds, such as “presearch” and Wikipedia, in different ways.

The second half of the day is a visit to the Yarra Plenty library.

CoverITLive Liveblog: Helene Blowers Library 2.0 Masterclass Day 2

Library 2.0 Masterclass. Helene Blowers. Melbourne