LibraryTechNZ

New homes for your LibraryTech blogging needs

2013-04-09T11:24:00.000+12:00

As you may notice from the date stamps, there's not a lot of fresh material on this blog.

Much of what would have been posted here is now showing up on the DigitalNZ blog, or in the National Library blog's Library Tech category.

Drop us a line in the comments over there, or at @NLNZ or @DigitalNZ if there's anything you want us to cover.

Posts on this blog will be ported over to the National Library site when we've got a spare moment. Cheers, all!

Comparing the 2008 and 2010 New Zealand Web Harvests

2011-04-07T20:42:00.007+12:00

Brian of Auckland has asked about the New Zealand Web Harvest 2010: “How much of the data has been analysed, catalogued or made available… Any stats?”

All good questions. “I'm sure there is a lot of interest :-)” he adds.

Analysis

This prompt has caused me to stop making excuses, and start analysing. This is more complicated than you might think, because there’s just so much data. Even the log files and summary reports are too large to work with easily.

Luckily, I still have the scripts I used in 2008, so the first pass is fairly easy. (These scripts don’t examine the data itself, they examine the reports generated from the harvest result by the Internet Archive.) I’ve now verified and written up this summary for 2010.

My colleague Gillian has taken this report and started doing side-by-side comparisons with the 2008 data. I’ve summarised her findings below, and here’s a more detailed breakdown (Link to follow).

Statistics

The following table provides a summary of the different website harvests in 2008 and 2010.

Here's a bit more detail on the .NZ part of the harvest.

What does this tell us? The obvious thing is the 2010 harvest ran longer and gathered more data, but that doesn’t necessarily mean the internet was any bigger by then because we made a lot of changes as a result of feedback following the 2008 harvest, and consultation prior to the 2010 harvest.

The first major change was that the 2010 harvest had much better seeds because we had access to the Zone files for .nz, .com, .net and .org and therefore believe we have much better coverage of the registered domains.

The second major change was that we honoured the robots.txt protocol (except when downloading images and similar elements embedded in web pages). This means that many websites were crawled less heavily than may have been the case in 2008, when we ignored robots.txt (unless specifically requested otherwise) to get a more complete crawl.

To summarise, we think the 2010 crawl had greater coverage than the first, the specific websites harvested were in many cases less complete.

Some anecdotal comments

While we haven’t made a systematic study of the data I believe the second harvest provides good coverage of the .nz domain in 2010 (whereas the 2008 harvest was patchy), and that .nz simply was significantly bigger in 2010 than in 2008 (but we’ll probably never know how much bigger, or even if such things can be measured).

Gillian and the harvesting team currently have access to both harvests. As is always the case with web archiving, the quality of the harvested websites varies. Some are complete and can be viewed properly. Others lack content because of technical limitations of the harvester, or because the website owners have excluded the harvester with robots.txt files. In selective web harvesting these problems are often resolved by tailoring the profiles for each website, or contacting the website owner. In domain harvesting this isn’t possible, due to the sheer quantity of data and the speed of the harvest.

Anecdotally, the 2010 seemed to do a much better job of avoiding spider traps, thanks to advances in harvesting practice, and to the changed robots policy.

Cataloguing

There’s none. Our selective harvests are individually catalogued and available online, but as yet we have no catalogue record for the domain harvests.

Making it available

The harvests are currently only available to selected staff members in the Library. There are a lot of legal (and also technical) issues that have to be addressed before we can provide public access, and while we’ve been able to run the harvests and secure the results, we haven’t had the resources to have a serious tilt at these access challenges.

As an interim measure we’re discussing bringing the 2008 and 2010 domain harvests together into one access point, and making them available within the the Library's reading rooms when the Molesworth Street building re-opens in 2012.

The next stage would be to provide public online access, and we’re every bit as excited about that prospect as the many people who email us to request it!

Results of our twitter user survey

2011-02-17T11:05:00.014+13:00

We've been tweeting away since way back in 2008 and in that time have sent out over 1800 tweets about quirky items in our collections. In that time we've had some highlights such as lobsterotica as well as running battles with other institutions over who has the coolest collection items.

We've also gained over 3,400 followers who hang on with baited breath for our next gem from the collections. We follow a fairly predictable pattern with around two tweets a day and although it seems to have been working well we wanted to find out a little more about what our followers thought as well as a bit more about them.

How did we do this? Through twitter again naturally. It took all of a few minutes to come up with a four question survey, which we put up on Survey Monkey and another few seconds to put out a tweet with a link and a quick one-liner grovelling for our hoards of dedicated followers to tell us more.

The beauty of twitter is the instantaneousness of it. Within minutes we had people retweeting our survey as well as people asking if we were planning of stopping – we're not!

Overall we had a pretty good response with around 70 people coming back within a few hours – thanks everyone!

First up we asked where our followers were from. Unsurprisingly the large majority were from New Zealand with only 20% being from overseas. Of those overseas it was a split between Australia and the States with a handful from Britain.

Where are you from?

Next up we were keen to find out if people were from other libraries or cultural institutions or just liked what we do. Again, unsurprisingly, there were a large amount of followers from other galleries, libraries, archives and museums however over half of the respondents just like seeing the cool stuff from our collections. Cheers guys!

Are you in

We also thought it'd be cool to find out if people use other National Library services. Well over half use a combination of online and onsite services which is great. The more interesting stat however was that almost 40% of people don't use any of our other services. While some would take this to be an area of concern it actually shows how great the power of twitter can be. We're able to use twitter to give our collections a far wider exposure than previously and through this are reaching people who never would have seen our collections or perhaps been aware of what we do.

Do you use other National Library services?

Last up we asked if there was anything that we should be doing differently. On hindsight we could have asked this slightly better, as there were a lot of people who wanted for us to keep doing what we do but also talk about other National Library things going on. The awesome news was that we seem to be doing a good job just twice a day which works really well for us and is sustainable over the long term.

We mainly tweet cool stuff from our collections twice a day. Should we

One thing that did come through strongly in the comments was the desire from people to know more about the National Library going ons. We deliberately stay away from mixing this sort of news within this channel as we'd find that it would drive away everyone else who just want to see quirky items from our collections.
The good news is that we actually do have several other twitter channels that would help give a broader view of the library.

The Services to Schools team run an account @L2_S2S which is aimed at teachers and school librarians. They also have several blogs that talk about children's literature and innovation in school libraries.

The Alexander Turnbull Library, @AlexArchivists, tweet about general digital archival interests and the Aotearoa People's Network Kaharoa, @PeepsNetwork, tweet about their service and other IT related things.

Lastly, @DigitalNZ, have also been on Twitter for quite some time and talk about the DigitalNZ service as well as all things digitisation

As yet there are no plans for a newsy type twitter account with general National Library goings on however this may change as we look towards moving back into our building in 2012.
Thanks heaps to everyone who took a minute to help us out with this.

Matt O'Reilly

The Source: news about digital libraries and library innovations from around the web

2011-01-28T11:56:00.002+13:00

Introducing The Source

Perceptions of libraries, 2010: Context and community (Note: PDF)

From the OCLC website

This new OCLC report, a sequel to the 2005 ‘Perceptions of Libraries and Information Resources’, provides updated information and new insights into information consumers and their online habits, preferences, and perceptions. Particular attention has been paid to how the current economic downturn has affected information-seeking behaviours and how those changes are reflected in the use and perception of libraries.
The report explores:

Technological and economic shifts since 2005
Lifestyle changes Americans have made during the recession, including increased use of the library and other online resources
How a negative change to employment status impacts use and perceptions of the library
Perceptions of libraries and information resources based on life stage

The report is based on U.S. data from an online survey conducted by Harris Interactive on behalf of OCLC. OCLC analysed and summarised the results in order to produce the report.

The Source: news about digital libraries and library innovations from around the web

2011-01-21T11:02:00.000+13:00

Introducing The Source

Growing the pie: Increasing the level of cultural philanthropy in Aotearoa New Zealand (Note: PDF)

From the website of the Ministry for Culture & Heritage

For centuries, culture and private philanthropy have been inextricably linked. Early in the first century AD, the Roman poet Horace dedicated his first poem in Odes:I to his patron, Maecenas. The great painters of the European Renaissance were supported by wealthy individuals and rulers of states – both secular and religious. In pre-European Māori history, those with creative gifts were nurtured by their iwi or hapū. In modern Aotearoa New Zealand, the generosity of philanthropists over the decades has played a critical role in the growth of this nation’s cultural ecology. However, for culture to flourish truly and sustainably, it is vital that levels of private philanthropy in Aotearoa New Zealand are boosted.
Christopher Finlayson established the Cultural Philanthropy Taskforce in 2009; his brief to the Taskforce was succinct: I am keen for the Taskforce to explore whether there are new opportunities to encourage private investment in the arts in New Zealand over the next five to ten years.

Defining “Born Digital” (Note: PDF)

From the OCLC website

The purpose of this document is to define “born digital” and the various types of born-digital materials. It is intended to improve community discourse by encouraging caretakers of born-digital resources to specify what they mean when they use the term.

Digital forensics and born-digital content in cultural heritage collections (Note: PDF)

From the website of the Council on Library and Information Resources

This report introduces the field of digital forensics in the cultural heritage sector and explores some points of convergence between the interests of those charged with collecting and maintaining born-digital cultural heritage materials and those charged with collecting and maintaining legal evidence.

Turning the page: The future of eBooks (Note: PDF)

From the PricewaterhouseCoopers website

This new study examines trends and developments in the eBooks and eReaders market in the United States, United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and Germany, and discusses major challenges and key questions for the publishing industry worldwide. It also identifies market opportunities and developments for eBooks and eReaders, and makes recommendations for publishers, traditional retailers, online retailers, and intermediaries.
Given that publishers, internet bookstores, and companies that manufacture eReaders have high expectations for the digital future of the book industry, the study asks if a new generation of eReaders may, at last, achieve the long-awaited breakthrough that lures consumers away from paper and ink.

The survey of library database licensing practices

From the website of the Primary Research Group

The Primary Research Group has just released this new report. The complete report is a fee-based document but some highlights have been made available at no charge. The Complete TOC is available.
The 115-page report looks closely at how nearly 100 academic, special and public libraries in the United States, the UK, continental Europe, Canada, and Australia plan their database licensing practices. The report also covers the impact of digital repositories and open access publishing on database licensing. Data is broken out by size and type of library. Among the many issues covered:

database licensing volume
use of consortiums
consortium development plans
satisfaction levels with the coverage of podcasts, video, listservs, blogs and wikis in full text databases
spending levels on various types of content such as electronic journals, article databases and directories
perceptions of price increases for various types of subject matter
legal disputes between publishers and libraries
contract language
impact of mobile computing and other issues

Cloud-sourcing research collections: Managing print in the mass-digitized library environment (Note: PDF)

From the OCLC website

This report presents findings from a year-long study designed and executed by OCLC Research, the HathiTrust, New York University's Elmer Bobst Library, and the Research Collections Access & Preservation (ReCAP) consortium, with support from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
The objective of the project was to examine the feasibility of outsourcing management of low-use print books held in academic libraries to shared service providers, including large-scale print and digital repositories. The study assessed the opportunity for library space saving and cost avoidance through the systematic and intentional outsourcing of local management operations for digitised books to shared service providers and progressive downsizing of local print collections in favour of negotiated access to the digitised corpus and regionally consolidated print inventory.

Join the search terms word cloud map mashup

2010-12-16T09:00:00.002+13:00

Do you work in a library which has either an online search or OPACs with a catalogue search, or similar?

I’ve started a Google Map with links to word clouds of users’ search keywords. The map so far (http://bit.ly/dE3hrh) has just one set of search keyword clouds – it would be great to have more from around New Zealand (and beyond).

What you need:

Any kind of search tool or catalogue which produces a log of search keywords entered by users.

To be able to nominate a geographic location for the dataset.

Ideally – web statistics which include a list of the search keywords and (useful but not essential) their frequency. But as long as the data exists in some format (eg log files, or even just a list) it will still work.

If you’d like to contribute just email me (rebecca.cox @ Natlib) or comment here.

We collect web server log files and feed these into our web statistics software (Urchin, a version of Google Analytics which is installed and managed in-house.) From here you can export data in Excel format. I’ve cleaned this up, selected 500 terms from the top and bottom of the list, and created word clouds at www.wordle.net

Web stats give access to a wealth of data and can help identify audiences and behaviour which are not otherwise visible.

A while back, I checked the web stats for Papers Past to see how much “brand aware” search traffic the site was getting, and discovered there’s a significant number of people who appear to be searching the site for specific content using external search engines, eg site:paperspast.natlib.govt.nz “anti-opium association” or papers past deaths ashburton 1921.

You can look deeper by segmenting web stats by a range of criteria, from the number of words visitors use in their searches, to visitor domains (eg break out all the traffic from domains ending in .ac.nz), frequency of visit, number of pages viewed per visit, and more. For more on this, see Seb Chan’s Continuous Refinement and Data Driven Dynamic Personas from Webstock this year.

Another form of web visitor stats are heatmaps, which give a visualisation of where users are clicking on a web page (try Clickdensity or Clickheat). Here’s a heatmap showing the activity on our new homepage for the first few days after it went live.

Adding Closed Captions to YouTube

2010-12-14T10:03:00.006+13:00

We’ve recently had our first go at adding closed captions to our YouTube videos. Closed captions aid hearing impaired users in understanding the content of our videos and are extremely helpful for users that don’t have sound enabled on their computers. Closed Captions are also required under Guideline 1.2.2 of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0.
The process is actually quite straightforward and less time-consuming than I would have thought. It does help if you’re provided with a transcript of the original content though.
Closed Captions are expected to describe all significant audio content including non-speech information such as the identity of speakers and their manner of speaking as well as music and sound effects. In this particular case it was fairly simple as the audio was largely only a voice over describing the content of the video.
YouTube currently supports two format options for closed captions, either .SRT of .SBV.
The .SBV format is YouTubes own format and is slightly simpler than .SRT so we have used it for this example.
The .SBV format is just a basic text file that follows a time format of hour:minutes:seconds.milliseconds. The times are delimitated by a comma and are followed by a line break and then the text to be displayed during this time. Two line breaks indicates the end of the caption and the start of the next time code.
Here’s how the first twenty seconds of the closed caption file looks:
0:00:01.000,0:00:02.000
Hi, I'm David Reeves
0:00:02.000,0:00:05.000
I'm the Associate Chief Librarian at the Alexander Turnbull Library in Wellington
0:00:05.000,0:00:14.000
We've undertaken a huge project to digitise a number of our photographic collections during 2010 and 2011
0:00:14.000,0:00:18.000
while the National Library building has been undergoing some major refurbishment
0:00:18.000,0:00:22.000
we've been able to dedicate around 20 staff to this special project.
Getting the captions aligned to the right time code can be slightly tricky and I found that it was easiest to play through the video and pause every now and then to pick the best start and finish time for each time code. It’s also important to keep line lengths reasonable as otherwise YouTube can cut of the captioning text. I found that no more than 15 words per line worked as a rough guide. This often means that you’ll need to break up longer sentences into several shorted time codes.
If you find that directly editing a .SBV text file is too much work then there are also sites out there such as Caption Tube which help make the captioning process easier.
Here’s how our original video looked:
And with closed captions (CC) turned on:

Have a look at the completed Pictures Online video on our YouTube channel.

Matt O'Reilly

Handwritten newspapers

2010-12-13T08:29:00.008+13:00

One of the distinguishing features of a newspaper is that it is printed (on newsprint). So you may be surprised then to learn that two out of 300,000 newspaper issues in Papers Past are in fact handwritten.

The Victoria Times of 15 September 1841

Many of you will know that five hundred copies of the first issue of the Victoria Times were published in Wellington on 15 September 1841. These were lithographed, rather than letter-pressed like most newspapers.

The first three pages are handwritten text, and the last is a fascinating plan of Wellington in 1841. Note that Lambton Quay is actually a quay (i.e. constructed along the edge of a body of water) and that Basin Reserve is a “proposed basin” linked to the water by a “proposed canal”. In some issues (but not ours) the map was hand-coloured. This was not an economical way to run a newspaper, apparently, as the first issue was also the last.

It is such an interesting issue, however, that we scanned it in colour to make the handwriting more legible. In Papers Past, it is one of two publications displayed in shades of grey rather than simple black and white (the other is Kai Tiaki: the Journal of the Nurses of New Zealand). You can't OCR a handwritten document, but Planman (our OCR vendor) were able to transcribe it for us in a format we can load into Papers Past. We've provided the full issue PDF file in colour: the map on page four in particular looks fantastic (6 MB PDF).

The Oamaru Times and Waitaki Reporter (a.k.a. North Otago Times) of 21 April 1864

Our other handwritten newspaper has an even more unusual provenance. A few years ago when we checked a batch digitised of newspapers we found one issue where the OCR accuracy was basically zero. This was unusual, so we took a look, and found that the 21 April 1864 issue of the North Otago Times (which was known as the Oamaru Times and Waitaki Reporter at the time) is a carefully-created collage, reconstructing what the original issue must have looked like. Take a look at page 1 for example:

We didn't know what to make of this, so we went back to the original scans, and found that this really is what the pages look like on the preservation microfilm. So we went back to the source: Dunedin Public Library. Here's what they reported:

I have just taken a good look at that 21 April 1864 issue of the "Otago Times".

Yes, it is a transcription but with some bits (part of title, etc., coats of arms, picture of ship, picture of Singer sewing machine) meticulously cut from another issue and pasted in.

On the front of the cover of the original binding for the 1864 issues it is noted that No. 9 (i.e. 21 April) is missing. The person who has made the transcription and who gave us all the 1864 copies was W.H.S. (William Henry Sherwood) Roberts. He must have located another copy of No. 9 and transcribed it. There is a pencil note on the inside of the original cover stating that No. 1 was given to Roberts on Nov 8 1908 and the other 11 (i.e. 2-8, 10-13) numbers on 4 April 1901.

We have a lot of material that came from W.H.S. Roberts, including many scrapbooks and this is undoubtedly in his hand. One thing that won't show up on the microfilm is that on the last page of the transcription he has used red ink to make an x in two places - to indicate where he had omitted some text in the first instance and where he was noting a mistake in the original in the second instance (though he has copied the original complete with mistake). He was very exact in his copying and has clearly tried to maintain the layout as it was printed.

Mystery solved.

The Nokomai Herald of 1871

These handwrittewn newspapers were brought back to mind earlier this month when our friends at New Zealand Micrographic Services pointed out an article in the Mataura Ensign of 18 May 1897 about the handwritten 'Nokomai Herald' of 1871 in Papers Past:

Ironically, the Nokomai Herald was apparently published for about a year (1871-1872). We have no plans to add this paper to Papers Past, but there are apparently a few paper copies around, and you can see a scan of the first page of the first issue on rootschat.

A gentle introduction to UX & Usability

2010-12-10T13:17:00.006+13:00

This is the first of a series of posts which will cover topics from my UX & Usability session at LIANZA Conference 2010. I’m hoping these will be a little tidier than the session, which was rewritten continuously as I listened to the other presentations! I’ll also include some links to blogs, meetups and other conferences which may be useful to anyone new to the UX community.

UX translates as “user experience” and has a somewhat fluid meaning. It may be seen to encompass activities such as user research, design, and ongoing customer support. It overlaps with marketing and market research, and with much of the day to day work librarians do with customers. Use of social media to connect with customers might also be seen as a form of user research, with a continuous feedback loop in action.

User research has two important outcomes:

It enables the people who design, build and operate a service to step away from their vantage point and see the service from their customers’ point of view.

At the Wellington UX Barcamp last month, Nick Bowmast gave presentations about the role of the user researcher in enabling a design team to empathise with the users of a product, and, how he’s been presenting the research in a visual format rather than as written reports, with great results (example at the end of this post).

It produces and/or analyses data about usage of the service and the outcomes of this usage, which can be used to support decision making (e.g. new features or content to be added, budget allocations, support requirements).

If you missed it, Carol Tenopir’s LIANZA keynote “Sharpening the Value Edge of Academic Libraries” took us through measuring usage, outcomes (for example the effect reading articles provided by a library has on research output), and ROI. Download the presentation from the LIANZA website, or see LIBvalue for further information.

The next posts in this series will cover exploratory user research such as interviews and surveys, usability testing, and using web statistics, all in relation to peoples’ experience of searching and browsing library collections online.

The Source: news about digital libraries and library innovations from around the web

2010-12-10T11:44:00.005+13:00

Introducing The Source

The Memento Project - Time Travel for the Web - wins major international award for digital preservation

From the Digital Preservation Coalition website

The Institute for Conservation and the Digital Preservation Coalition (DPC) have announced that the Memento Project, led by Herbert Van De Sompel and colleagues of Los Alamos National Laboratory, and Michael Nelson and colleagues of Old Dominion University, USA, has won the Digital Preservation Award 2010.
The Digital Preservation Award is one of five awards organised by a working party of the Institute for Conservation (ICON), known collectively as The Conservation Awards. Each award celebrates different aspect of the highest standards of conservation skills, innovation and research, collections care and digital preservation. The Awards, which were launched in 1991, are supported by Icon and sponsored by The Pilgrim Trust, the Digital Preservation Coalition (DPC), and the Anna Plowden Trust. Since 2005, the Awards have also been generously supported by Sir Paul McCartney.

Technology developments in the digital economy (Note: PDF)

From the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) website

This government report looks at recent developments in the three key communications/information technology areas of Infrastructure, Smart Technology and Digital Community. Subtopics include diverse but related topics such as home network technologies, digital identity management, smart-phones, ICT energy efficiency, location-aware communities, mobile payment and mobile coupon technologies, augmented reality and social media influence. A useful glossary is included, as well as numerous links to further readings. This is a useful overview to help keep up to date with big picture developments in ICT, as well as to plan future strategic library services.

The size distribution of open access publishers: A problem for open access?

From the First Monday website

I stumbled across the question of publisher size while preparing for an earlier article. From the viewpoint of an economist, the size distribution of open access publishers looked inefficient. In this article I first explore reasons to be sceptical to a situation with a large number of small publishers. Then I go through the numbers from the Directory of Open Access Journals, also discussing problems inherent in the material. The results are then compared to similar data about toll access publishing. A conclusion is that, even though numbers may lack in exactitude, there seems to be a need for institutions to look at how they organize their publishing activities.

The impact of open access outside European universities (Note: PDF)

From the Knowledge Exchange website

The potential impact of open access is understood in many communities but requires a greater volume of open access content to be available for the full potential to be realised. The Open Access movement has encouraged the availability of publicly-funded research papers, data and learning content for barrier-free use of that content without payment by the user. The impact of increasing availability of content to researchers in European universities is understood in terms of easier access to previous research and greater exposure for new research results, bringing benefits to the research community itself. A new culture of informal sharing is evident within the teaching and learning communities and to some extent also within the research community, but as yet the growth in informal sharing has not had a major effect upon the use of formal publication choices.
This briefing paper explores the impact of open access upon potential users of research outputs outside the walls of research-led European universities, where the economic value of open access may be even greater than the academic value within universities. The potential impact of open access is understood in many communities but requires a greater volume of open access content to be available for the full potential to be realised. More open access content will become available as the opportunities in open, internet-based digital scholarship are understood.

Factors affecting the frequency and amount of social networking site use: Motivations, perceptions, and privacy concerns

From the First Monday website

The purpose of this study is to explore the factors that affect the use of social networking websites. In doing so, this investigation focuses on two dimensions of social networking site use frequency (i.e., how often people use social networking sites) and amount (i.e., how much time people spend on social networks). Integrating the technology acceptance model with uses and gratification and other consumer characteristics, this study found that interpersonal utility, perceived ease of use, privacy concerns, and age predict the frequency of social networking site use. Interpersonal utility motive, escape motive, and Internet experience explain the time spent on social networking sites.

The Source: news about digital libraries and library innovations from around the web

2010-11-26T09:13:00.004+13:00

Introducing The Source

Australia in the digital economy: the shift to the online environment (Note: PDF)

From the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) website

Online social networking continues to be a major driving force in the increasing intensity of online participation. During June 2010 alone, 8.7 million Australians accessed mainstream social networking sites such as Facebook and YouTube from home, spending in total more than 41.5 million hours on these sites. With big increases in the volume of data downloaded, time spent online and activities undertaken online, this report shows how Australians are embracing the digital economy. Over the past five years, the frequency of internet use in Australia has steadily increased to the point where 28% of people 14 years and over were estimated to be 'heavy' users (online more than 15 hours a week) in June 2010. A further 27% were considered medium users (between 7 and 15 hours a week) and 23% light users (up to 7 hours a week). Only 14% were deemed to be heavy users during June 2005.

E-books in Special Libraries: Final report of the Federal Reserve System Libraries’ Work Group on E-Books (Note: PDF)

From the Lexis Nexis Government Info Pro website

E-books are gaining popularity now, and we believe electronic reading devices will continue to take over traditional print markets. Digital publishing offers the opportunity to provide more interactive experiences and real-time updates from around the world. New technology offers opportunities for innovation in reading formats, which might alter our conception of the book altogether. We cannot make any solid predictions because the market is changing so rapidly and so many e-reading models exist. This evaluation is just the first step toward becoming aware of the changing publishing market. The future will certainly be exciting, as we see readers set the pace of reading and research for years to come.

Support services: What services do researchers need and use? (Note: PDF)

From the Research Information Network website

This collaborative research project was composed of two separate, but linked, analyses. It identifies and examines information-related support services throughout the lifecycle of the research process. The project’s goal was to discover researchers’ needs and desires in a small sample of UK and US universities and to identify the significant patterns, intersections, gaps and issues from researchers’ points of view, whatever the source of such services.
This study documents the nature and scope of research support services, providing examples of good practice, recommending areas where new practice might emerge, and identifying possible areas and scope for collaboration within and between institutions.

"Teens today don’t read books anymore”: A study of differences in interest and comprehension based on reading modalities

From the website of the The Journal of Research on Libraries and Young Adults

Are teens really not reading as much as they did in the past? Are teens reading, but in non-traditional formats that are under-reported? If surveys focus on book reading, what about teens who do all their reading online or in digital formats? What about teens who listen to audio-books? If questions are only concerned with literature, how are we counting the many people who read non-fiction, newspapers, magazines, and websites?

Linked Data tools: Semantic web for the masses

From the First Monday website

Semantic Web technologies have immense potential to transform the internet into a distributed reasoning machine that will not only execute extremely precise searches, but will also have the ability to analyse the data it finds to create new knowledge. This paper examines the state of Semantic Web (also known as Linked Data) tools and infrastructure to determine whether semantic technologies are sufficiently mature for non–expert use, and to identify some of the obstacles to global Linked Data implementation.

The Strongest Link: Libraries and Linked Data

From the D-Lib Magazine website

Since 1999 the W3C has been working on a set of Semantic Web standards that have the potential to revolutionise web search. Also known as Linked Data, the Machine-Readable Web, the Web of Data, or Web 3.0, the Semantic Web relies on highly structured metadata that allow computers to understand the relationships between objects. Semantic web standards are complex, and difficult to conceptualise, but they offer solutions to many of the issues that plague libraries, including precise web search, authority control, classification, data portability, and disambiguation. This article will outline some of the benefits that linked data could have for libraries, will discuss some of the non-technical obstacles that we face in moving forward, and will finally offer suggestions for practical ways in which libraries can participate in the development of the semantic web.

The Source: news about digital libraries and library innovations from around the web

2010-11-19T10:44:00.004+13:00

Introducing The Source

Cloud computing: Challenges and future directions (Note: PDF)

From the website of the Australian Institute of Criminology

This paper explains the various cloud architecture and usage models that exist and some of the benefits in using cloud services. It seeks to contribute to a better understanding of the emerging threat landscape created by cloud computing, with a view to identifying avenues for risk reduction. Three avenues for action are identified, in particular, the need for a culture of cyber-security to be created through the development of effective public-private partnerships; the need for Australia’s privacy regime to be reformed to deal with the issues created by cloud computing and the need for cyber-security researchers to find ways in which to mitigate existing and new security risks in the cloud computing environment.

Member states continue discussions on key copyright issues

From the WIPO website

WIPO’s top copyright negotiating body has continued discussions on limitations and exceptions to copyright law, as well as updating the rights of broadcasting organisations and the rights of performers in their audiovisual performances. The Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR), meeting from November 8-12, 2010, took stock of the status of discussions in each of these three key areas and agreed on a road map for future negotiations.

Digital cultural collections in an age of reuse and remixes

From the First Monday website

This paper explores the circumstances under which cultural institutions (CI) should seek to control non–commercial reuse of digital cultural works. It describes the results of a 2008 survey of CI professionals at U.S. archives, libraries and museums, which gathered data on motivations to control access to, and use of, digital collections, factors discouraging control, and levels of concern associated with different types of unauthorised reuse. The analysis presents three general themes that explain many of the CI motivations for control: “controlling descriptions and representations”; “legal risks and complexities”; and, “getting credit: fiscal and social costs and revenue.”

The digital divide in internet information searching: A double-hurdle model analysis of household data from Vermont

From the First Monday website

While most studies on the digital divide in the United States focus on disparities in access to computers and the internet, this study examines the digital divide in internet information searching. With data from 476 Vermont households surveyed in 2009, a double–hurdle model is used to identify the factors that impact the likelihood and frequency of using the internet for information searching. Empirical results suggest that there are significant disparities in both the likelihood and frequency of online information searching in Vermont and that these disparities are closely associated with several socio-economic and demographic factors such as education level, income, and age. Also, the impacts of some variables on the likelihood to use the internet to search for information are different from their impacts on the frequency of using the internet for information searching. These research findings are expected to be useful when developing programmes and policies for reducing the digital divide.

PDF/A: A viable addition to the preservation toolkit

From the website of D-Lib magazine

PDF/A, the archival version of the PDF file format, is an International Standards Organisation (ISO) vetted, open source tool that can be added to the librarian's and archivist's preservation toolkit. This article describes the format itself, the lessons learned as the authors investigated the tools readily available for creating PDF/A files and the design of the pilot to test implementation of the use of the format in the Ohio State University's repository, the Knowledge Bank. Further, we identify issues in conversion of diverse original formats; strategies for time-saving batch conversion; and considerations in deciding whether to attempt full or partial compliance with the standard.

Taming the metadata beast: ILOX

From the website of D-Lib magazine

We propose a framework for organising multiple metadata specifications in a container that can be handled as a whole. This framework, named Information for Learning Object eXchange (ILOX), is developed as part of the IMS Learning Object Discovery & Exchange (LODE) specification that aims to facilitate the discovery and retrieval of learning objects stored across more than one collection. While thus far ILOX has been demonstrated to resolve a number of challenges specific to the e-learning domain, it is a generic framework that can be profiled to organise metadata about any type of digital content.

The world in 2010 (Note: PDF)

From the ITU website

According to a report by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU):

By the end of 2010, there will be an estimated 5.3 billion mobile cellular subscriptions worldwide, including 940 million subscriptions to 3G services
Access to mobile networks is now available to 90% of the world population and 80% of the population living in rural areas
People are moving rapidly from 2G to 3G platforms, in both developed and developing countries
In 2010, 143 countries were offering 3G services commercially, compared to 95 in 2007
Towards 4G: a number of countries have started to offer services at even higher broadband speeds, moving to next generation wireless platforms – they include Sweden, Norway, Ukraine and the United States

Trends in large-scale subject repositories

From the website of D-Lib magazine

Noting a lack of broad empirical studies on subject repositories, the authors investigate subject repository trends that reveal common practices despite their apparent isolated development. Data collected on year founded, subjects, software, content types, deposit policy, copyright policy, host, funding, and governance are analysed for the top ten most-populated subject repositories. Among them, several trends exist, such as a multi- and interdisciplinary scope, strong representation in the sciences and social sciences, use of open source repository software for newer repositories, acceptance of pre- and post-prints, moderated deposits, submitter responsibility for copyright, university library or departmental hosting, and discouraged withdrawal of materials. In addition, there is a loose correlation between repository size and age. Recognising the diversity of all subject repositories, the authors recommend that tools for assessment and evaluation be developed to guide subject repository management to best serve their respective communities.

The Source: news about digital libraries and library innovations from around the web

2010-11-12T13:07:00.000+13:00

Introducing The Source

UK copyright laws to be reviewed

From the BBC website

Britain's intellectual property laws are to be reviewed to "make them fit for the internet age", Prime Minister David Cameron has announced.

Searching with Tags: Do tags help users find things? (Note: PDF)

From the E-LIS website

This pilot study examines the question of whether tags can be useful in the process of information retrieval. Participants searched a social bookmarking tool specialising in academic articles (CiteULike) and an online journal database (Pubmed). Participant actions were captured using screen capture software and they were asked to describe their search process. Users did make use of tags in their search process, as a guide to searching and as hyperlinks to potentially useful articles. However, users also made use of controlled vocabularies in the journal database to locate useful search terms and of links to related articles supplied by the database.

A guide to using Web 2.0 in libraries (Note: PDF)

From the SLAINTE website

These guidelines are meant to highlight the potential of social media within library services and to encourage organisations to reassess restrictive practices regarding access.

The Mix and Mash competition is open!

2010-11-08T15:30:00.002+13:00

www.mixandmash.org.nz

We're super excited that the Great NZ Remix & Mashup competition has officially started.

Cash, prizes and undying glory are up for grabs, including a $10,000 cash prize for the Supreme Mashup.

The competition has something for everyone: cartoon remixes, poetry, the poster for the great kiwi summer holiday, mobile apps, visualisation mashups, an open government data category, a newbie award and much much more.

There's a total prize pool of $30,000 in cash and prizes. You have until 30 November 2010 to get your entries in.

Everything you need to know is right here: www.mixandmash.org.nz

So what are you waiting for? Get making!

best of luck from the Mix and Mash team.

The Source: news about digital libraries and library innovations from around the web

2010-11-05T11:32:00.000+13:00

Introducing The Source

The Copyright Principles Project: Directions for reform (Note: PDF)

From the Berkeley Law website

Copyright law performs a number of important functions. It facilitates public access to knowledge and a wide range of uses of creative works of authorship, and, in so doing, it helps educate our populace, enrich our culture, and promote free speech, free expression, and democratic values. It provides opportunities for rights holders to recoup investments in creating and disseminating their works and to enjoy the fruits of whatever success arises from the public’s uses of their works. In the process, copyright also plays a role in regulating new technologies and services through which creative works may be accessed.
The Copyright Principles Project (CPP) has developed a set of 25 detailed recommendations for change in order "that copyright law can better be adapted to meet the challenges of the day in a way that is principled and balanced, and that would command respect from the public as well as from copyright owners."

Inspiring research, inspiring scholarship: The value and benefits of digitised resources for learning, teaching, research and enjoyment (Note: PDF)

From the JISC website

The opportunity to engage actively with British content that is educational, entertaining and deeply enlightening is not far away. Technology exists to drive forward a vision of intelligent environments that supply the right information to the right person at the right time. Paradoxically, what is missing is the depth of digitised content to make such technical developments more significant than mere playthings.
To achieve a Digital Britain that is digitally literate, educated and ready to exploit these new technologies, the treasure house of British content has to be digitised comprehensively. For the intelligent Digital Britain we need beautiful information, authentic data, validated content and a critical mass that will drive economic impact, research innovation and social benefits.
The next phases of activity for UK-wide digitisation must aim to both increase the wealth of content and to disperse this content to an even broader audience. Much has been achieved, but there are opportunities for much more impact, benefit and a greater return on investment if we continue to invest in the knowledge economy of Britain by digitising our astonishing cultural and scientific inheritance.

Electronic book and e-reader device report

From the National Association of College Stores (NACS) website

Over the past six months or so, there has been much attention given to electronic books and e-readers, particularly as to their use in higher education. To cut through the speculation, the National Association of College Stores (NACS) has organised a study to see exactly how much college students are accessing e-books and on what devices.
The survey found that only 13% of college students had purchased an electronic book of any kind during the previous three months. Of that percentage, slightly over half (56%) stated that the primary purpose of their e-book purchase was required course materials for class. The survey also confirmed a finding that 74% of college students preferred print over digital.
Overwhelmingly, students are reading e-books on a computer rather than a dedicated e-reading device. In fact, 92% of students indicate they currently do not own an e-reader, and of those, 59% said they don’t plan to purchase one in the next three months.

Measuring the Information Society, 2010 (Note: PDF)

From the ITU website

The 2010 edition of ‘Measuring the Information Society’ features the latest International Telecommunication Union (ITU) ICT Development Index (IDI), which captures the level of advancement of ICTs in more than 150 countries worldwide and compares progress made between 2002, 2007 and 2008. It also measures the global digital divide, examines how it has developed in recent years, and discusses the impact of ICTs on socio-economic development.
This new edition of the report highlights key trends at global, regional and national levels, showcasing top performers and identifying the main drivers of change. The report also examines the evolution of the digital divide between 2002 and 2008 and discusses price developments over the last year. The report shows that despite the recent economic downturn, the use of ICT services, such as mobile phones and the internet, has continued to grow worldwide. All 159 countries included in the IDI have improved their scores during the past year, confirming the ongoing diffusion of ICTs and the overall transition to a global information society. The top-ranking economies continue to be primarily high-income countries from the developed world but a number of developing countries have shown strong improvements

Building blocks of metadata: What can we learn from Lego™?

From the DCMI Publications website

The idea that metadata, particularly Dublin Core, could be usable as a Lego™-like construction kit has been a popular suggestion for over a decade. In this paper, we first explore what this metaphor originally meant – why the idea is so appealing, and what design lessons we might take from the idea. We take a look at how close we are today to that ideal, looking at examples of real-world metadata design projects, and suggest that at present the situation is often more analogous to a game of Tetris – that is, the construction kit is sometimes limited, time concerns are often an issue, and there is limited opportunity for creativity. We explore patterns of collaboration in existing projects, such as the Scholarly Works Application Profile development. Finally, we ask how what we know about the process of building a shared understanding and formalisation about a domain can help us come closer to the ideal of Dublin Core as an approachable puzzle-game or construction kit.

From records to streams: Merging library and publisher metadata

From the DCMI Publications website

This article announces the availability of a crosswalk between ONIX 2.1 and MARC 21 developed by OCLC and illustrates how it is used in the OCLC Metadata for Publishers project. To accomplish the goal of merging library and publisher metadata and anticipating the need to mine MARC records for other purposes, the design of the crosswalk, the corresponding software, and the application take records apart and process the fields individually, creating data streams that match the intended use of the ONIX standard and resemble the pre-Internet paradigm of Electronic Data Interchange, or EDI, for describing materials and tracking them through a supply chain. Though this design works well enough to support commercial-grade processes, problems arise with mappings between physical descriptions in the two standards, which need to be more rigorously modelled or closely aligned. Nevertheless, the RDA/ONIX Framework, which is reviewed here, promises to reduce this obstacle.

The Source: news about digital libraries and library innovations from around the web

2010-10-29T11:22:00.000+13:00

Introducing The Source

Connecting To Collections: A report to the Nation

From the Institute of Museum and Library Services website

The Tucson Museum of Art (TMA) has a virtual treasure trove of cultural landmarks within its collection. Among the museum’s trusts is an original Andy Warhol piece and a seven-foot-high statue of the Virgin Mary that dates back to the late 17th century. “These are remarkable objects,” says Susan Dolan, TMA’s collections manager. “The public should see them.” But there’s a good chance that these artistic masterpieces will never be put on display. Why? Their condition is so bad - and they are in such dire need of preservation - that they can barely be moved, much less exhibited. The Warhol has sustained severe water damage. And the wood and silver statue of Mary is so fragile that Dolan worries it might crumble to pieces. Glance at libraries, museums, and archives around the country and a sad truth will become instantly clear: The Tucson Museum’s woes are hardly unique.

A software agent and web service based system for digital preservation

From the First Monday website

Digital objects have extensively existed in daily work and life. Some of them often need to be kept accessible and usable for a relatively long period of time. Therefore, digital preservation has emerged as a pressing demand for the communities of archives, libraries, and publishers, and even for ordinary computer users. However, compared to traditional paper and magnetic preservation, digital preservation poses novel challenges to these communities. In this paper, we briefly introduce how the challenges are addressed in the PROTAGE system developed by integrating the widely adopted software agent and Web service technologies.

Speedism, boxism, and markism: Three ideologies of the Internet

From the First Monday website

The Internet is one of man’s greatest inventions. As all transformative technologies, it leaves a stamp on society, social action and values. This is actually a case of the Internet and society mutually constructing each other. Therefore, as the Internet is in constant transformation, social values rebound and impact on further development. This paper is concerned with systems of values grouped around core ideas, here described as ideologies, which continuously renegotiates the development of the Internet.
Three basic ideas are identified as underpinning the development of the packet switching system during the 1960s. It is argued that the historical development of the ARPANET, the Internet and the World Wide Web, as well as current developments, are all variations of these three ideas: the distributed network, the envelope and the identifier. It is maintained that these are translated into value systems, ideologies, held by different social groups. These three ideologies are conceptualised as speedism, boxism and markism. These are discussed in relation to various trends in past and current development of the Internet.

New library technologies dispense with librarians

From the Wall Street Journal website

Faced with layoffs and budget cuts, or simply looking for ways to expand their reach, libraries around the country are replacing traditional, full-service institutions with devices and approaches that may be redefining what it means to have a library.

The Source: news about digital libraries and library innovations from around the web

2010-10-22T10:40:00.005+13:00

Introducing The Source

Unlocking the value of the information economy (Note: PDF)

From the Harvard Business Review website

Organisations have the strategy. They have the data. But can they close those critical gaps to thrive and survive in the information economy? In a global survey of 1,375 Harvard Business review subscribers, 85% said the ability to generate real value from customer information is key to their organisations’ growth plans post-recession, yet only 36% felt their companies were well-positioned to use their information effectively. Executives know information is a key strategic asset, that managing it well will provide real value and competitive advantage, but they are not sure how to go about it. 54% of CEOs strongly agree that information is a key asset.

Future of the internet: W3C Social Web Report

From Robin Good's MasterNewMedia website

This report presents systems and technologies that are working towards enabling a Social Web, and is followed by a strategy for standardising this work in order to ensure that the Social Web is open, decentralised, and royalty-free. The report focuses on work that permits the description and identification of people, groups and organisations, as well as user-generated content in extensible and privacy-respecting ways. This report describes a common framework for the concepts behind the Social Web and the state of the art in 2010, including current technologies and standards.
We conclude with an analysis of where future research and standardization will benefit users and the entire Social Web ecosystem's growth. We also suggest a strategy for the role of the W3C in the Social Web.

The Source: news about digital libraries and library innovations from around the web

2010-10-15T10:59:00.000+13:00

Introducing The Source

Mobile technologies in libraries

From the Freepint FUMSI website

When we look at the take-up of mobile technologies in libraries, especially compared with the use of the Internet, it is a little puzzling how little it is taken advantage of. The start of the World Wide Web (with browsers such as Mosaic in 1993) from the existing base of the largely text-based Internet was echoed by the introduction of text messaging (SMS) in 1993, on the early mobile phone networks. Yet while libraries were falling over themselves by 1995 to create web pages, only now do we seem to be cottoning onto the use of mobile technologies such as text messaging. This is even though for years most of our users have owned mobile phones, increasing numbers of which are now smartphones capable of accessing the Internet. Perhaps we'd better start, at last, taking advantage of these near ubiquitous devices?

The future of publishing: Libraries and the changing role of creators and consumers

From the OCLC website

From newspapers to popular magazines, from scholarly journals to e-books, from smart phones to print-on-demand “vending” machines, publishing is more complicated than it once was. The Internet has created new patterns of using information - both in terms of creating content as well as consuming it. Publishers are blending their print business with new digital brands, adding a new level of engagement. Thousands of individuals, companies, schools and businesses have taken the tools of literary and scholarly production into their own hands. Creating a blog or Web page, uploading a photo or video - even designing and publishing a print-on-demand book - are no longer unusual, niche activities, and anyone can create, or even publish, personal content.
Two leaders from different sides of publishing were asked to comment on the future of publishing and how libraries can fit in.

How the internet is rewiring our brains

From The Monthly Magazine website

It's no-one's idea of news that the internet is changing the way we live. But could it actually be fostering ignorance? Nicholas Carr is one of the world’s most ground-breaking thinkers on technology and its impacts. In this conversation with journalist Gideon Haigh, he describes how internet use is changing our brains. Distraction, skim-reading and instant information - all hallmarks of the new technology - have real potential to reduce our capacity for deep concentration and deep reading.

The Source: news about digital libraries and library innovations from around the web

2010-10-08T11:02:00.000+13:00

Introducing The Source

Rewriting the Book: On the move in the Library of Birmingham

From the Ariadne website

Brian Gambles presents the Library of Birmingham’s vision and strategy for addressing the challenge of mobile digital services.

Library cuts threaten research

From the Scientist website

As journal cancellations sweep across the US, scientists worry about how they will affect research.

Linking School Libraries and Literacy: Young people’s reading habits and attitudes to their school library, and an exploration of the relationship between school library use and school attainment (Note: PDF)

From the National Literacy Trust website

This paper explores what young people think about school libraries - do they use them? If yes, why? If not, why not? It also outlines how school library usage differs according to background demographics and reading attainment, and how it relates to wider enjoyment of reading, attitudes towards reading and reading frequency.

Young People’s Reading: The importance of the home environment and family support (Note: PDF)

From the National Literacy Trust website

This paper explores the types of resources young people have at home that support literacy and how this differs according to demographic background, and how home resources relate to reading enjoyment, attitudes and behaviour as well as reading attainment. It also explores who in their family encourages young people to read, who in their family is seen reading and how frequently young people talk with their family about what they are reading. It also outlines how these differ according to demographic background, and how each of these relate to reading enjoyment, attitudes and behaviour as well as reading attainment.

Public Library 2.0: Culture Change?

From the Ariadne website

Sarah Hammond explores UK public libraries’ growing participation in social media to reach their audiences online, with a focus on blogging.

Retooling libraries for the data challenge

From the Ariadne website

Dorothea Salo examines how library systems and procedures need to change to accommodate research data.

Research data: Who will share what, with whom, when, and why?

From the SelectedWorks website of the Berkeley Electronic Press

The deluge of scientific research data has excited the general public, as well as the scientific community, with the possibilities for better understanding of scientific problems, from climate to culture. For data to be available, researchers must be willing and able to share them. The policies of governments, funding agencies, journals, and university tenure and promotion committees also influence how, when, and whether research data are shared.
Data are complex objects. Their purposes and the methods by which they are produced vary widely across scientific fields, as do the criteria for sharing them. To address these challenges, it is necessary to examine the arguments for sharing data and how those arguments match the motivations and interests of the scientific community and the public. Four arguments are examined:

to make the results of publicly funded data available to the public
to enable others to ask new questions of extant data
to advance the state of science
to reproduce research

Libraries need to consider their role in the face of each of these arguments, and what expertise and systems they require for data curation.

The Source: news about digital libraries and library innovations from around the web

2010-10-01T11:25:00.002+13:00

Introducing The Source

The Story of the Digital Book (Note: Video)

From the California Digital Library, University of California website

A new 10-minute video, ‘The Story of the Digital Book’, takes you behind the scenes, following the journey of one book from the shelf to the screen. It shows how the UC Libraries work with partner organisations to scan books and make them findable online. It also demonstrates several ways you can use these newly digital books, and explains how they are preserved for the long term.

Generations X and Y lead the way in today’s Digital World

From the ReadWriteWeb website

Forrester Research has released its annual survey of American technology adoption, this time focusing on the generational divide. The findings, which arose from a survey of over 37,000 participants, reveal that when it comes to the adoption of digital tools and technology, the generation gap still exists, with Generation Xers and Yers far ahead of both Boomers and Seniors.
The report delves into everything from mobile use to media consumption and PCs to social networking. The takeaway, says Forrester, is that Gen Y "lives and breathes" a digital social life, Gen Xers are masters of the functional benefits of technology, but those older are much more reserved in nearly all areas.

Is this the final chapter for paper books?

From the Sydney Morning Herald website

E-books are set to revolutionise the way we read. But plot twists may save paper books from going the way of the dinosaur.

Lib-Value: Measuring Value and Return on Investment of Academic Libraries / Regina Mays, Carol Tenopir, and Paula Kaufman (Note: PDF)

From the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) website

Library professionals are looking for new ways to measure and express the value of their libraries to their parent institutions and to measure how well they meet the rapidly changing needs and expectations of their users. They need both to find the best ways to meet patron needs and to communicate the value of their operations to administrators and funders. Developing a strategy to help libraries attain these goals is the focus of the Value, Outcomes, and Return on Investment of Academic Libraries project, “Lib-Value” for short.

Impact Measures in Research Libraries (SPEC Kit 318) (Note: PDF)

From the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) website

This publication explores the tools and methods libraries use to gauge the difference they make for their user community, the topics assessment practitioners probe and the results they obtain, the effects of impact assessment, and whether institutions that publicise positive impact evidence see a difference in the level of financial or political support from their parent institutions.

2010 Kids and Family Reading Report (Note: PDF)

From the Scholastic website

Many children want to read books on digital devices and would read for fun more frequently if they could obtain e-books. But even if they had that access, two-thirds of them would not want to give up their traditional print books. These are a few of the findings in the recently released study by Scholastic, the American publisher of the Harry Potter books and the “Hunger Games” trilogy.

The Source: news about digital libraries and library innovations from around the web

2010-09-24T10:58:00.000+12:00

Introducing The Source

2020 Vision (Note: PDF)

From the British Library website

The British Library has launched its 2020 Vision, which sets out the UK national library's priorities and aspirations for the next decade. The vision highlights what are likely to be the key trends and opportunities over the next ten years, indicating how the British Library plans to take advantage of those opportunities to remain a great national library and a major hub of the global information network.

Driving UK Research. Is copyright a help or a hindrance? A perspective from the research community (Note: PDF)

From the British Library website

The following collection of essays present varying views to the working and interpretations of the UK’s intellectual property laws. They are not intended to reflect nor endorse one another, but instead together present the ‘grassroots view’ of the UK’s copyright framework and ideas on how it could be updated to work in this new and changing environment. There is a consensus that the laws on copyright and their interpretation must be redefined in the context of a modernising world and developing research techniques.
A key point that resonates throughout these essays is that the role of teachers, researchers and creative artists as well as rights holders must all be recognised within any new intellectual property framework.

An Emergent Micro-Services approach to Digital Curation Infrastructure / Stephen Abrams, John Kunze, David Loy

From the International Journal of Digital Curation website

In order to better meet the needs of its diverse University of California (UC) constituencies, the California Digital Library UC Curation Center is re-envisioning its approach to digital curation infrastructure by devolving function into a set of granular, independent, but interoperable micro-services. Since each of these services is small and self-contained, they are more easily developed, deployed, maintained, and enhanced; at the same time, complex curation function can emerge from the strategic combination of atomistic services. The emergent approach emphasises the persistence of content rather than the systems in which that content is managed, thus the paradigmatic archival culture is not unduly coupled to any particular technological context. This results in a curation environment that is comprehensive in scope, yet flexible with regard to local policies and practices and sustainable despite the inevitability of disruptive change in technology and user expectation.

No knowledge but through information

From the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) website

This article argues for the following:

Information is a thing to be handled and controlled; knowledge is not
Knowledge can be managed only indirectly, through the management of information
Personal knowledge management (PKM) is, therefore, best regarded as a subset of personal information management (PIM) - but a very useful subset addressing important issues that otherwise might be overlooked

Who owns our work?

From the MINDS@UW website

Much turmoil in the scholarly-communication ecosystem appears to revolve around simple ownership of intellectual property. Unpacking that notion, however, produces a fascinating tangle of stakeholders, desires, products and struggles. Some products of the research process, especially novel ones, are difficult to fit into legal concepts of ownership. As collaborative research burgeons, traditional ownership and authorship criteria are stretched to their limits and beyond, with many contributors still feeling short of due credit. The desire for access and impact brings institutions and grant funders into the formerly exclusive relationship between authors and publishers. Librarians, stripped of first-sale rights by electronic licensing, wonder about both access and long-term preservation. Emerging solutions to many of these difficulties threaten to cut publishers out of the picture altogether, perhaps a welcome change to those stakeholders who find publishers' behaviour to block progress.

The Source: news about digital libraries and library innovations from around the web

2010-09-17T07:42:00.000+12:00

Introducing The Source

Trends in the Finances of UK Higher Education Libraries: 1999-2009 (Note: PDF)

From the Research Information Network (RIN) website

The last decade has been a period of unprecedented change for university libraries. The rapid growth in numbers of students and staff across the higher education sector has been accompanied by the move to a substantially digital environment, with some fundamental changes in how libraries and their users operate.
As they have responded to new developments over the past decade, and changed their operations, most university libraries have seen continued growth in their budgets in real terms. The next few years are going to be much more difficult in financial terms. Libraries therefore face a period in which they will have to cope with continued rapid, perhaps transformational, change, accompanied by reductions in their budgets.
Overall, this briefing presents a picture in which library expenditure has been rising in real terms, but not as fast as expenditure - and activity - in the HE sector as a whole. So libraries face some real challenges as they prepare for a more difficult financial climate, with real and substantial cuts in expenditure.

The Value of Academic Libraries: A Comprehensive Research Review and Report (Note: PDF)

From the American Library Association (ALA) website

Academic libraries have long enjoyed their status as the “heart of the university.” However, in recent decades, higher education environments have changed. Government officials see higher education as a national resource. Employers view higher education institutions as producers of a commodity - student learning. Top academic faculty expect higher education institutions to support and promote cutting-edge research. Parents and students expect higher education to enhance students’ collegiate experience, as well as propel their career placement and earning potential. Not only do stakeholders count on higher education institutions to achieve these goals, they also require them to demonstrate evidence that they have achieved them. The same is true for academic libraries; they too can provide evidence of their value. Community college, college, and university librarians no longer can rely on their stakeholders’ belief in their importance. Rather, they must demonstrate their value.

Museums, Libraries, and 21st Century Skills (Note: PDF)

From the Institute of Museum and Library Services website

The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) has an aggressive research programme dedicated to providing cutting-edge information about the trends in library services and other matters. This report is intended to "support museums and public libraries in envisioning and defining their roles as institutions of learning in the 21st century." To achieve this goal, this report brings together case studies of successful 21st century projects at different institutions, outlining a "vision for the role of libraries and museums in the national dialogue around learning and 21st century skills." Along with the main report and the case studies, the report also includes a self-assessment tool, which allows museums and libraries to determine where they fit on the continuum of 21st century skills operations and programming.

School Libraries: A plan for improvement

From the Museums, Libraries and Archives (MLA) website

Whilst effective school libraries form a vital part of every child's education, enabling them to greater attainment; many school libraries are under-utilised resources, which are not embedded into the school's infrastructure and fall short of fulfilling their potential. These are the key findings in this School Library Commission report.
It is critical that all the resources available to support pupil achievement are being targeted effectively and used efficiently. The research for this report has demonstrated the powerful role a high performing school library and schools library service plays in raising pupils’ literacy levels and improving their access to knowledge. Young people who read above the expected level for their age are twice as likely as young people who read below their age to be school library users (77.7% as opposed to 35.9%). This link is not necessarily causal but it does suggest that if school libraries do not perform to the highest level there will be significant implications for pupil achievement. Cuts to schools library services will exacerbate this problem. What this Commission has established is that in many schools the school library is a wasted resource, poorly embedded in the infrastructure of the school:

encouraging reading for pleasure but resistant to “teaching” literacy and phonics
absent from school development plans, official guidance and inspection frameworks
staffed (in one third of primary school libraries) by people who have no specialist knowledge of children’s literature

The report has a series of strong recommendations directed to governors, head teachers, sector bodies and local authorities that, if implemented, would improve literacy and attainment levels. All the recommendations aim to make school libraries more focused on supporting the educational objectives of the school by promoting literacy and access to knowledge.

QR Codes – using mobile phones to deliver library instruction and help at the point of need

From the Loughborough University Library Open Journals website

With the rise of smartphones that contain integrated GPS (Global Positioning System) chips, increasing numbers of devices are aware of their own location. For most libraries, however, taking advantage of this functionality to introduce services which “augment reality”, that is overlay physical reality with a virtual layer of information in users own devices, is unfeasible.
An easier alternative to full augmented reality is to use QR (Quick Response) codes in places that link to location or context appropriate information and resources, using information embedded in the codes that is translated and acted upon by a mobile device such as camera phone. QR (Quick Response) codes are matrix codes, like two dimensional bar codes, that are easily readable by the majority of camera phones using a freely downloadable or occasionally pre-installed application.

Meeting Australia's research workforce needs (Note: PDF)

From the Department of Innovation, Industry, Science and Research, Australia website

The paper identifies issues influencing Australia’s capacity to produce the quantity, breadth and depth of research-qualified individuals it requires and to provide viable and productive career pathways to its researchers. Issues are organised under the following broad themes:

Employer demand for researchers
Supply of researchers to Australia
Research career pathways

These issues reflect the advice of a high-level reference group, established to support the strategy development process, along with feedback and information garnered from a range of consultation and analysis activities undertaken by the Department of Innovation, Industry, Science and Research over 2009-2010, including two commissioned studies and a number of targeted roundtables and workshops with stakeholder groups.
The paper then proposes a set of priority focus areas and related actions for Australia to enhance its research workforce over the coming decade. Specific consultation questions are posed throughout the paper on which all stakeholder views are sought (government, public and private sector research employers, research training providers, individual researchers, students, relevant peak bodies, unions and other interest or advocacy groups).

T*breaktweets hits the big time with Lobsterotica

2010-07-27T08:54:00.030+12:00

We've been using Twitter to promote our digital collections since January 2009 (has it really been that long?). We posted a blog about our experiences a while back. In short, we post one thing from our digital collections twice a day and call them t*breaktweets.

As a digital service manager and someone responsible for promoting our digital collections, I think Twitter is a fabulous way to get the word out about the sheer awesomeness of what the National Library collections hold.

On Thursday 22nd July, during the morning t*breaktweet, at around 10:30am, I pointed people to an article in the 11 March 1921 issue of the Ashburton Guardian in Papers Past about a librarian who successfully hypnotized a lobster:

The tone of the article was salacious and at points NSFW! Here's an excerpt:

Read the full article if you dare.

What happened next was completely unexpected and took me by surprise.

One of our followers, @Bibliodyssey re-tweeted our tweet, which was picked up by @BoingBoing who posted it on their website and also tweeted about it. BoingBoing is a popular blog that publishes interesting titbits of technology, culture and business. It’s a very popular site (I'm sure you've heard of it!), and their Twitter account has nearly 50,000 followers.

The power of Twitter took over and the flurry of conversations and re-tweets began, spreading like wildfire across the web. We even created our own meme: Lobsterotica. Check out search results for Lobsterotica on Twitter and Google.

Comments on BoingBoing blogpost

There were dozens of comments on the BoingBoing blogpost, from comments about the article itself to someone's own experience hyponotising a lobster to praise for Papers Past.

Effect on Papers Past traffic

The number of unique daily visitors to Papers Past nearly doubled from an average of 3,605 to 6,778 on 22 July. We had over 3000 new people visit the site in a single day. That's massive.. for us!

This was, by far, our most popular t*breaktweet and is indicative of the viral nature of Twitter. It proves that if you have something interesting to show people and the right people are watching, it can be shared with thousands of people across the world.

The Source: news about digital libraries and library innovations from around the web

2010-07-16T10:44:00.005+12:00

Introducing The Source

We still need libraries in the digital age

From The Guardian website

Public libraries have a vital role bridging the digital divide and teaching people how to get reliable information from the internet. An ‘opinion piece’ written by Ian Clark, who works at the Canterbury Christ Church University library and is studying library and information science at Aberystwyth University.

Metadata in, library out: A simple, robust digital library system

From the Code4Lib Journal website

This article describes a lightweight digital asset management system called Acumen, developed at the University of Alabama. Both metadata and source files exist on the file-system using a particular naming convention rather than in a database. Having meaning in filenames, and other architectural decisions, were made under the over-arching philosophy of "Keep it simple, stupid!", the authors arguing that such a system is less prone to fail than the more typically database-driven systems.

Universities and libraries move to the mobile web

From the EDUCAUSE website

The study reported in this article examines the mobile websites of large research universities and their libraries in the United States and Canada. The services available on different university and library mobile websites are compared and contrasted with the literature identifying what mobile web users desire. This analysis across multiple mobile websites provides universities and their libraries with an initial benchmark for comparisons with other institutions. Future research on the mobile web can identify trends and design issues that are currently only objects of speculation

Library standards for privacy: A model for the digital world?

From the Social Science Research Network (SSRN) website

In the ongoing Google Books settlement process, several advocacy organisations, including library associations, have filed amicus briefs to the supervising court demanding provisions for reader privacy. Because the scanned content for Google Books has come from cooperating research libraries, these advocacy groups argued that it was in the public interest that library standards for privacy should follow that content into this new digital context. The recommendation is worth consideration for other extra-library reading as well, both in digital and print contexts. While librarians have been successful advocates for privacy in library-provided reading, the values for reader privacy are the same in individuals’ subscriptions to Google Books, licensed access to e-reader books, reading on the Internet, and purchase of books through online or brick-and-mortar bookstores. This essay shares a librarian’s-eye-view of library standards for privacy and suggests that the law of reader privacy must not only address readers of Google Books, but also other digital reading and even print reading contexts external to libraries in order to protect the privacy of thought for readers.

The Source: news about digital libraries and library innovations from around the web

2010-07-09T12:46:00.004+12:00

Introducing The Source

The future of social relations (Note: PDF)

From the PewInternet website

The social benefits of internet use will far outweigh the negatives over the next decade, according to experts who responded to a survey about the future of the internet. They say this is because email, social networks, and other online tools offer ‘low-friction’ opportunities to create, enhance, and rediscover social ties that make a difference in people’s lives. The internet lowers traditional communications constraints of cost, geography, and time; and it supports the type of open information sharing that brings people together.

The future of libraries [Audio]

From the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) website

Library usage is increasing across Australia. In a national study over five years, 177 million items were lent to the almost 10 million members of Australia's public libraries. And internet use at libraries is also on the rise. So what does this say about the future library, what will it look like? Will we need those long aisles of books and queues at the counter?

There’s an app for that! Libraries and mobile technology: An introduction to public policy considerations (Note: PDF)

From the American Library Association (ALA) website

This new report, released by the American Library Association (ALA) Office for Information Technology Policy (OITP), takes a look at how the adoption of mobile technology alters the traditional relationships between libraries and their users.

The people's inquiry into the public library service (Note: PDF)

From the Society of Chief Librarians (SCL) website

In 2008, UNISON, the public service union, launched a campaign for the library service. The aim is to defend the achievements of 150 years of the free public library service, to celebrate its successes and to call for its continuation as a key public service in the 21st century. The necessity for such a campaign can be seen by the perilous position of the UK library service. Despite their vital role as centres of learning and leisure in local communities, libraries are often seen as a soft target when councils look for cuts. The pressure will undoubtedly intensify in a period of public spending retrenchment.