Ab's Blog

Info Overload

2009-11-03T01:28:15Z

I enjoyed viewing the Librarian in Black’s presentation slides from her talk about information overload at Internet Librarian 2009. In her blog post about the talk, she alludes to the fact that some people seem to think information overload is a myth. I certainly wouldn’t say that it’s a myth, but it does puzzle me when people refer to it like it’s something completely out of their control, as though they had no agency or free will when it comes to deciding how to allocate their attention. It’s true that there are some “inputs” that we have to pay attention to whether we want to or not – such as our work e-mail. But we do have choices as to how we decide to handle that e-mail, and other things, and fortunately that is what Sarah’s presentation is all about.

A few items that particularly resonated with me:

Schedule yourself (including unscheduled work and tasks) AB: I find it so helpful to block time on my calendar if I need to work on a particular project. It serves as a reminder to me as well as (usually) preventing people from scheduling meetings when I thought I had free time to Get Things Done. Committee work is work, but projects are work too, and they deserve recognition as such on my calendar.
Weed, weed, and weed again AB: In my blog reading, in my wardrobe, and in my personal library, my approach is, “will I miss it if it’s gone?” Sometimes this means unsubscribing or sending something to Salvation Army, and sometimes it means putting it in a “holding area,” where I can retrieve an item if I think of it and need/want it. I tend to be more brutal with feeds since they are still out there to pick up again if I want them or my interests change.
Check when you want to [re. phone, texting, IM, twitter] AB: turning off my email notifier is one of the best things I’ve done to be more efficient. Yes, sometimes I still check it every five minutes, and that’s usually an indicator that I’m not into what I’m doing and should do something else if possible. There’s almost always something waiting, so why bother with the notifier? It simply interrupts, usually more important work. If there is a true emergency, it won’t be long before someone reaches me another way!
Let it ring [re. phone] AB: It is a pet peeve of mine when people don’t do this in a meeting, President Obama excepted. I’m in a meeting with you. If we were having this meeting elsewhere, you wouldn’t be here to answer the phone! Your answering the phone signals that our meeting is not really that important, which might be true, but it’s still rude. Of course, there are also times you might not be in a meeting and still choose to skip picking up.
Filter your messages [re. email] AB: This is another valuable tool for my email management. I filter well over 50% of my mail into folders other than my inbox. I even filter some automated system messages that I don’t need into my trash. If you’re on a number of lists – internal or external – filters can really be a lifesaver. My webmail client doesn’t support filtering and I always cringe when I login at home. It’s so much harder to pick out what’s most important with one long list of unread messages.

There are many, many more useful tips in LiB’s complete presentation – check it out!

DeepDyve: Something You Should Know About

2009-11-03T00:46:02Z

Dubbed “Netflix for researchers” by ReadWriteWeb, DeepDyve has expanded from deep web search of STM literature to an article rental service: for $.99 an article, you can have read access for 24 hours. Will researchers go for it? Even independent researchers can frequently gain access to literature through the interlibrary loan service of their public library. Will those connected with a well-stocked research library pony up for convenience if they want something not otherwise immediately available at their desks? Whether or not this particular venture succeeds, it’s illustrative of the trend away from ownership to access for everything from purses to cars (see Bag Borrow or Steal and ZipCar respectively) and it opens up discussion on the market worth of a journal article. See analysis by Phil Davis at the Scholarly Kitchen.

NISO Forum – Trends and Thoughts

2009-10-29T15:22:51Z

Earlier this month, I went to the NISO Forum on library resource management systems, which was conveniently located right here in the Financial District of Boston. The program was fantastic, and the presentations are now available and well worth a look, even in slide format.

A number of words, themes, and ideas resonated throughout the two-day program:

Agility: The real-time web is here. Terabytes are here. E-books are here. What are we going to do and and can we do it fast enough?
Collaboration: Dare I say, 2.0? Not the traditional library consortium, but ad-hoc, dynamic, and extending beyond libraries to the broader research and education communities. Data curation, network-level services, putting the library where the user is – all these require collaboration beyond the traditional scope of library consortia or collaboratives.
Context: Lorcan Dempsey has a wonderful graphic, used by Rachel Bruce of JISC in her presentation and included in a blog post by Dempsey about the forum, that gets at the importance of context, and Kevin Kidd describes work that Boston College is undertaking in this area. It is no longer enough for the library to operate in the library environment; we must be present and relevant in the library users’ workflows elsewhere: in the open web, in institutional systems, in the personal tools researchers use in their daily lives. This requires reconsidering and rethinking what it means to be committed to privacy. How can we collect, aggregate, and use user data to provide services that are quickly becoming essential to our users, while still respecting and guarding privacy? Is it possible?
Network level: “work at the network level as far as possible” (Bruce), “working at the highest appropriate level” (Kyle Banerjee, speaking about large consortial system implementation of resource sharing and delivery), “cloud library as a shared network resource” (Kat Hagedorn, speaking about Hathi Trust’s cloud library project)
Open source: Experimentation and adoption for both small and large systems and services, from the consortial implementation of Evergreen discussed by Grace Liu to the Annette Bailey’s experience using open source to develop tools that work with vended systems.

(Heh, I didn’t intentionally put those in alphabetical order!)

My head was really spinning by the end, and I haven’t even mentioned all the sessions here. Follow the link through to see Oren Beit-Arie’s keynote, Judi Briden’s presentation about the latest anthropological research at U of Rochester, and more.

Customer vs. container, content vs. service

2009-09-25T20:53:08Z

Lots of interesting ideas floating around this week about the future of publishing, much applicable and relevant to libraries.

First up, the Scholarly Kitchen’s blogging of the Society for Scholarly Publishing’s IN conference keynotes, with an interesting comment about “diffintermediation” in between.

Keynote 1 by John Wilkins of Creative Commons

Keynote 2 by John Maeda of RISD

The tweet stream is worth a look, too: #SSPIN09

Next up, the write up at Personanondata of Seth Godin’s lunchtime talk to the Digital Publishing Group. Excerpt of write up: “The major error being made by established publishers (and agents and authors I would add) using conventional business models, Godin says, is to see new technology and the internet as a way to make old business models work better instead of as an opportunity to destroy (no sentimentality here) and reinvent the old.” Video excerpts here (see also tweets: #digpub)

Finally, the post “a clean well-lighted place for books” at if:book – the book as a place, the evolution of bookstores, and publishers’ brands. Plus a response from a bookseller at Vroman’s Bookstore in Southern California, who also references Godin’s talk.

*Bonus: fantastic set of slides putting the use of social media in the larger context of being customer-focused from author Tara Hunt (via Lorcan Dempsey)

Day in Life: Thursday 7/30

2009-08-03T14:56:01Z

No update for Wednesday. I stayed home with major sinus pain plus no sleep after our power went out at 9 p.m. and stayed out ALL NIGHT. As in, 9 (nine) hours. 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. On one of the muggiest days of the year. But I’m not bitter. On to Thursday…

a.m.

Put on a new pot of coffee. Review accumulated mail from Wednesday and answer some. Follow a link to a libraryish news round up one of the libraries puts out and review what’s included this week. Browse a few articles. Follow up on a few miscellaneous items from earlier in the week.

Work on Verde documentation for e-resource staff. I drafted the docs earlier and had left the tough parts for later. Now the tough parts need to be figured out. Work on documentation for running a trial and bounce between the doc and Verde as I try to figure out the best way to do things and the best way to write it up. I’m also thinking through the best way to make all the docs available: on our share drive, via the web, etc.

p.m.

Download and start reading the OLE Project report while I eat some lunch. IM with boss about upcoming projects and meetings.

Chat with my assistant, a library school student who’s been doing Verde migration work for the past few months. Today is her last day with us, boo. Compare notes on our respective museum and library classes.

Review slides for Ex Libris URM focus group I’m participating in and write up long-overdue comments.

Meet with training and doc librarian to discuss training program for Verde. Find out that we might be able to do a web tutorial for Verde. Cool. Also learn lots of useful Aleph acquisitions background info from her.

Send follow up info to training and doc librarian and investigate a couple things related to our meeting.

Decide that I need to get out of the building, rope in assistant (who, bless her, wants to finish what she’s working on) and colleague to go get frozen yogurt.

Back in the office, catch up on and reply to e-mail, wrap up things with my assistant and say goodbye. Head home.

Day in Life: Tuesday 7/28

2009-08-03T14:21:16Z

I’m extending the day in the life meme due to a highly unusual server outage last week, now happily resolved.

a.m.

Arrive work, boot up, open twhirl, im, calendar, and e-mail. review mail and check a few feeds while eating breakfast. i almost never want breakfast when i get up and usually eat at my desk.

Investigate status of the batch job I started the night before to sync Verde changes with SFX. Things don’t look good. Get coffee. Continue sync investigation, which leads to a friendly discussion with operations support about difference between non-supported hours and a maintenance window and when we can run batch jobs. Restart the batch during supported hours in order to benchmark, and send various related internal communication.

Learn about the process for requesting config table copy from Aleph QA to Aleph production server. Coordinate with the table owner about requesting the change. My first Aleph table change!

Start drafting this post.

Update the Verde project plan, now mostly complete!

Start playing a museum studies lecture for the class I’m taking and do some mindless Verde migration cleanup.

p.m.

Eat lunch while catching up on e-mail messages. Sometimes I take a full lunch hour, sometimes a shorter break at my desk, sometimes I work while eating. Today I catch up on e-mail and then IM with friend.

Schedule a meeting with our training and documentation librarian to discuss future Verde training and Aleph acquisitions catch up. Our T&D librarian handles a regular, recurring schedule of Aleph and Cognos (reporting) classes and keeps the related documentation up to date. She was on maternity leave for much of the Verde implementation, so we need to schedule time for her to learn Verde and figure out what ongoing training we should offer. She also has an acquisitions and serials background, and since I recently became responsible for related Aleph functions, I’m looking to her to fill me in on some things.

Batch job from the a.m. finally finishes and I review the results.

Attend weekly Aleph team meeting, which includes staff responsible for Aleph support and our other vended software too.

Continue reviewing and acting on the results of the batch sync process until it’s time to go home.

Define

2009-07-13T00:50:28Z

Top 10 Google suggestions when I type “define:”

love
conservatism
culture
socialism
ethics
integrity
leadership
twitter
irony
agnostic

One of these things is not like the others…

Industry-Sponsored Professional Development

2009-06-09T21:44:16Z

Back in March, I attended an “e-book summit” in Boston that was sponsored by Springer. Springer did a fantastic job of putting together a program of topics and speakers who touched on various aspects of e-book access and management. They included plenty of time for discussion and brainstorming among the attendees. The best part? Attendance was free.

Programs like this strike me as a win-win for librarians and commercial industry professionals, provided they meet or exceed the high standard Springer set. In the current economy, many of us face limited or non-existent travel budgets, yet we still want and need to do professional development activities. Publishers and vendors, meanwhile, need to conduct focus groups and other market research activities to avoid costly missteps in their product development and content offerings.

What made the e-book summit so successful?

Several organizations were represented among the speaker line-up, including another e-book provider (ebrary - who carries Springer content as well as many other publishers’). It wasn’t an all Springer, all day event.
The topic was one Springer clearly wanted librarian feedback on, but also one that librarians wanted to talk to each other about: How are you handling Vendor X’s pricing model? What are you doing about catalog records? Should there be an e-book A to Z list? We weren’t just there for the free lunch!
The mix of formats – single speaker, panel, discussion – plus lunch and a reception gave the day the feel of a mini-conference. Learning, brainstorming, networking: all without leaving town.
By framing the day as a summit, Springer signaled that they understood the unsettled nature of e-books, and the content demonstrated that indeed they “got it.”

I imagine that Springer more than made up the costs of the program with the feedback they got through the open discussion and brainstorming that took place. At the same time, they successfully walked a fine line, asking some of their librarian customers to present at the summit, but keeping the content neutral enough that attendees didn’t leave feeling subjected to a day-long sales pitch.

I haven’t seen a lot of programs like this, but I bet they’d be pretty popular, as the Springer summit was. Sure, vendors will continue to recruit development partners and conduct smaller selected focus groups, but pick a hot topic, order lunch, and open the doors and you will probably find the investment worthwhile.

Carol Tenopir @ NASIG

2009-06-06T14:13:07Z

Liveblogging Carol Tenopir’s keynote “Measuring the Value of the Academic Library: Return on Investment and Other Value Measures”

Carol reports that she did not participate in the Fun Run/Walk at 6:30 a.m.

We’re facing the challenge of demonstrating our value to stakeholders. Economy adds to this by pressuring budgets, combine w/ perceptions of library as gateway (Ithaka studies) we have a value gap. Amount spent vs. *perceived* value. (Perception of other roles hasn’t declined.) Wrong perceptions can become reality if we don’t address them head on.

Carol in middle of studies on ROI so that will be her focus today.

Usage logs: what people do on library systems. Picture of one segment – electronic; don’t tell you what people do with the info or the value it has to them. What did people do instead of going to the library? Carol recently joined COUNTER board.

Focus groups and surveys: to examine changes, to improve what we do.

User surveys and data: go beyond amount of use – what do people do with the info, what are outcomes. combine with other data on budget and income then you can get at ROI.

Objectives of ROI: how does library contribute to income of university. For every $ spent on library, university received X $ in return. Articulate value in terms of institutional objectives.

Study in 3 phases: 1) case study at a US University (U of Illinois) – there’s a white paper on the Elsevier website. Judy Luther was involved w/ team. ROI in grants was focus. 2) expanded Phase 1 to 8 countries, 9 universities. does the phase 1 methodology transfer? 3) propsal pending w/ IMLS to look at ROI for grants/research, teaching, student engagement – essentially go beyond grants to other ROI and quantify.

Findings from Phase 1: Not just quantitative, so need to meet with top admins to determine what they value. Found similar values at research universities, e.g., attract and retain top faculty, focus on new intellectual directions, strengthen interdisciplinary work, increase research impact. Benefit of interviews: informing admins about the library, too.

How do you calculate ROI: faculty generate income through grants, increase reputation. they use library collections in proposals. what proportion of grant’s income could be assigned to the library?

Grant cycle: conduct research -> write articles -> write reports and proposals -> obtain grants -> conduct research, etc. library has role in first three, how do we make specific connection?

Worked with an economist on methods. Need to clarify purpose of project before going out to talk to faculty: not trying to claim allocation back to library, not cost/time saving exercise. Faculty worried about money being allocated as an outcome of project.

studies on ROI for public libraries: Worth their weight by Americans for Libraries Council and Making cities stronger Urban Libraries Council. Include tools for calculation – this is a goal of Tenopir’s work.

studies on ROI for corporate libraries: Demonstrating Value and ROI by Outsell. time and money saved, revenue generated.

Data gathered during Phase 1: different types with different metnhods. e.g. surveys of faculty, office data on grant income, etc.

Model: % faculty w/ grants using citations x % grant award success rate using citations from library x $ avg grant income = $ avg grant income generated using citations from library x # grants expended / $ library budget (total not just collections) = $ grant income for each $1.00 invested in library. at Illinois this came out to 4+ : 1 ratio.

Phase 2 ongoing to see if model works, is it transferable. similarities and differences across countries and institutions.

Faculty survey – tried to keep short. combination of open-ended and quantitative questions. asked demographic data to determine differences among rank and discipline.

Value of e-resources: similar responses around the world – access from desktop is key.

Measuring up to admin values: tie between faculty with more pubs and citations have higher propensity of obtaining more grants. Faculty who publish more read more. Those who receive awards read more. Can’t claim cause and effect, but it is a picture of a successful faculty member.

References clearly important to grants. Avg # of citations: 20-46 is range.

% of citations from e-library: mode vaies 50-99%.

ROI varied from 15:1 to under1:1. varied depending on institution mission. some were teaching institutions so grants are not a good mechanism for measuring ROI.

Phase 3: will broaden focus from grants to other functional areas, e.g. teaching and learning. anticipate change: new scholarly endeavors such as e-science, IRs. challenge is to develop measures. e.g. how do you measure careers after graduation, measure prestige? and what’s the library’s role?

Conclusion so far: libraries help generate grant income. e-collections valued by faculty and bring ROI to university anywhere in world. hope to show library’s products and services help faculty be successful, students be successful, immediate and downstream income.

Final thoughts: tie what you measure to mission of university. measure outcomes not inputs. quantitative data show ROI and trends, qualitative data tell a story, multiple methods needed.

question about ILL: didn’t include in study – they were looking more at collections rather than services.

question about publishing phase 2: hoping this summer, but not sure.

question about calculator: yes, expect to make tools available with ARL.

question about how people know they’re using library systems: tried to phrase questions carefully at each institution in order to get at this. suspect they underestimated library use because people may not know, especially if the systems are good.

question pointing out that studies are exploratory and require further follow up. methodology evolved with phases. tenopir agrees.

KBART Update @ NASIG

2009-06-05T20:29:04Z

Liveblogging Peter McCracken’s update on KBART

OpenURL overview: evolution from magic to sausage making in how it is implemented and how information gets passed around. when the link resolver fails it affects the user’s perception of the tool

bad data, bad formatting, lack of knowledge

what is the measure of success? better access, fewer false positives and negatives. number of links should equal number of access points available

History of KBART: 2007 UKSG research report, led to collaboration between UKSG and NISO

Better data for everyone: providers, processors, presenters, users

Core working group + monitoring group. Anyone can join monitoring group.

Problems w/ OpenURL: 3 main onese are inaccurate data leads to bad links, incorrect implementation, lack of knowledge

Lack of knowledge: some providers just don’t know about OpenURL – need education

Incorrect implementations: help providers determine what’s working, what isn’t, need more and better examples. opportunity to standardize transfer of data. Adam Chandler Cornell project to look at source OpenURLs.

Inaccurate data: what to do? grade? police? shame? biggest problem to solve. coverage data especially. education on why it matters.

KBART deliverables: report and provide guidance on these problems. offer best practices guildines for how to effectively transfer accurate data. better understanding of supply chain.

How to deliver it: FTP tab delimited, separate files for each db, as often as necessary. standardized file name structure. guidance on how to provide coverage, what info to include – defined fields. defining how to represent certain kinds of data, e.g. embargo data. Much discussion about what to include vs. what to point to e.g. with a DOI.

Error reporting – how? link resolvers vs. content providers doing correction. public error reporting db?

Education sections, FAQ, website – who would maintain?

Next steps: library specific data, consortial package work, non-textual resources. standards?

(Had to leave this a couple minutes early.)