Codex Sinaiticus – Home

• Codex Sinaiticus – Home

  This ancient biblical manuscript is an excellent example of collaboration between institutions and how digital collections are invaluable to scholars. These four manuscripts could not be combined into a whole without their digital surrogates.

  tags: bible, religion, history, christianity, digital, collections, bethel, manuscripts

North Carolina Digital Collections Collaboratory » User-friendly CONTENTdm interface design?

This will really help to circumvent the unattractive interface of CONTENTdm. 

• North Carolina Digital Collections Collaboratory » User-friendly CONTENTdm interface design?

  Code created by UNLV to improve CONTENTdm’s interface and enabling Web 2.0 features.

  tags: contentdm, digital collections, usability, web design

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Open Access Reaches the Public Through Medical News

ABC News ran a story about doctors who expect to have access to the medical literature but can’t because of publisher costs.  They also mentioned the open access movement including the NIH mandate to deposit publications funded by the federal government to PubMed Central so they can be accessed by the public for free.

This is a great opportunity to educate the public about the need for Open Access promoted by advocates like Peter Suber in the United States and Steven Harnad in the UK.  The story begins with a direct connection between the doctor who did the research that would help many people and the lack of access by most people because of commercial publication costs.

Maybe us librarians could hit the comment section with a dose of open access education?  This way more people will understand that the disproportionately rising costs of journals compared to library budgets is a danger to them as well as the “ivory tower”. That’s the ticket.

How Can Institutional Repositories Improve and Succeed?

Institutional Repositories: Thinking Beyond the Box – 3/1/2009 – Library Journal

Current state of IR’s is poor writes Andrew Richard Albanese. Begins with Harvard’s open access mandate and details what went wrong overall with repositories. Mentions some things that IR’s need to do to be successful such as enticing faculty to contribute by providing services.

Some interesting quotes from the article followed by my comments:

“IRs have failed to catch on for a multitude of reasons, Salo explains, not the least of which is that the first generation was hopelessly passive about their collection activities.”

• Librarians must better understand faculty motivations, including tenure and reputation, and build services around that desire. – post by kgerber

“In his opening keynote at the 2008 SPARC Digital Repositories Meeting in Baltimore, John Wilbanks, director of Science Commons, spoke about what would move IRs forward: incentives. ‘My experience is that faculty don’t like to be hit with sticks,’ Wilbanks said. ‘They prefer carrots.’”

• What carrots can we provide? Some ideas:

• Offer assistance in submitting to discipline-specific repositories or organizations
• Provide personal Web space
• Repository submissions recognized in tenure process – post by kgerber

World Digital Library released with much fanfare

Many news organizations trumpeted the release of the World Digital Library on April 21st.  John Billington, from the Library of Congress, with the help of UNESCO and other funders, succeeded in putting up an interesting interface that provides access to over 1,000 of the world’s precious documents of cultural history.  Included are items from all continents, except Antarctica, which are old, beautiful, and high quality.  You can zoom in on an ancient map or manuscript to get a good look and can experience it in seven languages.

It is an excellent example of what a digital library can do by providing access to items that some would never be able to see.  This site will not substitute for a visit to the actual holders of the items but is a wonderful opportunity for those who can’t.

Open Source Software Introduction

You may have heard the term open source mentioned many times but are wondering what it really means.  Karen Schneider from Equinox,  the software company that supports the open source ILS Evergreen, presented an excellent introductory Webinar on Open Source software on March 17, 2009. Follow the “Here’s the recording” link. The first 12 minutes are an orientation to the Webinar functions and troubleshooting for the attendees.  Skip forward to get to the content on Open Source.

The Webinar inspired this post and I am highlighting  some important points in the presentation while including my own comments and examples. The five main sections are:

1. Definition of Open Source
2. Examples
3. Reliability and Quality
4. Cost
5. Assessment
6. Question and Answer session

Definition

The definition of open source software is set by the Open Source Initiative and is paraphrased below:

Software that allows its users to access and modify the computer code it was created with and includes licensing that allows it to be freely shared and modified without restriction.

A similar concept exists in the GNU Operating system and the Free Software Foundation who originally developed the concept of free software distribution. The major difference with their license and philosophy is that they choose to emphasize the word “free” and do not accept some license restrictions that open source does.

Examples

• Some familiar examples:
  • Firefox browser, WordPress blog software
• For libraries:
  • Integrated Library Systems (ILS) – Evergreen, Koha, OLE (in development)
  • Digital Repositories – DSpace, Fedora, Greenstone, ePrints
• For programmers and Web developers:
  • Databases – PostgreSQL, MySQL
  • Scripting code – PHP, Perl
  • Web Server – Apache
  • Operating System – Linux

• For more examples fast forward to (33:30) for a list of open source software in libraries – The audio mentions more

Learning 2.0 Outside of Libraries?

Michael Stephens posted part of a proposal to measure the effect of Learning 2.0 in Libraries and I wish him the best of luck.  Since the program began with Helene Blowers in 2006 it has been adopted by close to 1000 organizations worldwide proving that it is clearly a success in the library world. Why should we stop there?

Libraries are not the only groups that are struggling to understand the effect of Web 2.0.  The structure of Learning 2.0 provides the space for people to learn at their own pace and join a community of learners.  Why not open this opportunity to a larger community?  Librarians could lead the way in educating their communities about these tools.  For academic libraries, workshops centered around Learning 2.0 could be a valuable service for faculty or students.  Public libraries could extend this to the general public or specific communities like small businesses.

Has any library used Learning 2.0 as an outreach tool?  I would love to know.

Academic Shortcuts and Profitable Plagiarism

Your institution uses software services like Turnitin.com so you can rest assured that student cheating will be caught, right?

Not so, says Thomas Bartlett of the Chronicle of Higher Education in an article on March 20, 2009. While many professors are aware of different services that help students write their papers for them, they may not be aware that it is a profitable and global industry they are up against.

These companies called essay mills write custom papers for students who pay per-page, and avoid software like Turnitin because the essays are original works; they just aren’t created by the student. The Chronicle tracked one of these companies, Best Essays, from Virginia to Ukraine to the Philippines, back to the US.
John Gordon of Future Tense interviewed Bartlett about the story on March 27 and it is well-worth the four minutes to listen.

What is a professor to do?  Solutions using technology can help but as Bartlett concludes, having a relationship with the student and their work is still the best deterrent.

Relevant User Guides in a Web 2.0 World

This post is a summary of a presentation given by two Information Literacy Librarians from Wartburg College, Kimberly Babcock Mashek and Kari Weaver,  at the Library Technology Conference on March 19, 2009.  They compare different user guide models and present best practices to make them more interactive and effective. 

The main points of the presentation are to:

1. Understand what your users want
2. Understand what resources you have available
3. Choose the most appropriate resources according to points 1 & 2.
4. Continue to evaluate and maintain your services.
5. Share their experience and successes at Wartburg College

Brief History of User Guides

Pathfinders or Static Web Pages

Problems

• Don’t know if people are using them
• No standardization
• Users don’t understand library jargon

Why user guides?

• Enhances Info Lit Instruction
• Virtual Access
• Model proper research behavior

What is expected?

• Be specific
  • by class or assignment
• Allow customization
  • what are primary databases in their field
• Need to be current
  • link checking (can pay or have student workers do it)
• Want sophisticated search but not have to struggle to use it
• Easy to find library Web page
• Familiarity/comfort with interface
  • use Wikipedia platform (MediaWiki)
• Explanation of resources and context
• Minimal clicks
• No library jargon
  • research help
• Anytime, anywhere convenient

Google Apps for Libraries

PRESENTER:
David Collins, Associate Director for Public Services in Library, and Barron Koralesky, Associate Director for Information Technology Services, Macalester College  

SESSION DESCRIPTION:
Using a mix of demonstration, hands-on experience and conversation, participants will dig deeper into Google and Google Apps.   You may want to bring your lab coat.  Macalester has been using Google Apps for nearly a year, and will share some experiences as well as ways we have been integrating / leveraging Google into the day-to-day life of our library and institution.  We want to know how others are using Google, and hope to develop a shared “best practices” project as one outcome of this session.

Important that Library and IT collaborate

3 sections – Presentation, Hands-on, Group Reports

Had year long exploration of email.

• Found and picked Google
• Soon after had massive power outage condensing transition to a couple of weeks.
• What happens if you go to Google?
  • seperated security and privacy
  • Google does security well (much larger resources)
  • Privacy
    • Assumption – everything sent by email is not private

Education account does not have Reader, Groups, and ?.

What it has changed in Campus

• more open environment – perpetual beta
• new things appear and don’t know about it until after the fact.
  • traditional IT prefers limited controlled support of applications.