Where I got my MLIS, distance learners had to pay more per credit hour than students who took classes on campus. I understood that the extra fees paid for the technology infrastructure we used. On the other hand, we distance learners missed out on many of the things that tuition goes towards. I couldn’t go …
I know this episode aired in 2004, but I was just watching it again today and it made me laugh just as hard as I did last time. And this time I remembered to write down the dialogue: Lisa: I have to research a paper. Where did all the books go? Librarian: Books? Books are …
Let me preface this post with the statement that I didn’t become a librarian in order to get rich. The average librarian’s salary is more than the average salary for social workers, so it was never one of my complaints. I would rather do something I love than make a lot of money, and I …
I’ve read a lot of posts and articles lamenting the fact that many students and patrons prefer using Google to the library’s print and electronic resources, but few look at why people prefer Google beyond the fact that “it’s easy to use”. Today, Lorcan Dempsey posted an excellent analysis of the characteristics of the user’s …
I recently had an interesting discussion with a librarian regarding the usability of OPACs. I, as usual, was arguing that there are lessons to be learned from Google, RedLightGreen, and Amazon in how information retrieval systems should be designed. He replied, “at some point don’t you think the responsibility should rest on the students? How …
I’ve never really been “up” on Canada. For one, I’ve never been there (not that I wouldn’t like to, but the opportunity has not presented itself yet). Two, I, like many Americans, sadly know very little about Canadian geography, politics, history, culture etc. But I’ve become very enchanted with Canada over the past few months …
My new friend, and fellow Wesleyan alum, Stephen Francoeur, wrote: Wouldn’t it be cool if your patrons could use an IM client to chat with your web contact center software (such as the versions of eGain offered by Tutor.com and 24/7 Reference or Docutek’s VRLplus)? We know huge percentage of our users are already using …
I’m sure there are people who think that technology is the be-all-end-all and that every bleeding-edge technology should be implemented in libraries. But I don’t happen to know any of those people. The “tech-savvy” librarians I know are interested in better meeting the needs of their patrons with technology. Apparently, Chuck has met a whole …
George at It’s all good just got back from giving a presentation at the New Jersey Library Association where he was asked a difficult question: This was an excellent audience, full of questions, comments, and well-considered opinion. But one question stopped me in my tracks. One public library director explained his frustration in seeing the …
The Open Archives Initiative develops interoperability standards with the goal of developing easy ways to access digital content and improve scholarly communication. They have developed a protocol for harvesting XML-formatted metadata from text repositories. If all e-content providers used open metadata standards, libraries could harvest metadata from a variety of places so that it could …
Link Resolvers allow users to move from a citation to the actual article (so long as the library has access to it), regardless of which database the article happens to be in. Joy Moll, who has a nice post on the topic, writes “a “resolver” program does all the work for me. I find a …
Sorry for the delay in posting the rest of this, but we were flying to Florida yesterday to visit family. Nice to be in consistently warm weather for a few days. 🙂 When library catalogs were first developed, all of the electronic needs of a library system were fulfilled by the ILS. At the time, …
Next, our fictional student is going into RedLightGreen to find resources for her paper. RedLightGreen, a union catalog, is an excellent tool for resource discovery as the user only needs to enter one search query, and then can easily narrow or broaden her search by subject, author, or language. It combines searching and browsing in …
So now that we know what our population wants, we can see how our OPACs measure up. I created a screencast using my alma mater’s OPAC to illustrate some of the challenges users have when using catalogs. Obviously some catalogs are more sophisticated or offer more flexibility in searching, but some are even more difficult …
The first thing anyone designing a website or a search engine should ask themselves is how can we meet the needs of our users? In the case of academic libraries, those users are faculty and students. This year’s first-year college students were eight-years-old when Yahoo! was born. Technology is ubiquitous to them and they approach …
In many libraries, we see collections that do not meet the needs of their users. This problem can affect small rural public libraries with limited budgets and prestigious academic libraries that have comprehensive print and electronic holdings. It’s easy to understand the problem of limited funds, but if a library has an excellent collection why …
I’m going to be doing a presentation on information literacy in a few weeks, and I’m planning on looking at how new technologies can be used in information literacy instruction. I was thinking of looking at screencasting/flash tutorials (using camtasia, captivate, etc.), podcasting, wikis, blogging, rss, social bookmarking (del.icio.us, FURL, etc.), or anything else that …
Looking at my alma mater’s library website, I noticed that they are implementing a new federated search tool that searches eight resources (a mix of A&I databases and full-text). It’s powered by Metalib from Ex Libris, a company I think is pretty great. I was really excited at first, until I decided to test it …
Two bloggers from whose writing I get a great deal of food for thought were just named “movers and shakers” by Library Journal. Congratulations Aaron Schmidt and Michael Stephens! You two really should be proud — not of some mention in Library Journal, but for all you’ve done for your libraries and for librarianship. Rock …
So this week I’m all alone in the big chilly city of Chicago (hubby’s in New England on business). When, on Monday, I heard that there was a free conference being offered by the North Suburban Library System that week, I decided it would be a great to go and meet some fabulous Chicago-area librarians. …