Holiday LP hunt, limited but good

http://thisthatotherthing.wordpress.com/2009/11/30/lp-hunt-small-but-good/
So over the Thanksgiving break I was in Louisville and did some record hunting and I only came up with four this time.  I swear the prices on old LPs must be rising.  But they are four good ones I was happy to find.

• Rush -”Hold Your Fire”  – Their 2nd worst album, but now I have everything by them on LP through 1987
• Eagles – (Debut Album)
• Molly Hatchet – “Flirting With Disaster”
• Deep Purple – “Shades of Deep Purple”

Oh, and unable to find anymore early Bob Seger, I got “Beautiful Loser” on CD.  Good album, but a little too mellow.  It’s a sharp departure from it’s rockin’ predecessor, “Seven” my favorite album of his.

Is Wikipedia Dying?

http://thisthatotherthing.wordpress.com/2009/11/23/is-wikipedia-dying/
While the Wild, Wild West known as Wikipedia is not becoming tamer, there are signs that it could be dying, or at least going through changes or growing pains.  A front page story on the Wall Street Journal today reports that Winkipedia, the words fifth most visited web site with roughly 325 million monthly visitors is losing volunteers who write, edit, and police the online encyclopedia at an alarming rate.  In the first three months of 2009, 49,000 volunteers were lost compared to 4,900 the same time a year before.  It is unclear if people are quitting because they think the encyclopedia is done, or if they are becoming hostile to the newbies.  Wikipedia has implemented many layers of rules to help make it more reliable, control edit wars, hijacking, and other malicious behavior which makes it less freewheeling.  But if a higher percentage of writers and editors are “kooks” then the added rules won’t matter.

I admit, I use Wikipedia; I find it very useful.  But I take it with a grain of sand and realize how unpredictable the information may be.  It has a place, and I would like to see it stay that way.  But if “errors” like the one where Senator Kennedy was listed as having died months before he actually did become more commonplace, then Wikipedia will (or should) die by lack of users, not lack of volunteers.

Since this article requires a subscription to the Wall Street Journal, I can’t provide a link to full text.  This will give an abstract of the article.  For full text, most libraries should carry the Wall Street Journal.

This Week’s Agenda 11-23-2009

A short 2 day Thanksgiving Week

• Work on AtoZ Records, finish N-Z (not including SIAM)
• Work with coworker on facebook privacy settings
• Launch and start promoting library facebook page
• Conduct some research for Spring IOLUG meeting on connecting to mobile users
• Vacation day Wednesday followed by holidays on Thurs and Fr.

Google Scholar now Includes Judicial Opinions

http://thisthatotherthing.wordpress.com/2009/11/20/google-scholar-now/
Google Scholar http://scholar.google.com is now including full-text legal opinions from U.S. Federal and State District, Appellate, and Supreme courts in Google Scholar.  This is not expected to replace Lexis Nexis or Westlaw since it does not

cover the time dating from the beginning of our country, nor to the beginnings of the individual states. There are no hyperlinks to statutes, codes, regulations, administrative opinions, or anything else quoted or referred to in the text of the opinions. Finally, there is no citator service to verify that a particular opinion has not been overruled or vacated, distinguished, or otherwise declared of dubious value.1

Although I worked in a law library for two weeks, I am by no means a law librarian (I didn’t even know what case law was when I started).   However, I have used Westlaw and I can support the above statement.  The search functionality, the comprehensiveness, and the forward and backward linking capability cannot be matched by Google.  Google is very good at digitizing large amounts of material and making it available online for free, but they are no database vendor.

OK, time for me to insert a bit of snooty librarian attitude into this discussion.  OK, first off, I am not against Google; nor am I against relevancy ranking and the new so-called “discovery tools.”  In fact, I am exited by their potential in making research easier for undergraduates and look forward to exploring them further.  However, when you are dealing with high-end research, especially legal or medical research, you need the right tools to get the right information; and you need to know how to use them.  When  Google engineer Anurag Acharya was asked about their algorithm for showing search results, he said “magic.”  What we do know is that like Lexis and Westlaw, Google ranks cases from higher courts higher than lower courts and also by the number of times a case has been cited.  Overall, I think Google’s venture into case law is great for non legal professionals or for anyone who already knows of a specific case they would like to find.  But for legal professionals needing to do comprehensive research, the old tried and true (and very expensive) Lexis Nexis and Westlaw will continue to rule!

Source used:  http://newsbreaks.infotoday.com/NewsBreaks/Judicial-Opinions-Now-Available-in-Google-Scholar-58031.asp

The Library Website with a Face: Digitally Connecting to People Where They Are

http://thisthatotherthing.wordpress.com/2009/11/17/the-library-we…where-they-are
Yesterday I gave a summary of the Indiana Online Users Group (IOLUG) Fall 2009 Meeting in Plainfield, Indiana on Nov 13, 2009.  Today I would like to expand a little upon what I spoke about.  I only spoke for 15 minutes, but it was about something I discovered that has profound implications for a small college library like mine.  My topic was “The Library Website with a Face:  Digitally Connecting to People Where They Are.”  In summary, creating a website where the users can always see if a librarian is available to help them and the ability to connect to them instantly through a chat widget.

At Logan Library, we experimented with a third party virtual reference service for one year.  We had very few virtual reference sessions.  First, to keep the price down, we could only have one librarian logged in at a time and there were large chunks of time when nobody was online.  Second, the chat link, a button that said “Online” or “Offline” depending on whether someone was logged in or not, was only located on the library website’s main page.  At the time that we stopped this service, we began a subscription to LibGuides, a Web 2.0 platform for creating subject guides.  By default, each LibGuide adds the guide owner’s profile to each page of the guide.  Profiles can include numerous types of contact information as well as a chat widget from almost any of the major IM services.  While the most commonly used widget by librarians is for Meebo, we decided to use AOL Instant Messenger and use their widget directly.  We found this best to suit our needs.  We also use Trillian instead of the actual AIM software because it allows us to set the time for the “away” message to coincide with the screen saver; thus we can set it to a very short amount of time so that if we walk away from our computer, the away message will kick in shortly thereafter.  This decreases the chances of users sending us a message and not getting a reply.  Since we only have two reference librarians, we also made it so that the profile of each of us was on the main page of each guide home page, thus they can see if either of us is available.  Finally, we added a “Help” tab to each guide which contains contact information and chat widgets to other library staff members who can help in other ways.  For example, our Interlibrary loan librarian’s box has her contact information, her chat widget, and her picture with the caption “I can help you with questions about Interlibrary loan requests.”   Likewise, each reference librarian’s caption says “I can help you with your research.”  This removes the ambiguity regarding who can help for certain questions.

As a result, we have seen virtual reference questions jump from a handful a quarter to a handful a day.  Most questions such as “what database would be best to search for a particular topic?” or “how can I find out if we subscribe to a particular journal?” can be answered quickly and easily.  In the past, most students would wait until they had time to come to the library to ask these simple questions.   If someone needs more in-depth reference assistance that is hard to do through chat, we can simply set up a time to meet them in the library to give them the appropriate attention.  Thus, knowing that most research is being done outside of the library and with the frequency of use, we know that we have filled an important void in our library service.

Our LibGuides site can be viewed at http://library.rose-hulman.edu and my presentation can be viewed at  http://www.slideshare.net/histrydude/the-library-website-with-a-face-digitally-connecting-to-people-where-they-are or by clicking the image above.

This Week’s Agenda – 11/16/2009

This next week and a half  looks overwhelming, but if I think if I work steadily throughout the week and put in some evening hours, I’ll be OK.

• Learn how to use MarcEdit so I can load two sets of Knovel updates
• Complete Application for Review of Research Involving Human Participation
• Grade final projects for College & Life Skills Class and submit quarter grades
• Attend video conference “Cut the Cord: Connecting to Our Mobile Users” at IUPUI on Wednesday
• Write blog about IOLUG conference
• Try to find a replacement for Digital Archives Project (my graduate student got a graduate assistantship and has to quit the project).
• Work on library facebook page and work with staff on ideas for it.
• Staff meeting on Friday
• Recreate IOLUG presentation in PowerPoint and post online (most of it was demonstrated live).
• Work on student survey questions for Library 2.0 research project

• Plenty of other things not listed of lesser importance

IOLUG Fall Meeting on Managing Your Digital Identity a Huge Success

Well, I’ve been quiet the last week or so but I’ve been busy.  Between spending large chunks of time at ISU to listen to ILS vendors give us sales pitches and demos of their systems, planning for the IOLUG meeting, and probably a dozen other little things that have popped up in the last week, I have not had much time to blog.  But again, that IS the theme of my blog…doing this, that, and the other thing!  So here is a quick wrap up of the Fall 2009 Indiana Online Users Group (IOLUG) Meeting.  The theme was “Hot or Not: Managing Your Digital Identity” it it was held at the Plainfield Public Library.  The morning Keynote was “Yes, You Are Speaking in Public: the Implications of Building a Personal and Professional Online Presence” by Jenica Rogers, Director of libraries at SUNNY, Potsdam.  This was followed by three breakout sessions 1) Online Public Identities: The Unexpected Dangers, by Jenica Rogers; 2) Tips and Tricks – a)New Friend Requests: Managing Personal and Professional Contacts on Facebook, by Jason Fields, b) Search Engine Optimization by Michael Witt, c) The Website with a Face: Digitally Connecting to People Where They Are, by me, Richard Bernier, and c) Virtual Venues and Collaborations:  Strengthening Your Staff and Services Using Facebook by Misti Shaw; 3) Facebook Basics (workshop) by Daniel Nguyen, Bill Helling, Emily Griffin, and Melissa Hostetler.  The afternoon keynote was “Social Library is People: Strategies for Making Your Online Organization More Human, by Toby Greenwalt, Virtual Services Coordinator for the Skokie Public Library.  The three breakout sessions included the Tips and Tricks and Facebook Basics again along with “Putting It All Together: Monitoring and Participating in Your Online Community without Losing Your Mind, by Toby Greenwalt.  The day was capped off with a Panel on Personal Experiences with Digital Identity.  Panelists were Melissa Kiser, Kayla Gregory, Malissa Hostetler, and Lisa Lobdell.

For me, this was the most enjoyable and enlightening IOLUG meeting so far.  It could not have come at a better time since I am currently engrossed in Web 2.0, social networking, and their integration into my libraries operations.  I also have two research projects in the works in this area.  I also enjoyed being a speaker.  It has been a while and I enjoyed it a great deal.  The highlights of the program for me included Jenica Roger’s Keynote, and learning more about the permission controls of Facebook by Jason Fields.  I am now reconsidering my decision to use a second Facebook account for professional uses and I may just make friends with my coworkers after all.  Actually, I will need to do so one way or another if I am going to launch and promote our Library’s Facebook page.  In my next posting, I will discuss the topic I spoke about in further detail.

Our Spring program will be on mobile computing and the integration of library services, or something like that.

“Cops” parody – “Librarians”

http://thisthatotherthing.wordpress.com/2009/11/05/cops-parody-librarians/
OK, so my blogging is slow this past week or so.  Its been hectic.  I made a list of things to do on Monday and here it is on Thursday and its not half done.  Frustrating, but that’s my job sometimes; got to put out the fires.  So here is an interesting video I found; its a parody on the show “Cops” but its about Librarians.  Silly, but kind of funny. Says it is filmed at the Seattle Public Library.   http://www.librarystuff.net/2009/11/04/librarians/

eBook Readers and Student Text Books

While I have never been a big advocate of eBook readers, I have found value in them. The value I have found tends to be more or less, the opposite of what the author in this article states. If I had the desire to read the epic novel, “War & Peace,” I would want to read it in a paper copy and then have it to place in my library. Back in 2000 when I started at Rose-Hulman, I was given the duty of experimenting with numerous eBook readers. The conclusion I came to then, I still hold today. I don’t see them replacing the type of book you would want to read cover to cover, at least not for most people, but I do see their advantages as a means of delivering text books to college students. The author of the article states that text books purchased for a class should be held onto when the class is over as part of their education. It’s an academic thing. He finds the idea of students not highlighting or annotating a text book so as to not degrade the resale value appalling. I can certainly relate to this notion as I held onto almost all of my text books. There were a few here and there that I sold, but most I kept. But the fact of the matter is, text books are extremely expensive, bulky, heavy, and for general education classes, will more than likely never be opened again. With students strapped for cash, it only makes sense to sell back these books that otherwise may one day be used as door stops or as I have used them, to prop up the head of my bed during times of sinus infections so I could breath at night. So what I said nine years ago, I still say today. Ebook readers would make a nice alternative for student text books. Being a laptop campus, our students walk around with back packs that hold their laptops, numerous textbooks, notebooks, and other items. You would think they were hiking the Appalachian Trail rather than walking across a small campus to attend a few classes the way these backpacks stick out two or three feed from their backs. I can envision a model where students could be given the option of either purchasing the eBook for permanent ownership, or by leasing it for a specific amount of time for a lower cost. There are barriers to this of course. While the Kindle has been the most successful eBook reader so far, the technology still needs some tweaking and the business model has a long way to go. Recently, Amazon removed copies of George Orwell’s 1984 and Animal Farm from their website and from their Kindle reader devices, copies these users assumed that they owned. The alarm caused by this development has caused people to once again to lose faith in the eBook concept. Call it good timing, or good luck, but that same week, Barnes & Noble announced the launch of its eBook store and its reader, the Plastic Logic eReader device which will be released in early 2010. The eBook industry is still unstable, but as we grow closer to standardization and more and more mediums of communication (books, news, articles, audio/visual) are accepted into the digital realm, there will be a place for eBook readers. And while textbook publishers may be a late adopter, I still expect there will be a place for them in the future world of eBooks.
Reference: http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2009/11/03/golub

This Week’s Agenda 11/2/2009

The semester is winding down with just two more weeks before finals.  The reference demand has lightened up quite a bit as most research is completed and students gear up for finals.  But the work load at Logan Library never lets up.  Here is what I have planned this week.

• Complete Electrical Engineering LibGuide
• Start another LibGuide in another subject area
• Work on my presentation for the IOLUG conference next week on “The Website with a Face: Digitally connecting to People Where They Are”
• Work on updating EBSCO AtoZ records
• Work on making sure all of our license agreements and access details are up-to-date for this year’s subscriptions to our electronic journals.
• Work on research paper (gather data on Web 2.0 platforms, literature research Library 2.0).
• Speak with someone from Assessment on conducting a survey of our students next quarter on which Web 2.0 platforms they use.