Another one that won't mean much to most of you, and that's OK.
"Web service" is a broad term that refers to a remote call to a data service that provides access to data and/or procedures that are usually on a remote system. It uses structured data for data exchange, usually XML. APT data sources availalbe include Google, Flickr, Yahoo!, del.icio.us, Amazon, GoogleAppEngine, eBay, AllCDCovers.com, ISBNdb.com and Amazon S3. There's a bunch more listed at programmableweb.com/apis/directory
I don't have a whole lot of notes, as I got a thorough handout with code samples and helpful links to a number of different places. The session itself talked about basic data calls and walked us through some sample applications using web services.
Showing posts with label computers in libraries. Show all posts
Showing posts with label computers in libraries. Show all posts
Monday, April 14, 2008
CiL2008: Postconference Workshop - Ajax for Libraries
Ajax won't mean much for most of you, and that's OK. It's website behind-the-scenes stuff that allows you to make nifty applications and widgets, lessen the load on the server, and make page load times faster for people browsing the site.
The workshop explained the basics of Ajax, gave some code examples, and showed examples of things it's possible to do with it. One of the ones I liked a lot was putting page content in tabs with pages. For example, on our current website, I've got links for students up top and links for faculty on the bottom. I could put those in separate tabs, so that instead of scrolling all the way to the bottom, faculty users could just click a tab and have their links load in place of the student links. This would make the page as a whole load faster, and make it easier on screen readers.
Other library uses suggested are:
-- browsing subject headings in the catalog
-- "pre-displaying" indexes and database categories
-- managing complex ILL or contact forms
-- federated searches
-- catalog searches
-- rating systems
-- "print this page" functionality
There is a lot of data available on the web that libraries can access via APIs:
-- LibraryThing (you don't have to subscribe to the LibraryThing for Libraries service if you can program it yourself)
-- Google Books Availability API
-- WorldCat API - coming - just opened up to a few developers this week
-- Google & Yahoo Maps API
The workshop explained the basics of Ajax, gave some code examples, and showed examples of things it's possible to do with it. One of the ones I liked a lot was putting page content in tabs with pages. For example, on our current website, I've got links for students up top and links for faculty on the bottom. I could put those in separate tabs, so that instead of scrolling all the way to the bottom, faculty users could just click a tab and have their links load in place of the student links. This would make the page as a whole load faster, and make it easier on screen readers.
Other library uses suggested are:
-- browsing subject headings in the catalog
-- "pre-displaying" indexes and database categories
-- managing complex ILL or contact forms
-- federated searches
-- catalog searches
-- rating systems
-- "print this page" functionality
There is a lot of data available on the web that libraries can access via APIs:
-- LibraryThing (you don't have to subscribe to the LibraryThing for Libraries service if you can program it yourself)
-- Google Books Availability API
-- WorldCat API - coming - just opened up to a few developers this week
-- Google & Yahoo Maps API
CiL2008: Virtual Reference: Endless Possibilities
This session was about the different ways you can provide virtual reference at libraries, including but not limited to IM chat reference. Here's some of the products they discussed:
Hab.la is a free service that allows the chat box to follow the user around the Internet.It loads the library page within a Hab.la browser, so that the librarian can show the patron where to go and what to do. There's some problems, however - I think the patron has to download and install the Hab.la widget, the coding is a bit clunky, and only 5 Hab.la widgiets will display at any one time, so if you've got more than 5 chat requests coming in, some of them get lost. See comments for clarifications.
The company is also thinking about a pay-per-use policy, although they know libraries are interested and may be willing to cut them a deal. However, this type of virtual reference service is something to keep an eye out for in the future.
LibraryH3lp is an IM service being built by librarians for librarians. It runs on Javascript, is customizable, adn allows for multiple librarians to have windows open to the service at once. They all get notifications of an incoming message, and the first librarian to respond gets connected to the call. They're also looking at eventually instituting a fee for this service, but it's free for now. You can get an overview of what's available and what's planned at their overview page on their wiki, and you can see LibraryH3lp in action here. On that page you can also find a link to the PowerPoint slides from this session, on Slideshare.
Skype is a free VoIP (Voice over IP) service that essentially allows you to talk online with anyone who's got Skype connected. It's faster than chat, but the user has to have Skype installed, and you have to remember to log out. the University of Waterloo tested Skype for a while, but they only had 10 questions via it in the first month.
The second presenter in the session talked about using RSS feeds to create virtual reading rooms. The presenter said that students don't browse in the physical reading room, and that browsing ejournals is almost impossible. So he built an online reading room from RSS feeds for library literature.
You can find RSS feeds of new material from databases like Ebsco and other journal aggregators and from publishers. There are also online journals like Code4Lib that offer feeds. He created a mashup of the feeds using a service like Feedburner that aggregated feeds from 20 different library journals and served them all up in one feed.
Some services like Feedburner will email items from the newly-created feeds. Most individual journal feeds and publishers' feeds give abstracts of the articles. Ebsco feeds just give article titles.
A service like Grazr will take different RSS feeds and OPML files (remember the file that Walter had you load into Bloglines that gave you a bunch of different feeds at once? That's an OPML file) and makes a unique RSS feed out of all of those that you can post on a webpage - say you wanted to create a virtual reading room for Biology journals. You could find a bunch of Biology journal feeds from the pre-eminent journals in the field and create one feed from them using Grazr, then post that feed on, say, the Biology subject guide page for those who are interested in keeping track of new research and publications.
Pipes is another service that will do much the same thing.
RefWorks has a new service called RefAware that also monitors journal feeds and delivers those of interest to you, based on search strategies you provide. (As we already subscribe to RefWorks, this may be something to look into.)
ticTOCs is a service currently in beta that plans to gather journal tables of contents from RSS feeds and allow researchers to browse them. The coverage is not very extensive as of yet, since they only went live a couple of weeks ago.
Hab.la is a free service that allows the chat box to follow the user around the Internet.
The company is also thinking about a pay-per-use policy, although they know libraries are interested and may be willing to cut them a deal. However, this type of virtual reference service is something to keep an eye out for in the future.
LibraryH3lp is an IM service being built by librarians for librarians. It runs on Javascript, is customizable, adn allows for multiple librarians to have windows open to the service at once. They all get notifications of an incoming message, and the first librarian to respond gets connected to the call. They're also looking at eventually instituting a fee for this service, but it's free for now. You can get an overview of what's available and what's planned at their overview page on their wiki, and you can see LibraryH3lp in action here. On that page you can also find a link to the PowerPoint slides from this session, on Slideshare.
Skype is a free VoIP (Voice over IP) service that essentially allows you to talk online with anyone who's got Skype connected. It's faster than chat, but the user has to have Skype installed, and you have to remember to log out. the University of Waterloo tested Skype for a while, but they only had 10 questions via it in the first month.
The second presenter in the session talked about using RSS feeds to create virtual reading rooms. The presenter said that students don't browse in the physical reading room, and that browsing ejournals is almost impossible. So he built an online reading room from RSS feeds for library literature.
You can find RSS feeds of new material from databases like Ebsco and other journal aggregators and from publishers. There are also online journals like Code4Lib that offer feeds. He created a mashup of the feeds using a service like Feedburner that aggregated feeds from 20 different library journals and served them all up in one feed.
Some services like Feedburner will email items from the newly-created feeds. Most individual journal feeds and publishers' feeds give abstracts of the articles. Ebsco feeds just give article titles.
A service like Grazr will take different RSS feeds and OPML files (remember the file that Walter had you load into Bloglines that gave you a bunch of different feeds at once? That's an OPML file) and makes a unique RSS feed out of all of those that you can post on a webpage - say you wanted to create a virtual reading room for Biology journals. You could find a bunch of Biology journal feeds from the pre-eminent journals in the field and create one feed from them using Grazr, then post that feed on, say, the Biology subject guide page for those who are interested in keeping track of new research and publications.
Pipes is another service that will do much the same thing.
RefWorks has a new service called RefAware that also monitors journal feeds and delivers those of interest to you, based on search strategies you provide. (As we already subscribe to RefWorks, this may be something to look into.)
ticTOCs is a service currently in beta that plans to gather journal tables of contents from RSS feeds and allow researchers to browse them. The coverage is not very extensive as of yet, since they only went live a couple of weeks ago.
CiL2008: Next Generation Library Interfaces
You can find the Powerpoint slides presented at this session on the Library Technology Guides website.
This session ended up slightly different from what I interpreted the description in the program book to mean. It said "New models of what constitutes a library catalog are forming, and products are now beginning to embody aspects of this new vision. Breeding provides an overview of the library catalogs and interfaces now available or in development, including both commercial and open source alternatives." He did talk about the products, but at the end of the presentation. The majority involved the new model and what it should incorporate, most of which seemed like "Well, duh" information to me.
This was the session where I started thinking about the discrepancy in the stats that the University of Guelph, ProQuest, and the Pew Institute reported, of how students turned to the library for research, and the stats that others, including Breeding, cited that said people turned first to Google. I'd need to know more details about the studies that found people preferred Google - who were the patrons? what sort of information were they looking for? did they have access to university-level information resources? what's their education level? - before I could say who was right and who wasn't, or even if both were right depending on the circumstances.
And that was the point where I made a note to myself to propose a survey that asks our students where they go to research, and that makes a difference between quick lookups and in-depth research, so we can find out what our students are doing and how we can help them.
Breeding proposes a comprehensive search service. This is not a federated search, but a collection of metadata from all types of sources that could be searched. He acknowledges that there are a lot of cooperation problems involved, but patrons hate having to sign in to a number of different resources just to do one search.
This was the point where I made a note to investigate if it was possible to create a single sign-in for off-campus users that would persist through one session using different databases, because I know how annoying it is to have to sign in to every database you use. Although I suspect it's probably quite difficult, otherwise we'd have done it already.
I stopped making notes at this point, as his Powerpoint slides were pretty comprehensive, so shall refer you to them if you're interested in theoretical design of future catalogs, and what products are supplying some of this functionality already.
This session ended up slightly different from what I interpreted the description in the program book to mean. It said "New models of what constitutes a library catalog are forming, and products are now beginning to embody aspects of this new vision. Breeding provides an overview of the library catalogs and interfaces now available or in development, including both commercial and open source alternatives." He did talk about the products, but at the end of the presentation. The majority involved the new model and what it should incorporate, most of which seemed like "Well, duh" information to me.
This was the session where I started thinking about the discrepancy in the stats that the University of Guelph, ProQuest, and the Pew Institute reported, of how students turned to the library for research, and the stats that others, including Breeding, cited that said people turned first to Google. I'd need to know more details about the studies that found people preferred Google - who were the patrons? what sort of information were they looking for? did they have access to university-level information resources? what's their education level? - before I could say who was right and who wasn't, or even if both were right depending on the circumstances.
And that was the point where I made a note to myself to propose a survey that asks our students where they go to research, and that makes a difference between quick lookups and in-depth research, so we can find out what our students are doing and how we can help them.
Breeding proposes a comprehensive search service. This is not a federated search, but a collection of metadata from all types of sources that could be searched. He acknowledges that there are a lot of cooperation problems involved, but patrons hate having to sign in to a number of different resources just to do one search.
This was the point where I made a note to investigate if it was possible to create a single sign-in for off-campus users that would persist through one session using different databases, because I know how annoying it is to have to sign in to every database you use. Although I suspect it's probably quite difficult, otherwise we'd have done it already.
I stopped making notes at this point, as his Powerpoint slides were pretty comprehensive, so shall refer you to them if you're interested in theoretical design of future catalogs, and what products are supplying some of this functionality already.
CiL2008: What Do Users Really Do in their Native Habitat? pt 2
This talk was the second part of the session, and a representative from ProQuest discussed a recent study they did about how students perform research. They involved 7 universities, recruiting students (through Facebook!) who were actively performing research, and sent researchers to observe the students for 90 minutes, and then ask follow-up questions.
The reasons students chose the resources they used were mostly down to three things:
1. A course instructor had recommended it to them
2. They heard about them through library outreach
3. Brand awareness - in other words, they remembered the name of the database
An instructor giving them a recommendation was a golden endorsement for the resource - students would rely on those for *years*, but it can backfore: sometimes the students relied on those recommendations exclusively, sometimes even when they weren't very useful for the topic they were researching or there were other databases that covered the same subject.
This is from a previous post I did here, but I got the story from this session so I'll repeat it:
The vast majority of students *attempted* to use library resources.
Once they were in a licensed product (i.e. database), most had no serious difficulty in conducting research. The students would often work with multiple resources and search tools at the same time.
Abstracts were essential in identifying relevant articles.
Things that inhibited research success:
-- lack of awareness, not knowing what's available
-- Difficult to navigate library websites to locate appropriate e-resources
-- Often they'd search the library catalog for articles.
-- authentication barriers, especially considering limited access points
How they really used Google:
1) as a primary research tool
2) to supplement research
3) for handy, quick look-ups <-- the statistics that say 90% of Web researchers use Google probably belong in this category. Often after doing the librarys earch, they'd do a quick Google on the topic.
Why use Google?
-- when quality isn't a concern
-- insufficiently aware of library e-resources
-- bad experiences with library e-resources
Using Google as a look-up tool:
-- to locate known resources like known websites, major newspapers, and library resources
-- to get specific answers like general information about a topic, definitions of terms or phrases, or to complete a citation.
The reasons students chose the resources they used were mostly down to three things:
1. A course instructor had recommended it to them
2. They heard about them through library outreach
3. Brand awareness - in other words, they remembered the name of the database
An instructor giving them a recommendation was a golden endorsement for the resource - students would rely on those for *years*, but it can backfore: sometimes the students relied on those recommendations exclusively, sometimes even when they weren't very useful for the topic they were researching or there were other databases that covered the same subject.
This is from a previous post I did here, but I got the story from this session so I'll repeat it:
One thing that everyone agrees on is that awareness - making students and other patrons aware of what's out there to help them - is the key point. The ProQuest guy who talked about their study (I'll write it up later) told a story about one of their sbjects. They observed a number of students for 1.5 hours each as they did research for a paper. This kid was the poster child for database use. He went to the database page on his university library's website and went through every single atabase relevant to his topic. When asked why he did this, he gave a speech about how many resources were available and how useful they were, etc. When asked how long he'd been researching this way, he replied "Six weeks." Why the change six weeks ago? He said that a librarian had come to one of his classes and told them that and showed them how to do it.
The vast majority of students *attempted* to use library resources.
Once they were in a licensed product (i.e. database), most had no serious difficulty in conducting research. The students would often work with multiple resources and search tools at the same time.
Abstracts were essential in identifying relevant articles.
Things that inhibited research success:
-- lack of awareness, not knowing what's available
-- Difficult to navigate library websites to locate appropriate e-resources
-- Often they'd search the library catalog for articles.
-- authentication barriers, especially considering limited access points
How they really used Google:
1) as a primary research tool
2) to supplement research
3) for handy, quick look-ups <-- the statistics that say 90% of Web researchers use Google probably belong in this category. Often after doing the librarys earch, they'd do a quick Google on the topic.
Why use Google?
-- when quality isn't a concern
-- insufficiently aware of library e-resources
-- bad experiences with library e-resources
Using Google as a look-up tool:
-- to locate known resources like known websites, major newspapers, and library resources
-- to get specific answers like general information about a topic, definitions of terms or phrases, or to complete a citation.
CiL2008: What Do Users Really Do in their Native Habitat? pt 1
This session consisted of two presentations on separate studies done by the University of Guelph and ProQuest. Both of them wanted to find out how their users researched in order to better serve them. (ProQuest in the next blog post)
Millennial Mythology
The University of Guelph went first, and started by pointing out that the survey applied to their user base only and might or might not apply to other institutions. They also went to great lengths to disguise the library origin of the survey, in order to keep respondents from choosing the answers they thought they wanted to hear, and had the questions looked over and tweaked by a non-library statistician-type person in order to eliminate bias and make sure the replies would answer the actual questions they wanted to ask.
Results include:
-- 9% of students use PDAs. 91% did not.
-- 69% own a cellphone, 79% of those used it for text messaging, while only 17% of cellphone owners used them to browse the Internet
-- 93% used Internet chat programs and about half used them for academic purposes
-- Overall, the students prefer to use email to communicate with group project members
-- Most of them not interested in using online social networks (OSN) to share work with classmates. They would share only with friends - the overall attitude was "why would I share my work with students who hadn't done the work?"
-- Only 4.1% participated in online virtual environments like Second Life
When students did online research, the order in which they used resources was:
1. the UG library or library website
2. Google
3. Journals
4. Catalog
5. Google Scholar
6. Specific journal indices
Library-related answers accounted for more than 80% of the responses.
Students in focus groups conducted to follow up on the survey said they used library sites as often as, and in conjunction with, Google. They *also* said, however, that the library site was the most complicated and frustrating option.
Discussion points they brought up:
--Technology and gadgets were not being used the way we'd expect. Cellphones were used for talking and texting, mostly.
-- Students were reluctant to mix personal and academic computing (i.e. reluctant to have the library invade Facebook and Myspace). Younger students were less reluctant, however, and they expect that trend to continue in the future.
--Is it the best use of resources to develop online presences like Facebook and Myspace right now? They'll continue to monitor the trend.
--Their priority is to improve what they have on offer now: create more user-friendly websites and more efficient search tools.
-- What needs to be done is to determine what the students need and eek solutions to meet those needs.
-- Development needs to originate with the students.
Millennial Mythology
The University of Guelph went first, and started by pointing out that the survey applied to their user base only and might or might not apply to other institutions. They also went to great lengths to disguise the library origin of the survey, in order to keep respondents from choosing the answers they thought they wanted to hear, and had the questions looked over and tweaked by a non-library statistician-type person in order to eliminate bias and make sure the replies would answer the actual questions they wanted to ask.
Results include:
-- 9% of students use PDAs. 91% did not.
-- 69% own a cellphone, 79% of those used it for text messaging, while only 17% of cellphone owners used them to browse the Internet
-- 93% used Internet chat programs and about half used them for academic purposes
-- Overall, the students prefer to use email to communicate with group project members
-- Most of them not interested in using online social networks (OSN) to share work with classmates. They would share only with friends - the overall attitude was "why would I share my work with students who hadn't done the work?"
-- Only 4.1% participated in online virtual environments like Second Life
When students did online research, the order in which they used resources was:
1. the UG library or library website
2. Google
3. Journals
4. Catalog
5. Google Scholar
6. Specific journal indices
Library-related answers accounted for more than 80% of the responses.
Students in focus groups conducted to follow up on the survey said they used library sites as often as, and in conjunction with, Google. They *also* said, however, that the library site was the most complicated and frustrating option.
Discussion points they brought up:
--Technology and gadgets were not being used the way we'd expect. Cellphones were used for talking and texting, mostly.
-- Students were reluctant to mix personal and academic computing (i.e. reluctant to have the library invade Facebook and Myspace). Younger students were less reluctant, however, and they expect that trend to continue in the future.
--Is it the best use of resources to develop online presences like Facebook and Myspace right now? They'll continue to monitor the trend.
--Their priority is to improve what they have on offer now: create more user-friendly websites and more efficient search tools.
-- What needs to be done is to determine what the students need and eek solutions to meet those needs.
-- Development needs to originate with the students.
Tuesday, April 08, 2008
CiL2008: Facebook Apps & Libraries' Friendly Future
Just a note - this is actually cut-and-pasted from a reply to someone I made on the service my personal blog is on, when I mentioned I was in a session on Facebook and libraries. They asked how and why a library would use Facebook, so I summed up the session, and realized: hey, I've got my 800mice post on it. :)
===========================
According to this session, if you as a librarian create a Facebook page for yourself, it serves as another point of contact for patrons. Although they caution that *you* initiating friending with students or patrons can make you seem like Uncle Creepy, so it's best to let them initiate it.
Making a fan page for your library on Facebook can be good, because it allows you to post announcements and use it as advertising and outreach (fan pages are what Facebook set up for groups and organizations to do to get a presence on Facebook - Facebook users can fan them, instead of friending them, without letting their profile be seen). And if you collaborate with an individual, you can set up Events or send out flyers on Facebook.
Outside of student-librarian interactions, librarians can network with each other via Facebook.
The University of North Carolina recruited students for a focus group via Facebook and got more respondents, and more diverse respondents, than they ever had before.
OTOH, there are multiple studies, which I've read about and heard about in other session, that say many students don't *want* the library coming in to their world - they want to keep Facebook social and not academic. So there are good arguments both ways. All the studies I've heard about, however, do say that younger students show less reluctance to have Facebook invaded by their library, and they project that in the future, that trend will get stronger.
The session was titled "Facebook Apps & Libraries' Friendly Future," by Laurie Bridges and Cliff Landis, and the Powerpoint presentation is up on Slideshare. (A lot of the Computers in Libraries presentations are up there, actually, and the CiL website will have most of the presentations up within a couple of weeks. There's also the conference wiki, which has links to the official conference bloggers as well, if you want to go see what they're saying about the sessions.)
===============================
Anyway, if we want to create a Facebook fan page for the library, that might be an interesting idea to see what happens, since so many of our students are on Facebook. The example they showed in the presentation had fairly basic info - the library's information like hours, direction, etc., and it was used for announcements as well. I'm sure we could repeat some of the What's New stuff that would be especially targeted towards students over on Facebook.
===========================
According to this session, if you as a librarian create a Facebook page for yourself, it serves as another point of contact for patrons. Although they caution that *you* initiating friending with students or patrons can make you seem like Uncle Creepy, so it's best to let them initiate it.
Making a fan page for your library on Facebook can be good, because it allows you to post announcements and use it as advertising and outreach (fan pages are what Facebook set up for groups and organizations to do to get a presence on Facebook - Facebook users can fan them, instead of friending them, without letting their profile be seen). And if you collaborate with an individual, you can set up Events or send out flyers on Facebook.
Outside of student-librarian interactions, librarians can network with each other via Facebook.
The University of North Carolina recruited students for a focus group via Facebook and got more respondents, and more diverse respondents, than they ever had before.
OTOH, there are multiple studies, which I've read about and heard about in other session, that say many students don't *want* the library coming in to their world - they want to keep Facebook social and not academic. So there are good arguments both ways. All the studies I've heard about, however, do say that younger students show less reluctance to have Facebook invaded by their library, and they project that in the future, that trend will get stronger.
The session was titled "Facebook Apps & Libraries' Friendly Future," by Laurie Bridges and Cliff Landis, and the Powerpoint presentation is up on Slideshare. (A lot of the Computers in Libraries presentations are up there, actually, and the CiL website will have most of the presentations up within a couple of weeks. There's also the conference wiki, which has links to the official conference bloggers as well, if you want to go see what they're saying about the sessions.)
===============================
Anyway, if we want to create a Facebook fan page for the library, that might be an interesting idea to see what happens, since so many of our students are on Facebook. The example they showed in the presentation had fairly basic info - the library's information like hours, direction, etc., and it was used for announcements as well. I'm sure we could repeat some of the What's New stuff that would be especially targeted towards students over on Facebook.
CiL2008: Thoughts
Some random thoughts about CiL so far:
I'm most struck by how half of the presenters present or quote research that shows that users turn to the library and library websites first to start research or look for information. The other half cite research that shows exactly the opposite - people turn to Google first.
I note that so far, those who cite research that shows that users don't turn to the library aren't doing the research themselves, just quoting others. Those doing their own research - and in both cases I've seen this they took great pains to disguise that the questions were coming from the library (in one case) or a database company (in the other case) - found that the library is a primary starting point.
One of the presenters found out through follow-ups to their study that for research questions, people turned to the library, while for quick-answer look-ups, they turned to Google. He hypothesizes that this is what's producing the results in other studies that claim people turn to Google first - they do, but only when they're looking for something specific, like a definition of a term, or a quick overview of a subject.
That tends to make sense to me. However, I'd like to find out how our users begin their research, and want to run a survey on this. I think that'll give us a better idea of which way to go when redesigning the site.
One thing that everyone agrees on is that awareness - making students and other patrons aware of what's out there to help them - is the key point. The ProQuest guy who talked about their study (I'll write it up later) told a story about one of their sbjects. They observed a number of students for 1.5 hours each as they did research for a paper. This kid was the poster child for database use. He went to the database page on his university library's website and went through every single atabase relevant to his topic. When asked why he did this, he gave a speech about how many resources were available and how useful they were, etc. When asked how long he'd been researching this way, he replied "Six weeks." Why the change six weeks ago? He said that a librarian had come to one of his classes and told them that and showed them how to do it.
I'm most struck by how half of the presenters present or quote research that shows that users turn to the library and library websites first to start research or look for information. The other half cite research that shows exactly the opposite - people turn to Google first.
I note that so far, those who cite research that shows that users don't turn to the library aren't doing the research themselves, just quoting others. Those doing their own research - and in both cases I've seen this they took great pains to disguise that the questions were coming from the library (in one case) or a database company (in the other case) - found that the library is a primary starting point.
One of the presenters found out through follow-ups to their study that for research questions, people turned to the library, while for quick-answer look-ups, they turned to Google. He hypothesizes that this is what's producing the results in other studies that claim people turn to Google first - they do, but only when they're looking for something specific, like a definition of a term, or a quick overview of a subject.
That tends to make sense to me. However, I'd like to find out how our users begin their research, and want to run a survey on this. I think that'll give us a better idea of which way to go when redesigning the site.
One thing that everyone agrees on is that awareness - making students and other patrons aware of what's out there to help them - is the key point. The ProQuest guy who talked about their study (I'll write it up later) told a story about one of their sbjects. They observed a number of students for 1.5 hours each as they did research for a paper. This kid was the poster child for database use. He went to the database page on his university library's website and went through every single atabase relevant to his topic. When asked why he did this, he gave a speech about how many resources were available and how useful they were, etc. When asked how long he'd been researching this way, he replied "Six weeks." Why the change six weeks ago? He said that a librarian had come to one of his classes and told them that and showed them how to do it.
CiL2008: Widgets and Doodads for Library Webmasters
This is another session that probably won't do you much good for me to write up all the details. :) The presenters talked about a lot of things like Firefox extensions to add to your browser to make some jobs easier. I hadn't heard of a lot of these - many of them I won't use, but others I will.
There's one called Feng GUI that simulates eye-tracking data for your website - in other words, it simulates the path a visitor's eye will take through your page, so you know where to put the important things and where not to. Something that will be immensely useful is BrowsherShots.org, which is a site that returns screenshots of what your site looks like on a lot of different browser/operating system configurations. It's a distributed netowrk - you send in your request, and they send it out to a bunch of different people with different browsers to take the shots. It's slow - they said it tends to take about 25 minutes or more for the results to come back - but invaluable for reaching all those browser/OS combos that are hard to track down.
For those of you who need to edit photos in the next few weeks for whatever Thing it is may want to take a look at Photoshop Express. It's a free online image-editing program by the makers of Photoshop.
And don't forget the LOLinator, where you can see your website as if created by LOLcats. :)
There's one called Feng GUI that simulates eye-tracking data for your website - in other words, it simulates the path a visitor's eye will take through your page, so you know where to put the important things and where not to. Something that will be immensely useful is BrowsherShots.org, which is a site that returns screenshots of what your site looks like on a lot of different browser/operating system configurations. It's a distributed netowrk - you send in your request, and they send it out to a bunch of different people with different browsers to take the shots. It's slow - they said it tends to take about 25 minutes or more for the results to come back - but invaluable for reaching all those browser/OS combos that are hard to track down.
For those of you who need to edit photos in the next few weeks for whatever Thing it is may want to take a look at Photoshop Express. It's a free online image-editing program by the makers of Photoshop.
And don't forget the LOLinator, where you can see your website as if created by LOLcats. :)
CiL2008: Engaging the Audience 2
The second half of the Engaging the Audience session was Temple University showing off how they use LibGuides to run their subject and course guides.
This is spiffy. Go poke around the guides and see for yourself. The presenters explained that LibGuides is:
--easy to use
--simple to customize to the look and feel you want
--flexible - you can organize each guide in a number of different ways, including resource type, time period, and topic
--interactive - far more so than their previous guides. Patrons can input comments on items, tag them, rate them, and get email alerts. The guide maintainer can add RSS feeds to the guide, a suggestion box, and a poll. And several other things that I couldn't write fast enough to record. :)
--There are a number of widgets you can add, including a calendar to add schedules things.
--There's a search function in the guides
--You can embed video
--You can make guides for specific courses, as well as subjects
--They often embaed course guides within particular subject gudes
They tracked stats - for just one of the subject guides, the Criminal Justice one, the use of the guide more than doubled in the first month alone.
They admit the guides need marketing0 they talked them up in classes of library instruction, and made stickers to distribute around campus.
Springshare, the company that makes LibGuides, has a Facebook app that you can use to allow people to add subject guides to their Facebook page. And you can embad the guides in Blackboard courses.
There's an article in the journal Code4Lib 2(2008) by Corrado & Frederick on this.
Not convinced yet? You can find the presentation here at MadInkBeard.com.
I'm quite impressed and think we should look seriously into this. The guides are more versatile and attractive than ours right now, and would stop use spending so much time tracking down errors and fixing the database. I picked up a brochure from SpringShare and plan on pushing it in the face of a couple of you when I get back. :) There's other software out there that does similar things - I'm not sold on this particular product - but I think we should give some serious thought to updating our subject guides in a way that allows someone *else* to take on the burden of the technical work.
This is spiffy. Go poke around the guides and see for yourself. The presenters explained that LibGuides is:
--easy to use
--simple to customize to the look and feel you want
--flexible - you can organize each guide in a number of different ways, including resource type, time period, and topic
--interactive - far more so than their previous guides. Patrons can input comments on items, tag them, rate them, and get email alerts. The guide maintainer can add RSS feeds to the guide, a suggestion box, and a poll. And several other things that I couldn't write fast enough to record. :)
--There are a number of widgets you can add, including a calendar to add schedules things.
--There's a search function in the guides
--You can embed video
--You can make guides for specific courses, as well as subjects
--They often embaed course guides within particular subject gudes
They tracked stats - for just one of the subject guides, the Criminal Justice one, the use of the guide more than doubled in the first month alone.
They admit the guides need marketing0 they talked them up in classes of library instruction, and made stickers to distribute around campus.
Springshare, the company that makes LibGuides, has a Facebook app that you can use to allow people to add subject guides to their Facebook page. And you can embad the guides in Blackboard courses.
There's an article in the journal Code4Lib 2(2008) by Corrado & Frederick on this.
Not convinced yet? You can find the presentation here at MadInkBeard.com.
I'm quite impressed and think we should look seriously into this. The guides are more versatile and attractive than ours right now, and would stop use spending so much time tracking down errors and fixing the database. I picked up a brochure from SpringShare and plan on pushing it in the face of a couple of you when I get back. :) There's other software out there that does similar things - I'm not sold on this particular product - but I think we should give some serious thought to updating our subject guides in a way that allows someone *else* to take on the burden of the technical work.
CiL2008: Engaging an Audience
This talk showed off the Penn State library website and what they've done for novice users. The main site is really geared towards expert users - those who already know how to do research, who know what they want and how to get it, and don't need hand-holding. (It's much like our site, as a matter of fact.)
They created a page geared towards novice users, primarily incoming freshmen who don't have much experience in research. They call it Research JumpStart. It gets rid of much of the wide variety of choices that confuse the heck out of people new to this, and offers a few stripped-down essentials. There's a simple catalog search box right at the top. The next box contains a simple search box that searches ProQuest. (The Penn State Libraries have some sort of deal going with ProQuest where they heavily promote it as one of the primary databases to use.) Then they have links to the the most-used subject guides - there's more in the system, but they took the top 25 or 30 most-used. Then there's a box with Quick Links to other frequently-used pages on the site: hours, course reserves, the e-resources list, etc. They also seeded the page heavily with an ASK button that goes to the Ask a Librarian pages, and they have a Meebo search box on the side.
I actually like this concept a lot - it solves the problem of how to make your site accessible for novice users while not dumbing it down for the advanced users. It also keeps users from getting lost in the site. The only thing I don't like is that the link to it from the main page is waaay over to the side, where you won't see it unless you look through everything (well, and the reliance on one database).
Now about the tech side: the page is built with widgets created with a site called Widget Box, which allows you to create widgets, and hosts them on its own site. Each widget is basically a self-contained program, or application, that you can take and put on your own website, or use something like iGoogle, a personalized Google start page, to build your own website of frequently-used and useful widgets. They promote this in their library instruction, showing students and faculty how they can build their own page of relevant links and widgets. They report that faculty and grad students really appreciate this ability.
They created a page geared towards novice users, primarily incoming freshmen who don't have much experience in research. They call it Research JumpStart. It gets rid of much of the wide variety of choices that confuse the heck out of people new to this, and offers a few stripped-down essentials. There's a simple catalog search box right at the top. The next box contains a simple search box that searches ProQuest. (The Penn State Libraries have some sort of deal going with ProQuest where they heavily promote it as one of the primary databases to use.) Then they have links to the the most-used subject guides - there's more in the system, but they took the top 25 or 30 most-used. Then there's a box with Quick Links to other frequently-used pages on the site: hours, course reserves, the e-resources list, etc. They also seeded the page heavily with an ASK button that goes to the Ask a Librarian pages, and they have a Meebo search box on the side.
I actually like this concept a lot - it solves the problem of how to make your site accessible for novice users while not dumbing it down for the advanced users. It also keeps users from getting lost in the site. The only thing I don't like is that the link to it from the main page is waaay over to the side, where you won't see it unless you look through everything (well, and the reliance on one database).
Now about the tech side: the page is built with widgets created with a site called Widget Box, which allows you to create widgets, and hosts them on its own site. Each widget is basically a self-contained program, or application, that you can take and put on your own website, or use something like iGoogle, a personalized Google start page, to build your own website of frequently-used and useful widgets. They promote this in their library instruction, showing students and faculty how they can build their own page of relevant links and widgets. They report that faculty and grad students really appreciate this ability.
Monday, April 07, 2008
CiL2008: Fast and Easy Site Tuneups
No point in me listing all the stuff talked about, as it was a collection of things we can do to the website, each taking under a minutes, that will streamline it, make it load faster, give it better visibility to search engines, and so on. Lots of good stuff here that I think I'll take a good look at adding/doing to the library's site.
CiL2008: Hi Tech & Hi Touch
This session was about getting the human touch into technological interactions. You need to look at the library's perception of high touch vs. the patron perception - an example was a list of new books emailed out. The library's perception was that it was high touch, as they were sending this out to the community. From the patron's point of view it's not - it's a simple list of titles and author, divided into fiction and nonfiction, with no hint as to what the books are or are about. If the patron is interested in mysteries, nothing on the list says which ones are mysteries.
Contrasted to a library that has a page of new books with the covers posted, which gives more information about a book. That makes it a higher touch.
Patrons don't care whether they're beign reached by high or low technology; they jsut want high touch.
book recommendation: C. Shirky Here Comes Everybody "Tools don't get socially interesting until they[re technologically boring."
Othere ways to add high touch:
--use human language. And example is "We don't own this, but we'll get it for you" with a link to ILL
-- an example shown was a Database of the Week feature which used an online tutorial-type slideshow to market a new database each week.
-- a MeeboMe widget on the null-search page in the catalog (woo! we have it!), but also with an email link and library hours added to it (which we don't have)
-- one library with a Facebook page started to have users ask questions on their Wall.
-- Put a picture on your blog so that people can recognize you on campus.
--If you don't want photos up, use avatars, The Burlington County Library uses avatars to represent their librarians. It's a way to personalize the library and its staff.
--Blogs with comments. One example had kids commenting and interacting with each other, not necessarily about the topic at hand, but still building a community.
High touch is about creating spaces for people to come together, online and offline.
We got to see screenshots of an application in beta testing called Biblio Commons. It's a social OPAC, where patrons can leave comments, tags, and reviews on items, make lists and recommendations, and send message to each other.
Also social networking sites are bringing librarians together to interact and form communities. Librarian 2.0 is a social networking site for librarians, as int he librarysociety chat room.
This presentation will be up here soon.
Contrasted to a library that has a page of new books with the covers posted, which gives more information about a book. That makes it a higher touch.
Patrons don't care whether they're beign reached by high or low technology; they jsut want high touch.
book recommendation: C. Shirky Here Comes Everybody "Tools don't get socially interesting until they[re technologically boring."
Othere ways to add high touch:
--use human language. And example is "We don't own this, but we'll get it for you" with a link to ILL
-- an example shown was a Database of the Week feature which used an online tutorial-type slideshow to market a new database each week.
-- a MeeboMe widget on the null-search page in the catalog (woo! we have it!), but also with an email link and library hours added to it (which we don't have)
-- one library with a Facebook page started to have users ask questions on their Wall.
-- Put a picture on your blog so that people can recognize you on campus.
--If you don't want photos up, use avatars, The Burlington County Library uses avatars to represent their librarians. It's a way to personalize the library and its staff.
--Blogs with comments. One example had kids commenting and interacting with each other, not necessarily about the topic at hand, but still building a community.
High touch is about creating spaces for people to come together, online and offline.
We got to see screenshots of an application in beta testing called Biblio Commons. It's a social OPAC, where patrons can leave comments, tags, and reviews on items, make lists and recommendations, and send message to each other.
Also social networking sites are bringing librarians together to interact and form communities. Librarian 2.0 is a social networking site for librarians, as int he librarysociety chat room.
This presentation will be up here soon.
CiL2008: Keynote 2
The second part of the keynote speech dealt with a new study the Pew Group did on patronage patterns - how patrons searched for information. It dealt specifically with questions that had a government connection - job searches, further education, health questions, etc.
53% of adults had been to a local library in the past year.
Younger adults were more likely to go to a library than older - 62% in the 18-30 range, 59 of 31-42, 57% of 43-52, 46% of 53-61, 42% of 62-71, and 32% of 72+
60% of online teens use the Internet at libraries, up from 36% in 2000.
People more likely to use the library were those with higher incomes, higher education, and those who were already Internet users - they are information hungry , and more likely to be active & engaged in social interactions than non-library users.
This is the era of social networks - people are more likely to rely on other people for recommendations and information than the 1980s. Due to information overload, they get other people to help them choose or find things. Technology allows people to have larger social networks, which they use to help find what's newsworthy, or gaining social support, and for problem-solving.
The question here is: how can the library become a node on people's social networks?
53% of adults had been to a local library in the past year.
Younger adults were more likely to go to a library than older - 62% in the 18-30 range, 59 of 31-42, 57% of 43-52, 46% of 53-61, 42% of 62-71, and 32% of 72+
60% of online teens use the Internet at libraries, up from 36% in 2000.
People more likely to use the library were those with higher incomes, higher education, and those who were already Internet users - they are information hungry , and more likely to be active & engaged in social interactions than non-library users.
This is the era of social networks - people are more likely to rely on other people for recommendations and information than the 1980s. Due to information overload, they get other people to help them choose or find things. Technology allows people to have larger social networks, which they use to help find what's newsworthy, or gaining social support, and for problem-solving.
The question here is: how can the library become a node on people's social networks?
Live Conference Blogging
You can see live conference blogging IN ACTION here:
http://infotodayblog.com/
THat's a team blog organized by the organizers of the conference. If you go here:
http://www.infotodayblog.com/other-bloggers-at-cil-2008/
you can see other conference bloggers here.
Fast & Easy Site Tune-ups is about to start shortly. I just sat in one called Hi Tech & Hi Touch about putting the human touch into high tech applications. Which you should be interested in, as it's about getting your patrons and colleagues in touch with you. :)
http://infotodayblog.com/
THat's a team blog organized by the organizers of the conference. If you go here:
http://www.infotodayblog.com/other-bloggers-at-cil-2008/
you can see other conference bloggers here.
Fast & Easy Site Tune-ups is about to start shortly. I just sat in one called Hi Tech & Hi Touch about putting the human touch into high tech applications. Which you should be interested in, as it's about getting your patrons and colleagues in touch with you. :)
CiL2008: Keynote
We heard about a couple of studies done recently by the Pew Foundation, which had some surprising results that went against the common wisdom about libraries.
The first was a general survey of internet use. Turns out that 73% of adults & 93% of teens use the Internet. Over 50% have broadband at home - it is now the norm to have broadband access from home. 62% connect wirelessly - either through a laptop or through an INternet-enabled phone. And here's the important part for us: 59% of adults have used a cell phone to do something connected to the Internet. And what's even more interesting, is that Internet-enabled cell phones have crossed the digital divide - the users are more likely to be minority, have lesser incomes, be less well-educated.
Wireless users become more interested in accessing news via the Net. 62% of young adults have posted a picture to the Internet - their friends comments on them. Pictures are becoming a currency of community & communication. 56% of teens have a social network profile like Facebook or Myspace, compared to 33% of aduls.
The next session is about to start - I'll add more to this later. You'll be interested in it, I promise. :)
The first was a general survey of internet use. Turns out that 73% of adults & 93% of teens use the Internet. Over 50% have broadband at home - it is now the norm to have broadband access from home. 62% connect wirelessly - either through a laptop or through an INternet-enabled phone. And here's the important part for us: 59% of adults have used a cell phone to do something connected to the Internet. And what's even more interesting, is that Internet-enabled cell phones have crossed the digital divide - the users are more likely to be minority, have lesser incomes, be less well-educated.
Wireless users become more interested in accessing news via the Net. 62% of young adults have posted a picture to the Internet - their friends comments on them. Pictures are becoming a currency of community & communication. 56% of teens have a social network profile like Facebook or Myspace, compared to 33% of aduls.
The next session is about to start - I'll add more to this later. You'll be interested in it, I promise. :)
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