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Quick reference guides

Posted in Uncategorized on July 3rd, 2008 by pch

Check out these free quick reference guides for Word, Excel, Powerpoint, etc. They are designed to print front and back on one page and can be posted to websites or distributed to users.

Might come in handy, especially for those who don’t like online help screens.

http://www.customguide.com/quick_references.htm

Twitter for Librarians: The Ultimate Guide

Posted in Uncategorized on June 10th, 2008 by pch

For those wondering about Twitter and how it can be useful in libraries, check out Twitter for Librarians: The Ultimate Guide from the College@home blog.

Includes what is Twitter, ways to use it, guides to using it, articles about it, and tools and add-ons.

There’s also Twitter for Academia from the AcademicHack blog.

–pch

Perpetual Access to Electronic Journals

Posted in Uncategorized on March 6th, 2008 by pch

Perpetual Access to Electronic Journals: A Survey of One Academic Research Library’s Licenses
by Stemper, Jim and Barribeau, Susan

Abstract: A perpetual access right to an electronic journal, defined as the right to permanently access licensed materials paid for during the period of a license agreement (not to be confused with the right to copy journal content solely for preservation purposes), is a concern of increasing importance to librarians as academic libraries discontinue paper subscriptions and retain electronic-only access. This paper explores the current environment for perpetual access to electronic journals. The authors report on analysis of the contracts between a large, research-level university library and 40 publishers of electronic journals, as well as ten large electronic journal aggregators. The authors seek to determine the frequency of contractual provisions for permanent access rights for the years of active subscription in the event an electronic journal contract is terminated for any cause other than breach by the licensee. Costs and formats of any granted perpetual access are considered. The paper concludes with an exploration of the potential impact of the perpetual access clauses libraries are accepting in licenses, the possible lack of continuing access, and options for addressing the situation.

Source: Library Resources & Technical Services 50(2):pp. 91-109.

Horizon Report 2008

Posted in Uncategorized on February 19th, 2008 by pch

Rachel Smith  from the New Media Consortium will be talking about the Horizon Report this Friday, 2/22, 12-2p, Schulz 3001.

The Horizon Report, jointly produced by the New Media Consortium (NMC) and the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative (ELI), looks at the top technologies expected to have an impact on teaching and higher ed in the next 1-5 years. It’s always interesting and offers an opportunity to see some of these technologies in person (if you’re not already familiar with them).

2008 Horizon Report (PDF; 254 KB)
http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/CSD5320.pdf
Source: New Media Consortium/EDUCAUSE

The 2008 report focuses on the following topics:

* Grassroots Video
* Collaboration Webs
* Mobile Broadband
* Data Mashups
* Collective Intelligence
* Social Operating Systems

Perpetual Access to Electronic Journals

Posted in Digital libraries on February 19th, 2008 by pch

Perpetual Access to Electronic Journals: A Survey of One Academic Research Library’s Licenses
by Stemper, Jim and Barribeau, Susan

Abstract: A perpetual access right to an electronic journal, defined as the right to permanently access licensed materials paid for during the period
of a license agreement (not to be confused with the right to copy journal content solely for preservation purposes), is a concern of increasing
importance to librarians as academic libraries discontinue paper subscriptions and retain electronic-only access. This paper explores the
current environment for perpetual access to electronic journals. The authors report on analysis of the contracts between a large, research-level
university library and 40 publishers of electronic journals, as well as ten large electronic journal aggregators. The authors seek to determine the
frequency of contractual provisions for permanent access rights for the years of active subscription in the event an electronic journal contract is
terminated for any cause other than breach by the licensee. Costs and formats of any granted perpetual access are considered. The paper concludes with an exploration of the potential impact of the perpetual access clauses libraries are accepting in licenses, the possible lack of continuing access, and options for addressing the situation.

Source: Library Resources & Technical Services 50(2):pp. 91-109.

The Future of Bibliographic Control

Posted in Uncategorized on January 11th, 2008 by pch

On the Record: Report of The Library of Congress Working Group on the Future of Bibliographic Control (January 9, 2008)

Final report now available [PDF, 442 KB]
http://www.loc.gov/bibliographic-future/news/lcwg-ontherecord-jan08-final.pdf

International Survey of Library Automation

Posted in Uncategorized on January 11th, 2008 by pch

Perceptions 2007: An International Survey of Library Automation by Marshall Breeding. January 9, 2008

“The survey results indicate major differences in satisfaction in the products and companies from which libraries acquire their automation systems. Dissatisfaction and concern prevail, yet some companies maintain exceptional levels of satisfaction from the libraries that use their products.”
http://www.librarytechnology.org/perceptions2007.pl

U Chicago’s new catalog

Posted in Uncategorized on December 20th, 2007 by pch

Date: Wed, 19 Dec 2007 08:40:16 -0600
From: Frances Dean McNamara
Subject: New catalog at University of Chicago

We have a new catalog interface at University of Chicago that we are
currently testing. It is based on Aquabrowser Library of Medialab and
the library has named it LENS to distinguish it from the existing
library catalog.

http://lens.lib.uchicago.edu/

We have added EADs from a local system, a crawl of the website (which is
still being refined, we are getting too much), data from our link
resolver and eresource database lists. We are also experimenting with
loading Oxford DNB. You have to search a last name of a British author
to see that, try just “austen”. Of course you’ll only see those
articles if you subscribe to that db.

We have loaded LC Authorities, so if you search “mountain biking” you
will see it automatically expand the search to the authorized heading
“all-terrain biking”. Some See Also’s appear in the thesaurus part of
the “word cloud”.

We can add hints and have done so for some hard-to-find titles our
bibliographers have suggested like “Pravda”

Medialab has made a number of modifications for us including the ability
to remove or keep facets in the breadcrumb trail. We worked with them
to get the LC Classification refine. We are still working on fitting
our collections in correctly.

This seems a good list to report availability of this catalog, since it
is intended to go beyond the traditional. We have a long list of
potential sources of data that we want to try loading in to see if they
increase the effectiveness of the catalog. We consider the current site
“beta” and will continue to change it until our “production” date in
mid-January.

Frances McNamara
University of Chicago

Code4Lib Journal is launched

Posted in Uncategorized on December 19th, 2007 by Brandon

http://journal.code4lib.org/

“This mission of the Code4Lib Journal is to cover “the intersection of libraries, technology, and the future.” We hope that this journal can be one more contribution to the developing culture of collaboration around library technology, and we welcome you to join in our experiment.”

What Students Do When They Study in the Library: Using Ethnographic Methods to Observe Student Behavior

Posted in Uncategorized on December 19th, 2007 by pch

http://southernlibrarianship.icaap.org/content/v08n03/suarez_d01.html
Abstract

How do we know what students are really doing in the library when they are studying? This paper reports on a study that used qualitative methods to assess what students were doing during the winter term at Brock University. The goals were to try and establish if they were engaged in their studies when using the library and to see if the library nurtured academic engagement in its study areas.

from Electronic Journal of Academic and Special Librarianship
v.8 no.3 (Winter 2007)