How Does Google Rank Results?

This is the sole article from the first edition of the Google Librarian Newsletter. It's probably well worth a read, and I intend to get to it sometime soon.

Trial Databases

At the Reference Committee Meeting on November 28 we began the process of selecting database for the upcoming year. The first step is to select databases for consideration.
Here's the timeline:
January 19 - The Committee will finalize the trial database list.
February 1 - We need to have a list of databases to John Lassiter to give him time to set up trials during the Spring.
April 1 – The database list will be ready to submit to the library directors
July? 2006 – New databases will be made available

The committee will meet in January to finalize the list of databases for which we want trials.
The following is a list of databases suggested at our November meeting. Please, look over this list, make comments and add databases you would like the committee to consider at our January 19th meeting. Reminder: Last year the Committee decided to focus on a science database this year.

Suggested databases:

African American Experience (new Spring 2006) – Greenwood Press

Artstor.org – www.artstor.org digital art images, from the same folks who brought us JSTOR

Daily Life Through History – http://dailylife.greenwood.com We looked at this product last year, but the publisher changed the price after we decided we wanted to purchase.

Choice Reviews online - http://www.choicereviews.org/rev190choicescripts/

Classical Music Library (GUC purchased this database) http://www.alexanderstreet.com/products/clmu.htm

Europa Yearbook -http://www.europaworld.com/pub/

Historical Abstracts on the Web (ABC-Clio) - http://www.abc-clio.com/products/overview.aspx?productid=109712&viewid=0&fromhistorydb=1&from=academic

Library Literature & Information Science Full Text – (online version of Library Literature, a Wilson index) – http://www.hwwilson.com/databases/liblit.htm
requested by Dunwoody to supplement the new LIST program

Reference Suite – Facts on File - http://www.facts.com/facts-db-ref.htm
Includes: Issues and Controversies, Today’s Science and World Almanac

Scopus – http://www.scopus.com/scopus/home.url RACL (Regents Academic Committee on Libraries) is conducting a year long trial of this Elsevier product. John will investigate whether GPC can participate.

World Cultures Today – Greenwood Press - http://dailylife.greenwood.com

Journal: Wikipedia as accurate as Britannica - Dec 15, 2005

Cnn.com points out an interesting article in the current edition of Nature on the accuracy of Wikipedia. The study found that there was not a great difference in the accuracy of science articles between the two sources.

As of today, the article is available free on the Nature website.

GALILEO Database Trials

Everybody has probably already seen this, but the folks at GALILEO have some database trials set up. There are a couple of interesting ones there now and looks like they will update the page when they add new trials. Apparently you have to request a user name and password to access the trials.

The trials page is available at:
http://www.usg.edu/galileo/help/library/trials.phtml

Holiday Party Location Change

The holiday party mentioned in the previous post will now be held in room 4190 of the JCLRC instead of on the third floor. If you come to the 3rd floor you will be lonely, hungry and gift-less!

Hope to see as many as possible on Monday!

Holiday Party Reminder

Don't forget, the holiday party is just around the corner! See your campus rep for tickets, which are on sale for $12.00. We'd love to see you all there.

Whether or not you can make it to the party, please still consider making a donation to this year's charity, the American Library Association Hurricane Katrina Library Relief Fund. Your campus rep can accept cash donations or checks made payable to "ALA" and marked for "ALA Hurricane Katrina Relief Fund". Funds collected will be applied to restoring and rebuilding devastated libraries in Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi. We all know how important libraries are to a community, and these communities need all the help they can get right now, so anything you can spare will be much appreciated. Thanks everybody!

Risky Gamble With Google

Another great Library Link of the Day: this time an article from the Chronicle about the controversial Google Library/ Book Search project by Siva Vaidhyanathan. The article mirrors a great talk I saw him give at Emory in October. He's a great champion of libraries and has an interesting take on the digitization project.

More Database Considerations for Reference Committee

This is fun! I hope we can get a trial to all of these. Please make comments. --Alicia

1. Europa World Plus

http://www.europaworld.com/pub/about

“Europa World Yearbook and Europa Regional Surveys of the World”

2. Science Full Text Select (New Product)

http://www.hwwilson.com/science/

“Affordable choice for community colleges”

3. General Science Full-Text

http://www.hwwilson.com/databases/gensci.htm

“Designed specifically for students and non-specialists”

4. Greenwood Products

http://www.greenwood.com/default.asp?ImprintID=I1

The African American Experience (Spring 2006)
Additional Products in the future include Latino, Asian, and Native American Experience.

World Cultures Today

5. Facts on File Products

http://www.facts.com/

Issues and Controversies*
Today’s Science*
Reference Suite ?
World Alamanac?

Science Search Comparison

The Library Link of the Day for Thanksgiving Day was an interesting article from Current Science called "As we may search - Comparison of major features of the Web of Science, Scopus, and Google Scholar citation-based and citation-enhanced databases" (PDF file). Fits in nicely with the discussion of SCOPUS etc we had in the Reference Committee meeting today.

Sony/BMG CD Anti-Piracy Software Update

Here's the abridged version. After perfectly justifiable outcry, Sony claims to have ceased manufacturing compact discs with XCP software. They also claim to be working with their retail partners to remove the offending discs from the chain of distribution, and they have established an exchange program for people who've already bought the discs. They've also finally released a list of the affected titles. There are 52 on the list, so I haven't had time to search our catalog yet, but I will be doing it shortly. In the meantime, if you have reason to believe that the anti-piracy software has been installed on a PC, you might want to contact John. As I understand it, the software is difficult to remove, and the patch offered by Sony is rumored to make the security holes even worse. Hopefully this will not affect us or our patrons, but we should keep our fingers crossed.

[Update 11/29/05 by Tessa:]
I have thoroughly checked our catalog for the 52 titles on the list. We had two that had just been received, so I managed to grab those before they were cataloged. We also had two that had been cataloged and sent to Nonprint. Of those two, one was on the shelf and one was checked out, each had only circulated once. I've grabbed the one that was on the shelf and have a hold on the one that is charged out. I've asked everyone who orders CDs to check the list whenever ordering a Sony/BMG title, so, hopefully, we've contained the problem.

LISNews.org | ProQuest Sells Periodical Microfilm business

Interesting note on LISNews about ProQuest selling off it's periodicals microfilm business. The article referes to this part of PQs business as "sluggish". Is this the beginning of the end of microfilm as a format for periodicals preservation/ retention?

Nice new design on LISNews too. Definitely miss things like that using a news aggregator!

Sony/BMG CD Anti-Piracy Software

A discussion of the problems related to Sony's new anti-piracy software has cropped up on one of my cataloging listservs. Apparently, a class-action lawsuit has already been filed about this in California and one is about to be filed in New York. Here's a summary from AUTOCAT (quoted with permission):

I don't know if anyone has been following this, but for those of you who have collections with CDs, be aware that there is a potentially fatal problem with the new anti-piracy software that comes with new Song/BMG titles. These CDs come bundled with their own player, which has to be installed in order for the CD to run. This program then limits the number of copies that can be made from the CD to three. However, in doing this it also installs a rootkit.

Rootkits, according to Mark Russinovich, who writes a computer blog, are "cloaking technologies that hide files, Registry keys, and other system objects from diagnostic and security software, and they are usually employed by malware attempting to keep their implementation hidden." What this rootkit does is actually rewrite parts of the code on your OS. Trying to delete these files may cripple your system, and may leave it vulnerable to other viruses and worms that capitalize on security weaknesses in the new code. It may also lead to the "Blue Screen of Death" and potential loss of data.

Note that nowhere in the licensing agreement we all click without reading does it say that using the CD will alter your OS or rewrite your computer's code. It is also very hard to get the uninstall program from Sony, and it doesn't seem to work very well if you do get it.

The original problem was noted in Russovich's blog:
Sony, Rootkits and Digital Rights Management Gone Too Far

and its follow-up:
More on Sony: Dangerous Decloaking Patch, EULAs and Phoning Home

It has also been covered by several news outlets and on IT security websites:
Sony Rootkit or Aggressive DRM?

Hackers Raid Sony's Playbook
(this has good links to other ariticles [sic] as well)

Because libraries buy and circulate CD copies to mulitple users, you may want to take a look at the CDs in your collection and avoid these. Apart from the spyware and privacy aspects, this is potentially a huge security problem, and may actually cause Windows PCs to fail. Caveat emptor.

I haven't had time to look into whether or not we have any of these CDs. There is a list that is making the rounds on slashdot and elsewhere. I'm not sure if there is any way to tell if they have this software before ordering them, but it might behoove us to look into it. It won't really be a problem for old fogeys like me who rarely listen to CDs on a computer, but our patrons who do might be understandably irritated by this. Thoughts?

Wikipedia Article

Interesting article from cnn.com about our friend Wikipedia possibly producing print/ cd versions of some content for the developing world.

Bye and thanks

I've enjoyed working with you, thanks for everything, and all my best wishes.

Can't wait to see you at GUGM, COMO, SAMM, ALA . . .

New Librarian @ Decatur

The Decatur Campus Library is pleased to welcome Adrienne Graham on board as our new full time Reference Librarian. Adrienne was formerly a part time librarian at Rockdale, so she is be no means new to the GPC Libraries family. Adrienne will be working with Circulation and Serials as well as the usual reference desk and instruction class duties.

Her contact info is on the staff page is you want to say welcome aboard. We're glad to have her!

Promotional Tools for the Open WorldCat Program

I got an email from OCLC that I thought might be of interest to our public services folks.

Promotional tools for the Open WorldCat program are now available on the OCLC Web site at http://www.oclc.org/worldcat/open/promote/default.htm. Use these tools to increase awareness of Web access to your library’s resources through Open WorldCat and its “Find in a Library” interface.

The materials available are a printable table tent, HTML e-mail, customizable news release, customizable flier, and a presentation slide.

What are you reading right now?

Post a comment, please, and tell us.

I'm reading Cookwise by Shirley Corriher, ISBN 0688102298.

Open WorldCat Just Keeps On Giving

OCLC is bringing us an interesting expansion of the Open WorldCat program that I've previously discussed on this blog. Here's the official word.

OCLC has begun a pilot program that enables Web users to add content to authoritative WorldCat records they locate through the Open WorldCat program. Available under the Details and Reviews tabs in the Open WorldCat interface, the pilot functionality allows anyone to quickly register and add content such as a table of contents, notes or a review. Open WorldCat users can edit the personal reviews they add to WorldCat records, and may also edit or correct information submitted by others that appears in the tables of contents and notes fields of the records. This pilot will continue into early 2006.

OCLC will first offer this service through the Open WorldCat program and later expand the service to the WorldCat database on the FirstSearch reference service.

Visit http://www.oclc.org/worldcat/open/usercontent/ to learn more about the pilot program.

Initial discussion of this new feature on Web4Lib has been thought-provoking, with such questions being raised as who will own (and can therefore redistribute) the user-contributed data, and can non-member libraries link to the reviews? I haven't had a lot of time to scrutinize the TOS so I don't have any answers to these and other probing questions, but I will say that this sort of social software is very popular and its inclusion in the Open WorldCat program won't hurt library PR in the least.

Here's an example of a newly revamped Open WorldCat record. The new display has several different tabs, Libraries, Details, Editions, and Reviews. I've used Clarkston's zip code as the location qualifier, and the Libraries tab is telling me that the only OCLC-member library near me that holds this title is UGA. The Details tab is pretty self-explanatory, and here you'll notice the ability to add TOCs and notes, one of the newer features. The Editions tab appears to be pulling different editions of the title from the WorldCat database, should you prefer an older edition. This is a very nifty, I think. Finally, in the Review tab you will notice that one user, "Minnie", has already reviewed this title. In the green box at the upper right, you will also notice the Buy It Now link that I've blogged about in the past.

As I said, I haven't had a lot of time to play with this or think about its usefulness for GPC specifically, but I wanted to bring it to your attention and would love to hear your thoughts.

Illiterate Brazilian Man Establishes Community Library

The writer of this article managed to work in the obligatory shushing reference, but the story is inspirational enough to forget all about that. Here's a quote from the gentleman who established the library.

When he asked members of his small bicycling group to help him collect used books, "they all thought I was a little crazy," he said.

But they humored him, and the nameless cycling club got a moniker: "The Madmen of Sao Goncalo." Or so they seemed at first to the neighbors whose doors they knocked on.

"Some people thought, 'You must be joking. Here in this community, people ask for clothes, but to ask for books!' " said Ronaldo Pena, 48, one of the cyclists.

Very incredible story, well worth a read.

LC to Add More Reviews to Bib Records

As of Sept. 1, 2005, the Library of Congress Bibliographic Enrichment Advisory Team (BEAT) expanded its "reviews" project to include E-STREAMS: Electronic Reviews of Science & Technology References Covering Engineering, Agriculture, Medicine and Science. E-STREAMS is a free electronic-only book review journal published by Yankee Book Peddler and edited by H. Robert Malinowsky, Professor and Manager of Collections Development, University of Illinois at Chicago.

As with H-Net Reviews in the Humanities and Social Sciences, links to which you may have already seen in the catalog, LC will be adding links to E-STREAMS reviews where appropriate and redistributing the records for the benefit of other libraries.

Here's an example of a record enriched with a link to its E-STREAMS review. (You will also notice a link to the title's table of content, another helpful little BEAT project). We use a lot of LC records in our database, so we should start seeing a few of these reviews soon.

Rockdale's New Director

It's all go at Rockdale these days! Send your congratulations out to Laura Tartak who has just become Rockdale's new LRC director.

Rockdale's New Full-Time Librarian

Everyone send your congratulations out to Kip Cates, who just became full-time at Rockdale. According to a forwarded email from Laura Tartak, Kip got his MLS from the University of Tennessee, has 19 years of experience in academic and public libraries, and will be a Rockdale committee representative. A lot of us have already met Kip, who has been part-time at Rockdale since October 2004, and we think he's just swell.

Congrats, Kip!

Libraries In The Chronicle

The Sept. 30 issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education has a big section of articles on libraries. Scroll down the contents page on the Chronicle website and you'll get to it eventually. Think a username/password is need to access most articles directly online but FT will show up in Academic Search Premier in about a month if you really wanna read it from a computer.

More Wiki!

Had enough wiki talk yet? I didn't think so. Reading some blogs and noticed a post on Library Stuff about the University of Minnesota Libraries using a wiki for their staff home page. Great way to get information out to what I assume is a huge staff.

And now for something completely different: I'm going to switch out a few of the blogs in our blogroll for some variety. So bookmark (or better yet subscribe via RSS) to your faves in case they go away. Also, send me any suggestions you have for new LIS related blogs to feature. I'll probably make the switches next week sometime.

Exalead beta search engine

I'm just now reading the 7/05 issue of LJ. This is from Readers' Delight by Cheryl LaGuardia about a beta search tool:

Exalead (beta.exalead.com/search) is a new search engine built from a unique perspective. "Unlike physical libraries, with volumes on shelves in predictable order, the web is a mess," writes François Bourdoncle, Exalead's founder. "With Exalead, decisions about what should be searched, in what form, or where, needn't be made before the net is cast to gather relevant information. . . . When results are delivered, a tailoring tool appears at screen left, and retrieved information is arranged by Related Terms, Related Categories, Web Site Location, and Document Type. . . . Searchers can fine-tune results before clicking on one link."

Library Instruction Wiki

There was a post on the ILI-L digest today about a new Library Instruction Wiki created by the Oregon Library Association. Looks to be along the same lines as a couple of the previously mentioned LIS wikis but focusing exclusively on library instruction topics and materials. Not a whole lot of stuff there yet, but looks promising.

Sympodium tips?

The library instruction room Sympodium recently was installed at Clarkston. Besides the basic circling, underlining, and highlighting, are any of you using the Sympodium more creatively? Posting annotated pages for students to access later? Drawing hand turkeys?

Katrina's Animal Victims

I know that everyone is as concerned as I am for what is going on on the Gulf Coast. As a Mississippian, I'’ve been deeply touched by the outpouring of tangible aid and emotional support coming from folks all over the country. I just wanted to take this opportunity to remind everyone of the pets and other domestic animals, livestock, and wildlife that are in desperate need of our help as well.

Many people who had to move to shelters, and many people who have been rescued from the rooftops of their flooded homes, were not allowed to bring their pets with them. Now, these beloved pets may be the only things these folks have left in the world and they are frantic to save them. There is some good news trickling in, but much more remains to be done.

The Humane Society of the United States and The American Humane Association are the two animal charities that I have donated to and I hope that you will consider doing the same. They are working diligently (with local animal groups) to rescue and care for the animals now trapped in homes, or homeless, all along the Coast. If you cannot make a donation at this time, please consider contacting these groups and seeing if there is anything else that they need. They managed to coordinate with some local shelters before the storm, to evacuate animals already housed there, and are now trying to find homes for them. If you were thinking of bringing a new animal into your family, this would be a wonderful way to do it.

Petfinder.com is also working on developing a comprehensive database to aid the pets affected by Hurricane Katrina and hopes to have it operational in a few days. (Petfinder is also an excellent way to adopt a new pet.) The ASPCA, Noah's Wish, and many other wonderful organizations are also doing everything they can to help.

Thanks everyone.

SOLINET Joins the Call for Housing

I know that some of you may have seen this already, but I wanted to bring it to everyone's attention.

SOLINET is calling on all who can to provide free shelter to library staff displaced from their homes by Hurricane Katrina. The Lexington (KY) Public Library is creating a database of information and providing it to the library associations in the affected states.

Please forward your offer of free housing to hurricanehelp@lexpublib.org with this information:
* Name, city and state, phone numbers, email address
* Brief description of space available
* Number of people that can be accommodated
* If pets or children are welcome
* Smoking or non-smoking
* Handicapped accessible
* Willingness to help with transportation
* Any other information

More Google!

Saw a story about yet another new Google service yesterday.

Will Google's Keyword Searching Eliminate the Need for LC Cataloging and Classification?

Nope!, says Thomas Mann, a Reference Librarian in the Main Reading Room of the Library of Congress, "its limitations make cataloging and classification even more important to researchers." See Mann's paper, written for AFSCME 2910, here. There is a similar article in Library Journal, entitled Research at Risk, that I would also recommend. LJ recently did an about-face on its rather unpopular new policy of restricting articles to subscribers who establish a login, so you should be able to access this article freely. If not, and you haven't activated your login, drop me a line and I'll be happy to share.

Online Access for Report of the State Auditor

At the request of Ann, we've added a field to the bib record for the Report of the State Auditor that will provide access to the current online version of Salary and Travel Supplement. Give it a try and see how you like it.

Also, if anyone knows of a more common name for this publication, I could provide variant title access to that, making it a lot easier to find. Just let me know.

When I Talk Through Google...

...it makes me feel like #1.

Our good friend Google has a cool new service in Beta: an instant messaging/ voice chat program called Google Talk. Jennifer and I tested it out and it is very easy to download and use both for text and voice chatting. Although we did get a good bit of static the 2nd time we tried voice chat aka talking. Should be a major competitor in the IM game when widely released.

Happy weekend.

It's a WikiWiki World

If anyone is interested in getting involved with Wikis, here's a chance to get in on the ground floor. The LISWiki just launched on June 30, 2005 and there are plenty of topics waiting to be covered or just fleshed out. Unlike Wikipedia, LISWiki's mission embraces opinion pieces ("with factual information properly presented, of course"). So, if you have a soap box that's been gathering dust, they want to hear from you as well.

Raising the Bar: Legal Education Reform in Iraq

A collaborative project between OCLC Online Computer Library Center and the International Human Rights Law Institute of DePaul University College of Law recently brought together 12 Iraqi librarians for a training workshop on cataloging standards and technology in Amman, Jordan.

WorldCat Adds Its Billionth Holding

At 2:21:34 p.m. EDT on August 11th, 2005, Anne Slane, a cataloger for Worthington (Ohio) Libraries, entered holdings information for the book The Monkees: The Day-By-Day Story of the 60s Pop Sensation, becoming the one billionth holding record in the WorldCat database.

The wording on this confused me a bit, but I'm thinking that they are saying WorldCat has 1 billion holdings records, and not 1 billion unique bibliographic records. (It's over 61 million bibliographic records now.) Impressive, nonetheless. Congrats, Ms. Slane!

GOLD/ GALILEO Annual Meeting

gpclibrarians
Originally uploaded by decatur library.

A good group of GPC folks attended the 2005 GOLD/ GALILEO Annual Users Group Conference in Athens last Friday. Here's a picture of some, but not all, of us. It was a very enjoyable day, featuring lots of yummy snack foods.

In addition to the eating, there were several interesting sessions. The previously mentioned presentation by Ross Singer of GA Tech on WAG The Dog was very informative. There was also a GALILEO update which covered the implementation of SFX and federated searching of GALILEO databases in the not too distant future.


The Digital Library of Georgia session included information about their newly redesigned website, some featured collections, and a great look at an exhibit about the Gold Rush in Dahlonega. Pete attended it too!




Hopefully many of the presentations will be online soon for folks who didn't get to attend. All in all it was a very fun and informative Friday.

Web Access to Works in the Public Domain

Interesting blurb from LC Cataloging Newsline, Volume 13, no. 10, August 2005:

This project makes links from the LC catalog to full
electronic texts of items for which LC has an exact match in print
represented in the LC collections. The project depends on the
cooperation of "trusted" partner institutions such as research
libraries and other organizations that are digitizing freely
available works. LC provides links to the electronic versions from
its catalog records for the print versions. Two new collaborators
are the RAND Corporation and the Thurgood Marshall Law Library,
University of Maryland. In the case of the former, over 680 links
have been made to RAND publications through the RAND Web site http://www.rand.org/publications [August 2005]. In the second,
over 140 links have been made to publications of the United States
Commission on Civil Rights digitized by the Thurgood Marshall Law
Library, University of Maryland at
http://www.law.umaryland.edu/marshall/usccr/index.asp [August
2005].

The Secret History of Librarians

An interview with Rex Libris creator, James Turner.

Thought that this might be a nice diversion for everyone from my usual "Blah, blah, blah, Open WorldCat, blah, blah, LCSH ..." Someone posted this link to AUTOCAT last Friday (the day we catalogers set aside for non-cataloging-related discussion and general humor, which must be properly tagged before posting, of course). I've only had time to skim the article, but it looks like a pretty cute little series, sort of Mr. Bookman the Library Cop (my favorite Seinfeld character) travels through time and space to track down overdue library books. I would have liked to have seen a female protagonist, but oh well. I still have Bunny Watson from Desk Set and that’s not too shabby. Besides, it sounds like Mr. Turner really has his heart in the right place.

What do you personally like about libraries? And in what ways have your feelings toward libraries influenced this particular piece of work.

I like being able to go in and read books for free, without the staff glaring at me or throwing me out. A good library system is to be treasured, as it gives you access to tens of thousands of books. The sum of human knowledge available at our finger tips. The work of academics, poets, artists, philosophers, scientists... all at our beck and call. It's amazing. We sit atop a mountain of knowledge. It seems a pity to ignore it. … We just have to take advantage of it. As Andrew Carnegie said, "It is the mind that makes the body rich." He believed education was vital, and while I can't help build 1,700 libraries as he did, I can certainly help promote them.

Open WorldCat: Book Buying Pilot and Virtual Reference Links

Some more information is starting to filter out regarding the Open WorldCat book buying pilot. An announcement posted to OCLC-CAT refcently had a bit more detail than that link. Here's an excerpt.

Each time a Web searcher purchases a book through Open WorldCat, a portion of the proceeds will be shared with Open WorldCat libraries in one of two ways. The purchaser decides online whether to apply a credit directly to the account of a selected Open WorldCat participant library or to redirect the credit to support the ongoing development of Open WorldCat for the benefit of all participating libraries.
In the introductory phase of book purchasing through Open WorldCat, Baker & Taylor is the single supplier of books. Baker & Taylor will sell books from its current inventory of over 500,000 titles. The book buying option will be visible initially to users in the United States. OCLC hopes to expand this feature to other content formats and additional partners, and to libraries outside the United States in the future. OCLC will pursue the best prices and discounts available for consumers, who will identify their library as part of the transaction.

Like I said in a comment to another post, I've always been a little iffy about the marriage of business transactions and libraries, but we'll see what happens.

Now, onto something I'm not iffy about, virtual reference. Everyone take a peek at this and let me know if there is interest in listing our virtual reference services. I'm our Open WorldCat contact, so I can get the necessary changes made. We'd need to have a single access page, so it would probably have to wait until the Web site re-design, but it's definitely something to think about. I've seen the links in Open WorldCat records and I'm thrilled by the visibility it could afford us.

ISBN-13 Is Coming, Dummy

If anyone is a little concerned/interested/confused by the impending 13-digit ISBN, the Book Industry Study Group has teamed up with our old pals at Wiley Publishing to offer ISBN-13 for Dummies. (By the way, does anyone else still bristle at being called a "dummy" when reading about MySQL or Robert's Rules of Order?) The pdf is just 21 pages and it appears to be geared more towards publishers than librarians, but the first few pages offer a nice overview of what's in store with ISBN-13. You may have noticed them lurking around a few versos already, and we can expect them to be fully rolled out around January 2007. My favorite bit of all this is that ISBN-13 for Dummies has, yep, you guessed it, a 13-digit ISBN!!! (978-0-555-02340-2, to be exact. You knew I'd check.)

I'm not really concerned about the 13-digit ISBN itself, it's the prospect of OCLC squeezing it into their existing 10-digit 020 field that gives me the willies. I'm sure that OCLC knows what it's doing and pretty soon everything will be fine, but at the moment we have to put it in the 024 field; which I have some reservations about, rather like wearing my sister's hand-me-down bell bottoms in 1986.

Project Muse full text searchable through Google

From College & Research Libraries News, July/August 2005, p. 507 or online:

Project MUSE, an online collection of scholarly journals in the arts, humanities, and social sciences, is collaborating with Google Inc. to enable researchers to use the Google Web site and the Google Scholar interface to search the Project MUSE Web site. Individuals at Muse-subscribing institutions will be able to search the full-text content from any of the more than 270 scholarly journals hosted by Project MUSE and access the articles in HTML or PDF format. Those unaffiliated with a MUSE-subscribing library will be able to view abstracts or excerpts of articles found through a Google search of MUSE journal content. Currently, MUSE subscribers can search and browse the collection’s journals through the subscribing library’s catalog and traditional abstracting and indexing databases.

BIG Meeting

The next meeting of the Atlanta Area Bibliographic Instruction Group (BIG) will be held on Wednesday, July 27th at the University of West Georgia in Room I-301 of the Technology Learning Center. That sounds like a cool place! The meeting is free but if you want to go, RSVP to Christy Stevens at cstevens(at)westga.edu by July 21st.

See this handy announcement for more info, including speakers and directions and such.

Freakonomics website

If you or a patron liked Freakonomics, there's a great companion website that includes an Authors' Blog. Levitt and Dubner post all the blog entries, and they accept public comments (and comment themselves).

And in case you're wondering who has the Decatur copy checked out, it's me.

Another Google Trick

I accidentally stumbled on this cool Google search today: if you type in an airline and a flight number the first result will be links to flight tracking sites. Very cool!

Here's an example: delta 824.

Have a great weekend.

eBook of the Month

Speaking of NetLibrary, I just read about their eBook of the Month campaign. Pretty neat. This campaign might be good content to highlight in our Web site redesign.

The eBook of the Month campaign is a monthly content promotion designed to showcase new and noteworthy titles available from NetLibrary and encourage patrons to visit your eBook collection. Each month, NetLibrary selects a new featured title and provides free, unlimited access through the authenticated homepages of more than 12,000 public, academic and special libraries.

The eBook of the Month for July is National Pastime: How Americans Play Baseball and the Rest of the World Plays Soccer by Stefan Szymanski and Andrew Zimbalist. Looks pretty interesting, even to an unapologetic sports-phobe like myself.

Audiobooks from NetLibrary

NetLibrary now offers audiobooks. (This might not be very new, but I just found out.)

Have GPC Libraries considered offering audiobooks? Or, is that too public library?

Update one hour later: I mean downloadable audiobooks, rather than CDs or cassettes.

Yahoo MyWeb

Has any one seen this yet? And, if so, have you considered the possibilities for its use in the library environment, in conjunction with virtual reference or not? It's still in Beta, so we probably have a bit of time to mull it over, but I'd think that it would be a good way to get even more mileage out of our well-selected Internet resource lists and play to the younger generation's unconditional love of All Web Things Social. Am I nuts, or is it so crazy it just might work?

In case you're visiting Clarkston soon...

Beginning July 5, parking lot #2 at Clarkston (the one next to the library) will be closed due to construction of the new student center. Try the lots off Memorial College or lot #1 next to A and B buildings. Here's the campus map if you need a reminder.

BIG Call For Proposals

It's kinda short notice but there's a call for presentations out for the next meeting of the Atlanta Bibliographic Instruction Group (BIG). The meeting will be held on Wednesday, July 27th at the Univ of West Georgia in Carrollton.

We are looking for presenters to give 40-45 minute presentations/discussions on the current state of instruction. Let others know what you are doing, what's working and what's not, and what we have to look forward to in the future.
Possible topics include:
Online tutorials
Assessment of instruction
ACRL standards
Information Literacy credit courses
Faculty collaboration
If you would like to present, or if you would like to suggest a presenter,
please contact Michael Aldrich, president of BIG, at maldrich@westga.edu or
678.839.6357, or Christy Stevens, Program Chair, at cstevens@westga.edu or
678.839.6355.

The Distant Librarian: Switching Between Applications Within Microsoft PowerPoint

From The Distant Librarian, a post on something we've all run up against. Any other presentation transition tricks??

OCLC Research Software Contest

We have a winner.

Dazhi (David) Jiao has won the OCLC Research Software Contest with a submission consisting of an OPAC that includes a ranked list of harvested citations when a detailed bibliographic record is displayed.

This is a really cool use of OAI, but I'm also very intrigued by the runner-up's submission, (who just happens to be from Georgia Tech. Go Yellow Jackets!)

Ross Singer of Georgia Tech is the runner-up, with a WAG the Dog implementation featuring Open WorldCat and xISBN functionality.

Related links:
Dazhi Jiao's CAT OAI; an OPAC System with OAI Integration
WAG the Dog
OCLC Research Software Contest

Friday Fun from Tech Services

On average, a new record is added to the WorldCat database every 10 seconds. No matter what time, day or night, a cataloger somewhere in the world is contributing a MARC record to the world's largest bibliographic database, and you can watch it all happen live.

Keep an eye on the "Contributed by" line at the bottom. If you see "GCD", that's me!

Chat Reference Stuff

Here are some links related to yesterday's discussion of IM reference.

DL Get Help page (There's only one status indicator now. Nice work Jennifer!)
Trillian (Multiplatform chat program we'll be using. Free download.)
IM Powerpoint (Relive the magic in the comfort of your office or home!)
Text Message Abbreviations and Smilies (Very good list of commonly used chat shorthand and emoticons. Thanks Jennifer!) - Updated 6/23/05

If you're interested in participating in the pilot please let me know. Also let me know if you feel comfortable chatting right away or would like to do some training first. Jennifer and I will be glad to assist anyone. We can add people to the rotation at any time.

If You Have A Minute...

...we have minutes! The minutes from yesterday's Reference Committee meeting and the approved minutes from the previous meeting are now available on the committee web page. Or use these handy links:

Reference Committee 6/21 Minutes Draft
Reference Committee 5/10 Approved Minutes

Send any corrections for 6/21 to Lora Mirza by 6/28. Thanks for coming yesterday. It was great to see everyone.

Beyond the convenience of chat ref

Here's a quote from "Chat's Positive Side" (Carol Tenopir, LJ, 12/04) that I think is especially interesting since we serve such an international student population:

Chat users are not always remote; many students at the University of Tennessee (UT) and [University of California-Irvine] access the service from inside the library. No one wants to give up their computer, but anonymity is probably the most important factor. Students intimidated by the reference desk may appreciate asking a question anonymously. UC-I is culturally diverse, and "patrons may choose chat reference instead of approaching a desk where they might have more difficulty expressing themselves verbally. For them, typing a question may be easier than finding the right words and grammar in English," said Tunender.

(Link to full text)

Reference Committee Tomorrow!

Happy Monday! Lora asked me to post a reminder about the Reference Committee meeting tomorrow. It will be held from 10am-noon in the Decatur Campus Library Instruction room.

Revised Agenda

Come out and see our new public access computers and even newer Sympodium too!!

The State of the Union (List)

I’ve been working on periodical changes this month, so I thought that I’d give everybody a little overview of the sometimes awkward, always entertaining dance that is periodical holdings. Stop me if you’ve heard this all before.

You can check our periodical holdings in three places: our catalog, the college-wide periodical list, or the union list, otherwise known as the Georgia Libraries Journal List (GOLD) (access through GALILEO). My first choice is always our catalog and, no, that isn’t biased (not entirely, anyway). The catalog, beyond a shadow of a doubt, contains the most current information of these three sources. Here’s why.

When I am sent periodical change reports, I enter those changes into the catalog and GOLD simultaneously. The GOLD database that I can access through a software program called Passport is constantly updated. The GOLD database that the public can access is only updated twice a year, at the end of June and December. Any changes received after those dates will be in GOLD limbo until the next update. Now, I’m not knocking GOLD. We’re good pals. We hang out. I went to his kid’s graduation. For ILL, he’s the bee’s knees; but if you want to know if we have volume 90 of Field & Stream, the catalog is your man. GOLD’s cool with that. He isn’t the jealous type.

And what of the college-wide list, you say? Well, that is generated, by an automated report, after each GOLD update, meaning in early July and January. So, any changes received after one GOLD update and before the next, are not on the college-wide list. (Also, we’ve recently discovered that the report used to generate the college-wide list has some eccentricities of it own, sometimes resulting in a confusing display, but that’s a whole different nest of wiener dogs.)

On a related note, everyone has sent me their changes, or promised me that they would, or told me that they can’t before the end of June; and I’m almost finished processing the ones I have, so John will be updating the college-wide list soon. Drop me a line if you have any questions, suggestions, etc.

Nice JavaScript Quiz Creator

If you want to add another element to library instruction classes, here's a very easy-to-edit, multiple-choice JavaScript quiz creator. There are tons of free quizzes available on the Web, but I like this one because there's no question limit and it's self-scoring.

(If you want to use it but feel queasy about editing it, I'll be happy to help.)

What Can't You Track With RSS?

In a related post to David's recent PubMed RSS Feeds!, I recommend reading a Popular Science sidebar by 43 Folders's Merlin Mann, 5 Things You Didn't Know You Could Track with RSS. (I actually only knew about one of these things, package tracking. Paints me as an unrepentant consumer, doesn't it?)

Don't get too excited about #2 though. I've looked into it and it only works with the Dynix ILS right now, other systems are in beta. I've heard buzzing that Sirsi will be offering native RSS feeds in an upcoming release, but I haven't heard any similar gossip about Voyager.

Reference Committee Agenda

A preliminary agenda for the June 21st Reference Committee meeting is now available on the committee webpage. Or follow this handy link:

June Reference Committee Agenda

The meeting will be held from 10am - 12pm in the Decatur Campus library instruction room. Hope to see you there.

PubMed RSS Feeds!

There's a post on Library Stuff today about new RSS feeds in PubMed. This is awesome! You can go in, do a search and save your search string as a feed so you'll be updated on new articles in your feed reader. There are screen shots in the post on how to do it. Hopefully more databases will get on board and start providing a similiar service!

Let's have a contest to see who can put the most links in one sentence!

"Book-Like Objects"

There was a very interesting story on Morning Edition yesterday about self and print on demand publishing. This is definitely a growing area of the book industry, especially for fiction. We had several authors at your Writer's Festival here earlier this year who started in POD and later signed contracts with major publishing houses. There are some funny snide comments from a publishing house rep in there too.

Open WorldCat Deep Linking Functional for GPC and GUC

For the past few weeks, I’ve been trying to suss out why some Georgia institution’s links in Open WorldCat search results went right to their catalog record for the title in question, but Georgia Perimeter College’s link just went to the main page of the OPAC and poor Gwinnett University Center had no link at all. Figuring out that the process is actually called “deep linking” was quite a break through. After that revelation and the discovery of a form on OCLC’s Web site that one has fill out to establish these deep links, I am proud to announce that we are up and running as of today! Click on the links below to see some examples of GPC and GUC deep linking in action.

find in a library:me talk pretty one day

find in a library:dorothy parker in her own words

find in a library:women filmmakers refocusing

I’ve tested all these searches in Google and the Open WorldCat record should be the first result or pretty near to it. (Remember, this program is active in other databases too. I’m just using Google as an example.) Just click on the search result, enter the zip code 30084 (which will bring up results for GPC and GUC) and click on our links to be taken directly to the corresponding catalog record. Pretty neat, huh? Unfortunately, Open WorldCat records don’t always make the first page of hits, sometimes even with pretty specific search strings. I’m guessing that this has something to do with the Google search algorithm; but further pondering will get me started on a discussion of the beauty of a catalog with a controlled vocabulary, and nobody wants that.

Needless to say, if we actually want to search our holdings or even holdings all over Georgia, our local catalogs and universal catalogs are more efficient tools than this. I see PR as being the biggest advantage to Open WorldCat. The more exposure libraries have in cyberspace, the better, and I’m very pleased with OCLC for starting this program. (I’m also very pleased with the service I received from OCLC while trying to establish these links. A big shout out to Joanna in Dublin, Ohio!)

Googling By Top-Level Domain

[Here'’s a nifty little tidbit that I picked up on Lifehacker, during my lunchtime blog reading. This may be old news to most of you, but it is new to me and seems like it would have great applications in reference work, so I thought I'd share.]

I was already aware of the fact that you can limit your Google search to one specific Web site, à la:

"bird flu"”site:www.cdc.gov

pandemic influenza 1918 site:www.cdc.gov

However, I did not know that you can use the same structure to restrict your searches to a particular top-level domain, à la:

"bird flu"”site:.gov

pandemic influenza 1918 site:.gov

I wasn'’t able to find any documentation about this on the Google help pages, but the buzz is that this trick works with top-level domains (.gov, .org, .edu, .mil, .com, and .net) and with country domains like .uk (United Kingdom) or .va (Vatican City State).

Call me easy to please, but I think that this little feature is mighty cool.

Searching Open WorldCat

I was just perusing David Bigwood's always-informative Catalogablog and came across a post discussing three Open WorldCat-enabled search tools: Yahoo toolbar, Google toolbar, and Firefox extensions. It's always nice to have options, but if you don't want to fuss with extra downloads, there are still plenty of Web sites that offer Open WorldCat records in their search results. The drawback to this approach is that the Open WorldCat records are mixed in with all the other search results and finding them can take some patience, a very refined search string, or both. With the toolbars and extensions you can limit your search results to just Open WorldCat records.

If you haven't had a chance to give Open WorldCat a whirl, go to Google or Yahoo and paste in the following search string.

find in a library da vinci code decoded

An Open WorldCat record should be the first result in either list.

Information Literacy In The Disciplines

Some of y'all may have already seen this on ILI-L but the ACRL Instruction Section has created a website called Information Literacy In The Disciplines that collects presentations, articles and curriculum materials along with standards on providing user education in a wide variety of discipline areas. Looks like a great resource. So great in fact that I added it to Additional Links on the side menu.

June Reference Committee Meeting

The next Reference Committee meeting will be held on Tuesday, June 21 from 10am -12pm in the Decatur Campus Library Instruction Room. Everyone is welcome to attend. Please contact Lora Mirza with any potential agenda items.

Pew Internet & American Life Project Report: Health Information Online - May 2005

Pew Internet & American Life Project Report: Health Information Online - May 2005 is an interesting look at how people use to Internet to access health information. Any implications for how we steer our users to consumer health info?

GA Conference On Info Lit Program

The program for the 2005 GA Conference on Info Lit, featuring our own Sherry Durren, is now online. A lot of interesting looking presentations! I would definitely recommend going unless you're presenting at another conference the same weekend. The conference will be held from September 30 - October 1 at GA Southern in Statesboro and will mark the first anniversary of the original format of this blog. Woohoo.

LibrarianInBlack: Top search engines have little overlap in results

Interesting post on LibrarianInBlack yesterday on a study of search engine results by Dogpile. Essentially they found that only 3% of first page search results were shared by Google, Yahoo, and Ask Jeezes. Definitely worth a read through.

LCSH Changes: Drug Abuse Related Headings

I am sure that you are all as riveted to the LCSH Weekly Lists as I am, but just in case you missed #13 (March 30, 2005), I thought you might like a summary of a few of the more significant subject heading changes and additions that will be coming our way.

[Old Heading ==>New Heading]

Children of narcotic addicts ==>Children of drug addicts
Cocaine habit ==>Cocaine abuse
[No old heading] ==>Drug abusers
Heroin habit ==>Heroin abuse
Narcotic addicts ==>Drug addicts
Narcotic clinics ==>Substance abuse treatment facilities
Narcotic enforcement agents ==>Drug enforcement agents
Narcotic habit ==>Drug addiction
Narcotic habit--Hospitals ==>Substance abuse treatment facilities
Narcotics, Control of ==>Drug control
Narcotics and crime ==>Drug abuse and crime
Narcotics and youth ==>Drugs and youth
Narcotics dealers ==>Drug dealers
Narcotics in literature ==>Drugs in literature
Narcotics in literature ==>Drug abuse in literature
Opioid habit ==>Opioid abuse
Opium habit ==>Opium abuse
Opium habit in literature ==>Opium abuse in literature
Social work with narcotic addicts ==>Social work with drug addicts
Women narcotics dealers ==>Women drug dealers

This is just a small selection of the changes, but, in most cases, the term "narcotics" has been broadened to "drugs" and the term "habit" has been replaced by "abuse" and/or "addiction". I expect the new records to arrive from MARCIVE at the end of this month and I will process them as soon as I can. Until that time the older headings will remain in the catalog. Please feel free to drop me a line if you have any questions.

Info Lit Standards for Science and Technology

Was just flipping through the May College and Research Libraries News and ran across a draft of ACRL's Information Literacy Standards for Science and Technology and thought it might be of interest.

SAMM Information, Part 2

A few interesting links I picked up at SAMM:

Southern Spaces:
"Southern Spaces is an internet journal and scholarly forum, sponsored by Emory University and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, which provides open access to peer-reviewed essays, gateways, events and conferences, interviews and performances, and annotated weblinks on the American South." (description from the site)

The New Georgia Encyclopedia:
"The New Georgia Encyclopedia provides an authoritative source of information about people, places, events, institutions, and many other topics relating to the state." (description from the site)

The Gutenberg CD and DVD Project:
We've all heard of Project Gutenberg, but did you know you can download the Gutenberg DVD of 9300 ebooks or the CD of 600 ebooks? (For free.)

WebCT For The Library Room Change

Due to the installation of the new computers (woohoo!) in the JCLRC Instruction Room the WebCT staff development session on Monday will be held in room E-1100 on the Clarkston campus. Lunch will follow in Technical Services due to food restrictions in E Building. Sorry for the late notice!

New Focus For Blog

Greetings. As we discussed at the last Reference Committee meeting, the focus of this weblog is now expanded to include any and all internal information and communications about GPC library services. The web address for the blog won't change, but feel free to post non-reference specific content. Of course don't post any confidential information such as passwords or patron info or things like "David Free is a real jerk" (because you know what that will make me do), but anything else is fair game.

Please spread the word to all of your colleagues about the blog. No registration is required to read it but if anyone wants to post or comment (which I hope you will) email me at dfree(at)gpc.edu and I'll send you a blog invitation.

U.S. Government Library of RSS Feeds

Saw this post today on Library Stuff about the U.S. Government RSS Feed Library. Very nice directory of government feeds by subject area. Also has an explanation of RSS and how to use feeds.

Virtual Reference Stuff

As promised, here's the information I was going to present at the last Reference Committee meeting in the ever popular PowerPoint format. Take a look and see what you think. We'll discuss in more detail and demo at the next meeting.

Instant Message Reference Overview (PPT)

Reference Committee Minutes

A draft of the minutes from yesterday's Reference Committee meeting is now available on the committee website. Or follow this handy link:

Reference Committee Mintues 5/10/05

WebCT For The Library

Just a reminder about the "WebCT For The Library" staff development program next Monday, May 16th, from 11am-1pm in the Clarkston JCLRC Instruction Room. Tracy Adkins from OIT training will cover basic features of WebCT Vista, troubleshooting issues and how to get additional help.

All GPC library employees are welcome, so come learn about Vista and see the new computers (knock wood).

SAMM Information

Last week I attended the SOLINET Annual Membership Meeting (SAMM). Here are a few items you might find interesting.

James Madison University Libraries has created (with their institutional assessment department) the Information-Seeking Skills Test (ISST), a formal information literacy assessment that all students must pass *before they can register for sophomore classes!* About the ISST.

JMU students are encouraged to use Go for the Gold, an 8-module tutorial, to prepare for the ISST.

If you’re interested in institutional repositories, Georgia State has a fantastic Electronic Theses and Dissertations Database. Anyone can search or browse, and many of the full-text ETDs are viewable from off GSU’s campus. Georgia Tech’s SMARTech contains electronic theses and dissertations, as well as conference proceedings, newsletters, learning objects, and many more items.

Some of the SAMM conference materials are available online.

More later.

Summer Reading Lists

Listen Up!, the semi-world "famous" Decatur Campus Library podcast, is looking for submissions for the next couple of editions. What I'm looking for are lists of recommended Summer readings, preferably of books that are available from at least one GPC library. I don't have a definition of "Summer reading" other than what you would suggest for people to read. Like a readers advisory type thing. Could be anything from romances to physics textbooks, that's up to you. Maybe 3-5 items per list with a brief description (like a sentence or 2) of each item or why it would be good to read over the Summer.

If you could send me submissions by May 27th, that would be excellent. I can either record you or read your list on the show, giving you credit of course. If you would like to be recorded, try to let me know before the 27th so I can set up a time. It's pretty painless.

Of course participation is completely voluntary and won't get you anything except my undying gratitude and possibly someone out there thinking you're cool!

And I'm always looking for 2 minute or so long book reviews too! Of anything available at a GPC library.

Feel free to send this on to anyone not on the blog who might be interested as well.

May Meeting Agenda

Hello! The agenda for the May 10th committee meeting is now available on the committee website. Or here's a link to it:

May Reference Committee Agenda (Word Document)

The meeting will be held from 10am - 12pm in the JCLRC library instruction room.

5/4/05 Update: The agenda link now goes to the actual May agenda. My fingers are being punished as you read this.

Category: Meetings

Improving Instruction: What Librarians Can Learn from the Study of College Teaching

The Information Literacy Weblog has a post about an interesting sounding session I missed at ACRL: "Improving Instruction: What Librarians Can Learn from the Study of College Teaching" by Scott Walter of the University of Kansas. Great discussion of teaching and librarianship. And the presentation materials are hosted on KU ScholarWorks, an institutional repository. How cool is that??

Business Source Premier Interface

In case you haven't heard already, the enhanced interface for Business Search Premier is now available. I played with it a bit and it's definitely an improvement for business research over the "regular' Ebsco interface.

The Plagiarism Blog

Been catching up on some blog reading today and noticed a post on The Information Literacy Land of Confusion about a new blog by Susan Herzog of Eastern Connecticut State University called The Plagiarism Blog. Looks like a very useful tool for keeping up with plagiarism issues and trends. I added it to the list o' library related blogs in the side menu.

Testing Computer Literacy

There was a story on NPR's Morning Edition today about the ETS computer literacy test. I'll post a link to the full-text transcript once it's available, but in the meantime you can listen here.

Committee Meeting - May 10

The next Reference Committee meeting will be held on Tuesday, May 10th from 10am - 12 noon in the JCLRC Library Instruction room on the Clarkston campus. I'll post the agenda to the committee website as soon as it is available.

Have a good weekend!

Distance Learning Article

There's an article in the new Journal of Academic Librarianship by Zheng Ye (Lan) Yang called "Distance Education Librarians in the U.S. ARL Libraries and Library Services Provided to the Distance Learners". Whew. Talks about numbers of specifically DL librarians at ARL libraries and some information about what services they provide. Of particular interest to the DL Committee folks.

No FT online that I could find but we have it here at Decatur if anyone would like a copy.

And here's an unrelated video of a kid juggling while playing Dance, Dance Revolution, which is what I feel like I've been doing today. The mirror site works best.

EasyBib

Anyone familiar with this site: http://easybib.com/? It generates MLA citations for you, for free, and APA citations if you pay $6 a month. The service claims to "[adhere] to the 6th Edition of MLA Handbook for Writers and Researchers, and the 5th edition of the APA Publication Manual."

You select the format of the item you need to cite, enter details about the item into labeled fields, click a button, and the citation is generated. You can even save a list of citations and return to it later, or export the list to print. If you choose to print, EasyBib generates a Works Cited list (with the heading) and displays it in MS Word within your browser window.

Thoughts? Comments?

Free Gale database access

It's a bit late for this as the offer only runs through Saturday, but Gale is providing free access to 30 databases to celebrate National Library Week.

Go here, http://trials.galegroup.com/nlw2005/, to see the list of databases and to set up an account (yes, you have to register).

IM Reference Article

Hmmm, thought I posted this yesterday but it seems to have vanished. Blogger fun.

There's an article in the current Library Journal by Aaron Schmidt and Michael Stephens called "IM Me" that gives a good overview of using instant messengers like Yahoo or MSN to provide chat reference services. We're looking into doing this for the Distance Learning students in the DL Committee. Any thoughts on doing a trial of it over the Summer for all users? It would be completely voluntary. If it doesn't work out, then we can go back to just providing for DL students through the DL committee. We can discuss at the next meeting if there is interest.

Along the same lines, I went to a program at ACRL called Collaboration or Chaos? How To Develop, Staff and Promote A Successful Collaborative Virtual Reference Project*. The presenters dealt more with commercial services like 24/7 instead of IM but it was still very interesting from the collaboration persperctive. If we do some sort of virtual reference, it would be an internally collaborative project.

*PowerPoint presentation.

Saturday ACRL Wrap Up

Hello again from the Twin Cities. Very interesting sessions today. One this am was a panel discussion on "googilizing" that covered all kinds of disruptive technologies like metasearch, visualization searching, customization etc. Kind of a live version of the "googilizers vs resisters" article from LJ a bit back. They showed this cool tongue in cheek video on the ultimate expression of googilization in the not too distant future. Worth a watch.

Next up was a session on the Univ of Rochester Info Lit stuff. They talked more about a survey they did of faculty to figure out what they want and expect from students and what they did to tailor services to the results. Stanley Wilder of article fame did talk a little about info lit but mainly about who the students are and how they approach assignments/ library services. He made a good point that students definite their identity in terms of specific courses and assignments, not in general "information literacy" terms. They see user education as a means to a specific end and not as a seperate discipline or course of study. Interesting stuff about web design too, which was kinda unexpected.

Just got out of a session on open access that gave a good overview of the OA movement and different kinds of repositories. Got a little "future-y" at the end but still a good session. Found out about the Directory of Open Access Journals which I hadn't heard about.

Most of the stuff should be online somewhere or another so I'll post links to things when I get back.

See y'all next week.

chicken

chicken
Originally uploaded by decatur library.

Arizona State uses this inflatable chicken to promote their virtual reference services! But does it rap??

More ACRL

acrl lobby
Originally uploaded by decatur library.

Hello again from Minneapolis. The conference is going quite well. Went to a very interesting session on virtual reference this am. And got some info on designing logos for DL stuff in a poster session. Both of these should come in handy. More info when I get back. Going to sessions this pm on libraries/ info technology collaboration and on marketing to millennials. Should be interesting! The cover story on ACRL in the MPLS paper this am was about a preconference on millennials. So it's definitely a hot topic.More later.

Greetings From Minneapolis!

river
Originally uploaded by decatur library.

Greetings. Eva, Sherry and I are in Minneapolis for the ACRL Conference. The weather is gorgeous! Everything got started with the opening session today and an interesting talk by William J. Mitchell on the influence of technology on the uses of public spaces, including libraries. Very interesting!

Everything really gets going tomorrow with lots of great sessions. I'll try to post a couple of updates and we'll have lots of stuff for you when we get back.


Here we are with a statue of Mary Tyler Moore:



And here's the statue in the daytime:

One more article about the millenial student

Can you stand one more item about net generation students?

Gary Roberts has a new column in Computers in Libraries called "Computers in Small Libraries." In his debut column, "Small Libraries, Big Technology," he writes:

Our college student patrons make less of a distinction between the physical and the virtual world. These students are not "going online." Rather, they are online all the time, constantly connected to their cell phones, PDAs, e-mail accounts, and chat groups. For these patrons, 24/7 communication is now a reality.

The full-text is available from Research Library. (Most of the article is about web design.)

Full-text availability of ERIC documents

This may be old news to some of you, but if you'd forgotten or hadn't noticed this change in the ERIC database please read on...Although I've heard and read information about changes with ERIC over the last couple of years, I have to admit I wasn't clear on how we might be effected. I realized today that over 100,000 full-text non-journal ERIC documents published from 1993-2004 are now available in the ERIC database. Until the recent past anyone who wanted to read an ERIC document would have been referred to a larger academic institution such as Georgia State to view their ERIC document collection on microfiche or referred to a fee based document delivery service. Today I was trying to track down such a document and found out that it's now available full-text in ERIC. Yippee!

Net Generation Students and Libraries

Today's Library Link of the Day is an excellent book excerpt from Educause Review by Joan K. Lippincott called "Net Generation Students and Libraries". She discusses the gulf between "millenial" students and library services and provides suggestions for bridging those gaps. Highly recommended!

Excerpt:

What are some of the major disconnects between many of today’s academic libraries and Net Gen students? The most common one is students’ dependence on Google or similar search engines for discovery of information resources rather than consultation of library Web pages, catalogs, and databases as the main source of access. Since students often find library-sponsored resources difficult to figure out on their own, and they are seldom exposed to or interested in formal instruction in information literacy, they prefer to use the simplistic but responsive Google. Another disconnect is that digital library resources often reside outside the environment that is frequently the digital home of students’ coursework, namely, the course management system, or CMS. Library services are often presented in the library organization context rather than in a user-centered mode. Libraries emphasize access to information but generally do not have facilities, software, or support for student creation of new information products. All of these disconnects can be remedied if appropriate attention is paid to the style of Net Gen students.

Cleaning The Closet

Here's a selection of random, yet interesting, items that I haven't gotten around to posting.

There's an interesting article about visualization search software in the March 1 Library Journal.

The Librarian In Black (among others) noted the recent arrival of government search tab in Clusty.

And the Digital Library of Georgia is demo-ing a cool new homepage.

So I guess they were all kinda "finding stuff on the web" related!

WebCT For The Library Training

As previously mentioned, we're working on having Tracy Adkins from OIT Training present a workshop on WebCT for Librarians. There was a good response so we're working on a time. Your Staff Development Committee rep should be asking you about it in the next day or so.

Tracy would like some ideas on what kinds of things we would like to learn about in (or take away from) the training. Post your suggestions in the comments and I'll pass them along to her. Gracias!

Update 3/24/05: I changed the title of this post to reflect that the session would be open to all library employees, not just degreed librarians. I certainly didn't mean to exclude anyone.

Librarian Incarnations

Just messing with the blog and noticed a comment Pete left under the IM post. It seeemed interesting enough to warrant it's own discussion. In relation to technology, including IM and providing remote wireless ref services he said:

I can't help but wonder sometimes how many different incarnations of ourselves do we need to offer? That is not a popular question, but it deserves some attention. This is not to suggest that we revert to the, "old days," when librarians were sequestered behind an intimidating Reference Desk and the attitude was, "if they need help they can come to me, and if they don't like that, too bad." I realize we need to keep up with technology and offer the best service possible, but are there limits to what we can or should be doing?

This is very true. Although I'm certainly guilty of doing things because I think they're cool, planning and using technology in the most beneficial ways possible for our users is very important. The reality of the situation is that many of our users are younger "millenial" students who are more used to looking up stuff online than coming to a library. So we're going to have to meet them on their turf if we want to remain relevant. That doesn't mean someone sits in the Student Center w/ a laptop 24/7 waiting for questions. But I do think that timely experimentation w/ providing services outside the traditional library setting is very important. Maybe do a test of wireless remote reference services at term paper time when more people might be likely to use it. Make sure people know about it. Keep stats. And if there isn't a demand for the service, don't do it again. Or revisit it in the future. Have library hours in the ISS lab during busy research times. Etc etc.

Michael Stephens (no, he doesn't pay me for these plugs) wrote a good article called "Technoplans vs. Technolust" for Library Journal that covers some of these planning issues in relation to technology.

I think we need to provide as many different "incarnations" or outlets as possible and practical. This can be done with a minimal investment and certainly just a few interested librarians can provide adequate services in these areas. Not doing so risks cutting off a growing portion of our user base.

Instant Messaging

Check out this interesting presentation from the recent Computers In Libraries Conference by Michael Stephens and Aaron Schmidt called "IM: Breaking Down Boundaries". They discuss instant messaging and potential applications for libraries.

The Distance Learning Committee (you know who you are) is setting up an IM reference service for possible use by DL students. Is this something we could (or should) be doing on a larger scale?

Sidenote: CIL 2005 has a presentation page with links to a lot of session materials. Looks interesting!

Google Scholar

Pete posted this over on the old Info Lit blog yesterday and said it was cool to move it over here. Should make for a good discussion!

Hey Everyone,
I've been looking at Google Scholar a bit lately, and I just wondered what others thought of it. I have found some of the results are links to articles in subscription databases which are not very helpful. What have your experiences been like? Should we be teaching ATEC students about Google Scholar? Thanks.

posted by Pete at 4:54 PM

COMO Program Proposals

The call is out for program proposals (this link is a PDF!) for COMO XVII. The deadline for submitting proposals is May 31. The conference will be held from October 12-14, 2005 in Columbus.

Is it just me or does the word "proposals" look really weird in print?

GA Conference on Info Lit Proposals

Just a reminder that the deadline to submit program proposals for the Georgia Conference on Information Literacy is April 1, 2005. The conference will be held on September 30 - October 1 at Georgia Southern.

WebCT

At Clarkston we occasionally get requests from students to help them with WebCT. If it’s a real troubleshooting question like, “I have Sun JRE 1.4.2_07, but WebCT still won’t work,” I have them contact the Help Desk. But I’ll help them with something like, “I’m supposed to look at the Calendar in my course. Where is it?”

Is anyone interested in getting a WebCT orientation/basic instruction from Tracy Adkins? This week when David and I gave our blog lunch ‘n’ learns, she mentioned that she’s more than willing to give us librarian-specific WebCT training. Is anyone interested? Or, should anything WebCT-related be referred to the Help Desk?

Blogger Weirdness

Hey y'all! Blogger has been acting kind of strange for the past few days so bear with it if you're having trouble posting or commenting. I've heard that they're working on upgrading/ expanding their servers so that might account for the troubles. I'll try to catch stuff like multiples of the same comment and remove them.

Blogging really isn't hard, I promise!

Metro-Atlanta Library Assn (MALA) April Meeting

I haven't received anything directly from MALA about this meeting, but this information was forwarded to me.

WHAT: Meeting on Distance Learning for Library staff
WHEN: Thursday April 14; 7-8 (6:30 for sign in, refreshments)

WHERE: at DeVry University
DIRECTIONS to DeVry University, 250 North Arcadia Avenue - Decatur Campus Take I285 to exit 39A, Hwy. 78, Decatur (inside perimeter). Travel in the left lane approximately 2½ miles. At the second traffic light (DeKalb Industrial Way) turn left. Travel 1½ miles, just past 2nd traffic light, DeVry is on the right. We are in one large building. Visitor parking is to the left of the building. Go through front entrance (behind flag poles). A sign in the front Lobby will direct you to the meeting room.
WHY: to learn about Distance Education for continuing education for Librarians and to learn about getting an ALA accredited degree on-line! Speakers from Valdosta State, students who have or are taking distance ed classes, handouts from University of South Carolina and FSU, trial of Blackboard (one on-line learning class tool).

What would you do?

Earlier today Sherry and I were discussing library instruction back-up plans, because the Internet connection for the instructor's workstation in the library instruction classroom was down.

Do any of you have saved demos (like a series of screen captures in a PowerPoint presentation) of GIL and various GALILEO databases to use when you don't have Internet access? If not, what's your back-up plan? Lots of talking? Drawing pictures? Visualization exercises?

Facts.com database (Consideration?)

Hi all:

I know you guys have selected the databases for this year and won't be considering anymore until Fall; I thought I would send a consideration for next year. Some of you may be familiar with facts.com. Two databases that look interesting for GPC were the Issues and Controversies Database http://www.facts.com/online-icof.htm and Today's Science http://www.facts.com/online-tsof.htm. The two can be purchased as part of a suite under the Reference Suite http://www.facts.com/online-fdc.htm . Not sure of costs or trial constraints but it might be of interest to others. --Alicia

P.s. Is there an official to submit database purchase ideas?

iPods In The Library

I was just talking to Jennifer after a meeting about iPods in libraries and said I would post some recent blog etc traffic about it. So here goes:

Michael Stephens posted this nice overview of library iPod use on Tame The Web. He also mentioned this Wired News article and story from NPR about the South Huntington (NY) Public Library using iPod Shuffles as audio book readers. There's lots more out there on this topic, but these give a basic intro. Pretty interesting stuff!

Also, if you're in the market for a USC Basketball Player Nutcracker, they're current half price! Get yours today!

Reference Committee Minutes

A draft of minutes of the March 3, 2005 Reference Committee meeting is now available on the Reference Committee web page.

GPC Information Literacy Blog

Since there has been such a good response to this blog, and the issues are so closely related, we have decided to stop maintaining the GPC Information Literacy Blog. Having the Info Lit related content here will provide one stop blogging for Reference/ Info Lit issues.

The old Info Lit blog will still be online as an archive. I also added links to the Info Lit blogs we had in the side menu in the old blog in the blogroll here.

Virtual Reference Desk 2004: Proceedings

The proceedings from the 2004 Virtual Reference Desk Conference are available online. I don't think it is all of the sessions but there is a lot of good stuff available. Lots of chat reference sessions. They do misspell Cincinnati at least once though on the site!

Portals Article/ ESBCO Permalinks

The portals article Eva mentioned is available here though Academic Search Premier.

To find the URL for a specific article in ASP, click on the title of the article from the results list. After the abstract and all that fun stuff you'll see a field called Persistent Link To This Record. That'll be the URL. Just copy and paste it to the blog or whatnot. Mmmm, permalink.

Good blogging y'all! I did break the no editing "rule" and linked the 2nd "cry" in the welcome post to something funny.

Committee Meeting

Hey, we're in the Reference Committee meeting talking about blogs. I work at the Decatur Campus Library. Thanks for listening to our blog talk.

Welcome!

Welcome to the Georgia Perimeter College Libraries Reference Committee weblog. The purpose of the blog is to disseminate committee information and to promote conversation and sharing among Reference Librarians at all GPC libraries. Topics for discussion could include articles of interest dealing with reference issues, interesting assignments you've run across on your campuses, database issues, innovative ways you are working with your campus community and many, many more.

While we're not going to promote the blog to the universe outside GPC, it isn't password protected. That means that anyone on the web could potentially read anything you post. Not likely, but certainly possible. So don't post prohibited info (like the GALILEO password) or anything that you wouldn't say out loud in a crowded room. For example, if you post something like "David Free is a real jerk and a terrible librarian too!" I might read it and get my feelings hurt and cry. You don't want me to cry do you? I didn't think so.

You will need to be a blog "team member" to post or comment on posts. Membership is limited to GPC affiliated library folks. Contact David Free for more information on becoming a team member. For information on posting, commenting, site feeds or blogs in general contact either David Free or Jennifer Link.

Happy blogging!