News & Noteworthy
Talis
Launches RSS Trial at Northumbria University
Libraries send many hundreds of thousands of notifications and communications to users a year. New technologies allow real-time (or near real-time)communication and are cheaper than sending letters. How many libraries have yet switched to new methods of communicating with users? In the higher education arena, notices are typically sent by e-mail, but this still requires students to check for new e-mails How many have yet started to investigate technologies such as RSS and SMS?
Project Bluebird is investigating how libraries communicate with their users,the technologies that support this and whether the network power of Talis libraries can offer any advantages. Channels under investigation include both the old and the new: automated telephony, blogging, e-mails, letters, RSS, SMS text messaging.
The first phase of the project is investigating the use of RSS technologies to send updates to users about their use of the library. One of the strands of Project Bluebird is investigating the use of RSS and interpreting how this might be of use in libraries. Possible applications include:
lists of new books;
warning an item will become overdue in the next X days;
advice that a requested item is now ready for collection;
end of term reminders;
alerting that potential charges have reached a given amount;
virtual book groups sharing reviews;
distributing a sound sample for a newly available music CD; and
library news such as changes to opening hours.
Talis is working with the University of Northumbria on a prototype RSS alerting service, which will feed RSS alerts on a borrower specific basis for events such as items overdue, items due back in X days, reservations due for collection, etc. The trial, in partnership with Northumbria University, is to run from January to Easter 2005, with a limited number of subscribers. An overview of the technologies and the trial itself, including a link to a demonstration, can be found in the white paper Personalised RSS for Library– User Interaction.
Project Bluebird description: www.talis.com/research/research/rss/rss.shtml
Background on RSS and how to get started: www.talis.com/rss
Podcasting
Where to Start
Most everyone has heard about podcasting by now. According to Wikipedia podcasting is "is much like an audio magazine subscription: a subscriber receives regular audio programs delivered via the internet, and she or he can listen to them at her or his leisure." The audio files are most often provided as MP3 files and are intended to be downloaded to portable music players as an iPod.
Podcast.net www.podcast.net is a good place to start if you are searching for the podcast that appeals to you. Their search engine allows you search by Title and Description, Keywords, Location,Host and Episodes. For anyone who is interested in learning more about how to podcast, check out: http://www.howtopodcast.orgby Michael Lehman or a short video created by Lisa Williams (www.cadence90.com/wp/index.php?p=3548). Both of these resources will lead you on to others that will tell you much that you may want to know about podcasting – including the original source– Adam Curry's (www.ipodder.org)including a brief but interesting history: www.ipodder.org/history
Wikipedia podcasting entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Podcasting
Visibooks LLC
Computer Books Based on Pictures, Not Text
Visibooks LLC is offering computer books based on pictures rather than text and which are organized around tasks rather then features. They contain approximately one-tenth the text of other computer books. Originally developed in 2003 with a US Department of Education grant to create computer books specifically for learning-disabled (LD) students, Visibooks developed a whole series of LD-friendly textbooks. Books are available on Computer Basics,Microsoft Office, and Web Development topics.
Visibooks web site: http://visibooks.com/
WAG the Dog Project
To Provide Tools to Enhance Results from Google Scholar
The Windsor-Alberta-Georgia Google Scholar Localization Project aims to provide browser tools to enhance search results from Google Scholar. Enhancements include:
modifying the links to full text so as to pass them through an institutional proxy server such as EZProxy;and
adding an OpenURL 0.1 button to link to an institutional link-resolver.
These tools will be available in the form of a Javascript bookmarklet (usable in any browser) and a Firefox extension, and will be localizable for any institution.
The purpose is to enable users at an institution that has an OpenURL link-resolver to use that resolver to locate the full text of articles found in Google Scholar, instead of relying on the links to publishers' web sites provided by Google. This is important because it solves the "appropriate copy problem": the link to a publisher's site is useless if your library does not have a subscription to that site, and your library may provide access to the same article in an aggregator's package or elsewhere.
The best division of labor, therefore, is to let Google Scholar help you find a citation, and let your local link-resolver get you from there to the full text. This extension builds an OpenURL using the metadata that it parses out of Google Scholar's citation.
Details: http://gslocal.sourceforge.net/
ANGEL ePortfolio
Released for Beta Testing
ANGEL Learning, developer of ANGEL LMS, the open, flexible enterprise learning management system (LMS), has announced that ANGEL ePortfolio has been released for beta testing with general availability scheduled for April 2005. ANGEL ePortfolio is a learner-centered, learner-driven digital artifact repository designed to promote lifelong learning through interaction and reflection. ANGEL ePortfolio areas encourage learners to tie together their education, work, and personal experiences and achievements, reflect on them in journal and comment areas, connect them to educational and personal objectives,and combine all to create a continually evolving picture of ongoing growth and achievement. ANGEL ePortfolio features enable learners to share their ePortfolios with others and encourages dialogue with professors, mentors, and peers as an integral part of the growth process. ANGEL Learning was, until recently, known as CyberLearning Labs.
ANGEL Learning: www.angellearning.com/
CIE
Survey Examines New Trends in Web Use in the UK
A new survey of the UK population is the first to take a wide-ranging look at the issues of reliability of information found on the internet, and the extent to which users feel they can trust the information they find there. The reputation of an organization and the trustworthiness of the content of web sites are important factors in people's attitudes, the survey found. Information provided via the web sites of more established organizations such as museums,libraries and archives are most likely to gain a great deal or fair amount of trust from people. This is particularly the case in comparison to more commercial web sites such as utility companies, travel agencies and internet-only retail companies.
Among the other findings uncovered by the survey, commissioned by the Common Information Environment (CIE) group, were the following:
Most of the population is aware of the internet to some degree, with just under half of all respondents (49 percent) saying they know at least a fair amount about it.
Of internet users, 92 percent say that reliability of content is an important factor, including 63 percentsaying it is very important.
Of all respondents, 53 percent go online at least once a week, including 30 percent who do so every day.
Over half of all current users (54 percent) of the web use it as their preferred information source. In addition, some 59 percent of all those surveyed are confident about internet use, and three-quarters of respondents say that they find it easy to get access to the internet.
In addition, with the potential of the internet as a learning tool, the survey also reveals the public's attitudes to lifelong learning. Encouragingly,the overwhelming majority of people surveyed agree that it is important for adults to continue to learn as they get older (94 percent). Importantly, most see a role for the internet in learning new things (83 percent class the internet as an important learning tool). Of those who have ever used the internet, 59 percent search for specific information in connection with a hobby or interest, while 40 percent have done so in connection with their own education, and 25 percent in connection with their own children's learning.
The results are highly encouraging for the Common Information Environment group, a coalition of public sector information organizations, whose task it is to help create a cross-sectoral partnership to realize the full potential of the internet for all UK citizens. These organizations include those funding this research; the British Library, DfES (Department for Education & Skills),JISC (Joint Information Systems Committee), MLA (Museums, Libraries &Archives Council), and SLIC (Scottish Library & Information Council). Content of the type provided by these organizations is of precisely the kind that respondents to the survey recognize as trustworthy, reliable and of high quality. The challenge now, the survey suggests, is for Government to actively tackle people's misconceptions and a real skills gap in certain parts of the population, while capitalizing on a clear preference for trusted knowledge resources.
Download the full report: www.common-info.org.uk/docs/mori-report.pdf
Summary of Findings: www.common-info.org.uk/mori-findings.shtml
NIH
Calls for Online Archive to Make Research Publications Accessible to Public
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has announced a new policy designed to accelerate the public's access to published articles resulting from NIH-funded research. The policy – the first of its kind for NIH –calls on scientists to release to the public manuscripts from research supported by NIH as soon as possible, and within 12 months of final publication.
These peer-reviewed, NIH-funded research publications will be available in a Web-based archive to be managed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM), a component of NIH. The online archive will increase the public's access to health-related publications at a time when demand for such information is on a steady rise.
The NIH policy will achieve several important goals, including:
creating a stable archive of peer-reviewed research publications resulting from NIH-funded studies to ensure the permanent preservation of these vital research findings;
securing a searchable compendium of these research publications that NIH and its awardees can use to manage more efficiently and to understand better their research portfolios, monitor scientific productivity, and, ultimately, help set research priorities; and
making published results of NIH-funded research more readily accessibleto the public, health care providers, educators, and scientists.
Beginning May 2, 2005, the policy requests that NIH-funded scientists submit an electronic version of the author's final manuscript, upon acceptance for publication, resulting from research supported in whole or in part by NIH. The author's final manuscript is defined as the final version accepted for journal publication, and includes all modifications from the publishing peer review process.
The policy gives authors the flexibility to designate a specific time frame for public release – ranging from immediate public access after final publication to a 12-month delay – when they submit their manuscripts to NIH. Authors are strongly encouraged to exercise their right to specify that their articles will be publicly available through PubMed Central (PMC) as soon as possible.
PMC (www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov),a part of the NIH's National Library of Medicine (NLM), is the agency's digital repository of full-text, peer-reviewed biomedical, behavioral, and clinical research journals. It is a publicly-accessible, stable, permanent, and searchable electronic archive.
The release of this policy follows months of intensive deliberations with representatives of patient and scientific organizations, researchers, and publishers. NIH posted the draft policy for public comment in September, and received and reviewed over 6,000 public comments. As part of on-going efforts to implement this new policy, NIH plans to establish a Public Access Advisory Working Group, as a subgroup of the NLM's Board of Regents. The Working Group will include representatives of the patient advocacy, scientific, library, and publishing communities, and will provide advice on implementation issues and assess progress in meeting the new policy's stated goals.
Additional information on the new policy and related documents, including a"Questions and answers" fact sheet, can be found at: www.nih.gov/about/public access/index.htm
Pew internet Project
New Pew internet Reports of Interest
The Pew Project continues to generate new reports of interest to library and information technology professionals. Two new reports include:
- 1.
"Search engine users: internet searchers are confident, satisfied and trusting – but they are also unaware and naïve" (www.pewinternet.org/PPF/r/146/report_display.asp)A new nationwide survey by the Pew Internet & American Life Project shows that internet users are extremely positive about search engines and the experiences they have when searching the internet. But these same satisfied internet users are generally unsophisticated about why and how they use search engines. They are also strikingly unaware of how search engines operate and how they present their results.
- 2.
"A decade of adoption: how the internet has woven itself into American life" (www.pewinternet.org/PPF/r/148/report_display.asp)This document is the Pew Internet Project's contribution to "Trends 2005,"a publication of the newly-created Pew Research Center, a research organization that combines several analytical projects funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts. The chapter takes a look back at adoption of the internet in the past decade.
Pew Internet Project: www.pewinternet.org
EDUCAUSE
Educating the Net Generation
EDUCAUSE has announced the availability of a new e-book, "Educating the Net Generation" edited by Diane G. Oblinger, vice president of EDUCAUSE and director of the National Learning Infrastructure Initiative (NLII), and James L. Oblinger, chancellor of North Carolina State University. The book aims to help readers understand the unique characteristics of Net Gen students and their implications for their institutions in such areas as instruction, service,learning space, faculty development, and curriculum.
It is available online in PDF and HTML formats. It is downloadable in its entirety or chapter by chapter, as are a variety of related multimedia resource,at no charge. Of particular interest to librarians may be the chapter on Net Generation Students and Libraries by Joan K. Lippincott, Associate Executive Director of the Coalition for Networked Information.
EDUCAUSE web site: www.educause.edu
Reducing Costs and Maximizing Resources
New White Paper
A new white paper published by the Center for Digital Education entitled"Rethinking processes: reducing costs and maximizing resources in education"and underwritten by Accenture, tracks and documents the current state of education systems in the USA and abroad. It describes a string of challenges faced by institutions that all involve funding – or lack thereof – and identifies creative solutions to these challenges that have been tested and are providing significant results. The white paper focuses on proven information technology solutions and follows months of research and analysis of case studies.
Center for Digital Education: www.centerdigitaled.com/
Text Release
GL6 Conference on Grey Literature Proceedings Available
Print versions of the Conference Proceedings for the 6th International Conference on Grey Literature: Work on Grey in Progress, held in December 2004, are now available for order from Text Release. The conference proceedings contain the full text of some twenty-four papers presented during the two-days of sessions and panels. The papers appear in the same order as the conference program. The print copy has been standardized in font, size and format for general layout and appearance and includes a List of Participating Organizations and an Author index.
GL6 Conference Proceedings Table of Contents: www.textrelease.com/images/GL6_Conference_Program.pdf
To order print copy of proceedings: www.textrelease.com/pages/5/index.htm
