It’s not scholarly but this blog post on the history of the internet is full of fun images and links.
Chapman, Cameron. “The History of the Internet in a Nutshell.” Six Revisions, 15 November 2009. Web.
It’s worth subscribing to the LIBRARY News feed from the CUNY Office of Library Services, if only to pick up interesting tidbits like this:
The goals for the 2009-2010 academic year are to:
• work with Computer Information Systems to ensure a reliable back-up for all CUNY library systems in the event of a failure;
• test Ex Libris’s remote information technology services;
• review and update the OLS websites;
• implement the ALEPH Reporting Center so that campus libraries have direct access to CUNY statistics;
• select and implement an electronic resources management system;
• ensure the flow of patron data from CUNYfirst—the university’s enterprise resource planning system for student administration, finance and human resources—to Aleph, the library system.
Attendees
Arthur Downing, Stephen Francoeur, Joseph Hartnett, Randy Hensley, Ellen Kaufman, Louise Klusek, Ryan Phillips
Google Discover Music
Talked about new Google Discover Music service in which search results are more socially based and about October 23, 2009, radio story from On the Media, “Charting the Charts,” which noted how Billboard is waning in influence and new services are appearing that measure music success differently. One such services is Band Metrics that ranks popularity not by sales but by an aggregation of metrics, including social ones. Search is changing the economic model for music rankings. Big Champagne offers another service that measures rankings using social aspects. What is a credible or reliable metric is shifting from authorities like SoundScan or Billboard to services that look at social use of media.
Google Social Search
This experiment from Google looks at who is in your social graph (your collection of online friends) so that it can present you with search results that are refined by content that your friends have posted online.
Google Reader
We looked at the way that people who use Google Reader can friend others who use the service and share notable feed items with each other.
Google Site Search Tool
The Baruch College website today unveiled its new site search engine powered by Google. The library website will be changing its search site software to Google soon as well.
2D Barcodes
Following up on Arthur’s comments on an earlier blog post here, We talked about 2D barcodes, QR codes, and their potential uses by colleges and libraries. We looked at the barcode service from ScanLife and the video about how Case Western Reserve University used ScanLife codes.
Mobile Websites for Libraries
We talked about various strategies for creating library websites that would render well on browsers in mobile phones.
Amazon Kindle vs. Barnes & Noble Nook
While talking about basic differences between new Nook reader coming out in November, we also discussed the Kindle loan program at North Carolina State University and how the service also offers patron-driven acquisitions (hear all the details about this on the Library 2.0 Gang podcast from September 2009 in which Orion Pozo from NCSU was interviewed).
TinyURL vs. HugeURL
TinyURL is a well-known service that will shrink a long URL with a brief one that redirects you to the original site. HugeURL is a funny spoof that turns short URLs into obscenely long ones.
On the Talking with Talis podcast, host Paul Miller recently spoke with Diane Mueller about XBRL and the semantic web. Listen to the recording (mp3) and check out the show notes.
The folks at Information Today have set up a site on Ustream where you can watch videos of presentations from Internet Librarian, which is going on this week in Monterey, California. If you drop by the Internet Librarian page in Ustream, you might find live webcasts as well as previously recorded session, such as this one of Vint Cerf!
At the LITA Forum 2009, Joan K. Lippincott from the Coalition for Networked Information, gave a nice keynote address on mobile web development for libraries, which you can listen to online (or go here to download the MP3). As I listened to it this morning on the subway, it made me wonder about two things:
- The library web site. What does our library web site look like in a browser on mobile devices? Should we develop a slimmed down web site for the mobile web? Develop an app that people can download to their phones that offers key services and resources?
- Access to the catalog? Does it help that our users can use the mobile version of WorldCat.org to access our holdings info? Is that good enough? Can our Aleph 500 implementation be optimized for display on phones, etc.? As I was typing this post, a student showed me his phone with a list of call numbers he’d found in the catalog and typed into the notepad feature of his cell phone. Wouldn’t it have been nice if the catalog had a link next to the call number that would allow searchers to have the call number sent to their phones as a text message?
- Access to licensed resources? Which databases can be searched via mobile devices? Does Bearcat Search work on a mobile device?
- Access to Digital Media Library content? Will our videos play on their devices?
- Instructional tutorials?
- Ask a librarian? If we launch a text message reference service, this would provide an important connection to the population of students who rely on their phones as their main communication tool.
- Blackboard? Since we offer credit courses, what do our course sites in Blackboard look like on a smartphone?
- Interlibrary loan? Will it work on their devices? Does it display properly?
- Serials Solutions A-Z journal list and SFX. These are key tools to connect our users to licensed content.
- Online exhibits?
- Library borrower’s accounts in Aleph 500?
- Docutek course reserve system and the materials we’ve added as PDFs?
Lippincott, Joan K. “Mobile Technologies, Mobile Users: Will Libraries Mobilize?” LITA Forum 2009, Salt Lake City. 2 October 2009. Address. Web.
Eric Frierson, a librarian at UT Arlington, mentioned in a blog post recently his library’s efforts to augment databases with sidebars offering assistance. The help provided on the side of this version of ERIC includes an embedded video from Frierson, who, as the education librarian, asks anyone who needs help to contact him or to contact a librarian using the embedded chat widget below the video. The sidebar also provides links to relevant videos:
It’s not clear to me where on the library website you can find these “assisted databases” (as Frierson calls them) or how many augmented interfaces they’ve done for other databases. Still, it’s a very intriguing way to provide instruction at the point of need (on the same page as the search boxes).
Frierson, Eric. “Are We Marketing Well?” live wire librarian, 20 October 2009. Web.
Attendees
Jin Ma, Mike Waldman, Matt Haugan, Ellen Kaufman, Mike Waldman, Stephen Francoeur
EBSCOhost Integrated Search
Mike Waldman showed us this tool that CUNY is looking at and asked us to think about how it compared to Bearcat Search. EBSCOhost Integrated Search will search everything that CUNY Central pays for (as well as the unique EBSCOhost databases we’ve subscribed to). We can customize the display of search results so that the databases are grouped into first and second tiers. We took a look at how Brooklyn College has set up their instance of this tool. One difference that we noted was that Bearcat doesn’t have search field for “source” but the EBSCOhost Integrated Search does.
xFruits
We talked about how the free xFruits web services can be used to repurpose RSS feeds or to create new ones. For example, you can convert email into an RSS feed using this tool.
Google Wave
In light of this week’s release of beta invitations to Google Wave, we talked again about what this new tool might allow us to do.
Software for Collaboration and Communication
Ellen Kaufman talking about technology at her old job and how they used Microsoft Sharepoint, portals, and Confluence.
ticTOCs
This free service from JISC offers table of contents alerts as RSS feeds.
On FriendFeed today, an interesting discussion is emerging about well-designed institutional repositories.
I haven’t had a chance to read the August 2009 issue of Research Library Issues, but the table of contents looks pretty interesting. Lots of stuff about liaison work.
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