lfa

Access 2006 conference speaker presentations and podcasts are now available:rnhttp://www.access2006.uottawa.ca/?page_id=10

Not much new, but this WSJ article that came out Saturday has an outside perspective of library as place and libraries going more electronic.

Libraries Beckon, But Stacks of Books Aren’t Part of Pitch; Valparaiso’s New Building Has PCs, a Cafe, a Steinway; ‘Quiet’s Not the Thing’ by Christopher Conkey.

Threatened with irrelevance, the college library is being reinvented — and books are being de-emphasized. The goal: Entice today’s technology-savvy students back into the library with buildings that blur the lines between library, computer lab, shopping mall and living room. Imposing rows of stacks, uncomfortable wooden furniture and rigid rules are giving way to open spaces, cafes and chatter. Librarians are looking the other way on food and drink, encouraging conversation and even responding to students’ text-message queries for research help or technology tips.

This article in the Bulletin of the American Society for Information Science and Technology is interesting as it demonstrates that (at least for the library in the study) there is a correlation between # of copies and whether the library needed a copy itself. A high number of copies (5-6 in a 7 member consortium) correlated to less of a need for a copy in their collection. There was an inverse correlation for 2-4 copies (that is, the book was more likely to be something the selector deemed necessary for their own library’s collection).

AU: William H. Walters
TI: Should libraries acquire books that are widely held elsewhere? A brief investigation with implications for consortial book selection
SO: Bulletin of the American Society for Information Science and Technology
VL: 32
NO: 3
PG: 25-27
YR: 2006

This article in the newest issue of JAL talked about some qualititative research done on using scholarly book reviews as a means to help librarians develop an adequate level of knowledge to work effectively with faculty and students. This means they also talked about faculty perceptions of what they want from the subject librarian as collaborator. I thought it very provocative.- Paula
TI: Investigating the Value of Scholarly Book Reviews for the Work of Academic Reference Librarians
AU: Dilevko, J; McMillan, B; AllisonCassin, S; Aspinall, J; Mauro, C
JN: Journal of Academic Librarianship
PD: 2006
VO: 32
NO: 5
PG: 452-466

Akselbo, Jeppe, et. al. The hybrid library: from the users’ perspective. February 2006 (English translation September 2006).

This PDF is rather long (69 pages) but has a lot of information of the various kinds of users of Danish academic libraries and the services they expect/want. They did interviews and field studies of students and faculty and identified 3 core user groups:

• Drive-in user: The drive-in user uses the library in a very goal-oriented manner. The stated goal is, as a rule, to pick up or drop off books, or to execute practical tasks such as printing or photocopying.
• Worker bee: This user type is seen in the physical library, which they occupy in periods of time of varying length, e.g., during term paper writing, exam preparation, or group work. The worker bee uses the physical areas of the library quite actively as workplaces, and they are generally content with this possibility.
• Library enthusiast: The library enthusiast knows about many of the services the library offers. The library enthusiast knows that, e.g., you can ask the librarian for advice, and that there is much more available on the library’s website than just searching in and ordering from the library catalog. For example, the library enthusiast knows how to access electronic resources and databases, or that there are subject specific pages available.

The users in this study seem to be comparable to our library users.

Here are a couple of articles on federated searching that I found interesting.

The first, comparing Google Scholar to metasearch systems, is from an ejournal that most of you probably don’t scan regularly - the HEP Libraries Webzine (HEP stands for High Energy Physics), which is published at the CERN Library in Switzerland.

Sadeh, Tamar. Google Scholar Versus Metasearch Systems. HEP Libraries Webzine, Issue 12, March 2006.

From the conclusion of the article: rnrn

“Google’s attentiveness to the library community, as evidenced by the rapid implementation of the OpenURL standard in Google Scholar, indicates that this service might well be evolving in the right direction. Nevertheless, it is not likely to replace metasearch systems in the short term. A locally controlled and branded system that enables librarians to offer accurate, up-to-date, subject-specific research data and to customize relevant services renders metasearch systems highly valuable to the scholarly community.”

The second article was published in portal earlier this year. It takes a look at how federated searching impacts information literacy standards and implications for library instruction.

Cox, Christopher. An Analysis of the Impact of Federated Search Products on Library Instruction Using the ACRL Standards. portal: Libraries and the Academy 6.3 (2006) 253-267.

From the discussion session:

Based on analyses of the standards, it seems obvious that, with proper instruction, federated searching products will not have a significant impact on students’ information literacy. McCaskie, who came to the same conclusion, states it thus: “The tool does not make the user more or less information literate; it is the way it is used.”64 If anything, the products will expand students’ knowledge of the electronic resources the library offers and encourage greater use of our collections. Librarians, in turn, will need to assist students in using the tool effectively.

University of Indiana has a great website with an annotated bibliography of items related to the concept of Library as Place. Topics include learning spaces, study areas, and remote storage.

Vicki Tolar Burton will show “Writing across Cultures” and leading a discussion afterwards. Please join us in the Willamette rooms at 10:30. Refreshments served.

The full text of the Research and Occasional Papers Series is available from this website. They cover a range of topics such as scholarly publishing patterns, the influence of the business community on higher ed and much much more.