CUWL Day Two

The second day of the CUWL conference started out with product demos from ExLibris and OCLC. The representative from ExLibris spoke about Primo and there new venture Universal Research Discovery and Delivery (URD2). The URD2 initiative looks like their attempt to address the issues that Marshall Breeding discussed yesterday. If it works, the system will harvest data from the library's ILS, DSpace, CMS, institution website and also "deep search" the library's licensed journal articles. They are also looking at ways to merge workflows in the back end that better link ebooks, licensing, journals and print.
The commercial concerns are being pressured by open source developers to better address our needs. The best quote I heard was the ExLibris rep describe open source developers as "a distraction" rather than a legitimate competitor.

OCLC continues moving steadily into the ILS world. We heard about their "web scale management services". As I understand it this initiative is a way to provide a "cloud computing" solution to manage library workflows. If this works it would take the OCLC cooperative model to our management processes. The example given was how libraries all have vendor files that they maintain individually. An OCLC cloud management service could provide a central shared space where libraries could cooperatively update one shared vendor file.

In the afternoon I attended a round table discussion of how system libraries are developing our electronic theses and dissertations repository. More and more Wisconsin universities are moving in this direction. UW-Eau Claire is moving deliberately, if cautiously, in this direction also. Dorthea Salo talked about the new software that the Digital Collections group is implementing. This software should make our system easier to manage, maintain and preserve. The big issue that came out of this was that CUWL needs to start thinking about data management. There is one project just beginning where a group at Madison is curating an archeology dataset. They are working with an archeologist who cataloged the results of excavations done in the first half of the 20th Century. In that period excavations could be much more comprehensive than what can be done currently so there is a lot work to be done to provide access to the data. The project looked very exciting. When I asked who provides a model for libraries moving into data curation, Dorothea said that Purdue is very active in the field. They have created a data curation department, D2C2.

Google Scholar and Journal Access

I'm sure others have faced this problem and probably found solutions but I and my colleagues at UW-Eau Claire are struggling with the best way to provide access to journals as we move from print to electronic journals. We are attempting to move most of our subscriptions into electronic format. This is part of the severe budget crisis that public academic libraries in Wisconsin and around the country are facing. We are cutting our subscriptions significantly and in the cases where we are being asked to keep journals that have been little used in print we are changing to digital subscriptions, thinking that at the very least we will save on processing and storage costs. At the same time I worry that our electronic journals will sit unused on virtual library shelves.

Google Scholar may play a larger role as a resource discovery tool in our library as one way of providing access to these electronic subscriptions. (Our current federated search tool is not up to the job. Students have reported using it even after having attended library research instruction sessions where librarians introduce subject specific databases. But that is fodder for another blog posting.) As part of the cancellation process I have been having quite a few conversations by e-mail and face to face with faculty. At one meeting I was surprised to have one faculty member tell me that she was forbidding students from using Google Scholar. Here I was thinking it was our salvation! She was directing students to the databases the library pays a lot of money for so I couldn't fault her for that. So we had a good conversation about how her students did research and how to get students to scholarly journal articles; current scholarly journal articles. She shook my confidence in Google Scholar.

But then, in the afternoon mail I received the current issue of College & Research Libraries. There on page 227 was, "How Scholarly is Google Scholar? A Comparison to Library Databases," by Jared L. Howland, Thomas C. Wright, Rebecca A.
Boughan, and Brian C. Roberts from Brigham Young University. Their research expanded on earlier comparisons by Chris Neuhaus and used an evaluation rubric designed by Jim Kapoun to measure the scholarliness of the articles retrieved. In their research they found that articles found in Google Scholar were 17.6% more scholarly than those found in the library purchased databases. They also found that results were not significantly different across disciplines. They suggest that the same type of study should be carried out with federated search engines.

Finally, they point out that Google Scholar is dependant on cooperation of publishers. And even more significant is that access to the journal articles students using Google Scholar retrieve is dependant on their library subscribing to journal aggregating databases. I wonder if databases, Google Scholar and a good url resolver are becoming more important than actual journal subscriptions. More thoughts on that as we move through this subscription cancellation.

Student Ingenuity

I love to walk around the library during finals week. The intensity and concentration fills the air with an almost electric charge. At the same time there is always something to make me laugh and shake my head at how ingenious our students are. Last semester it was the group of students who took over two tables and a couch on the second floor for the entire week. One member of the team was always there to save the space. They needed someone there to hold the space and to protect the coffee maker they brought and the food in the cooler that they had next to the window. Every time I went past someone was sacked out on the couch while others were studying.

This year I saw this sign on one of the tables on the second floor. If you can't read it, the laminated sign says, "this table is reserved. Thank you, the McIntyre Library Staff." It has our logo on the top and looks just like a sign that we would produce. There's only one thing wrong, the library staff do not reserve tables. I have to applaud the work and thought that went into coming up with a laminated table tent to keep a table. I also have to congratulate our student body as a really honest group. For the entire time it took for me to see the sign, make sure it wasn't really one of ours, and take the picture no one was at the table. In all that time they had left that laptop out and open. No one nicked that laptop. Way to go BluGolds.

McIntyre Library, the place to be

Yesterday's Spectator mentioned the Library in Natalie Saeger's "Ask Anything" column. Natalie responded to a student's, Hunny Hunter's, question asking where were the best spots on campus to meet female students. Natalie said the number 2 spot is the 4th floor of McIntyre Library. Natalie says that is where the best looking people study. Its where she goes to study. She reminds her searching inquirer, "remember that you don't want to meet just anyone; you want to meet someone with dedication." College entry requirements gaurantee that fellow students have a certain level of intellect but Natalie says that the 4th floor is where the really dedicated high achievers are to be found.

Good advice Natalie!

John

WAAL Keynote - Brian Matthews

On Wednesday morning, Brian Matthews, who is the User Experience Librarian at Georgia Tech and soon to be of UC Santa Barbara, spoke to the group about his experience on bringing innovative services to the Georgia Tech libraries. I liked the idea that their mission was to design the "premier group study area on campus". It reminded me of the Pike Fish Market deciding to be a world famous fish market and how they decided to accomplish that goal. Here were the ideas that had resonance for me.

• Furniture on wheels so students could control their space; including movable walls and whiteboards. This seems to be a current design theme that we will need to remember as we buy any new furniture.
• They designed group work tables not just study rooms. This taps into the need to see and be seen while still getting work done. Bryan Vogh is already working on how we can create these types of work areas on the first floor of McIntyre Library. I think that we can use our flip-chart and map of the first floor to let students decide where we site the group workstations.
  
• They used Wimba software to deliver social web events to students on a current topic, ideas or issues instead of holding drop-in instruction sessions. It seemed like an innovative way to deliver information literacy in a non-class based manner.
• At Georgia Tech they promote class projects that use the library as a case study much like we are currently doing with Dr. Sutton's marketing class.
• Matthews mentioned how he discovered how immersing himself in the activities of the library led to new insights. While his office was being renovated for three months he moved his workspace out into the library with the students. I'm thinking this might be a great way for me to get out onto the floors for a couple of hours per week instead of being cooped up in my office.