International Journal of Librarianship
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Implementing Controlled Digital Lending with Google Drive and Apps Script: A Case Study at the NYU Shanghai Library
Get PDFThe unexpected outbreak of COVID-19 near the beginning of 2020 has significantly interrupted the daily operation of a wide range of academic institutions worldwide. As a result, libraries faced a challenge of providing their patrons access to physical collections while the campuses may remain closed.
Discussions on the implementation of Controlled Digital Lending (CDL) among libraries have been trending ever since. In theory, CDL enables libraries to digitize a physical item from their collections and loan the access-restricted file to one user at a time based on the “owned to loaned” ratio in the library’s collections, for a limited time. Despite all the discussions and enthusiasm about CDL, there is, however, still a lack of technical infrastructure to support individual libraries to manage their self-hosted collections. With COVID-19 still very much a presence in our lives, many libraries are more than eager to figure out the best approach to circulating materials that only exist in print form to their users in a secure and legitimate way.
This article describes the author's temporary but creative implementation of CDL amid the COVID-19 pandemic. We managed to work out a technical solution in a very short time, to lend out digital versions of library materials to users when the library is physically inaccessible to them. By collaborating with our campus IT, a Google Spreadsheet with Google Apps Scripts was developed to allow a team of Access Services Staff to do hourly loans, which is a desired function for our reserve collection. Further, when the access to a file expires, staff will be notified via email. We hope our experience can be useful for those libraries that are interested in lending their physical materials using CDL and are in urgent need for an applicable solution without a cost
Virtualization of Research Data Services during the COVID-19 Pandemic as an Opportunity to Enhance Research Data Support
Get PDFFor Canadian academic libraries, the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic necessitated an unprecedented switch to virtual services. An abrupt halt to in-person activities required almost all libraries to utilize new technologies in order to continue serving patrons. While the Academic Data Centre (ADC) has traditionally offered both physical and online services, with the emergence of the pandemic, the ADC pivoted to exclusively online service provision. Through new initiatives such as remote desktop access to statistical software, embedded virtual spaces for consultation and breakout discussions, online workshops and teaching, and the use of social media--the Academic Data Centre emerged successful in supporting student and faculty data needs. While virtually scaling up data services was essential to avoid disrupting researchers working with data, the shift to online services also presented an unexpected opportunity to reflect meeting the data needs of users and, in turn, strategize innovative future data service delivery. Three themes emerged from our reflection: emphasis on greater accessibility; more flexible instruction; and the benefits for cultivating a data community. As emerge from the pandemic, the ADC expects to further embrace newly implemented technologies and virtual services to further scale and augment research data service support
Cornell Library FOLIO Case Study
Get PDFCornell University is a private university with a public mission. With a student body of about 25,000, Cornell is the federal land-grant institution of New York State, a private endowed university, a member of the Ivy League/Ancient Eight, and a partner of the State University of New York. Cornell Library supports the university’s mission with 20 different physical and digital libraries, a collection of 8.5 million volumes and 1.7 million e-books, and about 400 staff.
After 20 years using the vended application Voyager by Ex Libris as the Library’s integrated library system (ILS), on July 1, 2021 Cornell Library completed our migration to the open-source platform, FOLIO
Local Content In Information Management: The Story of the Celebrated Content of the First University Library in Nigeria
Get PDFThis article is an opinion paper on the pride of place of the nationally and internationally patronised and hence, celebrated contents of the Kenneth Dike Library (KDL) of the University of Ibadan, the first university library in Nigeria. The work traced the history of the Library from inception till date, emphasising the rarity, age, uniqueness and the yet relevancy of its contents in the face of the modern and emerging Information and Communications Technologies. The contents discussed include print and non-print materials (for instance, electronic resources and the institution’s repository, among others), artefacts, realia, pictures, drawings, processes, services, capacity, architecture, management and personnel deployed in the main and branch libraries of the University of Ibadan Library System. The author proffered reasons why the KDL is perceived the best among other university libraries in Nigeria and highlighted ten ‘firsts’ recorded by the Library in recent time which have further enhanced its reputation as the first and the best. The work concluded with a call on the private sector and good spirited individuals to support the federal government and the University of Ibadan towards achieving all the laudable goals of the KDL for now and the future
The Future is Here! Embracing a New Era of Open Platforms
Get PDFThe Future is Here! Embracing a New Era of Open Platform
Using NLP to Generate MARC Summary Fields for Notre Dame ’s Catholic Pamphlets
Get PDFThree NLP (Natural Language Processing) automated summarization techniques were tested on a special collection of Catholic Pamphlets acquired by Hesburgh Libraries. The automated summaries were generated after feeding the pamphlets as .pdf files into an OCR pipeline. Extensive data cleaning and text preprocessing were necessary before the computer summarization algorithms could be launched. Using the standard ROUGE F1 scoring technique, the Bert Extractive Summarizer technique had the best summarization score. It most closely matched the human reference summaries. The BERT Extractive technique yielded an average Rouge F1 score of 0.239. The Gensim python package implementation of TextRank scored at .151. A hand-implemented TextRank algorithm created summaries that scored at 0.144. This article covers the implementation of automated pipelines to read PDF text, the strengths and weakness of automated summarization techniques, and what the successes and failures of these summaries mean for their potential to be used in Hesburgh Libraries
Guest Editorial: Special Issue on Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Data Science, and Libraries
Get PDFICCPR Article 27 as a Basis for Multilingual Library Services: Implications of Treaty Implementation in the US Context
Get PDFIn response to a rapidly diversifying population, American libraries have invested considerable effort in improving collections and services in non-English languages. For the past decade, the American Library Association’s Guidelines for the Development and Promotion of Multilingual Collections and Services and its Guidelines for Library Services to Spanish-Speaking Library Users have represented the aspirations of the professional community to achieve best practices in this area. At the same time, a growing interest in critically aligning librarianship with human rights work has generated rich reflection on the application of the principles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). Largely overlooked in this process, however, has been the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) which, in contrast to the UDHR, is legally binding on states parties and has been ratified by the United States. This article examines the implications of ICCPR Article 27’s guarantees of cultural and language rights for minorities on the provision of non-English library collections and services, arguing that the treaty provides a legal foundation for library advocacy to support the work envisioned in the ALA’s guideline documents
Food Deserts or Food Swamps? Using Geospatial Technologies to Explore Disparities in Food Access in Windsor, Canada
Get PDFAccess to healthy, varied and affordable foods has a great impact on individual dietary patterns and diet-related health outcomes. Consequently, there is an increasing interest in identifying food deserts - areas with poor access to supermarkets or other food retailers that provide a wide range of healthy and affordable food. Using geographic information systems (GIS), this study examines geographic accessibility to both supermarkets and fast food outlets, and explores their relationship with neighbourhood socioeconomic and zoning characteristics to identify food deserts and food swamps in Windsor, Ontario, Canada. The results show that access to supermarkets and fast food outlets varied by neighbourhood-level socioeconomic deprivation in Windsor, with socioeconomically disadvantaged areas having better food access than advantaged areas. Consistent with previous findings in other Canadian cities, this study finds that food swamps were more prevalent than food deserts in Windsor
The Use of Social Media Instagram to Disseminate Sustainable Information
Get PDFSustainable development does not depend only on changing the attitude of companies and government programs and projects, but it is essential that society is also sensitized and mobilized. Information sustainability is not a recent discussion, but it has been intensified in recent years and has become a focal point for scientific discussion. With technological advances, especially in the informational sphere, it is necessary that institutions that deal with information are in tune with their users in different environments. In this context, the use of social media by libraries is essential to relate to their audiences, who are increasingly immersed in digital culture. Currently, Instagram has more than 500 million users worldwide, making it a great informational and virtual engagement tool for library users. In this perspective, the profile @sustentabilidadeinformacional is presented in this study as a model for libraries to be more engaged with global objectives, according to actions developed and promoted by associative movements and library associations