ITAL Information Technology and Libraries (E-Journal)
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At the Click of a Button: Assessing the User Experience of Open Access Finding Tools
Get PDFA number of browser extension tools have emerged in the past decade aimed at helping information seekers find open versions of scholarly articles when they hit a paywall, including Open Access Button, Lazy Scholar, Kopernio, and Unpaywall. While librarians have written numerous reviews of these products, no one has yet conducted a usability study on these tools. This article details a usability study involving six undergraduate students and six faculty at a large public research university in the United States. Participants were tasked with installing each of the four tools as well as trying them out on three test articles. Both students and faculty tended to favor simple, clean design elements and straightforward functionality that enabled them to use the tools with limited instruction. Participants familiar with other browser extensions gravitated towards tools like Open Access Button, whereas those less experienced with other extensions preferred tools that load automatically, such as Unpaywall
Applying Gamification to the Library Orientation: A Study of Interactive User Experience and Engagement Preferences
Get PDFBy providing an overview of library services as well as the building layout, the library orientation can help newcomers make optimal use of the library. The benefits of this outreach can be curtailed, however, by the significant staffing required to offer in-person tours. One academic library overcame this issue by turning to user experience research and gamification to provide an individualized online library orientation for four specific user groups: undergraduate students, graduate students, faculty, and community members. The library surveyed 167 users to investigate preferences regarding orientation format, as well as likelihood of future library use as a result of the gamified orientation format. Results demonstrated a preference for the gamified experience among undergraduate students as compared to other surveyed groups
Analytics and Privacy: Using Matomo in EBSCO's Discovery Service
Get PDFWhen selecting a web analytics tool, academic libraries have traditionally turned to Google Analytics for data collection to gain insights into the usage of their web properties. As the valuable field of data analytics continues to grow, concerns about user privacy rise as well, especially when discussing a technology giant like Google. In this article, the authors explore the feasibility of using Matomo, a free and open-source software application, for web analytics in their library’s discovery layer. Matomo is a web analytics platform designed around user-privacy assurances. This article details the installation process, makes comparisons between Matomo and Google Analytics, and describes how an open-source analytics platform works within a library-specific application, EBSCO’s Discovery Service
Harnessing the Power of OrCam
Get PDFThe OrCam reader is an AI enabled device that helps sight challenged readers to access print materials. This article is a first person account of a public library's experience in employing the OrCam technology
Near-field Communication (NFC): An Alternative to RFID in Libraries
Get PDFLibraries are the central agencies for the dissemination of knowledge. Every library aspires to provide maximum opportunities to its users and ensure optimum utilization of available resources. Hence, libraries have been seeking technological aids to improve their services. Near-field communication (NFC) is a type of radio-frequency technology that allows electronics devices—such as computers, mobile phones, tags, and others—to exchange information wirelessly across a small distance. The aim of this paper is to explore NFC technology and its applications in modern era. The paper will discuss potential use of NFC in the advancement of traditional library management system
Making Disciplinary Research Audible: The Academic Library as Podcaster
Get PDFAcademic libraries have long consulted with faculty and graduate students on ways to measure the impact of their published research, which now include altmetrics. Podcasting is becoming a more viable method of publicizing academic research to a broad audience. Because individual academic departments may lack the ability to produce podcasts, the library can serve as the most appropriate academic unit to undertake podcast production on behalf of researchers. The article identifies what library staff and equipment are required, describes the process needed to produce and market the published episodes, and offers preliminary assessments of the podcast impact
Intro to Coding Using Python at the Worcester Public Library
Get PDFThe Worcester Public Library (WPL) offers several Digital Learning courses to our adult patrons, and among them is “Intro to Coding Using Python”. This 6-session class teaches basic programming concepts and the vocabulary of software development. It prepares students to take more intensive, college-level classes.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts a bright future for software developers, web developers, and software engineers. WPL is committed to helping patrons increase their “hireability” and we believe our Python class will help patrons break into these lucrative and gratifying professions… or just have fun
Meeting Users Where They Are: Delivering Dynamic Content and Services through a Campus Portal
Get PDFCampus portals are one of the most visible and frequently used online spaces for students, offering one-stop access to key services for learning and academic self-management. This case study reports how instruction librarians at the University of Vermont collaborated with portal developers in the registrar’s office to develop high-impact, point-of-need content for a dedicated “Library” page. This content was then created in LibGuides and published using the Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) for LibGuides boxes. Initial usage data and analytics show that traffic to the libraries’ portal page has been substantially and consistently higher than expected. The next phase for the project will be the creation of customized library content that is responsive to the student’s user profile
Tending to an Overgrown Garden: Weeding and Rebuilding a LibGuides v2 System
Get PDFIn 2019, the Borough of Manhattan Community College’s library undertook a massive cleanup and reconfiguration of the content and guides contained in their LibGuides v2 system, which had been allowed to grow out of control over several years as no one was in charge of its maintenance. This article follows the process from identifying issues, getting departmental buy-in, and doing all of the necessary cleanup work for links and guides. The aim of the project was to make their guides easier for students to use and understand and for librarians to maintain. At the same time, work was done to improve the look and feel of their guides and implement the built-in A-Z database list, both of which are also discussed