ITAL Information Technology and Libraries (E-Journal)
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Library Discovery Products: Discovering User Expectations through Failure Analysis
Get PDFAs the new generation of discovery systems evolve and gain maturity, it is important to continually focus on how users interact with these tools and what areas they find problematic. This study looks at user interactions within SearchWorks, a discovery system developed by Stanford University Libraries, with an emphasis on identifying and analyzing problematic and failed searches. Our findings indicate that users still experience difficulties conducting author and subject searches, could benefit from enhanced support for browsing, and expect their overall search experience to be more closely aligned with that on popular Web destinations. The article also offers practical recommendations pertaining to metadata, functionality, and scope of the search system that could help address some of the most common problems encountered by the users
President's Column: Reflections on LITA's Past and Future
No full textPresident's Column: Reflections on LITA's Past and Futur
Fulfill Your Digital Preservation Goals with a Budget Studio
Get PDFIn order to fulfill digital preservation goals, many institutions use high-end scanners for in-house scanning of historical print and oversize materials. However, high-end scanners’ prices do not fit in many small institutions’ budget. As digital single-lens reflex (DSLR) camera technologies advance and camera prices drop quickly, a budget photography studio can help to achieve institutions’ preservation goals. This paper compares images delivered by a high-end overhead scanner and a consumer level DSLR camera, discusses pros and cons of using each method, demonstrates how to set up a cost efficient shooting studio, and presents a budget estimate for a studio
Accessibility of Vendor-Created Database Tutorials for People with Disabilities
Get PDFMany video, screencast, webinar, or interactive tutorials are created and provided by vendors for use by libraries to instruct users in database searching. This study investigates whether these vendor-created database tutorials are accessible for people with disabilities, to see whether librarians can use these tutorials instead of creating them in-house. Findings on accessibility were mixed. Positive accessibility features and common accessibility problems are described, with recommendations on how to maximize accessibility
Critical Success Factors for Integrated Library System Implementation in Academic Libraries: A Qualitative Study
Get PDFIntegrated library system (ILS) supports the entire business operations of an academic library from acquiring and processing library resources to making them available to user communities and preserving them for future use. As libraries’ needs evolve, there is a pressing demand for libraries to migrate from one generation of ILS to the next. This complex migration process is often the single largest investment in both budget and personnel involvement, but its success is by no means guaranteed. We draw upon enterprise resource planning (ERP) and critical success factors (CSFs) literature to identify the most salient CSFs for ILS migration success through a qualitative study with four cases. We identified that top management involvement, vendor support, user involvement, selection process, project team competence, project management and tracking, interdepartmental communication, data analysis and conversion, user education and training, and user emotion management are the CSFs that determine a migration project success.
Keywords: Integrated library systems, information systems, library automation, critical success factors, and academic libraries
Editorial Board Thoughts: The Importance of Staff Change Management in the Face of the Growing “Cloud”
Get PDFEditorial Board Thoughts: The Importance of Staff Change Management in the Face of the Growing “Cloud
Editorial Board Thoughts: Requiring and Demonstrating Technical Skills for Library Employment
Get PDFEditorial Board Thoughts: Requiring and Demonstrating Technical Skills for Library Employmen
Hitting the Road towards a Greater Digital Destination: Evaluating and Testing DAMS at the University of Houston Libraries
Get PDFSince 2009, tens of thousands of rare and unique items have been made available online for research through the University of Houston Digital Library. Six years later, the Libraries' new digital initiatives call for a more dynamic digital repository infrastructure that is extensible, scalable, and interoperable. The Libraries’ mission and the mandate of its strategic directions drives the pursuit of seamless access and expanded digital collections. To answer the calls for technological change, the Libraries Administration appointed a Digital Asset Management System (DAMS) Implementation Task Force to explore, evaluate, test, recommend, and implement a more robust digital asset management system. This article focuses on the task force’s DAMS selection activities: needs assessment, systems evaluation, and systems testing. The authors also describe the task force’s DAMS recommendation based on the evaluation and testing data analysis, a comparison of the advantages and disadvantages of each system, and system cost. Finally, the authors outline their DAMS implementation strategy comprised of a phased rollout with the following stages: system installation, data migration, and interface development
In the Name of the Name: RDF literals, ER attributes and the potential to rethink the structures and visualizations of catalogs
Get PDFThe aim of this study is to contribute to the field of machine-processable bibliographic data that is suitable for the Semantic Web. We examine the Entity Relationship (ER) model, which has been selected by IFLA as a “conceptual framework” in order to model the FR family (FRBR, FRAD and RDA), and the problems ER causes as we move towards the Semantic Web. Subsequently, while maintaining the semantics of the aforementioned standards but rejecting the ER as a conceptual framework for bibliographic data, this paper builds on the Resource Description Framework (RDF) potential and documents how both the RDF and Linked Data’s rationale can affect the way we model bibliographic data.
In this way, a new approach to bibliographic data emerges where the distinction between description and authorities is obsolete. Instead, the integration of the authorities with descriptive information becomes fundamental so that a network of correlations can be established between the entities and the names by which the entities are known. Naming is a vital issue for human cultures because names are not random sequences of characters or sounds which stand just as identifiers for the entities - they also have socio-cultural meanings and interpretations. Thus, instead of describing indivisible resources, we could describe entities that appear in a variety of names on various resources. In this study, a method is proposed to connect the names with the entities they represent and, in this way, to document the provenance of these names by connecting specific resources with specific names
Identifying Key Steps for Developing Mobile Applications & Mobile Websites for Libraries
Get PDFMobile applications and mobile websites (MAMW) represent information systems that are increasingly being developed by libraries to better serve their patrons. Due to a lack of in-house IT skills and the knowledge necessary to develop MAMW, a majority of libraries are forced to rely on external IT professionals, who may or may not help libraries meet patron needs but instead may deplete libraries’ scarce financial resources. This paper applies a system analysis and design perspective to analyze the experience and advice shared by librarians and IT professionals engaged in developing MAMW. This paper identifies key steps and precautions to take while developing MAMW for libraries. It also advises library and information science (LIS) graduate programs to equip their students with the specific skills and knowledge needed to develop and implement MAMW