ITAL Information Technology and Libraries (E-Journal)
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OPAC Design Enhancements and Their Effects on Circulation and Resource Sharing within the Library Consortium Environment
Get PDFA longitudinal study of three discrete online public access catalog (OPAC) design enhancements examined the possible effects such changes may have on circulation and resource sharing within the automated library consortium environment. Statistical comparisons were made of both circulation and interlibrary loan (ILL) figures from the year before enhancement to the year after implementation. Data from sixteen libraries covering a seven-year period were studied in order to determine the degree to which patrons may or may not utilize increasingly broader OPAC ILL options over time. Results indicated that while ILL totals increased significantly after each OPAC enhancement, such gains did not result in significant corresponding changes in total circulation
Enterprise Digital Asset Management System Pilot: Lessons Learned
Get PDFEnterprise digital asset management (DAM) systems are beginning to be explored in higher education, but little information about their implementation issues is available. This article describes the University of Michigan’s investigation of managing and retrieving rich media assets in an enterprise DAM system. It includes the background of the pilot project and descriptions of its infrastructure and metadata schema. Two case studies are summarized—one in healthcare education, and one in teacher education and research. Experiences with five significant issues are summarized: privacy, intellectual ownership, digital rights management, uncataloged materials backlog, and user interface and integration with other systems
MetaSearching and Beyond: Implementation Experiences and Advice from an Academic Library
Get PDFIn March 2003 the University of Mississippi Libraries made our MetaSearch tool publicly available. After a year of working with this product and integrating it into the library Web site, a wide variety of libraries interested in our implementation process and experiences began to call. Libraries interested in this product have included consortia, public, and academic libraries in the United States, Mexico, and Europe. This article was written in an effort to share the recommendations and concerns given. Much of the advice is general and could be applied to many of the MetaSearch tools available. Google Scholar and other open Web initiatives that could impact the future of MetaSearching are also discussed
Wikis in Libraries
Get PDFWikis have recently been adopted to support a variety of collaborative activities within libraries. This article and its companion wiki, LibraryWikis (http://librarywikis.pbwiki.com/), seek to document the phenomenon of wikis in libraries. This subject is considered within the framework of computer-supported cooperative work (CSCW). The author identified thirty-three library wikis and developed a classification schema with four categories: (1) collaboration among libraries (45.7 percent); (2) collaboration among library staff (31.4 percent); (3) collaboration among library staff and patrons (14.3 percent); and (4) collaboration among patrons (8.6 percent). Examples of library wikis are presented within the article, as is a discussion for why wikis are primarily utilized within categories I and II and not within categories III and IV. It is clear that wikis have great utility within libraries, and the author urges further application of wikis in libraries
Misinformation and Bias in Metadata Processing: Matching in Large Databases
Get PDFThis article discusses structural, systems, and other types of bias that arise in matching new records to large databases. The focus is databases for bibliographic utilities, but other related database concerns will be discussed. Problems of satisfying a “match” with sufficient flexibility and rigor in an environment of imperfect data are presented, and sources of unintentional variance are discussed
Afghanistan Digital Library Initiative: Revitalizing an Integrated Library System
Get PDFThis paper describes an Afghanistan digital library initiative of building an integrated library system (ILS) for Afghanistan universities and colleges based on open-source software. As one of the goals of the Afghan eQuality Digital Libraries Alliance, the authors applied systems analysis approach, evaluated different open-source ILSs, and customized the selected software to accommodate users’ needs. Improvements include Arabic and Persian language support, user interface changes, call number label printing, and ISBN-13 support. To our knowledge, this ILS is the first at a large academic library running on open-source software
Participatory Networks: The Library As Conversation
Get PDFThe goal of the technology brief is to familiarize library decision-makers with the opportunities and challenges of participatory networks. In order to accomplish this goal the brief is divided into four sections (excluding an overview and a detailed statement of goal):
a conceptual framework for understanding and evaluating participatory networks;
a discussion of key concepts and technologies in participatory networks drawn primarily from Web 2.0 and Library 2.0;
a merging of the conceptual framework with the technological discussion to present a roadmap for library systems development; and
a set of recommendations to foster greater discussion and action on the topic of participatory networks and, more broadly, participatory librarianship.
This summary will highlight the discussions in each of these four topics. For consistency, the section numbers and titles from the full brief are used
The Structure and Form of Folksonomy Tags: The Road to the Public Library Catalog
Get PDFThis article examines the linguistic structure of folksonomy tags collected over a thirty-day period from the daily tag logs of Del.icio.us, Furl, and Technorati. The tags were evaluated against the National Information Standards Organization (NISO) guidelines for the construction of controlled vocabularies. The results indicate that the tags correspond closely to the NISO guidelines pertaining to types of concepts expressed, the predominance of single terms and nouns, and the use of recognized spelling. Problem areas pertain to the inconsistent use of count nouns and the incidence of ambiguous tags in the form of homographs, abbreviations, and acronyms. With the addition of guidelines to the construction of unambiguous tags and links to useful external reference sources, folksonomies could serve as a powerful, flexible tool for increasing the user-friendliness and interactivity of public library catalogs, and also may be useful for encouraging other activities, such as informal online communities of readers and user-driven readers’ advisory services