ITAL Information Technology and Libraries (E-Journal)
Not a member yet
885 research outputs found
Sort by
Bibliographic Displays in Web Catalogs: Does Conformity to Design Guidelines Correlate with User Performance?
Get PDFThe present study investigated whether there is a correlation between user performance and compliance with screen-design guidelines found in the literature. Rather than test individual guidelines and their interactions, the authors took a more holistic approach and tested a compilation of guidelines. Nine bibliographic display formats were scored using a checklist of eighty-six guidelines. Twenty-seven participants completed ninety search tasks using the displays in a simulated Web environment. None of the correlations indicated that user performance was statistically significantly faster with greater conformity to guidelines. In some cases, user performance was actually significantly slower with greater conformity to guidelines. In a supplementary study, a different set of forty-three guidelines and the user performance data from the main study were used. Again, none of the correlations indicated that user performance was statistically significantly faster with greater conformity to guidelines
Academic Web Site Design and Academic Templates: Where Does the Library Fit In?
Get PDFAcademic Web site design continues to evolve as colleges and universities are under increasing pressure to create a Web site that is both hip and professional looking. Many colleges and universities are using templates to unify the look and feel of their Web sites. Where does the library Web site fit into a comprehensive campus design scheme? The library Web site is unique due to the wide range of services and content available. Based on a poster session presented at the Twelfth Annual Association of College and Research Libraries conference in Minneapolis, Minnesota, April 2005, this paper explores the prevalence of university-wide academic templates on library Web sites and discusses factors libraries should consider in the future
Helping the Hacker? Library Information, Security, and Social Engineering
Get PDFSocial engineering is the use of nontechnical means to gain unauthorized access to information or computer systems. While this method is recognized as a major security threat in the computer industry, little has been done to address it in the library field. This is of particular concern because libraries increasingly have access to databases of both proprietary and personal information. This tutorial is designed to increase the awareness of library staff in regard to the issue of social engineering
Digital Collection Management through the Library Catalog
Get PDFDigitization has bestowed upon librarians and archivists of the late 20th and early 21st centuries the opportunity to reexamine how they access their collections. It draws these two traditional groups together with IT specialists in order to collaborate on this new great challenge. In this paper, the authors offer a strategy for adapting a library system to traditional archival practice
Writing Your First Scholarly Article: A Guide for Budding Authors in Librarianship
Get PDFThis series of questions and answers is designed to help you take the first steps toward the successful production of a scholarly article in librarianship. You may find yourself in a library position that requires writing or you may have just decided that you are ready to share your findings, experiences, and knowledge with the current and future generations of librarians. While following the guidelines listed here will not guarantee that you will be successful, these steps will take you closer to discovering the thrill of seeing your name in print and making a difference in the field
Search across Different Media: Numeric Data Sets and Text Files
Get PDFDigital technology encourages the hope of searching across and between different media forms (text, sound, image, numeric data). Topic searches are described in two different media: text files and socioeconomic numeric databases and also for transverse searching, whereby retrieved text is used to find topically related numeric data and vice versa. Direct transverse searching across different media is impossible. Descriptive metadata provide enabling infrastructure, but usually require mappings between different vocabularies and a search-term recommender system. Statistical association techniques and natural-language processing can help. Searches in socioeconomic numeric databases ordinarily require that place and time be specified
Editorial: I Keep My Eyes Wide Open All the Time
No full textEditorial: I Keep My Eyes Wide Open All the Tim
Enriching Traditional Cataloging for Improved Access to Information:Library of Congress Tables of Contents Projects
No full textTraditionally, standard catalog records have provided bibliographic data that mostly address the basic features of library resources. At the same time, catalogs have offered access to these records through a limited array of names, titles, series, subject headings, class numbers, and a relatively small number of keywords contained within descriptions. Today’s catalog users expect access to information well beyond what can be offered by traditional approaches to bibliographic description and access. By pursuing a suite of projects, the Library of Congress (LC) has responded to the challenge of enticing patrons to continue to include the online catalog among the tools they use for information retrieval. Drawing extensively on the power of automation, staff of LC’s Bibliographic Enrichment Advisory Team (BEAT) have created and implemented a variety of initiatives to link researchers, catalogs, and Web resources; increase the content of the catalog record; and link the catalog to electronic resources. BEAT’s ongoing work demonstrates how, in the electronic era, it is possible to provide new and improved ways to capitalize on traditional services in the digital age. This paper will illustrate these points by focusing on BEAT’s tables of contents projects to demonstrate how library automation can make significant bibliographic enhancement efforts quick, easy, and affordable to achieve
Editorial: LITA and ITAL: Forty and Still Counting
Get PDFEditorial: LITA and ITAL: Forty and Still Countin