ACRl/NEC ITIG program on new technologies, 12-9-05, report

On Friday, December 9, 2005, I attended the Association of College and Research Libraries/New England Chapter, Information Technology Interest Group’s program on "Communication & Collaboration: Blogs, Wikis, and RSS Feeds" at Bryant University.

The program consisted of two speakers.

Megan Fox, Web and Electronic Resources Librarian at Simmons College http://web.simmons.edu/~fox/, was the first speaker. Megan, who is an engaging and interesting speaker, gave a whirlwind overview of new technologies in libraries, i.e. new tools and how libraries are using/can use them.

She began with new handheld devices: computer notebooks; PDAs; Ebook readers; tablet PCs; smart phones; gaming devices; smart watches; IPODs, etc.

 Palm: the company is struggling in today’s competitive market. Megan mentioned the “life drive,” for everything: music, pictures, chat, email, etc.
 Smart phones: Nokia cell phone most popular example; includes calendar; mps player, etc.
 Blackberries: full-fledged phone; designed to augment but not to replace a PC.
 Ultra-personal computer: all-in-one device with drop-down keyboard (so the keyboard is only exposed when needed).

Library uses for handhelds:
• Good for content that changes often or that needs to be referenced quickly, i.e. library hours; call numbers; ebooks. ILS vendors are marketing mobile online catalogs for small screens (Innovative’s is the AirPAC).
• Reference on the go: dictionaries, encyclopedias, health textbooks: download to a pda or smartphone.
• Subscription content: both book content and subscription journals; databases are being formatted for the small screen; this is driven by the professional markets, i.e. medical.
• Point-of-need search.
• Use for instant feedback during library instruction sessions; students with specially-equipped pdas could click a button indicating if they are following the presentation; could be useful for students who would not be confident enough to admit in the class that they need further explanation.
• Library staff services on the go: barcode attachment to simplify repetitive tasks; provide instant checkout; etc.

Megan next discussed blogs or weblogs, which are searchable; updated automatically (no need to wait for a third-person or webmaster to update); are easy to organize and keep up-to-date. Blogs are good for current information because they are updated immediately after each posting. Some libraries are using them to manage both internal and external communication (our library has a public blog at http://phillipsmemoriallibrary.blogspot.com/
She demonstrated several library blogs including RWU’s (I didn’t catch the URL).
RSS feeds, “really simple syndication” or “rich site summaries”. The feeds are a wonderful way to organize and keep track of multiple blogs, without the need to look at each blog individually. One subscribes to the feed for a blog; then the RSS aggregator service indicates whenever there’s a new post to the subscribed blog. The subscriber can see at a glance which blogs he or she needs to go to since there are new postings. This is one way to decrease the amount of e-mail one receives. (I subscribe to this via http://www.bloglines.com/) The Kansas City Public Library provides an RSS feed for every subject guide they produce; folks can keep track of when the guides are updated (I wonder if we could do this for our Find your way guides?)

Personalized RSS: “Library elf” is a free web resource which can be set up by the patron to manage all library accounts, from disparate libraries. A family could, for instance, add everyone’s library accounts and keep track of notices, overdues, etc., all in one place.

Podcasting is syndicated web audio (not text) content. Some public libraries are checking ipods out to their patrons with e-books already downloaded. This technology also can be used to enhance course assignments, etc.

Wikis are collaborative web tools which differ from blogs in that wikis include a much larger group with full editing rights, even the right to edit what someone else has written. It is easily possible to revert to a previous version, though. UConn uses a library staff wiki for staff documents and files (example of student procedures manual).

Instant messaging/chat: Live, real-time communication. The millennial generation uses IM or text-messaging far more frequently than they use e-mail. Megan mentioned that librarians must let go of perfection in order to use IM; messages can’t be too long; it isn’t important to check for good grammar, punctuation, spelling, etc. The reference librarians at Providence College are using Trillian to provide chat reference service; it has been very popular since we implemented it in September of 2005.

Smartphone services: Example of Montclair State University’s “Campus Connect”: students can get registration information; details about upcoming events; can check if a classroom is available for use; can track the location of the campus shuttle bus, etc, all from their cell phones (must be a smartphone).

Social software: Folksonomie: how regular folks, not librarians, classify information. How to tag data so that “real” users can find it? Example of photo of new books: click on the photo to go to the catalog record for that book; also bookmarks that normally reside only on an individual’s computer: could put on a remote web server in order to let others use what the person’s done (including the changes he or she made to the name of the web site). For example, instead of “Welcome to the AAA site”, the user might use “Travel directions.” Those changes are useful to others.


Submitted by Janice Schuster, 12-12-05

ACRl/NEC ITIG program on RFIDs, 10-28-05, report

On Friday, October 28, 2005, Paul Bazin and Janice Schuster attended the Association of College and Research Libraries/New England Chapter, Information Technology Interest Group’s program on Radio Frequency ID technology at the University of Massachusetts-Boston. Jim Salisbury spoke at this program about PC’s experiences with RFID. Janice, Paul, and Jim wrote this report collaboratively.

The program consisted of three speakers: Jim Salisbury was one of the speakers, as Janice mentioned at our staff meeting this week.

Mark Shughart of 3M Library Systems was the first speaker. He gave an overview of RFID technology and its uses in libraries and beyond. RFID is used in the physical world for item identification, tracking, and management (as opposed to the virtual world of digital information) An RFID system consists of a database of items (the library catalog); tags that are placed inside each book that relate that book to its record in the catalog; hardware that is used to read the tags; and software programmed to recognize the tags and relate them to the corresponding record in the catalog. RFIDs enable:
easy self and staff check in/out; automated sorting and materials handling (Mark mentioned libraries with self check-in where the patron checks in the materials and the system indicates which colored chute to place the book in); interlibrary item tracking using the scanner; smart shelf management and inventory control (Jim mentioned this yesterday at the staff meeting as one use that PC is making of this technology); security; and patron authentication. Currently 8% of libraries have RFID; global growth is projected at 30% per year through 2006. The reasons libraries are implementing RFID include: the ability to provide higher-quality customer service; faster performance of circulation and inventory operations; improved ergonomics (don’t need to open the book/item to check in or out); it’s simple and easy-to-use with consistent handling of all media types. There are also reasons libraries are NOT implementing RFID, including: they don’t perceive a need for it; don’t see the value of it; can’t handle the conversion; it’s too expensive, especially the tags ($0.55-$0.75 per tag, but the return on investment is the savings in time and the heightened knowledge of what’s in the collection); concern about limitations of RFID, that it’s a fad. RFID limitations include: the tags are visible (the tattle-tape for the security system remains invisible); some interference from metallic material in book covers, CDs, and DVDs); the tags are relatively easy to shield or peel off; and the tags are more expensive than barcodes. Mr. Shughart’s suggested roadmap for RFID success: Start with your goals: what do you want RFID to do for you? Ask yourself what has the library done in the past 5 years and what are our plans for the next 5 years? Clarify your priorities around the RFID limitations; for example, if security if a huge concern, as with very valuable or rare collections, then RFID might not be the right thing. Conduct return-on-investment analysis to measure the value RFID will deliver to your library. Assess your technology style and resources (level of staff, do you have an automated system?) Consider your ILL partners: who do you share with? What system do they use? Plan for the conversion process: estimate how long it will take. Prepare your organization for change (consider other changes that are taking place. Will there be multiple changes at once? Might be too much change at once. Choosing a vendor: Mark suggested that we educate ourselves about the range of RFID products and features available; look for money-back guarantees; ensure products comply with safety and regulatory requirements (example of electrical codes); determine how committed the vendor is to libraries; consider the future. What is RFID?: At its simplest, RFID replaces a barcode with a tag that has an antenna and an integrated circuit. An RFID system consists of: A tag or marker which can be attached to or concealed within a library item; hardware; software; and an interface to a database which maintains the item information (the library catalog in our case). There are different types of systems and tags; some with a low shelf-life (Wal-Mart example) and some with longer shelf-life (libraries). RFID technology benefits: don’t need to be able to see the barcode; tags can hold additional data; tags can be updated/re-written (if change library systems, etc.); multiple tags may be processed simultaneously. Where is RFID going in next few years? Standardization needs to be done by libraries (ALA is starting to work on it); lower price; more memory; better performance; more applications. New features and applications coming in future: more tag memory; more variety in tag size, shape, memory capacity; more applications (i.e. use for keeping track of furniture, etc); vendor dependent. Mark spent the last few minutes of his session going over various 3M RFID products, such as tags, conversion stations, detection systems, circulation workstations, inventory equipment, etc.

Patrick Dillon, Reference Librarian, University of Massachusetts Boston, discussed the privacy implications of RFID. He stated that privacy today is not so much an issue for libraries as it is for private companies that choose to gather significant amounts of information. He stated that one of the problems with library tags is that they cannot be turned-off whereas as those used in commercial applications can be. However, the amount of date gathered by libraries is very limited although the potential for capturing information is not. Patrick used the example of placing wireless readers in various location in a library to monitor patron movement as a potential violation of privacy. As the technology evolves and greater use is made of the tags the potential for abuse increases. The tags are getting smaller, some no larger than a grain of sand and are getting more powerful and smarter.

To date the primary challenge to RFI has been a lack of consistent standards. He referenced a 1973 HEW report that recommended the following:

There be no personal- data, record keeping systems whose very existence is a secret.

There must be a way for a person to find out what information about the person is in a record and how it is used.

There must be a way for a person to prevent information about the person that was obtained for one purpose from being used or made available for other purposes without the person’s consent.

There must be a way for a person to correct or amend a record of identifiable information about the person.

Any organization creating, maintaining, using or disseminating records of identifiable personal data must assure the reliability of the data for their intended use and must take reasonable precautions to prevent misuse of the data.

He also noted a proposed RFID Bill of Rights by Simpson Garfield a leader in the field. Simpson has been quoted as:

Users of RFID systems and purchasers of products containing RFID tags have:

The right to know if a product contains an RFID tag.

The right to have an embedded RFID tag removed, deactivated, or destroyed when a product is purchased.


The right to first class RFID alternatives: consumers should not lose other rights (e.g. the right to return a product or to travel a particular road) if they decide to opt-out of RFID or exercise and RFID tag’s kill feature.

The right to know what information is stored inside their RFID tags. If this information is incorrect, there must be some ways to correct or amend it.

The right to know when, where and why an RFID tag is being read.

It is an industry that is beginning to grow out of its infancy. However, global standards need to be developed standards and privacy concerns addressed. The technology represents exciting opportunities as it moves forward.


Jim Salisbury was the last speaker of the day. Jim began his session with a bit of background: he was hired as access services librarian here at Providence College in the summer of 2001, during the library’s inventory project. We learned from that process that physical inventory is dirty and takes longer than expected (11 months in our case). The inventory identified fewer than 1% of the collection as missing or unidentified. RFID arrived at PC shortly thereafter when the library director told Jim that he would be in charge of the conversion project for the library. Jim mentioned problems with the conversion: the books had up to 6 different old security detection devices; we decided to physically remove the existing strips from each book, since our sources (3M, etc.) weren’t sure whether the existing strips would conflict with the new RFID system. We ended up tattle-taping and RFID-ing all of the books at the same time, which was very time-consuming. Staff, etc. All library staff were involved in the conversion, including student workers. We rented a 611 workstation, but some of our aisles were too narrow for the machine to fit, so we had to bring some of the items to a central location for processing. In the first month of the project, (May of 2002), we completed 1000 volumes.


Jim developed a process to maximize efficiency:

 Pulled books from the shelf
 Lined books on a cart
 Removed the existing security tags from each book
 Tattle-taped and RFID-ed simultaneously

With this process, we were able to process approx. 800 books per hour. The entire conversion process took 6 months. Due to library renovations, shifting of the collection, and the RFID project occurring at the same time, there was only a small amount of chaos!

Jim found that staff increased accuracy as they learned the best way to read the tags. Results: As mentioned above, after the inventory was finished in 2002, we identified 1% of approx. 300,000 volumes which were missing or unidentified. After the RFID project, when the circ staff performed inventory with the new system in May of 2005, there were only 262 items unaccounted for, out of approx. 350,000 books, or 0.075% of the collection. We previously had done only one physical inventory of the collection. Now, we do a complete inventory of the collection 3 times per year. Jim mentioned the sense of community which developed among the staff as a result of the conversion process.

After his presentation, Jim fielded approx. 15 questions from the attendees covering topics such as:

 How are new books currently processed by cataloging? (We still use barcodes due to HELIN consortium; cataloging staff put the tattle-tape in the new books; circulation staff insert the RFID tag)
 Do we have self check-out? (No, PC emphasizes personal contact)
 Do the student i.d. cards have RFID tags? (No; Mark from 3M commented that such a practice is not endorsed by ALA)
 How did users respond? (Most were either curious or suspicious; faculty were more suspicious than others)
 Has it cut down on theft? (Not much to begin with; “Catholic guilt”!)
 How do we locate a book that’s misplaced? (We scan in the section where the book is supposed to be. The scanner tells if a book is out of order; makes it easy to find misshelved items.)
 Why did we decide to remove all of the existing security strips? (Jim asked about the effect on the tags; the University of Nevada at Las Vegas, the first library in the country to implement the 3M system, recommended removing the old strips. Jim wanted to err on the side of caution, so he decided to remove all of them).
 Compatibility with other ILS systems? (Mark from 3M mentioned that the tags are re-writeable; Jim said that PC is the only library in HELIN to have RFID, which is why we decided to continue with barcodes).

Submitted by Janice Schuster, Paul Bazin, and Jim Salisbury, 11-3-05

NELA conference report 10-18-05

On Tuesday, October 18, 2005, I attended the New England Library Association conference at the DCU center in Worcester, MA.

The first session I attended was “E-resource management systems: from vision to reality”, presented by Ivy Anderson from Harvard University Library and Ellen Finnie Duranceau of MIT Library. The Digital Library Federation Electronic Resource Management Initiative (DLF ERMI) is a project to develop standards and best practices for electronic resource management in libraries. Ms. Anderson provided an overview of the project, and Ms. Duranceau described her library’s experience in working as a co-developing partner and the process of evaluating whether to implement an e-resource management system based on DLF standards.

I missed the first part of the session (Ms. Anderson’s part), and I must admit that I was a bit lost during Ms. Duranceau’s portion (I arrived after she had begun). She mentioned the Verde system from ExLibris; it sounded like they were involved in the testing of Verde. Their previous system was called Vera; I’m not sure what that was. She mentioned the key features of the co-development process, that MIT had an impact more on what the system could do then on how it looks. ExLibris listened to the MIT librarians’s feedback and adjusted their design based on the feedback.

Verde takes a knowledge-based approach with no public end-user interface. The Vera system that MIT used previously did have an end-user interface. Ms. Duranceau felt that if they were to replace it, that it would need to be with something better than Vera, not just something that was as good as it. They formed a committee to investigate how to deliver e-resources information without a system that offers a front-end (i.e. without a public end-user interface). The committee presented 2 options to the library administration:

• Build integrated custom user-interface using ExLibris’s MetaLib Xserver
• Implement Verde as is, without an end-user interface, but use the various functions to point to the OPAC, SFX, MetaLib, etc. (again I must admit that I’m not too sure what this means!)

ERM systems are not just an issue for large academic libraries; all libraries need to re-think how they offer their content to users.


Next I attended a session on “Generate great results with great meetings.” Dee Kelsey is the co-author of Great meetings! Great results and is a professional trainer and facilitator. She distributed a very useful handout which corresponded to her interactive session. The first part covered stopping meetings before they start or assessing the need for a meeting: Do we need interactive communication (to discuss ideas; to develop group ownership of a problem and its solution or group commitment to an idea, goal, or project; or to make recommendations or decisions)? If the answer is yes, then we need to decide how to meet (face-to-face; phone or video conference) and to design the meeting (define its purpose; decide on desired outcomes; determine agenda). If the answer is no, then decide what do we need? (delivery of information; training; boost to team morale), and choose the right action (send memo or e-mail; schedule training; have a team-building event (social, etc.)

We broke into groups and discussed 2 case studies, then reported back to the large group. Common themes were: be careful of making a decision and then getting input (i.e. having a meeting after something has already been decided and making it look like you’re asking for input when really the decision will not be changed); meetings must involve interaction and discussion, otherwise they are not meetings; use memos/email to communicate information and then have a follow-up meeting to answer questions, discuss, etc.

Ms. Kelsey talked about know what train you’re on and where it’s headed or agenda planning next. Always ask what the purpose of a meeting is. Why are we having the meeting? Is a meeting the best way to accomplish the purpose? Also ask what the desired outcome is: What tangible products (e.g. lists, decisions, etc.) do you wish to have at the end of the meeting? Elements of a good agenda:

Sections (timed): Topic/Content Method/Tool Who

Opening Introductions How you will Who’s
Review purpose, outcomes, do each section? in
agenda, roles, rules, time charge
frame of each section?
Set up a “parking lot” (to record ideas that don’t fit the current meeting’s agenda; example of someone wanting to talk about the dress code when the meeting is about employee benefits; those ideas will be discussed, just not at the current meeting (i.e. not a trash can)


Task Work to be done
Sequence it logically
Generate ideas/vision
Narrow/evaluate
Make decision

Closing Review decisions
Acknowledge accomplishments
Identify next steps
Evaluate meeting

Always have a Next steps section, including: What needs to be done; who will do it; and by when.

The last section covered keeping meetings on track. Steps to prevent meetings from going off track: Get agreement on a clearly-stated purpose statement, desired outcomes and agenda, including time frame; establish specific ground rules about the boundaries of the discussion and behaviors that will help keep the meeting on track; set up a “parking lot” to put ideas, concerns, etc., that don’t fit in the current meeting or portion of the meeting. Getting the meeting back on track: If someone is rambling or is off the topic: listen carefully in order to understand the person’s key point(s). Then interrupt the person using his/her name and summarize the person’s key point and check to make sure you have it right “Jed, am I right that you are concerned about the impact of the homeless situation on our library’s functioning?” Ask for clarity about how this relates to the topic or current section of the agenda. Lean on the time frame “That would be great to talk about, but we only have 5 more minutes; could we put that in the parking lot to talk about another time?” Go back to the person who was originally speaking and summarize where he/she was: “Thank you, Jed. Now, Lydia, you were talking about the budge.” This pulls people back to the agenda.

Remember that whether you are the facilitator, leader, or a participant, treat each person with respect. Assume they have a valuable contribution to make. Be aware that some people are more articulate and succinct than others.

The luncheon speaker was Stewart O’Nan, who, with Stephen King, wrote Faithful: two diehard Red Sox fans chronicle the 2004 season. He was a delightful speaker. He grew up in Pittsburgh, across the street from the Carnegie Library. In those early days, the library became the place where he goes to find out about what he doesn’t know. For example, he told his local librarian that he was writing a book on the Hartford circus fire of the 1940’s: he needed information about Hartford, circuses, fires, etc. He read an excerpt from his most recent novel, The good wife, then he answered quite a few questions from the audience, including:
• What is his relationship with Stephen King: SK writes very quickly and clearly; Mr. O’Nan writes more slowly and needs more revisions.
• What is his relationship with his editor? Both he and the editor wanted the Red Sox book to be as succinct as possible.
• Is there a new curse on the Red Sox due to Curt Schilling’s support of George Bush? Schilling’s problem was that he would not sit on the bench long enough to get completely well.
• What is his writing style? He likes to read all kinds of different books, so he likes to write in various genres as well. He knows his writing is going well when something unexpected happens: he goes further with a character than he intended, etc.
• What is the solution to the Edgar Renteria problem? Make him a second baseman and add someone else to play shortstop.

The final program I attended was sponsored by the Information Technology Section of NELA and was a question and answer session on technology issues led by Rick Taplin of the MA Minuteman Library Network; Rick Levine from Central MA Regional Library System, and Laurie Welling from Assumption College. The questions asked and answered included:

 problems with virus protection software (McAfee)
 databases not working properly with the Firefox browser but working fine using Internet Explorer
 problems with Gateway computers
 how to “lock down” computers to access only designated web sites?
 policies on use of flash drives?
 wireless networks

I asked if they had any idea how to solve the problem we’ve been having with main level back printer, that it does not pull from tray 3 (bottom tray) when tray 2 (top one) is empty. They suggested it might be the drivers installed on the computers (which is similar to what the printer technician told me a few weeks ago). The suggested that we install the Jet Direct Management software, included on the original installation c.d. for the printers, which will allow us to easily see the drivers that are installed on the computers. Jim, Beatrice, Connie, and Ed: Let’s talk about this.

Submitted by Janice Schuster, 10-20-05

Conference report, Dartmouth conference 10-7-05

On Friday, Oct. 7, 2005, I attended the October Conference sponsored by the Dartmouth Biomedical Libraries, held at Dartmouth College.

Susan Fliss, director of education and outreach at the Dartmouth College library, presented the first morning session, “Strategies for librarians in cross-campus collaboration. She discussed the goals of collaboration, including showcasing the library’s resources; working with faculty in order to become partners in the education process; publicizing the library’s services. Collaboration is about learning and teaching, students and faculty; librarians’s role as both participants in and supporters of the teaching process. She gave an example of cross-campus collaboration at Dartmouth College: a faculty member teaching first-year English gave her students an assignment that spanned both fall and spring semesters. During the fall semester, the students produced a written term paper; in the spring semester, they produced a multimedia presentation based on the term paper. The librarians were integral to the entire process, guiding the students to proper resources for both assignments. The librarians stressed that they needed to determine what the goal was for the collaboration. The faculty member, Stephanie Boone, said she had grown tired of research papers that were very “high school”, and she wanted to involve someone else in the assignment. She invited the librarian to collaborate; they designed the research exercise together. Both Dr. Boone and the librarian were present in the classroom.

Susan showed a video clip about another cross-campus collaboration between the IT department and the library at UMass-Amherst. The librarian and the IT rep both went to a workshop on collaboration out of state. Before the workshop, the librarian was not aware that there is a separate academic computing department. They started “cookie chats”: casual discussions with food, no agenda, just folks gathering to chat. They mentioned that the chats helped to develop relationships with each other which help tremendously when there are issues or problems that need to be addressed.

Challenges of collaboration include: recognizing how we might get in the way of collaboration and how the other person might. We need to be open about our style: do we need to think about a response/decision or do we prefer to act quickly? We need to think about how we give and receive constructive criticism. “It’s not about the library; it’s about the students.”

Strategies include: identify needs which might be solved through collaboration; potential partners. Articulate goals, outcomes, solutions, and plans. Recognize challenges and roadblocks. Evaluate and re-evaluate.

Martin Kesselman, life sciences librarian at Rutgers University, spoke next on “Opportunities, connections, and synergy: virtual and live collaborations of librarians, students, departments, and industry. He mentioned that collaboration presents more opportunities for funding. He collaborated with the faculty of Cook College at Rutgers in applying for and receiving a USDA Higher Education challenge grant. They created an interdisciplinary course “Food and nutrition business informatics and communication.” The course includes a “virtual collaborative learning laboratory” which included library resources. Connections for students included: created participatory learning communities; cross-fertilization via collaborative work; virtual internships: active learning experience with companies. Mr. Kesselman mentioned some collaboration issues: individual is less important than the team; need for common understanding; keep administrators in the loop; stay on track, make sure everyone is on the same page; look for ways to promote your collaboration and how your collaboration can lead to other partnerships and/or serve as a model for others.


The final morning session was a team presentation by Catherine Crohan, coordinator of library instruction, and Dennis Tamburello, O.F.M., professor of Religious Studies and college core coordinator, both at Siena College in New York, who spoke on “Creating an information literacy plan for first-year students: librarians and students collaborate.” They discussed the “foundations sequence” at Siena: 2-semester course required of all first-year students: writing intensive; small classes; build learning community. The librarians participate in the foundations sequence, to the extent that Ms. Crohan actually taught in the sequence (not just the library portion). The librarians were invited to attend the required “training” session that the faculty participate in; Ms. Crohan stressed that we need to “invite ourselves” if we’re not invited by the leaders to meetings/sessions such as the training session. All faculty teaching in foundations are required to follow certain policies, including “The information literacy plan for foundations.” The key question that the plan tries to answer is “What information literacy skills do we want to focus on during the first and second semesters?” The plan includes focusing on the following skills in the fall semester:

1. How to find things
2. Evaluating the quality of sources
3. Understanding the basics of academic integrity
4. Constructing a bibliography

In the spring semester:
1. Writing a paper that involves significant library research
2. Critical review of sources

The key is that the librarians and the teaching faculty developed this plan and the Foundations faculty is required to follow it.

After lunch, Kathryn Soule, coordinator of outreach and public service at the University of Virginia, presented “Service with a byte: building a new model of customer service.” Library patrons do not necessarily distinguish between questions which should be directed to the library (informational) and those which should be handled by IT (technological). They identified this as a problem at UVA, and a committee was formed to come up with solutions. The science and engineering library and the university’s IT division collaborated to combine their respective service/help desks into a single entity, providing a unified service desk that allows library users to easily obtain assistance with circulation, reference, and computer questions. They did this as a pilot project in the fall of 2004. They cross-trained the student workers to be interchangeable among the various service points. Lessons learned included: different organization culture between IT and the library (library student workers were required to find replacements for their shifts if they couldn’t work; IT students didn’t have that expectation, etc.); they did too much training (3 days, too much according to Ms. Soule); they were too ambitious at the beginning (need to be realistic about goals).

The next afternoon speaker was Scott Walter, assistant dean of libraries for information and instructional services at the University of Kansas; he spoke on “Collaborative planning for collaborative learning: designing and promoting new learning spaces on campus.” In the spring of 2004, the University of Kansas libraries joined with representatives of the Center for Teaching Excellence, Instructional Development and Support, and others, to design a new learning space on campus, to be dedicated to supporting collaborative teaching and learning in a technology-rich environment. A working group was formed to evaluate the needs of faculty and students for learning spaces that bring together print and electronic resources with learning tools that assist in collaborative learning. They wanted to move beyond the existing model of computer labs and group study areas. Their recommendations included: Layout (includes areas for formal instruction; informal study; independent inquiry, and group work. Furnishings (easily reconfigured); Equipment (wired and wireless workstations; whiteboard; software for collaborative work and shared access to information); Support structure for “one-stop shopping.” After the collaborative learning environment was implemented in August of 2004, they noticed patterns of use: academic coursework; student organizations; and IT training. Lessons learned: Involve all campus stakeholders from the beginning; build the case for change as part of broader discussions, i.e. effective teaching; learner-centered instruction; characteristics of “net generation” students; commit to faculty development.

The final speaker of the day was Susan Herzog, information literacy librarian at Eastern Connecticut State University: “Plagiarism: key to collaboration.” Many people on campus are natural allies with the library in educating students about plagiarism: English faculty; Writing Center faculty; judicial officer; Center for Teaching Excellence, etc. Ms. Herzog described several potential models of collaboration: director of the writing center and information specialist at faculty retreat; English department faculty and information literacy librarian at faculty development day; English department faculty, judicial officer, and information literacy librarian at faculty development day; English and History department faculty, judicial officers, and information literacy librarians from multiple campuses at regional faculty development day; English department faculty member from another campus, expert on plagiarism and faculty culture, and information literacy library at regional faculty development day. Challenges: faculty reluctance to confront plagiarism (fear of confrontation, etc.); if you become the resident expert, expect many faculty phone calls and drop-ins; requests to find proof; and requests for the perfect detection software (which doesn’t exist).

Submitted by Janice Schuster, 10/11/05

Time management for information professionals: workshop report

NOTE: I used bold, italics, and underline in my Word document of this report to make it easier to read; unfortunately, when I copied and pasted the report to my blog, those niceties were lost. I don't know how to maintain them in the blog short of adding them back in manually. I will share my Word document if anyone wants it.


On Saturday, June 11, 2005, I attended an excellent workshop on “Time management for information professionals,” at the new One Palace Road building at Simmons College in Boston. The instructor was Pamela Kristan, author of The spirit of getting organized: 12 skills to find meaning and power in your stuff. There were 5 participants including me. I have handouts if anyone is interested in them.

The workshop began with each of us explaining a little about ourselves: one of the participants is a paralegal who must bill her work in 6 minute increments; one was a law librarian serving many attorneys in a large Boston law firm; one was a librarian/manager responsible for many different areas; and the last participant works for a corporate library.

Common time management problems among all of the participants included: too much e-mail; fishbowl office or cubicle; frequent interruptions throughout the day; know we need to delegate but don’t know the best way to do it; priority tasks are pushed aside by special requests; consistently have to stay late in order to finish (although we never really feel finished); procrastination; desk messy/can’t find things; filing piles up/can’t find what we need.

The instructor began with the idea that making choices=time management. She suggested the first of several themes: Pause button concept: treat interruptions like the pause button on a VCR: when you’re interrupted, make a mental picture of what you were doing at the time of the interruption so that you can go back to where you were. She suggested using a sticky note to write down a reminder; an example for me might be to write down that I was thinking about where to find the policy I drafted last year on usage of the public computers, so that after the interruption, I can go back to what I was thinking about before the interruption.

Brief history of time management: Previously people lived in accordance with nature; they could do certain things during the day but not at night because of the darkness. With the advent of fire and later lights, people could do things at night that they previously could not. The Industrial Revolution in the 19th century had folks working in factories in artificial light, doing work in pieces instead of creating the entire product. Our modern time management problems began with the advent of electronics: computers, Internet access, e-mail, etc. In the not-too-distant past (several decades ago), the normal turnaround time for a response to business communication was approximately 10 days. Now, when we send an e-mail message, we expect an immediate response; the same is true of our colleagues sending us messages: they expect a response within a few hours at the most instead of 10 days. We are now way beyond being able to keep up. It is no longer possible to keep up with all of the demands placed upon us every day by technology. We need to divorce ourselves from the unrealistic expectations engendered by machines. The instructor referred to this as the escalation of expectation: we must break the cycle of expecting an immediate response and be able to bear the consequences.

It is impossible to do it all: electronics have made us more aware of the possibilities: “Since I know about it, I should be able to do it.” But it is literally impossible to do everything we hear of, that we’d like to do, that’s good for us, or that others expect of us.

We are constantly making choices, but we don’t necessarily know the reasons behind the choices. We need to learn to make choices consciously and bear the consequences of the choices. The purpose of this class is to give us the tools to be able to make the necessary choices and to develop the skills necessary to put it into practice.

We discussed the 80/20 rule: in any collection of items, 80% of significance of entire collection is in 20% of the items. Our job is to extract the 20% and concentrate on that. It’s possible to learn to figure out what the 20% is in less time. We do many things every day that are not important: that’s okay to a certain extent, but we should realize it and should not invest a lot of time or energy into the things that are not important.

The instructor mentioned developing the observer: observe what’s going on; don’t make value judgments, just observe. From the instructor’s handout: “Your inner observer furnishes data to support your choices. It notices not only what’s happening, but also how you feel about it…” This involves both/and: staying in touch with your internal rhythm while being attuned to others.

Time management profile: Reflect our preferences for operating within our given time.

(From the instructor’s handout):
Do you like to: Start projects from scratch? Finish things; get them off your desk? Keep things humming along?

When working on a complex project, do you: Figure out what to do first, what to do next, etc., and then do the steps in order? Dive into the middle and work your way around it?

When doing a task you like, do you prefer to work in: Long stretches of time, without breaks or changing tasks? Short segments of time, taking breaks and/or changing tasks frequently?

When your energy is fading, do you: Seek out other people for a chat, visit, or phone call? Retreat into your “cave”?

When is/are your peak time(s)?

When is/are your slow time(s)?

We discussed that certain tasks require a certain type of time management profile and that your strength is also your weakness. Pam recommended that we identify our profile/pattern, use it when appropriate, and learn how to do things differently when appropriate. One of the participants mentioned that she knows she needs to change some things, specifically she needs to re-organize her work area, but she doesn’t want to take time out from her tasks to do it. But it’s impossible to do everything anyway, so it makes sense to spend 20 minutes or so on something that will organize you better or will help you to work more efficiently, even though it does mean time spent away from your actual tasks (but you can control how much time).

The next concept concerned when a project is bigger than the amount of time you have to devote to it. For example, you have 30 minutes before a meeting and you want to get something done on a big project. Get in, get out concept: set a timer for 20 minutes, then work diligently for those 20 minutes. At the end of the time, close down: look back at what you did, ask yourself what really helped me move forward? Acknowledge to yourself any progress you made, so that you’re not recognizing your accomplishment only when you finish the project (which can be weeks or months in the future). Decide what you need to do next, write it on a sticky note and put it on top of the project’s papers; then put everything away in your “pending projects parking place.” This method gives you a sense of accomplishment for even small progress; gives you the chance to identify the next step and to write it down; and everything is cleared away and organized for the next time you can work on that project.

We discussed the question of controlling interruptions: communication is vital: tell your co-workers when you can be interrupted and when you need time for a project, etc. One idea is to have “stop lights” in front of each office: red (don’t interrupt); yellow (possibly okay to interrupt); and green (okay to interrupt). We in the reference department have tried a modification of this: when an office door is closed, we assume that the person doesn’t want to be interrupted. Use your observer to determine what time of day you are usually interrupted; is there a certain time of day when you are likely to be interrupted? For projects that others give you later in the day, try something like “I’ll need it by 3pm so I might be able to do it before I leave at 5pm.” This is an example of being proactive. Another proactive move is to go to another place temporarily if you need to work uninterrupted.

The issue of communication styles is important: “Some people want just the facts, others want the whole context (details). Some want to know how things affect everyone, others just want results.” (from instructor’s handout). Use your observer to determine the other person’s style, then talk to them using their (not your) style.

Delegating means empowering someone else. Use your observer to determine what project or part of a project can I delegate? Take notes when you’re observing and thinking about this; then take time to look closely at the notes to determining what you need to do yourself and what you can delegate. Identify the right person to delegate to, ask that person if it’s possible to delegate to her/him, then train him or her to do what you need. Again, clear communication is key.

By consensus of the group, we discussed physical space (i.e. desks, etc.) next. We have more stuff than ever before; the 80/20 rule works here. (The example dealt with organizing papers at home, but it could be applied to work as well). People are afraid to tackle big organizing jobs (closets, files, etc.) due to the fear that they won’t be able to stop and that the project will take hours or even days. The key is to set a time limit and stick to it. Set a timer for ¼ to 1/3 less than the total time allotted, to allow time to close down. The first step is to SORT the papers into categories: 1. Spend 10 minutes to straighten up (neater) the piles of papers that need to be organized. 2. Find a pile containing items which are unknown to you (i.e. you don’t know what they are). Take a sample from that pile and base your categories on that sample. 3. Sort “like with like” from sample. Don’t let your associative mind run off: for example, if you find an invitation in the pile, don’t allow yourself to get distracted by calling the person to RSVP; just sort the invitation into the appropriate category and continue sorting. Also, don’t start reading instead of sorting. Pam (the instructor) said she knows when she’s moved from sorting to reading when she removes her glasses. Be aware of cues like that and don’t let yourself get distracted. Allow yourself a category for “don’t know where it belongs.” Ask yourself: how do I use this? and sort accordingly. The next step involves STAGING: after you determine the appropriate categories, ask yourself: where should the stuff go? (from the handout): “Move it along: Move things in the direction they’re headed; …things to file might go on top of the file drawer or in the first folder…data entry next to the computer. Active/archive: Have things you use often close at hand, what you use less often farther away. Things rarely used can be out of sight, even out of the room. Like with like: Put like things together: all the car things, all the financial things, all the unread magazines, etc.” SUSTAINING: Spend as much time as you need to keep the papers organized, but no more. Observe how long/how often you do maintenance tasks and modify accordingly. Pam’s advice regarding work files: alphabetical arrangement might not be best. She prefers functional arrangement instead: grouped by subject regardless of alphabetical order. Organize e-mail folders and printed files using the same categories. SHEDDING: We keep much more stuff than we need, both at work and at home. For work files, decide which ones you really need and organize only those; put the others somewhere else for a set amount of time (year?) and record which files you needed to access during that time. At the end of the year, use the record to decide which files to discard and which to add to the ones you’ve already organized.

Choices: Must say no to other options, in order to be able to choose the one you will go with.

Procrastination: She asked us to imagine our lives if we are no longer procrastinating; what do we give up by not procrastinating? The group came up with a list including: complaining about workload (camaraderie); adrenaline rush when finish something at the last minute (motivation drama); attention (having others ask about the project/task; even though it’s negative attention); what we like; time; guilt (which can perversely contribute to not getting something done); not having to face the outcome (fear of failure); etc. After we discussed the list, Pam mentioned that we can still have the above items but from sources other than procrastination.

E-mail: Practice recognizing the messages you must respond to/do something with; the ones you don’t need to; and the ones you might need to (i.e. yes, no, or maybe). Agree with your colleagues to eliminate e-mail loops: thanking for message, thanking for thanks, etc. Be clear on the criteria for messages which do not require a response; try putting the answer in the subject line: Pam uses NFM (no further message) at the beginning or end of the subject line, so that folks can just look at the subject line and then delete the message (i.e. for a quick answer, etc.) Use many folders in Outlook with the same groupings as your paper files. Use the sorting function of Outlook: sort into now, later, whenever categories; can have messages from certain senders show up in a different color; sometimes helpful to move items from in-box to a temporary holding station until you can assign a priority to the message (keeps the in-box from appearing so cluttered).

HELIN collection development committee unofficial minutes 6/7/05

HELIN COLLECTION DEVELOPMENT COMMITTEE
MINUTES of meeting
Tuesday, June 7, 2005
Roger Williams University

PRESENT:
Committee members: Hope Houston (JWU); Judith Stokes (RIC); David Kaplan (CCRI); Michael Voccino (URI); Deborah Porrazzo (RI Dept. of Health, representing ARIHSL); Joan Bartram (Salve); Dominique Coulombe (Brown); Anne Cerstvik Nolan (Brown); Norman Desmarais (PC); Janice Schuster (PC).
Guest: Paul Bazin (PC)
Representing HELIN: Bob Aspri (HELIN); Tjalda Nauta (RIC)

CALL TO ORDER: The meeting was called to order by Christine Fagan, co-chair.

PRESENTATION BY LIBRARY DYNAMICS: Christine introduced Susan Severtson of Library Dynamics, and the librarians present introduced themselves. Susan gave a power point presentation and a live demonstration of the Spectra CRC product, which was introduced last year. Power point: Library Dynamics was formed in 1998 and currently has one consortium as a client: the Tri-College consortium in Pennsylvania (Bryn Maur; Haverford; and Swarthmore Colleges). There are 3 levels of analysis possible: library wide, intermediate, and precision level. The primary functions of the system are to provide: holdings and usage; title count comparison; percentage overlap; percentage of uniqueness; overlap concentration; gap analysis (which titles do the others have that your library does not have?)

The live demonstration of Spectra CRC showed how the comparisons are color-coded: base library: blue; comparison library: yellow; overlap: pink. It is possible to change the colors, though. The libraries provide the data to LD via FTP (holdings and use data). HELIN would give this information as a group. The comparison information comes from the North American Title Count (NATC). Susan demonstrated importing the information from the analysis to a spreadsheet. Spectra CRC requires client software to be installed. The cost of the system is based on the library’s Carnegie classification which categorizes based on large groupings of FTE. Several librarians asked whether we could have a price quote based on FTE instead of Carnegie classification. Anne mentioned that Brown usually pays more using Carnegie than using FTE. URI, with 14,000 FTE, is in the same Carnegie classification as Brown, with approx. 7,600 FTE. Susan indicated that she would look into it.

Another option, in addition to Spectra CRC, is the NATC program: to compare with members of the NATC. It gives title counts by subject category but gives no usage data and does not compare the collections beyond the established categories. The NATC program does not require client software to be installed.

Susan answered several questions at the end of the demo.

After a brief break, the group reconvened for the business meeting.

APPROVAL OF MINUTES: The minutes of the April 5, 2005, meeting were approved as written.

OLD BUSINESS:
a. Status of Age of Collection Report (HELIN and Brown combined):
Bob had sent the report to all collection development committee members via e-mail on 6/6/05. He showed that the report consists of the categories: SCAT table #; call #; other HELIN institution; and Brown. It is possible to substitute an individual library for the “other HELIN” category in order to compare a specific HELIN library to Brown.

b. Status of “List of Key Considerations for Electronic Resource Purchasing”:
Dominique had e-mailed the group the list prior to the meeting; she and Anne had edited the original list drafted by the birds of a feather group in January of 2005. Dominique and Anne organized the list by categories: needs of user population/selection; access, linking, related usage; license agreements; cost and fees; statistics; maintenance and updates; catalog records; customization. The list was unanimously accepted by the group. Tjalda and Bob will present it to the directors at their 6/17/05 meeting, and Ruth Souto will add it to the HELIN FYI page.

c: Status of Electronic Resources Selection Lists for FY 2005-2006:
Bob discussed the procedure for compiling the spreadsheet; he’s received 4 lists back from libraries. Judith mentioned that some of the trials we had requested as part of the process never appeared as trials. The group discussed whether we should set up those and other trials in September or wait until next calendar year. We agreed to share the databases we are interested in with the group; Bob will activate those trials for the fall of 2005.

d: Status of consortium pricing for the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) and the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA):
All HELIN libraries represented at the meeting subscribe to NEJM in print. There were questions about how online access would affect the price of the print. Bob will get a price quote.

(Judith Stokes from RIC will fill in the rest of the minutes, fyi).




Respectfully submitted,



Janice G. Schuster
Providence College
6/9/05

ACRL/NEC joint program on archiving electronic journals

I attended the ACRL/New England Chapter Serials Librarians Interest Group/Information Technology Interest Group's 2005 Joint Program: “Here today: here tomorrow?: Journal archiving in the electronic environment” last week, June 2, 2005, at the Gutman Conference Center, Harvard University.

This was an information-packed program on a very timely topic. There were 5 speakers; I heard 3 full presentations and one partial one. My report on the 3 full presentations I attended:

Donna Berryman, Outreach Coordinator for the New England Region (NER) of the National Network of Libraries of Medicine (NN/LM), spoke on “PubMed Central (PMC): NLM and NIH looking to the future.” She began with a definition of PMC: NLM’s free digital depository or archive of the biomedical and life science journal literature. http://www.pubmedcentral.gov
When PMC was started in February of 2000, there were 2 journal titles included. Today there are 180 titles covering over 382,000 articles, letters, etc., published in those journals. PMC claims no copyright to the material; the copyright remains with the publisher or author. The entire contents of all of the journals is not included, but there is the minimum requirement that all peer-reviewed, primary research articles must be provided by the publisher. Also, not all of the contents of PMC are in PubMed, due to different scopes for the 2 databases (i.e. PubMed contains book reviews and PMC does not, etc.)
NLM provides digital hosting; enriched linking; free digital copy of content.
They are working on digitizing back issues of the journals to create complete archive of PMC journals. The goal is to bring the collection to users who believe that if something is not online, that it doesn’t exist.
Ms. Berryman concluded by summarizing the value of PMC: It’s a single repository which allows full-text searching of the journals included and supports specialized searching.

The next speaker was Michael Spinella, Executive Director, JSTOR, whose presentation was on “JSTOR and new trends in electronic journal archiving.” He gave a brief history of JSTOR: that it was started in 1995 to digitize the print version of a select list of journals and that the issue of archiving the digitized version was a separate issue from the beginning. He quoted Mark Twain: "Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover."

Mr. Spinella mentioned that JSTOR was born out of a realization that the body of scholarly literature is vast and that there was a need to digitize the print literature. He described the features of an electronic archive: consistent technological standards; cooperation and trust among stakeholders (i.e. publisher, author, archive, etc.); knowledge of legal environment and ability to secure rights to the material; organizational commitment to preservation; financial stability and sustainability; and ability to prepare for change. JSTOR provides all of these features.

In the early days, JSTOR focused on print with one goal of enabling libraries to limit their capital expense and to free up shelf space, as well as to ensure that a digital copy would persist. JSTOR preserves the original print source, too, by keeping 2 print copies of everything that they digitize. They use “3rd-party stewardship” to maintain the 2 copies: they work with both the California Digital Library and with Harvard University to house the archived print copies. In order to preserve “born-digital” content, i.e. those journals which were originally published electronically and have never bee published in print, JSTOR launched the E-archive initiative in 2002.

Eileen Fenton, Executive Director of Portico, spoke next on “JSTOR and new trends in electronic journal archiving. Portico began as the E-archive initiative of JSTOR mentioned by Mr. Spinella at the end of his presentation. She began by asking why should we archive? The answer includes: archiving provides links to scholarly activity which is needed in order to support and further teaching, research, and scholarship. In the past, libraries played the sole archiving role; in the future, publishers will have a greater role to play.

Ms. Fenton defined archiving as: ensuring that a valid, reliable copy of the work exists and is accessible by current technology; it’s ongoing and proactive. It is not file storage management; publishing; re-publishing. Archiving requires: mission (preservation should be a key component of the institution’s mission); economic model; technical infrastructure; content; metadata; standards and formats.

Portico’s mission is to preserve scholarly literature which was published in electronic format (i.e. born-digital). It began with a pilot phase during which the staff sought to understand the technological and economic issues involved in the project. The Portico process of archiving includes: they receive the source file from the publisher; they convert the file to archival format and retain the source file for the long-term; Portico preserves the intellectual content of the journal, including text images, but the “look and feel” of the journal is NOT preserved.

Serials Solutions Article Linker implementation

We have been using Article Linker since January 2005 here at Providence College. I drafted the following recently per a request from another library. I deleted the our AL implementation form and flier to faculty and students to conserve space. I'd be happy to share those; just e-mail me at jschustr@providence.edu


IMPLEMENTATION OF ARTICLE LINKER AT
THE PHILLIPS MEMORIAL LIBRARY AT PROVIDENCE COLLEGE
Spring 2005; Summary drafted by Janice Schuster

Article Linker was implemented by:
Janice Schuster, coordinator of reference services and reference librarian, 401-865-2631, jschustr@providence.edu
Connie Cameron, coordinator of web services and reference librarian
Martha Rice Sanders, catalog librarian

BACKGROUND: We started thinking about Serials Solutions’s Article Linker link resolver system in the fall of 2004. In November of 2004, we met with two librarians from Rhode Island College who explained their implementation and gave us some advice as to how to proceed.

PROFILE FORM: In December of 2004, we completed the AL profile form (attachment 1 below) based upon what we had agreed the AL results screen should look like. We knew that any of our choices could be changed in the future based on librarian and user feedback (and we did end up changing some of it as detailed under Changes below).

NOTIFYING VENDORS: We decided to divide responsibility for notifying our vendors among the three of us. I drafted the document in attachment 2 below, so that all of us would have the information we needed:

PUBLICITY: We sent an announcement about the service to the faculty and student listservs on campus with a flier drafted by Beatrice Pulliam, reference librarian (attachment 3 below). We also offered drop-in sessions to introduce folks to the service (as mentioned on the flier).

ADDED PRINT AND MICROFILM HOLDINGS: We agreed to submit to Serials Solutions our list of print and microfilm holdings, to add to our profile. I created an Excel spreadsheet from the Access database we use for recording our print and microfilm holdings (i.e. I did not retrieve the lists from our Innovative system, the HELIN catalog). IMPORTANT WARNING ABOUT THIS: If you choose to do this, and if your library subscribes to the SS MARC record service (as our consortium does), then make sure that the SS folks set up 2 profiles for you after you add your print and microfilm holdings: one for the MARC records (which DOES NOT include the print and microfilm holdings) and one general one that DOES include the print and microfilm holdings). This is in order to avoid duplication of records for your print and microfilm holdings (which are already in your online catalog) when you load the MARC records from SS.


CHANGES: We have “tweaked” the results screen several times since implementing AL. Changes include:

Changed wording of option 2 to: “Search for this journal title in other HELIN libraries.”
Deleted option 3: “Search by keyword” (which caused option 4: “If no results” to become option 3).
Unlinked print and microfilm collection under “resource” column: When those are not clickable, users will be forced to click on the "Journal" link instead, which takes them into our HELIN online catalog, to the actual record they're searching for. As it stands now, clicking on the print or microfilm link under resource takes one to the searching screen in HELIN, not directly to the appropriate record. We are still working on this.

RESULTS SCREEN: Go to http://0-ea2nv5jh7p.search.serialssolutions.com.helin.uri.edu/?genre=article&title=American%20Biology%20Teacher&atitle=Which%20Scientific%20Method%20Should%20We%20Teach%20%26%20When%3F&author=Bonner%2C%20J%2E%20Jos%E9&authors=Bonner%2C%20J%2E%20Jos%E9&volume=67&issue=5&spage=262&issn=00027685

for an example of our results screen.








Last Updated: 5/26/2004

ATTACHMENT 2: DIVISION OF VENDORS TO NOTIFY (pages 26-30)

Article Linker implementation, division of vendors to notify:

1/13/05

The procedures from Serials Solutions indicate that we will need to give the vendors the following information:

1. Technical contact name and e-mail: Let’s use my name and e-mail (jschustr@providence.edu); I will consult with both of you and with Julia at SS as needed.
2. Base URL: http://ea2nv5jh7p.search.serialssolutions.com/
3. The link text we want to use (see e-mail message about this).
4. Link to the image: http://www.serialssolutions.com/images/AL_Button_big.gif
5. http://www.providence.edu/library/images/AL_Button_big.gif (image hosted on our server)

I’ve indicated below if any of the vendors require additional information. And remember that EBSCO is already implemented (but when we agree on the wording of the link text I’ll ask them if their “Check Article Linker” can be changed).


MARTHA:

SilverPlatter: E-mail to customer support: support@ovid.com
Erin McDonough 800-343-0064 (Social work abstracts)

Elsevier Science: Helpdesk http://www.info.sciencedirect.com/contact.shtml
Kelechi O’Kere 212-462-1907 (ScienceDirect)

Oxford Univ. Press: oed@romnet.com (this looks wrong to me but it’s what’s in our database)
800-334-4249, ext. 6484 (Oxford English dictionary and Dictionary of national biography)

CAS Chemical abstracts service (American Chemical Society):
Gay Schwenning 800.848.6538, x3628
E-Mail: gschwenning@cas.org

(STN, commercial and academic accounts)




CONNIE:

Research Libraries Group: Fill out online form and submit: http://www.rlg.org/openurlform.html
Sharon Vaughn-Lahman, product manager 800-537-7546; 650-691-2276
(Bibliography of the history of art)

MathSciNet: Directions indicate to provide the above information to msn-support@ams.org PLUS and indicate that we want the links activated as soon as possible (i.e. no test links necessary). Lori Sprague, 401-455-4064 if questions.

Emerald Fulltext: support@emeraldinsight.com 617-395-4059 Hilary Olson holson@emeraldinsight.com

ABC-Clio: (America: history and life and Historical abstracts):
-----Original Message-----
From: Serials Web Technical [mailto:SerialsWebTech@abc-clio.com]
Sent: Tuesday, January 11, 2005 12:45 PM
To: lriccite@providence.edu
Cc: Serials Web Technical
Subject: accessing ABC-CLIO admin
As we discussed on the phone, here's how to access the admin module for the ABC-CLIO databases:
First establish a session at http://serials.abc-clio.com and select the "Clio Alert Profile" link on either the Simple or Advanced Search screen.
When prompted for a username/password, the username is administrator
(note that all letters are lowercase)
and the default password is *****
(note that characters 1,3,5 are lowercase, 2,4,6 are uppercase, and 7 is the numeral zero).
Next, select the "Login" button.
From the admin screen make any changes and select the SAVE PROFILE "button" (at the bottom of the Admin form) to return to the search screen.
You will also need to exit from the site in order for changes to take effect (it might also be necessary for your to restart your browser).Best wishes,
Glen Kaltenbrun 800-368-6868

Gale: Kimberly Wilkes, kimberly.wilkes@thomson.com
248-699-4253, ext. 1941 (for the periodical references included in Literature resource center)

JANICE:

JSTOR: E-mail to customer support: jstor-info@umich.edu
Kristen Garlock 1-888-388-3574, 734-998-9101

Institute of physics: Judith.barnsby@iop.org
Max Brigham 215-627-0880 (electronic journals archive 1874-1993 and online promo pack)

ProQuest: G. Curry Whitney: 800-521-0600, ext. 2733 (ABI/Inform global and trade and industry)

Chadwyck-Healey: Susan Richardson, 800-521-0600, ext. 2971 (Patrologia Latina)

CSA: Bruce Daley, 508-315-3357 (ARTBibliographies Modern ERIC (CSA) Linguistics and Language Behavior Abstracts PAIS International Sociological Abstracts Social Services Abstracts; Philosophers index)
Admin module: user name: prov
Pass: *****

FirstSearch: username: ****; pass: ****: Alternative Press Index
Alternative Press Index Archive
ArticleFirst
Arts and Humanities Search
BasicBIOSIS
Biology Digest
Books in Print
Books in Print Full Text
Clase and Periodica
Dissertation Abstracts Online
Electronic Books
GEOBASE
GPO Monthly Catalog
Media Review Digest
PAIS Archive
PapersFirst
ProceedingsFirst
MLA bibliography







-----Original Message-----
From: Janice Schuster [mailto:jschustr@providence.edu]
Sent: Thursday, January 20, 2005 5:42 PM
To: 'Martha Rice sanders'; 'ccameron@postoffice.providence.edu'
Subject: Wilson
Martha and Connie,
FYI: We determined today that Wilson had been left off of our original list dividing up the vendors. So I set up A.L. on Wilson's admin module this afternoon. I'll check it tomorrow to see if it's active.

(Readers guide and Readers guide retrospective)

Janice

________________________________________

ACRL New England Chapter Spring 2005 conference, report

ACRL New England Spring 2005 Conference

“The Future of Academic Libraries”

May 20, 2005, Dion Center, Rivier College, Nashua, New Hampshire

Introductions

Colleen Anderson, president of ACRL/NE, welcomed the attendees and introduced Brian Courtemanche, director of the Rivier College Library, who also welcomed the group. Mr. Courtemanche gave a brief history of Rivier College, which was founded in 1933 by the Sisters of the Presentation of Mary as a co-ed, liberal arts and professional college with undergraduate and graduate programs.

Ms. Anderson then acknowledged the hard work of the planning committee for the conference, under the leadership of Nancy George of Salem State College. She also mentioned the sponsoring vendors and encouraged the group to visit the vendors during the breaks and lunch: Ovid; ProQuest; Ebsco; CAS; Waldo; and H.W. Wilson.

She also mentioned upcoming ACRL events; details are available on the ACRL/NEC website at http://www.acrlnec.org

May 25: Collection development SIG; program on resource assessment at Elms College (MA)

June 2: Serials and Information technology SIGS on archiving of electronic journals at Harvard University.

June 6: Retreat sponsored by the ACRL/NEC board, to discuss ways to make ACRL/NEC more viable and useful to its members; all members are welcome to attend.

June 10: Library instruction SIG (NELIG) annual program at the University of Southern Maine.

Ms. Anderson introduced the first speaker of the day: Frances Maloy, President, ACRL National, who is currently the leader, access services division, at Emory University. Ms. Maloy spoke on “Libraries ‘R’ education- but are reading, reflection and research irrelevant in the 21^st century?” She started her presentation with an overview of ACRL, which provides professional development opportunities; establishes standards for academic and research libraries; advocates for libraries and librarians; partners with the broader library community and with the higher education community; and provides up-to-date information for libraries. She then mentioned the future of higher education: decreased funding and increased emphasis on assessment and accountability. Regarding decreased funding: the model is changing from one based on higher education as a public good (post WWII) to higher education as a personal benefit (1980s). The increased emphasis on assessment includes outcome-based measures; tenure and academic freedom are being challenged due to the increased emphasis on assessment.

Ms. Maloy then moved to a discussion of technology. Today’s students have grown up with various beliefs, such as that computers are not technology; the Internet is better than TV; and with a zero tolerance for delays. In order to adapt to the learning styles of these “millennial” students, Educause, in its Research Bulletin 2005, emphasizes a shift in teaching from “sage on sage” to “guide on the side,” meaning that teaching is no longer only with a faculty member lecturing to a class but is moving towards the faculty member leading discussion, being “on the side” guiding the students to learn and discuss the material. She mentioned that the decreased funding and increased emphasis on assessment, along with the change in student demographics and duality of the needs of researchers, means that libraries will have to adapt to new roles while maintaining some of their traditional roles.

“Why do people come to the library?” The library is a warehouse of books as well as a place for students and others to use technology and to find/use information. In all of this the role of the librarian is still important. Ms. Maloy mentioned the dichotomy between traditional libraries, with stack space and computers, networks, etc., and libraries designed around the newer model of information commons (with little or no stack space and mainly space for computers and other technology). She mentioned articles from the New York Times, 4/25/05, “Mailer’s miscellany: author sells his archives…”, and 5/14/05 “College libraries set aside books in digital age.”

Ms. Maloy mentioned Google, whose mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful. She asserted that Google’s mission is our mission, and that, in some ways, Google achieves the mission better than libraries do. Libraries need to emulate Google’s “almost fanatical devotion to its users.” She quoted the CEO of Honeywell as saying that strategic thinking is the pursuit of the right questions; libraries tend to emphasize the right answer rather than the right question. An OCLC survey revealed that undergraduates are not likely to ask librarians for assistance in using the web and that only 21% of students indicate that they turn to librarians with questions. Perhaps we should become more like Google in order to encourage students to use us: put ourselves where they are and make it easy for them to turn to us with their questions.

She feels that we librarians need to free our minds of old ideas and to assess our level of support, how we fit in with the goals of the institution, and decide with whom we can form partnerships.

The second speaker of the morning, Brinley Franklin, vice provost for university libraries at the University of Connecticut, spoke on “Future libraries-the future is now.” Mr. Franklin began his presentation by mentioning various books on the future of libraries, including Future libraries: dreams, madness & reality by Walt Crawford & Michael Gorman (1995) and Beyond the library of the future by Bruce Shuman (1997). Our profession previously took chaos and made order out of it; now, that’s not so easy or even possible. He mentioned segments from Robert A. Heinlein’s 1982 book Friday (“There wasn’t anything special about the equipment except there were extra keys…”) and Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson (1992): “The room is filled with 3-dimensional constellations of hypercards…” He also showed a clip from one of the Star Wars movies regarding a 3-dimensional map of the planets; one of the planets was missing from the map; according to Yoda, it must have been removed from the archives, and only a Jedi knight could have done that. He also mentioned Alvin Toffler’s 1970 book Future Shock and quoted the book as being about how people react when overwhelmed by change; they either adapt or fail to adapt to change. This tied in with Ms. Maloy’s contention that libraries have a proven ability to adapt to change.

Mr. Franklin contended that librarians now have a tremendous challenge to make the library an important part of the campus core. Peter Brophy’s The library in the twenty-first century: new services for the information age touches on this mandate. Mr. Franklin envisions that we will not teach information literacy as much in the future, since students will be able to find more information themselves. He wonders whether reference and interlibrary loan will become unmediated in the future, much as circulation (self-serve checkout) and reserve (electronic reserve) are now. He quoted a college provost who said that the role of librarians will shift from managers of materials to managers of access to materials (in some ways this is already occurring). Mr. Franklin mentioned that all libraries will become consortially interdependent and that libraries need to have more centralization; we must stop duplication of effort and act more consortially.

Scholarly communication was the next topic covered. Currently we have a convoluted system of funding research in the US: The federal government funds research; universities perform the research and submit for publication; publishers make restricted access to the research available by publishing it in journals; the library buys back the research from the publishers; universities charge back federal government, and the cycle starts over. He suggested a new model of the federal government providing the funding; universities perform the research and make it publicly accessible (current trend of open access journals).

The third and final speaker of the morning was Roy Tennant, user services architect for the California Digital Library, who spoke on “The future’s so bright, I gotta wear shades: academic libraries in a Google world.” He began his presentation with the contention that challenges are opportunities viewed from below. From his hiking experience, there are 3 requirements for survival: the right gear; the right decisions; and luck. He believes these requirements apply to libraries as well. The Google challenge: to provide fast, effective searching of a huge amount of material, with astute ranking and tailored to the material. He contrasted a Google search screen with a typical library search screen (University of California-Berkeley: http://sunsite2.berkeley.edu:8000/

The Google search screen is simple: one search box with 2 options (Google search and I’m feeling lucky). It doesn’t make the user choose where to search.

By contrast, the UC Berkeley library search screen is complex, with multiple options to choose from, some or most of which the user has probably never heard of:

Quick Search for

Title keyword(s) bell tolls Tips Title begins with... for whom the bell* Tips Journal Title keyword(s) applied psycholog* Tips Journal Title begins with... new york times* Tips Author (last name first) kingston, maxine Tips Author-Organization keyword(s) sierra club Tips Subject keyword(s) bilingual education Tips Notes/Table of Contents keyword(s) latin* identity Tips Call Number begins with.... ps3515.u274.a6 Tips

Limit by Location and not ALL locations Anthropology - ANTH Arch VR Lib - AVRL Art/Classics - AH-C Asian Amer - AASL Bancroft - BANC Bioscience - BIOS Bus & Econ - BUSI CED Archives - CEDA Chemistry - CHEM Chicano Stu - CHIC Chinese Stdy - CCSL Comparative Ethnic Studies - ETHN Doe Refe - DREF Earth Sci - EART East Asian - EAST Educ/Psych - ED-P Engineering - ENGI Environ-Dsgn - ENVI Forest Prod - FPRO Govt Refe - GREF Grad Svcs - GRDS Health Sci - HEAL IIRL - IIRL Main Stack - MAIN Math/Stat - MATH Media Center - AVMC Moffitt - UNDE Moffitt Refe - MREF Morrison Rm - MORR Music - MUSI Native Amer - NAS News/Micro - NEWS Optometry - OPTO Periodicals - PERI PFA - PFA Philosophy - PHIL Physics - PHYS Public Hlth - PUBL Rosberg RR - ROSB Soc Welfare - SOCW S/SE Asia - SSEA Storage - NRLF University Archives - UARC Water Res - WRCA --- Storage Locations --- Giannini Lib - GIAN Gov Stus - IGSL Trans Stus - ITSL Law - LAW UCSC Media - CMED UCSC Science - CSCI UCSC McHenry - CMHE UCSC Special - CSPE UCD Ag Econ - DAGE UCD Preservation - DCON UCD Docs - DDOC UCD Health - DHEA UCD Law - DLAW UCD Shields - DMAI UCD Med Ctr - DMED UCD Physical - DPHY UCD Special - DSPE UCD WomResCr - DWRR UCSF General - FGEN UCSF Special - FSPE Regents Scty - RSCT UCI Conserv - INEG UCLA Conserv - LNEG UCSD Conserv - GNEG UCSB Conserv - SNEG UCR Conserv - RNEG CSL Law - SLAW Limit by Publication Format and not ALL publication formats Books Journal Titles Films/Videos/Slides Pictures & Graphics Maps Manuscripts Sound Recordings Scores Computer Files Mixed Materials Kits Objects Limit by Language and not ALL languages English German French Spanish Russian Swedish Latin Tips

Mr. Tennant sees this as the library opportunity: We should learn what we can from Google’s success and apply it to what we do. We should focus on changes that affect our users. He mentioned the University of Rochester’s catalog, which uses the word “finding” (a user’s term) instead of “searching” (a librarian’s term) http://library.rochester.edu: finding articles and finding course resources and reserves. After clicking on “finding articles” on the front page, a single search box appears for finding articles by keyword, which is a federated search using Endeavor’s Encompass product (they did lots of customizing, though). Below the keyword searching box is an option for finding articles by subject, with 3 simple steps listed: Step 1: Select a Subject - Step 2: Select a Database - Step 3: Search for Articles. To search the library catalog, there’s a simple, single search box on the front page under the heading “Voyager catalog;” no mention of the word “searching.” Striking things about Rochester’s catalog: they designed it to look like Google, to give few options and to just allow the user to get started searching; and it requires very few clicks to get to full-text (3 clicks?)

Mr. Tennant then discussed the Amazon challenge: A simple search; effective results; added features such as reading lists. Libraries can use the Amazon model to make the data we have more useful to our users. He mentioned that we could use the same data feeds that Amazon does, in Onyx form (problem with catalogs that only accept MARC records). He also mentioned http://redlightgreen.com,

an RLG system which was designed based on student “focus groups.” From the website: “RedLightGreen helps you locate the most important books and other research materials in your area of interest, and find out whether what you need is available at your favorite library. Sign in, and you can format and send citations any way you want: MLA, APA, Chicago, Harvard, Turabian…” Again, the Google model of a simple search which does not require that the user choose any searching fields, etc., and which gives users the added option of formatting their citations using the major styles.

The speaker mentioned Google Scholar, which appears to provide access to scholarly information; it uses citation data to rank the results. Mr. Tennant believes that Scholar serves the disenfranchised very well, i.e. those without access to research libraries, but that for the “enfranchised,” it works less well. He believes that Scholar has the potential to replace some subscription databases but that its coverage is not very good. He ended by recommending that libraries:

Aggregate: centralize as much as possible.

Slice: Select content to search.

Serve: provide personal space on library’s computers to store citations, etc.

Skin: tailor the interface to the specific users.

Expose: make available to other applications and services (RSS feeds, etc.)

The library’s ability to thrive will depend on its ability to focus on specific audiences and/or purposes and to devise services to serve those audiences well.

The ACRL/NEC annual business meeting took place after lunch. The following officers were elected for the 2005-2006 year:

President: Nancy George

Vice-president/president elect: Christine Turner

Member-at-large: Janet DiPaolo (sp?)

Treasurer: Marilyn Steinberg

Past-president: Colleen Anderson

Respectfully submitted,

Janice G. Schuster

Providence College

5/24/05