eclectic librarian - Latest Comments

Re: ER&L 2015 – Did We Forget Something? The Need to Improve Linking at the Core of the Library’s Discovery Strategy

Eddie Neuwirth — Mon, 09 Mar 2015 17:03:28 -0000

Thanks, Anna -- I love how this post links off to another post from 2004 introducing the concept of getting library links into Google Scholar and this newish thing called Firefox. Sort of goes to the point that we haven't been innovating much around linking for the last decade or so.

Re: big. hairy. mess.

Chris Bulock — Thu, 04 Sep 2014 18:50:26 -0000

There are times when I think it would be great for an OpenURL knowledgebase to track things at an article level, and then there are other times when I think of how awful that could be to manage. At any rate, article purchases and hybrid OA journals are very difficult to deal with using current tools.

Re: NASIG 2013: Libraries and Mobile Technologies in the Age of the Visible College

Anna Creech — Mon, 10 Jun 2013 16:04:20 -0000

Yes, but it fits the trends I'm seeing in both vendor/publisher business models and legal decisions surrounding intellectual property.

Re: NASIG 2013: Libraries and Mobile Technologies in the Age of the Visible College

bryanalexander — Mon, 10 Jun 2013 16:00:37 -0000

A grim pairing, for some interpretations!

Re: NASIG 2013: Libraries and Mobile Technologies in the Age of the Visible College

Anna Creech — Mon, 10 Jun 2013 11:04:52 -0000

I think it's mostly Silo with some Phantom.

Re: NASIG 2013: Libraries and Mobile Technologies in the Age of the Visible College

bryanalexander — Mon, 10 Jun 2013 10:35:06 -0000

Well said!
So which of the morning scenarios seemed most likely to you?

Re: NASIG 2013: Libraries and Mobile Technologies in the Age of the Visible College

Anna Creech — Mon, 10 Jun 2013 08:01:50 -0000

Twilight had enough promotion during the talk. I didn't want to add to it. ;)

Re: NASIG 2013: Libraries and Mobile Technologies in the Age of the Visible College

bryanalexander — Mon, 10 Jun 2013 07:07:42 -0000

Excellent notes. Thank you for sharing them, and for not adding images from Twilight.

Re: ER&L 2013: Overcoming Librarian Resistance to Adopting Discovery Tools — A Focus on Information Literacy Opportunities

Dave Pattern — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 04:50:03 -0000

Hi Anna -- similar experiences to Alan. It's not a ultimate solution (is anything?) but it's been a massive step forward for Huddersfield (we had MetaLib before Summon and pretty much everyone hated it). E-resource usage (inc. COUNTER full-text downloads) continues to climb dramatically year-on-year (I'd have expected it to start to plateau out now that we've had Summon for 3+ years, but that hasn't happened). For us, Summon has levelled the playing field -- students are using a much wider range of resources than before as they're not being funnelled into just using subject databases X, Y and Z.

From experience, librarians go through the Gartner Hype Cycle with discovery (some more quickly than others) and there's a definite need to get though the "Trough of Disillusionment" stage. Even the best good discovery tool doesn't replace the need to teach key subject specific databases, but it does allow you to introduce that teaching at a later stage -- start the students off with Summon and you'll find they're much more receptive to being taught how to do advanced searches on CINAHL, ScienceDirect, etc further on down the line. Although the obvious immediate benefit is for undergraduates, faculty and researchers use Summon heavily too (alongside other tools).
In the UK, Sheffield Hallam University held a day long Summon Info Lit event with speakers from several universities talking about their experiences and the changes they made to teaching http://summonil2012.wordpre...

Re: ER&L 2013: Overcoming Librarian Resistance to Adopting Discovery Tools — A Focus on Information Literacy Opportunities

Anna Creech — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 19:52:08 -0000

Well, we're in the process of implementing Summon now, so I guess I'm more enthusiastic about them than I was then. I don't think it's going to be the ultimate solution, but I do think it's a huge improvement over searching a single interdisciplinary database or relying on federated search tools. We do have more buy-in from the instruction librarians than we did at first, so I'm more hopeful that this won't be a waste of time and money.

Re: ER&L 2013: Overcoming Librarian Resistance to Adopting Discovery Tools — A Focus on Information Literacy Opportunities

Alan Cockerill — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 19:36:59 -0000

Hi Anna - have your thoughts about discovery layers have changed since http://eclecticlibrarian.ne... ? I didn't sense outright resistance when we acquired Summon in that first year it came out - maybe a fair bit of indifference - but clients voted with their feet (fingers?) usage continues to rise steeply. I'm not so sure our IL practitioners have completely twigged to the change of emphasis it allows in training - but that's their area of expertise, they'll sort it.

Re: conference tweeting etiquette

Tara Crouch-Allison — Tue, 19 Mar 2013 18:02:38 -0000

Great Twitter etiquette! Thanks for posting so many well-written notes from the conference on this blog... it will be helpful when reviewing sessions I didn't get to attend.

Re: thankful for Thanksgiving

Erin — Sun, 02 Dec 2012 09:09:23 -0000

Holiday weeks are always fun. It's a break up from the mundane week by week routine :) Hope you had a great one!

Re: Charleston 2012: hotel internet sucks edition

Char Simser — Fri, 09 Nov 2012 14:52:02 -0000

That sucks! I've not been impressed with iPhone's Wordpress app either. It's okay for reading, but not for writing & posting to my blog. Other than crappy wifi and missing posts, it sounds like the conference is good. Is it June yet? I'm ready for NASIG 2013!

Re: being a student is time-consuming

LBC — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 11:17:07 -0000

I'm finding something similar - I'm taking the Organizational Analysis class that started this week. First trying to make sure I understood the course requirements was difficult (and there's still one aspect I'm not sure I understand, but I've asked) and then doing the work. You're right about the online lectures. I find it helpful that I can go back and listen to pieces again, but I also find that I do a lot of pausing, writing, and then listening some more.

I started this week trying to commit to doing the Advanced Certificate, and so far I hope to manage that, but it's going to take lots of balancing. I am glad that I'm doing this to remind me before I start considering whether a second master's is a path I want to take!

Re: usage statistics

Christina Pikas — Mon, 24 Sep 2012 18:25:04 -0000

I don't know where they get the idea that society publishers don't collect data. AIP,IEEE , SPIE, ACS, OSA... I could keep going - all provide usage stats

Re: ebooks, libraries, and the discount rate

Nimblelibrarian — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 14:55:20 -0000

These are my thoughts exactly. I remember thinking ebook or hardback....at home I'm all about the physical books. They are more impressive than "Check out my nook I have 200 ebooks...." bore! But in the library where money is scarce you want to make a bigger bang with your buck and ebooks definitely works. Whats even better is some companies offer the option to have access to the book but don't pay for it until someone actually clicks on it. Definitely a great idea.

Re: dipping my toes into the library administration pool

Char Simser — Tue, 14 Aug 2012 09:09:07 -0000

Been meaning to comment on this. I think it's a great opportunity for anyone to learn more about library administration. Going the 'interim' route lets you test the waters. I enjoyed my management roles. It certainly opened my eyes, and led me to a greater understanding of the library and the university. After 10+ years in those leadership roles, I was happy to take a step back. Even when you have a fantastic group of people working for you, personnel management is stressful.

And knowing you, I completely understand your coworkers faith in you!

Re: NASIG 2012: Managing E-Publishing — Perfect Harmony for Serialists

Char — Wed, 11 Jul 2012 09:59:39 -0000

Hi Jill - I just started downloading COUNTER stats and other usage reports for NPP in May. We plan to provide our editors with the information though they could retrieve it for themselves, and we'll use it to promote open access and our journals and NPP services in the future after we have a few months of data. The numbers I've seen so far impress me but there are some caveats to their interpretation based on information I've seen on the OJS forums.

Re: NASIG 2012: Managing E-Publishing — Perfect Harmony for Serialists

Anna Creech — Sat, 09 Jun 2012 16:17:26 -0000

I remember her saying something about it, but I didn't capture that part of the talk. Just went back and looked at the slides, and it seems they can provide stats for the journal creators but not the subscribers.

Re: NASIG 2012: Managing E-Publishing — Perfect Harmony for Serialists

jillemery — Fri, 08 Jun 2012 17:33:31 -0000

One thing I'm interested in is metrics for these titles. Last time I asked, Iowa could not provide meaningful usage information to outside users. Was htis covered at all in their presentation?

Re: ER&L 2012: Consortia On Trial — In Defense of the Shared Ebook

Michael Zeoli — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 00:14:11 -0000

Just one comment. YBP is in fact seeing a *dramatic* increase in library purchasing f ebooks - it matches the decline in print sales. Sorry not to have made that point clear in the presentation - it is an important one. Michael Zeoli

Re: #libday8 day 3 — never-ending powerpoint!

Rob Cottingham — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 02:21:25 -0000

My sympathies! And thanks so much for sharing my cartoon.

By the way, the next time it happens, maybe "accidentally" emailing the bottom-left PDF on this page - http://www.thegoodmancenter... - to the presenter might give you some karmic relief. :)

Re: #libday8 day 2 — mushy brain work

Chris Bulock — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 08:57:23 -0000

I share your opinion on monthly vs. annual usage stats at vendor websites. If a vendor has stats for an entire year, they should provide the option of displaying it that way. It always seems like the vendors that only offer monthly stats have the slowest load time too.

I actually did notice a problem with linked full text in Academic Search Complete, though I was looking at a journal with a lot of other problems at the time, so I assumed it was isolated to that journal. I did report it to EBSCO, but I think I'll do some further investigating now.

Re: resolutions and all that

Anna Creech — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 07:36:08 -0000

I've been listening to a lot of audio in the car lately (as noted in my post, four of the books I read last year were audio), as I drive around town. My commute is all of 10 min, and for a long time I thought I didn't have need for an audiobook. Nonfiction seems to work best for being able to stop and start with my short drives here and there.