tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-88910722081175380712024-03-14T02:36:43.029+10:00Bush Library Mechanic aka JCU Library TechnologiesAn ongoing postulation about Library Technologies at James Cook University,<br>primarily aimed at the staff of the library at James Cook University and curious<br>people working with IT in academic and research libraries around the worldAlan @JCU Libraryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16593976921890441037noreply@blogger.comBlogger87125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8891072208117538071.post-7820870576049902862015-08-13T08:39:00.000+10:002015-08-13T15:53:03.871+10:00Urquhart's Law: really?Sorry, this is just fluff, but this morning's Campus Morning Mail another bit of fluff that I felt drawn to comment on:
Urquhart’s
(really old) other law
CMM
is a great believer in Urquhart’s Law of Political Communication,
(as per the original House of Cards) that the correct response
to scandalous statements is “you may say that but I could not possibly
comment.” But it turns out another Alan @JCU Libraryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16593976921890441037noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8891072208117538071.post-64966768835761324082015-03-02T09:25:00.000+10:002015-03-02T09:33:57.004+10:00Readings & Past Exams/Reserver Online/Masterfile access issuesNot of interest to anyone outside of JCU, just using my blog to list the workarounds for a local issue:
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Alan @JCU Libraryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16593976921890441037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8891072208117538071.post-54843242961958367232015-02-06T14:59:00.002+10:002015-03-25T14:46:29.843+10:00Link Resolution Quirk in ATSM Journals (Resolved)ATSM have fixed this issue (see postscript)
No great drama here, just thought this might interest people who get frustrated with Link Resolvers but don't know who to blame.
This issue reported by a staff member who, using Summon, got a 360 Link to:
Zhang, F., Guo, S., & Wang, B. (2014). Experimental research on
cohesive sediment deposition and consolidation based on settlement
column Alan @JCU Libraryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16593976921890441037noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8891072208117538071.post-85371843547134442212015-01-05T16:36:00.000+10:002015-01-06T16:15:32.541+10:00Random notes from "Data for ROI and Benchmarking Ebook Collections"I registered for Library Journals webcast "Data for ROI and Benchmarking Ebook Collections". This webcast can now be viewed On-demand." but as usual couldn't make it but they did record it so - I'm just writing down the points that stuck out for me.
Ying Zhang (Acquistions Librarian from University of Central Florida) did some analysis of her institutions use of ebooks acquired using one of Alan @JCU Libraryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16593976921890441037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8891072208117538071.post-22952153356994798722014-04-01T09:53:00.001+10:002014-04-01T09:53:36.758+10:00Knowledge Unlatched - Open Access for all, funded by librariesWe've become a charter member of the 'Knowledge Unlatched' scheme/project/pilot along with over half of Australian university libraries (we finally beat New Zealand at something. Just.).
Basically it's an attempt to pay publishers for book production to make items open access (via Creative Commons licensing). The FAQ explains the what, why, how, who, when. The site says the Alan @JCU Libraryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16593976921890441037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8891072208117538071.post-43605186452792444322014-03-31T19:06:00.000+10:002014-03-31T19:06:16.404+10:00Windows 8, EZproxy and Secret Sauce AdWareAs of writing we've had 3 reported cases of Windows 8 not displaying content through EZproxy. Basically any proxied content doesn't display - no errors, no friendly error messages, just a blank screen. Everything else 'webby' works fine.
With 360 Link 1-Click with the helper frame you see the helper frame (it's not proxied by EZproxy) but the iframe content is blank - viewing source shows that Alan @JCU Libraryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16593976921890441037noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8891072208117538071.post-63921130194676700112014-02-09T22:04:00.000+10:002014-02-09T22:17:12.768+10:00VALA Day 1 Wrap Up
The first plenary was delivered by Christine Borgman (UCLA) talking us through the issues around research data management.
Persistent URL: http://www.vala.org.au/vala2014-proceedings/vala2014-plenary-1-borgman
She laid out some cautionary thoughts - librarians thinking they can handle 'data' the way we handle other information bundles is naive in the extreme. She was complimentary of Alan @JCU Libraryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16593976921890441037noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8891072208117538071.post-68890402587730587752014-02-04T06:35:00.001+10:002014-02-04T06:35:04.290+10:00Creating your own ebook #vala14 #bcbChris Cormack, with throbbing leg and nauseous belly, delivered a session bursting with so many ideas that I'm still putting together all the resources he provided.
After a greeting in Moari the author of Koha delivered a measured rant that put him more in the Aaron Swartz camp than the big publisher camp. My interpretation of his thesis is that digital publishing completely changes the 'book' Alan @JCU Libraryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16593976921890441037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8891072208117538071.post-42546731451963647252014-02-03T21:54:00.000+10:002014-02-04T06:35:50.059+10:00Brewing Your Own Linked Data #vala15 #bcaWell that session was exactly what I wanted! Open linked data has been on my watch list since 2010 after seeing OpenCalais demoed at that years VALA
It was great to see under the hood and spakfil my limited understanding of what it all meant. I liked that Tim and Paul be aware of 'Linked Open Data (LOD) Paralysis' (see image below) and keep dragging us back to practical uses.
SoAlan @JCU Libraryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16593976921890441037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8891072208117538071.post-19352700471821099202013-11-30T19:08:00.004+10:002013-12-09T14:10:57.804+10:00And another fail scenario for EZproxy: GeoScienceWorld and the Google Maps APIThis issue resolved by GSW December 8
To borrow a line from Jonathan Rochkind's Bibliographic Wilderness 'EZProxy is terrible, it's just the best we've got.'
I don't think it's terrible but it's always been a pain that TOC services don't work off campus and that RSS feeds occasionally don't work at all, but this week I got a something new.
GeoScienceWorld's search interface includes a Alan @JCU Libraryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16593976921890441037noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8891072208117538071.post-34156645237188792592013-11-25T16:48:00.000+10:002013-11-25T16:57:44.401+10:00Google Scholar, WoS and InformitNot sure why Google Scholar has suddenly intersected with my job again after a seeming hiatus. The renewed activity seems to indicate Google is committed to developing and maintaining Scholar - (have already seem some conspiracy theory postings about this being the next step in googlizing the information universe now that the Google Book law suit has been dismissed)
Anyway at least I have a Alan @JCU Libraryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16593976921890441037noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8891072208117538071.post-16401684923438883532013-08-07T10:39:00.001+10:002013-08-07T10:39:25.731+10:00My UX Frustrations VisualisedI am turning into a cranky old man - I can only apologise to my colleagues for having to put up with my tirades. They seemed to like Steve Krug's 'Don't Make Me Think', but the home page remains a regular battleground. I know compromises have to be made - but the compromises always seem to cost the users. So to vent some steam and publicly apologise for my crankiness I resort to faux Alan @JCU Libraryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16593976921890441037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8891072208117538071.post-37154047982858686292013-07-29T09:14:00.000+10:002013-07-29T09:14:57.219+10:00Shifting shores of digital musicJust some random thoughts sparked by seeing the 'Spotify is killing iTunes' story in the Australian Financial Review that got a mention on ABC24 this morning.
First it was underlining what you read in the tech press about the future all the time, i.e. things are changing quicker.
That the iTunes store has moved from being the snarky young punk the of music distribution business to an overlord Alan @JCU Libraryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16593976921890441037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8891072208117538071.post-41756439858199617672013-07-18T14:10:00.000+10:002013-07-29T08:42:46.429+10:00Random thought: The limits of Google Analytics - it's just data, not informationI'm still wading through Google Analytics to get an idea of how the web site is used so I can have some 'evidence-based' proposals for the site home page and persistent navigation.
One thing that I'm pondering after my last blog post is referrals from Search Engines. If a page is linked to much more often from a search engine results page (SERP) than from another page in your site does that Alan @JCU Libraryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16593976921890441037noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8891072208117538071.post-61329904813014363442013-07-11T15:24:00.001+10:002013-09-02T10:16:30.442+10:00Google Analytics 101: tracking down causes of page hit anomaliesI'm no Google Analytics guru, by any stretch, but over time my understanding and GA's powers seem to be incrementally increasing. This post is about how GA helped me understand why a particular page ranks high in page hits on our site. If you are not very familiar with GA it may help you a little.
I'm preparing to revamp our web site to work with new
responsive web design templates - Alan @JCU Libraryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16593976921890441037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8891072208117538071.post-37244322996684742072013-04-29T13:30:00.000+10:002013-07-11T17:18:50.111+10:00Our Imaginary Scorecard (Part 2 of Library Intranets in Academia: Chicken nipples and fish boots?)Welcome to part 2 of this journey into an Academic Library Intranet Review.
In Part 1 I sketched out the technologies, content and management practices of our current Intranet.
What is an Intranet?
To me an intranet is a business tool that provides access
(in the broadest sense) to information and applications using network protocols (in the broadest sense) to assist the staff achieve Alan @JCU Libraryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16593976921890441037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8891072208117538071.post-2807971676599992572013-04-29T12:12:00.000+10:002013-04-29T14:25:15.290+10:00Library Intranets in Academia: chicken nipples and fish boots? Part 1 - Introduction and Where We Are
Introduction
Welcome to a rambling series of posts that will be equal parts catharsis, brain dump, diary and progress report of the Intranet Review/Redevelopment Project JCU Library is embarking on.
I will try and maintain backwards and forwards links in this series.
I've been thinking a lot about what an Intranet should/could be in an academic library setting. I posted a request on Alan @JCU Libraryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16593976921890441037noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8891072208117538071.post-17631210205628444342013-04-11T08:55:00.001+10:002013-04-11T08:56:20.549+10:00Comment on "Teacher Knows if You’ve Done the E-Reading" NYT article
The twittersphere told me about this article in the New York Times online by David Streitfeld Published: April 8, 2013.
Basically it's about an online text book provider CourseSmart providing analytics to lecturers that show individual students' engagement with the textbook.
I don't actually have a problem with this - but I do have some problems with how the data might be Alan @JCU Libraryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16593976921890441037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8891072208117538071.post-42672284630772955062013-02-12T10:36:00.001+10:002013-02-12T10:36:38.423+10:00No Nerdvana: Mobile Devices and Remote Access to eJournal Subscriptions 101As the academic year to kicks in I'm getting queries referred to me about accessing particular eJournals via remote handheld devices (maybe iPads were the xmas present of choice for lecturers and researchers?).
I just wanted to outline how these work as part of my strategy to help our staff at service points who get these queries.
First up it's not rocket science - but it's not consistent Alan @JCU Libraryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16593976921890441037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8891072208117538071.post-39240081253022123892013-01-21T11:58:00.000+10:002013-04-30T10:11:21.148+10:00Removing Library Jargon from our Home page - what Google Analytics tells usIn January I tend to catch up on all my statistics collection for the last year - and if I can, do some cursory analysis.
I've been using Google Analytics Campaigns to track the use of links on the Library's home page - which was revamped around this time last year after usability testing with students.
After finally biting the 'less library jargon' bullet. Here are some of the changes weAlan @JCU Libraryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16593976921890441037noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8891072208117538071.post-13209146799759258592012-12-04T23:51:00.001+10:002012-12-04T23:52:22.014+10:00Where is Library Technology going?This started out as a comment on a piece by Chad Haefele on his Hidden Peanuts blog (which I found via an Aaron Tay from Nat University of Singapore tweet - yay 21st century):
Defining what I do: What makes a technology emerging or disruptive?
All too quickly I realised I was rambling - but what struck me (eventually, as I stream-of-conscioused via a keyboard) was Chad's Alan @JCU Libraryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16593976921890441037noreply@blogger.com36tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8891072208117538071.post-47036099248664799262012-09-10T10:45:00.001+10:002012-09-10T10:45:44.928+10:00Wrong Turn With Electronic Reserve
Electronic Reserve, eReserve, Reserve Online - even the names we give smack of something past it's use by date.
Reserve? How mired in our print history is that word? To all you young'ns here's a brief catch up episode:
Almost all library stuff used to be printed. Lecturers collated reading lists. If a lecturer wanted all her students (or all his motivated students) to read Alan @JCU Libraryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16593976921890441037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8891072208117538071.post-4747820061498028962012-02-08T21:48:00.000+10:002012-02-08T21:48:35.366+10:00VALA 2012 Day 1 Summon Camp and China Academy of Science
Summon Camp
My first summon camp! Effectively a user group meeting. John Law first gave an overview of recent and soon to be released developments and then the format was for attendees to identify particular aspects of Summon, or areas they wanted to see developed, and then with a show of hands these were narrowed to six topics, and we dissected those in three smaller groups - covering 2Alan @JCU Libraryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16593976921890441037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8891072208117538071.post-1954517673191738312012-02-08T20:54:00.001+10:002012-02-08T20:54:32.875+10:00Day 1 VALA 2012 Keynote and the AM sessions
Libraries & the Post-PC era
Jason Griffey
In keeping with the VALA tradition the opening keynote was thought provoking and included the speaker's daughter (stills not video this time)
Not much point going in to detail when you can watch it here:
http://www.vala.org.au/vala2012-proceedings/vala2012-plenary-1-griffey
A broad sample of trends was covered - a couple that stuck out forAlan @JCU Libraryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16593976921890441037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8891072208117538071.post-42208299181908859452012-02-06T23:20:00.001+10:002012-02-06T23:20:14.730+10:00Serials Solutions pre conf seminar part 2Next was Jane Burke to talk about Intota - a work in progress at Serials Solutions, but before I talk about it let me relate a recurring theme in my job.
Maybe once a year it will come up. An informal discussion at management level about what we are going to do about our Library Management System. Is there something better out there? How much would it cost? How many psycotherapy Alan @JCU Libraryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16593976921890441037noreply@blogger.com0