tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-88910722081175380712011-11-04T15:24:14.294+10:00An 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.comBlogger611100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8891072208117538071.post-41777783661268440922011-11-04T15:24:00.000+10:002011-11-04T15:24:14.318+10:00

Another edition of recording a solution I'll need sometime in the future  but will never remember where I wrote it down. We've rolled out Windows 7 (64bit) on Library PCs.  A book return workstation stopped working with it's 3M 943 Bookcheck unit. We got a hold of the 64 bit version of the software (yay) and were told it should prompt us to locate the 64 bit driver when we connected the unit. It

Alan @JCU Libraryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16593976921890441037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8891072208117538071.post-27201410040984186342011-10-31T12:32:00.000+10:002011-10-31T12:32:00.357+10:00

Have had a couple of staff report this to me over the last week - but was having trouble replicating the problem. We have an A-Z button on our home page that had this link http://www-public.jcu.edu.au/libcomp/az/index.htm?utm_source=LibcompHomePage&utm_medium=Button&utm_campaign=A2ZButton I'm using GA to try and track the usage of the button to determine whether it's the best use of that screen

Alan @JCU Libraryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16593976921890441037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8891072208117538071.post-72203666941689932352011-08-29T10:11:00.004+10:002011-08-29T10:19:50.939+10:00

I fear the content audit of our site is making me a tad obsessive - little things are starting to stick out and I want to hit them with a hammer.  I'm seeing many example of pages being renewed without any obvious review of content and little things are annoying me, like this line in a big page.Wikipedia has a very good section on Australian Copyright law. See Wikipedia Online. Why would you

Alan @JCU Libraryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16593976921890441037noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8891072208117538071.post-13002301314613405312011-08-12T12:04:00.000+10:002011-08-12T12:04:42.740+10:00

Maybe I'm too immersed in usability considerations, but I see usability issues in almost everything, from television advertisements for 'Johnson's IGA' that don't tell you where it is to keyboards that are impossible to ctrl-alt-del with one hand. So this morning I see this poster for the Cairns Festival: and can't help but wonder ... "What sort of steel pan can go on a grand parade and

Alan @JCU Libraryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16593976921890441037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8891072208117538071.post-75925768666338798582011-08-11T13:27:00.001+10:002011-08-11T13:31:16.651+10:00

Well, that didn't take as long as I thought. The tally of Federated Search/Discovery Layer tools in use in all 39 Australian universities looks like this: Not sure that the increased popularity of Primo in non-law teaching universities is causal or not. Even with universities using the same platform there is not a cookie cutter approach. The use of the tools varies widely in terms of content

Alan @JCU Libraryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16593976921890441037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8891072208117538071.post-62306359051495680732011-08-11T12:33:00.001+10:002011-08-11T12:34:20.686+10:00

I was passed a list of the discovery tools/federated search engines in use in 29 of Australia's 39 universities (I think the common link is that they all offer Law Degrees, and yes I will hunt down the remaining 10 when I get a chance). Anyway here's the graph:

Alan @JCU Libraryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16593976921890441037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8891072208117538071.post-32097950285587372522011-07-29T10:34:00.000+10:002011-07-29T10:34:47.662+10:00

Andrew Nagy from Serials Solutions advises that the next fortnightly Summon upgrade is due August 2 (US Pacific Time I imagine) so we should see it next Wednesday. As usual there should be no interruption to service availability. Enhancements Improved Search Results Design – Availability message will now be more accurate for non textual items including print materials. Subject terms are now

Alan @JCU Libraryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16593976921890441037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8891072208117538071.post-55404193147253425992011-07-28T16:00:00.000+10:002011-07-28T16:00:17.034+10:00

In a response to a question posted to Web4lib on Library Web Site design and management by Michael Schofield, Cary Gordon from The Cherry Hill Company offered the following observations from his experiences. Reproduced with permission (Thanks Cary!). I have been building websites and web based applications for libraries since 1994 (yipes), and I have some opinions, none of which should shock

Alan @JCU Libraryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16593976921890441037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8891072208117538071.post-40058475684638361862011-07-28T15:59:00.003+10:002011-07-28T16:05:08.874+10:00

At the end of June I ran another set of Usability tests with students.  The main goal was to compare the student experience six months after the first round,  now that we've addressed some of the issues highlighted back then. The full report (and the videos, session reports and other associated materials) are on the JCU Library Intranet. What did we learn? That the changes we made almost all

Alan @JCU Libraryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16593976921890441037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8891072208117538071.post-24715203255252260232011-07-28T15:57:00.000+10:002011-07-28T15:57:53.461+10:00

I carried out my first Card Sorting Exercise ever!  The full report describes the process and lists what we learned and more issues we should consider in light of that. All the related documentation is available on the JCU Library Intranet. The main points are: We should seriously consider landing pages for specific groups of users e.g Academic staff, post grad researchers, undergrads etc

Alan @JCU Libraryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16593976921890441037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8891072208117538071.post-12092603368739635612011-07-11T09:04:00.001+10:002011-07-11T09:04:14.459+10:00

Andrew Nagy from Serials Solutions has previewed some changes to the summary results information to aid users in selecting articles without having to click on preview. These include some text from the abstract and any available subject headings. In addition the text of the format icon's fulltext overlay will say 'online' in stead of 'full text' to hopefully resolving the issue of 'Full text'

Alan @JCU Libraryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16593976921890441037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8891072208117538071.post-86863952715894921992011-07-07T12:17:00.003+10:002011-07-07T12:19:51.416+10:00

Suzy followed up with a key: Column 1 .icon-book .icon-conferenceproceeding .icon-dissertation .icon-ebook .icon-governmentdocument .icon-journalarticle, .icon-journal .icon-newspaperarticle, .icon-newspaper .icon-poem .icon-patent, .icon-patents .icon-report, .icon-reports .icon-unknown .icon-art Column 2 .icon-map .icon-audiorecording .icon-computerfile .icon-photograph .

Alan @JCU Libraryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16593976921890441037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8891072208117538071.post-69302340055556833802011-07-07T12:09:00.003+10:002011-07-07T12:12:05.257+10:00

The lovely Suzy Shepherd from Griffith passed on a link gleaned from the Summon style sheets that shows the format icons used in Summon: Summon usually overlays (via CSS) a 'Full text' icon: on the chosen format icon to indicate the items immediate availability online.  But sometimes the phrase 'full text' doesn't cut it for some formats, for example Naxos audio streams. Does it confuse

Alan @JCU Libraryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16593976921890441037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8891072208117538071.post-32729495090695895672011-06-16T07:26:00.002+10:002011-06-16T07:30:07.399+10:00

A little bit of traffic on the Summonclients list this morning about what might be the affect on Summon of switching over to the new ProQuest interface. Which made me wonder just how broadly people have grasped that Summon is not a federated search engine. It does not search other databases in real time. If there were any Summon problems at all with the new ProQuest they would either be: A

Alan @JCU Libraryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16593976921890441037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8891072208117538071.post-61707211733618457142011-04-06T17:58:00.000+10:002011-04-06T17:58:47.803+10:00

It's the end of the second day of CCA-Educause 2011 and time to reflect a little. The plenary sessions in particular have been brilliant, my faves: Bryan Alexander (Director for Research at the National Institute for Technology and Liberal Education) did the futurist thing and offered five scenarios that we could be living by 2015 depending on decisions being right now, an entertaining speaker

Alan @JCU Libraryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16593976921890441037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8891072208117538071.post-38194338645256783532011-03-29T10:02:00.003+10:002011-03-29T10:10:33.709+10:00

The Summon admin module is now available in the Serials Solutions Client Center - complete with usage statistics. YAY!I have had a bit of a play and my findings and the first snapshots are available on our Intranet (sorry JCU Library staff only) but the granularity offered is pretty impressive.What I did find particularly interesting is how much more used the service is compared to X Search (

Alan @JCU Libraryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16593976921890441037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8891072208117538071.post-26727986773537303942011-03-25T12:25:00.004+10:002011-03-25T12:29:28.993+10:00

I've had a couple of reports of PDFs freezing in Firefox, by either not loading or locking up as you scroll pages.It seems to have just started so is probably part of the latest release which has automatically upgraded recently.So far I've found two things to try that seem to work. One is to kick up the Offline Storage setting to 100mb as per the instructions put together by Jason at 404 Tech

Alan @JCU Libraryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16593976921890441037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8891072208117538071.post-6503363792412906892011-03-04T10:25:00.004+10:002011-04-05T17:41:24.215+10:00

Just found this in draft in blogger, publishing it before blogging about CCA-Educause 2011 and being embarrassed by how wrong I was!Educause's latest Horizon Report has just been released, identifying technologies emerging in the short in medium term that will have significant impact on the higher education sector.I usually head straight for the 'within 12 months' section – QULOC-ICT maintains a

Alan @JCU Libraryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16593976921890441037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8891072208117538071.post-64951525660445290062010-08-24T13:53:00.001+10:002010-08-24T14:08:34.401+10:00

I just noticed that the number of items Summon says we have within and outside of our collection.Within our collection there are are: 65,022,106 itemsIncluding:51,749,144 journal articles11,824,532 newspaper articles629,475 trade publication articles408,957 books159,911 audio recordings143,292 book reviewsWith a language breakdown ofEnglish (63,431,926)French (166,902)German (126,925)Spanish (

Alan @JCU Libraryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16593976921890441037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8891072208117538071.post-90683055076919416922010-08-20T06:36:00.003+10:002010-08-20T06:48:05.862+10:00

I've updated the Google Scholar widget we use in LibGuides and other places so that it automatically uses EZproxy. This means that the 'Find It @ JCU' link will appear regardless of whether the user has set their Scholar preferences to show JCU's openurl link resolver.I tried this in the past but found that form inputs wouldn't pass through from the form through EZproxy to Scholar. But Helen

Alan @JCU Libraryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16593976921890441037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8891072208117538071.post-49569622734393096302010-08-19T12:04:00.004+10:002010-08-19T13:13:17.725+10:00

Just starting a review of JCU Library's web presence. I'm adopting the Steve Krug methodology of user involvement early, often, regular, in small numbers.I've been researching intently on different approaches and Krug's pragmatism is very appealling. I'm not a web usability consultant with a team and $100,000 contract (I've worked in that situation in the past - but as the client). I'm just a

Alan @JCU Libraryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16593976921890441037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8891072208117538071.post-67900413905411230372010-07-28T12:17:00.009+10:002010-07-28T14:23:49.336+10:00

I've been working with Clair Meade on how we've mapped formats in Horizon to Summon and have learnt things that make me ponder.In advanced search Summon lists a bunch of formats you can limit by that our collections do not use. If a user selects one of these they would get zero hits, not because we had nothing that matched their requirement, just that we hadn't applied the same format name. The

Alan @JCU Libraryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16593976921890441037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8891072208117538071.post-19490682730941139982010-04-20T09:46:00.003+10:002010-04-20T09:58:06.529+10:00

A long standing issue we've had with our link resolvers (SFX, and now 360 Link, do the same thing) is the situation where the 1-Click banner displays but instead of the article appearing below you get a message about settting cookies and following the login link in the error message doesn't resolve the issue. A recent question on the Summon Users discussion list provide an explanation of what is

Alan @JCU Libraryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16593976921890441037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8891072208117538071.post-55698256947322811462010-03-10T15:01:00.004+10:002010-03-10T15:33:36.510+10:00

We soft-launched Summon, branded as One Search, late last week. Still poring over issues and reporting them to Serials Solutions, and learning a lot more about the product than we did, and scratching our heads about other things.At the user group post-VALA a lot of other institutions reported resistance from liaison librarians, something I haven't had to deal with here, although some are quick

Alan @JCU Libraryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16593976921890441037noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8891072208117538071.post-70792556031864102882010-03-10T13:52:00.002+10:002010-03-10T14:02:55.866+10:00

Simplest of tips - if you've recently had Access upgraded to 2007 and try and open a database on a network share with macros you get a bunch of security prompts. Rather than go through the process of allowing them each time.Click on the office logoClick on Access OptionsClick on Trust CenterClick on Trust Center SettingsClick on Trusted LocationsTick the box next to Allow Trusted Locations on my

Alan @JCU Libraryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16593976921890441037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8891072208117538071.post-43838726063590120752010-02-11T11:34:00.004+10:002010-02-12T07:23:20.188+10:00

This morning's panel was decidedly more wide roaming than yesterdays. With the chair tapping into the zeitgeist via Twitter. Lots of talk about user demand for multimedia and a brave attempt to relate what digital natives wanted/preferred.One tweep said that her/his children searched for things in this order:YoutubeGoogle ImagesGoogleLots of real and virtual chat about access to ebooks in

Alan @JCU Libraryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16593976921890441037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8891072208117538071.post-78410921659996498372010-02-10T20:47:00.016+10:002010-02-11T07:19:37.806+10:00

Paul Bonnington from Monash did an overview of the explosion in data collected, collated, and visualised using automated methods, and some of the lessons he'd learned while trying to preserve that data for wider use than the original purpose of the research. Organisationally the area he works for sits at the nexus between IT, Library, Research Office and Academics and he underlined the importance

Alan @JCU Libraryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16593976921890441037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8891072208117538071.post-7846773645059961682010-02-10T08:08:00.006+10:002010-02-10T10:26:13.765+10:00

Marshall covered a lot of ground. Some of the bits that stood out for me were:The Abby video that introduced VALA2010 could have replaced his presentationWeb 2.0 is old hat, it should be part of the core of our apps not an add onWe can't be device nazis - and discriminate against users with various devices (iPhones, iPads et al)Kuali OLE, Ex Libris URM, WorldCat cloud LMS are the revolutionaries

Alan @JCU Libraryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16593976921890441037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8891072208117538071.post-31961693911494931742010-02-09T15:59:00.002+10:002010-02-09T16:01:54.905+10:00

Ok Twits, here it is:http://twitter.com/search?q=%23vala2010If you like that sort of thing

Alan @JCU Libraryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16593976921890441037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8891072208117538071.post-9637424210815588512010-02-09T13:48:00.008+10:002011-04-07T15:37:06.646+10:00

I've seen so many articles about the semantic web it's a pleasure seeing someone actually doing it. OpenCalais is a free (for under 50,000 requests/day) service analyses unstructured data and returns structured metadata, really, really quickly. And that metadata links to related 'packets' of 'Linked Data'. That's pretty meaningless without seeing it in action. But try pasting an article into

Alan @JCU Libraryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16593976921890441037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8891072208117538071.post-54993481485010474532010-02-09T10:05:00.006+10:002010-02-10T20:39:43.425+10:00

In Sunny Melbourne - just out of the plenary session delivered by Karen Calhoun (OCLC) who gave me a warm fuzzy feeling by iterating principles I've emphasised in the Library ICT draft plan.The VALA 2010 intro video gave us all a (nervous) laugh:Karen did give us some good new lines to use in trying to convince our colleagues that good intentions, commitment and sticking to an old blueprint for

Alan @JCU Libraryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16593976921890441037noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8891072208117538071.post-33819178559533535022010-01-28T14:51:00.002+10:002010-01-28T14:58:32.949+10:00

See this nifty little visualisation of the distribution of browser use from January 2002 to August 2009.If you're still using IE6 you've probably seen a few web sites have pop up warnings about ceasing to support your browser - that's about 14% of the browsers out there. You'll have noticed the CMS does display a little weirdly in IE6. And I've just realised I'm using every browser they currently

Alan @JCU Libraryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16593976921890441037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8891072208117538071.post-61322496481755213362010-01-27T08:53:00.007+10:002010-01-27T09:17:49.244+10:00

In my long list of things to look at more closely that I never find the time to is Google Wave.A few QULOC-ICT members were playing with it but we lost steam.If you have a Wave account and want a playmate I'm up for it. If you want a Wave account I've got 25 invites, just ask.If I did find time I think I'd read Google Wave: Collaboration Reworked, Melissa L. Rethlefsen's article in Library

Alan @JCU Libraryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16593976921890441037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8891072208117538071.post-14474773819294789442010-01-25T09:05:00.001+10:002010-01-25T09:22:29.181+10:00

Interesting news on HORIZON-L from COSUGI chair Chris Hauser. SirsiDynix are resurrecting the Horizon Enhancement database, where the user groups can feed into development priorities for Horizon. So it's not dead yet... and this comes on the back of some discussion that SD are definitely not saying that Horizon is EOL. One wag commented that he wished SirsiDynix killed Horizon a decade ago

Alan @JCU Libraryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16593976921890441037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8891072208117538071.post-80058240947977514662010-01-22T10:46:00.001+10:002010-01-22T11:40:08.607+10:00

A lot has been going on behind the scenes with our Summon implementation. Serials Solutions report we are on track for a mid-February release.Through the discussion list I've made contact with two other Horizon using 'Summoners', Dave Pattern at Hudddersfield and Emily Lynema from North Carolina State, whose brains I'm hoping to mercilessly pick in developing a regime of extracting deletions,

Alan @JCU Libraryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16593976921890441037noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8891072208117538071.post-36181986094639113732010-01-22T10:05:00.001+10:002010-01-22T11:45:41.397+10:00

Outside of work, many people say to me 'Things must be quiet at work, with the students away'. Wrong. For many library staff it's the time when they have to catch up on all the projects they identified during the year that they couldn't spend time on because they're spending time helping students and liasing with faculties. For example the liaison librarians have been powering through the

Alan @JCU Libraryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16593976921890441037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8891072208117538071.post-70505871861389072052009-12-18T15:19:00.000+10:002009-12-18T15:29:05.939+10:00

It's official, we've signed up for Summon and I'm really looking forward to the end product, if not the work that has to be done to get there.I quite proud that a smallish regional university library like ours has seen the potential of the product even in it's early days, and this is one of those rare times where the benefits have made early adoption the right choice.I found this small blogpost

Alan @JCU Libraryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16593976921890441037noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8891072208117538071.post-52175759825394724492009-10-16T12:11:00.000+10:002009-10-16T12:26:12.706+10:00

From the Chronicle of Higher Education 'After Losing Users in Catalogs, Libraries Find Better Search Software' an overview of 'the problem with catalogues' - and Summon gets a mention eventually.Great quote from the article:"a graduate student specializing in early American history, once had such a hard time finding materials that she titled a bibliography "Meager Fruits of an Ongoing Fight With

Alan @JCU Libraryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16593976921890441037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8891072208117538071.post-8974983026902366032009-10-05T09:26:00.001+10:002009-10-05T10:32:52.068+10:00

First up apologies for the lack of posts lately - I've been busy reading a book about improving your blog Because I have more formal ways of telling you what's happening I'm going to concentrate on using this blog on scanning the horizon for those who want to see what might be coming over the hill and on things that are making me ponder in a brave attempt to get you to ponder with me

Alan @JCU Libraryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16593976921890441037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8891072208117538071.post-77181463355884649142009-06-25T08:39:00.000+10:002009-06-25T09:03:43.377+10:00

Usability advocate Jakob Neilsen's latest Alertbox recommends that you "Stop Password Masking" when creating systems that require passwords.The Summary:Usability suffers when users type in passwords and the only feedback they get is a row of bullets. Typically, masking passwords doesn't even increase security, but it does cost you business due to login failures. Jakob's stuff is always food

Alan @JCU Libraryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16593976921890441037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8891072208117538071.post-85788710765151845822009-02-13T23:16:00.000+10:002009-02-13T23:44:17.390+10:00

Day 3 and we start with an extremely interesting chat with John Dalton who, though based in Hobart is a DBA for LibraryThing. He talked a little about LibraryThing 4 Libraries, but stressed he wasn't a salesman, and a lot about user tags and the power of folksonomies - and coffee table books.Next DA's GM talked about the future of publishing from his perspective - probably the highlight was the

Alan @JCU Libraryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16593976921890441037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8891072208117538071.post-8602027010960025502009-02-12T22:03:00.000+10:002009-02-13T10:12:21.163+10:00

I'm at the end of day 2 of a three day 'unconference' at the University of Tasmania in chilly Hobart, where a group of Horizon using libraries have sent representatives to talk about what's the next ILS now that it's clear SirsiDynix will not reverse their decision to euthanise Horizon 8.About 26 libraries are here. University of Tasmania are the organisers and drivers. They had three staff in

Alan @JCU Libraryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16593976921890441037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8891072208117538071.post-17276225757363924792009-01-09T11:49:00.000+10:002009-01-12T13:56:58.645+10:00

What is a link resolver?Jargon words italicised and explained below.A link resolver is a piece of server software that translates an OpenURL request from source into a URL that will retrieve an item from a specific target.JargonOpenURLIs a standard way of representing citation-type information as a URL (OpenURL entry on wikipedia) e.g. http://resolver.example.edu/cgi?genre=book&isbn=0836218310&

Alan @JCU Libraryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16593976921890441037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8891072208117538071.post-50156702524370235562008-11-28T08:49:00.000+10:002008-11-28T12:24:58.516+10:00

Here's a clever little trick to pass on to students and staff who want to show a section of a YouTube video without streaming the entire thing.Just append the to URL #t=XmYs where X is how many minutes into the video and Y is how many seconds. These values are displayed at the bottom right of the YouTube video player's toolbar if you want to get exact timings.For example:http://www.youtube.com/

Alan @JCU Libraryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16593976921890441037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8891072208117538071.post-35344082343051731262008-11-27T21:01:00.001+10:002011-04-07T15:38:09.271+10:00

Had a chance to see Kent Adams' (Director IT&R) dry run of his presentation on cloud computing on Wednesday. Read the Wikipedia entry on cloud computing It's also referred to as SaaS (Software as a Service), I'm sure it used to be called Application Service Provision (ASP) and before that 'thin client computing' (and even before that mainframe/dumb terminal) but I'm showing my age. Basically

Alan @JCU Libraryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16593976921890441037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8891072208117538071.post-5966685302320008342008-11-03T12:10:00.000+10:002008-11-03T16:48:22.073+10:00

I've been prepping for the Professional Development Day (Library 2.0) in Townsville in November and for the Library Planning Days (Rethinking the Virtual Library) the week after and all the reading is making my head feel like a glass of dirty water - I'm just waiting for the sediment to settle.If I was a tag cloud the big words would be: usability, information architecture, EBL, and user-centric

Alan @JCU Libraryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16593976921890441037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8891072208117538071.post-16953271114204767722008-10-02T08:43:00.000+10:002008-10-02T10:01:59.440+10:00

Ghost of Google's pastFirst some fun: Google in celebrating its 10th birthday has released its oldest available index (January 2001) http://www.google.com/search2001.html - of course there's a ton of broken links, but the there are alternative links to the content through the Internet Archive.I did the obligatory vanity search and found the first thing I ever marked up in html (using VI back when

Alan @JCU Libraryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16593976921890441037noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8891072208117538071.post-7594669788050924052008-09-11T10:17:00.001+10:002008-09-11T10:41:01.895+10:00

Apologies for my slackness in writing lately. I am quite literally drowning in the CMS conversion. I'd like to thank the Ninjas and especially Sharon Bryan for their work knocking off the last pointy edges before a 'real' trial publish.One thing I think all the ninjas agree on is that we really need to do a review of our site. Because the site has had bits tacked on in an 'as needs' basis we are

Alan @JCU Libraryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16593976921890441037noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8891072208117538071.post-87996276172317152912008-08-05T09:54:00.000+10:002008-08-05T10:37:37.417+10:00

I was going to post about SirsiDynix releasing their Enterprise V1.0 product. I've read the media release and perused the web site at http://www.sirsidynix.com/Solutions/Products/portalsearch.php and I'm still not sure I see anything to get overly excited about. Enterprise is a layer that sits on top of the OPAC (in our case HIP) which provides a few bells & whistles, like faceted results

Alan @JCU Libraryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16593976921890441037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8891072208117538071.post-35354149979343617812008-08-01T10:06:00.000+10:002008-08-01T10:39:14.839+10:00

I've just been perusing the monthly SFX statistics that I've set up as automatic monthly emails and decided to actually try doing something with the stats rather than just record them. Great job for a Friday.The particular stats I played with today are the 'Books accessed via SFX ranked by use'. These stats indicate which books were returned in searches (both within Metalib and in the database

Alan @JCU Libraryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16593976921890441037noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8891072208117538071.post-91850413374242787822008-07-24T16:33:00.001+10:002008-07-24T16:37:07.055+10:00

I necessarily subscribe to a bunch of lists and feeds. The flow can be overwhelming but if you get into a simple scanning routine you notice patterns in the ebb and flow of the communal mind that is the web. In addition I actually talk to you about issues and ideas. For this post I thought I just mention some of the things that have caught my eye/mind recently.Open Source Integrated Library

Alan @JCU Libraryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16593976921890441037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8891072208117538071.post-34856948510359143692008-07-10T11:03:00.000+10:002008-07-10T11:59:18.136+10:00

Tim Spalding of LibraryThing has made a call for volunteers to create an open source alternative for the Dewey Decimal Classification system. It seems Tim's ultimate aim is to have the LibraryThing 'collection' classified using this new system, apparently to allow users to 'browse' virtually.The comments on the blog veer from the derogatory to heart-on-sleeve enthusiasm.You can follow the

Alan @JCU Libraryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16593976921890441037noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8891072208117538071.post-83430060676923596722008-07-08T15:12:00.000+10:002008-07-08T15:33:17.390+10:00

Go away for a couple of months and everything changes.On the 23rd of May 2008 Microsoft announced that it was pulling the plug on Live Search Academic and Live Search Books, two products it launched as direct competition for Google Scholar and Google Books respectively.Though never as widely used as their Google counterparts they were useful products and it is sad to see the work done in

Alan @JCU Libraryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16593976921890441037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8891072208117538071.post-31847723008147162642008-07-04T10:12:00.000+10:002008-07-04T11:50:58.317+10:00

Just a brief glimpse of the usage statistics for SFX year-to-date. See the full reports on the Library Intranet (JustUs), password required.Requests 207247 (number of clicks on 'Find It' button) - up 15% on 2007Click Throughs 161891 (the number of times Link Resolver either found an e-holding OR user clicked on the 'Search Catalogue' link when no e-holding found) - up 11% on 2007The databases

Alan @JCU Libraryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16593976921890441037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8891072208117538071.post-82862944872640279342008-07-04T09:48:00.001+10:002008-07-04T10:08:49.534+10:00

The Wiley merge of Blackwell Journals hasn't been as smooth as hoped. The database search appears be working and X Search returns the same number of hits for both Wiley and Synergy, and the A-Z list of databases both point to the same page (Wiley have arranged for all traffic to the old Synergy address to go to their site but I'm not sure if this due to a redirect or a DNS change).The issues we

Alan @JCU Libraryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16593976921890441037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8891072208117538071.post-20517686153980945822008-04-02T09:48:00.000+10:002008-04-02T12:14:48.879+10:00

Mostly I just panic.Seriously though - this is a new position at JCU Library and although there are some clear goals it's also clear that the job, like the technologies themselves, will evolve with the library's requirements.My current major projects are listed (and occasionally described) on the JCU Library Intranet (JustUs) in the technology sub site I'm developing.Away from specific projects I

Alan @JCU Libraryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16593976921890441037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8891072208117538071.post-14158310641196609742008-03-03T13:42:00.000+10:002008-03-03T16:18:07.671+10:00

Somehow stumbled across this following up something completely different: the Google CrossRef Pilot. Back in 2004 45 leading journal publishers who were CrossRef members signed up with Google for the CrossRef Search Pilot.Each publisher negotiated arrangements with Google for which parts of their sites would be indexed. Each publisher has a search page (hidden somewhere on their site) which

Alan @JCU Libraryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16593976921890441037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8891072208117538071.post-69689541779735394242008-02-20T08:50:00.000+10:002008-02-20T16:03:46.035+10:00

We're currently reviewing our options for federated searching and link resolution services. We've opted to identify possible (within resource constraints) scenarios. One possible scenario is to opt for Google Scholar as the federated search tool (Some universities have gone down this path e.g. University of Pretoria).Arguably, if we knew which providers of full text Google Scholar crawled we

Alan @JCU Libraryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16593976921890441037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8891072208117538071.post-60692618732815426962008-02-19T14:25:00.000+10:002008-03-03T13:12:02.777+10:00

At JCU we've had static lists of subject-based web resources since the dawn of 'before my time'. This approach evolved directly from the 'Pathfinder' model I first saw as an undergrad circa 1989. A paper list of in-building (mostly) paper resources.Now we have a electronic list of electronic resources with almost standard groupings like 'Databases', 'Ejournals', 'Associations & Organisations', '

Alan @JCU Libraryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16593976921890441037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8891072208117538071.post-28234303350695574082008-02-18T15:45:00.000+10:002008-03-03T11:20:41.270+10:00

Original PaperDanny reported some of the findings she'd made in researching for her Dissertation on barriers to academics use of institutional repositories.Apparently across the world repository has stagnated at around 15% of all academic output.This issue became a recurring theme at VALA (with many carrots and sticks being hurled around) but Danny's paper offered a fresh insight becauseShe isn't

Alan @JCU Libraryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16593976921890441037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8891072208117538071.post-53563138658258076572008-02-13T10:30:00.000+10:002008-02-18T15:43:47.542+10:00

There are many methods for predicting the future. For example, you can read horoscopes, tea leaves, tarot cards, or crystal balls. Collectively, these methods are known as "nutty methods." Or you can put well-researched facts into sophisticated computer models, more commonly referred to as "a complete waste of time." Scott Adams Andy has a long history with Eduserv and was the principal technical

Alan @JCU Libraryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16593976921890441037noreply@blogger.com0