This Week in LIS - 21 December 2007

Upcoming Dates

January 9 (Wednesday): LIS General
January 29 (Tuesday): LIS Midwinter Planning

CNI: Explorative Search & Effective Library Websites

Several of the sessions I attended at this month's CNI conference touched on interface design and a subtle but significant shift in how library websites can best serve users. Specifically two sessions dealt with the issue of Explorative Search (given by a Danish librarian) and research and development that has been done into rethinking search interfaces. Also a joint session by Syracuse and Oregon State looked at focusing library web resource design on subject and course-based guides to better target specific constituencies. Some comments a garnered from both these sessions are included below:

Library Catalogs and Websites are generally very poorly designed for resource discovery. Catalogs are only now beginning to incorporate more data into their records (like tables of contents, reviews, ratings, etc.) and generally are only really strong for locating known items (or determining if an item is available). Browsing the catalog is a clunky and usually unhelpful experience. Yet, we know people will spend hours browsing eBay, Amazon, and other online "catalogs." A response to this is coming in products such as Encore which we have purchased which will (hopefully) finally bring a positive browsing/discovery experience to our library catalogs and other resources. Websites suffer from some of the same ills in imposition of strong and deep hierarchies of information which force users to first identify and then successfully navigate channels previously defined by others. Information is also often presented and organized based on the needs and perspective of librarians, instead of the user. A specific example of this is an "All Databases" page on a library web site. While on the one hand, it is good to have such a resource, channeling users to that page who likely don't need to search every database presents them with a challenge once they arrive of determining which of the myriad sources to use.
Denmark's Summa project is a project similar to Encore in that it seeks to create a discovery services platform that incorporates many data sources, including library catalogs, full-text databases, digitized archival material, or anything else you can index. Specific features include relevance ranking, did you mean?, inline suggestions for searching, integration of human resources (more on that in a minute), reviews, others who borrowed this also borrowed ..., clustering, faceting, and others. The project has been specifically designed to enrich direct patron interaction and use of broad scopes of resources.
Syracuse and Oregon State have both been working to expand user-targeted web-based guides to library research focusing on specific subjects and courses. Course guides or subject guides aren't anything new in the library world, but in the world of ever-increasing numbers of databases, full-text journals, and ebooks, they are becoming the preferred way to manage and make library resources useful for users. Syracuse has partnered with their business school to create a special portal from the business school website into library resources specifically selected for business study and research. Students do not need to spend time navigating a generic library website, but instead are shepherded quickly into productive research in their field. Oregon State has developed open source software to make creating feature, rich course guides with resuable modules very easy. We have used a similar product here at Luther. I believe as we consider revamping our resource-based web guides that these sorts of portals into library research should become our primary vehicle that we promote for users. I believe there is value to us reducing the clutter and scope of information we provide and lowering the threshold for our users to get over when beginning library research.
A side note on human resources ... the Danish project has cataloged their experts on their library staff, and I believe are considering expanding that to include other campus experts on given topics. So, if you're doing a search on the civil war, you might turn up a catalog record (complete with picture of course) of the campus history professor who is an expert in the field as well as a record for the library liaison responsible for supporting study in that area. Human resources on any campus are vast, deep, and rich resources and yet we generally have not tapped into making their skills available through our primary research discovery tools ... yet :)

Luther to Join NITLE

We are in the process of joining the National Institute for Technology and Liberal Eduation (NITLE - pronounced "Nightly"), a national organization dedicated to advancing liberal education in a digital age. NITLE has been an evolving organization over the years but primarily works to provide a place for faculty at liberal arts institutions to learn and collaborate when considering and integrating digital technologies into their classrooms and curricula. NITLE has also served as a place for technology collaboration to occur across campus and as a home for librarians, instructional technologists and others who support faculty in their digital work. This will provide a significant new outlet to encourage faculty development here at Luther as well as development among LIS staff who support faculty. We will be joining in a trial period through June 2009 and hope to have a variety of faculty and LIS staff participate in NITLE programs in the coming years. Please see the NITLE website for examples of programs offered.

Luther Learning More About MetroNet

This week Adam and I met with Kurt DeVore from the Decorah Community School District to discuss planning for Decorah's MetroNet, a fiber optic network designed to link various school district, city, county, and medical facilities together. Phase one of the project will be linking together facilties in downtown Decorah as well as Winneshiek Medical Center. Phase two may involve extending that network across the river to the College and other locations. We are interested in watching development of the project as there could be some significant benefit to Luther in participating with this project as it grows and expands more closely to our campus.

Google Apps Feedback / Your Creativity Needed

We are currently soliciting and receiving feedback from all our Google Apps beta users. Reaction is strongly positive across the board. It is our hope to package our evaluation work, feedback and other documentation into an official project proposal soon. As part of that proposal, we're seeking a name for this new suite of services. We'd rather not call it Google Apps, but would like something else that brands and localizes this product. Ideally a naming scheme that both encompasses the whole suite, but also each part (mail, calendar, docs, chat, start, etc.) would be good. So, if you have thoughts or ideas, please send them along.

Notes from LIS Council

Topics discussed by council this week were:

Recruitment Updates
Ongoing concerns with our online admissions application and using it over dialup or slow Internet connections.
Directory updating is not currently working due to a Datatel issue. We're working to get around this issue.
Mac network troubleshooting - we continue to try to troubleshoot this problematic situation where some Macs regularly lose network connectivity.
Serial Solutions records for electronic journals - we have been testing some records for full-text journals in Magnus and hope to have a full load before too long.
Jane will be on sabbatical during spring 2007. John will be serving as acting department head.

The Council also began a discussion regarding teams and effective work as teams. We'll be spending some more time talking about that in January leading up to our midwinter planning day.

Reminders

LIS staff are encouraged to trial Google Apps for Education. Contact Adam for information on how to participate.
Puffer Plan lunches - schedule available in Basecamp or on lis.luther.edu
Have news to share? Post to the blog at lis.luther.edu/blog
Tuesday items to share? Please send along to Cindy H.
Traveled lately? Please post a brief report to the blog at lis.luther.edu

Recruitment Updates

Academic Technology Librarian - Semifinalist review is underway.

8:45s for Next Week

We'll hold virtual meetings Wednesday-Friday next week. I won't be around to facilitate, so I'll ask those there to nominate a leader and carry on :)

TWILIS on Hiatus

Due to the holidays, TWILIS will cease publication until Friday, January 11, 2008. Have a great holiday everyone!

Cool Resource of the Week: Eyealike

A lot of companies are coming up with new ways of searching the Internet ... Eyealike is doing it visually in what at this point is a rather unproductive but fun way. By uploading a photo of yourself, their system will scan other photos for celebrities who bear a resemblance to you (male or female). By uploading several pictures of people you like and those you don't, it can also make suggestions for your "dream date." While the usefulness is somewhat limited right now, I think this is window into technologies that will fundamentally change how and what we search in the future. My Celeb Matches were an interesting mix that included Charlton Heston and David Spade ... better keep working on those algorithms :)

On the web: http://www.eyealike.com/