Tuesday 11 December 2007

Has this worked?

Feedback please - was this a useful exercise or would you have just preferred the normal write up in the staff newsletter?

Conference Round-up

Only time will tell, but I can’t help thinking that this might be the pinnacle of the Web 2.0 and social networking tools bubble and it will be interesting to see what happens over the next year to eighteen months.

One message which was repeated several times, in different contexts was the need to actually use and engage with the different applications in order to fully explore their potential and make judgements regarding their use or otherwise to support existing services or provide new ones. Over the next few months I am going to try and put this into practice, although for the life of me I can’t see the value of Twitter, but I might yet be converted?

Privacy is going to be a long term issue I think. In the years to come will people regret being quite so open and honest on Face book, Fwitter, etc., ?

For me the conference has proved that Web 2.0 and its associated tools and networks can successfully provide new and different ways to communicate and disseminate information.

Probably, unsurprisingly, I had only been thinking about this prior to the conference in terms the tools commonly used by students, like Facebook, Flickr and YouTube. However, the presentations proved the value of these tools to support business as well either inside or outside the firewall.


Other Conference Blogs
Information Today
Information World Review

Photos
Conference Photos via Flickr

Day 3 - 6th December 2007

2nd European User Group
6th December 2007
Not really suitable for the blog - details being circulated internally.

Did you know?
JSTOR have their own page on FaceBook? You can add an application within Facebook which enables you to search JSTOR directly from your profile page.

Day Two - 5th December 2007

Overview
A very interesting and busy day, by the end of which my brain had quietly turned to mush, hence writing this up late. Very worthwhile and thought provoking.

A phrase which has cropped up several times in different presentations - “content is not King” “context is King”? Which is logical to a certain extent. But can you really divorce one from another, especially with the idiosyncrasies of the English language? Or am I thinking too much like a librarian?

Day Two - 5th December 2007

The Exhibition
Despite promises to myself that I wouldn’t end up collecting lots of stuff I seem to have ended up with a handful of pens, post-it notes and notepads. Too many years spent working for a charity without a stationary budget has obviously had a lasting effect on me.

Who's Who and Who Was Who

This is a successful resource for us via Credo Reference so I was very keen to see the product now that exclusive rights have been moved to Oxford University Press. The preview site looks very good, just waiting for the JISC pricing to be available.

The Carlyle Letters Online
The letters of Thomas and Jane Carlyle from Duke University Press, could be useful for the MA in Victorian Studies? Freely available

IBSS
When we move the platform from SilverPlatter to OvidSP worth doing some publicity? Useful guides and posters available from IBSS for a range of different subject areas.

Day 2 - 5th December 2007

Service Innovation - Tools and EResources for Library Users

David Clay - University of Liverpool
Providing User Access to Bibliometric Tools

This paper looked at the work Liverpool University Library undertook to support the University’s RAE submission. This work included providing impact factors and citation counts for individual articles and checking all the data submitted to the RAE.
Liverpool University Library is development partner with Scopus, and it was interesting to see the ways Scopus can be used provide this the majority of this data.

(Full paper available in the conference proceedings)


Niels Jorgen Blaabjerg - Aalborg University Library
It’s not about the Library, it’s about what the students need! - Supportive Roles and systems in Students’ Interaction with information
The power point presentation http://www.learningobjectsweb.dk/pdf/Blaabjerg_Hansen_Oegaard_Online2007.pdf

Discusses the creation of a video to support information literacy in Denmark. See:

http://www.aub.aau.dk/swim2/1024/start.html
http://www.learningobjects.web.dk/

(Full paper available in the conference proceedings)

Day 2 - 5th December 2007

5/12/07 - Tools and EResources for the Librarian

Carol Tenopir and David Nicholas
What does usage data tell us about our users?
This presentation was very data-rich and you need to read the paper and/or powerpoint to ready do it justice. The first part of the presentation looked at the longitudinal study (over 30 years) carried out by Carol Tenopir and her team, which looks at not only the journal articles which are photocopied and downloaded, but what they do with them next. David Nicholas talked about deep-log analysis, which provides data on how users interact with e-journal databases.

Interesting fact: Statistics taken been 2004-2006 from academics and students at universities in the USA and Australia as part of this study found that:

77% of under 30 year olds prefer to print out rather than read from the screen
83% of over 60 year olds prefer to print out rather than read from the screen

It looks like the majority (regardless of age) still prefer to do concentrated reading from paper documents rather than on screen.


(Full paper available in the conference proceedings)

Also see:
Nicholas, David and Jamali, Hamid, R. Diversity in the Information Seeking Behaviour of the Virtual Scholar: Institutional Comparisons. Journal of Academic Librarianship, Volume 33, Issue 6, December 2007, pp.629-638.

Ian Rowlands
How the “Google Generation” searches or information and the implications for research collections.
Unfortunately, there isn’t a copy of this presentation in the conference proceedings nor did a powerpoint presentation accompany Ian Rowlands talk, apologies to colleagues who I know were very interested in this presentation. However, the research discussed will soon be disseminated to the community via the normal channels. Further information can be found at http://www.publishing.ucl.ac.uk/behaviour.html

Rowlands defined the “Google generation” as anyone born after 1993, and who has grown-up with computers and doesn’t have a memory of life before the internet. The research (which was funded by the British Library) aims to anticipate the needs of the Google generation between 2012-2017.

See Also: Journal of Academic Librarianship, Volume 33, Issue 6, December 2007. For other articles of relevance.