WML Tech Updates

Were you aware that there is something called iTunes U?

“iTunes U is a free, hosted service for colleges and universities that provides easy access to their educational content, including lectures and interviews, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. … Through iTunes U, students can download content to their Macs or PCs, regardless of their location. They can listen to and view that content on their Mac or PC, or transfer it to iPod for listening or viewing on the go. Instructors can easily post and change content on their own without impacting the IT department. And, of course, students can upload their own content to share with professors or with the class.”

Well, here at Vanderbilt, Ralph Knapp at Peabody and many others have been working with Apple to get Vanderbilt involved in this new tool.  And as of today, iTunesU is now integrated into Blackboard!

On Tuesday, May 22, 2007 @ 1:30 pm, there will be a training session in the Wyatt Center Macintosh Lab. The training will include how to create a podcast and how to interact with iTunesU. They are willing to entertain other questions and representatives from Apple will be at the training as well.

If you will be creating podcasts for your library, or plan on assisting faculty with podcasting and using iTunes U, or are just wanting more information about all this cool stuff,  you are certainly welcome!  For more info on podcasting in education, see this page on the Apple site.

If you plan on attending, please let Jim Parker, the University Webmaster, know that you will be there.  He can be contacted at jim.parker@vanderbilt.edu or 615-343-8557.

Jenny Levine had a great post today on communicating with library users, whether in-person, on the phone, IM, texting, or just changing the status of your IM so people can easily tell whether or not you are available.

I talked with my colleague Cynthia just the other day about this, and how we both change our status in Trillian quite regularly. Unfortunately, only a couple other WML library staff use IM, and they use different clients like AIM, Yahoo, or MSN. Heck, even LITS set up an in-house client (Exodus) to test, but it’s never been announced or promoted to all the libraries for use, nor do they intend to advertise it. They say it’s up to the directors of the individual libraries to determine whether or not to implement it. So I guess if I am really adamant about using IM in WML, I need to make a convincing case to our director. We need to be on the same page internally before we even attempt to do IM reference interactions with library users. But wouldn’t it be cool if I could IM with any of my colleagues throughout the Heard Library system, many of whom I need to interact with regularly because of committees and project teams? And do you know anyone not in favor of reducing the amount of email we get?

I personally communicate with my colleagues in a number of ways. Some people only respond to email, but I have several colleagues throughout the Heard Library system that I communicate with via Facebook, IM via Exodus, IM via Trillian, and even SMS texting. And with some people, it’s just easier to call. But one thing Jenny said really hit me.

“…it’s important to do the cliche and “think outside of the box” of how we ourselves might view communication. Even when we do focus groups or informal surveys, it tends to be with library users, who might not be that different from us. Therefore, we might miss patterns like these that show a shift in how the outside world communicates.”

I think it is important that we keep in mind how other people communicate and want to be communicated with. I know some reference librarians that when they get an instant message, or even an email, they insist that the user come into the library because the librarian thinks it’s easier to explain how to find something or use a particular resource. But there are so many tools out there that can help the patron just as much as an in-person interaction. We could be doing screencasts, mini podcasts, creating interactive tutorials, adding the info to a wiki or a research guide. I am sure other people besides myself get tired of answering the same questions over and over again. But I think our users like having options on how they not only find information, but having options in how they interact with us as well.

The person who emailed a reference question to a librarian - she emailed because either it was inconvenient, she didn’t want to come into the library, or she didn’t want to talk to a person. Isn’t customer service about giving people the type of service they want, not what we want? Why do we present to our users so few options of interacting with us when the communications possibilities are almost endless and continually expanding?

Jim Huenniger, the National Sales Manager from Swets Information Services came to Vanderbilt today to talk to the Heard Library system to talk about two of their products, ScholarlyStats and SwetsWise.  SwetsWise is wholly owned by Swets, while the ScholarlyStats product is owned by MPS Technologies, Inc. (a UK company).

Jim’s going to talk about Scholarly Stats and SwetsWise. Swets is based in Holland and has been in business 105 years, in 160 nations. They work with 65, 000 publishers, 60,000 clients, 1.8 million subscriptions. The flow of info is to acquire, access, and manage.

Their core services are in subscription management and they work with retrieval and normalization of usage data. They work between publishers and libraries.

It is a web-based portal. This is a good thing (meaning that it would be available anywhere as opposed to having something install on a computer).

Jim gave everyone a folder with lots of handouts. We went over the various collection platforms (EBSCOhost, Emerald, Blackwell Synergy, etc.) that work with Scholarly Stats, which is one of the handouts.

Benefits of the service:

• Gain added insight into user behavior
• Use time analyzing rather than administering usage data
• Reduce the real labor cost associated with data retrieval
• Counter compliance
• Usage data monthly
• Any report can be viewed online, printer

Benefits of the portal:

• It’s a repository to securely assemble all vendor access details
• A rolling 5 year collection of usage data
• Archive of historical usage statistics reports for year-on-year analysis
• Portal Administrator may grant read-only access to other staff (basically, there can be other user profiles and levels of permissions)

Integration:

SwetsWise Subscriptions is being enhanced to further assist libraries with the challenges of E-Resource Management.

Jim showed several screen shots and examples of what things look like, and then went into the demo. Ann Ercelawn, Roberta Winjum, and Bill Hook all had questions.

John Haar asked if they look at non-journal electronic materials, such as indexes, abstracts, reference books, e-books, etc. Jim responded saying that they are looking into it, and he knows that they are looking closely at e-books.

COUNTER Compliance. This is an important thing. It standardizes the usage statistics.
JSTOR and Springer aren’t included on the list. Neither is LexisNexis and HeinOnline.

Bill Hook asked about how detailed the reports can be. Instead of seeing that 5 people used a database in a month, he wants more detailed information. But it really depends on how detailed the publishers are in providing information to Scholarly Stats.

Flo asked about loading prior years usage data into ScholarlyStats. They won’t automatically do it, but if you have statistics that you have been collecting, you will be able to load the data. Again, they have a rolling 5 years, but that 6th year isn’t lost - it can be saved and archived in whatever way we want.

SOLINET signed an agreement with MPS, affording members up to 25% savings.

He mentioned that UT in Chattanooga is testing out the lowest level (looking at 9 platforms within ScholarlyStats) to see how they like it and to possibly consider consortium pricing. Jim said he hasn’t talked to Therea (the Dean at the Lupton Library at UTC) since January about it.

I talked briefly with Roberta Winjum, Head of Tech Services, about how I know some people at UTC and would be willing to contact them about what their thoughts are regarding ScholarlyStats. ;-)

The number of platforms (levels):

• up to 9
• up to 24
• 38 plus

—- 5 minute break —-

Now Jim is talking about SwetsWise, the features, enhancements, etc.

Key Features:

• Screen Views - subscription, account, and financial information
• Subscription Search
• Order/Review
• Claiming - print and electronic access claims
• Account Grouping
• User Management
• Online Reports

SwetsWise isn’t a static product - they are still developing many features. In June, version 4.4 will be out. By the end of the year, version 5.o will be ready.

Future Additional Features:

• Consolidation -
• Further Account Information
• Bulk Orders and Renewals
• License Bank -

E-Resource Management:

• Gathered data is based on ERMI recommendations
• ILS integration - their first partner was Innovative
• They are using OpenURL to load data

Jim gave a demo of SwetsWise. We currently have this product (I think Chris Waldrop is the administrator) and he talked about new and upcoming features, and how it works for those in the room who did not know much about it.

Other members of Vanderbilt’s ERMS Evaluation Project Team can talk more about the demo and their opinions. I didn’t want to even attempt to capture all that here.

—-

15 people in total attended, including most of OUL and representatives from Central, Peabody, Science, Law, Divinity, Biomedical, Management, Tech Services, Order Services, and LITS. After the ScholarlyStats demo was over, many people left.

Not sure you have seen this, but it’s been the talk of a lot of major blogs I read. I shared this with Paul and Flo, and I think it’s important enough to share with everyone in WML.

It’s an essay called Changing Roles of Academic and Research Libraries that derives from a discussion from the Roundtable on Technology and Change in Academic Libraries that took place last November. It discusses transformation, leadership, the risks of undertaking the tenets proposed in the essay, the role of library professionals, and more. I was really impressed with the depth and insight provided in the essay, but in particular, this section that tries to make sense of the “messy future” ahead:

There are three essential actions libraries must take to achieve the necessary transformation and remain vital forces on campus in the years ahead:

• First, libraries must evolve from institutions perceived primarily as the domain of the book to institutions that users clearly perceive as providing pathways to high-quality information in a variety of media and information sources.
• Second, the culture of libraries and their staff must proceed beyond a mindset primarily of ownership and control to one that seeks to provide service and guidance in more useful ways, helping users find and use information that may be available through a range of providers, including libraries themselves, in electronic format.
• Third, libraries must assert their evolving roles in more active ways, both in the context of their institutions and in the increasingly competitive markets for information dissemination and retrieval. Libraries must descend from what many have regarded as an increasingly isolated perch of presumed privilege and enter the contentious race to advance in the market for information services—what one participant in our roundtable termed “taking it to the streets.”

There are several other statements that really caught my eye within this essay. But I still encourage you to read it in its entirety. Here are some examples:

“The changes that are occurring—in technology, in research, teaching and learning—have created a very different context for the missions of academic and research libraries. This evolving context can afford a moment of opportunity if libraries and librarians can respond to change in proactive and visionary ways. There are diverse and unmet needs now arising within the academy—many of which closely align with the traditional self-definitions of academic and research libraries. “

“The transitions occurring in the production, dissemination, and retrieval of information provide important opportunities for academic libraries to lead their institutions in pursuing new modes of academic research and productivity, much as they did in helping their institutions adopt digital technology in its earlier stages. The evolutions that continue to occur—changing paradigms of knowledge production, expanding sources and modes of dissemination, faster and broader accessibility to a growing range of information – all have the ring of opportunity from the standpoint of an entrepreneur. Changes in technology and modes of academic work create new kinds of needs that libraries can help fulfill. In this sense the challenges libraries now face are the same ones that confront any contender in the expanding market for information: there is a continuing need to adapt to rapid change, to keep pace with new developments in technology and new competition in the industry. “

“The challenge for libraries, their leadership and staff, is to recast their identities in relation to the changing modes of knowledge creation and dissemination, and in relation to the academic communities they serve.”

And finally, “Today’s library staff must include people who see themselves as active contenders in a race for relevance, regard, and resources. Some of its members must have strong technical skills and an ability to identify specific areas in which technology can advance the institution in fulfilling its academic mission. Library staff must be capable of working effectively in partnership with faculty members to enhance the strength of teaching and research. To be certain, there are many staff members of this kind in academic libraries today.”