Connecting Librarian

Xiaolin Zhan is the head of the National Science Library of Chinese Academy of Sciences

Lots of information challenges to e-science:

1. eScience is built on a lot of data – it is smart data, not just because you can play with it using computers, but because of forthcoming technologies like semantic publishing, and computable. It not only comes as numbers, but intelligent, computable, with metadata.

2. eScience is more than a lot of data – it covers the entire research and development chain, enables integrated resource development and analysis and envisions an integrative infrastructure. Its computable knowledge – can have visualised searches, intelligent tracking, tech trends analysis. Its knowledge driven scientific discovery, workflow and problem solving. The whole discovery process then becomes knowledge driven.

3. eScience is a different information world? Its strategic innovation, interdisciplinary and translational research, its cooperative research, its data intensive knowledge discovery. Now serving R & I decision-makers, lab & project leaders, front-line researchers and engineers. Now scientists go from data to information to intelligence to a solution is happening on the go. They need scholarly publications, research data, applied and market data, applied market and social information and more.

4. A new approach is required. Library solution is no longer the user solution. Library can only build its contribution on users solutions. Users solutions are not data or collections, but R& problem solving solutions. Library should aim for high impact services.

Libraries as smart power for e-Science:

1. Re-purpose the research library: trends tracking, potential testing and priority selection. Not just data, but visualisation and presentation. If we miss these opportunities, we miss this trust and miss the future. Focus on R&D’s new and hurting knowledge bottlenecks – help them to do research better, but with added value. Knowledge as a service – science as service, take steps to make the knowledge into a live tool – smart data.

2. Smart reading for R&D. First look at how people consumer information. No longer linear, static and lonely or reactive. Now weak vs strong information – weak is information you don’t know and don’t know its relevance. Power browsing – key messages rather than linear reading. Strategic reading – fast scanning to extract and accumulate for building context, frameworks and direction. Looked at who is reading what – the higher the position, the more strategic, innovation, interdisciplinary and translational research. Need to provide a lot of information analysis and tools to do this.

3. Integrative knowledge support for R&D> need discovery, customised, embedded, analysis and preservation provenance. Which matches the R&D workflow.

4. Knowledge based collaborative R&D; networked-based knowledge experiments,not just resources, but tools, experts and specialists. Need the facilities, the rights, ability to experiment.

5. Capitalising on complexity of meta-knowledge – we help by building knowledge as a service. Provide knowledge on knowledge, on collaborating, on processes, structures and interactions. Its now a verb as well as a noun. It is live. To do so, need to be strong, have special expertise and organisation. Libraries can do this, but are not ready to do so quite yet. Vendors are already offering this type of service.

Because most researchers and students live over 1000kms away from the National Science Library, they have built a system where the information is pushed out to the users (who are all connected online). They are shifting to a R&D support service, which incorporates an integrated discovery service. They are experimenting with clustering,GIS and visualisation technologies to gather and explore diverse data resources from many institutions and websites. Put much more emphasis on building user environments.RH

Planning a China IR alliance, with other research institutions and also with European partners. They are supporting OA publishing and are a member of arXiv.org. They plan to be a central force in OA resources and policies.

Have fourteen teams working on Research Intelligence Services. Do regular R&D tracking, R &D structure and evolution analysis – using purchased tools and others they have developed themselves, Mapping of sciences and R&D roadmapping, Tech trends analysis – now a big part of what they do. They are developing computer-assisted integrated analysis generation, including automatic profiles, customised analysis, etc.

Also have embedded research support – they liase with their institutes, but not library or documente based. They are user centred. They are doing integrated resource development, helping their institutes to determine what information they need and how it should be organised.

Developing Knowledge platforms as an Academy wide initiative. By end of 2012, it will be live in 15 institutes, by 2012 in all 100 CASS institutes. This will include improved knowledge literacy, so that they not only know how to find the data.

Library will become an open innovation centre. From a library, to a knowledge co-laboratory? They are using the under-utilised library space for consultation, video conferencing, lectures, exhibitions, experiments, seminars and classes.

Challenges:

• technologies – types and integration

• staff – need a knowledge of R&D and tech, not just subject areas

• organisation – reversing pyramid structure – embedded knowledge specialists first

I had a play with QR Codes a while ago, but only recently has my library undertaken a  trial in using them. Its informal, there has been no big song and dance about it, but if nothing else comes about as a result of this experiment, we have at least raised awareness about them.

Its interesting to see what people are saying about them in the library landscape and elsewhere.  On the more supportive side:

•  QR Codes and Information Literacy

on the more sceptical side there is

• Why the QR code is failing
• QR Codes go to College

So what are we doing with them and why, if they are ‘going to fail’?

We have started with creating a QR Code for our website and our Facebook page. We put them up on our website and on signs in our branches advertising our online presences.  At the same time, we did introductions to QR Codes for our staff and an article in our monthly newsletter for library users.

We have no indication at this point how well they are being used, if at all, but if nothing else we have taken a step in the education process. I know from discussions with staff, that they appreciate having explained to them the black square boxes that they have seen appearing in marketing everywhere. Hopefully, its the same for our users. As librarians know, its the information literacy that is always the hardest part.

So far, we are happy with what we have done – it hasn’t taken much time or effort to produce.

The next step is to create new shelf talkers to advertise our online resources in the appropriate on-shelf collections, so its very simple and straightforward to create a QR code to take users straight to the resource.

I can understand the scepticism about QR Codes, after all, it takes knowledge and software to use them. The fact that it is being used widely in advertising, will help its adoption. It doesn’t hurt us either, that the library is using something which could in time, be considered cool.

If it doesn’t gain that widespread adoption, its no great loss. It hasn’t taken much time and its been quickly absorbed into things we would normally do anyway. If it succeeds, then we will look at expanding its use into other areas – and there are many.  Some of these include:

•  QR Codes – Library Success Wiki
• Learn more about QR Codes – UTS Library
• QR codes in the library – an investigative and fun orientation program (14 June) – Sally
• QR codes and libraries – what’s all the fuss about? – SLNSW
• QR Codes – University of Wollongong

It’s very gratifying seeing lots of libraries trying these out and will be interesting to see where they go, both in libraries and in the general world.

Is your library using or planning to use QR Codes? Why/why not? I would love to hear your experiences of how they are being used or why they’re not.

The first presentation for this session was my paper, presented with my co-author Paul Mercieca. Our presentation Evaluating Web 2.0: user experiences with public library blogs is available at Slideshare.

The impact and benefits of Learning 2.0 programs in Australian Libraries: Michael Stephens – Dominican University, Richard Sayers – CAVAL and Warren Cheetham – City Libraries Townsville

Methodology – lit review, web survey of program administrators, national survey of Library 2.0 participants and case study at City Libraries Townsville.

National survey was conducted in June 2009 and garnered 385 responses, across all sectors, but particularly from the public and academic sectors. Most did it at work (61%), nearly ¼ through a consortial ie. State Library of Victoria and the rest on their own by joining in on another program. 85% completed the program. For those who didn’t finish it, 3/4s reported no time or too busy, 25% too hard, didn’t like it, not comfortable.  Reasons included program too fast, other demands on time, sites blocked and personal privacy concerns.

Open question: After finishing Learning 2.0. I feel comfortable using new technologies – agreed and strongly agree – up around 80%. I like to explore technology on my own dropped a bit. Team/committee structures have improved because of this training – only 40% strongly agreed.  Personal impact seems to be much stronger than institutional impact.

Impact on your libraries after Learning 2.0 has been completed: better awareness of these tools 30%, more use 21%, no change 20%.

Success =  Support plus Time allowed – perceived usefulness.
Support = Admin plus coworkers plus programme leaders plus IT support

Its not bringing broad sweeping changes to libraries, but is changing how individual staff perceive technology and how they work with it.

Find out more at: http://research.tametheweb.com/.

From library automation to Library 2.0: exploring Web 2.0 tools,while reflecting on our traditional values as we move towards Library 2.0 and beyond – Paul Sutherland – Christchurch City Libraries.

Thinks he was born digital, using technology from a very young age. Threw in a convicts comment (cross Tasman rivalry). Lots of Facebook users, not many Friends of VALA – MUST FIX THIS.

Don’t be afraid of being afraid.

What are your top trends?

Libraries have never been about books – they have been about ideas and creating new things from those ideas.

Let go and see what happens, stop acting like librarians (twitter comment).

Connections, content and conversation. Books we can see, data we can’t see, it just whizzes about us. Learning 2.0 is more about learning to adapt and adopt.

What is a blog? Its really a conversation, but also directing users back to the library.

Libraries need a presence in library thing. We should own and manage our presence in these spaces.

Used Flickr to engage their users – asked for and scanned their photos in Flickr about the ordinary day things happening in their city. People want to share their content with the world and where better than the library as a channel for that. People want to tell us things. Stop using ‘user-generated content’ as a term, use local experts. Librarians don’t know everything, we should know however, where to find it.

Very bad at recording our own history.  Need to get better at that.  Every library should have a Wikipedia presence. Check how many incoming links come to your wikipedia entry (when you get it).

Embed your catalogue – make it easy for your users – eg LibX toolbar.

How do you try out a new tool, with really committing to it or feeling foolish when you don’t go through with it. Running a competition solves this problem.

Check out Open Library.

History of Melbourne on Wikipedia only has 12 references.  We are in a position to fix this for our local communities’ entries.

Where is the memory space for things like Black Saturday.  We need to be collecting the things of now, because they will be important in future – including things as simple as shopping catalogues.

Christchurch is piloting Kete – trying to use it as a place to store their stories – not about accuracy.

Impressed with what libraries are doing with open access to data.

DigitalNZ – GLAM plus more – check the website. Want to find stuff for our users and be able to deliver it to our users with our brands.

I was reading an article not so long ago – How Google is making us smarter – which in turn was almost looking to counter a previous article – Is Google making us stupid? You can check out either or both at your leisure, but the former got me thinking.

In How Google is making us smarter, the author Carl Zimmer talks about the extended mind. This concept was first raised in 1998 by two philosophers Andy Clark and David Chalmers (an Aussie).  In their essay “The Extended Mind” they posed the question “Where does the mind stop and the rest of the world begin?” In it they posited that someone who keeps something in their memory and someone who keeps the information stored elsewhere, but at hand, (eg. on computer, in a notebook etc), are the same.  The external source that the individual uses to hold information is part of their extended mind.  Interesting viewpoint right?

So how does that relate to Librarians and evolution?  Librarians are phenomenal miners of information. We can find information on a vast array of topics and when we do, we somehow take note of the content itself or where it can be found.  Librarians have already taken the idea of the extended mind way beyond the boundary of where I am sure Clark and Chalmers imagined it would be.  How many times have friends and family been amazed at you knowing some amazing details, or being able to find out something in a very short time and with minimal difficulty. (I am notorious for finding the answers to retrospective questions – born curious and therefore a born reference librarian)

The article goes on further to comment about how humans are proving to be very good at merging mind and machine.  Look at how we drive cars – our perception of distance adjusts to the edge of the car, as it becomes an extension of ourselves.  Clark and Chalmers also argue that there is further evidence, in the form of study results that prove that our minds are constantly seeking to extend themselves.

If that is the case, then aren’t librarians at the forefront of that extension? And if that’s how humanity will continue to grow and develop, then as we are already out there on the cutting edge, doesn’t that make the librarian the next step for many on the evolutionary road?

Can you imagine it?  Evolution leads to a superhuman being – the librarian!  Gotta love the image.

I am presenting at NLS4 and are in the process of writing the paper for it. My topic is keeping-up-to-date. Below is a quick review of what I am planning to cover.

Why keep-up-to-date? Why it is important that we as librarians stay current.

Taking responsibility for your professional development. In conjunction with your employer and in your own time.

What area(s) should you cover? Be selective about which areas you want to stay ahead on. But also have an awareness in other sectors. May be quite different depending on the sort of library you work in and your role within it. Also will depend on your personal interests.

How much time should it take and whose time should it be?

Where you will find the content to keep you up-to-date. This is a long list, but far from complete and in no particular order: journals, ejournals, books, elists, blogs, screencasts, vidcasts, podcasts, forums, rss feeds, wikis, seminars, webinars, training, conferences, conference papers, further education, professional associations, continuing professional development programs, library tours, networking – both online and in person, instant messaging/microblogging, learning 2.0 programs, library training.

How do you find the right content? Finding about out it and then accessing it.

Dealing with information overload. Practices to ensure you can still find time for a life. Continually reviewing and revising your information flow.

Is there anything that you find vital to your own professional development, that is not covered here? I don’t have a lot of time for presenting, but I want to overload the readers of the paper with as much information as possible.

Your wise words, great ideas and overall expertise are sought in this endeavour – proper attribution given of course!

Thanks!

I am so excited.  Just as well, because I was very sad about not being in the thick of things at Computers in Libraries this year, after the awesome experience I had there last year.  Its great to be already reading all of the blogging reports coming out of this year’s conference. Thanks all!  Keep ‘em coming!

The reason I am so excited is that the mailman has just delivered my book!  Well its not just my book, I am just one of 19 contributors, but still excited anyway.  I’m a published author!  In a book, not only a journal!  Information Literacy meets Library 2.0 ‘addresses the impact of the adoption of these (Web 2.0) technologies on information literacy teaching’.

I wrote Chapter 5 – “Information Literacy, Web 2.0 and public libraries: an exploration”.  Most of the content came out of my study tour last year and coincidentally from what I learnt at last year’s Computers in Libraries conference.  For Australian readers, Judy O’Connell from Hey Jude authored Chapter 4 – “School Library 2.0: new skill, new knowledge, new futures”.  I am honoured to be in such great company in this book, with not only Judy, but 17 other great library experts.

I was surprised and delighted to also discover that it is a hardback edition.   I really like the cool cover (although this image does not do it justice) and the detailed information (including the list of contributors) on the back.  Thanks to the editors Peter Godwin and Jo Parker for inviting me to be involved.

Peter and Jo are following up the book with a blog – Information Literacy meets Library 2.0 where both the editors and the contributors will be able to continue to update the contents.  Also hope to do some related podcasts.  Come check it out!  I’ll just go back to exploring the crisp white pages of my book!

Kim Tairi – Swinburne University of Technology, Rob McCormack – Peodair Leihy and Peter Ring – Victoria University
“Fairy tales and Elggs: social networking with student rovers in learning commons”

Rovers were used in the Learning commons – student peer mentors who worked in pairs.  Created RoverSpace – an online community for Rovers to share knowledge and problems, initially used Elgg (open source social networking space), now use Google Groups and Mediawiki.

Student rovers need to be peers (complementary service to librarians), seed a culture of learning (exemplars of good learning practice, paid work as a positive (good addition to or complement of their coursework), where the community meets (some rovers see working for the library as an honour).
Having rovers who reflect the university’s student population, in terms of background, courses etc.

RoverSpace – contains shift reports, statistics, administrative communication, reflective tasks, organic information sharing space.

Duties: – basic advice, assistance, operational support to students in the Learning Commons regarding IT and Library queries
- assist students to clarify their learning issues and develop strategiese to tackle them
- refer students to online/library resources, formal student learning advice and other forms of assistance

Rovers handled 4500 queries in the first 2 semesters of 2007  83% dealt with in a few minutes. 7.2% referred to library staff. 70.5% of queries were for printing, photocopying, catalogue, borrowing and returning, finding items on shelf and the swipe card technology.

Happily Ever After?
better publicity and more visibility
more training and better knowledge management
different roles (lead rover and webmaster)
more efficient support (only one in off peak times)
capitalising on online support potential
other platforms – Cosmopolis
PDAs

Bruce Heterick – JSTOR
“Shift happens: how the network effect, two-sided markets and the wisdom of crowds are impacting libraries and scholarly communication”

Check out the YouTube video “Shift happens” – series of factoids on how the world is changing.

“Technology is everything that is invented after you were born.”  “Technology does not add or subtract something. It changes everything.”
eg. Printing press (Gutenberg -1440) led to the Protestant Reformation and the Renaissance
Linotype machine (Merganthaler – 1886) led to increased newspaper circulation (cheaper production costs)
Integrated circuit (Kilby/Noyce – 1961) led to digital computing
World Wide Web (BernersLee – 1989) led to search engines, e-commerce, information transition
iPod (Apple – 2001) – led to portable media

Library in use is using audio avatars – surfer dude on using Google, southern lady on archives from JSTOR – podcast how to use the resources.  Students downloading and listening to them when they want.

Four exponentials ….. working together
- Moore’s Law – power of computing is doubling every 18 months ( hold true for last 25 years and probably for next 10 to 15)
- Law of Fiber – capacity of the bandwith is doubling every 9 months – allowing us to deliver much more than we could have imagined a few years ago
- Law of Storage – digital storage doubles for the same cost every 12 months (its not a concern anymore because it is so cheap)
- Law of Community (Metcalf’s Law) – the power of the network goes up with the square of the networked people interacting with it
Each law is an exponential change agent, but with all of them working together, feeding off one another, it has caused such great change that it has become unsettling for people.

“If things are under control, you are moving too slow”.

They are facilitating the transition from the Information Age to the Age of Participation:
- actively engaging with what they are receiving – blogs and wikis are descendents of that need
- multilateral, not unilateral – not just working person to person – more apparent but also can be more confusing
- communities, not silos – around the information, how will they be facilitated through the platforms being used
- contribution as well as consumption

They are contributing to an environment with new dynamics:
- The Network effect – service becomes available as more people use it, growth can be extraordinarily fast (often virally) and can occur with little or no centralized control, glider – the power of the network must move down.
- Two-sided markets – WEb 2.0 where people contribute and consumer, economic network having two distinct user groups

Wisdom of crowds – groups are smarter than the smartest individual in the right circumstances
- decisions by crowds work when the crowd is diverse, decentralized & work independently ie. Wikipedia

Libraries will have to engage more at the place where their users are – proactive engagement.
Publishers have to be building self-sustaining communities or be consolidated.
Faculty – have to become more conversant with the technologies, adopt these advances, focus on networks, not institutions.

Law of change – libraries will have to change as the larger system of which we are a part changes, or risk being ejected from it.
Gorbachev Syndrome – leaders swept away by the tide they have created.

Do we move forward to what is inevitable or do we hold on to the continuity that we have, however profoundly it is flawed?

Kate Wilson and Chelsea Harper then reported on their study of the Blog and Wiki landscape in Australia as of June 2006. Limited literature available on this topic, so most of their info came from a study run from Apr – Jun 06.

Blogs and wikis are being used for reference database/manuals, public resource guides, managing teams/project knowledge, marketing and communication with clients, current awareness and professional development.

Results – 18% of libraries had a blog, 11% had a wiki. Blogs – 47% public library, 45% special library, 22% university library. Wikis, the figures were 33%, 45%, 11%. Most blogs were external, most wikis were not. Blogs were mainly used for client communications, wikis for internal workflows. Other purposes were marketing, organisation of events, professional development, reference services and other.

Most organisations don’t have a blog or wiki policy. The main reasons for not blogging or using wikis were time, finances and technical knowledge or support. Can check out more on the report at: http;//www.seedwiki.com/wiki/libraryblogswikis/

Leona Jennings from Gold Coast City Council took us through the implementation of RFID at Gold Coast’s 14 libraries and 2 mobiles.

Timeline – Expression of interest Dec 04. Business case approved May 05. RFT Nov 05. Contract Mar 06. Main tagging commenced May 06. Aug 06 – first library live. Oct 06 – main rollout. Jan 07 – last library went live.

Didn’t want the complications of running 2 systems at the same time, especially with floating collections, so wanted it to be instituted in as short a time as possible. Done over 12 months, but over 2 financial years to spread the cost.

Why RFID – for staff efficiencies, to allow staff to spend more time with the users and on public programs. Efficiencies gained through self serve checkouts. Aim to get 35% of loans through self-checkout.

Benefits: efficiency gains, OH&S benefits, greater accountability of assets, increased customer satisfaction (due to shorter queues, more services etc).

Challenges: to tag with minimal disruptions, enthuse staff and stakeholders, review and revise circulation and collection policies, to install, over 7 months.

Recruited a team of 12 from their casual pool to work as tagging teams – minimal impact on branch operations. Worked in teams of 3, rotating tasks and monitoring each other – worked well.

Bought a tagging station for acquisitions, hired 4 others for retrospective tagging in the branches. Changed security case type on AV at the same time. Took 5 months to tag.

Problems: – overachievement, teams were competitive and completed the job too quickly which meant they had to go back and do all the returned, non-tagged items. Tagging alone came out of the first year’s budget. Rest came out of 2nd years.

Concerns about job losses were alleviated, some questions but no great concern about privacy. At this stage, no tags on membership cards and no self checkin. Involved staff in demos and once 3M contracted, all staff saw a demo were continually updated with visits and an intranet page, which had FAQs, updates, progress chart and user guides hightlighting the self-serve aspects. All reviewed circ and collection policies were in place before going live.

Each branch had one day of hardware installation. Next day was staff training and as soon as they were trained, went live. Exception was the self-serve units which remained for staff access and training until the 3rd day. Of 14 libraries, 8 have self serve units, more units to go in this year. Some libraries will have 2, smaller branches and mobiles none.

Too early for full impact, initial feedback is that checkin is happening more quickly, getting back on shelf quicker and queues are shorter. As of 31st Dec, 28% of loans went through self-serve. Staff are able to spend better quality time with patrons and they now have more time to stop and think and be proactive. Expect to be able to do more staff training, provide more customer services and now focus some time and effort on their website.

Colin Bates and Bernie Lingham from Deakin spoke about Electronic Information Literacy using multiple technologies. They began with a video of a session, showing us what they were talking about – always helpful.

Bernie spoke first on Ellimuniate Live – a trial synchronous web conferencing package, which enables librarians to run information literacy sessions for distance and other students who can’t make it into the library for the in-house sessions. The package uses software, which Deakin provides to students, microphones and headphones/speakers to enable moderators to communicate with up to 10 students at a time, whilst delivering a class. No formal evaluations were taken on the classes, however informal feedback from students has been very positive. They felt confident to do the tasks themselves afterwards and enjoyed having the training delivered in a form and at a time that was convenient for them. Only concern from the moderators side was the low participation rates, with sometimes only 1/2 the booked students, attending the session. The only technical problem was the need for JavaStart and firewall issues, which were the reasons for some non-attendance.

Colin then spoke on how the library was using Deakin’s portal to push library service to students and faculty. All need to sign into the portal to access their email and includes 30 tabs linking to different resources. The uni sought more library content available via RSS which could be presented on the portal. The Library channel has a quick catalogue search, but focuses mainly on online journal content through RSS feeds. It aims to supplement the library webpage and draw attention to the library’s online journals. Content was selected on the basis of likely interest, historical use, user requests and availability of RSS with topics including news, current affairs, general interest and news journals etc. Why RSS in the portal? Already authenticated, simple for the naive user and value adding. User response? 13-35% increase in subscriptions from Oct-Dec 2006.