More bits and pieces of news and stuff

• Government web sites - Government unsure how many, how expensive and who using http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/04/29/government_websites_uncontrolled/
• Wired story on data deluge and impact on science http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/magazine/16-07/pb_theory
• some interesting thoughts on community building from Stan Garfield http://www.communities.hp.com/online/blogs/garfield/archive/2008/06/18/building-people-to-people-networks.aspx
• from Computing 10 July, Gartner predict a move from 1% to 20% of corporate mailboxes using a "cloud-computing provisioned model" for email by 2012
• MoSCoW tool for requirements gathering - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MoSCoW_Method
• Information Commissioner's Office calls for review of 10-year old Data Protection Act
• Do you speak Geek? from BCS :-) http://www.bcs.org/server.php?show=ConWebDoc.20051
• interesting post on one of the BCS blogs about use of the internet (notably web2.0) in healthcare and the issue of quality/integrity of information posted and found both by patients and professionals - http://www.bcs.org/server.php?show=ConBlogEntry.480
• from JISC IPR newsletter, The European Commission has adopted a Recommendation on the management of intellectual property in knowledge transfer activities by universities and other public research organisations - http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/projects/ipr/iprconsultancy/newsletter30.aspx
• New report from RIN on information handling by researchers. From the press release, "Although developing the personal, professional and career management skills of researchers is currently high on the agenda in the UK’s higher education sector, training on information seeking and information management is uncoordinated and generally not based on any systematic assessment of needs, according to a new report from the Research Information Network (RIN). A greater effort is required to ensure that training provision is more effectively coordinated and managed by agents with an interest in this agenda: libraries and other information training providers, institutional and faculty research committees within universities, central training units and research funders." Mind the Skills Gap: information-handling training for researchers (www.rin.ac.uk/training-researchinfo).
• Article by David Lewis on what libraries should be doing in the current climate to curate content - http://www.ala.org/ala/acrl/acrlpubs/crlnews/backissues2008/may08/librarybudgetsscholcomm.cfm

ISKO event on information retrieval

Went along to some of the ISKO event on information retrieval today...

Brian Vickery was up first but unfortunately, I missed most of his talk. I did catch the last few minutes though where he asked some very pertinent questions:

• What is the case for building classifications, thesauri and taxonomies? How does this relate to the needs of Communities of Practice?
• Are the benefits of controlled retrieval languages strong enough to justify the effort and cost of creating/maintaining/using them?
• Is there a growing need to harmonise or match terminologies?
• What is the future for "universal" controlled languages and general classifications/ ontologies?

Next up was Stephen Robertson, giving a researcher perspective. He pointed out that although web search engines have been very successful, other systems cannot say the same - perhaps because the extensive machine learning available to Google et al just isn't feasible for a smaller setup. Roberston mentioned some useful sources of evidence in evaluating retrieval - notably click-throughs and "dwell time" (how long a user spends somewhere before returning to search results). There is some rich data out there but it is also "noisy".

Last up was Ian Rowlands who talked about the implications of the Google Generation report. He started with some context - insecurity around the power of Google, Yahoo branding; devaluing of the "library" brand; the hypothesis that the younger generation is somehow different. He referred to various pieces of research including Carol Tenopir's long-standing survey of academics. The bottom line of the Google Generation report is that it is a myth - yes, there is a type of user behaviour which is comfortable online but the Google Generation is not a homogenous mass of people - "silver surfers" (another irritating term!) demonstrate characteristics too and there are also "digital dissidents" among younger generations who are shunning technology. So, the general message is to stop thinking of our users as fixed targets who fit some kind of stereotype. We need to understand user behaviour much better, in particular, online reading - but then, how much do we really understand about how people read/absorb information in print? How can we be sure what we learn about online reading is peculiar to an online environment and isn't just typical of reading in whatever format?

Rowlands also suggested that we need to help users form "mental maps" of information - typically, when you walk into a library for a print resource, you have a reasonably good image of what you are expecting to find - the same can't be said of the web. There is a message for librarians here to help create easier access to information for users e.g. through less confusing terminology. Information literacy is key but research seems to suggest that unless individuals learn from a young age, the changes possible in user behaviour are more limited. There have been studies demonstrating a correlation between information literacy and academic grades.

Rowlands finished with a plea to understand our users better - stop thinking of them as one big mass which can be served by a one size fits all solution and learn from the commercial world, where customers are segmented and can follow a number of routes to information - though, I have to say, the commercial world doesn't always get it right either and they have greater resource at their disposal.

Back in the library world

Have rejoined CILIP and had various bumph through today. The LMS study seems to have stirred things up a bit with some uncertainty about the way forward, but everyone seems to agree that sitting still isn't an option. Need to set aside time to read the study through again...

Various snippets

Research Information - April/May 08:
- article by Sian Harris on peer review referring to recent report from Mark Ware Consulting on behalf of the Publishing Research Consortium - quotes 93% of academics disagreed with the statement that peer review is unnecessary. However, the report does note criticism with the current approach to peer review e.g. overloading of reviewers, time taken, methods used, bias of single blind method, lack of guidance from editors. Open review is an alternative, but apparently not a popular one.
- article by Nadya Anscombe on changes to the peer review process across a number of neuroscience journals - the Neuroscience Peer Review Consortium (NPRC). The journals (22 currently) have agreed to share reviewers' comments thereby reducing the number of times a manuscript might be reviewed.
- article by John Murphy on Google Book Search - mentions the Partner Programme where Google works with publishers and the Library Programme where Google has worked with the Bodleian as well as Cornell, Princeton and Harvard. About 10,000 publishers are involved and 28 large libraries are supplying material. IPR is obviously an issue and lawsuits are underway - one area of uncertainty is orphan works although Google is tackling this by publishing only snippets.
- article by Tom Wilkie and Sian Harris on e-books. We've all been waiting a while now for e-books to really take off and the authors suggest that "despite this enthusiasm amongst researchers, however, there are formidable barriers to the wider acceptance of e-books" including file format (with XML emerging as the preferred standard); legacy file formats; effective multimedia support; archiving and preservation; standardising e-book information; pricing models; understanding user behaviour. Ebooks have a lot of potential - we can do more with the content (e.g. translations) and enable users to build their own personal libraries but like other types of content, our thinking still seems restricted by what we could achieve with paper. One concern is what the role of the librarian will be if they are no longer seen as the intermediary/gatekeeper for accessing books.
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Research Information - June/July 08
- article by Nash Pal on multi-product platforms for e-products - as opposed to the current model where e-books and e-journals have developed along separate paths resulting in silos. Benefits to the user include uniform online experience; seamless search; unified access control; potentially lower management/maintenance costs. "... what is needed is an integrated front end supported by a single, comprehensive, content-agnostic set of admin tools to manage all content types".
- article by Jay Katzen on "collective intelligence" as a solution to the volume of information/data facing researchers. Katzen quotes recent research from Carol Tenopir - "Scientists now read 25% more articles from almost twice as many journals then they did 6 years ago". Essentially (although very much from a vendor perspective) the author proposes a combination of quality corpora, user-focused tools and collaborative space.
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Information World Review - April 08
- Tracey Caldwell reports on Pfizer's attempt to make JAMA reveal confidential peer review documents as part of its legal case concerning its arthritis drugs Bextra and Celebrex - again, raises the question of open review
- ALPSP (Assoc Learned and Professional Society Publishers) agrees platform deal with MyiLibrary
- Peter Williams in his editorial: "Information professionals should put themselves at the heart of the current debate over payment models for information and content. As the information gatekeeper for their organisations, they exercise a major responsibility on a daily basis in deciding what information is paid for, the value of that information, and the subsequent return on investment"
- article by Tracey Caldwell on ebooks - noting that business models are still at an experimental stage. Quotes Mark Carden, senior VP at MyiLibrary "paper and shipping account for only 5-10% of the cost of a book". Refers in some detail to JISC's eBooks Observatory project and CIBER's SuperBook project. Ebooks have potential in helping librarians provide access to knowledge free at the point of use - they can incorporate Web2.0 technologies such sa social networking, tagging; they are easily updated; online chats with authors could add an interesting dimension; integration into workflow; and the idea of iChapters, content can be purchased as chunks rather than as an entire monograph or collection. Also quotes Jay Katzen, from Science Direct: "...there needs to be a publisher paradigm shift so that more information is put in at the creation of content such as better tags". Mentions the Automated Content Access Protocol which will enable publishers to make content machine readable (semantic web?). Chris Armstrong is quoted: "Journals are more granular; access is to the article, which has an abstract, while access to and abstracts for e-books tend to be at the book level. Journals are also serials, so an access habit can be built up". A key early challenge is to tackle the issue of monitoring usage to inform future purchasing decisions.
- article by Michelle Perry on new business models for publishers. Mentions O'Reilly which looked at how tutors were using their titles online and came up with the idea of an online model that allowed them to design their own books for their courses. Apparently, Elsevier has developed a product to enable medics to search for diagnoses (???). David Worlock, from Outsell, highlights 3 areas publishers must grapple with to avoid being left behind: workflow, community, and vertical search.
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Information World Review - May 08
- article by Kim Thomas on grey literature reporting that regulations to mandate deposit of electronic material is in hand but unlikely to be implemented before Autumn 09. There is a hope that this regulation will allow the BL to harvest websites for grey literature. Refers to 2 projects part-funded by JISC: Manchester Uni repository of Access Grid events; and Kings repository of documents relating to committee meetings.
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Information World Review - June 08
- news that OCLC members participating in Google Book Search will now be able to share their MARC records with Google, the idea being that if an individual finds a book through Google Book Search, they'll be able to drill down to find where the book is physically located
- article on open access in social sciences and humanities, reporting on the EU promoting OA through something called Action32 of the STM-based COST programme (Co-operation in the field of Scientific and Technical Research). There is increasing pressure from users to link to source data - it has been suggested that a useful first step might be to open up access to research already in the public domain.

Information literacy

FreePint includes a review of the LIS Show by Adrian Janes. He very neatly sums up two main themes to emerge from this year's event:

User empowerment

using Web2.0 technologies; wifi access; RFID

Information literacy

A very interesting overview of some work already underway (notably Sheffield and Bedfordshire) to improve quality of discovery and to counter the seemingly widespread belief that "if it isn't on Google, it doesn't exist" (also refers to the recent RIN report on use of academic libraries and the Google Generation report). Peter Godwin (co-author of a CILIP book on information literacy and library2.0) is quoted as saying In a digital world in which, as he said, ‘Content has left the container', we as professionals have to adapt. Godwin refers to key principles he set out for ‘Library 2.0':

• Find out your users' changing needs
• Believe in your users
• Be rid of the culture of perfect
• Become aware of emerging technologies.

There's also a reference to SCONUL's 7 Pillars of Information Literacy which I will take a look at when I have time.

Free Pint has a related article in the same issue by Derek Law on digital natives covering the issue of information literacy as well as provenance of digital information and the role of the librarian:

"It is all too easy to see the prospect of an alliterate world in apocalyptic professional terms. Much better to recognise that repurposing our skills, particularly in the areas of building collections of born digital materials, providing trust metrics and kitemarking and teaching information literacy skills will be more prized than ever. The trick will be to ensure that our profession responds to this, rather than abandoning the field to others while we guard the gates of our paper based storehouses of knowledge."

BL Direct

BL Direct now has over 7000 journal titles available for full text purchase:
http://www.bl.uk/news/2008/pressrelease20080527.html

Data librarians

Interesting article in CILIP Update:
http://www.cilip.org.uk/publications/updatemagazine/archive/archive2008/june/Interview+with+Macdonald+and+Martinez-Uribe.htm
which quotes:
"‘Recent research carried out by the Australian Department of Education, Science and Training3 has indicated that the amount of data generated in the next five years will surpass the volume of data ever created, and in a recent IDC White Paper4 it was reported that, between 2006 and 2010, the information added annually to the digital universe will increase more than six fold from 161 exabytes to 988 exabytes.’ "

RSC virtual library

FreePint features a story from RSC on setting up their virtual library: http://web.fumsi.com/go/article/share/2818

Interesting discussion of some of the barriers with publishers and how they addressed them. Also interesting to note the physical space previously occupied by the library is being reconfigured to include a new conference/meeting space.

ACRL environmental scan 2007

The Association of College and Research Libraries in the US recently published their Environmental Scan 2007 (http://www.acrl.org/ala/acrl/acrlpubs/whitepapers/Environmental_Scan_2.pdf). Their Top 10 Assumptions are:

1. There will be an increased emphasis on digitizing collections, preserving digital archives, and improving methods of data storage, retrieval, curation, and service.
2. The skill set for librarians will continue to evolve in response to the changing needs and expectations of the populations they serve, and the professional background of library staff will become increasingly diverse in support of expanded service programs and administrative needs. Mentions the idea of a "blended librarian" a hybrid of traditional professional competencies along with increasingly significant skills related to teaching and to the application of technology to library service - similar to the "data scientist" role advocated by Liz Lyon. Also mentions evidence-based practice.
3. Students and faculty will continue to demand increasing access to library resources and services, and to expect to find a rich digital library presence both in enterprise academic systems and as a feature of social computing.
4. Debates about intellectual property will become increasingly common in higher education, and resources and educational programming related to intellectual property management will become an important part of library service to the academic community.
5. The evolution of information technology will shape both the practice of scholarly inquiry and the daily routine of students and faculty, and demands for technology-related services and technology-rich user environments will continue to grow and will require additional funding. Mentions cyberinfrastructure (3 reports specifically: "To Stand the Test of Time: Long-term Stewardship of Digital Data Sets in Science and Engineering" (ARL, 2006); "Our Cultural Commonwealth: The Final Report of the American Council of Learned Societies Commission on Cyberinfrastructure for the Humanities and Social Sciences" (American Council of Learned Societies, 2006; "Cyberinfrastructure Vision for 21st Century Discovery" (National Science Foundation, 2007).
6. Higher education will be increasingly viewed as a business, and calls for accountability and for quantitative measures of library contributions to the research, teaching, and service missions of the institution will shape library assessment programs and approaches to the allocation of institutional resources.
7. As part of the "business of higher education," students will increasingly view themselves as "customers" of the academic library and will demand high-quality facilities, resources, and services attuned to their needs and concerns.
8. Online learning will continue to expand as an option for students and faculty – both on campus and off – and libraries will gear resources and services for delivery to a distributed academic community.
9. Demands for free, public access to data collected, and research completed, as part of publicly funded research programs will continue to grow.
10. The protection of privacy and support for intellectual freedom will continue to be defining issues for academic libraries and librarians.

The Research Committee also identified a number of emergent issues including:

• Library facilities and services will become increasingly integrated with research, teaching, and learning programs.
• The ability to meet the needs of e-science and e-scholarship in the social sciences and the humanities will increase and require new approaches to the design and delivery of core library services.
• The focus for academic libraries will shift from the creation and management of large, on-site library collections to the design and delivery of library services.
• The tools and techniques of social computing will provide new opportunities for the design and delivery of library resources and services, but will also make increasing demands on library staff and systems.
• Library patrons will use semantic Web search techniques to locate information resources

"Google generation" - implications for libraries

First up, the recent BL/JISC Google Generation report - this was announced last week and I've been a bit slow getting round to reading it. It makes for very interesting reading with some difficult reading for librarians and resource providers.
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/resourcediscovery/googlegen.aspx


One of the key messages is that library users need much more guidance to find useful resources - they don't find digital libraries intuitive and may not rank such sources as highly as we would hope! The report suggests digital libraries are often organised in the way a librarian might think and could be improved by organising content in a way that makes more sense to the user.


Worryingly, the "Google Generation" doesn't seem as aware of information quality issues as they need to be, relying more on brand (such as Google) and less on systematic critical appraisal.


One point which is made is that the term "Google generation" is probably unhelpful and that the age differences are not as significant as we may believe.


Librarians get a bit of a hammering which isn't totally deserved - I accept that libraries need to think more from the users' perspectives but this is a wider issue than just design of library systems - it's a lack of information skills which as the report suggests, needs addressing at school age.


On a more positive note, the latest Free Pint has a feature interviewing Lynne Brindley and Janice Lachance. I particularly like Lynne Brindley's quote : "Have a kind of beta test mind. It's always going to be in beta test, it's never going to be perfect, and you do learn just by engaging with it" encouraging librarians to be more experimental.
http://www.freepint.com/issues/?PHPSESSID=ad6fcd93b0c930a75f4945d0ed894724

Open science: implications for librarians

A recent (Nov 07) talk by Liz Lyon to the Assoc of Research Libraries gives a great overview of open science and how communication and collaborative tools are changing ways of working. The talk is directed at librarians, and encourages them to ask some difficult questions about how research data is being managed in their own institutions.

I like the take home messages:

• Open science is driving transformational change in research practice: now
• Curating open data requires strong Faculty links and multi-disciplinary teams: Library + IT + Faculty
• Recognise and respect disciplinary differences: get to know the data centre people, new partnerships
• Libraries have a lot to offer: build on your repository experience
• Data underpins intellectual ideas: we must curate for the future

LIFE - digital lifecycle cost study

LIFE, a collaboration of British Library and University College London funded by JISC, started its second phase this year. The first phase "examined the life cycles of key digital collections at UCL and the British Library and established the individual stages in the cycle. These stages were then costed to show the full financial commitment of collecting digital materials over the long term". The second phase, which will end next August, "aims to refine the LIFE methodology adding four new exemplar case studies to further build upon LIFE1"
http://www.life.ac.uk/

Role of libraries

An interesting post yesterday on Science Library Pad:
http://scilib.typepad.com/science_library_pad/2007/10/grl2020-and-the.html
It mentions how librarians should accept that some services might be better done through technology or even by other organisations. Instead, they should focus on where they can really add value e.g. managing scientific data, curating digital information like blog posts. The post mentions a recent event organised jointly by University of Washington Libraries and Microsoft, Global Research Library 2020.

D-Lib articles on libraries and cyberinfrastructure

In Sept/Oct 07 issue, both by Anna Gold...

Cyberinfrastructure, Data, and Libraries, Part 1 : A Cyberinfrastructure Primer for Librarians http://www.dlib.org/dlib/september07/gold/09gold-pt1.html

Cyberinfrastructure, Data, and Libraries, Part 2 : Libraries and the Data Challenge: Roles and Actions for Libraries http://www.dlib.org/dlib/september07/gold/09gold-pt2.html