Enterprise Abstraction

SFX and JavaScript

I'd been hunting around for a means to have our local SFX implementation (Find@CISTI) run without requiring JavaScript.  I'd done the requisite Google search, and submitted a request - to no avail.  The solution turned out to be rather trivial - and seems to have been implemented in subsequent releases of the SFX templates.

In your SFX instance, at /templates/sfxmenu/target_list.tmpl, add the following noscript line:

<!-- end extra comments --> <tr> <td height="0"> <noscript><input title="Navigate to target in new window" type="submit" value="<TMPL_VAR NAME='SERVICE_NAME'>&nbsp; <TMPL_VAR ESCAPE=HTML NAME='TARGET_NAME'>"></noscript> </td> </tr>

Our line had been removed or was missing... problem solved.  The buttons presented with JavaScript off are not particularly pretty - but they are functional. 

OpenURL and COInS at CISTI

CISTI has just released OpenURL links and COInS in CISTI Discover and NPArc (the NRC Publications Archive, NRC's Institutional Repository).

OpenURL in CISTI Discover and NPArc permit recognized users to connect with their libraries link resolver to get a list of appropriate full text content and other information services.  In the case of NRC staff, they will be recognized and directed to the NRC-CISTI link resolver to be directed to electronic content held or licensed on their behalf, or alternately to the means to search for and procure that content.  Others (not NRC) are presently directed to a default link resolver that provides a wide variety of choices and options. 

COInS (ContextObjects in SPANS) help applications, such as the browser plug-ins LibX and Zotero, to recognize the citation information and to provide users options such as saving/bookmarking the references.

NRC-CISTI's announces new public-private partnership with Infotrieve

Disclaimer:  I work for NRC-CISTI, and was asked if I could be so kind as to spread the word on CISTI's recent partnership initiative as part of CISTI's transformation process this year.  The following is an excerpt from the recent email notice to clients.  Please send your questions to the contact listed below:

Today, we are pleased to announce that Infotrieve, Inc., a leader in information center technology development and document delivery for more than 20 years, will be collaborating with NRC-CISTI on providing document delivery services for our clients and business partners. Infotrieve will be acting on NRC-CISTI’s behalf within Canada and will be providing exclusive services to our US and International clients. The transition will begin immediately and the process will be completed by March 31, 2010.

Over the next three to four months NRC-CISTI and Infotrieve will work closely together to transition all clients, starting with US clients, to Infotrieve’s world-class document delivery services using award winning technology for sourcing and delivering document orders. You will be able to recognize these orders by the accompanying coversheet or e-mail, which will reference Infotrieve. It is important to note that during this transition you should continue to use the same ordering methods you have been using to find and order documents, and you will be billed for services according to the identical price list currently used by NRC-CISTI. There will not be any changes to your current workflow for finding, ordering, or receiving document. NRC-CISTI will also continue to offer licensed access to information content and information services to the National Research Council. More details on what to expect can be found in the NRC-CISTI and Infotrieve Collaboration Question & Answer Guide.

Infotrieve has the fastest document delivery turnaround time in the industry which is achieved by leveraging over 40 million citations available within their own database and Infotrieve’s STM Library™ of managed print collections. Add to that the world renowned NRC-CISTI Canadian national science library collection with more than 50,000 serial titles, 800,000 books, conference proceedings, plus 2 million technical reports, and indexed journals in many languages and you’ve got an enormous collection of scientific, technical and medical (STM) content literally at your fingertips. This combination of content, expertise and technology will enable us to provide NRC-CISTI clients with improved services including faster turnaround times and higher document quality.

We will be providing you with regular updates as we progress through this transition. You can also consult our website or contact us at 613-998-8544 or 1-800-668-1222 (toll-free) or [email protected].

Pics of the CISTI Stacks

For the second time in my life I actually visited CISTI's stacks today - the areas on the 4th floor and above where CISTI keeps the dead trees.  I snapped a few pics for my personal enjoyment that others might like.  It's hard to get a feel for how large the space actually is, partly because it's divided over 4 floors, but also because there's no place on any of the floors to get a full pic of the entire area due to the building design.  Anyway, I thought some others might be interested, hence the set is on flickr.

I particularly liked this item, carefully shelved amongst the extensive collection of scientific works.  I may have to borrow it:

 

NRC Publications Archive (NPArC) Launched

CISTI has launched the NRC Publications Archive (NPArC) providing access to a large portion of the research output of the National Research Council.  Already there is a significant set of documents available.  From the notice:

"NPArC (pronounced N-Park) houses research papers for refereed journals, peer-reviewed conferences and technical reports that NRC researchers produce each year. It also guarantees long-term access to this research — serving as a valuable resource for NRC researchers, collaborators and the public. NPArC currently includes 35,000 publication records from 17 NRC institutes, along with 5,000 full-text publications from four of these institutes. And, over the course of this year, CISTI will be translating all new abstracts into both official languages."

To support the initiative, NRC has established a policy effective January 2009 making it mandatory to deposit copies of all peer-reviewed, NRC-authored publications and technical reports in NPARC.  The NRC License to Publish (Crown Copyright) form has been updated to support this requirement.

The NPArC web interface supports searching by a wide variety of criteria, and also supports browsing by subject, author or NRC Institute.

For those interested, NPArC metadata is also harvestable via OAI-PMH at:  https://accs.cisti-icist.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca/oai/ctrl?verb=Identify

NPArC is based upon CISTI's Trusted Digital Repository infrastructure that I've mentioned previously.

Map of Science

An interesting graphic of science resource usage produced by LANL:

Scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) in New Mexico have produced what they call the world's first "Map of Science" — a high-resolution graphic depiction of the virtual trails scientists leave behind whenever they retrieve information from online services.

The research, led by Johan Bollen of LANL, and his colleagues at the Santa Fe Institute, collected usage-log data gathered from a variety of publishers, aggregators, and universities from 2006 to 2008. Their collection totaled nearly 1 billion requests for online information. Because scientists usually read articles in online form well before they can be cited in print, usage data reveal scientific activity nearly in real-time, the map's creators say.

Via ISGTW and Bill St. Arnaud

Making allies of adversaries in libraries

[This post concerns mainly libraries serving a campus of patrons - public libraries or those with a general public mission have other concerns]

Google is not the enemy.  Nor publishers, nor vendors (entirely - but I wouldn't turn my back on a vendor in a dark alley). 

The library role based on having/holding content is diminishing.  More and more libraries (particularly science libraries) no longer hold collections but instead license content. 

Moreover, the role of a library as a search enabler is also compromised by technologies.  WebOPACs and ILS systems, federated search platforms are diminished by the fact that they are either not client-oriented interfaces (WebOPAC), or that if others don't the job better - they at least are further up on the list of patrons first stops on their research journey (Google, Google Scholar, Scopus, etc).

So, what to do?  Turn your adversaries into allies.

Libraries will not be a starting place for researchers - deal with it.

Libraries will not be the holders of information - the value of "collections" is diminished - deal with it. 

How?  Libraries still have a valuable role - to be connectors to information.

Indeed, encourage patrons to search anywhere/everywhere!  Go to Amazon if that meets your needs, browse wikipedia, start at your favourite journals website, use Scopus and other tools if you have access!  I believe that it is the job of the library to get patrons to information - regardless if that information is in our collection or not.  And regardless of where the patron decides to begin their search.

It is possible, with a small set of commodity technologies to bring access to patrons no matter where they start.  In order of importance:

1. Link resolver - connects your own technologies and 3rd parties to appropriate copies and information services for your patrons.
2. Proxy server - allow off-campus access to IP-restricted resources.  Alternately, you might use Shibboleth or some other kind of authentication/authorization mechanism.
3. Federated search - Allows for broad searches across local, remote, paper and digital collection.  Not a silver bullet - but at least your patrons are not expected to perform 30 searches on 30 different data sources - and still remain generally unaware of the vast quantity of expensive resources you license on their behalf.  More importantly perhaps, a federated search platform can be the foundation for your "discovery layer" - hooks and landing areas to connect multiple information services and sources together.  In a rare instance, a patron might even begin their search there - but I doubt it.  Finally - at the very least - the patron will not be forced to look at your WebOPAC... nobody should have to look at that.  Apply all the lipstick you want.
4. Library Toolbar - You can make one for your library via LibX in an hour.  This is for me the paradigm shifter.  It is well known that patrons rarely start their search at the library.  Don't try to change patron behaviour, go with it!  If they start their search on a 3rd party website - the library toolbar should travel with them on their research journey - pointing out places where the library can help them.  Oh, I see a ISBN, or a citation, or a DOI - here's a link back to your library to find out more information or get more services!   
5. Other goodies - Alerting, citation management, visualization, analysis tools, recommendations, facets, personalization... all of these and more can be tacked onto the federated search and link resolver... you're adding more and more value!

Why are we afraid of Google and others?  Don't fear them, embrace them!    And connect patrons from wherever they go to where they need to be.

Stephen Abram - Talk at CISTI

Stephen Abram gave an excellent talk to CISTI this afternoon.  He'll be posting his slides on his site forthwith, but here are a few of my gleanings.  Richard live-friendfeeded.

• "Let's put a calculator on everybody's desk and fire all of the F'ing accountants!?" - alluding to the silliness of the argument that because everything is online or available via Google that librarians/libraries no longer have value.
• Key-value for libraries:  non-partisan access/management to information.
• Different people learn/interact differently.  What's your Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter presence as a librarian?  Many, many researchers are on Facebook.  Are you there?
• Interesting story about the founders of Yahoo having hired 65 librarians to make their portal sustainable by providing taxonomic expertise.
• Librarians have marketable skills that have proven (provable) benefits - taxonomies, ontology's, categorization for example.
• Stats on disadvantages of not having libraries in schools....
• Impressive stats on librarians impact in the medical field.  Something like a 50% change in diagnosis and a 4% impact on mortality rates where librarians consulted.
• Librarians don't think/learn visually generally - but are text oriented - but many of the patrons think/learn differently...  (SKA:  what does that say about the current state of library interfaces).
• We cannot afford for libraries to be thought of as warehouses.
• Libraries will not go away - but they will be different.
• Target market for Google Scholar - 18-28 year old undergrads. 
• How can we (libraries/librarians) maintain "day-to-day relevance".  Bring the library to MySpace, FaceBook, etc...
• Need "water-cooler relationships with scientists" - be embedded in social networks.
• "Libraries protect reading and knowledge, not just books."
• The new normal:
• • Integrated discovery mechanisms
  • Single Core community service portal with branch customization
  • Fully integrated electronic and hard-copy collections.
  • Fully integrated physical and virtual strategies
  • Instruction/coaching as core services
• Interesting slides/videos about messages about libraries, e.g.:  say intelligence rather than information.
• • See the SLA Alignment project videos for more...
  • Librarians consistently undervaluing themselves.
• Promote vs defending value-driven benefits.  e.g.: Don't say:  "The library is not dead". 
• Evolution, not revolution... because revolution isn't going to happen.
• Appeal to corporate executives.
• For public-sector:
• • Good service is the key to long-term existence.
  • Focus on citizens and social contract.
  • Collaborative advantage is ideal.
• On Innovation:
• • shorter projects with aggressive time-lines:  6 months instead of 3 years.
  • promote culture of iteration.
  • provide opportunities for "experiments", sandboxes, pilots, trials, skunk-works..
  • put boundaries on it, without putting boundaries on imagination.
  • management needs to be clear about the boundaries without being punishing.
• The digital divide is NOT with the users (it's with librarians/libraries).

Update:  Stephen's presentation is now available online.

ICSTI 2009 Conference Ottawa

CISTI is sponsoring the ICSTI 2009 Conference June 9-10 in Ottawa. 

"Sharing research data is essential for effective collaboration. Few scientists, however, have the time or resources to ensure sustainable access to data for joint projects, domain-specific applications or re-use.

The ICSTI 2009 conference will examine how researchers, librarians and publishers can work together to create structures for managing and communicating scientific data."

For more information checkout http://www.icsti2009.org/.

The Future of Library Information Services in a Web 2.0 World

For those in the Ottawa area, Stephen Abram is giving a talk entitled "The Future of Library Information Services in a Web 2.0 World". 

Monday, March 23, 2009, 2:00 pm
Ottawa Public Library, 120 Metcalfe, Auditorium

Checkout the CASLIS event notice for admission and details.