iTunes U

I’ve just been reading a discussion on the JISC-repositories discussion list about iTunes U which launched in the UK about a year ago.  The service provides a platform for video and podcasts and is now available to all UK HE and FE institutions. I’ve heard nothing about it until now. There are quite a few institutions that are already using it, Oxford (http://podcasts.ox.ac.uk/), Cambridge and Warwick have a presence there already for example. Unfortunately, to find out more about the service, you have to have iTunes installed on your pc which I don’t at work so I can’t find out any more just yet. If anyone does have iTunes at work click on the link below and then click on the link about 2/3 of the way down the page to explore:

http://www.apple.com/education/teachers-professors/mobile-learning.html

Perhaps we should be speaking to the Open and Distance Learning Unit – it’s possible they have heard more about it – as a way of providing additional links to both teaching and research materials. What do you think?

A session was recently presented by Barry Cornelius from Oxford University on this service, see link below to view the presentation:

http://iwmw.ukoln.ac.uk/iwmw2009/sessions/cornelius/

JISC Landscape Study

The JISC has put out a call for input in relation to Web2.0  

http://blogs.ukoln.ac.uk/jisc-sis-landscape/

I’ve had a look at the comments left by others and there are some really interesting services that I either haven’t heard of, or that I haven’t been to explore yet, so I plan to do a bit of investigation. 

 

QM Library chooses Endeca IAS NG search

As you will all remember, the Library has been looking for some time at web systems that will allow us to integrate the range of our search services into a single search interface – a so-called next generation search interface. We entered into a formal procurement at the end of January and have now chosen the Integrated Access Platform (IAS) from Endeca.

It was a very difficult decision as Ex Libris’ Primo offered a very competitive alternative solution. However Endeca has the virtue of being the application of choice by a number of suppliers across industrial and financial sectors including Borders (bookstore), Ford, IBM, Walmart; Ebsco, Guardian Unlimited and Lexis-Nexis; and the National Cancer Institute. The Financial Times has very recently (23 March) launched its Newssift service based on Endeca.

• McMaster University
• Triangle Research Libraries of North Carolina, including Duke and NC State universities (Unicorn/Symphony libraries)
• State University Libraries of Florida
• Toronto University Library (intr Jan 09)

An interesting public library implementation can be seen at

• Phoenix Public Library

QM is on stream to become the 1st library outside North America and only the 6th library in the world to implement Endeca. This promises a rich challenge to offer our users something new and places QM Library in its rightful place at the head of the (UK library) pack! This unique opportunity was the setting factor in our choice of Endeca as the Library’s next generation search interface.
We’re hopeful of having something to look at to include Symphony and the SFX eJournals A-Z list at least during July.

Twitter for libraries

Can twitter (or other micro-blogging services) be used by libraries to communicate with their users?

Have a look at this wiki article written by a MLIS student at Florida State University’s College of Information.

Phil Bradley also has some ideas about using twitter in libraries.

Drupal 6 as library cms

We have abandoned Rhythmyx and have moved into experimental territory by adopting Drupal 6 as our new library csm. Rhythmyx did not meet our required standards of usability and would not have been a great platform for experimenting with new web technologies.  I can’t imagine our list of contributors would have expanded if we had adopted the college solution.

Our library website is roughly  split between three camps: the basic operational details for the library; the e-resources;  and the subject area, which delivers information skills about the both physical and the electronic library and other resources beyond our institution.  Drupal is optimized for community driven websites, so we are hoping to use this to provide a more interactive, experimental website, especially with regard to information skills. Our plans with regard to this are currently under discussion. I fancied it personally as I saw a way I could hack node-types / content-types to meet particular document management solutions that we have in the library, e.g. creating subject based library guides.

We’d be interested to chat more with any UK library that has  adopted Drupal as their cms or is thinking of it. Sorry it’s not online yet. We will include a link in a future post.

CMSreORG

The CMSreORG project combines two projects in one. It is a re-evaluation of our current web authoring methods with the view of adopting a Content Management System (CMS). It is also, more importantly, a re-organization (reORG) of the current website, exploring how it can be best shaped to allow our diverse user audience to get the most out of the web services delivered by the Library.

The Library is currently considering adopting Rhythmyx, the college’s CMS, hosted by Corporate Affairs. Should it be adopted, it will help library staff to manage content reduplicated in many pages across the site. Also, content can be quickly ‘re-purposed’ in different formats. For instance, this article, once entered into the CMS, could output to the bulletin, an item on a news page and into a news archive. It will replace Dreamweaver as a web-authoring tool, offering an easier method of authoring that requires no HTML experience. Expirery dates can be set to allow staff to monitor their pages more effectively and allow for a scheduled method for delivering news and RSS. When it comes to creating page content, Rhythmyx will allow e-services to set up a more structured ‘work-flow’ by assigning particular roles to library staff.

These advantages are met by challenges that will require technical experimentation and ongoing communication with the vendors, who market Rhythmyx as adaptable ‘enterprise’ software aimed at Higher Education. It is undecided how Rhythmyx will allow us to integrate our dynamic web services, such as the Catalogue and MetaLib. It is unclear if it will be ‘future-compatible’ with Vertical Search products, like Ex-Libris’ Primo, which are more concerned with bringing together and delivering remote and local resources in a single search than managing local content. Taking into account these challenges, we aim to make a decision on Rhythmyx within the next month after staff consultation.

While contemplating how to improve web-authoring for staff, we are simultaneously getting to grips with the requirements of our website audience. We aim, as the shortly to be published Project Initiation Document will specify, “to adopt a more user centred approach to the navigation and the structure of our website”. Almost every aspect of how we present library web services with regards to content, look and feel and accessibility are within the scope for change.

Central to this project is a working group, whose main task is to call together key staff members for consultation as issues arise within the project schedule. However, this is fundamentally a user driven project. We will soon be hosting user feedback evaluation sessions to determine whether our current notions and perceived problems with regard to the site are on the right track. We are also considering the engagement of a specialist consultant to produce a neutral and expert view of our services and requirements.

Sid’s blog

Our very own Sid has his very own blog, on which he recently explained in a simple fashion what flash and virtual memory are and how a USB can improve the performance of your PC.

http://sidlid.blogspot.com/2008/04/new-use-for-usb-stick.html

Is this why I should refrain from pulling my USB out without following the safely remove hardware procedure?

Janet Talk: Instant Collaboration and voice over IP for HE

At UCISA conference June and I were talking over lunch one day with a sales representative from Damovo, a business communications company specialising in voice of IP services. We got onto discussing telephony systems, messaging and voice over IP. I mentioned that one of my colleague is keen to set up skype for phone calls and that I find instant messaging a real benefit for quick interactions with work colleagues. The Damovo rep mentioned that Janet Talk is a new initiative being launched soon for the Janet community as a whole. Although I’m keen to explore the messaging available in GroupWise it will be restricted to our department. A community approach to communication services would seem to make sense for team working and collaboration services, not just for us but for students and researchers. Clearly this not an emerging technology but it sounds like an innovation to apply the ‘social’ technology to an entire community.

http://www.ja.net/development/talk.html

http://www.ja.net/development/voip.html

Blogs and wikis…

Discussion at a meeting earlier this week about whether something would be best communicated to Library staff via a blog, wiki or even old-fashioned email, reminded me of this post on the Ubiquitous Librarian’s blog about using Clearspace software for this very purpose. Clearspace is enterprise collaboration/knowledge management software, and incorporates blogs, wikis, announcements, file sharing, and message boards, amongst other features.

dapper is the online web scraper

What a wonderful tool dapper is. This is apparently web 3.0, the webs new phase of maturity that will blossom eventually to the semantic web. It’s all about re-using open data from large and famous sites in a more structured and intelligent context. Here is a good but old article on such:

Web 3.0: When Websites Become Web Services

Dapper allows any webmaster to perform very basic web scraping, which will be familiar process to those who enjoy studying search engines or even Metlib. Dapper qua. Web scraping simply selects, collects and re-formats html content from a site, rendering it re-usable for different purposes. This is great for databases: I can now see a quick way of transferring data from the exam papers website into a PHP MySQL. This will open it up from departments to use the data in their own applications. Also, it could be a great starting point for stripping our old website for the forthcoming CMS migration. I strongly advise everyone to investigate this and come up with some ideas on how we might use it.