Vast Active Library and Information Science blog. From a recent library science graduate in Wellington, New Zealand. A focus on reference and current awareness tools and issues, especially free, web-based resources.

 
Let's say you're promoting a film festival (the major festival for the year) in New Zealand. What domain name would you choose, given the choice? filmfestival.co.nz? Something like that, nice and obvious?

Nope. You'd choose www.enzedff.co.nz - because obviously when people try to guess your website address, that's the first thing they'll think of, isn't it?

Honourable runner-up is the Wellington City Council's guide to what's on in Wellington - www.feelinggreat.co.nz

I bet someone got paid a lot more than I am to come up with those names, too.


| posted by Simon at 12:57 pm

 
2. What criteria do users of corporate libraries use to evaluate the performance of those libraries?

3. The purpose of this study is to identify the important aspects of corporate/special libraries for their users. It follows the LIBQUAL model (a tool for evaluating what aspects of a library's performance are important to users) which has previously been successfully applied in academic library settings. It is hypothesised that these criteria will vary from those identified in academic libraries, with corporate library users placing emphasis on different qualities of the library. The study will follow the LIBQUAL model, with questions administered by anonymous survey at two or more corporate libraries in the Wellington region. Results will be compared with those of previous studies that focused on academic libraries, in order to determine how the needs of these user populations differ.

4.


| posted by Simon at 8:58 pm

 
[Again, if you aren't me, you might find this boring].

Review Questions.

1. - What is meant by bibliographic organisation?
Arrangement of descriptive information about a given item/document, in order to permit access to that item (either physical or intellectual access, e.g. either locating an item within the library, or understanding its contents).

- Why is it important to organise bibliographic information?
Fairly obvious. Find stuff.

- Is there a distinctive New Zealand practice in bibliographic organisation and control?
Interesting. We do obviously follow AACR, and the vast majority of our libraries use either Dewey or LCSH. On the other hand, there's a move towards the creation of Maori subject headings, which is obviously unique to NZ. And its possible that our interpretation of AACR is subtly different from either the UK or the USA, in the same way that those countries interpret it differently (c.f. the discussion about the British Library and the Library of Congress, who both interpret the rules of AACR quite differently, in Oddy. [1])

- What are the major systems for bibliographic organisation?
bibliographies, catalogues, indexes, the internet [2]

-Should the characteristics of the ideal surrogate record be the same for printed sources of information and electronic sources?

Harvey and Hider (p.14) set out the characteristics of an ideal surrogate record: it uniquely identifies information resources; it identifies the resource's subject; it is brief; easily duplicated; standards-compliant; transferable to another system (e.g. MARC). So yes, the characteristics of an ideal surrogate record are the same for print and electronic resources. Though clearly the contents of the record could be different (electronic resources would need to include information about access that would be unnecessary for print resources).

2.

What were the primary reasons behind the way in which early libraries organised entries in their catalogues?

Essentially to enable users to physically locate the documents. Included titles, number of lines in the work (Alexandria, Rome), and an attempt at colocation - subdivision by language (Latin vs Greek) and by subject, and then by author (Rome, with influences from Greece).

Which library first applied the modern principles of authorship?

The Bodleian (Oxford University), in its 3rd edition, 1674.

What are those principles?

-bibliographic control of the author's name - e.g. selecting one standardised form.
-cross-referencing from psuedonyms to the real name.
-entering translations under the name of the original author
-treating anonymous works systematically

Why did cataloguers draw a distinction between providing descriptive and subject access?

3.

- Why did Cutter say 'no code of cataloguing could be adopted in all points by everyone?'

Because the users of that code will have widely different needs - he draws the distinction between libraries for study and libraries for reading (presumeably by "reading" he means reading for pleasure, e.g. public libraries). He's right. Small libraries don't need to catalogue to the same level of detail as LOC would.

- Why did he say cataloguing was an art, not a science?

Presumeably because there were always going to be subjective, intuitive elements to it, and no amount of rules could ever enable someone to blindly catalogue, it would always involve human input and interpretation. We'll never get automatic machine cataloguing. I agree with him, in other words.

4. Will cataloguing codes still be necessary in the future?

Oh yes. Just look at the development of standards within the computer world, and what are they but cataloguing codes? (see especially Dublin Core). The only way cataloguing will become unnecessary is if we develop text/data mining that is far, far more sophisticated than we have now. Possibly to a level that isn't even possible, although a lot of things have taken place that weren't thought possible.

5. Bibliographic community - farsighted in use of standards?

Why, because if they hadn't been it would be very difficult to catalogue consistently now, which would mean that we would be unable to share resources (especially bibliographic records) to the extent that we now do. I generally agree, but should note that the early adoption of standards can leave you with a poor standard. Look at DDC or MARC, both of which would be far, far different if they were built from scratch now.

6. Should all libraries adhere to standards?

-no, well not to the same extent, anyway. Smaller libraries don't have the same need to dot every i and cross every t, and in some cases it may even be counterproductive (e.g. the use of [2003?] instead of 2003 for a publication date, when the date is known but not explicitly stated, might just confuse users).

7. Will NZ be a winner or a loser if the bibliographic economy becomes increasingly market-driven?

Probably a loser. We're too small. The only advantage might be in that we are English speaking, and, as the world becomes dominated by Anglo-American processes (see the adoption of AACR by non-Anglo countries) we might be at an advantage here.

8. To what extent is NZ affected by the emphasis on mainstream North American and European culture in bibliographic practice?

Not as much as some countries - we're English-speaking and come from a Christian tradition and worldview, which fits in with Dewey (especially) better than Middle Eastern or Asian cultures do. The effect is probably greatest on Maori culture - bear in mind that concepts of individual authorship aren't as appropriate for Maori culture as they are for Western culture. It's also important to realise that all cultures (even American/European ones) are affected by the use of rules and systems developed 100-odd years ago - Dewey and LCSH aren't perfectly appropriate for modern Western culture, either.

[1] Oddy, Pat. 1998. "Bibliographic Standards and the Globalization of Bilbiographic Control" in Technical Services Today and Tomorrow (2nd ed)., ed. Michael Gorman (Englewood, CO: Libraries Unlimited).
[2]Harvey and Hider. 2003. Organising Knowledge in a Global Society: principles and practices in libraries and information centres (Wagga Wagga, NSW: Centre for Information Studies, Charles Stuart University), p.18

| posted by Simon at 9:39 pm

 
Good article from b/ite magazine (Mar/Apr 2004) discussing trends in blog searching, and giving tips on how to locate blog articles. Notes that results from the main search engines had previously been dominated by blog postings, due to the number of blogs and the frequency at which they are updated. Mentions that most engines have tweaked their search algorithms to de-emphasise blogs. Describes how to locate blog posts using major search engines - e.g. use [subject] ~blog inurl:archives if searching Google.

Describes the limits of current blog-specific search engines, noting they are in a similar developmental stage to search engines prior to Google. Notes that some search RSS feeds, rather than blogs themselves - problematic as some blogs don't have feeds, some use ATOM not RSS, and some have only partial feeds. Discusses advantages and disadvantages of different search tools.

Interesting.

| posted by Simon at 4:47 pm

 
Hey, I'm back to posting my rough thoughts for each week's class here. Probably of zero interest to anyone who isn't me.

LIBR 528: Research Methods

Week One: Introduction to LIM Research

Exercise Two – List of Problems for a government library

• How are staff using the current awareness bulletin? What items are especially interesting, or not?


• Are staff using the electronic databases to which we subscribe? How effective are their searches?


• How would staff use of the library improve if the catalogue was available for them to search via the intranet?


• How can we evaluate the effectiveness of the information provided to staff?


• Is there an objective measure of the quality of the collection?


• What aspects of the library do staff consider to be most important? What aspects need most work? (e.g. LibQual).

Exercise Three – Research Priorities for LIM in NZ


1.Why do people not use the library?
2.Which groups of people do not use the library? How could libraries better meet their needs?
3.Are the mainly US devised guidelines for the reference interview suitable for use in NZ?
4.How effective is the ILL system as operated by NZ?
5.How useful will the introduction of broadband to libraries, via Project PROBE, be?
6.Are libraries successfully helping to bridge the digital divide?
7.What is the place of filtering in the public library? Should libraries provide access to everything, or should they filter objectionable material? Can they do so effectively?
8.How well is the EPIC project serving the needs of users? Is it being marketed correctly?
9.If we're supposed to be information professionals, how come so many of us are unable to follow basic instructions on using mailing lists? Eh? NZ-Libs and NZ-Records, especially?
10.Is there an appropriate budget split between electronic and print resources? Or between expenditure on the collection and on staff?

Unnumbered Question

The most commonly employed research methods are likely to be survey research, case studies, and bibliometrics.

Exercise Four – Choosing a Topic

1. LibQual in a corporate/special library (survey)
advantages: the methodology exists, just need to adapt it.
Hasn't been done before, as far as I know, in this setting
disadvantages: hasn't been done before, so nothing to fall back on
survey – needs a certain number of respondents, can we get this many?

2. Use of electronic databases (historical research)
advantages: easy to get the data, unobtrusively
disadvantages: small sample size, merely looking at usage data doesn't tell us how useful staff found it. Would need to interview people.

3. Use of filtering software in NZ public libraries (survey)
advantages: fairly easy to construct a survey and draw some conclusions from it; little exists in the literature in NZ (I would guess) but the US data is large, even if much of it is anecdotal
disadvantages: response rate? Would this be high enough?

4. A New Zealand context for the reference interview (qualitative)
disadvantages: I have no idea how to go about this
advantages: it would be freaking cool



| posted by Simon at 9:10 pm

 
Scary stuff, if true...the National Council for Research on Women has a Misinformation Clearinghouse which details the disappearance of information from (US) government websites. The implication is clear that this is done to support a political agenda at the expense of scientific accuracy.

I had a discussion with my boss today about this sort of issue - she pointed out that our website contained old PDFs that contained some outdated information. I argued that we needed to leave this material online, somewhere, in order to maintain the historical record. I think I'm correct in that argument. But if so, how to ensure that the information we're presenting isn't out-of-date?

| posted by Simon at 6:25 pm

 
US$380 gets you an e-book reader with print quality equivalent to newsprint (Excite News) - assuming you live in Japan.

Problem: you can't shift documents from one reader to another, they cost $3 to download but scramble after 2 months. Not a content model I'd want to buy into.

| posted by Simon at 6:11 pm

 
This is such a great idea, wonder why I haven't heard more of it before?

The University of Minnesota library has established a programme where "any U of M student can start a blog. Even more interesting, they’ve linked their library databases to the blogging system – so if a student or researcher finds a book or resource they’re interested in, they can save pointers and citations for it to their blog with one click." They're using Movable Type.

I love this! One to bring up when people tell you blogs are pointless.

Only objection? It was hard to find this from the library's homepage - I had to use the search function on the university's homepage. That's a minor caveat, though.

via Learning the Lessons of Nixon (the delightfully titled blog that features posts classified by the Dewey Decimal System).

| posted by Simon at 9:07 pm

 
Now this is cool...Smart Mobs reports on the OpenTextBook.org, an attempt to develop a textbook using the principles of open-source and freeware publishing.

The most interesting thing about this is that up till now, as far as I know, the move towards open-access publishing has been in the field of scholarly journals, e.g. Biomed Central. We'd been taught (as part of our class on Scholarly Publishing) that it was unlikely that monographs would be available via open-access publishing. Looks like the lecturer may have been wrong.

(So far, the textbook is about 50 pages long, mostly mathematics, which I'm not knowledgeable enough about to critique - but it looks like a great idea).

| posted by Simon at 9:01 pm

 
Good news for Americans (and anyone who sends email to or via America, which is probably all of us): the New York Times (registration or sacrifice of your infant children required) reports "that federal wiretap laws do not apply to e-mail messages if they are stored, even for a millisecond, on the computers of the Internet providers that process them - meaning that it can be legal for the government or others to read such messages without a court order."

Oh. Good. Of course, the rumours that abound about Project Echelon suggest that the US government (in association with most of the rest of the English-speaking world) already is reading our mail. So really, should we be that worried that apparently they have limited legal rights to do so?

And for that matter, most of what I commit to paper (or screen) is on this blog or its sister anyway. Which are easily Googleable or traceable via their feeds. So if I'm getting paranoid, I'm easily enough found, anyway.


| posted by Simon at 8:45 pm

 
Techdirt is fast becoming one of my favourite sites out there. It bills itself as "easily digestible technical news", and it delivers. Definitely worth adding to your reading list (and they have an RSS feed, so there's really no excuse not to).

They have a good article on the social aspects of information technology at work, arguing that employers should permit the odd personal use of the internet. The logic being that this allows staff to recharge their batteries, take care of personal business, and come back to work focused on what they're paid to do. This totally fits in with how I view the world. I spend a lot of time online, working. I can't keep concentration for that whole time, so the odd bit of personal or quasi-personal surfing is good for me. (Quasi-personal is what I'm calling my library weblog reading, seeing as it helps me and my employer).

We need to move beyond the notion of work as something that you do from 9-5, with no overlap with your personal life. I'll clear emails from home on a Sunday. I'll also buy CDs and book travel online from work. It's a trade-off, and I think if you treat people with respect they tend not to abuse this sort of thing.

| posted by Simon at 8:38 pm

 
You know you have problems. Following the recent, well-reported security problems in Internet Explorer, Microsoft's Slate recommends switching to Firefox. I've been using Firefox 0.9 at home for a while, and I like it. Others with more tech-savvy than me disagree, claiming variously that Mozilla (David) or Firefox 0.8 (Sri) is the way to go. Whichever way you cut it, for a piece of software that hasn't even hit version 1.0 yet, Firefox is pretty good.

My only problem? I've just switched over to wireless broadband with Woosh, which is a great improvement on dial-up, but doesn't play well with Firefox. So I'm typing this in IE. *spit, curse*.

| posted by Simon at 8:27 pm

 
A list of fictional books that are mentioned in the text of real ones - sorted by (real) author or title. Would be nice to have also sorted by the fictional author or title, but one can't have everything, and apparently these weren't much used. A good range of source books, from 1984 to Remembrance of Things Past to the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

| posted by Simon at 12:27 pm

 
More for my own reference - been playing around with the California Digital Library, a service of the University of California Libraries. Some interesting material, including 1400 books available online - mostly only to staff and students of UC, but a fair number are public, too.

| posted by Simon at 12:21 pm