Introducing The Source
20 Reasons Why 2009 Will Be The Year of the Ebook
From the Gutenberg.com website
According to a California State Board of Education study, the average weight of a high school student’s backpack is 20 pounds and contains about 6 textbooks. In comparison, the average weight of an ebook reader, capable of holding hundreds of books and instantly accessing hundreds of thousands more, is less than a pound. It doesn’t take a genius to see where this is all going.Backpacks are not going to disappear in 2009; that may take a couple years because of the unique aspects of educational textbooks and the school system. However, this is one concrete example of why the book is on the way out, and the ebook is on the way in.
Digital economy future directions paper
From the Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy website
This paper aims to identify the themes and suggestions that will inform the action plan of the forthcoming future directions paper for Australia's digital economy.
A Reading Strategy for a UK university: Reviewing the literature on reading, literacy and libraries, with particular regard to the HE sector
From the Loughborough University Library Open Journals website
This paper represents a starting point in an information literacy research project by academic librarians in a UK university. The research project explores ways of enabling and encouraging quality student reading through the development of a University Reading Strategy, a set of best-practice ideas and guidelines drawn from discussions with academics, support staff and librarians.
The purpose of the paper is to review current issues around reading, particularly in the HE sector, in contemporary literature. The literature review is intended to provide a backdrop for the research project, giving benchmark information against which the developing Reading Strategy may be considered.
Books and Libraries in the Digital Age (VIDEO - Running Time: 1:54:12)
From the MIT World website
Perhaps because he is a historian rather than librarian by training, Robert Darnton regards the vast ocean of digital information that civilization has begun accumulating with relish rather than anxiety. Darnton delves into European archives to find raw material, boxes of cast-off 'ephemera,' for his stories of how people lived hundreds of years ago. No wonder he believes 'it's important to preserve as much as you can because you don't know what will turn out to be significant'. In conversation with David Thorburn and audience members, Darnton lays out why he finds more promise than peril in rapidly expanding digital collections.
How libraries can survive in the new media ecosystem
From the Pew Internet & American Life Project website
A presentation by Lee Rainie, Director, Pew Internet Project, to the HELIN Library Consortium in Rhode Island. This speech pulls together Pew Internet Project data about how people's use of the internet and cell phones has fundamentally changed the "information ecosystem" in 10 ways. Lee discusses how this has changed the role of libraries in the digital age and he points out ways that libraries can adapt to meet the expectations and demands of patrons.
New Intersections for Student Engagement in Libraries: A Qualitative Exploration of Collaborative Learning with Multimedia Technologies
From the University of Alberta Libraries' electronic journal hosting service
The purpose of this study was to explore new ways librarians can provide meaningful learning experiences for students beyond the traditional classroom assignment and the one-hour library instruction session. Findings illustrate the benefits of collaborative approaches for enhancing the learning experiences of students in the library, in this case with multimedia. The data also suggest promising new ways for librarians to facilitate learning and to engage students in the library.
Cooperation or Control? Web 2.0 and the Digital Library
From the Journal of Digital Information, supported by Texas A&M University Libraries
The Web 2.0 trend has placed a renewed emphasis on interoperability and cooperation between systems and people. The digital libraries community is familiar with interoperability through technologies like OAI-PMH, but is disconnected from the general Web 2.0 community. This disconnect prevents the digital library from taking advantage of the rich network of data, services and interfaces offered by that community. This paper presents a case study of a collection within the Texas A&M Repository that was improved by adopting the principles of cooperation embodied by the term Web 2.0.
IM a Librarian: Extending Virtual Reference Services through Instant Messaging and Chat Widgets (Note: PDF)
From 'Partnership: the Canadian Journal of Library and Information Practice and Research', hosted by the University of Guelph Library
This paper reports the findings of a study developed to evaluate the suitability and potential of Instant Messaging (IM) for the Novanet Live Help service. Both IM and the existing commercial Virtual Reference (VR) software were offered in tandem for one semester. The services were evaluated through a combination of statistical reports and survey data gathered from both the users and service providers. Comparison of statistics revealed a 44% increase in online sessions, with 22% more sessions received by the IM service. Although users displayed satisfaction with both of the online services, they preferred IM over the VR software. The IM chat widget was reported as the most preferred method for receiving library reference services overall, including face-to-face, telephone and email.
Sharing Functionality on the Web: A Proposed Services Infrastructure for The European Library
From the D-Lib Magazine website
There is existing functionality on the web that users may want to have integrated in portals like the European Library portal [TEL]. This requires the user to notify the portal on how that functionality or services are to be used. For this purpose we have developed a data model for describing functionality on the web. These service descriptions can be exchanged between users and service integrators like the European Library. In this article, we discuss these service descriptions and demonstrate them by means of a demonstrator portal.
A Policy Checklist for Enabling Persistence of Identifiers
From the D-Lib Magazine website
One of the main tasks of the Persistent Identifier Linking Infrastructure (PILIN) project on persistent identifiers was to establish a policy framework for managing identifiers and identifier providers. A major finding from the project was that policy is far more important in guaranteeing persistence of identifiers than technology.
To make an informed decision about what to identify, information modelling of the domain is critical. The PILIN project has formulated a six-point checklist for integrating identifiers into information management.
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