SLA Heart of America Blog

Technology Show & Tell: Do you have something to share?

We are working on a program for the HOA chapter and are looking for members that have a new tool/technology they would like to share with other SLA members.  This is your opportunity share ideas and lessons learned from deploying new systems.  I hope everyone has something they want to share and will look forward to hearing from you. 

If you are interested, please email me personally at berndthm@bv.com. 

Great Article in Forbes: Young Learners Need Librarians, Not Just Google

I ran across this article by Mark Moran on Forbes.com and it caught my attention as a manager of people.  The article is titled, "Young Learners Need Librarians, Not Just Google" and hits on some of my personal concerns about how the next generation of researchers are being trained (or not) to use information in a data-rich environment.

The article points to all the characteristics that I am looking for in a new recruit:

• The ability to pick out reliable sources from an overwhelming heap of misinformation
• The ability to find relevant material amid an infinite array of options
• To navigate the shifting ethics of creative commons and IP
• The ability to present conclusions in a manner that engages modern audience

The article basically outlines a world of the technology "haves and have nots", which really ties back to the funding of libraries and the importance of librarians that embrace the technology changes.

This is not specific to special libraries, but it provides a perspective on where the professionals just entering the workforce are coming from in how they do research. 

Link to the referenced report by Harvard's Berkman Center: Empowering Parents and Protecting Children in an Evolving Media Landscape

For All You Political Junkies: C-SPAN Searchable Video Library

This is exciting for those of you who are political junkies or have patrons that are interested in politics.  According to the Washington Post, "On Wednesday (3/17), C-SPAN will launch a searchable video library that includes all of its programming dating to 1987."  Link to the full Washington Post Article

This library will include 160,000 hours of searchable video and what they refer to as a "Congressional Chronicle."  This feature includes all floor speeches, committee remarks, and built-in tools to post video links to Facebook, Twitter or e-mail.

I am really excited about this as it personally applies to my job and it provides an additional way to access this content.  The video library is located at: http://www.c-spanvideo.org/videoLibrary/

CARL Receives Recognition as an Editor Pick on Intute!

It is always exciting to see members of SLA HOA getting recognition for a job well-done.  The Combined Arms Research Library has been recognized on Intute as an editor's pick for offering free access to a large collection of US digitized military documents.

Intute is a free online service that helps you to find the best web resources for your studies and research.

The Intute consortium is made up of:

• University of Birmingham
• University of Bristol
• Heriot-Watt University
• University of Manchester
• Manchester Metropolitan University
• University of Nottingham
• University of Oxford

Congratulations to the members from CARL and it is an amazing resource that you have put together. 

HighWire Press has Released Its 2009 Librarian eBook Survey Results

I love reports that provide a little more information about the state of digital resources.  This survey was conducted by HighWire Press which is a division of Stanford University Libraries.  I don't know that the results are particularly surprising, but it is a validation of the trend in growth of ebooks. 

I think this is particularly interesting to those of us who love new technology and are currently pining for a ebook reader (that would be me and I won't be brand specific).  The key takeaways from the report that are located in the Executive Summary are:

• Simplicity and ease fo use are features that are value by librarians, over and above more sophisticated end-user features.
• Traditional sources of book discovery continue to be important for ebooks as well.  They believe that users discover ebooks through the library catalog and through Internet search engines.
• Participants indicated that users prefer ebooks in PDF format, but as one participant stated, format preference will change as technology changes.
• Digital rights management is the single most important factor that hinders ebook use for library patrons.
• Purchase with perpetual access is the most acceptable business model for ebooks, with 83 percent of participants indicating that this model is very acceptable.  However, significant numbers of participants indicated that other very different models are also acceptable.

I think that a great companion piece of research would be the verification of librarian viewpoints through an extensive survey of librarian patrons and their ebook usage.  It has probably been done and I will look into that next

The full report is available at: HighWire Study: 2009 Librarian eBook Survey

 

Greater Kansas City Chapter of ARMA International Spring Seminar

ARMA is hosting a full-day seminar on April 14th titled Help! Is RIM Compliance Even Possible Today? and it is open to local information professionals at a rate of $125. The description for the seminar is below:

Description: We know about the explosive growth in electronic documents and records. We know about the continued growth in regulation requirements. What about the growth in tools to help manage this mess?  There are many tools claiming compliance automation for records management and legal holds. Can these tools really help compliance? We will start at the 30,000-foot level looking at the issues and technologies that confront records management today. From this vantage, we will examine the intersections between tools, information, and compliance.

Objectives: Upon completion of this seminar, you will be able to:

• Analyze the information management tools in use within your organization and identify compliance risks and opportunities for filling in any existing information management or legal hold “gaps”
• Communicate with your IT staff concerning current and future tool deployment and become part of the reviewing team for future projects

Apply Generally Accepted Recordkeeping Principles® and begin to educate staff about how to apply these principles throughout your organization.

For those professionals that are interested in RIM, this is a great opportunity for an extremely reasonable price.  More information is available online at: http://www.gkcarma.org/spring%20seminar.aspx

 

A Report on the Economics of Digital Preservation

In February, the Blue Ribbon Task Force on Sustainable Digital Preservation and Access (BRTF-SDPA) published a document on economics of digital preservation.  The report, Sustainable Economics for a Digital Planet: Ensuring Long-Term Access to Digital Information, digs into the issues surrounding the digitization of content. 

The report identified three major findings regarding digital preservation and these should be familiar to most professionals that have integrated any type of system:

• Articulate compelling value proposition
• Provide clear incentives to preserve in the public interest
• Define roles and responsibilities among stakeholders

This is a good report that provides insight into digitization and the lifecyle of digital information.

The BRTF-SDPA is funded by the National Science Foundation and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, in partnership with the Library of Congress, the Joint Information Systems Committee of the United Kingdom, the Council on Library and Information Resources, and the National Archives and Records Administration.

Looking for historical wargaming resources?

Ed Burgess sent me this great new collection that he has had a hand in creating at the Combined Arms Research Library (CARL).   The announcement is below:

The Combined Arms Research Library is pleased to announce the Nafziger Collection of Orders of Battle which contains a compilation of orders of battle from 1600 to 1945. Sources range from published works to primary archival documents. Most orders of battle break down to the regimental level and many contain information regarding the availability of strength figures and artillery equipment.

The collection is available for searching a

http://www.cgsc.edu/carl/nafziger.htm 

Available also is a pdf index of the over 7900 orders of battle to assist in searching. Search for Nafziger in Google and you will see an explosion of interest in this brand new, freely available resource, which was made possible by the generosity of George Nafziger.

If you have something you want to share, please send it to berndthm@bv.com and I will get it posted

Don't Forget Click U Webinar Replays!

I don't know about everyone else, but I forget about the resources that are provided by SLA.  Today, I listened to a webinar by Stephen Abram from earlier this year titled, It's 2010: Technologies to Watch, and How to Cope.  The description for the webinar was:

What are the top 20 technology trends and top 10 strategies for libraries and information professionals?  Stephen Abram, an inveterate library watcher and strategic technology reviewer, shares the top 20 technologies that we should think about "playing" with to make our libraries more open to our learning communities and users.  He'll end with 10 strategies to have fun with change and technology adoption.

These webinars are a great way to take advantage of your SLA membership and get some additional professional education.  You can follow the Click U Blog for updates on current offerings.

The Corporate Blog - Small Print Addition

The Corporate Library Blog has added a fun weekly feature, however, it may only be "fun" to those of us who look at 8K filings for company information on a daily basis.  Beginning this week, the blog will introduce a weekly Small Print section.   The blog posting states that, "This section will showcase weird, funny, even disturbing information (such as unusual perks) that our hard-working data team finds in 8k press releases."  This will be updated every Friday beginning on March 5th, 2010.  The blog and this announcement are located at: Corporate Library Blog - Small Print