Furthermore, it is young adults who are the most likely to say they will use libraries in the future when they encounter problems: 40% of Gen Y said they would do that, compared with 20% of those above age 30 who say they would go to a library."
Thursday, February 7, 2008
Generation Y and Libraries
This report is just in from the Pew Internet & American Life Project -- "Information searches that solve problems : How people use the internet, libraries, and government agencies when they need help". "The survey results challenge the assumption that libraries are losing relevance in the internet age. Libraries drew visits by more than half of Americans (53%) in the past year for all kinds of purposes, not just the problems mentioned in this survey. And it was the young adults in tech-loving Generation Y (age 18-30) who led the pack. Compared to their elders, Gen Y members were the most likely to use libraries for problem-solving information and in general patronage for any purpose.
Furthermore, it is young adults who are the most likely to say they will use libraries in the future when they encounter problems: 40% of Gen Y said they would do that, compared with 20% of those above age 30 who say they would go to a library."
Furthermore, it is young adults who are the most likely to say they will use libraries in the future when they encounter problems: 40% of Gen Y said they would do that, compared with 20% of those above age 30 who say they would go to a library."
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
E-books from Morgan & Claypool
We now have 79 ebooks from Morgan & Claypool. This list will grow to over hundreds of titles in the next couple of years. "Synthesis is an innovative information service for the research, development, and educational community in engineering and computer science. The basic components of the library are self-contained short electronic books that synthesize important research."
Monday, February 4, 2008
The Future of Academic Libraries
This is a very interesting post and presentation at the Ontario Library Association Super Conference -- "My Job in 10 Years: The Future of Academic Libraries."
Friday, February 1, 2008
FIRST Robotics Competition coming to DU!
I plan to go to this great robotics competition at the end of March, 2008. This is a regional competition as part of the FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) program.
Changing study habits of engineering students
This is from ASEE Prism magazine, January 2008, page 24.
CHANGING STUDY HABITS
"Laptops, WiFi and online catalogues make the traditional library obsolete."
By Henry Petroski
Our engineering library used to be crowded with students studying and doing homework. Toward the end of the semester, with project deadlines and final exams approaching, every seat at every table would be occupied well into the extended hours. Lately, however, the library has been so empty that there is talk of folding this once-busy branch into the newly expanded main library.
...
Some students used to be driven to the library to get away from loquacious roommates, raucous parties or loud music that was not to their liking. Now, with their own favorite music downloaded into their iPod or similar device, they can blast it into their ears and so mask all other noise. Also, since libraries seem to have become increasingly tolerant of food and drink on the premises - the aroma of coffee, which has replaced that of cigarette smoke in the atmosphere, is seldom absent - all of a student's senses can be occupied and so exclude all distractions.
...
But not every student with an open laptop in class has tuned out the lecture. On more than one occasion I have had a student volunteer information that I did not have at my fingertips, showing my PowerPoint presentation to be as offline as I was. The student was following along - perhaps even anticipating the next slide - and was supplementing what I was saying with what is available on the Web. Sometimes what the student had found in the digital library was so relevant and revealing that it had to be projected for the entire class to see.
There can be no question that the personal computer has changed the way students and every wired citizen works and learns. It should be no wonder that the traditional books-and-and bookshelves library is a threatened species. In just a couple of decades, the once-staid institution has found its catalogues completely digitized and its books and jounrals increasingly so. The library is trying hard to keep up with the way today's students study and do research, not to mention how professors and other users now work. I know that my way of doing research has changed: I do not visit th engineering branch library nearly as often as I used to. With my laptop connected to the Internet, I do not have to.
Henry Petroski is the Aleksandar S. Vesic Professor of Civil Engineering and a professor of history at Duke University. His most recent book is The Toothpick: Technology and Culture.
CHANGING STUDY HABITS
"Laptops, WiFi and online catalogues make the traditional library obsolete."
By Henry Petroski
Our engineering library used to be crowded with students studying and doing homework. Toward the end of the semester, with project deadlines and final exams approaching, every seat at every table would be occupied well into the extended hours. Lately, however, the library has been so empty that there is talk of folding this once-busy branch into the newly expanded main library.
...
Some students used to be driven to the library to get away from loquacious roommates, raucous parties or loud music that was not to their liking. Now, with their own favorite music downloaded into their iPod or similar device, they can blast it into their ears and so mask all other noise. Also, since libraries seem to have become increasingly tolerant of food and drink on the premises - the aroma of coffee, which has replaced that of cigarette smoke in the atmosphere, is seldom absent - all of a student's senses can be occupied and so exclude all distractions.
...
But not every student with an open laptop in class has tuned out the lecture. On more than one occasion I have had a student volunteer information that I did not have at my fingertips, showing my PowerPoint presentation to be as offline as I was. The student was following along - perhaps even anticipating the next slide - and was supplementing what I was saying with what is available on the Web. Sometimes what the student had found in the digital library was so relevant and revealing that it had to be projected for the entire class to see.
There can be no question that the personal computer has changed the way students and every wired citizen works and learns. It should be no wonder that the traditional books-and-and bookshelves library is a threatened species. In just a couple of decades, the once-staid institution has found its catalogues completely digitized and its books and jounrals increasingly so. The library is trying hard to keep up with the way today's students study and do research, not to mention how professors and other users now work. I know that my way of doing research has changed: I do not visit th engineering branch library nearly as often as I used to. With my laptop connected to the Internet, I do not have to.
Henry Petroski is the Aleksandar S. Vesic Professor of Civil Engineering and a professor of history at Duke University. His most recent book is The Toothpick: Technology and Culture.
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Open Access from BMC
Thinking of Open Access, the Penrose Library will pay for your articles when they are submitted to BioMed Central journals. We currently have a positive financial balance with them, so if you want to submit an article or two for a high impact and open access publication, this may be the place.
The Right to Research
SPARC has released an interesting new brochure...
The Right to Research
"You know first hand that students are expected to cite articles from scholarly journals when they write research papers.
You’ve probably used journal articles in your coursework. You’ve probably also encountered journal articles that you wanted to read — potentially important articles — but couldn’t get access to.
It doesn’t have to be this way.
OPEN ACCESS — the principle that research should be accessible online, for free, immediately after publication — is improving the way scholarly information is shared."
Etc., etc., etc.
The Right to Research
"You know first hand that students are expected to cite articles from scholarly journals when they write research papers.
You’ve probably used journal articles in your coursework. You’ve probably also encountered journal articles that you wanted to read — potentially important articles — but couldn’t get access to.
It doesn’t have to be this way.
OPEN ACCESS — the principle that research should be accessible online, for free, immediately after publication — is improving the way scholarly information is shared."
Etc., etc., etc.
Thursday, January 17, 2008
Genome Island: An Experiment in Teaching Science at Second Life
I plan to go to this talk on Friday. It sounds really cool.
Genome Island was created at Second Life as a laboratory-intensive environment for teaching genetics online. Students or other visitors to the island will encounter a series of genetic objects. Most of the objects are interactive and will generate a data set according to basic principles of genetics. Genetic models on the island include Mendel’s peas, cats, rabbits, fruit flies and bacteria. One section of the site features the human genome. Data can be analyzed and used to test hypotheses suggested in the background information provided with each object. This semester one of my genetics classes helped me to test the island as a teaching environment. Come and hear about the pleasures and pitfalls of teaching science at Second Life.
Wednesday, January 9, 2008
Science stays in JSTOR
"We are pleased to announce that the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and JSTOR reached an agreement at the end of 2007 under which Science will continue its participation in JSTOR. Science will be available with a 5-year moving wall and new participating organizations will receive Science legacy content as part of the Health & General Sciences collection. In addition, we expect to introduce more opportunities within the JSTOR site for users to link directly to Science's website from Science legacy content located in JSTOR. We are very pleased to be able to continue and extend this relationship and to assure the community that future issues of Science will be preserved in JSTOR."
IOPScience Database for Physics Research
We now have access to all 56 current and backfiled journals available from the Institute of Physics (UK). The content coverage goes back to 1874.
NIH Open Access Mandate
In case you have not heard...
The NIH policy is "an Enormous Step Forward" noted Executive Director Heather Joseph of the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC).
See: http://www.libraryjournal.com/info/CA6518133.html?nid=2673#news2 and
http://www.libraryjournal.com/info/CA6518133.html?nid=2673#news3.
The NIH policy is "an Enormous Step Forward" noted Executive Director Heather Joseph of the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC).
See: http://www.libraryjournal.com/info/CA6518133.html?nid=2673#news2 and
http://www.libraryjournal.com/info/CA6518133.html?nid=2673#news3.
Wednesday, January 2, 2008
New Math Resources
We now have access to the SIAM Locus backfile, and the Project Euclid Prime database. We should be getting access to the complete package of the current SIAM journals pretty soon.
Friday, December 28, 2007
Most Literate U.S. Cities: Denver is 4th...
This in from Yahoo News.
Most Literate U.S. Cities: Minneapolis and Seattle
Residents of Minneapolis and Seattle are the most bookish and well-read, according to results from a new survey released today of the most literate American cities.
The survey focused on 69 U.S. cities with populations of 250,000 or above. Jack Miller of Central Connecticut State University chose six key indicators to rank literacy. These included newspaper circulation, number of bookstores, library resources, periodical publishing resources, educational attainment and Internet resources.
Overall, the top 10 most literate (and wired) cities included:
1—Minneapolis, Minn.
2—Seattle, Wash.
3—St. Paul, Minn.
4—Denver, Colo.
5—Washington, D.C.
6—St. Louis, Mo.
7—San Francisco, Calif.
8—Atlanta, Ga.
9—Pittsburgh, Pa.
10—Boston, Mass.
Etc., etc., etc....
Most Literate U.S. Cities: Minneapolis and Seattle
Residents of Minneapolis and Seattle are the most bookish and well-read, according to results from a new survey released today of the most literate American cities.
The survey focused on 69 U.S. cities with populations of 250,000 or above. Jack Miller of Central Connecticut State University chose six key indicators to rank literacy. These included newspaper circulation, number of bookstores, library resources, periodical publishing resources, educational attainment and Internet resources.
Overall, the top 10 most literate (and wired) cities included:
1—Minneapolis, Minn.
2—Seattle, Wash.
3—St. Paul, Minn.
4—Denver, Colo.
5—Washington, D.C.
6—St. Louis, Mo.
7—San Francisco, Calif.
8—Atlanta, Ga.
9—Pittsburgh, Pa.
10—Boston, Mass.
Etc., etc., etc....
Monday, December 24, 2007
ARL Report -- Agenda for Developing E-Science in Research Libraries
Agenda for Developing E-Science in Research Libraries
http://www.arl.org/bm~doc/ARL_EScience_final.pdf
From the Executive Summary -- "E-science has the potential to be transformational within research libraries by impacting their operations, functions, and possibly even their mission. Recognizing this potential, the ARL Steering Committees for Scholarly Communication and for Research, Teaching, and Learning jointly appointed a task force in 2006 to address the emergent domain of e-science. The Joint Task Force on Library Support for E-Science focused its attention on the implications of trends in e-science for research libraries, exploring the dimensions that impact collections, services, research infrastructure, and professional development. Priorities of government funding agencies further shaped the task force’s work."
http://www.arl.org/bm~doc/ARL_EScience_final.pdf
From the Executive Summary -- "E-science has the potential to be transformational within research libraries by impacting their operations, functions, and possibly even their mission. Recognizing this potential, the ARL Steering Committees for Scholarly Communication and for Research, Teaching, and Learning jointly appointed a task force in 2006 to address the emergent domain of e-science. The Joint Task Force on Library Support for E-Science focused its attention on the implications of trends in e-science for research libraries, exploring the dimensions that impact collections, services, research infrastructure, and professional development. Priorities of government funding agencies further shaped the task force’s work."
"Open Access & Science Publishing" report
Open Access & Science Publishing
Results of a Study on Researchers’ Acceptance and Use of Open Access Publishing
Thomas Hess / Rolf T. Wigand / Florian Mann / Benedikt von Walter
http://www.wim.bwl.uni-muenchen.de/download_free/sonstiges/mreport_2007_01.pdf
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY - This Management Report summarizes the main descriptive results of a study on researcher’s acceptance of Open Access publishing. The study was conducted in 2006 by the Ludwig-Maximilans-University Munich, Germany, in cooperation with the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. The main focus is centered on the question if and why scientists decide or do not decide to publish their work according to the Open Access principle without access barriers and free of cost to readers. With the responses from 688 publishing scientists it could be demonstrated that the general attitude toward the Open Access principle is extremely positive. However, many seem to be rather reluctant to publish their own research work in Open Access outlets. Advantages like increased speed, reach and potentially higher citation rates of Open Access publications are seen alongside insufficient impact factors, lacking long-term availability and the inferior ability to reach the specific target audience of scientists within one’s own discipline. Moreover the low level of use among close colleagues seems to be a barrier towards Open Access publishing.
Results of a Study on Researchers’ Acceptance and Use of Open Access Publishing
Thomas Hess / Rolf T. Wigand / Florian Mann / Benedikt von Walter
http://www.wim.bwl.uni-muenchen.de/download_free/sonstiges/mreport_2007_01.pdf
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY - This Management Report summarizes the main descriptive results of a study on researcher’s acceptance of Open Access publishing. The study was conducted in 2006 by the Ludwig-Maximilans-University Munich, Germany, in cooperation with the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. The main focus is centered on the question if and why scientists decide or do not decide to publish their work according to the Open Access principle without access barriers and free of cost to readers. With the responses from 688 publishing scientists it could be demonstrated that the general attitude toward the Open Access principle is extremely positive. However, many seem to be rather reluctant to publish their own research work in Open Access outlets. Advantages like increased speed, reach and potentially higher citation rates of Open Access publications are seen alongside insufficient impact factors, lacking long-term availability and the inferior ability to reach the specific target audience of scientists within one’s own discipline. Moreover the low level of use among close colleagues seems to be a barrier towards Open Access publishing.
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
Two new articles/reports
Here are some new articles/reports from the Open Access Blog.
1) Future of Scholarly Communication: Building the Infrastructure for Cyberscholarship. ("Institutional repositories were the stated topic for a workshop convened in Phoenix, Arizona earlier this year (April 17-19, 2007) by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the United Kingdom's Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC). While in their report on the workshop, Bill Arms and Ron Larsen build out a larger landscape of concern, institutional repositories remain a crucial topic, which, without institutional cyberscholarship, will never approach their full potential.")
2) Mike Rossner, Heather Van Epps, and Emma Hill, Show me the data, Journal of Cell Biology, December 17, 2007. (Excerpt: The integrity of data, and transparency about their acquisition, are vital to science. The impact factor data that are gathered and sold by Thomson Scientific (formerly the Institute of Scientific Information, or ISI) have a strong influence on the scientific community, affecting decisions on where to publish, whom to promote or hire, the success of grant applications, and even salary bonuses. Yet...to our knowledge, no one has independently audited the underlying data to validate their reliability....)
1) Future of Scholarly Communication: Building the Infrastructure for Cyberscholarship. ("Institutional repositories were the stated topic for a workshop convened in Phoenix, Arizona earlier this year (April 17-19, 2007) by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the United Kingdom's Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC). While in their report on the workshop, Bill Arms and Ron Larsen build out a larger landscape of concern, institutional repositories remain a crucial topic, which, without institutional cyberscholarship, will never approach their full potential.")
2) Mike Rossner, Heather Van Epps, and Emma Hill, Show me the data, Journal of Cell Biology, December 17, 2007. (Excerpt: The integrity of data, and transparency about their acquisition, are vital to science. The impact factor data that are gathered and sold by Thomson Scientific (formerly the Institute of Scientific Information, or ISI) have a strong influence on the scientific community, affecting decisions on where to publish, whom to promote or hire, the success of grant applications, and even salary bonuses. Yet...to our knowledge, no one has independently audited the underlying data to validate their reliability....)
Monday, December 17, 2007
New report from EDUCAUSE and the New Media Consortium
The Horizon Report provides a time line of future Web 2.0 technologies. There are many implications for academic libraries."The focus of the Horizon Project centers on the applications of emerging technologies to teaching, learning, and creative expression, and the format of the Horizon Report reflects that focus. Each topic includes an overview to familiarize readers with the concept or technology at hand, a discussion of the particular relevance of the topic to those activities, and examples of how the technology is being or could be applied."
More about SCOAP3
Here is some more info about SCOAP3 from Symmetry Magazine.
Free for all -- "Forget about paying for journal subscriptions. If a new proposal takes hold, particle physics journals would get their funding from labs, libraries, and agencies that sponsor research, and readers could peruse them for free." By Glennda Chui
Free for all -- "Forget about paying for journal subscriptions. If a new proposal takes hold, particle physics journals would get their funding from labs, libraries, and agencies that sponsor research, and readers could peruse them for free." By Glennda Chui
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
Visit to the American Geographical Society (AGS) Library
After I was done with Ammi Hyde Interviews in Milwaukee, I went to the American Geographical Society (AGS) Library which is housed within the Golda Meir Library at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
"Background -- The AGS Library is one of North America’s foremost geography and map collections. Formerly the library and map collection of the American Geographical Society (AGS) of New York, it was transferred to the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Libraries in 1978 following a nationwide selection process by the Society. The Society was formed in the early 1850's to promote the collection and diffusion of geographical and statistical information and to establish and maintain a library with a collection of maps, charts and instruments. By 1870, this library was already recognized as the “largest and most valuable” of its type in the United States."
Neato library -- I am glad I was able to visit for a little while.
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