Tag Archives: Tech Sharecase

Tech Sharecase, 26 April 2013

Making It Easier to Browse

We looked at StackLife, which has been set up for the new Digital Public Library of America and is being piloted for Harvard, too.

We also looked at how North Carolina State University libraries do a shelf browse. Here’s a sample record:

NCSU shelf browse 1

And here’s the “Browse Shelf” view for that book:

NCSU shelf browse 2

We then looked at BrowZine, an iPad app that lets you browse journals your library has online access to and save them to your bookshelf in the app. This video gives a good overview of what it looks like on an iPad.

 An “Awesome” Recommender

Harvard has also been piloting its “Awesome Box” project. As books are returned to the library, patrons may elect to bypass the usual book drop off slot and instead place the book in an “Awesome Box” as a form of recommendation. Items returned that way show up in a special Awesome at the Harvard Library page (which features a RSS feed of items featured there).

New Baruch-FacStaff Wifi Coming

We learned about a new wifi channel, Baruch-FacStaff, that is being tested out now. When configured on your mobile device–laptop, phone, tablet–it will automatically connect you to the wifi network as soon as you come on campus and it will allow access to the network drives.

Harvard Business Review and EBSCOhost

We talked a bit about the recently announced restrictions on use of Harvard Business Review content in Business Source Complete. It’s not quite clear how or if this will affect our use of the journal.

New Baruch College App Preview

We got a preview of the not-yet-launched update to the Baruch College app (the current version can be found in the iTunes App Store).

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Tech Sharecase, 22 March 2013

Access Services and the Reference Wiki

We talked about the way that Access Services staff have been adding pages regularly to the reference wiki and whether it might be worth renaming the wiki the “Public Services Wiki” to reflect this evolution.

Contracts and Vendor Relations

The increased demand by the state for documentation of interactions with vendors was explored.

Privacy

With the events at Harvard University in mind (the email of deans was searched by administrators trying to find the source of leaks about a cheating scandal), we discussed privacy issues in Baruch’s systems (email, Blackboard, etc.) and the Facebook page, Baruch Secrets (the Ticker covered Baruch Secrets in a story in January).

New Summon Interface

Summon, the service that powers Bearcat Search, will be getting a major overhaul in June. We looked at some of the new features.

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Tech Sharecase, 8 March 2013

Kaltura

We looked under the hood of Kaltura to see how tags and categories are set up and what analytics are available.

Draft of Wall Street Journal LibGuide

To make it easier to see all the print and online options for the Wall Street Journal, a new LibGuide is in the works. We previewed the new guide, which also features instructions with annotated screenshots of how to get to the News Pages feature in Factiva. We also discussed whether it would be worthwhile to do a similar page for the New York Times.

Screen Capture Software

We discussed the strengths and weaknesses of Captivate and Camtasia for video screen captures and SnagIt for image capture.

Guide on the Side

The library website for the University of Arizona features tutorials that appear to the left of selected databases. The libraries at the university developed their own open-source software (available for download) that others can use to design their own tutorials. Examples of some tutorials:

Factiva

We looked at examples in Factiva where the content found in search results actually links you out of the database and onto other parts of the web; some of those sites you are directed to are open, others are paywalled!

Google Sets

If you are creating a spreadsheet in Google Docs and want to create a list of similar items in a column, you can type two sample items in separate cells (such as pigeons and ducks) then easily have Google Sets supply in cells in the column additional items that are similar in nature. While the example on this page just shows days of the week as items you might want to auto-fill in a spreadsheet, it works with lots of other things as well (cities, colors, kinds of dogs, etc.) More details can be found on this post on the Google Operating System blog.

 

 

 

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Tech Sharecase, 14 September 2012

NFC (Near Field Communication)
We watched this video to learn more about this new technology that is increasingly being found in new smart phones.

The video shows how small tags that look like little stickers can be programmed to communicate with NFC-enabled phones and transmit messages or commands to the phone.

Mobile Device Usage at Each CUNY Campus
We took a look at the latest annual “Student Experience Survey” (pdf) from CUNY’s Office of Institutional Research to see data on what technologies students use regularly (see table 6a, which begins on page 22). We were surprised that 74% of Baruch students report regular use of a smart phone, a number higher than what we had expected.

LibGuides
We shared a number of hacks and workarounds for LibGuides.

Make the tabs for a page taller by inserting the HTML tag <br> in between two of the words in the page name:

For an example of a guide with tall page tabs, see Sandy Roff’s recent guide to European history.

We also talked about the custom fields that we can add to the template for all librarian profile boxes. Those fields could include things like space for a biography, recent publications, courses taught, etc. The admins for our account can set this up. For details on what’s involved in setting it up (just a few minute’s work), see this help guide from Springshare: Additional Fields – Profiles in LibGuides.

If you want to link to a specific box on a specific page, you can get the URL for that box by following these steps:

  1. Click “Edit” in the top right corner of the box you are interested in and then select “Edit Box Info” from the sub-menu that appears.
  2. In the “Edit Box Info” window that opens, click the tab labeled “Box Link and Embed Code”
  3. The URL for that box should be the first thing shown on the tab you’ve opened. Copy that URL and use wherever you want to send your user straight to that specific box.

If we want to republish a box on some other web page (such as a page on the library website), you can just grab the embed code that appears in the same place you get the box link.

Finally, we looked at the way that you can use an image instead of text for a link. When you are adding links in a “Link Box” you can use the HTML for an image in the “link title” field:

So on the “Managing the Sources You Find” box on the guide for undergraduate honors theses, the link for Zotero doesn’t just have the plain text “Zotero” but instead an image found on the Zotero website. You can find the URL for an image you want to use this way by going to another site with the image you want and then right clicking on the image; after you right click, look for a menu option labeled “copy image location.” That will grab the URL for the image that you’ll need when you are adding the link in your LibGuide.

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Tech Sharecase, 22 June 2012

At the Tech Sharecase today, we discussed a variety of topics while beating the heat with popsicles.

LibX Toolbar
Mike Waldman and I are about to launch a free toolbar that offers Swiss Army knife array of tools from within the browser (see the image below for details on some of the features).

This summer, we’ll first announce the beta version of the toolbar to library staff, then do some usability testing, and when the final version is ready, publish a LibGuide about it. We also hope to find a way to have it installed on campus desktop and laptop computers. Feel free to download it now and install it in Firefox or Google Chrome (note: admin rights are not necessary to do this).

The Digital Media Library
We took at a look at the Kaltura software the library may use to replace the homegrown system that powers the Digital Media Library. We also talked about Baruch’s content on iTunes U and YouTube (where the college and the library have their own accounts).

Author Profiles in Microsoft Academic Search, Google Scholar, and WorldCat Identities
We took at look at the different way that authors are profiled in these three services, noting that Microsoft Academic Search and Google Scholar have citation counts and an h-index for each author. WorldCat Identities only offers profiles of authors as book authors (their articles aren’t included). Both Google Scholar and Microsoft Academic Search allow authors to log in and update or correct the info in the profiles that have been set up for them (for Google, go here, and for Microsoft, go here)

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Tech Sharecase, 25 May 2012

We discussed the the new IDS Search/Beta CUNY catalog: what we liked, didn’t like, concerns about adopting this catalog and how it can be improved. Baruch along with LaGuardia, City College and The Graduate Center are test running the IDS search.

If you were unable to make it to the Sharecase, you can still give feedback. Follow the reference  blog link: Need Feedback on Beta CatalogNeed Feedback on Beta Catalog.

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Tech Sharecase, 9 May 2012

We discussed the Viewshare service from the National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program at the Library of Congress. Viewshare is a free service for exhibiting digital collections. Linda led the discussion as she’s using Viewshare for displaying information pertaining to film festivals as part of project she’s working on.

We also spent some time deliberating on how to list databases on the new redesigned website and looked at examples of how other libraries have used LibGuides to do so.

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Tech Sharecase, 9 March 2012


Food & Technology

In celebration of the 100 year anniversary of the Oreo®, we enjoyed Oreos with our brown bag lunches. This lead to a discussion about the
technology used in manufacturing products like Oreos. The Food Network show Unwrapped was mentioned as they explore “the test kitchens and the secrets behind lunch box treats, soda pop, movie candy, and more.” We also searched the website of the reference publication How Products are Made for Oreos, to no avail. However, M&Ms®  are included in the publication.

The conversation steered toward different technologies and a UPS documentary about the company workings in Louisville, KY.  The NYPL conveyor belt system was mentioned. The following NYTimes article has a write up and includes video: “That Mighty Sorting Machine Is Certainly One for the Books.”

Coutts Oasis

We also discussed eBooks and Coutts Oasis incluidng searching publications, picking edition preference by cloth, paper and myilibrary Coutts. We also discussed the capability to add slip and e-slip plans to your Coutts profile by defning your subject area.  Users who set up this option will recieve notifications for new titles in the defined subject area.

Lastly, we named the other resources we use for making title selections including  Amazon, WorldCat, book reviews, faculty suggestions et cetera.

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Tech Sharecase, 17 February 2012

PC Build

Discussed a PC I built from scratch this past Fall. Based the build on the book, Building the Perfect PC. Several types of PC builds are presented by budget and purpose including:

  • Ultra Budget PC,
  • Budget PC,
  • Gaming PC,
  • Mainstream PC,
  • and Media Center PC.

I choose to build a Mainstream PC, balancing affordability, space, expandability and performance for the tasks I require.  The book was written in 2010, so I updated some of the components from the book by referencing the message board the authors maintain at HardwareGuys. I used a few others sources as well.

I used the Logical Increments PC Buying Guide to compare my components to this guide. The guide is updated monthly and floats around several PC build forums. I used it to benchmark against a slightly different component lists and to compare their bottom line to mine. My PC would be categorized in “Great” with similar components and price range. The actual components I used are in the table below.

In addition, I referenced LifeHacker’s The First-Timer’s Guide to Building a Computer from Scratch for larger images and additional explanations for the installation process.

Building a PC, according to some sources, should only take a couple of hours, but it took me most of the day with just being careful and triple-checking each step, every component and every detail. When it came time to turn it on, to my surprise it worked perfectly.

After letting the PC run a recommended twenty-four hours to make sure none of the hardware components malfunctioned, I updated the BIOS, installed the operating systems and all the software. Viola! I had a new PC.

I was motivated to build my own PC in order to learn about about computer components, maybe save money in the long-run and, hopefully, make a better machine that will last longer than a pre-fabricated unit from a manufacturer. Overall I did learn quite a bit. Performance is everything I had hoped for.  My collective components cost more than buying a similar machine off the shelf so whether or not I save money depends on the life-span of this computer. Certainly with the knowledge I gained I’ll have an easier time upgrading components if I so desire.

Social Media & Privacy

Next, Rita shared the following link from the Sage website from the Addthis platform, for connecting website content to social networking sites for the pupose of sharing that content. There are 316 different applications listed here. It was remarked that this is an impressive list when you consider how many of these applications we were unfamiliar with.

Eventually this lead the conversation to a piece in the NYTimes Magazine about how companies are tracking our shopping habits. One of the most startling examples was noted in a Forbes post about the article about how Target analyzed the buying patterns of a certain teenager and determined she was pregnant. They proceeded to send her advertisements pertaining to an expecting mother. The problem was the girl had not told her parents she was pregnant and still lived under their roof. To figure out how Target was able to determine this girl was expecting, read the NYTimes Magazine or summarized Forbes post. Or, read the small excerpt below:

“Lotions, for example. Lots of people buy lotion, but one of Pole’s colleagues noticed that women on the baby registry were buying larger quantities of unscented lotion around the beginning of their second trimester. Another analyst noted that sometime in the first 20 weeks, pregnant women loaded up on supplements like calcium, magnesium and zinc. Many shoppers purchase soap and cotton balls, but when someone suddenly starts buying lots of scent-free soap and extra-big bags of cotton balls, in addition to hand sanitizers and washcloths, it signals they could be getting close to their delivery date.”

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Tech Sharecase, 3 February 2012

Facebook
In light of the rumored Facbook IPO we began by discussing the information Facebook keeps about its users and their activities. We watched a video posted on Information Aesthetics  regarding an Austrian Law student named Max who issued a request to Facebook  for his personal data and received a CD containing a 1,222 page document detailing his online activities. EU privacy law compels companies to respond to such information requests from citizens within 40 days.


Apropos this conversation, this past weekend On the Media reported on this very case as well as other stories during this weekend’s episode: “The Facebook Show”.  The recent  publication of “Web of Deceit: Misinformation and Manipulation in the Age of Social Media” by Anne P. Mintz was also noted during the discussion.

This lead to a review of the recent addition of  U.S. Consumer/Lifestyle information to the ReferenceUSA database and the sources for the info contained in this dataset.

Qualtics
We also discussed various  forms librarians have built with Qualtrics and the challenges in creating them. Below is one such form for library book purchasing which can be shared with faculty and departments:

http://bit.ly/baruchlibrarypurchases

Other topics
Lastly, we discussed Clicker registration for Fall semester as well as scanning and printing policies and procedures.

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