Tag Archives: LibX

Tech Sharecase, 22 June 2012

Posted on June 22, 2012 by Stephen Francoeur

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, 14 July 2011

Posted on July 21, 2011 by Stephen Francoeur

Attendees
Arthur Downing, Lisa Ellis, Stephen Francoeur, Joseph Hartnett, Jin Ma, Ryan Phillips, Stella Varveris, Michael Waldman

Intro
In advance of the meeting, attendees were asked to focus on the topic of social networks and academy:

  • how do students use social networks and which ones are they using now?
  • what might students expect of the library and its staff who are on the same social networks (for example, how do they want to interact with an institutional accounts on networks? how do they want to interact with us as library staff with personal/professional accounts on these networks?)
  • how do faculty use social networks and which ones are they using now
  • how is scholarly communication being altered by the growth of social networks (see, for example, this report by the Centre for the Study of Research Communications at the University of Nottingham titled “Social Networking Sites and their role in Scholarly Communications”pdf)
  • how we we use social networks for professional development? for pinging the hive mind?

What We Discussed Regarding Social Networks

Mobile Databases Page
We got a preview of the mobile databases page that will link users to library databases that are optimized to work on mobile phones. The page itself is just an ordinary LibGuide page that looks kind of odd in a regular browser but renders in a much more mobile friendly way in a phone’s browser. The draft of the page shown was the result of the second round of usability testing; the release version of the page will be subject to one more round of usability testing.

LibX Toolbar
A new Firefox/IE toolbar is being developed that will let users search the catalog, our e-journals lookup tool, or Bearcat regardless of what site the user happens to be on. Another notable feature is that when the user is on a book page in Amazon or other online booksellers, a Bearcat icon will appear on the screen that when clicked will run an ISBN lookup in the catalog to see if we own a copy of that item.

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Tech Sharecase, 30 June 2011

Posted on July 7, 2011 by Stephen Francoeur

Attendees
Stephen Francoeur, Ellen Kaufman, Louise Klusek, Rita Ormsby, Mike Waldman

Today’s Topic
Attendees were asked to come to today’s meeting with something related to search (a new search engine, a new search feature or interface, an article or blog post about search, etc.)

Guide to Searching
We looked at a video tutorial and companion website from the library at the University of Massey (NZ) that walked users through the basics of search. We liked the website’s screenshot and the way the video had a table of contents that let you jump head to a specific section.

DRAGNET
The library at the New York Law School has a search tool called DRAGNET that lets you find laws and other legal materials on various free legal databases. It was built using Google Custom Search. More details about how the service was put together can be found on this ACRL page. We wondered what it would be like to do something like this ourselves that searched a collection of open business-related databases on the web. We also talked about the plans for the Law.gov website, which are underway and will assemble a free resource of the nation’s laws.

One Search Boxes on Library Websites
Following up the discussion of search tools built with Google Custom Search, we looked at a Jamun, project being developed by the Leddy Library at the University of Windsor by Art Rhyno and Mita Williams. This tool will offer users a single box that searches across a number of different key resources. We also looked at the single search box (QuickSearch) that the library site at North Carolina State University features. We tried a bunch of different searches to see what comes up (notes of our searches didn’t get recorded, but you can try this one for “market share honda” as a useful example).

A Model for Teaching Search
We talked about librarian Iris Jastram’s model for teaching search, which she calls “exploding an article” and outlines in this blog post at Pegasus Librarian. In the classroom, students are introduced to the concept of being able to take one scholarly article that is relevant to them and use it to move in different directions to find others like it:

  • using Web of Science, you can move forward in time by looking for articles that have cited the one in hand
  • using the bibliography in the article, you can move back in time by tracking down the sources that the author used
  • using key terms in the article or in the descriptors for that article in a database, you can move to the sides to find articles that are about the same things

LibX Toolbar
We looked at a draft of a Newman Library toolbar that was built using the free LibX service. The toolbar features a search box for the library catalog, for the e-journals lookup tool, and for Bearcat. It also turns ISBNs, ISSNs, and DOIs into clickable links that will run lookups in relevant search tools from the library. Finally, it places an icon on the pages describing books in Amazon and other online booksellers; when the icon is clicked, the toolbar runs a search for that item in our catalog. This toolbar for our library is still being finished up and will be available soon.

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