WP Blog entry on why libraries? Heartwarming replies! - the replies are really, really nice. Not from librarians, but from the many enthusiastic library users and supporters.

I especially love how they take him to task for saying the library's empty -- I know *my* branch is jam packed full of people *all* ages. Kids crying because they have to leave... Older adults, middle aged adults, young adults, teens...  ¶ 8:54 AM| (0) comments |cites (technorati) |

  The purpose of vendor interactions Once again, these are only my opinions and do not reflect anyone else's. I'm a reference librarian, too, not the acquisitions person -- our acquisitions go through a series of very thoughtful, thorough, honest people.

The Librarian in Black has it wrong. I think she misunderstands many (most?) librarian-vendor interactions.

Yes, I talk to any/all relevant vendors at conferences. I eat their lunches, their deserts, their breakfasts, take their brochures, pens, and whatever else. I ask them pointed questions -- why does this work this way? Why are you using this model? What do you offer in...? I tell them my experiences and my customers' experiences and what they can do to their products to make our lives better. I'm equal opportunity -- I talk to our smaller society friends and our big for profit (evil empire) colleagues -- and they are colleagues. The little guys don't sponsor big events, but I still talk to them and listen to them. I see nothing wrong with being on friendly terms with these folks. I am a bit adversarial when they do something stupid or thoughtless. (Sometimes the vendor reps need that piece of chocolate cake for themselves after dealing with me!)

The mousepads, pens, etc., become (for the most part) giveaways (on the desk: can you borrow a pen? sure, here's a nice one from IEEE -- did you know that we have access to the full IEEE Xplore digital library?). We'd like to advertise our access to these products as much as the vendors want us to. My badge for work is dangling from one society's lanyard and another's retracting reel thingy.

I'm not sure I've ever said this "rant" would be unbiased -- in fact, let me state clearly, I DO NOT believe there is anyone on this earth who is unbiased. We all have our perspectives, our lenses... I do happen to like a couple of British societies because they're nice people and they seem to be working hard to get things right and maybe because they sponsor some SLA events. If their journals cease being useful to my customers, we'll end our relationships. Would we be more likely to purchase a product from a vendor who shows up where we are and sits with us to explain their product and quickly answers questions than one who says "let them come to us"? Of course. Be honest -- the more you know the better decision you can make. Running around to all of the sessions at a conference, the best talk time may be in a vendor event.

OTOH- I most certainly will not take cash from a vendor or any swag that's worth more than a t-shirt, unless it's a random drawing (I can't imagine them offering!). I am also not allowed to advertise any vendor's product with my place of work listed (no testimonials -- and I have been asked if they could attribute things on this blog to my greater mothership institution -- hah! of course not! I love my job...)

Once again, this is all from me, Christina Pikas, and not from anyone else.  ¶ 12:16 PM| (2) comments |cites (technorati) |

  Richard Akerman liveblogging IATUL Lots of interesting stuff on scholarly communication, escience, open science, open access, access to science. Beautiful pictures, too, wow.
(btw- IATUL is the International Association of Technological University Libraries)  ¶ 6:43 PM| (0) comments |cites (technorati) |

  Systems telling the users about themselves... (this is sort of a note to myself for if I ever get back to this subject). When my paper was still about faceted search results, I was struggling with even knowing where to look in the literature for theoretical background for faceted presentation of search results. Just now, while re-reading Bryce Allen's 1991 ARIST article on Cognitive Research in Information Science, I figured out another approach. He talks about "system knowledge" and how the user's knowledge of the particular information system is crucial to information retrieval success. He compares using stereotypes (personae? is that the same or similar?) with allowing "the system to tell the user about itself and allow the user to adapt to it"( p.7, citing Gilbert, 1987). This goes with other things I read last semester by Bates and also by Soergel talking about what should be done by the system and what should be done by the user.

So in talking about the faceted search results to end users (domain experts but not information seeking or system experts), I've tried to say something along the lines of "and you can see how the system interprets your search -- see this classification code indicates that the term has applications in this other area of research, so you might want to narrow, or look at how the system describes an article that you know is relevant..." How could the start screen explain the database better without becoming a mess? It has to function for people with all types of abilities and experiences... I don't know the answer.

Allen, B. L. (1991). Cognitive research in information science: Implications for design. In M. E. Williams (Ed.), Annual review of information science and technology (ARIST) (pp. 3-37). Medford, NJ: Learned Information.

Bates, M. J. (1990). Where should the person stop and the information search interface start. Information Processing & Management, 26(5), 575-591.

Soergel, D. (1994). Indexing and retrieval performance: The logical evidence. Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 45(8), 589-599. (and other articles, too, but it's hard to recall all of the places this pops up)  ¶ 12:55 PM| (0) comments |cites (technorati) |

  huh... librarians as Elsevier's bouncers

Academic libraries, which in earlier days provided a service, have outsourced themselves as bouncers to publishers like Reed-Elsevier; their principal job, in the digital realm, is to prevent interested readers from gaining access to scholarly material.

Shirky responded to the Gorman post on the Britannica site. At first I was amazed at how much I agreed with him, until I got to the above quote near the end. My mind rebelled, but then I decided it deserved more thought. To a certain extent he's right. We dump money on publishers and then sign away a lot of rights in the licenses (we do this in life, too, particularly in the form of community association covenants, but that's another rant). We sign these licenses to provide access and are then responsible in part for preventing abuses and enforcing the licenses.

To be honest, I don't think we have real choices.

Of course to say that this is our "principal" job is messed up -- that goes without saying. In any case, "outsourced" is clearly the wrong word (maybe sold out?). It has never been our job to create the scholarly literature and selection decisions are ever more complicated.  ¶ 10:16 PM| (2) comments |cites (technorati) |

  Ok, big exhale Nature... Are they just going crazy, or what?

• new journals (you already know what I think about the geosciences one)
  
• Nature Preceedings (pre-print server - yeah *this* one will be different)
• Scintilla (blog aggregator - like Post Genomic and Chemical Blogspace, only not as cool)
  

  ¶ 5:08 PM| (1) comments |cites (technorati) |

  Ruth's Posted Her Talk Ruth Kneale presented a fabulous session - Spectacles: How Pop Culture Views Librarians. It's now available at the link above.

Labels: SLA2007

  ¶ 9:57 AM| (0) comments |cites (technorati) |

  SLA2007 Astro II I live blogged Astro I, but then my battery ran out. I have handwritten notes from Astro II.

International Year of Astronomy 2009
Liz Bryson talked about the aims of this effort and what's going on with it right now. Apparently they hadn't even considered including astro librarians in the planning. Liz will make sure our voices are heard :)
More information on the web site: http://www.astronomy2009.org

Somehow mentioned, but not related to the above, was Google Sky.
Some of our members are collaborating on this. It's like Google Earth, but for everything else (there's already a Moon and a Mars). Coordinate systems are pretty tricky. I guess they're using the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and will allow you to browse constellations and other things. I guess they're offering to host large datasets and send out hard drives? (not sure what this means exactly)

Status of the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Library
Pete Banholzer brought us up to date (as of when he left to come to SLA, but things are in constant flux). They have been told to emphasize engineering, not science, and will be reducing their print collection by about 50%. This is fairly difficult because of the the requirements when getting rid of "government property" and also because they'll have to do it very, very quickly. A horrifying quote that I've heard before... some important person over there said in 2005: "the library is an unaffordable luxury." On a positive note, they are working toward a NASA-wide virtual library.

Getting people to interact with the library
- allow food (mixed responses on this)
- serve food (universally agreed upon tactic)
- new book shelf
- virtual new book shelf

Labels: SLA2007

  ¶ 12:13 PM| (0) comments |cites (technorati) |

  sla2007: ebooks on steroids Ebooks on Steroids
Panelists: reps from ProQuest/CSA (Safari), Knovel, ebrary, Springer

What are the pricing models (tiers or ?)
What are the pricing models (booklike one time purchase, journal type subscription)

Ebrary, subscribe to one or collection or all books. Now have a perpetual access buy a copy model working with YBP and others to buy (have both individual access, and 150% multiple user access)

Springer – subject collections, fte + research intensity (tiers), perpetual access. When you sub you get that year’s editions

DRM
Printing, cutting/pasting, page viewing

Safari – chapter level, can post up to 2 sections for classroom use, prefer professors link in.
Knovel – unlimited printing, cutting pasting, page viewing for authorized users, want to encourage use, but… they’ve experimented with other DRM solutions and have abandoned them. In the next 90 days they will be watermarking all of the content. Working on rebuilding backend system to protect the system better against systematic downloads (hm?)
Springer – ILL and educational information. No restrictions on printing, simultaneous users. Can put some part of a book onto an online course.
Ebrary – balancing needs of publishers with what’s reasonable. Have to maintain internet access. Looking for bots. They pre-identify proxy servers so they don’t (now) get identified as bots. Can print up to 20 pages. If you copy and paste, you get the citation and link back. Can copy one page at a time. (I’m pretty confused by his discussion, because he started to say that you have to stay online and then ended by talking about printing)

Are special readers required? What usage information is available.
Springer – just released usage. Administrators can download COUNTER compliant, book report 2 (downloads by chapter). PDF version, no additional software.
Ebrary – plug-in. they’re developing a java based client. They say it’s not bad in practice. Page views as well
Safari – doesn’t require plugin. The new video content will require a quicktime plugin. Not fully counter compliant, downloads by book and turnaways. Looking into SUSHI.
Knovel – myriad of plugins, but the ones that are standard with the browsers most people have. PDF, java, flash, there have been interoperability problems, but their technical services department has been able to work with customers to fix them. Usage stats – offering option of fully counter compliant report next (quarter?). You won’t have to take the counter compliant report. They deliver data outside of books, so there will still be supplementary reports on how people are interacting with equations, graphs.

How have you become bigger better faster?
Ebrary – own reader, info tools to integrate other subscription electronic resources. Extensive suite of APIs. Blackboard plugin. Pass through authentication. Highlighting and annotation feature, saved to your bookshelf. Professors share these bookshelves with students.
Springer – via shear volume (17K) both English and German. Adding 3,200 books a year. Springer.com/marc – MARC records are created on the fly as books are produced so the first MARC record that will appear will be theirs.
Safari – better search to find the answer you need, searching for code fragments, limit to programming language, see results with kwic by book or section.
Knovel – narrow focus on applied scientists and engineers. Focused on engineering (pump finds you pump, not a woman’s shoe). Detailed parametric search. Search optimization for engineering. 80-20 rule – fewer titles, but the most important titles and those are selected by usage, customer requests, and expert selectors. Can extract numbers, use solvers, interpolate a curve, unit converters. Mathematica is now driving the math on the site (wow). Subject matter experts get help from engineers and chemists.

Questions from the audience:
If a staff member wants to cut and paste something into a course, do they have to write and get permission?
Knovel- follow license.
Safari – not required to write in, license sets how much can be posted as long as that’s followed
Ebrary – coursepacks are republished. Fair use for small amounts (a paragraph).
Springer – within the educational environment

Perpetuity – what happens if your company merges or goes away?
Ebrary – you own the content separate from the interface
Springer – we can give you copies to locally load.
Safari – no perpetual access. ProQuest is working with LOCKSS.
Knovel – no perpetual access because their interface is very important to their model.

Problem, when a book is available on an ebook platform gets adopted for a class? Students may want to download the textbook chapter by chapter instead of buying the book.
Knovel – we don’t have textbooks (answer from audience yes, we’ve adopted some knovel books). Follow license, but not designed for that.
Safari – as long as their following the license rules, it’s acceptable but it’s not intended to replace a class book.
Ebrary – not for primary text in a course, ok for supporting info for a course.
Springer – no problem with that. She thinks the whole DRM issue is still hazy. This particular issue has not been completely resolved.

What would you like to see more in the publishing field, our people are looking for disassembling the text and data mining it?
Ebrary – we built an example of what can be done. There are other ways to do it. That’s why we built the APIs so you can use your own search engine, own viewer or other unanticipated uses. We have the hooks already for analysis and “we don’t charge much more for that access” (?)
Safari – probably talk on an individual basis as they have in the past with various PhD candidates for historical or analysis over time.
Knovel – would like to talk off line. The whole idea is to bring the data to life so that people can use it to solve problems. Use is most important.
Springer – Google indexes all of our content. We will work with you independently, too.

Labels: ebooks, SLA2007

  ¶ 1:15 AM| (1) comments |cites (technorati) |

  SLA2007: Astro Roundtable Astro Roundtable 1
Came in late (about 11:40am)

If we do away with page numbers, for article numbers or dois, then how do you direct attention to a particular figure?

AAS/IOP discussion
IOP says: Thank you for the feedback and discussion.

I can’t believe I missed this conversation! I forgot and didn’t mark it on my calendar.

AAS will have print on demand but within 5 years maybe won’t offer a print subscription anymore.

When forced to deal with space and budget issues – their customers across the board are saying e only ApJ, AJ, A&A and keep the books.

Roundtable
ADS website: core books, core journals in Astro. They need some help working on the list. Contact Liz or Pam.

PhysMath Central
On the model of BioMed Central.

What’s going on in the Yerkes Observatory Library? Closed, being integrated into U Chi collections. Study group that has been formed to see what to do with it. Duplicates will stay there and go with the observatory. The archives are being moved. Old images are being digitized and will be available for free on the web.

Cost recovery or chargeback?
Is anyone considering? No, not really. ('cept me)

IRs – any astro datasets?
There’s talk of it, and it’s been discussed with the library and IT but either too much inertia, or the system isn’t ready or robust enough for astro datasets. Lots of cyclotron facility reports at Indiana). Aren’t there some other? National Virtual Observatory. National Virtual Solar Observatory. Eventually, it won’t be an option.

LISAV - They had money left over so it will be held by PAM for next time.

New PAM wiki for instructional materials?

Labels: SLA2007

  ¶ 1:12 AM| (0) comments |cites (technorati) |

  SLA2007: CS Roundtable Computer Science Roundtable
Database
- duplication (no real worries here)
- tech problems (seems to only be safari for mac)

Serials issues
- marc records for LNCS?
- open access (through DOAJ to find), orphans from DOAJ
- mixed feelings about DOAJ (are they good journals)
- maybe not a lot of foreign language
- backlog of cataloging
- using the SFX a-z list, poor quality of subject categories, weird results in some categories
- using OSU web search to find databases

(libx.org – the Virginia Tech library toolbar has a right click to reload through proxy, I’m supposed to e-mail this to the list).

ACM
Beta.acm.org (sometime in August a new release, with a new interface, and implementing Endeca)
Guide to computing literature – doesn’t link out

eBooks
- with consortial deal, could we add on some things for individual sites?
---
update: my battery died at this point in the notes so I have some hand written notes

Safari
- problems with MARC records
- for those with 3 year rolling access, delete old records and load fresh set
- with 3 year rolling, can lose access to course reserves mid semester
- ProQuest cataloging is now used, so higher quality records
- Videos will eventually be available as an add-on, but they're not ready (server wise) to support academic customers yet.

Books 24x7
- 15 minute timeout (globally)
- RSS feed for corporate edition in upper right hand corner

Print?
- many buy some print for high use titles in these services
- IDA is the only library present that makes an effort to maintain an archive of older IT books.

Getting IT dept to kick in?
- very difficult, for one library, they did at first, then dropped out so the library had to disappoint some customers and drop the subscription because they couldn't do it alone
- one librarian was very concerned about spending this much money on the non-scholarly literature. (I totally disagree in the case of these books, but anyway)

Should CS be in SciTech or PAM (or engineering or ...?)
- noone had any strong opinions at this meeting
- Parker will do a survey and report back for next year.

Labels: SLA2007

  ¶ 2:37 AM| (0) comments |cites (technorati) |

  sla2007: Physics Roundtable Physics Roundtable

Beth Brown
Binghampton University

IM Reference at Binghampton. Also on e-list.

- Went through a process from QuestionPoint in 2003, Docutek, then Trillian and Meebo Me.
- Needed something that could talk on multiple services, easy to install, multiple platforms
- Ways to handle transcripts, Trillian saves them as text
- E-mail alerts to remind staff to log in [ah-ha! We have this problem, too]
- Created a web page, had it load automatically, updated libraries reference privacy policies
- about 2 years, 400 questions, 20% repeat users
- some small technical issues
- standard online communication virtual reference issues
- were using a more formal language than when im-ing among themselves
- evaluating quality, reviewing transcripts

Audience questions:
Q: staff pushback?
A: not on “real reference” but on getting used to the environment

Q: anyone doing this in a collaborative environment
A: several of us

Q: drop trillion for meebo?
A: no, we now do both, but we’ve found we’ve missed some meebos

Connecting the Community
Terry Hulbert, IOP
- Have had companion web sites for IOP magazines, but they’ve been updating and changing them.
- In addition to journals, etc.
- Silos of the communities, the sites are not interrelated
- better relevance, better interaction/experience, linked to other content
- standardize platforms, brand, login; accessibility
- adding PACS code indexing
- supported by advertising
- coming (among other things), mashups like an event map with photos


My talk

Pat Viele
Cornell
Interacting with Faculty

- Listserv and e-mails with interesting websites. Pat’s picks.
- http://physicsinformationfluency.blogspot.com
- AAPT collecting URLs to add to their web pages (such as one on Women in Physics).

Audience questions:
Q: redundant with other lists?
A: these are targeted, and will be part of Compadre (physics part of NSDL)

Labels: SLA2007

  ¶ 2:35 AM| (0) comments |cites (technorati) |

  sla2007: slides,notes to follow

Update 6/11
Notes: Of course it's been a bit so I might have forgotten something... feel free to drop me a line (my e-mail's up there on the right). I removed the screenshots of the blogs on purpose. There's a short list of physics blogs available here. To reiterate, I provided some examples of what some physicists are doing-- I will be doing a qualitative study to learn more.
Q: isn't this a huge time sink? when i tried to blog....
A: maybe, but communication within and outside the physics community is extremely important. Also, blogs can provide much needed career and work advice that might not be available elsewhere. Besides, my point here was physicists blogging, not librarians blogging. That's been covered well elsewhere.

Q: what about spam comments?
A: unfortunately spam comments are a huge hassle. I'd be kidding you if I said something different. For those of us in the middle of the pack or lower, they are manageable through captcha (word verification) and moderation. A-listers have to use elaborate blacklists and software plug-ins. Just like with e-mail spam, it's easy to accidentally trap a good comment. For scientists who blog about global warming or the link between vaccination and autism or a number of other hot button topics, there will be heated and sometimes nasty comments.

Update 6/12: Be sure to check out the Physics World column, "Blog Life." It's fairly new, but reviews physics blogs.

Labels: SLA2007

  ¶ 2:33 AM| (0) comments |cites (technorati) |

  SLA2007: PAMwide Roundtable oops! Put this for like a minute on the PAM blog.... belongs here...

PAM-wide Roundtable
Single Copy Task Group
Zari Kamarei
UNC
Task group w/ UNC, NC State, Duke

- written agreement
- the single copy may be in the stacks or the off site storage
- keep volumes in the best condition, most complete
- accessible to users through document delivery
- can’t retract
Remaining issues:
- legal issues
- catalog presentations (how do they show other
- equity in withdrawals

IOPscience
Tony O’Rourke
Assistant Directory, Journals
-5000 (5300) institutions (in 2004) active interest (publishing) in physics
[This seems to be more like what they mentioned last year – blowing up the journal model… to a database of individual journal articles with virtual groupings…]
- All journals, database view, 1874-current,
- Not to replace Inspec or other A&I services, this is still about IOP
- new pricing model factors include
- size of research
- Usage
- Location
- Type of institution (research, small college)
- permanent access to subscribed years
- better search, better browse, forward/backward citing, tag clouds, PACS, clusters, RSS feeds
- full content to everything they publish

Questions:
- who has access to the beta? 300 large institutions (and now everyone in the room upon request)
- new model will co-exist with journal subscription model
- slides will be posted on the PAM site

AAPT and Me
Pat Viele
http://physicsinformationfluency.blogspot.com
Targeted AAPT to make a contribution in physics student information literacy. With help from Cornell contacts, targeted, joined, contributes to AAPT committees. Has presented at 11 AAPT meetings.

Astrophysics Data System (ADS)
Donna Thompson
What’s new this year.
- Popular Astronomy scanned online (they need vols 1-11)
- new basic search form (bleh)
- new search plugin for ff2 and ie7
- new green links for open access titles
- personalization features (my account)
- library links (we’ve done this)
- personal libraries more user friendly
- collections of articles
- can make notations for each article

Labels: SLA2007

  ¶ 5:27 PM| (0) comments |cites (technorati) |

  SL2007: General Session General Session
Monday, June 4, 2007
Moderator:
Eugenie Prime, Stephen Abram, Clifford Lynch
This is all paraphrased.

Q: How do we convince business leadership of the value of libraries?
A: (EP) not ppt, statistics are necessary but not sufficient
(SA) flow, talk ourselves up (why was the article hard to find, why do we think it will be the best, why is it important to read). Like the River with the Rock (like the Grand Canyon)

Q: databases emerge across the enterprise, how do we provide access… federated search? (I think I got the gist of this one)
A: (CL)

Q: How can I make my OPAC not suck… I love my OPAC but
A: (SA) like any 12 step program… our future shouldn’t revolve around the OPAC, it was built for our own needs and inventory management, not for the needs of the user. Instead of fixing the OPAC, look at what the users need and creating the user experience. Look at the engagement strategy (not Google as a model – they’re all about selling ads – look at Yahoo or MSN)
(EP) question said it sucks but I love it… doesn’t matter what you think, what do the customers need?
(SA) it’s not just about better search, it’s about improving the question (like what we do best, question negotiation in the reference interview)
(CL) I’m not sure that’s entirely true. What is the essence of the Google experience? Disagrees that it’s the simple search box. Thinks it’s the guarantee that anything you find in a search you can get to the source in one click [but not really because of the subscription journals searched]. This difference in view of the google experience has a lot to say about how we change our services.
(SA) We have to acknowledge that Google does some things very well. Who What Where – special libraries do the how and when. GS isn’t about better access to research, it’s about selling ads.

Q: Different learning, searching styles of the generations
A: (SA) not change in learning styles, change in rewards for various learning styles (such as sound, visual)… we’re now respecting a larger range of styles. We need to consciously support the various ways of delivering information.

Q: What innovation has had the greatest impact what will have… what competency
A: (CL) competencies: adaptable and curious more important than any narrow technical knowledge which will become obsolete. Need deeper knowledge about how things work.
(EP) leadership competency is more important… Lee Iacocca (sp?) 5 C’s.

Q: How do we go about feeling the love
A: No magic bullet…

Q: (missed) problem about no wanting to collaborate because I want to shine
A: (CL) elaborate webs of collaboration…competing teams, not competing individuals
(EP) Genome project
(SA) difficulty in information sharing and transparency
(CL) pre-competitive data (Genome is a good example). What makes sense to share in a corporation?

Q: Lack of business acumen and respect for the bottom of line is resulting in offshoring of research, etc.
A: (EP) comes back to leadership, leadership from the bottom. Right attitude and confidence in what we have to offer and courage to act on our convictions.

Q: What are the best ways to find out what the users need, why do the things we try fail? How do we become user centered
A: (SA) We evaluate the first time we iterate… you’re not a freakin’ genius…whatever happened to Chanel no.1? Look at a toddler, what a lousy attempt? (need to iterate and fix and not just evaluate the first try and stop).
Use persona, ethnographic other techniques to understand our users and their contexts, they’re not like us.

Q: What should sla do?
A: (EP) the org should do what the individual can’t do for themselves… we have to speak to the business leaders where they are.
(SA) learning laboratory (sandbox) to allow members to play and learn by doing in a risk free environment. Can we promote librarians as being competent in this area.
Room 202 … populate the web virally with reports of the value we provide to the organization…testimonials… the faces of sla. We need to learn these and learn how to adapt them for our own environments.
(CL) maybe we should be thinking more broadly of information competencies in larger organizations (not in libraries) like CIO positions – information is a critical part of the organization. Where do these skills fit into organizations?
(EP) value of the profession to the organization.
---
Comments:
A lot of this doesn’t really seem new, but like SA said, we need to keep up the push to wear away the stone. We will be marketing forever, and will never be there. I also think it’s great to keep the no magic bullet mantra in our heads.

Some other things from him: we need to design and then iterate, don’t expect it to be perfect on the first try.

Labels: SLA2007

  ¶ 5:26 PM| (0) comments |cites (technorati) |

  SLA2007: Scitopia Launch Lunch http://www.scitopia.org

This is a new federated search created by 15 scientific societies. Give it a try and give feedback. My notes follow.

- Geared toward researchers to compete with Google Scholar (or, rather, to help researchers who are stuck with GS now).
- Federated search of 15 society publishers (more to come)
- For the moment sci-tech emphasis not biomed, which is covered well elsewhere (hallelujah)
- Fast (w/in microseconds of postings), authoritative copy.
- All backfiles (works with your sub so solution exists, but access through institutional
- Patents (USPTO, Japan, and ?)
- ( I have yet to attend an IEEE event where they fail to mention the patent – literature links… and of course was not disappointed )
- Deep Web Technologies (worldwidescience.org??)
- Goes out live in the background – doesn’t search a cache
- Science, patent, gov’t lit on different tabs and aggregated,
- Advanced search, default is goole-like box
- Gov docs are from DOE info bridge (includes energy citation… nasa and dtic?)

Audience questions
Patent class codes? No
Access to structure (thesauri, etc) from underlying pubs via facets or ? No
Controlled author names? No
Cited reference searching? No

- Clippings section (sounds good – but wait, not what I thought – actually all it is is a marked list)
- No citation export feature (they are looking at that … eek!!!)

Beta released today.

Coming:
- clustering
- aggregated RSS (now just jump to society RSS feeds)


From the demo:
- Can search on affiliation.
- Thermometer to show how many sources it has searched – results move around and rank after all of the results com back
- some standards are included (IEEE, Acoustical Society of America, SAE, others eventually).

Use of RSS feeds on Scitation has grown by about 70% every 6 months.

A lot of not yet…but I want to stress that I’m very happy that they’re talking to us now and it is in beta and it is an interesting first step. I, for one, will stress the databases like Inspec and Compendex, first, but this is interesting, too. I definitely will try it and see – I like the idea that it’s a federated search over a cached spider thingy – it will get new articles a lot sooner.

Labels: scitopia, SLA2007

  ¶ 6:36 PM| (0) comments |cites (technorati) |

  OT: Packing for Denver and SLA I guess I'll be the last one in -- I get there tomorrow morning, 10am local. As my bag never made it back from North Carolina (and the Science Blogging Conference), I keep thinking of things that I think I misplaced but must have been in the bag. I had a soap dish and toothbrush holder from my time in the dorms as an undergrad, and a little kit with travel sizes of all sorts of stuff, my favorite hand knit socks... The $245 the airline gave me mostly went toward replacing the Dansko clogs (which are now about $114 with taxes), the sweaters, and pants. (and the new Dansko clogs immediately gave me massive blisters so they aren't like the ones I had... buying them was like throwing the money out the window). So will my brand new luggage make it there and back? Should I not pack anything I like? How can I not?

Woe is me! Ah, well, I'll survive... and I'll see some of you all there.  ¶ 4:19 PM| (0) comments |cites (technorati) |