Next in our ‘ERM on a shoestring’ agenda:
We’re now using a (restricted-access) Google spreadsheet to internally log and track issues, problems and errors with our electronic library resources. Library staff can submit a problem through a Portal page; the E-resources Team will then use the spreadsheet to keep tabs on the problem, add updates when publishers have been contacted, identify recurring problems, etc.
I attended Sue Watling‘s workshop, ‘Promoting Inclusive Practice with Digital Data‘, today. (I know that Sue has delivered the same workshop in the past to groups of Library staff.) There’s also a Blackboard community to accompany the workshop.
My particular interest in usability / accessibility / inclusive design, as Sue knows, is around the accessible nature (or otherwise) of Library-digitised and born-digital library subscription resources: e-books, e-journals, and material scanned and digitised under the CLA’s comprehensive HE licence.
In particular, Sue and I have had a number of conversations about the frustrations we share around digital texts: which ought to be inherently accessible and a great asset, but which in practice are often only available in a form (or via a platform) covered in barriers to accessibility. Also around the lack of importance which the University can seem to place on accessibility, usability and access issues.
A little while ago, Sue and I made a start on an e-book usability/accessibility reference guide. To my shame (because I do think it’s important, it’s something that doesn’t get a lot of attention, and it’s something I’m interested in) …I let it fall by the wayside.
I’ve made a start again! It’s made up of a table containing information about the features of the three Library e-book platforms which are available at the University of Lincoln, plus a guide to using e-books. Both parts are publicly-editable Google documents, so feel free to edit them.
Since the beginning of this year, the University of Lincoln has used its Repository as the ‘system of record’ for internal monitoring and reporting on research activity. In particular, Quarterly Research Output Reports are generated, every three months, from the Repo. These reports contain lists of ‘substantive‘ research outputs which first appeared “in published form” (or equivalent for non-textual outputs) during the relevant quarter.
We work one full quarter in hand (to give people plenty of time to deposit/record their publications on the Repository), so we’ve just produced the report for Q4 (October-December) of 2010.
At the moment, the finished reports are treated as confidential: though the information from which they’re automatically generated is freely available on the Repository.
Here’s how we do it:
Step 1. Imagine a Repository search for all items published or in press, from an individual department of the University. It’d look something like this.
Step 2. Export the search as RSS with citations.
Step 3. Next, use Google Docs’ =ImportFeed() function to import the RSS feed into a Google spreadsheet. To save having to edit the [rather long and horrible] formula for each of the University’s 21 departments, and also from having to update it for each quarter, we’ve used cell references within the formula to pick those values up from elsewhere in the spreadsheet. (Those cell references are coloured red and blue in the formula below.)
=ImportFeed(Concatenate("http://eprints.lincoln.ac.uk/cgi/search/advanced/export_lirolem_AllRSS.rss?screen=Public%3A%3AEPrintSearch&_action_export=1&output=AllRSS&exp=0|1|-date%2Fcreators_name%2Ftitle|archive|-|date%3Adate%3AALL%3AEQ%3A",DATERANGE!A1,"|divisions%3Adivisions%3AALL%3AEQ%3A",A1,"|ispublished%3Aispublished%3AANY%3AEQ%3Apub+inpress|-|eprint_status%3Aeprint_status%3AALL%3AEQ%3Aarchive|metadata_visibility%3Ametadata_visibility%3AALL%3AEX%3Ashow&cache=0"))
We’ve also used a couple | of custom Google scripts to make it easier to look up the reference ID for each department (in the Google spreadsheet it’s the name of each [work]sheet; one sheet per department) and use that value in the EPrints RSS query string.
Step 4. Once all the departmental sheets have been populated with RSS data, export the result to MS Excel, format nicely using Word, “sanity check” with several pairs of human eyes (to pick out the inevitable thing-or-six that the Repository has spat out that makes no sense on the page), and we’re done!
F.A.O. University of Lincoln academic staff: the next Quarterly Research Output Report, covering Q1 (January-March) 2011, will be produced from the Repository on or after the 30th of June 2011.
We’re putting together a few tools to help us to manage our electronic library resources (in particular, the 130+ e-journal packages to which we provide access for our users). It’s electronic resources management without using a dedicated Electronic Resources Management System.
Specifically, we’re introducing:
This week, I spotted that my local public library service (Lincolnshire County Council) have launched an e-books service. Hooray for them – they’ve also recently upgraded all the PCs and introduced wifi in my local branch library.
With many local libraries being cut or placed under threat, and their technological relevance criticised (often ignorantly), even by the PM, it’s great to see investment going in to library technology in Lincolnshire.
The Lincolnshire county libraries e-books site is at: https://lincolnshire.libraryebooks.co.uk/
(It’s not obvious who provides this e-books platform, but it appears Warwickshire County Council—and possibly no-one else—has chosen the same provider.)
It got me wondering: how many UK public libraries currently provide an e-book download service?
To try and find out, I’ve created a (publicly-editable) Google spreadsheet wiki, containing the names of the 232 top-level local authorities in the UK, along with a column indicating whether or not they provide an e-book download service {1|0}, and columns for the URL and provider of that service.
At the time of writing, there are 48 public library e-book download services listed. If I’ve missed one that you know about, you can edit the spreadsheet yourself.
I’ve then used a simple, 4-part Yahoo! Pipe to turn the CSV data output from that spreadsheet into an RSS feed containing only those councils that do provide downloadable e-books.
The finished RSS feed is at: http://bit.ly/e9U2GP
Next, if I can remember my way round the GeoNames/Nearby.org.uk/Google Maps APIs, I’ll have a go at plotting the e-book-providing libraries on a map.
I’m speaking at a one-day cpd25 event on ‘Mashups And Libraries‘ at Goldsmiths, University of London, on Wednesday, 13 April 2011. cpd25 is a ‘Staff Development and Training Organisation working in association with the M25 Consortium of Academic Libraries‘ in the south-east of England.
The event costs £45 for cpd25 members (£65 for non-members). I’ll be talking/demoing/guiding people in using Yahoo! Pipes and Google spreadsheets for library mashups.
From the cpd25 website:
This event will give you an overview of mashups from some of the experts, relating mashups to the Library setting. Then in the afternoon you can have a go at creating your own mashups.What are Mashups?
They are web applications that combine freely available data from various sources to create something new and potentially more useful into a single tool. They can be a very powerful way to meet our user’s varied expectations and provide excellent web-based services adding value to library websites and library catalogues. They can also allow libraries to promote Library services where the users are.
Venue: Goldmsiths, University of London
Event programme
9.30-10.00 Coffee and registration
10.00-12.45 Presentations including examples of mashups in Libraries
12.45-1.45 Lunch1.45-4.30 Create your own mashups – hands on session (Paul Stainthorp Electronic Resources Librarian) yahoo pipes/google data 101 session. Parallel session tba.
All day event – you can come for just the morning presentations or stay for the whole event (both options include lunch)
Speakers
Chris Keene Technical Development Manager(Library, University of Sussex)
Julian Cheal Systems Developer (UKOLN)
Gary Green technical Librarian (Surrey County Council)
Paul Stainthorp Electronic Resources Librarian (University of Lincoln)
Price:
to attend the morning session – £35 for cpd25 members (£55 for non-members)
to attend all day – £45 for cpd25 members (£65 for non-members)
Lunch and refreshments included in both prices.Please note that places are limited.
To book a place please use our online booking form or email the administrator via cpd25@lse.ac.ukCancellations less than one week before the event will be charged a 50% cancellation fee. In the event of a ‘no-show’ on the day, the full fee will be charged.
This is one of those seemingly-simple jobs that turns out to be more complicated (needlessly so, I’m sure) than you might expect: that of communicating the Library’s opening hours to our users.
I’ll admit in advance that I’m a terrible pedant when it comes to consistency and getting small details right, which probably doesn’t help.
But why so complicated in the first place?
If you try and give the users too much of this constantly-shifting information in one go, it starts to look far too confusing on the webpage, poster or flyer. Not enough detail, and students/staff (rightly) complain that they’re not being kept in the loop.
And the University of Lincoln’s opening hours aren’t even really that complicated: our near-neighbours and close acquaintances in the Sibthorp Library at Bishop Grot (a.k.a. Bishop Grosseteste University College Lincoln) have it much worse.
So, here’s what I’ve tried to do, in order to get the opening times across clearly. It’s worth saying that I don’t think we’ve cracked it, yet.
The daft thing about all of this is that I shouldn’t really care about our opening hours: it’s not particularly my responsibility, just something I picked up because it generally falls to me to get stuff online for the Library. And it certainly shouldn’t absorb as much time and mental energy as it does… but dammit, I just want to get them right.
Q. Is it just me? How do you make sense of your library opening times for your users?
