The Library has published its 2011 Annual Review, including short reports on the following techie items:
You can read the annual review here.
We have a new structure in ‘my bit’ of the Library, and I’ve got a new boss. Dave Masterson has taken up the brand-new post of Head of Electronic Library Services (HELS), with responsibility over all technical, electronic, systems, and acquisitions/cataloguing services in the Library.
(Diagram of the new Library structure. The new HELS is in blue. My [very small] team and I are in yellow. N.B. that the new HELS post also has dotted-line responsibility for the work of the Academic Subject Librarian for computer science/engineering subjects.)
Congratulations, Dave!
The University of Lincoln has… rather a lot of web subdomains. Some might say too many. Our JISC funded Linking You project touched on this problem (assuming it is a problem), and then slowly—and wisely—backed away.
All of the following can by found using a Google domain search – each of these can be suffixed by “lincoln.ac.uk” to form a real domain name:
Disclaimer: I’ve no idea how many of these are current, official, or meaningful. However, here’s a humble proposal: if you want a new subdomain under *.lincoln.ac.uk, you have to have it tattooed on your arm first.
And I’ve not even got started on our own dirt – the University Library’s own little handful of subdomains.
Firstly, what the Library hasn’t got. There’s nothing to see at:
(i.e. we’ve nothing at the ‘root’ Library subdomain. A couple of people have spotted this slight illogicality.)
Now what we have got, or have had in the recent past:
…this points at our SirsiDynix HiP 3.08 library catalogue. Really, if anything, this ought to represent the overall web presence of the Library, with HiP relegated to something like catalogue.library.lincoln.ac.uk
…the Jerome project.
…which is defunct and redirects to the main blogs site.
…a moribund, older installation of our EPrints Repository used for the 2008 RAE.
Some work done by our ‘Student Engagement & Communications Officer‘ (graduate intern), Steve Pannett, on an identifiable logo for the Library at the University of Lincoln. You’ll see these appearing on our materials from August onwards. I’m putting them into this blog post mainly so I can find them again easily.
These data consist of entries for 4,268 anonymised students who graduated from the University of Lincoln with a named award at the end of the academic year 2009/10, along with a selection of their library activity over three years (2007/08, 2008/09, 2009/10): library item circulation, visits to the main GCW University Library, and e-resources usage represented by authentication against AthensDA.
View this item on the University Repository: http://eprints.lincoln.ac.uk/4540/
In the run-up to our annual Library staff away day, a few of us (CL, MN, PS, EV, you?) are conducting an internal mini-research project on the potential for using QR codes in the Library.
QR codes (“Quick Response” codes) are two-dimensional, black-and-white, square barcodes that can be used around the library to provide users with links to additional information about resources and services on the web. Codes can be recognised and decoded by a smartphone with a built-in camera and web browser (and QR code-reading software installed), simply by pointing the phone’s camera at the barcode.
QR codes seem to be taking off, slowly but surely, in academic libraries, as well as outside them.
![photo_ejournals_frame [old photo]](http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5214/5425127994_54e2f890b1_m.jpg)
Suggested reading:
In case you haven’t seen one before, here’s an example of a (self-referential) QR code:
The University of Lincoln’s library at Holbeach is… not big (~69 square metres of library space + an I.T. lab). It doesn’t need to be particularly big, because it’s [a] very specialist (food manufacturing technology and related subjects only) and [b] almost all of the students who study through Holbeach are part-time or distance learners.
But it does mean we have to be careful about how we use the space: the margin of error is small, and a desk in the wrong place can have a disproportionately large effect on the way people are able to use the Library.
So, we’ve found it useful to have on hand a scale plan of the Holbeach Campus Library, which we created in an afternoon using Microsoft Visio, and with the help of a builder’s laser measuring device (a Bosch PLR25, since you asked).
Having this plan has made it much easier to create alternative proposals for arranging the Library, moving the virtual furniture around and being reasonably confident it would fit.
It also made it relatively trivial for the talented Mr Jackson to create a virtual, 3D model of the Holbeach Campus Library (in its proposed new layout) using Google SketchUp, as a trial run for some of the geolocation/mapping goodness we’ve got planned as part of our Jerome unproject [more about which later].
And, when some money was made available to the Library to develop its flexible “Hub” spaces for collaborative student work, we were able to make a good case to develop the Holbeach Campus Library according to the plan.
All that remains is to formally launch our changes using coffee and cake, which we’re planning on doing very soon.
I’ve all of a sudden found myself ‘in charge’ of a team, which is both gratifying and a little bit scary.
@evarol joined me today in the brand-new post of Library (E-resources) Assistant. The other two posts in the Library’s nascent E-resources Team both relate to the management and advocacy of the University’s Repository. I then report to one of two Deputy Librarians; they in turn to the University Librarian. There’s nothing like a good hierarchy to keep the biblioentropy in check.
Here’s a diagram showing how we fit together; as a courtesy to my other colleagues I’ve not named them (though you could probably work out the entire structure of the University using only public sources)…
