The YAC, September 2015

A Newsletter for Iowa library staff who work with youth and children brought to you by Iowa Library Services.

The YAC, November 2015

A Newsletter for Iowa library staff who work with youth and children brought to you by Iowa Library Services.

The YAC, January-February 2016

A Newsletter for Iowa library staff who work with youth and children brought to you by Iowa Library Services.

The YAC, March-May 2016

A Newsletter for Iowa library staff who work with youth and children brought to you by Iowa Library Services.

Web services to link interlibrary software with OCLC WorldShare

Purpose - This article describes the use of web services to interconnect the GTBib interlibrary loan program with the OCLC WorldShare platform. Design/methodology/approach - We describe the current problem of duplication of procedures in libraries that have added their collections to the OCLC WorldCat catalogue in recent years and are therefore more likely to receive interlibrary loan requests through the WorldShare Platform. Findings - A solution that uses web services to insert and retrieve requests between the two systems is presented. Autonomous agents periodically check the status of the requests and keep them updated and synchronized. These agents also inform the library staff of any variation or inconsistency that is detected. Practical Implications - This technology reduces process management time by making it unnecessary to introduce the request data in both systems. Agents are used to check the consistency of statuses between the two systems, thus avoiding errors and omissions and improving the efficiency of the whole interlibrary loan process. Originality/value - This paper describes in detail the technical aspects of the solution as a reference for the development of future applications.

Invenio@HGF: Collaborative repository infrastructure

Presentation at Open Repositories 2014, Helsinki, Finland, June 9-13, 2014

Office of the University President Sous fonds: Dr. James A. Gibson

Dr. James A. Gibson was born in Ottawa on January 29, 1912 to John W. and Belle Gibson. At an early age the family moved to Victoria, B.C. where John W. Gibson was a director of the Elementary Agricultural Education Branch, Department of Education. Gibson received his early education in Victoria, receiving a B.A. (honours) at UBC in 1931. In 1931 he was awarded the Rhodes scholarship and received his B.A., M.A., B.Litt and D. Phil at New College, Oxford. This was to be the beginning of a long and dedicated relationship with the Rhodes Scholar Association. Upon his return to Canada, Dr. Gibson lectured in Economics and Government at the University of British Columbia. In 1938 he was married to Caroline Stein in Philadelphia, and the same year joined the staff of the Department of External Affairs as a Foreign Service officer. Within twenty minutes of his arrival he was seconded to the Office of the Prime Minister and Secretary of State for External Affairs, W. L. Mackenzie King in charge of War Records and Liaison Officer. This was a critical time in the history of Canada, and Dr. Gibson experienced firsthand several milestones, including the Royal Visit of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth in 1939. Dr. Gibson was present at the formation of the United Nations in San Francisco in 1945, being part of the Prime Minister’s professional staff as well as attending conferences in Washington, Quebec and London as an advisor to the Canadian delegation. Gibson contributed many articles to the publication bout de papier about his experiences during these years. After his resignation in 1947, Gibson joined the staff of the fledgling Carleton College, as a lecturer. In 1949 he was appointed a professor and in 1951 became Dean of Arts and Sciences. Dr. Gibson acted as President from 1955 to 1956 upon the sudden death of Dr. MacOdrum. In 1963 Dr. Gibson accepted the invitation of the Brock University Founders’ Committee, chaired by Arthur Schmon, to become the founding president. Dr. Gibson guided the new University from a converted refrigeration plant, to an ever expanding University campus on the brow of the Niagara Escarpment. Dr. Gibson remained firmly “attached” to Brock University. Even after official retirement, in 1974, he retained the title President Emeritus. Gibson’s final official contribution was an unpublished ten year history of the University. In retirement Gibson remained active in scholarly pursuits. He was a visiting scholar at the Center of Canadian Studies, University of Edinburgh; continued his ongoing research activities focusing on W. L. Mackenzie King, the Office of the Governor General of Canada, and political prisoners transported to Van Dieman’s Land. He remained active in the Canadian Association of Rhodes Scholars, becoming editor from 1975 to 1994 and was appointed Editor Emeritus and Director for Life in 1995 in honour of his dedicated and outstanding service. In 1993 he was awarded one of Canada’s highest achievements, the Order of Canada. Gibson retained close ties with Brock University and many of its faculty. He maintained an office in the Politics Department where he became a vital part of the department. In 1996 Brock University honoured Gibson by naming the University Library in his honour. James A. Gibson Library staff was instrumental in celebrating the 90th birthday of Gibson in 2002, with a widely attended party in the Pond Inlet where many former students, including Silver Badgers. The attendees also included former and current colleagues from Brock University, Canadian Rhodes Scholars Association, family and friends. Gibson was later to remark that the highlight of this event was the gift of his original academic robe which he had personally designed in 1964. In 2003 Dr. Gibson moved to Ottawa to be near some of his children and the city of his birth and early career. In that year “two visits to Brock ensued: the first, to attend a special celebration of the James A. Gibson Library; his late to attend the 74th Convocation on Saturday, October 18, 2003. A week later, in Ottawa, he went for a long walk, returned to his residence, Rideau Gardens, went into the lounge area, took off his coat and folded it up, put it on the back of his chair, sat down, folded his hands in his lap, closed his eyes, and died”. With sources from: Carleton University The Charlatan, Gibson CV, and Memorial Service Programme

The perfect space: classroom environments and learning outcomes

Presentation at the Ontario Library Association Super Conference, January 28-21, 2015, Toronto, ON.

Re-engineering and Re-defining University Libraries in the context of modern Information and Communication Technologies: a study with special reference to the University Libraries in Kerala

Information and communication technologies are the tools that underpin the emerging “Knowledge Society”. Exchange of information or knowledge between people and through networks of people has always taken place. But the ICT has radically changed the magnitude of this exchange, and thus factors such as timeliness of information and information dissemination patterns have become more important than ever.Since information and knowledge are so vital for the all round human development, libraries and institutions that manage these resources are indeed invaluable. So, the Library and Information Centres have a key role in the acquisition, processing, preservation and dissemination of information and knowledge. ln the modern context, library is providing service based on different types of documents such as manuscripts, printed, digital, etc. At the same time, acquisition, access, process, service etc. of these resources have become complicated now than ever before. The lCT made instrumental to extend libraries beyond the physical walls of a building and providing assistance in navigating and analyzing tremendous amounts of knowledge with a variety of digital tools. Thus, modern libraries are increasingly being re-defined as places to get unrestricted access to information in many formats and from many sources.The research was conducted in the university libraries in Kerala State, India. lt was identified that even though the information resources are flooding world over and several technologies have emerged to manage the situation for providing effective services to its clientele, most of the university libraries in Kerala were unable to exploit these technologies at maximum level. Though the libraries have automated many of their functions, wide gap prevails between the possible services and provided services. There are many good examples world over in the application of lCTs in libraries for the maximization of services and many such libraries have adopted the principles of reengineering and re-defining as a management strategy. Hence this study was targeted to look into how effectively adopted the modern lCTs in our libraries for maximizing the efficiency of operations and services and whether the principles of re-engineering and- redefining can be applied towards this.Data‘ was collected from library users, viz; student as well as faculty users; library ,professionals and university librarians, using structured questionnaires. This has been .supplemented by-observation of working of the libraries, discussions and interviews with the different types of users and staff, review of literature, etc. Personal observation of the organization set up, management practices, functions, facilities, resources, utilization of information resources and facilities by the users, etc. of the university libraries in Kerala have been made. Statistical techniques like percentage, mean, weighted mean, standard deviation, correlation, trend analysis, etc. have been used to analyse data.All the libraries could exploit only a very few possibilities of modern lCTs and hence they could not achieve effective Universal Bibliographic Control and desired efficiency and effectiveness in services. Because of this, the users as well as professionals are dissatisfied. Functional effectiveness in acquisition, access and process of information resources in various formats, development and maintenance of OPAC and WebOPAC, digital document delivery to remote users, Web based clearing of library counter services and resources, development of full-text databases, digital libraries and institutional repositories, consortia based operations for e-journals and databases, user education and information literacy, professional development with stress on lCTs, network administration and website maintenance, marketing of information, etc. are major areas need special attention to improve the situation. Finance, knowledge level on ICTs among library staff, professional dynamism and leadership, vision and support of the administrators and policy makers, prevailing educational set up and social environment in the state, etc. are some of the major hurdles in reaping the maximum possibilities of lCTs by the university libraries in Kerala. The principles of Business Process Re-engineering are found suitable to effectively apply to re-structure and redefine the operations and service system of the libraries. Most of the conventional departments or divisions prevailing in the university libraries were functioning as watertight compartments and their existing management system was more rigid to adopt the principles of change management. Hence, a thorough re-structuring of the divisions was indicated. Consortia based activities and pooling and sharing of information resources was advocated to meet the varied needs of the users in the main campuses and off campuses of the universities, affiliated colleges and remote stations. A uniform staff policy similar to that prevailing in CSIR, DRDO, ISRO, etc. has been proposed by the study not only in the university libraries in kerala but for the entire country.Restructuring of Lis education,integrated and Planned development of school,college,research and public library systems,etc.were also justified for reaping maximum benefits of the modern ICTs.

Professional Skills and Competencies for Academic Librarian in an Electronic Environment

Development of new technologies in the field of library and information science especially in academic libraries has resulted in the need for library staff to be flexible in adopting new skills and levels of awareness. In addition to core technology skills, importance is to be given to other skills in communication, management, etc. This paper attempts to describe in brief the competencies and skills required for an academic library professional in the digital era .

Copyright in context

Questions asked by library staff and answered by experts, to give insight into everyday issues to do with copyright and licensing.

Science publication workshops as a strategy to improve the visibility of scholarly production: the experience of the University of Sao Paulo (USP) - Brazil

The objective of this work is to present the experience of workshops that have been developed at the University of Sao Paulo by the Integrated Library System in partnership with Research Commission. The poster presents the main results of workshops that were made in 2011, in two knowledge areas: life science and engineering, about science publication processes, and directed to graduates, pos-doctorates, researchers, professors and library staff. The realization of workshops made possible identifies gaps in different aspects of scholarly communication such as research planning, search information strategy, information organization, submission process, identification of journals with high impact, and so on, areas where professors and librarians can help. Besides, workshops reveal that the majority of participants believe in its importance. Despite the ubiquity of digital technology that transversely impacts all academic activities, it is imperative to promote efforts to find a convergence between information and media literacy in higher education and university research activities. This is particularly important when we talk about how science is produced, communicated and preserved for future use. In this scenario, libraries and librarians assume a new, more active and committed role.

Murder Past Due: Up Close with the Author

A fund-raiser with fellow librarian and mystery author, Dean James at The TMC Library. Proceeds go to the Friends Anderson Fund which support professional development for HAM-TMC Library staff.

Tackling Copyright in the Digital Age: An Initiative of the University of Connecticut Libraries

From 2005 to 2007, the University of Connecticut Libraries Copyright Project Team engaged in a wide range of activities to fulfill its charge and to raise awareness of copyright issues in the library and across the university. This article highlights some of the primary activities and tools used by the team to involve stakeholders, to provide educational opportunities, and to stay current on copyright issues in higher education. Among other activities, the team developed a new copyright web site for use by library staff and the broader university community.

JRNL: Journal Retention and Needs Listing — A Software Tool for Managing Print Journal Archives

The Journal Retention and Needs Listing (JRNL) program: 1) allows libraries to expose lists of print journals for which they have made retention commitments; 2) express needs (or gaps) in their holdings; and 3) communicate offers to fill the gaps in other participating libraries’ holdings. Multiple library consortia and their member libraries use JRNL to facilitate communication between library staff to identify holding commitments, fill gaps, and guide deselection decisions. JRNL is commonly developed and governed by the participating consortia. Currently, those consortia are the Florida Academic Repository (FLARE), the Association of Southeastern Research Libraries (ASERL)/Washington Research Library Consortium (WRLC), and the Western Regional Storage Trust (WEST).