Ex Libris User Group AGM 23/3/12

Full notes from the Ex Libris User Group are on the V drive under the Systems folder. The agenda included 

- Product updates for Primo and SFX
- Rosetta & Digital Preservation - which made the process involved in digital preservation much clearer to me. There's a short intro video from Ex Libris on Rosetta

 - Linked Data at the British Library. Another nice quick video explaining linked data:

 - Knowledge Base + presentation from JISC

 

Mobile devices: more questions than answers? - 2nd Dec

Really good day - interesting to see what other institutions are doing.

Started with a quick intro to the day and a video of the worlds first animated tattoo using QR codes:

Moved onto the 2 strands- I attended the info lit sessions which covered QR codes and uni mobile apps.

1st speaker was Dawn McCloughlin from Edge Hill - they'd tried out a variety of things with QR codes including adding to posters, guides etc. They'd also tried a QR code treasure hunt as part of 2010 Freshers' week. The novelty was good and had got students interested but there weren't very many participcants. Dawn felt Freshers' Week was too busy with too much else going on and also the competition was too complex.

Other uses of QR codes:

• Manchester looking at QR codes on catalogue(can only use OPACs for 15 mins so can send self reference)
• PCT using QR codes to send email requesting email to library (not sure I understood the benefit of this - why not just use a link?)
• Cumbria created branded QR codes -
  QR Generator:
  http://www.racoindustries.com/barcodegenerator/2d/qr-code.aspx
  
  
  Creative image inclusion:
  http://hackaday.com/2011/08/11/how-to-put-your-logo-in-a-qr-code/
   
•  Manchester Business School - included on posters advertising blog - saw increased use of blog via QR code

2nd speaker - Cath Marlowe from LJMU on CampusM
Students want Blackboard access and timetables. CampusM was set up without Library involvement so not completely satisfied with library functions. Can only search catalogue - and that only gives search results not location and can't renew/ access account.
CampusM app displays differently on different devices even with same OS e.g. iphone vs ipad.
They would like to add further library functionality and add lists of eresources which have mobile app - currently links on main web site


Have app and mobile website. Starting to look at mobile strategy

UCLAN have developed own app

Meg Juss - Edge Hill - BlackBoard Mobile Learn
Mobile Learn is an extension to make Bb accessible via mobiles. Uses content already in Bb but can make changes to courses etc to make them work even better in mobile.
Add on was bought earlier this year and released for academic year. Promoted at Freshers' Fair - majority of students they talked to had smartphone or were planning to get one. Despite there not being time for a lot of promotion there's been good take up of the app.

Edge Hill also starting to look at mobile strategy - what is available via desktop now, what infrastructure on campus is - could this support mobile use if it increases further?

Ended with another video...

... and look at various useful apps - GoodReader useful for file management, Evernote - good for collecting notes, videos etc.,


Judy went to the strand on customer services covering e-readers for reading list materials at Chester Uni, Roving support at LJMU and Lancaster and an overview of the mlibraries project.

Links to some material on the Nowal site

Kultivate Conference - Friday 15th July 2011

This one day conference, held at the RIBA in London, marked the culmination of the Kultivate Project, which had looked at ways in which arts research could be better accomodated and included in institutional repositories, and had developed the EPrints Kultur plugin to help adapt repositories accordingly.

The keynote presentation, given by Kerstin Mey from the University for the Creative Arts, discussed What is Artistic Research?. Kerstin spoke about practice based/led research, with a firm methodological mode, and also arts research/art as research, highlighting both the proximity and difference to scientific research.  Art as research can suggest it does not require theoretical documentation, explanation and contextualisation, however research in the arts is permeated by a notion of 'dialogue' - fuid, changing, conversation.  The subject of REF impact was also discussed, and it was concluded that art enquiry needs to be reflected on, and therefore more precise articulations of impact are required by the REF.

The Kultivate project was then summed up by Leigh Garrett of VADS, and it was announced that the environmental analysis, which identifies barriers which inhibit deposit, will be published in Ariadne in due course.

Liber Conference - Barcelona, 29th June - 1st July 2011

This was Liber (The Institute of European Research Libraries)'s 40th Annual Conference, and it was held in the Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya.  The theme of the conference was 'Getting Europe Ready for 2020: The Library's Role in Research, Education and Society' and accordingly there were a variety of talks on digitisation, institutional repositories and Open Access, web 2.0 and mobile technologies as well as many other innovative ways in which libraries around Europe (and beyond) are changing and improving their services.
 
My main reason for going was to present our poster on 'Open Access at Salford - Where next?'.  All posters were displayed in the lunch hall throughout the conference, and poster presenters each gave a one minute 'poster madness' presentation in the main auditorium.

Whilst not at my poster, I was able to attend a number of talks during the 3 day conference.  As there were so many talks and presentations, I have chosen to summarise a selection below.  However full details and slides from all presentations can be found at http://bibliotecnica.upc.edu/LIBER2011/

Your Library on the Web

Your library on the web looked at how Talis, and in particular Tais Prism 3 is being developed to enhance user experiences of the library. The session started by looking at each institutions / organisations web presence and asking if:

• Content was getting richer
• What are users needs
• What devices will be used to access information in the future
• How do we know if information is being used

Mobile learning will become the norm, this video advertising Kaplan university, promotes the use of learning anywhere:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e50YBu14j3U

Looked at Edinburgh public library's site -this has just won awards:
http://yourlibrary.edinburgh.gov.uk

Library Catalogues

The following Prism 3 users have introduced innovative ways of engaging with their users:

Liverpool Public libraries

• on the front screen they have displayed new titles
• added google maps
• using RSS feeds

University of Northampton

• showing alternative sources for resources
• have a link through to purchase the book from amazon (Amazon pay the University for click throughs)

Leeds City Council

• requesting feedback from the catalogue,
• using facebook
• e-books show if they can play on a PC or a MAC

East Renfrewshire

• are using: follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and Library Elf

Manchester University

• Have incorporated Chinese characters into the catalogue

Karen Reece discussed the possibility of using different Prism interfaces for different cohorts.
University of Sheffield are building an iphone app for Prism 3
There are now 50 customers that have switched to Prism 3, 31 have gone live. There is a 10 year life span span for Prism 3

Talis Assisting you - Brandon Amos

SaaS products: Engage (Public/community), Aspire (reading lists / Prism 3

Engage has been used at Coventry libraries were they have created tag clouds

The Furture of the Web- Andy Latham

Africa have bypassed desktop PCs and gone straight to mobile devices.

Phones are now becoming directional - will soon be able to plug in an RFID reader into phones and find books on the shelf.

Looked at Talis involvement with the semantic web - can see govt. information @:
http://data.gov.uk/

Predictions for the future:

• Ubiquitous mobiole devices
• Media agnostic devices - move between books/music etc.
• Location awareness devices
• Content surfaced everywhere
• Open data
• Linked data
• Merged services

The only constant is change

RSP Workshop for Repository Administrators, 4th Aug 2010

This event was aimed at people who work with the day-to-day running and adminstration of a repostitory, and therefore had a much more practical slant to the sessions, and sharing of tips between the delegates was encouraged throughout all of the sessions, so it proved to be a useful and enjoyable day!

The day started with an introduction, and then a short talk on the background to Open Access.  Rachel Proudfoot then delivered a session on Contacting Publishers: Issues and Tips.  The main points I took from this were:

• Look at the Sherpa request letter template, and also template for author's to use if they need to contact the publishers directly.  (We could supply this to author's when we have to ask them to contact the publishers)
• See if you can get a blanket response from publishers so you do not have to keep contacting them.  However it was noted that some publishers request that you contact them for each item.
• Record the responses that are received from each publisher.
• Consider having a formalised 'chase policy' to track publishers that dont respond.
• Feedback publishers reponses to depositors.
• Standardise version terminology to reduce confusion.
  
  

Survive or Thrive: Making the most of your digital content (JISC Conference 8th & 9th June)

SORT took place over 2 days - presentations all related in some way to the conference background paper which addresses how the LIS community can make the most of the huge amounts of digital content now available on the web. Subjects were very wide ranging but some key ideas I took away were:

• Reduce redundant effort by using shared services and use savings to fund new services
• Make your data freely available and reusable - can add value
• Sharing content can help engage users

Owen Stephens liveblogged the day and has given a much more in depth and accurate write up of the days than I could manage. So rather than repeating what's already been written below are the main points I took from  sessions I attended.

RSP Preservation Day

27 May 2010

The day focused on the higher level workings of digital preservation, engaging the right stakeholders, creating a high level preservation policy and getting preservation on the agenda at University level. It also showcased a number of toolkits and audit checklists to help organisations with preservation.

Summon increasing usage

Marshall Breeding reports on a study by Michigan’s Grand Valley State University which shows how intoducing Summon has increased usage of their resources. Full article here which has a range of impressive stats including:

Summon is enabling students to go directly to full-text, boosting the use of a variety of databases. For example, Academic Search Premier saw a usage increase of 92% and ABI/INFORM rose 354%.

NoWAL Sustaining Digitisation Projects

I attended this event at Liverpool University on 27/05/10.

The main themes for the day were engaging with stakeholders, creating and maintaining policies, advocacy, staffing, and preservation.

Converis Demo

Matt Bowell (Research and Graduate College) organised a demo of Converis, a Research Information System. The Research Information System will potentially replace SEEK and help to integrate University functions more effectively, including HR, SIS, Finance and of course USIR.

Lynne and I have written some notes which can be found on the V:Drive at:
V:\ILS\aCustomerServices\UniResearch\Projects\Research Management Systems\Converis Notes.doc

Demo slides are also availale from the same location, document is titled Converis Demo Slides.

Encore Synergy

III have released Encore Synergy which provides access to articles as well as the existing catalogue functionality. It differs from Summon, EDS etc on that it doesn't use a harvested index to provide article results but instead uses web services to dynamically generate the results from the content providers. It also doesn't interfile the article results but presents a small set in the initial results list, with links to more.

Marshall Breeding has given a write up and a few early adopters are already using Encore Synergy including the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

Summon @ Huddersfield and Northumbria

Huddersfield and Northumbria are working on a JISC project to do with their implementations of Summon. Yesterday they held a workshop to share their experiences so far - some notes are available here. Interested to see that both institutions seem to be replacing their federated search with Summon - I'd thought you'd still need both.

NOWAL - Cross Search Event

On Friday 14th May - Exlibris, Serial Solutions and Ebsco attended the NOWAL - Cross Search Event. The suppliers were urged to concentrate on what marks their own product as being different from, and better than, the competition.

All suppliers started their presentations with a short overview of the company and then went on to describe current students expectations with regards to learning and research. Generally they want 'Google like' single, quick and easy search interface, with some expectation of enhanced functionality. Below is some of the functionality that the suppliers highlighted.

Exlibris presented first with Primo Central. They focused on how they meet these user expectations with Primo Central by providing

• a single search box that searched all and then consolidated the results
• display order choice
• narrow down easily
• Suggested new searches
• Collaboration tools
• Manage findings on system or via bookmarking tools
  
• BX recommender tool
• Easy integration of Primo Central into other library systems

Addressing some of the libraries issues they also explained:-

• The federated searching element of Primo Central. The same search is carried out in the federated search but the results are not merged with the pre-harvested, although this is being considered.
• Approx 80% of HE material is available via the pre-harvested interface
  
• Primo interface is highly configurable and thus suited to consortia arrangements with different institutions wanting different designs and functionality
• FRBR to merge and deduplicate
• Weighting utility that ensure important material for a particular institution is displayed first
• Can by hosted in house or by Exlibris
• Deals with different langauage scripts
• Admin interface uses wizards to work through configuration and interface setup
• Real time updates from LMS on availability
  

Serials Solutions presented Summon. Focus on how to meet users expectations:-

• Provide a single search interface to everything
• 80% of queries, results in 1 second or less
  
• 6,200 publishers with 570,000,000 items
• Real time call to LMS for location and availability
• syndetics, book covers, abstracts etc
• Narrow down search and ranking
  
• Session based save as well as login save
• Login not required

Addressed library issues:-

• Use Summon for reading lists
• Merge records from different suppliers to provide the best record
• Offered as SAAS
• Client centre available for data administration but no admin interface for configuration or customization at the moment

Final presentation by EBSCO - Discovery Service

User expectations meet:-

• Single Search interface
• Facets to narrow search
• Ranking available
  
• Integrates with LMS and provides book jackets and real time availability data
• Integrates with Link Resolvers from different suppliers but more functionality if you use their own
• Deduplicate and consolidate search results
• Session folder and logged in folder to save results, export and print
• From June 2010 guest access allowed
  

Meet Library expectations:-

• All EBSCO hosted resources and others via pre-harvested
• Non EBSCO hosted resources available as an intergrated federated search (if using EBSCO's federated search tool)
• Can decide which federated search databases are show automatically in pre harvested results based on response times.
• From 2011 much cleaner screen layout
• Can embed search box in web pages
• No deeper integration with LMS at this point only real time availability of items

A very interesting day, providing a good overview of the three products, their similarities and differences.

Anna Langley

Versions of systems

I keep losing track of which version of which system we are on so:

Talis Alto 5.0

Metalib 4.3.2 (Service Packs outstanding - 4.3.3 and 4.3.4 - due to be run in June)
Metalib 4.3.4 (SP run June 2010)


SFX 3

Eprints 3.1

Primo Central Video

Nice little video about Primo Central (although someone's been watching too many Commoncraft videos!)

EPUG-UKI Meeting 16th March

Day started with the AGM which included dates for future meetings:

- EPUG-UKI conference - 1-2 Nov - based on previous SFX/ Metalib day school but will include all products
- EPUG-UKI meetings: 28 or 29 March 2011 and October 2011

Ex Libris update
Mainly updating on new customers e.g. Coventry Uni - Primo; Oxford Uni - Aleph; Sheffield Uni - Verde; Plymouth Uni, Nottingham Uni, Liverpool Uni, Swansea Uni, Cambridge Uni - bX.

Metalib/ SFX strand
- Problems with Full Text / Peer Review Indicator in Metalib - Ex Libris can't provide list of which databases it works with / doesn't work with.
- Knowledgebase working group - working to get NESLI etc to include condition of updating OpenURL providers in licences. Also working on updating existing NESLI targets e.g. Science Direct NESLI target to be added. Will be emailing info about progress and also looking for help with starting on smaller publishers.

- Ex Libris update
SFX 4 - release July 2010. Upgrade docs currently being prepared
Primo Central - Beta testing from end of March, available Q3 2010. Vanderbilt Uni have gone live with it. EL can't publish list of publishers whose content is included but Account Manager should be able to provide details. They will also be able to do a match on your holdings.

URM
Started with general presentation on URM from EL:
- will manage all types of materials & workflows
- customisable using e.g. Open Platform, X-server
- SaaS
- integrate with other parts of institution e.g. finance
- using data where it is e.g. not pulling into system

Building on Rosetta infrastructure (which went live in 2008)

Roadmap:
2010 - complete requirements gathering
Mid 2011 - beta version to beta partners
Mid 2012 - general release although won't have all functionality of all systems
End 2012 - first live systems

Also presentations from members of URM focus groups - looking at specific bits of functionality in their areas e.g. Circulation and Fulfilment group looking at Digitisation workflow from making request through to acquisition, Selection & Acquisition looked at selection tools, usage stats. General opinion is that the groups are working and are feeding into the EL development of URM.

I know we are using this for reporting back on external events etc but if possible it would be nice to use as a forum for new ideas things we would like to do in the future. They might not come to anything but it might be a nice place to record ideas:-

I was just wondering whether there would be any scope for using comments and rating functionality within reading list software.

Look at customizing the reports within Google Analytics on the LMS

Anna

Visit to Huddersfield Uni - 28th Feb 2010

Angela and myself took a trip across the Pennines to visit Dave Pattern at the University of Huddersfield. The main purpose of the trip was to look at developments on their OPAC but we also talked Summon and repositories.

Dave's added lots of enhancements to their OPAC (Horizon, Sirsi Dynix):

Keyword search tag cloud - on the front page of the OPAC. Shows most popular search terms - very popular at the start of term.

Keyword suggestions - suggestions of other related keywords to include in your search

Stats available to staff - restricted by IP range staff can see loan statistics for the book they are looking at in the catalogue.

People who borrowed this also borrowed.... - following the introduction of this a bigger range of stock has been borrowed, more books have been borrowed and people are renewing less often

Other editions - uses data from Library Thing

Virtual Shelf browse - most popular feature - let's you browse the shelf (by classmark) from the OPAC

Primo Central webinar 9th Feb 2010

Quick recap - Primo Central is an index of scholarly material, hosted and managed by Ex Libris which will be free to Metalib customers. It will be released in the Metalib Knowledgebase in Q3 2010 and will contain articles, ebooks and some other e-content and will index the bib data, abstracts and full text.

The webinar showed that there's a large list of publishers signed up - some such as EBSCO will only be available to subscribers (although it wasn't clear exactly how this will be configured).The info should be up to date - the index will be updated daily for most resources but more often where necessary. Some thing which I hadn't realised is that you will be able to see where each result has come from so can link to that database to do a more in depth search.

The main advantage is that search response will be much faster - rather than having to wait for individual databases to send results it will all be comign from one place.