Network downtime 12th January

The data cabinet upgrade in the blue basement is happening on 12th Jan and means there will be no access to the network or phones from 8am to 9 am. I will place an update in the library update and also ensure a message is displayed on our digiital signage system.

Conference report on mobile learning

Conference on mobile learning

By mplsssc

Conference on mobile learning – Aston University  Mon 21.9.09

I went to this conference as a replacement for James Todd who wasn’t able to go. It was organised by CILIP (ex Library Association) , MMIT section, with speakers mainly from the education and consultancy areas rather than libraries.  Brief notes follow on what I heard at the conference.

Two areas of particular interest to me were the sections on Wikitude and on the use of QR codes in the OPAC at Bath – both of these are simple applications that any student equipped with a ‘smart’ mobile  phone or digital camera (I phone or similar) can use. There are endless possibilities for how these could be used for enhanced services but I rather felt the conference speakers hadn’t yet advanced very far beyond ‘interesting idea’.

Ongoing general definitions etc – confusion between two different concepts:

1. Learning not based eat a fixed location (i.e. the learner is mobile)

2. Learning using mobile technologies such as PDAs, mobile phones etc

“Mobile learning is often seen as a response to the inadequacies of normal e-learning”.

Many of the projects described assume the use of a mobile device such as an I Phone which has wireless internet access and connection to satellite location data so that it can react based on your current geographical location etc.

Mike Sharples University of Nottingham.

Outlined history of hand held devices:

1^st phase: starting with  voting clickers in use since 1947 apparently! Followed by e-book readers, handheld computers in the classroom, data logging devices.

2^nd phase was when the learner became mobile eg personal learning organisers, time tabling systems, attendance monitoring hardware

3^rd phase – sometimes known as ‘Ambient learning’ Various applications were described, with use in various learning environments such as geography field trips, architectural trips etc.

The most interesting was Wikitude – this is a software program (API) whereby you point a mobile phone or digital camera at a geographical location and the device displays useful information about whatever you’re pointing at. It works by getting its own geographical location from a satellite system (and measuring the distance to the focus point) and then interrogating a huge world wide Wikipedia database of geographical, political, statistical  and tourist information to find useful information to display.

Various applications used in museums etc designed to take the students view of the everyday world and enhance it. For example if the student has a head mounted camera, and eye level projection system then there are mobile software devices that will project the current view from a different historical perspective.  For architecture students – what did  this view look like in Victorian times.

Modern classroom response systems based on each student using a PDA. It then facilitates group work in the classroom by allowing groups of students to be fed the same problem and each come up with their own answer, then see all the groups answers and evolve a group preferred response. Currently used in some primary/secondary level projects but maybe not university at the moment.

Some discussion of the most appropriate technology preference eg I Phone is becoming accepted as a standard but it may not be acceptable to all students because of price etc. Some research indicates student resistance to being given specific equipment (clickers?)  they react better if its using stuff they already have eg their mobile or mp3 player. Some research suggests that simple or rudimentary devices, purpose made are no longer effective as people expect a standard keyboard, mouse etc

Claimed benefits – greater control of the classroom environment, fuller involvement of each student. The most IT literate tend to dominate LESS than in other environments. More time ‘on task’.

Martin Bazley (Consultant, Science Museum etc).

Museum systems eg Urbis in Manchester and Bletchley Park. You can go round clicking on your PDA or I Phone  and at the end of the visit data about all the place you clicked can be sent to a personal web site.

Spoke about library systems using QR codes. A QR code (stands for Quick Response I think) is a two dimensional barcode which encodes a URL rather than just a number. You point your camera at the QR and it sends the image to some database that reads the URL and returns full data from that website. Or this link to see how University of Bath explain it to their students: http://www.bath.ac.uk/library/services/qrcode.html

Library example of QR codes – Bath university is putting QR codes on catalogue records. When a student finds that record in an OPAC search they just photograph their OPAC screen and it download the floor plan links to the book or whatever other information related to it.

This is an example of an OPAC record with a QR photo it and see what happens:

http://library.bath.ac.uk/uhtbin/cgisirsi/0/UNIV-BATH/0/123?searchdata1=clifford+data+book&library=UNIV-BATH&item_1cat=BOOK&user_id=ILINK-BATH

See  http://splashurl.net/ for how to create a QR code for any URL. This site also generates ‘tiny urls’ and displays them in large print suitable for reading into your camera or mobile phone

Melissa Highton Oxford University

Various projects described:

1. Podcasts – 50 hours a month of recording of lectures, seminars etc (mostly one off events not course lectures). Sent to I Tunes for storage, with  reference links to Bodleian Library materials etc.

2. ‘Erewhon’ project designed to allow students in Oxford to search library catalogues for all Oxford libraries and find holdings that are related to their geographical location at the time of the search and also user specific ie based on knowing who they are and therefore what borrower type they are. Also encodes the time of day…

so it can tell you which of 100 libraries in Oxford has the book you want, which is the nearest to where you are now, which ones will allow you access and loan, and which are open at this moment in time…

it also stores a calendar of information about current events in Oxford, so you can do a subject search and get a list of lectures and seminars on that subject, with walking (or cycling!) route to the event from where you are now.

3.OpenSpires – a licensing system for other universities to use the Oxford podcasts and other materials that they have stored at the  I Tunes site.

Steve Campbell

22.9.2009

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IT Support Update

IT Support Update

1.       Ground floor Refurbishment

The data points for green ground for the self service machines have now been installed and everything is working well.  Work has been carried out to prepare for the reopening of Blue 1 on 17^th August.  We are awaiting the arrival of some matting to ensure wires are covered and are not an h&S issue.  The reception PCs, Epayment PC and Telepen PCs are in place and working.  There was a problem with 1 self issue machine but SB electronics have been to sort out.  The final moves for self issue machines will take place on 14^th August PM.  The telephone line will be transferred on Monday 17^th as it is required to be used on Sat 15^th August.  The walk in users PCs will also be moved they have been tested that they work in the new location.

 2.       Office Moves

These continue and we have been busy checking out data points and organisng telecoms moves.  The latest moves are Rachel Beckett to Deansgate, Sandra Bracegirdle to her new office at Joule and Des Coyle to her old office and Paul Holder from the main library to Joule.

3.       Desktop 08

Alison is working her way through building the objects for deployment on the image.  There is a desktop deployment project where I represent the library.  Each faculty is at a different stage deploying the desktop.  This project provides support and defines a coordinated approach to ensure that there is consistency which will make it easier for support issues at the IT Servicedesk. Our project plan fort e rollout of staff desktop is in the process of being accepted.

 The clusters including our training rooms and study rooms will all run the student desktop.  To enable these to run at an acceptable speed additional memory was purchased and will be installed before the start of academic year.  A staff email was sent to everyone encouraging staff who will be using the teaching rooms to test out the look and feel image.  Andy received some feedback which was passed on to Chris Mallon.

4.       Network Upgrade News

As part of the campus upgrade the cabinets in the main library apart from the basement cabinet have been upgraded. The cabinet in the basement will be upgraded when the new ground floor data cabinet is in place.  The precinct library data cabinet is due to be upgraded at the end of August and the quality of networking improved.  The wireless network in the main library will be upgraded and additional coverage provided.  We are waiting for timescales on his work.

 5.       VSD

The survey was available from x to 20^th July.  There were 45 replies and the survey is now being analysed.  A report is going to LT on 26^th August which will outline some quick wins and target some longer term improvements.

 The use of a remote tool logmein is proving very useful for the team and feedback from staff suggest that this working well.

 A reporting pack is currently being produced by the shared service coordinator that gives statistics on a monthly basis that we can use in our local areas. Part of this reporting package will identify trends and identify areas for the PKM team to investigate and report back on in the next report.

 The resource required from JRUL in freshers week has been ramped up by 1 x 0.5 day so that week we will be contributing to 3 sessions.  Examination of the data from last year has been used to manage the resource better for start of year.

 The VSD now has a room set up to be used in the event of an emergency/disaster affecting the sackville building.

 6.       Other items

Some new equipment has been purchased at the end of the financial year.  We now have a small stock of laser pointers which can be loaned by staff doing presentations.  Additional ebook readers have been purchased.  The store is now full!

 Encryption of laptops is being pursued and everyone who has a laptop is being encouraged to have their laptop encrypted.  The LT have been targeted first – Lorraine has had her laptop encrypted for a while and is a good advocate for us.  The next article in PageTurner will focus on the range of encryption tools available.

 The knowledgebase purchased by IT Services will be launched soon.  We need to have a push on information from us to go in.  I have been talking to key people about this and we should have more content available for launch.

The team took part in the acceptance testing for Student Outlook live.  A  big thanks to everyone else who also found time to take part. Alison represents us on the PAT.

UKeiG Conference 17th June 2009 (Day 2)

The following is a powerpoint presentation report on the second day of the UKeiG Conference 2009.

UKeiG Conference 2009

Library Systems Update 29th June 2009

1. Hardware – the 4 servers in the Systems Office have all been moved to IT services now and are working successfully there, including the extra telephone lines for the automated renewals service. We have some data on them that we want to transfer to a more modern database, probably MySql and this will be investigated this summer.

Ground floor refurbishment – self service machines, OPACs etc all moved to various other floors. SB Telepen moved the 3M security system to the new entrance last week but the set up of the book security will not be finished until tomorrow (Tuesday). This work was officially requested at very short notice, only a few days before it had to be done. The old turnstiles are not being used in the temporary entrance.  All current staff loans have been extended until June 2010 automatically, to reduce pressure on the temporary issue desk

Two new Self Service machines have arrived and are in storage till after Blue Ground finished

Reading lists – some improvements to the existing reading list system eg OPAC entries for items on a list now correctly display the link to that list. Further instructions going out to staff about this.

SMS text messaging – trial will be underway soon.

2. Talis. Alto version 5 due late summer but no installation date yet. Will move to release 15 of Sybase, so major changes to the underlying database structure.

Prism 3 is now running and we have sent in a number of comments based on testing by cataloguing staff, mainly relating to foreign language  scripts and to marc tag display. Kevin and Chris  from IT have produced a suggested screen layout for Manchester.

Finance integration with Oracle – proceeding on schedule. Weekly telephone conferences between Library, Accounts and Talis staff. Test database set up on our server  now.

Decisions –  workshop tomorrow.

3. Room bookings system Hardware being put in to the room doors last week and this. Some networking to be installed next week. Software will be installed  around 13^th July.

4. SOYP I am on the IT services Start of Year Project group. I am particularly concerned with getting student data into Talis before the students arrive but can also report on any other issues.

Electronic Resources Delivery update 26.06.09

1. The UK Access Management Federation
Information regarding access to electronic resources continues to be amended to reflect the implementation of authentication through membership of the UK Access Management Federation rather than via Athens accounts. Various sections of the Electronic Resources web pages have been amended as well as access information provided through EBSCO Electronic Journals A to Z and FindIt. Staff and students have been e-mailed to remind them about the change and news items have been posted in Library News, Electronic Resources News and on InfoShare. Links to services continue to be changed as suppliers join the Federation and implement Shibboleth authentication. Other services hope to be able to provide access in the near future. Access to some services, which it seems are unlikely to have adopted the new system in time, is now enabled through EZproxy.    

 2. Enquiries
Electronic resources enquiries dealt with since the last report (13th May to 24^th June): 364

 3. Changes to resources

     Ovid / SilverPlatter
We have had access to a number of services through the SilverPlatter interface which is scheduled to be withdrawn.
–  ATLA Religion Index and ATLAS and Humanities Index – now accessed through the OvidSP interface.
–  RPS e_PIC Database – will become unavailable.
–  Social Science Index Database – future access uncertain.

     Journal Citation Reports
JCR data for 2008 is now available.

     KnowUK
The subscription is not being renewed.

 4. Stand-alone databases
Following the problems with the thin client server some databases have been made available as stand-alone services on the walk-in machines.

Report for Library Database 26/06/2009

Not that the rest of the year has been quiet but the end of the teaching year brings a new peak in demands. Several of the Libraries use this time to take stock of their holdings, so I have spent a fair amount of time devoted to the production of shelflists for them.

However the highest demand on time has been the work involved with the re-classification of the Precinct Library, most of which has been done now, and the major re-classification at the Eddie Davis Library where they are moving from the London Classification of Business Studies classification to the Dewey classification.

I took the opportunity to re-write the scripts that were previously used to change Talis, produce labels etc, and have reduced the number of Fortran programs by two. Only about another 40 to go!

The coming month sees more stock moves as Des will be weeding Blue 3 and moving the stock to Store and no doubt planning for financial year roll-over will begin.

Digitisation update

I gave a presentation about our various digitisation activities to the ITLT on June 12th which scored a first for me: having spoken for more than my allotted time I attempted to wrap up the session quickly and was urged to carry on  – “it’s interesting” they said.  I have a follow up engagement, speaking to IS Forum on July 21st.

Jan Whalen has been appointed as Digitisation Assistant  and as an introduction came with me to Sheffield Hallam University to see their Luna installation where they have implemented the new web-based browser.  Not suitable for all our collections but I’m working to get it running with some of them.

IMP Conference proceedings are being scanned by Hollingworth and Moss.  Chris Grave from EDL and Scott have been working to find the best way of preparing metadata for ingest into eScholar.

First of our pamphlets (Foreign and Commonwealth Collection) are now available via JSTOR.   To see some, go to www.jstor.org and choose advanced search.  Check the pamphlets box and do a search for “Basutoland”. 

I’m working with Martin Snelling to develop our core texts (CLA) scanning service.  First objective is to use the PackTracker software package to ease the administrative burden to help keep the existing pilot service running and legal while we plan a more permanent replacement.

Breaking the Barriers – RIBA – 18th May 2009

Recently I was asked to attend a day conference at the Royal Institute for British Architects in London looking at how Open source software is influencing the library and information community.

It was well worth the trip so I’ve posted my summaries of each of the talks here.  Slides and further information may also be found on the open libraries website.

Charles Leadbeater (Keynote) – Generally thinks that the web is a good thing andthat future media oriented businesses will be organised around collaborative experiences with their customers, open source providing a means to achieve
this. Open source is a new form of social organisation and provides a richer form of capitalism. Larger businesses that focus only on content delivery will struggle.
We should be looking at the way young people, for example the ’26 year old research scientist’ to inform us about how people will use technology in the future.
It came across that he felt libraries should be using technology to engage collaboratively with their customers to garner success.

Ken Chad – Was interrupted by a fire alarm but was otherwise generally enthusing about how Open source technology in libraries was no longer a theory but a demonstrable reality.

Mike Taylor – Index data – Probably the most vehement open source promoter of the day, explained how businesses could be relied upon to build a robust business model around giving away software but not giving away time spent supporting it. Although by admission not a rich man he was perfectly correct and probably the most engaging speaker of the day.

Bob Molyneux – Equinox software – Using figures from the take up of Evergreen Integrated Library System demonstrated that complete open source ILS systems do exist and can work. Evergreen ILS seems largely to be used by Public libraries in North America however and it became apparent that there was no obvious translation of that success to Academic libraries in the UK.

Paul Polain – BibLibre – A very interesting speaker demonstrating Koha ILS software and touching on how his company had formed a business model around supporting it. This was the beginning of a theme for the day – using open source products does not necessarily mean that they have to be supported in house. Support can be contracted in from specialist companies elsewhere.

Nick Dimant – PTFS Europe – Carried on the previous theme with explanation of how PTFS had grown in Europe supporting Evergreen and Koha. Seemed keen to press a reminder that by choosing open solutions a customer was not tied in to any particular vendor of a product and was free to choose the best provider of support.

Mark Hughes and Paul Johnson – South West Wales Higher Education Partnership – Provided evidence of a successful implementation of VuFind producing an integrated resource discovery suite of three universities. Reminded us all of well known problems with Open source projects including a lack of documentation.

Alan Poulter – Strathclyde University – Spoke less about Open source itself but rather how Koha was being used as a teaching tool on Strathclyde’s Digital Libraries MSc Course. In fact he caused the most active discussion of the day around the apparent lack of overlapping knowledge between IT and library professionals. Concerns were raised that new librarians did not have the IT skills required to support them in the changing library environment and that where IT skills were being taught, they were largely theoretical practices and out of date.

Tamar Sadek – Ex Libris – Went to great pains to play down the bad guy image of proprietary providers. Explained how Ex Libris aimed to provide “Complete” library software solutions that were robust due to their vendor support and expand upon them using donated code and a kind of developer network that Ex Libris are supporting. It seemed impressive from what I saw. No attempt to argue
against Open source or in favour of proprietary solutions. Stated, thankfully, that they have improved their own documentation process.

Richard Wallis – Talis – Took the Ex Libris approach explaining how proprietary and Open source could coexist. Demonstrated the Juice project and how it can enhance library OPAC systems such as Talis giving a web 2.0 feel to an OPAC by mashing up content from Amazon and Google etc.
Presented the Jangle project as an attempt to expose library content via a consistent interface over the myriad of protocols available today. Something the repository project might benefit from in the future.

Electronic Resources Delivery (NK) 14/05/2009

1. Relocation from Blue 1.4 to Red B.13: Despite a shortage of electrical and network points and the need to abandon some furniture to store, we have now relocated to Red B.13, the ‘Recording Studio’. The limited space available made it necessary to sort and, where possible, dispose of files and other material which had accumulated in Blue 1.4 over the years. Hopefully we will be able to move back at the end of the year.

2. Staffing: Olivia has now returned to work and will be working on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday for the first six months.

3. The UK Access Management Federation: Problems with Shibboleth authentication for the following services which were reported in the last update have now been resolved:

Proquest

•  ABI Inform Dissertations and Theses
• ProQuest Asian Business and Reference
• The Guardian (1821 – 2003) and The Observer (1791 – 2003)

StatRef

We are testing Shibboleth authentication with Brill and Academic Library.

4. Enquiries: Electronic resources enquiries dealt with since last report (28th March to 12th May): 379

5. Changes to resources: Electronic resources lists, links and descriptions continue to be amended to reflect current subscriptions.

Music databases: The following databases are now available only through EBSCO:

• RILM Abstracts of Music Literature
• RIPM: Retrospective Index to Music Periodicals
• RISM Series A/II: Music Manuscripts after 1600
• Index to Printed Music

PIRA: We now subscribe to PIRA through CSA rather than Dialog.