A month or so ago, I posted a round-up of items I’d published on the various Arcadia Project blogs ( Meanwhile, Over on the Arcadia Blog(s)…). Here’s a follow up to that one, providing a quick review of the various Arcadia posts I’ve produced since then, posts that might in other circumstances have normally appeared on this blog.
- What If? Livescribe Book Support, mulling over a couple of opportunities that might arise if Livescribe had a plugin architecture and open developer API;
- Do Libraries Cater for Today’s Researchers and Research Students?, Do Libraries Cater for Today’s Undergraduate Students? and Seeking Information in the Digital Age which review some recent surveys on the use of academic libraries and the online search behaviour of today’s students and young researchers;
- Keeping Up With Events, a proof of concept mobile app that I’ve used quite heavily over the last few weeks for keeping track of interesting evening lectures to go to, along with a couple of posts outlining ideas for a couple of different mobile apps: Doodling Ideas for a Mobile Library App and A Trip into the Stacks… [scheduled for tomorrow]. No Cameras in the Library… focusses on another mobile use case, the potential of camera enabled mobile phones in a library context (
- Custom Search Engines On Library Websites showed how Google custom search engines can be used within library websites, and OPAC Ground Truth… simply poses a question about the use of ranking algorithms in library catalogues;
- What Can Academic Libraries Learn From Public Libraries… is a plug for a consultation on the future of public libraries that we posted on WriteToReply, though I think it also has some relevance to a consideration of the future of academic libraries.
- Universal Borrowing Across Cambridge University Libraries? and Resource “Item Types” and Loan Periods in Cambridge University Libraries both start to explore the relationship between the UL and all the other Cambridge University libraries, but most of my notes on that question are still in my notebook:-(
- Whilst I had hoped to do more hackery, the project hasn’t turned out quite that way :-( That said, I did manage to pull together another small Yahoo Pipes tutorial, which hopefully some folk might find useful: Mashlib Pipes Tutorial: Reading List Inspired Journal Watchlists
PS For completeness in this summary of posts I’ve recently blogged elsewhere, there’s a smattering of stuff on the WriteToReply/Actually blog:
- Thinking About User Tracking on WriteToReply, which looks at how to track which organisations or universities are driving traffic to a particular website using Google Analytics;
- Measuring Website Usage With Google Analytics, Part I which reviews how to capture COI recommended web metrics using Google Analytics
- “Campaign” Tracking With Google Analytics, a review of how to use Google Analytics campaign tracking codes;
- Embedding Consultations in What’s Already Out There, which considers how linking out from a consultation document can embed it in a wider conversational context;
Phew… next week, back to normal – ish – though I intend to carry on posting library related stuff on the Arcadia blogs.
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re: What Can Academic Libraries Learn From Public Libraries…
I’ve found this debate particularly interesting as I’ve only recently made the step from working in public libraries to working in an HE library.
‘Reversing the current decline in library usage’ – Although loans from libraries are declining massively, the numbers of visits decline much less (and probably proportional to the reduction in opening hours/libraries). There are quite a few examples of investment in new libraries leading to big jumps in usage (Hillingdon, Bournemouth spring to mind).
Public library technology priorities are RFID self-service, public wifi, remote access to small numbers of resources (but mainly by IP authentication or barcode numbers), library management systems and interfaces with corporate finance systems. HE libraries have interest in RFID but have much more complex authenticated access to eresources with systems such as sfx and ezproxy, athens/shibboleth and so on.
Public libraries are starting to be interested in social networking but not to the extent that some HE libraries have invested in. Most Public libraries aren’t really that engaged with wikis, Instant Messaging or systems like Elluminate. In many cases they are still getting to grips with voicemail, email or SMS systems to communicate with customers.
One thing that maybe the HE library sector can learn is how to approach managing your services in a time when budgets are being cut. The public library sector has had a lot of experience in having to prioritise spending and make difficult choices about what to cut.
“One thing that maybe the HE library sector can learn is how to approach managing your services in a time when budgets are being cut. The public library sector has had a lot of experience in having to prioritise spending and make difficult choices about what to cut.”
Yes – I agree; so for eexample, I think that the current DCMS consulation on public libraries is something that HE Library folk should consider carefully… e.g. “What Can Academic Libraries Learn From Public Libraries…” http://arcadiaproject.blogspot.com/2009/12/what-can-academic-libraries-learn-from.html ]