On July 1, 2013 Google reader was retired. This was high profile news that was covered heavily online. This wasn't the only blow to RSS usage, a lesser blow was struck when Twitter announced permanently retiring the Twitter API v1.0 which allowed Atom and RSS feeds output. The current Twitter API 1.1 only allows JSON format and requires authentication to access. This took effect, June 12. For most people, this did not make a difference.
Since we implemented our discovery service, I noticed that increasingly we are asked by users if there was a way to use Summon to browse , clearly users new to a topic were overwhelmed by the number of results they were getting and besides recommender systems, browsing can be seen as a way to navigate - "knowing it when I see it". Curious I looked around to see what libraries are doing for online browsing and the main way of
Web scale discovery systems as a class of product has existed for over 4 years, and there has been rapid adoption by academic libraries around the world. We are currently way past earlier adopter phase, and probably deep into if not past early majority phase.
Organization as serious as the CDC use zombie outbreaks as a fun way to educate the public, so why not libraries? And indeed Zombies are a really popular theme for libraries particular for orientations. Libraries both academic and public libraries are using this theme to add some entertainment into traditionally boring orientations.
Last week, I had the amazing opportunity to visit Xi'an China from 9 May to 11 May 2013 to attend the Greater China SerialsSolutions' User Group meeting. Regular readers of my blog will know since 2011, I have been reading (see list of articles I am curating) , thinking and blogging about discovery systems, leading up to the implementation of SerialsSolutions' Summon in 2012 in my institution.
Like many academic libraries, we recently launched our discovery service Summon. Having worked intensively on this project since 2011 during the evaluation followed in 2012 by the implementation phase, I had an opportunity to delve into the topic perhaps deeper than many of my colleagues not on the team.
Some of my most popular blog posts in 2010 include 12 good library videos that spoofs movies or tv and Funniest library related movies made using Xtranormal. It has been almost 3 years since then, and libraries have been hard at working creating more interesting yet professional videos. These are some of my favourites including some I missed the last time around.
Surveys of both phd students in the UK as well as researchers in US not to mention ordinary users has shown that increasingly, the academic library site is declining in importance as a starting point for searching. Besides Google, the main site they go to is Wikipedia, either by going there direct or via google because it ranks highly in Google for most topics. There is even a name for it called GWR or Google > Wikipedia >
Time for some navel-gazing! Sarah Kennedy asks What does it mean to be a librarian? You know what? Not sure what it says about me that after 5 years in this profession and writing hundreds of blog posts, I have not once come around close to even this topic.
In a recent LibraryThing blog post entitled Pew study: Library patrons want personalized recommendations, they noted that in the Pew study , 64% of patrons interested in a library service which suggested books, audiobooks and DVDs to them based on their own preferences. Though I believe this report is about public library users, I suspect this applies also to academic library users to some extent.
I recently finished reading two introductory volumes on Open Access, namely Open Access - What you need to know by Walt Crawford and Open Access by Peter Suber. As far as I remember, I have never done a book review on this blog before, so here is my review of both. But first a little context of where I am coming from.