Re: [CODE4LIB] Patron Loads from Banner (XML/Tab-Delimited)
Hi Lauren, Depending on the number and complexity of your data sources, I recommend that you consider deploying an ETL system (ETL stands for Extract, Transform, Load). There are a few open source and free of cost frameworks on market, notably Pentaho's Kettle (see http://community.pentaho.com/index.html). ETL frameworks provide several useful sub-systems e.g., logging, database adapters, error handling, deduplication, GUI, XML, etc. Once deployed, you can quickly create a reliable Extract from Banner, Transform by merging with other data and cleansing, and Loading into the ILS. matt Lauren Magnuson lau...@lpmagnuson.com 12/16/2013 12:17 PM Hello, If anyone is willing to share an example of a script/process you are using to extract patron data from Banner (can be for any ILS, but I'm specifically interested in a script that's being used to generate either XML or tab-delimited data) I would appreciate it! If you happen to be extracting patron data from Banner into XML format required by OCLC WMS, I'm especially interested. Thanks, Lauren Magnuson -- Systems Emerging Technologies Librarian, CSUN Systems Coordinator, PALNI @lpmagnuson http://twitter.com/lpmagnuson
Re: [CODE4LIB] ALA's Carroll Preston Baber Research Grant--Call for Proposals
A reminder to those who have a great research project!The deadline is January 8, 2014. *** *Carroll Preston Baber research grant call for proposals* Do you have a project that is just waiting for the right funding? Are you thinking about ways that libraries can improve services to users? The American Library Association (ALA) gives an annual grant for those conducting research that will lead to the improvement of services to users. The Carroll Preston Baber Research Grant is given to one or more librarians or library educators who will conduct innovative research that could lead to an improvement in services to any specified group of people. The grant, up to $3,000, will be given to a proposed project that aims to answer a question of vital importance to the library community that is national in scope. Among the review panel criteria are: - The research problem is clearly defined, with a specific question or questions that can be answered by collecting data. The applicant(s) clearly describe a strategy for data collection whose methods are appropriate to the research question(s). A review of the literature, methodologies, etc. is not considered research (e.g., methodology review rather than application of a methodology) for purposes of the award, except where the literature review is the primary method of collecting data. - The research question focuses on benefits to library users and should be applied and have practical value as opposed to theoretical. - The applicant(s) demonstrate ability to undertake and successfully complete the project. The application provides evidence that sufficient time and resources have been allocated to the effort. Appropriate institutional commitment to the project has been secured. Any ALA member may apply, and the Jury would welcome projects that involve both a practicing librarian and a researcher. Deadline is *January 8, 2014*. Check out this web site to find procedures and an application form: http://www.ala.org/ala/aboutala/offices/ors/orsawards/baberresearchgrant/babercarroll.cfm See the section on *How to Apply*. Also see related documents linked near the bottom of the page for: Schedule and Procedures http://www.ala.org/offices/ors/orsawards/baberresearchgrant/schedandprocedures Proposal Requirements and Application Cover Sheet: http://www.ala.org/offices/ors/orsawards/baberresearchgrant/requirements Full press release: http://www.ala.org/news/press-releases/2013/11/baber-research-grant-proposals-due-january-8 Questions? Contact: Mary Pagliero Popp at p...@indiana.edu. -- *Mary* *--* *Mary Pagliero Popp, Chair, 2014 Baber Award Jury, American Library Association*
[CODE4LIB] Academic Library Website Question
Hi Code4Libbers, Slightly odd question for you academic library folks. Why does your library have its website where it is on the university site? For context, the library I currently work at has our library site hidden within the campus intranet/portal, so that students have to log into a web portal to even see the search page. This was a decision by the previous director who was here before my time and an assortment of us librarians think this is a terrible setup. So I wanted to kick out to the greater community to give us good reasons for free to the website to more general access, or help us to understand why you would bury it behind a login like they did. All thoughts, insights, and opinions are welcome, they all help us develop our thinking on this and our arguments for any changes we want to make. Thanks everyone and have a good week. Matt Sherman
Re: [CODE4LIB] Academic Library Website Question
Matt, Not odd at all! I've dealt with this issue for most of my career. In the three academic libraries I've worked in, the library's site was NOT part of the overall college/university portal. In fact, it was more the case that we (me, the web person, and my supervisors) were establishing our autonomy apart from the overall institutional web presence with campus IT. Library sites need separate navigation, information architecture, and content management and strategy. Administrators outside of the library and campus IT don't always understand how complex library sites have become, so explaining this is a good first step. Find some sites for similar institutions that you like, and show them as examples. If you present it as a positive move--and point out that you might be able to take some work off your IT department's hands by taking on the library site yourself--they'll likely be more willing to consider it. Approach them as partners. As far as burying the library's site behind a log in, how much non-student traffic do you have in your building? You might be able to make a case, based on that and what your mission to serve your community is/might be, to bring it out from behind authentication. Other questions for you: -Do you have any kind of proxy authentication for journal/article databases in place in addition to the portal authentication? If not, you'll obviously have to consider that. -What platform is the school on? Would you choose something similar--another instance of the same software--or go out on your own? Do you have the skills/staff to do that? Where would you host it? Nina On Tue, Dec 17, 2013 at 7:40 AM, Matthew Sherman matt.r.sher...@gmail.com wrote: Hi Code4Libbers, Slightly odd question for you academic library folks. Why does your library have its website where it is on the university site? For context, the library I currently work at has our library site hidden within the campus intranet/portal, so that students have to log into a web portal to even see the search page. This was a decision by the previous director who was here before my time and an assortment of us librarians think this is a terrible setup. So I wanted to kick out to the greater community to give us good reasons for free to the website to more general access, or help us to understand why you would bury it behind a login like they did. All thoughts, insights, and opinions are welcome, they all help us develop our thinking on this and our arguments for any changes we want to make. Thanks everyone and have a good week. Matt Sherman -- Nina McHale @ninermac Developer, Aten Design Group atendesigngroup.com
Re: [CODE4LIB] Academic Library Website Question
This is a passion of mine, actually. I judge an institution by how easy it is to find the link to the library on the home page of the university. Call me picky, but if I can't find a link to the library easily on that front page, then I think they are not serious about research. What you describe is far worse than I thought possible... Lisa - Elizabeth Lisa McAulay Librarian for Digital Collection Development UCLA Digital Library Program http://digital.library.ucla.edu/ email: emcaulay [at] library.ucla.edu From: Code for Libraries [CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU] on behalf of Matthew Sherman [matt.r.sher...@gmail.com] Sent: Tuesday, December 17, 2013 6:40 AM To: CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU Subject: [CODE4LIB] Academic Library Website Question Hi Code4Libbers, Slightly odd question for you academic library folks. Why does your library have its website where it is on the university site? For context, the library I currently work at has our library site hidden within the campus intranet/portal, so that students have to log into a web portal to even see the search page. This was a decision by the previous director who was here before my time and an assortment of us librarians think this is a terrible setup. So I wanted to kick out to the greater community to give us good reasons for free to the website to more general access, or help us to understand why you would bury it behind a login like they did. All thoughts, insights, and opinions are welcome, they all help us develop our thinking on this and our arguments for any changes we want to make. Thanks everyone and have a good week. Matt Sherman
Re: [CODE4LIB] Academic Library Website Question
This is actually becoming an announce to our employees because we have to spend so much time explaining where the library site is. We are pretty much an Ex Libris shop at the moment, Primo, Metalib, SFX, all locked behind Sharepoint. I am not sure what the main campus site is using for a CMS, but I suspect it is more flexible than Sharepoint for web development. We only get a moderate amount of non-student or staff traffic, but where the site currently is located is not intuitive and makes it hard for students to want to use. The make the UX/IA part of me die a little inside. We have definite interest among many of the library staff to get it freed and more visible, but we are having to figure out what it takes and how to sell it to all of the requisite parties involved. Thanks for the input. On Tue, Dec 17, 2013 at 9:53 AM, Nina McHale n...@atendesigngroup.comwrote: Matt, Not odd at all! I've dealt with this issue for most of my career. In the three academic libraries I've worked in, the library's site was NOT part of the overall college/university portal. In fact, it was more the case that we (me, the web person, and my supervisors) were establishing our autonomy apart from the overall institutional web presence with campus IT. Library sites need separate navigation, information architecture, and content management and strategy. Administrators outside of the library and campus IT don't always understand how complex library sites have become, so explaining this is a good first step. Find some sites for similar institutions that you like, and show them as examples. If you present it as a positive move--and point out that you might be able to take some work off your IT department's hands by taking on the library site yourself--they'll likely be more willing to consider it. Approach them as partners. As far as burying the library's site behind a log in, how much non-student traffic do you have in your building? You might be able to make a case, based on that and what your mission to serve your community is/might be, to bring it out from behind authentication. Other questions for you: -Do you have any kind of proxy authentication for journal/article databases in place in addition to the portal authentication? If not, you'll obviously have to consider that. -What platform is the school on? Would you choose something similar--another instance of the same software--or go out on your own? Do you have the skills/staff to do that? Where would you host it? Nina On Tue, Dec 17, 2013 at 7:40 AM, Matthew Sherman matt.r.sher...@gmail.com wrote: Hi Code4Libbers, Slightly odd question for you academic library folks. Why does your library have its website where it is on the university site? For context, the library I currently work at has our library site hidden within the campus intranet/portal, so that students have to log into a web portal to even see the search page. This was a decision by the previous director who was here before my time and an assortment of us librarians think this is a terrible setup. So I wanted to kick out to the greater community to give us good reasons for free to the website to more general access, or help us to understand why you would bury it behind a login like they did. All thoughts, insights, and opinions are welcome, they all help us develop our thinking on this and our arguments for any changes we want to make. Thanks everyone and have a good week. Matt Sherman -- Nina McHale @ninermac Developer, Aten Design Group atendesigngroup.com
Re: [CODE4LIB] Academic Library Website Question
At my institution, the library's web presence predates the university as a whole's presence. We currently share a server with the main university site but have control over all our content and can make updates without having to go through public relations (thank goodness). Our site is linked from the main university site in at least two places (along the bottom of the main page and within a drop down menu). When eCollege was our LMS, we were also linked from courses by default but it appears that is no longer the case in Sakai, which I suspect was an oversight and not a conscious decision. It strikes me as really strange to have the library that hidden - wouldn't the institution want prospective students, faculty, and administrators to be able to see the resources available? What are peer institutions doing? Ellen Ellen Knowlton Wilson Instructional Services Librarian Room 250, Marx Library University of South Alabama 5901 USA Drive North Mobile, AL 36688 (251) 460-6045 On Tue, Dec 17, 2013 at 8:40 AM, Matthew Sherman matt.r.sher...@gmail.comwrote: Hi Code4Libbers, Slightly odd question for you academic library folks. Why does your library have its website where it is on the university site? For context, the library I currently work at has our library site hidden within the campus intranet/portal, so that students have to log into a web portal to even see the search page. This was a decision by the previous director who was here before my time and an assortment of us librarians think this is a terrible setup. So I wanted to kick out to the greater community to give us good reasons for free to the website to more general access, or help us to understand why you would bury it behind a login like they did. All thoughts, insights, and opinions are welcome, they all help us develop our thinking on this and our arguments for any changes we want to make. Thanks everyone and have a good week. Matt Sherman
Re: [CODE4LIB] Academic Library Website Question
Matt, Can totally see how this is a nuisance for staff, and it would make me die on the inside, too! As a short term measure, could you set up and advertise an alias (something like library.institutiondomainname.edu) to get directly to the web site, or would that not work with the portal? Also, do you have access to web analytics to help build a case? It's hard to say these are low if you don't have a favorable benchmark to compare them to, but there might be some more leverage there, too. Maybe reach out to a similar institution and see if they'll share and benchmark web analytics with you? And ew, SharePoint. :D At my last academic library, that's what campus IT used for the main campus site, but unit webmasters were allowed to opt out, and the library took the opportunity to move to Drupal. I'd also suggest chatting with any ExLibris user communities out there and seeing how others are integrating those tools into their websites and seeing what web platforms they're using. Nina On Tue, Dec 17, 2013 at 8:11 AM, Matthew Sherman matt.r.sher...@gmail.com wrote: This is actually becoming an announce to our employees because we have to spend so much time explaining where the library site is. We are pretty much an Ex Libris shop at the moment, Primo, Metalib, SFX, all locked behind Sharepoint. I am not sure what the main campus site is using for a CMS, but I suspect it is more flexible than Sharepoint for web development. We only get a moderate amount of non-student or staff traffic, but where the site currently is located is not intuitive and makes it hard for students to want to use. The make the UX/IA part of me die a little inside. We have definite interest among many of the library staff to get it freed and more visible, but we are having to figure out what it takes and how to sell it to all of the requisite parties involved. Thanks for the input. On Tue, Dec 17, 2013 at 9:53 AM, Nina McHale n...@atendesigngroup.comwrote: Matt, Not odd at all! I've dealt with this issue for most of my career. In the three academic libraries I've worked in, the library's site was NOT part of the overall college/university portal. In fact, it was more the case that we (me, the web person, and my supervisors) were establishing our autonomy apart from the overall institutional web presence with campus IT. Library sites need separate navigation, information architecture, and content management and strategy. Administrators outside of the library and campus IT don't always understand how complex library sites have become, so explaining this is a good first step. Find some sites for similar institutions that you like, and show them as examples. If you present it as a positive move--and point out that you might be able to take some work off your IT department's hands by taking on the library site yourself--they'll likely be more willing to consider it. Approach them as partners. As far as burying the library's site behind a log in, how much non-student traffic do you have in your building? You might be able to make a case, based on that and what your mission to serve your community is/might be, to bring it out from behind authentication. Other questions for you: -Do you have any kind of proxy authentication for journal/article databases in place in addition to the portal authentication? If not, you'll obviously have to consider that. -What platform is the school on? Would you choose something similar--another instance of the same software--or go out on your own? Do you have the skills/staff to do that? Where would you host it? Nina On Tue, Dec 17, 2013 at 7:40 AM, Matthew Sherman matt.r.sher...@gmail.com wrote: Hi Code4Libbers, Slightly odd question for you academic library folks. Why does your library have its website where it is on the university site? For context, the library I currently work at has our library site hidden within the campus intranet/portal, so that students have to log into a web portal to even see the search page. This was a decision by the previous director who was here before my time and an assortment of us librarians think this is a terrible setup. So I wanted to kick out to the greater community to give us good reasons for free to the website to more general access, or help us to understand why you would bury it behind a login like they did. All thoughts, insights, and opinions are welcome, they all help us develop our thinking on this and our arguments for any changes we want to make. Thanks everyone and have a good week. Matt Sherman -- Nina McHale @ninermac Developer, Aten Design Group atendesigngroup.com -- Nina McHale @ninermac Developer, Aten Design Group atendesigngroup.com
Re: [CODE4LIB] Academic Library Website Question
Matt, Our website is part of the main campus CMS (Sitecore). There are also links to it on the intranet/student portal, which drive quite a bit of the traffic. A few others have alluded to this, but you can look to my library's website as an example of how horribly wrong things can go when university marketing has control of the library's website. We're in the process of moving away from the campus site to our own site, using Drupal. I spent the last year convincing our marketing and IT departments to allow this, so feel free to email me offlist if you want to talk strategy. I would say that the two most effective pieces of my argument were site analytics and examples from aspirant schools. Sarah On Tue, Dec 17, 2013 at 9:33 AM, Nina McHale n...@atendesigngroup.comwrote: Matt, Can totally see how this is a nuisance for staff, and it would make me die on the inside, too! As a short term measure, could you set up and advertise an alias (something like library.institutiondomainname.edu) to get directly to the web site, or would that not work with the portal? Also, do you have access to web analytics to help build a case? It's hard to say these are low if you don't have a favorable benchmark to compare them to, but there might be some more leverage there, too. Maybe reach out to a similar institution and see if they'll share and benchmark web analytics with you? And ew, SharePoint. :D At my last academic library, that's what campus IT used for the main campus site, but unit webmasters were allowed to opt out, and the library took the opportunity to move to Drupal. I'd also suggest chatting with any ExLibris user communities out there and seeing how others are integrating those tools into their websites and seeing what web platforms they're using. Nina On Tue, Dec 17, 2013 at 8:11 AM, Matthew Sherman matt.r.sher...@gmail.com wrote: This is actually becoming an announce to our employees because we have to spend so much time explaining where the library site is. We are pretty much an Ex Libris shop at the moment, Primo, Metalib, SFX, all locked behind Sharepoint. I am not sure what the main campus site is using for a CMS, but I suspect it is more flexible than Sharepoint for web development. We only get a moderate amount of non-student or staff traffic, but where the site currently is located is not intuitive and makes it hard for students to want to use. The make the UX/IA part of me die a little inside. We have definite interest among many of the library staff to get it freed and more visible, but we are having to figure out what it takes and how to sell it to all of the requisite parties involved. Thanks for the input. On Tue, Dec 17, 2013 at 9:53 AM, Nina McHale n...@atendesigngroup.com wrote: Matt, Not odd at all! I've dealt with this issue for most of my career. In the three academic libraries I've worked in, the library's site was NOT part of the overall college/university portal. In fact, it was more the case that we (me, the web person, and my supervisors) were establishing our autonomy apart from the overall institutional web presence with campus IT. Library sites need separate navigation, information architecture, and content management and strategy. Administrators outside of the library and campus IT don't always understand how complex library sites have become, so explaining this is a good first step. Find some sites for similar institutions that you like, and show them as examples. If you present it as a positive move--and point out that you might be able to take some work off your IT department's hands by taking on the library site yourself--they'll likely be more willing to consider it. Approach them as partners. As far as burying the library's site behind a log in, how much non-student traffic do you have in your building? You might be able to make a case, based on that and what your mission to serve your community is/might be, to bring it out from behind authentication. Other questions for you: -Do you have any kind of proxy authentication for journal/article databases in place in addition to the portal authentication? If not, you'll obviously have to consider that. -What platform is the school on? Would you choose something similar--another instance of the same software--or go out on your own? Do you have the skills/staff to do that? Where would you host it? Nina On Tue, Dec 17, 2013 at 7:40 AM, Matthew Sherman matt.r.sher...@gmail.com wrote: Hi Code4Libbers, Slightly odd question for you academic library folks. Why does your library have its website where it is on the university site? For context, the library I currently work at has our library site hidden within the campus intranet/portal, so that students have to log into a web portal to even see the search page. This was a decision by the previous director who
[CODE4LIB] Job: Empire State Digital Network Manager (NY DPLA Hub)
Located in New York City, the Metropolitan New York Library Council (METRO)http://metro.org/is a nonprofit member services organization serving more than 260 libraries, archives, museums, and cultural heritage nonprofits in New York City and Westchester County. METRO is seeking an enthusiastic, dedicated individual to manage the Empire State Digital Network (ESDN), a statewide initiative to deliver content from New York’s cultural heritage institutions to the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) http://dp.la/ . POSITION OVERVIEW: The ESDN Manager is a full-time, newly created position for one year with the possibility of extension. This position is open to experienced information professionals or new information professionals with prior management experience. Candidates should be interested in supporting expanded access to digital collections from New York libraries, archives, and cultural heritage via the DPLA. The position’s main responsibility will be to coordinate activities of the Empire State Digital Network, a statewide service hub for the DPLA. ESDN will be administered by METRO in collaboration with eight allied regional library councils collectively working as NY 3Rs Association, Inc. The full job description can be found at: http://metro.org/jobs/esdn-manager/
Re: [CODE4LIB] Academic Library Website Question
As a matter of advocacy for library services, I think you want to have the library web site as high up the campus web site hierarchy as possible. We're under the Academics link on the menu that appears on virtually every university web page. While I see the point another made about needing a degree of freedom from the campus template -- and we've certainly waged that campaign here -- I don't think that's a good enough reason to disengage altogether from the university web site. Play ball with the marketing and communications people and you'll eventually help them understand what you can fit into their template and what needs to be just a bit outside the box. Jim _ James Hammons, MA, MLS Head of Library Technologies University Libraries765-285-8032 (phone) Ball State University 765-285-2008 (fax) Muncie, IN 47306jhamm...@bsu.edu www.bsu.edu/library The University Libraries provide services that support student pursuits for academic success and faculty endeavors for knowledge creation and classroom instruction. -Original Message- From: Code for Libraries [mailto:CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU] On Behalf Of Matthew Sherman Sent: Tuesday, December 17, 2013 9:41 AM To: CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU Subject: [CODE4LIB] Academic Library Website Question Hi Code4Libbers, Slightly odd question for you academic library folks. Why does your library have its website where it is on the university site? For context, the library I currently work at has our library site hidden within the campus intranet/portal, so that students have to log into a web portal to even see the search page. This was a decision by the previous director who was here before my time and an assortment of us librarians think this is a terrible setup. So I wanted to kick out to the greater community to give us good reasons for free to the website to more general access, or help us to understand why you would bury it behind a login like they did. All thoughts, insights, and opinions are welcome, they all help us develop our thinking on this and our arguments for any changes we want to make. Thanks everyone and have a good week. Matt Sherman
[CODE4LIB] Job: Librarian, Biodiversity Heritage Library at Smithsonian Institution
Librarian, Biodiversity Heritage Library Smithsonian Institution Washington, D.C. This position is located in Smithsonian Institution Libraries, Digital Services Division. The employee performs the duties of the Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL) Project Manager. * Provides guidance to the Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL) Program Director on trends and needs of the BHL Member Council for the management of the BHL. * Manages the BHL program brand identity in the form of logos, brochures, business cards and other visual identity materials. * Maintains project wide statistics and generates reports to Program Director and other BHL member libraries on trends and projects of the BHL. Brought to you by code4lib jobs: http://jobs.code4lib.org/job/11200/
[CODE4LIB] Job: Empire State Digital Network Manager at Metropolitan New York Library Council
Empire State Digital Network Manager Metropolitan New York Library Council New York City Located in New York City, the Metropolitan New York Library Council (METRO) is a nonprofit member services organization serving more than 260 libraries, archives, museums, and cultural heritage nonprofits in New York City and Westchester County. METRO has an almost 50-year tradition of providing a range of programs and services to its members, including grants, consultative and digital services, collaborative initiatives, and professional development and training. We are seeking an enthusiastic, dedicated individual to manage Empire State Digital Network (ESDN), a statewide initiative to deliver content from New York's cultural heritage institutions to the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA). POSITION OVERVIEW: The ESDN Manager is a full-time, newly created position for one year with the possibility of extension. This position is open to experienced information professionals or new information professionals with prior management experience. Candidates should be interested in supporting expanded access to digital collections from New York libraries, archives, and cultural heritage via the DPLA. The position's main responsibility will be to coordinate activities of the Empire State Digital Network, a statewide service hub for the DPLA. ESDN will be administered by METRO in collaboration with eight allied regional library councils collectively working as NY3Rs Association. IF YOU FILL THIS POSITION, YOU WILL BE ASKED TO: * Work with metadata specialist and technology specialist to establish and achieve short-term goals of ESDN. * Coordinate meetings of advisory committees and working groups and share information about activities across all groups. * Work with project staff and working groups to develop and promote protocols for participation in the ESDN. * Liaise with designated representatives from NY3Rs organizations and other collaborative digitization programs throughout New York to promote ESDN participation procedures. * Plan and organize ESDN meetings, workshops, and events virtually and throughout New York for new and potential participants; document and share ESDN activities with stakeholders and potential participants. * Assist Executive Director in grant writing to support ESDN. THE IDEAL CANDIDATE WILL HAVE: * Master's Degree in Library and Information Science or a related Master's degree. * Proven proficiency in project management, communication and outreach activities, event planning, and grant writing. * Experience working in a library, archive, cultural heritage organization, or affiliated educational, non-profit, or professional organization. * Experience coordinating the activities of a small team toward discrete goals. * Experience with digital projects and knowledge of trends and best practices in the field of information management. * Knowledge of current technologies and metadata standards and practices (i.e. DC, MODS, OAI-PMH, metadata mapping) in libraries and archives. * Professional experience building institutional relationships. POSITION DETAILS: The position will remain open until filled. The ESDN Manager reports to METRO's Executive Director. The salary range is $60,000-$70,000, commensurate with experience. METRO provides excellent benefits, pension, and leave package. Position may entail four-day, 35-hour workweek. METRO's offices are located at 57 E. 11th Street in New York City. APPLICATION DETAILS: The application period ends January 10, 2014. Please send a resume or cv and a cover letter as a .pdf attachment to i...@metro.org with ESDN Manager in the subject line. No phone calls, please. Brought to you by code4lib jobs: http://jobs.code4lib.org/job/11203/
[CODE4LIB] Job opportunities at Lancaster University Library
With apologies for cross posting, these jobs may be of relevance to the audience on this list. -- Job opportunities at Lancaster University Library 2 new roles Digital developer (Library) Salary: £31,644 - £36,611 Closing date 6 January 2014 Join a fast paced-responsive team using agile methodologies to innovate in a rapidly evolving environment. Responsible for developing, enhancing and supporting library technologies and services to improve users' digital experience. Advanced technical skills especially in web-based applications essential. Research data and repository manager Salary: £31,644 - £36,611 Closing date 8 January 2014 Responsible for developing services, procedures, advice and training to support research data management and the institutional repository. You will have good background knowledge of these areas plus excellent analytical and organisational abilities and strong interpersonal skills to work with academic researchers and across teams. Further details from http://hr-jobs.lancs.ac.uk/Vacancies.aspx -- Thanks, Masud -- Masud Khokhar Head of Digital Innovation The Library, Lancaster University Bailrigg, Lancaster, LA1 4YH Tel: (01524) 5-94236 Email: masud.khok...@lancaster.ac.ukmailto:masud.khok...@lancaster.ac.uk
Re: [CODE4LIB] Academic Library Website Question
I suspect at some point every student needs to use resources from the Library. therefore making the library central to campus and education. There is a link to our library site on the main campus site home page, along with the links Apply Online, Visit, Faculty Portal, Alumni, Parents and Family, Employment, Bookstore, and others. If I recall correctly, we had to go through a similar process in the late 90s or sometime pre 2005 to get a permanent link on the Unviersity home page. As someone already mentioned, find example academic site pages that link to their library, academic sites similar to your institution. Also if you are a state academic site then your site should be available to the public, where your finances come from. Thomas Support Requesthttp://portal.support.appstate.edu Thomas McMillan Grant Bennett Appalachian State University Operations Systems AnalystP O Box 32026 University LibraryBoone, North Carolina 28608 (828) 262 6587 Library Systems http://www.library.appstate.edu Confidentiality Notice: This communication constitutes an electronic communication within the meaning of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, 18 U.S.C. Section 2510, and its disclosure is strictly limited to the recipient intended by the sender of this message. If you are not the intended recipient, any disclosure, copying, distribution or use of any of the information contained in or attached to this transmission is STRICTLY PROHIBITED. Please contact this office immediately by return e-mail or at 828-262-6587, and destroy the original transmission and its attachment(s), if any, if you are not the intended recipient. On Dec 17, 2013, at 9:40 AM, Matthew Sherman wrote: Hi Code4Libbers, Slightly odd question for you academic library folks. Why does your library have its website where it is on the university site? For context, the library I currently work at has our library site hidden within the campus intranet/portal, so that students have to log into a web portal to even see the search page. This was a decision by the previous director who was here before my time and an assortment of us librarians think this is a terrible setup. So I wanted to kick out to the greater community to give us good reasons for free to the website to more general access, or help us to understand why you would bury it behind a login like they did. All thoughts, insights, and opinions are welcome, they all help us develop our thinking on this and our arguments for any changes we want to make. Thanks everyone and have a good week. Matt Sherman
Re: [CODE4LIB] Academic Library Website Question
I gave SharePoint a fair shake once, but it is a lost cause. Don't bother trying if you have any other option. If you are having problems with campus IT giving you more visibility, you should work with your library to make one of its goals increasing discoverability, and then have your library director work with the higher-ups in IT or the provost's office and describe why discoverability is important to the library and how it fits into the university's goals, mentioning how the current setup makes those goals impossible. If you don't have luck when working directly with the IT people, it can help to get someone higher in the administration on your side and have that person make your case to IT. Or, if you want to be less diplomatic, just create a website on a third-party hosted server or even LibGuides, and then make the case that you've already invested significant resources into the website and that it needs to be integrated with the university's overall web presence. Easier to ask for forgiveness than permission. Josh Welker -Original Message- From: Code for Libraries [mailto:CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU] On Behalf Of Matthew Sherman Sent: Tuesday, December 17, 2013 9:11 AM To: CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] Academic Library Website Question This is actually becoming an announce to our employees because we have to spend so much time explaining where the library site is. We are pretty much an Ex Libris shop at the moment, Primo, Metalib, SFX, all locked behind Sharepoint. I am not sure what the main campus site is using for a CMS, but I suspect it is more flexible than Sharepoint for web development. We only get a moderate amount of non-student or staff traffic, but where the site currently is located is not intuitive and makes it hard for students to want to use. The make the UX/IA part of me die a little inside. We have definite interest among many of the library staff to get it freed and more visible, but we are having to figure out what it takes and how to sell it to all of the requisite parties involved. Thanks for the input. On Tue, Dec 17, 2013 at 9:53 AM, Nina McHale n...@atendesigngroup.comwrote: Matt, Not odd at all! I've dealt with this issue for most of my career. In the three academic libraries I've worked in, the library's site was NOT part of the overall college/university portal. In fact, it was more the case that we (me, the web person, and my supervisors) were establishing our autonomy apart from the overall institutional web presence with campus IT. Library sites need separate navigation, information architecture, and content management and strategy. Administrators outside of the library and campus IT don't always understand how complex library sites have become, so explaining this is a good first step. Find some sites for similar institutions that you like, and show them as examples. If you present it as a positive move--and point out that you might be able to take some work off your IT department's hands by taking on the library site yourself--they'll likely be more willing to consider it. Approach them as partners. As far as burying the library's site behind a log in, how much non-student traffic do you have in your building? You might be able to make a case, based on that and what your mission to serve your community is/might be, to bring it out from behind authentication. Other questions for you: -Do you have any kind of proxy authentication for journal/article databases in place in addition to the portal authentication? If not, you'll obviously have to consider that. -What platform is the school on? Would you choose something similar--another instance of the same software--or go out on your own? Do you have the skills/staff to do that? Where would you host it? Nina On Tue, Dec 17, 2013 at 7:40 AM, Matthew Sherman matt.r.sher...@gmail.com wrote: Hi Code4Libbers, Slightly odd question for you academic library folks. Why does your library have its website where it is on the university site? For context, the library I currently work at has our library site hidden within the campus intranet/portal, so that students have to log into a web portal to even see the search page. This was a decision by the previous director who was here before my time and an assortment of us librarians think this is a terrible setup. So I wanted to kick out to the greater community to give us good reasons for free to the website to more general access, or help us to understand why you would bury it behind a login like they did. All thoughts, insights, and opinions are welcome, they all help us develop our thinking on this and our arguments for any changes we want to make. Thanks everyone and have a good week. Matt Sherman -- Nina McHale @ninermac Developer, Aten Design Group atendesigngroup.com
Re: [CODE4LIB] Academic Library Website Question
Matt, We actually had zero web presence until about 2006. At that time, my predecessor developed a custom website through a simple webhosting service, which was better than nothing. When I got here about two years ago, I made a case for developing a new website that was a sub-domain of the main campus site. One of my main arguments was that this would allow the Learning Commons' website to match the design/branding of the entire Seminary community. I have a separate install of Joomla on the main campus server, which is administered by our web guru. If the campus changes its web branding, the development office will make those changes for me (after consulting with me); content and structure of the library site are up to me (when I have time!). I maintain the old webhost for special projects and an install of SubjectsPlus. Both the previous and current website have been useful for outside scholars: they find out about our special collections through web searches and not through WorldCat, etc. A long-range project is developing new online guides to our special collections that are web-searchable, as we do have some really important historic materials that are hidden. Because we're denominationally-affiliated, local pastors (within about four states) and alums can check out books. If it weren't for our web presence, no one would know of the services we provide to unaffiliated folks. Like some of the other respondents, I think it would be useful for you to find out how many people get to your website's landing page before logging in and how many regularly log in. The disparity between those numbers may speak volumes. Additionally, consider what your institution's mission is and try and frame your discussion around that mission. Hope this helps, Evan Evan Boyd Assistant Librarian, Chicago Theological Seminary -Original Message- From: Code for Libraries [mailto:CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU] On Behalf Of Matthew Sherman Sent: Tuesday, December 17, 2013 8:41 AM To: CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU Subject: [CODE4LIB] Academic Library Website Question Hi Code4Libbers, Slightly odd question for you academic library folks. Why does your library have its website where it is on the university site? For context, the library I currently work at has our library site hidden within the campus intranet/portal, so that students have to log into a web portal to even see the search page. This was a decision by the previous director who was here before my time and an assortment of us librarians think this is a terrible setup. So I wanted to kick out to the greater community to give us good reasons for free to the website to more general access, or help us to understand why you would bury it behind a login like they did. All thoughts, insights, and opinions are welcome, they all help us develop our thinking on this and our arguments for any changes we want to make. Thanks everyone and have a good week. Matt Sherman
Re: [CODE4LIB] Academic Library Website Question
Matt, Our library's website is visually and navigationally part of the larger university website, but housed on its own server. We are under the Academics tab in the Centers of learning block along with the writing center, community service office, etc. Being part of the larger university framework makes it easy to navigate folks to our website. Being visually part of the university website has its advantages and disadvantages. It ties us in visually and makes us clearly part of the university website, but it also dictates a lot of our design features. We have a push-pull relationship with the sales-oriented approach of the university website -- a while back we were told that the library website was too oriented toward doing work and not enough toward advertising the awesomeness of the university. We have tried to include a bit more selling-the-awesomeness without sacrificing the utility (heavens forfend!) of the website. Having our own server is usually a great advantage to us. It does mean that we have to do some extra legwork to keep ourselves integrated with the rest of the website, but it also gives us a lot of latitude to develop new services and create a pretty broad infrastructure. It is in part a legacy of the late 90s when the library had one of the first web developers on campus. We've sometimes had to fight to keep our independence, the complexity of a library website really requires some dedicated attention in a way that could not be expected of an external department with different mission priorities. We do have a minimal presence in the student portal -- basically a link to the ask a question form and a login link for the OPAC/Circulation Record/what do I have checked out now page. If I had another person to work on it, I would love to develop more integration with the portal -- but not at the expense of the larger website. Good luck! Ken -Original Message- From: Code for Libraries [mailto:CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU] On Behalf Of Matthew Sherman Sent: Tuesday, December 17, 2013 9:41 AM To: CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU Subject: [CODE4LIB] Academic Library Website Question Hi Code4Libbers, Slightly odd question for you academic library folks. Why does your library have its website where it is on the university site? For context, the library I currently work at has our library site hidden within the campus intranet/portal, so that students have to log into a web portal to even see the search page. This was a decision by the previous director who was here before my time and an assortment of us librarians think this is a terrible setup. So I wanted to kick out to the greater community to give us good reasons for free to the website to more general access, or help us to understand why you would bury it behind a login like they did. All thoughts, insights, and opinions are welcome, they all help us develop our thinking on this and our arguments for any changes we want to make. Thanks everyone and have a good week. Matt Sherman
Re: [CODE4LIB] Academic Library Website Question
This topic actually comes up pretty regularly on lists for web types; wonder if we could put together some type of sharing resource where we all talk about how we made the case to split off the library's web site? I feel like it's a battle so many of us have fought and can therfore help our colleagues fight... Nina On Tue, Dec 17, 2013 at 9:03 AM, Sarah Thorngate scthorng...@northpark.edu wrote: Matt, Our website is part of the main campus CMS (Sitecore). There are also links to it on the intranet/student portal, which drive quite a bit of the traffic. A few others have alluded to this, but you can look to my library's website as an example of how horribly wrong things can go when university marketing has control of the library's website. We're in the process of moving away from the campus site to our own site, using Drupal. I spent the last year convincing our marketing and IT departments to allow this, so feel free to email me offlist if you want to talk strategy. I would say that the two most effective pieces of my argument were site analytics and examples from aspirant schools. Sarah On Tue, Dec 17, 2013 at 9:33 AM, Nina McHale n...@atendesigngroup.comwrote: Matt, Can totally see how this is a nuisance for staff, and it would make me die on the inside, too! As a short term measure, could you set up and advertise an alias (something like library.institutiondomainname.edu) to get directly to the web site, or would that not work with the portal? Also, do you have access to web analytics to help build a case? It's hard to say these are low if you don't have a favorable benchmark to compare them to, but there might be some more leverage there, too. Maybe reach out to a similar institution and see if they'll share and benchmark web analytics with you? And ew, SharePoint. :D At my last academic library, that's what campus IT used for the main campus site, but unit webmasters were allowed to opt out, and the library took the opportunity to move to Drupal. I'd also suggest chatting with any ExLibris user communities out there and seeing how others are integrating those tools into their websites and seeing what web platforms they're using. Nina On Tue, Dec 17, 2013 at 8:11 AM, Matthew Sherman matt.r.sher...@gmail.com wrote: This is actually becoming an announce to our employees because we have to spend so much time explaining where the library site is. We are pretty much an Ex Libris shop at the moment, Primo, Metalib, SFX, all locked behind Sharepoint. I am not sure what the main campus site is using for a CMS, but I suspect it is more flexible than Sharepoint for web development. We only get a moderate amount of non-student or staff traffic, but where the site currently is located is not intuitive and makes it hard for students to want to use. The make the UX/IA part of me die a little inside. We have definite interest among many of the library staff to get it freed and more visible, but we are having to figure out what it takes and how to sell it to all of the requisite parties involved. Thanks for the input. On Tue, Dec 17, 2013 at 9:53 AM, Nina McHale n...@atendesigngroup.com wrote: Matt, Not odd at all! I've dealt with this issue for most of my career. In the three academic libraries I've worked in, the library's site was NOT part of the overall college/university portal. In fact, it was more the case that we (me, the web person, and my supervisors) were establishing our autonomy apart from the overall institutional web presence with campus IT. Library sites need separate navigation, information architecture, and content management and strategy. Administrators outside of the library and campus IT don't always understand how complex library sites have become, so explaining this is a good first step. Find some sites for similar institutions that you like, and show them as examples. If you present it as a positive move--and point out that you might be able to take some work off your IT department's hands by taking on the library site yourself--they'll likely be more willing to consider it. Approach them as partners. As far as burying the library's site behind a log in, how much non-student traffic do you have in your building? You might be able to make a case, based on that and what your mission to serve your community is/might be, to bring it out from behind authentication. Other questions for you: -Do you have any kind of proxy authentication for journal/article databases in place in addition to the portal authentication? If not, you'll obviously have to consider that. -What platform is the school on? Would you choose something similar--another instance of the same software--or go out on your own? Do you have the skills/staff to do that? Where would you host it? Nina On Tue, Dec 17, 2013 at 7:40 AM, Matthew Sherman matt.r.sher...@gmail.com wrote:
Re: [CODE4LIB] Academic Library Website Question
I've never heard of an entire library site being buried behind an authentication portal. That's just crazy to me. (If you use universal authentication, I'm sure it's nice that once students have signed in, they can access/use all the services, but sometimes people want to look something up quickly, like hours or just check to see if you have a book.) At my old university, we were demoted from a top-level link to a drop-down link (originally under Student Services and then moved to Research.) That school used two different CMS's for the administrative sites (CommonSpot) and the academic sites (Typo3). Since I left, they've united all the sites in Drupal. At my current institution, the library is listed in a quick links drop down in the top right corner of the homepage, which is pretty visible, and also on the Academics and Research page, which is a top-level link on the homepage. Here, every department is responsible for their own website, so we recently built our site in WordPress (the school uses Drupal.) While I was severely annoyed at my old job when we got dropped from a top-level to secondary navigation link, I think it's appropriate to list the library under either Academics or Research. Student Services I think is less intuitive, as students often think of the library as a place or a list of resources, and not a service, but that's just my opinion. I also agree with those that said the library should have it's own template or CMS. University sites are often driven by admissions, and focus on visual and multimedia content (how many university sites feature a giant carousel of campus shots? Ugh.) The library, on the other hand, should be able to focus on resources, and while displaying images from digital collections can be nice, using up that much prime real estate for something with so little function is usually not the best practice (often that prime spot is used for some sort of tabbed search box.) I've been working with academic library websites for 8 years now, so I figured I'd just weigh in with my 2 cents ;) Happy holidays! ~val Valerie Forrestal Web Services Librarian/Asst. Professor City University of New York College of Staten Island Library 2800 Victory Blvd., 1L-109I Staten Island, N.Y. 10314 Phone: 718.982.4023 valerie.forres...@csi.cuny.edu -Original Message- From: Code for Libraries [mailto:CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU] On Behalf Of Matthew Sherman Sent: Tuesday, December 17, 2013 8:41 AM To: CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU Subject: [CODE4LIB] Academic Library Website Question Hi Code4Libbers, Slightly odd question for you academic library folks. Why does your library have its website where it is on the university site? For context, the library I currently work at has our library site hidden within the campus intranet/portal, so that students have to log into a web portal to even see the search page. This was a decision by the previous director who was here before my time and an assortment of us librarians think this is a terrible setup. So I wanted to kick out to the greater community to give us good reasons for free to the website to more general access, or help us to understand why you would bury it behind a login like they did. All thoughts, insights, and opinions are welcome, they all help us develop our thinking on this and our arguments for any changes we want to make. Thanks everyone and have a good week. Matt Sherman The Campaign for CSI: For College and Communityhttp://www.csi.cuny.edu/foundation/
Re: [CODE4LIB] Academic Library Website Question
Val's post made me think of this: http://xkcd.com/773/ Campus Photo Slideshow anyone? :D Nina On Tue, Dec 17, 2013 at 11:05 AM, Valerie Forrestal valerie.forres...@csi.cuny.edu wrote: I've never heard of an entire library site being buried behind an authentication portal. That's just crazy to me. (If you use universal authentication, I'm sure it's nice that once students have signed in, they can access/use all the services, but sometimes people want to look something up quickly, like hours or just check to see if you have a book.) At my old university, we were demoted from a top-level link to a drop-down link (originally under Student Services and then moved to Research.) That school used two different CMS's for the administrative sites (CommonSpot) and the academic sites (Typo3). Since I left, they've united all the sites in Drupal. At my current institution, the library is listed in a quick links drop down in the top right corner of the homepage, which is pretty visible, and also on the Academics and Research page, which is a top-level link on the homepage. Here, every department is responsible for their own website, so we recently built our site in WordPress (the school uses Drupal.) While I was severely annoyed at my old job when we got dropped from a top-level to secondary navigation link, I think it's appropriate to list the library under either Academics or Research. Student Services I think is less intuitive, as students often think of the library as a place or a list of resources, and not a service, but that's just my opinion. I also agree with those that said the library should have it's own template or CMS. University sites are often driven by admissions, and focus on visual and multimedia content (how many university sites feature a giant carousel of campus shots? Ugh.) The library, on the other hand, should be able to focus on resources, and while displaying images from digital collections can be nice, using up that much prime real estate for something with so little function is usually not the best practice (often that prime spot is used for some sort of tabbed search box.) I've been working with academic library websites for 8 years now, so I figured I'd just weigh in with my 2 cents ;) Happy holidays! ~val Valerie Forrestal Web Services Librarian/Asst. Professor City University of New York College of Staten Island Library 2800 Victory Blvd., 1L-109I Staten Island, N.Y. 10314 Phone: 718.982.4023 valerie.forres...@csi.cuny.edu -Original Message- From: Code for Libraries [mailto:CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU] On Behalf Of Matthew Sherman Sent: Tuesday, December 17, 2013 8:41 AM To: CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU Subject: [CODE4LIB] Academic Library Website Question Hi Code4Libbers, Slightly odd question for you academic library folks. Why does your library have its website where it is on the university site? For context, the library I currently work at has our library site hidden within the campus intranet/portal, so that students have to log into a web portal to even see the search page. This was a decision by the previous director who was here before my time and an assortment of us librarians think this is a terrible setup. So I wanted to kick out to the greater community to give us good reasons for free to the website to more general access, or help us to understand why you would bury it behind a login like they did. All thoughts, insights, and opinions are welcome, they all help us develop our thinking on this and our arguments for any changes we want to make. Thanks everyone and have a good week. Matt Sherman The Campaign for CSI: For College and Communityhttp://www.csi.cuny.edu/foundation/ -- Nina McHale @ninermac Developer, Aten Design Group atendesigngroup.com
[CODE4LIB] Job: Geographic Information Systems Specialist at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Geographic Information Systems Specialist University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Urbana The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Library seeks applications for a Geographic Information Systems (GIS) Specialist. The ongoing spatial turn in a wide array of disciplines, with its increasing attention on the impacts and meanings of geographical space, means that scholars in fields which have not historically used geospatial analysis tools are discovering how geographic visualization can assist in examining relationship and causality, uncovering patterns, and making predictions. GIS users on the UIUC campus are also creating data that falls under the campus's commitment to research data management. The GIS Specialist will play a critical role in the development, growth and stability of the Library's GIS program. Responsibilities: The Library's GIS Specialist, in coordination with the Numeric and Spatial Data Librarian and the Map Librarian, will promote the use of geospatial data and methodologies in instruction and research, consulting with and assisting a campus-wide spectrum of users with a broad variety of needs, interests, and abilities. The GIS Specialist will have interests in all facets of a geospatial data access program--hardware, software, data and user services--and the ability to support and move forward the Library's GIS endeavors in all areas. Qualifications: Required: Masters with a concentration in GIS; or a graduate-level or post-baccalaureate GIS certificate; or a Bachelors with a concentration in GIS plus three years of experience; or 7 years of GIS-related work experience with increasing responsibilities and task diversification. Experience working with a diverse clientele. Able to work independently while balancing needs of diverse stakeholders. Strong written and oral communication skills. See https://jobs.illinois.edu for preferred qualifications. Salary and Rank: This is a 100% time, 12 month appointment Academic Professional position. To Apply: To ensure full consideration, please complete your candidate profile at https://jobs.illinois.edu and upload a letter of interest, resume, and contact information including email addresses for three professional references. Only applications submitted through this website will be considered. For questions, please call: 217-333-8169. Deadline: In order to ensure full consideration we urge candidates to submit application materials on or before January 5, 2014. Brought to you by code4lib jobs: http://jobs.code4lib.org/job/11207/
Re: [CODE4LIB] Academic Library Website Question
While it's a really good idea to make sure your library's website is prominent on your institution's page (because I think that does send a strong signal, even to students, that your library is important to your campus), the really big question is how easily your students will be able to find your web page by googleing University X Library, or University X JSTOR or University X Ebsco. When a student has an assignment and their professor tells them they have to use the library, they'll probably Google you - they won't try to navigate links from the university web page. I agree with Cary that your *current* students/users will probably not be going that route. So ensuring your page and its content is easily Google-able and search-engine optimized (and not hidden behind a portal!) is key. -Lauren -- Systems Emerging Technologies Librarian, CSUN Systems Coordinator, PALNI @lpmagnuson http://twitter.com/lpmagnuson
[CODE4LIB] Job: EMMO Project Manager at Folger Shakespeare Library
EMMO Project Manager Folger Shakespeare Library Washington, D.C. The Folger Shakespeare Library seeks an energetic and experienced Project Manager for a 3-year IMLS grant-funded project, Early Modern Manuscripts Online (EMMO). The PM will work closely with the Curator of Manuscripts and associated staff on the planning, implementation and assessment of EMMO, a searchable database of transcribed and digitized early modern manuscript texts. The PM will: assist in the development and implementation of workflows for the execution of project activities; maintain project and content management systems for the project; manage and monitor the grant budget; and contribute to the testing, evaluation, and improvement of the transcription and tagging environment. Working closely with two grant-funded paleographers, the PM will also participate in the creation and sustaining of a community of volunteer transcribers. The ideal candidate will have an advanced subject degree in early modern English literature or history and an MLS, with training in early modern English paleography preferred. This position requires project management experience, preferably in a research library or museum setting. Experience with XML and project and content management systems, such as Drupal, and the ability to work in a collaborative, flexible, and creative environment, are necessary. Strong organizational skills, budget management experience, and outstanding communication skills are required. Preference will be given to candidates with experience in crowd-sourcing, scholarly textual editing, and the transcription of manuscripts in English secretary and other early modern hands. Interested individuals should email cover letter and resume j...@folger.edu with subject Attn:HR/EMMO or by mail at 201 E Capitol St SE, Washington, DC 20003. EOE. Brought to you by code4lib jobs: http://jobs.code4lib.org/job/11212/
Re: [CODE4LIB] Academic Library Website Question
On Tue, Dec 17, 2013 at 2:07 PM, Jonathan Rochkind rochk...@jhu.edu wrote: Hmm, this sounds weird to say, but it never occured to me that most students would start from the institutional home page, or really ever visit the institutional home page at all. Largely because most institutional home pages are nearly useless for current affiliates of the institution, but are instead perhaps marketting brochures for prospectives. I wonder how many students or other current affiliates actually start at institutional home pages how often. At both institutions I've worked as a librarian, one a major university system and the second, a community college, the emphasis has always been to start from the college's landing page and go forward to find information and then, department landing pages are introduced as alternate option. So I've always assumed this is how _all_ institutions work. However, my experience may be limited as these are the only two institutions I've worked at as a librarian. -Lisa
Re: [CODE4LIB] Academic Library Website Question
Unfortunately, marketing is at the top of the food chain at many universities, and when it is not, it is often just behind athletics. I have seen some libraries break out by going rogue and establishing their own sites outside of their universities, funded by petty cash or by tying web services to a grant, but this is obviously sub-optimal. I personally feel terrible when I run into someone at Code4LibCon that is in this situation or worse, about to be. There are a couple areas that libraries can use as drivers for bigger and better web presences. The first is integration with online courseware, and the other is the rise of MOOC. I have a hard time with the idea that the library gets a lot of play from the university's home page unless there is no alternative. Creating support resources is a good idea, as long as they don't get too far from the main stream. One of the reasons that this thread is successful is that it is in a place where folks are interested, but are not necessarily in the soup. On of the best approaches is to demonstrate, as this community has done fabulously, what is possible, and make sure that the library leadership appreciates these resources and has the guts to use them. I think that comparative site analytics are a good base, particularly if they can be used to show how the resources drive library effectiveness and user success. Cary On Dec 17, 2013, at 9:49 AM, Nina McHale n...@atendesigngroup.com wrote: This topic actually comes up pretty regularly on lists for web types; wonder if we could put together some type of sharing resource where we all talk about how we made the case to split off the library's web site? I feel like it's a battle so many of us have fought and can therfore help our colleagues fight... Nina On Tue, Dec 17, 2013 at 9:03 AM, Sarah Thorngate scthorng...@northpark.edu wrote: Matt, Our website is part of the main campus CMS (Sitecore). There are also links to it on the intranet/student portal, which drive quite a bit of the traffic. A few others have alluded to this, but you can look to my library's website as an example of how horribly wrong things can go when university marketing has control of the library's website. We're in the process of moving away from the campus site to our own site, using Drupal. I spent the last year convincing our marketing and IT departments to allow this, so feel free to email me offlist if you want to talk strategy. I would say that the two most effective pieces of my argument were site analytics and examples from aspirant schools. Sarah On Tue, Dec 17, 2013 at 9:33 AM, Nina McHale n...@atendesigngroup.comwrote: Matt, Can totally see how this is a nuisance for staff, and it would make me die on the inside, too! As a short term measure, could you set up and advertise an alias (something like library.institutiondomainname.edu) to get directly to the web site, or would that not work with the portal? Also, do you have access to web analytics to help build a case? It's hard to say these are low if you don't have a favorable benchmark to compare them to, but there might be some more leverage there, too. Maybe reach out to a similar institution and see if they'll share and benchmark web analytics with you? And ew, SharePoint. :D At my last academic library, that's what campus IT used for the main campus site, but unit webmasters were allowed to opt out, and the library took the opportunity to move to Drupal. I'd also suggest chatting with any ExLibris user communities out there and seeing how others are integrating those tools into their websites and seeing what web platforms they're using. Nina On Tue, Dec 17, 2013 at 8:11 AM, Matthew Sherman matt.r.sher...@gmail.com wrote: This is actually becoming an announce to our employees because we have to spend so much time explaining where the library site is. We are pretty much an Ex Libris shop at the moment, Primo, Metalib, SFX, all locked behind Sharepoint. I am not sure what the main campus site is using for a CMS, but I suspect it is more flexible than Sharepoint for web development. We only get a moderate amount of non-student or staff traffic, but where the site currently is located is not intuitive and makes it hard for students to want to use. The make the UX/IA part of me die a little inside. We have definite interest among many of the library staff to get it freed and more visible, but we are having to figure out what it takes and how to sell it to all of the requisite parties involved. Thanks for the input. On Tue, Dec 17, 2013 at 9:53 AM, Nina McHale n...@atendesigngroup.com wrote: Matt, Not odd at all! I've dealt with this issue for most of my career. In the three academic libraries I've worked in, the library's site was NOT part of the overall college/university portal. In fact, it was more the case that we (me, the web person, and my supervisors)
[CODE4LIB] Job: Digital Curation Archivist at University of Massachusetts Boston
Digital Curation Archivist University of Massachusetts Boston Boston The part time Digital Curation Archivist for the Healey Library will lead the technical development and curation of digital resources in Archives and Special Collections. The Digital Curation Archivist will also: coordinate with the University Archivist for policy and strategy in reaching department goals for digital curation; serves as technical manager for the department's online repositories; manage activities to preserve born-digital and digitized materials according to archival best practice, including creating descriptive, structural and administrative metadata and transferring files to secure cloud storage; implement batch processes to add digital objects including photographs and documents and their related metadata to the department's online repository (CONTENTdm); access, evaluate and measure usage of digital collections and generate regular reports; create collection-specific web pages drawing on data from CONTENTdm via API; set and oversee technical standards for the department's image, audio and video digitization projects; develop workflows to convert audio and video from legacy formats (betamax, VHS, cassette audio) to digital format; train and direct the work of support staff and students in digitization projects, including application of appropriate metadata schemas; implement workflow to extract metadata from PDF, image and media files and incorporate it as administrative metadata into repository records; and perform other duties as assigned. Requirements: * Master's degree in digital humanities, computer science or library and information science (MLIS/archival track from accredited institution preferred); or comparable professional experience. Minimum 2 years professional experience working in special collections, digital records management, digital humanities, or comparable educational or research field. * Demonstrated knowledge of at least two of the following metadata standards: Dublin Core, EAD, METS, MODS, PREMIS; * Knowledge of best practices for managing and preserving digital collections; * Knowledge of current data management issues and trends; * Demonstrated presentation and project management experience; * Proficient in Microsoft products including Access; * Demonstrated experience with XML, XSLT, CSS and using published APIs; * Demonstrated experience creating, converting and preserving a wide range of file formats (e.g. JPEG, JPEG2000, TIFF, MPEG, AVI, MOV, PDF/A); * Demonstrated ability to plan, implement and successfully complete projects; * Excellent oral and written communication skills to communicate across diverse populations; * Demonstrated ability to work independently and collegially in a team setting; * Organized, able to juggle multiple tasks. Additional Information: UMass Boston provides equal employment opportunities (EEO) to all employees and applicants for employment. Among the procedures which may be used to select personnel to fill vacant positions are review of work experience, reference checks, and interviews. All appointments and promotions will be effective on a Sunday. Application Instructions: Please apply online with your resume, cover letter and list of three professional references. Professional. Union. Benefited. Part time, 50% time. Grade 30. Normal Hiring Range: $21,107-$23,086. State funded. Review of candidates will begin following the application closing date. Closing date for applications: January 16, 2014 Brought to you by code4lib jobs: http://jobs.code4lib.org/job/11214/
Re: [CODE4LIB] Academic Library Website Question
On Tue, Dec 17, 2013 at 3:11 PM, Lauren Magnuson lau...@lpmagnuson.com wrote: While it's a really good idea to make sure your library's website is prominent on your institution's page (because I think that does send a strong signal, even to students, that your library is important to your campus), the really big question is how easily your students will be able to find your web page by googleing University X Library, or University X JSTOR or University X Ebsco. When a student has an assignment and their professor tells them they have to use the library, they'll probably Google you - they won't try to navigate links from the university web page. I agree with Cary that your *current* students/users will probably not be going that route. So ensuring your page and its content is easily Google-able and search-engine optimized (and not hidden behind a portal!) is key. -Lauren I don't disagree, but it IS problematic when the college owns and manages the library website and you cannot make it SEO optimized and if the college is not forthcoming with doing it themselves, then what? (You place prominent keywords in the content you can control is what, but it does not solve the over arching problem of findability inside and outside the institution.) -Lisa Lisa M. Rabey | @pnkrcklibrarian An Unreliable Narrator: http://exitpursuedbyabear.net Cunning Tales from a Systems Librarian: http://lisa.rabey.net
Re: [CODE4LIB] Academic Library Website Question
On 12/17/13 1:46 PM, Lisa Rabey wrote: I'm with Lisa in that when checking out other institutions, I check to see how many clicks it takes to get to the library, and if it is not immediately on the landing page of the college OR at least a drop down link from a parent portal, I start becoming Judgey McJudgepants on that institution. Because If I'm a librarian, and I can't find it, I cannot even begin to imagine how their students can get to their own library. Hmm, this sounds weird to say, but it never occured to me that most students would start from the institutional home page, or really ever visit the institutional home page at all. Largely because most institutional home pages are nearly useless for current affiliates of the institution, but are instead perhaps marketting brochures for prospectives. I wonder how many students or other current affiliates actually start at institutional home pages how often.
Re: [CODE4LIB] Academic Library Website Question
On Tue, Dec 17, 2013 at 2:53 PM, Cary Gordon listu...@chillco.com wrote: While institutions often take that approach, I am not sure that people do, at least if there is an alternative. Sure, folks might go to the home page once or twice to get to the library home page, just as they might use a campus map to find a library building, but folks who use the library's online resources often are not likely to be going that route. Your library stats should tell the tale of how folks are getting there. Cary I think the key here is, folks who use the library's online resources often are not likely to be going that route. Which I think, bothers me because it makes a lot of general assumptions on how people search for information which can and does vary wildly from a community college to a PHD granting institution. In my working experience, many, many of our instructors do not give direct links to the college's library site, rather, they tell students to start from the college's landing page or Blackboard and go forward. When I get them in my info lit classes, many if not most, had no idea you could go directly to the library's site by direct URL. Off the cuff one on one instruction in our open lab shows much of the same behaviour. -Lisa Lisa M. Rabey | @pnkrcklibrarian An Unreliable Narrator: http://exitpursuedbyabear.net Cunning Tales from a Systems Librarian: http://lisa.rabey.net
Re: [CODE4LIB] Patron Loads from Banner (XML/Tab-Delimited)
Hi Matt et al, I just want to be sure I'm understanding: Pentaho's Kettle can extract from ANY datastore - not just Banner? Anyone else on this list using Pentaho or another open source ETL solution for loading data to their ILS who can share their experiences more fully? Thanks, Christina Salazar Systems Librarian John Spoor Broome Library California State University, Channel Islands 805/437-3198 -Original Message- From: Code for Libraries [mailto:CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU] On Behalf Of Matthew Mikitka Sent: Tuesday, December 17, 2013 5:55 AM To: CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] Patron Loads from Banner (XML/Tab-Delimited) Hi Lauren, Depending on the number and complexity of your data sources, I recommend that you consider deploying an ETL system (ETL stands for Extract, Transform, Load). There are a few open source and free of cost frameworks on market, notably Pentaho's Kettle (see http://community.pentaho.com/index.html). ETL frameworks provide several useful sub-systems e.g., logging, database adapters, error handling, deduplication, GUI, XML, etc. Once deployed, you can quickly create a reliable Extract from Banner, Transform by merging with other data and cleansing, and Loading into the ILS. matt Lauren Magnuson lau...@lpmagnuson.com 12/16/2013 12:17 PM Hello, If anyone is willing to share an example of a script/process you are using to extract patron data from Banner (can be for any ILS, but I'm specifically interested in a script that's being used to generate either XML or tab-delimited data) I would appreciate it! If you happen to be extracting patron data from Banner into XML format required by OCLC WMS, I'm especially interested. Thanks, Lauren Magnuson -- Systems Emerging Technologies Librarian, CSUN Systems Coordinator, PALNI @lpmagnuson http://twitter.com/lpmagnuson
[CODE4LIB] Job: Systems Programmer Analyst at Georgetown University Library
Systems Programmer Analyst Georgetown University Library Washington, D.C. Georgetown University Library is seeking a Systems Programmer Analyst to help expand access to information through library technology. The Systems Programmer Analyst will report to both the Sr. Applications Programmer and the Sr. Systems Administrator at the Georgetown University Library. This position will provide the successful candidate with an excellent opportunity to develop and deepen skills in both software development and systems operations. The Systems Programmer Analyst: Helps develop, program and manage library technologies needed to support the library's applications and infrastructure; Assists and works with the Sr. Applications Programmer in planning, designing, coding, and maintaining the library's technology applications; Integrates software components into the library's applications and ensures software interoperability among the library's different applications; Is responsible for developing and coding scripts and other programs that would alleviate manual workflows for other library staff using the library applications. Where possible, the Systems Programmer Analyst will share code and contribute to open source projects supporting the library community. In addition, he/she assists and works with the Sr. Systems Administrator to support the library's technology infrastructure which includes operations of the library's physical servers and virtual environments. The Systems Programmer Analyst is also involved in the administration of the library's applications and systems developments; Helps in the setup of test environments and configures virtual environments; Assists in backup processes and securing the servers and virtual environments from unauthorized access; and is involved in scripting/ programming needed to automate tasks. Required: Bachelor's degree or equivalent combination of education and experience. The ideal candidate would possess two to three years of work experience with system implementation, web development, programming and development of applications. Experience developing applications in Java, Javascript, and/or PHP. Experience with XHTML, HTML, CSS, XML and/or XSL. A passion for both systems administration and software development, work experience in a university environment, and work experience with open source software used by the library community are all highly desirable. Also desirable: Commitment to the use and promotion of alternative as well as traditional means of access to information. Strong analytical, interpersonal, and communication skills; ability to work effectively with a team. Demonstrated commitment to risk-taking. Ability to be flexible, open-minded, and comfortable with changing responsibilities and duties as new and additional needs emerge. Proven ability to help design and develop web based applications in a project driven environment. Excellent customer service skills. Excellent oral and written communication skills. In their cover letter for this position, applicants should describe their software development and systems administration experience. Applicants, please apply online using the following link:ht tp://www12.georgetown.edu/hr/employment_services/joblist/job_description.cfm?C ategoryID=4RequestNo=20131162 Brought to you by code4lib jobs: http://jobs.code4lib.org/job/11206/
Re: [CODE4LIB] Academic Library Website Question
While institutions often take that approach, I am not sure that people do, at least if there is an alternative. Sure, folks might go to the home page once or twice to get to the library home page, just as they might use a campus map to find a library building, but folks who use the library's online resources often are not likely to be going that route. Your library stats should tell the tale of how folks are getting there. Cary On Dec 17, 2013, at 11:18 AM, Lisa Rabey academichu...@gmail.com wrote: On Tue, Dec 17, 2013 at 2:07 PM, Jonathan Rochkind rochk...@jhu.edu wrote: Hmm, this sounds weird to say, but it never occured to me that most students would start from the institutional home page, or really ever visit the institutional home page at all. Largely because most institutional home pages are nearly useless for current affiliates of the institution, but are instead perhaps marketting brochures for prospectives. I wonder how many students or other current affiliates actually start at institutional home pages how often. At both institutions I've worked as a librarian, one a major university system and the second, a community college, the emphasis has always been to start from the college's landing page and go forward to find information and then, department landing pages are introduced as alternate option. So I've always assumed this is how _all_ institutions work. However, my experience may be limited as these are the only two institutions I've worked at as a librarian. -Lisa
Re: [CODE4LIB] Academic Library Website Question
Agree - you'd still need evidence to convince the powers that be. To get some data to that end, maybe some snapshot usability observation where you sit down a handful of users at a computer (better yet, on a tablet/mobile device) and ask them to find the library's website (ensuring that the browser doesn't default to university.edu). Observe their strategy - do they go to university.edu and click around, or do they Google? Or do they use the university.edu search box (which is often a Google site search, playing by the same rules)? If your users are Googling, having that data in hand might provide an argument that your page should be Google-able and you should have some more visibility/control. Or you could set up some dummy sites and Google bomb yourself :). (Joking. Kind of.) -Lauren
Re: [CODE4LIB] Academic Library Website Question
My key point, and likely the only point of note is: Your library stats should tell the tale of how folks are getting there. While these data won't necessarily lead to great predictions of future behavior, as the institution might unintentionally (or intentionally) blocking some desirable access, they should give some empirical evidence of what is happening now. Cary On Dec 17, 2013, at 12:14 PM, Lisa Rabey academichu...@gmail.com wrote: On Tue, Dec 17, 2013 at 2:53 PM, Cary Gordon listu...@chillco.com wrote: While institutions often take that approach, I am not sure that people do, at least if there is an alternative. Sure, folks might go to the home page once or twice to get to the library home page, just as they might use a campus map to find a library building, but folks who use the library's online resources often are not likely to be going that route. Your library stats should tell the tale of how folks are getting there. Cary I think the key here is, folks who use the library's online resources often are not likely to be going that route. Which I think, bothers me because it makes a lot of general assumptions on how people search for information which can and does vary wildly from a community college to a PHD granting institution. In my working experience, many, many of our instructors do not give direct links to the college's library site, rather, they tell students to start from the college's landing page or Blackboard and go forward. When I get them in my info lit classes, many if not most, had no idea you could go directly to the library's site by direct URL. Off the cuff one on one instruction in our open lab shows much of the same behaviour. -Lisa Lisa M. Rabey | @pnkrcklibrarian An Unreliable Narrator: http://exitpursuedbyabear.net Cunning Tales from a Systems Librarian: http://lisa.rabey.net
Re: [CODE4LIB] Academic Library Website Question
On Tue, Dec 17, 2013 at 3:54 PM, Cary Gordon listu...@chillco.com wrote: My key point, and likely the only point of note is: Your library stats should tell the tale of how folks are getting there. While these data won't necessarily lead to great predictions of future behavior, as the institution might unintentionally (or intentionally) blocking some desirable access, they should give some empirical evidence of what is happening now. Cary I don't disagree with you. But stats are not enough. The difficulty lies (lays?) that we have organic findability before the semester starts, then we teach info lit classes for 2-3 solid months where we are direct going to the URIs which then spikes AND skews the data, hence the problem of using stats. Now if you have method to separate organic fundability from our teaching classes so I have a better/bigger picture of how people are finding us, I'm all ears. Lisa M. Rabey | @pnkrcklibrarian An Unreliable Narrator: http://exitpursuedbyabear.net Cunning Tales from a Systems Librarian: http://lisa.rabey.net
Re: [CODE4LIB] Academic Library Website Question
On Tuesday, December 17, 2013, Lauren Magnuson wrote: While it's a really good idea to make sure your library's website is prominent on your institution's page (because I think that does send a strong signal, even to students, that your library is important to your campus), the really big question is how easily your students will be able to find your web page by googleing University X Library, or University X JSTOR or University X Ebsco. When a student has an assignment and their professor tells them they have to use the library, they'll probably Google you - they won't try to navigate links from the university web page. I've been tracking browsing to our web pages (direct traffic) versus searches leading to our pages for a few years. Starting this fall, searches have passed browsing. Many of our users never see our home page. Ensuring all of your pages are well indexed in search engines is very important. Locking them behind a login is a disservice to your students. -- Robert Sebek Webmaster, University Libraries (http://www.lib.vt.edu/)
[CODE4LIB] Automated Embedded Metadata Extraction in Photographs: Possible or Pipedream?
Hi all, I'm wondering if there is a systematic method that can extract metadata embedded in digital photographs and then ingest that metadata into a CMS and relate them to their corresponding images. We currently use DigiTool, if that makes a difference. Thanks! Shea Swauger Data Management Librarian Colorado State Univeristy
Re: [CODE4LIB] Academic Library Website Question
I'm with Lisa in that when checking out other institutions, I check to see how many clicks it takes to get to the library, and if it is not immediately on the landing page of the college OR at least a drop down link from a parent portal, I start becoming Judgey McJudgepants on that institution. Because If I'm a librarian, and I can't find it, I cannot even begin to imagine how their students can get to their own library. Currently, my library (http://grcc.edu/library) is a drop down link from the college's landing page under CURRENT STUDENTS and FUTURE STUDENTS, as well as an embedded link within Blackboard's main navigation bar. When I teach info lit classes, I always teach there are a zillion ways to find out from within the college's site and direct links so students don't get so hung up on a supposed one true path. WIthout airing too much of MPOWS dirty knickers, the college has had some growing pains in regards to development of sites, both main landing page for the college as a whole and departments. It also does not help the college's CMS was a home brew before the migration over to Drupal shortly before I started in 2011. The library, of course, gets swept under this rug and a fight I've been working up to is to wrestle control back over to me (the library) and not to the college as a whole since we're one of the few, if not only, departments that teach from the site on a daily basis rather than just being a page of info and that content on our side changes on a regular basis. The library is currently working on a rebranding project to tie in the website at grcc.edu/library along with Subject Guides, ILS, and ILLiad since those are off hosted elsewhere, into something more cohesive. Project is to be completed sometime in summer/fall 2014. Hopefully I'll have control of the library's college site by then. #fingerscrossed -lisa Lisa M. Rabey | @pnkrcklibrarian An Unreliable Narrator: http://exitpursuedbyabear.net Cunning Tales from a Systems Librarian: http://lisa.rabey.net On Tue, Dec 17, 2013 at 9:40 AM, Matthew Sherman matt.r.sher...@gmail.com wrote: Hi Code4Libbers, Slightly odd question for you academic library folks. Why does your library have its website where it is on the university site? For context, the library I currently work at has our library site hidden within the campus intranet/portal, so that students have to log into a web portal to even see the search page. This was a decision by the previous director who was here before my time and an assortment of us librarians think this is a terrible setup. So I wanted to kick out to the greater community to give us good reasons for free to the website to more general access, or help us to understand why you would bury it behind a login like they did. All thoughts, insights, and opinions are welcome, they all help us develop our thinking on this and our arguments for any changes we want to make. Thanks everyone and have a good week. Matt Sherman
Re: [CODE4LIB] Automated Embedded Metadata Extraction in Photographs: Possible or Pipedream?
Exiftool is what you need. Easy to use and works on any platform. kyle On Tue, Dec 17, 2013 at 1:37 PM, Swauger,Shea shea.swau...@colostate.eduwrote: Hi all, I'm wondering if there is a systematic method that can extract metadata embedded in digital photographs and then ingest that metadata into a CMS and relate them to their corresponding images. We currently use DigiTool, if that makes a difference. Thanks! Shea Swauger Data Management Librarian Colorado State Univeristy
Re: [CODE4LIB] Automated Embedded Metadata Extraction in Photographs: Possible or Pipedream?
++1 ___ Andrea Medina-Smith Metadata Librarian NIST Gaithersburg andrea.medina-sm...@nist.gov 301-975-2592 Be Green! Think before you print this email. -Original Message- From: Code for Libraries [mailto:CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU] On Behalf Of Kyle Banerjee Sent: Tuesday, December 17, 2013 4:45 PM To: CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] Automated Embedded Metadata Extraction in Photographs: Possible or Pipedream? Exiftool is what you need. Easy to use and works on any platform. kyle On Tue, Dec 17, 2013 at 1:37 PM, Swauger,Shea shea.swau...@colostate.eduwrote: Hi all, I'm wondering if there is a systematic method that can extract metadata embedded in digital photographs and then ingest that metadata into a CMS and relate them to their corresponding images. We currently use DigiTool, if that makes a difference. Thanks! Shea Swauger Data Management Librarian Colorado State Univeristy
Re: [CODE4LIB] Automated Embedded Metadata Extraction in Photographs: Possible or Pipedream?
Hi Shea, Well, one option you might explore is extracting metadata from images using exiftool (http://www.sno.phy.queensu.ca/~phil/exiftool/) to a CSV or TXT file and then convert this file to what ever tool or file format (xml) you use for batch import to your CMS. So semi-automated. We currently do the reverse, embed metadata into images and then ingest to our IR (DSpace). hope this helps, Monica On 12/17/2013 3:37 PM, Swauger,Shea wrote: Hi all, I'm wondering if there is a systematic method that can extract metadata embedded in digital photographs and then ingest that metadata into a CMS and relate them to their corresponding images. We currently use DigiTool, if that makes a difference. Thanks! Shea Swauger Data Management Librarian Colorado State Univeristy
[CODE4LIB] FW: Associate Dean for Libraries Information Technology - Position Posting
Western Michigan University Libraries Associate Dean for Libraries Information Technology - Position Posting Western Michigan University (WMU) Libraries seeks an innovative, collaborative, service-oriented leader as Associate Dean for Libraries Information Technology. Main Responsibilities: - Lead development of library information technology to support the University’s current and emerging research and instructional needs. - Engage collaboratively with all units across WMU Libraries to identify and support existing needs and advance innovation. - Represent University Libraries to other constituencies, collaborating to support WMU’s institutional goals. Required Qualifications include - M.L.S. or equivalent from an ALA accredited program with additional formal education in computer science or related field. - Minimum of six (6) years of full time experience in an academic library, demonstrating administrative responsibility, leadership and supervisory skills, strategic planning and services assessment. - Significant IT experience with demonstrated working knowledge of library systems and relevant standards and methodologies. Review of applicants will begin February 7, 2014, and continue until the position is filled. The full position description including application details is available at: http://www.wmich.edu/hr/careers-at-wmu.html -- Miranda Howard, MALS, MA Professor Head of Technical Services University Libraries Western Michigan University 1903 W. Michigan Ave. Kalamazoo, MI 49008-5353 (269) 387-5166 fax: (269) 387-5193 University Libraries shapes lives to transform the global future.
Re: [CODE4LIB] Automated Embedded Metadata Extraction in Photographs: Possible or Pipedream?
I use EXIFTool to extract the EXIF metadata from images: http://www.sno.phy.queensu.ca/~phil/exiftool/ I do this dynamically for all of the 8,000+ photos on FreeLargePhotos.com. Here is an example of the text output: http://freelargephotos.com/photos/003805/exif.txt From there, you could parse that into whatever you wanted for import. Since you would have the filename that may be sufficient to map it into the right place in DigiTool (but I'm unfamiliar with it). Roy On Tue, Dec 17, 2013 at 1:37 PM, Swauger,Shea shea.swau...@colostate.eduwrote: Hi all, I'm wondering if there is a systematic method that can extract metadata embedded in digital photographs and then ingest that metadata into a CMS and relate them to their corresponding images. We currently use DigiTool, if that makes a difference. Thanks! Shea Swauger Data Management Librarian Colorado State Univeristy
Re: [CODE4LIB] Automated Embedded Metadata Extraction in Photographs: Possible or Pipedream?
Hi, It is possible, at least the extraction part. I don;t know enough about Digitool to know the deposit part. We wrote a series of shell scripts, using exiftool (as I see others are suggesting). The output is then put through a number of sed commands and outputs a file that can be deposited into our digital preservation system, Rosetta. Edward On Tue, Dec 17, 2013 at 4:37 PM, Swauger,Shea shea.swau...@colostate.eduwrote: Hi all, I'm wondering if there is a systematic method that can extract metadata embedded in digital photographs and then ingest that metadata into a CMS and relate them to their corresponding images. We currently use DigiTool, if that makes a difference. Thanks! Shea Swauger Data Management Librarian Colorado State Univeristy
Re: [CODE4LIB] Automated Embedded Metadata Extraction in Photographs: Possible or Pipedream?
The extraction and ingestion seem like two different coins. Lots of tools can extract. exiftool, or imagemagick, or whatever can extract the data. Question then is how and where to insert it into the system you are using. So, not a pipedream. Indeed extraction is very possible. The harder part might be figuring out how or where to store the data in your system. Then, assuming it's relevant, how/where your system actually displays or uses the data. Depending on your system, that's where the pipedream question comes into play, I think. Patrick On 12/17/2013 04:45 PM, Kyle Banerjee wrote: Exiftool is what you need. Easy to use and works on any platform. kyle On Tue, Dec 17, 2013 at 1:37 PM, Swauger,Shea shea.swau...@colostate.eduwrote: Hi all, I'm wondering if there is a systematic method that can extract metadata embedded in digital photographs and then ingest that metadata into a CMS and relate them to their corresponding images. We currently use DigiTool, if that makes a difference. Thanks! Shea Swauger Data Management Librarian Colorado State Univeristy
Re: [CODE4LIB] Automated Embedded Metadata Extraction in Photographs: Possible or Pipedream?
I remember hearing somewhere that ExifTool is pretty good for extracting image metadata. edsu--
Re: [CODE4LIB] Academic Library Website Question
Your library stats should tell the tale of how folks are getting there. FWIW our Google Analytics stats indicate search being the primary vehicle: 45.9% Google 12.0% LMS (Moodle) 6.6% university management school subsite 4.3% OPAC 3.9% university main site 3.6% university education school subsite 2.6% university single signon 2.3% discovery layer (Summon) 2.0% Facebook I hadn't looked before (the website's not under my jurisdiction) and it's different to what I had expected... David
Re: [CODE4LIB] Academic Library Website Question
The difficulty lies in the details. I don't understand the distinction between organic findability and direct going to the URIs (presumably URLs, which go somewhere). While going directly to resources would skew your stats, presumably in a good way, I don't see that they would impact your findability. It should be easy to distinguish between traffic from search engines, links from your home page and direct links, which can either be embedded in resources like courseware, papers, and others or just typed in directly or using a URL shortening service. If your system can't make those distinctions, you should move to an analytics system that does. I will dedicate next year to developing organic fundability. Cary On Dec 17, 2013, at 1:09 PM, Lisa Rabey academichu...@gmail.com wrote: On Tue, Dec 17, 2013 at 3:54 PM, Cary Gordon listu...@chillco.com wrote: My key point, and likely the only point of note is: Your library stats should tell the tale of how folks are getting there. While these data won't necessarily lead to great predictions of future behavior, as the institution might unintentionally (or intentionally) blocking some desirable access, they should give some empirical evidence of what is happening now. Cary I don't disagree with you. But stats are not enough. The difficulty lies (lays?) that we have organic findability before the semester starts, then we teach info lit classes for 2-3 solid months where we are direct going to the URIs which then spikes AND skews the data, hence the problem of using stats. Now if you have method to separate organic fundability from our teaching classes so I have a better/bigger picture of how people are finding us, I'm all ears. Lisa M. Rabey | @pnkrcklibrarian An Unreliable Narrator: http://exitpursuedbyabear.net Cunning Tales from a Systems Librarian: http://lisa.rabey.net
