De Fino, M. & Lo, M. L. (2011). New roads for patron-driven ebooks: Collection development and technical services implications of a patron-driven acquisitions pilot at rutgers. Journal of Electronic Resources Librarianship, 23(4), 327-338.

Rutgers University recently implemented a demand driven acquisitions program for electronic resources, this article describes changes to their workflow and concerns surrounding the future of collections development at their institution. Rutgers, moving from a librarian managed collection to a largely automated collection, had a strong barrier to entry and required large-scale reorganization. One of the major moves for Rutgers was a change from individual to batch catalog processing, their local bibliographic standards were not always upheld and they resolved to individually edit problematic records post-upload to maintain the catalog.

Gather around friends and I shall tell you an old librarian tale: Long ago when movies meant VHS, a judge’s video rental records leaked to the press during his Supreme Court nomination. Chaos ruled the land until the formation of the Video Privacy Protection act which binds all rental agencies, be they private or public, to protect the privacy of their users. Libraries rejoiced at the reinforcement of their long-held professional duty, all the Blockbusters in the kingdom fell in line and they all lived happily ever after...

Then Facebook happened.

There’s been a sea change over the meaning of the Video Privacy Protection act in the context of social network sharing and streaming video. Two years ago, both Facebook and Netflix ran afoul of the law in regards to targeted advertising and recommendation algorithm tweaking respectively. The Video Privacy Protection act currently requires users to provide written consent for each title and instance of sharing. The proposed update to the law, which has just passed in the House, would allow users to consent once to sharing and allow web consent.

Projeqt is a non-linear presentation and storytelling website. Like Prezi, it aims to address the post-powerpoint world with greater freedom, style, and portability. Projeqt draws more heavily from the slide model, but allows users to create tangents and alternate paths in their presentations.

Pros:
Projeqt allows users to create professional-looking, branded, shareable, and embeddful presentations without much fuss. It’s easy to get signed up and immersed in the project and the networking opportunities are robust. I can see this being useful for portfolios and conference presentations because it’s extremely easy to connect to social networks and external sites.

Cons:
Though it’s quite a bit prettier, Projeqt is a bit like a locked down Powerpoint 2.0. The best thing about Powerpoint is that it allows an unprecedented level of freedom among Office products. Projeqt is in a bigger pond, but it doesn’t evoke the same feelings of control. In fact, there are very few layout options. While it’s true that the finished product looks a lot better than my liberated Powerpoint efforts, it’s a bit stuffy for my tastes.

McKiel, A.M. (2011) Ebrary Download Survey.

Ebrary, the primary provider and host of e-books for our library, recently published the results of a 2011 survey of the current e-content practices and interactions in academic libraries. This was clearly a vendor-funded paper, though the author is a librarian. In response to a survey comment about the feasibility of electronic interlibrary loan, McKeil stated “interlibrary loan does not make sense in the context of the Internet. Demanding it inhibits the evolution of a model that utilizes the functionality of the Internet” (8). Despite its flaws, the survey presents an interesting picture of an industry firmly rooted in past models, but deeply considering the implications of change.

Thanks for your help and feedback on the iPad wall housings, a sample of the favorite is on its way. With all the wheel-turning that's been going on recently in collaboration support land, we've found we need a better way to talk about the project. The wall-mounted iPad room booking system just doesn't roll off the tongue.

Let's put that famous EdLab brain power to work and generate a snazzy moniker for this futuristic project. I'm going to give Urtak a try in the polling! I added my 7 favorite brainstormed names, but it's rolling polling so you can add yours to the mix as well!

iPad Name Poll

Thanks in advance for your help!

Yes. No. Don’t Care. Urtak brings simplicity to online surveys. The idea is that with only three possible responses, surveys will be hard not to finish. Urtak also relies on crowd power to evolve and improve surveys. Survey takers can add their own questions and answer questions asked by their peers. The result is a simple, growing way to survey and engage readership.

Pros:
Urtak is dead simple and very intuitive. As soon as users answer a question, the responses appear in the form of a pie chart. There is instant gratification built in to the process. As soon as you choose one of three options, color coded results appear in their place. 4% of survey takers like the smell of dirty socks? Extremely addictive. I suggest a try of the General Interest survey. As the first Urtak endeavor, it’s snowballed into a massive 17,000+ survey that’s endearingly erratic. The survey curates itself. The more survey takers that “don’t care” about a question, the fewer times it will be asked to others.

Frumkin, J. & Reese, T. (2011). Provision Recognition: Increasing Awareness of the Library’s Value in Delivering Electronic Information Resources. Journal of Library Administration, 51(1), 810–819.

This article describes strategies for bringing library tools and resources to the forefront while “discovery happens elsewhere.” Most of the approaches outlined are nothing new: branding through database providers and on external websites, public and detailed usage reports and department-level electronic journal access lists. The two universities that mounted the study, The University of Arizona and Oregon State University, engaged library users in perception of value studies to gauge recognition of library-provided resources and the effectiveness of library statistics and branding through external websites.

The interesting part of this study is the intensive outreach done with non-library administration. Library representatives approached departmental heads and deans with both usage statistics and targeted resource lists and gauged their effectiveness with surveys and interviews. Outside of any actual statistics-reading that may or may not have occurred in non-library departments, this seems like a proactive intra-institutional marketing campaign. The external website branding functions similarly.

This is something I probably should have known as a librarian, but apparently the ALA announces its primary children’s and YA book awards in a ceremony that makes allowances for increasing format diversity. The ALA Youth Media Awards celebrate, not only the winners of the Printz and Newbery book awards, but also award winners in illustration, audio, and video.

The ALA book awards have long recognized the importance of visual imagery for emerging readers, offering the prestigious Caldecott Medal for excellence in illustration. I was unaware of the Odyssey Award and Andrew Carnegie Medal, offered respectively for audio and video productions aimed at children and teens. I’m excited that the ALA, in line with many de facto library collections, is acknowledging format blurring for digital native consumers of media. Perhaps I'm just growing out of the adolescence of my librarianship, but this has been one of several recent and pleasant epiphanies about the ALA. I hope that they’ll continue to augment their award offerings to encourage excellence in production and storytelling aimed at young people.

The Lyndon Baines Johnson Museum & Library will be “live” blogging the life of LBJ over a 13-week period (he’s currently 15). They’ve created a media-heavy Tumblr filled with archival pictures and documents that will chart his ascent from small-town Texan to U.S. President. The site is similar in looks to Archival Revival, but the chronological blogging has a lot of instructional potential.

Freading is a fusion of demand driven acquisitions and pay per view models that, until recently, have only been used for electronic journal access. Considering the recent friction over more traditional e-book lending models like Overdrive, this type of lending might start to gain traction with publishers. Freading was started by the company behind Freegal, a niche music lending program that operated on a similar pay for use model.

Pros:
The interface is clean and functional, though not anything revolutionary. The books are arranged across the page in shelf-style with little numbers in the upper left-hand corners. It’s a bit unclear if these numbers refer to number of downloads, or “grades” on Freading’s pay scale. The pay scale grades are currently based on best-seller status and number of weeks from publication and range from $2 to $0.50 per check out. Charges for libraries are invoiced monthly and require a monetary pledge but no hosting fee.