Monday, October 26, 2015

This inspiring and motivating panel of women entrepreneurs share their insights about programming, safe to fail, learn by experimenting/failing, building/creating, and innovating. Their products are leaders in the field of education and collaboration and their personal stories are a true inspiration.

This popular annual favorite features our super searcher who continues to surprise and impress with new strategies, techniques and tips for getting the most out of web research. The host of Searchers Academy (where even more secrets are shared) provides an up-to-the-minute and jam-packed-with-valuable-tools-and-tips talk that's always a hit! Take advantage of her knowledge, put these tips and tools into practice, and share them with others!

Today, a whole host of hidden entities are jockeying for your attention and working overtime to control what you view when searching the open web. Although most of us have come to accept Google's Page Rank and its other page signal analyses as a legitimate way to rank results, today's searchers are being manipulated in new and powerful ways. Among the most influential of these behind-the-scene forces are the sometimes shady practices of SEO optimizers, creators of clickbait headlines, self-promoters who focus only on building followers, and sponsored content masquerading as independent and unbi- ased reports. All impact the results of your search. And Google too has influence in ways you may not realize, as it applies lesser-known but potent algorithms that prioritize local, past search histories, and other personalized factors that influence what you do and do not see. This talk identifies and describes these hidden forces and provides strategies on how to take back control of your open web searching.

The Astrophysics Data System, an online database used daily by astronomers worldwide, is launching a major overhaul of its user interface. In addition to streamlining the search functions, ADS offers a variety of ways to visualize your literature search, explore author and paper networks, and drill down or expand your search visually using its interactive word clouds. Check out this demo.

Based on a white paper commissioned by the National Information Standards Organization, Breeding's talk discusses the current realities and the future trends for library resource discovery. He provides an overview of the current research discovery environment and highlights possibilities for the exploration of technologies and practices that may present growth opportunities to support and improve user experience.

Hear about exciting and cutting edge metadata work to create linked data entities that can be exposed on the web to search engines and can enhance discovery systems. Using real world examples, Tennant shares the current state and future possibilities for this unique service.

You know the incredible usage of Wikipedia: the fifth-most-visited web- site on the entire internet, with more than 500 million visitors each month who collectively view it 8000 times every second. Wikipedia has the viewership libraries crave to bring people to do deeper research. By connecting knowledge institutions and Wikipedia, we can complete a virtuous circle of research and dissemination. This session highlights how libraries can leverage and collaborate with Wikipedia. OCLC is working with the Wikipedia Library to develop a tool based on its WorldCat KnowledgeBase API which will allow institutionally affiliated readers to click directly from Wikipedia article references to full text at their own university's holdings. A successful 2014 pilot included Rutgers, Montana State, George Washington, and the University of California-Riverside. Other tools being developed include Training for Library Interns and Librarians, Wikipedia Guide for Archivists, University Library Portal, and Wikipedia Education program efforts to bring Wikipedia into the classroom through coursework that builds digital literacy while contributing to the encyclopedia. This session explores how effective Wikipedia is for library users, as well as ‘thinking big' opportunities for libraries and the research collaborations with Wikipedia. What if every publisher donated 1000 accounts to the top Wikipedia editors in that subject? What if every library or research institution had an affiliated Wikipedian on staff? What if every reference on Wikipedia had a link to the full-text source next to it? What if libraries made their collections more visible on the world's largest free encyclopedia? That's the goal, with Wikipedia as the starting point for deeper research adventures in the library's resources.

Information Today, Inc. invites all conference registrants and exhibitors to a special Exhibit Hall opening reception. This is a great time to gather with fellow Internet Librarians and suppliers, renew acquaintances, meet new colleagues, sample tasty goodies, and check out the latest products and services in a relaxed atmosphere. 

At the end of 2014, CPL undertook a major transformation of its web presence. The old website based on a custom-built content management system and a web catalogue provided by the ILS vendor was replaced by a third-party platform integrating the website and online catalogue into a single product (BiblioCMS/BiblioCommons). Comparing the old and new models of the library web interfaces, this talk shows how different approaches to the information architecture influence the patrons' online behavior, physical and electronic circulation, and patrons' online engagement. It analyzes, using Google Analytics, circulation reports, feedback from the library patrons, and interviews with the staff members, how design decisions affect the structure and work of the staff members responsible for the maintenance of the website and content creation.

This session looks at how one web services team approached their usability studies on Springshare's LibGuides. Wanting to hear directly from users about what would be most useful for them, the team did a series of surveys and focus groups, resulting in excellent feedback that allowed them to revisit the design of the guides for more meaningful interactions.

Search results have evolved from a portal to a destination unto them- selves. Users are porting expectations from Google, Amazon, and other open web searches to their library experience, including the expectation that they may learn just as much from the search results list as from the resources listed there. Images, snippets and bolded search terms all serve important roles in making search results an important learning opportunity for users. EBSCO's user research team has been conducting ethnographic research on how users interpret search results on both the open web and library resources. They talk about how user expectations are formed on the open web, what users look for to make decisions about library resources, and why we all need to think about our search results as one of the most important user experiences we can craft for our users.

Service design is a holistic, co-creative methodology that puts the user at the center of the service delivery model in order to create user-centered services that deliver as intended. Service design looks at the physical services, all touchpoints (physical and virtual), and the physical environment to assess, create or refine services, and deliver a more holistic user experience. This session explores the service design methodology as a relevant method for service assessment and creation in a library environment and discusses the various tools libraries and librarians can use to implement a service design approach to assessment. It illustrates this service design approach with a case study.

Topeka & Shawnee County Public Library had a problem. Content was created and published in four different places: blog posts on the website, social media, an online e-newsletter, and in a print newsletter mailed to customers. This created alotof duplication, and extra work for staff. It decided to improve this by merging the management of these four areas into one editorial content calendar that works for both online and print-based content. This presentation describes the problem and explains how an editorial content calendar can work to streamline both content creation and publishing, while streamlining staff time as well.

How does the presentation of discovery search on the library homepage impact user behavior and usage? UCF recently moved from having a single search box for our EDS to having tabs for all of EDS, articles only, books, and media. Hear about their web stats, satisfaction surveys and conduct usability studies which measured how their users responded.

Information Today, Inc. invites all conference registrants and exhibitors to a special Exhibit Hall opening reception. This is a great time to gather with fellow Internet Librarians and suppliers, renew acquaintances, meet new colleagues, sample tasty goodies, and check out the latest products and services in a relaxed atmosphere. 

Warning: Bizzle will talk about words many librarians don't like to use-words such as "business," "advertising," "promotion," and "ROI." He discusses how accepting these terms and embracing their function can revolutionize the culture and expand the reach of your library. If you are offended by these words or don't want to make your library better, it is strongly suggested you do not attend this session.

In an online search, the library is often crowded out by big business and big budgets. How does a public institution rise above the noise? How can a library compete for attention in the digital marketplace? Trey Gordner, a librarian turned software CEO, provides insight and advice from his advertising and library consulting background.

Saying "We could all stand to learn a thing or two from Google" is becoming a bit of a cliche these days, but things become cliche for a reason! From the operation of the business to the functionality of the search engine, Google seems to know what it's doing. This session explores ways that libraries can implement Google-like ideas into everything-from internal workflows to classroom presentations, from social media to faculty support, and beyond!

While research resources and campus support units are critical for students at all levels, the number of specialized tools and services can be overwhelming. This session provides a case study of the development of an information fair event to enhance the information learning experience of the students and researchers on two different campuses. Started at Dartmouth College in 2009, Gear Up Day is designed to provide multiple information sessions at multiple locations across campus on using databases for research articles, finding grant funding opportunities, and learning about rights management and publishing options, as well as tools for collaborative writing and research project management. In addition to library-licensed resources, campus units that support research, grants management, writing, and computation are also invited to attend and present at the event. The concept of Gear Up Day was adopted by the Science and Engineering Libraries at Stanford for a multifaceted event in April 2015 that included workshops for journal authors, tours of the scientific visualization facility, and lightning talks on Mendeley, Overleaf, MATLAB, and GIS applications. Get examples from both on the planning for these events, the types of services and information tools included, and how these events were marketed to the campus communities along with future development plans and lessons learned.

Libraries use social media channels to connect with customers, to answer questions, and to just "be there" for their community. Do you know if your social media channel is successful, and you are meeting your library's goals? Most social media channels have analytics or insights that help figure this out. King explores analytics for different social media channels and explains what you should track and why. The second presentation looks at what it takes to create a strong and sustainable social media presence, including successes and bummers. Speakers discuss staff management and participation, community participation, and moving beyond event promotion.

Are you teaching a Sketchup class or a 3D modeling class for 3D printing? In this interactive session, learn how to use certain keywords and phrases to promote your maker programs to makers. For example, we're making a card that lights up with an LED, how would you describe that program? Is it a card making workshop? Is it paper circuit? Or is it an intro to electronics workshop?

Information Today, Inc. invites all conference registrants and exhibitors to a special Exhibit Hall opening reception. This is a great time to gather with fellow Internet Librarians and suppliers, renew acquaintances, meet new colleagues, sample tasty goodies, and check out the latest products and services in a relaxed atmosphere. 

The internet gives us powerful tools to build collections collaboratively, and all of us can benefit. This session addresses the opportunities we have to build collections beyond our organizational budgets, benefit from the subject matter expertise of people outside our fields, crowdsource the work of digitization, explore the semantic relationships between media items, facilitate large-scale data mining and research projects. Our speaker from the Internet Archive, a nonprofit library founded to preserve and make accessible all the works of humankind, discusses how it has built large collections of books, music, movies, images, software, and webpages which are viewed by more than 2 million visitors every day. She talks about the tools the Internet Archive is building that allow anyone to create collections within a library, whether individuals or institutions. Hear how these tools might benefit your organization.

The metadata that is lost when Internet of Things and mobile app data go unindexed is a real problem for search engine companies trying to harness sensor and app-created content. However, this loss is our gain! Affelt discusses deep linking, sensor data, and app indexing initiatives by Google and others and explores opportunities for info pros to morph into roles as curators and taxonomists of hidden and potentially lost data. Fulvio looks at breaking down silos, shifting toward a service-oriented architecture, and building a foundation for digital product innovation. She discusses leveraging taxonomy, ontology, and text analytics to organize 128 years ofNational Geographiccontent.

Bicknell provides an overview of how libraries, archives and muse- ums are engaging users in content creation to supplement digital resources, as well as increasingly relying on public participation in the description and access points for their digitized assets. He touches on other issues that arise from crowdsourced participation, including metadata creation, quality control, online sharing, and preservation and also how these types of projects are scalable to smaller collec- tions or user groups to inspire local communities. The second presen- tation discusses tools and strategies for migration of metadata from digital repositories such as CONTENTdm to open-source repositories such as Hydra or Islandora which have linked data capabilities. It looks at how the structure of the data needs to be prepared in order to take advantage of future semantic and linked data interoperability in these systems. It covers typical issues encountered while exploring metadata migration, including mapping and normalizing data, understanding various metadata schema, identifying and describing relationships among objects, and presents a case study describing how an existing digital collection was mapped for ingestion into an open-source Hydra repository.

Libraries are uniquely positioned to establish the asset curation and management routines necessary to support robust teaching and research collections with online information sources as well as those held by instructors (e.g., slides, artifacts, observational recordings, oral histories) that are not always easily transitioned online. This case study discusses the assessment of faculty needs regarding the digital curation of teaching and research assets, explores issues relating to the diversity of faculty content, preferences for use, interest in search- able repositories, copyright and fair use, workflows, and Digital Asset Management System (DAMS) design associated with the production, management and access of teaching and research asset collections. It also looks at the broader implications regarding digital preservation and archival acquisition. Renfro, the author of the popular website Personal Knowledge Management for Academia & Librarians, presents techniques and applications offering new avenues of scholarship and community building for research faculty, and outlines ways in which liaison librarians can capitalize on the emerging outreach opportunities offered by the content curation movement.

Setting clear goals and expectations is important for info pros and vendors so that they can have productive meetings and develop mutually beneficial relationships. Get strategies, tips, and techniques from a longtime sales executive, supporter of libraries, and recent author as well as two practitioners. Filled with real-life situations and real solutions, practical tips and discussions about contract negotiations, new technology, features, or interfaces, this experienced and lively panel provides insights for achieving contract and relationship goals positively.

This session looks at two new formats for displaying content. Upon seeing Snow Fall, a Pulitzer Prize-winning, digital storytelling project, and other similar projects, our first speakers started to make the connection between this form of storytelling and special collections, which are full of interesting, rich, and unique stories. They developed a Snow Fall-like application for the exhibit Cradle of Coaches: A Legacy of Excellence and several others. Hear more about this new and exciting medium to tell the stories within special collections and from the technical details of the application to future possibilities. Research indicates that in the text-only format of traditional journals, 70-90% of scientific journals results are not reproducible. In contrast, Pipitone illustrates how video-based journals allow for systematic, step-by-step visualized demonstrations of research experiments and how video articles produce a more efficient transfer of knowledge between laboratories and therefore offer a viable solution to the issue of reproducibility. He shares the results of case studies among academic laboratories using the peer-reviewed video journal,JoVEwhich show savings of $40K in a bioengineering lab, elimination of 6 months of experimentation by learning a new complex stem cell injection technique from the video journal, and a shortened time to learn a surgical technique from 1 year to 2 weeks. Together, these studies indicate that video publication significantly enhances the reproducibility and productivity of scientific research.

Information Today, Inc. invites all conference registrants and exhibitors to a special Exhibit Hall opening reception. This is a great time to gather with fellow Internet Librarians and suppliers, renew acquaintances, meet new colleagues, sample tasty goodies, and check out the latest products and services in a relaxed atmosphere. 

How can school libraries introduce maker-centered education to support student learning? In a hands-on session, Moreau Catholic High School librarian Jessica Simons showcases how the Library and Learning Commons team researched, strategized, purchased and deployed equipment, and promoted the integration of the Maker Lab into the school's curriculum. The session also covers challenges faced during the implementation, lessons learned in Year 1 and plans for the future. This project has been another chapter in the evolution of the school library from a traditional space to a multidimensional support center for curriculum and student engagement.

Sketchnoting is a great way to take notes, share information, and deliver instruction. Also known as visual note-taking, it is also an activity that K-12 students can fall into effortlessly. Unlike adults, they have fewer fears about trying to draw and then sharing their creations. Humans are born with a desire to create, and too often this side of students' development is given short shrift in today's intense testing environment. After a brief introduction explaining sketchnoting, Mary Ann Bell shares successful projects and ideas for using it with PK-12 students. She also shares recent work done by kids that demonstrates ways to use sketchnoting in school for teachers and librarians. Come and gain an understanding of what sketchnoting entails, along with some good ideas for using it with your students.

Presenters Ahrens and Duffin motivated their teachers to use technology through gamification. Their badge reward system, focused on technology integration and skill expansion, created an environment of self-motivation, excitement, and friendly competition, encouraging teachers to build their technology skills and incorporate the use of technology in their instruction through gamification. Hear how they created interest and buy-in schoolwide by including both faculty and staff in their program and carefully designing the criteria for earning badges to be inclusive of all community members.

According to the U.S. Department of Education, only 16% of American high school seniors are interested in a STEM career. Get crazy about STEM, as our speaker takes you on a journey of some of the best science, technology, engineering, and mathematics resources for PK to 12. The journey includes activities, programs, events, lesson plans, teacher guides, classroom activities, video clips, games, and posters. Create a podcast with NASA tools or take self-directed courses in astrobiology, microgravity, or outer space environment. Learn where you can find full-text, government-funded, technical reports about radars, lasers, nuclear energy, and Area 51. At the end of this presentation, you will be able to handle your next STEM challenge!

Information Today, Inc. invites all conference registrants and exhibitors to a special Exhibit Hall opening reception. This is a great time to gather with fellow Internet Librarians and suppliers, renew acquaintances, meet new colleagues, sample tasty goodies, and check out the latest products and services in a relaxed atmosphere.