Science Librarians in Liberal Arts Colleges

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Science Librarians in Liberal Arts Colleges

• At a crossroads or in the crosshairs?
  Opportunities and challenges in the 21st century.
• Alison Ricker
• Oberlin College Library

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Two roads diverged in a yellow wood -Robert
Frost
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Or hundreds of on-ramps and crowded byways, each
serving different populations, with multiple
destinations and never-ending sources of
distraction and frustration?
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How many ideas have there been in history that
were unthinkable ten years before they appeared?

• -Fyodor Dostoyevsky

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CI course in Fall 1994

• CA Online via STN Express (1033 for software and
  online searching)
• Databases on stand-alone CD-ROM workstations
  (GSI, SCI)
• Usenet
• Anonymous FTP
• Chemistry Gopher sites
• Archie, Veronica, Jughead, Finger, WAIS
• Hypermedia, WWW via Mosaic

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http//www.memphis.edu/acs/idocs/internet-tools.ht
ml
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What is on the horizon? And right under our noses?

• IM vs. ChatRef (or IM as ChatRef)
• Wikis
• RSS feed
• Blogging
• Googlization
• Podcasting
• Information services for cell phones, iPods and
  PDAs

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http//www.resourceshelf.com/
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Some of the Trends

• Internet users are becoming less apt to accept as
  accurate information found on the Web.
• Television watching continues to decline as
  Internet use increases.
• Expectations change as user move from passive TV
  watching to the interactivity of the Web.
• Broadband access has transformed everything -
  again.

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Podcasting

• Uses RSS to make audio files available online
• Listeners subscribe to have the files
  automatically downloaded
• Audio files can then be played on portable MP3
  players and computers
• RSS (Really Simple Syndication) technology is a
  standard for publishing regular updates to
  web-based content
• From Columbus Dispatch Game On! podcasting
  help, http//www.dispatch.com/

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Trends in Radio Podcasting

• Longer commute times and desire for time
  shifting
• Personalization of what we listen to, and when -
  Radio Your Way
• Hearing diverse voices despite consolidation of
  commercial radio station
• Digital sound mixed with digital datacasting
• Broadcasting 2 streams of audio simultaneously
  from the same station

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Promote the Library with RSS

• RSS automates the distribution or syndicates
  web site content to a receptive and targeted
  audience.
• Advantages recipients have to sign up to get
  RSS, and are more likely to be interested in the
  librarys communications.

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Librarians on RSS

• RSS and Webfeeds A Field Guide for Librarians. A
  PowerPoint presentation by Teri Vogel, Science
  Librarian, UC San Diego (5/17/2005).
• RSS4Lib Innovative Ways Libraries use RSS by Ken
  Varnum.

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Directory of Libraries offering RSS feeds -
maintained by Gerry McKiernan
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http//www.bloglines.com/
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What do NetGens want?

• They expect information to come to them, whether
  it's via the Web, email, cell phone, online chat,
  whatever.
• Librarians have to start meeting these kids'
  information needs in their world, not yours. The
  library has to become more portable or
  shifted.
• - Jennifer Levine

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Survey of library use of Blogs to teach library
users
www.surveymonkey.com/s.asp?u902981115936
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Cell Phones - the next Big Medium

• My favorite thing on my cell phone is the Web
  browser icon.
• You want to personalize everything you own.
• - Univ. Washington undergraduates
• Content providers are jockeying to be in a
  position to deliver content to cell phones.
• 3 billion cell phones expected to be in use by
  end of the decade.
• Will the library by a content provider?

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Adapting for Cell Phones

• "If you go to a site that is not specially
  designed and rendered for a mobile phone, you are
  not going to see it."
• "The browsers on regular phones cannot handle
  full HTML Web sites, so you are limited as to the
  Web sites you can go to.
• -- Sam Hall, Cingular Wireless's vice president
  for mobile browsing. New York Times, Technology
  section, June 23, 2005

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Personalization of Google

• Users will continue to
• demand more control
• while the search engine will become more personal
  and sophisticated but remain simple to use.
• - Cathy Gordon, Director of Business Development
  for Google
• SLA Annual Conference 2005

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Demographics With Google

• Geeks, tinkerers and innovators are crashing the
  Google party, having discovered how to tinker
  with the search engine's mapping service to
  graphically illustrate vital information that
  might otherwise be ignored, overlooked or not
  perceived as clearly.
• Forbes.com June 8, 2005

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Plumbing the Depths of Google

• "It's such a beautiful way to look at what could
  be a dense amount of information."
• - Tara Calishain, editor of Research Buzz and
  co-author of Google Hacks

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Google Print for Libraries

• AAP joins AAUP in protesting Google Print for
  Libraries
• Library Journal Academic Newswire (TM), June 21,
  2005

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Are students using print?

• Indications from a college library student
  survey
• Students feel far more stumped finding and using
  print resources than anything else.
• They need more instruction on things that seem
  basic or even self-explanatory.

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Common Problems

• Finding books on the shelf and going from a
  database reference to a print journal.
• Relating the horizontal line of letters and
  numbers in the catalog to the vertical
  arrangement on call number labels.
• Translating the numbers and words in a database
  citation to a particular issue of a journal on
  the shelf.

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Loss of physicality

• Preference for online information is partly
  because they're foggy on how to locate anything
  else.
• Barbara Fister, Gustavus Adolphus College
• Posted on COLLIB-L, June 10, 2005

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Browsing the Stacks

• "The chance of seeing what the next volume is, or
  running your eyes idly over the spines, opening
  the pages and falling upon something it is
  memorable, pleasurable, instructive and
  frequently decisive in the way you work.
• - Neil Harris, history professor,
• University of Chicago,
• in an interview with the Chicago Tribune

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Joy of Stacks

• The challenge that libraries face, for at least
  the next generation, is to build collections on
  both fronts--digital and physical--because no
  collection that is only one or the other will be
  adequate.
• John Unsworth, University of Illinois at
  Urbana-Champaign. Chicago Tribune, as reported
  in
• Library Journal Academic Newswire June 7, 2005

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Open Access Bibliography Liberating
Scholarly Literature with E-Prints and Open
Access Journals. Charles W. Bailey, Jr.
ARL, 2005 ISBN 1-59407-670-7 129 pp. 45
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The Ubiquitous Web Personalization, Portability,
and On-line Collaboration
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In between --the place you thought youd be,and
where you are wandering aimlessly.Is there
somethin Im supposed to be doing?

• In the Meantime - The Ditty Bops
• as heard on Prairie Home Companion June 18, 2005

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The Futureisnt what it used to be

• -Yogi Berra