COUNTER - Counting Online Usage of Networked Electronic Resources

" 'The use of online information resources is growing exponentially. It is widely agreed by producers and purchasers of information that the use of these resources should be measured in a more consistent way. Librarians want to understand better how the information they buy from a variety of sources is being used; publishers want to know how the information products they disseminate are being accessed. An essential requirement to meet these objectives is an agreed international Code of Practice governing the recording and exchange of online usage data. No such Code of Practice yet exists' (from SEPW)

This is a very important theme as libraries move more and more into the electronic and digital realm. In order for some libraries to justify their existence, they sometimes need to provide a count of usage of library materials. To this day there is no uniform code for obtaining this number. There should be, so that when administrator ask, 'what methods did you use to obtain these figures?', librarians can point to specific and 'official' rules. Am I also correct in thinking that this system can be used as bargaining power with vendors?" [Library Stuff]

It's so true that libraries need new metrics to fully illustrate the breadth of services they now provide. Check out this slide (Powerpoint) from Navjit Brar's presentation about Mobile Computing at the Kennedy Library (Powerpoint) as evidence.

While I'm not totally sure how to pull it off (especially in regards to privacy concerns), I think there should be a way to use GIS to plot various statistics (database searches, web site hits, circulation, in-library foot traffic, interlibrary loan requests, online catalog searches, reference questions, programming counts, etc.) for a given library. A color, multi-layered map of actual points that represent constituents using specific library services would go a long with legislators.

"New library weblog: Wilton Library Weblog in Wilton, CT, USA" [Library News Daily]

Welcome aboard, Wilton! I immediately found a great link to an interview with Norton Juster, author of The Phantom Tollbooth. I remember loving this book when I was a kid, so much so that I made sure to add The Phantom Tollbooth Interactive Story to one of our circulating Rocketbooks to show what interactive fiction could look like on an ebook reader. Hmmm... I wonder if that's a copyright violation. Whoops.

From the interview:

"Dave: I was excited to hear that the Everpresent Wordsnatcher is one of your favorite characters. Last night I was describing him to friends, how he tells Milo, "I don't live here. I'm from a place very far away called Context….It's such an unpleasant place that I spend almost all my time out of it."

I love that. It's so clever. Like so much else in the book, it shows entirely mundane ideas in such a fresh light. And of course the wordplay, which is relentless from beginning to end.

Juster: It's the literary equivalent of drawing outside of the lines, thinking outside of the box: follow an idea wherever it goes, play with it. I really do think that's important. We tend to be so directive of the way children think."

Rejoice - it's here! Steven Cohen's article about RSS For Non-Techie Librarians is now available on LLRX. It should actually be called "News Aggregators for Non-Techie Librarians" because it illustrates how using an aggregator (Newzcrawler specifically, but the concept in general) can make librarians more efficient. (And really, the benefits would apply to anyone that is active on the web, so don't think this is just for librarians.)

"In order to keep current, like many librarians I had all of the web sites that I visited daily bookmarked (about 50) in my browser at work and I would painstakingly visit each site throughout the day. Of course there were days that visiting each site was not possible (on very busy days I was lucky to get to one). And if three days went by without reading these favorites, I would get too bogged down trying to catch up. This was all before I was introduced to the wonderful world of RSS (Rich Site Summary) feeds. Now, I get almost all of the content I want from all of these sites delivered to one place as soon as the site is updated, saving precious time. The most amazing part is that I am notified when any of the sites I subscribe to are updated within minutes. And I didn't have to be an experienced techie to set-it-up."

I've been waiting for this article to arrive so that I can start using it as a handout. If you're not using a news aggregator, Steven will show you why you should be. It will also help you understand why I think some form of RSS news aggregation will play a major part of our information lives in the future.

Great job, Steven!

Next Generation Library Users (PDF)

"Stephen Abram, VP Corporate Development, Micromedia ProQuest - slides from his e-Libraries 2002 talk." [Library News Daily]

A very interesting presentation that is quite similar to my Information Shifting one, and we make a lot of the same points. (Note to self: get the update online!)

I concentrate on the impact the Net Generation will have, while Stephen takes into account all age groups. My favorite point he makes is that librarians have to "move from physical access to intellectual access." It's a complementary view of "information shifting."

Public Access to the Public Domain

"Brewster Kahle, the man behind The Internet Archive and Alexa, wants to digitize all the out-of-copyright (and thus Public Domain) books and put them on the Web. Read more for his email describing his plans and co-conspirators for the project....

If we want to help people put a pile of books online here is a strategy:

1. take a large catalog of books in libraries,
2. tag each entry with its US copyright status,
3. prioritize those that are out of copyright,
4. try to inspire the world to digitize the out-of-copyright books,
5. format the books for online distribution,
6. organize the resulting digitized books,
7. cause enlightenment in all corners of the globe.

Status:

1. Get catalog:  Research Library Group (rlg.org) is up for it and will have their catalog ready in July.    Maybe OCLC would be up for it too....
    
2. Format:  archival and access formats are a problem.  there is no "MP3" of online books yet. Of course keep the high rez scans (IA will provide free storage for any needers) and then have some meetings where we try to get the list of supported access standards down to a manageable number.  I suggest a gritty meeting in August in San Francisco that, again, the IA can sponsor." [via Aaron Swartz]

A very interesting idea that is certainly doable. I wanted to make sure that Ernest and James see this so that we can move forward with out own idea and maybe even work with Brewster on this.

Poll Results: Which PDA Feature Is Most Important to You? (Take 2)

25.77% - Scheduling
14.87% - Contacts
13.38% - Documents and eBooks
13.88% - Internet Access
8.46% - Audio Playback
7.31% - ToDo/Memos
5.00% - Other
4.91% - Email
3.59% - Games
1.71% - LAN Access
1.62% - Video Playback

Total Votes: 2340 [PDABuzz.com]

Check out #3 (which should really be #4 if the numbers are correct) - documents and ebooks. I would have liked to have seen those activities broken out into individual categories because I use my PDA for taking notes in meetings and carrying work-related documents, but not ebooks. They're not the same thing.

In an interesting twist, Internet access was actually the second most popular application in the PDA Buzz September 2000 poll, and ebooks don't even show up on it.

Back to the latest poll, Internet access is far more popular than email or games and it's only 1% off from maintaining that number two ranking, which should make libraries stand up and take notice. Someday soon it may be number one on the list because it will give you access to the entire world (plus your world) in the palm of your hand.