28 results in Libraries Without Walls 7
18 - Breaking through the walls: current developments in library service delivery: observations from a Sri Lankan perspective
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- By Kamani Perera, Regional Centre for Strategic Studies, Colombo, Sri Lanka
- Edited by Peter Brophy, Jenny Craven, Margaret Markland
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- 15 May 2008, pp 181-184
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Summary
Introduction
Libraries, which have been repositories of knowledge for hundreds of years, now need to make major changes in their operations and the means by which they make information and knowledge available. The world is moving rapidly towards the model of the digital library, which provides wide opportunities not only for efficient retrieval and access to knowledge, but also creates avenues for taking libraries far beyond the buildings and structures in which they are housed. Digitization makes it possible to read material that may physically be housed thousand of miles away.
The internet has added a new dimension to information technology and knowledge-sharing platforms, giving rise to rich concepts such as e-learning, knowledge management and archiving of indigenous culture and heritage. Digital libraries can help the move towards realizing the enormously powerful vision of ‘anytime’ access to the best and the latest of human thought and culture, overcoming all geographical barriers, so that potentially no classroom or individual needs to be isolated from knowledge resources.
Information provision is not the only important role for the library in the transmission of information through the value chain from author to end-user. The individual library also needs to consider tasks in relation to e-publishing and elearning as being as important as the more traditional role of information provision. The task of information provision remains central but should probably be organized in a new way, changing the role of the individual library.
Technological progress has changed how libraries do their work, not why. But the most profound technological development, the connection of computer to computer in an unbroken chain around the world, may alter the fundamental concept of the library in the 21st century. Librarians may discover that ‘Libraries without Walls’ are actually only libraries with new walls, technologically bounded, legally and administratively restricted.
With the advancement of ICT, most of the libraries in Sri Lanka, such as the National Archives and those of government organizations and non-governmental organizations (NGOs), have focused their attention on digitization. Digitization provides a convenient mode of storage, quick retrieval of information and preservation.
7 - Libraries as a social space: enhancing the experience of distance learners using social software
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- By Jane Secker, London School of Economics, UK, Gwyneth Price, University of London, UK
- Edited by Peter Brophy, Jenny Craven, Margaret Markland
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Summary
Introduction
LASSIE (Libraries and Social Software in Education) is funded by the Centre for Distance Education, University of London, UK, and runs from March to December 2007. Led by the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) and the Institute of Education, its project partners also include the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, the University of London Research Library Services and the Open University Library. Colleagues at LSE represent the Library, the Centre for Learning Technology and LSE Archives.
LASSIE is exploring how ‘social software’ (or ‘Web 2.0’, see below) might enhance the use of library services by distance learners. The project addresses two concerns. First, University of London External Programme students do not make full use of electronic library resources; the reasons for this are varied, including a low awareness of how to access library resources and information literacy issues. Second, LASSIE provides an opportunity to explore how social software is affecting libraries and their services. The project will gather empirical evidence about which technologies enhance the experience of students, specifically distance learners, and those which are less valuable. The project also provides advice for the wider library community.
Another important element in the project is to examine the role of libraries as a social space. LASSIE recognizes that physical libraries have changed considerably over the last ten years, to reflect changes in the nature of education. The importance of collaboration, group work and communication in teaching and learning are widely recognized and libraries are being built as key learning spaces to reflect this shift. LASSIE is therefore interested in how virtual libraries might become more social. This paper is largely based on the literature review completed in July 2007.
Project overview
The research for LASSIE to date has primarily been gathered through a review of the literature, focusing on three key areas:
Libraries and social software: definitions and key developments.
What are the current issues in supporting distance learners and how might social software address these?
How are libraries developing as a physical and virtual social space?
1 - Introduction
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- By Peter Brophy, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK
- Edited by Peter Brophy, Jenny Craven, Margaret Markland
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Summary
The seventh Libraries Without Walls conference, held as is the custom at Molivos on the Aegean island of Lesvos, demonstrated that ‘anytime, anywhere’ delivery of library services has become the norm. Only 12 years after the first Libraries Without Walls conference in 1995, when remote delivery of services was a niche interest in the profession, it is the library within its walls which is in danger of becoming the minority concern. Of course that library remains of vital importance, both for the preservation of information resources of all types and as the base from which to deliver an ever-wider range of services, but its centrality is under challenge. Speakers and delegates from many countries and from both the academic and the public library sectors came together to discuss recent developments and to try to map out future directions.
Our keynote speaker, Professor Christine L. Borgman of the University of California at Los Angeles, drew attention to the increasing need for libraries to consider their role in facilitating and supporting the use of research data, enabling scholars from disciplines as disparate as history and nuclear engineering to handle the ‘data deluge’ that increasingly characterizes leading-edge research. However, as yet only a few fields recognize the publication of data as a scholarly contribution in the same way as that of papers, books, etc. The immaturity of data curation is illustrated by a lack of coherence between the essential components of the infrastructure needed for long-term sustainability. In this developing scenario the roles of libraries, and indeed of other actors, are unclear. Many scholars would prefer to trust their precious data collections to colleagues with the necessary disciplinary knowledge rather than to generalist librarians. Librarians therefore need to promote the relevance of their existing expertise, while at the same time recognizing that they too are faced with a new set of challenges – they will need to change and adapt if they are to become significant players in the data curation field.
Bo Öhrström, of Denmark's Electronic Research Library (DEFF), has presented at previous Libraries Without Walls conferences and used this opportunity to demonstrate how national infrastructures for research information are evolving. Central to these changes has been the espousal of open access, with important international collaboration being realized in Europe through the Knowledge Exchange partnership.
20 - Information Central: a service success case study
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- By Susan Robbins, University of Western Sydney, Australia
- Edited by Peter Brophy, Jenny Craven, Margaret Markland
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Summary
Background
The University of Western Sydney (UWS) is the ninth-largest university in Australia, with over 35,000 students, including some 5000 international students. Its six campuses, served by seven libraries, are responsible for students over an area of 9000 km2, a footprint roughly the size of the Netherlands. A large proportion of UWS students study through off-campus and offshore multimodal delivery. ‘Two thirds of our domestic students live in the region, which has a population of 1.8 million and the third largest economy in Australia’ (Pavincich, 2007, 1).
The UWS library is committed to ensuring that it provides an equitable approach to all services across all campuses, and all modes of study. The challenge of providing high-quality client services to such geographically dispersed and disparate groups of academics and students has been in part met through a service we call Information Central, which is a single receipt and response point for all incoming queries (telephone, online and e-mail). Information Central is staffed by a small team throughout the library's extensive opening hours, including evenings and weekends.
Previous remote client services
Prior to 2006, the library ran an e-mail enquiry service (Contact Us) and virtual reference service (Online Librarian), operating as adjuncts to an individual library's desk and phone services. Contact Us, although popular, suffered from a lack of consistency of responses and the 24-hour turnaround key performance indicator (KPI) was not always met, particularly on weekends and evenings. While the more traditional universities were cancelling their virtual chat subscriptions due to poor use, ours was flourishing, although once again consistency of responses was an issue, and the service operated for very limited hours. All queries to the service desks were received and responded to at a campus level. A complex faceto- face reference query could be interrupted at any time by a phone enquiry involving a loans dispute, resulting in interruption of service for all parties concerned. An integrated approach to service delivery was clearly required. Kortz, Morris and Greene (2006) assert that from a client perspective it is good practice to have a number of access options available, such as face-to-face, live chat, e-mail and phone, and integrate them in a meaningful way so that the client can choose the method most comfortable and useful to them.
9 - Re-usable learning objects for information literacy: are they practical?
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- By Nancy Graham, The University of Birmingham, UK
- Edited by Peter Brophy, Jenny Craven, Margaret Markland
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Summary
Introduction
This paper will explore the emerging themes from the Eduserv-funded Birmingham Re-Usable Materials (BRUM) project. Particular elements of the project stand out as needing further exploration, including the technology used in the project and design attributes of the re-usable learning objects (RLOs), liaison with academics and students and issues for the future, including use of Web 2.0 to deliver information skills training. The paper will look at how practical it is to create electronic RLOs for information skills training and the key issues to consider.
Background
The BRUM project ran from June 2006 to February 2007 at the University of Birmingham (UK). The project aimed to create electronic RLOs to support students in developing information skills. The project team (consisting of two librarians) worked with a group of four academics to deliver the learning objects within curricula and to gather qualitative feedback from students using questionnaires and a focus group. The findings of the project were published in a project report available from www.is2.bham.ac.uk/blasst/brum.htm.
Fifteen new RLOs were created and hosted on a web page. The RLOs were used in lectures and an institutional virtual learning environment (VLE) (WebCT) and different software was used to create such RLOs as a quiz on referencing and an online demonstration on literature searching. In the focus group students were asked to evaluate the RLOs and to discuss information skills training in general.
Technology and attributes of RLOs
There is a plethora of software to create RLOs and the project team took this as an opportunity to try out different software and evaluate the results. Different software was used to create RLOs on the same topics to appeal to different learning styles. The project team were also aware that the RLOs should reflect the need to support independent learning and so created learning objects that had specific attributes designed to do this.
Use of new and different software
The project team utilized everyday software, including Microsoft PowerPoint, and bought in new software for the creation of some RLOs, including Macromedia Captivate, Camtasia and Turning Technologies’ Turning Point.
4 - An African experience in providing a digital library service: the African Virtual University (AVU) example
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- By Pauline Ngimwa, African Virtual University, Kenya
- Edited by Peter Brophy, Jenny Craven, Margaret Markland
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Summary
Introduction
This paper discusses the African Virtual University (AVU)'s experience in delivering digital learning resources to students and academics in its partner institutions across sub-Saharan Africa. Although digital resources are perceived as perfect supplementary resources to the deprived traditional libraries, the AVU has had first-hand experience in the successes and challenges of exploiting these resources in an African context. The fundamental lesson learnt is that the relatively poor technology status in Africa, including limited bandwidth and inadequate ICT infrastructure critical to successful exploitation of these digital resources, tend to reduce their benefits for African higher education. This is supported by a number of studies that have been carried out in the recent past by the AVU. The studies further show the negative impact that these low bandwidth levels have had on the overall access, utilization and usefulness of the educational digital resources to the learners and academics in African universities. In addition, this has directly impacted on the level of basic information literacy in a modern electronic environment that most of the African students encounter for the first time when they join tertiary education.
The paper presents examples of the nature of the digital resources that are used by the AVU, ranging from library resources to open educational resources (OERs). The AVU, recognizing the negative impact this technological situation has had on education, has in the past three years invested in exploring alternative creative solutions. Some of these initiatives have successfully evolved to become continent-wide projects, as will be discussed later in this paper. This includes a project to expand bandwidth through VSAT (very small aperture terminal) technology deployment in the AVU's partner institutions at an affordable cost by aggregating bandwidth demand. Other examples include the use of hard disks and local servers to store and make available digital content that would otherwise require huge bandwidth if they were to be made available online, thus making it possible to easily access targeted sets of resources in ways that are both pedagogically effective and cost-effective.
The African Virtual University is a pan-African educational network established in 1997 as a World Bank project to serve the countries of sub-Saharan Africa.
6 - Publishing, policy and people: overcoming challenges facing institutional repository development
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- By Margaret Markland, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK, Jayne Burgess, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK, Sarah Taylor, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK, Helen Standish, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK
- Edited by Peter Brophy, Jenny Craven, Margaret Markland
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Summary
Much has been written in recent years about the development of open access institutional repositories, and how an institution such as a university can stock them with its research outputs, particularly refereed articles published in scholarly journals, thereby making the findings of its researchers freely available to the wider community. It is an idea which has attracted generous project funding in the UK and elsewhere, and which has triggered debate between supporters and sceptics alike. Since the first Budapest Open Access Initiative in 2002 (www.soros. org/openaccess/read.shtml), the number of universities with institutional repositories in the UK and indeed worldwide has certainly grown, yet the number plentifully stocked with the ‘full text of these articles’ as envisaged by the Initiative continues to be quite small.
A key finding of an important enquiry by Swan and Brown (2005) into the attitudes of authors towards institutional repositories is also often reported. It is that 81% of authors would willingly comply with a requirement by their employer or research funder to deposit copies of their articles in an open archive (Swan and Brown, 2005, 63). And yet the number actually doing so remains far fewer. This paper brings together data from an evaluation of the SHERPA project (www.sherpa.ac.uk/), funded by the UK Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) and carried out by the Centre for Research in Library and Information Management (CERLIM) during 2005, and insights (illustrated by quotations) from the more recent experiences of a team of library staff at Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU) as they continue to create, manage and develop their institution's repository, e-space at MMU (www.e-space.mmu.ac.uk/e-space/).
The SHERPA project aimed to investigate a new model of scholarly communication by creating institutional repositories in 13 UK research-led university libraries. These repositories were to be managed by library staff, populated with freely available full-text copies of articles published in scholarly journals and written by researchers at these universities. The project therefore was concerned to see how this new model of depositing copies of publications in a repository would sit alongside traditional journal publishing. Authors would be encouraged to self-archive their publications, rather than using librarians as intermediaries.
2 - Keynote address: Disciplines, documents and data: emerging roles for libraries in the scholarly information infrastructure
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- By Christine L. Borgman, University of California Los Angeles, USA
- Edited by Peter Brophy, Jenny Craven, Margaret Markland
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Summary
Introduction
Libraries have long taken responsibility for maintaining the scholarly record by selecting, collecting, organizing, preserving and providing access to publications. As data become part of the scholarly record in their own right, libraries are confronted with a new set of responsibilities. Some research libraries are curating data, some are deferring to data centres and disciplinary repositories and some are ignoring data entirely. While improving the ability to use and reuse data is a central goal of e-research programs in the UK, USA and elsewhere (Cyberinfrastructure Vision for 21st Century Discovery, 2007; Hey and Trefethen, 2005), the best ways to accomplish this goal have not been determined (Lyon, 2007). Notions of what it means to ‘publish’ data are far less mature than notions of publishing journal articles and books (Borgman, 2007). Definitions of ‘data’ vary widely between disciplines and between individual research specialties. Librarians, scholars, funding agencies and publishers are entering a new conversation about which data will be of most future use to whom, and how to capture, preserve, curate and make those data accessible over the short and long term (Borgman, in review).
Use and reuse of data
Today's scholarship is distinguished by the extent to which its practices rely on the generation, dissemination and analysis of data. These practices are themselves distinguished both by the massive scale of data production and by the global dispersion of data resources. The rates of data generation in most fields are expected to increase even faster with new forms of instrumentation such as embedded sensor networks in the sciences, mass digitization of texts in the humanities and the digitized traces of human behaviour available to the social sciences. Digital scholarship is spawning its own new set of research questions about how to manage the ‘data deluge’, about the changing nature of scholarly practices and about economic and policy models to sustain access to research data (Borgman, 2007; Hey and Trefethen, 2003).
The scholarly value chain
Data can be reused to leverage research investments, whether by replicating or verifying findings or by asking new questions with extant data. Data are even more valuable if they can be linked to the resulting publications and to other associated objects such as field notes, grant proposals and software models.
14 - Public libraries, learning and the creative citizen: a European perspective
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- By Robert Davies, MDR Partners, UK, Geoff Butters, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK
- Edited by Peter Brophy, Jenny Craven, Margaret Markland
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Summary
Learning: the strategic background
European Ministers of Education have agreed on three major goals to be achieved by 2010 for the benefit of citizens and the EU as a whole. These goals are to:
• improve the quality and effectiveness of EU education and training systems
• ensure that they are accessible to all
• open up education and training to the wider world.
The 2006 EU Communication Adult Education: it's never too late to learn (European Commission, 2006a) calls on countries to promote adult learning in Europe and to place it firmly on the political agenda. A planned Action Plan on Adult Learning will aim to promote this goal, thereby contributing to personal benefits of development and fulfilment, raising skill levels, reducing social exclusion, promoting active citizenship and supporting employability and mobility in the labour market. Among the major challenges identified is lifting the barriers to participation affecting all groups, but especially the ageing population and migrants.
One of the major pillars of Europe's i2010 (European Commission, 2006b) initiative calls for ‘inclusion, better services for citizens and quality of life’, and emphasizes the enhanced use of information and communication technology (ICT) for lifelong learning and social inclusion. A flagship initiative under this encourages a focusing of research and deployment efforts in the field of ‘digital libraries’, specifically to use high-tech tools to make Europe's rich heritage available to as many people as possible, in order to combine individual creativity with ICTs.
The European Union's e-learning initiatives also promote ‘digital literacy’ as one of the basic skills of all Europeans, alongside the contribution of ICT to learning in general, especially for those who, owing to their geographical location, socio-economic situation or special needs, do not have easy access to traditional education and training. ‘Digital literacy’ is sometimes held to encompass the following:
• knowledge about ICT components, operations, capabilities and limitations
• skills in using ICT to perform relevant tasks and retrieve and make use of digital content
• positive attitudes toward ICT use personally and in society.\
In European society, it can be difficult to separate the processes of learning from the practice of education. Heavy investment in schools, colleges and universities leads to an almost inextricable relationship between the idea of learning and the issue of how schools should be organized, managed and run.
3 - Denmark's Electronic Research Library: implementation of user-friendly integrated search systems in Denmark
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- By Bo Öhrström, Danish National Library Agency, Denmark
- Edited by Peter Brophy, Jenny Craven, Margaret Markland
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Summary
Introduction
In 2003 Denmark's Electronic Research Library (DEFF in Danish) became a permanent activity on the Danish budget after a five-year project period. The Ministry of Culture, the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation continued to finance DEFF annually through the national budget with 17 million DKK (2.3 million euros). 1 January 2007 marked the beginning of a new planning period with a new steering committee, a changed organization and additional activities.
DEFF is a co-operative organization for Danish research libraries. All participants in DEFF have slowly learned to seek co-operation in most areas in order to avoid duplicating work and to increase the value of individual efforts. The main target group for DEFF is still researchers, lecturers and students at institutions of higher or further education and research institutions within the public sector, who are primarily serviced directly through the institutions that participate in DEFF. The overall objective is to ensure an optimal exploitation of the institutions’ research-based information resources. The implementation of user-friendly integrated search systems in Denmark is in this respect an obvious activity within the framework of the DEFF strategy. Parts of the systems can be shared, and the systems support the overall objective of DEFF.
Challenges for a research library
DEFF has identified three important activity areas for research libraries in Denmark, which are the results of the changing roles of libraries in the digital environment (DEFF, 2006). These areas pose major challenges for the libraries, and therefore become targets for DEFF's manpower and funding efforts:
In the e-publishing area libraries are defining new tasks for themselves, and DEFF is among other things supporting institutional repositories and migration of journals to Open Access. Furthermore, research registration and a common research database are in focus. DEFF has been the political advocate for Open Access in Denmark and has provided support for it through an EU petition in February 2007 made by the Knowledge Exchange partnership. DEFF's partners in Knowledge Exchange are the German Research Foundation (DFG) in Germany, the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) in the UK and the SURF Foundation (SURF) in the Netherlands. In the near future DEFF will be launching pilot projects with publications’ underlying datasets in line with the development of e-science and e-research.
Index
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10 - An introduction to the LearnHigher Centre for Teaching & Learning (CETL), with particular reference to the information literacy learning area and its work on information literacy audits at Manchester Metropolitan University
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- By Bob Glass, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK, Jillian R. Griffiths, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK
- Edited by Peter Brophy, Jenny Craven, Margaret Markland
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Summary
Introduction
In 2003 the UK Higher Education Funding Council (HEFC) created 74 Centres for Excellence in Teaching & Learning (CETLs) through a detailed and competitive bid process. The successful CETL bids covered a wide range of educational activities throughout higher education in the UK.
Most CETLs are solo projects, though 19 are collaborative in nature. The largest of these is LearnHigher. The LearnHigher CETL is a collaborative project involving some 16 higher education institutions (HEIs), covering 19 learning areas in learning development in higher education (HE). It was originally conceived as a ‘one-stop shop’ for resources of excellence for practitioners and students involved with learner development in UK HE. The LearnHigher website (www.learnhigher.ac.uk) further defines its context and purpose (Glass, 2007a).
As the country's biggest collaborative HEFCE-funded Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning, LearnHigher is a partnership of 16 universities and the Higher Education Academy. The CETL is committed to improving student learning through practice-led enquiry, building a research base to inform the effective use of learning development resources. LearnHigher is a network of expertise seeking to enhance professional practice and student learning, and build capacity both within the network and across the wider sector.
The LearnHigher partnership has a large and diverse amount of expertise. Each of the 16 partner institutions is engaged in enquiry-led practice which aims to build a sound evidence base in learning development across a broad spectrum of learning areas that underpin activity across all academic subjects.
Throughout the five-year programme LearnHigher will be undertaking a strategic approach to research, to build and disseminate a sound evidence base in learning development. Practitioners across the sector will be encouraged to share in, and contribute to current pedagogic understanding.
LearnHigher will also be a gateway to tried and tested resources in a broad range of learning areas. Each of our 16 partner institutions contributes researchdriven, peer reviewed and evaluated resources in 20 learning areas. ‘In conjunction with the Higher Education Academy, LearnHigher will create a portal service to provide resources and materials to the whole of the sector. Staff in both support roles and teaching roles will be able to use these resources in their course delivery and, in time, resources will be available for students to support their studies’ (www.learnhigher.ac.uk/).
Contributors
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23 - Involving users in a technical solution to help assess the accessibility of websites
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- By Jenny Craven, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK, Jillian R. Griffiths, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK
- Edited by Peter Brophy, Jenny Craven, Margaret Markland
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Summary
Introduction
The European Commission Communication on e-accessibility aims to move forward recommendations to address accessibility and inclusion and to achieve ‘an “Information Society for All”, promoting an inclusive digital society that provides opportunities for all and minimizes the risk of exclusion’ (European Commission, 2005a). The measures recommended by the Commission include Design For All methods in the design of products and services, including the design and evaluation of websites and drawing on recommendations made by the World Wide Web Consortium/Web Accessibility Initiative (W3C/WAI). As a result of these activities, a range of projects have been funded to address the issues raised (see for example, Klironomos et al., 2006).
The Design for All approach refers to the way content and structure are applied to web-based resources and services so that they can be developed and delivered in a way that reaches as many people as possible. This is in alignment with various e-inclusion activities under way within Europe, such as the e-Europe accessibility action plan (European Commission, 2005a) to address the i2010 strategy for creating a ‘European society for growth and employment’ (European Commission, 2005b). The i2010 strategy, for example, places a particular emphasis on accessibility requirements for public procurement of ICT, accessibility certification, and web accessibility assessment methods and tools.
A new technological solution to assessing the accessibility of websites over time is being developed by the European Internet Accessibility Observatory (EIAO) project team. EIAO is funded by the European Commission and runs from 2004 to 2007 (with a proposed extension within the existing budget until 2008). It involves partners from six countries across Europe. The aim of the project is to develop an online service, via a user interface, which will provide regular (e.g. monthly) updates of the general accessibility of websites by country, sector (for example, the library sector) and on an individual basis. The ‘Observatory’ is different from other automated checkers (such as LIFT and Cynthia Says), because it aims to aggregate individual tests for large-scale benchmarking and to evaluate the development of the results from one period to the next to indicate where improvements have been made and/or to alert to possible problems which have arisen.
Frontmatter
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21 - Discrete library services for international students: how can exclusivity lead to inclusivity?
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- By Moira Bent, Newcastle University, UK, Marie Scopes, Leeds Metropolitan University, UK, Karen Senior, University of Bolton, UK
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Summary
Introduction
This paper reports on research being undertaken for the UK Society of College National and University Libraries (SCONUL) to investigate how UK university libraries can best support international students, culminating in guidelines which will be published by SCONUL in December 2007. The research examined the issues surrounding the debate over exclusivity versus inclusivity that affect the provision of library services for international students. Results include what techniques UK university libraries are currently employing; feedback from international students about their priorities for library support and how that matches library staff perceptions; and with whom university libraries need to work to improve service provision. The research identified examples of good practice in providing a truly inclusive library service for international students and explored whether issues faced in UK libraries are reflected by experience in other developed countries.
Background to the study
International students make up 13.4% of the total UK higher education institution (HEI) population, and, in addition to enriching cultural diversity and providing essential income, they also bring a wide variety of needs, experience and expectations. In recent years the international student profile has become increasingly diverse, as in other developed countries, with students worldwide having a diverse range of abilities and subject interests and hence a broader scope of teaching and learning experiences. These changes are reflected in the issues faced by all libraries striving to support international students effectively.
Findings of a major survey of more than 28,000 international students confirmed that the UK is still ‘a close rival to the US as the best study destination in the world’ (Tysome, 2006, 3). However, if UK universities are to maintain their place in the global market, they need to respond to changing needs to attract students from abroad. Academic libraries have an important supporting role in this. Andreas Schleicher, head of the Indicators and Analysis Division at the OECD, warns that ‘the global educational landscape has changed fundamentally’ and UK universities must face challenges from China and India, in particular, as well as from other European countries now offering degrees taught in English. He says, ‘Success will go to those institutions and countries that are swift to adapt, slow to complain and open to change’ (Schleicher, 2007, 3).
16 - The process of assessment of the quality, usability and impact of electronic services and resources: a Quality Attributes approach
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- By Jillian R. Griffiths, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK
- Edited by Peter Brophy, Jenny Craven, Margaret Markland
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- 09 June 2018
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- 15 May 2008, pp 159-170
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Summary
Introduction
As a profession we are constantly striving to ensure that we provide the best possible services and resources to our users. This concern has resulted in a myriad of approaches and methods being utilized in an attempt to establish the quality of services and resources and lead to improvements in them. Online resources in particular have been the focus of much research in recent years, with work being undertaken in many areas, including, for example, information retrieval, information-seeking behaviour and usability studies, different approaches which share the same ultimate goal of making resources and systems easier to use by endusers.
As a result of the shift in recent years from the use of performance indicators to measures of outcome and impact within libraries (Brophy, 2004), a Quality Attributes approach is proposed in this paper. This approach allows for a holistic assessment of the quality of services or resources and encompasses usability. The classic definition of quality as ‘fitness for a purpose’ was developed by Garvin (1987) into a model of eight dimensions or ‘attributes’ that can be used as a framework for determining the overall quality of a product or service. This approach has since been adapted for use in libraries and information services by Marchand (1990), Brophy and Coulling (1996), Brophy (1998) and Griffiths and Brophy (2002, 2005). Griffiths and Brophy adapted the Quality Attributes further by changing the emphasis of one attribute, changing the concept of one attribute, and introducing two additional attributes (Currency and Usability), thus producing a set of ten attributes which can be used to assess the quality, usability and impact of services and resources. These attributes are: Performance, Conformance, Features, Reliability, Durability, Currency, Serviceability, Aesthetics, Perceived quality and Usability. Usability, often used as an assessment criterion in its own right, has been defined by ISO 9241-11 as ‘the extent to which a product can be used by specified users to achieve specified goals with effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction in a specified context of use’ and, as Nielsen points out, ‘It is important to realize that usability is not a single, one-dimensional property of a user interface. Usability has multiple components and is traditionally associated with these five usability attributes: learnability, efficiency, memorability, errors, satisfaction’ (1993, 26).
13 - Improving information retrieval with dialogue mapping and concept mapping tools
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- By Virpi Palmgren, Helsinki University of Technology Library, Finland, Kirsi Heino, Helsinki University of Technology Library, Finland, Jouni Nevalainen, Helsinki University of Technology Library, Finland
- Edited by Peter Brophy, Jenny Craven, Margaret Markland
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- Libraries Without Walls 7
- Published by:
- Facet
- Published online:
- 09 June 2018
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- 15 May 2008, pp 125-136
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Development of education practices and new education methods are increasingly important in Finnish universities. There is pressure because of internationalization and quality targets with no extra funding are to be expected. This can also be seen in training organized by the library.
The Library of Helsinki University of Technology (TKK) has almost 40 years’ experience in teaching information retrieval. In these years several course models have been used and thousands of students have participated in the training (Palmgren and Heino, 2002, 197–207). The Bologna process (named after the University of Bologna, where the Bologna declaration was signed in 1999) aims to create a European higher education area by 2010, making academic degree standards and quality assurance standards more comparable and compatible throughout Europe. This has changed the situation at TKK and new courses have had to be planned. The library now has its own part in the student's seminar programme, where instruction has been planned to ease the writing of the thesis; for example, students undertake an exercise to search for information on the topic of their thesis. Library training reaches all students twice: at the beginning of the studies and then at the thesis writing phase.
Because the groups are large and the time to be used is limited, learning environments and other methods to ease tuition are being used. There is also less room for face-to-face teaching in the schedule (Heino and Palmgren, 2006).
In order to reach the goal of information literacy, students have to apply the basic skills they have learned in the library courses to their actual studies. TKK teachers are in a vital position, and so new training for teachers has actively been planned as a part of their pedagogical training. The new course presented in this paper combines different competences and allows for co-operation between different fields of knowledge within the university.
Mapping methods are being used for structuring the information search. Maps are known to be a good method for outlining things in general; however, piecing together information-searching exercises is difficult. When students receive the topic for their thesis they are often lost; they do not know about the topic, or how to search for information.
19 - Meeting users’ needs online in real-time: a dream of librarians in the developing world
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- By Anusha Wijayaratne, Open University of Sri Lanka
- Edited by Peter Brophy, Jenny Craven, Margaret Markland
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- Book:
- Libraries Without Walls 7
- Published by:
- Facet
- Published online:
- 09 June 2018
- Print publication:
- 15 May 2008, pp 185-194
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Since the internet has broadened its scale and dissolved physical boundaries, there is huge competition among professionals to bring their business to cyberspace. There is plenty of evidence in the literature to confirm that librarians have also marched into this new space, particularly in their effort to reach their clients to provide a much-needed online real-time reference service. Coffman (2003) describes this new trend: ‘In a little less than 4 years, thousands of librarians got out from behind the desk, opened up their shops on the internet, and made ready to answer patron questions live and in real time.’ Bakker (2002) states that ‘since the year 2000 there's been an explosion of interest in the library world of adapting chat technology’. However, this explosion has hardly travelled beyond the northern hemisphere and most of these librarians who have shops in cyberspace are from developed countries. Therefore, in spite of the abundance of literature on online real-time reference, very little has been published on such efforts in the developing world.
The statement by Alemna and Cobblah (2005) that ‘information technology is expanding throughout Africa but at a slower pace, yet with intense efforts directed towards training and implementing more automation’ describes a situation common to most countries that suffer from shrinking library budgets, technological drawbacks, user resistance, etc. E-mail versions of online reference services may have been tried by quite a number of librarians in these countries, but there is hardly any evidence of evaluation studies being undertaken to identify the usability and effectiveness of such a service. The time has arrived for librarians in the developing world to think seriously about how they can actively participate in the investigation of technological alternatives to in-person, face-to-face reference, which is becoming obsolete at a rapid pace.
Why do librarians have to go online?
The number of questions coming in to library reference desks is declining and more and more of our patrons are turning to the web to look for their answers (Bakker, 2002). A discussion has already commenced, and is continuing, on whether libraries could be replaced by the internet and its commercial reference service providers such as AskJeeves and WebHelp.
15 - A user-centred approach to the evaluation of digital cultural maps: the case of the VeriaGrid system
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- By Rania Siatri, Technological Educational Institute (TEI) of Thessaloniki, Greece, Emmanouel Garoufallou, Technological Educational Institution (TEI) of Thessaloniki, Greece, Ioannis Trohopoulos, Veria Central Public Library in Greece, Panos Balatsoukas, Loughborough University, UK
- Edited by Peter Brophy, Jenny Craven, Margaret Markland
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- Book:
- Libraries Without Walls 7
- Published by:
- Facet
- Published online:
- 09 June 2018
- Print publication:
- 15 May 2008, pp 147-158
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In the European Union the digitization of cultural heritage resources has been promoted though various initiatives, such as the Lund principles, which resulted in a European wide framework for the digitization of cultural heritage (e-Europe 2001), the Information Society Technologies (IST) programme, which funded research on the digitization and access to cultural heritage collections through several projects (IST, 2006), and the European Library initiative, which developed a network of digital cultural heritage resources among the members of the European Union (The European Library, 2006). The digitization of cultural heritage resources (CHRs) has significant implications for the developing economy of digital cultural tourism in Europe. It implies the development of:
• the online availability and accessibility of digital CHRs
• the development of a network of digital CHRs
• the promotion of CHRs to a geographically dispersed audience of educators, learners and tourists
• the marketing and promotion of CHRs across the globe.
On the other hand, several factors can impede the development of digital cultural tourism in Europe, such as the shortage of technical infrastructure, the absence of a coherent cultural policy and the lack of innovation and knowledge transfer mechanisms, as well as the ignorance of users’ needs and budget constraints (Manzuch and Knoll, 2005; Tanner and Deegan, 2003).
The Central Public Library of Veria (CPLV), a major provider of online information services to the Greek public, has convinced cultural heritage institutions of the city of Veria:
• to rethink their role in the society in the new electronic era
• to make their rich collections of CHRs easily accessible to the public via the internet and other technologies, such as laptops and mobile phones
• to compile an inventory of digital CHRs and other instruments useful to the public.
In particular, the CPLV, through the LIGHT project (www.light-culture.net), developed the ‘VeriaGrid’, an online digital cultural map of the city of Veria to bring to light the cultural resources managed by local museums, libraries and other cultural organizations of Veria. The VeriaGrid system provides users with the opportunity to navigate across the map and visit various cultural sites, such as churches, museums, libraries and archaeological sites (see Figure 15.1).