It’s common knowledge that Word 2008 on Mac OS X is not compatible with the CWYW plugin for any version of Endnote. It’s less well know that this problem is due to lack of VBA (Visual Basic for Applications) support in Microsoft Word 2008.
There is light at the end of the tunnel for Mac users however, as Erik Schwiebert, Software Design Lead at Microsoft Corporation, Macintosh Business Unit informs us that the next version of Office for Mac will include VBA; note that this may take some time, until then he recommends the following:
So, if you have a dire need for Visual Basic, you can continue to run Mac Office 2004 (it will even run side-by-side with Office 2008 ) and we’re publicly committing to VB as good (maybe even better, if things go well) in the next version.
This is uncharacteristic for this blog, but that just goes to show how impressed I was by this simple bit of tech. Take
One cardboard box
One sheet of paper
One sheet of perspex
Some tape
A webcam
You get a fine multitouch interface! It works on the principle that your fingers create darker dots, and that the webcam picks up on these. You’ll need to download the relevant software, which is currently Windows only in binary, though you can compile yourself (with varying success according to the forum).
I believe that a lot of the buzz in the library world to do with emergent technologies is related to the fact that we’re seeing more and more lightweight protocols and data formats delivered by library service providers. I say protocols and data formats because a lot of the existing protocols used by libraries are pretty simple, whereas the content has typically been provided in a heavyweight format (at least in terms of what a typical library employee is accustomed to).
Things like SRU and JSON — Search/Retrieve via URL and JavaScript Object Notation — are making it easier to write lightweight web applications without recourse to specialist programming libraries (remember the bad old days of Z39.50?). Lightweight-web-applications programming needs no server-side wizardary, only simple proxies to facilitate cross-domain requests (and even this is unnecessary in cases where data is provided in JSON format).
This kind of democratization means that libraries can — with the help of a few tech-savvy librarians — provide impressive interfaces for their content, create added value at little cost and deliver something that works well enough to be acceptable for end users. The only problem is that the core library systems are typically antiquated enough that they don’t provide any real support for such lightweight protocols. An example of this is a system that provides an HTTP API for data harvesting, but no corresponding way of ordering an item that has been harvested.
What is needed is an understanding from library systems developers and content providers that libraries with a strong online presence want to integrate services into their web, and present information from diverse sources within a common template as far as this is possible. The traditional focus on harvesting relates to a similar trend: we used to want data in our OPACs and reference tools, now we want it on our pages.
A really important point for me is that presenting data from diverse sources means that this data can then be re-purposed according to the display device that the user has chosen (laptop, tablet, text-to-speech, a DIV in a user’s social networking site, mobile device, retinal HUD). I think that libraries are going to have to focus more on providing re-purposed information in this way in the future, and these lightweight protocols are needed in order to gather the information to be re-purposed
We’re looking at eBook readers at the moment, the first one we’ve received in the post (this took one day to arrive via Germany) is the iRex Iliad. There are a few reviews available on the net, so this isn’t an exhaustive review, but a review from the point of view of a librarian.
There are a number of things to like about the iRex:
The display is fantastic; it’s big and based on Electronic Paper - there are a few remnants from previously displayed pages, but nothing to bad
The simple file transfer mechanism; the Iliad appears as a mass storage device on your computer
Character set support
Multiple eBook formats are supported
Note-taking feature
On the other hand, there are a number of things that I’m not keen on:
It’s a slow device and somewhat unresponsive device, boot time is long, as are load times for books
It has wireless and wired support, but it doesn’t allow you to access eBooks on the Internet directly
The user interface isn’t prefect
No OCR on note taking
On the whole, I don’t think that this device isn’t going to cut it for libraries; for a start, a lot of the content we subscribe to is unsupported by this device; any of the content delivered by eBrary, NetLibrary or Dawson Era will not be available (unless you turn it into a PDF a few pages at a time!), and you can’t browse these pages as webpages from the device anyway because it doesn’t allow you to surf the net. A combination of internet connection and relevant plugins would make this very device interesting, but without them, it’s just a consumer toy. As such, it might be the toy I’d buy.
There are quite a few libraries with a presence in Facebook, most of these provide simple links out of Facebook. This is quite reasonable because the overheads of programming an entire OPAC in Facebook would be huge. We’ve just added a simple link-out search to our OPAC, BIBSYS Ask.
On the other hand, it sometimes isn’t so interesting to link directly to a resource; this is exactly the case when you’re using Metalib, which can be presented in any number of ways. I’ve been testing the Facebook APIs with X-Server, and I think that the results are interesting.
This second app needs some work, but this modular design helps isolate development issues, and allows users to download only what they need (assuming perhaps that they know what they need).
Recently, I have been thinking about the policies and practices at our library (it’s policy review time, so this isn’t entirely unnatural). The following proposal has been made:
NTNU Library will make relevant information for research and learning available via web-based services
NTNU Library will strengthen NTNU’s learning environment by offering suitable spaces, and increasing users’ information literacy
NTNU Library will ensure the long-term availability of materials produced at NTNU, and materials covered by special agreements
NTNU Library will make its services known to all primary users
Previously, I perhaps wouldn’t have thought that there was very much here that was contentious, but I’ve recently been evaluating my work — we’re currently also analyzing the work of the subject librarians, to see how we can effectivize these positions. Point one isn’t really contentious because it isn’t going to be affected by anything we can do — the library is electronic, and it’s becoming more so.
Point two is actually two things: 1) the learning arena and 2) increasing information literacy. I’ve been playing Godzilla recently by saying that I wonder if we aren’t trying to create a rôle for the library by being a “learning arena”, and that this rôle isn’t necessarily suited to the library, but belongs to the monolithic university. I don’t know that the library is the best place, and in fact I’m beginning to see that there is a conflict between the “library as space” and “provision of library services” in terms of administration and skills. The second element of this point, information literacy, can actually be baked into a point about a digital library as well — if not better — than a physical library: we have no realistic way of meeting every user face-to-face, but we can have good on-to-one coverage with digital learning (such as VIKO), and I believe that placing this point under a point that is implicitly about physical spaces is highly problematic.
Point three is potentially about at least two things: institutional archives and our rôle as regional legal deposit library. Neither of these point are really open for discussion as these are rôles assigned by the library and the government respectively.
Point four is really important: it is a real problem that the library is so invisible, the rôles that we acually have disappear, and our services are often unknown to our non-users. The problem is how do we make these services known? As I said above, we have no realistic way of meeting the users, but we do have a captive audience on our network. There are a lot of different ways of marketing our services, most of which will necessarily not include physically talking to users. Lets face it: no-one is interested in hearing about the library until they need information or help…and that is where we need to be accessible.
If this sounds like I’m beating down on the physical library, I’d disagree; I’m just questioning the validity of creating a new rôle for the library, when the rôle as “library” is still a valid one, its just that our format is changing, physical –> electronic.
I’m currently working on a project that is trying to integrate our library resources into our VLE (virtual learning environment), It’s:Learning. This post deals with the ideas we have about this and the practical solutions that we are currently using to implement them.
A quick aside here — VLEs are also variously called LMSes (learning management systems) and CMSes (course management systems), to avoid confusion with Library Management Systems and Content Management Systems, I’ve chosen to use VLE, which is widespread in the UK.
One of the first and most important point is that we know two things:
Subject librarians are a limited resource
Knowledge of library resources and skills related to linking to these isn’t great among teaching staff
These points lead us to believe that it isn’t a good idea to have the responsibility for maintenance of display information (what is actually presented in the each instance in the VLE) placed in the hands of subject librarians — most subject librarians at NTNU have at least three subjects, and each subject may be running tens of courses at any one time; the simple fact is that they don’t have the overview of course content they need in order to perform this task, nor do they have available time to do this. The points also lead us to believe that we need to provide a simple interface that allows teaching staff to provide course resources to their students.
We had a few round-table discussions in the group about this, and we realized that at a minimal level, we want to provide direct searching in the library OPAC and links to research databases. The databases should be relevant to the particular course, and should be easy for the course tutor to include in their course page.
On the whole, I’m against the idea of forcing stuff onto people, but because we want to ensure that there is some content in library “box” in It’s:Learning, we may just have push the standard sets from Metalib. We did toy with the idea of using the teacher’s own “My Space” in Metalib as the repository for selected resources, but there is no good way of accessing these (Metalib has no way of sharing personal database sets). Obviously, a database would solve this problem, but this creates a problem when it comes to authentication — this is solved using the same SSO that we have for our intranet and It’s:Learning.
It is possible that we will provide links to course readings registered in the OPAC automatically, but not to articles. If the articles in question are available in eJournals to which we subscribe, then the teacher can insert these themselves in an “other relevant links” section.
Baking all of this together with X-Server, BIBSYS’ SRU and a few tricks from our toolbox means that you end up with a transportable system (it isn’t integrated in It’s:Learning, because we don’t want to be tied directly to a particular system, but you might well think that it is as an end user because of the level of interoperability and similar styling).
There’s a lot of hype about Second Life in libraryland, and I have to be quite honest: I’ve never understood it. Sure, it’s fun, but it isn’t very interesting other than in a “Hey-amusing-computer-game -where-I-can-chat-with-people-pretty-much-like-I-would-in-a-chat-room kind of way. Woo. Actually, it’s less interesting than that — I don’t have a “rockin” graphics card, and I don’t have great bandwidth so, it’s a rather-less-than-impressive computer game with chat. (I like the ability to change your appearance and — being totally self-obsessed — I could do that for days on end.) My feeling though is that libraries shouldn’t spend too much time and energy on Second Life for a number of reasons.
The first thing is that Second Life is only one virtual world; one take on the concept. It’s one of the more impressive virtual worlds, but the others have different concepts that make them attractive to different groups. I respect the people I know that build extensive presences in Second Life; these are great people who are at the bleeding edge of their work. The problem is that the interface in Second Life isn’t good enough; it’s clumsy, it is far from intuitive and it really requires a lot of skill, patience and interest to get the hand of. I’m afraid that this will keep Second Life in the realm of special interest forever. Don’t get me wrong, I think that Second Life presents a lot of interesting possibilities and concepts, I just don’t think that it has caught on, and is catching on with the all-important 15-20 age group.
That’s Second Life in particular, but the factor that all virtual worlds have in common is that they are cut off from our real lives; that shouldn’t come as a shock — probably the reason that virtual worlds are popular is exactly this: you aren’t “you”, you’re the person you want to be (yes female librarian, you can have wings). It’s much easier to project the qualities you want to identify with when you’re out of your own environment. This kind of thing “frees your mind” of the shackles of gravity and all the mundane stuff that you’re immersed in on a day-to-day basis. Certain psychologists and other reactionaries will no doubt claim that all this is very harmful, etc., but they’re just trying to earn a crust.
In truth, there’s no problem with escapism of this kind, except if it starts affecting your health due to sleep deprivation, RSI and the associated ills of modern computer living. The problem of escapism does however mean that virtual worlds have no real use for libraries.
To explain this, I think that it’s necessary to understand the role of libraries and other sources of information: they are real-world necessities. In a virtual world, everyone will project themselves as omniscient and omnipotent. Why would a god need to go to the library? The other thing is that the libraries we know aren’t likely to store the kind of information the typical virtual world inhabitant is looking for (how to modify their appearance, the best places to hang out, etc.) These kinds of information are baked into the subsystems of the virtual worlds, leaving no space for the real-world-type library. Do people want to search Google from Second Life? (Does Google have a presence in Second Life?) This goes some way to explaining why library resources aren’t relevant in virtual worlds, but it doesn’t explain what people will be doing instead (and why virtual worlds will remain nothing more than glorified computer games).
I keep on banging on in other posts about how I believe that mobile is the next big thing (I’ve even started developing apps for mobile devices — so I must be taking this seriously) and this being the case, I’d like to know why and how we’d like to downgrade to a paltry “if you stand here, you can search for information”, when we’ve got the world in our pocket? When you can search pretty much anywhere, cheaply, using your mobile device, you’re hardly going to accept the kind of things that are currently possible in Second Life or any other virtual world as being even worth stopping to look at. I mean does this stuff work on iPhone?
I’m not posting at the moment (too much going on on the development front, more on this later), but I’ll make an exception for some really important information. What this is about is that Google for the first time actually indexes information that can only be retrieved by filling in a web form. Basically, Google is getting savvy to the deep web, which has hitherto not been accessible via the search giant.
There seem to be getting less reasons to doubt the supremacy of Google, except the following:
Google will only be indexing a selection of sites
They will only index a selection of the information on these sites
The native interfaces for these sites typically add value to your search (contextual cues, component information, semantic correlates, related terms, etc.) and present the information accordingly.
The development is nevertheless extremely positive, as Google will help find relevant sites, if not all the information contained within this. Nice work, G!
I have posted the update onto the update stream, this means that previous versions will be auto-updated (you get a quick splash notification of this in your browser window).
This release joins the new branch of toolbar development to the main trunk release. It is this branch that will be the focus of future development.
The new release also includes a few minor bug fixes (related to character encoding). And sadly, you’ll lose your resource preferences…but this is beta software. The reasons for losing your preferences is that I’m still trying to make the preference system work with dtd language files (the rest of the toolbar is set up with multi-language support).
The simplest — and possibly stupidest — way of fixing this would be to detect the dtd at on first startup, cross-check that the install is new, and then write the default preferences based on that. We’ll see.
Once that is in place, we’ll evaluate different methods of merging preferences, although this will always be problematic because certain resources simply disappear.
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