29 Mar 2016

Business School Libraries - Where Next?



This was an article I wrote for "Global Focus - The EFMD Business Magazine" about major changes for business school libraries, the librarians working there and what the future might bring.


The article was divided into four different themes:


1. Collections
I have a discussion about the library as an place for printed books but also e-books and the pros and cons for the different formats which I think will complement each other for still some time. There is also some thoughts on the development of collections based on the librarians competence (subject specific), cooperation with researchers or teachers and new acquisitions models such as PDA (evidence based acqusitions).
2. Technology
Very much based on the technology shift from printed source to e-resources but also discovery tools, subject guides, OpenURLs and remote access to resources 24/7 from all over the world.
3. Services
Here I talk about the social library and the importance of getting connected through different networks. Even though users have remote acces you can't let go of personalized services such as specific services towards researchers, learning environments for students and social media.
4. The librarian
My thoughts here gives examples on how to strenghten end develop the librarian profession. Closer cooperation with researchers, more strongly integrate user education with subject courses, using paper.li to be able to move from directing towards sources and instead create Daily's with interesting content that promote knowledge sharing.


If you want to read the whole article please click here.







The International Librarians Network (ILN) receives prestigious “Mover and Shaker” award from Library Journal

Irish librarians are part of this success story! Thanks to all who are participating in the International Librarians Network (ILN)!

Press release posted on behalf of the Directors:

The International Librarians Network (founders Kate Byrne, Alyson Dalby and Clare McKenzie), has been named a “Mover and Shaker” in the library industry by the US national publication, Library Journal.

In its March 15, 2016 issue, Library Journal named 54 outstanding professionals committed to providing excellent service and shaping the future of libraries. The ILN and its founders were selected because of their commitment to the profession and their role in building library community globally.

Kate Byrne, Alyson Dalby and Clare McKenzie are founders and Directors of the ILN, a not-for-profit international, online, free peer mentoring program for librarians that is now in its fourth year of operation.

“This year’s class of 54 joins a group of talented professionals who are committed, passionate, and invigorated—each alone and all together transforming the library world and the communities it impacts for the better,” said Rebecca T. Miller, Editorial Director of Library Journal and School Library Journal.

The ILN founders are former colleagues from Sydney, Australia, although they now run the ILN from both Australia and Denmark. Kate, Alyson and Clare all have a history of professional involvement and volunteering and had been active in their local professional associations prior to founding the ILN.

The 2016 Movers & Shakers were selected by the editors of Library Journal, the profession’s leading trade magazine. Each of the Movers & Shakers will be prominently featured in the March 15th issue of Library Journal and celebrated at a special reception in June during the American Library Association’s annual conference in Orlando, FL. The print feature’s companion website is sponsored by OCLC and available at www.libraryjournal.com/movers2016.

The International Librarians Network (ILN) peer mentoring program is a facilitated program aimed at helping librarians develop international networks. The ILN believes that innovation and inspiration can cross borders, and that spreading our networks beyond our home countries can make us better at what we do.

Participants in the program are matched with a colleague outside their country, based on the information they provide to the ILN. Partnerships are made for a fixed term, and during this period the partnerships are supported by regular contact and discussion points led by the ILN. Supported partnerships have an end date, however it is the founders’ vision that participants would develop a widening network of ongoing, independent professional relationships.

The International Librarians Network is independent and importantly, supported by the work of over 40 volunteers and our generous partners and sponsors all around the world.

ABOUT LIBRARY JOURNAL

Founded in 1876, Library Journal is one of the oldest and most respected publications covering the library field. Over 75,000 library directors, administrators, and staff in public, academic, and special libraries read LJ. Library Journal reviews over 8000 books, audiobooks, videos, databases, and web sites annually, and provides coverage of technology, management, policy, and other professional concerns. For more information, visit www.libraryjournal.com. Library Journal is a publication of Media Source Inc., which also owns School Library Journal, The Horn Book publications, and Junior Library Guild.


Posted on Tuesday, March 29, 2016 | Categories:

17 Mar 2016

Technology as a facilitator - The symbiosis between technology and user education

Autumn last year I and a colleague published a chapter in an anthology, published by National Library of Sweden, called “Technology as a facilitator” in Swedish “Teknik som facilitator”. Since we have worked together for such a long time, over 20 years, the purpose was to combine our experiences from change in technology and its effect on user education (library instructions). It was an exciting journey back in time and an interesting reflection in the rearview mirror on the symbiosis between the two.

Abstract
In the last 20 years, much has happened that has come to affect university libraries educational approach in foundation. These intense decades have included the establishment of the Internet, the transition to digital forms of publication, Google as a search engine as well as the development of a range of powerful tools for information retrieval. It has had the effect that instruction based teaching of a few available sources has been replaced by a context-driven method of teaching, where reflection and critical evaluation have become more central than the demonstration of search techniques and individual databases. The change has also meant a shift of focus from the librarian as information gatekeepers to the student as a responsible information retriever also aware of their own lifelong learning.

For fulltext in Swedish - Teknik som facilitator (please use online tools for translation)













Ulf-Göran Nilsson (left) & Daniel Gunnarsson (right)


11 Mar 2016

Right of First Sale for eBooks?

Guest post by Rebecca Ciota

Since 2011, Amazon has been filing patents in the United States and Canada around setting up a marketplace for used ebooks.  In January 16, they filed a 46-page document with the Canadian Intellectual Property Office which outlines their plans in more detail.

In the United States the first-sale doctrine (also known as the right of first sale) limits the rights of the copyright and trademark owners, and protects the distribution chain, library lending, video rentals and secondary markets for copyrighted works (like used bookstores or used record stores) - by providing rights to the purchaser (and owner) of a physical copy of a work to distribute that physical copy as they see fit.  However, the first-sale doctrine does not hold for digital objects because there is no transfer of a physical copy from the copyright owner to the purchaser.

Thus, the resale of ebooks does not have legal protections in the United States.  So, Amazon's attempts at making a used ebook marketplace seems ambitious.  A used ebook marketplace would require new interpretations of the doctrine of first sale, to allow ebook purchasers to become owners and resell their copies.

Amazon seems to be willing to provide the copyright owner a percentage of the sale, which may earn them support (or at least less ire) from publishing companies.  Also, Amazon hopes to make ebooks more like print books by removing ebooks from the seller's inventory once the book has been sold, even though ebooks are copies of an original publisher-owned digital file.  One could in theory continuously copy and disseminate an ebook over and again, retaining their file.  Amazon's forceful removal of the copy from the seller's inventory might persuade copyright holders that some other individual or entity is not repeatedly profiting from the reproduction and sale of the ebook.

However Amazon manages (or doesn't) to set up its marketplace with the acquiescence of publisher and the support of the law, it will be interesting to watch how Amazon and its used ebook marketplace will challenge information policies.  And I'm hopeful that I can clear out my Kindle library, and get a few cents for new books.

​"eBooks can now be read on a large variety of devices" by Per Palmkvist Knudsen, CC BY-SA 3.0.

3 Mar 2016

Problem solving in the workplace: 10 easy steps to catalogue Korean books

Guest post by Helena Byrne

Over the years the Library at Trinity College Dublin, the University of Dublin has collected a number of Korean language donations but they had no way to process them.  I was tasked with cataloguing this special collection as I have beginner level Korean. At first this seemed like an impossible task as the Library had no resources to deal with these texts, such as a Korean keyboard and the LMS software didn’t recognise the Korean alphabet when searching external bibliographic databases. Some of the books had ISBN or ISSN numbers, which made sourcing MARC records from OCLC (WorldCat) and RLUK (COPAC) easier, but most books could not be found in these databases during the initial search.  However, by applying a number of workarounds I was able to find records for most of them and created basic records for the remainder. Although this post focuses on Korean texts the principles of the strategies I employed during this project could be applied to other texts that don’t use the Roman alphabet.

An interesting thing I learnt while working on this project is that Korea has its own classification system and when you look up different books on the Korean National Library catalogue they give you both the Korean classification number and the Dewey Decimal Classification number. The ALA also has set rules on transliterating the Korean alphabet, as some Korean letters could be spelt using more than one English letter. For example, the capital city is commonly spelt as Seoul but according to the ALA rules it should be spelt Sŏul.

Here are the ten easy steps to sourcing records for Korean books:
  1. Korean Language – In order to download Korean bibliographic records all you need to know is how to read the Korean alphabet and have a good working knowledge of Korean names and place names. The Korean alphabet has only 24 letters and as they are phonetic it’s easy to learn how to read. Here is a link with a pronunciation guide and another more detailed video for writing A good way to get familiar with Korean names and place names is to watch Korean films, see for example the listings on IMDb.
  2. Use an online Korean keyboard – If you search Korean Keyboard you will get a number of hits. I went with the first one by branah.com and was very happy with it. When it’s open on your screen you can use the keys from your keyboard to type or you can click on each letter on the screen keyboard using the mouse.
  3. Translating the title – You don’t need to do this but sometimes it’s helpful as it can give you a feel for what the subject matter might be. I used Google Translate a lot but sometimes the translation didn’t feel accurate. Naver is a Korean search engine and most people find its translations more accurate than Google’s.
  4. Finding transliterated titles – OCLC’s WorldCat interface does recognise the Korean alphabet so once you have your title typed up you can search for it using the search function on the website. The records usually have all the important information transliterated so it is easy to copy them into your LMS to search external databases or create a basic record.
  5. Copyright Information – Copyright and publication information for Korean books is generally at the back. They sometimes include a short bio of the author with key dates from their career. It will always tell you when the book was first published and subsequent years it was reprinted or updated. Most of the WorldCat records date from the original publication but the books at Trinity were usually reprints from a later date. For example “2 쇄” means that it’s the second printing of the publication.
  6. Translated books – The most challenging books to match were those that were translated from another language into Korean. It was hard to tell which text they translated the book from so it was assumed that it was from the original edition. In total there were three translations from German, English and Russian. It was easy to find the record for these publications in the original language so this record was copied and edited with the relevant content from the Korean edition of the book.
  7. Author vs Translator – Most books seem to follow the same format of adding author (지음/chiŭm) or translator (옮김/omgim) after the name/s of the people involved in the publication. If the author is an institution they don’t include this.
  8. Transliterating Korean names – There were a few times when I had to create a basic record from scratch. As I wasn’t accustomed to the ALA rules on transliteration even the Romanisation of Korean names could be very time consuming. However, Hyoungbae Lee, the Korean Studies Librarian at Princeton University developed a Creative Commons Korean Names Romanizer that follows the ALA rules. It is very simple to use and doesn’t require any installation. Once you download the app it’s ready to go.
  9. Transliterating publication information – Most books at Trinity were published from just a few publishers. So when I had to create a basic record from scratch I would look back at a previous record I had created or downloaded and copy the relevant information.
  10. Hybrid Records – For most of the books I found records for on the LMS system there was usually just one or two results. Some of them even though they were classified as a high quality record had very basic information and needed a lot of editing. However, a large number of the records were a hybrid mix of AACR2 and RDA which required a lot of editing to bring it up to RDA standard.
Other Korean books in Trinity:
http://www.tcd.ie/Library/news/2015/10/korean-books-in-the-library-of-trinity-college-dublin-happy-hanguel-day/
Posted on Thursday, March 03, 2016 | Categories: