Information Services Team Blog

Life on MaRS - Home Grown Tech: Start It Up

 

Hyun-Duck Chung (MISt, Information Specialist) and Helen Kula (MISt, Data Product Manager) of MaRS Discovery District put together a showcase of startups for the OLA Super Conference 2013.  They handpicked them to appeal to and reflect the library interests and needs and succeeded in providing a wonderfully  varied and relevant group of products from Canadian companies. 

Have you a group of writers that crave to be published?  Wattpad is a great platform for discovering and sharing stories.   You can write one chapter at a time, or share a full novel.  Whether you love romance, humorous short fiction, futuristic sci-fi or paranormal mysteries, Wattpad is for you.  Authors range from Cory Doctorow to Shawn from Lethbridge. Margaret Atwood is the judge of the Atty's, the Wattpad Poetry Awards.  Wattpad offers a truly  social, and entirely mobile reading experience in over 20 languages.

 

  

 

Spongelab's mission: we believe that cutting-edge technology and stunning interactive media should be available to everyone, regardless of fiscal constraints.  

If you register with them you have free access to a huge range of science resources from the ubiquitous water cycle diagram, to  a video of what happens when lava is poured on ice to a dragon breeding genetics game.  Often you will be given a link to the Canadian  textbook this is alligned with.

 

 

SoapBox is a customer feedback mechanism that integrates into your webpage.  It automatically tags and categorizes the  ideas.  It also finds similar ideas and prompts you to merge your idea before submitting it.  On top of its voting and comments, SoapBox is fully integrated into Facebook with more social networks coming.   For a look at this program in operation check out Indigo, scroll to the bottom of the page and select Indigo Ideas. This would be a nice addition to the TPL website. 

 

Sciencescape  is a tech startup providing an end-to-end research discovery and management platform for the Life Sciences .  Sam Molyneux, PhD Student at the Ontario Cancer Institute, found there  are  2,000 to 4,000 research papers coming out every day.That's one and a half million peer reviewed papers every year.  The goal of this project is to organize all of the literature that comes in a way that makes sense. They look at labs, journals, places, and authors to have breaking research and community activity pushed directly to your newsfeed based on your profile.  There is no need for repetitive searching and you can quickly scan new publications, read abstracts, and download the full article text

This year's Global Startup Battle took place across 137 events in 60 countries with 10,000 entrepreneurs participating. The winner was Ontario-based Groupnotes.  It is a collaboration tool for groups who do research. As users browse the web, they can annotate pages, take notes, and leave comments—and when other members of their group browse, they can see these and add their own.

Tabillo  offers a web-based business collaboration tool that enables small to medium-sized companies to go beyond online file sharing. . Businesses can collaborate on internal processes, tailor apps to meet specific needs and easily access/share multiple types of files internally and externally.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2012 IST Fall Conference: UX and You

The 2012 Information Services Team Fall Conference theme is all about evolving reference services, highlighting the strategic plan initiative of supporting a city of innovators.

One of the keynote speakers was Amanda Etches, Head of Discovery & Access at the University of Guelph Library, where she spends her time guiding teams and projects that are all about making the overall library experience better for users, both in-person and online. The user comes first and understanding user behaviour and using that understanding to guide the way services, spaces, systems, and interfaces are designed go a long way in providing good customer service. Her presentation was a conceptual introduction to the principles of user experience (UX) design as well as some ideas into ways library staff can incorporate them in their provision of (reference) services.

Design is everywhere in the library (furniture, signage, service desks, etc.) and design decisions should be made with the user in mind, giving what the user wants and not what you want. Userability is a quality attribute, designing and building things that work the way our users work as opposed to expecting users to adapt to them. Amanda Etches outlines 10 specific principles to user experience design decisions.  

You are not your user/know thy user
For the most part, design decisions made are convenient for us, representing insider opinions rather than users’.  We should give people what they want, not what you want.

User is not broken
How something is consciously designed affects how another experiences it. Any issues can be fixed by modifying the design, not the user.

Empathy required 
Stepping in a user’s shoes is a good way to find out what a user needs.

Can’t build great experiences without research   
Researching is required to get to the heart of user’s opinions and what they are thinking or what they want to accomplish. There are two types of research: attitudinal, the user’s views that are obtained through surveys, focus groups, and interviews; and behavioural, the user’s behaviours observed through usability testing.

Maslow's hierarchy of needs, a useful paradigm for design specifics
In order for a design to be successful, it must meet the basic 'hierarchy of needs' before it can move ahead to satisfy the higher-level needs. The design must work as it is intended.

Good/best user experience (UX) design is to have as little design as possible
People need functionality and less design that gets in the way.

Good design is universal 
Using universal design techniques (i.e. equitable, flexible, simple & intuitive, perceptible, tolerant of error, low physical effort, etc.) to guide design decisions will result in a successful design project that will serve users with a variety of learning styles, abilities, experiences, and cultural backgrounds.

Balance user needs with library needs
User needs and library needs are illustrated as a triangle joined by the context. Depending on what is being designed, they can be a shifting and balancing between the three components.

    

 

Good user experience is more than good customer service
People will barely take note of the time, effort and hard work it takes to make their user experience a great one. This is as it should be. It's a measure of the success of UX professionals when the focus is on user's satisfaction.

Good user experience is holistic 
Every element of a design has to work – what the building looks like, the smell, furniture, lightning, customer service, website, programs & services, policies (how user friendly), staffing and how empowered they are, rules, hours of service, signage at all the appropriate places, website, social media presence, etc.

 

User experience is basically all about the people. It’s all about the users and what they really want and need to accomplish and how we can enable that. Every decision you make affects how people experience the library.

Westlaw Canada's LawSource: Making A Case

The decisions of judges pertaining to particular matters brought before the courts create legal precedents and contribute to defining common law. Such legal precedents appear in case law and are published in law reports. LawSource, by Westlaw Canada, is an excellent source of Canadian case law and legal precedent . . . and LawSource offers other information - more on that in a moment.

Of course there is a caveat: for a non lawyer, conducting legal research into cases can be intimidating. To state the obvious . . . not having a background in legal terminology, principles, actions, procedures, and history, will be a barrier to understanding. Still it seems natural for anyone involved in a legal matter, to want to find out as much as possible on the subject before talking to a lawyer, or especially, if representing themselves.

So what then, is the best way to proceed? There are two dedicated computers within TPL that offer LawSource through IP authenticated electronic subscriptions: one is at the Toronto Reference Library in the Humanities and Social Sciences Department, and the other is at North York Central in the Business Department. Note: there is no remote access to LawSource through Library systems. LawSource is only at these two workstations and is offerred on a first come first serve basis - there are no signup sheets.

You may seek reference assistance from staff - for example, in formulating a search strategy - but staff do not have legal training and are not qualified to answer any questions that involve the interpretation of legal points or to evaluate and results from your searches.

The main components of LawSource include:

1. Legislation - Statutes and Regulations (Federal and Provincial)
2. Case Law (From Carswell and non-Carswell reporting services)
3. Canadian Abridgement Case Law Digests
4. Other decisions from Canadian courts and tribunals
5. Canadian Encyclopedic Digest - with 255 subject titles on aspects of Canadian Law
6. Law Report Articles and Journals and Law Reviews
7. KeyCiteCanada updates cases, statutes, and rules
8. Index to Canadian Legal Literature - a Canadian legal bibliography

For a detailed list of contents, click here.

Searching for the first time can be a bit challenging, so LawSource offers a wide range of educational resources on online at eLearning Centre that can help. You may need some patience to learn how to search and know how the content is organized in order to be rewarded with optimal results. With this in mind, it would make sense to view some above tutorials even before coming to the library.

 

 

OLA Super Conference 2012: Maps

 

But thou at home without or tyde or gale; Canst in thy Map securely saile: --  Robert Herrick

I "securely saile" down Algonquin canoe routes, drive  the country roads of Devon on Street View and  time travel to my home's location in 1915.  To my great pleasure I attended two  presentations at OLA that had maps at their heart and, also, rediscovered several  TPL mapping initiatives.

Incorparating Mapping Technology into Libray Services

Eva Dodsworth is the Geospatial Data Services Librarian at the University of Waterloo and works with Geographical Information Systems. An early example of this type of information representation was seen in John Snow's map of the cholera outbreak in London in 1854. GIS simply takes this to the computer in a field that combines cartography, statistics and databases.  Eva showed us how she used GIS to explore the expansion of the County of Waterloo  from 1955 to the present day.

GIS is also used in georeferencing  antiquarian maps in the NYPL collection.  Here library users, using  Map Warper, overlay old maps on the new city grid to rectify them and chart changes.  

Dodsworth is the author of Getting Started with GIS.

Library Mobile Architecture Project

Graham McCarthy from Ryerson Library showcased the app he and Vincent Hui of the Ryerson  School of Architecture developed.  This free app provides maps, architectural tours,  history of  buildings  hi-resolution images and  floor plans. Through the use of GPS and augmented reality you can scan the horizon and bring up the building information.

 

 

TPL Initiatives: The Digital Archive

Digitization at TPL has resulted in some excellent on-line maps for the staff and public. Digitized Toronto Fire Insurance Maps are invaluable for researching early Toronto and tracing the history of your area or home.  TPL's Local History and Genealogy blog contains detailed  instructions in their use.

I was  recently introduced to a TPL resource that is of great value to  Branches, especially those with no Local History collection.  Information and images from the Digital Archives and catalogue are linked directly to a map of Toronto Neighbourhoods. You select your neigbourhood and retrieve a list of websites, books, digital maps, scanned pictures and other resources.  

“They were maps that lived, maps that one could study, frown over, and add to; maps, in short, that really meant something.”
Gerrald Durrell

 

 

 

QR Codes – What Are Those Strange Things?

Have you noticed how these funny square codes with lots of dots in them are appearing in a lot of places – like on a subway advertisement or beside an article in a newspaper?

QR actually stands for quick response, and the codes were originally created in 1994 to track vehicle parts during the manufacturing process.  QR codes are a kind of matrix barcode which encodes any kind of information – up to 4,296 alphanumeric or 7,089 numeric characters.

How do you read them?  Most smart phones come loaded with software such as “ScanLife”, or you can download the software from your favourite app store – I’ve used “Scan” on my Apple product.  With the software, you then need either a wireless connection or a monthly data plan with your phone company.  Once set up, activate the software, hold it up to the code, center it and wait for it to scan the information.

How are libraries using them?

General

• Scan the QR code to reserve a study room
• Scan the QR code to view computer availability in the branch
• Use QR code on your signature file or business card

Programs

• Quickly find the day's programs at a library
• Put QR codes on event posters – can link to information – audio or visual, sign up form, contact information etc.

Readers Advisory

• Place codes on physical books to be taken to something like Book Buzz or book reviews about the item
• Tag popular books with QR codes that point to read-alikes

Reference

• Implement email or SMS reference service by placing the codes around in various locations
• Make bookmarks with QR codes leading to a research assistance page on the website
• Place QR codes on end of bookshelves to point to subject guides
• Put QR codes on print journals or books to point to online versions [e.g. Gale Virtual Reference Library]

Instructional

• Link to online tutorials – vodcast links via QR codes
• Place QR code on a device that frequently needs explaining [e.g. microfilm reader] and the code leads to a vodcast explaining how to use it
• Create a game – such as a QR code scavenger hunt game to orient you to the library - each code leads to the next location

Website

• Have codes on website points to the mobile version
• Place the QR code on the item record in the catalogue get a call number, title and floor where the book is located
• Partner with the local bus company to provide free access to e-books and library services via QR code

Agincourt Library was used as a pilot location to use QR codes and they used them for things like the contact number for Spyders when having trouble accessing wifi, the schedule for the Toronto Public Health flu vaccination schedules, and much more. 

If you are interested in trying something in your library, contact Nancy Lee or Mary-Beth Clark  for more information and tips on what works and what doesn’t.  

Do the Math...at the Reference Desk.

It's nice to know that other Canadian Libraries are having the same issues as we do here at TPL.  At the IST Fall Conference, Gail Richardson of "Libraries Moving Forward", devised a  study to analyze User Behaviour & Expectation of Reference Services at Hamilton Public Library.

Over the last few years all statistics gathered in public libraries show a steady decline of up to 37% in the use of library reference services by the public.  Libraries are worried about this steady downward trend.  Our current surveys of reference questions don't capture details such as how long questions took, how many sources were used and what type of questions were asked. Gail Richardson's study looked at how the reference location affected the reference experience, what reference resources were consulted and observed and reported on different types of users and the different types of questions. 

Gail used the Microsoft Access Database to create the tables and fields used in the study since it was easy to use and understand.  126 hours were spent tracking users and their questions on three floors of Hamilton's Central Library and at a few other branch locations.

Outcome and Results?  

The study gave a picture of what is happening at reference desks. 

54% of the customers asking questions were female while 46% were male.

74% came to the library to ask their question in person while 26% phoned.

The average duration of a transaction was less than 2 minutes.

90% of the questions related to the collection while 10% of the questions concerned place or were directional.   

Probably it is not surprising that 14% of the questions were considered reference while 86% were deemed non-reference.

Overview:   Librarian skills might be better used away from the reference desk while we should take note that the impact of more complex technology has led the public to seek help at the library.

Something to think about....

If you like this survey and the interest Hamilton Public Library is taking in reference service, why not apply for the position of their Chief Librarian?  Click here - Chief Librarian of HPL Application

 

 

 

TedTalks

 

Here is something that has wide appeal. The TedTalks video site emanates from TED, a nonprofit organization devoted to "Ideas Worth Spreading". TED started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together inspiring thinkers from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design. This incredible site now boasts over 900 recordings of speakers talking on topics from quantum physics to human psychology.

"If you are looking for something that will expand your mind, open your heart, and possibly rekindle your faith in humankind, a good place to start is listening to the fabulously inspiring presentations made by the best and brightest among us." -- David Sunfellow, nhne.org

Here are a few that I think are worth viewing, along with their descriptions:

 

"Kevin Slavin argues that we're living in a world designed for -- and increasingly controlled by -- algorithms. In this riveting talk from TEDGlobal, he shows how these complex computer programs determine: espionage tactics, stock prices, movie scripts, and architecture. And he warns that we are writing code we can't understand, with implications we can't control".

***

    

"David Gallo shows jaw-dropping footage of amazing sea creatures, including a color-shifting cuttlefish, a perfectly camouflaged octopus, and a Times Square's worth of neon light displays from fish who live in the blackest depths of the ocean".

***

 

"Psychologist Barry Schwartz takes aim at a central tenet of western societies: freedom of choice. In Schwartz's estimation, choice has made us not freer but more paralyzed, not happier but more dissatisfied".

***

There are many, many more recordings to enjoy where those came from at http://www.ted.com/.

Tip: To access recordings by topic, I would recommend using the Talks Tags page.

Happy Birthday Dear Gutenberg...

Last month marked the 40th anniversary of the e-book. According to most accounts, July 4, 1971 is the date Project Gutenberg founder, Michael Hart, first digitized the US Declaration of Independence.  I was at a conference a few months back when one of the presenters briefly mentioned a few sites from which we could download free EPUBs for personal use and Project Gutenberg still led the way. This is a wonderful site for biliophiles looking for free books. (He also stated that Google Books was not one of these sites but I will leave you to check that out.)

Another great site mentioned is the Internet Archive. The Internet Archive  contains a wide range of fiction, popular books, children's books, historical texts and academic books. These can be accessed through OpenLibrary.org, a site where it’s already possible to read over 1 million eBooks without restriction.  These are available in many formats as well as  EPUB and Daisy and are linked to WorldCat if the physical copy is needed.

Other interesting EPUB sources include: 

Manybooks.net:  Many of these books are from Gutenberg but there are other public domain and creative commons works.

epubbooks.com: There has been some concerns about the formatting of some of Gutenberg's texts.  This site re-formats texts into industry standard EPUB ebook format.

feedbooks.com: most books on this site are for sale.  They do have, however, Free Original Books which includes Fan Fiction, Romance and Obnoxious Librarian from Hades

baen.com: contains the Baen Free Library of science fiction.  The publisher gives a detailed explanation of why some of the books are free.

munseys.com:  This site offers a wide range of free e-books.  It is  affiliated with Project Gutenberg.  Amazing collection of Pulp Fiction.

Chapters:  yes, you heard me right.  Simply go to their Ebooks, chose your genre and sort by price.  All the free items will be listed first. Good for Romance.

Of course you can just Google "free EPUB" and see what you can find.  Many Universities (Hathi) and other web sites have free books in EPUB.  If all fails and you just have to drag around the latest revision of the TPL Policy to read on the bus try a converter like  2EPUB and take your PDF files in EPUB format on your reader.

 

.

 

Library Applications of New Technologies

Some of you have asked that we show more ways libraries are using new technologies.   On June 20 2011 The Atlantic  published What Big Media Can Learn From the New York Public Library.   Alexis Madrigal  explored NYPL's innovative online projects and concluded  “I'm convinced the NYPL is succeeding online because of desire. …. Second, the library sees its users as collaborators in improving the collections the library already has.”  Read the article to find how this all came about -- but let me  highlight a few things they are doing.

Biblion is a storytelling app which presents a slice of the library's 1939-1940 World Fair Collection in a format that pushes the traditional boundaries of the e-publication.  In general this has received good reviews.

 

What's On the Menu

Because of the problems scanning the idosyncratic scripts NYPL has crowdsourced  the transcription of their collection of beautiful digitized menus. "We're transcribing our historical restaurant menus, dish by dish, so that they can be searched by what people were eating back in the day. It's a big job so we need your help!"  The user interface is easy to navigate and gives you to all sorts of information on the food and its preparation.  It links to  HathiTrust  which gives you full text access to recipes from old cookbooks and to Epicurious to help you update the recipe for your own use.  

 

 

 

"Green Turtle Soup.—Many housewives imagine that green turtle is too expensive, and too difficult to prepare for household use, and for these reasons it is seldom met with in private families, except in tin cans. Even this is not always made from turtle."

 

Find the Future:  The Game

Jane McGonigal, author of Reality is Broken:  Why games make us better and how they can change the world , organized an augmented reality game to commemorate the New York Public Library's centennial celebration. On May 20th, 500 gamers spent the night  in the main branch of the library on 42nd Street to complete 100 "quests". This free game can now be played by anyone across the city and the world using smartphones or computers.

Check out the NYPL Labs for more projects and preview NYPL's new catalogue  developed by Toronto's own BiblioCommons.

 

IST Spring Conference – The Role of Mobile Phones in Youth Social Networks: a Study in Transitions

The second speaker at the IST conference was Dr. Rhonda McEwen, a professor at the Faculty of Information at the University of  Toronto.    She spoke about her study on how young people use mobile phones during the first year at university – a time of major transition in their lives.   

She studied 175 University of Toronto and Ryerson University students, aged 17-22.  58% were female and 60% were Canadian born.  43% had left home for the first time, and were feeling vulnerable and lonely.  So it makes total sense that 85% called their friends and family on a daily basis.  Mobile phones are the technological ties that bind.

Mobile phones were used to cover up anxiety and shyness.  Many admitted to using their mobile phones to pretend to talk to someone.  Walking home alone at night they pulled out their phone for a "talk" while they walked.  Or instead of initiating a conversation with the new person sitting beside them, they pretended to talk to an old friend on their phone.  And at first, over 40% were not comfortable calling a new person’s mobile number and most definitely would not call a number given to them by a third person. 

Students admitted that they do not feel that they are alone if they have their phone with them and they constantly and virtually have access to their network of friends and family.  Always on and close at hand – even to the extent of being under their pillow at night.

Luckily by the 2^nd term they had adjusted, but their mobile phones help them make that adjustment by calming their anxieties and giving them instant access to their family and friends.  Dr. McEwen plans to do a follow up study of these same students in their final year at university so it will be interesting to see what changes have occurred.

For more on Dr. McEwen’s research see http://individual.utoronto.ca/rmcewen/