emerging technologies in libraries

July 28, 2011

Emerging Technologies in Libraries

Nancy R. Glassman

D. Samuel Gottesman Library

Albert Einstein College of Medicine

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A word about me

• Background• Education• Experience• Extra-curricular activities

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What are emerging technologies?

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Technology & Health

The Pew Internet & American Life Project finds that, of the 74% of adults who use the internet: 80% of internet users have looked online for information about any of 15 health topics such as a specific disease or treatment. This translates to 59% of all adults.

Pew Internet & American Life Project, The Social Life of Health Information, May 12, 2011:

http://bit.ly/PewHealth_QC

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Narrowing down the playing field

• Mobile• Cloud• 3rd party literature mining – PubMed• Keeping up to date

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Mobile – the numbers

• Research - 35% of US adults own a smartphone of some kind, and one quarter of smartphone owners say that their phone is where they do most of their online browsing.

• Pew Internet & American Life Project, Smart Phone Adoption and Usage, July 11, 2011:

• http://bit.ly/PewMobile_QC

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Smartphones

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Tablets

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E-readers

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Uses

• Communication• Social networking• Navigation• Research• Reading• News• Games• Apps

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Librarians reaching out to mobile users

• Chat & text messaging> Text-a-Librarian – http://textalibrarian.com> Meebo – http://meebo.com

• Social networking> Twitter> Foursquare – NYPL - http://bit.ly/foursquare_QC

• QR codes

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QR Codes

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• 2-dimensional barcodes• Users need barcode reader app to scan,

most are free.• Uses

• Link to a website or email address• Dial a phone number or launch a text message• Provide information• Add an address to a contacts list

• Easy & free to create• Google “QR code generator”• Example: http://qrcode.kaywa.com/

• Creative codes: http://on.mash.to/QR_QC

This QR links to METRO’sMobile SIG meetings.http://bit.ly/METRO_QC

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Microsoft Tags

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• Similar to QR codes• Generator and reader are free

from Microsoft• Provides statistics• URLs, app downloads, free

text, phone dialer

2-D barcodes in Libraries•http://crln.acrl.org/content/71/10/526.full•Ashford, Robin. (2010). QR codes and academic libraries. College & Research Libraries News, 71(10), 526-530.

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Mobile-friendly websites

http://m.library.einstein.yu.edu•Easy to create

> html & css

•Platform independent•Separate interface for mobile?

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Library apps

• Top library iPhone apps: http://bit.ly/LibApps_QC compiled by Ellyssa Kroski> Library apps> Vendor & database apps> Book related apps

• Some can be used offline• Platform specific

> Which to support?> What to do when OS changes?

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What to do about devices?

• Lending> Loan period> Policy

• Pre-loaded resources / apps> How to buy?

• Lock down so users can’t add on

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Texas A & M University Medical Sciences Library

http://bit.ly/tamu_ipad_QC

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https://chiron.tamu.edu/ Search iPad as Title Keyword

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Vendor apps and sites

• IP authentication issues• UserID & password• Licensing for individuals, not for institutions

> Public libraries & OverDrive vs. Harper Collins

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Cloud computing…

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… a logical extension of mobile.

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Attraction to the cloud

• Multiple devices in multiple locations on multiple platforms

• Collaboration across long & short distances> File sharing

• Flash drives tend to disappear. CDs and DVDs are easily damaged & hard to transport

• Automatic software upgrades/updates

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Types of clouds

• Infrastructure / Storage – IaaS> Amazon’s Elastic Cloud (EC2)> Dropbox, box.net

• Platform – PaaS> Google’s App Engine

• Applications / Software – SaaS> Complex statistical programs, email, video sharing

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Science in the cloud

• Collaboration, collaboration, collaboration• Crunching huge numbers

> Advances in genomics will enable researchers to generate terabytes (1012 bytes) or even petabytes (1015 bytes) of data.

> Can’t be done with high-end PCs and Excel

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Libraries in the cloud

• Everything old is new again…• Hosted services

> Online catalogs> E-journals> Citation managers> LibGuides> SerialsSolutions> OCLC (EZproxy, ILLiad)

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Personal clouds

• Email• Data storage

> Photos, videos> Presentations> Documents> Bookmarks> Personal health record

• Security> anti virus> backups

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More personal clouds

• Software> Google Docs, Zoho> Zotero, Mendeley, RefWorks

• Operating systems> Google Chrome

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Pros

• Easy to expand (or contract) when needed• Usually quick to implement• No infrastructure investments

> except network bandwidth …

• Less IT support needed

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Cons

• Security• Institutional firewalls• Stability

> Providers go out of business> Support for project ends

• DeliciousYahoo! Bought & sold

• Google – repeat offenderNotebook, Wave, Health

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3rd party PubMed data mining

• National Library of Medicine’s database of biomedical journal articles

• 20 million+ citations from 1940’s – present• PubMed dataset can be used by search engines to

make information available in different ways• http://pubmed.gov

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PubMed search engines can be used to

• Identify MeSH terms easily from keyword searches• View search results categorized by concepts,

publication date, journal• Examine statistical tools analyzing research trends• Search biomedical literature and related grants

simultaneously• Retrieve article PDFs immediately, even while browsing

a journal• Find the appropriate journal for manuscript submission

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LigerCat

• Literature and Genomics Resource Catalogue• http://ligercat.ubio.org• Developed by the Biology of Aging Project at the

MBLWHOI Library• Mines MeSH terms from keyword searches and/or

protein/DNA sequences to create a Tag Cloud that illustrates important concepts and trends. Users select the desired MeSH tags to create a more specific query that is sent directly to PubMed

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gopubmed

• Searching is now sorted!• http://www.gopubmed.org• Uses controlled vocabulary to sort results from PubMed

queries into four categories: what (concepts), who (authors), where (affiliation / journal), and when (pub. Dates).

• GoPubMed has a statistics tool, which provides bibliometric analyses of the search results.

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Pubget

• Find papers fast• http://pubget.com• Helps users browse journals and search for specific

articles but also immediately provides the full text PDF. Librarians are encouraged to contact Pubget in order to activate their institution for free.

• Offers links to scientific journals from its home page, creation of a personal library, and RSS feeds.

• PaperPlane toolbar bookmark helps users access PDFs directly from PubMed.

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eTBLAST

• A text-similarity based search engine• http://etblast.org• searches MEDLINE and other databases to identify

documents similar to the query. • Users enter entire portions of text (not just keywords). • eTBLAST uses natural language processing, keyword weighting,

and sentence alignment to output a list of articles or grants ranked by relevance to the original text.

• Results can be organized to find an expert or journal, view publication history, or identify implicit keywords.

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Quertle

• Relationship-driven biomedical research• http://www.quertle.info• Finds relevant results in context, not just retrieving long

lists of documents. • Has an ontology of biological, medical, and chemical

terms. • Understands capitalization, so it can tell the difference

between NO (nitric oxide) and no (as opposed to yes); and AIDS (the disease) and aids (the verb form).

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Keeping up to date – think local

METRO http://metro.org Local chapters of national organizations

• NY/NJ MLA http://nynjmla.org

• New York Chapter of SLA http://newyork.sla.org/

• ACRL/NY http://www.acrlny.org/

• IEEE

• ALA TechSource - http://www.alatechsource.org• South Central MLA chapter’s mobile CE course

> http://bit.ly/mobileCE_QC

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More Library Resources

• WebJunction – educational resources for libraries from OCLC> http://www.webjunction.org/technology

• Library Success: A Best Practices Wiki – idea- and information-sharing resource for librarians> http://bit.ly/LibSuccess_QC

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Keeping up to date -- read

• Computers in Libraries - http://www.infotoday.com/cilmag/default.shtml

• Wired Magazine - http://www.wired.com/• New York Times business section (not just on

Thursdays) http://www.nytimes.com• Humanities 2.0 series in the NY Times

http://nyti.ms/humanities20_QC • Fast Company http://www.fastcompany.com/• Aggregate – Pulse News app - http://www.pulse.me/

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Keeping up to date - authors

• Clay Shirky – effects of the Internet on society http://www.shirky.com

• Adam Greenfield, Everyware: the dawning age of ubiquitous computing, New Riders Publishing; 1st ed., 2006. ISBN-13: 978-0321384010

• Daniel Pink – business/management/design http://www.danpink.com/

• Marshall Breeding – Library Technology Guides http://www.librarytechnology.org/

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Keeping up to date – social networking

• Find folks to follow on Twitter or Google+> See who they follow> Hash tags for meetings

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Thank you!

• Feel free to contact me – > nancy.glassman@einstein.yu.edu> 718-430-3108> nrglassman> http://linkd.in/Nancy_QC> http://www.facebook.com/nglassman > http://bit.ly/NancyGoogle_QC

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